I like to ask “what if?” questions. Such as what if infinity is not equal to 2 times infinity.

The very existence of climate depends on what we at a wind engineering conference used to call the “spectral gap”.
The spectral gap is what separates short term random fluctuations from longer term fluctuations.

On the small time scales, we have weather, which is known to be chaotic. It is essentially random. There is no reason to assume that this chaos/randomness is limited to small time scales. It could continue naturally on time scales of years, hundreds of years, tens of thousands of years, millions of years.

In which case what we call “climate” is an artifact of having a relatively small natural long term fluctuation over the past 200 years.

I am still working on thread https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=https%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/17090/

First to confirm that the IPCC has in fact got the 70% of global warming due to CO2 correct.
Second to confirm mollwollfumble’s conjecture (from ten years ago) that this match between global warming and CO2 is starting to fail because of nonlinearity, that the relationship between CO2 and global warming due to CO2 is logarithmic not linear.

My next step is to select which data set gives the most accurate and easiest to use CO2 infrared absorption, and the most accurate and easiest to use H2O vapour infrared absorption. I am tentatively assuming that only H2O and CO2 are necessary for the calculation, ignoring smaller effects due to O, O2, O3, HCFC, NOx, CH4 and other gases.

Data presenting absorption as limited to 100% is easier to use than absorption expressed in units of m^-1, which is unlimited. I ought to find a conversion equation between the two, but I’ll put that off for now.

mollwollfumble said:

I like to ask “what if?” questions. Such as what if infinity is not equal to 2 times infinity.

The very existence of climate depends on what we at a wind engineering conference used to call the “spectral gap”.
The spectral gap is what separates short term random fluctuations from longer term fluctuations.

On the small time scales, we have weather, which is known to be chaotic. It is essentially random. There is no reason to assume that this chaos/randomness is limited to small time scales. It could continue naturally on time scales of years, hundreds of years, tens of thousands of years, millions of years.

In which case what we call “climate” is an artifact of having a relatively small natural long term fluctuation over the past 200 years.

I am still working on thread https://tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/?main=https%3A//tokyo3.org/forums/holiday/topics/17090/

First to confirm that the IPCC has in fact got the 70% of global warming due to CO2 correct.
Second to confirm mollwollfumble’s conjecture (from ten years ago) that this match between global warming and CO2 is starting to fail because of nonlinearity, that the relationship between CO2 and global warming due to CO2 is logarithmic not linear.

My next step is to select which data set gives the most accurate and easiest to use CO2 infrared absorption, and the most accurate and easiest to use H2O vapour infrared absorption. I am tentatively assuming that only H2O and CO2 are necessary for the calculation, ignoring smaller effects due to O, O2, O3, HCFC, NOx, CH4 and other gases.

Data presenting absorption as limited to 100% is easier to use than absorption expressed in units of m^-1, which is unlimited. I ought to find a conversion equation between the two, but I’ll put that off for now.

CH4 is NOT a small effect. With methane gas and coal extraction, melting of permafrost, etc., it is no small matter.

What if there are no patterns¿

I’m a good clear thinker, Mr Fumble.

If there was no such thing as climate, then the word would not be in the dictionary.

Lets say what you posted is true and this is a natural weather pattern change its not the only effect fossil fuel usage has on the planet.
Pollution itself is damaging to living things and we fight and kill each other over the acquisition of energy sources (oil mostly)

Woodie said:

SCIENCE said:

What if there are no patterns¿

I’m a good clear thinker, Mr Fumble.

If there was no such thing as climate, then the word would not be in the dictionary.

Good to have agreement¡

It seems to me a bit either/orist to suggest that there is no such thing as climate just because climates might be more variable than suggested by current climate models.

On the other hand, if you are correct and the climate is more variable, and more likely to be disrupted by tipping points, then certainly we should be doing more to reduce human activities that may cause this disruption.

So good point, with which I fully agree.

BTW, the weather isn’t at all random, it’s just very hard to predict.

The Rev Dodgson said:

BTW, the weather isn’t at all random, it’s just very hard to predict.

Imagine if there were some word to describe the nature of such dynamical systems with behaviours that were highly sensitive to initial conditions, could have absolutely optimal semantics, perhaps.

Of course, the supposed original use of the word random applied to just such a behaviour…

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

BTW, the weather isn’t at all random, it’s just very hard to predict.

Imagine if there were some word to describe the nature of such dynamical systems with behaviours that were highly sensitive to initial conditions, could have absolutely optimal semantics, perhaps.

Of course, the supposed original use of the word random applied to just such a behaviour…

OK, on reflection perhaps I should withdraw my objection to calling weather random, since I am quite happy to call dice throwing or coin tossing random.

Or even dart throwing.

BTW, the weather isn’t at all random, it’s just very hard to predict.

—

The BOM does ok imo struggling as it does with a dodgy old supercomputer..

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/06/bureau-of-meteorology-super-computer-delays-bungle-summer-weather-fire-cyclone-alert-warning

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

BTW, the weather isn’t at all random, it’s just very hard to predict.

Imagine if there were some word to describe the nature of such dynamical systems with behaviours that were highly sensitive to initial conditions, could have absolutely optimal semantics, perhaps.

Of course, the supposed original use of the word random applied to just such a behaviour…

OK, on reflection perhaps I should withdraw my objection to calling weather random, since I am quite happy to call dice throwing or coin tossing random.

Or even dart throwing.

Matthew V (who hosted the HF originally) has just finished competing at the Australian Darts Championships, and has qualified for the Australian Darts Open this week.

Good News¡ Climate Vandalism To Continue Very Soon¡

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-14/jetstar-cancels-flights-between-darwin-and-bali-in-october/102725946

Michael V said:

The Rev Dodgson said:

SCIENCE said:

Imagine if there were some word to describe the nature of such dynamical systems with behaviours that were highly sensitive to initial conditions, could have absolutely optimal semantics, perhaps.

Of course, the supposed original use of the word random applied to just such a behaviour…

OK, on reflection perhaps I should withdraw my objection to calling weather random, since I am quite happy to call dice throwing or coin tossing random.

Or even dart throwing.

Matthew V (who hosted the HF originally) has just finished competing at the Australian Darts Championships, and has qualified for the Australian Darts Open this week.

nice

Rather than talk of “climate”, perhaps we should talk of “long term weather”.

> CH4 is not a small effect.

OK, well in that case I’ll check out CH4 after I check up on CO2. CH4 as a greenhouse gas does not enter significantly into the calculations of the first two IPCC science reports. In the second report, CFCs are significant, but those have been declining in the atmosphere (rather than increasing) since the second report, so this reduction would add a little to global cooling rather than global warming.

Although I would like to use the infrared chart from Quora, I don’t trust it. Too much of the chart is exactly on 100% absorbance. It looks too much as though the absorbance in per metre has been converted to percent just using truncation of large values to 100% rather than using the correct transformation.

What is the correct transformation? If ‘a’ is the % absorbance scale 0 to 1 and ‘b’ is the per metre scale 0 to infinity. The conversion equation has to be of the form a = 1 – (1-x)^y where y depends on ‘b’ and where the height of the atmosphere (total mass divided by surface density) times the concentration comes into it somewhere. When ‘b’ is zero, ‘a’ is zero. When b is large, ‘a’ tends to 100%.

The chart of absorption by water vapour in Wikipedia is ideal, see below. But I’d need the quora chart for calibration of the conversion equation (eg. to make sure that I’m integrating over frequency and not over wavelength)

I just wish there was something equivalent for CO2. There has to be, but so far it’s been behind a paywall.

So, what do I need? Atmospheric concentrations at sea level for CO2 and H2O. Atmospheric integrated thickness. The correct conversion equation for per metre absorption to % absorption. The blackbody radiation equation for 288 Kelvin. The effect of temperature on total blackbody radiation (proportional to temperature to the power 4).

Okay.

I mean I don’t think you’ve discovered anything amazing. There are many cycles, right up to cycles on the range of hundreds of millions of years associated with the climatic effects of supercontinental cycle.

I think the whole world would be a lot happier if the word “climate” was removed, and replaced by “long term weather”.

dv said:

Okay.
I mean I don’t think you’ve discovered anything amazing. There are many cycles, right up to cycles on the range of hundreds of millions of years associated with the climatic effects of supercontinental cycle.

I haven’t discovered anything amazing.

I’m finding an enormous amount of rubbish on the internet about greenhouse gas absorption curves.
For starters, everybody is quoting a scientific paper from back in the 1950s, a great paper, but it doesn’t go to large enough wavelengths, missing out half of the radiation emitted by Earth. Grr.

This link is interesting
https://www.scienceunderattack.com/blog/2021/4/5/how-near-saturation-of-co2-limits-future-global-warming-74

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere allow most of the downward shortwave radiation to pass through, but prevent a substantial portion of the upward longwave radiation from escaping – resulting in net warming, as suggested by the relative areas of red and blue in the figure above. The absorption by various greenhouse gases of upward (emitted) radiation at different wavelengths can be seen in the lower panels of the figure, water vapor and CO2 being the most dominant gases.

The research of Happer and van Wijngaarden takes into account both absorption and emission, as well as atmospheric temperature variation with altitude. The next figure shows the authors’ calculated spectrum for outgoing radiation at the top of the atmosphere, as a function of wavenumber or spatial frequency rather than wavelength, which is the inverse of spatial frequency. (The temporal frequency is the spatial frequency multiplied by the speed of light.)

The blue curve is the spectrum for an atmosphere without any greenhouse gases at all, while the green curve is the spectrum for all greenhouse gases except CO2. Including CO2 results in the black or red curve, for concentrations of 400 ppm or 800 ppm, respectively; the gap in the spectrum represents the absorption of radiation that would otherwise cool the earth. The small decrease in area underneath the curve, from black to red, corresponds to the forcing increase of 3 watts per square meter resulting from doubling the CO2 level.

What matters for global warming is how much the additional forcing bumps up the temperature. This depends in part on the assumption made about climate feedback, since it’s the positive feedback from much more abundant water vapor in the atmosphere that is thought to amplify the modest temperature rise from CO2 acting alone. The strength of the water vapor feedback is closely tied to relative humidity.

Assuming positive water vapor feedback and constant relative humidity with increasing altitude, the preprint authors find that the extra forcing from doubled CO2 causes a temperature increase of 2.2 to 2.3 degrees Celsius. If the water vapor feedback is set to zero, then the temperature increase is only 1.4 degrees Celsius. These results can be compared with the prediction of 2.6 to 4.1 degrees Celsius in a recent study based on computer climate models and other evidence.

Although an assumption of zero water vapor feedback may seem unrealistic, Happer points out that something important is missing from their calculations, and that is feedback from clouds – an omission the authors are currently working on. Net cloud feedback, from both low and high clouds, is poorly understood currently but could be negative rather than positive.

If indeed overall cloud feedback is negative rather than positive, it’s possible that negative feedbacks in the climate system from the lapse rate (the rate of temperature decrease with altitude in the lower atmosphere) and clouds dominate the positive feedbacks from water vapor, and from snow and ice. In either case, this research demonstrates that future global warming won’t be nearly as troublesome as the climate change narrative insists.

Comment from mollwollfumble. Not only is the positive or negative feedback due to the balance between water vapour and clouds unknown, but this balance between heating from water vapour and cooling from water clouds can and does change even in the absence of any change in greenhouse gases.

This paper is brilliant. Everyone with an interest in climate change should read it.
It’s way more detailed and accurate than anything I could do.
For example the HITRAN database of spectral lines is a bastard to work with.
Ditto doppler broadening of spectral line widths.

My only complaint about this article is that is does not show the decrease in CO2 absorption with increasing concentration. Because the calculation is only for two CO2 concentrations, they cannot show the nonlinearity of the CO2 concentration vs temperature curve.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.03098.pdf

certainly structure in and from day/night cycles, and seasons, and there are various ways these give rise to further structure, including by somewhat limiting (parameters of potentials – influence), and even locking longer term structure

put another way the shorter-time structure regulate the longer structure in the system, both inject structure and limit what is likely

mollwollfumble said:

This paper is brilliant. Everyone with an interest in climate change should read it.
It’s way more detailed and accurate than anything I could do.
For example the HITRAN database of spectral lines is a bastard to work with.
Ditto doppler broadening of spectral line widths.

My only complaint about this article is that is does not show the decrease in CO2 absorption with increasing concentration. Because the calculation is only for two CO2 concentrations, they cannot show the nonlinearity of the CO2 concentration vs temperature curve.
…

OK, but
What is technically wrong with Wijngaarden & Happer’s paper claiming to show that CO2’s contribution to surface warming is saturated

“The paper, Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases1, has been reportedly rejected from several major journals. By analysing absorption spectra of greenhouse gases in more detail than has been done previously, it claims to show that CO2 is now effectively saturated (with respect to radiative forcing) and any further increase in atmospheric concentrations will lead to negligible temperature change at the surface. Their numerical results agree with previous literature on the subject. The authors are known climate emergency sceptics. While noting that it is obvious that if the result is correct there would be enormous political ramifications, my question is not concerned with those.

Presuming the article is not being published because it’s so incorrect it doesn’t merit peer review, I would like to know precisely and technically why the paper is wrong. The authors are physicists so I would like to understand its flaws from the perspective of climate science if possible.

I am specifically not interested in hearing arguments along the lines of “the IPCC is right and this is incompatible with that so it must be wrong” – again I am looking for a precise and technical rebuttal.

Thanks!”

I haven’t read the paper, and I only skimmed the response to the question above, but it did seem a reasonable response to a reasonable question.

transition said:

certainly structure in and from day/night cycles, and seasons, and there are various ways these give rise to further structure, including by somewhat limiting (parameters of potentials – influence), and even locking longer term structure

put another way the shorter-time structure regulate the longer structure in the system, both inject structure and limit what is likely

those heatsinks – masses of snow and ice – extending from the poles, are a very good argument for climate, that it exists

The Rev Dodgson said:

mollwollfumble said:

This paper is brilliant. Everyone with an interest in climate change should read it.
It’s way more detailed and accurate than anything I could do.
For example the HITRAN database of spectral lines is a bastard to work with.
Ditto doppler broadening of spectral line widths.

My only complaint about this article is that is does not show the decrease in CO2 absorption with increasing concentration. Because the calculation is only for two CO2 concentrations, they cannot show the nonlinearity of the CO2 concentration vs temperature curve.
…

OK, but
What is technically wrong with Wijngaarden & Happer’s paper claiming to show that CO2’s contribution to surface warming is saturated

“The paper, Dependence of Earth’s Thermal Radiation on Five Most Abundant Greenhouse Gases1, has been reportedly rejected from several major journals. By analysing absorption spectra of greenhouse gases in more detail than has been done previously, it claims to show that CO2 is now effectively saturated (with respect to radiative forcing) and any further increase in atmospheric concentrations will lead to negligible temperature change at the surface. Their numerical results agree with previous literature on the subject. The authors are known climate emergency sceptics. While noting that it is obvious that if the result is correct there would be enormous political ramifications, my question is not concerned with those.

Presuming the article is not being published because it’s so incorrect it doesn’t merit peer review, I would like to know precisely and technically why the paper is wrong. The authors are physicists so I would like to understand its flaws from the perspective of climate science if possible.

I am specifically not interested in hearing arguments along the lines of “the IPCC is right and this is incompatible with that so it must be wrong” – again I am looking for a precise and technical rebuttal.

Thanks!”

I haven’t read the paper, and I only skimmed the response to the question above, but it did seem a reasonable response to a reasonable question.

I have to go and do something useful now, but I’ll note that other than the link above I couldn’t find a single reasoned discussion of the paper. Every other response in my search was from known pseudo-skeptics who automatically accept any evidence that warming is less than suggested by IPCC and reject any suggestion that it may be equal or greater.

Woodie said:

I’m a good clear thinker, Mr Fumble.

If there was no such thing as climate, then the word would not be in the dictionary.

That’s why ghosts and werewolves exist, too. If ghosts and werewolves didn’t exist, then the words would not be in the dictionary.

The idea here is that “climate” is a concept based on insufficient data.
And that long term weather is more accurate.

mollwollfumble said:

Woodie said:

I’m a good clear thinker, Mr Fumble.

If there was no such thing as climate, then the word would not be in the dictionary.

That’s why ghosts and werewolves exist, too. If ghosts and werewolves didn’t exist, then the words would not be in the dictionary.

The idea here is that “climate” is a concept based on insufficient data.
And that long term weather is more accurate.

Huh?

Is this like if we make it all up someone will pay us money, Like all this carbon offset ripoff?

roughbarked said:

mollwollfumble said:

Woodie said:

I’m a good clear thinker, Mr Fumble.

If there was no such thing as climate, then the word would not be in the dictionary.

That’s why ghosts and werewolves exist, too. If ghosts and werewolves didn’t exist, then the words would not be in the dictionary.

The idea here is that “climate” is a concept based on insufficient data.
And that long term weather is more accurate.

Huh?

Is this like if we make it all up someone will pay us money, Like all this carbon offset ripoff?

Non Fungible Carbon Offset Tokens ¡

Sorry we mean Blockchain Carbon Non Offset Fungible, it’s period-defining ¡

mollwollfumble said:

Woodie said:

I’m a good clear thinker, Mr Fumble.

If there was no such thing as climate, then the word would not be in the dictionary.

That’s why ghosts and werewolves exist, too. If ghosts and werewolves didn’t exist, then the words would not be in the dictionary.

The idea here is that “climate” is a concept based on insufficient data.
And that long term weather is more accurate.

Yes, just like “summer” is a concept based on insufficient data, and the term warm winter is more accurate.