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Climate scientists have determined, and both sides agree, that the warming effect of each molecule of CO2 decreases significantly (logarithmically) as its concentration increases

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#11

Hi CJ

Sadly this claim is false. The idea that CO2 in lab conditions can show a logarithmic tail off is accepted, but the conclusion that this will lead to only trace amounts of extra warming is categorically false. Repeating false claims doesn’t make them true.

This claim is false for SO MANY reasons. Let’s list them:
Section 1 - simple maths:
1 - as I pointed out, mathematically, logarithmic tail off x exponential increase means that warming can increase substantially. And indeed it seems to be the case.

Section 2 - actual physics:
2 - Extra CO2 in the atmosphere creates a thicker layer of warming gas around the planet, meaning that even with the behaviour you describe, warming increases substantially. See this paper for proof
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258816506_The_greenhouse_effect_and_carbon_dioxide

3 - as the main frequency of the CO2 molecule gets saturated as per your picture above, side frequencies become available for further IR absorption. These side frequencies are nowhere near saturated and in fact, Adding CO2 will never stop the temperature of the earth increasing. That is described in the above paper, but summarised nicely here

Screenshot_20250218-081928
Screenshot_20250218-081928720×1600 371 KB

It’s worth reading the whole thing - it’s not that technical PDF

You can read many comments about the actual physics of both these processes in the “Scientists comments” section in this article

4 - Still on the physics, there are multiple ways that CO2 cause heating. One is by direct radiation of photons back down to earth, and another is by collisions with other molecules in the atmosphere, thereby warming the planet. Both of these mean that the CO2 molecule is then ready to absorb new radiation from the sun, meaning that they never, ever actually become saturated. The pass the energy down to the earth and then accept more from the sun. The saturation argument is plain wrong in real-world conditions with regard to limiting heating.

Here’s a nice summary (with links) to these issues:

So. The maths is wrong and the physics is also wrong. But wait, there’s more reasons that this is simply wrong.

Section 3 - physical evidence.

5 - Palaeo climate records show that CO2 has been much higher in the past with related higher temperatures. Calling this “correlation” is ignorance of the science. There is a vast literature showing how CO2 has affected climate in the oast. You should read a bit more deeply.

6 - over the last century, CO2 has been rising exponentially

Have we observed a tail off in the warming as the logarithmic effect of CO2 would suggest?

Of course not. Warming is actually speeding up
https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/3/1/kgad008/7335889

7 - finally, we can actually measure the radiation coming off the earth using satellites. Do they show a tail off off of radiation because CO2 is saturated?

Of course not. Because that conjecture (let me say it again) is false. Here is the evidence:

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023GL103947

The findings from our most recent and most accurate measurements match the conclusions of the IPCC. Shocker.

So. This claim is false on the maths, on the physics and on all the available physical evidence.

But that’s not all. There’s a final point that’s worth also including in this list.

In the very paper that started this thread by Wijngaarden and Happer, they find the same climate sensitivity that the IPCC themselves find

Screenshot_20250218-085552~2
Screenshot_20250218-085552~21600×720 160 KB

So even the authors of this actual paper realise that the amount of warming due to increasing CO2 is what the IPCC is saying.

Ok. That’s enough on this subject, I think. I’m not going to reply further to this clearly debunked claim. It’s not worth it. All the links you need to get to the truth of the matter are in this post.

However, as a courtesy to the board, i would request that we not keep repeating clearly false claims. It’s not helpful for the discussion of this or any other important topic

Cheers
Aly

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#12

Thanks guys, This is a useful discussion for me, laying out the lines of both sides and the areas of agreement and disagreement.

Hi Aly you say

“However, as a courtesy to the board, i would request that we not keep repeating clearly false claims. It’s not helpful for the discussion of this or any other important topic”

Where did that come from! How does anyone know that what they believe is false, if not by discussing it.

Cheers
Evvy

2 Likes
#13

Perhaps I should have included this comprehensive presentation by William Happer :

Will Happer IPA Speech Brisbane – Climate Physics in Understandable Bites

[1 year ago]

.

Essay by Eric Worrall

Following a rousing introduction by Dr. Peter Ridd, Dr Will (Don’t call me a climate scientist) Happer presented a dazzling speech, in which he explained in simple terms why CO2 claims don’t make sense.

Will Happer spoke about his work creating reference stars – he pioneered the concept. Light from stars crosses the universe to finally land in our telescopes, only to be mangled by the last few miles of its journey through our atmosphere. Will’s brilliant idea was to use lasers to create a reference light source at the top of our atmosphere, which can be used to untangle the damage the atmosphere does to the incoming light signal.

Dr. Will Happer is a guy who understands atmospheric physics so well, he was able to confidently predict, just from theory, that it would be possible to artificially create an entirely new atmospheric state, which would help Astronomers use adaptive optics to correct defects in their photos.

To appreciate Will Happer’s genius, it is important to note that the reference star is not the laser beam itself, Happer is not just randomly shining a laser into the sky. The laser causes a small patch of a layer of the atmosphere to glow, just like a bright star. Will Happer figured out how to make that happen, by delivering the right laser frequency and intensity to trigger a predictable glow.

I think from this you can reasonably conclude that Happer is someone who seriously understands the atmosphere and radiation physics at a level few others can approach – key concepts for analysing the Greenhouse Effect.

One of Happer’s most powerful slides was this one, which shows the insignificant impact of doubling CO2 on the level of outgoing radiation.

Take your time looking at the image above, because it took me a few seconds to get it the first time I saw this type of diagram. What the slide is showing is how atmospheric gasses affect thermal radiation escaping the Earth. The blue line is what radiation would be emitted by the Earth at its current temperature if Earth had no atmosphere. The Jagged line underneath the blue line shows the effect of atmospheric gasses partially blocking outgoing radiation at specific frequencies – the greenhouse effect. The reference to the area in the text, is because the area under the curves shows the total amount of energy escaping into space.

If you look carefully, you’ll see two lines sitting almost on top of each other, a dark brown line and a red line. You can’t really see most of the red line, because the red and dark brown lines are intermingled, they almost sit on top of each other. The brown line is how much radiation is trapped by current CO2 levels (around 400ppm). The almost identical red line is how much radiation would be trapped if CO2 levels were raised to 800ppm.

So what is the impact of raising CO2 to 800ppm, over today’s value of approx. 400ppm?

The impact of doubling CO2 from 400ppm to 800ppm, according to basic physics, is 0.71C of warming.

How can anyone possibly still think the CO2 greenhouse effect is a problem, after seeing this diagram and calculation?

The reality is almost all the radiation which CO2 can trap, is already being trapped. Adding more CO2 has almost no impact on outgoing atmospheric radiation.

So how do alarmist climate scientists turn this trivial nothing into a global climate panic? How do they turn 0.7C of warming into 3C, 4C, 12C, whatever the latest panic figure is?

According to Dr. Will Happer, they achieve this by adding unphysical, hypothetical positive feedbacks, which amplify the almost non-existent impact of adding additional CO2 to the atmosphere. But there is no proof significant positive feedbacks which amplify the minuscule CO2 effect actually exist.

The rest of Dr. Will Happer’s presentation was just as powerful.

If only we could photocopy this guy, and get him into all the classrooms of the world, the climate panic would disappear overnight. Which is probably why the left worked so hard to cancel him, when Dr. Happer was given a climate science oversight position under President Trump, and served a year on the America First team.

We’d all love to know what Dr. Happer could have achieved, had he received a little extra time. Let’s hope Dr. Will Happer finds a letter from the White House in his mailbox in early 2024.

A huge thankyou to the Institute of Public Affairs for making the Will Happer speeches happen. And a big shoutout to Raj and Vijay, who over a few beers before the event entertained me with some interesting insights into the murky political games being played in the Aussie state of Victoria and elsewhere, details of which have somehow slipped beneath the radar of Australia’s mainstream media.

Correction (EW): h/t MarkW – 400ppm to 800ppm, not 400C to 800C!

Update (EW): h/t GC – There is no proof significant positive feedbacks which amplify the minuscule CO2 effect actually exist. But Will Happer went further than this, he spent a bit of time discussing why there is significant evidence such feedbacks don’t exist – namely the observed stability of the global climate over geological timescales. Large feedbacks are not compatible with stability.

Until real evidence (unbiased by the massive establishment funding of billions of $) is produced that shows this leading physicist is wrong I’m going to stick with
William Happer, Richard Lindzen, Herman Harde and Dennis Rancourt.

We all know that climate alarmism propaganda is funded by Governments, major international corporations in a financial industry that is worth trillions of $ to the establishment - the people I quote take nothing but travelling expenses for their work to spread the real truth.

Finally given the move by Trump to exit the Paris Agreement and China’s continuing construction of coal powered stations, what on earth makes anyone think that countries with tiny industrial bases like the UK will make any difference to overall CO2 emissions - this is just a joke surely. No evidence of measurable anthropogenic global warming by CO2 and yet measures are introduced to put trillions into the financial industry whilst denying those same trillions to the masses for no effect whatsoever!

After all we have witnessed over the last few decades I am just totally amazed that there are people out there who still believe what the establishment tells them, using politicised science, scientists and media to (in many cases ) fraudulently construct fear based arguments. The latest disclosures that USAID and front organisations have paid the media $billions to print establishment stories must surely make people rethink the whole AGW establishment project!

cheers

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#14

That was, is, and will be my position.

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#15

And yet 2 paragraphs earlier in that paper, they say this:

"Fig. 9 as well as Tables 2 and 4 show that at current concentrations, the forcings from all greenhouse gases are saturated. The saturations of the abundant greenhouse gases H2O and CO2 are so extreme that the per-molecule forcing is attenuated by four orders of magnitude with respect to the optically thin values. "

cheers

#16

Interesting new post here. It is about a NASA finding that January was actually cooler than 2024. Obviously such a small period means little, but it just serves to highlight how the climate fear porn narrative works.

#17

Compare the latest NASA satellite figures:
see Jan. 2025 Climate Fact Check: NASA Data Shreds ‘Hottest January Ever’ Claim | Principia Scientific Intl.

Jan. 2025 Climate Fact Check: NASA Data Shreds ‘Hottest January Ever’ Claim

Written by Steve Milloy on February 18, 2025. Posted in Current News

This summary serves as a fact check on the most egregious false claim about climate change made in the media in January 2025. [emphasis, links added]

Counter-Narrative Reality vs. Counter-Reality Narrative

It was a busy January keeping track of President Trump’s first steps toward dismantling the federal government’s Climate Leviathan. It was also a very cold January and that’s what this edition of Climate Fact Check will cover.

Per the relatively unmanipulated NASA satellite data, January 2025 is estimated to have witnessed a substantial drop of 0.34°C from last January concerning the made-up metric of “average global temperature.”

This is despite that atmospheric carbon dioxide increased from about 422 parts per million (ppm) in January 2024 to 426 parts per million in January 2025.

That 4 ppm increase in carbon dioxide is worth about 78 billion tons of emissions. Therefore, 78 billion more tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulted in a January that was 0.34°C cooler than the previous January.

February is typically the coldest average month in the Northern Hemisphere. January 2025 was cooler than February 2016 and about the same as January 2016 and February 1998, hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 and a decade of “warming,” ago.

Faced with the counter-narrative reality of the NASA satellite data, the desperate climate hoax machine produced a counter-reality narrative, claiming that January was the hottest ever as in this Associated Press report.

The Associated Press story is based on a claim from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which estimated that January 2025 was slightly warmer than January 2024.

Who do you believe? Keeping in mind that there is no such physical place with “average global temperature” and that the “metric” is just a guesstimate invented for the climate hoax, the NASA satellite data is likely more credible.

The NASA satellite data is an estimate based on one data type – satellite measurements of atmospheric brightness.

In contrast, the Copernicus estimates are a black box mélange of surface temperature data going back to 1940 and European satellite data.

That surface temperature data can be wildly inaccurate and biased upward due to the urban heat island effect compromising temperature station readings as it is in the US.

How the surface data gets merged with the satellite data is also a troubling mystery. We’re going with the NASA satellite data’s counter-narrative to better gauge reality."

cheers

#18

So in answer to my straightforward question - have we observed a logarithmic tail off of global warming - the answer is a categorical “NO”.

I thought that would be the answer.

Now that we have established the answer to one of my points above, how about all the other points I raised?

#19

Yes I noticed. So despite the fake saturation argument, the authors still conclude that the IPCC is correct in the amount of warming that can be expected and that the climate models we are using are right.

Interesting paradox isn’t it? What it suggests to me is that these authors are trying hard to obscure the coming problem rather than shed light. Expected behaviour for fossil fuel shills

#20

Hi ED

That was a little experiment on my part. It is standard tactic of debate in this area for the deniers to avoid all the arguments that show their latest pet theory is bogus, and instead, just say it again. But louder. No discussion - just repetition of clear bullshit.

Call me prescient, but that’s exactly what CJ has done in this very thread. Simply reposting the same argument, with no changes, and without addressing any of the many ways that it has been shown to be false.

Mathematical, physical, observed data - every single measure shows that the “saturation” argument is propagandistic bullshit, and yet here we have it reposted directly below all the contrary evidence as though it never happened.

Anyway. It’s not as if this is a serious subject, right? I mean the catastrophic collapse of ecosystems and human civilisation isn’t that important is it?

Let’s hear more from the exxon shills and the tobacco companies. I’m sure they have our true interests at heart.

Forgive my impatience, but I get tired of this kind of nonsense.

#21

So you are saying that we should completely ignore the January 2025 fall in temperature to levels in January 2024 and January2016 and February 1998 at at a time when hundreds of billions of tons of CO2 were added to the atmosphere!

No-one of course has established any provable direct link between CO2 in the atmosphere and surface temperatures as there are far too many other factors affecting earth temperatures - including ocean currents and cloud cover - the point that William Happer et al are making ( this is not my saturation point ) is that they have shown that there are falls in the impact from CO2 on the atmosphere due to an ever increasing rise in the concentration of CO2.
It is interesting that none of your links tell us by how many degrees centrigrade the surface temperature will increase by and when - it’s guesswork.

It is also interesting that your Royal Society link said this :
“Different gases absorb energy at different wavelengths. CO2 has its strongest heat-trapping band centred at a wavelength of 15 micrometres (millionths of a metre), with wings that spread out a few micrometres on either side. There are also many weaker absorption bands. As CO2 concentrations increase, the absorption at the centre of the strong band is already so intense that it plays little role in causing additional warming. However, more energy is absorbed in the weaker bands and in the wings of the strong band, causing the surface and lower atmosphere to warm further.”

  • so the CO2 impact is continued because there is no decrease in the absorption of energy in the wings - which are a few micrometres or a few millionths of an inch wide over the whole of our atmosphere! Is it any wonder that Kees de Lange, professor emeritus of molecular physics and Guus Berkhout, professor emeritus of geophysics state :

"Note from the above frequency spectrum that broadening of the CO2-absorption area if the CO2-concentration is increased from 400 ppm to 800 ppm is negligible. Unrealistic CO2-scenarios are needed to realize a broadening as shown in the cartoon in the video.

Finally a word of caution. The correlation between the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and the warming of Earth’s surface is scanty at best. Even in the recent past (Roman Warm Period, Middle Age Warm Period, Little Ice Age), when CO2 was never an issue, temperature variations were at least as strong as what is observed today since humans started burning fossil fuels. This is not surprising. The heat capacity of the atmosphere is small compared to that of the oceans that make up 70% of Earth’s surface. The real heat engines that dominate heat transfer on the planet are not radiative transfer, but ocean currents, and the gigantic atmospheric heat engine represented by the well-known Hadley cells. The complexity of the climate system is not to be underestimated.

In conclusion, we are pleased that Dr. Hossenfelder’s excellent video confirms that the effects of increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases are very small and highly saturated. This does not support the message that the world is in a climate crisis."
[Some comments on the Sabine Hossenfelder video - Clintel]

cheers

#22

Where do the authors mention the IPCC and their models?

Fossil fuel shills! - we are talking here about renowned scientists that have never been shown to be shills for anyone. Having principles on climate science that coincide with some principles of corporations does not make them shills for the corporations. We have to be very careful here in avoiding libel!

cheers

#23

Enter player three…

1 Like
#24

Ah yes. The Grand Solar Minimum. Has anyone wondered why “Global Warming”, has morphed into “Climate Change”? Well, if we are getting cooler, it’s not exactly reasonable to call it warming! :joy: :joy: :joy:

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#25

It’s also not a great idea to take climate advice from someone who was a chairman of the board of directors of an institute partly funded by Exxon.

I find this ironic given that all of CJs sources are tobacco or fossil fuel companies. I’m sticking with the Royal Society, and people who are dedicating their lives to try to understand what’s going on in a transparent way.

What it suggests to me is that these authors are trying hard to obscure the coming problem rather than shed light. Expected behaviour for fossil fuel shills

And, most recently; (sarcasm alert)

I’m aware that the study I’m looking at deals with only one aspect of the issue but its worth keeping in mind that people in glass houses are best off refraining from throwing stones. Maybe the hurricane experts referred to also have our best interests at heart.
I can only suppose the Davids at MediaLens and Dan in the Lifeboat also had our best interests at heart. . .

#26

Hi CJ

Before I address your points above I want everyone on this thread to mull something over.

I see you’re doubling down on clearly wrong arguments. I suggest you take a moment and reflect why.

Why are you not interested in actually learning something and thereby getting closer to the truth? Why would someone consistently ignore literally all the evidence in favour of promoting a notion already proven to be wrong. Are you not interested in expanding your knowledge about a subject?

Does learning something new not seem important to you?

Do you do this in other areas of your life? Just decide your opinion and not let any other new data change your mind on the subject? I would suggest you won’t get to the truth of any subject by closing your eyes to the side with all the data, and relying on - yes - shills supported by big tobacco, republican think tanks and big oil.

It’s worth taking a moment and considering what’s motivating you on this, I think.

I won’t dwell too long on your points, as you don’t bother to answer any of mine and you don’t listen anyway when I do answer, and you simply ignore or dismiss any evidence you don’t like, so really this is for others who might be interested in actually learning about what’s going on in our climate.

You can continue down your merry path of sticking your fingers in your ears and ignoring any data you don’t like whilst consuming any old nonsense that tobacco companies would have you believe.

Good luck with that.

No. I would put it into its place alongside the overall trend in temps over the last century (ot 10 centuries or thousand centuries) of data and see if you can spot a logarithmic tail off in temps as you seem to be so sure exists.

I’ll save you the bother. There is no such logarithmic tail off in temps. Because it doesn’t happen and won’t happen.

Holy shit. The ignorance! … It burns!!!

Read your own paper, where “all scientists agree” that there is a connection. It’s how the planet stays warm enough for life to evolve.

Unbelievable…

Perhaps stop trying to guess about things you have zero training in or understanding of. Your intuition is badly letting you down. You have no measurements of what the extra side band frequencies means for extra heat absorption. Flaunting guesswork as an argument is not helpful here.

Maybe you could simply read the conclusions from the papers that I posted above that discusses what the actual implications of those side bands are and see what experts in the subject think about it. The papers are all in my previous post

Or, instead you can try to find data that shows that temperatures follow the logarithmic decline suggested by Happer.

Your caution about correlation is not worth answering so I won’t bother. But I will say that it’s demonstrative of bad faith on your part that you’re happy to use the temperature record to try and discuss the medieval warm period, but you reject the exact same data record as fake for any other measurement or period of time. Again, I’d suggest you mull over your hypocrisy here and think hard about why you have such a propagandist bent. It’s not to find the truth, that’s for sure.

I have already watched the video by Sabine (I’m a subscriber of her channel). She confirms the logarithmic drop off as described in the paper (as does every climate scientist) but she categorically denies that this will mean temperature will stop rising, because Happer is simply wrong about that. As he well knows but refuses to admit. One reason I call him a shill.

They don’t, but their estimate of climate sensitivity agrees with that of the IPCC (which, more accurately define it as a likely range based on much more data than anything Happer is looking at).

Ok. I think that’s everything you brought up. Nothing that you’re raising gives any more credence to the belief that temperature will stop rising.

I know I’m being somewhat blunt in my replies here, but to me you’re acting as a what I’d call a “climate Zionist”. You’re ignoring evidence, quoting ideologically driven, bad-faith actors (ironically exactly the same people who support actual Zionism) and ignoring the likely upcoming deaths of hundreds of millions of people with a wave of your hand.

You’re on the wrong side mate. Wake up.

#27

Ahh

Good old Zharkova back again. Another demonstration of the old repost some nonsense that has already been debunked without addressing a single argument that shows it to be wrong technique.

Why we are listening to an ex professor of solar physics who didn’t understand basic planetary orbital dynamics and can’t decide if her studies show whether we are about to get extra warming or an ice age (she’s argued for both IIRK) is beyond me.

Oh wait. It’s because we don’t actually want to know what’s going on with the climate and prefer fairy stories instead.

Fair enough

#28

Not sure what you’re implying here, Alan, but to my mind, both the Davids at MediaLens and Dan absolutely did have the best interests of our society at heart.

ML was one of the most important pieces in my educational awakening. I think they opened many thousands of people’s eyes to the propaganda model and how our media manipulates the truth. And having met Dan a few times and listened to his stories of treating patients (sometimes outside of his already heinous schedule of normal duties, for free as a favour to a medialenser) I have nothing bad to say about him.

You should check your prejudices.

And carry on eating the bullshit being spoon fed by big tobacco and big oil. Clearly they have no conflicts of interest in this subject

#29

Sadly I can’t post video here. I have a news piece from Germany where a Lufthansa pilot is in court for unfair dismissal

His crime? Refusing to turn on the cloud seeding systems. Says it’s not part of his contract.

At least we’re talking about this:)

Edit:I can admit now to being confused by the Ukrainian. I could swear we’re currently in a solar maximum.

#30

1.Not sure what you’re implying here, Alan
2.You should check your prejudices
3. And carry on eating the bullshit. . .

Ta for the choices A, I’ll take no.1. Surely you can stand firm in your position without resorting to sneering. That was the implicit point of my post that you seem to have missed. Not to worry, life goes on (thinks, thanks to CO2!).