CO2 Residence Time (Soloman vs Segalstad)

[nautonnier]

Hmmmm I do believe this is where I came in

Summary:

SoCold's claim is that climate models all have hotspots whatever the cause of warming and are based on perfect physics - therefore the hotspot exists.

Unfortunately, in the real world the hotspot does not exist. This says SoCold cannot be as the physics in the models is perfect. Therefore, the real world must be wrong as all the models have a hotspot.

glc will note that SoCold's position is a perfect example of the Kelvin fallacy.

- - - - - - - - -

glc's position is that 'if you add IR absorbing gases to the atmosphere it is likely to increase in temperature'. This is the basis of the AGW hypothesis. It has apparent simple face validity (politicians can follow the logic) but does not seem necessarily to be borne out in the real world. It relies on the hydrologic cycle being a positive feedback and this does not appear to be the case or at least it is not anywhere near as simple (simplistic).

Hence this thread where CO₂ residence is critical to the AGW 'looming unstoppable disaster'.

One thing that has been asked several times is that whereas the AGW proponents will quote radiative forcing formulae in Watts Meter ^-1 at the drop of a hat, none of them will be able to quote the amount of energy transfer to the tropopause^* by other means such as the hydrologic cycle.

An analogy is counting the number of people leaving a building by the front door - even though large numbers are leaving through the fire-exits. If you half close the front door the rate of people leaving through that door may decrease - but the number leaving by the fire-exits may increase. Simplistic reasoning on the number of people left based on the number leaving through the front door will be flawed. Solely radiative calculations are like just counting the numbers going through the front door and disregarding the possibly larger number leaving by the fire-exits.





* The tropopause is used as this is the level at which 'radiative forcing' coefficients are modeled by the IPCC. Logic would put the measurement point at the Top of the Atmosphere but the IPCC chose the tropopause.

[icefisher]

Oct 10, 2009 13:56:05 GMT socold said:

You apparently haven't thought this through very well. Such dishonest modeling would quite obviously not survive the scientific process.

First of all a model that shows a stream of CO2 to Mars and back will be questioned over the mechanism that causes such a thing. As there wouldn't be one, this dishonesty would be exposed very quickly.

Of course that assumes that the code for the model is publicly available or that the modeling team revealed that diversion. In the case of the hotspot that was stipulated by the modelers.

Oct 10, 2009 13:56:05 GMT socold said:

Secondly, all other modeling groups will produce models that don't show any co2 flow between mars and earth. Therefore the dishonest model would stick out like a sore thumb. This would not only make the first models results unreproducible but would prompt the questioning in the first point above.

However, Socold if the Mars to Earth connection was buried in the calculations of a common element of all the models (kind of like Briffa's Yamal being buried in all the multi-proxy models that the Bristlecones are not) then all the models would produce similar results and even the modelers would not know why.

Oct 10, 2009 13:56:05 GMT socold said:

Thirdly the effects of a co2 flow between Earth and Mars would affect the behavior of Earth's climate. In particular Earth's carbon cycle would be affected and the model's match to the real world carbon cycle would be far worse than the other models.

So not only would that dishonest model be different than all the others, but it would also match observations worse than other models and there would be no explanations for such a mechanism. In short this result would not be accepted by the scientific community and would quite quickly die.

This is just one of the reason why the skeptic argument that scientists can make the models say anything is a very poor argument.

Of course the way around the problem of scientific integrity is via the establishment of a quasi organized religion among a portion of the science community.

This religion could be cognitive ("save the world" from just about anything. . . .over population, climate change, capitalism you name it).

It could be non-cognitive (As we have seen the science community commonly just references another's work without first replicating it themselves. They take the results on faith by simply referencing the work.).

Or it could be mercenary (create special interest funding mechanisms such as a generous tax dodge via foundations; or political funding mechanisms via international consortia).

Where I will agree is that your last argument should be the one that does what you say it does.

But for it to work the BS we are seeing in major scientific publications and not requiring sufficient information is made available to duplicate science results and the resultant poor peer review process brought to us by the religious forces. This allows for the non-cognitive stuff to actually survive the scientific method.

For instance you have been asked repeatedly for references to studies showing empirical evidence that the processes in climate models are correct and you have failed to deliver. . .

Finally your argument that nobody has produced a model that contradicts the warmist models can be simply explained by the fact we scientifically don't know how the climate works and in order to martial the forces to create an elaborate imaginary alternative would require the formation of a new religion.

[socold]

Oct 10, 2009 16:20:49 GMT icefisher said:

Oct 10, 2009 13:56:05 GMT socold said:

You apparently haven't thought this through very well. Such dishonest modeling would quite obviously not survive the scientific process.

First of all a model that shows a stream of CO2 to Mars and back will be questioned over the mechanism that causes such a thing. As there wouldn't be one, this dishonesty would be exposed very quickly.

Of course that assumes that the code for the model is publicly available or that the modeling team revealed that diversion. In the case of the hotspot that was stipulated by the modelers.

Even if the code isn't publicly available scientists will ask how the model manages to get co2 to flow between Earth and Mars. Ie they will want the mechanism by which the model achieves this. If it isn't given then they won't be convinced of such a result.

However, Socold if the Mars to Earth connection was buried in the calculations of a common element of all the models (kind of like Briffa's Yamal being buried in all the multi-proxy models that the Bristlecones are not) then all the models would produce similar results and even the modelers would not know why.

If it was a common element of all models the mechanism that causes it would be common knowledge. Just as the mechanism that causes the hotspot in all models is common knowledge.

Of course the way around the problem of scientific integrity is via the establishment of a quasi organized religion among a portion of the science community.

You mean a conspiracy theory spanning decades and stretching across the globe in which all scientists have been forced to model climate dishonestly. I don't believe that is at all plausible.

But for it to work the BS we are seeing in major scientific publications and not requiring sufficient information is made available to duplicate science results and the resultant poor peer review process brought to us by the religious forces. This allows for the non-cognitive stuff to actually survive the scientific method.

Currently understood mechanisms for how aspects of the climate work are available to allow a climate model to be built from the ground up.

For instance you have been asked repeatedly for references to studies showing empirical evidence that the processes in climate models are correct and you have failed to deliver. . .

If you want such references you can read the papers published about the models and trace back through the references. You can also pick up a physics textbook to get some of the underlying theory.

From that a model can be built and then it can be seen whether it shows low or high climate sensitivity.

So far this process has only yielded high climate sensitivity.

Finally your argument that nobody has produced a model that contradicts the warmist models can be simply explained by the fact we scientifically don't know how the climate works and in order to martial the forces to create an elaborate imaginary alternative would require the formation of a new religion.

You don't have to believe the results, you only have to show it is possible to get low climate sensitivity out of a GCM. That prove that low climate sensitivity is compatible with current understanding of how climate works.

Until that is done the current situation is that noone believes low climate sensitivity is compatible with current understanding of how climate works.

The motive for skeptics (or in fact anyone) to actually get a GCM to show low climate sensitivity is obvious. That they haven't done it looks a lot like it cannot be done.

[socold]

Oct 10, 2009 16:20:12 GMT nautonnier said:

Unfortunately, in the real world the hotspot does not exist. This says SoCold cannot be as the physics in the models is perfect. Therefore, the real world must be wrong as all the models have a hotspot.

This isn't what I have said and isn't what I believe, the penalty being that I regard the rest of your post not-worth-responding-to.

[icefisher]

Oct 10, 2009 16:41:23 GMT socold said:

Oct 10, 2009 16:20:49 GMT icefisher said:

Of course that assumes that the code for the model is publicly available or that the modeling team revealed that diversion. In the case of the hotspot that was stipulated by the modelers.

Even if the code isn't publicly available scientists will ask how the model manages to get co2 to flow between Earth and Mars. Ie they will want the mechanism by which the model achieves this. If it isn't given then they won't be convinced of such a result.

You mean like people are asking what happened to the heat that disappeared in the pipeline? LOL!

Oct 10, 2009 16:41:23 GMT socold said:

If it was a common element of all models the mechanism that causes it would be common knowledge. Just as the mechanism that causes the hotspot in all models is common knowledge.

Not true! When a scientist draws on the work of others and does not replicate the work of others; he risks accepting facts that are untrue that he neither tests, questions, or verifies.

This issue goes back to the breakdown in the scientific method that is being allowed to occur by owners of publications not enforcing rules that allow for verification of results.

Oct 10, 2009 16:41:23 GMT socold said:

You mean a conspiracy theory spanning decades and stretching across the globe in which all scientists have been forced to model climate dishonestly. I don't believe that is at all plausible.

A sociologist you are not. What do you call the world's great religions? Based upon unquestioned facts? Implausible? Inferior beings? You must have an explanation for this.

Oct 10, 2009 16:41:23 GMT socold said:

Currently understood mechanisms for how aspects of the climate work are available to allow a climate model to be built from the ground up.

Folks here have been asking you for evidence of that. You just have faith it exists and you cannot produce evidence. You are a member of the religion.

Oct 10, 2009 16:41:23 GMT socold said:

Until that is done the current situation is that noone believes low climate sensitivity is compatible with current understanding of how climate works.

No one??? Except of course science deniers right? ROTFLMAO!! I think we have gone full circle now. . . .the models prove the models.

[socold]

I've provided references to model documentation before. Furthermore the physics of climate is not hidden knowledge, it's publicly accessible in a variety of papers and textbooks based on lab and real world experiments.

It is therefore possible for anyone to build a model from this understanding and see what it yields.

So the excuse that noone but the Illuminati has the ability to build climate models just won't fly.

[jimcripwell]

soclod writes "If it was 0.01C then the Earth's temperature would hardly ever change."

What utter garbage!!! Just because CO2 has little or no effect on global temperatures does not mean that the sun cannot change global temperatures enormously.

[poitsplace]

Oct 10, 2009 15:18:30 GMT glc said:

The main thrust of the "Realists" arguement has stood the test of time. That arguement is, and has been, that there is NOT enough valid information to input into a climate model to achieve valid results.

Let's be clear. AGW theory is not dependant solely on climate models. Climate models may or may not turn out to be correct. What cannot be denied is that adding energy absorbing gases to the atmosphere is likely to increase the average temperature of the earth.

I would have no problem if scientists oft' quoted in the press made statements like these. Of course, "likely to increase the average temperature" isn't an alarmist statement and would not be something one would base a government policy on without a bit more evidence.

Socold's version seems to imply the interplay between CO2 absorption and the rest of the environment is known entirely and that the models (which would incorporate this FULL knowledge of all interaction) are therefore proof of substantial warming...even in the face of an utter absence of real-world evidence.

[poitsplace]

Oct 10, 2009 13:32:51 GMT socold said:

Oct 9, 2009 5:08:41 GMT poitsplace said:

And THAT is where your assertion falls apart. Its an emergent effect of THEIR assumptions of physics. Its an emergent effect of the model's physics based on those assumptions.

And this nicely explains why despite decades of modeling by teams around the world, everyone has consistently found the same general results - a hotspot and high climate sensitivity.

The best skeptics can therefore argue is that current human understanding of physics is wrong. Which is a fair argument.

But arguing that some mythical "AGW physics" is wrong as if there is some other bunch of physics lying around we can use instead is incorrect.

And this comes to the heart of why I must point out that the hotspot is a prediction of the physics in general, not a prediction from some mythical "AGW physics".

Look this is quite simple
Understanding of physics in models = hot spot
reality of physics (ie, the real world) = NO HOT SPOT
Understanding of physic in models IS NOT EQUAL TO reality of physics

Everyone here has been trying to bash this incredibly simple concept through you're intolerably thick skull. REAL scientists (which probably excludes alarmist AGW types...as inconvenient as that might be for you) know that there are REAL forces interacting in the universe and then there is our incomplete knowledge and perception of those forces. Armed with this information REAL scientists always make one very important distinction...REALITY IS ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!! Any hypothesis that fails to meet with reality must have something wrong with it.

Now since REALITY does not and never has to our knowledge ACTUALLY demonstrated strong sensitivity to CO2 the concept must be wrong OR you must PROVE that it is and document the location of the missing energy that's supposedly being gained. Interesting point, the models DO NOT show heat tucked away anywhere...once again showing that they are NOT a true representation of the ACTUAL physics of the world.

The models based on alarmists PERCEPTIONS of the physics show a hot spot. Now since the ACTUAL underlying physics of the real world cannot EVER be wrong and since the hot spot is missing...it is only reasonable to assume that their PERCEPTIONS of the physics are WRONG!

Also, your assertion that the absence of the hot spot is not a problem is in direct opposition with your assertion that the physics used in the models is correct (your problem, not mine)...and in direct opposition to the current perception of the so-called greenhouse effect. The changes to the gradient of the troposphere are the (supposedly) fundamental mechanism through which the bulk of the "greenhouse" warming occurs.

Without a gradient change the temperature of the entire troposphere MUST be going up uniformly...which would mean that the limiting factor (the temperature of the tropopause) would go up as well...DECREASING the size of the notch in earth's outgoing spectrum "caused" by CO2. This is a low sensitivity behavior.

[socold]

Oct 10, 2009 19:10:35 GMT jimcripwell said:

soclod writes "If it was 0.01C then the Earth's temperature would hardly ever change."

What utter garbage!!! Just because CO2 has little or no effect on global temperatures does not mean that the sun cannot change global temperatures enormously.

Science shows us that the forcing from a doubling of co2 is about 3.7wm-2. If that only produces 0.01C forcing then climate sensitivity would be ridiculously low. Which in turn would mean a 1% increase in solar output would produce less than 0.01C warming.

[socold]

Oct 10, 2009 20:09:22 GMT poitsplace said:

Oct 10, 2009 13:32:51 GMT socold said:

And this nicely explains why despite decades of modeling by teams around the world, everyone has consistently found the same general results - a hotspot and high climate sensitivity.

The best skeptics can therefore argue is that current human understanding of physics is wrong. Which is a fair argument.

But arguing that some mythical "AGW physics" is wrong as if there is some other bunch of physics lying around we can use instead is incorrect.

And this comes to the heart of why I must point out that the hotspot is a prediction of the physics in general, not a prediction from some mythical "AGW physics".

Look this is quite simple
Understanding of physics in models = hot spot
reality of physics (ie, the real world) = NO HOT SPOT
Understanding of physic in models IS NOT EQUAL TO reality of physics

I've already said before that physics in models is not perfect (ie reality of physics). But it is the only physics.

There isn't an imaginary "AGW variant" of climate physics.

What the models show is what mainstream, ie only, set of climate physics shows.

So skeptics argument really is that mainstream physics is currently wrong. Which is obviously not what they want to argue, they want to argue that scientists are ignoring mainstream physics and implementing some "AGW physics" into models. Makes it easier to attack the models as if something better is waiting in the wings.

Which is why I must make it clear that the physics in the models is the only physics and that the hotspot is a general expectation of this physics, and no "AGW variant" physics exists.

[sigurdur]

Oct 10, 2009 20:09:22 GMT poitsplace said:

Oct 10, 2009 13:32:51 GMT socold said:

And this nicely explains why despite decades of modeling by teams around the world, everyone has consistently found the same general results - a hotspot and high climate sensitivity.

The best skeptics can therefore argue is that current human understanding of physics is wrong. Which is a fair argument.

But arguing that some mythical "AGW physics" is wrong as if there is some other bunch of physics lying around we can use instead is incorrect.

And this comes to the heart of why I must point out that the hotspot is a prediction of the physics in general, not a prediction from some mythical "AGW physics".

Look this is quite simple
Understanding of physics in models = hot spot
reality of physics (ie, the real world) = NO HOT SPOT
Understanding of physic in models IS NOT EQUAL TO reality of physics

Everyone here has been trying to bash this incredibly simple concept through you're intolerably thick skull. REAL scientists (which probably excludes alarmist AGW types...as inconvenient as that might be for you) know that there are REAL forces interacting in the universe and then there is our incomplete knowledge and perception of those forces. Armed with this information REAL scientists always make one very important distinction...REALITY IS ALWAYS RIGHT!!!!! Any hypothesis that fails to meet with reality must have something wrong with it.

Now since REALITY does not and never has to our knowledge ACTUALLY demonstrated strong sensitivity to CO2 the concept must be wrong OR you must PROVE that it is and document the location of the missing energy that's supposedly being gained. Interesting point, the models DO NOT show heat tucked away anywhere...once again showing that they are NOT a true representation of the ACTUAL physics of the world.

The models based on alarmists PERCEPTIONS of the physics show a hot spot. Now since the ACTUAL underlying physics of the real world cannot EVER be wrong and since the hot spot is missing...it is only reasonable to assume that their PERCEPTIONS of the physics are WRONG!

Also, your assertion that the absence of the hot spot is not a problem is in direct opposition with your assertion that the physics used in the models is correct (your problem, not mine)...and in direct opposition to the current perception of the so-called greenhouse effect. The changes to the gradient of the troposphere are the (supposedly) fundamental mechanism through which the bulk of the "greenhouse" warming occurs.

Without a gradient change the temperature of the entire troposphere MUST be going up uniformly...which would mean that the limiting factor (the temperature of the tropopause) would go up as well...DECREASING the size of the notch in earth's outgoing spectrum "caused" by CO2. This is a low sensitivity behavior.

You have put it so well. REALITY shows that the models are wrong. IF the modelers keep trying to explain things as Socold does........that is why we are in deeeeeep do do. Admit you are wrong.....throw out the models and start over!

They just are NOT working.....so trade them in. How much simplier can it really be?

[poitsplace]

Oct 10, 2009 21:57:07 GMT socold said:

I've already said before that physics in models is not perfect (ie reality of physics). But it is the only physics

And the FACT that the models are just flat out WRONG is what we're talking about. Since the change to the tropospheric gradient is a fundamental component and responsible for a large amount of the temperature increase proposed by the models...the models are wrong at one of the most important levels. This would also explain that pesky little problem of them all being at the very edges of their error bars or (for the bulk of them) outside of their error bars (disproved).

So again, the models are wrong! Do I need to break out into a computer model adaptation of the parrot shop sketch to get this point across? You're defending models that have been proved wrong. Hello...think McFly! No hot spot, no workey. They no makey valid prediction. You have been using the fact that invalid models all use similar assumptions as "proof" that the assumptions are correct. I keep trying to spell the problem out with simple this=that or this<>that kind of comparisons but it just doesn't seem to get through to you.

YOU (and the models) are demonstrably wrong and ironically you're even citing the proof of this yourself. If you'd stop making paradoxical claims and take up your complaints with existence (which is what has the biggest disagreement with what you're saying)...you just MIGHT figure this out.

[jimcripwell]

socold writes "Science shows us that the forcing from a doubling of co2 is about 3.7wm-2."

Wrong. The output of non-validated computer programs gives an estimate of 3.7 wm-2. Science tells us absolutely nothing at all. This number can NEVER be measured, so there is no physics, and therefore no science, behind the number you quoted.

[sigurdur]

Oct 11, 2009 1:09:17 GMT jimcripwell said:

socold writes "Science shows us that the forcing from a doubling of co2 is about 3.7wm-2."

Wrong. The output of non-validated computer programs gives an estimate of 3.7 wm-2. Science tells us absolutely nothing at all. This number can NEVER be measured, so there is no physics, and therefore no science, behind the number you quoted.

Socold may be correct in what he posted. The part he forgot to include is that forcing only works in a slab atmosphere, of which we do not have. For that amount of forcing, everything else MUST remain totally stationary. No more clouds, no fewer clouds, no more wind, no less wind etc.

That.....well.......isn't happening is it?