Framtidens Klimat enligt IPCC och KVA

KVA och IVA arrangerar ett seminarium 6 oktober om

• Framtidens klimat– hur väl kan det förutspås med dagens kunskap och modeller?

Inbjudna talare representerar det vetenskapliga etablissemang som utgör basen för IPCCs koldioxidalarmism, vilket framgår av presentationen:

Lennart Bengtsson, Professor vid University of Reading UK:

• En huvudpunkt har varit att undersöka hur tropiska och extra-tropiska stormar kommer att påverkas av en allmän temperaturhöjning som en följd av ökande växthusgaser.
  

Helge Drange, Professor i oceanografi vid Universitetet i Bergens geofysiska institut:

• Drange har medverkat i utvecklingen av Bergen Climate Modell, en av fyra klimatmodeller som levererade klimatsimuleringar till FNs klimatpanels rapport 2007. Hans forskning är fokuserad på: modellutveckling och -verifikation, identifikation av naturliga klimatförändringar och de skapade av mänsklig aktivitet.
  

Kevin Noone, Professor i kemisk meteorologi vid Institutionen för tillämpad miljövetenskap SU:

• verksam vid Stockholm Resilience Centre.
  

IPCC är nu i fritt fall, eftersom den vetenskapliga grunden för koldioxidalarmismen har försvunnit. Vetenskapliga belägg för att koldioxid orsakar uppvärmning saknas.

Men KVA kan inte förmå sig att lämna det sjunkande skeppet, utan biter sig fast i sitt tidigare stöduttalande, som nu följs upp med ett stödseminarium med minst två uttalade koldioxidalarmister och utan minsta skeptiker.

I inbjudan meddelas:

• Alla anmälda till seminariet är välkomna att skicka in frågor som man önskar att forskarpanelen ska besvara. Detta ger oss möjlighet att gruppera likartade ämnen varmed fler åhörare kan förväntas få sina frågeställningar besvarade.

Vilken lysande ide att bara tillåta skriftliga frågor, men så fjärran från vetenskapens grundprincip om fritt tankeutbyte. Motiveringen att denna inskränkning skall ge "forskarpanelen" möjlighet att besvara fler "frågeställningar" från fler "åhörare", är ovanligt korkad. Är det KVA som hittat på detta?

Mina frågor är:

• Varför blockerar KVA vetenskaplig diskussion genom att bara låta IPCC-troende tala?
• Varför vidhåller KVA sitt stöd till IPCC?
  

Betänk att Sveriges klimat/energi-politik ytterst vilar på KVAs uttalade stöd till IPCC. Betänk att Sveriges framtid som industri, kunskaps och välfärdsland ytterst vilar på klimat/energi-politiken.

Jämför med att SMHI också vägrar debattera med icke IPCC-troende.

CO2: Warming or Cooling?

Ingemar Johansson vs Floyd Patterson Yankee Stadium 1959

The lapse rate (decrease of temperature with altitude) of 6.5 C/km sets the Earth surface temperature to 15 C from a top of the atmosphere TOA at -18 C (at an altitude of 5 km) with a total warming of 33 = 5 x 6.5 C.

The role of the atmosphere is to transport 180 W/m2 absorbed by the Earth surface from insolation, to the TOA for radiation to outer space. The atmosphere thus acts like an air conditioner keeping the Earth surface at 15 C under radiative forcing.

Since the TOA temperature of -18 C is determined by constant insolation, the lapse rate determines the Earth surface temperature: Increasing lapse rate means warming and decreasing lapse rate means cooling.

A basic question in climate science thus concerns what physics determines the lapse rate. There are two main candidates, both setting up an initial lapse rate of 10 C/km to be moderated to the observed 6.5 C/km:

1. radiation according to Planck's Law
2. thermodynamics: convection + evaporation/condensation + gravity according to the equations of fluid dynamics.

Radiation:

• Radiation according to Planck's Law sets the lapse rate to 10 C/km (by dQ = 4 dT with dQ = 180 W/m2 and dT = 45 C)
• thermodynamics enters to reduce the lapse rate to 6.5, because a lapse rate of 10 is unstable
  
• radiation sets the main lapse rate with thermodynamics as secondary moderator.

Thermodynamics:

• An isentropic (adiabatic) lapse rate of 9.8 C/km is determined by thermodynamics without convection (still air) and without radiative forcing and heat transfer
• radiative forcing drives heat transfer by convection + evaporation/condensation which reduces the lapse rate to 6.5
• thermodynamics without heat transfer sets the main lapse with radiatively forced convective thermodynamics as secondary moderator combined with radiation for residual heat transfer acting on the lapse rate set by thermodynamics.

The two main scenarios are thus:

1. primal radiation + secondary thermodynamics = radiation
2. primal thermodynamics + secondary radiation = thermodynamics.

Consider now the effect of increased atmospheric CO2:

1. radiation: increased lapse rate: warming
2. thermodynamics: more heat transfer by convection: decreased lapse rate: cooling.

Which scenario is closest to reality? Radiation or thermodynamics? Warming or cooling?

Stay tuned to get an answer or think for yourself, maybe with inspiration from Basic Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere.

The basic idea is thus that increased heat transfer causes

• increased lapse rate - warming, if radiation dominates
• more vigorous convection/phase change - decreased lapse rate - cooling, if thermodynamics dominates,

which expresses a fundamental difference between heat transfer by radiation/conduction and

by convection/phase change.

Climate Alarmism Without Energy

Climate alarmism feeds on a "greenhouse effect" resulting from "backradiation" as illustrated

in the above energy budget set up by NASA Earth Observatory: We read

• 100% backradiation 
• 117% =390 W/m2  outgoing radiation from the Earth surface
• 48% total incoming radiation from the Sun to the Earth surface 
• 30% transported by convection/evaporation from the Earth surface to the atmosphere.

This represents a severely underfinanced budget with 117% going out and 48% coming in. In politics this may pass as inevitable (for some time), but in science this is catastrophical.

In Computational Blackbody Radiation I show that the "backradiation" creating the NASA budget miracle, is unphysical and purely fictional.  This eliminates the main source of energy 

to climate alarmism. 

Why Radiation by Particles is Too Simple

In the updated Computational Blackbody Radiation I point to a basic difference between

•   wave propagation
  

and 

• propagation of energy by waves,

which comes out of an analysis of a vibrating resonant string subject to damping representing

radiation. This model displays 

• two-way wave propagation 

together with 

• one-way propagation of heat energy (from warm to cold).
  

In a particle model this distinction is not possible because heat energy is tied to particles. 

Since particles may travel two-ways, this leads into an idea of two-way propagation of heat energy. Radiative heat transfer between two bodies will then be described as a two-way stream of particles (photons) with the warmer body spitting out more energetic photons than the colder, thus winning a two-way heat transfer contest. 

This is the basic idea of climate alarmism with an absorbing atmospheric layer "backradiating" particles to the Earth surface in a two-way transfer of heat energy with a warming effect.

What to say about this? Is radiation waves or particles? Is there a two-way transfer of heat energy? 

Well, one may say that the particle model is simpler than the wave model, since a distinction is not made between propagation of waves and propagation of energy. Is it too simple?

Probably, because the wave equation model is as simple as possible, and according to Einstein in the previous post, one should reject a model which is simpler.    

An aspect of too simple, is that the particle model is unstable: Zero heat transfer between bodies of the same temperature would result from cancellation in heavy two-way transfer, which is not stable. 

The basic idea of CO2 climate alarmism is thus based on unstable physics, and unstable physics

will collapse under perturbation, as can now be observed in the aftermath of climategate now beyond the tipping point of climate alarmism...

Simplistic Climate Science

Climate science is a young science with a variety of contradictory simplistic theoretical arguments offering a wide range of predictions such as climate sensitivity (global warming from doubled CO2) anywhere between 0 and 5 C. Some of the simplistic arguments may capture some true essence of global climate, others are completely misleading, following the device by Einstein.

Consider now the following simplistic argument:

The Earth surface temperature is set by the lapse rate (decrease of temperature with height) since the effective top of the atmosphere TOA temperature is determined to -18 C. The observed lapse rate is 6.5 C/km corresponding a TOA at a height of 5 km and an Earth surface temperature of 15 C with a temperature drop of 33 = 5 x 6.5 C.

The lapse rate of an atmosphere in equilibrium without convective motion and phase change (evaporation/condensation) may range from 0 (isothermal) to 9.8 C/km (adiabatic). In such an
atmosphere (without also radiation) there would be no heat transport from the Earth surface to TOA.

Suppose we now view the observed lapse rate of 6.5 C/km as being obtained from the adiabatic rate 9.8 by adding effects of convection/phase change transporting an observed 180 W/m2 from the Earth surface to TOA (with 60 out a total of observed 240 transported by radiation).

This corresponds to giving thermodynamics the leading role as concerns the lapse rate, that is,

global warming/cooling.

We would then view the reduction of the lapse rate from 9.8 to 6.5 as an effect of the heat transport from the Earth surface to TOA by convection/phase change: Increased heat transport coupled to increased convection/phase change, would then correspond to a further reduction of the lapse rate and thus correspond to global cooling.

Now, increased CO2 would require more heat to be transported by convection/phase change (under constant insolation of 240 W/m2), which with the above argument could cause global cooling.

We have thus presented a simplistic argument suggesting that climate sensitivity may very well be negative: more CO2 could cause global cooling. Is this argument correct? Maybe. At least it appears to be as plausible as any other simplistic argument floating around suggesting a climate sensitivity in the range 0 - 5 C. Maybe even more plausible, if the lapse rate is determined by thermodynamics rather than radiation.

Lindzen-Spencer: Confused Skepticism

After giving support to "backradiation" as the physics behind "global warming" Roy Spencer now follows up by giving praise to the basic idea of climate alarmism of a "greenhouse effect" capable of warming the Earth surface to 30 C, if it was not curbed by convective effects reducing it to 15 C, an idea also propagated by Richard Lindzen.

The idea is thus that a lapse rate of about 10 C connecting the Earth surface at 30 C to the top of the atmosphere TOA at -18 C (at the height of 5 km) is determined by radiation alone, which then by convection is reduced to the observed 6.5 C.

The Earth surface is thus supposed to radiate 390 W/m2 of which 240 is radiated to outer space from TOA and 150 are absorbed by the atmosphere and then "backradiated" to the Earth surface contributing to global warming.

I have questioned the physics of "backradiation" as non-existing, and I argued that the lapse rate is not primarily determined by radiation, but by thermodynamics, with radiative heat transfer from the Earth surface to TOA acting passively on the thermodynamic lapse rate.

In this setting there is no "backradiation": Out of the total incoming 180 W/m2 to the Earth surface, 120 is transferred to TOA by convection and 60 by radiation acting on a lapse rate of 6.5 C/km (with 60 absorbed by the atmosphere out of total 240).

It is strange to see leading climate scientists, appearing as skeptics to climate alarmism, still propagating basic misconceptions of climate alarmism such as a powerful "greenhouse effect"

based on radiation alone.

Cannot Lindzen and Spencer understand that the lapse rate primarily must be determined by thermodynamics and not radiation? Why buy the basic argument of climate alarmism,

without subjecting it to scientific scrutiny? Why not scientific skepticism instead of confusion?

Climate Sensitivity 0.5 C

Frank Lanser has a guest post on WUWT arguing that climate sensitivity (global warming from doubled CO2 concentration) is at most 0.5 C. I agree and have come to the same conclusion, using similar reasoning: The simple argument goes as follows: 

Out of the present total warming effect of the atmosphere of 33 C, at most 15 % may be due to CO2, say at most 5 C (probably less).  Now, the warming effect of CO2 could well be logarithmic in its dependence on concentration,  and thus the effect declines with each doubling. With 10 doublings to reach the present level, each doubling would correspond less than 0.5 C, as a first crude estimate of total climate sensitivity including feedbacks. 

Another crude estimate is to say that doubled CO2 may give a "radiative forcing" of 1% of

total incoming radiation with a corresponding 1% change of a total temperature drop of 33 C, that is 0.3 C, according to Fourier's Law, including feedbacks.

Yet another crude estimate is to say that a "radiative forcing" of 2 W/m2 would correspond to a 2% increase of the 120 W/m2 delivered from the Earth surface by convection/latent heat 

under a temperature drop of 30 C, with a corresponding 2% increase of the temperature drop of 0.6 C , including feedbacks.

This is to be compared with IPCC's first crude estimate = 2 - 4.5 C, a factor 5 - 10 bigger. Climate alarmism is solely based on this factor 5 - 10, which lacks scientific rationale.  

Light: Waves or Particles?

Is light electromagnetic waves described by Maxwell's equations, or a stream of "light particles" or "photons" as described by Newton? Is heat transfer by radiation an electromagnetic wave phenomenon, or is it a stream of small packets/particles of "energy quanta"?

This is a basic question in physics and also of climate science since our climate is a thermodynamic heat engine powered by radiation from the Sun in the visible spectrum, and cooled by infrared radiation to outer space, with the Earth absorbing high-frequency light and emitting low-frequency light like a blackbody.

Until 1900, the answer was clear: Maxwell's equations was a wonderful gift to humanity as an amazingly compact yet complete description of light and propagation of light, from scientific

point vastly superior to the primitive particle idea of Newton. Educated people would say waves and not particles.

But there was a problem: The phenomenon of blackbody radiation when approached with wave mechanics led to an "ultraviolet catastrophy" with infinite radiated energy in direct contradiction with observation. To save physics from catastrophy something had to be done and it was Max Planck who took on the responsibility, as the successor of the great Kirchhoff at the University of Berlin and a very ambitious member of the newly formed German Physical Society aimed at giving The Kingdom of Prussia a leading role in the scientific world.

After much agony Planck in 1900 gave in and sacrificed rational deterministic wave mechanics, replacing it with irrational statistics of "energy quanta" described by himself as:

• the whole procedure was an act of despair because a theoretical interpretation had to be found at any price, no matter how high that might be...

And so modern physics was born with the catastrophy elegantly handled by a Salomonic:

• light is both waves and particles, sometimes this sometimes that, and you are free to chose whatever suits you the best, also referred to as wave-particle duality.
  

In 1905 the young Einstein used Planck's energy quanta to explain the photoelectric effect,

which added to the success of the revival of Newton's primitive particle theory, requiring wave-particle duality because after all the full particle primitivism of Newton was untenable. But also wave-particle duality is a form of scientific primitivism: Of course you can as a reasonable human being sometimes act like a fool, but duality is here called schizophrenia, and schizophrenic science is crazy science, in our time represented by CO2 climate alarmism ultimately based on radiation as particles.

Both Planck and Einstein struggled to pay the price of introducing particles all through their lives with the logical tragical end:

'

• All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, “What are light quanta?”. Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken. (Einstein shortly before his death 1954)
• I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i.e., on continuous structures. In that case, nothing remains of my entire castle in the air, gravitation theory included, and of the rest of physics. (Einstein 1954)
• What wanted to say was just this: In the present circumstances the only profession I would choose would be one where earning a living had nothing to do with the search for knowledge. (Einstein's last letter to Born Jan 17 1955 shortly before his death on the 18th of April, probably referring to Born's statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics).
• Would it not be possible to replace the hypothesis of light quanta by another assumption that would also fit the known phenomena? If it is necessary to modify the elements of the theory, would it not be possible to retain at least the equations for the propagation of radiation and conceive only the elementary processes of emission and absorption differently than they have been until now? (Einstein)
• We shall now derive strange properties of heat radiation described by electromagnetic wave theory. (Planck 1900)
• We shall assume that the radiation in one direction is completely independent of the radiation in a different direction, even opposite. (Planck)
• Either the quantum of action was a fictional quantity,then the whole deduction of the radiation law was essentially an illusion representing only an empty play on formulas of no significance, or the derivation of the radiation law was based on sound physical conception...Mechanically, the task seems impossible, and we will justhave to get used to it (quanta) (Planck 1909).
• Zur radikalsten Affassung neigt J.J Thompson und A. Einstein, welche glauben, das die Fortpflanzung der elektromagnetischen Wellen nicht genau nach den Maxwellshen Feldgleichungen, sondern nach gewissen Energiequanten h nu erfolgt. Ich meine dagegen, dass man einstweilen noch nicht genötig ist, so revolutionär vorzugehen, sondern das mann damit auskommen durfte, die Bedeutung des Energiequantums h nu lediglich in den Wechselwirkungen zu suchen, mit denen die Resonatoren einander beeinflussen. Eine definitive Entscheidigung uber diese prinzipiellen Fragen können aber erst weiter Erfahrungen bringen. (Planck 1908)
• Despite the great success that the atomic theory has so far enyoyed, utimately it will have tobe abandoned in favor of the assumption of continuous matter (wave mechanics) (Planck 1882).
• We therefore regard - and this is the most essential point of the entire calculation - energy to be composed of a very definite number of equal packages (Planck 1900).
• The wave theory of light, which operates with continuous spatial functions, has worked well in the representation of purely optical phenomena and will probably never be replaced by another theory (Einstein).
• I do not seek the meaning of “quantum of action” (light quantum) in the vacuum but at the site of absorption and emission (Planck 1907).
• Despite the apparently complete success of the Einstein equation (for the photoelectric effect), the physical theory on which it was designed to be the symbolic expression, is found so untenable that Einstein himself, I believe, no longer holds to it (Millikan).
• My futile attempts to fit the elementary quantum of action into classical theory continued for a number of years and cost me a great deal of effort. Many of my collegues saw in this something bordering on a tragedy (Planck shortly before his death).
• Einstein is increasingly aloof and sceptical (about the quantum discoveries he pioneered). Many of us regards this as a tragedy (Born).

These confessions viewed as deep insights rather than simply expressions of senility, give a pretty grim outlook on "present circumstances" of modern physics, including climate science...What if Einstein and Planck were right?

In Computational Blackbody Radiation I present a way of turning the tragedy into a happy end

by keeping wave mechanics, according to Planck's and Einstein's innermost dream, only

making it more realistic by including an aspect of finite precision computation, instead of resorting to ad hoc particle statistics, which the scientific souls of Planck and Einstein could never accept.

IPCC: Politics and Not Science

Pachauri confirms the assumption by the different reviews of IPCC including the last one by IAC, that IPCC is not governed by science but by politics:

• Let’s face it, we are an intergovernmental body and our strength and acceptability of what we produce is largely because we are owned by governments.
• If that was not the case, then we would be like any other scientific body that maybe producing first-rate reports but don’t see the light of the day because they don’t matter in policy-making. Now clearly, if it’s an inter-governmental body and we want governments’ ownership of what we produce, obviously they will give us guidance of what direction to follow, what are the questions they want answered. 
• Unfortunately, people have completely missed the original resolution by which IPCC was set up. It clearly says that our assessment should include realistic response strategies. If that is not an assessment of policies, then what does it represent? And I am afraid, we have been, in my view, defensive in coming out with a whole range of policies and I am not saying we prescribe policy A or B or C but on the basis of science, we are looking at realistic response strategies. But that is exactly what this committee has recommended that we get out of — policy prescriptions. It is for this reason that I brought out that this what is written in the IPCC mandate. This is a misperception on the part of some people in the scientific community. And I hope I can correct it.

One (small) part of  the scientific community is the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: It is now high time for the Academy to understand its misperception and withdraw its support of IPCC, since it is now completely clear that IPCC is politics and not science. Of course, if the Academy is also politics and not science, no action is necessary.

Updated Computational Blackbody Radiation

                  Planck in despair: A theoretical interpretation had to be found at any price, 

                                                   no matter  how high that might be...

I have updated the (draft of) Computational Blackbody Radiation which can be inspected here.

I present a mathematical analysis of blackbody radiation, of central importance in climate science, based on deterministic wave mechanics subject to finite precision computation, as an alternative to Planck's classical analysis based on statistics of energy quanta or photons. 

The deterministic finite precision wave model offers the following advantages as compared to Planck's statistical particle model:

• it is closer to physics: radiation/light is an electromagnetic wave phenomenon and not any stream of particles,
• it is possible to analyze and thereby understand, while
• Planck's statistical model was born in an "act of despair" and as such has caused a lot of confusion: blackbody radiation is still hundred years later considered to be "black magic"
• it shows that the concept of "backradiation" as the driver of the "greenhouse effect" supposedly causing global warming, is fictitious non-physical and confusing,
• it includes a 2nd law showing that heat energy can be transferred by radiation from a warm body to a cooler body, but not from cold body to a warmer.

This work will be part of my contribution to the Slaying the Sky Dragon of the Greenhouse Effect project.

Comments are welcome.