Prof. Murry Salby’s Presentation In Hamburg: Climate “Model World” Diverges Starkly From “Real World”

Die kalte Sonne website here has just posted the video presentation of Murry Salby in Hamburg in April. If anyone ever demolished the dubious CO2 AGW science, it’s Salby!

Most of the presentation is very mathematical and technical. But the last 10 minutes sums everything up very nicely for the laypersons.

Die kalte Sonne writes:

Prof. Murry Salby, climate scientist at Macquarie University of Sydney, made a presentation in Hamburg on April 18th as part of a European tour. Prof. Salby is author of the textbook Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate (Cambridge University Press) and Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics (Academic Press) and is renowned worldwide as an astrophysicist. He recently caused excitement with new findings on the relationship of the 12C- and 13C isotopes and the development of CO2-concentration. From the findings he concluded that the anthropogenic emissions only had a slight impact on the global CO2-concentrations. They are are mainly a consequence of temperature changes. This relationship is known up to now only from the warming phases after the last ice ages. Prof. Salby extends this relationship to our current climate development.

The video recording of the presentation, which was organised by the host Helmut Schmidt University, is now available at Youtube (above).”

Near the end (1:02:50) Salby on CO2 and temperature:

Their divergence over the last decade and a half is now unequivocal. In the models global temperature tracks CO2 almost perfectly. In the real world it clearly doesn’t.”

Salby then presents two charts for comparison, which I’ve arranged side-by-side: the model world vs real world:

Salby realworld vs model world

Model world (left) vs real world (right). Graphics from Murry Salby presentation.

1:04:05 mark he sums it up neatly:

CO2 then evolves not like temperature, as it does in the model, but like the integral of temperature. In dotted blue is the integral of observed temperature. It closely tracks observed CO2 – even after the 1990s when the observed record of CO2 and temperature clearly diverged. If CO2 tracks the integral of temperature, which it clearly does, it cannot track temperature, which it clearly doesn’t.

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

The points of Salby’s presentation lead to the following implications:

– In the Real World global temperature is not controlled exclusively by CO2, as it is in the Model World.

– In significant part, however, CO2 is controlled by Global Temperature, as it is in the Proxy Record.”

At the end of the presentation, Salby implies, quoting Richard Feynman, that CO2 science today can be described as “Cult Science”.

He sums up quoting Feynman: “If it differs from observations, then it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”

 

39 responses to “Prof. Murry Salby’s Presentation In Hamburg: Climate “Model World” Diverges Starkly From “Real World””

  1. Alfonso

    Thanks for linking to Dr. Salby’s presentation. I was wondering since April what was it all about, and hope he can get it finally published in the peer review literature.

  2. Prof. Murry Salby: Climate “Model World” Diverges Starkly From “Real World” | The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)

    […] Full story […]

  3. Juergen Uhlemann

    Great presentation.
    How long does it take for the IPCC & Co to understand this?
    I guess 30 years as a shorter time is not climate science. 😉
    Does this mean we have to wait until 2043?
    I hope not.

  4. Stew Green

    OK Why does the video not have questions ?
    The obvious is “You’ll get a Nobel prize if you are right, so how come you haven’t even published in peer review yet ?” ..(Previously he said there is a conspiracy against)
    ..anyone know if there was a Question session ?
    ..seems too good to be true

    1. DirkH

      I doubt he would get a Nobel prize if he were right. The only climate related Nobel Prize was a Peace prize; and you get those for getting elected as president before you start a war in Libya or for being such a successfull superstate shortly before your economy implodes or for producing fodder for the Kyoto treaty while Global Warming has already stalled for several years, not for anything scientific.

      1. DirkH

        Oh I forget, you also get one for being an Arab terrorist leader.

      2. R.J. Green

        Well said. Nobel Peace Prizes may be a bit of a joke, but are a valuable cash hand-out.
        It appear as if you get one by winning a rigged lottery.

  5. BobW in NC

    “He sums up quoting Feynman: “If it differs from observations, then it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.””

    Curiously—actually, sadly—I’ve read scientists who disregard Feynman as not being sophisticated enough! The “Move along! Nothing to see here!” attitude is still alive and well, unfortunately.

    Great post; great chart! Could add in the recent chart showing the 73 model predictions, the RSS and balloon observed temperatures, and the 5-year running averages through each. They all say: “NO AGW!!!”

    Thanks, Pierre – always something of value at your site.

    1. Alfonso

      @BobW in NC
      as you certainly know “to sophisticate” means “to adulterate” and in that sense I would tend to think that Feynman would take that remark as a compliment, but certainly it was not the intention of whoever passed that judgement upon Feynman. One thing for me is certain: the author of that comment is him/herself likely “adulterated enough” in my own view. I´m curious about those comments…is there a link I can follow?.

      1. BobW in NC

        Alfonso –

        Sorry, no. I remembered it from some research I was doing on the scientific method some time back. Your comment is excellent and right on target, and I appreciate it..

  6. Andrew Mc.

    I have a small problem with Salby’s conclusion. He implies the modern CO2 is determined mainly by temperature. Considering it always worked that way in the past, that would be a reasonable conclusion IF we knew of no other conflicting evidence.
    But we do have such evidence.
    Due to the vertical CO2 profile being well known, the total elemental carbon content of the atmosphere can be extrapolated from the MLO measurements, via a conversion factor published at Oak Ridge National Labs web site.
    Also the total CO2 emissions from industry can be accurately measured based on fuel sales, plus some estimate for land use, and the annual figures cited by Wikipedia are probably as good as any (I’ve heard no dispute about them).
    Well you know where I’m going with this, it’s the Carbon Accounting argument. (Salby touches on this at 0h:39m in the video but he avoids calculating the amounts.)

    Using 2004 as an example, the total anthropogenic emissions were approx 8GT/y. However atmospheric carbon content only went up by 4Gt/y that same year. By conservation of mass, simple arithmetic shows that Everything Else On Earth absorbed 4Gt of elemental carbon that year. If you do this for other years of emission and MLO data you find similar results [ http://imgur.com/0CgHN,iNmSc#0 ].
    Well this points to the different conclusion, based entirely on observation and arithmetic, that Nature is a net sink of our CO2 and is therefore not the source of recent CO2 increase in the atmosphere. (See 2nd pic in prev link for a very rough model of the interannual carbon flows with a hypothetical breakdown of how they are distributed between ocean and vegetation.)
    Temperature clearly influences how much CO2 can be absorbed into nature (probably the ocean), but the net flow direction is into nature, not out of it.

    There’s the problem. Temperature can’t be the main driver behind recent CO2 increase when all new atmospheric CO2 has recently been coming from us and not from nature, right?
    The most you can say is “well if it was cooler the ocean would be disposing of industrial CO2 much quicker than it has been, just like it did in 1959.”

    Mr Salby paraphrases Feynman’s quote “If it differs from observations, then it’s wrong”, to which I can only wholeheartedly agree.

    1. DirkH

      BUT if you go along with his maths you can say that some of the past CO2 estimates from ice cores must be increased drastically; meaning that this drives a stake through the heart of claimed climate catastrophe (no meltdown has occured in the last few hundred thousand years)

      “Temperature can’t be the main driver behind recent CO2 increase when all new atmospheric CO2 has recently been coming from us and not from nature, right?”

      IF we were not adding such a large amount of CO2 the natural sinks wouldn’t absorb nearly as much; so in absence of our emissions natural CO2 emissions could still lead to increasing CO2 levels.

      What Murry Salby describes is a dynamic system behaviour. He describes it analytically; I prefer data flow schematics using filter operators. He describes a phase shift of 90 degree; the atmosphere works as an integrator accumulating the CO2 that comes from the natural (temperature related) OR human emissions sources; The natural sinks work effectively as a high pass filter on the atmosphere (a step in CO2 from say 0 to 400 ppm would gradually be absorbed, first faster then ever slower).

      So we would get a kind of bandpass transmission function. Could only watch first half of video, don’t know if Salby mentioned it. Long story short, the source of the perturbation does not influence the nature of the system’s response.

    2. Pat Frank

      Andrew Mc, you’re forgetting that Salby showed North America, Europe, and even China are CO2 neutral. Net CO2 production was from Tropical Africa, Southeast Asia, and South America.

      This result was also obtained by the Ibuki GOSAT launched by Jaxa, Japan. See their press release here. Their figures show that the industrialized countries absorb about as much CO2 as they produce. Chiefio has a nice discussion and graphics at his site, here.

      It’s likely the correspondence you describe is happenstantial. That is, an accidental correlation that is bereft of causation.

    3. Alfonso

      Andrew,
      I have a fundamental disagreement with the climate science status quo (and with you) attributing to anthropogenic origin the 4GT of accumulated atmospheric CO2 in 2004 (or any other accumulated CO2 amount/y). That is, in my view, scientifically incorrect. While it is true that those 4GT of CO2 are “equivalent” to half the amount of CO2 comming from antropogenic origin that year, only 3-4% of that accumulated atmospheric CO2 is actually anthopogenic in origin (you see Nature does not recycle differently CO2 molecules depending on their source. Nobody can say that, even if AGW advocates keep repeating this fallacious argument as if it was a fact). Since in 2004 only 0,16GT (3-4%) of accumulated CO2 could be of anthropogenic origin anybody (included you) has to conclude that “Nature acted as a net source of CO2 that year by contributing about 3.84GT (96-97%) of the accumulated CO2”. The “sophystication” in this case is using “equivalent” and attempting to confound the observer by atributing the whole amount of accumulated CO2 solely to “anthropogenic origin”.

      1. Andrew Mc.

        You say

        “only 3-4% of that accumulated atmospheric CO2 is actually anthopogenic in origin”

        That percentage seems like it is unmeasurable or unknowable. How do you know this?
        Note I refer only to actual observed quantities in my reasoning, not guesses.

        I understand that all carbon atoms are chemically identical, which makes it even more strange that you are able to know that only 3% of them in the air came from industry. How did you track them separately if they are all the same? Again your “3-4%” figure seems to be dreamed up.

        Let’s work through the 2004 example using your theory and see what happens.
        If 8Gt of C go out of industry into air and 7.84Gt are immediately absorbed by the local natural environment, this means in the three-repository carbon model that the delta of Anthropogenic bucket is again -8Gt, the delta of the Air bucket must still be +4 because that was actually observed (but only +0.16Gt is accounted for so far) and since they must still all sum to zero the change in Nature bucket must still be +4 (but so far we have +7.84 which is too much). To balance the mass absolutely requires another flow of 3.84Gt flows out of Nature into the Air, also bringing the Air up to the observed amount of +4. That must all happen during the same year.
        But this requires nature to have an inflow of 7.84Gt followed by an outflow of 3.84Gt, so the net result is that it still has an inflow of 4Gt for that year.

        There is no point in claiming that the anthropogenic CO2 was mostly absorbed immediately after release because even if this were true this does not change the end result. The end result is still that Nature is a net sink of CO2 after all physically required flows are added together. There is therefore a net movement of carbon out of air into natural sinks. Industry is therefore the only net emitter in this model so attributing the main cause of the Air’s increase in CO2 is very easy, there is only one candidate bucket that is functioning as a net source and that is Industry.

        No word games. No imaginary “3%” figures. No carbon atom RFID tags. No sophistry. Just arithmetic which shows the NET overall direction of carbon flow is into Nature, and the logical deduction that when all other physical possibilities have been eliminated whatever option remains must be the truth.

        1. Alfonso

          Sorry Andrew,
          I was talking from memory since I calculated these figures previously using the data from the 2001 IPCC report (which actually gave a 2.91% contribution for anthropogenic CO2). I rounded up to 3-4% for your 2004 example since our emissions are increasing anually. Now, if you do not like my rounding up of the figures take a look at the graph Salby shows at 0:37:09. From that:
          Anthropogenic emissions 5GT, natural emissions 150GT which leave us with a total for the planet emissions of 155GT of which 100×5/155=3.25% is anthropogenic. Since my understanding is that all CO2 (independently of origin) is well mixed and homogeneized in the atmosphere and nature does not discriminate natural from anthropogenic CO2 while recycling (removing it from the atmosphere), it follows that whatever amount of CO2 remains in the atmosphere is only 3.25% of anthropogenic origin and the rest natural. Imagine that in the figure Salby shows (I cannot see the details) the accumulated CO2 was 1/2 of the anthropogenic emmissions at the time (i.e 2.5 GT)…well of those 96.75% would be of natural origin. I know you are assuming the pre-existence of some natural equilibrium, which we have distorted, in which the net balance between emissions and absortions is zero. Well, I do not know if that is the case but guess that things will turn out to be a little bit more complex. I, at least, can imagine that the planet biomass is likely to change its CO2 contributions in response to changes in temperature and I would think in similar terms for the ocean reservoir.

          1. BobW in NC

            Alfonso – thank you so much. I remember being pointed to such data on anthropogenic CO2 some years ago but lost the actual data. Now I have it again.

          2. Andrew Mc.

            Alfonso, thanks for your more detailed reply.
            I understand your reason for attribution but I still disagree because I think that analyis of carbon origin is shortsighted.

            Anthropogenic emissions 5GT, natural emissions 150GT which leave us with a total for the planet emissions of 155GT

            I have already shown why this is irrelevant. You are counting only half of the equation. You’re ignoring the natural sinks. The natural bodies absorb more carbon than they emit, that’s by my calculation and it’s also according to the EIA figures cited by DirkH below.
            So you all know why what I’m saying is true, you just don’t want to admit the logical conclusion that follows from it.

            I don’t know how anyone can observe the natural emissions figure, it sounds like a calculation or a rough guess. Do you really think they properly measured the averages for the whole ocean and Siberia and Amazon jungle?
            By contrast my line of reasoning uses only the most reliable observed quantities: MLO [CO2], and total aCO2 emissions of which about 2/3 is fossil fuels and the remainder is land use and some concrete production. The most likely source of error in our emissions figure is forgetting/missing some carbon-bearing processes, so it is probably an understimate.

            The extrapolation factor of 1ppm CO2 in atmosphere = 2.1286 Gt carbon is according to ORNL

            I know you are assuming the pre-existence of some natural equilibrium, which we have distorted, in which the net balance between emissions and absortions is zero.

            No, I did not. Even if I had assumed this, you are not a telepathic mind reader so you could not know of my assumption.
            I have already stated ALL of the assumptions used in the reasoning.
            The sum of the NET changes in ALL possible repositories of carbon must sum to zero due to conservation of mass. That is not an arbitrary anti-human assumption, it’s a law of the universe.

            For the last time, and I will make no further responses on this thread:

            1) The air is gaining CO2 so by definition it is a net sink of CO2 and carbon.

            2) The conservation of mass principle, the extrapolation of MLO [CO2] to total air Carbon mass, the well known account of aCO2 emission due mainly to sales figures, and simple arithmetic together implies that the annual year-on-year net total change of carbon in natural repositories is a positive number, i.e. nature is presently a net sink of CO2.

            3) Nature has been eliminated as a NET emitter of CO2 by step 2 regardless of how quickly anthropogenic sources are reabsorbed, so logically the only remaining candidate for the source of increasing air CO2 is the only remaining NET emitter, which is Anthropogenic.

            Please do not tell me again that only 3% of aCO2 remains in the air, because whatever volume is occupied by aCO2 is volume that cannot be occupied by natural CO2, so ambient/natural CO2 is prevented from entering whatever natural repository it would have normally been absorbed into. That’s why it doesn’t matter what path the C atoms take through the network of repositories. The sums must add to zero. Nature and Atmosphere are net sinks. The only net emitter is industry. Carbon flows from source to sink. We are therefore the only current possible source of rising CO2.

            Is this conclusion falsifiable? Yes. The conclusion would be wrong if nature was a NET emitter of more carbon to the air per year than industry. Again for the total change to sum to zero, based on the 2004 figures, air would have to have been rising at over 17 GtC/y or 8ppm CO2/y. This did not happen.

            Nature will steadily absorb CO2 from the air, especially as the world goes into a cooling cycle over the next 38 years (and that will be a shock to the warmists). Plants will aso eat CO2 faster due to more being available. Nature is currently permanently sequestering CO2 but not as fast as we are emitting it. That’s why human activity is the source of rising CO2 in air presently.

          3. Alfonso

            Andrew, I’m not saying your argumentation is incorrect, I just don’t know at the moment. However, there are many other “NET emitters” in this planet besides us (for example, just all other heterotrophic living organisms to name them into one class). So, with regard to your statement:
            “…logically the only remaining candidate for the source of increasing air CO2 is the only remaining NET emitter, which is Anthropogenic.”
            I believe that we can only reach that conclusion if we knew there were no other NET natural CO2 emitters with the capacity of surpassing our fossil fuel derived CO2 emissions, and I tend to doubt that based on, just for another example, the estimation of the bacterial biomass of this planet which is 3 orders of magnitude bigger that that of our species
            http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomass_(ecology)#Bacterial_biomass
            I think Salby is calling our attention to this same fact when he points out that the only CO2 flux that we know with some certainty is the anthropogenic one, and that small variations in our other present estimates can seriously affect the outcome of the big picture about what is really going on with CO2. I tend to agree with him.
            In any case, I have to agree with you that I’m no telepathic mind reader. Believe me, I was not even trying to read your mind…you see, Feynman said Uri Geller could not read his mind, so I stop trying to read other’s people minds right away 😉

          4. John Marshall

            The atmosphere is not well mixed since gravity dictates that the bulk of the gas will be just above the surface. CO2 conent is ~400ppmv at all levels but that volume is far smaller at the surface than at the tropopause.

        2. DirkH

          Natural annual carbon fluxes far outweigh anthropogenic emissions; that’s where the figure comes from.

          Grafik von WUWT zu CO2 production und absorption – carbon cycle
          http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/eia_co2_contributions_table3.png
          production
          natural 770000 (Mill t of Gas)
          human 23000
          absorption 781000
          Annual increase 11700
          (2001)
          Total amount 3.16×1015 kg = 3.16×1012 t= 3.16×10^6 Mt= 3.16×10^3 Gt
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

          When the annual exchange is 30 times bigger that anthropogenic emissions, you arrive at the approx 3%.
          Notice my numbers are tons of CO2, not tons of C; so the masses are about 3 times bigger.

          1. BobW in NC

            DirkH – thank you! Have been looking for such quantitative data for a long time.

      2. Alfonso

        I must correct myself. While from the previous argumentation it can be concluded that 97% of accumulated CO2 is of natural origin, the conclussion that “Nature acted as a net source of CO2 that year” does not logically follow. Sorry if I misled anybody, it was not my intention.

  7. Andrew Mc.

    My previous comment, #comment-526897, seems to have been eaten or spam filtered. Can you rescue it, please.

  8. stephen richards

    Thanks, Pierre – always something of value at your site

    Echo that

  9. stephen richards

    Andrew Mc.
    10. Juni 2013 at 20:34 | Permalink | Reply

    I need to think a moment.

    Right, Using 2004 as an example, the total anthropogenic emissions were approx 8GT/y. Is a guess. No accurate measurement is possible.

    However atmospheric carbon content only went up by 4Gt/y that same year.
    Is a guess. No accurate measurement is currently possible.

    It does not lead to the conclusion that nature is a net sink AND therefore that temperature is not the main driver for CO² emissions.

    1. Andrew Mc.

      If no accurate measurement of aCO2 emissions is possible then why did Salby rely on them for his explanation in the graph at 0h:41m in the video?
      But an accurate measurement is not even needed. The measurement would have to be wrong by over 50% to affect my conclusion.

      As for the atmospheric content, again you are guessing. Oak Ridge National Labs would have to have made a 30% error or more to invalidate the end conclusion, which given the uniformity of CO2 above 1km is very unlikely. In global average any change in CO2 at sea level is going to influence the measurement at 1200m altitude at Hawaii within a year, due to the winds mixing it.

      You can’t have a rational discussion by pretending the evidence is not real.

      1. John Marshall

        CO2 levels vary considerably over the whole planet both diurnally, annually, seasonally and hemispherically. How one figure measured on an active volcano in Hawaii is an average beats me and just shows to what lengths the alarmists go to fudge the issue.

  10. Mike Heath

    This was really good. I listened to his lecture a year or two earlier when he talked about the C13 and soil moisture but this presentation really puts it all together.

    How do the warmists challenge this?

    1. DirkH

      Saying “it’s not peer reviewed” until it is; then ignore it and give it not one citation. Behind the scenes they will exchange e-mails to coordinate the non-response. Never invite Salby to anything.

  11. Pat Frank

    In his analysis, described so clearly and beautifully in his lecture, Prof. Salby has fully destroyed the entire paradigm of human-caused climate warming through CO2 and other GHGs. He has shown AGW is physically untenable and observationally insupportable.

    The IPCC should be disbanded, and about 80% of all climate scientsts should be ushered into retirement. Speaking as an American, the institutional hierarchy at the US NAS, the AGU, the AMS, the APS, and the ACS should be dismissed. And let’s not forget the Royal Society. They have all failed catastrophically in their duty to science.

    On a more personal note, there were times in his lecture that Prof. Salby appeared to be restraining himself. The expression on his face when he would pause just before or just after delivering some devastating conclusion, appeared to convey the message that he was feeling highly incredulous that so many physicsts had been, and *remain*, so insistently wrong.

    1. Physics-of-Climate

      Yes – there is a new paradigm explaining how gravity produces the observed temperature increase at the surface, and explaining how the necessary thermal energy gets there by non-radiative processes, as obviously must be the case on Venus, Uranus and other planets. See my paper.

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  15. John Marshall

    He started well but his model reverted to the abortion that is K&T AR4 model with modifications. The flat earth with no day/night or rotation which is the reality that must be modeled. So 4/10

  16. Jonas

    Pat Frank that would be like asking Stalin and his buddies in the Troika to step down. LOL

  17. A.S.R.

    In the past forty years we have moved from 999,719 parts per million (ppmm) not CO2 to 999,600 ppmm not CO2. On this change, a rounding error for most purposes, the governments are attempting to regulate everything?

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