The ‘Emissions-Temp Model’

The Cardinal Model delves into the fine-structure of the total Greenhouse Effect (as observed) and finds a near-perfect fit with greenhouse gas levels using empirical parameter modelling.

The ‘Emissions-Temp Model’ attempts to find a relationship, also using empirical parameter modelling, between global average temperatures and the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases – water (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), Ozzone (O3) and others (such as SF6).

The greenhouse effect takes place in the atmosphere - instantaneously from moment to moment – all the way up from the surface to the stratosphere and beyond.

There is no immediate direct link of the greenhouse effect to surface temperature.

Two instantaneous radiative processes directly affect surface temperature from moment to moment:-

  • Sun’s radiative heating warms the surface during the day.
  • The Earth's surface cools by radiating heat (as infrared radiation) day and night up towards the cold of space.

Other (mainly thermodynamic) processes also heat and cool the surface and take place on timescales that can be as short as nearly instantaneous to hours, months, years, decades and even longer.

These thermodynamic processes move heat around from hot-spots to cool-spots.

This is collectively known as weather, (or climate if a decades-long timescale is considered). The drivers of weather affect surface temperature by:

  • Water: evaporation of water (including plant transpiration) cools the surface (latent heat) is a part of the water cycle system which is, arguably, the most important driver of weather and surface heating/cooling.
    The eventual outcome of this evaporation is a return of water to the surface – principally as rain. This has a cooling effect on the surface but the cooling latent heat of evaporation is mainly evolved in the atmosphere as latent heat of condensation.
  • Wind and convection processes transport heat from the hot parts of the surface to cooler surface regions and the cooler regions of the atmosphere.
  • Ocean currents, one of the longer-term processes, circulate hot surface water and cold deep ocean water.

The greenhouse heating effect – often called a ‘blanket’ in non-scientific reports – does not directly affect the surface temperature. It requires the thermodynamically-driven processes described above to pass on any atmospheric heating (or cooling) to the surface.

For more background and theory see: background, theory and explanation.

The objective of the ‘Emissions-Temp Model’:

is to find a relationship between a process taking place in the atmosphere with a surface who's temperature is being continuously modified by a whole series of influences.

I consider that a theoretical model of how all these factors influencing average global surface temperature is impossible to construct - at least for me.

I have, therefore, tackled the problem using an empirical approach to see if a statistically significant relationship exists between surface temperature and greenhouse gas levels.

Coincidence is a powerful force in the human psyche. The coincidence of hot days and rising CO2 led to the proposal of the causative statement: ‘Anthropogenic emissions cause Global Warming’.

This unscientific coincidental observation was so 'obvious' to gullible audiences that its acceptance gained groupthink momentum and morphed, over 50 years, into the politically-motivated quasi-religeous belief system of Climate Change.

What is Climate Change? is my attempt at explaining how this scientifically unproven assertion turned into a fully-blown belief system.

The approach taken in this 'Emissions-Temp Model’ study is not to jump to any conclusion that a causal relationship exists but to test possible models to see if any 'fit' what is observed.

The Cases

Detail of some of the cases of the model is eplained in The Cases.

The conclusions of the ‘Emissions-Temp Model’ are:

  • Increasing atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases has minimal impact on global average surface temperature. Since 1850 this is impact is measured in small fractions of a degree.
  • After isolating the maximum link that all greenhouse gases could have with global average surface temperature, there are ‘unexplained residuals’. These residuals have nothing to do with greenhouse gases.
  • The analysis of ‘residuals’ gives insight into the cooling or warming periods, independent of greenhouse gas levels. These 'residuaal-trends' are evidence of other factors at work.
  • The link between temperature and greenhouse gas levels is exagerated by conventional allegations. The statistically significant form of the relationship arues for a different accounting of the 'saturation' effect.

Several periods of warming and cooling definitely not due to greenhouse gas levels are:

Cooling periods from 1879 to 1918 and from 1946 to 1976.
Warming periods from 1918 to 1946, 1976 to 1993 and the latest warming period that began in ca. 2012-2016.

More detailed observation of the cases and conclusions may be found in Observations and Conclusions.

Because these warming and cooling periods have nothing to do with variations in greenhouse gas levels, we should look elsewhere for explanations and not rely on the 'old chestnut' alarm response 'It's caused by Anthropogenic Emissions!'

In summary:

  • Burning of fossil fuels has contributed minimally to the +1.39⁰C warming observed since pre-industrial times (i.e. before 1850).
  • Continuing to burn fossil fuels will not result in runaway Global Warming and will not lead to climate breakdown and the realisation of alarmist warnings of ‘Climate Armageddon’
  • Policies such as Net Zero are not only unjustified but their imposition on ‘the masses’ borders on being the greatest criminal act of our era.

There will, no doubt, continue to be reports of fires, desertification, extinctions, floods, rising sea-level, mass starvation and other natural disasters, but to be clear:

Anthropogenic emisssion caused by burning fossil fuels has nothing to do with these events - it does not exacerbate them.
However, it may emeliorate them as carbon dioxide is food for plants and increases 'greening' and crop yields.

These events may be the result of a changing climate - but not of Climate Change.

Climate has always been changing - at leaset for the last 500 million years - and there is no reason to suppose human's burning fossil fuels has brought this natural climate variability process to a sudden end.

Paraphrasing the alarmist anthropocentric view expresssed by Andrew Lacis and his team at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS):

We humans do NOT have our hand on the "control knob" governing Earth's temperature.

Implications

Accepting the argemants above that are underlined by the outcomes from 'The Cardinal Model' allows us to put de-carbonising 'Climate Action' and policies such as Net Zero, 'Unreliable and Renewable' electricty, Electric Vehicle mandates and the squandering of our food and energy security into perspective.

Lives will not be saved by us stopping burning fossil fuels. In fact immiseration and privation will bring earlier deaths to many citizens of the 'global north'.

Famines and other disasters will continue to happen in the 'global south' irrespective of what 'climate action' is taken by the 'global north'.

The beneficiaries in the 'global south' of our 'global north' insanity will not thank us for our sacrifice and contine to demand transfer of wealth in the form of reparations, grants or purchase of carbon-reducing equipment.

Squandering our nations wealth, economy and jobs on unecessary, inneffectual 'precautionary principle motivated' actions is insane.

History, if allowed to be written by unbiased, unindoctrinated rational commentators will judge our climate-actions as the greatest crime against the masses of the 'global north' in the modern era.

Come what may, the zealots who are still around and are not among the billions who, they warn, will be soon be dead will argue 'we did not do enough - soon enough'.

It will become impossible (as it already has among the globalist, technocratic elite who rule the UK) to take pride in a nation whose political leaders have, over the last thirty years, led the UK into this self-imposed decline and seem set on accelerating the decline.