Relationship between greenhouse gases and global temperature

From the GWPF comes this link to NoTricksZone who has a video of an outstanding presentation (opens in a new tab) three days ago by Professor Murry Salby.

The video begins in German, but after only 41 seconds shifts permanently to English (and later American), so don’t be dismayed. Stick with it.

The German professor, in his words of welcome, describes Professor Salby, from Macquarie University in Sydney:

He is known all over the world as one of the few specialists who really have a view over the whole area of climate development. Despite his long relationship with the most renowned climate institutes, he has preserved his own critical and constructive reasoning, which in some parts is in real contradiction to the official expert opinion and also [opposes] the assessment of the IPCC.

I tried to discover the name of the professor who introduced Dr Salby, but I get only as close as hearing it pronounced as “Professor Harday“. I can find nothing resembling that on the University of Hamburg’s web site in the Department of Earth Sciences of the School of Mathematics, Informatics and Natural Sciences. If anyone can provide it, I’ll insert it here. [The proprietor of No Tricks Zone, Pierre Gosselin, kindly says that it sounds like “Professor Harder.” Thanks, Pierre. – RT]

Anyway, he was clearly pleased with the opportunity to listen to Selby. His introduction is the most understated yet strongest, most resounding condemnation of the establishment viewpoint from a credible establishment figure that I have heard for some while.

Here’s a snippet of Professor Selby discussing the quantification of the atmospheric sources and sinks of CO2 (data are summarised from his speech and the slide).

Estimated sources and sinks of CO2.
The human source – 5 GT/yr
Ocean, 90 GT/yr; land, 60 GT/yr
Total emission from native sources: 150 GT/yr – 96% of the total.
It’s approximately balanced by native sinks which absorb about as much.
The key word: approximately.
Because native sources and sinks are two orders of magnitude stronger. Even a minor imbalance can overshadow the human source. Moreover, if those sources involve Carbon 13 leaner than in the atmosphere, as many do, all bets are off.

At the very end, Prof Selby gives a concise summary. Here’s the complete transcript (it took me a while, but it’s juicy).

[at 1:03:06 of 1:08:23]

Model world, real world. This leads to the following conclusion. In the model world, changes of CO2 and global temperature are closely related. In fact within the scale factor, the two are synonymous; they are synonyms for the same thing. In the real world, they’re not related. The correct conclusion is they’re not related directly, as they are under the simplified energy balance that prevails in the model world. Recall, on time scales shorter than a century, changes of CO2 are conservative, controlled by emission from native sources. CO2 then evolves, not like temperature, as it does in the model world, but like the integral of temperature. It closely tracks observed CO2, even after the 1990s, when the observed records of CO2 and temperature clearly diverged.

If CO2 tracks the integral of temperature, which it clearly does, it cannot track temperature, which it clearly doesn’t.

In the model world, CO2 and global temperature are related directly. In the real world, they’re also related, but differently. The distinctly different relationship between CO2 and global temperature represents a fundamental difference in the global energy balance, between its evolution in the model world and the real world. If the global energy balance is wrong, everything else is window dressing.

The different relationship between CO2 and global temperature becomes manifest after the 1990s, when their observed records diverged. But once the temperature dependence of CO2 emission is accounted for, namely, by native sources, the two observed records are entirely consistent. These features of the observed evolution have the following two-pronged implication.

In the real world, global temperature is not controlled exclusively by CO2, not even on a long time scale, as it is in the model world.

In significant part, however, CO2 is controlled by global temperature, as it is in the proxy record.

I’ll close with a retrospective of general significance.

“The science is settled.” How often have you heard that? Meet Richard Feynman [whose photo appears on the screen], described as the greatest mind since Einstein. I had occasion to meet Feynman during my brief time at Caltech, and it was then that he gave a commencement address when he spoke on “Science, pseudoscience and how not to fool yourself.” He noted “one can be easily deceived by deferring to the authority of supposed experts.” Feynman developed a paradigm of such behaviour in which he characterised this as “cult science” [in 1974].

Feynman also discussed the key to science — a different audience but the same theme. Here’s an excerpt:

“Now I’m going to describe how you would look for a new physical law. We do so through the following process. First, we guess [the audience breaks up in laughter]. No, don’t laugh, it’s true. Then we perform a calculation to see what are the implications of the guess. Then we compare the result directly with observations. If it disagrees, it’s wrong.”

In that statement is the key to science. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your guess is; it doesn’t matter who made the guess, or what his name is — if it disagrees with observations, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.

A simple message is always a sign of truth.

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20 Thoughts on “Relationship between greenhouse gases and global temperature

  1. The name you are searching for to me sounds like Professor Harder.

  2. Ian Cooper on 13/06/2013 at 9:45 am said:

    Given that us New Zealand tax payers are putting even more moneyi nto obtaining ice cores from Antarctica for the purposes of understanding our climatic past (recently shown on TVNZ News) then those who are now examining those samples need to pay particular attention to what Professor Salby has to say about such samples in the earlier part of the talk here.

  3. Andy on 13/06/2013 at 10:52 am said:

    The one minute video of Feynmann’s famous words that you cite is here

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY

  4. Alexander K on 13/06/2013 at 1:08 pm said:

    In his own way, a story by Willis Eschenbach said what Prof Salby has made abundantly clear in this video – ‘Models all the way down’.

  5. Bob D on 13/06/2013 at 3:44 pm said:

    Many thanks, Richard T and Pierre, that was a most interesting presentation.

  6. Andy on 13/06/2013 at 4:27 pm said:

    This might also be of interest

    “Miskolczi`s New Greenhouse Law ”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ykgg9m-7FK4

  7. Richard C (NZ) on 13/06/2013 at 6:09 pm said:

    There’s another “400,000 Hiroshima bombs exploding across the face of the earth” today.

    Anyone notice?

  8. Richard C (NZ) on 13/06/2013 at 7:10 pm said:

    Worth revisiting Douglass and Knox (2009), U of Rochester article:

    ‘Changes in Net Flow of Ocean Heat Correlate with Past Climate Anomalies’

    “…in the last 50 years, the net flow of heat into and out of the oceans has changed direction three times. These shifts in the balance of heat absorbed from the sun and radiated from the oceans correlate well with past anomalies that have been associated with abrupt shifts in the earth’s climate…”

    “Douglass says the last oceanic shift occurred about 10 years ago, and that the oceans are currently emitting slightly more radiation than they are receiving.”

    “….the team says their data shows the oceans are not continuously warming—a conclusion not consistent with the idea that the oceans may be harboring “warming in the pipeline.” Douglass further notes that the team found no correlation between the shifts and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. “An interesting aspect of this research is that no reference to the surface temperature itself is needed,” says Knox”

    http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=3420

    ‘Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance’

    David H. Douglass, Robert S. Knox

    http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~douglass/papers/Douglass_Knox_pla373aug31.pdf

  9. Richard C (NZ) on 02/07/2013 at 1:32 pm said:

    ‘Swedish scientist replicates Dr. Murry Salby’s work, finding man-made CO2 does not drive climate change’

    Swedish climate scientist Pehr Björnbom has recently replicated the work of Dr. Murry Salby, finding that temperature, not man-made CO2, drives CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Dr. Björnbom confirms Salby’s hypothesis that the rate of change in carbon dioxide concentration in the air follows an equation that only depends on temperature change, detailed in his report Reconstruction of Murry Salby’s theory that carbon dioxide increase is temperature driven [Google translation].

    Dr. Björnbom discusses his findings in this post from The Stockholm Initiative [Google translation + light editing]:

    ‘Murry Salby, climate science innovator who challenges established views’

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2013/07/swedish-scientist-replicates-dr-murry.html

  10. Richard C (NZ) on 09/07/2013 at 6:41 pm said:

    ‘Did Macquarie University sabotage, exile, blackban, strand and abandon Murry Salby?’

    http://joannenova.com.au/2013/07/macquarie-university-sabotages-exiles-blackbans-strands-and-abandons-murry-salby/

    This is incredibly despicable, actually two people (also a PhD student).

  11. Richard C (NZ) on 13/07/2013 at 10:35 am said:

    ‘Climate Sceptic Professor Sacked From Australian University Was Banned By National Science Foundation For “Deceptive Conduct” ‘

    Graham Readfearn

    […]

    The NSF investigation into Dr Salby documented how two companies had been set up to administer grants and research he was conducting. At the time Dr Salby was at the University of Colorado, where he had worked as a professor from 1988 until his resignation in 2007. Dr Salby tried to sue the University of Colorado for constructive dismissal.

    Court documents indicate the university placed restrictions on Dr Salby, preventing him access to documents and office space and prompting his resignation. The restrictions were imposed as a punishment resulting from Dr Salby’s alleged reluctance to correctly complete Conflict of Interest forms.

    The investigation report found that “the total estimate of improperly collected indirect costs is $117,565.” The report added that payments to Dr Salby from a second company had been based on “fabricated time and effort reports”. The report also found that “the charges based on the reports may also be an unallowable cost in the total amount of $303,281”.

    The investigation looked at Dr Salby’s involvement with two private companies and alleged he had misled his university and the NSF about the relationship between those two companies and his involvement with them. Dr Salby or his related companies had applied for funds through the NSF and the investigation alleged he had made an application to two different federal agencies for essentially the same work.

    >>>>>>>>

    http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/07/12/murry-salby-sacked-australian-university–banned-national-science-foundation

    It will be interesting to see what Murry Salby’s response is. It could be he’s the author of his own demise – at both universities.

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