This month’s open thread for climate science discussions. Be nice, it’s Earth month.
Reader Interactions
361 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Apr 2021"
Killiansays
ankle… typing is poor me do not good thing.
nigeljsays
zebra @293 says: “This is for all the people who have been responding to the z1/TM entity….1. Does anyone doubt that this is the same person? (see #283, where it forgets which persona it is supposed to be)”
Imo they are not the same person. Its not clear that #283 makes them the same person just because theres discussion on how the CO2 molecule behaves. They have subtly different writing styles, and different formatting styles ( TM uses bold type, z1 all Caps). I doubt one person would act out differences of that sort.
They mostly make very different points. Sock puppets usually just say the same stuff, but assume different names. It’s not very subtle. And z1 comes across as a climate denialist, while TM just has strange views about how the greenhouse effect operates. It wouldn’t make sense for one sock puppet to be a denialist, but not the other.
Piotrsays
Killian (300)
287 Piotr: “Eeer, that’s not how I recall it. […] But to avoid the “he said, she said” – here is the original [262] , so anybody can decide for themselves who of us two tells the truth about it
Killian (300): “ Who cares? ”
“Who cares” about … falsifiable arguments about the paper you brought up , after bitterly complaining how nobody wanted to _discuss_ your articles????
Killian (300): “You’re a nasty, uselessly pedantic little ankle-biter.”
That’s … rich coming from somebody, who in response to my falsifiable arguments
about the paper he brought up for discussion, deleted the response and instead tries to dismiss me on a …. pedantic technicality – my use of a word “defending”
in a … reference call:” Piotr: “Re: Killian (220) defending Killian (91) “???
As for your “arguments” about me:
– “uselessly pedantic little [ankle]-biter”
– “like a rabid chihuahua.”
– “You’re an idiot.”
I care only about opinions of people I respect. So, no harm done …;-)
As for the fairness of your description of others on RC:
“ I see nobody wants to talk about more relevant climate science as they’d rather measure penises over the nature of back radiation than discuss [articles Killian brings up]”
– it’s up to them to decide.
===
for those interested in the actual arguments about the article Killian brought up for discussion – see (262).
CCHolleysays
Zebra @293
Agree, I’ve ignored most of the z1 discussion, but looking back, yes they are one and the same.
The McGuffin persona is a complete phony pretending to be knowledgable yet fails miserably on basics. Not worthy of any intelligent discussion. He is just full of BS.
In discussion of atmospheric energy fluxes, McGuffin: ”On Energy flux I’ve been speaking of fluxes; it is well known, by those who know it well, that fluxes are expressed in W’s unless you are a meteorologist in which case it means flux density.”
Energy flux as discussed in atmospheric physics is a flux density and “those that know it well” know that it is expressed in Watts per Meter Squared, NOT Watts.
Talking about absorption, McGuffin states: The portion of OLR that is absorbed is annihilated and converted to kinetic and potential energy of the molecules.
When a photon is absorbed by a molecule, it is the electrons that actually absorb the quanta of energy from the photon and the electrons move to a higher energy state. Photons are not *annihilated* — in particle physics, annihilation is the process that occurs when a subatomic particle (photons are NOT particles, they have no mass) collides with its respective antiparticle eliminating both, example is an electron colliding with a positron and both disappearing while producing two photons.
McGuffin: In summary, OLR absorbed by the atmosphere is not “reradiated back towards the surface.”
McGuffin’s makes two points to support his silly claim. In the lower atmosphere the energy absorbed by CO2 is transferred to the rest of the atmosphere by conduction. In the upper atmosphere, the absorbed energy is not transferred by conduction due to the lower densities and therefore cannot warm. So what? Neither point tells us anything about radiation. This stupidly ignores that the CO2 in the atmosphere must radiate per S-B in all directions all the time regardless of how the new heat is redistributed in the atmosphere or the amount of conduction that occurs.
nigeljsays
Richard Colombe @21 said “It seems to me if you scientists knew how to read charts (try https://history.aip.org/climate/xMethane.htm), you would know that with every 100 ppm increase of CO2, there is a corresponding 5 – 10 degrees C increase in temperature” ( coming out of the historical glaciations over a 5000 year period)
And yet we are now told that equilibrium (long term thousands or years) climate sensitivity suggests a change in 100 ppm of CO2 would cause much less warming than this, (although still serious from a human perspective).
As a relative layperson I’m confused about the discrepancy. Could someone explain? Is it because the warming period about 10,000 years ago was driven partly by an orbital change as well as CO2 levels, and that initial CO2 levels back then were lower so generated more warming due to less saturation ? ( I think Piotr said something like that). Or does equilibrium climate sensitivity not stretch to 5000 years? Or what?
“…does equilibrium climate sensitivity not stretch to 5000 years?”
I note that:
1) A change from 200 ppm to 300 ppm is 50%, whereas the change from 300 to 400 is only 33%;
2) Yes, the LGMin was driven by orbital changes, and secondarily by CO2 (“A feedback, not a forcing.”)
Piotrsays
Re: nigelj (305) – Nigel, you may have the wrong thread, unless you posted here … on purpose (quite understandably, given the well-informed, succinct and not at all arrogant quality of that Richard Colombe guy in the original thread)
Anyway, yes, the warming due to deglaciation 180->280ppm CO2, does not extrapolate onto “every 100ppm increase” as our little Richard believes:
Several reasons:
1. The most important – heating per ppm of pCO2 is much more effective at low pCO2, i.e. dT/dpCO2 at 180ppm is much smaller than at 280ppm, which in turn is smaller than that at 380ppm etc.
That’s because the windows of IR absorption by CO2 – are more saturated and therefore producing less and less of additional heating with increasing conc. CO2.
(dT/dpCO2 decreases with increasing pCO2). That’s why in an early Paleozoic with CO2 levels x times of those today – the CO2 effect was NOT x-times higher.
Still, the dT/dpCO2 does not go to zero at the very high levels, as some denialist would like – since not all the windows would become 100% saturated, and the effective height of back-radiation is lower -> IR emitted toward Earth Surface is higher temps -> more of backradiation.
2. At shorter time scales – decades, a century- given the thermal inertia of the system, the higher CO2 may not have time to realize their heating potential
(that’s like if you were the water on a stove, you keep increasing the heating level faster than the steady state for any subsequent level could be reached).
3. Some feedbacks would not work the same way at low and at high pCO2. For instance, the albedo effect depends on rate of change of the ice/snow covered area. The bigger dArea(snow+ice)/dt the stronger the effect. Currently, there is less area covered with ice and snow left, so further _decreases_ (in km2) will be smaller, than they were during deglaciation 180ppm-280 ppm.
Also, radiative impact of ice/snow is the largest in lower latitudes – (there is less solar radiation to reflect into space at high lats) and the ice at 180ppm extended to much lower lats than it does today.
Water vapour feedback also probably would be weaker in high pCO2 world (the H2O absorption windows more saturated).
Methane – in methane the effect of saturation would be complicated – with potentially increased releases from permafrost/ocean methane hydrates, how the wetland release work who knows.
(Natural fluxes of CO2 would be affected as well, but in this context they would be entangled in our x-axis values (T=f(pCO2)) so I won’t speculate there)
Cloud albedo may change, but it won’t likely to be in a linear manner. (read somewhere that if the temps increase past some threshold the deck clouds over the ocean stop forming).
nigelj @305,
Note this is a discussion of climate sensitivity during deglaciation which started (& is still on-going) on a different RC comment thread.
The deglaciation of 20kya-12kya was only partly driven by GHGs. Gregoire et al (2015) suggests 30% was direct GHG contribution to a global temperature rise and that was no more than +6ºC, or a GHG contribution of less than +2ºC.
The CO2 forcing for a 170ppm to 280ppm rise would be 2.2Wm^-2 (0.59 of a doubling). Add 10% for the CH4 forcing and the suggested ECS = ~3ºC, a value entirely consistent with estimates for today.
I would add that the commenter on that other thread who prompted this discussion appears more like a troll than somebody genuinely attempting to understand the science.
The warming in a deglaciation is started by redistribution of sunlight by Milankovic cycles, augmented by the ice-albedo feedback, and is then amplified by CO2. A change in CO2 of 100 ppm by itself (from 180) does not cause all that much warming, although what it does cause is amplified by the usual feedbacks. It’s about 3 K from other causes and 3 K from CO2 in a natural deglaciation.
zebrasays
CCHolley #304,
I saw in a previous post that you got the point of me asking TMZ1 about units.
It really isn’t that hard to demonstrate that someone is faking it, but as I’ve been saying, you do it by asking questions, and requiring that they make clear and definitive statements. Only then should one reply with the facts.
To me, the kind of ambiguous language used by TMZ1 is an obvious “tell” for trolls.
Brian Dodgesays
” As a result, OLR absorbed by the atmosphere is not “reradiated back towards the surface.”
Then tell me what my IR thermometer is measuring when I point it to the sky? Chopped baloney?
The measured temperature is warmer if its humid, or there are clouds. The temperatures are colder when I measure the “sky” up on the Blue Ridge Parkway at 5000ft above sea level instead of 300ft ASL. Is the chopped baloney density lower at higher altitudes? What is the CBLR(chopped baloney lapse rate? Does it depend on the baloney moisture content?
CCHolleysays
nigelj @305
I think you’ve forgotten that the CO2 effect is logarithmic and not linear. Richard Colombe is apparently just ignorant of that fact–you can’t straight up use a temperature increase of 100 ppm in the past to linearly extrapolate to the future as he suggests. That’s why sensitivity is given in degrees per doubling of CO2 concentration, not per 100 ppm.
To get the equivalent warming you got with an increase from about 180 ppm to 280 ppm, today off the top of my head, I think you’d need an increase of closer to 200 ppm.
That was an LOL–as well as a reminder that “back radiation” is first an empirical reality. (And has been known in the scientific literature since 1814 or so, with the Rumfoord Medal-winning work of William Charles Wells–a native South Carolinian, BTW.)
I need help concerning this question: does more ocean salinity, all else equal, cause sea level rise or fall? More specifically, can glacier melt cause sea levels to decline in short term?
I have found arguments either way. More salt causes water volume, thus sea level, to increase. More salt makes the water heavier, which compresses the water column and lowers the sea level.
nigeljsays
Thanks to all for the information on the 100 ppm CO2 issue. It explains the discrepancy well. Piotr, I posted on this thread by mistake. Just kicking myself over that. I got distracted by a phone call. CCHolley you didn’t misunderstand the question.
“Eggheads, pfft! What do they know?” –Homer Simpson
[Response: Actually I think it’s quite good and nuanced. – gavin]
CCHolleysays
Kevin McKinney @313
Thank you so much for that link on Wells. I’ve come across his work in the past and have found him quite fascinating.
BTW, when I give talks on the science behind global warming I always start with the history of the science because that science goes so far back in time it is hard for someone to argue with a straight face that it is a modern hoax or that the basic science is still disputed. The history of the science shows that the science is quite robust.
I also always find it highly ironic that the invention of a practical steam engine in the late 1700s that started the industrial revolution in turn stimulated much activity with the study of heat. Studies that were meant to make the capturing of energy from the burning of coal more efficient in turn allowed us to understand atmospheric physics and that understanding led to the realization well over a hundred years ago that the release of CO2 from burning coal would warm the planet.
CCHolleysays
t marvell @ 314
I need help concerning this question: does more ocean salinity, all else equal, cause sea level rise or fall? More specifically, can glacier melt cause sea levels to decline in short term?
I have found arguments either way. More salt causes water volume, thus sea level, to increase. More salt makes the water heavier, which compresses the water column and lowers the sea level.
Salt dissolves in water as ions so its addition does not change the volume–it just makes it denser.
Also liquids are generally incompressible unless the pressures are quite extreme so I find it hard to believe that a denser salt water would result in lower sea levels due to greater compression of the depths. Nor the opposite that lower salinity would cause sea levels to rise due to less compression.
By the way, adding fresh water from glacier melt would make it less dense which is counter to the question asked.
Piotrsays
t marvell(314): “More salt causes water volume, thus sea level, to increase”
The opposite. It is lowering of the salinity (e.g. from melting sea ice) that lowers the density, that in turn increases the volume of the water. I think Gavin may have mentioned in his tweet(?) a link to the paper that quantified it.
tm: More salt makes the water heavier, which compresses the water column and lowers the sea level.
What process causes “more salt”? If evaporation, then you actually are losing mass (all the evaporated fresh water leaving behind the salt). If you blew the salt by wind(?) then perhaps you could – but the increase in weight would be so small and the water incompressibility so high that I doubt you could measure the effect.
And if you lower salinity by melting sea ice there is no effect by compression since you didn’t increase the weight…
t marvell @314,
I think you questioning about ocean salinity is akin to asking about how the positioning of the deckchairs on the Titanic affected the sinking, but let’s imagine the Titanic was actually carrying a massive load of deckchairs and not passengers.
The water-volume-change thing is a bit involved. Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.
Back of fag packet.
Your average ocean is 4,000m deep and compression would be 1.8% at 400bar suggesting a 35m sea level effect due to pressure. If you take out all the salt from the oceans, the ocean mass would drop 3.5% and, pro rata, sea level with less compression would rise 1.2m. But a bigger effect globally would perhaps result from the sizable pile of salt (twice the weight of today’s global ice) which would have to find a new home somewhere else on the planet.
Mr. Know It Allsays
58 – Mike
“Daily CO2
Apr. 5, 2021 = 418.71 ppm
Apr. 5, 2020 = 416.03 ppm
CO2 levels back around the current baseline at 2.68 ppm yoy after a brief spike over 5 ppm.”
mkia: During that time the world economy was nearly stopped, yet CO2 increased as usual. We’ve been told for decades that humans are causing CO2 to increase, not natural phenomenon. Doesn’t this past year put that theory in doubt? I’ll submit this challenge to accepted AGW theory for my Nobel Prize. :)
TYSON MCGUFFINsays
From Professor Bohren’s discussion about the atmosphere’s contribution to the radiation exchange with the surface:
p. 31.
… explanations of the greenhouse effect have been designed more with journalists and politicians in mind than scientists.
p. 35.
Although one interpretation cannot be right and the other wrong, one may be less misleading, more felicitous than the other. We prefer the increased emission interpretation for a few reasons. According to this interpretation we are warmed at the surface of Earth by two sources of radiation: the sun and the atmosphere. With this interpretation the atmosphere is actually doing something (emitting) whereas according to the other interpretation it only prevents something from happening. Moreover, the notion that the atmosphere traps radiation is at best a bad metaphor, at worst downright silly. In the emission interpretation the atmosphere is a source of radiation, not a photon trap that corrals wayward photons and sends them back to Earth just as a truant officer returns wayward children to school. A truant officer can return children to school because they are distinguishable, whereas photons are not. If this doesn’t bother you, what about the fact that the spectrum of the radiation emitted by the ground to the atmosphere is not the same as the spectrum of radiation emitted to the ground by the atmosphere?
To further bolster the emission interpretation, consider the following thought experiment. Quickly paint the entire globe with a highly conducting metallic paint, thereby reducing the emissivity of the surface to near zero. Because the surface no longer emits radiation, none can be “trapped” by the atmosphere. Yet the atmosphere keeps radiating as before, oblivious to the absence of radiation from the surface (at least initially; as the temperature of the atmosphere drops, its emission rate drops). Of course, if the surface doesn’t emit radiation but continues to absorb solar radiation, the surface temperature rises and no equilibrium is possible until the emission spectrum shifts to regions for which the emissivity is not zero.
p. 37.
As the emissivity of the atmosphere increases, we expect downward radiation from it to increase (all else being equal). This is yet another reason why assertions about the “atmosphere acting like a blanket” are absurd.
Fundamentals of Atmospheric Radiation: An Introduction with 400 Problems. Craig F. Bohren and Eugene E. Clothiaux, 2006
James Galasyn @315,
Is that video you reference actually serving up what you terms as FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt)? It is not a trivial assertion you make as FUD is usually considered an underhand tactic.
Surely the bulk of the video is showing a kind-of-opposite of what you claim: certain reason to be fearful of AGW if we were stupid enough to doubt the science!! And you unwisely appear to think the wisdom of Homer Simpson is worthy of quoting, a character who of course occasionally (like a broken clock) is correct but usually is a plain-&-simple dumbass. (He even knows he is an idiot, once exclaiming “Lord Help Me, I’m Just Not That Bright.”)
And you fail to grasp that “end-up” message.
Having demonstrated that the swivel-eyed denialists are a bunch of Fallacious Unscientific Deniers who have proved incapable of doing right by mankind, the video sets out a post-script that says we should not see a bad AGW outcome as being unavoidable. The “end-up” message is that we shouldn’t be surrender-monkeys. Surrender-monkeys are “overly certain and perhaps unimaginative” yet imagination is an important ingredient, even in science. “Surely imagination, grounded in hard science knowledge can be of use in forecasting a future of our own making. But to devise and rally behind a good plan, we first have to believe, I mean really believe, that our future is uncertain, because only then might we be so bold to as to shape it.”
TYSON MCGUFFINsays
321 Mr. Know It All
During that time the world economy was nearly stopped, yet CO2 increased as usual.
Can’t speak for the world, but the U.S. fossil fuels consumption did not stop.
Piotrsays
Re: (321)
Ask for your money back from whoever feeds you their “Nobel Prize” caliber arguments, genius: emission means adding; a slightly less adding is still adding, hence the increase in pCO2.
He drives to the basket, he jumps, he makes the basket celebration moves in mid-air, and … he is denied!. Again.
It’s really hard to imagine how KIA can be so gormless with such apparent lack of effort–though, come to think of it, “lack of effort” can account for quite a lot.
Amazing how the lack of a Covid pandemic can keep your economy humming, even with lots of your major customers struggling. China today has 90,622 cases, good for #95 on the global list.
But that’s absolute numbers; relative to population, it’s just 63 cases per million population, or #212 on the global list.
Piotrsays
MA Rodger (324) Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.
I don’t agree with zero. Small, given the amount of salt available, but not “zero”.
Let’s do some back of the envelope calculation. For simplicity, lets make seawater: add 35.1g of salt to 1l of freshwater at temp. 4C. The volume of freshwater and salt before mixing: 1000cm3 +35/2cm3 = 1017 cm3. The resulting seawater has mass of 1035g, salinity S=35. From T-S table we get density = 1.028 g/cm3, hence the volume of 1035g/1.028(g/cm3) = 1007 cm3.
1000 cm3 < 1007 cm3 < 1017 cm3
So adding salt to the ocean does increase sea level. Slightly, but still.
But as you pointed out – the amount of salt needed to a difference in the real world – would be stupendous.
On the other hand, the increase of the seawater due to melting of sea-ice might have some effect on the sealevel (here we do not add or remove mass from the system, so the fresher ocean taking up more space is not being offset).
Plus the indirect effect that melting of seaice allows the seawater to be warm up which would further increase the sealevel.
Troll TYSON MCGUFFIN @322,
What is the point you are trying so hard to make with that quote from the college book of Craig Bohren?
First off, he isn’t exactly the a wonderful reference source as the man is too crazy to unshackle all the cranky foibles he has collected to himself through the years. (He famously has problems coping with the use of an arithmetic mean to measure global temperature: apparently something about arithmetic means being suitable only for shoe-less waifs.)
Secondly the quote you present with its two different “interpretations” is simply two interpretations of that same old single-slab-atmosphere model, again. Bohren (& Clothiaux) goes on to say this single-slab-atmosphere model “contains a trap” which is explained as a limitation in the validity of the one-slab-atmosphere model, this something you have been struggling to accept since your first trotted out from under your dank & smelly bridge to disturb this comment thread with your nonsense.
You served up you “simple model” @120 before declaring it not to be yours at all but from Petty’s book. Now you serve up the other reference used on this subject by Wikithing. So Well done you!!!
But it is not at all clear what the point is of you again thrustfully trolling here with your flying bacon. (Presumably it isn’t actually Kosher.) What is the point you are trying so hard to make with that quote?
Piotrsays
MA Rodger (324) Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.
I don’t agree with “zero”. Small, given the amount of salt available, but not “zero”.
Let’s do some back of the envelope calculation. For simplicity, lets make seawater: add 35.1g of salt to 1l of freshwater at temp. 4C. The volume of freshwater and salt before mixing: 1000cm3 +35/2cm3 = 1017 cm3. The resulting seawater has mass of 1035g, salinity S=35. From T-S table we get density = 1.028 g/cm3, hence the volume of 1035g/1.028(g/cm3) = 1007 cm3.
1000 cm3 < 1007 cm3 < 1017 cm3
So adding salt to the ocean does increase sea level. Slightly, but still.
But as you pointed out – the amount of salt needed to a difference in the real world – would be stupendous.
On the other hand, the increase of the seawater due to melting of sea-ice might have some effect on the sealevel (here we do not add or remove mass from the system, so the fresher ocean taking up more space is not being offset).
Plus the indirect effect that melting of seaice allows the seawater to be warm up which would further increase the sealevel.
t marvellsays
Thank you 318,319,320 for answering my post 314, about whether more or less sea water salinity increases or decreases sea level, all else equal. The lowering due to weight of additional salt seems clear. But for some reason there are differing opinions about the simple question whether more (or less) salinity affects sea level, all else equal. Opinions are about equally divided between increasing, decreasing, and no effect on sea level.
Piotr, can you give me more information about where to find the Gavin paper you referenced?
The reason I ask these questions is that I find that higher temperatures in the northern hemisphere lower world sea levels over 5 years, significant to the six sigma level. That effect is not found for southern hemisphere temperature. Over the long term, I find that higher temperatures lead to higher sea levels in both hemispheres. I am exploring whether ice melt, which is greater in the northern hemisphere, could account for this difference. It is, of course, likely that other confounding forces account for the difference between hemispheres.
Piotrsays
TYSON MCGUFFIN (322) From Professor Bohren’s p. 31.
… explanations of the greenhouse effect have been designed more with journalists and politicians in mind than scientists.”
Hey, McGuffin, was the inability to distinguish between a metaphor (of a greenhouse) and the real atm. – a z1’s thing ???
p.35. In the emission interpretation the atmosphere is a source of radiation, not a photon trap that corrals wayward photons and sends them back to Earth just as a truant officer returns wayward children to school. A truant officer can return children to school because they are distinguishable, whereas photons are not.
WHY would S_B law required ability to … distinguish photons????
– You, Johnny, get to be emitted upward, not you Billy, back to the Earth you go!
p. 37. As the emissivity of the atmosphere increases we expect downward radiation from it to increase.
Why would EMISSIVITY of the atmosphere increase? The atmosphere gets somehow …MORE like a black body???
This is yet another reason why assertions about the “atmosphere acting like a blanket” are absurd
Why? If I insulate my house (“blanket”) then the insulation would block some of the heat loss to the outside … For the same amount of the electric/or furnace heating I will have warmer temps in the insulated house. Why is this an “absurd”?
CCHolleysays
RE. z1/McGuffin @322
Too funny.
At least now we know where z1/McGuffin gets his silly ideas. Problem is, he doesn’t have a clue that what he quoted from Bohren and Clothiaux doesn’t say what he thinks it says nor does it support his arguments.
Bohren and Clothiaux certainly do not argue that *back-radiation* does not exist. In fact, they clearly support that the atmosphere radiates toward the surface which is the definition of back-radiation. And clearly, Bohren and Clothiaux certainly do not deny that the atmosphere warmed by greenhouse gas absorption of surface radiation does not radiate back towards the surface raising the temperature of the surface. Their only complaint are that some of the analogies made to describe the greenhouse effect are silly. And from a pure science stance perhaps they have a point, but from a simple communication standpoint maybe not so much. So what? It is only an opinion from science purists of which I mostly agree.
As for back-radiation, what Bohren and Clothiaux argue is that the atmosphere and greenhouse gases are not some photon trap capturing photons and flinging them back towards the surface. And guess what, no one on this site has made that claim. No one. It has been stated over and over again that the greenhouse gas molecules emit radiation in all directions, both toward the surface (back-radiation) and towards space only based on their temperature per S-B law. Which is exactly what Bohren and Clothiaux state with their non-radiating surface analogy. And furthermore they do not claim that CO2 and other greenhouse gases do not absorb photons from the surface nor that the absorption does not cause warming of the atmosphere which, in turn, radiates back towards the surface. Because It does. Back-radiation, radiation from the atmosphere to the surface exists per B and C and that radiation contributes to the warming of the surface. Period.
z1/McGuffin is an idiot.
And he’ll only get it when PIGS FLY.
CCHolleysays
Mr. Know Nothing @321
Could you please give us your theory as to where all that CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by mankind is going if not into the atmosphere? And assuming it is somehow magically disappearing, where then is the rise in atmospheric CO2 actually coming from?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Brian Dodgesays
321 Mr. Know It All
“During that time the world economy was nearly stopped, yet CO2 increased as usual.” Fossil fuel consumption didn’t stop; it didn’t even stop growing, although it hasn’t grown as fast.
“More worrying is the trend for carbon emissions. The slowing in the
growth of carbon emissions to 0.5% in 2019 may suggest some grounds
for optimism. But this deceleration needs to be seen in the context of the
big increase in carbon emissions in 2018 of 2.1%. The hope was that as
the one-off factors boosting carbon emissions in 2018 unwound, carbon
emissions would fall significantly. That fall did not happen. The average
annual growth in carbon emissions over 2018 and 2019 was greater than
its 10-year average. As the world emerges from the COVID-19 crisis it
needs to make decisive changes to move to a more sustainable path.” https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2020-full-report.pdf
Killiansays
316 James Galasyn says:
27 Apr 2021 at 7:44 PM
Here’s some slickly produced FUD that ends up prescribing “imagination” as the solution to abrupt climate change: Degrees of Uncertainty – A data-driven look at climate change and public trust in science.
“Eggheads, pfft! What do they know?” –Homer Simpson
[Response: Actually I think it’s quite good and nuanced. – gavin]
Unfortunately, it gets into pure propaganda at the end of the sort gavin really seems to appreciate: Defeatists!!! But the video uses a false dichotomy of imagination and hope vs. defeatism as if defeatism is the definition of realism. It leaves out completely that error bars do not = risk or that the problem with the “positivism” of climate science, scientists, politicians, et al., exists in an echo chanber that rarely if ever discusses long-tail risks and depends heavily on confirmation bias: What we have is good, what we have should be kept and the utterly unsustainable is sustainable, so we love all the solutions that aren’t solutions!
Russellsays
Let us rejoyce that Earth Month has but 30 days, for that was long enough to hold the greatest Climateball story ever told:
287 Piotr says: Killian said@
24 Apr 2021 at 10:24 PM
Science info was posted. Science info was ignored. The ignoring of science info was noted. There is nothing to defend in that sequence. You’re an idiot.”
Eeer, that’s not how I recall it.
Who cares? You’re a nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter. Until you decide not to be, you’re pretty useless and add nothing to this site other don’t already do better.
You might be of use if you decided to stop acting like a rabid chihuahua.
With the official start to the 2021 NA Hurricane season now a month off, the predictions for the new season are appearing and with a consistent set of “above average” numbers (roughly 18 named storms, 8 Hurricanes, 3 Major Hurricanes) and not greatly different to the early predictions for the 2020 season.
316 – James Calasyn
“Here’s some slickly produced FUD that ends up prescribing “imagination” as the solution to abrupt climate change:…”
Slick, well-made video! It supports what “deniers” have always said – there is much uncertainty in the temperature record. It notes that a reliable thermometer did not exist until 1714. I doubt they were widely distributed for another 100 years, and even then, only to developed nations (basically only in Europe). Australia didn’t exist as a nation until 1901, Whites didn’t venture far into Africa until around 1900, much of North America was not inhabited by Whites until the late 1800s and early 1900s. The history of the interior of Asia is similar. That’s most of the land mass of the earth with no significant capability to measure accurate temperatures until perhaps the 1900s, probably the mid 1900s!
On imagination, the video lacked just that. Engineers and technology will pull our butts up off the hot sand so that AGW doesn’t kill us – we’ll be pulling large quantities of CO2 out of the air soon. Killian’s agriculture may play a significant role as well. Also, Bill Gates has a sun-dimming technology plan. The future looks bright on the AGW front – not so much on some others, but that’s outside the scope of RC.
325 – Tyson McGuffin
Per EIA, our CO2 emissions dropped significantly. I suspect the world did the same, but the big polluters (India and China) are still developing and likely have poor data at best.
The transportation sector was affected the most. Energy consumption there decreased by 15% from 2019, and that was almost entirely attributable to decreased petroleum use for travel.
“Many travel restrictions were enacted in the United States during 2020, and even after some restrictions were eased, petroleum demand remained lower than previous levels. U.S. jet fuel use during Thanksgiving week of 2020 was about half of the 2019 volume. Overall, consumption of jet fuel by the transportation sector in the United States dropped by 38%, motor gasoline by 13% and distillate fuel oil (diesel) by 7%.
A group of friends more knowledgeable, on the whole, than I am had a look at the video and on close inspection I agree with them that it is insidious. It’s very clever, and quite properly “scientific” but compared climate science to things like vaccine denial as if the humongous research and data on temperature history were dubious. It doesn’t quite go there, but the implication is useful – as you see here, used by Mr. KIA – to those eager to encourage doubt and uncertainty. There’s a fine line there. Perhaps JG’s language could have been more moderate, but this is just the kind of deceptive material that allows ordinary people to assume there’s more uncertainty than there is. (Please, let us not confuse error bars (which are large) with uncertainty about the larger subject.)
Given the fact that a goodly % of our tax dollars subsidize the fossil industry, and therefore, a goodly portion of that “disposable income” is/can be used to subsidize the denier-sphere, I purpose a serious effort to END TAX-FUNDED POLLUTION OF THE COMMONS. Just deduct all the fossil advertising efforts from the subsidies.
Susan Andersonsays
@337 Russell
chortle! Thanks for the levity, much needed.
TYSON MCGUFFINsays
339 Mr. Know It All
Per EIA, our CO2 emissions dropped significantly. Reply
The U.S. Covid-19 related drop in CO2 emissions amounted to about 16% from 2019 levels as shown here which is about 0.9 billion tons or 0.22 % of the cumulative 410.24 billion tons we have already pumped into the air (shown here.
Given the magnitude of the stock of AGHGs already in the atmosphere it stands to reason that:
The lockdown has cut emissions of many pollutants and greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. But any impact on CO2 concentrations – the result of cumulative past and current emissions – is in fact no bigger than the normal year to year fluctuations in the carbon cycle and the high natural variability in carbon sinks like vegetation…. Carbon dioxide levels continue at record levels, despite COVID-19 lockdown
As for the Nobel Prize, my preference will always be Dr James Hansen who in his testimony to the US congress warned us all. Had we acted then, we would have a better than even chance of staying under 1.5 degrees warming.
t marvell @314,
Some comment perhaps does actually bear being repeated.
As shown by the likes of van Lopik et al (2015),“the water-volume-change thing is a bit involved. Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.”
Piotrsays
t marvell: (331) “The lowering due to weight of additional salt seems clear”
I think the main point was that this effect is vanishingly small, so should not be even mentioned in the same posts as sealevel changes due to known dominant factors
(adding the water to the ocean, thermal expansion, perhaps (I haven’t done the calculation) lowering salinity effect.
(In geological time scale – you may add changes in the elevation of the seafloor: tectonic uplift/downlift and sediment accumulation).
tm(331) But for some reason there are differing opinions about the simple question whether more (or less) salinity affects sea level, all else equal. Opinions are about equally divided between increasing, decreasing, and no effect on sea level.
Part of the confusion may be laid at your feet ;-) for the way you posed the problem as “adding salt to the ocean”.
This a very hypothetical (read: unimportant) scenario – since there is no source of external salt large enough to have a measurable effect on the sealevel, at least at the time-scale of interests in this forum.
Because of that, not wanted to be dragged into the discussion of the unimportant
processes, I tried to direct you to the potentially important – not adding new salt from outside, but the redistribution of the existing salt – eg. when low salinity water is released from sea-ice (ice-melt) and mixes with high salinity water just below it: the water below drops in salinity => lower density => so the same mass of water takes more space => the sealevel rises.
So some of the confusion you see is that different authors may have been answering different questions.
There are even pictures of a lab experiment there (although you could calculate it using the seawater density calculator).
Finally if somebody say “no effect” they might just mean no effect large enough to bother.
Hence, while in theory, as I have shown, adding salt to water increases the water level (but not by as much the volume of the salt added), this still remains a basic science curiosity, since it is way to small to matter for the AGW-caused sealevel rise.
nigeljsays
Just something new related to ocean salinity in general : “Global-scale patterns of observed sea surface salinity intensified since the 1870s”
Killian said@24 Apr 2021 at 10:24 PM Who cares? You’re a nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter. Until you decide not to be, you’re pretty useless and add nothing to this site other don’t already do better. You might be of use if you decided to stop acting like a rabid chihuahua.
Killian reply: 24 Apr 2021 at 10:25 PM ankle… typing is poor me do not good thing.
Russell (337) “Let us rejoyce that Earth Month has but 30 days, for that was long enough to hold the greatest Climateball story ever told“.
Well, Russel, give a guy some slack – if your entire argument was limited to insults, and a typo ruined that insult, wouldn’t you rush to fix it?
Irony was that who needs a trivial typo when it was the least absurd part of his posts?
Our Killian first bitterly complained that nobody comments on articles he brought up, when I commented with specific and falsifiable criticisms to those, he goes postal: deletes everything except a … reference call, and latches onto a single word there:
Piotr(270: “Re: Killian (220) defending Killian (91)”
– Killian(280) “There is nothing to defend in that sequence. You’re an idiot.”
And having just done the MOST PEDANTIC thing I can think off (attacking … a neutral word in … a reference call) Killian calls …ME: “ “a nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter.“.
What TYPO could ever match the humor of _THAT_ ? ;-)
P.S. I haven’t loved Killian’s typo ALSO because I like my typos in a Freudian slip flavour. Something like: “As I have been eluding” by the new Killian’s understudy, R. Colombe. In comparison, Killian’s”Nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter rabid chihuahua” comes across as rather … pedestrian.
Piotrsays
MA Rodger (344) “Some comment perhaps does actually bear being repeated.”
I prefer to repeat those that haven’t been disproven after their first appearance. (see: 328). But that’s me.
“Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.”
Small – yes, “zero” – no. See (328).
Killiansays
341 Leif Knutsen says:
29 Apr 2021 at 11:40 AM
Given the fact that a goodly % of our tax dollars subsidize the fossil industry
Taxes don’t fund anything. They destroy money and reduce money supply.
KIA 339: a reliable thermometer did not exist until 1714.
BPL: Google “proxies” and “paleoclimatology.” Also, take a course in statistics. One thermometer might be highly unreliable, but ten of them will be less so, on average, and a hundred less unreliable still, and so on.
ankle… typing is poor me do not good thing.
zebra @293 says: “This is for all the people who have been responding to the z1/TM entity….1. Does anyone doubt that this is the same person? (see #283, where it forgets which persona it is supposed to be)”
Imo they are not the same person. Its not clear that #283 makes them the same person just because theres discussion on how the CO2 molecule behaves. They have subtly different writing styles, and different formatting styles ( TM uses bold type, z1 all Caps). I doubt one person would act out differences of that sort.
They mostly make very different points. Sock puppets usually just say the same stuff, but assume different names. It’s not very subtle. And z1 comes across as a climate denialist, while TM just has strange views about how the greenhouse effect operates. It wouldn’t make sense for one sock puppet to be a denialist, but not the other.
Killian (300)
287 Piotr: “Eeer, that’s not how I recall it. […] But to avoid the “he said, she said” – here is the original [262] , so anybody can decide for themselves who of us two tells the truth about it
Killian (300): “ Who cares? ”
“Who cares” about … falsifiable arguments about the paper you brought up , after bitterly complaining how nobody wanted to _discuss_ your articles????
Killian (300): “You’re a nasty, uselessly pedantic little ankle-biter.”
That’s … rich coming from somebody, who in response to my falsifiable arguments
about the paper he brought up for discussion, deleted the response and instead tries to dismiss me on a …. pedantic technicality – my use of a word “defending”
in a … reference call:” Piotr: “Re: Killian (220) defending Killian (91) “???
As for your “arguments” about me:
– “uselessly pedantic little [ankle]-biter”
– “like a rabid chihuahua.”
– “You’re an idiot.”
I care only about opinions of people I respect. So, no harm done …;-)
As for the fairness of your description of others on RC:
“ I see nobody wants to talk about more relevant climate science as they’d rather measure penises over the nature of back radiation than discuss [articles Killian brings up]”
– it’s up to them to decide.
===
for those interested in the actual arguments about the article Killian brought up for discussion – see (262).
Zebra @293
Agree, I’ve ignored most of the z1 discussion, but looking back, yes they are one and the same.
The McGuffin persona is a complete phony pretending to be knowledgable yet fails miserably on basics. Not worthy of any intelligent discussion. He is just full of BS.
In discussion of atmospheric energy fluxes, McGuffin: ”On Energy flux I’ve been speaking of fluxes; it is well known, by those who know it well, that fluxes are expressed in W’s unless you are a meteorologist in which case it means flux density.”
Energy flux as discussed in atmospheric physics is a flux density and “those that know it well” know that it is expressed in Watts per Meter Squared, NOT Watts.
Talking about absorption, McGuffin states: The portion of OLR that is absorbed is annihilated and converted to kinetic and potential energy of the molecules.
When a photon is absorbed by a molecule, it is the electrons that actually absorb the quanta of energy from the photon and the electrons move to a higher energy state. Photons are not *annihilated* — in particle physics, annihilation is the process that occurs when a subatomic particle (photons are NOT particles, they have no mass) collides with its respective antiparticle eliminating both, example is an electron colliding with a positron and both disappearing while producing two photons.
McGuffin: In summary, OLR absorbed by the atmosphere is not “reradiated back towards the surface.”
McGuffin’s makes two points to support his silly claim. In the lower atmosphere the energy absorbed by CO2 is transferred to the rest of the atmosphere by conduction. In the upper atmosphere, the absorbed energy is not transferred by conduction due to the lower densities and therefore cannot warm. So what? Neither point tells us anything about radiation. This stupidly ignores that the CO2 in the atmosphere must radiate per S-B in all directions all the time regardless of how the new heat is redistributed in the atmosphere or the amount of conduction that occurs.
Richard Colombe @21 said “It seems to me if you scientists knew how to read charts (try https://history.aip.org/climate/xMethane.htm), you would know that with every 100 ppm increase of CO2, there is a corresponding 5 – 10 degrees C increase in temperature” ( coming out of the historical glaciations over a 5000 year period)
And yet we are now told that equilibrium (long term thousands or years) climate sensitivity suggests a change in 100 ppm of CO2 would cause much less warming than this, (although still serious from a human perspective).
As a relative layperson I’m confused about the discrepancy. Could someone explain? Is it because the warming period about 10,000 years ago was driven partly by an orbital change as well as CO2 levels, and that initial CO2 levels back then were lower so generated more warming due to less saturation ? ( I think Piotr said something like that). Or does equilibrium climate sensitivity not stretch to 5000 years? Or what?
nigel, #305–
“…does equilibrium climate sensitivity not stretch to 5000 years?”
I note that:
1) A change from 200 ppm to 300 ppm is 50%, whereas the change from 300 to 400 is only 33%;
2) Yes, the LGMin was driven by orbital changes, and secondarily by CO2 (“A feedback, not a forcing.”)
Re: nigelj (305) – Nigel, you may have the wrong thread, unless you posted here … on purpose (quite understandably, given the well-informed, succinct and not at all arrogant quality of that Richard Colombe guy in the original thread)
Anyway, yes, the warming due to deglaciation 180->280ppm CO2, does not extrapolate onto “every 100ppm increase” as our little Richard believes:
Several reasons:
1. The most important – heating per ppm of pCO2 is much more effective at low pCO2, i.e. dT/dpCO2 at 180ppm is much smaller than at 280ppm, which in turn is smaller than that at 380ppm etc.
That’s because the windows of IR absorption by CO2 – are more saturated and therefore producing less and less of additional heating with increasing conc. CO2.
(dT/dpCO2 decreases with increasing pCO2). That’s why in an early Paleozoic with CO2 levels x times of those today – the CO2 effect was NOT x-times higher.
Still, the dT/dpCO2 does not go to zero at the very high levels, as some denialist would like – since not all the windows would become 100% saturated, and the effective height of back-radiation is lower -> IR emitted toward Earth Surface is higher temps -> more of backradiation.
2. At shorter time scales – decades, a century- given the thermal inertia of the system, the higher CO2 may not have time to realize their heating potential
(that’s like if you were the water on a stove, you keep increasing the heating level faster than the steady state for any subsequent level could be reached).
3. Some feedbacks would not work the same way at low and at high pCO2. For instance, the albedo effect depends on rate of change of the ice/snow covered area. The bigger dArea(snow+ice)/dt the stronger the effect. Currently, there is less area covered with ice and snow left, so further _decreases_ (in km2) will be smaller, than they were during deglaciation 180ppm-280 ppm.
Also, radiative impact of ice/snow is the largest in lower latitudes – (there is less solar radiation to reflect into space at high lats) and the ice at 180ppm extended to much lower lats than it does today.
Water vapour feedback also probably would be weaker in high pCO2 world (the H2O absorption windows more saturated).
Methane – in methane the effect of saturation would be complicated – with potentially increased releases from permafrost/ocean methane hydrates, how the wetland release work who knows.
(Natural fluxes of CO2 would be affected as well, but in this context they would be entangled in our x-axis values (T=f(pCO2)) so I won’t speculate there)
Cloud albedo may change, but it won’t likely to be in a linear manner. (read somewhere that if the temps increase past some threshold the deck clouds over the ocean stop forming).
nigelj @305,
Note this is a discussion of climate sensitivity during deglaciation which started (& is still on-going) on a different RC comment thread.
The deglaciation of 20kya-12kya was only partly driven by GHGs. Gregoire et al (2015) suggests 30% was direct GHG contribution to a global temperature rise and that was no more than +6ºC, or a GHG contribution of less than +2ºC.
The CO2 forcing for a 170ppm to 280ppm rise would be 2.2Wm^-2 (0.59 of a doubling). Add 10% for the CH4 forcing and the suggested ECS = ~3ºC, a value entirely consistent with estimates for today.
I would add that the commenter on that other thread who prompted this discussion appears more like a troll than somebody genuinely attempting to understand the science.
n 305,
The warming in a deglaciation is started by redistribution of sunlight by Milankovic cycles, augmented by the ice-albedo feedback, and is then amplified by CO2. A change in CO2 of 100 ppm by itself (from 180) does not cause all that much warming, although what it does cause is amplified by the usual feedbacks. It’s about 3 K from other causes and 3 K from CO2 in a natural deglaciation.
CCHolley #304,
I saw in a previous post that you got the point of me asking TMZ1 about units.
It really isn’t that hard to demonstrate that someone is faking it, but as I’ve been saying, you do it by asking questions, and requiring that they make clear and definitive statements. Only then should one reply with the facts.
To me, the kind of ambiguous language used by TMZ1 is an obvious “tell” for trolls.
” As a result, OLR absorbed by the atmosphere is not “reradiated back towards the surface.”
Then tell me what my IR thermometer is measuring when I point it to the sky? Chopped baloney?
The measured temperature is warmer if its humid, or there are clouds. The temperatures are colder when I measure the “sky” up on the Blue Ridge Parkway at 5000ft above sea level instead of 300ft ASL. Is the chopped baloney density lower at higher altitudes? What is the CBLR(chopped baloney lapse rate? Does it depend on the baloney moisture content?
nigelj @305
I think you’ve forgotten that the CO2 effect is logarithmic and not linear. Richard Colombe is apparently just ignorant of that fact–you can’t straight up use a temperature increase of 100 ppm in the past to linearly extrapolate to the future as he suggests. That’s why sensitivity is given in degrees per doubling of CO2 concentration, not per 100 ppm.
To get the equivalent warming you got with an increase from about 180 ppm to 280 ppm, today off the top of my head, I think you’d need an increase of closer to 200 ppm.
But perhaps I misunderstood the question.
#311–
Props to Brian Dodge for the inspired “CBLR!”
That was an LOL–as well as a reminder that “back radiation” is first an empirical reality. (And has been known in the scientific literature since 1814 or so, with the Rumfoord Medal-winning work of William Charles Wells–a native South Carolinian, BTW.)
https://discover.hubpages.com/education/Global-Warming-Science-In-The-Age-Of-Washington-And-Jefferson-William-Charles-Wells
I need help concerning this question: does more ocean salinity, all else equal, cause sea level rise or fall? More specifically, can glacier melt cause sea levels to decline in short term?
I have found arguments either way. More salt causes water volume, thus sea level, to increase. More salt makes the water heavier, which compresses the water column and lowers the sea level.
Thanks to all for the information on the 100 ppm CO2 issue. It explains the discrepancy well. Piotr, I posted on this thread by mistake. Just kicking myself over that. I got distracted by a phone call. CCHolley you didn’t misunderstand the question.
Here’s some slickly produced FUD that ends up prescribing “imagination” as the solution to abrupt climate change: Degrees of Uncertainty – A data-driven look at climate change and public trust in science.
“Eggheads, pfft! What do they know?” –Homer Simpson
[Response: Actually I think it’s quite good and nuanced. – gavin]
Kevin McKinney @313
Thank you so much for that link on Wells. I’ve come across his work in the past and have found him quite fascinating.
BTW, when I give talks on the science behind global warming I always start with the history of the science because that science goes so far back in time it is hard for someone to argue with a straight face that it is a modern hoax or that the basic science is still disputed. The history of the science shows that the science is quite robust.
I also always find it highly ironic that the invention of a practical steam engine in the late 1700s that started the industrial revolution in turn stimulated much activity with the study of heat. Studies that were meant to make the capturing of energy from the burning of coal more efficient in turn allowed us to understand atmospheric physics and that understanding led to the realization well over a hundred years ago that the release of CO2 from burning coal would warm the planet.
t marvell @ 314
Salt dissolves in water as ions so its addition does not change the volume–it just makes it denser.
Also liquids are generally incompressible unless the pressures are quite extreme so I find it hard to believe that a denser salt water would result in lower sea levels due to greater compression of the depths. Nor the opposite that lower salinity would cause sea levels to rise due to less compression.
By the way, adding fresh water from glacier melt would make it less dense which is counter to the question asked.
t marvell(314): “More salt causes water volume, thus sea level, to increase”
The opposite. It is lowering of the salinity (e.g. from melting sea ice) that lowers the density, that in turn increases the volume of the water. I think Gavin may have mentioned in his tweet(?) a link to the paper that quantified it.
tm: More salt makes the water heavier, which compresses the water column and lowers the sea level.
What process causes “more salt”? If evaporation, then you actually are losing mass (all the evaporated fresh water leaving behind the salt). If you blew the salt by wind(?) then perhaps you could – but the increase in weight would be so small and the water incompressibility so high that I doubt you could measure the effect.
And if you lower salinity by melting sea ice there is no effect by compression since you didn’t increase the weight…
t marvell @314,
I think you questioning about ocean salinity is akin to asking about how the positioning of the deckchairs on the Titanic affected the sinking, but let’s imagine the Titanic was actually carrying a massive load of deckchairs and not passengers.
The water-volume-change thing is a bit involved. Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.
Back of fag packet.
Your average ocean is 4,000m deep and compression would be 1.8% at 400bar suggesting a 35m sea level effect due to pressure. If you take out all the salt from the oceans, the ocean mass would drop 3.5% and, pro rata, sea level with less compression would rise 1.2m. But a bigger effect globally would perhaps result from the sizable pile of salt (twice the weight of today’s global ice) which would have to find a new home somewhere else on the planet.
58 – Mike
“Daily CO2
Apr. 5, 2021 = 418.71 ppm
Apr. 5, 2020 = 416.03 ppm
CO2 levels back around the current baseline at 2.68 ppm yoy after a brief spike over 5 ppm.”
mkia: During that time the world economy was nearly stopped, yet CO2 increased as usual. We’ve been told for decades that humans are causing CO2 to increase, not natural phenomenon. Doesn’t this past year put that theory in doubt? I’ll submit this challenge to accepted AGW theory for my Nobel Prize. :)
From Professor Bohren’s discussion about the atmosphere’s contribution to the radiation exchange with the surface:
P.s.: Pigs fly just fine with enough thrust.
KIA 321: We’ve been told for decades that humans are causing CO2 to increase, not natural phenomenon. Doesn’t this past year put that theory in doubt?
BPL: Not even for a moment.
James Galasyn @315,
Is that video you reference actually serving up what you terms as FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt)? It is not a trivial assertion you make as FUD is usually considered an underhand tactic.
Surely the bulk of the video is showing a kind-of-opposite of what you claim: certain reason to be fearful of AGW if we were stupid enough to doubt the science!! And you unwisely appear to think the wisdom of Homer Simpson is worthy of quoting, a character who of course occasionally (like a broken clock) is correct but usually is a plain-&-simple dumbass. (He even knows he is an idiot, once exclaiming “Lord Help Me, I’m Just Not That Bright.”)
And you fail to grasp that “end-up” message.
Having demonstrated that the swivel-eyed denialists are a bunch of Fallacious Unscientific Deniers who have proved incapable of doing right by mankind, the video sets out a post-script that says we should not see a bad AGW outcome as being unavoidable. The “end-up” message is that we shouldn’t be surrender-monkeys. Surrender-monkeys are “overly certain and perhaps unimaginative” yet imagination is an important ingredient, even in science. “Surely imagination, grounded in hard science knowledge can be of use in forecasting a future of our own making. But to devise and rally behind a good plan, we first have to believe, I mean really believe, that our future is uncertain, because only then might we be so bold to as to shape it.”
321 Mr. Know It All
During that time the world economy was nearly stopped, yet CO2 increased as usual.
Reply
Primary Energy Consumption by Source (U.S. EIA)
Can’t speak for the world, but the U.S. fossil fuels consumption did not stop.
Re: (321)
Ask for your money back from whoever feeds you their “Nobel Prize” caliber arguments, genius: emission means adding; a slightly less adding is still adding, hence the increase in pCO2.
He drives to the basket, he jumps, he makes the basket celebration moves in mid-air, and … he is denied!. Again.
#321 et seq–
It’s really hard to imagine how KIA can be so gormless with such apparent lack of effort–though, come to think of it, “lack of effort” can account for quite a lot.
Among other things:
https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-co2-emissions-surged-4-in-second-half-of-2020
Amazing how the lack of a Covid pandemic can keep your economy humming, even with lots of your major customers struggling. China today has 90,622 cases, good for #95 on the global list.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
But that’s absolute numbers; relative to population, it’s just 63 cases per million population, or #212 on the global list.
MA Rodger (324) Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.
I don’t agree with zero. Small, given the amount of salt available, but not “zero”.
Let’s do some back of the envelope calculation. For simplicity, lets make seawater: add 35.1g of salt to 1l of freshwater at temp. 4C. The volume of freshwater and salt before mixing: 1000cm3 +35/2cm3 = 1017 cm3. The resulting seawater has mass of 1035g, salinity S=35. From T-S table we get density = 1.028 g/cm3, hence the volume of 1035g/1.028(g/cm3) = 1007 cm3.
1000 cm3 < 1007 cm3 < 1017 cm3
So adding salt to the ocean does increase sea level. Slightly, but still.
But as you pointed out – the amount of salt needed to a difference in the real world – would be stupendous.
On the other hand, the increase of the seawater due to melting of sea-ice might have some effect on the sealevel (here we do not add or remove mass from the system, so the fresher ocean taking up more space is not being offset).
Plus the indirect effect that melting of seaice allows the seawater to be warm up which would further increase the sealevel.
Troll TYSON MCGUFFIN @322,
What is the point you are trying so hard to make with that quote from the college book of Craig Bohren?
First off, he isn’t exactly the a wonderful reference source as the man is too crazy to unshackle all the cranky foibles he has collected to himself through the years. (He famously has problems coping with the use of an arithmetic mean to measure global temperature: apparently something about arithmetic means being suitable only for shoe-less waifs.)
Secondly the quote you present with its two different “interpretations” is simply two interpretations of that same old single-slab-atmosphere model, again. Bohren (& Clothiaux) goes on to say this single-slab-atmosphere model “contains a trap” which is explained as a limitation in the validity of the one-slab-atmosphere model, this something you have been struggling to accept since your first trotted out from under your dank & smelly bridge to disturb this comment thread with your nonsense.
You served up you “simple model” @120 before declaring it not to be yours at all but from Petty’s book. Now you serve up the other reference used on this subject by Wikithing. So Well done you!!!
But it is not at all clear what the point is of you again thrustfully trolling here with your flying bacon. (Presumably it isn’t actually Kosher.) What is the point you are trying so hard to make with that quote?
MA Rodger (324) Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.
I don’t agree with “zero”. Small, given the amount of salt available, but not “zero”.
Let’s do some back of the envelope calculation. For simplicity, lets make seawater: add 35.1g of salt to 1l of freshwater at temp. 4C. The volume of freshwater and salt before mixing: 1000cm3 +35/2cm3 = 1017 cm3. The resulting seawater has mass of 1035g, salinity S=35. From T-S table we get density = 1.028 g/cm3, hence the volume of 1035g/1.028(g/cm3) = 1007 cm3.
1000 cm3 < 1007 cm3 < 1017 cm3
So adding salt to the ocean does increase sea level. Slightly, but still.
But as you pointed out – the amount of salt needed to a difference in the real world – would be stupendous.
On the other hand, the increase of the seawater due to melting of sea-ice might have some effect on the sealevel (here we do not add or remove mass from the system, so the fresher ocean taking up more space is not being offset).
Plus the indirect effect that melting of seaice allows the seawater to be warm up which would further increase the sealevel.
Thank you 318,319,320 for answering my post 314, about whether more or less sea water salinity increases or decreases sea level, all else equal. The lowering due to weight of additional salt seems clear. But for some reason there are differing opinions about the simple question whether more (or less) salinity affects sea level, all else equal. Opinions are about equally divided between increasing, decreasing, and no effect on sea level.
Piotr, can you give me more information about where to find the Gavin paper you referenced?
The reason I ask these questions is that I find that higher temperatures in the northern hemisphere lower world sea levels over 5 years, significant to the six sigma level. That effect is not found for southern hemisphere temperature. Over the long term, I find that higher temperatures lead to higher sea levels in both hemispheres. I am exploring whether ice melt, which is greater in the northern hemisphere, could account for this difference. It is, of course, likely that other confounding forces account for the difference between hemispheres.
TYSON MCGUFFIN (322) From Professor Bohren’s p. 31.
… explanations of the greenhouse effect have been designed more with journalists and politicians in mind than scientists.”
Hey, McGuffin, was the inability to distinguish between a metaphor (of a greenhouse) and the real atm. – a z1’s thing ???
p.35. In the emission interpretation the atmosphere is a source of radiation, not a photon trap that corrals wayward photons and sends them back to Earth just as a truant officer returns wayward children to school. A truant officer can return children to school because they are distinguishable, whereas photons are not.
WHY would S_B law required ability to … distinguish photons????
– You, Johnny, get to be emitted upward, not you Billy, back to the Earth you go!
p. 37. As the emissivity of the atmosphere increases we expect downward radiation from it to increase.
Why would EMISSIVITY of the atmosphere increase? The atmosphere gets somehow …MORE like a black body???
This is yet another reason why assertions about the “atmosphere acting like a blanket” are absurd
Why? If I insulate my house (“blanket”) then the insulation would block some of the heat loss to the outside … For the same amount of the electric/or furnace heating I will have warmer temps in the insulated house. Why is this an “absurd”?
RE. z1/McGuffin @322
Too funny.
At least now we know where z1/McGuffin gets his silly ideas. Problem is, he doesn’t have a clue that what he quoted from Bohren and Clothiaux doesn’t say what he thinks it says nor does it support his arguments.
Bohren and Clothiaux certainly do not argue that *back-radiation* does not exist. In fact, they clearly support that the atmosphere radiates toward the surface which is the definition of back-radiation. And clearly, Bohren and Clothiaux certainly do not deny that the atmosphere warmed by greenhouse gas absorption of surface radiation does not radiate back towards the surface raising the temperature of the surface. Their only complaint are that some of the analogies made to describe the greenhouse effect are silly. And from a pure science stance perhaps they have a point, but from a simple communication standpoint maybe not so much. So what? It is only an opinion from science purists of which I mostly agree.
As for back-radiation, what Bohren and Clothiaux argue is that the atmosphere and greenhouse gases are not some photon trap capturing photons and flinging them back towards the surface. And guess what, no one on this site has made that claim. No one. It has been stated over and over again that the greenhouse gas molecules emit radiation in all directions, both toward the surface (back-radiation) and towards space only based on their temperature per S-B law. Which is exactly what Bohren and Clothiaux state with their non-radiating surface analogy. And furthermore they do not claim that CO2 and other greenhouse gases do not absorb photons from the surface nor that the absorption does not cause warming of the atmosphere which, in turn, radiates back towards the surface. Because It does. Back-radiation, radiation from the atmosphere to the surface exists per B and C and that radiation contributes to the warming of the surface. Period.
z1/McGuffin is an idiot.
And he’ll only get it when PIGS FLY.
Mr. Know Nothing @321
Could you please give us your theory as to where all that CO2 emitted into the atmosphere by mankind is going if not into the atmosphere? And assuming it is somehow magically disappearing, where then is the rise in atmospheric CO2 actually coming from?
Enquiring minds want to know.
321 Mr. Know It All
“During that time the world economy was nearly stopped, yet CO2 increased as usual.” Fossil fuel consumption didn’t stop; it didn’t even stop growing, although it hasn’t grown as fast.
“More worrying is the trend for carbon emissions. The slowing in the
growth of carbon emissions to 0.5% in 2019 may suggest some grounds
for optimism. But this deceleration needs to be seen in the context of the
big increase in carbon emissions in 2018 of 2.1%. The hope was that as
the one-off factors boosting carbon emissions in 2018 unwound, carbon
emissions would fall significantly. That fall did not happen. The average
annual growth in carbon emissions over 2018 and 2019 was greater than
its 10-year average. As the world emerges from the COVID-19 crisis it
needs to make decisive changes to move to a more sustainable path.”
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2020-full-report.pdf
Unfortunately, it gets into pure propaganda at the end of the sort gavin really seems to appreciate: Defeatists!!! But the video uses a false dichotomy of imagination and hope vs. defeatism as if defeatism is the definition of realism. It leaves out completely that error bars do not = risk or that the problem with the “positivism” of climate science, scientists, politicians, et al., exists in an echo chanber that rarely if ever discusses long-tail risks and depends heavily on confirmation bias: What we have is good, what we have should be kept and the utterly unsustainable is sustainable, so we love all the solutions that aren’t solutions!
Let us rejoyce that Earth Month has but 30 days, for that was long enough to hold the greatest Climateball story ever told:
287 Piotr says: Killian said@
24 Apr 2021 at 10:24 PM
Science info was posted. Science info was ignored. The ignoring of science info was noted. There is nothing to defend in that sequence. You’re an idiot.”
Eeer, that’s not how I recall it.
Who cares? You’re a nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter. Until you decide not to be, you’re pretty useless and add nothing to this site other don’t already do better.
You might be of use if you decided to stop acting like a rabid chihuahua.
Killian reply:
24 Apr 2021 at 10:25 PM
ankle… typing is poor me do not good thing.
With the official start to the 2021 NA Hurricane season now a month off, the predictions for the new season are appearing and with a consistent set of “above average” numbers (roughly 18 named storms, 8 Hurricanes, 3 Major Hurricanes) and not greatly different to the early predictions for the 2020 season.
If 2021 is “above average,” it is being noted that this would be the sixth year in a row for such activity which in itself would be a record breaker. One prediction for ACE is put at ACE=150 which is a bit more than simply “above average.” (With the arrival of the new decade, the NOAA has updated its NAHurricane climatology and the “average” is now a little higher in terms of storm numbers but the ACE average isn’t mentioned. In my book, a sixth year with ACE above 100 would be continuing an already record-breaking run. Graph of ACE 1948-2020 here.)
And perhaps with memories of the actual 2020 season still in mind (which proved a lot more active than the predictions with 30 named storms, 14 Hurricanes, 6 Major Hurricanes), the commentators are using headlines that are a bit more dramatic than the actual predictions (eg “Another Wild Hurricane Season Expected In 2021 After Record-Setting 2020” or “Dangerous and very active Atlantic hurricane season 2021 expected: Above-average probability for major hurricanes making landfall along the continental US coastline”).
316 – James Calasyn
“Here’s some slickly produced FUD that ends up prescribing “imagination” as the solution to abrupt climate change:…”
Slick, well-made video! It supports what “deniers” have always said – there is much uncertainty in the temperature record. It notes that a reliable thermometer did not exist until 1714. I doubt they were widely distributed for another 100 years, and even then, only to developed nations (basically only in Europe). Australia didn’t exist as a nation until 1901, Whites didn’t venture far into Africa until around 1900, much of North America was not inhabited by Whites until the late 1800s and early 1900s. The history of the interior of Asia is similar. That’s most of the land mass of the earth with no significant capability to measure accurate temperatures until perhaps the 1900s, probably the mid 1900s!
On imagination, the video lacked just that. Engineers and technology will pull our butts up off the hot sand so that AGW doesn’t kill us – we’ll be pulling large quantities of CO2 out of the air soon. Killian’s agriculture may play a significant role as well. Also, Bill Gates has a sun-dimming technology plan. The future looks bright on the AGW front – not so much on some others, but that’s outside the scope of RC.
325 – Tyson McGuffin
Per EIA, our CO2 emissions dropped significantly. I suspect the world did the same, but the big polluters (India and China) are still developing and likely have poor data at best.
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46636
Transportation fuel dropped YUGELY:
The transportation sector was affected the most. Energy consumption there decreased by 15% from 2019, and that was almost entirely attributable to decreased petroleum use for travel.
“Many travel restrictions were enacted in the United States during 2020, and even after some restrictions were eased, petroleum demand remained lower than previous levels. U.S. jet fuel use during Thanksgiving week of 2020 was about half of the 2019 volume. Overall, consumption of jet fuel by the transportation sector in the United States dropped by 38%, motor gasoline by 13% and distillate fuel oil (diesel) by 7%.
Source:
https://www.herald-dispatch.com/opinion/editorial-covid-19-brought-historic-drop-in-us-energy-consumption/article_852bc334-0327-5f72-b2ca-6746d5b7e1ef.html
We should have seen a slowdown in CO2 increase, but didn’t. Hope they keep my Nobel Prize shined up. ;)
@~316 https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2021/04/unforced-variations-apr-2021/comment-page-7/#comment-790634 – Gavin’s reply to James Galasyn
A group of friends more knowledgeable, on the whole, than I am had a look at the video and on close inspection I agree with them that it is insidious. It’s very clever, and quite properly “scientific” but compared climate science to things like vaccine denial as if the humongous research and data on temperature history were dubious. It doesn’t quite go there, but the implication is useful – as you see here, used by Mr. KIA – to those eager to encourage doubt and uncertainty. There’s a fine line there. Perhaps JG’s language could have been more moderate, but this is just the kind of deceptive material that allows ordinary people to assume there’s more uncertainty than there is. (Please, let us not confuse error bars (which are large) with uncertainty about the larger subject.)
I think Gavin’s talk on “The Emergent Properties of Climate Change is more reliable on the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrJJxn-gCdo
Given the fact that a goodly % of our tax dollars subsidize the fossil industry, and therefore, a goodly portion of that “disposable income” is/can be used to subsidize the denier-sphere, I purpose a serious effort to END TAX-FUNDED POLLUTION OF THE COMMONS. Just deduct all the fossil advertising efforts from the subsidies.
@337 Russell
chortle! Thanks for the levity, much needed.
339 Mr. Know It All
Per EIA, our CO2 emissions dropped significantly.
Reply
The U.S. Covid-19 related drop in CO2 emissions amounted to about 16% from 2019 levels as shown here which is about 0.9 billion tons or 0.22 % of the cumulative 410.24 billion tons we have already pumped into the air (shown here.
Given the magnitude of the stock of AGHGs already in the atmosphere it stands to reason that:
As for the Nobel Prize, my preference will always be Dr James Hansen who in his testimony to the US congress warned us all. Had we acted then, we would have a better than even chance of staying under 1.5 degrees warming.
t marvell @314,
Some comment perhaps does actually bear being repeated.
As shown by the likes of van Lopik et al (2015), “the water-volume-change thing is a bit involved. Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.”
t marvell: (331) “The lowering due to weight of additional salt seems clear”
I think the main point was that this effect is vanishingly small, so should not be even mentioned in the same posts as sealevel changes due to known dominant factors
(adding the water to the ocean, thermal expansion, perhaps (I haven’t done the calculation) lowering salinity effect.
(In geological time scale – you may add changes in the elevation of the seafloor: tectonic uplift/downlift and sediment accumulation).
tm(331) But for some reason there are differing opinions about the simple question whether more (or less) salinity affects sea level, all else equal. Opinions are about equally divided between increasing, decreasing, and no effect on sea level.
Part of the confusion may be laid at your feet ;-) for the way you posed the problem as “adding salt to the ocean”.
This a very hypothetical (read: unimportant) scenario – since there is no source of external salt large enough to have a measurable effect on the sealevel, at least at the time-scale of interests in this forum.
Because of that, not wanted to be dragged into the discussion of the unimportant
processes, I tried to direct you to the potentially important – not adding new salt from outside, but the redistribution of the existing salt – eg. when low salinity water is released from sea-ice (ice-melt) and mixes with high salinity water just below it: the water below drops in salinity => lower density => so the same mass of water takes more space => the sealevel rises.
So some of the confusion you see is that different authors may have been answering different questions.
As for the paper – I can’t find Gavin’s tweet about it, but here is a link you might follow, either to it, or to somebody else who had the same idea:
https://nsidc.org/news/newsroom/20050801_floatingice.html
There are even pictures of a lab experiment there (although you could calculate it using the seawater density calculator).
Finally if somebody say “no effect” they might just mean no effect large enough to bother.
Hence, while in theory, as I have shown, adding salt to water increases the water level (but not by as much the volume of the salt added), this still remains a basic science curiosity, since it is way to small to matter for the AGW-caused sealevel rise.
Just something new related to ocean salinity in general : “Global-scale patterns of observed sea surface salinity intensified since the 1870s”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-021-00161-3
Killian said@24 Apr 2021 at 10:24 PM
Who cares? You’re a nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter. Until you decide not to be, you’re pretty useless and add nothing to this site other don’t already do better. You might be of use if you decided to stop acting like a rabid chihuahua.
Killian reply: 24 Apr 2021 at 10:25 PM
ankle… typing is poor me do not good thing.
Russell (337) “Let us rejoyce that Earth Month has but 30 days, for that was long enough to hold the greatest Climateball story ever told“.
Well, Russel, give a guy some slack – if your entire argument was limited to insults, and a typo ruined that insult, wouldn’t you rush to fix it?
Irony was that who needs a trivial typo when it was the least absurd part of his posts?
Our Killian first bitterly complained that nobody comments on articles he brought up, when I commented with specific and falsifiable criticisms to those, he goes postal: deletes everything except a … reference call, and latches onto a single word there:
Piotr(270: “Re: Killian (220) defending Killian (91)”
– Killian(280) “There is nothing to defend in that sequence. You’re an idiot.”
And having just done the MOST PEDANTIC thing I can think off (attacking … a neutral word in … a reference call) Killian calls …ME: “ “a nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter.“.
What TYPO could ever match the humor of _THAT_ ? ;-)
P.S. I haven’t loved Killian’s typo ALSO because I like my typos in a Freudian slip flavour. Something like: “As I have been eluding” by the new Killian’s understudy, R. Colombe. In comparison, Killian’s”Nasty, uselessly pedantic little angle-biter rabid chihuahua” comes across as rather … pedestrian.
MA Rodger (344) “Some comment perhaps does actually bear being repeated.”
I prefer to repeat those that haven’t been disproven after their first appearance. (see: 328). But that’s me.
“Probably best to kick-off saying the dissolving of salt into water has zero direct impact on volume.”
Small – yes, “zero” – no. See (328).
341 Leif Knutsen says:
29 Apr 2021 at 11:40 AM
Given the fact that a goodly % of our tax dollars subsidize the fossil industry
Taxes don’t fund anything. They destroy money and reduce money supply.
Study MMT, please.
KIA 339: a reliable thermometer did not exist until 1714.
BPL: Google “proxies” and “paleoclimatology.” Also, take a course in statistics. One thermometer might be highly unreliable, but ten of them will be less so, on average, and a hundred less unreliable still, and so on.