I recently came across this gem and was challenged to find holes in it. I’m hoping some of you can help me. Here it is:
So now we can understand the present so-called controversy over Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), now called Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change (CACC). Mathematical models run by powerful computers predict that doubling CO2 (e.g. from 300 to 600 ppmv) causes a rise in global average temperature of 3 degrees. This result is sometimes quoted as agreed upon by “97% of the world’s leading scientists in the field”. What are the indisputable facts?
From 1850 (or 1750) to 2013, as CO2 increased from 285 to 400 ppmv (an increase of 115 ppmv), the Earth’s average temperature increased by 0.7 ± 0.1 degrees. Therefore assuming a linear relation, doubling CO2 from 285 to 570 ppmv (an increase of 285 ppmv) should cause an increase of 0.7(285/115) = 1.73 degrees. Note that this is only 58% of the predicted 3 degrees, and assumes that ALL of the historic rise of 0.7 degrees was due ONLY to CO2 and related feedbacks. But even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) knows that due to “saturation” effects, warming will be less-than-linear with CO2. The IPCC assumes the relation is logarithmic, not linear. This means an increase in CO2 from 285 to 400 ppmv is by a factor of 400/285, and this as a power of 2 has exponent [log(400/285)]/log2 = 0.489.
In other words, an increase in CO2 from 285 to 400 ppmv corresponds to 0.489 doublings, where each doubling produces the same number of degrees warming. Therefore one doubling (e.g. for CO2 doubling from 300 to 600 ppmv) should produce 0.7/0.489 = 1.4 degrees warming. This is a factor of 2 smaller than the IPCC’s “best value” of 3 degrees. But it gets worse, as 0.7 degrees warming has already occurred. Therefore as CO2 increases from 400 to 600 ppmv, we predict 1.4 - 0.7 = 0.7 degrees further warming, whereas the IPCC prediction would be 3 - 0.7 = 2.3 degrees, more than a factor of 3 larger. So we could achieve a reduction of future warming to 30% of the IPCC prediction by simply doing nothing about CO2 emissions, at a cost to society of zero.
The IPCC prediction of 3 degrees is a result of combining 1 degree due to doubling CO2 alone (assuming no feedback) with another 2 degrees due to positive feedback (due to increasing water vapour which is the main greenhouse gas, twice as important as CO2). I have shown that the 1 degree value is a factor of 2 too large: after adjusting for the increased CO2 emission from the stratosphere (which is heated by incoming Solar UV and visible radiation absorbed by ozone) on doubling CO2, warming of the Earth’s surface is 0.5 degrees (assuming no feedback), a factor of 3 smaller than the 1.4 degrees calculated in the previous box (see above). This still leaves open the possibility that positive feedback due to increased water vapour will triple the 0.5 degrees to 1.4 degrees.
But there is yet another conceptual error in the IPCC (and the literature) argument about a 200% positive feedback. Doubling CO2 does not mean doubling water vapour. True, the water vapour pressure is roughly an exponential function of absolute temperature [see the Clausius-Clapeyron Equation in Wikipedia]. But the temperature increase is only 0.5 degrees (assuming no feedback). From pp. D-91 & D-92 of the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (1964-65 edition), the saturated vapour pressure of water at 15.0 Celsius (288.2 K) is 12.788 mm Hg, and rises to 13.206 mm Hg at 15.5 Celsius (288.7 K), an increase by a factor of 13.206/12.788 = 1.033, or by only 3.3%, not 100%. Similar calculations for ice at -25.0 Celsius and -24.5 Celsius shows an increase of only 5.0%, not 100%. And at 30.0 Celsius to 30.5 Celsius, an increase of only 2.9%, not 100%. Multiplying by 2 to give water vapour twice the weighting of CO2 would only increase these values to about 6% or 7%, not 100%. Water vapour absorption, like that of CO2, is highly “saturated”, so I’d expect the positive feedback to be at most 6% or 7%, not 200%. And there’s another complicating factor: these percentages are valid for relative humidity of 50% or so. But in regions like the tropics where the humidity is closer to 100%, increasing water vapour is likely to increase condensation, i.e. cloud formation, which will reflect back incoming visible Solar radiation, decreasing global warming. In other words, cloud formation produces a negative feedback which will counteract some or most of the expected positive feedback due to increased water vapour [note: water vapour is an invisible gas, consisting of individual water molecules moving in a vacuum. Water droplets in clouds or fog consist of zillions of water molecules held together by hydrogen bonds between molecules touching each other.].
Therefore if the net feedback due to water vapour is close to zero, doubling CO2 causes global warming closer to 0.5 degrees, not 1.4 degrees. Since roughly half of this has already occurred as CO2 increased from 285 to 400 ppmv, we’d expect 0.25 degrees due to CO2 increasing from 400 to 600 ppmv. This is a factor of 9 times smaller than the 3 - 0.7 = 2.3 degrees predicted by the IPCC value of 3 degrees on doubling CO2 (assuming a 200% positive feedback). In other words, even if we did nothing to change increasing CO2 emissions, the warming due to human activity would be only about 11% of the predicted IPCC value. It might be smarter and more humane to spend our limited resources on jobs for all, rather than wasting them on unnecessary attempts to control CO2.
Yes, you obviously have the intelligence to understand what the 97% of the world’s leading scientists have not: there really is such a thing as greenhouse gases (the main ones are water vapour, CO2 and ozone), and human CO2 emissions have an undeniable effect, but quantitatively the IPCC prediction of future warming as CO2 increases from 400 to 600 ppmv is at least a factor of 3 too large, and most likely a factor of 9 too large. By the way, anyone with high school math could have done the above calculations with a $10 calculator; giant computer programs may look impressive, but do not have the conceptual insight that only humans (so far) have achieved.
I should add that the physicists who have contributed to the literature have pathetically failed to understand that (1) the main gases of the atmosphere (N2, O2, Ar) consist of molecules with zero electric dipole moment, and therefore cannot and do not emit infrared (IR) radiation, “black body” or otherwise, and (2) the IR spectra obtained by satellites looking down from orbit are primarily what chemists call absorption spectra, not emission spectra (except for central CO2 frequencies emitted from the stratosphere, not the troposphere). Biologists can only parrot the wrong arguments of the physicists.
The reason the mainstream media have not printed my arguments is that I made them up, starting from scratch (I have never taken a course in climate change, or read a single textbook on climate change, since I saw right away that the physics of the greenhouse effect is all wrong in the literature that I have seen, starting with Wikipedia articles on “Radiative_forcing” and “Climate_sensitivity”. Nowadays, people think “doing research” means Googling references in the literature instead of doing accurate experiments and interpreting them properly.
The accurate experiments have been done: in the late 1960s and early 1970s, satellites looking down on the Earth measured the infrared (IR) spectra emitted to outer space. But the physicists blew the interpretation. Any competent chemist with a good undergraduate degree can see that the spectra show the 288 K Planck “black body” IR spectrum emitted from the solid and liquid Earth is absorbed at certain frequencies by (1) water vapour, (2) CO2 and (3) ozone in the path length from the surface to outer space. The CO2 absorption peak, however, is abruptly truncated by emission which corresponds at its peak to an opaque 220 K zone. This 220 K is the temperature in the stratosphere, where incoming Solar UV and visible light is absorbed at certain frequencies by ozone, and the energy is transferred during inelastic collisions from CO2 to the main gases of the atmosphere (N2, O2, Ar). So the 220 K CO2 emission is powered mainly by incoming Solar radiation, and not by IR emitted from the Earth below. And the greenhouse effect is produced by restriction of the flow of energy as IR from the surface to outer space. This restriction is due to absorption by water vapour and CO2 in the troposphere (ozone exists primarily in the stratosphere; during the daytime, some IR frequencies emitted from the surface are absorbed by ozone, so there is a minor component of heating of the stratosphere by this mechanism).
The diehard deniers of any greenhouse effect at all can be easily disproven as follows: The Stefan-Boltzmann law [you can Google any unfamiliar term] says that a perfect opaque “black body” emits radiation (photons) to outer space according to the formula 5.67 x 10^-8 x T^4, where T is the absolute temperature in K, and T^4 means the 4th power of T (and 10^-8 means 10-to-the-power-negative-8). The radiation emitted from a 5780 K Sun (which is very nearly a perfect “black body”) spreads out inversely as the square of the distance, so using the radius of the Sun = 6.96 x 10^5 km and the mean distance from the Sun to the Earth = 1.496 x 10^8 km, the Insolation reaching the Earth is 5.67 x 10^-8 x 5780^4 x [(6.96 x 10^5)/(1.496 x 10^8)]^2 = 1370 W/m^2. This Insolation is applied to the circular cross-section of the Earth, and at energy balance (i.e. at steady state) this must be emitted from the spherical surface of the Earth back out to space. Since the surface area of a sphere is 4 times the area of a circular cross-section of the sphere passing through the center, 1370/4 = 342.5 W/m^2 must be emitted from the surface of the Earth. This assumes that the Earth is a perfect black body with albedo = 0 (i.e. all incoming Solar radiation is absorbed, none reflected) and emissivity = 1 (by Kirchhoff’s law, a perfect absorber is also a perfect emitter). Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law backwards, this means the surface temperature of this perfect black body Earth would be equal to the 4th root of [342.5/(5.67 x 10^-8)] = 279 K. Since the mean surface temperature of the Earth is 288 K (15 Celsius), it is warmer by 9 degrees than a perfect black body which would absorb ALL incoming Solar radiation (there would be no clouds or reflection from the surface) and then subsequently emit ALL the energy as infrared (IR) to outer space. Therefore there must be a greenhouse effect due to the atmosphere, whose gases (water vapour, CO2 and ozone) reduce the outflow of radiation back out to space. The non-zero reflection of incoming visible light by the bright white clouds and the duller surface of the Earth means that the greenhouse effect will be even greater than 9 degrees. An Earth devoid of CO2 and water vapour means no water at all, no life at all, so the albedo of the continental granites and ocean crust basalts will be similar to that of the Moon (whose highlands are granitic and whose darker “mare”=“sea” areas are basaltic), namely 0.12. This means only 0.88(1370) = 1205.6 W/m^2 need be emitted as IR back to outer space (the rest is simply reflected visible radiation). Dividing by 4 gives 301.4 W/m^2 emitted from a spherical surface, and using the Stefan-Boltzmann law backward gives a mean temperature of 270 K. Therefore the greenhouse effect is 288 - 270 = 18 K. The literature quotes the greenhouse effect as 288 - 255 = 33 K, almost twice my value, but this assumes that the albedo of the Earth remains the same as its present 0.30 (obviously too high, as the bright white clouds are made up of water droplets which would not be present in the absence of greenhouse gases, of which water vapour is the most important). So both the deniers of any greenhouse effect and the literature are wrong.
The deniers of any greenhouse effect sometimes argue that since CO2 comprises only 0.04% (400 ppmv) of the atmosphere, the heat stored in these molecules would be minuscule and therefore negligible. But they fail to understand that when an infrared (IR) photon emitted from the 288 K black body surface of the Earth is absorbed by a CO2 molecule at 667 cm^-1 (the center of an absorption band), that energy can be transferred during an inelastic collision with surrounding air (mainly N2, O2 and Ar) molecules to translational and rotational motions of the departing molecules. Since N2, O2 and Ar are molecules with no permanent electric dipole moment, they cannot and do not re-emit the energy gained as infrared (IR) photons. Instead, the absorbed energy ends up as an increased kinetic energy of motion; i.e. as an increased temperature. So the energy ends up warming the entire atmosphere, not just the CO2 (or H2O) molecule which trapped the IR photon in the first place. This fundamental mechanism for warming the atmosphere (the greenhouse effect) has also not been understood by the physicists contributing to the literature.
The literature model for explaining the greenhouse effect appears to me to be one aping a very good model for explaining heat flow from the interior of the Sun and stars. Exothermic nuclear fusion reactions convert hydrogen to helium at the center of the Sun. The energy released shows up as incredibly high translational energies of the point-like particles produced, and in very high energy photons (gamma rays). As the gamma ray photons move outward, they are scattered inelastically by charged particles (free electrons and positive nuclei) [see the Wikipedia article on the Compton Effect, or Compton scattering]. This means some of the energy of the gamma ray ends up as translational energy of the charged particles, and the gamma ray itself is reduced in energy (frequency). By the time the photons reach the photosphere, the frequency has been reduced mainly to that in the visible range, and the photons that escape follow a Planck black body distribution corresponding to 5780 K. Since this model accurately explains the interior structure of the Sun and stars, I accept it as correct. The literature explanation of the greenhouse effect uses computer calculations involving IR photons emitted from a 288 K surface of the Earth, and constantly being absorbed and re-emitted at concentric black body surfaces until finally they can escape to outer space at an altitude of 10-20 km where the temperature is 220 K. See the similarity? What can be wrong with the analogy? First, the Earth’s atmosphere consists of electrically neutral N2, O2, Ar,CO2, H2O and O3 (ozone) molecules, not free charged particles, and so inelastic Compton scattering does not apply.
Because the vibrational energy levels of neutral gas molecules are quantized, the energy of IR photons absorbed and re-emitted are the same; there is no degradation of the energy of the photon on scattering, so absorption/emission alone cannot explain warming of the atmosphere. What is required is understanding that there are inelastic collisions between neutral gas molecules involving transfer from vibrational motions of CO2 and H2O molecules to translational and rotational motions of N2, O2 and translational motion of Ar (the vibrational energy levels of N2 and O2 are too high to allow for vibrational excitation on collision with excited state CO2 molecules). Secondly, 5780 K photons escape from the Sun’s photosphere because that’s where the atoms (electrons and nuclei) run out; there is an abrupt drop in density at the Sun’s surface. There is no such drop in density at 10-20 km in the Earth’s atmosphere. At the Earth’s surface, the concentration of CO2 is high enough that absorption/emission of IR photons occurs within metres of the surface. At 10 km (33,000 feet), the atmosphere is approximately 1/4 that at sea level (Mt. Everest is at 29,000 feet). Why should there be a sudden ability for CO2 photons to suddenly escape to outer space when the pressure/concentration has been decreased by only a factor of 4? There is no such ability. The 220 K CO2 emission is due to heating of the stratosphere by incoming Solar UV and visible radiation by ozone. Through inelastic collisions the excited ozone molecules transfer energy to translational, rotational and vibrational motions of the surrounding air (N2, O2, Ar) molecules which can then through collisions boost CO2 molecules to an upper vibrational level. When these excited CO2 molecules drop down to the ground state, they emit the observed 220 K radiation to outer space. Absolute proof that the 220 K CO2 emission is not powered by photons from below comes from spectra obtained by satellites looking down from orbit on Thunderstorm Anvil clouds or on the surface of Antarctica, both of which are colder than 220 K. The CO2 emission is greater than that of the surrounding Planck black body emissions from cloud or surface. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that net heat cannot flow from a cold to a hot surface, so the 220 K CO2 emission observed by satellites cannot be powered from below. The literature model is wrong, and must be totally abandoned. The physicists, in their arrogance, simply applied computer calculations to a model that does not apply, like producing reams of calculations using the Ideal Gas Equation PV = nRT to try to describe the behaviour of solids and liquids.