Dan’s constant

BPSDB

Following from Dan Pangburn: Dan commented on this, helpfully providing links to several pdfs showing where he derived his constant.

So I took a look at them.

Dan uses the First Law of Thermodynamics.

That’s a start: Energy(in) – Energy(out) = Energy(retained).

Let’s take a look at Energy(Out). A single term: X·T⁴, where X is Dan’s constant.

Dan helpfully provides a link to Wikipedia’s A very simple model. This shows

(1-a)S = 4εσT⁴

where

• S is the solar constant – the incoming solar radiation per unit area—about 1367 W·m⁻²
• a is the Earth’s average albedo, measured to be 0.3
• σ is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant—approximately 5.67×10⁻⁸ J·K⁻⁴·m⁻²·s⁻¹
• ε is the effective emissivity of earth, about 0.612

Dividing both sides by (1-a)S, we get 1 = Y·T⁴ where Y = 4εσ/(1-a)S.

Plugging in the terms into Y, we get
Y = (4 x 0.612 x 5.67×10−8)/(0.7 x 1367) K⁻⁴
= 1.45·10^-10 K⁻⁴
(or 1·10^-10 K⁻⁴ to 1 s.f. – we can’t justify more than one significant figure)

Y can’t really be a constant, though, since 1 = Y·T⁴. If T increases then Y must decrease (and vice versa). Perhaps we should rewrite it as Y_i·T_i⁴ = 1. But for small ΔT Y will not change by much.

So far, so good.

Dan derives his constant in the same way, but then multiplies an additional term (the average sunspot count).

Quoting from his pdf on page 6:

The average sunspot number since 1700 is about 50, the energy radiated from the planet is about 342*0.7 = 239.4 (for the units used) and the earth’s effective emissivity is about 0.61 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model). Thus, as a place to start, X should be about 50/239.4 times the Stephan-Boltzmann constant times 0.61.

50/239.4*5.67E-8 *0.61 = 7.2E-9

Which then he “refines”, continuing:

With this plugged into the equation, a plausible graph is produced with a dramatic change observed to take place in about 1940. In EXCEL, 7.2E-9 was placed in a cell and the cell (value for X) called by the equation which produced a graph. The graph was observed as the value for X was varied. X was adjusted until the net energy from 1700 to about 1940 exhibited a fairly level trend. This occurs when X is 6.519E-9 (unbeknownst to me at the time, cell formatting rounded it to 6.52E-9).If an average sunspot number of 6.52/7.2*50 = 45.28 had been used, no adjustment would have been needed.

This is, of course, nonsense.

But we will follow this for now to see where it goes.

If we now multiply Y by Dan’s sunspot average count, we get
45.28Y = 45.28 x 1.45·10^-10 K⁻⁴
= 6.56·10^-9 K⁻⁴.

This is pretty close to Dan’s value (the difference is probably due to slightly different values of the terms S & ε, which I had used from the model).

To all intents and purposes X = 45.28Y.

Now go back to Dan’s term X·T⁴, the output energy.

Replacing X with 45.28Y, and remembering that Y·T⁴ = 1 (so that Y = T^-4), we get

X·T⁴ = 45.28·T^-4·T⁴.

Gosh! The Temperature terms cancel, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation vanishes, and the energy we are left with is ….
 
 
45.28 Sunspots ….
 
 

 
 
 
Image Credit:

Solar & Heliospheric Observatory

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Dan Pangburn

Dan Pengburn has been commented several times, so I think that he deserves a post of his own. 🙂

anom(Y) = calculated temperature anomaly in year Y
N(i) = average daily Brussels International sunspot number in year i
Y = number of years that have passed since 1700 (or any other year where the net summation is approximately zero such as 1856, 1902, 1910, 1938, or 1943)
T(i) = agt (average global temperature) of year i in °K,
ESST(c,Y) = ESST (Effective Sea Surface Temperature) in year Y calculated using an ESST range (magnitude) of c
CO2(Y) = ppmv CO2 in year Y
CO2start = ppmv CO2 in 1880

Dang, his equation is just too big to fit the image.
However we could simplify his equation and tidy it up a bit.

In the first summation, N(i) will always be positive, since N(i) >= 0 (you cannot have negative sunspots).

It is also dimensionless. For dimensional analysis Dan has to change this to degrees, but doesn’t say how it does.

In the second term, 6.52×10^-9T⁴ is quoted.
Dan did not state how this was derived, or cited. Is it based on science, or has Dan just made it up?

It is vaguely reminiscent of the Stefan Boltzmann law, but he is certainly not using the Stefan–Boltzmann constant (which is more than 10 times larger than Dans). Besides which the the Stefan Boltzmann equation is in units of Watts per square metre. We need to derive the anomaly in degrees Kelvin, so somehow Dan needs to define his constant.

Using Dan’s value at 288K, term 2 results in ~ 45. So (according to Dan) we should be warming whenever the “average daily Brussels International sunspot number” is more than 45 then we should result in warming (e.g. 2000), and a lower number should mean cooling (e.g. 2007).

Check any of your favourite datasets and see if how many years agree with Dan’s figures. I don’t know how many that you might find in agreement with Dan’s, since I gave up looking after seeing 2000 and 2007.

But there are more terms – perhaps we need to look at them to see if this makes more sense further along.

(Or maybe not. :))

ESST(c,Y) = ESST (Effective Sea Surface Temperature) in year Y calculated using an ESST range (magnitude) of c

I haven’t got a clue what this means, since Dan does not say how he derives it. But I don’t think it means the Sea Surface Temperature. Perhaps he meant the anomaly?

The last term does makes sense – that CO₂ will warm logarithmically.

Then we have Dan has four “coefficients”, a, b, c and d.

Usually are coefficients are constants without dimensions (e.g. π). I know that some engineering terms use coefficients with units, but if they are they quoted in units. Since Dan doesn’t explain the units for his terms the equation , there is a real problem with a, b & d when looking at dimensional analysis (I can’t comment on c since I don’t understand the term). Possibly he meant that a and d were in units of K and b was in K^-1 it might make more sense – but he didn’t say this.

But wait – Dan earlier stated that the coefficients are “to be determined” (i.e. not known).

They are not coefficients or even constants – he selects his terms according to the year (and even offers different versions for the same year).
His “coefficients” are variables! He even it states that the “coefficients” are adjusted to get the “best fit” of R².
If I’m reading this correctly, then there is no supporting science of his coefficients. His “coefficients” are nothing more than pattern matching.

Since the coefficients were determined using all available data, some reviewers asserted that the equation may have no predictive ability in spite of it being formulated from relevant physical
phenomena and a known law of thermodynamics.

(My emphasis)

Of course I would expect Dan as an engineer would understand “a known law of thermodynamics”. In fact I would expect him to know at least three of them.
Which one has he selected? It would help.

Dan has however predicted the temperature for the next 25 years or so (and, surprisingly enough, we see that it will be cooling).
He is assuming that the sunspot variability over the next years is the same as the pattern between 1915 to 1941 – which is fair enough, since that he knows that it is a guess.
If sunspots do resemble then Dan predicts a cooling of about of between 0.2 K and 0.4 K (depending on his variable “coefficients”, despite that he has no idea what almost all his terms are unknown).

The beauty of it is that his own graph shows substantial warming between 1915 to 1941. 🙂

Shot in the foot? I think so.

Finally, Dan “shows” that the temperature has been declining between 2005 and 2011 (despite that the 2011 isn’t yet known yet).
He draws a straight line between 2005 and 2011(using UAH).

This is just sloppy. If Dan knows how to calculate R² then he is perfectly capable of working out an OLS trend.

Over to you, Dan. 🙂

Image Credit:

climaterealists.com

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Global Warming is real (according to Dellingpole)

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) are a team of independent scientists who have released of their temperature record.
The team was led by Richard Muller, a physicist at the University of California. There were 10 contributors in total, only one of whom is a traditional climate scientist.
Saul Perlmutter, one of the team, recently won a Nobel Prize for “the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe”.

The team have drafted four papers:

1. Statistical Methods
2. Urban Heat Island
3. Station Quality
4. Decadal Variations

(If you don’t want to read the full papers, they have a two page summary)

Having looked at considerably more than the usual climate data, they conclude that

• The temperature records by GISS, NOAA and CRU are pretty much right (BEST are warming than CRU & NOAA)
• The “Urban Heat Island” is a myth, since urban areas are less then 0.5% of the surface on land
• Bad quality of stations is a real problem, but that they do not significantly change trends

Not exactly shattering news, then, but learning why the team decided to undertake the study is interesting.

In the Economist, who broke the story, tells us

Marshalled by an astrophysicist, Richard Muller, this group, which calls itself the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature, is notable in several ways. When embarking on the project 18 months ago, its members (including Saul Perlmutter, who won the Nobel prize for physics this month for his work on dark energy) were mostly new to climate science. And Dr Muller, for one, was mildly sceptical of its findings. This was partly, he says, because of “climategate”: the 2009 revelation of e-mails from scientists at CRU which suggested they had sometimes taken steps to disguise their adjustments of inconvenient palaeo-data. With this reputation, the Berkeley Earth team found it unusually easy to attract sponsors, including a donation of $150,000 from the Koch Foundation.

So Muller was sceptical. This is good and natural, of course. And they decided to check their results for themselves.

Rather than just use the datasets already available, they also included all the records that they had found (in some cases only for a short duration). In total they accumulated 1.6 billion records, about 5 times the data used by GISS, NOAA and CRU. And they had to develop a new analytical approach to incorporate fragments of records.

One caveat – the papers have been submitted (to the Journal of Geophysical Research) but have not yet been accepted. The CRU has declined an offer on the story, because the papers have not yet been through peer review. Possibly this is why Real Climate have not covered the story yet. It could still be a damp squib, but that leaves us exactly as it was before.

Certainly Watts critical (I counted eight blogs about BEST since the story broke), but I do not recall too much concern about peer review in the past.

And Dellingpole’s Global Warming is real is a gem:

“The planet has been warming,” says a new study of temperature records, conducted by Berkeley professor Richard Muller. I wonder what he’ll be telling us next: that night follows day? That water is wet? That great white sharks have nasty pointy teeth? That sheep go “baaaa”?

Some more sensible blogs include

• SkepticalScience (hat tip)
• The Great Beyond (Nature)
• Deltoid
• Open Mind (Tamino)
• Climate Central

And probably many more …

S2

Update: This was covered by BEST before, back in April. I was busy with Eigenvectors and didn’t pay attention.

Image Credit:

BEST

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Very brief comment

I have just taken my last exams, so I have got some time for the next few months.

It will take me a while to catch up with all the dross in the inbox, but when I’ve caught up with it I’ll find another post.

Thanks to everyone who has continued to contribute the blog in the last few months, I will hopefully continue to do so. 🙂

S2

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Adapting to Climate Change Now

BPSDB

Mark Hertsgaard and James Hansen

hat tip to Growth is not sustainable

Future Climate Change

with Dr Richard Alley, always worth hearing

and this is pretty cool too; consider it within the context of the two preceding talks.

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Poptart gets burned again, 900 times

BPSDB 

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Just over a year ago I did two posts documenting at length that uber climate change Denier PopTech’s (aka PopTart) list of “skeptic” science was blithering nonsense of the worst kind:

.

• Poptart’s 450 climate change Denier lies

• 450 more lies from the climate change Deniers

Those who have any experience with PopTech are well aware that he never lets inconsequential trivia like facts or reality influence his beliefs, so you won’t be surprised that he kept adding to his Septic List and finally managed to double it “900+ Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism Of “Man-Made” Global Warming (AGW) Alarm ” (simple math for PopTech, 2 times 0 is still 0).

Now Carbon Brief has had a look at the expanded list and brings us:

1. Analysing the ‘900 papers supporting climate scepticism’: 9 out of top 10 authors linked to ExxonMobil
2. “Using our paper to support skepticism of anthropogenic global warming is misleading.” Part II of our analysis of the 900+ climate skeptic papers

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Climate Progress : 2010 tied with 2005 for hottest year on record

Climate Progress has the story: BPSDB

• According to the Global Historical Climatology Network, 2010 was the wettest year on record, in terms of global average precipitation….
• These records are especially impressive because we’ve been in “the deepest solar minimum in nearly a century.”
• All 12 of the hottest years on record have occurred since 1997.
• NASA recently reported the “meteorological year” — December to November — was also the hottest on record.
• the hottest year was accompanied by record-smashing weather extremes
• “The year 2010 now has the most national extreme heat records for a single year–nineteen.

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Tumblin’ dice

BPSDB

I recently made an earlier attempt at exploring probability in relation to climate.

Michael Tobis (citing Andy Revkin) points to a very nice and more succinct analogy by Professor Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales:

The “loading the dice” analogy is becoming popular but it misses something very important: climate change also allows unprecedented (in human history) things to happen. It is more like painting an extra spot on each face of one of the dice, so that it goes from 2 to 7 instead of 1 to 6. This increases the odds of rolling 11 or 12, but also makes it possible to roll 13.
What happens then?
Since we have never had to cope with 13’s, this could prove far worse than simply loading the dice toward more 11’s and 12’s. I’m not sure whether or not what is happening in Russia or Pakistan is a “13” yet, but 13’s will eventually arrive (and so will 14’s, if carbon emissions continue to rise).

Michael thinks that we have just seen our first thirteen (or possibly our second if you count Australia’s experience in 2009).
He goes on to say

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Lily the Pink

BPSDB

On the left – the official UK government coat of arms.

On the right – the logo used by Christopher Monckton on his presentations.

By far the best comment that I’ve seen on the two images was one by Vagueofgodalming over at Deltoid:

Nice to see the two logos side by side: one can see that in Monckton’s version the chains are unhinged and there is empty space beneath the crown.

You are probably already aware of this, but since threatening John Abraham Christopher Monckton has also attacked Scott Mandia.

Mandia has published Monckton’s letter here.

I guess that Monckton must like the limelight, because he’s certainly attracting it.

Tamino does (yet another) demolition job on Monckton’s statistical skills at Mo’ Better Monckey Business

Moth Incarnate posts a couple of good cartoons here and (with some insight that I had overlooked) here.

Real Climate host a guest article by Barry Bickmore of Brigham Young University entitled “Monckton makes it up”.

Most recently, The Guardian points out that the House of Lords are getting stroppy with him for his continued claims to be a member. They write:

Last month Michael Pownall, clerk of the parliaments, wrote to Lord Monckton, a hereditary peer, stressing that he should not refer to himself as a member of the House of Lords, nor should he use any emblem representing the portcullis.
In a letter seen by the Guardian, Monckton replied this week to Pownall stating that he considered the House of Lords Act 1999, which “purported” to exclude all but 92 of the 650 hereditary peers from the Lords, to be “defective”.

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Dunce’s corner

BPSDB

I’ve been thinking about doing something like this for a while now.

Every now and them we get comments that are completely off topic, and barely understandable. I’ve decided that rather than just deleting them I’ll save them for posterity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First up is “Tommy” commenting on the 9th August 2010 on this post

Damn those Chinese Communists and their blatant trashing for our beautiful planet. How incredible that all communist countries are given a pass of their universal disregard of environmental destruction. When the doors opened on the former Soviet Union the truth came out…. what will we find when China is more open? It’s too bad Obama is just a Bush of a differnet color.

 

 

IMAGE CREDITS:

[1] – Postcard World

 

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A new alliance

BPSDB

 

The American Chemistry Society and the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry have joined forces in a transatlantic venture to “help the general public better understand how the science of chemistry can help solve global challenges”.

The first step has just been launched – a pair of mirrored websites with contributions from both organisations. However this is just the beginning:

The Web sites are the first of several planned joint efforts by ACS and RSC to increase public understanding of the challenges facing Earth as well as the chemistry underlying these issues and their possible solutions. The societies also hope to inspire a new generation of scientists to explore solutions to these challenges, and promote the international cooperation that both organizations believe is necessary to sustain our environment and resources for future generations.

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Lords a’leaping

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“It’s beginning to look like a pattern…”

 

I’m sure that you’re all aware of the recent outcomes of the various “gates” in the recent past, but if you have missed them you can read Richard Black’s take on them here and here.

Of course there are anguished howls of “Whitewash!” reverberating around the blogosphere, but the mainstream media has largely lost interest. Maybe now we can get back to something approaching normality.

Maybe….

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Another little list

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“We, the undersigned, having assessed the relevant scientific evidence, do not find convincing support for the hypothesis that human emissions of carbon dioxide are causing, or will in the foreseeable future cause, dangerous global warming.”

 

So claim the ICSC (International Climate Science Coalition), who have launched a new petition.

Why yet another petition?

The answer, according to the ICSC, is here.

Let’s look at it point by point.

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A Glorious defeat

BPSDB

Christopher Monckton has recently been debunked (again) by John Abraham, Professor of Engineering at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.

The university is a is a Catholic, diocesan university based in the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Abraham’s disecection of Monckton’s talk has predictably gone viral, so you’re probably already aware of it – but if you missed it you can find his talk here. Well worth a listen.

Many blogs have already picked up on this. Mockton replies here, and Abraham in turn replies in a guest post at Skeptical Science (which has a further response from Monckton).

Is Monckton getting increasingly strident with time, or am I just imagining it?

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What does an Ibsen play say to us about the climate wars?

BPSDB


Guest post by Marion Delgado.
Marion also penned the following brief autobiography:

I am a former talk show host, journalist and high school teacher from central Alaska, and for the past dozen years I’ve been a webmaster in Oregon for both for-profit and non-profit organizations. My background is in math, physics and linguistics. I did some blogging but that blog (a political sci-fi blog) is pretty much in disrepair.

There really is no web presence for me, right now, but a friend and I have reserved greenteaparties.net for future use. The paper I work at has cut its staff in half so everyone there, me included, is a one-armed paper-hanger nowadays, and I’m doing some solar and statistical course-work on the side.

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The deniers are discrediting themselves

BPSDB
Guest post by Milan Ilnyckyj:

As well as being a contributor here, Milan is a blogger and the editor of BuryCoal.com. He is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and Oxford, and has published academic work on climate change, fisheries, nuclear power, and other environmental topics.
 
 

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Climate change deniers have been extremely effective in using the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia and the errors discovered in the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (IPCC) to confuse the public discussion of climate change and delay mitigation action internationally and in the United States. They know that they don’t need to win the debate. Simply keeping it running by maintaining the semblance of ambiguity is sufficient to stave off the legislative action they want to avoid, and which is necessary for stabilizing the climate.

That said, the signs of climate change around the world are undeniable. The Arctic sea ice is vanishing, species are migrating northward and uphill, the ocean is becoming more acidic, and so on. In a report commissioned by the Aspen ski resort, it was explained that, in a worst case scenario, the climate of Aspen in 2100 would resemble that of Amarillo, Texas. Well before that, change will have become so obvious and undeniable that nobody disputing it will be taken seriously.

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Help (please)

I’m bogged down in trying to finish a Physics assignment. If any of the regulars feel like helping to keep this blog alive while Mike is absent, then say so in the comments. I’m looking for guest posts.

If you are interested in helping out then just say so below (just “Yes” will do if you are a regular commenter), and I’ll be in touch via your email address.

S2

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War of the Words

A new storm is brewing – Monbiot vs Delingpole.

I think I have worked out where commentator James Delingpole is coming from. He pretends to be a climate change denier and enemy of environmentalists. In reality he’s a mole, paid by Greenpeace to inflict as much damage on the anti-green cause as possible. And he’s doing a marvellous job.

So wrote George Monbiot on the 27th January.

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I’ve changed my mind

(Posted by S2)BPSDB
Clippo recently pointed us to Nexus 6, which led to a bit of a discussion about “the worst climate paper ever”.

I pointed out David Archibald’s nonsense (later updated here), but I maintained that the worst I had read (in my opinion) was by Alexander & Bailey.

But I have now changed my mind – there’s a new (old) kid on the block.

Oliver K Manuel, (Emeritus) Professor of Chemistry at the University of Missouri-Rolla, believes that the Sun (and the rest of the solar system) are comprised of the remnants of a supernova that exploded about 5 billion years ago. As a result of this, the Sun is mainly made of Iron – it just has a thin skin of Helium and Hydrogen at the surface.

This pretty much flies in the face of every astronomical paper on the Sun in the last Century or two. 🙂

What does this have to do with climate change?

Manuel reckons that the heavy, iron-rich core of the sun is “pulled about” by the gravitational effects of the planets, which causes changes to solar output and therefore drives climate change. This only works, though, because the sun is made of iron – if it really was a ball of Hydrogen and Helium then the climate would not be changing.

I can’t remember the last time I read anything this absurd.

Icing on the cake – he actually cites Alexander & Bailey.

Even better – Plimer cites Manuel. 🙂

Manuel’s paper is here.

Bonus points to the first person who can say what Manuel, Archibald, Landscheidt, Alexander & Bailey have in common (other than the Sun).

IMAGE CREDITS:

Image from Caltech

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Even No One Care of Us …

BPSDB

“‘Even No One Care of Us, We Can start to Care Each Other and Nature First.’” – from the children of Sidhi Astu Orphanage House, Tuka, Bali, Indonesia, Climate Day of Action

A Number Heard Round the World

Moms Against Climate Change

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