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Welcome to Skeptical Science

brtipton at 10:41 AM on 1 May, 2024

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

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

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

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

Examples:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bob Tipton
Cofounder [Howard] Hughes Skunkworks

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

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

Martin Watson @ 5:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eclectic at 23:30 PM on 30 April, 2024

Martin Watson @5 ,

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

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

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

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

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

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

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

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

Eclectic @14,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Eclectic at 01:29 AM on 25 April, 2024

Thanks for that, MA Rodger @13.

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

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

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

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

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

Theo:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

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

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

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

Welcome to Skeptical Science

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

cookclimate @ 118:

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

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

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

Geothermal heat flux is included in this post.

The "CO2 lags temperature" argument is discussed here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

jimsteele at 12:26 PM on 3 April, 2024

Eclectic to be more complete

First understand, CO2 infrared only penetrates a few microns depth compared to solar heating that warms the sub-surface for several meters depth, creating the diurnal warm layer

Second, the ocean’s skin layer is the only layer where heat can ventilate from the ocean. Absorbed solar heat creates a temperature gradient where conduction moves heat from the diurnal warm layer up towards the skin surface and out to the atmosphere. 98% of the time the ocean heats the atmosphere. The atmosphere does not heat the ocean.

The skin surface is always the coolest layer because as soon as any downward infrared from greenhouse gases heats the skin surface, the skin surface radiates that heat away as the laws of physics dictate! Furthermore, any heating of the skin surface increases evaporation and promotes evaporative cooling. And finally the skin surface heat is conducted away by the atmosphere. Thus even at night after most solar heat has been ventilaated, the skin surface is cooler than subsurface layers.

Measurements show the skin surface radiates away infrared from the combined inputs of solar heating that rises to the skin surface and infrared heating absorbed in the skin surface. The skin surface cannot trap heat. However subsurface layers trap heat because of the time delay of that heat reaching the skin surface to ventilate. Furthermore, heat is trapped in the ocean where ever solar heated subsurface layers are overlain by fresher water that suppresses convection.

To better understand this dynamic watch or read: Science of Solar Ponds Challenges the Climate Crisis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl3_YQ_Vufo&t=17s

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

jimsteele at 11:15 AM on 3 April, 2024

scaddenp SCIENCE OF DOOM had many accurate posts but regards heating the ocean he/she failed miserably. So I ould appreciate hearing your understanding, instead of pawning the issue off to someone else.

He first presented the idea of conduction as important for OC2 heating with "Once you establish a temperature difference you inevitably get heat transfer by conduction"

Indeed, the diurnal warm layer created by greater subsurfac heating by the sun created heat conduction towards the skinlayer which is the only layer from which heat can leave the ocean.

Once infrared heats the ocean's coup;le of micron skin surface, the warmer surface begins emitting infrared and cools the skin surface. Basic physics! Heating the skin surface also increases evaporative cooling and 98% of the time the atmosphere is warmed by contact with the ocean's skin surface. Basic physics does not indicate CO2 infrared can heat the ocean.

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

jimsteele at 06:07 AM on 3 April, 2024

A Netherlands journalist, Maarten Keulemans, tried to denigrate Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth in about 50 tweets using much of the same arguments posted to here on SkepticalScience. I successfully debunked all of his arguments in 16 tweets (originally I intended 20) listed below, and so I was just honored with being interviewed for a Dutch TV segment regards how the Climate the Movie promotes vital scientific debate. Too often alarmists try to suppress debate with weak arguments or denigrating the opposition as deniers. However I doubt alarmists can refute any of my arguments, but I will gladly entertain your arguments.

1 Denigrating the Climate Reconstruction graph by Ljungqvist https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771929435366940908…

2 Keulemans' Medieval Warm Period lie https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771933673488789868…

3 Contamination of Instrumental by Urbanization https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771939656504062260…

4 The Best USA temperature Statistic! https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771947116631580724…

5 Ocean Warming Facts https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771957182407536940…

6 US Heat Waves https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771963700951527487…

7 It is the Sun Stupid! https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771977013576024282…

8 Alarmists know better than Nobel Prize Winners ! https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1771987039631921454…

9 Wildfires: Liar Liar Keulemans' Pants on Fire https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1772000151596572844…

10 The Dangers of CO2 Sequestration and CO2 Starvation https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1772016867265380795

11 Models Running Hot! Keulemans Disgraceful attack on the most honest Dr John Christy! https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1772081300884852829…

12 Keulemans’ Blustering Hurricane Fears
https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1772319957042479298

13. Dishonestly Defining Natural Climate Factors
https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1773395443864736058

14. Denying Antarctica’s Lack of Warming
https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1773473481637957758

15. Misinformation on CO2’s Role in Warming Interglacials during our Ice Age.
https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1773777313924297210

16. Science journalists vs grifting propagandists – Antarctica
https://twitter.com/JimSteeleSkepti/status/1774428539858907444

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

Bob Loblaw at 03:59 AM on 2 April, 2024

Frankly, Two Dog, you are continuing to put words in other people's mouths, and continuing to create strawman caricatures of climate science. Many people working in climate science are actually well-trained (if not primarily trained) in physics and geology. All you are doing is showing your abysmal ignorance of the science and the people involved.

I'll choose one example - in fact, the first example I decided to check. Michael Mann is often a target of the fake "skeptics". He is a well-respected member of the "climate science" community. You can find his biography at realclimate.org. Here is his academic training:

Dr. Mann received his undergraduate degrees in Physics and Applied Math from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. degree in Physics from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Geology & Geophysics from Yale University.

You should be embarrassed at how easy it is for people to show that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Once again, nobody has ever claimed "knowledge of all factors that impact the climate." Nobody has claimed that natural factors are not significant. Nobody has claimed that all natural factors are temporary (which is what I presume you have meant with your use of the term 'temporal').

Natural factors exist on a variety of time scales, from hours to thousands of years, and "climate science" has considered many of them, and found that many of them can be both measurable and predictable. And they have collected evidence to support the position that these factors are having impacts that are much less important that CO2 over the past few decades - and are extremely unlikely to become more important than CO2 in the coming decades.

What you have utterly failed to do is to provide any new "natural factor" that you think has not been considered and can possibly have a large enough impact to explain what is already fairly well-explained by the factors that we do know about and have quantified. It's time to put up, or shut up.

What you have done is refuse to actually engage in discussion with people that have pointed out your errors. You simply re-assert your unfounded and uniformed opinions. As OPOF says, you have an "apparent resistance to learning".

Before you comment again, I suggest that you read the Comments Policy, especially the part about excessive repetition. If you are only going to repeat your uninformed and unfounded strawman arguments, you should expect to see parts or all of your comments subject to moderation.

Comments should avoid excessive repetition. Discussions which circle back on themselves and involve endless repetition of points already discussed do not help clarify relevant points. They are merely tiresome to participants and a barrier to readers. If moderators believe you are being excessively repetitive, they will advise you as such, and any further repetition will be treated as being off topic.

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

Bob Loblaw at 23:38 PM on 1 April, 2024

diff01 @ 51,52:

If you want to apply a "modicum of reasoned thought", the answers to your questions are available if you look. Given your use of labels such as "true believers" and "sham", I doubt that your mind is open to any reasoned discussion, but here are a few pointers. Basically, your short post is kind of like the movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths.

Skeptical Science posts that are already linked in the OP:

CO2 is just a trace gas

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

It's the sun

Additional Skeptical Science posts:

Milankovitch Cycles (orbital variations)

I hope that if you come back with "a myriad of other questions", that you will have given them more than "a modicum of reasoned thought". So far, what you have said here suggests that your level of thought is at the "trifling" end of "modicum" (per Wictionary). Scientists, on the other had have given these issues a lot of thought.

Noun

modicum (plural modicums or (rare) modica)

A modest, small, or trifling amount.

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

Bob Loblaw at 04:38 AM on 1 April, 2024

It's also worth noting that the trend values OPOF is providing from the SkS Trend Calculator use 2σ ranges for the uncertainties.

...and if you look closely, none of the trends OPOF mentions are significantly different from 0. So, the "cooling from 1940 to 1970" is really "no significant warming [or cooling] from 1940 to 1970". To argue "cooling", you need to

ignore the statistical significance of the linear fit

choose your starting point carefully.

In comment 41, Two Dog makes the point "...then only a few years "blip" in warming must presumably call the theory into question? ". That depends on "the theory" being that CO2 is the only factor causing warming on an annual or several-year basis. As we've been pointing out, this is not "the theory" that climate science is working with.

Two Dog is making the classical logic failure that is discussed in the SkS Escalator.

The Escalator

In fact, Two Dog is also arguing with himself. On the one hand, he is arguing that climate science can't possibly know all factors that might be affecting global temperature, no matter how many factors they have already considered in the relevant scientific literature. And then on the other hand, he is criticizing climate science because any blip in temperature that is not explained solely using CO2 as the only factor "...must presumably call the theory into question?". The two positions he argues are mutually contradictory.

Unfortunately this is a common thing in "skeptical" arguments against well-supported climate science - mutually-contradictory (and often impossible) positions on the subject. It's like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland:

I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

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

Bob Loblaw at 00:07 AM on 1 April, 2024

Two Dog: You say ' but I am less convinced about the arguments that "all other causes for the current warming have been looked at and ruled out".'

First of all, I will point out that nobody here, and nobody in climate science (that I am aware of), has ever claimed that "all other causes ... have been looked at". In fact, I'd be willing to wager that there is not a single scientific subject where any scientist would claim that "all other causes ... have been looked at".

By putting that phrase in quotes (in your statement in #41), you are making it look as if someone has actually made that claim. If you have a source for such a quote, please provide it. Otherwise, you are creating a strawman argument, and setting impossible expectations ("all other causes").

In the rest of comment 41, you are basically making an argument from incredulity. You use strawman terms such as "all of those factors", and emotive impossible expectations such as "then accurately measure their hypothetical potential impact". You throw in rhetorical questions such as ' how do we "know" what would have happened to our climate absent human GHG increases?'

The answer to the last question is, climate scientists do the science. The second figure in my comment 34 shows the results of some of that science: running models that look exactly at the question you raise - how does the model behave with and without the anthropogenic forcing. They look at hypothetical natural and anthropogenic causes, quantify them as best they can, and perform calculations to determine the relative importance of each factor.

As Eclectic pointed out in comment 31, saying there might be some "undiscovered mysterious physical cause responsible for the recent rapid global warming" [Eclectic's words] is nothing but handwaving. Unless you can propose a plausible mechanism that would cause the warming (and another one to offset the warming from GHG, as Eclectic points out in #31), then you're just blowing smoke.

People often try to use the same bogus arguments in denying that fossil fuel combustion is causing the rise in atmospheric CO2. They postulate some mysterious, unknown source of CO2 that remains undiscovered - and avoid the question of what mysterious, undiscovered process is managing to remove all the CO2 from fossil fuels (but can't remove this mysterious, unknown source of CO2 that is making atmospheric CO2 rise).

You may as well be saying "it could be fairies".

...and before you try to counter the graphical evidence in the figure I posted in comment 34 using the "but modelz" argument, I will point out that everything in science uses models. Descriptive, mathematical, statistical, computer simulations - all are different forms of models. If you don't accept models as valid science, then you are rejecting science writ large. (The original post points out that reliabilty of models is one of the myths that was raised in the movie, and proves a link to the SkS page that covers this myth.)

Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

res01 at 02:45 AM on 30 March, 2024

Skeptical Science Team, Eclectic @42, et. al,

Recent paper by P. Bierwith (2024)* notes, "There is now substantial evidence that permenant exposure to CO2 levels in the future will have significant effects on humans." The article goes on to summarize recent findings; all of which generally support the subject article here. I find though the article does contain a few "technical errors" as it was written with the knowledge as it was best known a few years back, it is in no way unnecessarily "alarmist." The problem I believe is that to some the subject itself is "alarmist", and in truth it should be.

To address Eclectic's concern a bit more succinctly; the human body's CO2 compensary mechanisms have been considered in the papers being questioned. Basically, though the body can compensate for very high levels of CO2 for short periods of time, eventually these mechanisms will "give out" over time as one is continually immersed in even mildly elevated levels of CO2; the effect becoming noticeable around 800-1200 ppm. The general effects are bone dimeneralization, calcification of soft tissues, and neurological agitation which will give rise to a range malidies not favorable for human health and well being.

*P. Bierwith, (2024), "Long-term carbon dioxide toxicty and climate change: a critical unapprehended risk for human health. Australian National University. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311844520_Long-term_carbon_dioxide_toxicity_and_climate_change_a_critical_unapprehended_risk_for_human_health

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

One Planet Only Forever at 02:59 AM on 28 March, 2024

Two Dog @26,

The movie in question is still questionable and misleading even if it contains 'points that have merit'.

I am a structural engineer with an MBA. I present two examples for the merit of my opening point:

A structure design is unacceptable even if some parts of the design could be claimed to be 'perfect'. All it takes is one obvious error to justifiably declare the design to be unacceptable.

A business plan is unacceptable even if some parts of the plan could be claimed to be 'perfect'. All it takes is one obvious error to justifiably declare the plan to be unacceptable.

As for the ‘merit’ of things in the questionable misleading movie you perceive to have merit:

Climate Change can be understood to be the term applied to the vast body of science that has proven conclusively that human impacts, not just CO2 from fossil fuel use, have caused significant rapid changes to the climate conditions of regions on this planet. “Climate Change Denial” is a term referring to people who resist learning about the constantly improving understanding of Climate Change science.

The answer provided above questions the merit of your second ‘perceived point of merit’ about the significance of human impacts. There are many presentations of better understanding that shatter the ‘merit of what you perceive is a point of merit’. One example is SkS Myth/Argument 192 “The IPCC confidence in human-caused global warming is based on solid scientific research”. A related presentation is the Carbon Brief item form 2017 “Analysis: Why scientists think 100% of global warming is due to humans” (and more recent investigations have strengthened that understanding).

I will conclude with the following: “Resistance to learning”, not “shutting down debate”, is the real problem. Being ‘hard-of-learning’ (see my comment @18), can cause people to claim that justifiably criticizing their ‘questionable attempts to debate points they unjustifiably believe have merit’, and pointing out that ‘repetition of already well-debunked misunderstandings has no merit’, is “shutting down debate”.

Note: Regarding ‘covid’ you did not present an example of a ‘conspiracy theory’ you believe was proven to be correct. But I would suggest that for this topic on this website you should focus on presenting an example of what you believe is a ‘climate change conspiracy theory’ that has proven to be correct. One example I am aware of is the ‘conspiracy theory’ that undeserving wealthy powerful people have been deliberately misleading regarding Climate Change science resulting is massive amounts of unjustified “Climate Change Denial”.

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

nigelj at 05:51 AM on 26 March, 2024

The greening of the Earth is approaching its limit.

When plants absorb this gas to grow, they remove it from the atmosphere and it is sequestered in their branches, trunk or roots. An article published today in Science shows that this fertilizing effect of CO2 is decreasing worldwide, according to the text co-directed by Professor Josep Peñuelas of the CSIC at CREAF and Professor Yongguan Zhang of the University of Nanjin, with the participation of CREAF researchers Jordi Sardans and Marcos Fernández. The study, carried out by an international team, concludes that the reduction has reached 50% progressively since 1982 due basically to two key factors: the availability of water and nutrients.

"There is no mystery about the formula, plants need CO2, water and nutrients in order to grow. However much the CO2 increases, if the nutrients and water do not increase in parallel, the plants will not be able to take advantage of the increase in this gas", explains Professor Josep Peñuelas. In fact, three years ago Prof. Peñuelas already warned in an article in Nature Ecology and Evolution that the fertilizing effect of CO2 would not last forever, that plants cannot grow indefinitely, because there are other factors that limit them.

If the fertilizing capacity of CO2 decreases, there will be strong consequences on the carbon cycle and therefore on the climate. Forests have received a veritable CO2 bonus for decades, which has allowed them to sequester tons of carbon dioxide that enabled them to do more photosynthesis and grow more. In fact, this increased sequestration has managed to reduce the CO2 accumulated in the air, but now it is over. "These unprecedented results indicate that the absorption of carbon by vegetation is beginning to become saturated. This has very important climate implications that must be taken into account in possible climate change mitigation strategies and policies at the global level. Nature's capacity to sequester carbon is decreasing and with it society's dependence on future strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions is increasing," warns Josep Peñuelas.

The study published in Science has been carried out using satellite, atmospheric, ecosystem and modeling information. It highlights the use of sensors that use near-infrared and fluorescence and are thus capable of measuring vegetation growth activity.

phys.org/news/2020-12-greening-earth-approaching-limit.html#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20carried%20out%20by,nutrients%20in%20order%20to%20grow.

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

Doug Bostrom at 04:04 AM on 24 March, 2024

"Climate vs. Freedom" is the main point of the movie, the mainspring of the climate denialist clockwork. Careful disassembly and reverse engineering of this particular brand of synthetic ignorance inevitably reveals solipsism expressed in ideology as the movement's power source; so-called "freedom" here means "I get to do whatever I want regardless of costs to others," and powers the entire affair.

The film's funders would like us to confuse the freedom to think that is central to enlightened governance with freedom to dump sewage at our property line. This brings us into the territory of irony. Enlightenment thinking delivered the facts governing the anxieties of the film's producers— and this film is essentially trying to wind back the clock on several hundred years of the results of freedom to think.

The producers of the film are not at all concerned with freedom of thought and its outcome of science and enlightened understanding of our world. Their fears are centered on application of scientific results to public policy dealing with climate effects of CO2 emissions, circumspect and informed decisions proscribing unaccounted external costs. This will threaten any ideology founded on "everything's all about me."

Is application of climate science to public policy decisions itself ideological, even socialist? In a way it's true that climate policy is "socialist" if we're thinking in terms of social vs. antisocial, if we're employing the word "social" in its basic meaning.

Climate policy is an outcome of "socialist ideology" in the same sense that traffic regulations are a social response to selfish automobile drivers. Individual irresponsible actions come at cost to bystanders. Society is generally concerned with fairness and rejects that one person may destroy another for no good reason.

Some small percentage of persons are so poorly socialized as to care nothing about others, so we must resort to various forms of coercion to force societally-compatible behaviors. Reckless driving is discouraged by force of policy and law, ranging from fines to imprisonment because we attach such high value to fairness.

So it's proving to be the case with the external costs of vending fossil fuels, and hence we end up with climate policy that ultimately will end up with sharp edges of coercion to deal with diehard antisocial elements, given that some very tiny fraction of our society is composed of people truly uncaring of anybody but themselves.

If vast amounts of money were to be made by driving over the speed limit, we'd find a vigorous public relations industry centered on denying that e=1/2mv². The intent would be the same as with climate science and climate policy, to fool us into thinking we don't know established facts and by extension the outcomes of those facts.

We'll never see "Traffic Tickets: The Movie" because there's no group of people for whom a vast revenue stream is threatened by being forced to drive safely. In this case of climate science and (more importantly) climate policy there is indeed a postively astronomical vector of money that will change due to policy arranged around facts and fairness and informed by science. So here we are, dealing with a slickly produced film created entirely for the purpose of prolonging profoundly anti-social behavior and employing the tactic of propagating synthetic ignorance.

Freedumb isn't freedom. It's the opposite. Freedom to think well and to make informed choices isn't the same as freedumb, feeling free to make stupid decisions because we've been fooled into believing we're ignorant.

CO2 lags temperature

Charlie_Brown at 02:31 AM on 17 March, 2024

The mention of quantum mechanics warrants further discussion so one is not baffled or misled by a misrepresentation of it. Besides, the science is fascinating, and the concept is not that hard to understand. All molecules above absolute zero have internal energy. They vibrate, bend, and stretch in a limited number of ways that depend on their structure and ability to interact with electromagnetic radiation. Absorption and emittance of a photon changes the internal energy level by a discrete amount, which gives rise to discrete absorptance/emittance lines. CO2 is a linear, non-polar molecule that can stretch symmetrically and asymmetrically, but also polarizes temporarily when it bends. When molecules in the atmosphere have absorptance/emittance lines that fall within the wavelength range of IR at moderate temperatures by the Planck distribution, they become greenhouse gases. Discrete lines for CO2 and H2O are illustrated in Figure 3 in Introduction to an Atmospheric Radiation Model.
One more comment about the “quantum process” which is described incorrectly by RBurr @ 654. CO2 is “additive” and increasing. Thus, it is affecting the accumulation term in the global energy balance.

2024 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #09

ChangeTheName at 11:20 AM on 4 March, 2024

As this is your first post, Skeptical Science respectfully reminds you to please follow our comments policy. Thank You!

The term "climate change" is an Orwellian BENIGN and VAGUE term for a civilization threatening DISEASE.

A medical approach to naming this disease would result in a term such as "Atmospheric Carbon Poisoning".

Atmospheric is the LOCATION of the POISON

Carbon Gases (CO2 and CH4) are the NAME of the primary POISONS.

Poisoning is an unequivocal declaration of dangerous toxicity.

A skeptical scientist should think about telling the public the TRUTH and not shy away from naming the disease like a good scientist would. Climate change is clearly vague and inadequate. The generally public is woefully ignorant about this DISEASE.

https://www.change.org/p/change-name-of-climate-change-to-atmospheric-carbon-poisoning?recruiter=261487266&recruited_by_id=d2d62b10-d0fa-11e4-b3f4-bd4f0f527c9b&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_term=petition_dashboard_share_modal&utm_medium=copylink&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_37915781_en-US%3A3

CO2 is just a trace gas

One Planet Only Forever at 04:52 AM on 2 March, 2024

JJones1960 @48,

I hope the following helps you understand that John and Bob have correctly pointed out that you have made a very weak counter-presentation regarding the significance of small amounts. The points presented in the Argument effectively counter the simplistic and understandably incorrect belief that the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere is too small to make a difference.

A major weakness of your counter-presentation is that you appear to lack even a small amount of knowledge regarding the matter, here’s why:

You stated • You don’t use trace amounts of ozone to trap a significant amount of heat

That belief is contradicted by improved evidence-based understanding (contradicted by learning what is already known). One of the many presentations about the global surface temperature impacts of ozone is the NASA Aura item: The greenhouse effect of tropospheric ozone. It opens with the following:

Tropospheric ozone (O3) is the third most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Ozone absorbs infrared radiation (heat) from the Earth's surface, reducing the amount of radiation that escapes to space.

A lot can be learned from the items presented on SkS and other reliable information sources.

Learning from reliable sources can make a world of difference.

At a glance - Plants cannot live on CO2 alone

PSBaker at 20:27 PM on 12 January, 2024

I think this explainer needs a bit of work.
In the first place it’s not necessarily true that plants in containers struggle without expensive liquid feeds. Provided the mix of soil and organic matter is adequate, in a reasonable sized pot, most vegetables can be grown quite easily, with some additional fertilizer as required. This can be a simple NPK fertilizer dissolved in water and will cost a few pennies per application.
https://www.rhs.org.uk/vegetables/containers
https://www.rhs.org.uk/herbs/growing-bags
On the other hand, growing in some soils can be problematic, in some/many locations they may be sandy/compacted/acidic etc. and will need considerable work to improve.

And while it’s true that atmospheric CO2 increases have led to ‘global greening’ which has helped ameliorate warming (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming) trying to figure out how things will continue in the future turns out to be very complicated (https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108/ ; https://ripe.illinois.edu/press/press-releases/photosynthesis-unaffected-increasing-carbon-dioxide-channels-plant-membranes ; https://botany.one/2021/08/rising-carbon-dioxide-concentrations-are-making-the-worlds-most-destructive-toxic-weed-more-toxic/ )

Elevated CO2 has a strong impact on the other aspects of C3 plants' physiology, especially nutrient metabolism which can be attributed to:
• increase in the biomass of plant leaves results in a lower mineral concentration via a dilution effect,
• reduced transpiration cause reduced mass flow in the soil, and hindered nutrient translocation via the xylem sap,
• reduced photorespiration & production of NADH, leading to a decreased NO3 assimilation,
• disturbance in the regulations of root N uptake and signaling.
https://www.cell.com/trends/plant-science/fulltext/S1360-1385(22)00247-3

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Just Dean at 09:44 AM on 11 January, 2024

I think this is where data from paleoclimatology can help as well. Three recent studies have looked at the earth's temperature vs CO2 during the Cenozoic period, Rae et al., Honisch et al., and Tierney et al. . Each of those show that the temperature of ancient earth continues to rise as CO2 increases. As I understand it the first two are based solely on proxy data while the Tierney effort includes modeling to try and correlate the data geographically and temporally.

All of these are concerned with earth system sensitivities that include both short term climate responses plus slower feedback processes that can take millenia, e.g. growth and melting of continental ice sheets. Both Rae and Honisch include reference lines for 8 C / doubling of CO2. In both cases, almost all the data lie below those reference lines suggesting that 8 C / doubling is an upper bound or estimate of earth's equilibrium between temperature and CO2. Also notice that there quite is a bit of spread in the data.

In contrast, when Tierney et al. include modeling they get a much better correlation of T and CO2. They find that their data is best correlated with 8.2 C / doubling, r = 0.97. Again, this represents an equilibrium that can take millenia to achieve but does to my way of thinking represent "nature's equilibrium" between T and CO2.

In these comparisons, the researchers define changes in temperature relative to preindustrial conditions, CO2 = 280 ppm. For Tierney's correlation then on geological timescale, the temperature would increase by 8.2 C at 560 ppm. At our present value of 420 ppm there would be 3.7 C of apparent warming potential above our 1.1 C increase already achieved as of 2022, i.e., global warming in the pipeline if you will.

Bottom line, based on paleoclimatological data, there is no apparent saturation level of CO2.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

nigelj at 06:49 AM on 11 January, 2024

The sceptics claim that the CO2 warming effect is already saturated or is close to being saturated is clearly false. It seems to originate with the assertion that the surface receives about 3.7 W/m2 more energy each time CO2 is doubled ie: a logarthmic curve. This means eventually it would take a huge volume of additional CO2 (presumably over a long time period) to add an extra 3.7W / m2. Which they suggest means the effect is essentially then saturated, but without specifying a precise number (how convenient of them).

I see that the article mentions that this assertion about a logarithmic relationship may have been proven false by He et al. 2023, (?) and it also depends on emissions trajectories and other factors, but assuming the logarithmic relationship is simplistically true a look at radiative forcing versus CO2 concentration below and a bit of maths and its obvious the warming effect is not saturated and we are not yet near saturation:

skepticalscience.com/why-global-warming-can-accelerate.html

My back of envelope maths: In 1960s CO2 was 320 ppm ppm so doubling would be 640 ppm at around roughly year 2100 assuming BAU emissions. This coincides with the IPCC warming projection of 3 - 5 degrees C by 2100.

The next doubling is from from 640 to 1280 is a larger volume of CO2 and would presumably take longer to around year 2300 assuming the same BAU CO2 growth trend and other things being equal. Projections of warming by the IPCC by 2300 are not surprisingly around 8 - 10 degress C for this further doubling of CO2. Such a quantity of CO2 is large but may possibly be feasible given reserves of fossil fuels and uncertainties arount that.

The next doubling from 1280 to 2560 would lead to something like 15 degrees C and is a huge volume of CO2 that would take many centuries and would almost certainly exhaust reserves of fossil fuels, and most probably well before 15 degrees is reached. We could say this is the point of saturation in a practical sense. Its of no comfort because we would have had at least 5 degrees of warming and probably more, and not even factoring in tipping points.

Someone check my maths its very rough, but the sceptics claims are clearly false and meaningless.

Cranky Uncle with Dr. John Cook

Ben Laycock at 07:17 AM on 7 January, 2024

I have collated some important climate data that might come in handy when trying to counteract disinformation.
It is not rocket science, but it is science.
As Cranky Uncle might say, it is just plain common sense.
Every single government in the whole world, bar none, is desperately trying to increase economic growth, blissfully unaware that economic growth is the primary driving force of the climate catastrophe. We point the finger at the evil fossil fuel merchants and their enablers in government, but they are just struggling to keep up with our insatiable demand for more stuff!
Since 1990 global clean energy generation has increased 1000 fold, but our emissions have been going up at the same time, by 60% since 1990. We have burnt more fossil fuels since we learnt about climate change than all the rest of history put together! Our emissions have been rising by about 10% every year since 1950, though the rate has slowed a bit lately, which is encouraging.
The reason they keep going up is because the global economy keeps growing. The economy grows by about 4% per anum. So clean energy must replace emissions at the same rate, just to break even. Clean energy generates 17% of our global energy needs. So to replace 4% of
CO2, it must increase by 18% every single year. If we are to achieve Zero Net Emissions by 2050 we must reduce our CO2 by another 4% p.a. every single year for nearly 30 years. That means increasing clean energy by another 18% p.a. So we must increase our clean energy by 36% every year. Last year we our clean energy went up 10%, a shortfall of 26%. So this year that 26% gets added onto this years target, bringing it up to 62%. Next year it will be 88%, and so on.
If you know anyone who thinks that is even remotely possible, please refer them to a psychiatrist!
There is only one solution to this predicament.

Ben Laycock

Climate Adam: The tough reality of Carbon Capture & Storage

One Planet Only Forever at 05:00 AM on 29 December, 2023

michael sweet @17,

Agreed that the use of CO2 to scrub oil off of rock formations, a possible benefit of CO2 injection to increase the production of oil as presented in the article, would almost certainly mean that CO2 comes out with the oil. But, to be fair, CO2 injection can potentially lock-away CO2 while producing more oil from an oil deposit.

Here are potential stages of oil production:

Natural pressure of the trapped oil deposit forces oil to the surface when it is drilled into – the ‘gusher’.

Pressure drops as the oil flows out.

A pump-jack increases the rate of extraction by ‘lifting’ oil out of the well – like a water well pump.

As more oil is removed the rate of flow to a well point pump-jack declines.

Injecting gasses like captured CO2 can increase the pressure in the oil deposit and force more oil out of the well locations. Current operations inject CO2 captured from the exhaust of burned fossil fuels. This process potentially traps the injected CO2 in the rock formation that the oil was trapped in.

So oil can be produced by injecting and trapping CO2. But scrubbing oil off of the formation that the oil is in would mean CO2 comes out with the oil.

However, CO2 thought to be trapped in an oil deposit may not be truly trapped. Accurate pressure monitoring over a long time frame would be required to prove that the CO2 is staying where it was put. And until the completion of that pressure testing it is uncertain that the ‘claimed to be trapped’ CO2 is properly trapped. If a pressure test fails, the pressure drops, then the ‘carbon removal’ action plan is failing. And there would be little that could be done to keep the rest of the ‘believed to have been locked away’ CO2 from leaking out.

Who will pay for removing it and locking it away? Everybody essentially pays for the profit obtained, or pays for the government subsidy (worse when the government subsidizes the obtaining of profit - nobody should profit from publicly funded harm reduction like CO2 removal).

It would be nice if the ones who benefited most from the developed total current problem paid the most to limit the harm done ... but the current systems have a histry of making the least fortunate, who do not deserve to be penalized, suffer the most harm. Refer to the lead article in the Skeptical Science New Research for Week #50 2023 for a detailed presentation of concerns regarding free-market development of Carbon Capture.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #49 2023

michael sweet at 01:16 AM on 10 December, 2023

This MSN article, Which is apparently a press release from the Columbia Climate school describes a paper in Science. The paper is a collaboration of many scientists summarizing knowledge of CO2 concentrations for the past 65 million years. The MSN article is easy to read. Since it is a press release it would be a good OP here at SkS. I have not yet read the paper.

Unfortunately, they conclude that Earth system sensitivity, the climate response when all slow feedbacks respond, is 5-8 C. The processes involved can take a long time to equilibrate (as much as thousands of years). Still, it is a very grim conclusion. I note that Dr. Hansen has long held an Earth System Sensitivity of 6 C. The IPCC consensus has been 3C. This is unlikely to affect anyone living but bodes very bad for 1000 years from now. The question of how long the slow processes take to equilibrate is left unanswered.

John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

AB19 at 21:32 PM on 29 November, 2023

I quote from the article introduction:

"It’s a familiar story – the physicist who draws attention for declaring that climate scientists have got climate science all wrong. He (it’s always a ‘he’) was born before color television was invented, usually retired, perhaps having won a Nobel Prize, but with zero climate science research or expertise. William Happer."

I don't know if the writer of the article is a scientist or not but it starts with some rather unscientific viewpoints, namely by suggesting that male, retired physicists are not qualified to comment on climate matters. What does it matter what sex they are or how old they are? In relation to physicists, I don't know about the others in the list given, but William Happer would, I would have thought, certainly qualify to comment on the global warming debate given that if you have watched any of his presentations on this topic, you'll know that his field of research was the absorption of infra-red radiation by CO2 molecular stretches and bends - very apt in the climate debate I would have thought, given that it is precisely CO2 that is being posited as the culprit in current global warming trends. He also openly admits that he was once a climate alarmist until his work led him to believe he was wrong.
I am not a climate scientist- my background is chemistry- but there are certain apparent facts that appear to be ignored in the current debate, namely that we know the earth warmed before about 1000 years ago in the medieval warming period and again about 2000 years ago in the Roman period. These warmings cannot have been due to human activity given that there were no combustion engines or factories around and world population was vastly lower than today. I believe it's also true that in the last ice age the level of atmospheric CO2 was at least 10 times current levels - which according to IPCC thinking ought to have produced a blisteringly hot climate - yet there was an ice age. Whilst not denying that CO2 is x greenhouse gas, these facts do tend to cast doubt on just how potent a greenhouse gas CO2 really is. I believe Dr Roy Spencer, who is a meteorologist not a physicist and also not retired ( though he is male) has similar views to the listed physicists.

Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

Eclectic at 06:04 AM on 13 November, 2023

Michael @44 , I must modestly disagree with you.

Yes, there is a real concern about the adverse effect of high local ambient CO2 levels in classrooms, submarines, and other enclosed spaces. A perfectly valid concern, for health and intellectual performance (and most especially the performance of crew in a nuclear-armed submarine ! ).

But please read again through the O.P. ~ and note the panicky crescendo in the final few paragraphs. [quote] "... we may end up intellectually a lot closer to plants."

Sure, that was an expression of dramatic hyperbole ~ but hyperbole more fitted to a rally of Extinction Rebellion adherents, than to the sober annals of SkepticalScience. Even in the comments thread, some seem to have taken that apocalyptic message seriously. And I am thinking the propagandists at WUWT would take it even further, as an example of them thar crazy Alarmists.

But I am not so much interested in the final paragraph, as in the build-up evident in those lattermost paragraphs. Even in the sly reference to D.Zappulla,2013 ~ a reference which actually discusses effects at CO2 ambients in the range 5,000 - 30,000 ppm. Golly !

The O.P. starts with matters of technical interest . . . but then gradually slides into unwarranted alarmism. And it entirely fails to mention the human body's well-evolved compensation system [the kidneys].

I do not wish to see the O.P. deleted ~ but suggest a prominent CAUTION for the casual reader.

Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

Eclectic at 16:34 PM on 4 November, 2023

Thanks, Res01 @41 (and forgive my perhaps over-courteous usage of a capital letter for your moniker ~ that is simply my customary literary style).

Time is precious in this modern age . . . and so, no , have not read the OP's Robertson paper [the link showed as Page Not Found] nor the Stumm paper [unlinked]. Yes, it is quick to read a paper's Extract; and where that is insufficiently informative, still it is usually possible to skim through the body/conclusion of a paper to identify the salient points. But it's even better if one can "Cut To The Chase".

All the same, there is so much information "out there" on the internet ~ that the SkS website staff have created a Comments Policy which requests all commenters to respect readers' time . . . by giving a sufficiently detailed relevant description/summary of (linked) citations. Whether the citation/link is an actual scientific paper or simply a journalistic article.

# That request applies in Spades, to video links (even if the video is only 5 minutes long). As you know, videos can be a great time-waster. That's why a summary of the video's message and significance can be a great help to the flow of the discussion happening in the thread here.

Res01 ~ I particularly ask for your deeper discussion of the essential science of this topic of "CO2 impact" on human (and animal) bodies. That is because I fear that a major mistake is being raised (and I would be pleased to be corrected if I am wrong about that).

Evolution has designed the body to operate at a specific set point (or very narrow range) of acidity/pH. You can temporarily disturb that pH by hyperventilating (to raise the pH) or by re-breathing into the classic paper bag (to lower the pH). But in the long run, it is the kidney (as mentioned earlier) which maintains the body's day-by-day acidity level. Renal function is vital !

And it is (as yet) unclear to me if Robertson / Stumm / and other sources, have made allowance for those basic facts of physiology. Are they making a giant blunder ~ or am I making a blundering assessment of their warnings? Please discuss.

Just how ‘Sapiens’ in the world of high CO2 concentrations?

res01 at 11:38 AM on 3 November, 2023

Not to detract from the general argument, but as noted by other posts, Figure 1from D. Robertson is a little off. What D. Robertson overlooks in his calculations is that arterial CO2 partial pressure in the human bloodstream, as it is in most mammals, is a significantly higher than what it is in ambient atmosphere. That means a percentage rise in CO2 in the atmosphere makes for a much smaller percentage rise of CO2 concentration in the bloodstream. In short at low CO2 levels the effect is a whole lot less. Not until CO2 levels reach about 1000ppm in the does the change become notable in the bloodstream. That means the effects of CO2 will not be notable in the human body until around 1000ppm (ok, maybe around 600ppm for a few canaries among us.) Nevertheless, direct impact of CO2 on the human body should still be a big concern because 1000ppm CO2 in the atmosphere will be what we see by the end of this century if the world keeps on the course that it is presently on. Now consider fish whose arterial CO2 pressures are generally an order of magnitude less than that of mammals. They will see the effects much earlier, and most likely by the end of the century will die off significantly. Also, while plants do thrive on a little extra CO2, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations over 1000ppm they tend to die off. So, what we may see is that fish and plants will die back first leaving humans without sufficient means for sustainment. For a more concise treatment of the subject please refer to, “ Carbon Dioxide’s Direct Impact on Down-Regulating the Human Species”, by R.E. Stumm, published in Science of the Total Environment, 19 September 2023.* *https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37734619/

Also check out the video short “The Die Back” on Rumble** **https://rumble.com/v23ofba-the-die-back-2.1.html

Climate scientists are in it for the money

WasAScientist at 18:41 PM on 2 November, 2023

In the opening statement of this Climate Myth, it is claimed that climate scientists could make far more money in other careers, and I believe it is time they did just that. According to Climate Myth 69 which states

That human CO2 is causing global warming is known with high certainty & confirmed by observations.

it seems that the climate scientists have completed their work and there is no longer any need for their research positions. At this point, people are either convinced of AGW or they are not. If they are not convinced, as is the case with most common folks, it's highly unlikely that more science is going to change them.

In my case, I was a US defense scientist with a Ph.D. in physics when the "End of the Cold War" (or "Outbreak of Peace") terminated my career after just eight years. I was simply told that there was no longer a need for the service I was providing since the former East Block countries promised to behave themselves from now on.

Well, I sure hope the climate scientists have much better luck than I did in finding a new career if their current one vanishes. Whenever I tried to break into anything new, I was always beat out by those with more experience.

At any rate, there is little more the climate scientists can do to get people converted over to carbon-free energy. Instead, what would be needed is a global Gestapo to enforce the no-carbon provisions on folks regardless of the harm they cause, and I know of no nation that would go for that.

John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

Rob Honeycutt at 00:26 AM on 28 October, 2023

TWFA: "... if the atmosphere and planet is heating up, so should the temperatures at 20,000' or 40,000', or even deep ocean temperatures, there should be plenty of data available at least for the former, weather balloons and PIREPs, it should track the models just as well and if not we would need to know why."

Each of these comments from you is a fascinating demonstration of how little you've actually looked at the science of climate change. There is published research on all these topics and there is a very broad, deep agreement across research fields that human emissions of CO2 are the primary cause of warming of the past 50 years.

And the PIREP bit is espectially bizarre. Being a pilot myself I know what you're talking about, but you should also know that PIREP's tend to be few and far between. They're helpful but not reliable. In addition, those PROG charts you pull in to ForeFlight or download via ADS-B in, those are produced through the same models used for climate models. They're merely initial conditions modeling (weather) as opposed to boundary conditions modeling (climate).

All this and still you have yet to say one word about Clauser's claims.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

MA Rodger at 22:07 PM on 18 October, 2023

I'm reluctant to engage with a commenter that peppers a comment thread at a rate of one every couple of hours for almost two full days without establishing some form of understanding as to their purpose. But here goes...

Rabelt @46,

The OP does not claim to show that "emission from FF are responsible" for changing levels of atmospheric CO2. It is providing an explanation of "how measurements of changing isotopic ratios are described" and this in regard to the atmospheric ¹³C:¹²C ratio.

This ratio is shown in the OP fig3 waggling over a whole millennium in a very similar way to the level of atmospheric CO2. CO2 levels go up/down and the ¹³C:¹²C ratio goes down/up. Such a remarkable correlation tells us (although this is beyond the message of the OP) that the source (and sink) responsible for the changing CO2 levels has a ¹³C:¹²C ratio far lower than the atmosphere. Thus that the oceans cannot be the source/sink of that extra carbon waggling the atmospheric CO2 levels.

The source of this rogue CO2 messing up the atmosphere is thus plants, either by their direct destruction or indirectly via fossil fuels which retain the low ¹³C:¹²C ratio.

(The middle section of your comment @46 mentions "this change" but does not make entirely plain whether you refer to the "changes in discourse" or the "changes in Delta C13". So, if it is in any way relevant, it is not clear which you don't accept.)

Your comment make two final assertions which I find a little odd. You suggest annual and cumulative CO2 emissions 1750-1900 do not explain the changing atmospheric CO2 levels, the latter being "too small". Further you suggest a mismatch in the AtmosCO2:Delta C13 ratio "the 1950s-2010s periods."

The Global Carbon Project is always a good go-to source for annual carbon emissions. Although their historic LUC data only runs back to 1850, it is plain from their various source-sink numbers that the Atmospheric Fraction does not show emissions that are "too small" prior to 1850. You may have sight of other numbers which show it different and if so you do need to explain such 'other numbers' properly. (I note @34 you put the CO2 emissions for 1850 = 0.2Gt_(CO2). This is presumably ignoring the LUC emissions which would increase the full 1850 emissions to 2.6Gt_(CO2) using the Global Carbon Project numbers.)

It is also not clear what you are considering with this 1950s-2010s mismatch which you perceive between accelerating CO2 levels and steadily decreasing Delta C13 levels. If it is the OP's Fig 3 (& I don't see a problem there), perhaps a sight of the original may help as it shows the data points without the assumed solid δ¹³C trace.

Delta13C graph - no assumed trace

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Rob Honeycutt at 11:46 AM on 18 October, 2023

Rabelt... Assuming your "main narrative" is "[d]elta C13 starts decreasing around 1750 and continues to decrease ever since, the main narrative blames it on FF"... Your narrative is a basic misinterpretation of the science.

The C13 narrative (if you want to call it that) is merely the physics behind carbon isotopes for natural sources vs through burning hydrocarbons. That it. If you're saying this area of physics is wrong, you need to explain why.

The accepted understanding of this physics merely creates a prediction that can be tested. If the increasing concentrations of CO2 are primarily due to the buring of FF's, then we should see a corresponding relationship with C13. And that's all this is. It's just one piece of evidence that contributes to the scientific understanding that our uses of FF's is the source of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Bob Loblaw at 04:33 AM on 18 October, 2023

Rabelt @ 28: "quote which part I said anything dismissive about the carbon cycle."

The fact that you say virtually nothing coherent at all about it - when it is essential to understanding the graph/data you criticize - is all the evidence that is needed.

@ 29: "I love how the guy putting words in my mouth is acussing me of strawmaning his arguments,"

I am not accusing you of strawmanning my arguments - you have strawmanned "the main narrative" (in the context of what climate science - e.g., the IPCC - has said). If you want to provide a counter-argument, you need to give a thorough explanation of "the main narrative" (including the carbon cycle). Until you provide actual evidence that you have at least a basic level of understanding the carbon cycle (not just an assertion), then you're just blowing smoke.

Also @ 29: "Quote my comments and explain why they follow your supposed "logical consequences"

I did quote you, in my comment 19.

You finish with "I said Delta changes previous to human emissions following co2 concentration not FF emissions as there were none, and the ones that existed were accountable for insignificant amounts of co2." The way you have worded this suggests that you think that either CO2 concentration changes cause C13 changes ("delta changes ... following CO2 concentration"), or that C13 changes cause CO2 concentration changes ("delta ... accountable for ... CO2").

You have not responded directly to that, to provide any sort of clarification or indicate what you really meant. Yet you come back with "Again, never said co2 concentrations cause changes in Delta C13..." From this view, it looks as if you are just dodging the question.

And now you are stating "Differences in the carbon cycle are expected, yet only are accepted if they dont contradict the main narrative,"

Congratulations. You have now scored a third point on FLICC - the 5 techniques of science denial. - Conspiracy theories.

Since you clearly are unable to actual specify what "the main narrative" is, your speculation about what contradicts it is not worth the electrons used to transmit it.

And finally, @ 30 "I am talking about emissions not co2 concentrations"

Yet the graph that you began this whole flood of nonsense over is a graph that shows two things as a function of time: CO2 concentrations, and C13 isotope ratios. There is no coherence or consistency to what you say. Buy a clue please: CO2 concentrations, CO2 emissions, CO2 uptake - all are part of the carbon cycle that you keep dismissing. Oh,, sorry - not "dismissing" but just "ignoring".

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Rabelt at 23:57 PM on 17 October, 2023

Bob Loblaw,

I love how the guy putting words in my mouth is acussing me of strawmaning his arguments, 10/10.

Quote my comments and explain why they follow your supposed "logical consequences", just saying it again, as you dont show the ability to read the comments I am posting.

"You see a correlation over the period 1750-1860, and then expect to see the exact same response at later times" During this entire period is a stable trend downwards, yet emissions during this period are incapable of generating such a trend. This is only one of the multiple periods I talked.

Again, never said co2 concentrations cause changes in Delta C13, I even said that there had to be other natural mechanism capable of producing this effect. What a great ability to read.

Differences in the carbon cycle are expected, yet only are accepted if they dont contradict the main narrative, unless you wanna say that the decrease during the beginning of the industrial revolution was natural, which I completely agree.

Again another fantasy about what I belive or think, saying I am trying to invalidate climate science, I only talked about 1 specific thing but the entire field will crumble to the ground for just this specific inconsistency, what a joke of an argument.

Sorry to say that your ability to read degrades quite quickly, I never said you didnt have knowledge on the carbon cycle, I said you didnt have any authority to say what the main narrative states, and I was right, as you are just another of the thousands of people that provide research and not a spokesman or director of the main organizations.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Bob Loblaw at 23:20 PM on 17 October, 2023

Rabelt:

Again, you are saying "I never said..", and avoiding the logical consequences of what you are saying.

The conversation has all the hallmarks of the following sequence:

A person says:

A = 3

B = 8

C = A+B

Someone else says "So, you are claiming that C = 11?

And the first person says "I never said that C = 11. Stop putting words in my mouth."

You keep referring to "the main narrative". Unfortunately, what you have written here tells me that your idea of "the main narrative" is pretty much a strawman. I don't think you have any clue how the carbon cycle works, how different carbon isotopes fit into that cycle and why they would change over time.

Your comment at 23 illustrates this very well. You see a correlation over the period 1750-1860, and then expect to see the exact same response at later times. You seem incapable of realizing the following:

There is no direct cause-effect between C13 ratios and atmospheric CO2 levels. They are part of the same large carbon cycle, but one does not cause the other, regardless of any fantasies you have about "the main narrative". As long as you ignore all the indirect connections (known as "the carbon cycle"), you will continue get everything wrong.

The different time periods have different conditions, different fluxes, and different relative important of atmospheric inputs and sinks of carbon as a result, they would be expected to show slight differences in the patterns.

Your overly-simplsitic "I see with my little eye..." analysis is telling us nothing about the global carbon cycle. Where you see inconsistencies you think can't be explained (because you won't look) and invalidate climate science, climate science sees the carbon cycle working as expected (because they have looked).

You are hitting two of the five main components of FLICC - the 5 technicques of science denial:

Logical fallacies [your misunderstanding of "the main narrative" is just one]

Impossible expectations [your overly-simplistic view of what you think should be happening, and your belief that this disproves something]

FYI, yes I have some authority with respect to carbon cycles, having been involved in analysis of forest carbon cycles and storage, and having my name on several publications related to that. You can read more about my background on the SkS Team page.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Bob Loblaw at 22:51 PM on 30 September, 2023

Yes, the "explanations" that Likeitwarm prefers are indeed "the most screamingly laughable, unphysical explanations".

In comment 1606, Likeitwarm brings us back to the laughable paper by Peter Ward. Likeitwarm says:

Your radiated photons from all emitting gases carry wave length and amplitude dependent on temperature emitted from.

This repeats the laughable statements from Peter Ward, that attribute "amplitude" as a characteristic of radiation. Radiation does not have "amplitude". It has been over 100 years since physics addressed the issue of particle-wave duality in radiation. Radiation has attributes that can be described or explained by treating it as a particle, and radiation has attributes that can be described or explained by treating it as a wave - but in none of those scenarios does "amplitude" show up.

When Planck's Law calculates more energy at a specific wavelength or frequency from hotter objects, the increased energy comes from more photons, not higher amplitudes of waves. Every single photon that ever existed at a specific wavelength had exactly the same energy, regardless of when, where, or at what temperature the emission occurred. Any talk about "cold" and "hot" photons of the same wavelength is crank physics.

The "explanations" that Likeitwarm prefers are not simply "CO2 causes climate change science" denial, or even "climate science" denial - they are basic physics denial.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 04:18 AM on 30 September, 2023

1600. Rob Honeycutt et al
I'll wear that name proudly!
I'm just looking for the most plausible reasons for climate change.
I have found a number of theories. You will call them all quackery because they are not your theory.

I like Peter Ward's. Scroll down the page you sent me and read Peter's responses to his challengers. He makes a lot of sense. His challengers did not prove him wrong, only disagreed with him.
What I find wrong with your version of the science is that you say the small amount(less than 8% of all IR from the surface) re-radiated IR from a colder part of the atmosphere causes warming of the surface per Trenberth chart. That cannot happen. Your radiated photons from all emitting gases carry wave length and amplitude dependent on temperature emitted from. Not enough energy to heat the surface there. Per Ward 2015 colder IR is reflected by warmer object, not destroyed.
Magically, your chart shows the down welling radiation is greater, almost double, than what the sun supplies. Satellites see 255k for the temperature that is radiated from about 5-6 km altitude, not from the surface. The surface is warmer, not from the GHE, but from gravity doing work on the atmosphere causing adiabatic heating. This is why near surface temperatures are ~33c warmer than Planck equations predict. That makes sense unlike the GHE raising the temperature that much.
There is no experiment showing co2 warms the atmosphere.
There is no measurement showing human emissions of co2 cause the recent warming.
All you have is a correlation that doesn't prove anything.
The extra UV-B radiation reaching the surface warms the ocean and the warmer ocean emits more co2 per Ward 2015 makes sense and he does have a correlation with ozone levels and temperatures. Read his paper I linked to.

I know you like labels, but get the label right.
It's "CO2 causes climate change science denier" not "climate science denier".

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Rob Honeycutt at 23:51 PM on 28 September, 2023

Likeitwarm... The difference here is this: Given enough evidence and strong research, any of us could be convinced there is something other than CO2 responsible for warming the planet in the modern era. You, on the other hand, will never accept the overwhelmingly research that currently exists regardless of how convincing it is.

Being truly skeptical means being convincible. Thus, I would term you a climate science denier. And that is the very premise of how this website was named.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 12:35 PM on 28 September, 2023

I counted on you guys reacting like you did. You are stuck on the false AGW theory and can't get over it. You denigrate all other theories. GHE is a hypotheseis, not fact. Where is your proof that increased CO2 causes warming of the atmosphere? You only have a correlation with rising temperatures and CO2. No laboratory proofs that the addition of CO2 does anything to temperature. Check this proof that CO2 does nothing to atmospheric temperatures. https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/E&E_21_4_2010_08-miskolczi.pdf

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 04:38 AM on 28 September, 2023

Sysop, Thank you for allowing this conversation with scaddenp and myself to continue.

1562 scaddenp
You said "What I am asking is whether you can remember what switched you into looking for sites like CO2Science or temperature.global? Was it just disbelief about trace gases or were there other considerations?"

I've been thinking about an answer for you.
I started looking into "global warming" back in the mid 2000s, 25 years ago,
I think with this site https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html.
Many other places and books since then.
I find a lot, 1000s or more, of scientists that disagree with AGW.
One is Nasif Nahle who has calculated the emissivity of CO2 at less than .003 and and says that it doesn't absorb or emit much if any IR. You can see his calculations at https://jennifermarohasy.com/2011/03/total-emissivity-of-the-earth-and-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide/
Then there is the Club Of Rome, a bunch of rich elitists that think they know best for the rest of us. Back in 1968-1974 they decided they needed a scare tactic to get people to reduce births, thus reducing the population of the earth and the resources used by them. They settled on AGW because CO2 is emitted when fossil fuels are burned. Reduce the available energy and you will reduce the birth rate.
The U.N. IPCC was not charged with finding out what makes the climate change but rather how to pin it on human causes. See https://shalemag.com/manmade-global-warming-the-story-the-reality/ and https://principia-scientific.com/the-club-of-rome-and-rise-of-predictive-modelling-mafia/
UN’s Top Climate Official: Goal Is To ‘Intentionally Transform the Economic Development Model’
https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
You see, the goal was not to save us all from overheating the planet or acidifying the oceans. The goal was to scare everyone into giving up cheap fossil fuels.
I don't know what the goal of you and your colleagues at Skeptical Science is but I do know you can create logic and equations to describe anything, so I remain skeptical of your site.
Now you know where I'm coming from. See www.ourwoods.org.
Cheers

John F. Clauser: the latest climate science-denying physicist

wbru49 at 06:51 AM on 27 September, 2023

Are there thoughts about this July 19, 2023 letter from William Happer
Professor of Physics, Emeritus Princeton University and Richard Lindzen
Professor of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Emeritus
Massachusetts Institute of Technology?

https://co2coalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Happer-Lindzen-EPA-Power-Plants-2023-07-19.pdf

Exploring the feasibility of a new feature: Bunk of the Week

anticorncob6 at 01:51 AM on 10 September, 2023

(I mentioned this in the google form.)

I think it's good to refute arguments that haven't already been refuted in your "climate myths" permalinks. There are a lot of advanced climate change deniers out there, and it's hard to refute them if you don't have a solid understanding of climate science and research, which is a complex topic. Worse, they are sometimes convincing to people who don't have an agenda to deny AGW.

I saw this recently with a YouTube video arguing that CO2 greenhouse theory is self-contradictory in how the stratosphere cools. I'm considering posting it in the comments of the "greenhouse theory falsified" article but I don't know if I should expect people to watch a 20-minute video. I did suggest this as something to be in "bunk of the week" (or whatever to call it).

Climate Confusion

Markp at 22:43 PM on 3 September, 2023

For Rob: I know I have not provided much data to back what I've been saying, but that's mainly because I was going on the assumption that you may already be aware of the data that could support me. In other words, I don't think what I've said is uncontroversial from a data point of view, but I do accept that it might be controversial from the point of view of making those holding a mainstream view (and I know that's vague) uncomfortable.

I disagree with little of what you say about climate in this last post. From your list of 8 items, only 1,4 and 5 are problematic in my view. Unfortunately, those few items are weighty:

"A lot is happening towards decarbonization" is vague enough to require examples to qualify the statement. There has definitely been a lot of talk about decarbonization, but as 2022 saw global emissions hit a new high of 36.8 Gt, according to the IEA's report "CO2 Emissions in 2022" one has to ask what decarbonization achievements, what action, in place of mere talk, can we point to. Renewable energy production plus use of EVs, heat pumps and who knows what else saved about 550 Mt. Fine. But this growth rate (growth of renewable contribution) won't hold up. So when you say "a lot" is happening, what's that really mean? And could you give just a few bullets on how you think we'll achieve net zero by 2050?

I'm also curious to know how much your vision of "net" zero relies on offsetting schemes, because I don't trust them and fear that they are being relied on too much for comfort.

As for what happens to the rising temperatures in a net zero 2050, we'll have to wait and see.

I'm certainly with you on breaching 2C by 2050, but since I've got little hope we'll be anything close to net zero by then (for whatever net zero is actually worth as long as we've got all the offestting nonsense thrown in there) it looks worse to me than to you.

Finally, and to change the subject a bit, I think the talk about models went too far. I'm not saying models are bad, just that they're being relied on too heavily in certain important cases. And as my primary experience (nearly 30 years now) has been in the financial arena for many "quant" strategies where, in that industry it is painfully common to see wonderful quant investment funds with great backtested results finally have some real money thrown at them and start a live track record, only to see the live returns look nothing like the lovely return characteristics of those backtests, I confess a lot of my skepticism comes from just that type of environment. Still, when we continually see news reports with headlines running "Researchers present shocking new data that climate change is happening much faster than expected" and the previous expectation was based on models, I don't feel at all surprised. I've just had a look at the "myths" section of Skeptical Science specifically at the models myth and I also see there that most of the argument seems to be toward trying to convince climate deniers who say models are all wrong that GW is real. That's clearly not me.

For Eclectic: I don't think I've written too much, do you? I know people these days don't like to read anything longer than a twitter post, but I don't think your assessment here is fair. I've tried to keep it short, in fact. Like I said, I assumed, and maybe wrongly(?), that you folks had a decent understanding of the data already, and could follow commentary like mine that took a broader look at things rather than fussing over citations and decimal points because I'm not claiming anything that boils down to a disagreement over small measurements but has been more about one's basic orientation: some of you seem to be wearing rose-colored glasses in my view, like too many people are.

As for the mirror concept, if the goal were to limit global temperature rise to 2C by 2100 we would need about twice the surface area of the contiguous USA. Although these reflectors would be useful in many instances, like on rooftops, parks, outdoor markets, reservoirs, etc., the main idea is for them to be used in agricultural settings because there's a lot of agricultural land, and because the reflectors would bring both local benefits to the crops by cooling, saving water and increasing yield, and contribute to global cooling. How to do that on a large scale is a problem that needs to be worked out. Any cropland managed by tractors and other large machines would either need to involve reflectors that would be removed from time to time for those machines to do their work, which wouldn't be easy, or they'd need to be placed so as not to interfere with those machines, perhaps by having them suspended vertically alongside crops rather than horizontally over them. And of cource, horizontal coverage would not involve blocking all available sunlight as to choke off photosynthesis, but as most crops can thrive with up to 30% shading, it would be placed intermittently. Anyway, this is the rough idea. Reflectors made from PET and aluminum cans from landfill provide more than enough for this level of scale, but other reflector constructions/materials could pop up as well. If you feel this isn't the type of detail you'd like to see, I'm not allowed to offer more. Not to protect technology or profits, because this comes from a nonprofit, but simply because I'm not authorized. As some of you know, the science takes time. We're working on it.

If that surface area seems "too big" as in "nobody will go for that" I can certainly feel that, but what choice have we got? The Earth is big. We can do it. We've got 4 million miles of roads in the USA. When cars first got started, nobody would have thought that possible. All of our climate "solutions" are by nature on a grand scale. Nothing to do about that as far as I know. And why people might balk at lots of mirrors/reflectors when they seem to think DAC (or your solution of choice) can clean (enough of) the entire atmosphere, I'm stumped.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Bob Loblaw at 07:17 AM on 19 August, 2023

MA Rodger @ 138:

Yes, this discussion is wandering off the blog post's topic. There is no way to determine Don Williamson's motives unless he explains them, but it appears that he is trying to do two things:

Take Oreskes' paper out of context to make it look like the 1970s "cooling" story was an indicator of a huge shift in climate science [it wasn't] - I presume to discredit climatology as a science [he hasn't].

Bootstrap the idea that "they don't know what they are talking about - they'll just make stuff up" by using the hiatus as an indicator that warming isn't linked to CO2 increases [he's wrong] and we might flip back into decades or centuries of cooling even if we burn every last bit of fossil fuels [we won't].

I have an off-topic challenge to Don that he has not yet responded to (review one example of the many "hiatus" papers he insinuates support him). I need to let him respond, if he is willing or able.

If the off-topic sound bites continue without responding to that challenge, I will probably need to bow out of the conversation and take on a moderator role.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Bob Loblaw at 22:57 PM on 17 August, 2023

Frankly, Don, you are now reaching the point where you are just spouting bull$#!^.

I challenged you in comment #113 to provide two things:

State clearly what you think the "both sides" are.

State clearly who you think was a well-known climate scientist that was on "both sides".

You have not done this. You have just engaged in a game of "Look! Squirrel!" to jump to some other rhetorical talking point. You are playing games of "maybe this, maybe that" with no actual demonstration of understanding the physics of climate and what is likely or even reasonable possible. You have done selective quoting, and taking those quotes out of context, in order to try to show some grand disagreement or lack of understanding that does not exist.

The "abrupt about-face/reversal of opinion" that you are hanging your hat on is only "abrupt" if you refuse to look at the actual history of climate science and refuse to learn about the well-understood physics that explains the different observed trends and supports our understanding/interpretation. There is a term for that sort of refusal to look at the information available.

As Rob Honeycutt explains in #122, there has been no "reversal" in our understanding of orbital mechanics and long-term trends related to glacial/interglacial cycles. There has been no "reversal" in our understanding that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and that greenhouse gases have a significant effect on global temperatures. There has been no "reversal" in our understanding that atmospheric aerosols (dust, soot, etc.) cause reductions in global surface temperatures.

What has changed is which of these factors is playing a dominant role in current temperature trends. CO2 is "winning", and it is winning rapidly.

You will probably come back with some sort of quip about "Oreskes said this". Well, the anti-evolution crowd is fond of claiming that Darwin said that evolution could not produce the eye. No, he didn't, and you are using the same rhetorical ploy in quoting Oreskes out of context.

You have now switched to shouting "hiatus!" from the treetops. Guess what? Climate science is interested in what factors affect these short-term variations in global temperatures. So, they study them in greater and greater detail (because instrumentation improves) each time they happen. And they happen on fairly regular intervals. So regular that you can track them by how often the contrarians need to update their "no warming since..." myths. Pretty soon, we're going to have to start to rebut "no warming since 2023", since 1998 2016 won't work any more:

Search/replace 1998

We even have a term for these "hiatus" events: we call it The Escalator. The graphic is in the right-hand margin of every SkS page, but here it is in full glory:

The Escalator

You keep saying "isn't this interesting?". No it is not interesting, it is tiresome. This site exists because some people refuse to learn the science and understand it. The "hiatus" was yet another temporary pause in one metric of global climate, and does nothing to reverse our expectations of future warming as CO2 continues to increase.

Your continued use of ":)" at the end of your comments suggests that you are now just trolling. (Gee. Isn't speculation without evidence just so much fun?)

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Rob Honeycutt at 23:58 PM on 16 August, 2023

Also, Don... It was around the 1970's when there was some disagreement in the climate science community regarding whether the cooling effects of industrial aerosols or the underlying CO2 driven warming would dominate. At that point in time, there wasn't a strong consensus. It took additional study to convince the leading experts that CO2 was the larger, longer term problem.

The good news was that we, as a species, were able to substantively address the issue of industrial aerosols through the clean air acts in the US and similar regulations in other countries.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Rob Honeycutt at 23:43 PM on 16 August, 2023

"What Oreskes stated about undermining the consensus with the reversal from cooling to warming..."

Once again, the earth was cooling mid-century. The earth had been cooling for the past 5-6000 years. When CO2 forcing came to dominate the trend shifted to rapid warming.

I believe what Dr. Oreskes is saying is, that change in the dominant view could be used by "contrariants" to cast doubt on the science. It's a rather precient statement since they subsequently did exactly that.

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Rob Honeycutt at 12:59 PM on 16 August, 2023

Don @108... The fundamental facts of CO2 driven warming are incredibly well understood at this point in time. For this to be wrong would require nearly two centuries of physics to be fundamentally wrong.

Is there a possibility that nearly all the science is getting something really basic completely wrong? Absolutely. But the question arises, are you willing to bet a sustainable, livable planet for human civilization on the slim odds that the science is wrong?

Ice age predicted in the 70s

Rob Honeycutt at 12:51 PM on 16 August, 2023

"Why not acknowledge the 'dominant view' was wrong and science coalesced into a new consensus?"

Don... This comment is exactly what I'm talking about. There was (and still currently is) a dominant view that the earth has been cooling for the past several thousand years. There was (and still currently is) a dominant view that the earth had been cooling from the 1940's up to about the early 1970's.

What she's saying is that "contrarians" might exploit these facts of science in order to seed doubt in the minds of the general public about the clear reality of CO2 driven global warming.

At a glance - The tricks employed by the flawed OISM Petition Project to cast doubt on the scientific consensus on climate change

Nick Palmer at 22:24 PM on 11 August, 2023

I've always thought that the exact wording of the Oregon Petition

"no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate"

was grammatically constructed to actually have been technically signable AT THE TIME OF FIRST LAUNCH even by such climate luminaries as James Hansen.

It comes down to the artful use of "is causing" and "will cause" - instead of 'may cause' - catastrophic heating and disruption etc. The petition does not state that its wording assumes that mainstream climate science was asserting that emissions will continue to rise sharply and that climate sensitivity to CO2e was at the top end of published expectations back then (somewhere around 6°C per doubling if I remember, although 10°C was mentioned https://skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm ) but it is the underlying insinuation (of the text) that climate science was saying these things that enables the rhetorical deceit inherent in that exact wording. It allows any scientist who was fairly familiar with the science back then to jump to the conclusions that, because such emissions rises weren't certain to take place, and that ensemble figures for climate sensitivity were showing a 'most likely' figure of ~3°C per doubling, then it was definitely not certain that 'catastrophic heating' would occur.

Wildfires are not caused by global warming

Philippe Chantreau at 03:00 AM on 4 August, 2023

Bob makes a interesting point above by bringing the difference between grasslands fires and forest fires, and how they play in the decrease of global area burned.

As Bob pointed above, said decrease is pretty much entirely due to the lower area of savannah and grasslands burned. These environments have a long relationship to fire and are very well adapted to it, with grass species in fact relying on it for their life cycle. The carbon cycling from grassland fires is a short term one that has always been present in the background of the natural global carbon cycle. The amount of CO2 released per unit of surface burned is limited, since grasslands store the vast majority of their carbon underground, and quickly regenerate the above ground part that is lost in fires.

Forest fires, especially the ones affecting old growth forest are an entirely different beast. The amount of CO2 generated by unit of surface is much higher for forested lands. Zheng et al (2021) show that the CO2 released by forest fires essentially compensates for the decrease in total area burned provided by the decline in grassland fires. The result is a "quasi stable" amount of CO2 generated by wildfires. It would not be surprising if this changed with more years like this one has been in Canada and Siberia.

It's not urgent

Eclectic at 14:37 PM on 3 August, 2023

PollutionMonster @37 , yes the economist William Nordhaus is an interesting case.

Climate science deniers love him since he seems unconcerned about a 3 or 4 degree rise in global temperature . . . because, in his estimation, the vastly higher temperature will have no adverse effect on "output" (aka Gross Domestic Product ~ GDP being the heart & soul of economists' thinking). And undoubtably Nordhaus is correct in his projections, for we all know that the "dismal science" of economics has an impeccable track record of long-term accuracy . . . and it is also the Be-all & End-all of measurement of human happiness (and of all other aspects of the natural world).

But putting that minor point aside, the Denialists are slightly less happy that Nordhaus has suggested a $100-per-ton tax on carbon emissions ( I am unsure, but presume he means tax on tonnage of CO2 rather than tonnage of elemental carbon emitted ).

As per usual, Denialists feel entitled to cherry-pick from the sayings of any prominent scientist or public figure, in order to support themselves.

For arguing online ~ no, it is not a waste of your time, since your comments will be seen by "undecided" fence-sitters. No, your arguments won't & can't change the minds of the hard-core intransigent Denialists (who are usually political extremists that are basically uninterested in the actual science or the actual happiness of other people). But your activity will encourage decent sensible people.

Only keep arguing so long as you find it fun/entertaining. Refresh yourself with lots of walking & greenery & open skies . . . plus good company and other interests in life. But I am sure you already know that is how Life should be lived.

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

Philippe Chantreau at 07:24 AM on 14 July, 2023

I am late for this party as many have provided answers and further explored the subject. I will only mention a couple of things from a post further back that was on the wrong thread.

A citation in that post was this article:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26929390/

Quotes of interest from the abstract:

"Greatest yield stimulations occurred in the e[CO2 ] late sowing and heat stressed treatments, when supplied with more water."

"There were no clear differences in cultivar response due to e[CO2 ]. Multiple regression showed that yield response to e[CO2 ] depended on temperatures and water availability before and after anthesis."

My main point was that water availability is the major controlling factor.

Another was not peer-reviewed but a "working paper" from a think tank:

www.nber.org/papers/w29320

This paper claims to establish a causal link between agricultural yields and CO2 atmospheric content. They use a six year sample and then attempt to regress backward to the post-war era. I did not bother downloading the pdf so I am not sure about how they controlloed for other factors in the sample and how they integrated the enormous changes in agricultural methods post-war, like increased mechanization fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, irrigation, etc. They write this interesting snippet: "In a thought exercise, we apply the CO₂ fertilization effect we estimated in our sample from 2015-2021 backwards to 1940, and, assuming no other limiting factors, find that CO₂ was the dominant driver of yield growth..." So the working paper amonts to a thought exercise involving a rather gigantic assumption.

The third included S.B. Idso as an author, possibly of infamous CO2 Science website affiliation (I did not verify that). I could only access the abstract and it mentioned nothing about other factors than CO2, such as water availability.

In post #24, drought is mentioned and Hao et al (2014) is mentioned, with a graph that generated excitement at WUWT come years ago. The data ends in 2012. Looking at more data extending to recent times reveals a different picture, as shown by Rodell and Li (2023) in Nature Water:

www.nature.com/articles/s44221-023-00040-5

Of course, in greenhouses with very controlled conditions and water distributed carefully, concentrations in excess of 1000 ppm give good results, that remains true.

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

Bob Loblaw at 06:06 AM on 14 July, 2023

Yes, Daniel, Mr Burton certainly is consistent in wandering off topic in his comments. At least in this case he followed it off the Hansen post, but now he is mixing in CO2 fertilization and drought.

He is also showing his years of experience in picking cherries.

So many of the "CO2 is plant food" argument depend on studies in greenhouses, etc, where other limiting factors are not limited. The SkS post "Plants cannot live on CO2 alone" provides background. That may be a better place to continue this discussion.

As for his drought comments, he has picked a global diagram (figure 5 out of the Hao et al paper he references) that contains absolutely no regional information at all.

Figure 2 from that paper (available online) shows some examples of the regional droughts as detected by their methodology, but the paper does not provide any information about regional trends. The figure (below) does indicate that "global" really is rather global. I suspect that changes in the desert zones (look at the Sahara) or high latitudes have little effect on agricultural productivity.

Hao et al figure 2

Mr. Burton's U.S. drought trend also suffers the same failure: ignoring regional trends. It is also purely a precipitation-based wet/dry analysis - not looking at the important temperature effects on drought. And each classification of "very wet/very dry" is solely an indicator of whether each region is wetter or drier than its own regional value - which tells us very little about drought. Quoting from the original source:

Climate divisions with a standardized anomaly in the top ten percent (> 90th percentile) of their historical distribution are considered "very warm/wet" and those in the bottom ten percent (< 10th percentile) are classified as "very cold/dry".

A normally very wet area that is only seeing precipitation in its bottom 10 percent will in all likelihood still be getting more precipitation than a normally dry area that is in its top 10 percent. The student that typically gets 85-95% on exams and score 85% on this one still gets a better grade than the student that typically gets 65-75% on exams and scores 75% on this exam.

If you start to look at regional patterns, other features begin to emerge. SkS had a re-post of a 2018 Carbon Brief article that looks at specifics. It gives a good explanation of the factors other than precipitation that need to be considered. When it comes to agriculture, even the "correct" amount of precipitation can be bad if it is at the wrong time. Fields that are "too wet to plough", crops ready for harvest that are rotting in the fields and can't be harvested, etc.

As usual, Tamino does an excellent job of taking data and picking out regional patterns. He did one in 2019, looking at "The West Burns and the East Drowns - so it averages out, right?". Spoiler alert: the two regions show different trends. Borrowing two of his images:

Tamino US west PDSI

Tamino US Central PDSI

Tamino also had a post in 2018 about US drought patterns. Again, there are major regional differences, with the west (especially the southwest) getting drier, and the northeast getting wetter.

The sort of analysis that Mr. Burton is presenting is the kind of argument that leads one to conclude that the average person has one testicle and one breast.

Follow-ups on the drought discussion should probably be removed from this thread and posts on the 2018 Carbon Brief article repost.

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

daveburton at 01:45 AM on 14 July, 2023

Eclectic wrote, "Daveburton @22 ~ Please explain more of your first chart [ IPCC's decadal Carbon Flux Comparison 1980-2019 ]. The natural sink flux figures… show a rather steady proportionality to the total carbon emissions."

Glad to. Any two things which steadily increase are thereby correlated. There's only a possibility that the relationship might be causal if there's a possible mechanism for such causality.

There's no possible mechanism by which the rate at which CO2 emerges from chimneys could govern the rate at which CO2 is taken up by trees & absorbed by the oceans, or vice-versa, so the relationship cannot be causal — just as this famous relationship is not causal:

does cheese consumption cause death by bedsheet entanglement?

Eclectic wrote, "The land sink shows about 30-35% of total emissions, while the sum of land & ocean remains around 55-60%."

Yes, I usually say "about half," as in, "If our CO2 emissions were cut by more than about half then the atmospheric CO2 level would be falling, rather than rising."

It is important to recognize that the relationship is merely coincidental, not causal.

Eclectic wrote, "as the decades progress, the natural carbon sink flux in absolute terms rises with the rising emissions ~ but does not show a proportional increase."

The rate at which natural processes, such as ocean uptake, uptake by trees and soil ("greening"), and rock weathering, remove CO2 from the air, is affected in minor ways by many factors, but in a major way by only one: the current amount of CO2 in the air.

Our CO2 emission rate does not and cannot affect the natural removal rate, except indirectly, in the long term, by being one of the most important factors which affect the amount of CO2 in the air.

Eclectic wrote, "looking back in time ~ as the atmospheric CO2 level decreases, the size of the natural sink flux decreases also."

That is correct. It will also be correct looking forward in time, when CO2 levels are falling, someday.

Eclectic wrote, "this directly contradicts your hypothesis of 'if emissions were halved ... atmospheric CO2 level would plateau.'"

If you'll allow me to use "halved" as a shorthand for "reduced to the point at which emissions merely equal current natural removals, rather than exceed them," then those two statements are both correct, and perfectly consistent. It's pCO2 (level), not the rate of CO2 emissions, which (mostly) governs the rates of all the natural CO2 removal from the atmosphere.

Of course there are also minor factors which affect the removal rates. For instance, as we've already discussed, a 1°C rise in water temperature slows ocean uptake of CO2 by roughly 3%. Conversely, a rise in air temperature accelerates CO2 removal by rock weathering. (Sorry, I don't have a quantification of that.) But the main factor which controls the rate of CO2 removals is pCO2.

Eclectic wrote, "While the nutritive components of some food crops may reduce slightly as CO2 rises…"

Oh boy, another rabbit hole! That's the Loladze/Myers "nutrition scare."

It is of little consequence. That should be obvious if you consider that crops grown in commercial greenhouses with CO2 levels as high as 1500 ppmv are as nutritious as crops grown outdoors with only 30% as much CO2.

≥1500 ppmv CO2 is optimal for most crops. That's why commercial greenhouses typically use CO2 generators to raise daytime CO2 concentration to well above 1000 ppmv. It is expensive, but they go to that expense because elevated CO2 (eCO2) makes crops much healthier and more productive. (They don't typically supplement CO2 at night unless using grow-lamps, because plants can't use the extra CO2 without light.)

If elevating CO2 by >1000 ppmv doesn't cause crops to be less nutritious, then elevating CO2 by only 140 ppmv obviously doesn't, either.

Better crops yields, due to eCO2 or any other reason, can cause lower levels (but not lower total amounts) of nutrients which are in short supply in the soil. But that doesn't happen to a significant extent when agricultural best practices are employed.

I had an impromptu online debate about the nutrition scare with its most prominent promoter, mathematician Irakli Loladze, in the comments on a Quora answer. If you're not a Quora member you can't read it there, so I saved a copy here. He acknowledged to me that food grown in greenhouses at elevated CO2 levels is as nutritious as food grown outdoors.

Faster-growing, more productive crops require more nutrients per acre, but not more nutrients per unit of production.

Inadequate nitrogen fertilization reduces protein production relative to carbohydrate production, because proteins contain nitrogen, but carbohydrates don't. Likewise, low levels of iron or zinc in soils cause lower levels of those minerals in some crops. So, it is possible, by flouting well-established best agricultural practices, to contrive circumstances under which eCO2, or anything else which improves crop yields, causes reduced levels of protein or micronutrients in crops.

But farmers know that the more productive crops are, the more nutrients they need, per acre. Competent farmers fertilize accordingly.

Or, for nitrogen, they may plant nitrogen-fixing legumes — which benefit greatly from extra CO2.

If you don’t fertilize according to the needs of your crops, negative consequences may include reductions in protein and/or micronutrient levels in the resulting crops. The cause of such reductions isn't eCO2s, it's poor agricultural practices.

The nutrient scare is an attempt to put a negative "spin" on the most important benefit of eCO2: that it improves crop yields.

Eclectic wrote, "it is (as you state) beyond argument that higher CO2 benefits overall crop yield & plant mass."

That's correct. Moreover, agronomy studies show that for most crops the effect is highly linear as CO2 levels rise, until above about 1000 ppmv (which is far higher than we could ever hope to drive outdoor CO2 levels by burning fossil fuels). That linearity is obvious in the green (C3) trace, here:

CO2 vs plant growth, C3 & C4

That improvement is one of several major reasons that catastropic famines are fading from living memory.

If you're too young to remember huge, catastrophic famines, count yourself blessed. Through all of human history, until very recently, famine was one of the great scourges of mankind, the "Third Horseman of the Apocalypse." But no more. This is a miracle!

https://ourworldindata.org/famines

Ending famine is a VERY Big Deal, comparable to ending war and disease. Compare:

● Covid-19 killed 0.1% of world population.
● 1918 flu pandemic killed about 2%.
● WWII killed 2.7%.
● The near-global drought and famine of 1876-78 killed about 3.7% of the world population.

Eclectic wrote, "other CO2/AGW concomitant effects of increased droughts /floods /heat-waves can be harmful to crop yields in open-field agriculture. [And especially so for the staple crop of maize.]"

Well, let's examine those one at a time.

Heat-waves. Overall, temperature extremes are not worsened by the warming trend. Heat waves are slightly worsened, but by less than cold snaps are mitigated. That's because, thanks to "Arctic amplification," warming is disproportionately at chilly high latitudes, and it is greatest at night and in winter. The tropics warm less, which is nice, because they're warm enough already.

1°C is about the temperature change you get from a 500 foot elevation change. (That's calculated from an average lapse rate of 6.5 °C/km.)

On average, 1°C is similar in effect to a latitude change of about sixty miles, as you can see by looking at an agricultural growing zone map. Here's one, from the Arbor Day Foundation:

From eyeballing the map, you can see that 1°C (1.8°F) = about 50-70 miles latitude change.

James Hansen and his colleagues reported a similar figure: "A warming of 0.5°C... implies typically a poleward shift of isotherms by 50 to 75 km..."

1°C is less than the hysteresis ("dead zone") in your home thermostat, which is the amount that your indoor temperatures go up and down, all day long, without you even noticing.

In the American Midwest, farmers can fully compensate for 1°C of climate change by adjusting planting dates by about six days.
Des Moines temperature by month

Floods. Theoretically, by accelerating the water cycle, climate change could increase the frequency or severity of floods. But the effect is too slight to be noticeable. AR6 says no change in global flood frequency is detectable:

AR6 on floods

Droughts. Droughts have not worsened. In fact, the global drought trend is slightly down. Here's a study:

Hao et al. (2014). Global integrated drought monitoring and prediction system. Sci Data 1(140001). doi:10.1038/sdata.2014.1

Here's the U.S. drought trend (the bottom/orange side of the graph):
https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/uspa/wet-dry/0

U.S. very wet and very dry

Not only does climate change not worsen droughts, it has long been settled science that eCO2 improves plants' water use efficiency (WUE) and drought resilience, by improving CO2 stomatal conductance relative to transpiration. So eCO2 is especially beneficial in arid regions, and for crops which are under drought stress.

Maize (corn) has been very heavily studied. Even though it is a C4 grass, it benefits greatly from elevated CO2, especially under drought stress. Here's a study (one of many):

Chun et al. (2011). Effect of elevated carbon dioxide and water stress on gas exchange and water use efficiency in corn. Agric For Meteorol 151(3), pp 378-384, ISSN 0168-1923. doi:10.1016/j.agrformet.2010.11.015.

EXCERPT:
"There have been many studies on the interaction of CO2 and water on plant growth. Under elevated CO2, less water is used to produce each unit of dry matter by reducing stomatal conductance."

Here's a similar study about wheat:

Fitzgerald GJ, et al. (2016) Elevated atmospheric [CO2] can dramatically increase wheat yields in semi-arid environments and buffer against heat waves. Glob Chang Biol. 22(6):2269-84. doi:10.1111/gcb.13263.

However, I agree with you that putting a monetary value on the benefits of CO2 for crops is difficult. In part that's because the price of food soars when it's in short supply, and plummets when it's plentiful. So, for example, if we were to attribute, say, 15% of current crop yields to CO2 fertilization & CO2 drought mitigation, and value that 15% using current crop prices, we would be underestimating the true value, because absent that 15% boost the prices would have been much higher.

SkS Analogy 9 - The greenhouse effect is a stack of blankets

Eclectic at 21:58 PM on 13 July, 2023

Bobhisey @1 ,

You have completely misunderstood the physics of the interaction of InfraRed radiation and CO2 (and other molecules).

Bob, you are an intelligent guy, and you have been hovering on the edges of the "climate debate" for ages now. And yet you still keep failing to grasp the basics of science in this regard. There must be some sort of mental block going on. Know Thyself !

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

daveburton at 15:36 PM on 13 July, 2023

Rob wrote elsewhere, "greening is now turning into 'browning.' ... fertilization [has now been] overwhelmed by other effects... In other words, the greening has now stopped," and here, "You were making the claim that natural sinks were removing more of our emissions, and that is not the case by any stretch of the imagination.""

Here's AR6 WG1 Table 5.1, which shows how natural CO2 removals are accelerating:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter_05.pdf#page=48

Here it is with the relevant bits highlighted:
https://sealevel.info/AR6_WG1_Table_5.1.png
Or, more concisely:
https://sealevel.info/AR6_WG1_Table_5.1_annot1_partial_carbon_flux_comparison_760x398.png
Excerpt from AR6 WG1 Table 5.1, showing how natural removals of carbon from the atmosphere are accelerating
(Note: 1 PgC = 0.46962 ppmv = 3.66419 Gt CO2.)

As you can see, as atmospheric CO2 levels have risen, the natural CO2 removal rate has sharply accelerated. (That's a strong negative/stabilizing climate feedback.)

AR6 FAQ 5.1 also shows how both terrestrial and marine carbon sinks have accelerated, here:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter05.pdf#page=99

Here's the key graph; I added the orange box, to highlight the (small) portion of the graph which supports your contention that, "greening is now turning into 'browning.' ... fertilization [has now been] overwhelmed by other effects... In other words, the greening has now stopped."

https://sealevel.info/AR6_FAQ_5p1_Fig_1b_final2.png

Here's the caption, explicitly saying that natural removal of carbon from the atmosphere is NOT weakening:

The authors did PREDICT a "decline" in the FUTURE, "if" emissions "continue to increase." But it hasn't happened yet.

What's more, the "decline" which they predicted was NOT for the rate of natural CO2 removals by greening and marine sinks, anyhow. Rather, if you read it carefully, you'll see that that hypothetical decline was predicted for the ratio of natural removals to emissions.

What's more, their prediction is conditional, depending on what happens with future emissions ("if CO2 emissions continue to increase").

Well, predictions are cheap. My prediction is that natural removals of CO2 from the atmosphere will continue to accelerate, for as long as CO2 levels rise.

The "fraction" which they predict might decline, someday, doesn't represent anything physical, anyhow. (It is one minus the equally unphysical "airborne fraction.") Our emission rate is currently about twice the natural removal rate, so if emissions were halved, the removal "fraction" would be 100%, and the atmospheric CO2 level would plateau. If emissions were cut by more than half then the removal "fraction" would be more than 100%, and the CO2 level would be falling.

I wrote elsewhere, "This recent study quantifies the effect for several major crops. Their results are toward the high end, but their qualitative conclusion is consistent with many, many other studies. They reported, "We consistently find a large CO2 fertilization effect: a 1 ppm increase in CO2 equates to a 0.4%, 0.6%, 1% yield increase for corn, soybeans, and wheat, respectively.""

If you recall that mankind has raised the average atmospheric CO2 level by 140 ppmv, you'll recognize that those crop yield improvements are enormous!

Rob replied, "If you actually read more than just the abstract of that study you find this on page 3: 'Complicating matters further, a decline in the global carbon fertilization effect over time has been documented, likely attributable to changes in nutrient and water availability (Wang et al. 2020).'"

Rob, I already addressed Wang et al (2020), but you might not have seen it, because the mods deemed it off-topic and deleted it. Here's what I wrote:

Rob, it's possible that your confusion on the greening/browning point was due to a widely publicized paper, with an unfortunately misleading title:

Wang et al (2020), "Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis." Science, 11 Dec 2020, Vol 370, Issue 6522, pp. 1295-1300, doi:10.1126/science.abb7772

Many people were misled by it. You can be forgiven for thinking, based on that title, that greening due to CO2 fertilization had peaked, and is now declining.

But that's not what it meant. What it actually meant was that the rate at which plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere has continued to accelerate, but that its recent acceleration was less than expected. (You can't glean that fact from the abstract; would you like me to email you a copy of the paper?)

What's more, if you read the "Comment on" papers responding to Wang, you'll learn that even that conclusion was dubious:

Sang et al (2021), "Comment on 'Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis'." Science 373, eabg4420. doi:10.1126/science.abg4420

Frankenberg et al (2021), "Comment on 'Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis'." Science 373, eabg2947. doi:10.1126/science.abg2947

Agronomists have studied every important crop, and they all benefit from elevated CO2, and experiments show that the benefits continue to increase as CO2 levels rise to far above what we could ever hope to reach outdoors. Perhaps surprisingly, even the most important C4 crops, corn (maize) and sugarcane, benefit dramatically from additional CO2. C3 plants (including most crops, and all carbon-sequestering trees) benefit even more.

Rob also quoted the study saying, "While CO2 enrichment experiments have generated important insights into the physiological channels of the fertilization effect and its environmental interactions, they are limited in the extent to which they reflect real-world growing conditions in commercial farms across a large geographic scale."

That's a reference to the well-known fact that Free Air Carbon Enrichment (FACE) studies are less accurate than greenhouse and OTC (open top container) studies, because in FACE studies wind fluctuations unavoidably cause unnaturally rapid variations in CO2 levels. So FACE studies consistently underestimate the benefits of elevated CO2. Here's a paper about that:

Bunce, J.A. (2012). Responses of cotton and wheat photosynthesis and growth to cyclic variation in carbon dioxide concentration. Photosynthetica 50, 395–400. doi:10.1007/s11099-012-0041-7

The issue is also explained by Prof. George Hendrey, here:

"Plant responses to CO2 enrichment: Much of what is known about global ecosystem responses to future increases in atmospheric CO2 has been gained through Free-Air CO2 Enrichment (FACE) experiments of my design. All FACE experiments exhibit rapid variations in CO2 concentrations on the order of seconds to minutes. I have shown that long-term photosynthesis can be reduced as a consequence of this variability. Because of this, all FACE experiments tend to underestimate ecosystem net primary production (NPP) associated with a presumed increased concentration of CO2."

Rob wrote, "It does seem that you're claiming CO2 uptake falls with increasing temperature.""

That is correct for uptake by water. Or, rather, it would be correct, were it not for the fact that the small reduction in CO2 uptake due to the temperature dependence of Henry's Law is dwarfed by the large increase in CO2 uptake due to the increase in pCO2.

Rob wrote, "But it's unclear to me how you think this plays into the conclusion that CO2 levels would 'quickly normalize' over the course of 35 years" and also, "You also claimed CO2 concentrations would quickly come down (normalize) once we stop emitting it. This is also not correct unless you're using 'normalize' to mean 'stabilize at a new higher level'."

Perhaps you've confused me with someone else. I said nothing about CO2 levels "normalizing."

I did point out that the effective half-life for additional CO2 which we add to the atmosphere is only about 35 years. I wrote:

The commonly heard claim that "the change in CO2 concentration will persist for centuries and millennia to come" is based on the "long tail" of a hypothetical CO2 concentration decay curve, for a scenario in which anthropogenic CO2 emissions go to zero, CO2 level drops toward 300 ppmv, and carbon begins slowly migrating back out of the deep oceans and terrestrial biosphere into the atmosphere. It's true in the sense that if CO2 emissions were to cease, it would be millennia before the CO2 level would drop below 300 ppmv. But the first half-life for the modeled CO2 level decay curve is only about 35 years, corresponding to an e-folding "adjustment time" of about fifty years. That's the "effective atmospheric lifetime" of our current CO2 emissions.

Rob wrote, "Dave... The fundamental fact that you disputed is that oceans take up about half of our emissions."

That reflects two points of confusion, Rob.

In the first place, our emissions are currently around 11 PgC/year (per the GCP). The oceans remove CO2 from the atmosphere at a current rate of a little over 2.5 PgC/year. That's only about 1/4 of the rate of our emissions, not half.

More fundamentally, the oceans are not removing some fixed fraction of our emissions. None of the natural CO2 removal processes do. All of them remove CO2 from the bulk atmosphere, at rates which largely depend on the atmospheric CO2 concentration, not on our emission rate. If we halved our CO2 emission rate, natural CO2 removals would continue at their current rate.

Because human CO2 emissions are currently faster than natural CO2 removals, we've increased the atmospheric CO2 level by about 50% (140 ppmv), but we've increased the amount of carbon in the oceans by less than 0.5%, as you can see in AR5 WG1 Fig. 6-1.

Sorry, this got kind of long. I hope I addressed all your concerns.

How big is the “carbon fertilization effect”?

daveburton at 08:56 AM on 13 July, 2023

Rob, in answer to your first question, Bob is correct: they use different units.

Both the graph and the "plug in suitable values" calculation (above) are for freshwater, but that hardly matters. CO2 is noticeably less soluble in saltwater, but the effect of temperature on CO2 solubility is nearly identical. Here's the same calculation with salinity 35 (typical seawater), for a 1° temperature increase (from 288K to 289K):

1 - ( (e^( -60.2409 + (93.4517*(100/289)) + (23.3585* ln(289/100)) + 35 * (0.023517 - (0.023656*(289/100)) + (0.0047036 * (289/100)^2)) )) / (e^( -60.2409 + (93.4517*(100/288)) + (23.3585* ln(288/100)) + 35 * (0.023517 - (0.023656*(288/100)) + (0.0047036 * (288/100)^2)) )) ) =

Bob is also correct that ocean chemistry is more complicated than that, in part because most of the dissolved CO2 immediately dissosiates into various ions. Here's a good resource on ocean chemistry:
http://www.molecularmodels.eu/cap11.pdf

What's more, in the oceans, biology generally trumps chemistry, and that is certainly true for CO2 uptake. Some people think that the capacity of the oceans to take up CO2 is limited to surface water by ocean stratification. But that's incorrect, beause the "biological carbon pump" rapidly moves CO2 from surface waters into the ocean depths, in the form of "marine snow."

The higher CO2 levels go, the faster that "pump" works. Here's a paper about it:
https://www.science.org/doi/reader/10.1126/science.aaa8026

Once carbon has migrated from the ocean surface to the depths, most of it remains sequestered for a very long time. Some of it settles on the ocean floor, but even dissolved carbon is sequestered for a long time. For instance, it is estimated that the AMOC takes about 1000 years to move carbon-rich water from high latitudes to the tropics, where it can reemerge. That is obviously far longer than the anthropogenic CO2 emission spike will last.

Due to the temperature dependence of Henry's Law, a 1°C increase in temperature slows CO2 uptake by the oceans by about 3%. That's a slight positive feedback: more CO2 in the air increases water temperatures, which slows ocean uptake of CO2. But it is very minor, because a 50% (140 ppmv) rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration accelerates CO2 uptake by the oceans by 50%, which obviously dwarfs 3%. That's the main reason that ocean uptake of CO2 continues to accelerate despite the temperature dependence of Hanry's Law.

CO2 effect is saturated

bobhisey at 21:30 PM on 12 July, 2023

My arguement is not against global warming, but in falsely ascribing it to CO2.

The NASA data on the absorption of earth's radiation show clearly that no energy is leaving the earth in the 14-16 micron band. This is the only significant absorption band for CO2 absorbing our radiation. Snce it is saturated/opaque, more CO2 has no effect.

This causes the earth to warm up a bit to increase radiation in other wave lengths and balance out the loss in the 14-15micron range.

This very detailed Nasa data can now be found at NASA Technical Memorandum 103957, Appendix E. All 90 pages of it. It was produced in 1992, but was unavailable to the public till now. However, it has been in use by theNASA Infra-red astronomy project Gemini, for over 20 years, proving its validity.

Previously the best data available was from the 1960's NASA Nimbus satellite. This utilized a very broad band sensor, seemingly like 20microns. This obviously could not pick up a 2 micron minimum band and gave a gently curved spectrum showing a maximum absorption of about 50%.

A full discussion can be seen in "Carbon Dioxide - Not Guilty" on kindle for 99c.

My conclusion is the CO2 is not the cause of our global warming, and I have no idea as to what is the cause. We are wasting our time and money on a false premise, and should rather find the real cause.

Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

daveburton at 06:58 AM on 11 July, 2023

Philippe Chantreau wrote, "I will respond to Dave Burton on the CO2 fertilization thread on the part of this latest post regarding that subject."

Will you please provide a link to your comment to me, Philippe?

[Major snip]

Rob Honeycutt wrote, "1) That is not an image that appears in AR6, not with the added orange box. Thus you're co-opting their work to infer conclusions they do not make."

That's incorrect.

Since we're onto the next page of comments now, here's the image again:
https://sealevel.info/AR6_FAQ_5p1_Fig_1b_final2.png

If you enlarge it you can see, in fine print, the URL that will take you to where you can find it in chapter 5 of AR6:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Chapter05.pdf#page=99

I added the orange box to highlight the (small) part of the image which supports your contention that, "greening is now turning into 'browning.' ... fertilization [has now been] overwhelmed by other effects... In other words, the greening has now stopped."

AR6 directly contradicts your contention, Rob. In fact, it does so in the caption on that very figure:

They could not have been clearer in stating that natural removal of carbon from the atmosphere is NOT weakening.

The authors did PREDICT a "decline" in the FUTURE, "if" emissions "continue to increase." But that hasn't happened yet, and the "decline" which they predicted was NOT for the rate of natural CO2 removals by greening and marine sinks, anyhow. Rather, that hypothetical decline was predicted for the ratio of natural removals to emissions, and their prediction is conditional, depending on what happens with future emissions ("if CO2 emissions continue to increase").

Well, predictions are cheap. My prediction is that natural removals of CO2 from the atmosphere will continue to accelerate, for as long as CO2 levels rise.

Rob, it's possible that your confusion on the greening/browning point was due to a widely publicized paper, with an unfortunately misleading title:

Wang et al (2020), "Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis." Science, 11 Dec 2020, Vol 370, Issue 6522, pp. 1295-1300, doi:10.1126/science.abb7772

Many people were misled by it. You can be forgiven for thinking, based on that title, that greening due to CO2 fertilization had peaked, and is now declining.

What's more, if you read the "Comment on" papers responding to Wang, you'll learn that even that conclusion was very dubious:

Sang et al (2021), "Comment on 'Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis'." Science 373, eabg4420. doi:10.1126/science.abg4420

Frankenberg et al (2021), "Comment on 'Recent global decline of CO2 fertilization effects on vegetation photosynthesis'." Science 373, eabg2947. doi:10.1126/science.abg2947

Bob Loblaw wrote, "...I have no way of knowing whether our daveburton is the same Dave Burton seen in the discussions at Tamino's... The other Dave Burton's name shows up quite a few times, although he does not comment."

Yes, I'm the Dave Burton who Tamino intermittently criticizes. Unfortunately, when I try to comment on his blog, he nearly always deletes my comments, so I stopped trying. Suffice to say, if you like being misled, you should enjoy his blog. (Example.)

Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

daveburton at 07:39 AM on 6 July, 2023

Rob wrote, "that greening is now turning into 'browning.'"

Well, here's what AR6 shows:

Some people point to that little orange box and say that greening has ceased. That reminds me of the folks who say that the it's not as warm as the 2015-16 El Nino, so warming has ceased.

Philippe wrote, "There is probably a better thread for this argument,"

I agree. I was just trying to address OnePlanet's remark about a "locked in" CO2 level.

Philippe wrote, "There is only one factor that truly controls how green any region can be: water availability."

That's a common misconception. Elevated CO2 levels greatly improve plants' water use efficiency (WUE) and drought resilience. That's why elevated CO2 is especially beneficial for crops when under drought stress. It has been heavily studied by agronomists. Here's a paper about wheat:

Philippe wrote, "The experiences that have shown a CO2 fertilization effect were done in very controlled conditions and involved extremely high concentrations (800 ppm and up)."

That's incorrect. All major crops have been studied, and all benefit from elevated CO2. It is true that the greatest benefits accrue at 1000 ppmv or higher, but even modest CO2 increases significantly improve crop yields.

This recent study quantifies the effect for several major crops. Their results are toward the high end, but their qualitative conclusion is consistent with many, many other studies. They reported, "We consistently find a large CO2 fertilization effect: a 1 ppm increase in CO2 equates to a 0.4%, 0.6%, 1% yield increase for corn, soybeans, and wheat, respectively."

This study evaluated pine trees:

Idso, S., & Kimball, B. (1994). Effects of atmospheric CO2 enrichment on biomass accumulation and distribution in Eldarica pine trees. Journal of Experimental Botany, 45, 1669-1672.
Pine trees grown at varying CO2 levels

As you noted, the effect is greatest with CO2 >800 ppmv, but, as you can see, even a much smaller CO2 increase has a substantial effect.

Rob wrote, "This entire paragraph is patently absurd and completely fabricated."

It is 100% factual, Rob. I'm surprised that you didn't already know it.

These figures are from that same AR6 Table 5.1 excerpt which I already showed you:

average CO2 removal rate in the 2010s = 2.7707 ppmv/yr
average CO2 removal rate in teh 2000s = 2.3481 ppmv/yr

These figures are from Mauna Loa:

average CO2 level in the 2010s = 399.91 ppmv
average CO2 level in the 2000s = 378.84 ppmv

(399.91-378.84) / (2.7707-2.3481) = 49.86

So a 50 ppmv increase in CO2 level accelerates the natural removal rate by about 1 ppmv/year.

49.86 / 2.1294 = 23.42 ppmv increase yields a +1 PgC removal rate increase.

I encourage you to do the calculations yourself for any other time period of your choice.

If you have the natural removal rate as a function of CO2 level (which we do), it is trivial to simulate the CO2 level decline if emissions were to suddenly cease. I wrote a little Perl program to do it; email me if you want a copy.

Rob wrote, "if true, the oceans would just continue to suck up all the atmospheric CO2 and we'd live on a frozen planet."

That's incorrect. The system progresses toward equilibrium, which is below 300 ppmv, but not zero.

Rob wrote, "rather that starting from a prior where all the published science is getting it wrong, and making stuff up... you don't have the requisite training to fully grasp the topic"

Rob, it's not necessary to resort to ad hominem attacks. I'm happy to document things that are surprising to you. You need but ask. Everything I've written is well-supported.

Rob wrote, "take some time to fully familiarize yourself with Henry's Law."

Due to the temperature dependence of Henry's Law, a 1°C increase in temperature slows CO2 uptake by the oceans by about 3%. But a 50% (140 ppmv) rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration accelerates CO2 uptake by the oceans by 50%. That's the main reason that ocean uptake of CO2 continues to accelerate.

Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

Rob Honeycutt at 04:02 AM on 6 July, 2023

Dave @15... "The commonly heard claim that... [...] That's the "effective atmospheric lifetime" of our current CO2 emissions."

This entire paragraph is patently absurd and completely fabricated. If you had even one legitimate research paper that made such a claim it might be worth evaluating. But the ridiculousness of your claim is made apparent because, if true, the oceans would just continue to suck up all the atmospheric CO2 and we'd live on a frozen planet.

You know, rather that starting from a prior where all the published science is getting it wrong, and making stuff up to justify that position, maybe try stepping back from the issue. Start from the realization that you don't have the requisite training to fully grasp the topic and endeavor to learn what actual experts in the field can teach you.

Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

daveburton at 03:51 AM on 6 July, 2023

Thanks for fixing those links, Rob. We were obviously typing simultaneously; you beat me to it by 7 minutes.

However, nothing I wrote was misleading. If you "follow the link to the actual IPCC page to read the full" table, you'll see that it shows exactly what I said it shows: as atmospheric CO2 levels have risen, the natural CO2 removal rate has sharply accelerated. (That's a strong negative/stabilizing climate feedback.)

The commonly heard claim that "the change in CO2 concentration will persist for centuries and millennia to come" is based on the "long tail" of a hypothetical CO2 concentration decay curve, for a scenario in which anthropogenic CO2 emissions go to zero, CO2 level drops toward 300 ppmv, and carbon begins slowly migrating back out of the deep oceans and terrestrial biosphere into the atmosphere. It's true in the sense that if CO2 emissions were to cease, it would be millenia before the CO2 level would drop below 300 ppmv. But the first half-life for the modeled CO2 level decay curve is only about 35 years, corresponding to an e-folding "adjustment time" of about fifty years. That's the "effective atmospheric lifetime" of our current CO2 emissions.

Moreover, it is not correct to say that "the ocean takes up about half of our emissions." Our emissions are currently around 11 PgC/year (per the GCP). The oceans remove CO2 from the atmosphere at a current rate of a little over 2.5 PgC/year, but they are not removing some fixed fraction of our emissions. If we halved our emission rate, natural CO2 removals would continue at their current rate.

In the oceans, biology generally trumps chemistry, and that is certainly true for CO2 uptake. Some people think that the capacity of the oceans to take up CO2 is limited to surface water by ocean stratification. But that's incorrect, beause the "biological carbon pump" rapidly moves CO2 from surface waters into the ocean depths, in the form of "marine snow."

The higher CO2 levels go, the faster that "pump" works. Here's a paper about it:
https://www.science.org/doi/reader/10.1126/science.aaa8026

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Bob Loblaw at 23:22 PM on 2 July, 2023

Yes, manuel2001nyc, there are some major things missing in the questions you pose in comment #444.

I'll start by trying to address questions 1 and 2 that Rob Honeycutt skips over, but I'll need to explain a bit of background, first.

To begin, your description of "saturation" suggests that you think of CO2 as a reservoir of energy that gradually fills up to the point that it can't hold any more. This is not the case.

Individual molecules can only store energy at certain levels, dictated by their molecular structure. Electrons "jump" from one energy level to another, absorbing or releasing energy in specific quanta as they "jump". Encyclopedia Britannica has a nice explanation.

When the absorption or release of energy occurs via radiation, the photons absorbed or released must have a wavelength that matches the energy quanta - photon energy is uniquely linked to wavelength.

This link between molecular structure, energy levels, and photon energy explain why molecules such as CO2 only absorb and emit certain wavelengths or radiation.

So, for question 1, yes CO2 absorbs and emits at the same wavelengths. And it does not matter whether the IR radiation came from other CO2 molecules or the earth's surface, etc. A 14um photon is just a 14um photon, with no memory of where it came from.

As for question 2: the term "saturation" makes no sense in this context. Individual molecules do not get "saturated". When they absorb a photon, their energy level increases. They very rapidly pass this energy on to any other gas molecules (CO2 or anything else) they collide with. This will increase the energy levels of those molecules. This will raise the overall average temperature of the air.

Note that "temperature" is not a property of individual molecules. It is the average kinetic energy of a very large number of molecules. Temperature will "average out" because those molecules are always colliding with each other and sharing energy.

Sometimes, when a molecule such as CO2 obtains energy from a collision with another molecule, it will shed that energy by emitting a photon instead of colliding with a different molecule.

The warmer the air, the more often a CO2 molecule will obtain extra energy via collision, and the more often it will emit a photon. This is how temperature affects total radiation energy emission - by emitting more photons, not by emitting more energy in each photon.

For additional information on the process of absorption and emission, you might benefit from reading this post here at Skeptical Science. In particular, some of the comments talk more about emission. (The original post is more about absorption.)

Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation

Rob Honeycutt at 09:26 AM on 19 June, 2023

Peppers, here is a link to the appropriate thread for the breathing CO2 topic. But before you respond, please take the time to read the article and consider the science presented.

Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation

Philippe Chantreau at 03:50 AM on 19 June, 2023

Peppers' comment @ 22 above should be on this thread:

skehttps://skepticalscience.com/breathing-co2-carbon-dioxide.htmpticalscience.com/breathing-co2-carbon-dioxide.htm

This old dead horse has been flogged ad nauseam already and has no value. It casts serious doubt on the sincerity of anyone willing to stoop so low as to use it. It is even worse when it is accompanied by thinly veiled accusations of "suppressing" dissenting voices, accusations for which there is not a shred of credible evidence, especially in the post making the accusation. Anybody who can think quantitatively will quickly see the vacuity of the "human breathing causes CO2 rise" argument. The "just asking questions" trolling method has been seen around here innumerable times, it is no more amusing now than it was years ago.

Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas

Bob Loblaw at 04:38 AM on 16 June, 2023

Vidar2032:

I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings of the emission and absorption of radiation.

First, gases do not emit radiation "at a fixed temperature". Temperature is not a characteristic of radiation. Temperature is a measure of thermal energy, and that thermal energy is available to be converted to radiation (i.e., emitted). Gases will emit radiation at selected individual wavelengths, related to the structure of the gas. But they will emit radiation at those wavelengths at any temperature.

The way that temperature links to emission is by the quantity of energy available. Higher temperature? More frequent emissions of photons, which carry more energy. (But each individual photon at a specific wavelength will contain the same amount of energy.) For a blackbody (not a gas) the higher temperature also tends to increase the amount of radiation more at shorter wavelengths, so you see a shift in the wavelength with the peak emissions:

Planck curves

Increased concentration of gases means more molecules to absorb radiation, which means that individual photons will travel shorter distances before being absorbed. This is simply due to the number of extra CO2 molecules, not their concentration in ppm relative to the remaining gases. You can read about the proper way to use measurements of gas concentrations for radiation absorption calculations in this blog post:

https://skepticalscience.com/from-email-bag-beer-lambert.html

The comments in that blog post are also useful in explaining some of the related effects.

Once the proper calculations of the effects of adding CO2 and water vapour are done - yes, the seemingly small increase in water vapour will have that 1C warming effect.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Charlie_Brown at 10:03 AM on 15 June, 2023

Likeitwarm @1568
I am happy to help answer questions, as long as I am being taken seriously and not just being taken for a ride. @1533 and @1534, you asked for a simple answer. I provided answers in @1535 and @1536. Perhaps you didn’t understand them, but since you repeated the same question in @1544 by saying that you “just could not believe a trace gas of .04% of the atmosphere could have such an effect, especially with the history of CO2 volumes and estimated historic atmospheric temperatures not jiving with each other.” Without saying what it was about my answer that you didn’t understand, but conclude that you don’t believe CO2 can have such an effect and then jump to an incorrect distraction that CO2 and temperature do not jive, you rejected my answer. I find that to be disingenuous.

If you are sincere, we could try again at this simple answer. Even at 0.04%, there are sufficient CO2 molecules in the cold upper atmosphere between 11 and 20 kilometers to create an emitting layer. Because it is cold, radiant energy emission to space is reduced. By the global energy balance, reduced energy lost to space means increased energy captured in the global system. There is no math for you to do, but you do have to trust that scientists do understand Beer’s Law and are capable of doing the math for you. Phillipe Chantreau @1572 made an excellent post regarding just some of the background hard science of radiant energy transfer. There are many more posts of excellent research throughout this site, although it does take some digging to find them. Please do as you suggest and do some homework, including on the topic of economics of costs for damage and abatement. It’s all there.

Trust in good science should have been earned by years of research and detailed calculations. There are a few so-called scientists out there who have published bad information, like the Gerlich & Tscheuschner paper that started this whole thread on the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This site is all about rebutting the bad information. See my post @1528 about this myth started by G&T. Or maybe you did that before posting @1529. So go back and read @1535 and @1536 again. Then, if you are still confused, maybe I can help clarify a specific concept before you jump to conclusions.

By the way, consider conservation of energy, not conservation of photons. A CO2 molecule absorbs a photon. Its energy state increases. Since it was in thermal equilibrium with adjacent molecules of any gas, it may lose the extra energy by collision. But then the adjacent molecules are at an increased energy state, so they may give the energy back by collision. Or the CO2 molecule may emit a photon to shed the extra energy. By Kirchoff’s law, absorptance = emittance at thermal equilibrium. Any disturbance in the energy balance upsets thermal equilibrium. Finally, note that it is the energy lost to space that can be determined by the global energy balance. It is problematic and not productive to worry about all of the collisions, absorptions, and reemissions as energy works its way through the atmosphere. That will only get you lost. Similarly, that is why it is not production to worry about convection and the water cycle. All of that just moves energy around in the atmosphere and sets of the atmosphere’s temperature profile. It is the atmospheric temperature profile that sets up radiant energy transfer.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

scaddenp at 11:32 AM on 14 June, 2023

Likeitwarm - thanks for those answers, though if you realize that IR leaving the surface is captured by GHG (CO2, water) without having traveled very far; and then re-radiated, I am surprized that you were not understanding that GHG gases result in a warming surface. ok, file that away.

I leave others to discuss sources of your beliefs about renewables and chinese efforts, but I would have to ask this: If you became convinced that conversion to renewables was not going destroy world economies would that reduce your skeptics about global warming do you think? If it had been obvious to you when you first heard about global warming that getting off fossil fuels was both possible and economical, then would you have been so skeptical of science?

Do you feel differently about CO2"Science" now that you have seen them play with strawman arguments or would like other examples of their game before you wrote them off?

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 07:00 AM on 14 June, 2023

scaddenp 1549 and sysop

"how far a photon of appropriate wavelength would travel up through the atmosphere on average before encountering a CO2 molecule"

Depending on the humidity it might get caught first by H2O. It could travel 3 inches or 300 inches. I haven't calculated the odds. I guess it would be like shooting into a flock of birds to see if you hit one.

I read somewhere that the maximum amount of earths radiation that is of an appropriate wavelength to react with CO2 is about 16% of the total. I think that is attributed to John Tyndall.

"what did likeitwarm think would happen to that energy?"

If the object was inert and isolated from the rest of the universe and emitted to a perfect reflector/re-emitter and absorbed this redirected energy, Its temperature would not change. In order to emit it must lose energy and it would just regain that energy back at absorption. I think it would need an external input to rise in temperature.

"I do not believe we should be destroying the world economies..."

I think is has been shown in the development of all economies to-date that cheap energy is key. Solar and wind energy have been shown that they are anything but cheap and dirtier to build, at this time. I do acknowledge that we need incentive to work on new technologies but I think we are turning off fossil and nuclear energy too soon. China certainly doesn't give a hoot about global warming.

I really feel this thread could get way off topic fast and needs to go to some general discussion. These things are not the science, but affect the science or are affected by the science.

These articles are not science but the problems noted in them will be solved by it, eventually. I just wonder how soon?

https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=3c94bf1c5fe5
https://daily.jstor.org/the-downside-to-renewable-energy/

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

scaddenp at 12:12 PM on 13 June, 2023

Likeitwarm, your link to temperature.global does point to what interests me most. There are numerous global temperature records (eg HadCrut, GISS) which have peer-reviewed methodologies, public source code and validation by hostile review (eg Muller's BEST project). Instead you are giving credence to a site with short time frame, no review and refusing to reveal their methodology.

That to my mind means you have very different priors to me, different biases, and that is what interests me most. Different priors is normal and we all have different biases. What I am asking is whether you can remember what switched you into looking for sites like CO2Science or temperature.global? Was it just disbelief about trace gases or were there other considerations?

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

scaddenp at 11:28 AM on 13 June, 2023

RH - well CO2"Science" have long history in misrepresenting what science papers actually say, secure in the knowledge that their intended audience won't read them to check. LikeitWarm, I agree that the Idso's are intelligent and smart - just not in a good way.

Likeitwarm - I appreciate that it is very difficult to evaluate material that you dont know very well. However, a common strategy for the deniers is the"strawman fallacy". Ie they claim that "science says X", which means that it follows that Y should be observed. If Y is not observed, then clearly X is wrong. (eg Idso is effectively claiming "Science says CO2 is only thing that effects temperature, therefore past temperatures must reflect CO2 concentration" ). If you discover that science says no such thing (eg check with what the IPCC reports claim instead) and that your source would likely be aware of that, (eg quoting or misquoting IPCC) then you have reasonable grounds for assuming that the source is bad actor, and not to be compared with what peer-reviewed science is saying (no matter how appealing their presentation is).

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Rob Honeycutt at 11:21 AM on 13 June, 2023

Actually, Bob, I think this is the paper CO2 Science is discussing.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Bob Loblaw at 11:11 AM on 13 June, 2023

Likeitwarm @ 1550:

Your first link claims to be presenting the results of a Nature paper from 2007, as indicated under the figure. A link to the paper itself is this. Although paywalled, Google Scholar finds free copies, such as this one.

The last sentence in the opening paragraph (visible at Nature) says "Our results are consistent with the proposal that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive or amplify increased global temperatures."

What does it tell you when the CO2science web site tells you the exact opposite of what the authors of the paper they reference are saying?

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Rob Honeycutt at 10:58 AM on 13 June, 2023

The first paper (which I had to track down since there's no link at CO2 Science) reads as fairly ridiculous. There are a ton of graphs in the paper that clearly demonstrate correlation but he (a single researcher) says there is none. Better to stick with Dana Royer and his collegues who've done extensive research on this topic over the years.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Philippe Chantreau at 08:35 AM on 13 June, 2023

I see. So when you wrote 1998, you actually meant 2016. Makes sense. How much scrutiny have you applied to that CO2 science website, exactly?

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 06:56 AM on 13 June, 2023

Rob Honeycutt 1547

http://www.co2science.org/articles/V21/sep/a13.php Unrelatedness of co2 and temp does look like CO2 did not affect temperatures much at all.

https://co2coalition.org/publications/satellite-and-surface-temperatures/ looks like 1998 was a peak high temp and now it's back up to that peak 25 years later.

http://www.temperature.global/ shows that averaged raw temperatures have been fairly flat since 2015. The 2 groups of warm in 2015 & 2016 are summer months. I know that's only 8 years, fairly short, but I would have expected temps to reflect the increase in CO2 of about 2.5 ppm per year.

These things are put out there by people I don't think are dummies. I wonder if they would put them out there if they knew they were wrong?

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Likeitwarm at 11:16 AM on 12 June, 2023

I know this post will technically be off topic, but is a direct answer to scaddenp's inquiry.

scaddenp 1543 - I see there are many who claim their science is right on both sides of the climate argument and everyone presents what appears to be good arguments to support their position. I know that it is normal human behavior to have some bias toward one's own argument. This is the opinion of all that I talk to in the non-scientist group. Many don't know who to believe and pay any attention to what can be a confusing subject. Myself, not being a well educated physicist, feel at a disadvantage. My math is only basic, algebra 2 in high school. Someone very good with math could easily pull the wool over my eyes with complex formulas involved in this science. I am a machine designer/cost anayizer/production programmer/personel manager for the production of an old product who got there by the seat of my pants. I have been retired now 6 years.

I just could not believe a trace gas of .04% of the atmosphere could have such an effect, especially with the history of CO2 volumes and estimated historic atmospheric temperatures not jiving with each other. There are so many factors that have different affects, it is hard to discern which are reasonable causes. With "global" temperatures reportedly being fairly flat since 1998 and CO2 continuing to rise at a steady rate and the U.S. Government spending $375B, recently, towards climate initiatives(some is my tax money and yours if you pay U.S. taxes), I am still seeking the truth to inform my congress of the truth that I see. I do not believe we should be destroying the world economies and spending vast amounts of the public treasure when there is so much disagreement on what is causing climate change. That was the opinion of Dr. Allen Carlin of the EPA in 2009. He called the evidence for AWG incomplete.

I know you guys that support this site put a lot of time and effort into the science and site. That's why I come here to investigate.

If there is a better place to have this conversation, please let me know.

CO2 lags temperature

Daniel Bailey at 01:46 AM on 19 May, 2023

For a longer view of the correlation between CO2 concentrations and global temperatures, look no further than this reconstruction of the past 540 million years of such from Scotese (Scotese 2021 - Phanerozoic paleotemperatures: The earth’s changing climate during the last 540 million years):

CO2 and temperatures the past 540 million years

Link to paper

Link to uploaded graphic

And leaving the last word on the subject to Scotese, a true expert in the field:

"It has been long recognized that the Earth’s climate, in particular the average global temperature, has alternated between ”icehouse” and “hothouse” states. More than 70 years ago, studies recognized that these climatic “modes” varied on short-term, medium-term, and long-term timescales. During the past 20 years, due to much outstanding research, we now stand at the threshold to a deeper, more complete understanding of both the tempo and mode of global temperature change during the Phanerozoic.

The Earth’s long-term temperature change is controlled by multiple tectonic and environmental processes that drive the Earth’s climate from icehouse to hothouse conditions, and vice versa. Many of these factors are interconnected by a complex network of positive and negative feedback loops that can accelerate or decelerate changes in long-term global temperature.

We are currently about halfway through a typical glacial/interglacial cycle. If humans did not inhabit the Earth, about 20,000 years from now, global temperatures would have once again begun to fall and ice sheets would have expanded into the oceans surrounding Antarctica and would have descended from the Arctic to begin a slow and steady march across the northern continents. However, this will not happen. The Earth has entered a “super-interglacial”. The injection of CO2 into the atmosphere as a consequence of the burning of fossil fuels has warmed the Earth more than 1°C and will continue to warm the Earth for another 300 years (~2300 CE).

In conclusion, we are leaving our Ice Age heritage behind. A new, warmer world awaits us. The problem we face is not so much where we are headed, but rather how we will get there."

CO2 lags temperature

Bob Loblaw at 06:36 AM on 18 May, 2023

Ron @ 645:

Although the Basic tab shows a Vostok ice core that only covers 400,000 years (the limit available at that station, according to Wikipedia), the Intermediate tab of this article includes another station (Dome C) with an 800,000-year record. Is that the graph you are thinking of?

https://skepticalscience.com/co2-lags-temperature-intermediate.htm

Dome C ice core record

P.S. The preferred abbreviation for Skeptical Science is SkS. Three guesses for why. (First two guesses don't count.)

Climate communications: Laura Helmuth and Susan Hassol talk about language

nigelj at 18:04 PM on 8 May, 2023

Excellent video.

I have an old book titled "Asimovs Guide to Science" 1987 edition Penguin Books, 880 pages that cover every branch of science and in surprising detail for one volume. The man is a genius. Its all beautifully written in a public friendly style. The writting does have a lot of jargon but its explained and he just has this smooth easy to grasp style of writing, all beautifully well structured and organised and easy to follow.

There are no equations in the main text but some apendicies at the back include some maths of the key issues. Once you put equations in the body of the text you pretty much alienate most of the general public and Asimov understood this. The more equations and maths the worse it gets. I recall a book publisher discussing the issue of equations and the dismal affect this has on sales of a book. Sadly to say, because an equation explains something that requires a lot of words to explain.

However I have some reservations about the suggestions in the video on terminology:

Global warming became climate change and the denialists used that to accuse scientists of changing the story for nefarious purposes. The denialists were wrong on every level but mud sticks. Now we hand them more ammunition by calling it "climate disruption: I really dislike changes in terminology unless its really necessary.

Postive feedback is the scientific term. Yes it makes it sound like a good thing but is using different terminology like self reinforcing cycle the right response to the problem? Why not just define postive feedback in brackets as "a self reinforcing cycle that amplifies the warming process" (or whatever process is being discussed ). Generally I think definitions in brackets is best. It only needs to be done once in an article. If every science writer comes up with their own terms as substitutes for jargon, it will just confuse the public even more.

Heat trapping pollution is not a great term. There was controversy about whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant as such, started of course by the denialists. There is a good argument that carbon dioxide is a pollutant but why hand the denialists ammunition? The public generally understand pollution to be something added to the atmosphere that directly affects health or degrades the environment and this is the typical dictionary definition. CO2 acts more indirectly.Heat trapping gases would be better terminology (the video did suggest that as another option).

Perhaps these are nit picks. Clearly the writer is correct that the scientific jargon often creates the wrong impression with the public. But the simple answer is just define it in brackets in plain language where possible, or as a footnote, as opposed to dreaming up completely new terms and using those.

Why the food system is the next frontier in climate action

One Planet Only Forever at 09:10 AM on 30 April, 2023

Evan,

Your question may be questionable.

The climate change issue is primarily about human actions that are increasing ghgs in the carbon cycle (increasing the balanced state of ghgs in the atmosphere and causing other harms like increased CO2 absorption in oceans).

That perspective helps identify and understand the differences between the variety of ghg impacts caused by human actions. Most important, it helps understand that some causes of CO2e from human food production and consumption are ‘not the concern’.

Steady-state production of ghgs from food production and consumption is not the primary concern. That would be a sustainable carbon cycle. Food production and consumption that increases the level of ghgs, especially the use of fossil fuels, is the primary concern. An increasing population that eats less ‘higher impact food like meat or rice’ can actually result in a reduction of the steady-state level of ghgs. In addition to an increasing population having less consumption, the remaining consumption can be changed to be less harmful, like developing meat and rice production that does not cause as much ghg impact.

Therefore, an answer to the question about the ‘per capita CO2e’ is that, due to the current developed problem of significant excess ghgs, especially CO2, already in the atmosphere, unnecessary CO2e impacts from human activity need to be ended and actions that will reduce the steady-state ghg levels in the atmosphere are required. (The peak level of ghg increase due to the historic, and continuing, lack of interest in seriously restricting harmful and unnecessary actions will undeniably be a harmfully excessive level).

Also, the required changes of food production and consumption for the collective of human activity to be more sustainable will vary by region. Regions that currently have more people eating less than a ‘diet necessary for healthy living’ can be expected to have increasing impacts. But if such a region also has a significant amount of harmful unnecessary food consumption, due to a significant status gap in that region's society, then that region could, depending on how much harmful consumption is occurring in the region, reduce the total regional level of ghg impacts while the less fortunate in the region increase their impacts.

PS. The titles of the two study reports linked in the last paragraph you are questioning are informative (the reports are even more informative): “A meta-analysis of projected global food demand and population at risk of hunger for the period 2010–2050” and “Future warming from global food consumption”. However, developed socioeconomic-political biases can bias what is investigated, how it is investigated, and how it is reported. That is likely a significant root cause of the populist political attacks on less biased science that establishes a requirement for significant changes of developed beliefs and actions, especially if it highlights the need for rapid changes of popular and profitable developments. It may also be why I did not see the obvious problem of harmful over-consumption being highlighted.

At a glance - The greenhouse effect and the 2nd law of thermodynamics

Bob Loblaw at 10:43 AM on 28 April, 2023

The tricky part about rebutting a "greenhouse effect violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics" myth is that there are so many possibilities and variations of such a myth. It's kind of like trying to get someone to say what they mean by "saturated" when they start spouting the "CO2 is saturated" myth.

The specific version on the full rebuttal page is related to a specific statement from Gerhard Gerlich, and arguments made in a paper by Gerlich and Tscheuschner.

When you hear someone exclaiming "2nd law of thermodynamics!", you really need to find out exactly what they think the 2nd law means before you can point out the errors (although the Gerlich and Tscheuschner flavour is pretty common).

The 2nd law is a favourite "argument" amongst the Creation Science/Intelligent Design crowd, too - evolution "violates the 2nd law". (The argument is just as wrong there.) Back in the olden days of Usenet (before the Web and blog comments), I remember a Creation Science fan emailing me (Usenet exposed people's email addresses) with a 2nd law argument.

After several rounds of email pointing out his errors in understanding the 2nd law, he came up with this strange argument of " the flow of information content" that he claimed had a similarity to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, so evolution violated his "2nd law of information content" and that mean it also violated the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Really bizarre stuff. (He never responded to my last email, where I said that calling it "the 2nd law of thermodynamics" was a lie, and why was he lying in the name of the Lord?)

I've always suspected that the appeal of the "greenhouse effect violates the 2nd law" myth may partly be due to its familiarity as a false argument against evolution. If you believe that evolution is Bad Science, and find the 2nd law argument convincing, it's easy to accept it as an argument against the greenhouse effect when you're already convinced that climate science has it all wrong.

As John Mason points out, there is no real shortcut to explaining what the 2nd law (and 1st and 3rd) actually means, which makes it more difficult to debunk any (or every) bogus 2nd law argument.

2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory

Rob Honeycutt at 04:12 AM on 26 April, 2023

Gootmud @1522... There is an entire body of research related to precisely this topic known as attribution research. Your lack familiarity of the science shouldn't lead to the conclusion that "we can't explain causally." On the contrary, the overall causality of the shift in distribution is extremely well-known. The only place uncertainties appear are the chances that any given indivual weather event is driven by human causation. But even there, attribution research is demonstrating increasingly how much more likely these are to be primarily a result of the rise of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere.

EGU2023 - Upcoming presentations in Vienna

prove we are smart at 15:47 PM on 19 April, 2023

We are putting 40,thousand,million tons of co2 into the tiny 10km space above our heads. As much as scientists explain and educate it's not changing this figure- oh yes, it's slowing down a little-apparantly!

The powerful elite-the billionairs,financiers,ceo's,politicians et all, love the staus quo.

As much as I trust peer reviewed science and this yearly conference will be enlightening for many- the fouty thousand,million tons of co2 is still increasing.

The thirty years of IPCC and its 6 yearly reports, aimed directly at govts worldwide has not been listened to-thousands of peer reviewed science FACTS are ignored.

This wonderful blog site educated me on climate science and was part of the catalyst to develop a big picture view on so much. My opinions can change but for a few years now they haven't. This British climate scientist seems to be saying the right things for me.

Is dangerous climate change not really dangerous for the 1% ?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpSWwTjYSj8&t=620s

Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes

One Planet Only Forever at 04:24 AM on 6 April, 2023

Bob Loblaw @54,

I agree that JohnSeers was seeking a debunking of the claim that the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes was significantly due to underwater volcanoes heating the oceans.

I think it could be helpful to always clarify a 'climate change' question or claim in the context of 'its significance related to the evidence of significant rapid recent climate system changes'. And there are 2 dominant verifiable (real based on evidence) rapid recent changes:

Increased CO2 levels

Increased global average surface temperature (and warmer oceans)

The evidence and developed understanding to date is so robust that it is very unlikely that fossil fuel use is not the dominant cause of those verifiable rapid recent changes.

As your helpful comment confirms, that part of the science is almost as certain as science can get on any matter (part of the reason many IPCC participants see no value in 'another update'). That leads to misleading political actions hoping to benefit from the popularity of limited awareness and related increased misunderstanding which is limitless. Verifiable evidence always limits the range of believable explanations ...

CO2 effect is saturated

One Planet Only Forever at 03:51 AM on 27 March, 2023

Gootmud’s comment @680 and the responses have been informative and educational. Thank you Rob, Eclectic, MA Roger, and Bob. However, based on today’s reality, I think this Rebuttal should be updated.

The potential magnitude of global warming due to a doubling of CO2, and the related denial tactic of claiming the CO2 effect is ‘saturated’ or not a significant concern, is now only an academic matter. It was an important matter for leaders to be aware of 30 years ago when it was vigorously argued against by ‘people with interests that were contrary to this improving understanding’. But since warming beyond 1.0 C has already occurred, and warming beyond 1.5 C is already likely due to a lack of responsible leadership action to limit the harm done, it is no longer a relevant leadership considerations.

Note: Disappointing people who have developed undeserved perceptions of opportunity, prosperity, advancement or superiority based on harmful unsustainable activity and related beliefs ‘is not harmful’. Governing to limit harm done is essential to the advancement of civilization.

The Story of the Week “1.5 and 2°C: A Journey Through the Temperature Target That Haunts the World” in the “2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50” makes it clear that decades ago the following was understandable:

warming above 1.0 C risks significant harm (that is now proven by today’s reality).

warming beyond 2.0 C is very risky (hopefully that will never be proven in a near future reality).

That understanding fits with the 1.5 C ‘long term maximum harmful impact objective’ paired with the need to limit the ‘temporary peak harmful impact level’ to significantly less than 2.0 C.

The IPCC FAQ Chapter 1 provides additional information regarding the targets. An important bit of information is that 1.0 C warming was reached in 2017. When the formal global leadership agreement was established in 2015 human impacts were almost certain to exceed 1.0 C. And the significant costs of the failure to limit the peak human impacts to 1.0 C are also now harder to deny.

The reality today is: No matter what someone wants to believe regarding the sensitivity of global average surface temperature to increasing CO2 the actual evidence makes that debate irrelevant. What is now undeniable by leadership is the need for the unprofitable safe removal of carbon from the atmosphere to bring the harmful impact level back down below 1.5C. And it is also undeniable that the people who benefited most from the harm done need to do the most to limit how much worse the problem is at the peak, pay to remove the excess carbon, and help everyone harmed by the impacts of what they benefited from.

Leaders no longer need to be guided by the science of the potential rate of warming due to a doubling of CO2 levels. That type of pursuit of understanding is also ‘hopefully’ very unlikely to be relevant to the future of humanity. Responsible leadership would prevent that magnitude of harm done from ever becoming a reality.

It's not urgent

MA Rodger at 18:59 PM on 25 March, 2023

PollutionMonster @26,

The quoting of Schellnhuber in that Scientific American article is a bit of an add-on and somewhat out of context. The article is based on analysis dating back to 2018 here & here (so a little dated now) and is really concerned with the net negative emissions required after we reach the net zero emissions. These net negatives are not much discussed in the political arena, as though we can ignore them. The same is true of the "carbon budget" also addressed by the article. But the 'budget' and the 'negatives' are significant in tackling AGW. The climate scanario SSP1-1.9 (which prevents AGW exceeding +1.5ºC warming, roughly) requires we halve our emissions by 2030 (and indeed to have made serious progress toward that halving by now) as part of keeping-to the 'budget', and following that for all our emissions post-2007 to be removed by the 'negative' policy post net-zero. So keeping to SSP1-1.9 would mean the 'negative' totals something like 1,000 billion t(CO2) [so over 20 years-worth of today's emissions] although the majority of that (perhaps two-thirds) would be post-2100.

The Schellnhuber quote is lacking a bit of context but is presumably predicated on the view that we could lose control of AGW and kick off some extreme tipping points: Schellnhuber has co-authored work on such outcomes. Myself, I would be worried by allowing AGW to get significantly beyond +1.5ºC warming as the effect could easily destroy the world political order and bring about that sub-billion human world population through conflict.

Humanity does need to rough out a workable global plan (or set of plans) for keeping AGW to sensible levels, the first step in identifying how bad the situation actually is. Without such planning, your attempted triage is not going to work.

So what would a plan look like? The world is going to be short of energy sources in years to come as renewables will be required to power the economy as well as those 'negatives' which will be potentially bigger than SSP1-1.9 because we are not cutting our emissions and running out of 'budget'. We need to quickly replace FF with renewables, so build a few tens-of-thousand sq mile of sunny places with solar, connect it to the developed world's power grid as well as using it for hydrogen/ammonia production. And get ready to start sucking those 'negatives' out the atmosphere and pumping them into saline aquifers which have the capacity to take ample amounts of CO2. So a plan would rough out what all that would look like in terms of costs and resources.

Arguing with deniers is required to demonstrate they are the lunatic denialists. They do still have enough influence to slow and even stop mitigation measures. In UK they are now doing just that.

CO2 effect is saturated

Rob Honeycutt at 10:58 AM on 25 March, 2023

Gootmud... The "CO2 saturation" claim is a red herring used by climate deniers to try and instill doubt about the science. Don't get stuck on whether the claims are technically accurate. Fundamentally, people rejecting climate science are mostly politically or ideologically motivated and are using this topic as a cudgule to further their goals.

The "saturation" of CO2 is a nuanced element of the science that is well understood and does not change the accepted position that human emissions of CO2 are precipitously warming the earth. I was offering the animated graphic I posted to help you understand why this is the case.

You can't get around the basic fact that energy in = energy out, and when you add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere the surface must warm. Functionally, the effect is occurring up higher in the atmosphere where CO2 is not saturated. When you add more CO2, the point where that occurs rises and, again, the surface sees a corresponding warming (per my graphic).

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 07:34 AM on 25 March, 2023

Gootmud @ 692.

Yes, there are many contrarians that deny that CO2 will have any effect, and "it's saturated" is a common argument. You need to take the Morano quote in the context of his decades-long history of trying to dismiss human-caused climate change as a hoax.

Although the quote is a bit vague - not specifying at what level CO2 will saturate - that is the typical style of people like Morano. Leave enough in that is true, but then cascade into untruths or illogical "consequences".

You can read more about Morano over at DesmogBlog. You will not find anything that indicates that he holds a position remotely related to the actual science.

Where have you looked for people that say CO2 will not cause any warming because it's already saturated? As recently as comment 648 in this thread, we had someone making the claim. A little earlier in this thread, another person with another variant. And here. And there are still nearly 600 earlier comments I have not searched. Those links cover the past couple of years, and the comments started in 2009, so it's a small part of the collection.

Any saturation point with respect to CO2 will be at such high concentrations (many times current concentrations) that any use of the argument in the context of projections for the next 50-100 years is completely bogus.

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 02:55 AM on 25 March, 2023

Gootmud @689 ,

it would be helpful if you could state whether (or not) the English language is your mother tongue. I mention that, because some of the faulty communication here may be simply a communication problem of the meanings of words (plus or minus their translated meanings).

Example : the word "saturated" has a range of meanings in English ~ ranging from the colloquial (or even hyperbolical) through the standard formal and through to the technical and through to the scientific. When we say "this garment is saturated" it means (formally) that the garment is so wet that it cannot get wetter. But that is not the meaning of the term saturated in relation here to CO2 levels.

The (roughly) logarithmic effect of rising CO2 means that there will be no actual halt to the warming effect of rising CO2 levels. Which is why the "CO2 doublings" is the mathematical concept used in climate science.

Science-deniers sometimes use "saturation" as an argument that more CO2 cannot have a harmful effect on Earth's climate ~ sometimes they do this out of ignorance, and sometimes they do this out of bad faith & a desire to deceive others (including deceiving themselves). And I am sure that sort of misunderstanding occurs too in languages other than English.

CO2 effect is saturated

Rob Honeycutt at 01:04 AM on 25 March, 2023

Gootmud... Reading through that Happer paper is interesting in that they're essentially confirming the consensus position on man-made climate change is correct. Their climate sensitivity figure of 1.4K is the direct effect without water vapor feedback. The 2.9K is with WV feedback per M&W1967, and the 2.2K figure is with updated calculations for WV.

So, why is that 2.2K figure so much lower than the central estimates of ~2.9K/2xCO2? Well, there are other feedbacks that are not included in Happer's calculations, like ice sheet feedbacks.

This paper is a good demonstration that Happer knows the climte science is correct but he continues to speak out against it, ostensibly in order to instill doubt in the research.

Why? If you up for a little light reading, try Oreskes/Conway's The Merchants of Doubt. (Hint: it's not really about the science.)

It's also important to note, the warming we've seen over the past 60 years is largely in line with central estimates for climate sensitivity. We've increased CO2 by about 50% and we seem committed to around 1.5°C of warming. The numbers kind of work, unfortunately.

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 16:18 PM on 24 March, 2023

Gootmud @680 ,

The explanation of "Greenhouse" by Rob Honeycutt @681 is basic and straightforward, if you stop to think it through. And yet a vast number of climate-science-deniers completely fail to understand the concept (most likely because they wish to stay in denial mode).

You are right that the eminent Dr Happer (et Wijngaarden) has re-invented the wheel, and finds that all the climate scientists are correct about the climate sensitivity of atmospheric CO2 as being (roughly) 1.2 degC for CO2 change alone, without feedbacks. Here, we definitely should trust the experts.

Strangely, most of the denizens at WattsUpWithThat blog (and similar) are giving out the impression that Happer has shown them (the denialists) to be right and all the climate scientists to be wrong. Very strange indeed. Perhaps they (the denialists) are not actually reading/understanding Happer's confirmation of previously-known climate science ~ I suspect they they are in sympathy with Happer's extremist wingnut politics (which he makes no effort to hide).

Probably they are using wishful thinking, in that they use the faulty paradigm : 'Happer is an eminent scientist and he is "one of us wingnuts" ~ and therefore the mainstream scientists must be wrong.' [~ Which does not compute.]

(B) Gootmud , I must beg you to tell more about this idea you present about a CO2 laser effect at the tropopause level. I have not heard of this before (unless it is something to do with a certain notorious Congresswoman who talks of Jewish Space Lasers ).

The Big Picture

Bart Vreeken at 21:31 PM on 22 March, 2023

N R N P @168

Shall I have a try in answering your questions? I live in The Netherlands and here we have the same kind of discussions. Excuse me in advance for my English, it seems to be horrible.

A. Changing for the worse?
I hope we do agree that the earth is warming. It's an on going process and we (science) expect that it will go on for a much longer time. So it gives a lot of changes in the climate almost everywhere.

A key point is that the continents and the oceans are warming in a different speed. The oceans are warming much slower. This has consequences. When the atmosphere warms up it can contain more water vapor. But the less warming ocean can't deliver enough water vapour to keep the more warming continents humid enough. As a result there is more risk for drought at many places.
An other thing is that the air whole circulation will change. It means that local climates can change more than the global average. Wet climates can turn to dry climates, but also the other way round. Our agriculture, infrastructure and houses are not (always) prepared for that.
As you know, a warmer climate makes the sea level rise. The warmer water in the ocean expands, the ice sheets and mountain glaciers are melting to a certain extent. This sea level rise will give a lot of problems in many coastal areas. Here in the Netherlands the protection against the sea is very well organized, we can manage the first one or one-and-a-halve meter in this century. When it gets more we have a problem, but we are already try to prepare for that. Other countries, including deltas in Asia and parts of the US are less protected and will have large problems before 2100. By the way, it's not only the sea level rise there. Many of these places have also subsidence of the land, but these two come together and the problems are coming much faster then without sea level rise.

And then there is the unpredictable part. We don't know exactly how the ice sheets will react. Maybe there are mechanisms for a quick decline of parts of the ice sheets. In that case we have less time to prepare for it.
Of course, there can also be places where the climate gets better, or at least in a part of the year. And at least, we will need less fuel for warming the houses. (but more electricity for cooling in the summer.)

An interesting point is the direct effect of the increasing CO2 level to the vegetation and the agriculture. Plants can grow faster with that. Remote sensing shows something like 'global greening'. But it's a mixture of natural response and increasing agriculture. The last thing is tricky when water recourses are limited. And as we have seen, the increasing risk for drought is a cause for concern by itself. Maybe you know the story of the Aral See?
Then your question B) changing because of human activities?
Yes, we can be sure about this. We could calculate the effect of increasing CO2 hundred years ago and it's just what happening. Other possible factors, like changing sun power don't have much effect, these changes are too small. The less known part is how the atmosphere reacts (water vapor, clouds), how the ocean circulation reacts, how ice sheets react in detail.

"C) why this time it is different than the changes that have taken place?"
The changes are going very fast now, and as I said, the houses, the infrastructure, the agriculture and the water supply are not prepared for these changes. And there is the risk for sudden, even faster changes (tipping points).

The Big Picture

peppers at 02:50 AM on 21 March, 2023

HI One World, and also Rob made some sea level comments as well.
Im sorry I don’t have more time, and some of you commit large swaths of time here and I appreciate that.
Using NASA data, presuming they have the best resources and equipment, satellites and those argo sea probes et al. to gather original data, they show sea level rising since 1993 to be 3.8 inches.
https://sealevel.nasa.gov/
But what I think you are trying to indicate, and what the graphs show mostly, are that the rate of sea rise increases as the warming continues higher and higher. An exponential effect is presented. So taking past temperature increases will not explain future expected gains. It is either an exponential increase or the suggestion is that the increase is delayed so that as we go up in temperature, the rise happens decades later and there is a build.
I think we have finished with the run away suggestions for nature. The train bearing down on a child and all that. I see that as tactics to get people to listen and pay attention, but nothing true in our environment. Nature balances. She reacts. This Co2 rise is a reaction and right now she is reacting to this human population boom, which is unprecedented in history. And all the energy use associated with all these new counts of people on earth, living longer and healthier than ever, this is increasing Co2 counts and enriching our surface world in all the ways Co2 can do that.
Nasa used 4-5 scales to predict sea rise, 1. tracking if nothing is done, 2. some is done and 3. complete zero new emissions is achieved ( which cannot happen until the population levels out in 60 or so years ).
By 2100 there is Nasa modeling of .4 to .8 meter rise, using the data set of 2. some is being done. Doing what we can will be instrumental in keeping high tide from being higher than usual in that future time. I’ve tries to stay with the median predictions, so this is not discrepancy conversation of the outer 5%’s.
Science American believes no new storms are made but the severity of moisture based storms may increase by 2-4 miles per hour. The threat of sea rise is about the most serious threat.
I understand better where you are coming from. I still have the higher philosophical orientation to grapple with.
If mankind has finally achieved the goal of conquering the mission of dreams pondered throughout the pain filled ages, of solving misery and pain and finding medical success beyond any expectations. Is this worth it? A sea level rise?
The highest gain has been with infant mortality, which has plummeted from the high middle ages at 400-500 per thousand to 5.5 infants per thousand today. Think of all the occasions of birth deaths which also took the mother too, to quantify misery. That and antibiotics alone have caused this phenomenon of Co2 rise. Life spans have increased 61%, living conditions have soared, medicine is in a wonderland of abilities and birth to adulthood stats are beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. The question is; is that worth a side effect of sea level rising a foot and a half, maybe 2 feet at high tide.
This endeavor appears to goad and cajole and shame people using fossil fuel and I suppose that is the fastest way to get attention. But I do not believe it to be honest. This appears to be unwittingly human caused and one must decide if it is worth the subsequent consequences ahead. It is not from derelict and wanton people, it is from the results of scientific achievement, sought after for ages and finally achieved within the science that coincided with the industrial revolution. The origin of this is important to be able to consider context to this issue. If I were there and had the choice in my hands, I’d have us standing exactly where we were today. Reducing Co2 is still important, but I wouldn’t be bullying any brothers from any mothers over this. It is important, but not that important all things considered.

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