The global mean surface temperature (GMST) effects of a 1 W/m² radiative forcing, or positive/negative energy imbalance, has been obtained from the observations from the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption. CO2’s climate effects are claimed to be many times larger than observations indicate.
The observed climate sensitivity (CS) to a perturbation to Earth’s Energy Imbalance (EEI) is, in a new study (Pauling et al., 2023), defined as -0.4°C per -9 W/m², or 0.044°C per W/m². These values were assessed using observations from Mt. Pinatubo.
Image Source: Pauling et al., 2023
Anthropogenic global warming advocates suggest it takes an increase of 22 ppm CO2 (about 10 years) to produce a surface forcing change of 0.2 W/m² (Feldman et al., 2015).
Image Source: Feldman et al., 2015
So, using the Feldman formula, it would take 110 ppm (40-50 years) to produce a positive 1 W/m² surface forcing imbalance.
If the 0.044°C per W/m² CS to a radiative forcing is accurate, this means an accumulated +75 W/m² perturbation is ultimately required to produce the alleged GMST response (3.3°C) to a doubling of the CO2 concentration (from 280 to 560 ppm) with feedbacks.
These results are clearly not realistic.
[…] Related: Another Day, Another CO2-Is-A-Climate-Driver Inconsistency […]
Just what the world does NOT need are more guesses about the ECS of CO2.
The official IPCC ECS wild guess is for 400 years into the future, and includes an imagined, strong, unlimited water vapor positive feedback, that at least doubles the warming effect imagined for CO2 alone.
Most the claimed effect from CO2 is in the first 200 years of the imagined 400 year process. Therefore one might have to collect data for the next 100 years to prove that the IPCC wild guess ECS is wrong. That would be a lot of waiting. And that’s why long term predictions of ECS are so useful for climate propaganda scaremongering — the predictions are made with no data, and then it takes a long time to collect data to falsify the prediction. Perhaps 100 years or more for a 400 year ECS prediction.
The effect of CO2 is known in a lab using spectroscopy. CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas above 400ppm. Harmless. It is likely CO2 is also a weak greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, with some amplification by a positive water vapor feedback. That feedback must have some limit, because much higher levels of atmospheric CO2 in the past never caused runaway global warming. My guess is that more water vapor in the troposphere leads to more clouds, bocking more incoming solar energy. That would be a negative cloud feedback to the water vapor positive feedback. I am expecting a Nobel Prize for this theory some day!
Meanwhile, we DO have evidence that CO2 is NOT a temperature control knob, and is just one of many climate change variables. One example is the global cooling from 1940 to 1975, as CO2 levels rose. A better example is now: The largest 8 year 9 month increase of manmade CO2 emissions, from 2014 to 2023, was accompanied by NO global warming at all (UAH data)
That means the warming effect of more CO2 from 2014 to 2023 was more than offset by the net cooling effect of OTHER climate change variables.
The warming effect of CO2 above 400ppm is likely to be so small that rising CO2 levels will be very beneficial.
Since 1997 I have advocated for a CO2 level of at least 800ppm to accelerate the growth of C3 plants (85% of all plants). This is based on reading CO2 enrichment — C3 plant growth studies — about 300 of them since 1997. These studies rarely experimented with more than 800ppm CO2, so I can’t use them to justify a higher CO2 level than 80ppm But I do know that greenhouse owners CO2 enrich to 1000ppm to 1500ppm, and I expect them to know what they are doing with their own money.
Better C3 plant growth would support more human and animal life on the planet.
Pro-CO2 is pro-life.
If the resulting harmless warming from CO2 follows the 1975 to 2015 timing and pattern, most CO2 warming will be in colder nations, during the coldest six months of the years and at night (TMIN). Which would be additional good news.
It sure has been good news in Michigan USA where I live. We now chovel snow off the driveway three times each winter rather than almost one a wekk (as in the last 1970s and early 1980s.
When I tell leftist Climate Howler Global Whiner’s I favor MORE CO2, they go berserk. It feels just like when I walk past the monkey cage at the zoo and clang my steel water cup against the bars as I pass. … Which reminds me of KR, when I criticize one of “his” studies … like this one.
https://www.steynonline.com/12856/a-sennight-of-steyn-september-25-october-1
Book: ‘The Deliberate Corruption of Climate Science’
Book: ‘Human Caused Global Warming, the Biggest Deception in History’
https://www.technocracy.news/dr-tim-ball-on-climate-lies-wrapped-in-deception-smothered-with-delusion/
https://www.technocracy.news/tim-ball-the-evidence-proves-that-co2-is-not-a-greenhouse-gas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOEFQDcT_lM
Tim passed away on Sept 24th 2022
Nice post. Thanks