Here are 22 good reasons not to believe the statements made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)

Guest essay by Jean-Pierre Bardinet.

According to the official statements of the IPCC “Science is clear” and non-believers cannot be trusted.

Quick action is needed! For more than 30 years we have been told that we must act quickly and that after the next three or five years it will be too late (or even after the next 500 days according to the French Minister of foreign affairs speaking in 2014) and the Planet will be beyond salvation and become a frying pan -on fire- if we do not drastically reduce our emissions of CO 2 , at any cost, even at the cost of economic decline, ruin and misery.

But anyone with some scientific background who takes pains to study the topics at hand is quickly led to conclude that the arguments of the IPCC are inaccurate, for many reasons of which here is a non-exhaustive list.

The 22 Inconvenient Truths

1. The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO 2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO 2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature? (discussion: p. 4)

2. 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO 2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Mean Global Temperature?

[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO 2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO 2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO 2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO 2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays] (discussion: p. 7)

3. The amount of CO 2 of the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO 2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 9)

4. The lifetime of CO 2 molecules in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC. (discussion: p. 10)

5. The changes of the Mean Global Temperature are more or less sinusoidal with a well defined 60 year period. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid(s) and hence the next years should be cooler as has been observed after 1950. (discussion: p. 12)

6. The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO 2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring with a spectrometer what is left from the radiation of a broadband infrared source (say a black body heated at 1000°C) after crossing the equivalent of some tens or hundreds of meters of the air, shows that the main CO 2 bands (4.3 µm and 15 µm) have been replaced by the emission spectrum of the CO 2 which is radiated at the temperature of the trace-gas. (discussion: p. 14)

7. In some geological periods the CO 2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content, and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO 2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time. (discussion: p. 17)

8. The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year. (discussion: p. 18)

9. The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist. (discussion: p. 20)

10. The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO 2 . The observed “feedback” is negative. (discussion: p.22)

11. The maximum surface of the Antarctic ice-pack has been increasing every year since we have satellite observations. (discussion: p. 24)

12. The sum of the surfaces of the Arctic and Antarctic icepacks is about constant, their trends are phase-opposite; hence their total albedo is about constant. (discussion: p. 25)

13. The measurements from the 3000 oceanic ARGO buoys since 2003 may suggest a slight decrease of the oceanic heat content between the surface and a depth 700 m with very significant regional differences. (discussion: p. 27)

14. The observed outgoing longwave emission (or thermal infrared) of the globe is increasing, contrary to what models say on a would-be “radiative imbalance”; the “blanket” effect of CO 2 or CH 4 “greenhouse gases” is not seen. (discussion:p. 29)

15. The Stefan Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases, as they are neither black bodies, nor grey bodies: why does the IPCC community use it for gases ? (discussion: p. 30)

16. The trace gases absorb the radiation of the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air which is, at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body. (discussion: p. 32)

17. The temperatures have always driven the CO 2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO 2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly. (discussion: p. 33)

18. The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature. (discussion: p. 36)

19. Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature. (discussion: p. 37)

20. The forecasts of the “climate models” are diverging more and more from the observations. A model is not a scientific proof of a fact and if proven false by observations (or falsified) it must be discarded, or audited and corrected. We are still waiting for the IPCC models to be discarded or revised; but alas IPCC uses the models financed by the taxpayers both to “prove” attributions to greenhouse gas and to support forecasts of doom. (discussion: p. 40)

21. As said by IPCC in its TAR (2001) “we are dealing with a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible.” Has this state of affairs changed since 2001? Surely not for scientific reasons. (discussion: p. 43)

22. Last but not least the IPCC is neither a scientific organization nor an independent organization: the summary for policy makers, the only part of the report read by international organizations, politicians and media is written under the very close supervision of the representative of the countries and of the non-governmental pressure groups.

The governing body of the IPCC is made of a minority of scientists almost all of them promoters of the environmentalist ideology, and a majority of state representatives and of non-governmental green organizations. (discussion: p. 46)

Appendix

Jean Poitou and François-Marie Bréon are distinguished members of the climate establishment and redactors of parts of the IPCC fifth assessment report report (AR5).

Jean Poitou is a physicist and climatologist, graduated from Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie (Physics and Chemistry engineering college) and is climatologist at the Laboratory of the climate and environment sciences at IPSL, a joint research lab from CEA, CNRS, and UVSQ (*). He has written a book on the Climate for the teachers of secondary schools

François-Marie Bréon at CEA since 1993, has published 85 articles, is Directeur de recherche at CNRS, and author of the IPCC report 2013; he has been scientific manager of the ICARE group (CNES, CNRS, University of Lille), and of the POLDER and MicroCarb Space missions

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The somewhat abusive language of J. Poitou and F. M. Bréon (“untruths that exasperate”, “an obvious attempt to deceive”, “the climate-skeptics who are trying to deceive the public”, “such an outrageous statement should completely disqualify its author”, “once more a gross nonsense”, “does the author say that the greenhouse effect does not exist ? The author of such statements should loose any credibility in the eyes of readers with some scientific background”, “again and again a string of nonsense”) requires a careful examination of the arguments put forward by J.P. Bardinet and by the authors of the rebuttal, with all the relevant references and graphics.

We ask for the indulgence of the reader as there are some lengths and repetitions; the huge economic impact of the climate regulations and of the energy market distortions striking both the industries and the households require that no ambiguousness, no uncertainty be left.

This notice is made up of 22 almost independent “cards”.

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(*)

ISPL – Institut Pierre Simon Laplace des sciences de l’environnement

CEA – Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives

CNRS – Centre national de la recherche scientifique

UVSQ – Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines

CNES – Centre national d’études spatiales

Truth n°1 The Mean Global Temperature has been stable since 1997, despite a continuous increase of the CO 2 content of the air: how could one say that the increase of the CO 2 content of the air is the cause of the increase of the temperature?

[Poitou & Bréon] The causality is built upon a physical basis. The greenhouse phenomenon is well understood since more than hundred years and can be grasped by anyone with some scientific background. It has been clearly proved that CO 2 is a greenhouse gas and that if its concentration in the atmosphere increases the temperature will increase. This increase is not instantaneous as there are many other drivers likes aerosols, sun, volcanic eruptions and also the natural variability of the climatic system. It is to be noted as well that due to the inertia of the system the heating of the lower atmosphere is by force delayed with respect to its cause, the same way heating a home takes some time to materialize after the central heating has been switched on

To discard observations (like the “pause” of the global mean temperatures since 1997 shown on the appended figure 1-A) the IPCC folks put forward a hypothesis (“the greenhouse effect well understood since more than hundred years“) but do not provide any definition of their “greenhouse effect“. As if this word had magical properties that no one should be allowed to investigate.

Let’s take a closer look and check whether it is well understood since more than hundred years. A handbook for university students co-written by the chairman[1] of the French National Research Council explains it’s the equivalent of a glass window transparent in the visible spectrum and opaque in the thermal infrared spectrum; but this “analogy” has been, in 1909, experimentally proven wrong by a famous specialist of optics, the professor Robert Wood of John Hopkins University[2]. After 1909, the assumptions and computations made by Arrhenius have been considered erroneous by the physicists[3] and forgotten until the forerunners of the IPCC resuscitated them without mentioning that this has no relation either with the real atmosphere or with the horticultural greenhouse where the glass panels keep the warm and humid air inside the greenhouse.

Two German professors of physics the Prof. Dr Gerlich[4] and Tscheuschner have analyzed some tens of definitions of the greenhouse effect and found that all of them are contrary to basic physics. Their 115 pages long article in the International Journal Of Modern Physics has been left open to discussion during two years on the arXiv site[5]; no one has been able to write a consistent definition of the greenhouse effect.

Two other physicists, specialists of the atmosphere[6], have shown that the ideas of the radiative-convective equilibrium and the definitions of the greenhouse effect are absurd w.r.t elementary physics. Their conclusion is ” Based on our findings, we argue that 1) the so-called atmospheric greenhouse effect cannot be proved by the statistical description of fortuitous weather events that took place in a climate period, 2) the description by American Meteorological Society and by the World Meteorological Organization has to be discarded because of physical reasons, 3) energy flux budgets for the Earth-atmosphere system do not provide tangible evidence that the atmospheric greenhouse effect does exist. Because of this lack of tangible evidence it is time to acknowledge that the atmospheric greenhouse effect and especially its climatic impact are based on meritless conjectures”.

As a matter of fact the radiation flow from the surface absorbed by the air is within a few percent equal to the radiation of the air impinging on the surface: that is very different of the greenhouse glass panel in the vacuum that absorbs all of the thermal infrared radiation from the surface and emits half of it upwards and half of it downwards back to the surface.

Hence all those greenhouse “pane of glass” analogies are baseless.

The radiative heat flow from a body A to a body B is: (radiation from A absorbed by B) minus (radiation of B absorbed by A).

It is about nil between the air and the surface; it would be exactly nil for an (hypothetical) isothermal atmosphere at the temperature of the surface.

There is no “radiative heat trapping” as the net heat flow is nil between surface and air. And air does not “warm the surface”!

As the air is very opaque (due to the water vapor optical thickness, except of course in the so called “water vapor window”) the radiation from the air impinging on the surface originates mostly from a very thin layer above the surface[7].

The heat lost by the radiation from the top of the air toward the cosmos is not at all fed by the radiation from the surface, but by water vapor condensation and by the solar infrared (or UV) absorbed by trace gases.

The solar heating of the surface is mostly carried away by evaporation, with some convection and some radiation arriving to the cosmos after escaping absorption by water vapor and clouds, for a global average of about 20 W/m².

Hence all the radiative-convective “models” since Manabe (1967) which assume a “radiative cooling of the surface” and forget evaporation are baseless: 71% of the surface of globe is covered by oceans, and an additional 20% of the surface covered by vegetation, driving evapotranspiration.

A recent article (2011) written by Dufresne & Treiner [8] is titled “the greenhouse effect is more subtle than generally believed“; it states that the model of the greenhouse glass panel is “doubly inexact and wrong” and that the absorption by CO 2 is saturated.

Another “definition” [9] is quite different: it is G= (radiation from the surface) minus (outgoing longwave radiation (OLR)).

That G is said to measure the “heat trapped by greenhouse gases“. Ramanathan explains [10] “Reduction on OLR : At a global average surface temperature of about 289 K the globally averaged emission by the surface is about 395 +/- 5 W/m² whereas the OLR (outgoing longwave radiation) is only 237 +/- 8 W/m². Thus the intervening atmosphere and clouds cause a reduction of 158 +/- 7 W/m² in the longwave emission which is the magnitude of the total greenhouse effect denoted by G in energy units. Without this effect the planet would be colder by as much as 33K [11].“

Why is this complete nonsense? Because, the heat transfer between surface and air is (radiation from the surface absorbed by the air) minus (radiation of the air absorbed by the surface); G is not a heat transfer surface to air; while at the top of the air the radiation received from the cosmos at 2.7 K is negligible, the radiation of the air impinging on the surface is equal to the radiation of the surface absorbed by the air, resulting in a zero W/m² net balance.

Radiation is a diagnostic of the temperatures! The temperature lapse rate of the troposphere g/(C p +|C h |) is related to the gravitation (g=9.81 m/s²) and to the heating C h of the top of the air by condensation of water vapor and by absorption of the solar infrared by water vapor and by liquid water (if any in clouds …).

All the authors who say that G is a measure of “heat trapped“, Berger, Ramanathan, Rocca, and the IPCC, apparently do not know that the equations of ideal polytropic gases show that the lapse rate equation of the troposphere T(z) = T 0 + g/(C p +|C h |) (z-z 0 ) is strictly equivalent to the relation between temperature and pressure T(P)/T 0 = (P/P 0 )(R/µ) / (Cp+ |Ch|) whose exponent is 0.19 on Earth (R=8.314; µ=0.0289 is the mass of a mole of air) and 0.17 on Venus. Referring {T 0 , P 0 } to the upper layer of the air that radiates toward the cosmos {T 0 , P 0 } is {255 K, 0.53 atm} on Earth and is {230 K, 0.1 atm} on Venus.

It is not the infrared emission that cools the surface as in the so-called radiative equilibrium models because the net radiative heat transfer surface to air is about nil, but the evaporation whose thermostatic effect cannot be overstated: increasing the surface temperature by +1°C increases the evaporation by 6%; where evaporation is 100 W/m², this removes an additional 6 W/m² from the surface.

Hence we cannot accept that the “greenhouse phenomenon is well understood” as there is not a single physically consistent definition.

There is no ground to discard almost two decades of high quality satellite observation of the temperatures of the lower troposphere.

And if the “radiative forcing” is supposed to have been perfectly working over the 1975-1997 time span, with no delay, why did it stall afterwards?

Let’s now take a closer look at the CO 2 content of the air on figure 1-A: the slope d[CO 2 ]/dt is roughly constant; this hints to a relation like:

Slope of the CO 2 content of the air = d (CO 2 )/ dt = k (T(t)- T 0 ) where t is the time.

Such a relation has been proved by several authors (Beenstock & Reingewertz, Salby, Park[12]) using quite different methods; notice n°17 will come back to this most important topic. The Henry law of degassing is well known to amateurs of sparkling drinks which are tastier when kept cool. The CO 2 content of the air is a consequence and a follow-up of the temperatures

Figure 1-A HadCRUT4 serie of the surface temperature anomalies and Mauna Loa CO2 series 1997 to end 2012

from the web site www.pensee-unique.fr .

Conclusions:

The observations of a global mean temperature “flat” with no linear trend since 1997 cannot be discarded.

Those observations do contradict the conjecture of a “greenhouse effect” for which there is no physically admissible definition at hand: there is no “heat trapping” between surface and air as the net radiative heat flow between those bodies is about nil

The main features of the atmosphere both on Earth and on Venus are easily deduced from the basic polytropic equations of the ideal gases.

The observations show that in the last decades as in geological times the CO 2 content of the air is a consequence of the temperatures and cannot be their cause.

Truth n°2 57% of the cumulative anthropic emissions since the beginning of the Industrial revolution have been emitted since 1997, but the temperature has been stable. How to uphold that anthropic CO 2 emissions (or anthropic cumulative emissions) cause an increase of the Global Mean Temperature?

[Note 1: since 1880 the only one period where Global Mean Temperature and CO 2 content of the air increased simultaneously has been 1978-1997. From 1910 to 1940, the Global Mean Temperature increased at about the same rate as over 1978-1997, while CO 2 anthropic emissions were almost negligible. Over 1950-1978 while CO 2 anthropic emissions increased rapidly the Global Mean Temperature dropped. From Vostok and other ice cores we know that it’s the increase of the temperature that drives the subsequent increase of the CO 2 content of the air, thanks to ocean out-gassing, and not the opposite. The same process is still at work nowadays]

[Poitou & Bréon] See previous point 1. Regarding the analysis of the Vostok ice cores it is quite obvious that anthropic CO 2 was not the driver of the climate changes. But it is well understood that the CO 2 has been amplifying the warming due to the changes of the orbital parameters of the Earth. Without this effect the contrast between glacial and interglacial periods would have been much smaller.

For the Vostok ice core is there really a “well understood’ amplifying effect of CO 2 during deglaciation? The delay between temperature changes and CO 2 changes has been [13] found to be a few centuries: this is the minimum observable time in those ice cores because the closing time of air paths between ice crystals of the firn, several centuries, acts on the CO 2 record as a frequency low-pass filter whose time constant is some centuries.

Oceanic cores show that the warming near the poles takes place before that of the inter-tropical surface[14]. Jeffrey Glassman [15] has found that the non-linear Henry law of degassing can be spotted on the Vostok deglaciation data, underlining again that the CO 2 in the air is a consequence of the temperatures, not their cause.

An explanation of the surprisingly quick deglaciation with respect to glaciations [16] has been provided by Prof. O. G Sorokhtin. [17]

Figure 2-A HadCRU T3 series of the monthly Global Mean Surface Temperature anomaly w.r.t. the mean over 1961-1990 and its best approximation by the sum of three sinusoids of periods 1000 years, 210 years and 60 years.

Note the great El Niños of 1878, 1939-40, 1941-42 and 1997-98 that started a change of sign of the slope.

Nota: 150 years of observations do not fully constrain the optimization and the red curve is a heuristic example

The truth n°2 is important because IPCC (AR5 summary for policy makers, 2013, page 15 § D2 figure SPM 10) states that the temperature increase is a simple function like (2 CAE/1000)°C of the Cumulative Anthropic Emissions (CAE) that were 153 Gt-C end 1978 at the beginning of the global satellite lower troposphere temperature measurements, 257 Gt-C at the beginning of the “hiatus in the warming” and 402 Gt-C end 2014. This graphics SPM10 is supposed to “prove” that in order to keep the warming below 2°C w.r.t 1870 the cumulative anthropic emissions must be capped to about 1000 Gt-C. But if the temperature has been stable while the cumulative anthropic emissions increased by 57%, is the graphics SPM10 of IPCC AR5 believable?

Lets take a closer look at the temperature records: Figure 2-A suggests natural cycles of periods 60 years (found as well by Macias et al [18]), 210 years and 1000 years plus modulation by the El Niño events and by some volcanic events (Krakatoa 1883, Katmai 1912, ..). Figure 2-B suggests that since 1979 there has been a jump of at most 0.3°C during the great El Niño of 1997-98; (see figure 15-A showing that El Niño paces the global temperatures as the water of the warm pool is redistributed to the oceanic surface layer at higher latitudes).Those oscillations exist since millennia and are not related to CO 2 .

Hence we can say that no CO 2 effect on the temperatures has been observed since 1978 despite an increase of 263% of the cumulative anthropic emissions (263% = 402 Gt-C /153 Gt-C).

Figure 2-B: RSS MSU lower troposphere global average temperature January 1979 to Sept 2014.

Best Linear Fits: 0,029 °C + 0,007 (t- 1997) before January 1997 and 0.24 °C – 0,0006 (t-1997) afterwards.

http://data.remss.com/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt

Moreover the life-time of a CO 2 molecule in the atmosphere is about 5 years because 5 years is the ratio of the stock of CO 2 in the air to the yearly absorption of CO 2 by the plants and the oceans[19].

Hence there were no more than 24 ppm = 5 years x 10 Gt-C / 2.12 (Gt-C/ppm) of anthropic emissions in the air at the end of 2014, and 5 ppm = 5 years x 2.1 Gt-C / 2.12 (Gt-C/ppm) at the end of 1958. Such a small anthropic content of the air cannot have any effect on the temperature even we believed in the Myrhe formula of IPCC : T”- T’= 5(°C) ln ( CO2″ / CO2′).

The most obvious tricks on the IPCC/2013/SPM10 figure are:

* the averaging of the temperatures over ten calendar years (like 2001-2010) discards all evidence of natural cycles and makes the El Niño disappear as both the main pacemaker and the cause of temperature jumps

* the Pinatubo dust veil effect (1992-1993) is, thanks to this averaging, morphed into a CO 2 related temperature increase

* the small anthropic emissions of 1870-1950 are assumed to be the only cause of the significant temperature fluctuations since the end of the little ice age !

* the very idea of a cumulative effect of anthropic emissions is (akin an infinite lifetime) not consistent with the evidence of a five year life time of CO 2 molecules in the air, equal to the ratio stock/(yearly absorption).

Truth n°3 The amount of CO 2 in the air from anthropic emissions is today no more than 6% of the total CO 2 in the air (as shown by the isotopic ratios 13C/12C) instead of the 25% to 30% said by IPCC

[Poitou & Bréon] This statement is very obviously wrong as shown by the Vostok ice core and by other cores from the Antarctic. Indeed over the last 800 000 years the CO 2 content of the air never exceeded 300 ppm; today its 400 ppm. If the 100 ppm difference – a quarter of the present concentration- is not due to anthropic activities, which is its cause that never occurred over the last 800 000 years

There is no need to fetch glimpses of a distant past from the Vostok ice core. Today’s observations are unambiguous!

The delta13C is a linear function of the ratio of the number of atoms 13C to 12C; the delta13C of a mixture is the quantity-weighted average of the delta13C of the components of the mixture. The delta13C of the anthropic emissions has been changing with the proportion of coal, oil and natural gas in the energy mix and went from -26 pm (pm= per mil) for the mostly coal and oil economies of the 1950s to -29.5 pm near year 2000 and back to -28.5 pm with the revival of the coal since 2003-2005.

6% (-28.5 pm ) +94% (-7 pm) = (-8.3 pm) which is the observed value (figure 3-A)

The 6% are: (lifetime 5 years) x (yearly anthropic emissions 10 Gt-C) /(total CO 2 in the air of 850 Gt-C)

IPCC writes page 10 § B.5 of the Summary for Policy Makers: “From those cumulative anthropic emissions 240 [230 à 250] Gt-C have accumulated in the atmosphere”

As (240 / 840) = 28% and as 28% (-28 pm) + 72% (-7 pm) = ( -13 pm) the IPCC statement is grossly wrong: the observations are quite different of the (-13) per mil, as shown figure 3-A below.

Figure 3-A Monthly observations of the delta13C in per mil (pm) as a function of time at the south pole (blue), at Crozet Island (red), at the passage of Drake (magenta) and the envelope (yearly max and yearly min) of the observations at Mauna Loa (19°30N and 3400 m) (black)

Note that the non-anthropic (or natural) delta13C becomes very slowly more negative (from -6.5 per mil preindustrial to about -7 per mil now) with the replacement of CO 2 molecules absorbed by the vegetation by molecules out-gassed from soils by the oxidation of the organic material of plants grown years to centuries before: the delta13C of the air was then slightly less negative. The same long delays apply to the degassing from the oceanic upwellings that recycle carbon absorbed at higher latitudes tens of years before.

The comment by Poitou & Bréon assumes that the air inclusions recovered in the ice cores have the same CO 2 content as the air on the surface at the time of the closing of the last air paths between ice crystals: this is unlikely and debated.

Truth n°4 The lifetime of CO 2 in the atmosphere is about 5 years instead of the 100 years said by IPCC

[Poitou & Bréon] Where does IPCC say that in its 2013 report or in the AR4, about the lifetime in the air? No such thing has been said.

This is again the mark of an obvious misunderstanding of the atmospheric phenomena.

Can you explain what is the cause of the increase of the CO 2 content of the air that never occurred in the 800 000 years before.

Climate-sceptics who claim the lifetime of CO 2 in the atmosphere is less than 10 years built upon the ratio stock/ (yearly absorption). Such a computation is only valid for a given equilibrium. The 4 to 5 Gt-C that accumulate in the air kick the system out of equilibrium. The CO 2 lifetime then involves exchanges between surface ocean and deep oceans and residence times become much longer beyond a century.

IPCC “says it” in AR4 with the Bern formula page 213 note a, table 2-14.

The probability of survival of a molecule expressed as exp(-t/u) where u is the mean lifetime can be deduced from the identity

d[CO 2 ]/dt = f outgassing (t) + f anthropic (t) – f absorbed (t)

Let’s assume u = [CO 2 ]/ f absorbed be constant, then

[CO 2 ](t) = exp(- (t-t 0 ) /u) [CO 2 ] (t0) + ò t0 t ( f outgassing (t’) + f anthropic (t’) ) exp(-(t-t’) /u) dt’

This derivation of [CO 2 ](t) does not assume any given equilibrium between ingress and egress; the only hypothesis made is that the absorption grows with [CO 2 ] due to fertilization of the air by CO 2 : more food, bigger plants and quicker growth, more leafs and so on; see on notice n°2 in the footnotes the references of some observations made during the last fifty years.

The monthly increments d[CO 2 ]/dt computed for dt= 12 months from the Mauna Loa series of [CO 2 ] are displayed on figure 4-A; they have no resemblance to the much smoother series of the anthropic emissions, but mimic very well the series of the inter-tropical temperature anomalies T(t); indeed for the non anthropic part:

f outgassing (t) – f absorbed (t) = k (T(t)- T 0 )

(see references on card n°1 and more details on card n°17).

Figure 4-A Monthly increments over the last 12 months of the CO 2 content in ppm measured at Mauna Loa observatory (altitude 3400 m; 19°30 N)

Can you explain what is the cause of the increase of the CO 2 content of the air? Indeed f outgassing (t) – f absorbed (t) = k (T(t)- T 0 )

The year to year increase of the anthropic content of the air is

ò t0 t f anthropic (t’) exp(-(t-t’) /u) dt’ – ò t0 t-1 f anthropic (t’) exp(-(t-t’) /u) dt’ =

ò t-1 t f anthropic (t’)) exp(-(t-t’) /u) dt’ – (1 – exp(-1/u)) ò t0 t-1 f anthropic (t’)) exp(-(t-1-t’) /u) dt’

that is the difference between the emissions of the last year and (1/u) times the cumulative weighted emissions of the previous years.

Please note that due to the 5 years lifetime, what is “accumulating in the air” is not the anthropic emissions themselves but roughly their increase over the last five years; for instance during the last years the yearly increase of the emissions was about 2%/year that is 2% 10 Gt-C = 0.2 Gt-C or 0.1 ppm; with u = 5 the increase of the anthropic content of the air was about 5 years x 0.1 ppm = +0.5 ppm/year as can be checked by a direct computation.

Can you explain what is the cause of the increase of the CO 2 content of the air that never occurred in the 800 000 years before.

The low pass frequency filtering due to the century long compaction time of the snow crystals in the firn and the effects of the pressure on the air inclusions (both during the closing of air-paths in the firn and during the withdrawal of the ice core) significantly change the amplitude and phase of the CO 2 content of the ice core with respect to the isotopic content of the surrounding ice.

Figure 4-B compares the Bern formulas that, according IPCC, say the part of the anthropic emissions still in the air after t years

(21.7 + 25.9 exp(-t/172.9) + 33.8 Exp(-t/18.51) + 18.6 Exp(-t/1.186)) % (in black) or

(18 + 14 exp(-t/420) + 18 exp(-t/70) + 24 exp(-t/21) + 26 exp(-t/3.4) ) % (in red)

Those expressions are obviously best fit transfer function between the series of anthropic emissions and the Mauna Loa series, with six or eight freely adjustable parameters.

IPCC AR5 2013 SPM § B.5 says that “240 [230 to 250] Gt-C from the anthropic emissions have accumulated in the atmosphere” from 1750 to 2011. This fits well with the Bern formulas but not at all with the isotopic delta13C ratios (card n°3).

Figure 4-B Fraction of anthropic emissions remaining in the air for both Bern formulas (black and red)

The magenta line is at 1/e= 36,8%. The blue curve is exp(-t / 5.5 years)

The orange curve is exp(-t / 100) and intersects the Bern curves at about t= 100 years

Formula 21.7% + 25.9% exp(-t/172.9)+… in black: 36,4% remaining in the air after 100 years

Formula 18% + 14% exp(-t/420) + in red: 33.5% remaining in the air after 100 years

Applying the Bern formula to the series of the anthropic emissions of coal, oil and gas (plus cement factories) since 1750, with a rough estimate of the delta13C of those emissions (from -26 pm for the mostly coal and oil economies to -29.5 pm near year 2000 and back to -28.5 pm with the revival of the coal between 2003 and 2012) leads to a delta13C of the air drawn in blue on figure 4-C; the measured values are in red.

Figure 4-C) Blue: delta13C of the air computed according to the Bern formula of IPCC (AR4 page 213) starting in 1750 from -6,5 pm and 277 ppm as “preindustrial” Red: observations (Mauna Loa)

Historical Note: The “much longer, beyond a century ” residence times arose in papers by Bert Bolin, first chair and co-founder of the IPCC [20]. He assumed that the Revelle factor used to describe the ionic equilibrium inside the ocean between the total dissolved carbon and carbonic acid should apply as well between air and ocean, assuming the equality of the partial pressures in the air and in the ocean. There is no such thing! Out-gassing zones (mostly inter-tropical) and absorption zones (mostly high latitudes) of the ocean are different and distant (notice n°17).

The completely different decay times in the two Bern formulas (172.9 years or 420 years? , 1.186 or 3.4 years ? etc.) show that those tales about the transit into the depths of the oceans are pure obfuscation without physical meaning.

Addendum about the relation d[CO 2 ]/dt = f outgassing (t) + f anthropic (t) – f absorbed (t): the IPCC hypothesis is f outgassing (t) = f absorbed (t) within a few percent with very little change since the little ice age; the observations suggest f absorbed (t) /[CO 2 ] = constant = 1/lifetime.

Changes from IPCC AR4 (figure 7-3 p. 515) to IPCC AR5 (figure 6.1 page 471): the absorption by the oceans went down from

92.2 Gt-C = 70 (preindustrial) +22.2 Gt-C to 80 Gt-C = 60 (preindustrial) +20 Gt-C while the absorption by terrestrial vegetation went up from 122.6 Gt-C= 120 (preindustrial) + 2.6 Gt-C to 123 Gt-C = 108.9 (preindustrial) + 14.1 Gt-C; the change from 2.6 to 14.1 reflects a reassessment of the fertilization by the additional CO 2 in the air since the 277 ppm assumed for the “preindustrial” , but is still a factor 2 or 3 lower than the observations between 1960 and 2010 related by the papers of Graven & Keeling, Myneni, Donohue, Pretzsch, Hansen and Sun referenced at the end of card n°1 (footnote 19). The numbers for the oceans are roughly consistent with a constant lifetime since “preindustrial”, but the absorption by terrestrial vegetation should be corrected to about 120 Gt-C = 83 (preindustrial) +37 Gt-C.

Truth n°5 … The Global Mean Temperature curve displays a 60 years period that may be related to the motion of the sun around the centre of mass of the solar system. We are at a maximum of the sinusoid and the next years should be cooler, as it has been the case after 1950

[Poitou & Bréon] We would like an explanation of the link between the position of the sun w.r.t the centre of mass of the solar system and the temperature on Earth. As the motion of the sun w.r.t the centre of mass is linked to the planetary motions, the author has just invented the climatic astrology

Climatic cycles are well documented on all proxies of paleo-temperatures. The relation between the 60 years cycle and the position of the sun has been discussed by many authors (for instance professor Scafetta [21]) in tens of books and papers.

Assuming that the Earth moves around the centre of mass of the solar system, the insolation in January and July may change in opposition by up to more than 1% [22]

Those 60 years cycles are prominent on the HadCRUT (figure 5-A) curve used by IPCC as they are in the reconstructions of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation for the past millennium.

Figure 5-A HadCRU T3 series of the monthly Global Mean Surface Temperature anomaly w.r.t. 1961-1990 average anomaly and its best approximation by three sinusoids of periods 1000 years, 210 years and 60 years. Note the great El Niños of 1878, 1939-40, 1941-42 and 1997-98 that started a change of sign of the slope.

150 years of observations do not fully constrain the optimization and the red curve is an heuristic example

The physical explanation of 1000 year cycles of the paleo-temperatures may be an open question: they are prominent on figures 5-B and 5-C.

Figure 5-B [23] Reconstruction [Christiansen & Ljundqvist; 2013] of the extratropical temperatures of the Northern Hemisphere in °C, as anomaly w.r.t. the 1880-1960 average. The thin black curve is from the annual values; the smoothed red curve is a 50 year average with the 2.5% probability quantiles as dashed lines. The yellow curve is the instrumental temperature averaged only over those cells (5° latitude 5° longitude) which have at least one proxy

The little ice age (1360-1860) is exemplified by many observations in China, and on figure 5-C by the advances and retreats of the longest European glacier: there are about 1000 years between the Minoan (1300 BC) , Roman (100 BC), Medieval (950 AD) and Contemporary optima. Most (about 2/3) of the recent recession of the glacier occurred between 1860 and 1957 and cannot be ascribed to the anthropic emissions of CO 2 which were then insignificant: 0,083 Gt-C in 1859, 1,3 Gt-C in 1940 and 2,2 Gt-C in 1956 with an assumed CO 2 content of the air -from Law Dome ice core- of 286 ppm in 1859, 310 ppm in 1940 and 314 ppm in 1956.

Figure 5-C Lower limit of the great glacier of Aletsch (Switzerland) (length 23 km) from 1500 BC to 2000 AD ( from Holzhauer)

On the left years 1859 to 2002, on the right meters w.r.t. the maximum extension of the glacier during the little ice age

Truth n°6 The absorption of the radiation from the surface by the CO 2 of the air is nearly saturated. Measuring what is left from the radiation of a broadband IR source (like a 1000°C black body) after crossing the equivalent of the CO 2 content of the air (6 kg/m²) shows that the strong bands of absorption by CO 2 near 4.3 and 15 microns have been absorbed and replaced by the emission of the trace gas at its own temperature.

[Poitou & Bréon] This kind of statement proves that the author has not understood the basis of the greenhouse effect. It is because the air has a vertical temperature lapse rate and a thickness much above the average infrared photon path length that the greenhouse effect exists and increases with the concentration of the greenhouse gases: see “The atmospheric greenhouse effect is more subtle than you believe” in La Météorologie (n°72 February 2011)

Almost the same text as in La Météorologie (” … more subtle than you believe”) has been published by the same authors in the periodical La Découverte[24]“. There, it is written that the absorption of surface radiation by CO 2 is saturated and that the decrease in the global outgoing longwave emission due to more CO2 in the air is only due to the “higher and cooler” emission level of tropospheric CO 2 radiating to the cosmos.

Let us look at those radiative effects. The cm-1 is a unit of frequency used in optics which is 29.9792 GHz (GHz = giga Hertz).

The transmission of diffuse infrared radiation by a layer of optical thickness t is the special function 2E 3 (t) which is approximately exp(-t)/(1+0.65 t); transmission is 20% for t=1.07, 1.8% for t=3 and 7 10-6 for t=10.

If the temperature of the air as function of the optical thickness is smooth, then 80% of the photons radiated by the air and reaching the cosmos originate from a layer of thickness 1.07 near the “top of the air”.

And 80% of the photons radiated by the air to the surface come from a layer of optical thickness 1.07 near the surface.

Figure 6-A shows that the water vapour of the air is very opaque over almost all the thermal infrared spectrum, from radiofrequencies at some cm-1 up to 2220 cm-1, except in the 350 cm-1 wide “water vapour window” from 770 cm-1 to 1180 cm-1.

CO 2 is opaque from say 580 cm-1 to 750 cm-1, over 170 cm-1, about a tenth of the spectrum where water vapour is opaque.

Figure 6-A Optical thickness t of the atmosphere as function of the optical frequency for the two main trace gases: water vapour (blue) and carbon dioxide (red)

25 kg/m² is about the global average of water vapour on the air that goes from 1 or 2 kg/m² (extreme winter polar conditions) up to 80 kg/m² (near the equatorial convective “chimney” at the confluence of the trade winds)

Figure 6-B is a zoom on the spectrum relevant for CO 2 : the water vapour content of the air is very sensitive to the temperatures [25] and is concentrated in the lowest layers: 80% of it is in the first 250 mbar, below 2.3 km; the CO 2 is “well mixed” and its bulk does not see the surface radiation that has already been absorbed by water vapour and by the low clouds.

What would be the effect of doubling the CO 2 content of the air?

Transmission will be reduced from 2E 3 ( t water vapor + t clouds + t CO2 ) to 2E 3 ( t water vapor + t clouds + 2 t CO2 ) that is about

2E 3 ( t water vapor + t clouds ) f(t CO2 )

where f(t CO2 ) is maximum at (1/4) for t CO2 = 0.42 and is negligible if t CO2 is small or large (say t CO2 >2).

Hence some additional absorption of the surface radiation may occur between 750 cm-1 and 800 cm-1 if (t water vapor + t clouds ) <2.

For a mid latitude summer reference profile this additional absorption is about 0.8 W/m² and of course the radiation of the air to the surface increases by about the same amount (or even somewhat more): the radiative heat transfer between surface and air becomes then even more negligible.

Hence less than 0.8 W/m² radiated from the surface do no longer reach the cosmos[26] and are carried away by the evaporation associated with a minuscule temperature increase of the surface: for evaporation at +6W/m²/°C, the required temperature increase would be 0.13°C spread over the 200 years it would take to double the CO 2 content of the air at the rate of +2 ppm/year.

The global outgoing longwave radiation will not be changed as this latent heat will feed the radiation to the cosmos of the water vapour … where the condensation takes place.

The saturation of the absorption can be said because 0.8 (W/m²) / 400 (W/m²) = 0.002, two thousandths!

The article quoted (“… more subtle …”) says: ” … the result is unexpected ad raises a crucial interrogation… for carbon dioxide the absorption by the atmosphere of the infrared radiation [from the surface] does practically does not change.” Indeed!

Figure 6-B Zoom on the optical thickness t of the air near 15 µm or 666 cm-1 (left magenta, right red) and of water vapour (in blue)

The level corresponding to an optical thickness 1 from the top of the air is for CO 2 at about P(atm) = (1/t CO2 )(1/1.45) that is at or above the tropopause (0.2 atm) for t CO2 =10

The altitude where the radiation to the cosmos takes place with the associated cooling of the top of the air is near t=1 from the top of the air, that is at a pressure (1/ t max H2O ) (1/4.5) or (1/ t max CO2 ) (1/1.45); the line by line computation of figure 6-C is a morphing from figure 6-A.

Figure 6-C Heating and cooling of the air in milli-K/day/cm-1 as a function of pressure and of optical frequency; tropical case with a tropopause at about 100 mbar; pale blue is were the cooling is negligible (from Brindley & Harries 1998, Sparc 2000: see Andrew Gettelman Observations from AIRS and applications to climate and climate modeling )

Let us now consider the “higher and cooler” argument. According to Ramanathan et al. (1987) and Hansen et al. (2011) [27]: »The basic physics underlying this global warming, the greenhouse effect, is simple. An increase of gases such as CO 2 makes the atmosphere more opaque at infrared wavelengths. This added opacity causes the planet’s heat radiation to space to arise from higher, colder levels in the atmosphere, thus reducing emission of heat energy to space. The temporary imbalance between the energy absorbed from the Sun and heat emission to space, causes the planet to warm until planetary energy balance is restored.«

The level P 1.07 of the optical thickness t=1.07 from the top of the air, is the lower limit of the layer sourcing 80% of the photons lost to the cosmos; this level is the solution of 1 = t max H2O P 1.07 H2O 4.5 or 1= t max CO2 P 1.07 CO2 1.45: see figure 6-C and the more sketchy figure 6-D. Doubling t max CO2 uppers the CO 2 level from P 1.07 CO2 to P”= 0.62 P 1.07 CO2 as shown on figure 6-D. There are about 40 cm-1 near 610 cm-1 and near 730 cm-1 where CO 2 would radiate from a cooler and higher layer after an instantaneous CO 2 doubling with all temperature and humidity of the troposphere kept FIXED.

Figure 6-D) Pressure (in atm) of the level above which 80% of the photons radiated by the air and reaching the cosmos are produced

Solutions of t H2Omax P 4,5 = 1.07 (for w= 25 kg/m² and 50 kg/m²) and of t CO2max P1,45 = 1.07 and 2 t CO2max P1,45 = 1.07

Let’s now see the man-traps of the “higher and cooler” argument

* CO 2 doubling is not instantaneous but, at +2 ppm/year, would take about 200 years; hence there is plenty of time for convection and water vapour to restore the “ emission of heat energy to space” as they do every day and night

* If CO 2 radiates from higher and cooler (In the troposphere only !) there will be more cooling of the 250 mbar layer (near 610 cm-1 and near 730 cm-1) and less cooling at 350 mbar: this is likely to be erased by convection

* the water vapour content of upper layer of the air (in blue figure 6-D) will change by about 12%/K near the tropopause and is reduced by the enhanced cooling of the 250 mbar layer; hence the water vapour radiation will the be from a “lower and warmer” level, with a very significant spectral leverage of a factor of ten (400 cm-1 for the water vapour w.r.t to 40 cm-1 for the CO 2 ).

The above quoted statement by Ramanathan et al. ignores the difference between CO 2 and the phase changing water vapour and the inherent instability of the “more cooling above, more heating below“.

Truth n°7 In some geological periods the CO 2 content of the air has been up to 20 times today’s content and there has been no runaway temperature increase! Why would our CO 2 emissions have a cataclysmic impact? The laws of Nature are the same whatever the place and the time.

[Poitou & Bréon] At the Carboniferous the CO 2 content was much less than 25 times today’s and the solar radiation was significantly lower. At the end of the Carboniferous the temperature was very low at high latitudes (glaciations), warm in the tropics and the CO 2 content was comparable to todays as see on the figure below

Glaciations with some ice caps occur every 140 million years: this has been related to the crossing of a galactic arm by the solar system, with the hypothesis connecting strong cosmic rays impinging the Earth and enhanced low cloud coverage.

See:

N. Shaviv, “Cosmic Ray Diffusion from the Galactic Spiral Arms, Iron Meteorites, and a Possible Climatic Connection”, Physical Review Letters 89, 051102, (2002).

N. Shaviv, “The spiral structure of the Milky Way, cosmic rays, and ice age epochs on Earth”, New Astronomy 8, 39 (2003)

Veizer, Ján “Celestial Climate Driver: A Perspective from Four Billion Years of the Carbon Cycle” Geoscience Canada volume 32 Number 1 March 2005 pp -13-28

Shaviv, N.J. and Veizer, J., 2003, “Celestial driver of Phanerozoic climate?” : GSA Today, v. 13/7, p. 4-10

Svensmark, Henrik Evidence of nearby supernovae affecting life on Earth Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc April 2012

Sorokhtin O. G., G.V.Chilingar, L.F. Khilyuk “Global Warming and Global Cooling Evolution of the Climate of the Earth” Elsevier 2007, 313 pages

Truth n°8 The sea level is increasing by about 1.3 mm/year according to the data of the tide-gauges (after correction of the emergence or subsidence of the rock to which the tide gauge is attached, nowadays precisely known thanks to high precision GPS instrumentation); no acceleration has been observed during the last decades; the raw measurements at Brest since 1846 and at Marseille since the 1880s are slightly less than 1.3 mm/year.

[Poitou & Bréon] The reader will see there an obvious attempt to deceive. Why use the Brest tide gauge as representative of the world’s oceans, the sea level is very well measured by satellite, and those measurements show unambiguously a rise by 3 mm/year. Compiling data from tide gauges around the globe clearly suggest an accelerating trend. The sea level rise is by no means uniform: sea is not flat. Currents play an important role in the geographical distribution of the sea level rise. The French measurements are related to a minute share of the oceans.

A “clean” International Terrestrial Reference Frame recalibration of the GPS data [28] leaves +1.3 mm/year for a representative set of tide gauges over the world. For the protection of the coasts it is the tide-gauges and the highest sea level during tempests and high tides that are relevant!

For France the tide-gauges of Brest (n°1 of the psml.org database) and Marseilles are relevant: figure 8-A from a recent thesis [29] show yearly averages of the levels of the mean high water and mean low water (1846-2007). The 18.6 years lunar cycles are prominent and have sometimes been mistaken for short-time accelerations of the mean sea level.

Figure 8-A (Nicolas Pouvreau) Yearly average levels of the mean high water and mean low water (1846-2007) at Brest. The vertical lines are the time of the minimum declination of the Moon while the dotted vertical lines are those of the maximum declination of the Moon (from Pugh 2004)

The monthly averaged sea levels since 1807 (figure 8-B) show +19 cm over two centuries (difference of the averages of the 120 first months of data and of the 120 last months of data).The highest monthly average peaks, all in winter, are likely due to storms: 12 hours of strong wind (80 km/h) mean +1 m at the coast in addition to the 1 cm/mbar effect of the depression.

Figure 8-B Monthly levels at Brest since 1807: main maxima are Dec. 1821 (7225 mm), Nov. 1852 (7233 mm), Dec. 1876 (7322 mm), Feb. 1966 (7422 mm) and Dec. 2000 (7426 mm) http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/rlr.monthly.data/1.rlrdata

In August 1986 the German weekly Der Spiegel pictured on its cover the cathedral of Colognes half under water, under the title “Klimakatastrophe”, while in 1998 James Hansen warned about a sea level rise of + 3m in New-York in 2030.

The satellites teams (Topex-Poseidon and following experiments) have manufactured a surprising change of the slope since 1993 from 1.3 mm/year to 3 mm/year and more, which has been shown to be entirely due to recalibrations [30] in the processing of the raw data!

May be, this has been done to give consistence to the myths of the accelerated melting (or calving) of the Greenland ice cap[31] or of Antarctica and of a noticeable thermal expansion of the depth of the ocean.

360 Gt water are needed to uplift the global sea level by 1 mm; there are “reconciled (averaged) estimates” [32] over 2000-2011 of yearly losses of 211 Gt for Greenland and of 87 Gt for the Antarctica contradicting reliable observations of an average yearly mass gain of 49 Gt for Antarctica[33].

The non sense forecasts collated and edited by the IPCC have been debunked in many books and posts.

On the “very surprising” recalibrations of the ENVISAT data which were morphed from being flat over 2004-2011 into a sea level rise of 2.3 mm/year see the post[34].

Of the +1.3 mm/year some 0.5 mm/year or more may in the last decade have come from the net depletion of groundwater that in some countries are pumped in excess of their refilling[35]; the rest comes from glaciers (mostly the arctic glacier) and from Greenland.

“Compiling data from tide gauges around the globe clearly suggest an accelerating trend” Not at all! For the Pacific islands to the northeast and east of Australia said to be “drowning” the observed (tide gauge) levels have been “flat” since 1992 (see figure 10 of http://www.bom.gov.au/ntc/IDO60102/IDO60102.2011_1.pdf) [36] and the year to year changes are within +-20 cm.

For some more interesting forecasts see http://climatechangepredictions.org/category/sea-level

Truth n°9 The “hot spot” in the inter-tropical high troposphere is, according to all “models” and to the IPCC reports, the indubitable proof of the water vapour feedback amplification of the warming: it has not been observed and does not exist.

[Poitou & Bréon] Who is supposed to forecast what? This point put forward by the Climate Sceptics has been proved wrong since more than ten years

The question “Who is supposed to forecast what?” has well documented answers. The hot spot is, since the beginning of the 3D models 35 years ago, quite prominent in all the forecasts: it has been described at length in the IPCC 2007 report (pp. 674-676 and figures 9-1, 9-2). It was prominent in the publications of Hansen since 1981, as on figure 9-A of http://www.agu.org/books/gm/v029/ of 1984

Figure 9-A Effect of the doubling of the carbon dioxide content of the air: note on the lowest graphic the 7°C hot spot at 250 mbar and on the middle graphic +12°C in winter on the rim of Antarctica and on the arctic polar cycle, +5°C over the Sahara, +4°C over the whole Pacific ocean. source: Hansen 1981 & 1984

The hot spot is the key component of the supposed water vapour feedback amplification of the warming; hence a closer examination is well deserved: figure 9-B compares models (with a warming of up to +4°C/century at 10 km that is supposed to propagate down to the surface with the almost constant lapse rate) and observations. The lack of hot spot is shown [37] by figures 9-B and 9-D.

Figure 9-B Left Comparison of observations and of models (IPCC 2007) in °C/decades (from Douglas et al 2008)

Right a modern picture of the “hot spot”

Figure 9-C Comparison of the trends in °C/decades according to 22 so called “models” between surface and 100 hPa 1979-2005

A refined statistical analysis has been performed in 2010 [38] shown on figure 9-D.

Figure 9-D Comparison of the trends in °C/ decade of the models with the temperatures series of the high troposphere from satellite microwave units as assembled by UAH and by RSS and with radio-sondes (Mc Kritrick et al. 2010)

Truth n° 10 The water vapour content of the air has been roughly constant since more than 50 years but the humidity of the upper layers of the troposphere has been decreasing: the IPCC foretold the opposite to assert its “positive water vapour feedback” with increasing CO2. The observed “feedback” is negative.

[Poitou & Bréon] IPCC has foreseen an increase of the water vapor content of the air and this has been observed. Climate Sceptics who are trying to deceive the public often show the water content of the high troposphere as if it was the whole atmosphere. The trend in the high atmosphere which is very dry is of course different of the trend for the whole atmosphere

The outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) of the globe to the cosmos is about 233 W/m² (figure 14-A below) sum of 20 W/m² from the surface [39], 20W/m² from the stratospheric ozone and carbon dioxide and of 193 W/m² from the radiation of the water vapour, that contributes about 83% of the OLR. This radiation originates mostly from the highest layer of optical thickness 1.07 which is the source of 80% of the photons reaching the cosmos[40].

As shown on card n°6, it’s the water content of the high troposphere above 600 mbar that drives the OLR, not the total water content. IPCC 2013, § D3 of the Summary for Policy Makers, writes that anthropic influences have contributed to the increase of the mean water content of the air, with a caveat: medium confidence or may-be an equal likelihood for the statement to be false or true! [41] The water vapour content of the air between the top of the air and the altitude of pressure P (atm) is decreasing roughly like P4.5 [42] : hence 80% of the total water vapour is between P=1 and P=0.75 near 2.3 km, and the total water content of the air closely follows the surface temperature.

Figure 10-A Plot of the water vapor content of the air 1988 2009 (global average) from the M VAP-M archive in kg/m² or mm of water https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/project/nvap/nvap-m_table drawing by http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=4871

If there is slightly less water vapour in the upper troposphere near 300 mbar then the OLR from water vapour will originate from a lower and warmer layer and the OLR will increase. Hence while the bulk of the water vapour in the lowest layers (2.3 km) closely tracks the temperature of the surface, it’s the water vapour content of the high troposphere that controls the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) and the global balance of the absorbed solar radiation with the OLR.[43]

Prof. Ole Humlum (www.climate4you.com) has drawn the estimates of the water vapour content (0.28 g/kg to 0.24 g/kg) for the 300 mbar layer from Jan 1948 to June 2014 (figure 10-B) [44]

Figure 10-B quantity of water vapor in the air at three levels in g/kg at 300 mbar (9 km), 600 mbar (4.2 km) at 1000 mbar, Jan. 1948 to June 2014 https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/noaa20esrl20atmospericspecifichumidity20globalmonthlytempsince194820with37monthrunningaverage1.gif

The relative humidity suggests as well that the OLR from the water vapour in the spectral regions where figure 6-A shows high optical thickness has been slowly increasing, as the source of radiation to the cosmos moved to slightly “lower and warmer” layers.

Figure 10-C Relative Humidity since 1948 from balloon borne soundings at 700 mbar, 600 mbar, 500 mbar, 400 mbar & 300 mbar.(see also http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/timeseries/timeseries1.pl from reanalyzes)

Truth n° 11 The maximum area of the Austral ice pack is increasing

[Poitou & Bréon] And then what? This is not contrary to what the IPCC says. This information is in its last report. Those records figures are for the end of the austral winter. This ice disappears almost completely in summer. A more relevant information would be the yearly average of the mass of the ice pack.

There are many good “ice pages” like http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/antarctic.sea.ice.interactive.html

or http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/

According to the “climate models” a decrease of the Antarctic ice pack should have occurred since 1981 (see notice n°9); models forecast about +5°C at 60°S for CO 2 doubling. From a recent assessment by Turner et al. [45] over the last 30 years, models say for the 1979-2005 time span a decrease of the ice pack area by -13.6%/decade [46] in February and by minus 0.4 M km² in September.

Observations are a steady increase from 14 M km² (1986) to 16 M km² for the recent years (up to 16.8 M km² on day 261 of 2014)

Note: There is no significant trend in the UAH-MSU lower troposphere monthly time series for 60°S-85°S (end 1978-2014), albeit the peak-to-peak range of the temperature anomaly is about (-2°C, +2°C)

Truth n°12 The sum of the areas of the arctic and austral ice packs which are phase-opposite is nearly constant; the total albedo of the cryosphere has not changed much

[Poitou & Bréon] Here are an error and an irrelevant information. The error is the statement that the albedo of the cryosphere does not change. There is an unmistakable decrease of the snow covered areas during the spring and snow is part of the cryosphere.

The irrelevant information is the area of the ice pack: what in important is the mass or volume of the ice, not its surface. And the mass is continuously and quickly decreasing

The ice pack albedo is said to be an important positive feedback of the carbon dioxide warming possibly leading to a “tipping point” followed by a “runaway warming“.

The statement of P&B is somewhat odd as the high-latitude marine areas are almost continuously covered by low clouds; and for the cloudless case the Fresnel formulas show that the light from a Sun low over the horizon is reflected almost as much by water than by the irregular surface of the ice pack.

Figure 12-A from Prof. Ole Humlum (www.climate4you.com) displays the extent of the northern and southern ice packs for the last 35 years; they are indeed phase-opposite .

Figure 12-A Extents in M km² of the Arctic and Antarctic ice packs October 1979 to April 2014 with a 12 months moving average

Source: National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).. http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html

Poitou & Bréon put forward the spring snow-cover as does IPCC 2013 SPM § B3: “over 1967-2012 the extent of the snow-cover a decreased by 1.6% per decade for March and April and 11.7%/decade for June”.

The figure 12-B shows the Northern Hemisphere snow coverage data for each of the months since 1966 for: 6 months of the year have seen a stable or increasing snow cover, the other 6 months a decreasing snow cover.

The means of the first 12 years (1966-1977) and of the last 12 years (2002-2014) of the records are as follows, in M km² November to October: {Nov., 34.1, 34.6}, {Dec., 43.6, 44.6}, {Jan., 47.3, 47.8}, {Feb., 46.4, 47.0}, {March, 41.3, 40.3}, {April, 31.1, 29.6}, {May, 20.7, 17.6}, {June, 12, 7.5}, {July, 5.7, 3}, {Aug., 3.8, 2.5}, {Sept., 5.5, 5.2}, {Oct., 19.4, 19.1}, again an increase in winter months and a decrease for the months June to August.

According to figure 5-A the effect of the natural cycles has been of about 0.5°C on the HadCRUT4 series between the means of the same 12 years. Whether the snow feedback June to August along the Arctic coast has an effect on the global temperatures has yet to be said. It has been said the winter temperatures went up in the years 1975-2005 (despite the somewhat increased snow cover), while summer temperatures did not.

Poitou & Bréon do not explain why the ice pack volume would be relevant for the albedo; according to Haas (2005) [47]the changes of the thickness of the sea ice are small since they are correctly measured by an airborne radio apparatus, only over the Arctic.

Figure 12-B For each month November (11) to October (10) snow cover from 1966 to 2015 over the Northern hemisphere with (likely meaningless) linear trends http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/files/moncov.nhland.txt

Note the different vertical scales on each of the plots

Truth n°13 The observations from the 3000 ARGO floats may suggest, since 2003, a very slight cooling of the oceans and almost no increase of the ocean heat content.

[Poitou & Bréon] Over the first 700 m there is surely no decrease of the oceanic heat content, even if the recent warming is less than the warming of past decades: on the figure below in green, the time span since 2003 carefully selected by sceptics to support their talks

But why stay at 700 m? Here the ocean heat content up to 2000 m depth from the data

http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/heat_3month/

The vertical units of the graphics shown above are 1022 J= 10 ZJ; over 1990-2004 the order of magnitude of the “warming” is 100 ZJ/15 years/(509 1012 m²) = 0.4 W/m². The time span since 2005 is that of Argo buoys: about half [48]of the data collected has been deleted to suppress an inconvenient cooling said to be due to defective devices.

A 2013 update [49] shows that the increase of the ocean heat content is restricted to the 20°S-60°S oceans.

Figure 13-A Argo floats change of the ocean heat content 60°N-20°N, 20°N-20°S, 20°S-60°S down to 2000 deci-bar in 1022 J

As there are no known mechanisms by which infrared radiation can heat the bulk of liquid water (infrared radiation is absorbed by the first few tens of microns of liquid water), it’s likely that all of the increase in the southern oceans heat content is related to changes of the albedo, that is to changes of the cloud cover. Another example is the North Atlantic (figure 13-B).

Figure 13-B Ocean Heat content of the North-Atlantic (30°N-65°N) from 1955 to 1st Q 2014. from www.climate4you.com

1 GJ/m² over 30 years are 1.05 W/m² and if spread over 700 m of sea water +0.18°C

The recent decrease may be about – 0.5 GJ/m² over 6 years that is equivalent to a (negative) “forcing” of -2.6 W/m²

On the 2000 meter depth graph over 2006-2014 of Poitou & Bréon, the yearly minima increased from 10 units to 16 units of 1022 J that is 0.41 W/m²; but there is every year some oceanic heat storage during six months and a release of this heat the following six months: the maximum of the global outgoing longwave radiation is in July, shifted by 6 months w.r.t. the solar flux hat is maximum in January (1412 W/m²) and minimum in July (1321 W/m²).

Disregarding those quarter to quarter oscillations, according to Levitus (2012) “The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–2000 m layer increased by 24.0 +/- 1.9 x 10^22 J corresponding to a rate of 0.39 W/ m² (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.09 deg C” and “The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–700 m layer increased by 16.7 +/- 1.6 x 10^22 J corresponding to a rate of 0.27 W m^2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.18 deg C.”

But again such global averages are of little value: regional observations should be related to the regional cloud coverage and albedo and possibly to changes of the strength of surface currents.

Figure 13-C Model Forecasts and redistribution of heat in the depths of the ocean (in green are Levitus world-average observations above 700 m) in °C/decade Source : http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/08/deep-ocean-temperature-change-spaghetti-15-climate-models-versus-observations/

IPCC SPM 2013 p. 13 §D1 states that The observed reduction in surface warming trend 1998 to 2012 …is due in roughly equal measure to a reduced trend in radiative forcing and a cooling contribution from natural internal variability, which includes a possible redistribution of heat within the ocean (medium confidence [or 50% chance to be true and 50% chance to be false ? ]). Figure 13-C shows that this redistribution is beyond the grasp of the models.

Truth n° 14 The outgoing longwave radiation from the upper atmosphere is larger than what models say: there is no “blanket” effect du to Greenhouse gases

[Poitou & Bréon] It is quite obviously wrong to say there is no blanket effect due to the tropospheric greenhouse gases. Saying such awful things should disqualify the perpetrator. The total of the outgoing solar and thermal infrared radiations is lower than the incoming solar flow.

The last sentence of P&B refers to the global imbalance that should have been seen in the oceanic calorimeter: but the observed geographically selective effect (notice n° 13) does not fit well with the assumption of a uniform infrared radiative forcing due to more CO 2 . As already said, the radiative heat transfer surface to air is the radiation of the surface absorbed by the air minus the radiation of the air absorbed by the surface: it would be exactly zero for an isothermal atmosphere and is nearly zero for an opaque atmosphere (figure 6-A).

The “blanket” [50] is supposed to reduce the radiative cooling of the surface. But as the radiative transfer of heat between the surface and the air is about nil (see notice n°1) it is still zero for “doubled CO 2 “; a fraction of a W/m² is no longer is lost by the surface by direct radiation to the cosmos but by a slightly enhanced evaporation with condensation (and radiation to the cosmos) somewhere else (see notice n°6).

There is no relation between the radiation flows exchanged by surface and air (whose net balance is about zero) and the radiation from the top of the air lost to the cosmos some kilometres above the surface; the cooling of the “top of the air” at mid and high latitudes is compensated by advection of humid air from mid latitudes.

The radiation emitted is a diagnostic of the temperature of the trace gases of the air; the temperature in the troposphere is T(P) with T(P) /T top = (P/P top )R/(Cp+ Cpi); T top and P top “summarize the position of the “top” of the air; surface temperature is driven by the ratio (P surface / P top )0,19 where P top is characteristic of the latitude and of the season and R = 8.314/(molar mass).

As obvious on figures 6-A and 6-B, T top and P top are determined by the water vapour that radiates over some 1900 cm-1 much more than the 40 cm-1 of the tropospheric CO 2 near 614 cm-1 and 718 cm-1.; stratospheric radiation to the cosmos is not very important because the cooling of each layer is exactly equal to its heating mostly by UV absorbed by Ozone.

“Models” forecast a “blanket effect ” with a reduced radiation to the cosmos: forty years of observations of the Outgoing Longwave Radiation (1974-2014) do not show any such thing.

Figure 14-A Monthly global average of the Outgoing Longwave Radiation in W/m² plotted against the CO 2 content of the air in ppm per Mauna Loa series, for the same month, (1974-2014). Note the seasonal cycles of the vegetation growth. The red line is the linear trend of about +2 W/m²/century; there is no apparent “heat trapping” due to the increasing CO 2 .

The black line what should have been seen according to Myrhe’s logarithmic formula.

source http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Outgoing longwave radiation global

See as well http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/21/the-magnificent-climate-heat-engine/ for a map of the CERES data: the changes in the cloud cover and the transfer of heat from the tropics to the high latitudes explain the fluctuations of the OLR.

The radiative imbalance of the Earth stated by Hansen et al. has been discussed by Kramm & Dlugi [51] whose conclusion is” we may conclude that a planetary energy imbalance of 0.58 +/- 0.15W/m² claimed by Hansen et al. (2011) for the period 2005-2010 is not justifiable. The same is true in case of the planetary energy imbalance of 0.8 +/- 0.15W/m² claimed by Hansen et al. (2005).“

Truth n° 15 The Stefan-Boltzmann formula does not apply to gases which are neither black bodies nor grey bodies; why does the IPCC community use it for gases?

[Poitou & Bréon] It is not the IPCC but the whole scientific community competent on those topics that uses Stefan Boltzmann law for gases, and that since tens of years. IPCC is only quoting from the scientific literature. The Stefan Boltzmann law applies to any body that absorbs electromagnetic radiation and hence to infrared absorbing gases.

The Stefan-Boltzmann σT4 formula only applies to a black body, not to a gas. The absorption spectrum of the main trace-gases are on figures 6-A and 6-B: at the temperatures of the air CO 2 radiates significantly only between the optical frequencies (or wavenumbers) 595 cm-1 to 740 cm-1 where its optical thickness is at least 2; it does not radiate over the whole thermal infrared spectrum (100 cm-1 to 2500 cm-1) relevant for the temperatures of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Poitou & Bréon amazingly confirm that the “climate community” uses, since tens of years, a very inappropriate formula! Let’s remind that a grey body formula ε σ T4 is sometimes used to describe the radiation of trace gases at a uniform temperature: Hottel has given some charts, usable only for a uniform temperature[52]. We shall see in annex 15-A an another example of an erroneous use of ε σ T4

A rough computation of the thermal diffuse infrared radiation flows is not complicated: it’s like summing over the whole air column the quantity k(ν, P, T) π B(ν, T) ρ trace dz = π B(ν, T) dt weighted by the attenuation of the diffuse radiation between the source at P and the point of observation: k(ν, P, T) is the absorption coefficient, B the Planck function, ρ trace the mass of trace gas per unit volume.

For instance the down-welling radiation from the air observed at a distance t from the top of the air is the integral of

(2 E 2 (t-t’) π B(ν, T(t’)) dt’ between t’=0 and t’=t . Those expressions can, as shown by S. Chandrasekhar [53] in 1950, be computed with some additions and multiplications thanks to Gauss formulas for the numerical computation of integrals.

The correspondence between t and P(atm) (or altitude z ) is deduced from relations like

dt = k(ν, P, T) ρ trace dz = k(ν, P, T) ρ trace dP/ (ρ air g) = (k(ν, P, T) /g) (ρ trace / ρ air ) dP

t(ν, P) = t total gas trace (ν) Pa where the exponent a summarizes the changes of (k(ν, P, T) /g) (ρ gaz trace / ρ air ) ~ Pa-1 as a function of altitude or pressure and temperature with T(P) ~ P0.19 . The spectral shape of t total trace gas (ν) is displayed on figures 6-A to C.

Why this fondness for the σT4 blackbody radiation formula? Because it appears in innumerable books and papers as the cornerstone of the following “demonstration“:

1) the “blanket effect” reduces the average outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) of the Earth by some 3.7 W/m² or 4 W/m² for an instantaneous doubling of the CO 2 content of the air with FIXED tropospheric temperature and humidity

2) to restore the OLR the air must warm from T to T’ with σT’4 = σT4 + 3,7 W/m² and hence T’ = (6,525 107 + T4)1/4; for T-273 = -20°C or 0°C or 15°C or 30°C we get T’- T values of +1°C or +0,8°C or +0,7°C or +0,6°C ; this is said to be the direct effect of the doubling of the CO 2 content of the air [54]

3) then any warming can be deduced thanks to the hypothesized “amplifying water vapor feedbacks”

Card n°14 has shown that the “blanket” effect is not to be seen in the observations of the OLR; card n°10 has shown that observations do not show any increase of the upper air water vapour content, dispelling point 3); card n°9 has shown that the hot spot and the “amplifying water vapor feedback ” were not observed either.

The σ T4- is indeed a decoy to avoid handling properly and separately the four components of the OLR seen on figure 6-C for a cloudless sky, and to avoid explaining the automatic compensations between those four components:

1* the water vapor radiating mostly from the troposphere (say 190 W/m²),

2* the radiation from the surface that has escaped absorption by water vapor, clouds and CO 2 (global average 20 W/m²),

3* the CO 2 and the ozone radiating from the stratosphere (say 20 W/m²),

4* the CO 2 from the troposphere near 618 cm-1 and 720 cm-1 for a CO 2 “doubling” (figure 6-B right).

But CO 2 doubling does not occur “instantaneously” and at FIXED temperature and humidity: going from 400 ppm to 800 ppm at today’s rate of +2 ppm/year would take 200 years!

If CO 2 increases there is more cooling at say 250 mbar and less cooling below: such a setting is likely to be erased by convection; and by a slight reduction of the water vapour content of the upper troposphere that will restore the OLR.

Annex 15-A Example of an abuse of the expression ε σ T4

Lets follow W. Eschenbach’s [55] discussion of an often quoted article of Stephen E. Schwartz [56] Heat capacity time constant and sensitivity of Earth’s climate system Journal of Geophysical Research June 2007. The change of the heat content of the globe (mainly in the oceans) is dH/dt = S (1-a) – E, where S is the solar radiation, a the albedo, E the global infrared emission; such a relation is likely and there are historical series for H (figure 13-A), E (figure 14-A) for S and a; whether global averaging makes sense is debatable.

The next assumption is dH/dt = C dT surface /dt where C is a suitable thermal capacity; this is incorrect; we shall see why.

Last assumption is E = ε σ T surface 4 ; this is incorrect. Then by adding a so-called forcing F we get an equation in T surface

C dT surface /dt = S (1-a) – ε σ T surface 4 + F

For dT/dt =0 if ε decreases (less OLR) or if F is positive T surface must increase.

The transient response to a forcing F applied at time t =0 is T surface (t) – T surface (0) = F τ /C (1- exp(-t/τ)), or for a time increasing F(t)= F 1 t T surface (t) – T surface (0) = F 1 τ /C (t – τ (1- exp(-t/τ)))

Lets look at the Ansatz and hypotheses used:

* dH/dt and dT surface /dt are said to be proportional. W. Eschenbach compares those values quarter by quarter and year by year: there is no correlation over the last 50 years (1955-2009) for which some estimates of the ocean global heat content are available

Moreover if the surface temperature of the oceans determines the temperature of the air, it is not the temperature of the air but the insolation and the clouds that drive the changes of the ocean heat content.

* Second conjecture: there would be a ratio ε between the radiation from the surface and the OLR; this is nonsense[57] as said on card n°1: the radiative heat flow from a body A to a body B is: (radiation from A absorbed by B) minus (radiation of B absorbed by A). It is about nil between the air and the surface; it would be exactly nil for an (hypothetical) isothermal atmosphere at the temperature of the surface.

* Implicit hypothesis: S and a are constant while changes in cloud coverage change a, H and ε.

Let’s look now at the conclusions of St. E. Schwartz:

* regressing the series of H océans and T surface leads to a thermal capacity C of 14 W/m²/year/K equivalent to 110 m of water; C is taken as 17 W/m²/year/K for the whole planet b y addition of 5% for molten glaciers, 5% for the heat content of continental masses and 4% for changes of the temperature of the air

* The autocorrelation of the mean surface temperatures (1880-2004) leads to a time constant τ of 5 years

* The “climatic sensitivity” is then τ /C = 5/17 = 0.3 K/(W/m²) [58].

* over the 20th century the observed warming of 0.57°C would imply a radiative forcing of 1.9 W/m² that is 2.2 W/m² for greenhouse gases[59], – 0.3 W/m² for the changes of the aerosols … and nil for the climate cycles prominent on figures 5-A to 5-C (among other cycles of 1000 years, 210 years and 60 years) and the El Niños (figure 2-C and 15-A).

The graphic figure 15-A shows the Earth’s pulsed central heating, the El Niños and their “tele-connections”; figure 2-B shows the latitude-averaged temperature that drives the CO 2 increments of figure 4-A. Those natural effects drive all of the temperature changes observed without the super-natural “forcing” F that should be uniform all over the globe.

Figure 15-A Temperatures of the lower troposphere as a function of time and of latitude (source RSS)

http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html click on history

Truth n° 16 The trace gases absorb the radiation from the surface and radiate at the temperature of the air, which is at some height, most of the time slightly lower that of the surface. The trace-gases cannot “heat the surface“, according to the second principle of thermodynamics which prohibits heat transfer from a cooler body to a warmer body.

[Poitou & Bréon] This is another big stupidity. Does the author deny the existence of the greenhouse effect? It’s a physical phenomenon well understood since several centuries! Such statements should immediately strip their author of any credibility for readers who know some science. If the author was correctly using the second principle of the thermodynamics he would have seen that it is indeed the surface that delivers heat to the emissive trace gases, which are also the absorbing gases. Those gases prevent the surface from loosing some of the heat brought by the sun

To send the heretic to the stake Poitou & Bréon charge him of atheism, of “denying the existence of the greenhouse effect”. That kind of argument has been used since almost two millennia “All men, except a few very ones who are very depraved and vicious, believe in the dogmas and myths of my community, which have been revealed centuries ago; hence my dogmas are true and my prophecies are undisputable”.

“Since several centuries” is likely to refer to Fourier whose memoir of 1824 does not say anything on a “greenhouse effect” [60] (see also card n°1) or to Arrhenius whose tentative explanation of glaciations[61] and de-glaciations by a radiative effect of the CO 2 has been proved wrong (a) because in ice cores the CO 2 content follows the temperature by some centuries and (b) because redoing his computations with the correct absorption spectra gives a warming of 0.2°C for a doubling of the CO 2 content of the air (cf card n°1).

As said on cards n°1, n°6 and n°15, for an atmosphere in a gravitation field, the tropospheric lapse rate is dT/dz = – g/(C p + |C h |) where g=9,8 m/s², C p = 1005 J/kg , and C h summarizes the effect of the heating of the air (1) by absorption of the solar infrared by water vapour or liquid and (2) by the condensation of the water vapour. This is exactly equivalent to T(P)= T top (P/P top )R/(Cp+ |Ch|) where R = 8,314 / 0,02896 = 287.

There is no need of heat to “warm the surface” because its temperature is a consequence of the gravitation and of the mass of the air, both on Earth and on Venus. The lapse rate (despite the temperature inversions near the surface at night and in the winter polar regions) insures that the radiation of the air absorbed by the surface is slightly less than the radiation of the surface absorbed by the air. Hence the air cannot warm the surface as the net balance is about zero or slightly positive from surface to air. [62]

The surface cools mostly by evaporation (order of magnitude 100 W/m²), by convection (20 to 30 /m²) and for about 20 W/m² by direct thermal infrared radiation reaching the cosmos after escaping absorption by water vapour and clouds.

Amazingly Poitou & Bréon state that “absorbing and emitting gases prevent the surface from losing some of the heat brought by the sun”; they should have said that the radiative heat transfer surface to air is almost negligible and stay so for changes of the trace gas content of the air around today’s values.

Notes

(1) The pseudo explanation about “preventing the surface form losing heat” is typical of what has been summarized by Pfr Gerlich & Tscheuschner : ” The main strategy of modern CO2-greenhouse gas defenders seems to hide themselves behind more and more pseudo-explanations, which are not part of the academic education or even of the physics training. A good example is the radiation transport calculations, which are probably not known by many. Another example is the so-called feedback mechanisms, which are introduced to amplify an effect which is not marginal but does not exist at all. Evidently, the defenders of the CO 2 -greenhouse thesis refuse to accept any reproducible calculation as an explanation and have resorted to unreproducible ones”

(2) The ravings by some proponents of the greenhouse effect to circumvent the second principle of thermodynamics are illustrated by R. T. Pierrehumbert Infrared radiation and planetary temperature Physics today January 2011 p.38: “The planetary warming resulting from the greenhouse effect is consistent with the second law of thermodynamics because a planet is not a closed system. It exchanges heat with a high temperature bath by absorbing radiation from the photosphere of its star and with a cold bath by emitting into the essentially zero temperature reservoir of space … the greenhouse effect shifts the planet’s surface temperature toward the photospheric temperature by reducing the rate at which the planet loses energy at a given surface temperature …” This statement does not apply to “air warming the surface” or to statements like :” “The energy that is available to the Climate system consists of the absorbed solar energy, the greenhouse effect thermal energy as well as several sources of nonsolar energy (i.e., geothermal, tidal, and waste heat)” (Lacis, Hansen et al. Tellus, 2013, p.16) as if the air produced energy!

Truth n° 17 The temperatures have always driven the CO 2 content of the air, never the reverse. Nowadays the net increment of the CO 2 content of the air follows very closely the inter-tropical temperature anomaly

[Poitou & Bréon] Again a poorly digested discourse from the climate sceptics. If CO 2 is following the temperature by some months how is it possible to have a continuous increase of the CO 2 content of the air while the author explains that there has been no increase of the temperatures since 1997?. The slow changes of the CO 2 content of the air are driven by plate tectonics and silicate weathering. The greenhouse gases have played an essential role in the great climatic changes of the geological eras (see figure on card n°7)

There are two sets of observations: those of the last 50 years and those from the ice cores.

A) For the last fifty years the increments of the CO 2 at Mauna Loa (19°30N) and at the South Pole are coincident (figure 17-A) As it takes some semesters for the air to go from the Northern Hemisphere to the South Pole, a common source is likely inter tropical out-gassing.

figure 17-A Monthly increments of the CO 2 content of the air d[CO2]/dt for dt= 12 months: in blue at Mauna Loa (with a weighted moving average {1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 1}) and in red at the South Pole (up to 2008)

Subtraction of the anthropic increments computed for a 5 years life-time in the air from the observed d[CO2]/dt for dt= 12 months leaves the increments shown in blue on figure 17-B; those natural increments coincide most of the time with the purple curve which is a linear function of the inter-tropical temperature anomaly of the lower troposphere T(t); this is a direct proof of the relation d[CO2] natural /dt = k (T(t)- T 0 ) where dt = 12 months to avoid the seasonal fluctuations due to the growth of the vegetation. Note the effects of volcanic dusts in 1982-85 (El Chichon) and 1991-94 (Pinatubo).

figure 17-B Blue curve: monthly values of the natural increments over dt = 12 months for the Mauna Loa series (referenced to the last month of the 12 months)

Purple curve: monthly values of 1,45 +1,6 AT UAH MSU intertropical shifted by 0.6 years where AT is the anomaly of the inter-tropical lower troposphere (anomaly w.r.t the mean over 1981-2010 of the same UAH-MSU series)

This is a simple and direct check of the published results referenced to at the end of card n°1.

This relation d[CO2] natural /dt = k (T(t)- T 0 ) is consistent with the results of Beenstock & al. that the [CO 2 ](t) series must be differentiated once before attempting a correlation with the series of the temperatures T(t). The out-gassing zone relevant for the Mauna Loa can be seen on figures 17-C and 17-D and has been detailed by Prof. J. Park (2009) (see card n°1).

Let us summarize that the CO 2 content of the air is made of two parts, as explained on cards n°3 & 4

(1) a natural part proportional to the time integral of the temperatures ò (T(t)- T 0 ) dt as shown on figure 17-B; it was 310 ppm in 1958 and is now 376 ppm; the difference between 376 and 310 is exactly the sum of the twelve months increments.

(2) an anthropic part roughly equal to the cumulative anthropic emissions weighted by exp (t’-t)/u) where t’ is the time of the emission and t the time of observation, u is the life time of about 5 years perfectly consistent with delta13C isotopic observations; this anthropic part is (end 2013) about 6% of the CO 2 content of the air (cards n°3 & 4).

Figure 17-C is a map of the absorption and of the out-gassing of the ocean for a non El Niño year, according to Takahashi.

Figure 17-C Map of the net flows between air and ocean ain 1995 according to Takahashi

Figure 17-D hints at the very strong spatial variability of the CO 2 content of the air and of the surface waters; exchanges between air and ocean are proportional to the difference of the pressures times the cube of the speed of the wind.[63]

Figure 17-D [64] CO 2 content of the air (in ppm) and of the surface water (in µatm)

B) For the ice cores the progressive closing of the diffusion paths between the surface and the “air bubbles” of a layer of the firn is tantamount to a temporal low-pass filter which smoothes the transitions faster than several centuries (in Antarctica where the precipitation of ice is a few mm/year, it’s the time it takes for some 50 m of water to accumulate). Some references to observations of a delay of several centuries between temperature increase (or decrease) and the following CO 2 increase (or decrease) have been listed on card n°2.

It is now easy to answer the question of Poitou & Bréon: “ If CO 2 is following the temperature by some months, how is it possible to have a continuous increase of the CO 2 content of the air while the author explains that there has been no increase of the temperatures since 1997?

As said on card n°1 d [CO2]/ dt = k (T(t)- T 0 ) means

constant increase of the [CO2] content of the air = temperatures stable w.r.t to the reference T 0

Conclusion: The CO 2 content of the air is a consequence of the temperature(s) and can not be their cause

Note: Despite the increase of the yearly increment of the anthropic content of the air due to the “Chinese” coal surge since 2003 from about +0.3 ppm/year near 2000 to +0.55 ppm/year near 2012 (figure 17-E, right), the yearly increments d [CO2]/ dt (natural plus anthropic) have been slightly diminishing (figure 17-F). Hence the natural d [CO2 natural ]/ dt has been somewhat decreasing, in line with the life-time weighted out-gassing formulas on card n°4.

Figure 17-E left: anthropic emissions in Mt-C during the last 20 years(http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/ndp030/global.1751_ 2010.ems and BP 2014) (black coal, blue oil and red natural gas)

Right: yearly increments of the anthropic ppm for a 5.5 years life time in the air; increased use of natural gas since 1980 reduced it to +0.3 ppm/year before the recent coal surge

The observations of figure 17-F dispel the myth that all the increase of the CO 2 of the air is from anthropic origin; the anthropic emissions remaining in the air for a 5 years life time have surged since 2003 while the overall the CO 2 growth rate has been slowly decreasing!

Figure 17-F Figure 2 of Francey et al. Atmospheric verification of anthropogenic CO2 emission trends Nature Climate Change, 10 February 2013 Observations of the growth of the CO 2 in the air

a) Slowing CO2 growth (dC/dt) blue points are annual differences in monthly mean CO2 concentration. The smoothed 1.8-yr and 5-yr (thick red) curves are derived from the monthly values. The light-blue dashed line is an extrapolated linear regression fitted to 50 yr of South Pole dC/dt.

b) d[CO2]/dt at Cape Grim (Tasmania) ( blue curve), at Mauna Loa (yellow) and at Alert ( 817 km from the North Pole I n the Canadian Arctic) (grey curve) en Gt-C/an. The red curve is from a.

Truth n° 18 The CLOUD project at the European Center for Nuclear Research is probing the Svensmark-Shaviv hypothesis on the role of cosmic rays modulated by the solar magnetic field on the low cloud coverage; the first and encouraging results have been published in Nature

[Poitou & Bréon] The first results published in Nature (2011 and 2013) then in Science (2014) have identified some chemical compounds that are present in the air and may lead to cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) in quantities similar to those observed. But the cosmic rays contribute only to a small fraction of the CCN. This has been discussed in the last IPCC report

The historical coincidences of deadly cold episodes with famines and plague with times of strong cosmic rays flows registered in the 10Be and 14C records have been firmly assessed. A strong production of those isotope signals minima of the sun and a lesser deflection of the (galactic) cosmic rays, possibly along de Vries 215 years cycles.

During the Ort sunspot minimum, Seine, Rhine and Po were frozen (Rhine from Nov. 15, 1076 to April 7, 1077); during the minimum of Wolf, the 1315-1316 famine reduced western Europe population by more than 5% and the subsequent great plague (1347-1350) by 30% to 50%; the Maunder minimum saw in France an excess death of 1.3 M on 22 M habitants (1693-1694); in the following years 30% on the Finnish population (1696-1697), 25% of the Scottish population (1696-1699) and 10% of the French population (1708-1709) died.

A possible link between cloudiness (that went down from 66% to 62%) 15°S-15°N and mean global surface temperature may be guessed on the figure 18-A.

Figure 18-A Monthly values of cloud coverage over 15°S-15°N and mean global surface temperatures from December 1983 to December 2009 (Ole Humlum www.climate4you.com)

Low cloud coverage went from 29% in 1986 to 25% in 2007 according to The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP); more on http://www.pensee-unique.fr/theses.html and on www.climate4you.com.

Figure 18-B Cloud coverage for the three types of clouds and mean water content of the air: July 1983 to December 2009

Truth n° 19 Numerical “Climate models” are not consistent regarding cloud coverage which is the main driver of the surface temperatures. Project Earthshine (Earthshine is the ghostly glow of the dark side of the Moon) has been measuring changes of the terrestrial albedo in relation to cloud coverage data; according to cloud coverage data available since 1983, the albedo of the Earth has decreased from 1984 to 1998, then increased up to 2004 in sync with the Mean Global Temperature.

[Poitou & Bréon] Again a long list of nonsense in those statements. Project Earthshine started in 1999; the Earthshine measurements cannot show that the albedo of the Earth is mainly driven by the cloud coverage. This is a known fact that Earthshine measurements integrating over the globe do not allow to differentiate between clouds, aerosols or snow. Those measurements have significant error bars that prohibit linking albedo and the mean global temperature of the recent years. Recent climate models reproduce well the observed tends of the cryosphere; they have uncertainties about future clouds that appear in the uncertainties displayed on the results of the models.

The poor quality of the modelled Cloud coverage has been discussed since tens of years; here is an example of 1999

Figure 19-A Cloud coverage as a function of latitude according to 30 different models used by IPCC [65]:

Figure 5 of http://www.grims-model.org/front/bbs/paper/bams/BAMS_1999-4_Gates_et_al.pdf

Figure 19-B shows a 2013 test case from Bjorn Stevens & Sandrine Bony [66] .

Figure 19-B Comparison of the results of four models on a test case aqua-planet. Where and how much do the cloud radiative effects and the rain change for a given warming?

The caption of the figure by Stevens & Bony is: “Wide variation. The response patterns of clouds and precipitation to warming vary dramatically depending on the climate model, even in the simplest model configuration. Shown are changes in the radiative effects of clouds and in precipitation accompanying a uniform warming (4°C) predicted by four models from Phase 5 of the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP5) for a water planet with prescribed surface temperatures”.

Figure 19-C is an example of covariation of the mean temperature of August with the number of hours of insolation, according to the data of the German DWD. Other examples are in the references of the footnote [67].

Figure 19-C Mean temperatures for the month of August versus number of hours of sun (Germany 1951 to 2012: data from the DWD site)

The warming in Western Europe since about 1995 can be related to an increase of about +1°C of the surface temperature of the North Atlantic – following an equivalent cooling over 1970-1995- and an increase of the insolation with less aerosols. R. Vautard, P. Yiou, G. J. van Oldenborgh [68] analyzed data from 342 European met stations (selected from 4479) over 10°W-30°E & 35°N-60°N; figures 19-D show that a day with a good visibility receives about 100 W/m² more than a day with mist, and (right) that the cloud cover significantly impact the temperature at day (black) and at night (red)

Figure 19-D (R. Vautard et al. 2009)

Left: mean winter downward solar and infrared radiation (350 à 320 W/m² at night) as a function of the visibility distance and at four times of the day: 09 h, 15 h, 21 h and 03 h

Right: changes of the temperatures by day (black circles) and by night (red circles) according to the cloud coverage (the zero cloud coverage is at the right end of the abscissa scale)

The trends of cloud cover and of visibility for summer and winter over 1978-2007 bring as well some explanation of the observed warming.

figure 19-E Western Europe 1978-2007: red curves number of days with a total cloud coverage (TCC) above ½ or equal to 1 ; green curve number of days with a low cloud coverage (LCC) equal to 1; grey curves number of days with a visibility below 2 km, 5 km and 8 km (R. Vautard et al. 2009)

Regarding the Earthshine project the clouds are indeed making the bulk of the albedo observed (see slide 25/29 of Enric Pallé [69]); the varying longitudinal cloud coverage can be seen thanks to the rotation of the Earth.

There is consistence [70] between the estimates of the ISCCP, the global albedo, the insolation measured at the surface and the length of the daily insolation observed in many places: all of them are likely to explain the temperature changes.

Figure 15-A has shown the global pacing by the El Niños (and their tele-connections) of the temperature changes of the lower troposphere as function of both time and latitude; this pacing may be due to the coming to the surface, at high latitudes, of warm water from the Pacific warm pool, as they move to higher latitudes on the western rim of the oceans after an El Niño.

The quick tempered reaction of Poitou & Bréon: “Again a long list of nonsense in those statements” may suggest that they don’t like that clouds and insolation drive the temperatures and the hea