The Climate Models are Failing

By Heinz Hug

(Nachrichten aus der Chemie, 61: 132 [2013)

Translated by Klaus L.E. Kaiser, 12 Feb. 2013

Heinz Hug questions the importance of CO2 for climate change

“According to our calculations, in the coming years, it should get warmer by leaps. But we do not trust that prognosis. Because the simulations should also have been able to predict the current standstill of the temperature increase – which did not happen.” That according to the climate researcher Jochen Marotzke of MPI-M in Hamburg, according to the Spiegel [magazine] of 9/2012. The reasons why climate models fail are obvious.

It is to be emphasized that the [discussion about the] greenhouse gas effect does not concern the absorption by IR-trace gases (CO2, CH4, H2O, and similar) but their emission, which warms the earth’s surface via “back-radiation” [Ruckstrahlung], [ref. 1]. In fact, satellite spectra of 667 cm^-1 show an impressive “funnel within the Planck curve” which is based on the impediment of the warmth-radiation from the earths body by the ν[nu]₂-band of CO2, [ref. 2].

As the rotation-quantum-number is J = 0, 1, 2, 3… infinite, quantum-mechanical reasons –calculated on paper – produce no “saturation” of the greenhouse gas effect. But, if one looks at the centre of the CO2-band, the transmission within the troposphere is only τ[tau] = 10^-210.The IPCC writes that “At the centre of the 15micro-m band, the increase in CO2 concentration has almost no effect” and rounds out, however on the margins [rims] there are always unsaturated areas, which results in an increasing greenhouse gas effect. I do not contradict that. But the rotations-oscillation-bands for example from J > 20 (τ[tau]troposphere < [equal-less than] 10^-3) are sparsely occupied. The Nobel Prize Laureate Paul J. Crutzen puts that to the point: “There is already so much CO2 in the atmosphere, that in many areas of the spectrum the absorption [Aufnahme] by CO2 is nearly complete, and additional CO2 does not play any role,”[ref. 4].

What is the amount here? Taking into account the albedo and earth geometry, the average global temperature without IR-active trace gases is T_E = 255 K. According to the –arbitrary –convention of 1957, the period of 1901 to 1930 is taken as a climate normal period with T_E = 288 K, [ref. 5]. The difference between 288 K and 255 K, namely 33 K is accorded to the greenhouse gases. At this temperature, the emission of the earth surface is 390 W m^-2, [ref. 6]. With 100% (!) more CO2, the greenhouse gas effect increases by 1.2%, namely 3.7 W m^-2. According to the law of constant energy the value of M_E rises to 393.7 W m^-2. Using that value as input to the Stefan-Boltzmann equation one gets as the average surface temperature T_E = [for detailed formula see original] = 288.7 K.

This is a temperature increase of 0.7 K. Why then are much larger values being claimed? Computer models with freely variable parameters start with the premise that this small temperature increase is more the result of the greenhouse gas water vapor (water vapor back-coupling according to the Clausius-Clapeyron equation). This most important basis of all models can be shown as wrong. According to a paper by Hermann Flohn the amount of water evaporated from the Atlantic between 1950 and 1973 was wildly varying by 25% around its mean at the same time as atmospheric CO2 was steadily increasing by 10%, [ref. 5].

It is quite evident that there is no correlation between the atmospheric CO2 concentration and water evaporation. The latter does not depend on CO2 but on the water temperature. That, in turn, depends primarily on the screening by clouds which depends on the incoming cosmic radiation which varies with the rhythm of the solar magnetic field, [ref. 7]. This also explains why, without the action of IR-active trace gases there was both a Roman and Medieval climate optimum, [ref.8].

[For formula details and references, see original text].