CO2 saturation and climate sensitivity

longview · Dec 3, 2019

I went looking for the earliest source of Earth being 33°C warmer than it would
be if the atmosphere were transparent. It looks like Arrhenius first mentioned
the Earth average temperature was 15 °C in 1896.
Along the way I found that Knut Ångström had challenged Arrhenius's findings of climate sensitivity,in 1900,
saying that CO2 has a greenhouse effect at lower levels, but quickly becomes saturated.
Ångström's findings in turned were challenged by the alarmist blog real climate.
A Saturated Gassy Argument << RealClimate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii
Where this gets interesting, is if we evaluate what data we can extract from the realclimate graph.

While they did not link to any numerical data, the graph roughly says that at 1XCO2
between .661 and .664% of the of the transmission passes.
For 2XCO2 between .636 and .639% of the light transmitted passes.
The greenhouse warming of 33°C is based on an energy imbalance of 150 Wm-2,
of this 150 Wm-2 up to 26%, or 39 Wm-2 is attributed to CO2.
If we convert the above percentages to changes in energy imbalance,
we see that doubling the CO2 level, will add an imbalance of between
.86 and 1.1 Wm-2. This amount from an alarmist blog site is much lower
than the predicted amount of forcing of 3.71 Wm-2.

Jack Hays · Dec 3, 2019

[h=2]Recent CO2 Climate Sensitivity Estimates Continue Trending Towards Zero[/h]By Kenneth Richard on 16. October 2017
Updated: The Shrinking CO2 Climate Sensitivity A recently highlighted paper published by atmospheric scientists Scafetta et al., (2017) featured a graph (above) documenting post-2000 trends in the published estimates of the Earth’s climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentrations (from 280 parts per million to 560 ppm). The trajectory for the published estimates of transient climate response […]

Lord of Planar · Dec 3, 2019

longview said:
I went looking for the earliest source of Earth being 33°C warmer than it would
be if the atmosphere were transparent. It looks like Arrhenius first mentioned
the Earth average temperature was 15 °C in 1896.
Along the way I found that Knut Ångström had challenged Arrhenius's findings of climate sensitivity,in 1900,
saying that CO2 has a greenhouse effect at lower levels, but quickly becomes saturated.
Ångström's findings in turned were challenged by the alarmist blog real climate.
A Saturated Gassy Argument << RealClimate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii
Where this gets interesting, is if we evaluate what data we can extract from the realclimate graph.

While they did not link to any numerical data, the graph roughly says that at 1XCO2
between .661 and .664% of the of the transmission passes.
For 2XCO2 between .636 and .639% of the light transmitted passes.
The greenhouse warming of 33°C is based on an energy imbalance of 150 Wm-2,
of this 150 Wm-2 up to 26%, or 39 Wm-2 is attributed to CO2.
If we convert the above percentages to changes in energy imbalance,
we see that doubling the CO2 level, will add an imbalance of between
.86 and 1.1 Wm-2. This amount from an alarmist blog site is much lower
than the predicted amount of forcing of 3.71 Wm-2.

We already know that graph confuses the alarmists. I had to flip it upside down once and compare it to graph vs. CO2 levels.

Tim the plumber · Dec 3, 2019

Lord of Planar said:
We already know that graph confuses the alarmists. I had to flip it upside down once and compare it to graph vs. CO2 levels.

To be fair I have no idea what it is all about.

longview · Dec 3, 2019

Tim the plumber said:
To be fair I have no idea what it is all about.

The Blog run by people like Gavin Schmidt, and Michael Mann, attempted to discredit work done by Knut Ångström in 1900,
which found that CO2 was already saturated at the wavelengths in question.
What they showed was the graph that while CO2 was not 100% saturated, each additional unit added quite a bit less
energy imbalance than the current prediction.
This is likely why they did not include numbers for the graphed data.
The graph ends at 100 meters, but the lower atmosphere is considered to be 10,000 meters, so almost no photons in the
range 13.5 and 17 microns being discussed make it out of the atmosphere, even at lower CO2 levels.
Adding CO2 cannot cause 120% to not make it out of the atmosphere, as there is only 100% to work with.

Tim the plumber · Dec 3, 2019

longview said:
The Blog run by people like Gavin Schmidt, and Michael Mann, attempted to discredit work done by Knut Ångström in 1900,
which found that CO2 was already saturated at the wavelengths in question.
What they showed was the graph that while CO2 was not 100% saturated, each additional unit added quite a bit less
energy imbalance than the current prediction.
This is likely why they did not include numbers for the graphed data.
The graph ends at 100 meters, but the lower atmosphere is considered to be 10,000 meters, so almost no photons in the
range 13.5 and 17 microns being discussed make it out of the atmosphere, even at lower CO2 levels.
Adding CO2 cannot cause 120% to not make it out of the atmosphere, as there is only 100% to work with.

OK. Got that. Well more or less.

Do you have any empiriacl evidence for it? Can or could you run an experiment to show it?

longview · Dec 3, 2019

Tim the plumber said:
OK. Got that. Well more or less.

Do you have any empiriacl evidence for it? Can or could you run an experiment to show it?

I have not found that the experiment has been tried since 1900 when Knut Ångström's assistant did an actual test.
The recent test was with the HITRAN spectroscopic archive, which is very good.
I suspect that no one wants to kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

Tim the plumber · Dec 3, 2019

longview said:
I have not found that the experiment has been tried since 1900 when Knut Ångström's assistant did an actual test.
The recent test was with the HITRAN spectroscopic archive, which is very good.
I suspect that no one wants to kill the goose that lays golden eggs.

I wonder if it would be very easy to do these days with CO2 lasers and light sensors you can get off amazon?

longview · Dec 3, 2019

Tim the plumber said:
I wonder if it would be very easy to do these days with CO2 lasers and light sensors you can get off amazon?

I do not think it would be that easy, CO2 lasers are too short a wavelength (9.6 and 10.6 um).
on a cold clear day, a 20C source which was mentioned in the blog, might work with a detector some distance away,
but getting the reference measurement would be difficult. Regular (visible light) optics do not work well at these wavelengths.
They use salt lenses, but the fog quickly outside.
I suppose a 3 meter length of pipe that various gas mixtures could be introduced, with the source and the detector inside the pipe might work.
get a reading at a rough vacuum level, and then flow in a mixture with CO2 at 280 ppm, and then at 560 ppm, and see how the number of photons
reaching the detector changes. No one would believe such a test, unless it was conducted by a real lab,
but it might be possible.

Tim the plumber · Dec 3, 2019

longview said:
I do not think it would be that easy, CO2 lasers are too short a wavelength (9.6 and 10.6 um).
on a cold clear day, a 20C source which was mentioned in the blog, might work with a detector some distance away,
but getting the reference measurement would be difficult. Regular (visible light) optics do not work well at these wavelengths.
They use salt lenses, but the fog quickly outside.
I suppose a 3 meter length of pipe that various gas mixtures could be introduced, with the source and the detector inside the pipe might work.
get a reading at a rough vacuum level, and then flow in a mixture with CO2 at 280 ppm, and then at 560 ppm, and see how the number of photons
reaching the detector changes. No one would believe such a test, unless it was conducted by a real lab,
but it might be possible.

Sounds like between you and LoP you could manage it and put the video on uTube.

longview · Dec 3, 2019

Tim the plumber said:
Sounds like between you and LoP you could manage it and put the video on uTube.

Thanks, but I am sure I do not have the right equipment. I am not sure how one would measure the difference between 280 and 560 ppm with
and accuracy on a active flow process, both are under 1%.

Steve Case · Dec 3, 2019

longview said:
I went looking for the earliest source of Earth being 33°C warmer than it would
be if the atmosphere were transparent....

Here's an interesting link from April 2018:

CO2 is Not Driving Global Warming - Tower of Reason

A 30 dB drop means 1/1000 of the power. To get a 30 dB drop in the available electromagnetic energy
at 15µm due to CO2 at roughly 1atmosphere, your path would only have to be 500m (1640 feet) long.
That's way less distance than the IR radiation from the Earth has to travel to be radiated into space.
...
If we were in outer space looking at the infrared emissions from the Earth and running them through a
prism, we would detect nothing between 14.5µm and 15.5µm.
Is that at odds with the conventional wisdom that says:

In the idealised situation that the climate response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 consisted of a
uniform temperature change only, with no feedbacks operating (but allowing for the enhanced radiative
cooling resulting from the temperature increase), the global warming from GCMs would be around 1.2°C
(Hansen et al., 1984; Bony et al., 2006). IPCC AR4 Chapter 8 page 631
An old analogy says after you paint a red wall with so many layers of white paint, one more coat won't
make it any whiter.

I haven't seen anyone of note disagree with the basic no feed backs CO2 climate sensitivity of 1.2°C.

longview · Dec 3, 2019

Steve Case said:
Here's an interesting link from April 2018:

CO2 is Not Driving Global Warming - Tower of Reason

A 30 dB drop means 1/1000 of the power. To get a 30 dB drop in the available electromagnetic energy
at 15µm due to CO2 at roughly 1atmosphere, your path would only have to be 500m (1640 feet) long.
That's way less distance than the IR radiation from the Earth has to travel to be radiated into space.
...
If we were in outer space looking at the infrared emissions from the Earth and running them through a
prism, we would detect nothing between 14.5µm and 15.5µm.
Is that at odds with the conventional wisdom that says:

In the idealised situation that the climate response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 consisted of a
uniform temperature change only, with no feedbacks operating (but allowing for the enhanced radiative
cooling resulting from the temperature increase), the global warming from GCMs would be around 1.2°C
(Hansen et al., 1984; Bony et al., 2006). IPCC AR4 Chapter 8 page 631
An old analogy says after you paint a red wall with so many layers of white paint, one more coat won't
make it any whiter.

I haven't seen anyone of note disagree with the basic no feed backs CO2 climate sensitivity of 1.2°C.

I find it strange that everyone seems to accept the 2XC02 =1.2°C, when that is tied back to the
2XCO2 causing 3.71 Watts per meter square of energy imbalance, yet if all the energy is already absorbed,
there is nothing else to add.
Even the simulation run by real climate only showed added imbalance of ~1 watt per meter square.

longview · Dec 5, 2019

I found an Air Force paper from 1962 entitled
AtmosphericTransmittanceFrom0.25to 28.5p.m.
https://books.googleusercontent.com...6RT6Z5JQZjXf2gyv34gDsxodcvtwdxdVmKZ6siP3qePlg
Some of the more interesting findings were Figure 7 on page 40 entitled,
Atmospheric transmittance for a vertical path to space from sea level for six model atmospheres.

So way back in 1962, when CO2 levels were only 318 ppm, the absorption bands around CO2
were already saturated, zero 15 um radiation was making it from sea level to space.
Adding CO2 might slightly broaden the absorption spectrum, but the full absorption range
is already from 14 to 16 um, additional broadening would start to run into H2O broadening.

longview · Dec 5, 2019

An additional paper from 1956 found similar results.
https://www.osapublishing.org/view_...chines T J Watson Research Center YKT Library
Atmospheric Transmission in the Infrared.

Typical atmospheric transmission spectra are shown in Figs. 4-8. The regions 4.2 to 4.3 ,5.6 to 6.5 u, and 14.0 to 15.0,u
were all found to be opaque over the two long paths and are omitted from the figures.

In 1956 they found a ZERO percent transmission at 10.1 miles for 14 to 15 um radiation at sea level.
Few things say saturation, like zero percent of the energy getting through.
In fact the graph shows the saturation extends down to 13.5 um.

Buzz · Dec 11, 2019

longview said:
I went looking for the earliest source of Earth being 33°C warmer than it would
be if the atmosphere were transparent. It looks like Arrhenius first mentioned
the Earth average temperature was 15 °C in 1896.
Along the way I found that Knut Ångström had challenged Arrhenius's findings of climate sensitivity,in 1900,
saying that CO2 has a greenhouse effect at lower levels, but quickly becomes saturated.
Ångström's findings in turned were challenged by the alarmist blog real climate.
A Saturated Gassy Argument << RealClimate
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument-part-ii
Where this gets interesting, is if we evaluate what data we can extract from the realclimate graph.

While they did not link to any numerical data, the graph roughly says that at 1XCO2
between .661 and .664% of the of the transmission passes.
For 2XCO2 between .636 and .639% of the light transmitted passes.
The greenhouse warming of 33°C is based on an energy imbalance of 150 Wm-2,
of this 150 Wm-2 up to 26%, or 39 Wm-2 is attributed to CO2.
If we convert the above percentages to changes in energy imbalance,
we see that doubling the CO2 level, will add an imbalance of between
.86 and 1.1 Wm-2. This amount from an alarmist blog site is much lower
than the predicted amount of forcing of 3.71 Wm-2.

O.K... I have been meaning to do this:

Longview, you have either completely missed the whole point of these two posts or are completely ignoring the main point.

And, of course, you are now running around here misinforming people again. Do you think you can figure out what I'm talking about or do I need to explain it to you?

longview · Dec 11, 2019

Buzz said:
O.K... I have been meaning to do this:

Longview, you have either completely missed the whole point of these two posts or are completely ignoring the main point.

And, of course, you are now running around here misinforming people again. Do you think you can figure out what I'm talking about or do I need to explain it to you?

Buzz, based on the DOD studies and even the real climate article graphed findings,
Atmospheric Transmittance from 0.25 to 28.5 Micrometers: Supplement LOWTRAN ... - J. E. A. Selby, Eric P. Shettle, R. A. McClatchey - Google Books
do you think CO2 and continue along the 3.71 Wm-2 doubling curve?
If in fact, as the real climate article states, the center band (15 um) of CO2 is saturated,
Supported by empirical data from the 1960's, that the pressure broadened wings of CO2 will have the exact same
capability as the center band?
Look at the real climate graphic on pressure broadening?

Do you really think the yellow portion of that long curve, contains as much energy as the pink portion of the curve?
Also consider that the yellow portion is for 4XCO2 at sea level pressure.
As we get higher in the atmosphere the pressure drops, and so does the pressure broadening.
If the amount of energy/temperature perturbation CO2 can cause is limited,
so to is the feedback that perturbation could possibly cause!

Lord of Planar · Dec 11, 2019

Buzz said:
O.K... I have been meaning to do this:

Longview, you have either completely missed the whole point of these two posts or are completely ignoring the main point.

And, of course, you are now running around here misinforming people again. Do you think you can figure out what I'm talking about or do I need to explain it to you?

If you cold explain your position in your own words, without TMI in links, that would be welcome, and a first!

Please do!

Lord of Planar · Dec 11, 2019

longview said:
Buzz, based on the DOD studies and even the real climate article graphed findings,
Atmospheric Transmittance from 0.25 to 28.5 Micrometers: Supplement LOWTRAN ... - J. E. A. Selby, Eric P. Shettle, R. A. McClatchey - Google Books
do you think CO2 and continue along the 3.71 Wm-2 doubling curve?
If in fact, as the real climate article states, the center band (15 um) of CO2 is saturated,
Supported by empirical data from the 1960's, that the pressure broadened wings of CO2 will have the exact same
capability as the center band?
Look at the real climate graphic on pressure broadening?

Do you really think the yellow portion of that long curve, contains as much energy as the pink portion of the curve?
Also consider that the yellow portion is for 4XCO2 at sea level pressure.
As we get higher in the atmosphere the pressure drops, and so does the pressure broadening.
If the amount of energy/temperature perturbation CO2 can cause is limited,
so to is the feedback that perturbation could possibly cause!

I don't think he comprehends log[SUB]10[/SUB]. Without that comprehension, he couldn't possible see how insignificant the yellow area is. My visual estimation places the two yellow wings around 40 dB less in value the the parts between them.

Buzz · Dec 12, 2019

longview said:
Buzz, based on the DOD studies and even the real climate article graphed findings,
Atmospheric Transmittance from 0.25 to 28.5 Micrometers: Supplement LOWTRAN ... - J. E. A. Selby, Eric P. Shettle, R. A. McClatchey - Google Books
do you think CO2 and continue along the 3.71 Wm-2 doubling curve?
If in fact, as the real climate article states, the center band (15 um) of CO2 is saturated,
Supported by empirical data from the 1960's, that the pressure broadened wings of CO2 will have the exact same
capability as the center band?
Look at the real climate graphic on pressure broadening?

Do you really think the yellow portion of that long curve, contains as much energy as the pink portion of the curve?
Also consider that the yellow portion is for 4XCO2 at sea level pressure.
As we get higher in the atmosphere the pressure drops, and so does the pressure broadening.
If the amount of energy/temperature perturbation CO2 can cause is limited,
so to is the feedback that perturbation could possibly cause!

Wow!! You never cease to amaze me with your ability to find posts like this one from RealClimate and cherry-pick the stuff you want while you completely ignore the main point of the article.

This article basically states several times and in different ways that your "saturated" argument is BS! Here is just one time they state this:

So, if a skeptical friend hits you with the "saturation argument" against global warming, here’s all you need to say: (a) You’d still get an increase in greenhouse warming even if the atmosphere were saturated, because it’s the absorption in the thin upper atmosphere (which is unsaturated) that counts (b) It’s not even true that the atmosphere is actually saturated with respect to absorption by CO2

So... your new argument that you have been throwing around here lately is just more misinformation.

Lord of Planar · Dec 12, 2019

Buzz said:
Wow!! You never cease to amaze me with your ability to find posts like this one from RealClimate and cherry-pick the stuff you want while you completely ignore the main point of the article.

This article basically states several times and in different ways that your "saturated" argument is BS! Here is just one time they state this:

So... your new argument that you have been throwing around here lately is just more misinformation.

Nobody disagrees that warming still increases.

But tell us. How much more power do you think that yellow area for four times the CO2 adds to the total CO2 forcing, percentage wise? The IPCC et. al. would have us believe it would add an approximate 7.4 W/m^2 to an already 30+ W/m^2.

The power in those wings appear to be about 40 dB less in power than the parts in between. If the parts in between represent 40 W/m^2, then how much power is being added?

Do you understand what that scientifically accurate graph represents?

Do you understand what 40 dB less means?

What is its significance?

longview · Dec 12, 2019

Buzz said:
Wow!! You never cease to amaze me with your ability to find posts like this one from RealClimate and cherry-pick the stuff you want while you completely ignore the main point of the article.

This article basically states several times and in different ways that your "saturated" argument is BS! Here is just one time they state this:

So... your new argument that you have been throwing around here lately is just more misinformation.

Please keep in mind that they did not include numerical data in their article for a reason.
Yes, there could still be some warming from the pressure broadened CO2 absorption, but two
factors would limit the proportion of that warming, and greatly weaken their argument.
One as their own graphic shows, the energy in the yellow is much smaller than the energy in the pink portion of the spectrum.
Two their statement,
"You’d still get an increase in greenhouse warming even if the atmosphere were saturated, because it’s the absorption in the thin upper atmosphere",
is patently false, because the pressure broadening, kind of needs pressure, which is not present in the upper atmosphere.
I seem to recall that the vacuum needed for clean spectral lines is 10 Torr, or ~ what is found at 100,000 feet.

Media_Truth · Dec 14, 2019

CO2 saturation in plants will not decrease global warming, it will increase it...

Warning on carbon saturation point

VEGETATION on Earth could become saturated with carbon by the end of the century and stop acting as a brake on global warming, say scientists.

A four degrees celsius rise in global temperature, predicted by 2100, marks the threshold point after which terrestrial trees and plants will be unable to soak up any more carbon from the atmosphere.

Atmospheric carbon will then start to increase more rapidly, accelerating climate change, the researchers warn.

Steve Case · Dec 14, 2019

Media_Truth said:
CO2 saturation in plants will not decrease global warming, it will increase it...

Warning on carbon saturation point

VEGETATION on Earth could become saturated with carbon by the end of the century and stop acting as a brake on global warming, say scientists.

A four degrees celsius rise in global temperature, predicted by 2100, marks the threshold point after which terrestrial trees and plants will be unable to soak up any more carbon from the atmosphere.

Atmospheric carbon will then start to increase more rapidly, accelerating climate change, the researchers warn.

From the link above:

A four degrees celsius rise in global temperature, predicted by 2100, marks the threshold point after
which terrestrial trees and plants will be unable to soak up any more carbon from the atmosphere.
...
The study used seven different computer models to simulate the effects of global warming on plant life.

"We use data to work out the mathematics of how the plant grows - how it photosynthesises, takes up
carbon and nitrogen, competes with other plants, and is affected by soil nutrients and water - and we
do this for different vegetation types," said Dr Friend.

"The whole of the land surface is understood in 2,500 square kilometre portions. We then input real
climate data up to the present and look at what might happen every 30 minutes right up until 2099."

There must have been an original study somewhere showing that plants stop growing at an increase of 4 degrees.
I didn't see any such links or any numbers in the article. But we were told about computer models producing data
every 30 minutes for the next 80 years.

This reworked James Delingpole quote is probably the best response:

Somewhere in an environmental science department at some cruddy university
not far from you, a bunch of otherwise unemployable graduate students are
working on yet another paper demonstrating that carbon dioxide is a really
serious problem which can only be solved if millions of dollars in funding grants
are chucked at it.

Or I could have just said Bullsh!t

longview · Dec 14, 2019

Media_Truth said:
CO2 saturation in plants will not decrease global warming, it will increase it...

Warning on carbon saturation point

VEGETATION on Earth could become saturated with carbon by the end of the century and stop acting as a brake on global warming, say scientists.

A four degrees celsius rise in global temperature, predicted by 2100, marks the threshold point after which terrestrial trees and plants will be unable to soak up any more carbon from the atmosphere.

Atmospheric carbon will then start to increase more rapidly, accelerating climate change, the researchers warn.

CO2 saturation in plants, has no relationship to atmospheric CO2 saturation!
Atmospheric CO2 saturation deal with the fact that added CO2 can only cause minimal forcing imbalance going forward,
as the mechanism defined by physics was nearly 100% saturated before the 1950's.
let's say for example the pre saturation forcing of a CO2 doubling was actually 3.71 Watts per meter square,
based on the curve from the alarmist site real climate, the post saturation forcing could be only 25% of that amount,
had they shown the actual numbers, the reduction would be much greater.
The Science says that CO2 is basically finished any forcing in the 15 um band.

CO2 saturation and climate sensitivity

longview

Jack Hays

Traveler

Lord of Planar

Tim the plumber

longview

Tim the plumber

longview

Tim the plumber

longview

Tim the plumber

longview

Steve Case

longview

longview

longview

Buzz

Irritant

longview

Lord of Planar

Lord of Planar

Buzz

Irritant

Lord of Planar

longview

Media_Truth

Steve Case

longview