In search of climate’s “golden fleece” – is Watt satisfied?

Arvid Pastor

August 2024

The main climate parameter known as “climate sensitivity” has been the subject of scientific inquiry for hundreds of years. This parameter is basically The amount of global temperature increase caused by doubling the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere₂. If the parameter value is 2, then when CO2 increases, the world temperature will rise by 2°C₂ Atmospheric concentrations were twice what they are now. Therefore, implicitly, it is a constant. Scientific estimates range widely, from well below 1 to well above 6 (see below). For climate modelers and alarmists, knowing exactly what it's worth is “priceless,” much like the Greek mythology's Golden Fleece meant to its owner.

Since global warming is thought to be caused by the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, considerable attention has been paid to assessing the impact of these gases, primarily carbon dioxide.₂methane, and nitrous oxide, as well as a variety of gases that typically occur in very low concentrations).

Blaming global temperature changes on any single factor, such as carbon dioxide₂is stupid. Beer's Law¹ describes the well-known “saturation” phenomenon in which CO₂ increase, the atmospheric temperature will rise rapidly starting from CO₂ The level is 0, but as it increases, the temperature increase is not linear. Instead, it decreases and eventually levels off. (Figure 1) So you can see that using only one factor, climate sensitivity is not a constant. However, at high concentrations of CO₂climate sensitivity can be considered “almost” constant. There is a perfectly good reason for this behavior, which is easily proven¹. The main result of this expression is that after a certain amount of CO₂ Already added to the atmosphere, any additional amount results in a smaller temperature increase. To some extent, these growth are insignificant.

Figure 1. Impact of CO₂ Focus on atmospheric warming

(From page 8 The Skeptic's HandbookJoanne Nova 2009)

The same nonlinear relationship holds true for any gaseous substance in the atmosphere. Of course, our atmosphere is not made up of a single gas. Depending on its properties, each substance exhibits its own self-flattening concentration-temperature curve.

In theory, knowing the exact composition of the atmosphere and the required spectral properties of each gas, it should be easy to calculate the resulting absorption curve. The Earth's global temperature is thought to be controlled by a balance between incoming solar radiation plus heat generated within the Earth's own interior and outgoing heat (radiation).

Gas molecules will absorb heat from incoming and outgoing radiation. Incoming heat is absorbed mainly through electronic transitions, while outgoing heat is absorbed through molecular vibration and/or rotation. These interactions can be easily measured through spectroscopy, with each species showing a different absorption spectrum versus radiation wavelength (or frequency). See Figure 2.

Figure 2. Absorption energy of several gases as a function of incident radiation wavelength, and its effect on incident solar radiation and outgoing Earth radiation. (Excerpted from a lecture given by Dr. William Happer of Princeton University at Marshall University)

We can then calculate how much heat these processes will generate in the atmosphere because the specific heat of each component is known. The basic question of calculation is: how much heat is generated and then how much temperature change is caused by that heat.

Such calculations have been performed for many years and the results are shown below. These calculations can provide a more precise estimate of the “greenhouse gas effect” of a certain gas, because one can simply double the concentration of the species of interest in the calculation and see what happens. (Figure 3)

Figure 3. This graph shows increasing CO₂ Concentrations from 0 ppm (green line) to 400 ppm (approximately today's values, black line) have a significant effect, making the Earth warmer than it would be without CO₂ (about 16°F) to today's levels (about 60°F). You can clearly see that CO doubled₂ There is almost no effect up to 800 (red line). [Ron Clutz.com 2021]

The two major “scourges” of climate change, carbon dioxide₂ (carbon dioxide) and CH₄ Through the calculations discussed above, it is easy to show that (methane) is unlikely to cause any significant global warming. Both are known to continue to increase (Figures 3 and 4) and have been considered a major cause of global warming for decades.

Figure 3.CO₂ Concentrations in Earth's atmosphere by 2023².

Clearly, something is missing from these global warming calculations. Many factors other than atmospheric gas heating can be easily deduced. These include assumptions about how much incoming solar radiation is reflected or absorbed by clouds or oceans, how much incoming light is scattered by clouds or “dust” in the atmosphere, and how much incoming light is reflected by clouds or patches of ice and snow. of. The latest climate models define all of these terms in great detail (Figure 5).

Other factors that are difficult to explain include external heat sources (underwater volcanoes, underground coal or methane fires), soot deposited on glaciers (which absorbs heat), and recent large-scale wildfires around the world (which produce heat, soot, and carbon monoxide₂), and others.

Finally, there is the so-called “feedback”: including the interaction between two gases (such as CO)₂ and water vapor etc. These can be positive where a gas is present such as CO₂is thought to lead to an increase in the presence of another substance, such as water vapor, due to increased evaporation from the ocean. They can also be neutral or negative. (Figure 6) Heat inputs (called “forcers”) are added to climate model “feedbacks.”

Figure 6. Climate feedbacks considered in global climate models. [From IPCC AR4 report.]

Water vapor feedback is particularly troublesome: It's not known to be “positive,” much less so than climate scientists claim.

Climate sensitivity cannot be calculated because there are too many forcing factors and too many feedbacks a priori. Assumptions must always be made. Yet scientists have been trying to do this for decades, to no avail. (Figure 7, 8, 9)

Figure 7. Scientific estimates of climate sensitivity. In 2013, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Nur Shaviv said of this diagram: “On a more serious note, let me look at it with the most boring diagram I have ever drawn in my life. It. Below is the possible range of climate sensitivity over time. As you can see, apart from the slightly smaller range for AR4 mentioned above, the possible range of climate sensitivity has not changed since the 1979 Charney report. Our ability to answer climate’s most important questions has not improved one bit in more than three decades!”

( https://www.climatedepot.com/2013/10/09/award-writing-israeli-astrophysicalist-dr-nir-shaviv-the-ipcc-and-alike-are-captives-of-a-wrong-conception -IPCC is still doing its best to avoid evidence of a large solar effect/)

Figure 9. Historical estimates of climate sensitivity.

It turns out that climate sensitivity is actually a physically useless term, except to help indicate what impact certain forcing factors or feedbacks might have on global warming. Global atmospheric temperature can now be measured directly 24 hours a day via satellites and/or weather balloons, ocean temperature via submersible buoys, and “Earth” temperature directly via thermometers on every continent. (The latter two have their own issues, particularly with surface measurements, but these will not be discussed here).

Global climate models currently used on the world's supercomputers don't actually use “climate sensitivity” as input, but generalists can use their output to derive their value from the computer's input and output.

Taking into account the results for actual global temperatures and those from computer climate models (black line in Figure 10), one can see that the Earth's temperature is not rising as fast as a “climate sensitivity” of more than 2 would predict.

global carbon dioxide₂ The 1976 level was² 332 ppm, the initial temperature change is taken as 0.00. In 2016, carbon monoxide₂ is 404, the temperature rises by 0.3°. At an average growth rate of 2 ppm per year, doubling from 1976 would take 166 years. {I use 2 ppm/year, although it was 1.8 ppm/year from 1976 to 2016, it has increased to over 2 ppm/year recently}. Now, 40 years represents 0.24 (40/166) of the time difference. Therefore, the “climate sensitivity” starting in 1976 would be 0.3°C/0.24, or 1.25. If the climate sensitivity (CS) is 2, the expected temperature rise is 0.48°, if the CS is 3, the temperature rise is 0.72°C, and so on. between 5 (and counting).

Figure 10. Comparison of computer climate model predictions with actual observed global temperatures. [From Dr. John Christy, Univ. Alabama-Huntsville]

If the rising rate of CO₂ If it increases dramatically over the next few decades, climate sensitivity will also increase, as will projected global temperatures. In fact, CO₂ Emissions are expected to slow, which will prolong CO2 emissions₂ Double the time and reduce climate sensitivity.

However, due to the actual temperature and CO₂ The data results in current climate sensitivity of approx. 1.25, there is clearly something wrong with the current “fashion” with a climate sensitivity of 3 or higher.

And…the real problem with the term “climate sensitivity” is that it means carbon dioxide₂ is a driver of climate change, but it is not.

refer to

1. MN Berberan-Santos, “Beer's Law Revisited,” Jour. Chemical. Ed. 67. September 1990
2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1091926/atmospheric-concentration-of-co2-historic/q

Relevant