Hot Water and Air

Georg Hoffmann, writing in German on Prima Klima, has an excellent post on Susan Solomon's new paper on stratospheric water vapor. Eli with permission is reproducing it in translation here. It goes down a treat with Eli's post on atmospheric methane oxidation but goes far beyond that and offers great insight into stratospheric cooling.

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How water vapor in the stratosphere can occasionally halt global warming!

A paper has appeared in a recent January issue of Science written by Susan Solomon, the former IPCC Working Group I Vice-Chair, and her colleagues, discussing the influence stratospheric water vapor. There have been a few very useful commentaries on this paper (here and here) and I will postpone until later observations on where and why it was often, but not very usefully mistreated. As usual, the latter variety of comments was in the vast majority.

OK: Water vapor in the atmosphere. Everyone is aware that it cools as you rise higher in the atmosphere and as a consequence it has to become dryer. If there was no water on earth but all the other greenhouse gases remained in the atmosphere, we would be faced with a temperature gradient of about ~ 10 °C/km (this is the so called dry adiabatic lapse rate), but as it rises water vapor condenses, liberating heat, which reduces the gradient to the observed ~ 6.5 °C/km, (the saturated adiabatic lapse rate). I'm not quite sure what exactly defines the troposphere, but a key feature is presence of the saturated adiabatic lapse rate that that holds up to an altitude of about 10-12 km.

Figure 1: Radiosonde profiles of water vapor concentrations measured with an IR laser absorption spectrometer by Georges Durry and co-workers at the University of Reims,.

But what really happens with the water vapor above the troposphere? Is there any water at all, and if so how much and is it of any significance? Colleagues from the University of Reims have periodically flown balloons carrying a laser spectrometer (you can, of course, also do this with conventional hygrometers) to find out about this. Be careful when you look at Figure 1, the concentration axis is logarithmic. The concentration of water vapor decreases from about 10,000 ppm at the ground to about 3 ppm at 15 km altitude, almost nothing. But strangely enough, the water vapor content then increases again.

Figure 2: Schematic of the processes giving rise to exchange between stratosphere and troposphere. Taken from the Heidelberg dissertation of Frank Weidner.

It turns out that water vapor in the stratosphere has two sources. The first, of course, is transport through the tropopause, the boundary layer between the troposphere and stratosphere, (see Figure 2). This sounds trivial, but it is not. The transport takes place mainly in the tropics, either through abrupt short-term events driven by very intense convection, sometimes shooting up to over 15km, or via so-called tropopause folds where neighboring stratospheric and tropospheric air masses exchange places and become intimately entwined. Figure 3 shows an example of such a lowering of the tropopause along a frontal zone in the North Atlantic. In the image where very dry stratospheric air is mixed into the troposphere the figure appears suddenly dark which corresponds to dry on the satellite false color scale. It is generally assumed that most of the water vapor found in the stratosphere passes through the tropical tropopause which is the coldest point of the troposphere, into the stratosphere.


Figure 3: Tropopause folding. The extremely dry stratospheric air is mixed into the troposphere and leads to this "black hole" in the water vapor concentration. Meteosat image from ZAMG.

The second source of water vapor is the photochemical decomposition of methane in the stratosphere which only comes into play at high altitudes, explaining the increasing concentration of water vapor at the left of Figure 1. If there were no methane oxidation, water vapor concentration in the stratosphere would remain almost constant. Whoever wants to know more about the chemistry of methane in the stratosphere, should read the post by the Godfather of all climate blogging, Eli Rabett, for details. Caution! Not for the skeptics: It’s very informative.

It is estimated the contribution of methane to stratospheric water vapor is of the order of 30% (see Figure 1) with an increase of between 4 to 5.5 ppm from the lower to the upper stratosphere. In most of the 20th century atmospheric methane concentrations have risen with expanding livestock production, growing waste dumps and increased rice cultivation. It is widely expected that the methane concentrations will continue to rise. Therefore we must expect a long-term increase in stratospheric water vapor, assuming that everything else remains the same.

But will everything else remain the same? There could be more or fewer folds at the tropopause, more or less intense convection in the tropics, but above all, could the "cold trap" warm. The "cold trap" is the extremely cold zone in the tropical tropopause through which most of water vapor has to pass to reach the stratosphere, warm. In short, we need long-term observations from the stratosphere to say something reliable. In their Science paper Susan Solomon and colleagues have combined a couple of data sets. Figure 4 shows the radiosonde water vapor data set from Boulder, which to my knowledge is the longest such record, together with various satellite records. While the Boulder, Colorado measurements have been taken at a single location this is not thought to be a big problem. As far as water vapor is concerned the stratosphere is well mixed. Thus, we can compare the point measurements from Colorado with all sorts of geographically distributed measurements from satellite observations (HALOE and SAGE). The bottom line from all this: Stratospheric water vapor increased for twenty years but since 2000 has decreased a bit.

Figure 4: Different observational datasets of stratospheric water vapor. The radiosonde data from Boulder, with two satellite data sets.

So what? One can ask this, because, God knows, the change in stratospheric water vapor is so tiny, on the order of 1 ppm. Yes, but it makes a difference. Water vapor absorbs and emits in the infrared, just like the classic greenhouse gas CO2, CH4 and N2O and a change of 20% in stratospheric water vapor as seen in Figure 4 may well have an important influence. Unfortunately, it is really complicated to address the issue of “greenhouse gases and their effect on the stratosphere ". It is a hell of technical details. When greenhouse gases increase the first thing that happens is that the amount of infrared radiation from the surface reaching the stratosphere decreases. Thus, the "primary" effect of increasing greenhouse gas is to cool the lower stratosphere. In addition, since greenhouse gases in the stratosphere also radiate, increasing their concentration more effectively cools the levels they are at by radiative cooling. This stratospheric cooling is very fast, since temperature gradients in the stratosphere are determined almost entirely by radiative transport.

But there is a second long-term effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations. Right! Infrared radiation in the troposphere is increasingly converted into heat, which warms the troposphere, although this takes quite a long time to reach a new radiative balance (oceans, melting glaciers, sea ice, the whole rigmarole takes its time). Thus, after the greenhouse gases rapidly cool the stratosphere by shielding the infrared radiation from the bottom, they warm up the troposphere on a longer time scale (~ 10 years). This second step increases the incoming heat flux to the lower stratosphere, somewhat mitigating the first cooling effect. How much is not trivial to figure out. For that one need to a detailed line-by-line radiative transfer model.

But all this is unfortunately not everything. What I have told in the previous section on greenhouse gases holds only for CO2 where the main absorption band at 15 microns is saturated over a distance of a few meters. Because of this, in the lower stratosphere infrared radiation in the CO2 bands can only come from the cold upper troposphere. In that case, the above-mentioned shielding mechanism is how the greenhouse gases work. With methane and N2O, things are different. [ER-Because the concentrations of these two molecules are much lower] IR radiation in the regions where they absorb and emit passes directly from the warm lower troposphere to the lower stratosphere. An increased concentration of these gases has virtually no effect on the net radiative balance of the stratosphere. On the one hand, there is more IR from lower layers to absorb, on the other hand, there are more radiators.

Figure 5: Observed and calculated warming of the last thirty years. A simple climate model was used driven by the accepted history of changes in greenhouse gas concentrations (dotted line), then with the modifications taken from the stratospheric water vapor mixing ratios for the last 8 years (red) and then with the entire observational record of stratospheric water vapor since the beginning of the 80s (blue). The observations of surface temperatures (NCDC, GISS and CRU) are indicated in green.

And what about the water vapor in the stratosphere? The stratospheric water vapor will contribute as an effective radiator to increase radiative cooling of the stratosphere and warm the troposphere. Water in the atmosphere is not well mixed (obviously, see Figure 1) and each water molecule in the high troposphere or lower stratosphere, respectively, is a very effective infrared absorber / emitter. Solomon calculates a radiative forcing from stratospheric water vapor of about +0.25 W/m² in the period 1980-2000 and ca -0.1W/m² since. For comparison, the increase in CO2 over the same period accounts for a forcing of 0.36W/m² for 1980-2000 and 0.26/m² since. Solomon then throws this radiative forcing into a simple climate model to quantify its impact arriving at a stratospheric water vapor contribution of 30% to global warming since the early 80s and a contribution to the flat course of temperatures since about 2000 (see Figure 5).

This paper appeared at exactly the right moment for me. I was looking for the right punch line for a proposal which revolves around water vapor and satellite observations, and here it was. It arrived with a strong climate effect for the stratospheric water vapor and could lead to especially important open questions (always important for proposals: open questions!). Does the observed variability of stratospheric water vapor have something to do with greenhouse gases and global warming, or is it simply a natural decadal variability? At least some anthropogenic influence on stratospheric water vapor could hardly be disputed, namely, that if the amount of methane in the stratosphere increases so must its oxidation product water. But besides that? Solomon leaves this issue truly open, plenty of fodder for future research.

And the (pseudo) skeptics? And the press? Although Solomon's paper was published in Science I had not thought that the issue would interest any of the Nutters, let alone the daily press. But something is afoot. Here are some funny interpretations from Lala-land:

water vapor drives the climate, not CO2, a new study authored by Susan Solomon, could explain why atmospheric carbon is not contributing to warming significantly.

Certainly I was the most surprised to read about Solomon's work in an article in Die Zeit by Jurgen Krönig. And it was not in an article that dealt specifically with stratospheric research, but in one of many articles, in which each and every journalist who had never peeked into the IPCC report, expresses their dismay that on page 800 or whatever, the disappearance of Himalayan glaciers has been incorrectly predicted. In the midst of this discourse, which appears to discuss the abolition of IPCCs, and standing Pachauri up against the wall on the spot, to my complete surprise the following sentences appeared:

New findings could worsen the situation further. A new study published in Science, shows that role of water vapor, the main greenhouse gas, has been neglected in the IPCC’s climate models the IPCC. In the stratosphere, the concentration of water vapor decreased by 10 percent which reduced the temperature rise by 25 percent "

Did Solomon say that the climate models neglected water vapor? Sure and Roger Federer neglects his forehand. And as if by chance, Krönig refers to the period from 2000 to 2007 (with the decline of stratospheric water vapor and the corresponding forcing -0.1W/m2, see above) without further consider that, according to the same paper from Solomon the overall effect of stratospheric water vapor from 1980 until today (see Figure 5 above) is that greenhouse gas driven warming has intensified. In this way Krönig contributes mightily to the advertising campaign for January's climate shock of the month competition.

Comments?

Zugzwang

Zugzwang is a position in chess where where you have your choice of how to lose, but not much else. Over the past few weeks Eli has been asking Roger Pielke Jr. about his estimates of hurricane costs

Another issue, of course, is the cost of increased flood and storm protection. Muir Wood mentions this in passing, but it is a major cost imposed by increasing flood danger. Perhaps you have discussed this somewhere? If so, how does that affect your analysis?

The crickets are chirping in the background, and with about four feet of snow outside the door, those are scary crickets, especially given Roger's recent all out attacks on Nicholas Stern and the IPCC for their statements on storm damage

A while ago Roger challenged Eli to show that his writings on policy were mistaken. The Bunny took a first step, showing that Roger's "honest broker" construct was as bankrupt as Lehman Bros. and the arguments he made in his book were not very sophisticated.

This post deals with the fundamental incoherence between Roger Pielke Jr.'s policy statements on severe weather damage and adaptation to climate change. Briefly put Pielke holds that there is no evidence of any increase in the cost of hurricanes (and other severe weather) that might be attributed to climate change. This certainly is an arguable position given the data we have, although it requires qualifications. While Pielke estimates a null trend, for example, Schmidt, et al found an annual increase of 4% since 1970, but no trend if one starts in 1950. A large part of Pielke's argument consists of careful parsing of what others say, and he is quite capable of omitting important information when describing the work of others, for example Schmidt. For example, Pielke states on his blog

After a detailed look at the data they conclude quite properly:

There is no evidence yet of any trend in tropical cyclone losses that can be attributed directly to anthropogenic climate change.

They do speculate about a link based on the conclusion of IPCC 2007

while, as Eli points out, if one reads Schmidt, et al, they say

No trend is found for the period 1950–2005 as a whole. In the period 1971–2005, since the beginning of a trend towards increased intense cyclone activity, losses excluding socio-economic effects show an annual increase of 4% per annum. This increase must therefore be at least due to the impact of natural climate variability but, more likely than not, also due to anthropogenic forcings.

In parallel with Eli's ruminations, Nils Simon, has been thinking about the same issues and coming to a remarkable conclusion. Pielke in a 2008 paper states that

The normalization methodologies do not explicitly reflect two important factors driving losses: demand surge and loss mitigation. Adjustments for these factors are beyond the scope of this paper, but it is important for those using this study to consider their potential effect.

but Simon searches in vain for any such consideration as has Eli.

There are two reasons this is important

First, it is obvious even to a stuffed animal that the costs of flood control and surge barriers to limit damage from storms has increased substantially over the last fifty years. If such expenditures have NOT been included in the storm cost estimates, and the trend without them is flat, the trend WITH such costs MUST increase substantially. Any estimate that neglects these costs must be stated as a LOWER LIMIT. Neither Eli or Nils can find any such statement, not just from Roger Pielke. Therefore in true "Honest Broker" form, Rabett Run concludes that (OK, draw your own conclusions from what Roger calls others who mis-state something)

Second, and this is Nils' insight, NOT to include such costs or deal with their effect when you are aware of them, is either dishonest or a statement that such adaptation has no effect. Since we have been adapting to increased storm damage like crazy. Pielke is in Zugzwang.

The Birdie or the Birdie

Roger can choose door A, storm cost has been increasing mightily in the past century or door B, adaptation has no effect. Ethon is standing behind both doors. Which of his policy principles does he want to feed to the birdie?

However, Nils can help him. He points out that flood barriers build since 1950 in the Netherlands and northern Germany certainly have protected the coasts against flooding at similar to the destructive events of 1953. More interestingly Simon points to a NOAA study which discussed how houses could be toughened against hurricanes (Eli is eating Nils' lunch here, so if you read German, go take a look)

In North Carolina according to NOAA (PDF) 200 of 205 houses built to the proper standard directly on the coast survived Hurricane Fran in 1996 while over 500 older nearby houses were destroyed.

Further Nils points out that there has been an immense investment in hurricane observation and modeling which allows better preparation, smaller evacuations, and provides quicker and more effective responses to hurricane threats.

Not to take this into account is double entry bookkeeping. On the cost side of the ledger the lower damage expense is taken fully into account. This decreases the costs of storm damage as a function of time. On the expense side of the ledger the costs of the satellite, plane and buoy operations that track the hurricanes, the National Hurricane Center, flood control and more are not taken into account. When this is done the cost of dealing with hurricanes INCREASES. For policy purposes the proper metric is the total cost of dealing with hurricanes, not the cost of the damage

Nils and Eli eagerly await Roger's reply.

Comments?

Too Good To Waste

Lucia has been trying her luck at parody over at Rank Exploits. Epic fail, but it has the mice stirred up, so Eli thought he would sing them a lullabye

You are the Denialist Army.

When we feel dissatisfaction,
We scream in a nasty way
Some people may prefer science,
For us, 50 FOI requests a day.

Blog posts don't have to be clever,
And we add extra sentences into every line.
It sounds more authentic at Rankexploits
Without any sense or rhyme

Remember the war against Phil Jones?
That's where Lucia belongs
Though he does good science,
She figures he's always wrong

So join the Denialist Army,
FOI requests the weapons we bring
To the fight against global warming
Ready! Aim! Whine!

(Apologies to TL)

Eli left a copy for Lucia.

Horatio, where art thou when we need you?

Cthulhu Explains it All

cthulhu has left a new comment on "Steve Had a Little List":

My MP3 collection contains some copyrighted music I have purchased and some non-copyrighted music. Over the years I have forgotten which MP3s have copyright and which have not and it would now be time consuming for me to separate the two.

Out of the blue an acquaintance sends me an email asking for me to send him my MP3 collection.

I know this acquaintance runs a website where he is apt to publish the MP3s I send him. If I supply him I could get into trouble. I am not a lawyer, I just don't want this hassle.

So I send a reply back to him saying legal agreements prevent me from sending him the MP3s.

After a while he sends me another message, informing me that he talked to my Sister who admits to have been given MP3s by me in the past. Therefore how can I claim legal agreements prevent such a release? He repeats his request I send him my MP3s.

I reply that the legal agreements only allow me to send MP3s to my family. This isn't technically true I think, but giving it to someone I trust to not publish the music publically on a website is a far cry from handing them over to someone I suspect will do so.

Hearing that I only send MP3s to family members, he comically contacts my second cousin once removed and gets him to contact me and ask for the MP3s.

Knowing that this cousin is just going to forward the MP3s to my acquaintance, I refuse and go back to my original stance that legal agreements preclude the release.

He now demands I send him the legal smallprint encoded in the metadata of each MP3 to prove such legal agreements exist.

I just cannot be bothered with this. It's pathetic. If he really wanted the MP3s so much why doesn't he go and buy them himself?

I send him some smallprint anyway. He replies that some of the smallprint doesn't even say it's copyrighted. I am not entirely surprised, I didn't waste time checking all of it for the sake of someone who is simply wasting my time.

He demands I at least send him the non-copyrighted MP3s.

Do I want to sift through my collection reading small print to decide which is copyrighted and which is not? Not for this asshole.

I shoot him an email simply stating the release would harm my relations with the law.

He gets uptight at this and bad-mouths me on his website, telling his regulars how my "story has changed". Sure it has, but understandably. Nevertheless he riles up enough of his website regulars and gets dozens of them to spam my inbox with requests for MP3s.

What a bastard.

Eli accepts all contributions. Comments?

Steve Had a Little List

A list of the FOI requests received by the University of East Anglia about the CRU has been posted. Most of the Climate Audit fishing expedition were turned down, but there is one priceless one FOI 09-97 for which additional information was sought

I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested 1]

1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that "prevents further transmission to non-academics".
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,

It was clear that the requests were vexatious and they were turned down.


Eli also points to a comment from MinnieMouseJon

This is simply evident for any climatologist working, for instance, in Spain. I pay for the data (even for research) and every time I buy data I have to sign a contract stating that I can't disclose data to ANY third party. Neither for research nor for any other users of the third party. Well ... why doesn't McIntyre simply buy the data to the original owner instead of requesting it from CRU? (The national weather services are the owners...)

I can't understand why this is so hard to understand.

Update: Bart Verheggen chimes in
Update: Amoeba has a request
Update: John Quiggen has a comment

Comments?

Real Programmers

For Nick Barnes, Johns Mashey and yes you Michael Tobis, and the other python freaks out there, one of the bunnies, Willard, points us to what real programmers do . .

Even Unix might not be as bad on Real Programmers as it once was. The latest release of Unix has the potential of an operating system worthy of any Real Programmer-- two different and subtly incompatible user interfaces, an arcane and complicated teletype driver, virtual memory. If you ignore the fact that it's "structured", even 'C' programming can be appreciated by the Real Programmer: after all, there's no type checking, variable names are seven (ten? eight?) characters long, and the added bonus of the Pointer data type is thrown in-- like having the best parts of Fortran and assembly language in one place. (Not to mention some of the more creative uses for #define.)

It's quite old (1983), but not dated

Clear on the Concept

Considerable skepticism has been expressed in the press and elsewhere about the limitations associated with release of data from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit. Indeed the usual suspects have been rather loud on this (contributions of links appreciated)

As part of the spreading FOIgate investigation at Rabett Run (the comments are hopping), in which Steven McIntyre has been proved to have organized and administered through Climate Audit a vexatious FOI attack** on the CRU one of the bunnies, bluegrue points to a letter from Tom Peterson, which not only shows McIntyre's inherent sliminess when he writes:

And oh yes, Jones’ correspondent, Tom Peterson of NOAA, wrote back:

Hi, Phil,
Yes, Friday-Saturday I noticed that ClimateFraudit had renewed their interest in you. I was thinking about sending an email of sympathy, but I was busy preparing for a quick trip to Hawaii ...

Not Tahiti, as some speculated.

and manages to leave out that this was a two day trip including travel from the east coast of the US to Hawaii, which leaves precious little time, as bluegrue points out

A bare minimum of digging would have shown to you, that Tom Peterson was a panelist for the session “Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” (page 14) on Tuesday, July 28 2009, at the Hawai’i Conservation Conference 2009.

McIntyre tries to play the innocent while spewing additional slime

I’ve done enough business travel to know that these sorts of things are necessarily not a holiday and, as you say, it wasn’t in Peterson’s case here. But Hawaii is still a nice destination. And parlaying the endpoints of this sort of business travel can be a sort of hidden perq – one not exercised by Peterson in this case, but perhaps others did. I didn’t notice any emails mentioning meetings of climate scientists in Flin Flon or Saskatoon in January.

but what concerns us are the other parts of Peterson's letter which flatly contradict the nonsense spewed at Climate Audit over the past three months

Hi, Phil,

Yes, Friday-Saturday I noticed that ClimateFraudit had renewed their interest in you. I was thinking about sending an email of sympathy, but I was busy preparing for a quick trip to Hawaii - I left Monday morning and flew out Tuesday evening and am now in the Houston airport on my way home.

Data that we can't release is a tricky thing here at NCDC. Periodically, Tom Karl will twist my arm to release data that would violate agreements and therefore hurt us in the long run, so I would prefer that you don't specifically cite me or NCDC in this.

Interesting that the Director of the Center, Tom Karl, contrary to the McIntyre party line, has actually been pushing for data release even when that has the potential to hurt research programs.

But I can give you a good alternative. You can point to the Peterson-Manton article on regional climate change workshops. All those workshops resulted in data being provided to the author of the peer-reviewed paper with a strict promise that none of the data would be released. So far as far as I know, we have all lived up to that agreement - myself with the Caribbean data (so that is one example of data I have that are not released by NCDC), Lucie and Malcolm for South America, Enric for Central America, Xuebin for Middle Eastern data, Albert for south/central Asian data, John Ceasar for SE Asia, Enric again for central Africa, etc. The point being that such agreements are common and are the only way that we have access to quantitative insights into climate change in many parts of the world. Many countries don't mind the release of derived products such as your gridded field or Xuebin's ETCCDI indices, but very much object to the release of actual data (which they might sell to potential users). Does that help?

Emphasis added. Let Eli repeat such agreements are common and are the only way that we have access to quantitative insights into climate change in many parts of the world.

Given their track record, who is so naive as to believe that McIntyre and his horde would honor a subsequent no disclosure agreement? Given the need to protect the original data from release in order to ensure its continued availability the requirement that such data only be released to academic researchers who can be trusted is obvious.

Comments?

**McIntyre obviously is as deep into denial on this as he was when his bot expedition to the GISSTemp server made it impossible for others to access the web site and the administrator threw him off. The correct answer is GMAFBA

Another Try

UPDATE: Eli has started working on the graphics and text as per suggestions. When he is done he will move the original text with comments to Eli Rabett's Memory Hole and repost the modification. 2/10

Periodically Eli tries to explain the greenhouse effect to someone who doesn't want to believe in it, and like explaining atomic or nuclear structure, it really cannot be done without the person with hands over ears knowing a fair amount of stuff. The really short version is in caps at the bottom. The numbers used are based on measurements or averages of measurements. Let's list a few of the preliminaries and put quotes around concepts that anyone interested in learning more can google

1. Eli is going to use the "Kelvin temperature scale" which is the appropriate one for all thermodynamical stuff.

2. In the atmosphere it gets colder the higher you go up to about 12 km. This is called the "adiabatic lapse rate" and is a result of gravity compressing the atmosphere. **

3. A solid body emits thermal radiation in the infrared (IR), this is called "black body radiation" and the amount emitted as a function of frequency (or wavelength) is described by the "Planck radiation formula". The total amount emitted per unit area is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature (ecT^4) according to the "Stefan Boltzmann law". e is a constant called the emissivity, c usually written as the Greek sigma, is the "Stefan Boltzmann constant". e is close to unity for all solids or liquids.

4. The total amount of energy in the sunlight absorbed by the earth per unit time, has to be emitted to space for the Earth to remain at a constant temperature. The emission is all in the thermal IR. There is very little, to no overlap between the "solar spectrum" and the thermal IR emitted by the Earth. If less energy is emitted, the Earth warms, both the surface and the atmosphere until the temperature is high enough (see "Stefan Boltzmann Law") to restore the balance. If more energy is emitted, the Earth cools, both the surface and the atmosphere, again, until the temperature is low enough to restore the balance.

With the preliminaries out of the way we can look at what the emission from the Earth through the atmosphere looks like at 20 km.

Look at the figure. The x-axis is in frequency units, wavenumbers, used by spectroscopists. It is the inverse of the wavelength in cm. The y-axis is the intensity of emission in W/m^2 per unit wavenumber. The red curve is the emission, the others are "Planck function" curves for various temperatures. If you look to the right, you see that there are parts of the curve that roughly follow the Planck curve for ~290 K which is the temperature of the ground. This is radiation that is going through the atmosphere essentially undisturbed. The chaff is absorption by water. The dip at about 1000 wavenumbers is from absorption by ozone, the big dip at 675 wavenumbers is absorption by CO2. There are continuum absorptions at the high and low frequency ends, mostly due to (H2O)2 (two water vapor molecules stuck together) and other complicated things consideration of which we leave for the next class.

At 375 "ppm", the current value, emission in the center of the CO2 band is characteristic of the 220 K Planck curve, meaning that the emission to space comes from an altitude at which the temperature is ~ 210 K. Because the temperature is very low, the amount of energy radiated to space is low, about 30% of the amount of thermal radiation leaving the ground at those frequencies (210^4/290^4 = .28). If we double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 750 ppm the CO2 band widens blocking MORE thermal radiation

To restore the balance the Earth system has to warm.

Let's talk about that. A lot of this discussion, as you have noticed has to do with rates at which energy is transferred. Thermodynamics requires is that no NET energy be transferred from a hotter to a colder body.

The rate at which sunlight is absorbed by the ground is ~170 W/m2. If there were no absorption of the thermal IR in the atmosphere the average temperature of the Earth would be AT MOST ~255 K*

*(Eli is making a simplification here having to do with cloud reflectivity and absorption in the atmosphere, but the bottom line is the same)

What happens when the "greenhouse gases" absorb the thermal IR? The molecules almost immediately and completely transfer that energy by collision to the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, slightly warming it, BUT, collisions also vibrationally excite the greenhouse gases, including CO2. The net result is that there is an equilibrium amount of vibrationally excited greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and this equilibrium amount depends on the local temperature.

The vibrationally excited greenhouse gas molecules emit IR in all directions, including back to the surface. With the greenhouse effect the rate at which thermal energy leaves the surface is ~390 W/m2. The rate at which the thermal energy returned to the surface is, ~325 W/m2 (go look at the Trenberth diagrams referenced below). Therefore the NET amount of energy leaving the surface due to radiation is ~65 W/m2. Of course this neglects convection, evaporation of water and a few other things. Add everything up and you get that on NET the rate at which the surface radiates is 170 W/m2 but here is the joker

BECAUSE OF THE GREENHOUSE GASES THE SURFACE HAS TO BE WARM ENOUGH TO RADIATE 390 W/m2, AND THAT MEANS THAT IT IS AT ~290 K RATHER THAN LESS THAN 255 K

If you want a more detailed exposition http://www.atmo.arizona.edu/students/courselinks/spring04/atmo451b/pdf/RadiationBudget.pdf

Comments?

** the atmosphere cools because of the adiabatic lapse rate up to the tropopause at ~ 12-15 km. Above that it warms because of absorption of UV light from the sun by ozone, but the greenhouse effect is pretty much confined to below the tropopause. Eli has a post which touches on this

Amoeba Gets Underfoot

Phil Jones has given an interview to the Sunday Times. In one of the comments, amoeba reports that one Alan Wilkinson wrote

This was the exact text:

I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involving the following countries:
CAROLINE ISLANDS
SOLOMON ISLANDS
WALLIS ISLANDS
COOK ISLANDS
NIUE ISLAND

1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that "prevents further transmission to non-academics".
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,
I am requesting this information for the purposes of academic research.

Amoeba points out in the comments at Rabett Run that

The point of his argument seems somewhat blunted by three observations:

An apparently identical template was posted on ClimateFraudit.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=6623

The fact that this FOI was submitted at the same time with the ClimateFraudit initiated FOI storm. What a coincidence?

If he were genuinely an academic, why would he issue the CRU with an FOI request about confidentiality agreements restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involving the listed countries?

I'm sure there are other things that do not add-up about Alan Wilkinson's claim.

and goes on to give good google

It is most revealing to google

'Alan Wilkinson' site:climateaudit.org

It reveals that Alan Wilkinson was not an honest broker, but a porolific poster at ClimateFraudit and part of the FOI campaign.

Read this

'Steve McIntyre
Posted Jul 24, 2009 at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Reply
I suggest that interested readers can participate by choosing 5 countries and sending the following FOI request to david.palmer at uea.ac.uk:

Dear Mr Palmer,

I hereby make a EIR/FOI request in respect to any confidentiality agreements)restricting transmission of CRUTEM data to non-academics involing the following countries: [insert 5 or so countries that are different from ones already requested]

1. the date of any applicable confidentiality agreements;
2. the parties to such confidentiality agreement, including the full name of any organization;
3. a copy of the section of the confidentiality agreement that “prevents further transmission to non-academics”.
4. a copy of the entire confidentiality agreement,

I am requesting this information for the purposes of academic research.

Thank you for your attention.

Yours truly,
yourname

If you do so, please post up a copy of your letter so that we can keep track of requested countries.'

From:
http://climateaudit.org/2009/07/24/cru-refuses-data-once-again/

A coordinated campaign, unintentionally revealed by one of the dishonest participants.

Eli wonders if one of the Brit readers might bring this to the attention of the Information Commissioner’s Office asking if they would care to revisit their drive by on Phil Jones. An enterprising reporter might like to ask questions. An enterprising lawyer might wish to explore the area of harassment and the misuse of the FOI process.

And enterprising readers should visit Deep Climate who is exploring what the M&M boys were up to. Deep Climate does miss the "Auditing the Auditors" threads on sci.environment, where Steve played Nigel Persaud.

Comments?

The Real Climate McCarthy

A while ago, a pole of the Pielkesphere tried to defend peerless leader by attacking Joe Romm as the Climate McCarthy. Marky Mouse recently called our attention to the real Climate McCarthy and Eli thought you might enjoy this example of Climate McCarthyism

“February 03, 2010

Allison C. LernerInspector General
National Science Foundation
Office of Inspector General
4201 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22230

Dear Ms. Lerner:

This is a follow-up to my letter of December 2, 2009 and concerns today’s announcement by Penn State University that it has concluded its initial inquiry into possible research misconduct by one of the University’s researchers, Dr. Michael Mann. Penn State’s internal inquiry found further investigation is warranted to determine if Dr. Mann “engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities.”

While I firmly agree that Penn State’s investigation is warranted and must commence without delay, there are federal laws and policies implicated in this matter, including your “Research Misconduct” regulations, Title 45 CFR Part 689, that go beyond the scope of Penn State’s inquiry. Therefore, in order to have a full and complete accounting of this matter, I request that you now begin a formal investigation of the allegations against Dr. Mann.

Among other laws and regulations, I ask that you investigate compliance with, or violations of, OMB administrative procedures, 2 CFR Part 215 (OMB Circular A-110), in particular 2 CFR §215.36; Freedom of Information Act 5 U.S.C. §552 (NSF Regulation, 45 CFR Part 612); NSF guidelines implementing OMB information quality guidelines (515 Guidelines); Federal False Claims Act, 18 U.S.C. §287, and 31 U.S.C. §§3729-33; and Federal False Statements Act, 18 U.S.C §1001. Finally, given that Dr. Mann was at the University of Virginia from 1999 until 2005, I also request that you inquire whether his activities at the University of Virginia are implicated in this matter and within your jurisdiction.

Sincerely,

James M. Inhofe
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works”

If you still don't get it, take a look at what Hank Roberts wrote to our friends

Waitaminute.

Are _any_ of Nordhaus, Shellenberger, Kloor, or Yulsman actually old enough to remember the McCarthy era from personal experience?

I find it hard to believe any of you could recall life in those times, and think some guy on a blog is remotely comparable.

You’re looking at the television or the words — not the reality of the power McCarthy had.

You can’t be old enough to remember the reality, and think these are comparable situations.

I was five years old, a college faculty brat, sitting in front of a tiny little 12″ black and white television, having heard since I started to understand how hard it was for teachers simply to try to teach. My parents and their peers had fought a war, and come back, and started to live — and were afraid, though they didn’t want to show it. McCarthy was powerful and had done great damage.

I remember this — when it was first broadcast — and I remember the beginning of hope that it gave after people realized it had happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAur_I077NA

“Card carrying Communist” witch hunts? People losing their jobs on suspicion and anonymous accusation? The blacklists? The utter fear among academics of teaching something that would get them denounced?

You’re way off base.

Romm’s maybe a Jerry Rubin or an Abbie Hoffman — he’s theatrical, he’s dramatic, I can’t read him very long, any more than I can read a lot of public bloggers who are so heartfelt they have trouble keeping their heads screwed on straight — though he’s far better than most. Sometimes he’s a flamer, sometimes he’s a clown, often he’s an attention-getter, and, always, he’s got to be more careful of his facts and cite his claims better– like any public speaker on anything important.

And we’re in the midst of a great extinction, and he knows it.

And you guys don’t, apparently, or you’d care more and show more knowledge and you’d be scared to death and trying to spend your lives on this problem, and you might even get a little erratic yourself instead of arch and polished.

But, man, I remember Joe McCarthy
Joe Romm is no Joe McCarthy.
Not even close, not even comparable.

You look at that video, and look at the videos of some of the really slick, sophisticated, anti-environmental spokespeople. You’ll see a similarity, for sure.

Joe Romm’s not one of those. He’s maybe _trying_ to be that smooth and orgnaized, but he’s just never got the self control to be the kind of sleaze that McCarthy was, and he’s never had anything remotely like the power McCarthy had.

Get real, kids. You’re not repeating history here.

This was the original figure. Hank Roberts suggested the substitute, but we need to keep this in place to explain some of the comments.
Comments?

Betroffenheitstroll

Jörg Zimmerman has an excellent article about concern trolls on his blog. It is not exactly kind to the three amigos, Pielke Jr., Tol and von Storch, but the post makes some excellent points about theses self styled "honest brokers". Since it is in German, Eli asked Jörg for permission to translate and post. As they say, these issues have, as they say, come due, so here it is. You can play with Richard Tol over at Climate Progress

----------------------------------------------------

Concern trolls

In internet jargon, there is the English term "concern troll". A troll is someone who disrupts discussions by provoking others. Through excessive, improper, aggressive or irrational behavior, the troll attempts to drive the discussion off the rails and cast doubt on accepted ideas. The "concern troll," which I occasionally translate as Betroffenheitstroll, is a special variant. He acts as if he accepts the group consensus but places it indirectly in doubt by pretending to find problems in what he claims to be his own position, creating reasons why one should worry that the consensus is false. In truth, the concern troll does not agree with the consensus, but he tries to hide that.

The concern troll is also found in the climate debate among people who show up saying that they themselves believe in global warming and also believe that human emissions of greenhouse gases are to blame, but do not understand certain things. And then, by and by, the classic objections of the denialist scene emerge one after another. It is difficult to ascertain the motives of others on the Internet because they have to be inferred indirectly. Thus, it can be difficult circumstances to separate a real skeptic who wants to deal with a few issues from the "concern troll". A true skeptic will be satisfied with answers, a "concern troll" never. It can be irritating for the casual reader when an experienced person recognizes and attacks a "concern troll" after one or two comments, because in the opinion of the naive reader the "concern troll" had justified doubts that one should have dealt with politely. The polite answer, of course, ultimately wastes time that could be spent more productively and that thievery is a concern troll goal.

There are several varieties of internet "concern trolls" as in any public debate. It can be scientists who ostensibly want to promote scientific inquiry by questioning existing results. If, however, all they do is ask questions without ever producing any results, leaving only unfinished projects, one is probably watching a "concern troll" at work, one whose only concerned is insuring that no conclusion is ever reached. McIntyre and his blog Climate Audit are fine examples of this, where as self-appointed "Auditor", he only seeks to discover errors in climate research. Naturally, in almost all cases he only finds fault in the IPCC and research that points to global warming being due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. And, of course, all the faults he finds are ultimately rebuttable or details which have no effect on the results. His discovery, together with McKitrick, of errors in the temperature reconstructions of Mann et al 1998, for example did not change the so-called hockey stick shape of the global temperature curve for the last 1000 or 2000 years, as has been confirmed by all subsequent research. Further, an error in the United States temperature records reconstructed by NOAA and GISS, were totally irrelevant to the global temperature curve and did not alter the relative order of years for U.S. mean annual temperature. While McIntrye and his blog have produced a big zero of meaningful results his annoying and persistent requests for information have cost those he pursues considerable time. No wonder that some of the targeted, such as the Climate Research Unit, regarded the requests for information as a sabotage attempt and talked about how they could defend themselves against McIntyre and others of his ilk who are using requests for information as ammunition for further attacks.

As word about such discussions burst onto the public scene in the stolen CRU emails, they provided other concern trolls the opportunity to complain about the politicization of scientists, as if this was produced not by the attacks on the science, but by the scientists who were under attack. Among those who volunteered, what a surprise, appeared the "honest broker" von Storch. In the U.S. there are others who claim the mantle of "honest brokers" for themselves itself, and use it to troll. There is Roger Pielke Jr., an environmental political scientist and economist who generally has adopted the view that while there is global warming, we do not know exactly how damaging it will be. Since dealing with global warming would cost money, one should weigh the costs of damage from global warming and dealing with it against each other. Of course, if Pielke Jr. deals with the issue, the costs of warming are low and the cost of fighting it high. The cheapest option in the opinion of Pielke Jr., is to wait until new technologies are developed which will make the cost of dealing with greenhouse gas emissions cheaper. Until then, it is better to do nothing. This mind set has lead to economic losses of at least 100 billion Euro in the period between 1979 (JASON report) and 2007 (4. IPCC AR4). It would have been at least that much cheaper to have begun limiting greenhouse gas emissions around 1980. Pielke Jr. is a special form of denialist according to environmental activists such as Joe Romm of Climate Progress, who calls him a delayer, one who does not deny climate change but collects arguments for delaying any action. This too is a tactic to maximize profits in the energy industry and to prevent tax increases.

Roger Pielke Jr., should not be confused with his father, Roger Pielke, Sr. Pielke Sr. is a meteorologist who is active in a number of climate research areas. And he too is an "honest broker" who claims to want to mediate between denialists, whom he calls skeptics and the scientists or the group of them that he politely describes as "alarmists". This mediation is not neutral. He asks, in a very concerned trollish way, whether we can trust the surface temperature measurements, or if they are distorted by the urban heat island effect. He is the eminence grise behind the SurfaceStations.org project, whose official front man is the weather newscaster Watts, who also runs the denialist blog Watts Up With That. They work hard to show that besides the actual urban heat island effect associated with growing cities, above all "micro-site" issues lead to small scale errors in the measurements. This includes, for example, air conditioners at the weather stations. According to the people at SurfaceStations.org it is obvious that such errors at the weather stations can only produce increased warming trends and they really push this view very strongly. Even if the measurements were contaminated in the U.S., that would be virtually meaningless for the global temperature trend. The temperature increase over the oceans dominates, where urban heat island effects certainly play no role. It is also seen in trends measured from satellites, which are also not affected by the urban heat island effect. That station quality had no effect on the temperature trends was also seen in an early study from that compared the temperature trends of good and bad stations, categorized according to Watts, and found no significant differences. A further re-analysis by Menne et al. 2009 showed that there were negligible differences in temperature trends for stations classified best and worst by Watts, or shall we say ostensibly so characterized by Watts, with Pielke Sr. hunkering in the background..

Concern trolls pretend to belong to a group, pay attention to what is being discussed, critically and carefully to consider the conclusions of the group, and then try to create doubt or to push their own agenda, including polishing their reputation as a critical observers and gaining a reputation as an independent commentator. As a side benefit this is also useful for selling books (if you will really want to find other motives).

Examples of concern trolls include two of the aforementioned individuals and a third, von Storch, Roger Pielke Jr. and the third amigo, Richard Tol, who have written an article in Spiegel Online "Save the IPCC", which at least for Pielke Jr. is hardly anything he would like to save, but rather hinder as much as possible. At root, this comes down to that in the more than 2000 pages of the three reports by the IPCC Working Groups, details in two paragraphs are in error or misinterpretations. Errors are inevitable in such a report, von Storch quickly adds, only then to argue as if they are avoidable. In the face of this contradiction one asks if this is the real reason they are demanding the IPCC chairman's resignation?

The concern trolls see several problems. First it is the fault of the IPCC that someone has stolen and made the Climate Research Unit Emails public. A ludicrous line of reasoning. If anything, an indiscreet glance at these emails shows first, that contrary to endless assertions by the denialists, no data was distorted by the CRU. Second, based on these Emails there is not a single scientific statement that has to be altered. Indeed, were it otherwise that would have happened already. Third, it is clear from the Emails that the CRU scientists were indeed put on edge by the McIntyre inspired concern trolls, and therefore wished to delete certain Emails. The circus after the publication of the stolen Emails showed that the CRU-scientists were right. Nevertheless, they are legally obliged to provide relevant information even when that demand is part of an apparent sabotage action by McIntyre.

Still, an investigation into the incident in the United Kingdom found misconduct by the CRU scientists who could not be charged because too much time had passed, and therefore this was inconsequential. Von Storch believes that this is especially important in proving a scandal but in my opinion, his theatrical display of dismay and demands for consequences is disproportionate. Anyway, no matter what you want to complain about CRU, what does the IPCC have to do with it? That is one question that burned out von Storch's logic switching units, but also those of many journalists. Fourthly, in the stolen e-mails, several scientists talked about how they could keep certain papers out of the IPCC reports. What is not featured by the critics, however, is that this concerned papers that individual scientists wrote to influence policy, introduced faulty or erroneous information into journals, something that peer review can often, but not always, prevent. In concrete terms, this included studies in which global warming was attributed to heat island effects on the basis of questionable correlations (McKitrick and Michaels 2004), a clear example of how denialists use pseudo-science to influence policy. Although as these scientists find, the strongest warming is found in areas which are the centers of socio-economic development, one must simultaneously recognize that these centers are on land in the northern hemisphere which according to theory, is the place where global warming will be most pronounced. This typical spurious correlation slipped through the dirty work of refereeing in a professional journal. Something like this should be sorted out in a review article as was discussed in the emails. Von Storch, who wants to be known as the "honest broker" thinks it awful that bad papers were not be treated seriously in the IPCC report, leaving one to question what is it that he really wants?

The next criticism of the three who allegedly are trying to save the IPCC by cleansing it concerns alleged conflicts of interest. They state that the IPCC chairman, Pachauri, has personally benefited from the fact that it was stated in the IPCC Working Group II report on social, environmental and economic consequences of climate change, that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, if climate change continues its dramatic progress. This claim arises because an institute that Pauchauri is involved in, TERI (Energy and Resources Institute), has received a research contract based on the erroneous paragraph in the IPCC report. It is true that Pachauri is chairman of the Institute and this Institute has received a major research contract to study the consequences of a melting of the Himalayan glaciers. Roger Pielke Jr's guess is that TERI would not have been considered for the research mission, if the said paragraph was not in the IPCC report. In fact we definitely know that the glaciers in the Himalayas, and worldwide the majority of glaciers (with some exceptions), are sharply declining and this has long term consequences for the local water balance. Even if the Himalayan glaciers decline only partially by 2035, by 2100 serious impacts on water supplies in parts of Asia are possible, and a study of these effects is a relevant issue for India. Pielke Jr. 's insinuation is based on a very shaky assumption: namely, that Pachauri had an opportunity to instruct the scientists writing Chapter 10 of the IPCC Working Group II report to exaggerate the risks involved in the Himalayan glaciers melting [ and then used this to snare a grant from the Indian government - ER added]. Pielke, Jr. makes no effort to make this libel plausible. He leaves it to the imagination of the audience for whom the background is not quite clear. In this context it is probably meaningless when Pachauri points out that he personally does not receive any payment from TERI and therefore according to the rules of the IPCC there is no conflict of interest.

Indeed scandal after scandal, shakes the credibility of the thousands of climate scientists, the IPCC and the thousands of pages of its reports - if you want to believe the "honest brokers". Apparently there was no mechanism in place to deal with errors in the IPCC report, as if the rounds of corrections, and the referees assessments for the IPCC report did not take place. Perhaps one could ask in the future that the scientists who worked on the WG I report of the IPCC look at WG II more closely, which would have prevented the errors about the Himalayan glaciers. Exactly this reform is on the IPCC's radar, even without the three star "honest brokers".

Meanwhile, something is happening, which is typical for the media: the law of the series. If a bug in the IPCC reports shows up, then the reader will be fascinated by a series of mistakes. Therefore, bad journalists (the rule) are always happy to report the Himalayan glaciers error as the second breakdown in climate science, (IPCC is just too boring to write, better throw it all in one bag) after covering the stolen emails from the Climate Research Unit, although the two events have nothing to do with each other. Strange when stealing from someone is described as a scandal of those stolen from and curiously, journalists cannot distinguish CRU, IPCC and climate research from each other- such a lack of selectivity might be forgiven for Betty Blueyes and Johann Six-Pack, but not in the media. And so, after Emailgate and Himalayagate (in the sense of Watergate, that is somewhat like comparing a tax increase to the 3rd Reich) now we have Hurricangate and Amazonasgate. What's behind that? I will analyze it in another post.

Comments below

Passing Gas

About a week ago, an argument broke out between Richard Steckis and Gavin Schmidt about atmospheric oxidation of methane (Start with #comment 12 and search for Steckis). Steckis seems to think that "CO2 is NOT an oxidative byproduct of the atmospheric oxidation of methane" and he has his doubts about water vapor. Gavin loses the thread and wanders off into very detailed and not very to the point stuff. Suffice it to say, much confusion on both sides so Eli thought it would be a good thing to hold a brief review before the test



In looking at complex reaction mechanisms such as the one for methane, diagrams like the one above are great crutches, Eli mostly redrew this one from Ravishankara's 1988 review of methane oxidation which appeared in the Annual Reviews of Physical Chemistry. It's a bit dated but still useful, and anyone interested in a more up to date evaluation of the individual reactions should look at the IUPAC atmospheric chemistry evaluation (open source).

UPDATE: In the comments, Andrew Dessler dates himself by pointing to one of his first papers that summarizes the methane oxidation mechanism in discussing the hydrogen budget (read H2O, H2 and CH4) of the lower stratosphere. It is good and short, but may presume more of the reader than Eli did. As Ravi points out in 1988, the mechanism was pretty well understood by 1971, but the finer details of the kinetics and understanding of the distributions of the various reactants are still being worked on. Today, the emphasis in atmospheric oxidation schemes has shifted to biogenic compounds emitted by those killer trees. Those have complicated spaghetti reaction schemes with large blocks containing the words, "here occurs a miracle".
-----------------------------------------------
Bunnies can find methane in blue in the upper right hand corner. The first step is reaction with the hydroxyl radical, HO (in the troposphere) and O(1D) or Cl in the stratosphere (box with dashed lines). O(1D) or singlet oxygen is a low lying excited and reactive electronic state of oxygen which is produced in the photo dissociation of ozone below ~ 306 nm.

The HO, O(1D) or Cl, or Br from photodissociation of halons, reacts with methane, CH4, to produce methyl radicals, CH3. The reaction with HO produces water vapor

CH4 + HO ---> CH3 + H2O

thus, at least one water vapor molecule is immediately produced when methane oxidizes.

Free radicals are molecules with an unpaired electron that react rapidly, cause lonely electrons really want to find a date, and methyl radicals do that, combining quickly with oxygen molecules, O2, to form methyl peroxy radical, CH3O2.

The first step is "rate limiting". It is the slowest step, requiring, on average years. The rate of this reaction = k(T) [CH4][OH]. The square brackets are phys chem speak for the concentration of. The "k(T)" is a rate constant, and is a function of temperature. At 300 K the rate is about 10^-14 cm³ s^-1. At 1000K, it is two orders of magnitude higher, which is why methane burns faster in a flame than it oxidizes in the atmosphere. The reaction scheme is about the same, and every other step is much faster, the first reaction is still the slowest step, and as we said, it determines the overall speed of the reaction.

The fate of the CH3O2 depends on where in the atmosphere it forms. If it forms in a region where there is lots of NOx (the sum of NO and NO2) then the reactions shown by the red lines become a major part of the scheme. In that case CH3O2 reacts with NO2 to form an adduct CH3O2NO2 . The adduct "stores" CH3O2, but the bond between the CH3O2 and the NO2 moities (a convenient way of designating the molecular units) is weak, and collisions can break it, thus the tight loop.

Lets print the diagram again, so the bunnies don't have to thumb back and forth

In a clean (you ain't running your damn cars, electricity is all generated by wind mills, nuclear power plants and solar units and nature ain't doing its part either) NOx free atmosphere, which is not very many places the CH3O2 can only react with HO2 to form CH3OOH, which Steckis insisted only rained out. Au contraire, that is only one fate. It can react with OH to form formaldehyde, or return to CH3O2 in very roughly equal yields, or it can photodissociate to produce methoxy, CH3O. The reaction with HO yields a molecule of water again

CH3OOH + HO ---> CH3O2 + H2O

Let's return to CH3O2, the peroxide. In a clean atmosphere it can react with itself to form the methoxy, but this is really slow, compared to the channel involving reaction with HO2 which has a much higher concentration.

Reaction rates are proportional to the concentrations of the reactants and a constant, called the rate constant, so if the rate constants are roughly the same, and HO2 is present, as it is in the atmosphere, in a ten times or more higher concentration, the reaction involving HO2 will go ten times faster. The reason that HO is found at lower concentrations is that it is much more reactive that HO2. Among other things it reacts with any hydrocarbon, acting as Mother Nature's atmospheric vacuum cleaner. Eli guesses that it would be good to have a post on the HO2-HO cycle (called the HOx cycle)

Where NO is available, the CH3O2 reacts with it to form methoxy (CH3O). The methoxy reacts with oxygen molecules

CH3O + O2 --> CH2O + HO2

which regenerates HO2. Follow the arrows, and you see if NO is present, the HO2 reacts with the NO to yield HO which reacts with CH4 and around we go again.

CH2O is formaldehyde. Just about every hydrocarbon passed through CH2O at the end of its oxidation mechanism either in the atmosphere or in combustion. There are two photodissociation channels, one to H + HCO, the other to H2 +CO. The details of the second one have created a cottage industry for theoretical and experimental chemical dynamicists for reasons Rabett Run may discuss in the future (Hmm, this may lead to a lot of posts). The reaction with HO is fast. The balance between the three channels depends on wavelengths of light available, but suffice it to say that all three play a role. CO produced in the second channel oxidizes to CO2. The HCO reacts with oxygen molecules to form HO2 and CO, which then oxidizes to CO2. CO2 is the major carbon containing product of methane oxidation in the atmosphere. Not to rub it in, but Richard Steckis was looking at only part of the mechanism.

Have at it.

Michael Mann Exonerated

Penn State has issued a phase one ruling on the inquiry into Michael Mann's conduct. They found there was no substance to the first three allegations, and said that while they could find no evidence to substantiate the fourth, they would convene a phase two inquiry on it, for which a committee of faculty has been appointed.

It is important to get the word on this out before the denialists grab the report and start distorting it.


Allegation 1: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?

Decision: NO. Michael Mann did not engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data
------------------------------

Allegation 2: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

Decision: NO. Michael Mann did not engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones
---------------------------

Allegation 3: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?

Decision: NO. Michael Mann did not engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar
---------------------------

Eli humbly suggests that the mice list examples of people who accused Mann of these, so we may inquire for an apology. Links will be filled in.

Allegation 4. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?

The committee of inquiry could, in their words, find no evidence of a violation on the fourth one, they believed that further inquiry was warranted given the public outcry.

Francesca Grifa of the Union of Concerned Scientists points out that

"The remaining question relates to whether Dr. Mann's conduct eroded public trust in the integrity of climate change science and climate scientists. Because different branches of science have different cultures, the committee—comprised solely of administrators—didn't feel it had the standing to pass judgment.

"Unfortunately, climate contrarians are already misrepresenting this finding to foster doubt regarding the strong scientific consensus on climate change. These baseless attacks on the character of scientists and the credibility of their institutions are intended to divert public attention from the challenge of addressing the real-world consequences of climate change.

Eli wants to get this out there because Morano and Co are already in full cry about the phase two inquiry. Remind everyone that on three of the four charges McIntyre, Morano, Myron Ebell and Co were shown to be pond scum.

Mann has issued a response to the report

"I am very pleased that, after a thorough review, the independent Penn State committee found no evidence to support any of the allegations against me.

Three of the four allegations have been dismissed completely. Even though no evidence to substantiate the fourth allegation was found, the University administrators thought it best to convene a separate committee of distinguished scientists to resolve any remaining questions about academic procedures.

This is very much the vindication I expected since I am confident I have done nothing wrong.

I fully support the additional inquiry which may be the best way to remove any lingering doubts. I intend to cooperate fully in this matter – as I have since the beginning of the process."

More details below the fold

Beginning on and about November 22, 2009, The Pennsylvania State University began to receive numerous communications (emails, phone calls and letters) accusing Dr. Michael E. Mann of having engaged in acts that included manipulating data, destroying records and colluding to hamper the progress of scientific discourse around the issue of anthropogenic global warming from approximately 1998. These accusations were based on perceptions of the content of the widely reported theft of emails from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Great Britain.

Given the sheer volume of the communications to Penn State, the similarity of their content and their sources, which included University alumni, federal and state politicians, and others, many of whom had had no relationship with Penn State, it was concluded that the matter required examination by the cognizant University official

All these communications were, as you might have expected given the source, incoherent. The University attempted a synthesis of the charges flying about

At the time of initiation of the inquiry, and in the ensuing days during the inquiry, no formal allegations accusing Dr. Mann of research misconduct were submitted to any University official. As a result, the emails and other communications were reviewed by Dr. Pell and from these she synthesized the following four formal allegations. To be clear, these were not allegations that Dr. Pell put forth, or leveled against Dr. Mann, but rather were her best effort to reduce to allegation form the many different accusations that were received from parties outside of the University. The four synthesized allegations were as follows together with the phase one ruling:

Allegation 1: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to suppress or falsify data?

Finding 1. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had or has ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data. While a perception has been created in the weeks after the CRU emails were made public that Dr. Mann has engaged in the suppression or falsification of data, there is no credible evidence that he ever did so, and certainly not while at Penn State. In fact to the contrary, in instances that have been focused upon by some as indicating falsification of data, for example in the use of a “trick” to manipulate the data, this is explained as a discussion among Dr. Jones and others including Dr. Mann about how best to put together a graph for a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report. They were not falsifying data; they were trying to construct an understandable graph for those who were not experts in the field. The so-called “trick”1 was nothing more than a statistical method used to bring two or more different kinds of data sets together in a legitimate fashion by a technique that has been reviewed by a broad array of peers in the field.

Footnote: The word trick as used in this email has stirred some suspicion. However, trick is often used in context to describe a mathematical insight that solves the problem. For example, see in a classic text on quantum mechanics by David Parks: "The foregoing explanation of the velocity paradox involves no new assumptions; the basic trick, the representation of a modulated wave as the superposition of two (or more) unmodulated ones, has already been used to explain interference phenomena..." pg. 21, Introduction to Quantum Theory, David Parks, Third Edition, Dover 1992.

Decision 1. As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.

Allegation 2: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with the intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data, related to AR4, as suggested by Phil Jones?

Finding 2. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data related to AR4, as suggested by Dr. Phil Jones. Dr. Mann has stated that he did not delete emails in response to Dr. Jones’ request. Further, Dr. Mann produced upon request a full archive of his emails in and around the time of the preparation of AR4. The archive contained e-mails related to AR4.

Decision 2. As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.

Allegation 3: Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to you in your capacity as an academic scholar?

Finding 3. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee finding is that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any misuse of privileged or confidential information available to him in his capacity as an academic scholar. In media reports and blogs about Dr. Mann and other paleoclimatologists, those who are named in the CRU email files are purported to have been engaged in conspiratorial discussions indicative of a misuse of privileged or confidential information. Although it is not clear where the exact accusation lies in this with respect to Dr. Mann, it is inferred that the emails prove the case. Those who have formed this view feel that, in their capacity as reviewers, Dr. Mann and his colleagues had early access to manuscripts from other authors with whom they disagreed, and that they could somehow act on those to reject them for publication. Actually, when one does due diligence on this matter, and asks about what papers were involved, one finds that enormous confusion has been caused by interpretations of the emails and their content. In some cases, the discussion and related debate centered on papers that were about to emerge which members of the purported conspiracy had written, but which were simply under embargo. In other cases, the discussion and related debate centered on papers that have emerged in otherwise notable scientific journals, which they deemed to have been published with a lower standard of scholarly and scientific scrutiny. The committee found no research misconduct in this. Science often involves different groups who have very different points of view, arguing for the intellectual dominance of their viewpoint, so that that viewpoint becomes the canonical one. We point to Kuhn2 as an authority on how science is done, before it is accepted as “settled.”

Decision 3. As there is no substance to this allegation, there is no basis for further examination of this allegation in the context of an investigation in the second phase of RA-10.

Allegation 4. Did you engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities?

Finding 4. After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee could not make a definitive finding whether there exists any evidence to substantiate that Dr. Mann did engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting, or reporting research or other scholarly activities. It is the case that there has been a public outcry from some quarters that Dr. Mann and his colleagues did deviate from what some observers claim to be standard academic practice. All disciplines and scientific fields work within broad bounds of “accepted scientific” practice that apply to all researchers. However, within different disciplines of science there are additional elements of accepted practice that may be specific to those disciplines and therefore are different from those of other disciplines and fields. For example, accepted practices in a field of pure mathematics, such as number theory, may differ markedly from those in a field such as socio-biology. This is axiomatic. That said, the committee could not make a definitive finding on this allegation for reasons that follow. . . .

followed by a summary of relevant Penn State research policies

Decision 4. Given that information emerged in the form of the emails purloined from CRU in November 2009, which have raised questions in the public’s mind about Dr. Mann’s conduct of his research activity, given that this may be undermining confidence in his findings as a scientist, and given that it may be undermining public trust in science in general and climate science specifically, the inquiry committee believes an investigatory committee of faculty peers from diverse fields should be constituted under RA-10 to further consider this allegation.

In sum, the overriding sentiment of this committee, which is composed of University administrators, is that allegation #4 revolves around the question of accepted faculty conduct surrounding scientific discourse and thus merits a review by a committee of faculty scientists. Only with such a review will the academic community and other interested parties likely feel that Penn State has discharged it responsibility on this matter.

Eli Concern Trolls

UPDATE: Hints added

Well, ok, perhaps more in the mold of actual questions for which he has not the answer.

The Bunnies have been following with interest the harumphing over at the new place [Roger Pielke Jr.s new blog just about any post] about where the decimal point is in determining whether there is a detectable trend yet in storm damage and flooding [caused by climate change]. Eli's take on this is that the signal has not yet emerged from the noise, but there are good reasons to think that it will. Indeed this is exactly the conclusion of the WGII report, that evidence of current impacts are sketchy, but that there is great confidence that there will be very significant future impacts without mitigation and costly adaptation programs. Debating about whether there are current impacts is a diversion.

However, several thoughts occurred. First, that the cost of damage corrected for economic development not be the correct thing to look at or as AR4 WGII puts it

In all of these cases, the valuation of vulnerabilities depends considerably on the development context. For instance, vulnerabilities in more developed areas are often focused on physical assets and infrastructures and their economic value and replacement costs, along with linkages to global markets, while vulnerabilities in less developed areas are often focused on human populations and institutions, which need different metrics for valuation. On the other hand, vulnerabilities to physical and economic costs can have a greater proportional impact in developing areas.

Second that as far as Eli has read, the cost estimates do not include the increasing costs of flood/damage control which have been substantial and are growing.

Enlightenment?

Another world

Eli is newly subscribed to a Ann Lander's blog for PIs, which answered such beauts as

Because of some of our recent scientific papers, we have achieved a bit of prominence as "up and comers" in our field. At the institute lunch table, I have freely shared ideas and thoughts with a colleague whose lab is down the hall. But they were just collegial, rambling discussions, nothing more. Now, he has published a paper in a major journal and listed me as a co-author. This is without my permission and without there having been any real input or review from me. I do not want my widespread colleagues to feel I have endorsed this chap's research -- let alone contributed to it. He claims he was just being gracious by including our name, but we feel he might be "trying to ride on our coattails". At this point, how can I set the record straight, and also prevent him from doing this again?

Reader Question: A month ago I was flying to a convention of my research specialty in San Francisco, and in one of my checked bags was my notebook computer and three discs of raw data (non-encrypted) on about 800 patients we have enrolled in a clinical trial. But the airline lost the bag in transit. Of course, I filed a "lost bag" claim with them, but no trace of it yet. Little hope now. I have heard there is some new law called HITECH that applies to lost data. What should I do at this point? Should I already have done anything?

Reader Question: One of my lab technicians has begun talking to himself and has become very argumentative. Several of my staff have confided they are worried he is developing a mental disorder--and thus we could be heading for some episode of "workplace violence". As PI and his supervisor, may I legally interview him about these personality changes? Should I? If I refer the matter to our institute's Human Resources department, could the technician accuse me of "defamation of character"? Do I have any duty to do something or anything?

My lab has 200 rats involved in a long-term study. The technicians have become very attached to one in particular, and have turned “him” into something of a pet. He has been given a name, and his cage is kept right in our lab, not in the animal room. He frequently gets stroked and petted, plus he is even put into a tiny “leash” and taken for walks around the lab. Is their friendliness to a lab animal to be praised, or should I insist it be discontinued and staff maintain their emotional distance? Are any animal welfare regulations being violated?

Drug Monkey would be jealous. Today's question is

Reader Question: What is the maximum or ideal teaching load a P.I. can accept and still effectively lead a research effort?

and the response comes from a different planet than the one the Rabett currently inhabits

The teaching load is dependent on several factors. First, you need to consider the percent effort needed for your grant(s). If high, then the less time you have available to teach.

The percent effort you owe your grant varies due to the type of institution. If you have responsibilities to teach undergraduates as well as graduate students, such as a science department in a School or College of Arts and Sciences, it is usually no more than 25%. Therefore you should be able to participate in teaching during both academic semesters. But, the effort required for teaching will depend on the type of classes you teach (i.e. large lecture-type service classes require a higher level of effort than smaller specialized upper-level classes or seminars).

If you are at a medical school or research institute, the percent effort on grants typically ranges from 50% to even 100%. (It is not recommended that your effort be 100% because then there is no leeway for activities not related to a currently funded grant, such as teaching or working on a new grant!)

In any case, you have to be very careful about teaching commitments. If your effort on grants is above 60%, most likely you have multiple grants to support this level of effort with the concomitant increase in time required to obtain and manage your research program. You should only give a select set of lectures in large service-type classes (such as for medical students or graduate students) and participate in seminars. You can often design a seminar so that it covers the current literature relevant to a research program supported by grants. Thus you can assist with the teaching mission of the department and enhance your research program concurrently.

As a new PI, you should have a frank discussion with your chair about selecting classes that will allow you to contribute to the teaching mission of the department while maintaining the time needed to develop and manage a funded research program

Comments by Gregory F. Ball, Ph.D., Dean of Research and Graduate Education, Johns Hopkins University

In the Ghandian sense, that would be a good thing