20 Reasons To Be Skeptical of Human-Induced Global Warming

I wrote an article a little while ago explaining some of the reasons as to why I'm skeptical of human-induced global warming. You can see the full article here: https://chipstero7.blogspot.com/2018/09/15-reasons-to-be-skeptical-of-human.html It's not the best article, but it's not so bad. Below are a few graphics taken from the article. (Be gentle )

 

Excellent article full of inconvenient truth for alarmist. My guess is they won't read it because you are obviously paid by big oil to spread disinformation. There can be no other explanation.

I especially like the way you put the oft quoted 97% of scientist myth to bed.

"The 97% consensus was arrived at by taking the first 4 categories (which had around 12,000 papers) and counting them as “for” AGW. However, most CAGW-skeptics would agree that AGW is a “known fact” and that “greenhouse gases cause warning” and therefore skeptics could be included in the 97%. Category 1 was the only one which included papers that claimed that humans were the “primary cause” of global warming (i.e. over 50%) and that included only 65 papers. The 97% consensus that humans are the “primary cause” of global warming is really a 0.5% consensus (i.e. 65 papers of 12,271) because category 1 was the only category that explicitly endorsed the idea that humans were the “primary cause” of global warming. "

 

You know...I really dont care what deniers think....or any junk science they can come up with. You are beating a dead horse.

 

Wow, a random poster on an Internet political forum has changed my mind about climate change by posting some cool looking infographics and link to a blog! I can just ignore the consensus of the majority of climate scientists now. Thanks!

 

You could always try reading it. Never know, you might learn something you didn't know before. Is there anything specifically wrong with the article that you can find?

 

I did read it and while I'm not a climate expert, there was nothing new that has not been debunked many times over.

 

Okay. Well, it would have been nice to know what specifically was wrong with the arguments so I could update, change or remove them.

 

Reality has a nasty way of slapping us in the face.

 

AGW is what has been debunked here if you ever took those blinders off.

 

Al science that doesn't prop up the AGW hypothesis is immediately labeled junk science and it's author labeled a denier by the cult.

 

The more concrete that is poured with buildings on top the temperature will rise due to heat generation from cities.

 

That's a pretty good write up. I'll see if I can comment on each point in an individual post.

Regarding point #1.

When I use the SB law I actually get +0.17C for ΔT. Note that I use the form ΔT = [(i + ΔF) / εσ]^0.25 - T which I derived from perturbation analysis in this post and where i = 340 W/m^2, ε = 0.87, and T = 288.The SB law isn't that great to use anyway because it represents the radiant temperature of all surfaces. The atmosphere isn't the only surface radiating though nor is it's temperature homogeneous with height. In fact CO2's GHG effect is lowering the entropy in the atmosphere such that the lower atmosphere is warming while the upper atmosphere cools. That is the smoking gun signal for GHG warming by the way.

Specific heat capacities are a better way of tackling the problem. Integrating 0.2 W/m^2 over the entire surface of Earth for a 10 year period yields about 3.22e22 joules of accumulated energy. If we assume all of that goes into heating the first 200m of the ocean we can find how much that would raise the temperature of the ocean. Let's assume the ocean represents about 70% of the 510 trillion sq meters of Earth. Then the volume of water at a depth of 200m is about 1e17 m^3. And a cubic meter of water weighs about 1,000,000 grams so that means our 1e17 m^3 of water has a mass of 1e23 grams. And the specific heat capacity of water is about 4 j/gK. So 3.22e22j is enough to raise 1e23g water by only 0.08K. What if that 3.22e22 joules went into heating the atmosphere? The atmosphere has a mass of 5.15e21 grams. Let's assume air has a specific heat capacity of 1 j/gK. That means there is enough energy to raise the entire atmosphere by 6.25K.

So if all of the energy went into heating the first 200m of ocean then the ocean temperature would rise by 0.08C. And if all that energy went into heating the atmosphere it would rise by a whopping 6.25C. Fortunately the excess energy is going into heating the entire geosphere which includes land, ice, ocean, and atmosphere. The ocean's absorb about 90% of this energy with land, atmosphere, and ice accounting for the remaining 10%. And of that I believe (will confirm later) the atmosphere takes up about half of that mostly via the heat fluxes from ocean-to-air. So the equilibrium response of CO2 heating the atmosphere from 0.2 W/m^2 of forcing over a 10 year period would raise the temperature of the atmosphere by 0.30C. If you consider a somewhat representative blend of land, ice, air, and ocean temperatures this isn't terribly far off from the SB derived value of 0.17C.

The other thing to keep in mind is that CO2 isn't the only forcing agent in the atmosphere right now. There are other GHGs including CH4 and CFCs. There are also aerosols (both volcanic and anthroprogenic) that produce a negative radiative forcing that need to be considered as well. Changes in solar radiation also needs to be considered. In addition there is a lag between atmosphere warming and radiative forcing. This inertial lag is due mostly to the fact that the ocean absorbs most of the heat in the geosphere. The heat flux processes between the ocean and atmosphere can take about 20 to 40 years to achieve an equilibrium between the two if perturbations that upset the equilibrium occur. The transient climate response TCR is the temperature response of the atmosphere to a specific radiative forcing at the moment the forcing is measured. The equilibrium climate response ECR is the temperature response of the atmosphere once everything reaches equilibrium. So if you were to pulse CO2 by say 22 ppmv over a 10 year period you'd need to wait an additional 30 years (give or take) to see how that pulse fully plays out in the climate system. ENSO and Pacific Decadal Oscillation cycles among others have a huge impact on the precise nature of that ocean-to-atmosphere heat flux. Even during a period of net positive radiative forcing the flux can be negative resulting in the atmosphere losing heat to the ocean like would be the case during a La Nina event or a cool phase of the PDO cycle. The climate system is constantly moving the heat from one medium to the other.

 

Regarding point #2...

There's two different concepts in regards to the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere. The first is related to how long a specific molecule will stay in the atmosphere. Imagine tagging a molecule with a unique serial number. The mean residence time of a specific serial number is actually pretty short being on the order of 10 years or so. But serial numbers that are removed from the atmosphere are generally exchanged with new serial numbers that go back in. As a result of this replacement the longevity of the concentration ends up being on the order of 100 to 1000 years.

It is true that nature accounts for most of the carbon emissions. In fact, like you said, anthroprogenic emissions are about 4% of the total. (I'm using a slightly more conservative value than your 5% figure). Prior to the industrial revolution emissions and absorptions were mostly balanced such that the net flux was close to 0 ppm/yr. This explains why the concentration has been relatively stable at 250 to 280 ppm during this interglacial period which goes back 10,000 years. If emissions and absorptions weren't closely balanced then we would have seen much larger changes. Just imagine what the concentration would be today if current growth rates had been sustained over this interglacial period. The problem today is that we've upset the balance. Our anthroprogenic emissions of carbon are equivalent to about +4 ppm/yr of CO2 concentration. Natural sinks have increased to about -2 ppm/yr in an attempt to self correct the imbalance. This leaves a net imbalance of about +2 ppm/yr today. The imbalance was close to 0 ppm/yr at the start of the industrial revolution with the dial getting turned up slowly over the decades. The end result is that we've taken the preindustrial concentration of 280 ppm to about 400 ppm for a total increase of about 120 ppm. New anthroprogenic sources explain nearly 100% of this 120 ppm increase. There are two lines of evidence that corroborate this. The first is an accounting of the amount of carbon dug up out of the ground. The second is the isotopic ratios of the carbon in the atmosphere.

 

Regarding point #3...

Be careful when using Easterbrook as a source. He has a history of misrepresenting research. For example, he often uses Dr. Alley's GISP2 ice core data, but will make his own charts where he labels data from 1850 as "present" or "today". The readers of his blogs get the impression that the temperature today is lower than it actually is. He also implies that this is a global mean surface temperature when it actually isn't. It's just the temperature for Greenland. That has one important caveat that I'll explain later. Anyway, based on the chart you cited it does appear that this is created from Dr. Alley's data which can be found here. Though I believe the x-axis is an event number so it's impossible tell when these events occurred or even whether they are in chronological order. What I can tell you is that none of them occurred during the interglacial period from what I can tell because the GISP2 data shows a maximum warming rate of just 0.15C/decade during the interglacial period.

Note that scientists don't think the current warming is unprecedented. Like you said the Younger-Dryas experienced rapid warming. It was scientists that figured this out afterall. The issue is that it is believed the current rate of warming is unprecedented for this particular interglacial period going back about 10,000 years. This period is the most interesting because it represents the period in which human civilizations began and because it represents a warm epoch among the glacial/interglacial cycles over the last million years.

The next point to consider is that Easterbrook's chart is from Greenland only. The warming rate there is at least 2x that of the global mean today. Over last 60 years the global warming rate is 0.18C/decade, over the 40 years it is 0.20C/decade, and over the last 20 years it is 0.25C/decade. And Greenland has warmed at twice the rate as the global mean. That is a very unusual rate of change. You have to back more than 10,000 years to find similar rates. The warming today is unprecedented during this interglacial and the era of human civilizations. That is definitely something to take note of.

And of some interest, Easterbrook has been predicting global cooling for about 2 decades now. Not only has the Earth warmed, but the warming has been accelerating since WWII which is about the time the anthroprogenic element really began ramping up. Easterbrook's predictions aren't just wrong by a few tenth's of degree they are wrong in the complete opposite direction. Easterbrook's various solar-only climate driver theories cannot explain past climate changes nor present climate changes. His theory of only focusing on one particular forcing agent (the Sun) is certainly simpler, but it's explanatory and predictive power is markedly worse then considering all forcing agents (like solar radiation, GHGs, aerosols, etc) together.

Also, be careful using Anthony Watts as reliable source. He's actually not as bad as many of the other non-expert bloggers, but he too has a history of misrepresenting research and cherry-picking skeptical lines of evidence. I do happen to like how he at least backs up his posts with peer reviewed literature...well sometimes anyway. Just always double check the literature and read it for yourself. Then weigh it against all of the other literature available. That's the step most skeptics ignore.

 

Regarding point #4...

You're right. H2O is responsible for most of the greenhouse effect. Scientists fully acknowledge this fact. But, here is something to consider. Water vapor, by itself, is not a catalyzer of long term temperature changes. The reason is because WV is in a stable equilibrium with the temperature. It does participate in a feedback with the temperature but this feedback is self limiting such that if WV gets perturbed high/low from its equilibrium level a downward/upward pressure is placed on the concentration to get it to revert back to its equilibrium level. If something else forces a temperature change then WV will respond to achieve the new equilibrium, but it won't actually catalyze a change on it's own. This is actually intuitive if not obvious. If the feedback were not self limiting and stable then something as trivial as a hyperactive tropical cyclone season would have kick started a runaway greenhouse gas effect. But alas, after millions of years of countless tropical cyclones the Earth never underwent a Venus style runaway event.

So while H2O is in feedback with the climate system CO2, on the other hand, participates in both feedback and forcing processes. That is CO2 can catalyze temperature changes on its own in addition to participating in a feedback with the temperature. This is why scientists say that H2O isn't the problem. We could pump WV into the air like there's no tomorrow and it wouldn't have any effect because the climate system will "right" itself on it's own in this regard. But, that's not so with CO2; at least not for hundreds or even thousands of years. Once CO2 is forced in the atmosphere it will catalyze a temperature change resulting in a new equilibrium level for WV. WV then responds by increasing the temperature further until the self limiting nature of the feedback quickly quenches the feedback. This is why WV is said to be an amplifier of the warming but not a cause of it.

By the way, I'm wondering if there isn't something wrong with the graph included in this point showing the relative proportions of the greenhouse gases. Total CO2 concentration is about 410 ppm. Of that 130 ppm is anthroprogenic. That is about 31% of the total. The purple color labeled "HUMAN CO2" should be about 1/3 the size of the red pie slice. Maybe my eyes are just playing tricks on me, but shouldn't it be more obvious than depicted?

 

Regarding point #5...

I can honestly say my knowledge of the isotope ratios is limited. So I'm just going to pose a question here. If anthroprogenic CO2 only accounts for 6% of the concentration then that is equivalent to 410 * 0.06 = 25 ppm. From a 280 ppm baseline in the preindustrial era that is budget mismatch of 105 ppm. Where did the other 105 ppm of CO2 come from? And why did it start getting released during the industrial revolution? And why does the 130 ppm seem to match up with the mass accounting of the carbon that was dug up? Coincidence?

 

Regarding point #6...

I completely agree. CO2 is very beneficial to vegetation.

 

Regarding point #7...

Keep in mind that 1998 was a strong El Nino and 2012 was a strong La Nina. El Nino's and La Nina's increase and decrease the ocean-to-atmosphere heat flux respectively. Likewise a cool phase of the PDO cycle also reduces the this heat flux process and that's what dominated during this period. So by cherry-picking a strong El Nino at the beginning and a strong La Nina you can indeed find periods of time in which the warming in the atmosphere was very low. But, if you're okay with cherry-picking years based on ENSO cycles then you'd have to be open to allowing me to pick the reverse ENSO phases. Doing so (which for the record I think is inappropriate) would yield a warming rate of 0.375C/decade from 1999 to 2016.

Furthermore during the period from 1998 to 2012 the entire geosphere actually accumulated about 10e22 joules of energy. Nearly all of this went into heating the ocean. Afterall the heat flux processes that transfer energy from the ocean to air where significantly suppressed during this period due to natural cycles. In addition this period saw significant ice melting (mainly in the Arctic region). Melting ice requires enormous amounts of energy due to the enthalapy of fusion.. On a per unit mass basis it requires 335 kj/kg to make the phase change happen whereas it only takes 4 kj/kg to warm the ice by 1C on it's climb to 0C. The point...very little of the excess energy was going into the atmosphere during this time. But the game is mostly zero sum meaning that this energy didn't disappear; it just went somewhere else. The ocean's got loaded up like spring. This "potential" energy got released starting in 2012.

And there's more. This period was also characterized by an increase in volcanic activity. There were 15 VEI 4+ eruptions during this period. This increased aerosol optical depths resulting in less incoming shortwave radiation entering the geosphere. Since 2012 there have only been 2 VEI 4 eruptions so the volcanic activity is waning off now and aerosol optical depths are decreasing. That's not to say volcanic activity won't increase again though. It's basically impossible to predict volcanic deterministically.

 

Regarding point #8.

I totally agree with you this. The oft cited Cook study is frequently mischaracterized by alarmists.

 

Regarding point #9...

The Feldmann paper you cited contradicts the graph. Feldmann estimates about 0.01 W/m^2 per 1 ppmv which is about what the Arrhenius equation estimates as well. the Arrhenius equation is believed to be useful over most realistic ranges of CO2 concentration. It's certainly not perfect though. By the way, Feldmann is full bore AGW in this paper. He even states that when you add in the WV feedback effect this radiative forcing jumps up to 0.03 W/m^2 per 1 ppmv. That is pretty high.

Anyway, let's move our attention to the graph. The graph actually use a reasonable estimation of the radiative forcing based on what I can tell by diving their temperature increase by the stated 0.15C per W/m^2 of forcing. The big problem here is their choice of the climate sensitivity value. That came from Lindzen and Choi's infamous 2009 paper in which Lindzen admitted had stupid mistakes. They followed up that paper with an attempt in 2011 in which 2 of the 4 reviewers were picked by Lindzen himself. All 4 reviewers said Lindzen's conclusions were not justified and that the submission did not have suitable quality. You can read the comments here. By the way, Lindzen is a well known climate misinformer so take extra care when using him as a source.

 

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I would point the OP to several studies that have recently been published that discuss the gaseous distribution in layers effect necessary for additional concentrations of CO2 to have a greater effect. To date, this distribution has not been evident in the atmosphere. The continued concentration at the existing layer will continue to denigrate the effective amplification of the warming effects as you rightly pointed out in your limit slide. Many folks will ignore the actual physics in favor of the theology. Best of luck in your publications.

 

We need a new term to describe climate science and you may have hit upon it. Theology based science. The endless quest to prove a theology can be supported by science.

 

My argument would be that the use of the Stefan-Boltzmann law is just meant to be an approximation that is applicable only over a limited range of temperatures. A temperature increase of 0.17°C from a 0.025 W/sq.m increment of radiative forcing (RF) seems rather high to me. The IPCC relates temperature-changes to CO2 logarithmically by combining two component-equations into one – the first one for RF from CO2 being the logarithmic equation quoted in my opening post and the second one for ΔT from RF being the linear feedback equation as follows: ΔT = λRF (where λ is generally considered to be 0.8 corresponding to a climate sensitivity of 3°C). When applying the IPCC’s feedback-equation to the 0.025 W/sq.m increment of RF from CO2 we get a feedback-inclusive temperature increase of 0.02°C which is 8 times less than your estimate of 0.17°C. The IPCC estimate that the 3.7 W/sq.m of RF from CO2 alone without feedbacks is sufficient to increase the global mean surface temperature by about 1°C and that’s how much warming I calculate when applying the following equation: ΔT = {T^4+RF/σ}^0.25-T (where T is the TOA-temperature of 255°K and RF is the increment of radiative forcing from CO2).

 

Don’t worry, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you. I based the anthropogenic concentration in the pie-chart on the isotopic measurements. A δ13C value of -8.3 indicates that there is around 6% of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere with the other 94% being isotopically-indistinguishable from nature.

I find it unlikely that anthropogenic sources explain nearly 100% of the increase. The oceans are assumed to have warmed over the last 100-years and as they warm the solubility of CO2 decreases and more CO2 is outgassed from the oceans into the atmosphere. So, some of the increase in CO2 must be due to the warming oceans. But how much? When applying the Van’t-Hoff temperature-equation on Wikipedia’s Henry’s law page I calculated an increase in CO2 of around 19ppmv assuming the oceans have warmed by around 1°C. That doesn’t sound like much, but the CO2 concentration is also affected by changes in ocean biota which itself is temperature-dependent. Baker et al (2013) estimates that changes in photosynthetic activity in certain ocean regions could potentially cause a change in the partial pressure of CO2 of more than 100ppmv.

I am familiar with the argument that residence time and lifetime have been conflated by skeptics. But I don’t think so. The key evidence that indicates a short atmospheric CO2 lifetime is the bomb-spike data. Since the 1963 test-ban treaty atmospheric nuclear-14CO2 has been steadily decaying as it reaches equilibrium with sources and sinks. The decay-rate (or lifetime) of nuclear-14CO2 is the same decay-rate you would measure if you added a larger impulse to the atmospheric CO2 concentration. It is what would happen to all anthropogenic CO2 additions. The nuclear-14CO2 is a tracer and should not behave differently to anthropogenic CO2. It is plausible that some small absorption preference would arise on the basis of different isotope frequencies (plants absorb 12CO2 preferentially) but not to any dramatic extent. If nuclear-14CO2 were being absorbed by sinks in accordance with a half-life of 10-12 years (with equilibrium taking around 40-48 years) and not anthropogenic CO2, it implies some selective principle is at work in the Earth’s CO2-sinks whereby nuclear-14CO2 molecules are absorbed without anthropogenic ones being absorbed. But how could the CO2-sinks (such as the oceans) discriminate between nuclear-14CO2 and anthropogenic molecules of CO2 when they are all mixed up together in the atmosphere?