Global Warming and Electromagnetic Radiation

[parmenides3]

I'll have a look when I have a few minutes. bet it's out there somewhere...

:)P

[Admiral_Bobski]

I'm happy to help with anything I can, but I know more of the physical principles than the actual mathematics involved. Give me some figures and I'll willingly try some number crunching, though!

While I'm here - the debate on the "Swindle" thread is very mixed up, and isn't particularly conducive to discussions of specifics. Since we're talking about the effect of CO₂ and, more specifically, the nature of its absorption and emission of radiation, I wonder if anyone would object to discussing the CO₂/temperature lag and tropospheric warming (or lack thereof) on this thread?

My first question would be, "At what altitude is the majority of the CO₂ accumulating?"

C-Bob

[VillagePlank]

I'm happy to help with anything I can, but I know more of the physical principles than the actual mathematics involved. Give me some figures and I'll willingly try some number crunching, though!

While I'm here - the debate on the "Swindle" thread is very mixed up, and isn't particularly conducive to discussions of specifics. Since we're talking about the effect of CO₂ and, more specifically, the nature of its absorption and emission of radiation, I wonder if anyone would object to discussing the CO₂/temperature lag and tropospheric warming (or lack thereof) on this thread?

My first question would be, "At what altitude is the majority of the CO₂ accumulating?"

C-Bob

No not at all. This thread is about the actual mechanics of the 'greenhouse' effect. Wait until we get to water vapour. Much more difficult I hope to go through this and perhaps, just perhaps, be able to create some sort of model, so we can investigate this ourselves . . .

Your stuff on physics will be most helpful. By trade I am a computer programmer, so that means I end up knowing stuff that isn't really relevant. Am learning, though, am learning . . .

[parmenides3]

Found this paper, from 1972, which should be of interest to the technically-minded. It appear to cover some of the ground we have been dealing with here:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/162/ibmrd1602L.pdf

I'll stick it on the other thread, too.

:)P

[VillagePlank]

Found this paper, from 1972, which should be of interest to the technically-minded. It appear to cover some of the ground we have been dealing with here:

http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/162/ibmrd1602L.pdf

I'll stick it on the other thread, too.

:)P

Thanks P3: the paper is 1972 - is the science contained therein still solid?

[parmenides3]

No idea.

:)P

[Hiya]

This is a good post, that says a lot of what I was gonna say. I highlighted the bits in bold which is partially correct. The first bit is correct, but they need not be the same photon. A molecule can go thru various energy levels, electronic, rotational and vibrational, it can be its this process that causes the emitted radiation from the earth to be a different wavelength from the incident. This process occurs in the atmosphere with the carbon dioxide which causes the atmosphere to heat up a bit, i believe, but I'm not an expert on that field.

Vibrational energy levels concern infrared radiation, "heat"

I'm not a climatologist, but I pointed out that, and it was mentioned in the TV programme last night, and makes perfect sense to me that the band in the atmosphere with the most carbon dioxide should be heating up fairly fast.

I'm happy to help with anything I can, but I know more of the physical principles than the actual mathematics involved. Give me some figures and I'll willingly try some number crunching, though!

While I'm here - the debate on the "Swindle" thread is very mixed up, and isn't particularly conducive to discussions of specifics. Since we're talking about the effect of CO₂ and, more specifically, the nature of its absorption and emission of radiation, I wonder if anyone would object to discussing the CO₂/temperature lag and tropospheric warming (or lack thereof) on this thread?

My first question would be, "At what altitude is the majority of the CO₂ accumulating?"

C-Bob

I'm currently working on some research of my own with regards to GW, since neither side trusts the other to produce good work I thought I'd get some of my own, if worst comes to the worst I'll know. Everyone's talking about this CO₂ lag, sounds like a good second project.

Thanks P3: the paper is 1972 - is the science contained therein still solid?

Yeah the science behind it is fine, but its a bit out of date in terms of the equipment used, methods etc.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Everyone's talking about this CO₂ lag, sounds like a good second project.

P3 and I were discussing this a while ago (before Christmas, I think). The general pro-AGW stance is that temperature tends to increase first, which releases CO₂ from the oceans, with a lag of about 500-800 years (to account for oceanic overturning and suchlike), but at some point after the initial 800 years CO₂ suddenly (and, to my mind, inexplicably) takes the lead and forces temperatures to increase.

The problem I have with this is that the forced increase in temperatures will lead to further increases in CO₂ - a perfect, and direct, feedback mechanism - but shouldn't this mean that the graphs from the Vostok Ice Core should show exponential curves at each major upturn in temp and CO₂? I'm sure that audio feedback follows this exponential curve, and I was under the impression that any direct feedback loop would do the same. So why do the Vostok graphs show linear increases in temperature and CO₂?

What are other people's thoughts on this?

C-Bob

[parmenides3]

P3 and I were discussing this a while ago (before Christmas, I think). The general pro-AGW stance is that temperature tends to increase first, which releases CO₂ from the oceans, with a lag of about 500-800 years (to account for oceanic overturning and suchlike), but at some point after the initial 800 years CO₂ suddenly (and, to my mind, inexplicably) takes the lead and forces temperatures to increase.

The problem I have with this is that the forced increase in temperatures will lead to further increases in CO₂ - a perfect, and direct, feedback mechanism - but shouldn't this mean that the graphs from the Vostok Ice Core should show exponential curves at each major upturn in temp and CO₂? I'm sure that audio feedback follows this exponential curve, and I was under the impression that any direct feedback loop would do the same. So why do the Vostok graphs show linear increases in temperature and CO₂?

What are other people's thoughts on this?

C-Bob

I can't be certain on this, C-Bob, but I think the reason there is no exponential curve is because the climate sensitivity is contrained; there is an upper limit to the amount of warming/ amount of CO2, beyond which other factors 'kick in'. These might be Milankovitch variations, THC changes, or Phase shifts in climate circulation patterns, brought on by the imbalance in the system.

Beside this, if, as you have grudgingly accepted, CO2 plays a role in keeping the planet warm, and if the current concentration of CO2 is 35% higher than in the ice-core records, what does this imply about the likely effect of the extra CO2? Surely, more positive forcing = more warming?

:)P

[Admiral_Bobski]

I can't be certain on this, C-Bob, but I think the reason there is no exponential curve is because the climate sensitivity is contrained; there is an upper limit to the amount of warming/ amount of CO2, beyond which other factors 'kick in'. These might be Milankovitch variations, THC changes, or Phase shifts in climate circulation patterns, brought on by the imbalance in the system.

Beside this, if, as you have grudgingly accepted, CO2 plays a role in keeping the planet warm, and if the current concentration of CO2 is 35% higher than in the ice-core records, what does this imply about the likely effect of the extra CO2? Surely, more positive forcing = more warming?

Obviously some kind of limiting factor would have to kick in at some point or else the warming would just continue, but between CO₂ "taking over" and that limiting factor kicking in the curve would be exponential. I can't think of any way around that.

I haven't "grudgingly accepted" that CO₂ plays a role in keeping the planet warm - I've never denied that it has - but the degree to which changes in CO₂ affect temperature is an entirely different matter and is open to debate.

Just because our current atmospheric composition and the setup of the entire ecosystem keeps our planet an estimated 33°C above what it "should" be, it doesn't mean than CO₂ has that direct a correlation with temperature.

CB

[Roger J Smith]

This idea could be posted in any discussion on global warming, might as well be here.

Let's say one bought into the idea that greenhouse gases were fully responsible for an increase of 1.5 C in global temperatures. I am not totally in favour of that proposition myself, thinking a large part is natural cycle variability, but let's say for the sake of argument that this is a true fact.

But it is quite easily observable that the reality is not anything like a warmed up old climate, especially for the UK, perhaps you could make a case for it in parts of N America. Think about this -- what would 1963 or 1987 winters have been like if everything was 1.5 degrees warmer, but you had the same weather patterns. Or even allow them to shift a hundred miles closer to the pole for that matter to create some feedback mechanism.

Those cold spells would still have been quite potent and such events are not normally occurring nowadays in western Europe at least. Over here in North America there is much less perceptual change especially for winter weather patterns, it would be hard to see any difference if you warmed up our past winters by 1.5 C, that's about the size of an urban heat island for a town of 2,000 people.

So my point is that circulation patterns have changed quite dramatically in recent years, and in particular over Europe. If this is a result of greenhouse gases primarily, I think the advocates of AGW have not managed to develop any highly plausible theories about how that might be so, other than the usual business about higher ocean temperatures directing the jet stream more poleward.

To get back to the concept of this thread, I tend to look at the earth's atmosphere as the lower portion of the ambient solar system magnetic field that we are always travelling through, and this is not a static phenomenon but an ever-changing three dimensional environment with sector changes and other features that impact on terrestrial weather.

The atmosphere is rarely viewed as an electromagnetic field, but it can be pictured as such. Different air masses and circulation features have boundaries where electromagnetic charges are vastly different and this leads to various forms of sferics, not just lightning but other phenomena in the atmosphere as well, such as static electricity buildups in high pressure.

It is conceivable to me that large amounts of electro-magnetic radiation applied in some coherent way to the atmosphere could lead to weather modification in the future, and perhaps not the distant future either. Many believe that the Soviets were experimenting with such concepts for many years, although I would not number myself among those who go on to state that they succeeded and mucked around with weather patterns for a time in the 1970s and 1980s. That was a common urban legend back in those days whenever weather patterns became unusual, which was quite frequently as this was a period of higher than average blocking.

I would also make this very general statement about weather and atmospheric science -- there are limitations and dead ends inherent in the current conventional approach to longer-range forecasting, not to say that meteorology is a flawed science because as far as it goes it is more of an empirical science that works reasonably well over short time frames, but as somebody said in your neck of the woods four hundred years ago, there is more in heaven and earth than is dream't of in thy philosophy, and in this case, much much more -- I don't think I will live long enough to see it myself, despite working on alternative approaches for 30 years now, but sooner or later some version of my research will gain acceptance and that's the way meteorology will be "done" in the future, a blend of the current empirical science and this theoretical framework.

I will just plant one example here for future reference. No matter how elaborate some computer model might be, there is no way that on today's date, 11 March, a forecast could be derived for June 14th. However, by applying my theoretical research which is basically an extension of electro-magnetic principles to the atmosphere, I would say that on the given date, there should be strong low pressure evident around North Dakota and Manitoba, with a powerful cold front and severe thunderstorms through the northern and central plains states. There should also at this time be low pressure around northwest Ireland towards the Faeroes, with a cold front developing for possible severe weather that I am currently timing for 15 June for the UK, but if this system is ahead of schedule the severe weather might be over Ireland and the western UK by late on the 14th.

This forecast is based on analogue techniques using similar basic set-ups in the solar system and earth-moon configurations. At the forecast time, the new moon event, with two strong secondary events known as N Max and JO events (see my diatribe in the advanced section for details) should be creating much stronger than average waves of low pressure along favoured timing lines. From analogues I can develop a reasonable approximation of shape and timing of these systems, and then use conventional meteorology to predict that from the derived maps, severe weather risk would be high in relative terms.

Only 95 days to wait for this electro-magnetic forecast ... but each N Max event between now and then should be fairly strong, tomorrow is actually S Max, so around the 25th comes the first of these N Max events, and each one will be doubled up with the JO event, so each 27.4 days from then look for the northern max events. Between those (each 27.4 days from tomorrow) the southern max events with JC (in other words, you'll see the Moon passing near Jupiter at southern max this spring and summer, anyone having clear skies there tonight will see this after midnight when Jupiter and the moon have risen, but it's not a close conjunction as the Moon is about 6 degrees below Jupiter in the sky). The timing separation of these events is closing in on zero as Jupiter closes in on the position of the galactic equator which generates S Max, but the timing separation this winter was about one day, which is why a lot of the storms were elongated with double centered structure. Now the separation is a matter of perhaps 12 hours and closing towards zero, so these lows are gaining focus and energy as a result. But it's now spring and not winter so to some extent the intensity gain is cancelled out. The June event, despite being in early summer, should be particularly strong (970-980 lows for mid-June would be considered strong) because then the new moon is added in, between now and then the new moon events are isolated something like 7, then 5, and 3 days ahead of N Max as we move through the spring months.

There is a folklore tie in to all this -- you've probably heard the saying that people should plant when the crescent moon is on its back in the evening sky. That's because it is then around northern max in spring, and there was probably a good chance over time as medieval people watched the skies and the weather, that the following week to two weeks would be showery and fairly warm, because the coldest time in spring on a statistical basis according to my research is the opposite part of the lunar cycle, the days after southern max. This is when the most threatening frosty outbreaks seem to occur, both in Europe and North America, at least on a gross statistical basis, and let's face it, these folklore sayings are nothing more than gross statistical estimates that have been replaced by the more precise and detailed understanding of the medium range forecast.

Sorry to ramble on, but I like explaining 22nd century science in my old age.

Edited March 11, 2007 by Roger J Smith

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

...

What I get from your research and this winter, and last winter, is your technique is stronger at long-range. Frustratingly its resolution seems to get less as you get closer to the day.

Example. Our one cold spell (late January) saw Roger successfully predict retrogression of high pressure over Scandinavia ahead of the models and predictions of other long range forecasters.

Here's 20th. Here's 25th. Only just, but nethertheless link up between Azores High and Russian High.

If I remember correctly the retrogression came late and you expected the block to hold longer than it did. The link held less than one day, broken by a powerful Arctic low pressure system.

While the basic structure of the long range forecast, of high and low pressures may be correct, when it gets close to the time Roger, you have had to rely more on traditional forecasting methods. In this case the block came later than you expected - by a week or so.

Traditional meteorology, which did not predict the retrogression (the models upgraded and upgraded and upgraded the heights over Scandinavia until the link showed perhaps the day before, magically, as you said it would) showed itself stronger on short-term specifics, such as the extremely tenuous nature of the block.

Perhaps there's a gravity/quantum distinction going on here? Two ways to explain the same thing, each which explains things better than the other at its own scale (long/short range) which means your forecast technique faces an "invisible wall" of limited resolution at short range much like the million$ models of MetO, GFS, ECM etc have at long range.

This post probably isn't ON TOPIC. Just thought I'd make this comment.

Edited March 11, 2007 by AtlanticFlamethrower

[parmenides3]

I was just wondering if you were familiar with this journal, Roger? : http://www.astrophys-space-sci-trans.net/recent_papers.html

Looks right up your street. There's also quite a lot going on at the EGU in this area in April; I'll look for the programme.

Hope this helps with your research.

:)P

[Roger J Smith]

Thanks, I was familiar with the journal. My main research problem is fairly obvious, one person trying to do what should really be the work of a team of perhaps 20-40 people splitting up a very complex problem into manageable bits and pieces.

The work I have done on the North American application of the theory, which I think is better developed than this UK application by a considerable factor, fills up pretty much my entire available work space, and mental space too if you know what I mean. I am at that age where further research is sometimes pushing older research out of the conscious space and back into the archives -- I could even forget some of it altogether for a while.

Anyway, I have the CET series in a workable data set now, so I may make some better progress in my research, but as some have been saying or hinting in other discussions, I may have stumbled across this at just the wrong moment in time, as a different global climate regime begins to develop, so that some of my index values may be fine for the old climate regime that was in place, but may be swamped by some of the dynamics of the new regime, especially as it looks to me, the eastern Atlantic and western Europe. Things seem to have shifted more there than here, so far at least.

This may get back to answering one question that people thought I was ignoring, but actually just hadn't seen on another thread -- is Mercury's retrograde influence just not working, or what's going on with that? I have come to the conclusion that this process is being shifted rapidly north in your part of the hemisphere, because in other sectors it seems to be much better in predictive terms in various locations. So possibly the answer to that is rather promising down the road -- in the next few winters, with Mercury's retrograde influence coming earlier in the winter and at lower latitudes, the northward shift may work more in your favour than in these recent winters where the analogues got into a blocking regime rather frequently.

What I should do, perhaps, is come up with a daily forecast for a month over the event horizon like May or June, and see how that does relative to the actual weather and random chance. I have done this over on this side with some pretty encouraging results, but I have only done so informally as part of the preparation of long range forecasts. My hesitation is that some critics are likely to demand perfection of the technique where I look more for a sequence of events that validates with a reasonable time error. For this range of forecasting, you would be making some progress, I feel, if you could say something like this --

"anticyclonic spell 1-7, fast westerly stormy pattern 8-12, cold northerly 13-15, retrograde block 16-20, inversion high 21-24"

and then the actual result might be

anticyclonic spell 1-5, fast westerly stormy pattern 6-10, cold northerly 11-13, ridge between Euro high and block 14-17, retrograde block 18-21, inversion high 22-25

so that you had a situation where your menu of events was pretty close to the actual sequence and the timing error averaged perhaps 1 to 2 days for start and end of each type. I wouldn't claim that for the UK anything I have done so far has been even that close, but I feel like some critics would claim that something that close was still random, which of course I would tend to see as hostile criticism.

So with specific event forecasts like a strong cold front late June 14 through June 15 crossing the British Isles, it becomes a validation problem as follows -- what is the random chance of a cold front at that time, what is the average separation between cold fronts, what defines strong cold front, and how does the actual result compared to the forecast measure skill or lack of skill? The sort of validation I would place on the forecast would be something like this -- the average separation between significant cold fronts is probably in the order of 5-7 days at that time of year, and the thresh-hold for "strong" would be a temperature fall of 5 C degrees, wind gusts exceeding 40 mph or any significant severe weather.

Given all of that, a forecast such as the one I am assessing here should be significant if a cold front of this intensity develops and moves through the grid any time between 00z 14th and 00z 16th. That provides about a plus or minus half day error range and requires the intensity validates. If the timing was right and the intensity too high, that would also be a partial success of the technique. For the North American forecast, I would be looking at fairly similar time constraints, and would from my wording be expecting reports of at least large hail or F2 tornado activity since small hail and minor tornado reports are almost daily in some parts of South Dakota and Nebraska at that time of year.

[parmenides3]

In response to C-Bob's previous point:

The problem I have with this is that the forced increase in temperatures will lead to further increases in CO2 - a perfect, and direct, feedback mechanism - but shouldn't this mean that the graphs from the Vostok Ice Core should show exponential curves at each major upturn in temp and CO2? I'm sure that audio feedback follows this exponential curve, and I was under the impression that any direct feedback loop would do the same. So why do the Vostok graphs show linear increases in temperature and CO2?

I don't know the answer, so I've stuck it on a couple of climate science blogs; Let's see what washes out.

:)P

In the meanitme, a reminder that a new (still under revision) paper is suggesting that T does not lead CO2 in the Vostok ice core after all, but they either run parallel or CO2 leads. It's a hugely technical procedure to do the analysis, & I don't follow all of it, but I have a couple of reservations about the way they have got the numbers to fit, so we'll see how it ends up.

:)P

[Admiral_Bobski]

In response to C-Bob's previous point:

I don't know the answer, so I've stuck it on a couple of climate science blogs; Let's see what washes out.

:)P

In the meanitme, a reminder that a new (still under revision) paper is suggesting that T does not lead CO2 in the Vostok ice core after all, but they either run parallel or CO2 leads. It's a hugely technical procedure to do the analysis, & I don't follow all of it, but I have a couple of reservations about the way they have got the numbers to fit, so we'll see how it ends up.

:)P

Thanks for that P3 - I was going to ask the question at RealClimate but never got round to it. Maybe it's still worth doing that if you don't get anything from the blogs you've posted on...?

Did you read the abstract for the article I linked to a while back, which suggests a lag of 800 years +/-200 years? That's from 2003 (I think - or possibly 2004, I forget). Whereabouts could I find this new paper, so I could read it and get the heads-up?

CB

[parmenides3]

Here: http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/cp/cpd/3/435/cpd-3-435.htm

It's an open paper, so you can read the whole thing on the link. :)P It's as new as it gets, so trumps yours...

[Admiral_Bobski]

Here: http://www.copernicus.org/EGU/cp/cpd/3/435/cpd-3-435.htm

It's an open paper, so you can read the whole thing on the link. :)P It's as new as it gets, so trumps yours...

Thanks for the link, P3 - I'll get reading and see if I can get my head round it I admit my link is out of date, but I wasn't aware of any objection to it until now. Three (or four) years is a long time for a paper to go without criticism in this field, so it seemed on a pretty sure footing... We shall see!

CB

[The Penguin]

In the meanitme, a reminder that a new (still under revision) paper is suggesting that T does not lead CO2 in the Vostok ice core after all, but they either run parallel or CO2 leads. It's a hugely technical procedure to do the analysis, & I don't follow all of it, but I have a couple of reservations about the way they have got the numbers to fit, so we'll see how it ends up.

:)P

Ah, so they're having problems making it fit the theory?

[parmenides3]

Ah, so they're having problems making it fit the theory?

I'm not qualified to say; it's just an impression. You read it and decide. :)P

[The Penguin]

I'm not qualified to say; it's just an impression. You read it and decide. :)P

I have, and like I said . . . .

Just as an aside, why do they expect to get a correlation between North and South Pole weather events? On the face of it this seems highly unlikely. And if they then have to shift the evidence to make this work, what effect does that have on the rest of their shenanigans?

[parmenides3]

I have, and like I said . . . .

Just as an aside, why do they expect to get a correlation between North and South Pole weather events? On the face of it this seems highly unlikely. And if they then have to shift the evidence to make this work, what effect does that have on the rest of their shenanigans?

I was under the impression that they were using the specific 'spike' events to cross-refer the data, with the aim of synchronising the timelines (the idea being that the spikes represent globally synchronous events): I don't thing they are expecting synchronous weather. The paper explains how this is meant to work. My reservations were based on the need to recalibrate one of the SH cores, & the method they have used to do this: I have no idea whether it's a valid process or not. This is how they get to change the calculation of the relation of CO2 to temperature.

:)P

[parmenides3]

Okay, I have had a reply to C-Bob's question:

The problem I have with this is that the forced increase in temperatures will lead to further increases in CO2 - a perfect, and direct, feedback mechanism - but shouldn't this mean that the graphs from the Vostok Ice Core should show exponential curves at each major upturn in temp and CO2? I'm sure that audio feedback follows this exponential curve, and I was under the impression that any direct feedback loop would do the same. So why do the Vostok graphs show linear increases in temperature and CO2?

This is what the climate scientist said:

[i don't have a really good answer to the feedback stuff - the real answer is that its not fully understood. Another one is that its probably/possibly related to upwelling of ocean water releasing CO2, which might set a maximum rate of release of CO2.

I have to admit that it is more helpful to C-Bob's argument that to mine; it shows another area where our understanding is incomplete.

The scientist also pointed out that the paper I referred to is under review at the moment, so we shouldn't take it's conclusions as read (I wasn't anyway), but he also makes the point that to say 'CO2 follows T by 800 years' is not necessarily correct (it ignores the error bars, anyway).

Unfortunately, it looks like this is not a question with a straightforward answer. I'll try to work out what I think the implications of this are.

:)P

[Admiral_Bobski]

Okay, I have had a reply to C-Bob's question:

This is what the climate scientist said:

I have to admit that it is more helpful to C-Bob's argument that to mine; it shows another area where our understanding is incomplete.

The scientist also pointed out that the paper I referred to is under review at the moment, so we shouldn't take it's conclusions as read (I wasn't anyway), but he also makes the point that to say 'CO2 follows T by 800 years' is not necessarily correct (it ignores the error bars, anyway).

Unfortunately, it looks like this is not a question with a straightforward answer. I'll try to work out what I think the implications of this are.

:)P

Thanks for that P3 (and I'm not just saying that because it fails to shoot me down in flames!) - it's nice to know that there are people out there willing to take the time to give an honest answer to an amateur's question (that means both the scientist who answered and you, P3, who asked the question for me :lol: ). Admittedly, it is also nice to know that my quibble is a legitimate one, and that I'm not just seeing giants where there are actually windmills...

For now, at least for the sake of argument, and in the face of no absolute evidence to the contrary, I shall continue with the assumption that CO₂ follows temperature increase in the ice core record. If there's any lag at all then the time-scale of that lag is irrelevant (for the moment, at least). I will happily alter my views should evidence to the contrary be presented and/or accepted!

I've had a browse through the new paper that argues the time lag - it's really hard going, isn't it?! It would be nice if scientific papers came in two versions: one with all the references and everything, and one which omitted the references, thereby increasing the chances of having at least one sentence without half a dozen parenthesised passages in it! Ah, well... Maybe tomorrow I'll have found my thinking cap!

CB

[AtlanticFlamethrower]

In response to C-Bob's previous point:

I don't know the answer, so I've stuck it on a couple of climate science blogs; Let's see what washes out.

:)P

In the meanitme, a reminder that a new (still under revision) paper is suggesting that T does not lead CO2 in the Vostok ice core after all, but they either run parallel or CO2 leads. It's a hugely technical procedure to do the analysis, & I don't follow all of it, but I have a couple of reservations about the way they have got the numbers to fit, so we'll see how it ends up.

:)P

The paper offers no new evidence. Also paper's finding is based on an old model (Arnauld et al 2000), rather than a new one.

They put some data into this model and found they would have to fiddle the figures - reduce temperature/CO2 lag - for it to match observed reality.

Why could this be? Because the temperature/CO2 lag was not actually so huge? Or it could be their chosen model is not an accurate representation of reality?

Which one takes precedence: the results of an incomplete model or an observed physical temperature record?

Before you give your answer: the authors of the paper did not catagorically state, anywhere, that CO2 lead temperature. They said it "could well" be the case - in other words they don't claim the paper proves a thing, let alone what you're suggesting it does.