ECS,
or Equilibrium
Climate Sensitivity,
is the amount of
global warming
that would occur
following a doubling
of the atmospheric
CO2 level.
ECS is the global average
surface temperature change
following a doubling
of atmospheric CO2,
after the passage of time
( possibly centuries )
required for the atmosphere
and oceans to return
to equilibrium.
TCS,
or Transient Climate Sensitivity,
is the surface temperature change
following a CO2 doubling,
over a period of 70 years.
(IPCC, 2013, p. 82).
Both metrics assume
a 280ppm pre-industrial
level of CO2 in the air,
for the calculations.
The controversy
over man-made
global warming
started with
a 1979 report
by the U.S.
National Academy
of Sciences
called the
Charney Report
(NRC, 1979).
Charney authors
guessed that warming
from a doubling of
atmospheric CO2
would be mild.
The lab experiments
on CO2 using infrared
spectroscopy also
suggested mild warming.
The overall global warming
since 1979 has been mild.
It would be easy to jump
to the conclusion that
CO2 causes mild, harmless
global warming -- perhaps
+1 degree C. in 200 years.
With that conclusion,
I doubt if I'd have a reason
to write a climate science blog !
Of course, no one knows
what caused the global warming
from 1975 to 2003
( there has been
almost no warming
since 2003, per
weather satellite data ).
Warming caused by any
greenhouse gases should
have been steady from
decade to decade,
as CO2 levels grew,
from decade to decade.
The minimal warming
since 2003, even as
CO2 levels in the air
increased a lot,
does not fit the
expected pattern.
Also, greenhouse gases
should have warmed the poles
much more than the tropics.
The Arctic has warmed a lot.
But Antarctica has had
an unusually steady climate
since the 1960's.
In summary, the
expected "signatures"
of greenhouse warming
are mixed.
The small quantity
of warming since 1950
could have had
natural causes
completely unrelated
to man made CO2.
The problem with predicting
mild global warming from CO2
was that the scientists,
and politicians who hired them,
WANTED to claim they saw
a coming catastrophe,
to scare people into demanding
more study and government
action to stop the "catastrophe".
They got their fictional
"catastrophe" in 1979,
with the unproven claim
that mild CO2 warming
would allegedly add
more water vapor
to the air, causing
a lot more warming
-- a never ending
water vapor
positive feedback
loop, that would
allegedly triple
the warming effect
of CO2 alone ...
and lead to runaway
global warming !
That was a most
extraordinary belief !
It ignored Earth's history !
Because most of the
4.5 billion years of
Earth's history had
more CO2 in the air
than we have now --
up to 10x to 20x more
CO2 at the peak.
But there is no
geologic evidence
of any prior runaway
global warming
from all that CO2,
which would have
destroyed all life
on the planet
... and we wouldn't be here
to debate climate change !
The Charney Report
claimed doubling CO2,
plus the water vapor
positive feedback,
would increase
atmospheric
temperatures
sufficiently to warm
Earth's surface
by +3 degrees C.
± 1.5°C.
The UN's IPCC
has used that
+ 3 degree C.
estimate since
the 1979 report.
And computer
climate models
make predictions
that roughly match
the +3 degrees C. ECS,
except for one
Russian Model.
But then,
there's reality:
The actual warming,
measured by the
weather satellites
since 1979,
was only at a rate
of +1 degree C.
per doubling of CO2,
not +3 degrees C. !
No one actually knows
the climate sensitivity
to CO2
No one can even be sure
CO2 caused any warming
in the past.
There's no scientific proof
CO2 caused ANY warming,
because the closed system
laboratory experiments
on CO2 may not tell us
what happens from adding
CO2 to the atmosphere.
The assumption that CO2
is a greenhouse gas
and causes some warming,
is a reasonable guess,
but lacks scientific proof.
The warming
of the atmosphere
is merely assumed
to be caused by CO2.
Surface temperature
measurements in the
20th century reflected
nothing unusual in
the second half of the
century, with lots of
CO2 added to the air,
when compared with
the first half of the
20th century, with far less
CO2 added to the air.
The actual temperature record
shows no 'unprecedented'
warming after 1950 !
The "global warmunists"
falsely claim they KNOW
exactly what CO2 does
to the surface temperature !
They don't know, but do
state their beliefs
with great confidence,
and great uniformity,
like a large flock
of trained parrots !
But they never explain why
their computer climate models
have predicted triple the warming
that actually happened since
the 1970s !
In real science,
after you've made
ONE wrong prediction,
people stop taking
your predictions
seriously !
But in modern climate
junk "science",
having THREE decades
of wrong climate predictions,
makes you a climate change
authority !
Only leftists
could live with
could live with
such faulty logic !