Guest contribution by Joe H. Born,
Here we simulate a “test bench” to illustrate the difference between Christopher Monckton’s approach to projecting equilibrium climate sensitivity (“ECS”) and the climatology approach. (ECS is the equilibrium change in surface temperature that would cause the concentration of carbon dioxide to double, and we use climatology like Lord Monckton to denote proponents of high ECS values.) We shall see that failure to apply standard feedback theory does not The cause is squeezed by the high ECS values we see.
Christopher Monckton has described his theory in a series of WUWT guidance posts that began on March 19, 2018 and lasted through May 8, 2021, that climatology made the “fatal flaw” in the basis of equilibrium climate sensitivity (“ECS”) ) makes ”) calculations more into disturbances than to whole sets. The theory in question came out at 39:17 f. A video dated March 23, 2017 provided mathematical evidence that the ECS is low. He has spent thousands of words describing his approach, but a brief summary is what his August 15, 2018 WUWT post on “The End of Global Warming Fraud on a Single Slide” calls for it.
The following diagram shows this slide:
The
and the values in this slide are the equilibrium temperatures that the carbon dioxide concentrations of 1850 and 2011 would cause without feedback. Or rather, Lord Monckton tells us that climatology thinks these values are correct. and are what those equilibrium temperatures would supposedly be with feedback.
Lord Monckton claims to have identified a “serious flaw” in the climatological approach to the ECS conclusion (“
”) From these four values and the change in the equilibrium temperature without any feedback that would cause the carbon dioxide concentration to double. The mistake of climatology, he says, is that instead of whole quantities, “perturbations” are used and the calculation is carried out. The result of the climatology is the ordinate of the green cross in the illustration above.
But, according to Lord Monckton, that is not the right approach. The correct approach according to Lord Monckton is given by the standard feedback theory and derives ECS from “whole” values
and : . The standard feedback theory would lead to the ordinate of the Red Cross.
The reader recognizes the green cross as the result of the standard extrapolation, in which only a small change in the slope of the curve is assumed. However, Lord Monckton seems to believe that the feedback theory used in electronic circuit design requires the abrupt change in slope necessary to obtain the red cross.
We use the following circuit to test this set:
Without the feedback path where the box is placed below, the circuit would be a linear amplifier, and since we’re going to assume that R1 through R4 are all 1kΩ resistors, their gain would be unity. Without the feedback path, the output voltage Vout would be equal to the input voltage Vin. Vin thus corresponds to Lord Monckton’s no-feedback values R, while Vout represents his with-feedback values E.
Note that the input to the feedback path is the total output Vout value. As Lord Monckton put it, that is, “such feedback that can endure. . . anytime . . . inevitably react to the entire reference signal which is then obtained, and not just to an arbitrarily selected fraction thereof. “What we’ll see is that projecting perturbations instead of whole values still gives a better estimate.
We could, in principle, use any non-linear electronic component for the feedback element, but for simplicity we assume that the feedback component we choose will not conduct current when voltage is applied
across it is negative and that its current increases accordingly with positive voltage. Here and parameters are chosen so that the relationships between the output and the input of the overall circuit numerically agree with the pre-industrial and current relationships between the temperatures with and without feedback in Lord Monckton’s numerical example. Such relationships can be approximated, for example, by a diode resistance ladder:
The Feedback Element VI curve is as follows:
This feedback curve gives the overall circuit the following ratio of input to output:
In a video dated June 22, 2018, Lord Monckton claimed that a government laboratory electronic “test bed” had shown that Lord Monckton’s theory was “testing,” meaning that the ECS calculation should be based on whole quantities rather than interference. Before we use the “single slide” values in this circuit to show that it shouldn’t, we’ll apply a larger, no-feedback change to show where Lord Monckton gets his extrapolation slope from:
As the red dashed line shows, its use of whole sets instead of perturbations means that its line of extrapolation is through the origin. Instead, the green dashed line represents the use of interference and therefore does not go through the origin. This fact appears to be Lord Monckton’s basis for claiming that climatology presupposes the absence of a feedback reaction to solar radiation.
Now let’s take a close look at the smaller change with a single slide:
We see that the green cross that represents what Lord Monckton tells us is the climatology approach projects the output of the circuit much better than his approach. This also applies if there are “feedbacks that may exist at a certain point in time” in our placement. . . inevitably react to the entire reference signal which is then obtained, and not just to an arbitrarily selected fraction thereof. “So there is nothing about feedback theory that requires us to abandon ordinary extrapolation.
That doesn’t mean the climatology is correct. It’s just that climatology’s fault is not what Lord Monckton envisions.
Note from Anthony: Personally, I believe BOTH arguments are wrong for several reasons. But I have admitted this post solely for the purpose of debate.
1. The atmosphere has a chaotic component, with both long and short periods. Linear and non-linear circuits cannot come close to modeling the atmosphere without a noise component. It’s as simple as some claim that we can model any planet temperature from gravity and the atmospheric time-lapse rate.
2. An additional non-linearity is built into electronic circuits. For example, operational amplifiers themselves are internally non-linear. They vary their gain with the ambient temperature as well as the temperature induced by the operation. Resistors often have tolerances of 5-10% compared to the assigned value (in the example above 1 kOhm +/- 10% = 900-1100 Ohm), which can only apply if you use special resistors that have a high tolerance and temperature stability linear response primarily.
3. Seasonal and daily variations in the earth’s atmosphere combined with the weather create a situation where trying to model the earth’s temperature with an electronic circuit is a fool’s game. Just look at the variance in Dr. Roy Spencer’s most recent diagram of the lower troposphere. Looks like a resistor that blew in March and April 2021, doesn’t it?
UAH_LT_1979_thru_April_2021_v6.jpg
On a smaller scale, the U.S. looks even more diverse in March.
Source: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/national-temperature-index/time-series?datasets%5B%5D=uscrn¶meter=anom-tavg&time_scale=p12&begyear=2005&endyear=2021&month= 12th
I just don’t think any simple electronic circuit can accurately model atmospheric behavior. Hell, even overly complex climate models can’t get it right.
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