The Alarmists tie themselves in knots trying to explain why more CO2 = cooler stratosphere. I've tried understanding the explanation in that post. It's all highly circular and it's impossible to say whether it's correct or incorrect. Here's the chart from that post. Let's take it at face value (those are The Rules):
To cut a long story short, a pressure of 200 hPa is approx. equal to the height of the troposphere, the bit we are interested in. Below that it has warmed a bit (mainly pale green) and above that (the stratosphere) it has cooled a lot (mainly dark blue).
The ever reliable (as in 'reliably wrong') Skeptical Science explains Stratospheric Cooling and Tropospheric Warming by saying that CO2 'traps' low-energy infra red radiation emitted by the Earth's surface/oceans/clouds. The stratosphere is warmed by radiation emitted from below by the troposphere. If more infrared is 'trapped' in the troposphere, it can't warm the stratosphere.
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This of course contradicts the sophisticated 'top of troposphere' theory of Global Warming (from Science of Doom, skip down to sections 5 and 6). The TOT theory says that radiation emitted by and hence temperature at the top of the troposphere (the tropopause) are a constant. More CO2 pushes up the altitude of the tropopause.
This means that surface temperature goes up because surface temperature EQUALS temperature at the tropopause PLUS the gravity-induced lapse rate (it is nice to see an Alarmist accept that this exists and has nothing to do with Greenhouse Gases) MULTIPLIED BY the altitude of the tropopause. If that is true (I like to use their own arguments against them), then the amount of infrared reaching - and warming - the stratosphere from below is unchanged!
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So far, so bad. What is the more likely explanation?
The ozone depletion theory starts on the basis that ozone in the stratosphere converts high-energy solar ultraviolet radiation from above to thermal energy. This effect appears to be undisputed. (Even the hard core Alarmists at Science of Doom accept this, while simultaneously claiming that the stratosphere is warmed from below).
When ozone is depleted in the stratosphere (mainly because of CFC gases, which break down into Cl and Br gas, which in turn act as catalysts to break down O3 into O2; partly because of volcanic eruptions) it soaks up less of the ultraviolet energy and so doesn't warm up so much, and more ultraviolet energy gets down into the troposphere and heats up the ozone (and oxygen) there instead.
Game, set and match to the ozone depletion theory, methinks! A back of the envelope approximation says that a 4% fall in stratospheric ozone levels will increase tropospheric temperatures by about 1 degree, with a larger fall in stratospheric temperatures. This matches real life results since the 1970s and ties in with the above chart.
Sunday, 13 December 2020
Another little mystery solved...
My latest blogpost: Another little mystery solved...Tweet this! Posted by Mark Wadsworth at 17:19
Labels: global warming, ozone
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17 comments:
All you need now is to add in that the rise in temperature causes there to be more CO2 in the atmosphere, as the ice-core records quite clearly show, and not vice versa and the whole damn thing is explained.
Hurrah!
B, that's a timing thing.
Quite clearly, humans have been pumping out a lot of CO2 since 1800s and CO2 levels have been going up accordingly. There's no point beating about the bush on that one.
But the CO2 did not cause global warming, which only started properly in the 1970s - exactly when CFC gases became very widely made and used.
As it happens, the extra UV also warms the oceans, so CO2 is less soluble, so this leads to more CO2, but that only relates to CO2 levels in last 50 years.
"but that only relates to CO2 levels in last 50 years."
It's being getting warmer since the Little Ice Age, and so we would expect CO2 to have been going up throughout that period, regardless of the CO2 being created by burning fossil fuels, which I am still not convinced isn't negligible compared to natural sources, like volcanic activity.
B, the rules of the game are to accept any facts they throw at us if they are irrelevant
I am happy to concede that a large chunk of extra CO2 is man made, compared to natural increase that goes in line with overall bounce back from LIA.
That is all a side show once you stumble across the ozone theory, which seems like the most likely explanation for all this stuff. Am I 100% certain? Of course not. So what? At least it's very plausible.
As more evidence, the Alarmists twist and turn desperately to play it down. Their Killer Arguments Against Ozone Theory are all complete bollocks. So by reverse logic, ozone theory is correct.
I can't keep up, I've only just finished watching the ozone depletion video. Very interesting though - pretty convincing too.
AKH, being able to easily explain the apparent cooling of the stratosphere is one of the bonus features of the ozone theory.
If you are right Mark, what policy changes would you like to see happen?
-Reopen coal power stations
-Pivot from cheap, clean wind and solar to expensive and insecure gas power
-Continue taking days off billions of people's lives by scrapping the impending ban on NOx and particulate emitting ICEs
-Don't worry as much about putting plastic in the ocean
-Ramp up energy bills by throwing money at nuclear
My point is even if you don't think CO2 is a problem, which policies that are in place to reduce CO2 do you think should be scrapped? To me, climate change mitigating policies have so many positive outcomes even if you don't believe CO2 to be a problem. What is the end goal of your research?
M, those are not the questions you should be asking.
Let's assume that the ozone people had won the argument forty years ago and the CO2 people had quietly gone away, what policies would you be recommending?
Cars in town centres is a bad idea, clearly, however they are powered.
How much wind and solar cost is open to debate. Some people say they are very expensive because they wear out so quickly. Other people say their day to day running costs are very low. If they really were cheap - and hooray if they are - then power companies would do those things anyway. That's not policy, that's common sense.
If it were a choice between coal and nuclear, I would prefer coal.
I don't see what plastic pollution has to do with this. Nobody's in favour of that.
.. and obviously, clamp down on those few countries who still merrily manufacture CFC and similar gases. That would be #1.
Why prefer coal over nuclear, even if you don't regard CO2 as an issue?
Given present-day nuclear reactor technology the two energy sources have very similar characteristics – steam-driven generators, good for baseload but less suitable for peaking power and not much good at all for backing up fickle wind or solar.
Coal also generates lots of air pollution, and I don't think resurrecting the UK's coal mining industry would even be cost effective, which even eliminates the "jobs for miners" argument that I was surprised wasn't used more by anti-nuclear campaigners in the '70s and '80s.
GC, I was brought up to be pro-coal miner and anti-nuclear. Silly prejudices, I know, but they stick with you.
Coal mining wasn't profitable in the UK so they let it die in the 1980s. Fair enough.
But in many countries, mining and burning coal is profitable, and who am I to judge them?
"good for baseload but less suitable for peaking power"
Funny how all those countries who use coal and nuclear manage just fine.
"not much good at all for backing up fickle wind or solar"
That's wind and solar's problem, not coal and nuclear's! That really is an arse about face argument.
"Coal mining wasn't profitable in the UK so they let it die in the 1980s. Fair enough."
It wasn't so much that it wasn't profitable, but that the coal was running out, at least in the deep mines. There's only so much coal in the ground, the deep mining coal industry was doomed from the start, something that left-wing supporters of the miners seem to find very hard to hoist on board.
B, one or t'other. I believe that some miners were given their mines (or sold to them for £1) to do with as they please, and they all shut down after a few years.
But the fact that coal mining is no longer viable* in the UK doesn't mean it isn't elsewhere.
* Unless we go open cast. You get a free reservoir or waste disposal site at the end as a bonus!
A coal mine without any coal in it isn't worth an awful lot, unless you can reuse the pithead winding gear for "gravitricity".
"You get a free reservoir or waste disposal site at the end as a bonus!"
or, as in West Wales, a racecourse.
B, add gravitricity and racecourses to the list.
Wiki is not clear - what did they use to fill up the hole?
@MW the policies that I'd like if the O3 people were right:
-Close coal power stations because NOx, particulates, mercury, cost, etc
-Use cheap, clean wind and solar instead of expensive and insecure (Russia, etc) gas power
-Phase out ICEs because not worth the externality of taking days off people's lives, and because OPEC, and because what's the point in making ICEs if they are not allowed in urban areas?
-Tax plastic because oceans
-Don't spend money on nuclear as wind and solar are cheaper and have a much shorter decommission timeline
Reducing single use plastics is a CO2 reduction target as it uses a lot of oil and energy. But a nice side effect, like much of the above the above, is reducing its use goes a way to solving other non-CO2 problems.
As you said, there is some debate about whether wind and solar is actually cheaper, but add in the externalities of air pollution deaths and that seals the deal for me. Unless you've got some externalities of wind and solar that are of the same scale?
My point is, if you had a magic wand and made the climate change question go away, how would the world be different?
M, the world would be a different place if people accepted ozone theory not GHG theory.
- put a trade boycott on China etc who are still using CFCs until they bloody well stop.
- electricity - do whatever is cheapest and most environmentally friendly, obvs. I'm not picking winners, let the power companies decide what's cheapest within the environmental regulations.
- plastic pollution is a separate topic.
- reducing oil and gas use was always a good idea because OPEC. It has been a good idea since the 1970s.
- urban air quality is a separate issue, we want to reduce that as well. If banning ICE cars in dense urban areas is what it takes, then that is what it takes.
But primarily...
- focus on REAL POLLUTION that is damaging to environment and health instead of a harmless trace gas.
- stop PANICKING about bloody global warming and waffling on about "decarbonising the economy". It will take decades for CFCs to work themselves out of the system and ozone to build itself up again. In the meantime, we just have to sit tight.
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