As discussed last week, several reports have shown in the last year or two that carbon dioxide (CO2) does not significantly affect global temperatures, contrary to endless repetitions to the contrary by climate alarmists and the mainstream press. Today some of the same authors of the reports discussed last week have released a new report that among other things makes a similar point using a different data set, making a total of 15 such data sets between the earlier reports and this new report. This is like doing 15 experiments using different observations of the same phenomenon and reaching the same conclusion each time. As explained last week, I believe this “no significant effect” finding is the most important finding of climate research in the last few years.
The release of this new report today was accompanied by the following press release:
PRESS RELEASE
Comment on “Examination of space-based bulk atmospheric temperatures used in climate research” by Christy et al. (2018)
Research Report
by James P. Wallace III, Joseph S. D’Aleo, & Craig D. Idso
Third Edition, May, 2018
A just released peer reviewed Climate Science Research Report has once again proven that it is all but certain that EPA’s basic claim that CO2 is a pollutant is totally false. All research was done pro bono.
This research was carried out using as its temperature data the UAH TLT 6.0 atmospheric temperature data. UAH data has been clearly shown to be the very best data available. This research involved the use of mathematical methods of econometrics specifically designed for structural analysis of time series data. These methods have been demonstrated to be highly credible when applied to data such as the UAH temperature data.
The Christy et al (2018) paper discussed in this Research Report does provide lower temperature linear trend positive slope estimates than do many other researchers. However, quite properly, the Christy et al. (2018) paper does not claim that this lower linear trend positive slope finding implies anything whatsoever regarding a proof that CO2 has had a statistical significant impact on the Earth’s temperature over the last 50 years or so.
This Research Report argues that this statistical significance issue must be addressed using appropriate mathematical methods. Such methods are once again used in this new research and prove that increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations did not have a statistically significant impact on the UAH TLT 6.0 temperature data set over the period 1979 to 2016.
In fact, this Research Report demonstrates that there was a “Pause” in UAH TLT temperature trend increases over the 1995 to 2016 period. This is a time period over which atmospheric CO2 concentrations increased by over 12.0%.
Furthermore, based on a well-known solar activity forecast (Abdussamatov 2015) and specific assumptions on the other natural explanatory variables (i.e., volcanic and oceanic/ENSO activity), this new Research Report also provides a long-term forecast that UAH TLT temperatures are very likely to exhibit a declining trend over the period through 2026 at the least.
But, the Research Report points out that, even if temperature data had happened to have had a statistically significant downward sloping trend, it would not have guaranteed that CO2 had not had a statistically significant positive impact on temperature. It simply would have required the use of the proper mathematical tools to obtain the statistical results to have proved it. This is why all of the focus on the magnitude of the slope of linear temperature trends by most climate scientists makes no sense to analysts experienced in econometrics-based structural analysis.
Finally, making another key technical point, the Research Report argues against the use of reanalysis data in structural analysis since its use makes mathematically rigorous hypothesis testing virtually impossible.
The merits of the econometrics-based statistical methodology used in this Research Report and its predecessors versus that used in developing the Climate Models relied upon in EPA’s CO2 Endangerment Finding becomes more obvious every day, the explanation for which has been further discussed in highly relevant Congressional Testimony quoted at length in this Comment.
Trump Derangement Syndrome will be the ruination of the climate industrial complex.
Good.
The democrats defend MS13 evil gang. They want foreign workers to steal your job via open borders. They disrespect the flag. They use Federal bureaucracies to bug and spy on their political opponents, thereby disrespecting democracy and voters. Want to raise your taxes and energy costs. Spew out angry Fake News. Surrender to ayatollahs and the nut in North Korea. Moral climate leaders include Harvey Weinstein, schneiderman, and pathetic Anthony weiner.
Never before have Republicans had so many easy issues to run against.
Wallace, Daleo, and Idso state:
“The relevant mathematical truism is that a statistically significant correlation between two data sets does not prove causality.”
Truism is a harsh semantic. This is not a platitude. Rather it Is a guiding wisdom.
If there is no correlation between CO2 and temperature, this seems a very powerful point. Correlation “is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for” a proof of causality. Thus if there is no correlation, there is no chance that CO2 affects temperatures.
No wonder Doctor Carlin considers this important.
Mathemstics is a discipline that has proofs. However the separate discipline of statistics is NOT mathematics. Satistics instead makes inferences about causality.
The press release and underlying paper in so far as they rely on statistical techniques should not allude to “proving” or disproving CO2 causes warming. Use of the word “proof” in this context is a jarring semantic infelicity that distracts from the overarching and convincing serious minded message of the authors, with which I agree.
In referencing the pause/hiatus, I was surprised that Michael Mann, and colleagues, Feb 1, 2016 paper, “Making sense of the early-2000’s warming slowdown.” wasn’t references. They found that there had indeed been a pause I believe that at the time it was understood that the paper was put out in rebuttal to Jon Karl’s recent effort in adjusting ocean temps – and thus, the record of more recent GW.
Here: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n3/full/nclimate2938.html?foxtrotcallback=true
Excerpt:
It has been claimed that the early-2000’s global warming slowdown, or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been understated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.
Our results support previous findings of a reduced rate of surface warming over the 2001-2014 period — a period in which anthropogenic forcing increased at a relatively constant rate.
Although satellite TLT datasets also have important uncertainties, they corroborate the slowdown of GMST increase and provide independent evidence that the slowdown is a real phenomenon.
—
Many people complain about these CO2 test tube experiments BUT they are wrong.
I’ll say up front they are ALL correct BUT the experimenters ALL jump to the wrong conclusion !
Many people observe that CO2 has a lower specific heat of 844 Joules per gram than air at 1010 Joules per gram and they wrongly claim this proves these “bottle” experiments are wrong because CO2 cools faster than air.
What they fail to recognise is that specific heat is not the only variable in play.
All these experiments involve displacing air with CO2 generated in various manners. If I performed the experiment I would ensure ALL the air was displaced – the bottles are open at the top initially and CO2 is heavier than air.
Despite what Richard said there is nothing wrong with this because the experiment would not produce ANY observable results otherwise !
What many who make the FALSE claim about CO2 cooling faster than air is they simply forgot, or more probably didn’t know, that the mass is important IN THE BOTTLE – IT CHANGES EVERYTHING !!
Avagadro showed that at the same temperature and pressure equal volumes of gases contain equal number of moles.
CO2 has a molecular mass of 44.01 gram per mole and with a specific heat of 0.844 Joules per gram one mole of CO2 requires ~37.1 Joules per 1°C increase in temperature.
Air has a molar mass of 28.966 gram per mole with a specific heat of 1.01 Joules per gram one mole of CO2 requires ~29.3 Joules per 1°C increase in temperature.
All of these experiments use a heating lamp and Richard is incorrect when he says “the wavelength used does not penetrate glass”.
Here is a plot of the emissions for a 3000K object.
?dl=0
As is easily observable nearly all the energy has wavelengths less than 4 micron and >75% lower than 2 micron. Such wavelengths are transmitted through glass at very high transmissivities.
?dl=0
So what is really happening in these experiments ?
I’ll say again I know the effect demonstrated is real – the conclusion about why is wrong !
The radiation from the heat lamps directly heats the thermometers initially and they increase in temperature significantly faster than the gases. Initiall they do not show the temperature of the gas but their response to the radiation.
They mostly use thermocouples which have a far lower specific heat than either air or CO2 – 0.44 for Nickel versus 0.844 for CO2 and 1.01 for air.
Even glass haslower specific heat than either gas.
So the thermometer quickly becomes hotter than the gases and will reach some equilibrium with the incident flux.
As this occurs the gases heat until they equilibrate with the thermometer.
At this point we have a hot object situated in a mass of gas contained in a bottle.
The hot object – the thermometer – will be losing energy by radiation as well as conduction to the gas.
At this point the really important variable is thermal conduction – at similar temperatures radiation is similar in each bottle.
CO2 has a thermal conductivity of 0.0146 versus 0.0262 for air – both are excellent insulators.
Therefore the CO2 thermometer WILL remain at a higher temperature than the air one. Add to this the higher energy loss requirement for CO2 based on mass and the result is a forgone conclusion.
The CO2 thermometer WILL always equilibrate at a higher temperature than the air one – ONLY IN THE BOTTLE THOUGH !
What these simply prove is that the well known physical properties for these gases etc are right – and why wouldn’t they be.
IF CO2 has some “powerful” radiating capacity it would certainly show up thermal conductivity but CO2 is a far better insulator in a confined space than air as is shown by ALL of these experiments.
CO2 is NOT a powerful radiating gas – thermal conductivity proves this beyond doubt.
After thermal conductivity is determined by experiment and it MUST include a radiation component – unless the people performing the tests discovered how to stop it radiating during the test.
That is my take on these and I believe the facts agree with me.
“How then would one calculate the expected warming from a gas that is radiation-active at minus 80 degrees Celsius?”
This comment is incorrect. Surely the fact that CO2 sublimes at a higher temperature than minus 80°C demonstrates how meaningless such statements are.
The fact that the peak emissions for the wavelengths of CO2 occur in the range of 13.5 to 17 μm is meaningless.
Further, there is the fact that changing the variable in Planck’s law from wavelength to frequency or wavenumber shifts the peak emissions to wavelengths exactly coinciding with CO2 primary absorption band as is evident from this –
?dl=0
As is evident from the Planck curves in this diagram PEAK emission coincides with the CO2 primary absorption band and if you observe the trend as the temperature values increase the peak is shifting to the right to better align with this absorption band. This phenomenon occurs in a frequency plot as well.
Notice the wavelength numbers on the top of the graph – 13 to 17 μm – the PEAK emissions !
CO2 is radiatively active at any temperature because there is significant energy in the 13.5 to 17 μm band – just plot some Planck curves for various ambient temperatures and various variables.
Or just look at the curves in the link above – there is plenty of energy available !
What is significant for the implications of climate “science” is the hypothesis of radiative equilibrium and the model used to describe the “greenhouse effect”.
The University of Washington – http://www.atmos.washington.edu/2002Q4/211/notes_greenhouse.html
teaches that 239.7 W/m2 solar radiation plus 239.7 W/m2 “atmospheric back radiation” combine to cause the Earth’s surface to emit 479.4W/m2 at ~303 Kelvin instead of the 239.7 W/m2 at ~255 kelvin the solar radiation can induce on its own.
You cannot dispute the arithmetic – 239.7 + 239.7 does indeed equal 479.4.
But if this is truly equal to ~303 Kelvin as calculated by the Stefan-Boltzmann then the exact same arithmetic applied to Planck curves should produce the same result – no it MUST produce the same result.
The rules of mathematics, in particular calculus, require this.
The Stefan-Boltzmann equation ids the integral of any Planck curve for any temperature value.
The University says 239.7 W/m2 is equivalent to 255 K, 479.4 W/m2 is equivalent to ~303 K, and that 239.7 W/m2 + 239.7 W/m2 = 479.4 W/m2 at 303 Kelvin.
But as this set of Planck curves indisputably shows this is plain wrong –
?dl=0.
As I said above the arithmetic is right and the application of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is OK BUT the result is wrong.
The Stefan-Boltzmann is NOT an appropriate equation to perform the calculations used in climate science – ONLY Planck’s equation completely describes blackbody emissions.
IF the basic model is fundamentally wrong ALL of the relationships based on such arithmetic are wrong and therefore climate alarm is pseudoscience.
What “deniers” deny is that airy-fairy tale “dangerous” carbon dioxide sing-along piece for true believers. The gas has been around for most of the earth’s 4.5 billion years and was once the dominant gas until newly evolved plants produced huge quantities of that corrosive, dangerous acidifying gas oxygen that pushed carbon dioxide-dependent life into anaerobic safety zones like intestines, where they help us animals survive to this day.
Dangerous poison? The average healthy adult person exhales about 40,000 ppm with each breath, because it is a by-product of the Krebs cycle by which every living organism converts nutrients to energy – ATP. A gathering of such beings at a Thanksgiving dinner would soon kill each other for dessert if it really was a danger. U.S. submarines stay submerged for months with crews active and on alert at 8,000 ppm, an admiral recently testified to Congress.
Deny? Get a life.
The elephant in the room with the co2 test tube experiment is how many PPM of co2 were used- probably around 500,000-1,000,000 comparing to a test tube with around 350PPM of co2 so I would call that gaming the system.
Second problem is the wave length used of the heater- i believe the wavelength used does not penetrate glass so what is happening is the glass is being heated and this is transferred to the co2 inside. You get the same results with Argon and this gas does not absorb any IR.
So if the science of AGW is based around this experiment then it flawed from the start.
Mike W: You got it in one: “The only way to prevent CSOD is to send me lots of money, and to transfer ownership and control of all fossil fuels to me. Anyone who disputes my claims is a climate denier.” There has never ever been proof definitive of the “warming role” of atmospheric CO2. The one and only result of adding anything at all to the atmosphere is cooling, think about that before flying off the handle. Me little sites have hundreds of papers illustrating what I am talking about here. Get the facts, make the right decisions.
Even if CO2 has no significant effect on climate, it is still dangerous. As a climate scientist myself, I can report that Global Warming of Doom (GWOD) and Climate Change of Doom (CCOD) are not the only climate threats that we face. Results from my own consensus climate models prove that even if the climate stabilizes, Climate Stability of Doom (CSOD) caused by the CO2 from fossil fuels will result in widespread weather disasters and other environmental catastrophes within 50-100 years unless we act now. The only way to prevent CSOD is to send me lots of money, and to transfer ownership and control of all fossil fuels to me. Anyone who disputes my claims is a climate denier.
Nobody ever asks the threshold question in all of this palaver, which is: What is the temperature of the solar radiation energy that CO2 absorbs and emits?
That has been a calculable figure easily determined before the development of quantum mechanics. As I understand it, soon after Max Planck developed black-body radiation theory, there was an Einstein-Planck formula relating the temperature of radiation to frequency. It is
E = vh,
where
v is the frequency and
h the Planck constant of proportionality.
Slightly before Planck’s comprehensive formulation, Wilhelm Wien proposed a “displacement law,” also known as the Wien approx¬i¬mation, which related peak wavelength (λ) to temperature. It is,
λ = b/T, with
T in Kelvin degrees, and
b Wien’s displacement constant (b ≈ 2900×K).
Wien’s law is still valid, I understand, as modified for quantum mechanics. According to what I have read, the Earth directly emits its highest-energy IR photons, at 8μm to 12μm wavelengths, through a win¬dow to space without interacting with any gases. Wien’s law shows that 8μm photons leave the atmospheric window at 89°C and 12μm photons leave at -31.7°C, spanning a temperature drop of 120.7 Celsius degrees.
By comparison, CO2 interacts with radiant energy, at an absorption/emission peak of ~15μm wavelength (within a spread from 13.5 to 17 μm). The 15μm wavelength’s temperature by Wien’s Law would be ~ 193°K or ~ -80°C (in a range of -58°C to -170°C). How then would one calculate the expected warming from a gas that is radiation-active at minus 80 degrees Celsius?
Keep in mind that GHGs are fixed-quantum-e-line-emitters, and each line has a corresponding peak black body emission temperature related directly to its frequency and inversely to wavelength. Note that CO2’s peak radiation is at 15μm wavelength (with a spread ~13.5-17μm), and any and all of the photons within that range, using Wien’s displacement law have temperatures from -58°C to -170°C, peaking at -80°C. Finally, as gray bodies GHGs emit less than do true black bodies, so for reasonable accuracy any climate-sensitivity calculation based on their emission must be reduced accordingly.
This is to offer an analogy to a different topic, in case still illustrative. It illustrates meaningless apparent facts.
The toxicity of chemicals. All molecules are toxic, in sufficient dose, even water if you drink enough in a short amount of time. In California, they like to brand products as containing carcinogens so some want health warnings on coffee. This is predicated on unimportant apparent facts, however is profoundly specious in fuller holistic perspective. All foods contain natural ingredients that can be tested in large dose and then labeled toxic. This profoundly suggests the social uselessness of such tests.
Coming back to CO2. Maybe it can be tested in such a way as to suggest it can acquire heat. But does this matter in terms of the holistic and far more complicated picture of climate? No, the heat retaining property of CO2 does not matter because a trivial effect that in the real world is countervailed and made irrelevant by stronger factors that influence climate.
Both climate fears and claims coffee is full of carcinogens are illusions based on narrow claims about supposed facts that actually make zero sense if they are considered holistically.
Climate and toxic coffee ate nice examples of what Feynman deplored as cargo cult scams. The scamsters advocate narrowly from apparent scientific facts, but these are actually irrelevant gibberish if the topic is analyzed in light of many more relevant and countervailing facts.
Doctor Carlin must be pointing to multi variate analyses of temperatures versus CO2.
If there is no discernible relationship between CO2 and temperatures, this suggests why alarmists do not do this kind of basic analysis themselves and instead Rely just on junk predictions.
Of course the models have to be lousy if there is no actual relationship in the real world between cO2 models and climate. its all just a scam.
[…] The author poses what he calls the ‘major question’: why does CO2 have no significant effect on temperatures in the real world? (See also this Press Release). […]
Alan–
The 2018 Christy report deals with TMT, yet the Comment deals only with TLT, basically restating their earlier studies on TLT. Shouldn’t the Comment note that the Christy work is extending their earlier work on TLT to TMT?