Fmr EPA Scientist: CO2 not a pollutant & not causing warming

Fred H. Haynie, a retired EPA research scientist, has devoted the past four years to a study of global climate change, and in particular the relationship to CO2, as illustrated in his ppt presentation:

The findings include 1) anthropogenic CO2 emissions have not caused the rise in background levels of CO2, which is primarily due to rising temperatures in the arctic ocean sink, and 2) a greenhouse effect of CO2 is not causing global warming. Thus, controlling CO2 emissions will have no effect on natural climate change, CO2 cannot be considered a pollutant, and attempts to control CO2 emissions will only result in lower efficiency and waste of energy.

Related: The "Greenhouse" Effect

Solar Cycle Prediction Lowered Again

Solar physicist Dr. David Hathaway of NASA has again lowered his prediction of the peak in sunspot numbers for the current solar cycle 24 to only 65 sunspots/month as of June 2010:

The predictions for solar cycle 24 have been plunging since the December 2006 prediction that it would be "one of the most intense cycles since record keeping began almost 400 years ago":  

Dec. 21, 2006: Evidence is mounting: the next solar cycle is going to be a big one. Solar cycle 24, due to peak in 2010 or 2011 "looks like its going to be one of the most intense cycles since record-keeping began almost 400 years ago," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. He and colleague Robert Wilson presented this conclusion last week at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Animation of prior changes to Dr. Hathaway's solar cycle 24 predictions:

The predictions for Solar Cycle 24 have plummeted from "one of the most intense" to now one of the least intense cycles of the past 400 years. If the anemic activity continues, the sun may be entering a quiet phase similar to the Dalton Minimum, characterized by approximately 50 sunspots/month at the peak of the solar cycle. 

Greenhouse Gas Scorecard

From an editorial in this month's Power Engineering journal comes mention of

"the dark horse entry: “Climategate.” The leaking of thousands of emails and files from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) raises the specter of possible academic misconduct in the field of climate change research. At best, Climategate shows researchers ignoring or modifying data that counters their positions, suppressing dissenting opinions and gaming the peer-review process. At worst, it shows that some of the science driving the politicians who regulate GHGs is wrong. At a minimum, Climategate shows unprofessional behavior among scientists trusted by world governments."

Along with a status table of major Congressional climate legislation:

CO2, Global Warming and the Royal Society

Letter from Norm Kalmanovitch to the Global Warming Policy Foundation:

The concept of human caused global warming is entirely predicated on the assumption that the rapid increase in fossil fuel consumption will raise the atmospheric CO2 concentration to levels that will cause catastrophic warming of the Earth. The IPCC defined an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 650ppmv as the absolute maximum tolerable level beyond which catastrophic global warming will be a certainty. This was presented at the climate conference in Nairobi Kenya, in 2006 along with the prediction that at the current increasing rate of CO2 emissions, by 2100 the atmospheric CO2 will be well in excess of 1200ppmv (1248ppmv according to IPCC 2007 lead Author Andrew Weaver’s November 27, 2008 presentation to the University of Calgary).

The global reference for atmospheric CO2 concentration is the Mauna Loa Observatory and this data is used by the IPCC as their only reference. The CO2 concentration data which can be downloaded directly from the site at:
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_annmean_mlo.txt
ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_gr_mlo.txt

In the past ten years CO2 emissions have climbed from 24.75gt/year in 2000 to over 32gt/year by 2009, but the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration remained a virtually straight line, averaging 1.977ppmv/year with the high value of 2.56ppmv/year occurring in 2003 and the low value of 1.55ppmv/year occurring in 2005.

The official CO2 concentration for 2009 from Mona Loa Observatory is 387.35ppmv, and with the average rate of increase in concentration for the past decade of just 1.977ppmv/year, by year 2100 the concentration will only be 567.25ppmv, having increased by just 179.90ppmv over the next 91 years.
This is less than half of what the IPCC predicted and more importantly it is below the 650ppmv maximum that the IPCC deemed safe. Essentially without even criticizing the faulty science behind AGW, it can be shown, based on the actual statements of the IPCC, that the world faces no threat from global warming as a result of increased CO2 emissions.
If one were to bring physical science into the argument it is easily demonstrated that this 179.90ppmv increase in CO2 concentration will not increase the greenhouse effect by the 1.5307°C predicted by the forcing parameter of the climate models, but by something well under 0.2°C (because of the effect of this on an already near saturated wavelength band accessible to CO2).

Paper: North Atlantic has Cooled over last Millenium

The paper Absolute chronologies from the ocean: Records from the longest-lived, non-colonial animals on Earth by Wanamaker et al studies a very long-lived clam (up to 3-4 centuries) common in the temperate to sub-polar North Atlantic Ocean. High resolution sections are taken from the shells to produce a sclerochronology using an oxygen isotope indicative of sea surface temperatures, as shown in red in the first graph below. The paper finds a cooling trend in the North Atlantic of approximately 2°C over the past milleneum:

figure from page 5

In addition, the reconstructed and measured sea surface temperatures in the 1940's and 1950's are found to be higher than the present. This paper may provide useful historical context for the recent, highly controversial paper on modern sea surface temperatures. 


Update: Another study in the same issue of PAGES news  (p. 37) of the North Atlantic sea surface temperatures using ocean sediments also shows temperatures to be higher in the 1940's and 1950's than the present and in the 1400-1500's than the present:

NASA's Earth Energy Budget contradicts IPCC's

The cornerstone of the IPCC's theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is the supposed increase of global temperature due to increasing "back radiation" by increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, the concept of "back radiation" from greenhouse gases has been shown by numerous physicists to violate the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Simply stated, the second law of thermodynamics dictates “Warmth can never spontaneously pass from a body of lower temperature to a body of higher temperature” e.g. colder greenhouse gases back radiating to the earth. Even NASA has removed greenhouse gas back radiation from it's latest diagram of the earth's energy budget:

Whereas, the latest IPCC report shows greenhouse gas back radiation to represent 95% (324 W/m²) of the total incoming radiation (342 W/m²) from the sun:

Back radiation shown as 324 Wm-2 at lower right

Since heat is radiated from "greenhouse gases" in all directions, not just back to the earth, if the energy back radiated is 342 Wm-2, then an equal amount must also be radiated by GHGs to outer space (omitted from IPCC diagram), which would imply GHGs are radiating nearly double the energy input from the sun (i.e. a perpetual heat engine). Thus, the GHG "contribution" is off by a factor of two. The IPCC manages to "balance" it's unphysical energy budget via a number of arbitrary fudge factors which allow a large range of possible scenarios. This effectively "covers all the bases" and allows undue flexibility of computer models to derive any desired result due to greenhouse gas concentrations.

Paper: At least 60% of global warming since 1970 is natural

A new paper by Nicola Scafetta, Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications, finds "that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of ... natural climate oscillations." and that "that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040." Strong evidence is found for the well known 60-year climate cycle, as well as other cycles linked to astronomical origin. The paper concludes that current climate models "are missing fundamental mechanisms that have their physical origin in astronomical phenomena..."

Abstract: We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1°C and 0.25°C, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon's orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21st century. It is found that at least 60% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.

CO2 as a radiation valve contravenes the laws of thermodynamics

Email from Alan Siddons, a former radiochemist, to Greenie Watch (h/t):
...it's not only the Second Law (heat always flows to a cooler zone) which invalidates trace gas heating theory but the First Law as well (energy can neither be created nor destroyed). 

"Heat-trapping gases," you hear, and "Radiation goes in but can’t get out." Well then, what is every explanation of the greenhouse effect pointing at but a radiation valve? Since heat rays are prevented from exiting to space, it is claimed, they have nowhere else to go but back to the earth which, by absorbing them, becomes warmer.

The notion of a radiation valve snaps these concepts into focus: Without such a valve, it is imagined, infrared rays from the earth's solar-heated surface will pass freely into space. For every unit of sunlight going in, therefore, one unit of infrared goes out. Ergo, 1 - 1 = 0, zero referring to the heat gain. But with a proper valve in place no infrared is lost and the trapped rays are absorbed by the emitting surface, so the process goes thusly:



As you see, if the tenets of this theory are valid there can be no outcome other than a doubling of surface energy (a doubling at minimum, that is, since there's no reason to suppose that radiation from the now-warmer surface would not continue to be back-radiated, absorbed, and amplified in a "runaway" heating cascade).

As a real world application, such a valve could be approximated by common window glass or a dichroic filter. The irradiated surface could be anything similar to a blackbody, an ideal absorber-emitter, and a radiative heat gain of something above 0 would be observed. A working model of the greenhouse effect couldn't be made any simpler.

Simple as it is, though, no scientist in the world is able to construct a model that exhibits any radiative gain because the theory's tenets (called "the basic science") are not valid. On a theoretical basis alone, conservation of energy (the First Law) forbids a model like this from working. You can't obtain more energy than you put in. On an empirical basis too, however, as demonstrated by laboratory blackbodies, confined radiation only induces temperatures close to a theoretical blackbody limit, not a degree hotter. (The premise of greenhouse theory, remember, is that radiative confinement raises the earth's temperature above a blackbody limit, yet a laboratory blackbody --which is little more than a light trap -- exemplifies radiative confinement! The premise is self-contradictory.)

Time until All Glaciers and Ice Caps Melt at current rate: ~ 38,000 years

James Hansen of NASA/GISS says his grandchildren could inherit an ice-free earth, and that a warming ice-free earth would cause a sea level rise of 75m. According to recent estimates, about half (~1.6 mm/yr) of recent sea level rise is due to melting of ice sheets and glaciers, and the other ~half due to thermal expansion (both of which have been happening since the last major ice age). Assume also: 

1. Total volume of water on Earth: 1,260,000,000,000,000,000 m³

2. Total volume of water bound in icecaps and glaciers: 1.6% = 20,160,000,000,000,000 m³

3. Total volume of water in the oceans: 98% = 1,234,800,000,000,000,000 m³

4. Assume sea levels continue to rise at the same rate of 3.2 mm/yr by satellite altimetry (even though data indicates this is exaggerated and the rate is decelerating)

If all the ice in icecaps and glaciers melted, the total volume of water in the oceans would then be 1,254,960,000,000,000,000 m³, an increase of 1.6% from the present. Since the average depth of the oceans is 3790m, a 1.6% increase in volume would cause a sea level rise of 3790*.016 =  60.64m = 60640 mm. At the current rate of sea level rise over the past 18 years by satellite altimetry (a decelerating 3.2 mm/yr), half due to ice melt is 1.6 mm/year,  thus it will only take 60640/1.6 = 37900 years until all the ice in glaciers and icecaps melt at the current rate. Add to the fact that the Greenland and Antarctica ice sheets are currently increasing in volume and we are overdue for another ice age, the time is further postponed if ever. Not to mention, fossil fuels will run out within 200 years or less. 

The sea level has risen approximately 120m since the peak of the last major ice age approximately 20,000 years ago. Although the rate of sea level rise has greatly decelerated over the past 6000 years, the rate over the entire 20000 year period is 6mm/year. Substituting .5*6 = 3 mm for 1.6 above yields 20213  years until all ice is melted. Note: melting sea ice causes no significant change in sea level due to Archimedes principle.

Greenland Ice Sheet Growing 5.4 cm/yr

According to an article published in Science, the thickness of the Greenland ice sheet as a whole has been growing at the rate of 5.4 cm/yr (following correction for isostatic uplift). The only areas thinning are selected coastal areas exposed to periodic warm ocean oscillations. This change is also consistent with the natural behavior of ice sheets.

Blue areas indicate increasing ice sheet thickness

Red indicates trend of over 90% of Greenland ice sheet area at >1500m elevation

Related: The Cooling of Greenland over the past 8000 years
Global Warming and the Greenland Ice Sheet (Greenland summit cooling 2.2C/decade)
Greenland warming of 1920–1930 and 1995–2005:

Spotless Days hits 800

Today marks the 800th spotless day in the transition from solar cycle 23 to 24, placing this transition so far as the 3rd highest for number of spotless days over the last 14 solar cycles (since 1850).

graph source

Periods of low solar activity may secondarily affect climate via influence on cloud cover. 

Inconvenient Truth: Sea Level Rise is Decelerating

Despite alarmist claims* to the contrary, according to both tide gauge and satellite altimetry data, the rate of sea level rise since 1900 (and over the past 6000 years according to paleologic data) has been decelerating, not accelerating. Carefully selected tide gauge data by Simon Holgate of the UK Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory is shown in his poster below, which notes that the rate of sea level rise decelerated in the second half of the 20th century (despite exponential increases in CO2 emissions):

Furthermore, the rate of sea level rise as determined by satellite altimetry (which is only available since 1992 and is calibrated to tide gauges) has also decelerated over the past 5 years from 3.2 mm/yr to only 1.5 mm/yr, about the same rate as calculated by Holgate for the period 1954-2003. Paleologic data also indicate sea level rise has greatly decelerated over the past 6000 years, and that sea levels have been rising naturally since the last ice age.

Al Gore apparently doesn't need to be concerned about his purchases of  a $4.5 million condo and $8.8 million villa, both near the Pacific ocean.


*The recent NAS letter states that man-made global warming is causing "climatic patterns to change at speeds unprecedented in modern times, including increasing rates of sea level rise and alterations in the hydrologic cycle."

American Physical Society begins to Backpedal on Climate Policy

The Council of the American Physical Society (APS) has adopted on April 18, 2010 a "Climate Change Commentary" to append to their definitive and "incontrovertible" 2007 policy statement on climate change. The commentary allows considerable backpedaling from the prior policy while appearing to save face. The commentary removes the word incontrovertible because such words are "rarely used in science because by its very nature science questions prevailing ideas." The statement "While there are factors driving the natural variability of climate (e.g., volcanoes, solar variability, oceanic oscillations), no known natural mechanisms have been proposed that explain all of the observed warming in the past century." is added, and while not true since there are a number of papers which show that ocean oscillations and solar variability can explain all of the 0.7 degree warming of the past century, it is a step in the right direction from the 2007 policy which makes no mention of natural forcing and blames climate change on man-made emissions of CO2.

For the first time there is acknowledgement of the uncertainties associated with models, including the statement "These models have uncertainties associated with radiative response functions, especially clouds and water vapor. However, the models show that water vapor has a net positive feedback effect (in addition to CO2 and other gases) on global temperatures. The impact of clouds is less certain because of their dual role as scatterers of incoming solar radiation and as greenhouse contributors." While it is true the models show net positive feedback, that is only because that is how they were programmed, and no mention is made of the empirical satellite and weather balloon data which show the net feedback is actually negative. At least, the commentary begins to indicate large uncertainties with climate modeling.

The commentary adds "The uncertainty in the estimates from various climate models for doubling CO2-equivalent concentration is in the range of 1°C to 3°C with the probability distributions having long tails out to much larger temperature changes.", without mentioning that 1°C global warming is what is expected from the no feedback model and even less from the negative feedback model as supported by data, which is likely to be beneficial and is hardly cause for alarm or cap & tax schemes. As Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer have repeatedly pointed out, the real issue to be determined is the sensitivity of the climate to changes in CO2, for which all the empirical data show the models have greatly overestimated sensitivity. If there is low sensitivity, there is no cause for alarm.

Here is the original 2007 policy, followed by the new Commentary:

Sea Level Expert: Recent Sea Level Change Exaggerated

The study "Comparison of Sea Levels measured by Satellite Altimetry and by Tide Gages" by Cyril Galvin PhD is the subject of the May 20th meeting of the Potomac Geophysical Society. 

Abstract:

“Present-day sea level change: Observations and causes” appeared in Reviews of Geophysics (2004). Its authors claim “global mean sea level rise is now known to be very accurate, 2.8+/-0.4mm/yr”, a rate “significantly larger than the historical rate of sea level change measured by tide gages during the past decades (in the range of 1-2mm/yr)”. The 2004 paper has been cited in the literature at least 115 times (in Web of Science database, as of 14 April 2010), usually to support a very recent acceleration of sea level rise. Tide gages have operated for centuries; satellite altimetry has been around for two decades. Both gages attempt to measure the elevation of the sea surface. The tide gage is immersed in the sea surface, the satellite altimeter orbits 100 miles away. In April 2003, I selected 14 tide gages from US coasts whose data are collected by NOAA and archived by PSMSL. The 14 are located at or near ocean coasts and have data for quarter points of the 20^th century (1925, 1950, 1975, 2000). The identity of these gages was published in The New York Review of Books, 14 August 2003, a year before publication of the 2004 article quoted above. Using their study decade, 1993-2003, seven of the 14 tide gages showed lower, and seven showed higher sea levels in 2003 than in 1993. Average changes in sea level at the 14 pre-selected gages were 0.36mm/yr. This is an order of magnitude less than 2.8mm/yr quoted above for the 2004 satellite data. Further, the 14-gage average sea level is actually less than the standard deviation of the satellite altimetry data. The rate of sea level change quoted for satellite altimetry in the opening sentences above is unlikely to be correct."

Biographical Information:

Cy Galvin PhD is believed to be the first practicing coastal engineer, and he remains the longest continuously operating consulting coastal engineer. He received a BS in Geological Engineering from St Louis University (thesis: Grover Gravel, 1957); a SM from MIT (thesis: Deformed Devonian Brachiopods from Maine, 1959); a PhD from MIT (Experiments on Longshore Currents, 1963). ASCE awarded him their Norman Medal and Huber Research Prize for his experiments on water waves. He has studied sea level problems for about 30 years and has interests in science and public policy, as represented by the controversy on global warming. 

Added note: Satellite altimetry is calibrated to tide gauge data and has been repeatedly "adjusted" over the years, including recently adjusted data collected up to 18 years ago. 

Mainstream US Media begins Balanced Reporting on Global Warming

A report on the CBS Evening News tonight titled Forecast: Global Warming points out that the recent George Mason University poll of TV weather forecasters shows only 31% believe global warming is primarily caused by man. {and over 25% went so far as to call it a scam}

The segment features John Coleman and Dr. Roy Spencer, and a TV weatherman named Dan Satterfield, who undermines his own pro-AGW position by stating "I try to figure out what the weather is going to do in 3 to 5 days - and that isn't easy. The natural thing to think is how can they possibly tell me what the weather is going to do in 100 years?"
Transcript
Related CBS videos: Climategate a hot debate
Getting hot and bothered over climategate

An Engineer's Critique of Global Warming 'Science'

Burt Rutan has recently updated his pdf presentation with much new material and it is highly recommended:

 

Potential cost of Kerry-Lieberman Cap & Tax: $69 - $145 Billion per Year

The Kerry-Lieberman Cap & Tax bill establishes a price collar for CO2 emissions with a floor of $12 per metric ton (increasing annually by 3% + inflation) and ceiling of $25 (increasing annually by 5% + inflation). According to the EPA, US emissions of CO2 in 2009 were 5787 million metric tons. Thus, if the legislation is applied to all US emissions, the cost would be $69 Billion (floor) to $145 Billion (ceiling) annually, increasing ~6 to 8+% each year forever.