[MoreCarbonOK]

henry@bc
I went back to my notes on this
to see that the formula was:

y=K sin (2pi (x-phi)/ῳ)

K Constant   0.037
Wavelength (Years)   87.4
Phase (Years)   18
K= difference max degreeC /annum         
x= time (years)         
ῳ = wavelength (years)   
phi = phase shift to allow zero point at set time (years)         


henry@all
The idea with the blankets does not really work, because CO2 also cools the atmosphere,
during daytime, by deflecting some light due to re-radiation. People remove the blankets during the day, to let the sunshine in, in nature it does not work like that.

For comprehensive proof that CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine, see here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec

They measured this re-radiation from CO2 as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So the direction was sun-earth (day)-moon(unlit by sun) -earth (night). Follow the green line in fig. 6, bottom. Note that it already starts at 1.2 um, then one peak at 1.4 um, then various peaks at 1.6 um and 3 big peaks at 2 um. You can see that it all comes back to us via the moon in fig. 6 top & fig. 7. Note that even methane cools the atmosphere by re-radiating in the 2.2 to 2.4 um range. (There is of course also big re-radiation of CO2 at around 4 um, but this could not be measured with the specific equipment used in the above experiments)

[alancalverd]

From AlanCalverD (reply #140)

It's quite clear where the "skeptical" graph came from, but I'm interested to know what its authors actually plotted. Data that suggests that some winters are warmer than their adjacent summers deserves serious investigation.

The caption of the graph reveals all: what is actually being plotted is a "twelve month running average temperature".

But average of what? Not the entire planet, clearly, because we don't have any reliable data of the polar regions before 1900, or of the wet bits of the Pacific Ocean before 1970. But it can't be from a single point either, because of the ridiculously anomalous winter temperatures.

Somebody, somewhere, must surely know what this graph actually represents??


 JP:   

Quote from: alancalverd on 01/07/2013 14:48:33

    Nothing to do with me, JP, but when someone publishes an untitled graph which contains counterintuitive data, I'd like to know what it represents and why it behaves that way. Is that nitpicking or just asking the sort of question that we professional scientists are paid to ask?

Yes, but a proper scientist would probably find out what an unlabeled plot represents before saying that it casts doubt on many temperature records.

And being a proper scientist, not claiming to be psychic, I have asked the question several times. Regrettably,  nobody seems to know, or to want to tell me. Damocles states that it is the running average of something, which explains its smoothness but not its shape. I do not doubt the veracity of its source data, any more than I would doubt you if you told me how many whippets live in Yorkshire, but it would be unwise to suppose that it was representative of the global density of whippets, and unhelpful if the data was simply titled "something to do with dogs". And if you claimed to have consistent data before 1891, when the breed standard was defined, I might even doubt your data a bit.

Since climate science is observational, we have to live with what data we have, so it quite probably turns out that large-scale averages produce better estimates than using the cleanest datasets.

and there's the problem, restated. Better estimates of what? If you average over selected data, you will get the average of selected data. But the point of interest is the behaviour of the entire planet, not just the few bits where people live, which are by nature anomalous and subject to rapid change over a period of years. So I look at Mauna Loa, relatively sparsely inhabited and dominated by the Pacific climate, which shows an unequivocal recent warming and a consistent lag of CO2 behind the temperature graph. And I look at Vostok which shows a long-term bounded sawtooth of temperature and again a lag of CO2 behind temperature. All we need now is a plausible mechanism to explain these findings.

[damocles]

Alan CalverD:

My whole aim in my last post was simply to point out why the winter temperatures are not "ridiculously anomalous". The point is that the "winter" points on the graph are not winter readings at all -- they are annual readings for a year from a winter month to a winter month. The adjacent "summer" points are annual readings for a year from a summer month to a summer month. There is absolutely no reason why the "summer" month graph points should be any higher than the "winter" month graph points. And this is clearly stated on the graph caption.

I will need to go back to the graph and read carefully to discover the geographical base. I suspect that it might be from a geographically unrepresentative selection of around 60 stations that have been collecting fairly reliable data throughout the period. But I also suspect that I will find that it is very clearly stated in there somewhere where the data have come from.

[JP]

So I look at Mauna Loa, relatively sparsely inhabited and dominated by the Pacific climate, which shows an unequivocal recent warming and a consistent lag of CO2 behind the temperature graph. And I look at Vostok which shows a long-term bounded sawtooth of temperature and again a lag of CO2 behind temperature. All we need now is a plausible mechanism to explain these findings.

Those are worth a look.  Could you post the data (or a link to it?)

[damocles]

I am sorry, AlanCalverD, but I cannot see how you can possibly say that CO2 is consistently lagging behind temperature at Mauna Loa, when the CO2 graph is showing a fairly consistent rise (modulated by seasonal factors) throughout the last few decades and the temperature has done likewise, but in much more modest and erratic fashion.

[alancalverd]

Look at the seasonal modulation of CO2. It's more consistent than the seasonal temperature, and peaks in May-June, at the time when anthropogenic CO2 is minimal. If you subtract the underlying recent trend, the peak shifts to July, as you would expect from the dependence of invertebrate activity on temperature.

[JP]

 JP:   

Quote from: alancalverd on 01/07/2013 14:48:33

    Nothing to do with me, JP, but when someone publishes an untitled graph which contains counterintuitive data, I'd like to know what it represents and why it behaves that way. Is that nitpicking or just asking the sort of question that we professional scientists are paid to ask?

Yes, but a proper scientist would probably find out what an unlabeled plot represents before saying that it casts doubt on many temperature records.

And being a proper scientist, not claiming to be psychic, I have asked the question several times. Regrettably,  nobody seems to know, or to want to tell me. Damocles states that it is the running average of something, which explains its smoothness but not its shape. I do not doubt the veracity of its source data, any more than I would doubt you if you told me how many whippets live in Yorkshire, but it would be unwise to suppose that it was representative of the global density of whippets, and unhelpful if the data was simply titled "something to do with dogs". And if you claimed to have consistent data before 1891, when the breed standard was defined, I might even doubt your data a bit.

I agree that BC's posting of that plot raised a lot of questions.  It was out of context without indication of what the data represented.  What I find to be poor science is how you use the lack of context of that plot as justification to launch an attack on climate science:

Skeptic? Moi? No, just wondering how much "climate data" has been falsified, and why it was done in such a transparently amateurish manner..

If we're here to discuss science then we should stick to the facts and data and we can dismiss any plots that are posted without referencing where the data came from or how they were produced.

[MoreCarbonOK]

damocles says
I am sorry, AlanCalverD, but I cannot see how you can possibly say that CO2 is consistently lagging behind temperature at Mauna Loa, when the CO2 graph is showing a fairly consistent rise (modulated by seasonal factors) throughout the last few decades and the temperature has done likewise, but in much more modest and erratic fashion.

henry says
I am sorry for you, damocles,
I think everyone here sees now from the available data sets that it has been getting cooler for the past decade or so and that this process will continue, no matter who says what.... It will not even help to pump CO2 in the air to stop the cooling. This is what the data are telling us.
My data obtained is from www. tutiempo.net
Having to shove snow in late spring is going to cause a shift in perceptions and it is not going to help those who falsify the data anymore....
More CO2 in the atmosphere is simply a function of warming as any chemist knows.. not the other way around. If you boil water, the first that comes out is the CO2....

In fact, as I have been saying all along, by challenging all of you to come with a balance sheet, it is not really even sure anymore  if more CO2 does not cause cooling rather than warming...as CO2 is one of our first line defence against CME's
<mod edit>
Editorialising, non-peer reviewed links removed (yet again!)
The NASA story is  about the thermosphere when it gets hit by solar flares. Here’s the Press release:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
<//end>

never mind what I said....

[alancalverd]

What I find to be poor science is how you use the lack of context of that plot as justification to launch an attack on climate science:

It's not just that plot that gets up my scientific nose. As a lifelong enthusiast of meteorology and with several years as an aviator, I'm deeply interested in what the atmosphere does and how it does it. I need credible data and an unbiased expert opinion before planning a flight, and I can see no reason to depart from those standards when planning an economy, levying a tax, or subsidising windmills.

I guess my skepticism of "climate science" began at a public lecture by the then co-chairman of IPCC who pointedly announced at the outset that he was a committed Christian. If he thought this was relevant, surely it meant that he considered superstition more important than facts? Fair enough, others have carved out careers in the god business, but I wouldn't put my passengers' lives or my livelihood in their hands. He then presented the first consensus report of the IPCC, in which the influence of water on the behaviour of the atmosphere was dismissed in a footnote because it was complex and unmeasurable. Yeah, well, if you fly into an active front, or even live on the ground in England, atmospheric water deserves more than a dismissive footnote in your met studies.

At a seminar about a year later I was shown the first Vostok data (somewhere along the line I'd been loosely associated with Earth Sciences). Everyone in the audience remarked that the CO2 graph showed a consistent lag behind the temperature graph, and I still haven't heard a "consensus" explanation of how this consists with CO2 being the driver of gobal temperature. One or two websites shrug it off as "only 500 years" but on my planet, all causes precede all effects, and the word "only" has no place in scientific discourse - the light comes on "only 10 milliseconds" after I press the button, therefore it is the light that makes me press the button, eh?

I got close to exploding on being shown an Approved School Textbook for A level physics. According to the Department of Education and Science, the water molecule is (or was, ten years ago) linear and rigid and has no influence on the solar infrared spectrum, unlike the nasty wobbly CO2 beast.

And so it goes on. People conflate incompatible data and fantasy to produce graphs that justify their grants, then issue "corrections" that somehow always reduce the impact. We fly to Mars  and don't ask why it is so much colder than it would be if the consensus CO2 forcing function were correct. Our gallant leaders sign away our right to manufacture anything, on the grounds that Chinese or Indian CO2 is not harmful, but Western emissions are. Obviously you must pay an additional climate levy tax if you fly, but it isn't related to the distance you fly or the amount of fuel consumed per passenger mile.

I'm not attacking climate science. My life depends on understanding it! But I'm very skeptical of "climate science" that mixes arbitrary proxies with spatially limited data to make global pronouncements. And there's an awful lot of it about.

Final shriek in this rant: a couple of weeks ago some guys announced that they had regrown some bryophytes that had been covered  by a glacier for about 500 years. Wow! Panic! We are going to drown! The glacier has retreated and it's all the fault of anthropogenic global warming! No, friends, it means that the world was warmer 500 years ago, when these little darlings were growing by a flowing stream. That's science.

[MoreCarbonOK]

AlanCalverd
who proudly announced at the outset that he was a committed Christian.

Henry says

we all make mistakes, and we must forgive those who trespass (against us),

so be careful how you tread there,
"what is truth?" is what Pilate asked (John 18:37 )
but the answer was given to him in the verse before
I am also one of those who stick to the truth (Truth )

as I see it

no matter what

[alancalverd]

I'd love to wander off into the realms of philosophy with you, but this isn't the place to do so. Suffice it to say that the truth "as I see it" is not the truth as I define it: that which is invariant between observers. The truth "as I see it" includes the flat earth and heavy things falling faster than light ones, depending on who "I" is. And much as I appreciate your general support in this particular argument, "no matter what" may be ex officio or ex cathedra, but it definitely ain't in laboratorio where opinions change with every experiment (which is the entire point of doing experiments!) 

That said, there is a definite connexion between faith and the weather. For as long as I can recall, it has been possible to ski somewhere in Britain at Easter, regardless of the date of that festival. But I wouldn't use it as an excuse to raise taxes.   

[MoreCarbonOK]

alan says
The truth "as I see it" includes the...

henry says
always remember that we can make mistakes,
I think it was Morse (the inventor of the Morse code) who defended slavery,
with quotes from the bible..
More often than not, the truth as two different people see it,
might lie exactly in the middle....

[Bored chemist]

"For comprehensive proof that CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine, see here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
"

That's like saying a coal fire cools the house, because you can see some heat is lost up the chimney.
Not all the heat absorbed is re-radiated.



"I am also one of those who stick to the truth (Truth)
as I see it
no matter what"
For example, no matter what the evidence shows, you will distort it (as above) to support the "Truth" as you see it.

[MoreCarbonOK]

bc says
For example, no matter what the evidence shows, you will distort it.....
henry says
clearly you still don't understand how the GH effect works. I am not going to explain it again to you.
Suffice to say it has nothing to do with blankets.
In this case, where you say I distort the truth, we see from the evidence that light specific to the absorptive spectrum of the CO2 in the 0-5 um traveled to the moon and back to earth. That is radiation lost to space and is called cooling, as also the numerous  papers I googled for you will tell.
1)If there is more CO2 there will also will also be more cooling.
2)My data predicts further cooling in the future, and no warming.

I never said that 2) could be a result of 1) because I can see the warming and cooling of the past follows natural curves.
But that is what you are doing with the natural warming of earth (of the past). Blaming it on the poor CO2.
in the absorptive region, a gas can only re-radiate; there is little mass to "absorb" heat.
Those are the truths as I see it.

[MoreCarbonOK]

<mod edit>
Editorialising, non-peer reviewed links removed (yet again!)
The NASA story is  about the thermosphere when it gets hit by solar flares. Here’s the Press release:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/22mar_saber/
<//end>
henry@moderator
believe it or not, that was in fact the paper I googled for...thanks!
It was just that there was so many "non-peer" reviewed stuff popping up....
I am sorry...

henry@bc & jp

now , to quote from the above paper,  "peer reviewed" & all

For the three day period, March 8th through 10th, the thermosphere absorbed 26 billion kWh of energy.  Infrared radiation from CO2 and NO, the two most efficient coolants in the thermosphere, re-radiated 95% of that total back into space.

 
Why, wow,

did you see that 95% of that 26 billion kWh went back into space? (cooling!!)

now, if you both continue to "believe" in man made global warming,
\

why don't you show me how the testing was done to prove that the net effect of an increase from  0.03% CO2 (300 ppm) to 0.04% (400 ppm) is that of warming, rather than cooling?

hint:Forget about the closed box experiments of those that died a hundred years or so ago. It only shows the warming part.

[damocles]

Look at the seasonal modulation of CO2. It's more consistent than the seasonal temperature, and peaks in May-June, at the time when anthropogenic CO2 is minimal. If you subtract the underlying recent trend, the peak shifts to July, as you would expect from the dependence of invertebrate activity on temperature.

Alan the seasonal modulation (which peaks in May, not June, because of a rising underlying trend line) is attributed to the extensive Northern deciduous forests shutting down for the winter, and causing CO2 to rise steadily throughout the winter until in spring the new growth restarts the photosynthetic removal of CO2. I am totally mystified by your involvement of the dependence of invertebrate activity on temperature: it is not really apparent why it should work in that direction, and even if it does it is surely a minor factor.

There is further evidence that the seasonal modulation of CO2 is caused by deciduous forests in the Northern hemisphere in the Cape Grim record, which shows a much smaller seasonal modulation. Although there are extensive forests in Tasmania, they are evergreen, and downwind from Cape Grim anyway.

[alancalverd]

So why does CO2 decrease from August to December, when the deciduous forests are closing down?

[damocles]

In my previous post I also forgot to mention that the seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere -- duh!!
The Amundsen-Scott data from the US station at the South Pole shows almost no seasonal modulation.

from alancalverd (Reply # 176):

So why does CO2 decrease from August to December, when the deciduous forests are closing down?

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide.png

CO2 decreases from August to October in spite of the fact that the deciduous forests are "shutting down" at this time of year because they do not just suddenly stop photosynthesis, but run it down through the autumn months. The rate of decrease of CO2 slows, as the graph above clearly shows, and then the CO2 mixing ratio starts to increase. Once again, your perception of a December minimum is unrealistic because we are looking at a seasonal signal on top of a steeply rising background.

The points on this graph have been obtained by subtracting a running 12-month average from a monthly average, and then averaging that trend across several annual cycles.

[damocles]

Here is a promised response to alancalverd's questioning of the database for the plot:

But average of what? Not the entire planet, clearly, because we don't have any reliable data of the polar regions before 1900, or of the wet bits of the Pacific Ocean before 1970. But it can't be from a single point either, because of the ridiculously anomalous winter temperatures.

Somebody, somewhere, must surely know what this graph actually represents??

What the graph actually represents is five independent "best guesses" at a single figure to represent a global average trend for climate change. The first three involve raw data from ground stations as well as satellite data. The data are corrected in various ways to try to take account of
bias. The last two are based purely on satellite data, but two different analyses of basically the same raw data.

When the climate scientists try to enter the political debate, they are really in a no win situation.
If they report the raw data, they are subject to accusations of bias, unrepresentative data sets, deniers pointing out why certain raw data might be invalid, etc. If they try to apply corrections to the raw data and average over geographical regions, they are subject to accusations of model error, of massaging the data to fit their preconceptions, of model dependence rather than using the "pure" raw data.

What in fact they do is to work very hard on trying to eliminate bias in their models of the data analysis (note that this is quite a different thing to GCMs) and report in great detail what they did with the raw data and why. Anyone can find this material in the scientific literature, but deciphering it will be a major and unnecessary task for any non-expert, and this is outside my area of expertise; I claim expertise in atmospheric CO2, but not in climate models.

What is shown on the graph appears to be the "global" temperature increase or decrease from a base year from 5 independent sources. The sources are
• GISS -- NASA Goddard figures which use ground station results, correct them where necessary,
and then use satellite results to interpolate between stations.
• NCDC -- NOAA analysis similarly based
• HadCRU -- UK Met Office/University of East Anglia analysis
• RSS -- NASA analysis of raw satellite results from NOAA satellites
• UAH -- An independent analysis of the same raw results at the University of Alabama

I believe that we can take some comfort from the following facts:
• The analyses were very detailed ones by 5 independent teams, genuinely seeking to make a scientific contribution, and with considerable expertise.
• The details of the adjustments made are clearly set out for anyone with the time or energy to read and digest them.
• Although not identical in detail, all five models show the same general trends.

However if anyone really wants to get into this stuff, I would suggest that you first visit wikipedia, and then look carefully at the websites of the various organizations: NASA, NOAA, UK Met Office, and University of Alabama at Huntsville.

[damocles]

From alancalverd (reply # 138):

The GISS "data" is fascinating. It goes back to 1880, when one continent (Antarctica) was completely unexplored, another (Australia)  had no established meteorological service, and there were no regular reports from anywhere in the Pacific. So how did they deduce a global mean? I smell bullshit!

To set the record straight about Australia, you need to remember that we were not even a nation until 1901! There were various state- or city-based instrumentalities keeping records. These records are archived and available from the Bureau of Meteorology library. In the case of Victoria, my own state, the observational practices were established by Neumayer (a German meteorologist of high repute) in the early 1850s, and records were rigorously kept at the Melbourne Observatory. In 1859 the State Government took over responsibility for the collection of data, and this responsibility -- and the keeping of records, which started to expand until it took in observations from around 25 Victorian country towns -- continued until the establishment of the National Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne on the first day of 1908.