The Science of Doom

Someone on another blog reminded me about this paper – Cooling of Atmosphere due to CO2 Emission, by Chilingar, Khilyuk and Sorokhtin (2008).

It’s clearly impressed many people, but it’s not a good paper. It’s main strength is misdirection.

Traditional anthropogenic theory of currently observed global warming states that release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere (partially as a result of utilization of fossil fuels) leads to an increase in atmospheric temperature because the molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. This statement is based on the Arrhenius hypothesis, which was never verified (Arrhenius, 1896).

The proponents of this theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure pa > 0:2 atm, the heat from the Earth’s surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin, 2001a). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere. Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere, and all the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy)– mass redistribution in atmosphere..

Emphasis added.

The highlighted statement from the 2nd paragraph is false. Open any atmospheric physics textbook and you will find a treatment of convection.

Here are the first two pages of contents from The Physics of Atmospheres, by John Houghton, 2nd ed, 1986, Cambridge University Press:

Here are the contents from Atmospheres, by Richard Goody (1972), Prentice-Hall Inc:

Here is the first part of the contents from Elementary Climate Physics, by Prof. F.W. Taylor (2005), Oxford University Press:

If readers would like citations and extracts from many papers to demonstrate the point further, just ask.

So the writers of this “paper” conclude:

Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere, and all the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy)– mass redistribution in atmosphere

The dominant theories of atmospheric heating and cooling do consider this. If the paper provided some evidence that this is “not considered” we could address the evidence but instead they just go on to claim:

This physical system (multiple cells of air convection) acts in the Earth’s troposphere like a continuous surface cooler. The cooling effect by air convection can surpass considerably the warming effect of radiation.

For the easily impressed this might seem like something noteworthy. And yet this is the staple of every textbook and every paper reviewing the effect of the inappropriately-named “greenhouse” effect.

For example, Lindzen (1990):

It is worth noting that, in the absence of convection, pure greenhouse warming would lead to a globally averaged surface temperature of 72°C given current conditions. Our current average temperature, 15°C, is actually much closer to the blackbody temperature without any greenhouse warming than to the pure greenhouse result. The relative ineffectiveness of the greenhouse effect is due to convection which carries heat past the bulk of the water vapor (which has a scale height of about 2km)..

Or Ramanathan & Coakley (1978):

A comparison of the radiative equilibrium temperatures with the observed temperatures has indicated the extent to which the other atmospheric processes, such as convection, large-scale circulation, and condensation processes, influence the thermal energy balance of the system. In most planetary atmospheres, radiative equilibrium temperatures cannot be sustained in the lower regions of the atmosphere..

Convection aids radiation in transporting energy from the surface of the planet to the atmosphere. The vertical transport of heat by convection tends to minimize the magnitude of dθ/dz..

And so Chilingar et al move to the “greenhouse” effect:

Therefore, the present-day greenhouse effect is approximately equal to +33°C. The term “greenhouse effect” is confusing from the physical point of view and leads the general public astray.

And like G&T, they point out that a greenhouse works differently from the atmosphere without noting that greenhouses are not used by atmospheric physicists to prove the effect of radiatively-active gases in the atmosphere. Instead atmospheric physics uses the fundamental equations (the radiative transfer equations) which determine absorption and emission of radiation by water vapor, CO2, methane, and other trace gases.

Proof of Negative Feedback

Now Chilingar and his colleagues bring out the simple equation balancing the effective radiation temperature of the earth with the solar radiation absorbed. But then they make the curious comment:

The water vapor condensation in troposphere begets clouds, which to a considerable degree determine the reflective properties of the planet, i.e., its albedo A. The latter gives rise to a strong negative feedback between the surface temperature Ts and the temperature of “absolutely black body” Tbb, which is determined by the solar radiation S reaching the Earth’s surface at its distance from the Sun.

Indeed, any increase in surface temperature intensifies the water evaporation and increases the Earth’s cloudiness, which, in turn, increases the Earth’s albedo. As a result, the reflection of solar heat from the clouds into space increases and the heat influx to the Earth’s surface decreases and the average surface temperature decreases to the previous level. Strong negative feedback in any system leads to linear dependence of system’s output on its input.

Why curious?

Because they provide no evidence for the claim of negative feedback. No papers, no equations, no research..

It might be true, but for us skeptics, we like to see evidence.

Anthropogenic Imact on the Earth’s Climate – Tiny

In their piece de resistance they start with:

The adiabatic theory allows one to evaluate quantitatively the influence of anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s climate.

And continue:

To evaluate the effect of anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide on global temperature, one can use the adiabatic model together with the sensitivity analysis (Sorokhtin, 2001; Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2003, 2004). At sea level, if the pressure is measured in atmospheres, then p = 1 atm and

āT ≈ T α Δp                     (12)

If, for example, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases two times (from 0.035% to 0.07%), which is expected by the year of 2100, then the atmospheric pressure will increase by Δp =  1.48  10^-4 atm (Sorokhtin, 2001). After substitution of T = 288 K,  α = 0.1905, and Δp = 1.48  10^-4 atm into Eq. (13), one obtains ΔT = 0.00812 °C..

Thus, the increase in the surface temperature at sea level caused by doubling of the present-day CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will be less than 0.01 °C, which is negligible in comparison with natural temporal fluctuations of global temperature.

From these estimates, one can deduce a very important conclusion that even considerable increase in anthropogenic emission of carbon dioxide does not lead to noticeable temperature increase. Thus, the hypothesis of current global warming as a result of increased emission of carbon dioxide (greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere is not true.

Awesome. Who could argue with that. It is in a peer-reviewed paper and has a lot of equations. Climate scientists, shame on you for neglecting convection. CO2 has almost no effect on the earth’s temperature..

The Conjuring Trick

It’s all very well to produce some equations, but in the interests of accuracy it’s important to produce the correct ones.

The conjuring trick in this paper is discussing the movement of heat from the surface to the troposphere (lower atmosphere) without discussing how the surface AND atmosphere lose heat to space.

Suppose that heat was transferred from the surface to the troposphere 100% by convection.

What would it prove? It would certainly be quite a different climate but there would still be an important question to ask.

One important question for all students of climate science is:

How does the earth’s climate system (surface, troposphere, stratosphere) lose heat to space?

Solar radiation heats the earth. In equilibrium, the earth and the atmosphere radiate the same amount of heat out to space. Imbalances between solar heating and radiative cooling change the amount of heat in the climate system.

Convection (and conduction) cannot move heat into space, only radiation can do this.

Increasing the concentration of “greenhouse” gases like CO2 has an important effect unmentioned by Chilingar and his colleagues. This effect is explained in The Earth’s Energy Budget – Part Three.

The higher the concentration of “greenhouse” gases, the more optically thick the atmosphere, and therefore radiative cooling to space takes place from higher up in the atmosphere.

The higher up you go, the colder it gets. The explanation is somewhat involved, so check out the link and also the series: CO2 – An Insignificant Trace Gas?

The important point is that Chilingar and his colleagues don’t mention this. They don’t prove the fundamental equations wrong. They don’t comment..

Perhaps they don’t understand the subject. Who knows?

Conclusion

The paper demonstrates nothing about the effect of increased CO2 on the earth’s climate.

It doesn’t show a problem in established arguments, like from Manabe and Strickler (1964), Ramanathan and Coakley (1978) or any other paper. The authors of this 2008 paper just imagine the established science away.

Understanding how the earth and atmosphere cool to space via radiation is a critical component in understanding surface temperature changes.

See also: New Theory Proves AGW Wrong!

References

Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 Emission, Chilingar et al, Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects (2008)

Some Coolness concerning Global Warming, Lindzen, Bulletin of American Meteorological Society (1990)

Climate Modeling through Radiative-Convective Models, Ramanathan and Coakley, Reviews of Geophysics and Space Physics (1978)