Off topic,but only slightly. Because you have pointed out the very small contribution of CO2 to the changing overall earth energy balance in space. The only control of GMST there is.
Does it matter? The claimed effect of AGW is 1.6W/m^2. Mostly attributed to CO2.There is a further amplification claimed by NASA's Hansen , albeit based on a fallacious estimate of the positive feedback from WV GHE that creates another 2W/m^2K of positive feedback, so 4.6W/M^2 total perturbation at 1.5K GMST.
However the negative feedback involved from the radiative S-B effect alone are 1.5% of 240W/m^2 per deg K, so 3.4W/m^2K. And there is another large and variable energy loss to space from evaporation, which later leaves for space as radiative energy loss, and changes at a larger rate per degree than the S-B effect, at least 4.3W/m^2K, so that's down to 0.6 degree to rebalance the system by 1.6W/m^2 - on these two feedbacks alone. Then we have the effect of cloud feedback, the changing net negative feedback between albedo and warming of about 20W/m^2 static/absolute effect. How does that vary?
The probability AGW GHE has a net effect of more than half a degree after the natural negative feedbacks is VERY SMALL. So at least 1 K of observed change since 1850 must be natural.
These data are all available to run yourself from the Earth's static energy balance, the Stefan Boltzman laws and the physical properties of water vapour variability in air as a concentration with temperature and humidity.
We would do well to ask where these overtly real, negative and dominant feedbacks are included in the guesses of ECS/TCS, because these guestimates do not include the negative feedbacks, yet they can easily be quantified by the natural change we can calculate from their properties and their absolute levels in earth's energy balance
The natural negative feedbacks we measure as static effects in the holistic energy balance are the self evident strong controls of Earth's energy balance in space, the only "climate control" that nature allows, that imposes whatever temperature change is required within the atmospheric system to rebalance Earth's naturally changing energy balance in space.
It may be that a proportion of the CO2 rise is due to natural change. The isotopic ratios of C12, C13, C14 clearly suggest such a reality, but this is a relatively small perturbation to the overall system energy balance in space when compared to the dominant negative feedback control so obvious in the overall enrgy balance.
What is certain from the data we know is that the attribution of the overall level of GMST change to CO2 cannot be supported in the context of the scale of the natural energy balance control feedbacks. The CO2 effect is far too small to control earth's climate
This is clearly evidenced in the warmer pre-industrial periods where much warmer temperatures are observed when CO2 was 2/3 or less than today. So CO2 is not the dominant control of earth's energy balance, hence not the dominant control of its changing GMST. Evidence?
The well recorded geological past falsifies the claim that CO2 is, or has ever been, the dominant cause of climate change on Earth. Why debate the effect of this insignificant internal state function of atmospheric energy transfer to space, when it is so clearly NOT in control of Earth's dynamic overall energy balance in space - the only climate control nature provides, to every planet orbiting its star.
Time to look at the bigger picture of the whole Earth's changing energy balance in space, stop debating the insignificant real effect of this relatively small change within its atmosphere, within which system CO2 is no longer a significant variable.
Your climate may vary. There are only one set of facts. The rest is false. Why argue about the distractions about a trace greenhouse gas created to divert us from what is really happening at the scale of whole planetary system, that we have already measured but failed to understand?
Oh and when those who critique your conclusions do it from another belief they assert from second hand authority, then you already won that argument. They don't have any facts or have not properly considered the facs and phsyics as you set them out.
This happens as much with sceptics as it does with believers, in my experience, those doing the basic science rather than reading someone else's and repeating it are few and far between. Please keep challenging religion....they don't like facts up 'em.
Here is what I write about this issue in paper #16 (Tail & Dog).
"The CERES data are associated with considerable uncertainties. According to CERES (2023), the combined regional all-sky LW flux uncertainty is 2.4 W/m² and the daily regional all-sky LW diurnal uncertainty is 8 W/m². According to CERES (2021, Table 6.1), the uncertainties in the 1°×1° regional monthly TOA fluxes are 4.6 W/m² for clear sky and 2.5 W/m² for all sky. In addition, as also noted in CERES (2021), with the most recent CERES instrument calibration improvements, there still is a net imbalance of ~4.3 W/m², much larger than the expected observed ocean heating rate which CERES assumes to be ~0.71 W/m². The latter value is not far from that of Trenberth et al. (2009), who give the net absorbed energy at 0.9 W/m2. However, according to the calculations by Koutsoyiannis (2021), the latter imbalance value, again inferred from ocean heating data, is lower, 0.37 W/m²."
It is practically impossible to estimate a quantity as the difference of two quantities whose absolute values are more than two orders of magnitude greater than their difference. The only reliable way for this estimation is to base it on ocean heat data. This I have done in Appendix D in the above reference "Koutsoyiannis (2021)", which is my paper #5. My result is 0.37 W/m², far lower than the figure you mention. I do not trust speculative or model-based approaches, nor IPCC estimates. I only trust data. So, I will appreciate if you could check my calculations based on data in my paper #5 to see what the quantity in question actually is, before trying to make interpretations.
I note you comments, and can only repeat two facts that must dominate. While I defer to you on all matters of detail measurement, I view most most of the debate as an engineer, where scale matters. All these discussions of the accuracy of the measurement of imbalance are a distraction from clear and present natural control of Earth's climate, its enrgy balance in space, the only control nature allows it, that follows the absolute principles of thermodynamics.
The changes under discussion are a deliberate academic smoke screen designed to distract from and hide the much bigger reality. These are small radiative effects (on average across an ocean energy sink holding 2 years of solar enrgy in the Top 200m) Change is dominated in measurable fact by the dominant negaive feedbacks of closer to 100W/m^2, that change to rebalance the Earths planetary energy equilibrium to all these small variabilities, at whatever temperature the atmosphere and oceans must be to create the enrgy loss to space that balances that gained from the Sun.
It's very simple. To me. Step outside the earth and consider the bigger picture, with all four elephants included....
POINT: Arguing these relatively small effects as controls, within the accuracy of measurement, when such large controls are available to re balance whatever they are, so they are insignificant in terms of their ultimate effect on the equilbrium temperature of the whole earth energy balance in space, seems largely pointless.
Particularly when we know from the geological record that there have been many times that Earth has been warmer, by several degrees, at much lower CO2 levels than today,
SCience we have recorded shows CO2 has never been a dominant control of climate, in this and other interglacial periods.
It was uch warmer when there was less CO2. The whole earth control system is not unaffected, but is certainly indifferent, to any such perturbation of a few W/m^2.
Academics have been deceived into having this pointless arguments about tiny effects, that are simply noise at the scale of the overall planetary control. GMST is simply the temperature that is required to maintain the earth's energy balance. At whatever temperature that needs to be, Imbalances are unnatural so unsustainable.
The negative feedbacks maintaining Earth's stable thermodynamic balance in space by varying the rate of energy loss returned to space have a total variability of over 10W/M^2 for each degree of SST change.
The basic principles of thermodynamics control all this.
Thermodynamics always works to impose a long term energy balance, and that determines Earth's equilibrium in space. All heat lost from the warmed surface and atmosphere must return to colder space, it does not circulate, cannot return. It has to go.
The total flux involved in this balance is currently a variable 240W/m^2. All of the components of this cooling flux are significantly variable with temperature and are capable of rebalancing the whole earth energy system in space to up to 10W/m^2 with a temperature change of less than 1 K. Give or tske.
Again, Earth's energy balance in space must always tend towards an equilibrium, albeit a dynamic equilibrium where enrgy in and out are in balance.
A sustained imbalance is unnatural and nature will rebalance it.
This is a dynamic process as the solar energy inputs and the changing atmospheric energy transfer properties from the surface and atmosphere to space change.
But the negative feedbacks are at a scale that is well able to rebalance any small variabilities such as you debate that are so small as to be within the limits of accuracy.
My pre-pub paper on this quantifies the feedbacks empirically IN SECTION2, The first section addresses the wholly presumptive, partial and scientifically overt deceits of climate models, designed to create a distracting complexity of partial and presumptive pseudo science, made up of insignificant bits of unrelated science , and small temporary imbalances that nature/thermodynamics must resolve, while ignoring the larger bits.
A whole cauldron of worthless computer games, founded in partiality and attribution without justification, boiled up by dodgy statistics and presented as real science that no amount of priestly incantations from authority can ever give real credibility to.
Because the measured Earth has not worked like that throughout the record of 500Ma of geological stability.
So you are right about "It is practically impossible to estimate a quantity as the difference of two quantities whose absolute values are more than two orders of magnitude greater than their difference. "
But I suggest debating their relatively insignificant noise, within their fog of deceit, is waste of your real scientific ability. Because it sails past the dominant scale of the self evident and dominant negative feedback controls. They can and do rebalance the whole earth energy balance in space in response to such small effects in a fraction of a degree of GMST.
The Balance of the Earth: An Empirical Quantification of Earth's Energy Balance
SUMMARY: Your climate may vary. My reality has very little to do with CO2, because the geological record clearly shows it cannot be a dominant control of Earth's climate. That is the natural case because CO2's tiny effect is an order of magnitude smaller than the controls available to rebalance Earth's energy equilibrium to its changes. QED
Earth... the one you can depend on. 500Ma of Energy Equilibrium
PS I view the obviously contrived fraud of climate models and their modellers thus.... but my elephants are real...
Off topic,but only slightly. Because you have pointed out the very small contribution of CO2 to the changing overall earth energy balance in space. The only control of GMST there is.
Does it matter? The claimed effect of AGW is 1.6W/m^2. Mostly attributed to CO2.There is a further amplification claimed by NASA's Hansen , albeit based on a fallacious estimate of the positive feedback from WV GHE that creates another 2W/m^2K of positive feedback, so 4.6W/M^2 total perturbation at 1.5K GMST.
However the negative feedback involved from the radiative S-B effect alone are 1.5% of 240W/m^2 per deg K, so 3.4W/m^2K. And there is another large and variable energy loss to space from evaporation, which later leaves for space as radiative energy loss, and changes at a larger rate per degree than the S-B effect, at least 4.3W/m^2K, so that's down to 0.6 degree to rebalance the system by 1.6W/m^2 - on these two feedbacks alone. Then we have the effect of cloud feedback, the changing net negative feedback between albedo and warming of about 20W/m^2 static/absolute effect. How does that vary?
The probability AGW GHE has a net effect of more than half a degree after the natural negative feedbacks is VERY SMALL. So at least 1 K of observed change since 1850 must be natural.
These data are all available to run yourself from the Earth's static energy balance, the Stefan Boltzman laws and the physical properties of water vapour variability in air as a concentration with temperature and humidity.
We would do well to ask where these overtly real, negative and dominant feedbacks are included in the guesses of ECS/TCS, because these guestimates do not include the negative feedbacks, yet they can easily be quantified by the natural change we can calculate from their properties and their absolute levels in earth's energy balance
The natural negative feedbacks we measure as static effects in the holistic energy balance are the self evident strong controls of Earth's energy balance in space, the only "climate control" that nature allows, that imposes whatever temperature change is required within the atmospheric system to rebalance Earth's naturally changing energy balance in space.
It may be that a proportion of the CO2 rise is due to natural change. The isotopic ratios of C12, C13, C14 clearly suggest such a reality, but this is a relatively small perturbation to the overall system energy balance in space when compared to the dominant negative feedback control so obvious in the overall enrgy balance.
What is certain from the data we know is that the attribution of the overall level of GMST change to CO2 cannot be supported in the context of the scale of the natural energy balance control feedbacks. The CO2 effect is far too small to control earth's climate
This is clearly evidenced in the warmer pre-industrial periods where much warmer temperatures are observed when CO2 was 2/3 or less than today. So CO2 is not the dominant control of earth's energy balance, hence not the dominant control of its changing GMST. Evidence?
The well recorded geological past falsifies the claim that CO2 is, or has ever been, the dominant cause of climate change on Earth. Why debate the effect of this insignificant internal state function of atmospheric energy transfer to space, when it is so clearly NOT in control of Earth's dynamic overall energy balance in space - the only climate control nature provides, to every planet orbiting its star.
Time to look at the bigger picture of the whole Earth's changing energy balance in space, stop debating the insignificant real effect of this relatively small change within its atmosphere, within which system CO2 is no longer a significant variable.
Your climate may vary. There are only one set of facts. The rest is false. Why argue about the distractions about a trace greenhouse gas created to divert us from what is really happening at the scale of whole planetary system, that we have already measured but failed to understand?
Oh and when those who critique your conclusions do it from another belief they assert from second hand authority, then you already won that argument. They don't have any facts or have not properly considered the facs and phsyics as you set them out.
This happens as much with sceptics as it does with believers, in my experience, those doing the basic science rather than reading someone else's and repeating it are few and far between. Please keep challenging religion....they don't like facts up 'em.
Thanks for your comment, Brian.
Here is what I write about this issue in paper #16 (Tail & Dog).
"The CERES data are associated with considerable uncertainties. According to CERES (2023), the combined regional all-sky LW flux uncertainty is 2.4 W/m² and the daily regional all-sky LW diurnal uncertainty is 8 W/m². According to CERES (2021, Table 6.1), the uncertainties in the 1°×1° regional monthly TOA fluxes are 4.6 W/m² for clear sky and 2.5 W/m² for all sky. In addition, as also noted in CERES (2021), with the most recent CERES instrument calibration improvements, there still is a net imbalance of ~4.3 W/m², much larger than the expected observed ocean heating rate which CERES assumes to be ~0.71 W/m². The latter value is not far from that of Trenberth et al. (2009), who give the net absorbed energy at 0.9 W/m2. However, according to the calculations by Koutsoyiannis (2021), the latter imbalance value, again inferred from ocean heating data, is lower, 0.37 W/m²."
It is practically impossible to estimate a quantity as the difference of two quantities whose absolute values are more than two orders of magnitude greater than their difference. The only reliable way for this estimation is to base it on ocean heat data. This I have done in Appendix D in the above reference "Koutsoyiannis (2021)", which is my paper #5. My result is 0.37 W/m², far lower than the figure you mention. I do not trust speculative or model-based approaches, nor IPCC estimates. I only trust data. So, I will appreciate if you could check my calculations based on data in my paper #5 to see what the quantity in question actually is, before trying to make interpretations.
I note you comments, and can only repeat two facts that must dominate. While I defer to you on all matters of detail measurement, I view most most of the debate as an engineer, where scale matters. All these discussions of the accuracy of the measurement of imbalance are a distraction from clear and present natural control of Earth's climate, its enrgy balance in space, the only control nature allows it, that follows the absolute principles of thermodynamics.
The changes under discussion are a deliberate academic smoke screen designed to distract from and hide the much bigger reality. These are small radiative effects (on average across an ocean energy sink holding 2 years of solar enrgy in the Top 200m) Change is dominated in measurable fact by the dominant negaive feedbacks of closer to 100W/m^2, that change to rebalance the Earths planetary energy equilibrium to all these small variabilities, at whatever temperature the atmosphere and oceans must be to create the enrgy loss to space that balances that gained from the Sun.
It's very simple. To me. Step outside the earth and consider the bigger picture, with all four elephants included....
POINT: Arguing these relatively small effects as controls, within the accuracy of measurement, when such large controls are available to re balance whatever they are, so they are insignificant in terms of their ultimate effect on the equilbrium temperature of the whole earth energy balance in space, seems largely pointless.
Particularly when we know from the geological record that there have been many times that Earth has been warmer, by several degrees, at much lower CO2 levels than today,
SCience we have recorded shows CO2 has never been a dominant control of climate, in this and other interglacial periods.
It was uch warmer when there was less CO2. The whole earth control system is not unaffected, but is certainly indifferent, to any such perturbation of a few W/m^2.
Academics have been deceived into having this pointless arguments about tiny effects, that are simply noise at the scale of the overall planetary control. GMST is simply the temperature that is required to maintain the earth's energy balance. At whatever temperature that needs to be, Imbalances are unnatural so unsustainable.
The negative feedbacks maintaining Earth's stable thermodynamic balance in space by varying the rate of energy loss returned to space have a total variability of over 10W/M^2 for each degree of SST change.
The basic principles of thermodynamics control all this.
Thermodynamics always works to impose a long term energy balance, and that determines Earth's equilibrium in space. All heat lost from the warmed surface and atmosphere must return to colder space, it does not circulate, cannot return. It has to go.
The total flux involved in this balance is currently a variable 240W/m^2. All of the components of this cooling flux are significantly variable with temperature and are capable of rebalancing the whole earth energy system in space to up to 10W/m^2 with a temperature change of less than 1 K. Give or tske.
Again, Earth's energy balance in space must always tend towards an equilibrium, albeit a dynamic equilibrium where enrgy in and out are in balance.
A sustained imbalance is unnatural and nature will rebalance it.
This is a dynamic process as the solar energy inputs and the changing atmospheric energy transfer properties from the surface and atmosphere to space change.
But the negative feedbacks are at a scale that is well able to rebalance any small variabilities such as you debate that are so small as to be within the limits of accuracy.
My pre-pub paper on this quantifies the feedbacks empirically IN SECTION2, The first section addresses the wholly presumptive, partial and scientifically overt deceits of climate models, designed to create a distracting complexity of partial and presumptive pseudo science, made up of insignificant bits of unrelated science , and small temporary imbalances that nature/thermodynamics must resolve, while ignoring the larger bits.
A whole cauldron of worthless computer games, founded in partiality and attribution without justification, boiled up by dodgy statistics and presented as real science that no amount of priestly incantations from authority can ever give real credibility to.
Because the measured Earth has not worked like that throughout the record of 500Ma of geological stability.
So you are right about "It is practically impossible to estimate a quantity as the difference of two quantities whose absolute values are more than two orders of magnitude greater than their difference. "
But I suggest debating their relatively insignificant noise, within their fog of deceit, is waste of your real scientific ability. Because it sails past the dominant scale of the self evident and dominant negative feedback controls. They can and do rebalance the whole earth energy balance in space in response to such small effects in a fraction of a degree of GMST.
The Balance of the Earth: An Empirical Quantification of Earth's Energy Balance
SECTION2.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4950769
SUMMARY: Your climate may vary. My reality has very little to do with CO2, because the geological record clearly shows it cannot be a dominant control of Earth's climate. That is the natural case because CO2's tiny effect is an order of magnitude smaller than the controls available to rebalance Earth's energy equilibrium to its changes. QED
Earth... the one you can depend on. 500Ma of Energy Equilibrium
PS I view the obviously contrived fraud of climate models and their modellers thus.... but my elephants are real...
https://miltonfollies.org/2016/12/16/follies-explore-the-discworld-in-2017/
Thanks so much for your insights, Brian! Yes, there is a lot of waste of time and effort in the climate dialogue, but can it be otherwise?
Also thanks for your pre-pub paper--I wish it be influential.