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Post by glc on Jun 15, 2009 13:11:00 GMT
Explain to us how reflected LW IR can warm water as it cannot penetrate beyond .015mm (to be generous). Is water more efficient at emitting or absorbing?
I know liquid water cannot absorb atmospheric radiation. As far as I recall I was the one who first brought it up on this blog. However, there are 2 sides to warming and cooling, i.e. the rate of warming and rate of cooling. If you read my post I suggested that an increase in the downward IR flux would reduce the outgoing LW flux from the ocean. i.e.
It would reduce the rate of cooling from the ocean
If you reduce the rate of cooling (energy out) while maintaining the rate of heating (energy in) the result will be warming.
The large jump in OHC from 2002 to 2003 doesn't even spark an interest? CO2 caused that, and also the loss of heat increase beginning in 2003?
I have no doubt others read my 5 questions and wonder why they are always ignored......
They're not ignored. They're just not relevant over the timescales specified. Let's put the warming into perspective. I maintain that doubling CO2 will produce ~1 deg warming. Doubling CO2 from 300 ppm to 600 ppm is going to take ~200 years. So the average rate of warming will ~0.05 deg per decade or ~0.005 deg per year. Pretty much any sort of natural variability can offset these warming rates over a year and even over a decade and longer. It's no good saying that GW has stopped because it hasn't warmed for the last few years. No-one expects the warming to be consistent. It will have pauses, falls, sudden accelerations and so on, but all things being equal the general trend should be upward.
I'm no great fan of GCMs, but it's totally unreasonable to think they should be able to predict the precise path that temperature changes will take.
If we genuinely do have a long term negative PDO and AMO, then if I'm right (about the 1 deg rise) we should expect to see temperatures go sideways for a while. If there is a significant fall then it's likely I've got the sensitivity wrong. If there is a strong upward trend then I will also be wrong and it will be the high sensitivity warmers who are right. I suggest we need about another 5 years of data before any firm conclusions can be made.
Note when I say 'I' in the above. I include a number of others. This is by no means my own pet hypothesis.
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Post by poitsplace on Jun 15, 2009 14:22:02 GMT
I have to say I have a hard time understanding why everyone is so hostile toward GLC...ESPECIALLY on this thread. He is technically pretty squarely on the side of the skeptics. He's just pointing out that the math on absorption DOES indicate some capability to warm might be there. He makes no absolute claims about the final amount of warming only that the energy MIGHT be available. He makes no outlandish claims that feedbacks will multiply the affect of that warming many times.
In fact, according to HIS figures we should only expect the linear warming trend to continue (perhaps +/- a little bit for us going into a solar minimum and obviously assuming the continuation of the 60 year ocean current/tradewind cycles). The linear trend being the one measured from the early 1940's to the early 2000's plateau, NOT the slope of the warm period.
I think if he'd been the author of the IPCC reports his recommendations would have been for everyone to worry about something important...since "adaptation" to such small temperature changes over a span of several generations is technically free. (just speculation on this last bit but that's the sense I get)
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Post by dmapel on Jun 15, 2009 14:29:15 GMT
glc: "I know liquid water cannot absorb atmospheric radiation. As far as I recall I was the one who first brought it up on this blog. However, there are 2 sides to warming and cooling, i.e. the rate of warming and rate of cooling. If you read my post I suggested that an increase in the downward IR flux would reduce the outgoing LW flux from the ocean. i.e.
It would reduce the rate of cooling from the ocean"
That looks a little fishy to me. I would be interested in knowing how back radiation warms the oceans, if water cannot absorb radiation from the atmosphere. Maybe the very slight penetration at the surface does it?
Other than that, I found your post to be very reasonable. Your estimate of .5C warming over the next century is so close to zero, that I wonder why anyone would expend time and effort to argue with it. You are not predicting that we are going to burn up, unless we are taxed back to the pre-industrial age. You are not screaming for the blood of the deniers. What's their beef?
On the other hand, why are you arguing over .5C per century with people who aren't trying screw up anybody's lives to allegedly save the World from an imaginary boogeyman? Wouldn't it be more fun, and more productive, to straighten out those 3-6C dogmatic pinheads, who are scaring our kids and trying to tax us back into the pre-industrial age?
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Post by dmapel on Jun 15, 2009 14:30:26 GMT
Hi poitsy,
I see that we agree on something. You got up earlier than I did.
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Post by icefisher on Jun 15, 2009 15:33:06 GMT
They're not ignored. They're just not relevant over the timescales specified. Let's put the warming into perspective. I maintain that doubling CO2 will produce ~1 deg warming. Doubling CO2 from 300 ppm to 600 ppm is going to take ~200 years. So the average rate of warming will ~0.05 deg per decade or ~0.005 deg per year. Pretty much any sort of natural variability can offset these warming rates over a year and even over a decade and longer. It's no good saying that GW has stopped because it hasn't warmed for the last few years. No-one expects the warming to be consistent. It will have pauses, falls, sudden accelerations and so on, but all things being equal the general trend should be upward. I'm no great fan of GCMs, but it's totally unreasonable to think they should be able to predict the precise path that temperature changes will take. If we genuinely do have a long term negative PDO and AMO, then if I'm right (about the 1 deg rise) we should expect to see temperatures go sideways for a while. If there is a significant fall then it's likely I've got the sensitivity wrong. If there is a strong upward trend then I will also be wrong and it will be the high sensitivity warmers who are right. I suggest we need about another 5 years of data before any firm conclusions can be made. Note when I say 'I' in the above. I include a number of others. This is by no means my own pet hypothesis. I am not going to bust your chops too much on a .05degreeC per decade warming rate. Thats actually about what Akasofu estimates and attributes to recovery from the little ice age and Easterbrook estimates and does not attribute. Indeed we have seen an acceleration in the last 50 or so years but I am attributing most of that to the solar grand maximum. . . .though its really quite possible that the Little Ice Age recovery, clearly seen in earlier records, may have petered out and gotten replaced by CO2 warming to some extent. My view is climate is naturally variable but natural variability could mask anthropogenic variability as well. I like the SGM as I like how it maps to temperature fluxes once the solar cycles are smoothed out. Lets face it. . . .you asked what scientist doesn't buy in hook, line and sinker on your forcing estimate. The answer is plenty, though I don't see your forcing estimate to be completely off base its fair to acknowledge that this science is very imprecise. A perfect example of that is the following table: "When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:[6] water vapor, which contributes 36–72% carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26% methane, which contributes 4–9% ozone, which contributes 3–7%" Here scientists are contending to a level of a factor of 3 over the potential greenhouse effect of CO2. Measurements of atmospheric absorption of incoming has been proven to be variable by at least up 30% of incoming solar completely unexplained. Discussion also lands on the extinction curve and where we might be on that from full (practical) extinction down to maybe 2/3rds extinction. So all those issues have potentially huge impacts on whether your 4 watts is correct or not. I think most scientists consider the 4 watts to be a reasonably fair estimate and thus its not all that controversial, but that is far short of "agreement". Fact is our climate system is very complex and even our best scientists have not established proof of an understanding to estimate what the future will bring or what the forcing of a doubling of CO2 will be. I am glad you are not a fan of GCMs. In my view they are a hole into which money is shoveled and never seen again. Money should be spent on monitoring not trying to decide how to regulate carbons through fancy modeling essentially created to mask uncertainty. I am a proponent of simple models. In my experience the issue of complex models is a psychology that allows one to lose touch with what he is really modeling. The errors that can be introduced by multiple small errors getting multiplied in a complex model are a marvel to see. Once a model becomes highly complex it tends to take on a life of its own. We have been regaled with sci-fi robots that their creators have lost control over. . . .there is truth there at least in a psychological sense where one begins to unconsciously kowtow the complexity of a model.
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Post by socold on Jun 15, 2009 18:52:47 GMT
Lets face it. . . .you asked what scientist doesn't buy in hook, line and sinker on your forcing estimate. The answer is plenty, though I don't see your forcing estimate to be completely off base its fair to acknowledge that this science is very imprecise. A perfect example of that is the following table: "When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:[6] water vapor, which contributes 36–72% carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26% methane, which contributes 4–9% ozone, which contributes 3–7%" Here scientists are contending to a level of a factor of 3 over the potential greenhouse effect of CO2. The ranges are not uncertainty they are ranges in overlap between the gases. For example remove everything but co2 and 26% of the greenhouse effect remains. Remove only co2 and 91% of the greenhouse effect remains. The two don't add up to 100% because of overlap. So the question "how much as a percentage does co2 contribute to the greenhouse effect?" doesn't make a lot of sense. The best that can be done is give a range. It's 9 to 26% depending on how you define it.
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Post by glc on Jun 15, 2009 21:01:22 GMT
It would reduce the rate of cooling from the ocean"
That looks a little fishy to me. I would be interested in knowing how back radiation warms the oceans, if water cannot absorb radiation from the atmosphere. Maybe the very slight penetration at the surface does it?
It reduces the rate of cooling. The outgoing radiation from the ocean is reduced by the increased downward IR from the atmosphere. It's quite logical if you think about it. Take the bodies adjacent to each other, one hot - one not so hot, in a cold environment. The presence of the less warm body will slow the heat loss from the hotter body (and vice versa).
Other than that, I found your post to be very reasonable. Your estimate of .5C warming over the next century is so close to zero, that I wonder why anyone would expend time and effort to argue with it. You are not predicting that we are going to burn up, unless we are taxed back to the pre-industrial age. You are not screaming for the blood of the deniers. What's their beef?
I could be wrong. It's best to keep an open mind on these things.
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Post by dmapel on Jun 15, 2009 21:07:17 GMT
soclod: "It's 9 to 26% depending on how you define it."
I define it as 9%, which according to my elaborate calculations would result in .5C of warming by 2100. Same as glc comes up with. I know that you disagree with me, but do you disagree with glc's conclusion?
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Post by dmapel on Jun 15, 2009 21:14:07 GMT
glc: "It reduces the rate of cooling. The outgoing radiation from the ocean is reduced by the increased downward IR from the atmosphere. It's quite logical if you think about it. Take the bodies adjacent to each other, one hot - one not so hot, in a cold environment. The presence of the less warm body will slow the heat loss from the hotter body (and vice versa)."
Your example is talking about two bodies with atmosphere in between. And presumably both are able to be heated by radiation and conduction. I don't see the analogy with the air-ocean exchange of heat from back radiation-surface radiation, but I am getting confused so I will take your word for it.
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Post by poitsplace on Jun 16, 2009 4:11:23 GMT
For example remove everything but co2 and 26% of the greenhouse effect remains. Remove only co2 and 91% of the greenhouse effect remains. The two don't add up to 100% because of overlap. So the question "how much as a percentage does co2 contribute to the greenhouse effect?" doesn't make a lot of sense. The best that can be done is give a range. It's 9 to 26% depending on how you define it. LOL! I agree with your point but unfortunately you somehow fail to see the problem. Even by your own figures here...water vapor cuts the affect of CO2 by more than 65%! (Note...your absorption figures never include water vapor) Much of the energy that could theoretically be trapped by CO2 is in fact released by water vapor. You came up with approximately 3.4watts (max) trapped by CO2 (based on emissions at the coldest layer) but how much is that cold layer's temperature based on water vapor radiating away that energy. According to these figures you're giving now, CO2's affect is only about 35% of that figure...about the same as the change in total solar irradiance between maximum/minimum.
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Post by glc on Jun 16, 2009 9:04:48 GMT
I have never pretended to be an expert on this subject. I can however, read and understand some science. I look at Yahoo Climate Skeptics. I see today two pieces by Arthur Rosch on the Earth Climate Effect. From my reading, glc and Arthur Rosch cannot both be correct. However, I could be wrong.
Jim, give us a chance. How about a link.
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Post by jimcripwell on Jun 16, 2009 10:44:43 GMT
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Post by glc on Jun 16, 2009 11:10:09 GMT
glc I am not good at this sort of thing. I sign in at
login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?.done=http://tech.groups.yahoo.com%2fgroup%2fclimatesceptics%2f&.src=ygr p&.intl=us
But I am sure there are better ways in the the Yahoo group called Climate Sceptics. Can I not browse the posts without having a login (like this blog). I would have thought the login was only necessary if you wanted to post comments. If you navigate to the particular post you can highlight (select) and then copy (CTRL-C) the URL in the address bar of your browser. Then paste (CTRL-V) the URL into your blog post here. That should work for most browsers/URLs. If you have problems - don't worry about it. I'm just intrigued to know about what it is we (Arthur R. and I) disagree about.
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Post by jimcripwell on Jun 16, 2009 14:24:54 GMT
glc Unfortunatley not. You need to sign in. It is free, but you need to join. Sorry, I am not much help.
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Post by jimcripwell on Jun 16, 2009 14:44:33 GMT
glc try this. Go to, ca.yahoo.com/?p=usSelect Groups. Search for "climatesceptics" Look for messages 59835 and 59836. Hope this works.
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