Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
What should a responsible Skeptic say to an astute audience? When recently invited by the “Technology, Engineering, and Science Plus” group in my community to give a talk and answer questions, I knew I would have an attentive room of tech-savvy professionals. However, they might not be fully tuned in to the details of the Global Warming controversy. Furthermore, they were likely to have opinions closer to the supposed “mainsteam science” orientation than mine.
In this posting, I’ve summarized the main points I think are most likely to align people who are both intelligent and reasonable to the Skeptic side. My Powerpoint (with talking points for each chart in the Notes section under each slide) is available [click here] for you to use and adapt as you wish.
A. Basic Climate Science – Water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and other “greenhouse” gases cause the Earth Surface to be warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was just nitrogen.
- Light energy from the Sun warms the Earth System, which consists of our Atmosphere and the Surface. Based on satellite measurements, the Sun provides 1366 Watts per square meter (W/m^2) at the Top of the Atmosphere. After accounting for the Earth’s spherical shape and albedo (reflectiveness), the absorbed energy averages out to about 240 W/m^2 for each square meter.
- To maintain a relatively constant mean temperature, Output Energy must equal Input Energy, so the Earth System must emit about 240 W/m^2 out to Space, which it does.
- We call the Input Energy “light” because we can see (much of) it. We call the Output Energy “heat” because we can feel it. However, whether it is “short wave” energy from the very hot Sun, or “long wave” from the more moderate Earth System, we know that energy is fungible. 240 W/m^2 of one type is equal, power-wise, to 240 W/m^2 of the other. A Watt is a Watt, no matter what :^)
- But, there is an “issue” – if we consider the Earth System as a “black body”, according to the laws of physics, for the Earth System to emit 240 W/m^2, it would have to be at a temperature of only 255 Kelvin, where Kelvins are degrees Celsius above absolute zero. (The Earth System is not exactly a black body, but it is close enough for our purposes here.)
- You may remember that anything above absolute zero emits radiant energy and that 0.0 Kelvin corresponds to -273ºC or -460ºF. The “issue” is that the Earth Surface has a mean temperature closer to 288 Kelvin, corresponding to about +15ºC or +59ºF. In other words, the Surface is about 33ºC or 58ºF warmer than the “black body” formula would indicate. How to explain this added warmth?
- The generally accepted explanation is the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. This is true science, but the name is somewhat misleading because a glass greenhouse works mostly by restricting convection while the Atmospheric effect works mostly by restricting radiation. I use “scare quotes” around “greenhouse” to acknowledge this semantic issue.
- The Atmosphere passes most of the “short wave” energy from the Sun and absorbs most of the “long wave” energy from the Surface. The absorbed energy warms the Atmosphere and is re-emitted in all directions at a variety of “long wave” wavelengths. A portion of radiation from the Atmosphere passes out the Top of the Atmosphere to Space. A portion is emitted in the downward direction and is absorbed by the Surface. This absorbed radiant energy accounts for most of the extra 33ºC or 58ºF.
- A variety of gases in the Atmosphere, primarily water vapor (H2O) and carbon dioxide (CO2), absorb and re-emit “long wave” radiation. These are called “greenhouse gases”.
B. Divergent Views – There is a valid, science-based argument between people I refer to as Warmists, Lukewarmers, and Skeptics. I distinguish their reasoned views from the far out, unscientific rantings of people I refer to as Alarmists and their equal and opposite reaction opponents, who I call Disbelievers.
- VP Al Gore was not the first Alarmist, but his public lectures and his Nobel and Oscar-winning movie, An “Inconvenient” Truth, probably did more than anything else to bring Global Warming Alarmism to the fore in the consciousness of the major media and the general population.
- The scene depicted above was the highlight of his presentation.
- Gore displays the Ice Core record of the past 600,000 years for CO2 (red) and Temperature (blue). He points out the undoubted correlation between the two parameters. When one goes up so does the other. When one goes down, the other does as well. He points out that the then current CO2 level is considerably higher than that of the past 600,000 years, and he projects the future levels of CO2 assuming it continues to rise at current rates. So far, this is all true.
- Dramatically ascending high above the stage on his motorized platform, he implies that mean temperatures will rise in proportion to the CO2. (My graphic is annotated in dashed blue to show the implied warming.) If that happens, he warns, more and more of the polar ice will melt, causing the seas to rise and flooding coastal areas. The ground under the polar ice will be exposed, further reducing the albedo of the Surface and causing further warming. We will reach a tipping point with runaway Global Warming.
- The villain of Gore’s story is the human race and our habit of burning ever-increasing quantities of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) that release unprecedented amounts of CO2. This scene, more than any other event, is most likely responsible for the birth of what has come to be known as Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, CAGW. In other words, catastrophe due to human-caused Global Warming. It has become the mantra of the Alarmists and an excuse for governments to regulate all fossil fuels as well as land use that affects albedo. Since all industry and agriculture and civilized life itself depends upon fossil fuels and land use, the Alarmists give suitably oriented politicos an excuse to regulate and tax and restrict virtually everything. We outdoors types will need an indulgence from the government every time we pass wind. And, we can forget about lighting a campfire :^).
- But, as the annotations in my graphic above show, there is a fundamental “Inconvenient” truth about the ice core data. It has absolutely nothing to say about the current Global Warming controversy! Gore was misleading the media and the public when he implied that rising CO2 levels would cause corresponding increases in mean temperatures. In particular, as any scientist who took a close look at the ice core data would see, and as I show in the inset graph in the upper left corner, Temperature always rises eight-hundred or more years before CO2 increases. The same is true in the other direction. The Temperature falls eight-hundred or more years prior to CO2 decreases. What this shows, if anything, is that TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2, or, that something else causes both to change, with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years. Gore got the direction of causation backwards.
- When the falsehood of this implied causation was pointed out, Gore’s apologists claimed that it was a minor matter and, after all, despite the 800-year lag, both Temperature and CO2 were up together and down together for about 5/6ths of the record. Besides, they said, we are currently burning historically unprecedented amounts of fossil fuel, and, we know that CO2 is a “greenhouse gas”, and so on and on. But, the truth is still that the ice core record is of a time when there were no humans to burn fossil fuels, so why did Gore bring it up since it has no relationship to our current situation? Raw, unfettered Alarmism has had its effect on the media, the political class, and we common citizens who have to pay the costs of the phony CAGW panic.
- In politics, as in physics, every reaction has an equal and opposite reaction. In the Case of CAGW, that opposite (and equally false) reaction is what I call Disbeliever AGW or DAGW. These are people who use pseudo-scientific arguments in their claim that humans have had absolutely no hand in the mean temperature rise of the past century, or that there has been no temperature rise, or that the basic science of the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” is untrue, and so on. I do not like to be to critical of the DAGW crowd because, when it comes to general political decisions, they are more likely than not to agree with me than my opponents, but my academic integrity and ethical duty as a licensed professional engineer require me to state what I see as the error of their arguments. (As I have in my WUWT Visualizing series [1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
- Having dismissed what I regard as the unscientific Alarmists and Disbelievers, that leaves us with three groups that, for the most part, use rational science-base arguments for their diverse views. Of course, every member of each group has somewhat different views, and any attempt to divide them into three distinct types is bound to cross some lines. So, please consider my grouping as approximate.
- Carbon sensitivity, which is the estimate of how much mean temperatures will increase if CO2 doubles from historical or current levels, is one way to determine which of the the three groups a person belongs to. The Warmists tend to accept the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate of 2.0ºC to 4.5ºC. The Skeptics tend to set carbon sensitivity much lower, perhaps 0.2ºC to 1ºC. The third group, which I call Lukewarmers, would suggest 1ºC to 3ºC.
- How much of the rise in CO2 is attributable to human use of fossil fuels is also estimated differently. Warmists would blame humans for nearly all of it, while Skeptics would say less than half. Similarly, the blame for the supposed 0.8ºC rise in mean temperatures since 1880 is mostly attributed to human activities, while Skeptics say that data bias “adjustments” by the official climate record keepers is responsible for about a third of the supposed warming, and that natural cycles, over which humans have no control, are responsible for about half of it, leaving only 0.1ºC (or maybe up to 0.2ºC) to human responsibility. Lukewarmers are somewhere in-between.
- Skeptics have well-justified suspicions that the official climate data keepers were “cooking the books” to lend whatever support they could to the highest estimates of carbon sensitivity. Around the year 2000, US Mean Temperature data was “adjusted” down by 0.1 to 0.2ºC for years prior to the 1970’s, and upwards by 0.2 to 0.3ºC for years after the 1970’s, increasing supposed warming by 0.3 to 0.5ºC.
- The surfacestations.org project published photos of official temperature measurement stations that were very near artificial sources of heat, with most being in the lowest two of the five quality levels established by the government. The poor quality stations were compared to nearby well-located stations. There were large temperature deltas that could only be accounted for if the the stations now poorly-located were originally well-located, but had been influenced by nearby development, such as paved parking lots, buildings, and air conditioning vents.
- According to a figure in the 1990 IPCC report, 1100 to 1300 AD saw temperatures in the northern hemisphere that were higher than current levels. However, the IPCC 2001 report included the infamous so-called “hockey stick” chart that managed to make the Medieval Warm Period of about 1000 years ago disappear! (My Powerpoint set includes charts with evidence of each of the aforementioned issues.)
- These suspicions were not fully confirmed until 2009 when someone (probably an inside whistle-blower) released emails and computer code from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in the UK, and, later that year, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request yielded a stash from the US NASA-GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies).
C. Climategate – UK Climatic Research Unit (CRU) emails and the US NASA GISS FOIA emails. What they tell us about the published Global Warming data.
- I refer to the CRU as the Climategate Research Unit or, more simply, the Fudge Factory because the words “fudge factor” appear in their computer code. Phil Jones, PhD, is the CRU Director. He confirmed suspicions about the infamous “Hockey Stick” graph when, in an email, he called it “Mike’s Nature trick” (because a version of that graph appeared in a paper by Dr. Michael Mann in the prestigious journal Nature ). He also wrote that the “trick” was designed to “hide the decline” in tree ring proxy data. The tree-ring expert associated with CRU, Keith Brifa, PhD, admits, in one of the emails that “the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago”. (My Powerpoint set includes slides with direct quotes from the Climategate materials.)
- Moving on to the FOIA emails from GISS, it is interesting to note that their HQ, in New York City, happens to be in the same building as the famous restaurant where Jerry Seinfeld dined with George, Kramer, and Elaine. (It was never revealed what Kramer did for a living – perhaps he was the chief analyst at GISS :^)
- The most revealing email from GISS is reproduced above. It was from Makiko Sato, PhD to her Boss, GISS-Director James Hansen, PhD, detailing the seven different analyses and comparisons of US mean temperatures for 1934 and 1998. The later year was the hottest in the 1990’s, so it was, let us say “inconvenient” that 1934, according to data published by GISS in 1999, was over 0.5ºC warmer. If Global Warming was almost entirely due to recent human activities, and was accelerating, how could the 1930 have been warmer?
- Just as the Hockey Stick made the Medieval Warm Period disappear, GISS tried mightily to make 1934 cooler than 1998, but only succeeded in reducing the 0.5ºC lead into a dead heat. Notice that the 0.5ºC “adjustment” is more than half the supposed total warming since 1880.
- I would like to trust the work of taxpayer-supported science, but, it seems, we must rely on President Reagan’s advice regarding the old Soviet Union, “Trust, but verify!”
D. What We Can and Should Do – Energy policy (cap and trade scam vs carbon tax). Efficiency, conservation, “green“, and renewable sources.
- I am quite sure that Global Warming is REAL (i.e. the mean temperature of the Surface has increased by 0.5 to 0.6ºC since 1880) but, most of that increase is due to Natural Cycles over which we humans have no control.
- However, the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels and human actions are PART of the Cause.
- There is not and never has been any real danger of catastrophe or even of serious net detriment to human life due to increased CO2 levels. Indeed, modest increases in these parameters are most likely a net benefit.
- However, we Skeptics have to be realistic in the current political climate. Like it or not (and I do not like it) the official climate “Team” (i.e., the “Hockey Team” :^) has convinced the political and media establishment, and much of the population that something has to be done. We cannot fight something with nothing, so we need something more than a passive policy of do nothing because nothing is necessary.
- Therefore, I favor reduction of the carbon footprint by efficiency, conservation, recycling, and so on, plus the introduction, if and when economically practical of so-called “Green” energy, including Nuclear, Water, Wind, Biomass and, particularly, “Clean” Coal.
- If nothing else, these will do minimum harm and, if successful, will reduce US dependence upon foreign oil. We have spent, and continue to sacrifice too much blood and treasure protecting our access, and that of our allies, to energy from unstable regions of the world.
- As for the Cap and Trade scam, it is a Politician’s Delight that rewards powerful Interests, wrecks the economy, and will NOT significantly reduce carbon emissions. It seems to me that some countries and US states that have adopted Cap and Trade have realized their folly and are backing away from it.
- You may be surprised that I favor some version of a straight Carbon Tax, collected at the mine, well, and port, with the proceeds returned on an equal basis to citizens and legal residents. Yes, James Hansen and (pardon the expression Ralph Nader) also favor it, but, so do conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, the Wall Street Journal, and others on the right. My support for this tax is based on what I wrote above, “We cannot fight something with nothing” and “We have spent, and continue to sacrifice too much blood and treasure protecting our access, and that of our allies, to energy from unstable regions of the world.”
I’m interested in your critique and comments. (My Powerpoint presentation is available [click here] for you to use and adapt as you wish..)
Awesome, Ira, THANKS. I will definitely use this in both my classes, and educate the parents who give me grief for not teaching AGW in my classroom. And maybe my colleagues, but as science teachers in a suburban high school, they know the science is so totally settled their minds are made up. 🙂
Under B 7: “The Temperature falls eight-hundred or more years prior to Temperature decreases.” ..should that last prtion not be CO2 decreases?
I greatly appreciate the presentation and will continue reading the rest of it.
Thanks
[THANKS for catching that error. I just fixed it. Ira]
Point B.6 states:
“What this shows, if anything, is that CO2 CAUSES TEMPERATURE, or, that something else causes both to change, with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years. ”
Shouldn’t this be “TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2” as it appears you are referring to the real message in the ice record rather than what AG espouses?
[THANKS for catching that error. I just fixed it. Ira]
Correction to the correction; the quote came from section B. paragraph 6, not 7.
Thanks
For me, the most important point in the debate is the role of feedbacks. The Alarmists assume, with no reason and no evidence, that positive feedbacks will magnify the insignificant primary effect of CO2 by a factor of at least 3. A relatively stable system has to have negative feedbacks, which counteract any forced change. Measurements of outgoing energy vs increased temperatures indicate negative feedback reduces any forced change to about 1/3 of what it would be. That means the alarmist’s estimates, or scenarios, are out by a factor of about 9. A “Technology, Engineering, and Science Plus” group would be familiar with the concept of feedbacks.
I think some quotes from Richard Feynman are worthwhile. I’m sure I know what he would have said about people who ignore measurements and study the output of models, who “lose” their data rather than share it, and who continue on pushing a theory after their predictions repeatedly fail.
yes, a good summary, still, it’s hard to swallow and stick to the basics when the AGW crowd seems to continually have their way with govt and media. makes a person want to repeatedly bat them with every exposed falsehood the IPCC cranked out.
in Seattle, this same group of the agenda have had their way for decades now, and the public schools have been teaching this gospel long enough that it is simply a matter of we are past the science now …
so, what’s a heated rhetoric correct comeback for … we’re past the science ?
Nice succinct summary – excellent job.
(And in the spirit of continuous improvement – I fear that there might be a minor typo or two in point 6 about temperature causing CO2)
[THANKS for catching that error. I just fixed it. Ira]
I like your overall presentation. I do not like your conclusion: “We can’t fight something with nothing.” This is appeasement. You favor heavily subsidized inefficient, intermittent wind and solar. Why? You’re an engineer. You know these don’t work…certainly not on a commerical/industrial scale.
One thing you’ve done, and I’ve seen elsewhere, that is really good is to talk about Earth’s 255 Kelvin blackbody temperature if it had no atmosphere, or at least no greenhouse effect. It gets people thinking about how different things could be, how important the greenhouse effect we have is, and is a giant step away from allowing yourself to be accused of denying there is a greenhouse effect. That also opens several paths for discussion about how it’s changing now.
“Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing,”
Lord Christopher Monckton
This is also many times sound economic policy, but sadly we have gotten caught up in the cult of “do something” rather than letting the system fix itself. Do nothing. Be courageous.
“You may be surprised that I favor some version of a straight Carbon Tax, collected at the mine, well, and port, with the proceeds returned on an equal basis to citizens and legal residents.”
After all the rational, well thought out, well reasoned discussion, you have failed to apply the same effort and analysis to this part of your solution?
After using so many words to say that increasing Co2 is not a catastrophe, now you want to tax it anyway? for what reason then? you just said it’s not necessary.
Never in the history of mankind has a company, corporation, or for profit organization paid taxes. in every instance the cost of taxes is simply passed on to the consumer. period. so what good will it do to have those same proceeds “returned to the citizens”? why not just let them keep it in the first place. installing a new “cash” loop in the system will only empower the politicians and propagate this theory of redistributing wealth. If you want to take from one person and give to another, then just say so and do that. don’t disguise it as some kind of tax to improve the environment. what a bunch of brainwashing B.S.
Waste not, want not.
The unintended consequence of a carbon tax is, that once enacted, it will never go away, but grow into another pile of tax money that will be tossed to special interests.
The problem we have now with GISS (and other beaurocracies) is that they have figured out how to game the system to perpetuate themselves.
More beaurocracy and more taxes are not the answer, but you could make the argument that they are the problem.
Energy conservation is a good thing, especially when it doesn’t cost more.
Can I get university credit for reading this? Thank you so much.
In a nod to Ayn Rand…. B3 states a watt is a watt … A=A
Sorry, Anthony, sir, I have to disagree with your point 8. You can fight the something with nothing. It is called the truth. The truth is that the over-regulation and environmental regulation of the (oil) industry makes recovery of available and proven assets currently too dear. Linking the blood spilled to the global warming argument is really too simplistic and simply wrong. It would have been simpler, and a lot cheaper, to not go to any war and simply buy the oil on the open market. Most oil hungry countries, including Europe, have done so for years. The war in Iraq and Afganistan is political and strategic. Looking at a map you will note that Iran and Syria are now seperated and sandwiched between the “friendly” powers of Israel, Iraq and Afganistan. And it still denies Russians a warm water port, although they are now trying to do that through Iran. This Canadian from Northern Alberta would like to make a friendly suggestion: Take the shackles of the (oil) industry, tax them if you must on production and in that way remove the dollars from the satraps in the Middle East.
The bit about ‘Mike’s Nature trick … to hide the decline’ is poorly described. The trick was about deleting the post-1960 part of tree-ring data because it implied a falling instead of a rising temperature, and collating instead instrumental data for the deleted period. Critics have argued that such divergence should have been shown and explained. Since no explanation has been provided, it has been suggested that tree-rings (in particular some of them) may not be a truthful indicator of temperatures even for periods without instrumental data.
In your text
CO2 CAUSES TEMPERATURE TO RISE or something causes both to rise.
[Thanks for pointing out my error. It has been fixed. Of course it is TEMPERATURE that CAUSES CO2 to rise. I knew that, but my tongue got in the way of my eye tooth and I couldn’t see what I was saying :^) Ira]
seems incorrect in view of the 800 years lag.
I feel your acceptance of carbon tax is misplaced tokenism. We Australians now have a Prime Minister and Federal Government who are captive to Green and Independent politicians who hold the balance of power. In the week before the last federal election, our Prime Minister repeatedly denied that she would introduce a carbon tax in the life of this Government. Six months later, she announced that she will in fact implement a carbon tax. Whatever is the initial level ($ per ton) it will surely escalate as rapidly as the Government can manage over the passage of time. This will have the effect of increasing the cost of living especially fossil fuels, transport (of everything including food and people), manufacturing, building – it is hard to think of any area of the economy which will not be impacted detrimentally by this tax. If you are an Australian manufacturer whose overheads increase to the point of being non-competitive with overseas plants, I suspect you will give up manufacturing and turn to importing the goods more cheaply from an overseas manufacturer who does not pay a carbon tax. End result: loss of Australian jobs, no reduction in global emissions, increased social welfare bill to be paid by the taxpayers, increased inflation and unemployment.
Also, I could not help noticing that your presentation does not even mention the IAC Review of IPCC processes. That report contains irrefutable evidence of political interference, lack of transparency, bias, failure to respond to critical review comments, poor handling of uncertainty, use of unpublished and non-peer-reviewed material which had not been critically evaluated or flagged as such. IPCC had no policy to preclude conflict of interest. With such malfeasance how could IPCC possibly arrive at the truth? If one is permitted to ‘cherry pick’ the data/literature accepting everything which suports AGW/CAGW and totally ignore any evidence to the contrary, one can prove anything you like!
I am a 68 year old retired person dependent on superannuation to support my wife and myself. I am not looking forward to having to choose between
(1) eating but freezing
(2) staying warm but starving
Either way I will suffer because of this idiocy!
Thanks for your kind words about my overall presentation.
On the issue of wind (I did not mention solar), I wrote (note the highlighted part):
By “economically practical” I mean without special subsidy.
Of course, if the Carbon Tax goes through (highly unlikely) that will penalize fossil fuels and give a relative advantage to carbon-free alternatives such as wind, water, and solar, as well as carbon-neutral alternatives such as biomass. I favored Ethanol when it was first approved for special subsidy, but I was wrong. It has turned out to be a political payoff to agricultural interests (corporations, unions, and states) that has raised the cost of grain-based foods worldwide and has not helped much in the energy realm.
Perhaps (I hope against hope) the technology developed and implemented for processing corn into energy and distributing it in as a fuel may be adapted to process agricultural, restaurant, and even residential biowaste into fuel. If that happens, we may recoup some of the public money wasted in the Ethanol scam.
This presentation does not speak to biological particulate matter. Does pollen absorb short or long wave radiation?
Sorry but there ain’t any warming, have a look at AMSU temps so not needed just feeding into AGW BS excuse moi LOL
Carl Chapman says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:07 pm
“The Alarmists assume, with no reason and no evidence, that positive feedbacks will magnify the insignificant primary effect of CO2 by a factor of at least 3.”
But most alarmists don’t know that they assume that.
Nice work. Thank you.
However, it is starting with “TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2, … with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years”, to concede later on that “… the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels and human actions are PART of the Cause”.
How’s that working? If statement 1 is true, then statement 2must be wrong, and the other way around. Or am I wrong? Have been in the past …
“The bit about ‘Mike’s Nature trick … to hide the decline’ is poorly described. The trick was about deleting the post-1960 part of tree-ring data because it implied a falling instead of a rising temperature, and collating instead instrumental data for the deleted period. ”
Wrong. briffa deleted the data because
1. it didnt correlate with temperatures ( it was negative)
2 including it would have raised the estimate of the MWP
That is the explanation he gave in the primary lit.
John Trigge says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:01 pm
“Point B.6 states:
“What this shows, if anything, is that CO2 CAUSES TEMPERATURE, or, that something else causes both to change, with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years. ”
Shouldn’t this be “TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2″ as it appears you are referring to the real message in the ice record rather than what AG espouses?”
Temperature causes a CO2 rise for 1/6th of the effect and CO2 causes a temperature rise for the other 5/6ths of the warming.
Causation is not unidirectional in this instance, it is a positive feedback system.
Thanks for doing this.
I’m not sure if I agree with your conclusions about “having to do something instead of nothing”.
If you disagree with a religion you don’t have to set up a rival religion and you don’t have to compromise with them.
Ira,
The other side is not interested in negotiation on this issue. Any ground they gain only serves to feed their obsession. After all, it isn’t really about the climate.
We’re dealing with an irrational cult. And there is good evidence these folks are mixed with others who intend us serious harm. Negotiation is pointless.
We could go all out with Thorium, and save the hydrocarbons for the other things we can make with them. But until this idea gains favor, there is no reason we shouldn’t go all out on coal, and the other vast supplies of hydrocarbons in the USA. We need to declare a national energy emergency, and begin re-establishing our pre-eminence of growth. The climate cabal has hobbled and damaged our economy. It must be destroyed completely, or like a vampire, will return to feed again. We would still manage our resources. But we need to find the proper way to separate the two issues in our dialog: To vanquish the cult, but still convey care for the environment.
The motives behind the entire issue of CO2 are:
1. A desire to suppress, damage, or destroy the US, (and other western economies)
2. A desire to create a global issue, requiring global government which would necessarily be dictatorial and socialist/communist/Malthusian wack job psycho evil.
3. A criminal desire to steal VAST amounts of wealth, with clingers on, rent seekers.
4. A self flagellating cult which loathes humanity and sees spiritual redemption in self deprivation.
Please note that reducing temperature isn’t on the list!
Q: Which of these groups should we try to reason with? A: None of them.
I think ample evidence exists in recent history. Nothing like a string of 50 news stories of catastrophic storms to dispel the notion of “disruption”. And Dr. Richard Keen’s article on highest records in North America and these two from Steve Goddard make a point anyone can understand.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/june-1934-all-48-states-over-100-degrees/
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/23/1934-an-inconvenient-truth/
If you had quit after section C I would have granted you a conditional thumbs up, but after reading through section D, I’d say if that’s the best you’ve got you should just stay home and turn off your computer because you’re worse than the warmists. “We cannot fight something with nothing,” so instead of agreeing to something completely moronic we should settle for something that is merely incredibly stupid.
The folks taking advantage of this manufactured “climate crisis” to move their agenda ahead have been pushing that agenda relentlessly for more than a century. They like to think of themselves as revolutionaries, but they are really reactionaries against the only real revolution in human history. The one that said that the governors need to be subject to the people not, as has been the case over most of the world over most of history both before and since, that people must be subjects of the government. All the revolutionary liberation movements before and since have merely sought a coup de tat to replace one set of overlords with another with a different vocabulary and nomenclature but the essential subservience of the populous preserved. The notion that giving these folks just a little will dissuade them from their long term goals is incredibly naive. The ink wouldn’t be dry on the bill authorizing your Carbon Tax before they were back angling to undercut personal liberty and free economic choices with a barrage of new planet saving measures.
As to this incredible sentence
… I favor reduction of the carbon footprint by efficiency, conservation, recycling, and so on, plus the introduction, if and when economically practical of so-called “Green” energy, including Nuclear, Water, Wind, Biomass and, particularly, “Clean” Coal.
It is completely self contradictory. You claim to support efficiency and conservation, but then “particularly’ endorse “Clean” Coal, by which I assume you mean the current absurd proposal that all new coal powered generating plant be required to capture and sequester their CO2 emissions. Every analysis of these plans that I have seen suggests that they would increase the fuel input required for each unit of output by at least 50% which seems to me to be the exact opposite of increased efficiency and conservation.
If we really can’t be bothered to defend personal liberty and economic freedom from the new feudal lords of the world’s dictatorial bureaucracies we probably deserve our fate, but there is no need to hasten its arrival by wrapping their treachery in a protective cloak of supposedly “skeptical science”
I definitely disagree with a carbon tax. While it sounds theoretically efficient, tax collection and redistribution is not a zero sum game. Even the most scrupulous government and tax office is going to burn a lot of that money in collection, prosecution and auditing. Then, if you climb back down from a theoretical land where politicians are pure of heart, then you end up in a situation where you have opened up another wedge for lobbyists and special interest groups to carve out their own niches in the legislation., to enrich themselves and weaken their competitors. You’ve only got to look at the bio fuels mess to see where it would end up.
Once the government gets a tax collection in place, it can’t leave it alone. So you can expect gradually increasing taxation and less and less compensation paid, until it ends up as just another revenue source, just like cigarettes, alcohol and liquid fuels.
If you sincerely believe that reducing carbon emissions is a problem, then by all means put a sunset clause on existing types of power generation – eventually all the old ones will be decommissioned and you’ll have gotten rid of them without disrupting anyone. There is no point in taxing existing infrastructure and destroying wealth for token gestures. Eventually new technology will arrive and make old technology obsolete. One single breakthrough in cold fusion or hot fusion, one single development in fission nuclear – and the whole game changes. And when that happens, the most important thing that will be required is flexible energy laws and regulations, and access to deep capital markets to develop and roll out the new technology.
In other words, sit back and wait for the inevitable technological breakthrough. It will happen so fast your head will spin. You didn’t have to tax horseshit to get the Model T made. All you had to do was let Henry Ford have a go and keep his winnings.
I think your description of the present results of the surfacestations project will be challenged. The results are not so simple as the impression left in B-13. The evidence for UHI in specific sites is clear enough, and can be invoked whether or not the larger picture remains under investigation. Perhaps a slight rewording will avoid a challenge.
I’m with Carl Chapman. To me, the biggest flaw in the Alarmist argument is their insistence on strong positive forcings resulting in catastrophic outcomes.
Any system in which strong positive feedbacks are dominant must eventually destroy itself. Based on the relative stability of historical climate over millions of years it seems fairly clear to me that negative feedbacks must be predominant.
@- Carl Chapman says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:07 pm
“For me, the most important point in the debate is the role of feedbacks. The Alarmists assume, with no reason and no evidence, that positive feedbacks will magnify the insignificant primary effect of CO2 by a factor of at least 3. A relatively stable system has to have negative feedbacks, which counteract any forced change.”
But the climate DOES change in response to the Milankovitch cycles, ice-cover loss and volcanoe eruptions. The magnitude of those changes to small causative effects are the reason and evidence the ‘warmists’ have for the present estimates of climate sensitivity.
” Measurements of outgoing energy vs increased temperatures indicate negative feedback reduces any forced change to about 1/3 of what it would be. ”
That is very difficult to reconcile with the MWP, LIA and the effect of large volcanic eruptions. It would also negate any effect from the measured changes in solar energy, they would be FAR too small to show up in the climate if they are reduced in effect by 1/3rd.
Ira,
If it wasn’t 2 am I’d be more specific, but speaking from just the graphic communication standpoint, I think you miss the mark a decent bit. I hope you are open to such critique, and I apologize if not, but I think you do not do your important message justice with your slides. I concede that I am using the Google doc conversion of your file, so what I am seeing is likely not quite an accurate representation of what you are presenting. But if I had to sum up my advice in a word it would be this: simplify.
Just because you can make a cast shadow doesn’t mean one is required. There are many “easy” fixes you could make to better present your message visually and have your audience absorb more of it. And you certainly do not want to overwhelm your audience with cluttered/whizbang graphics. You don’t have to fill every square inch. Add/modify slides if necessary. Again: simplify. Think timeless, minimalist.
If you return to that ideology you will be surprised at how easy it is to get your message across, not only graphically but verbally (and don’t be surprised if by simplifying your graphics you find yourself simplifying the verbal content). I would also advise against too much rhetoric (me, of all people, I know). All it takes is one word to turn some of your audience off and it can be contagious.
Well now you got me started but my bed beckons me. I have dealt with critiques such as this one I am giving for a long time, so I hope this isn’t an offense. And remember, I’m looking at a Google doc. Your slides may look quite different from what I am seeing. As for my critique, the goal is to improve the work, not “rip it to pieces.” I love critiques as they have so often helped me in particular instances and thereafter. Hopefully you share those sentiments.
Let’s quickly take slide #3. My suggestions. You use a high-resolution image of the Earth on #1 but then in #3 use a highly pixelated lo-res picture, and further it appears to be placed upside-down near as I can tell. NASA provides hi-res images of all three bodies you are free to use. I suggest you track some down and replace them. I would suggest getting rid of all extraneous text effects, even the dashes in the arrow shafts (solid lines). Make your title stand out as currently all of the larger text titles are competing with each other. Reduce font size as needed and tighten leading if it helps fit issues.. You aren’t making eye charts. Use a smaller image of the sun that still “contains” the related text block. Get rid of the blue stroke around the Earth. Make “Earth System” block of text a solid single color without a stroke. Make text color throughout more uniform and use less of them (good old white text can be magical, as can “white space”). Same with your number of fonts. Pick a different color for “Heat” label. Hard to read.
All right. Now I really am off to bed. I’ll have another look tomorrow night, time permitting, though I’m sure there are other graphically-inclined members of the WUWT audience that can lend an opinion, hand or, stylus to you. Best of luck.
What about the gravitational compression being the cause of the surface temperature being 288K (33C higher) rather than 255K, which as about 5k above the surface, in the troposphere, where the mean is of the IR emitted to space? IOW, it is nothing to do with the “greenhouse effect”. Or am I just a DAGW?
Here is another vote to NOT appease the alarmists. To give even an inch, puts their evil agenda one inch closer to implementation. They will come back time after time until they get their goals, one inch at a time.
We accepted nothing less than unconditional surrender from the WWII perpetrators and we should accept nothing less from the perpetrators of the climate fraud, another attempt to take over the world. I say this based on the fact that the key people know they are cheating to scare people into action. Some of them have actually admitted to exaggerating to scare people!
Thanks
JK
Nice clear and logical presentation, Ira, but a couple of things missing…
The role of spatio-temporal chaos and complexity in our climate system.
The problems with GCM’s and why they are useless at predicting future climate outcomes.
Your concluding argument conflates mitigating climate change with energy independence. As CO2 levels lag temperature, as you confirm at the start of your presentation, there is no logic to your assertion. ‘Do nothing’ is the only valid conclusion, as we just don’t know if we are going to be lucky enough have another climate optimum or end up in with a little ice age again.
Hope the presentation goes well for you – ‘break a leg’.
Personally, I think deniers (mostly rational people) should be pushing for large-scale mitigation of black carbon (soot). It seems to speed up the melting of ice, which unlocks more water into our hydrosphere. Since we all know water vapor is the greatest GHG of them all, it would seem a no-brainer in eliminating this particulate from our environment and receive immediate benefits. Not to mention the health benefits we would get from not inhaling it.
I think the positive news that would result from eliminating (or severely curtailing) our output would put the alarmists on their heels.
Will it ever happen? I highly doubt it. They are ‘all-in’ on tying all GHG mitigation schemes to CO2. It’s madness.
I agree with almost all of what you are saying, except the business of the carbon tax.
As an environmental I practice a personal policy of doing no harm. A carbon tax will do harm. It will make energy more expensive and will be abused by politicians and bureaucrats.
I see no harm in supporting research into alternatives, but that would not require another new tax. All we would need to do is transfer the funding currently wasted on global warming modeling the derivatives based on that modeling. There’s many billions there.
jaypan says:
May 30, 2011 at 10:31 pm
Yes – a point that seems to get ignored. If we accept the 800-1200 year TEMP vs CO2 lag is valid – then there is no real way to consider that 100 years of CO2 increases will cause any warming for another 700 years!!
The time lag in ice cores is a measurable piece of info – implying that any CO2 change will rise 800-1200 years AFTER a temperature change. So, it is reasonable to conclude that at least some of the current warming is due to events that happened 800-1200 years ago.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientists level of understanding to subtract 800 to 1200 years from 2010 and come up with a ‘date’ of 800 to 1200AD for the time period when the temperature was hotter. And what do we find in that period – oh, look, it’s the Medieval Warm Period !!
Hence the reason the ‘team’ want to expunge the MWP!
So funny – it’s sad….
I quickly reviewed the PP, and it is indeed a great job, but too complex for many in the audience, and it omits certain points.
First, the ‘390 ppm’ is in itself a propaganda spin to make 0.04% sound larger. In speaking one would remark that the human contribution is about one-hundredth of one percent. Then, go on to Carl Chapman’s point that a dubious positive feedback is required. Mention Roy Spencer.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-101/
who is an expert critic of feedbacks and includes an overview on his website.
Next, include more on natural cycles and the solar-terrestrial aspects. Mention that Cycle 24 is probably an analogy to the Dalton Minimum.
You might mention the Petition Project, to refutes the ‘consensus’ claim.
And, include a mention of the Green Agenda website —
http://www.green-agenda.com/
and tell everyone to read down the list of quotations from environmentalists and other alleged leaders. If any normal person reads that list, they will realize that AGW is not about science in the first place! You include some of the climategate emails, and you could also include some of the more extreme quotes.
Logan
That should be “environmental professional” in my reply to Ira G.
Dang keyboards always fail to read my mind correctly.
I favor efficiency and conservation as well. It is just common sense. I agreed with practically everything you wrote. I would certainly not favor labeling it reducing the carbon footprint or giving intellectual validation to alarmist political speech. I would state what you said which invalidates the alarmism and cuts their argument off at the knees. There is no need to invalidate the arguments of those that say humans haven’t caused any warming. Just correct that to say significant warming and for all practical purposes they are usually saying the same thing as you even though they may not be technically correct. Who cares about the fraction of a degree and why pander to paranoid types that do. I would never validate what any political activist says or even sound like I was. They will just use that validation as evidence how right they are.
I haven’t had the chance to complete the article yet, but something caught my eye. It says
Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming. I think you meant Anthropogenic
[THANKS Barry, I fixed it. Ira]
I still cannot get my head around the claim that, say, 15 micron radiation from a cool body will be absorbed by a warmer body that is already radiating at 15 microns proportional to its greater temperature.
A solid body has a much larger heat capacity than a gaseous body. For each body the emitted radiation is a COOLING process. The warmer body will have a huge surplus of molecules that have emitted 15 micron radiation so will be able to absorb that 15 micron radiation from the cool body above. THAT ABSORBED RADIATION CAN ONLY RETURN THE ABSORBING MOLECULE TO THE ENERGY STATE THAT EXISTS AT THE SURFACE OF THE SOLID BODY. That absorbed energy CANNOT pass into the layer of WARMER molecules below.
To claim otherwise means radiative cooling under any conditions cannot exist.
I’m sorry Ira – I don’t agree about the can’t fight something with nothing and that going down the carbon (sic) tax route is the least painful option.
I think its the start of a very slippery green-owned slope that will be used to wield a large stick over the middle classes of the world in an attempt to appease feelings of guilt for simply existing.
In Australia – the carbon tax is just a wealth redistruibution exercise
1. tax the sources
2. who will then put up the costs
3. compensate ‘exposed’ industries
4. compensate ‘poor’ households.
5. spend the leftovers on green energy projects
Can you see who foots the bill? Anyone above the arbitarily drawn line in the sand. Today, the tax might be $20 a tonne and the line drawn at $80k and over, tomorrow it could be $100 a tonne and then paid back in means tested bands until its just the ‘wealthy’ middle classes foot the majority of the costs.
In the meantime, the government incurrs huge administration costs and the money-go-round is only left with a tiny bit for green projects that actually do nothing of note.
Its a socialist’s wet dream and one we can’t let slip through in any shape or form .
Thank you, Anthony, for your useful resources in the fight. In general, I find your arguments unduly complicated (but I do not know your audience).
I think you should say something about global computer modelling, and its preponderance on the warmist side of the argument. You might probably also draw out the following:
– The scientific agenda is controlled by the modellers (fudge makers).
– Convincing empirical evidence supporting the warmists is as yet lacking (and positive feedbacks in the models have not been proven).
– The warmists, who control the agenda, are not prepared to countenance natural variation (the “null hypothesis”). It is only because they control the agenda that they can do this.
– The sceptics are empiricists, the warmists are theoretical thinkers (we have perhaps a classic stand-off that has existed since 17th century philosophy, say Descartes vs. Locke – I suspect that the UK has become thoroughly Europeanised in its philosophical and scientific thinking over the last generation or so, tending away from empiricism).
– The possibility of a non-warmist theory gaining currency and becoming generally accepted (e.g. the Svensmark cosmic ray hypothesis).
– How many years can pass without warming before the general public reject warmism?
I am (very) disappointed with your political conclusion, which does not follow in any way from your previous thought. There is plenty of ammunition with which to fight the political fight. Essentially, warmism should be fought FROM THE LEFT. That is to say, sceptics should bang the following drums:
– Increased energy prices and/or rationing are highly damaging to developing countries, which need cheap, abundant energy in order to lift their peoples out of poverty.
– “Carbon” taxes are regressive taxes (they hit the poor more than the rich).
– The practical social consequences of “anti-carbonism” can fairly be described as undesirable (if not downright evil). Among these consequences are increased world food prices brought about by bio-fuel policies in the USA and the EU, which cause hunger and starvation.
– And so on.
All the best, and good luck with your talk.
p.s. Please note that “adjusting” historic climate data will come back and bite the warmists, as with the passage of time it becomes a game of diminishing returns (or perhaps more accurately “negative feedbacks”).
Ira, an excellent report.
Is that 800yr CO2 miss- match with temperature consistent at 800yrs and repeatable over time ? I say this as I have not seen graphs with enough resolution to convince me.
I would suggest anyone wishing to use this guide or the associated PowerPoint document for presentation to or education of others corrects the abundant misuse of capitalisation and scientific units. It does not help when presenting yourself as an authority if you can’t write properly, or if you pretend to lecture people on science yet you write Watt instead of watt.
It’s a simple question of credibility.
Almost every other common noun and even adjectives are capitalised throughout this text. English grammar (unlike German) only capitalises proper nouns , ie. names of people, buildings, organisations, countries etc.
The sea, air, atmosphere, coal, wind, wood are common nouns and should not be capitalised.
Nice article. I especially like the clarity of your alarmist/disbeliever dichotomy. Seems to me they are just two sides of the same coin … everybody who disagrees with them must be a paid up member of the opposite side.
With respect, your conclusion is wrong.
Your proposed method is defeatism – appeasment.
That was tried before in the 1930’s.
Hitler just took what we gave and demanded more.
The Greens will never be satisfied until a (very) few of us are back, living in caves and hunting with spears.
The AGW fallacy can be defeated.
In fact it is being defeated as we debate.
Ordinary people are realising one by one, in the privacy of their homes, that they have been trcked.
They do not like it.
We don’t have to fight with empty hands.
As already said, the truth is a powerful weapon.
There is comedy and sarcasm as well.
These are strong medicine.
The Australian leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott is winning the fight as he engages everyday with people in their workplaces in small groups.
It concentrates the mind most wonderfully when you realise that the path to hell is not only paved with what looks like gold, but that it takes your job away and your family and way of life will suffer.
The popularity of the Australian government is now down to 28% and they are too fearful to put the proposed carbon tax to an election.
We will win.
There is no doubt.
But please do not conceed the battlefield when the beginning of the end is now so clearly in sight.
Much has changed in the three years I’ve been engaging others on the subject of climate change.
The average person, without much understanding or political inclination seemed to had been swayed by much of what was read in the paper, or saw on television.
Most had a vague understanding for the subject, but usually was verbatim from what they heard or read, and usually not a subject most would discuss at any length. That could have been for either, not knowing enough about the subject or not feeling comfortable about talking about it with strangers.
Since Climategate, much of that has changed.
Climategate has done more for the common man or woman than we know. While Climategate might not be the subject that is talked about, more people are willing to express their skepticism.
When people ask me what I like to do when not consulting, I tell them I manage a climate blog.
Silence usually follows, or a pause, but almost every time I am asked what I think.
So I tell them. I tell them global warming is a farce.
And the ones I talk with always, and I do mean always, agree with me.
The average person that’s skeptical, are apprehensive with a stranger when it comes to bringing the topic up. But once you open the door, they become talkative and seem to ask me more and more questions.
The word is getting out, regardless how hard the alarmist screams we have reached a tipping point.
I guess what I want to say is, that while the media wishes us to believe that Climategate was a non-factor, it has struck a chord among the common man and woman that I don’t think the alarmist community will ever recover from.
It sure is a good feeling to come from being laughed at for my opinion,to being just another among many that think that CAGW is a lie.
We truly have come a long way.
I second Karl above. As a fellow engineer why are you for wasting money on things like wind and solar that don’t work but that will waste a lot of capital fast? Your duty is to say no to such folly. For if other scientists and particularly engineers who convert science into reality won’t say “no,” who will?
Further I don’t submit willingly to a carbon tax as the best way to throw a bone to the political class. You should also be able to see how thoroughly they have squandered other taxes. Giving them more never helps. Case in point, Seattle Public Schools as mentioned by steptoe fan.
Ira,
What is your goal for this presentation?
If it is to pursuade the audience that the alarmist CAGW science is flawed, then stick to that and drop any mention of carbon taxes, the merits of such, or any other discussion about what we should or shouldn’t do.
By introducing the notion that we should do something at all, you are conceding they may be right, and the discussion that follows will be all about the last few points in your slides, the rest will be forgotten. If you want to provoke a debate about the actual science, then do a presentation about the science.
I enjoyed the presentation, to me a non-scientist but climate change skeptic it seemed scientifically reasoned and well presented. As for your idea of a carbon tax at the mine, well, and port I don’t see how it could happen in this economy. There are millions of people in Canada, the USA and around the world trying to make sure that they have enough money each month to pay the rent and put food on the table.
What would be an interesting is a “voluntary carbon tax system”. It would be a voluntary contribution system where individuals are allowed to contribute to a fund to help “fight” carbon. All contributions must be identified by amount and by the donor’s name, no anonymous donations and donations are not tax deductible. Then all the donations are published monthly on a website for the world to see.
The media could then analyse the published list and see if global warming alarmists such as Al Gore or James Hansen or George Soros or Cate Blanchett (who’s pushing a carbon tax for Australia) are contributing significant portions of their income to the fund to “fight” carbon. If not, why aren’t they doing their bit to fight global warming with money out of their own pocket?
I think the fundamental difference between sceptic/alarmist stems from a difference in approach.
The alarmist takes the approach that they should create the best climate model based on the known parameters that they know could affect the climate. For historical reasons “feedback” effects are actively encouraged in climate “science” to explain the way a small change in solar irradiation can cause a much larger change of global temperature leading to ice ages. Similarly “sunspots” are not accepted … because they aren’t part of an accepted climate model (i.e. there’s no “scientific” way to assess their impact). Similarly “clouds”, “ocean currents”, “changes in magnetic poles”, “deforestation”, “urbanisation” and a host of other variables aren’t accepted. Leading to the equation:-
Global warming = (let’s take a guess to make the curve fit …3?) x the small bit of real science (based on atmospheric gases).
This leads to the infamous 1.4-5.8 warming, on which a lot of ‘ “scientists” ‘ (double quotes to show that it isn’t even vaguely science) have speculated and have made 2+2 = all hell and damnation.
The sceptic. Prefers to say: “if we don’t know how to model the climate and have to invent a 3x multiplier, then this doesn’t sound like good science. So, unless I can see real evidence it is predictive, then I’m inclined to categorise this under ‘interesting’ unless or until I can see some proven correlation with any of the supposed affects
… extremes of weather: No.
… continued global warming as predicted: No,
… the kind of honesty & scientific caution which generally marks out a subject as one worth listening to: No!”.
I think the whole CO2 can warm the earth as explained bt Kiehl & Trenberth in their 1977 paper and diagram is a joke.
Their total incoming solar radiation is 342 – 107 = 235 W/sq m the same as their outgoing. The maximum blackbody temperature for this irradiance is minus 18 degrees C.
The problem their logic has is – where does this so called “back radiation” come from ?
Think about it – if their chicanery in calculating their so-called constant irradiance model is correct and 235 W/sq m is the effective incoming solar radiation which heats the earth to minus 18 C and the earth radiates the appropriate energy for minus 18 C – 235 W/sq m out to space – Where does the extra energy come from to create this so called “back radiation”?
How does the earth get hot enough for their claimed 390 W/sq m “surface radiation”.
Their diagram describes a perpetual motion machine situation and I thought most physicists know this is inpossible.
The problem is they reduce the solar constant by a factor of four to arrive at their incoming solar irradiance of 342 W/sq m before rget reduce it by the albedo of the atmosphere.
One factor of 2 is because half the earth is in darkness at any one time. Therefore they reduce their figure for incoming solar irradiance by half.
How is it possible that because half the earth is in darkness the incoming solar radiation is reduced by a factor – ie halved? It cannot even affect the average radiation because the earth is constantly rotating, points in darkness enter light zones and warm up from a cold state while warm points enter darkness and start to lose heat.
So this first reduction in the incoming sloar irradience is, to my mind, nonsence.
The second reduction by, again a factor of 2, is because the surface being irradiated is a half sphere and they consider it to be a circular disk which is half the area of a sphere.
So they cut the 1366 W/sq m in half because half of the earth is in darkness and then they cut that 683 W/sq m in half again because they want to consider the earth as a circular disk.
Can’t they calculate the surface area of a sphere ??
Anyway the whole process is smoke and mirrors and simply nonsence.
I can’t understand how they have got away with it for so long without becoming the laughingstock they rightly deserve to be.
Finally, to obtain a temperature of plus 50 C – a temperature that is regularly achieved in Saharan Africa, the Middle East, parts of American deserts etc requires about 618 W/sq m according to Stefan-Boltzman.
From Kiehl & Trenberth I can only find 168 incoming solar + 324 “back radiation” = 492 W/sq m.
492 W/sq m givrs a maximum temperature of 305 K or 32 C.
Now somebody should tell those meterologists that the IPCC is effectively disputing their reports of temperature above 32 C because the graphic Energy balance from IPCC AR4 FAQ, Figure 1 plainly says so.
Even more unbelievable is the claim that whilst the sun can only heat the earth to minus 18 C “greenhouse gases can magically heat it to plus 50 C.
The final joke in all their bad science is :
All of the reduction mechanisms employed to reduce the incoming solar radiation to the earth are geometry – Half darkness, half area – they have nothing to do with the atmosphere.
In that case they should apply to the moon.
Heat tge surface of the moon with :
342 W/sq m – plus 5.5 degrees C
1366 W/sq m – plus 120 degrees C.
http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/kids/moon_temperature
“During the day the temperature on the Moon can reach 253 Fahrenheit (123 Celsius), while at night it can drop to -387 Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius). The Earth, which has an atmosphere, has a much more comfortable range of temperatures. ”
This is the NASA kids website – perhaps a few escaped and got jobs at the IPCC ?
Ira Glickstein
I have followed your previous two posts.
You strike me as a guy whose heart is in the right place however you have decided that the truth lies at the midpoint between IPCC proponents and those who think that the IPCC peddles pseudoscience.
You have made several mistakes in your previous pots.
A few days ago you asked for help in understanding the recent Postma paper.
Just because you do not understand how the adiabatic lapse rate is derived it is wrong to blame Postma.
This formula is in fact an accepted part of mainstream climate science.
If you like I can give you an IPCC advocates derivation of the formula perhaps, then you will accept it.
Posters like Joel Shore will not point you there because it does not fit in with the cruder 33K “greenhouse effect” claim.
Once you rumble the crude claims by someone like Joel they pull back to the second line of defence.
Which is that their previous statement was’ a simplification because you might not be smart enough’ to understand what is really going on.
Folk like Joel think its a bit of a propaganda battle and they certainly know which side they are on.
Science has never progressed by taking the midpoint between opposing propositions.
Thanks Ira! While I don’t agree with your carbon tax policy prescription, your Power Point is quite informative and I will use it when necessary.
Greenhouse gas theory is contradiction. From NASA, the home of James Hansen – the “head honcho” of global warming – sorry – climate change.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/ma_01/
“Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C).”
Now from
http://lunarscience.nasa.gov/kids/moon_temperature
“During the day the temperature on the Moon can reach 253 Fahrenheit (123 Celsius), while at night it can drop to -387 Fahrenheit (-233 Celsius). The Earth, which has an atmosphere, has a much more comfortable range of temperatures. ”
Huh –
The moon with no Greenhouse gases is 123 degrees C during the day
BUT
“Without naturally occurring greenhouse gases, Earth’s average temperature would be near 0°F (or -18°C) instead of the much warmer 59°F (15°C).”
Doesn’t anyone see there is something wrong here ?
They’ve cooked the books by confusing average with maximum – without our atmosphere the earth would be almost exactly like the moon.
Our atmosphere protects us from the sun – it does not heat us but rather keeps us cool during the day and because of water vapour warm at night.
Carbon dioxide cannot heat the earth.
Ira, You are a star. I’m booked to give a presentation to a local group in a couple of weeks time on “Why I am a sceptic” and your presentation (which will receive full acknowledgement) will be invaluable.
As a sceptic, I’m further out than you, in that I see no evidence that the theoretical behaviour of CO2 actually has any perceptible effect in the real world. I suspect this is because, as you said, a greenhouse doesn’t work by the greenhouse effect. The Warmisti always express the effect of CO2 as a radiative forcing, whereas in the troposphere virtually the sole means of heat transfer is convective (as the pretty little cumulus clouds I’m looking at now show so well). My bet is that the Earth only radiates from the top of the troposphere and there the atmosphere is too thin to stop much of the energy being reabsorbed by CO2.
I’m with most of the rest with regard to appeasement. It didn’t work in 1938 and it won’t work now. Threaten true believing politicians with defeat, and sue the a**e off lying climatologists.
A4: ” (The Earth System is not exactly a black body, but it is close enough for our purposes here.)”
No it is not, not even near. A black body has an absorptivity coefficient (a) of 1, a transmissivity coeff. (t) of 0 and reflectivity coeff. (r) of 0. With a+t+r=1.
Now for the incoming short wave radiation:
Earth’s albedo means r=0.3,
And the transparent atmosphere means t~0.6, which leaves a~0.1.
You could say that the radiation eventually gets absorbed by the surface and the deep ocean, but this still leeves you with a=0.7. This is NOT close to a black body.
As for the outgoing long wave radiation:
A black body has an emissivity coeff. (e) of 1 over all wavelengths. Take a look at the absorption spectrum of the atmosphere and you can see that the atmosphere is not close enough to a black body.
A5: “You may remember that anything above absolute zero emits radiant energy”
Except of course when it doesn’t, like N_2 or O_2. Or just how much energy (long wave radiation) are they emitting and where is it accounted for?
” The “issue” is that the Earth Surface has a mean temperature closer to 288 Kelvin, corresponding to about +15ºC or +59ºF. In other words, the Surface is about 33ºC or 58ºF warmer than the “black body” formula would indicate. How to explain this added warmth?”
For any given amount of energy to be emitted, a black body has the lowest possible temperature. Any body that is not a black body MUST have a higher temperature then that. The fact that the Earth is not a black body, and not even close to one, accounts for much of the 33K in question.
Section D needs a different slant. Instead of offering to compromise with the politicos that are pushing carbon taxes or cap and trade, we should demand that the government entities that currently sponsor climate research fund scientific efforts to address all of the mechanisms that potentially lead to warming. The science isn’t settled. I as a scientist want the truth. Your audience needs to know that most of the alternative mechanisms have not been supported with their tax money. The need to write their legislators to rein in the bias in the science world by supporting work, especially empirical, that addresses other mechanisms for heating the planet. I think sections A thru C are convincing that there is no empirical evidence that CO2 alone caused the warming observed and that anecdotal evidence is equivalent to hearsay in court. If the audience follows your presentation that far, they will arrive at the correct conclusions about carbon footprints and such.
Jack Hughes says:
May 30, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Thanks for doing this.
I’m not sure if I agree with your conclusions about “having to do something instead of nothing”.
If you disagree with a religion you don’t have to set up a rival religion and you don’t have to compromise with them.
Totally agree. Meeting the alarmists halfway is not a good principle – it’s like Chamberlain returning from Germany, shaking his piece of paper (which, by the way, was just a blank sheet of paper for propaganda purposes, which illustrates perfectly how delusionary the whole affair was). The “do nothing” principle only refers to matters of CO2 capping and legislation, it doesn’t have to mean “be passive.” Two things sceptics should do is 1) continue to show how detached from reality alarmist science is, and 2) bring these charlatans to justice – starting with Mann.
There’s an significant error in the powerpoint, where it asks “Where does C02 come from” . It says that C02 is released from decaying plants but doesn’t mention living plants.
Joe Prins says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Simply buying the oil on the open market is Chinas strategy. They figured out that an economic race is a better game than war. In a couple more years, they’ll have the economy we once had.
@steptoe fan
“yes, a good summary, still, it’s hard to swallow and stick to the basics when the AGW crowd seems to continually have their way with govt and media. “
The worm may be turning. Here is a Telegraph report of last spring’s weather, which resulted in the highest CET temperature since 1893. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/8546729/Sun-lovers-enjoy-warmest-spring-since-1659.html#disqus_thread
You will be amazed to hear that the reporting is reasonable, and there are NONE of the usual obligatory messages about Global Warming. Could it be that the wheels are finally coming off the bandwagon…?
A hat tip to the author of the piece, Andy Bloxham.
I didn’t really put that as well as I should. The alarmist really takes the view that despite the problems with the temperature record and the huge unknowns, you should base your view of the future on the “best” climate model. As their best model only considers “greenhouse” gases and has to multiply by 3x, then this is the “best science” so the “best science” is that CO2 (if continued to be released on a curve which has nothing to do with science but economics) will cause a rise in temperature as predicted. Despite all the problems This is the best science
They take the view, that despite all the provisos, because this is the “best” science, then clearly this is what government policy MUST be based on.
I believe the sceptics are more “world weary” than the alarmists. We tend to come from a variety of professions where we have all no doubt had our fingers burnt by valuing “theory” over “reality”. We have no doubt all met people whose readings were not to be trusted, all met machines which simply refuse to work as “theory” intended. We have all had to deal with systems which are so complex they really can’t be understood in every minutia as a complete unit, and have learnt to assess these complex systems using proxies: from the squeaks and rattles of car engines, to the level of faults on a production line: we have learnt how to assess when a system has “a problem” whether, mechanical, electrical or human.
So, when we look at the climate, we are much less inclined to religiously accept the “theory” until it is tested in practice. Until then, we value our experience that we should first find real indications of a problem before accepting that the machine/system is at fault because experience tells us that often it is the theory (or personnel) which is wrong.
In short, the two sides take the view:
A) The best “Scientific” theory says … global warming … therefore policy must be based on this “science”.
B) OK there’s this theory, but as there is little evidence the theory is correct, let’s first look for simpler explanations: like human error or fluke variations. So, do any of the indicators exceed the normal variations expected under normal operating levels. No! So, let’s base policy on what is actually happening not what some (add you own expletive) theory says.
You make assumption common to all parties in AGW debate, that there is energy balance between incoming and outgoing radiation, holding at every moment of time. This assumption is manifestly WRONG. Energy can be stored and released in climate system in a form which is not measurable, that is, heat content of the ocean. While average surface temperature is around 15C, average bulk ocean temperature is around 3C, so ocean is not in thermal equilibrium with atmosphere. Moreover, this non-equilibrium is maintained for thousand years, that is, a powerful heat pump operates, which takes heat from ocean and adding it to atmosphere. Notice that heat capacity of ocean is 1000X larger than that of atmosphere, that is, to warm the atmosphere by 1 C we need to cool ocean only to 1/1000 degree C – an immeasurable quantity. We know that this heat pump is ocean conveyor circulation, and all short-term temperature fluctuations can be explained by variations of the power of this heat pump. Heat balance at planetary scale is valid only for thousand years time scale. Notice, that time lag 800 years is exactly the time of ocean mixing by global circulation.
Your section D doesn’t impress me. Since I live in a reasonably cold and windy place, I want a lot of heating both inside and outside my house to have a nice life. That heating doesn’t come from CO2 absorbing IR, as shown about 100 years ago: http://www.giurfa.com/gh_experiments.pdf
There may be a lot of energy in the wind, but it is an unstable energy source, and you need a backup facility to take the load when the wind turbines are not able to deliver. Green energy? What other side effect do one have of wind turbines? If you create one green working place, how many do you lose? Look at Spain and England/Scotland.
Sorry but you introduce, correctly, the lag between temperature rise and atmospheric CO2 rise which does a long way to disprove the GHG theory ( it is still a theory not a law) but go on about how accurate the GHG theory is. You can’t have it both ways.
There is another mechanism that raises the average surface temperature above that of the black body radiation formulae and that is adiabatic compression. Never mentioned by you warmists!
How many climate “scientists” does it take to have an argument?
One! and enough time for natural variation to swing the climate the other way!
An interesting and well constructed presentation, however I would have one minor issue. The point –
“A. Basic Climate Science – Water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), and other “greenhouse” gases cause the Earth Surface to be warmer than it would be if the Atmosphere was just nitrogen. ”
– is not entirely correct. Have a look at a colour photo of an Apollo astronaut and note the blue tips to the fingers and the blue overshoes. This was silicone rubber insulation to cope with the extreme temperatures on the Moon. The sunlit temperature on the Moon is greater than any surface temperature on Earth, and the temperature in the shade is similarly lower than any point on Earth. As the Moon is essentially at the same orbital distance from the Sun, it should be clear that our atmosphere (including water cycle and convective flows) keeps Earths surface cooler than it would otherwise be during the day, and warmer at night. (Speed of radiative heating and cooling of Luna regolith means that the four week Luna diurnal cycle is not the primary cause of this temperature difference, it is the lack of atmosphere)
Strongly disagree with the conclusion, it heads they win (Cap n trade) tails we lose (carbon tax).
I already pay a “climate change levy” on my energy bills, how is that not a carbon tax?
And all the while the world’s poor and hungry are pushed further to the wall by Global Warming increasing the price of maize according to Oxfam, who, aided by the BBC this morning cry crocodile tears, knowing full well that that mandated ethanol percentages in the oh! so green! first world are the prime cause of the wretched situation of starving hordes in Kenya and many other parts of the third world.
Universities today teach many subjects, but it seems common sense linked with humanity is an alien concept.
Politicised charities are ugly beasts.
Dr. Glickstein
I searched your expose for word ‘ocean’, could not find one. I think that the most important factor in the natural climate change is the oceans-atmosphere link, with solar thermal input more or less constant, as many respected scientists claim it to be; but that is not where solar story ends as graphically shown here
The watts-in vs. watts-out analysis that attributes 33°C to the effects of GHGs omits a huge but “poorly understood” mechanism in the steady-state processes of the planet: cloud cover and cycling. So the most you can honestly say is that, “if it weren’t for clouds, we’d have to attribute the temperature discrepancy to GHGs; as it is, we don’t know if the clouds cause none, some, or all of it. Sorry!”
But neither lukewarmers nor Believers are prepared to be that honest. Therefore there are many more of us Dis-Believers than you are comfortable with.
Ira has a talent for writing articles that generate lots of resposnses. I like that.
But in this article, he proposes a compromise with the alarmist crowd. Compromise is unacceptable, because they have no evidence showing that the added CO2 is damaging the planet. Sergey, Hoffer, Scottish Skeptic, and others put it very well above.
The demonization of “carbon” is being done for reasons that are unrelated to science: much higher taxes, world government, control of the population, etc. There must be no compromise, unless empirical evidence is produced showing that harmless, beneficial CO2 is causing global damage. But so far, there is no such evidence. Thus, there can be no compromise with the alarmist crowd. Otherwise, a fine article.
If your conclusion is the same as the Warmists (we need a carbon tax) your argument is totally meaningless. You might as well skip the whole thing and just say “John Holdren said it, I believe it, that settles it.”
The Carbon Cultists are NOT arguing for the sake of scientific details, they are arguing to achieve governmental control and Wall Street profits. The “science” is a mere exiguous variable, a public-relations vehicle to persuade educated people to go along with their purposes. This was all laid out clearly in their 1975 manifesto.
P.S. I dare you to insert the above as a succinct sample of the thinking of DisBelievers. We can always use more recruits.
Overall, a very good piece.
I regard the ice core evidence as crucial. As far as I’m aware, the data shows no instance when a change in CO2 caused a corresponding change in the temperature. This strongly suggests that, presumably due to negative feedbacks, changes in CO2 has a completely negligible effect on the climate. It then follows that mankind’s emissions have had a neglegible effect on the climate, and that the modest warming we enjoyed in the previous century was primarily natural. In other words, it’s Nature doing what Nature has always done.
But I disagree on one thing. I suspect that the combination of a slightly warmer climate and the increase in CO2 has, overall, been of great benefit to mankind. Despite more doom-mongering on the BBC’s Today program this morning – it’s funny how we’re always doomed twenty years in the future – mankind has never been more prosperous.
I think the biggest threat to the well-being of mankind is indeed climate change. But it’s not the climate itself that threatens us. It’s the poisonous CAGW delusion that, if allowed to progress unchecked, will cause the world to squander countless trillions of dollars trying to solve a problem that almost certainly doesn’t exist. That this money may be diverted from solving real problems such as clean water and malaria is a crime against humanity.
Chris
I am a layman, a retired farmer but have been heavily mixed up in agricultural science for some 30 or more years until very recently so have attended my share of a very considerable number of science presentations, forums and highly technical discussions so I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in talk only presentations right through to power point presentations.
1 / How long, what time period do you have for your presentation?
30 minutes maximum will see most audiences out for a presentation and another 10 to 20 for questions if you’ve got them really interested.
2 / Those 34 PPT slides are full to the extreme in my opinion of often messy detail which in many cases is quite hard to sort out from the other detail, an item which just turns any audience off real fast.
So 30 minutes max for the PPT presentation, one minute to absorb each slide.
If that’s the case as we say in Australia, you’ got Buckley’s chance of pulling that one off, ie; none!
20 simplified slides and you will have a good presentation.
If you go the hour, you are very, very good of maybe just get everybody to bring along the pillow and slippers.
3 / Those slides are so full of detail that it is darn near impossible to grasp the message in each slide without a couple of minutes of quite intense concentration and after that happens 3 or 4 times in a row most of the audience just switches off with their eyes wide open.
If the audience is concentrating hard on interpreting the slide it ain’t listening to the speaker unless the audience are all ladies. They can do half a dozen things at the same time.
Us men are rather limited and apparently can only do one thing at a time!
It’s even claimed that some of us men can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.
Content I will leave for far more competent and knowledgeable science people to comment on.
However, mankind needs four things for his survival.
1 / He must have water [ which he thinks he should get for free ]
2 / He must have food. [ which he will pay as little as possible for ]
3 / He needs shelter, ie; houses, buildings , clothes and etc and for those he will expend his entire wealth to show off his status in his culture and society.
4 / He needs energy. [ He will pay well for energy but only under heavy duress ]
Even a cowpat fire used by the very poorest of poor in places like India is an example of the single greatest differentiating characteristic between humanity and animals as it is only man who deliberately harnesses and uses energy for his own purposes.
And energy, cheap, totally reliable coal based energy is the single biggest reason behind the creation of the great Industrial Revolution that began in Britain in the late 1700’s.
An with the immense and totally reliable until now supplies of cheap energy that first drove and then was further developed by that same Industrial Revolution, the great sweep of the Industrial Revolution has spread across the planet to all it’s peoples and has continued it’s ever onward development to this day.
The Industrial Revolution has enabled mankind to reach levels of prosperity, health, knowledge and even surprisingly, peace with his fellow man far exceeding anything ever seen before in the 100,000 years or more of modern Homo Sapien’s existence.
And it this energy, the very basis of our modern existence, of our industrial revolution that the stupidity of the AGW/ACCo’s and their running dogs in politics want to tax out of existence and to force our civilisation back into a dreary disease and hunger and famine driven existence.
Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it
Dougmanxx says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:22 pm
“Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing,”
Lord Christopher Monckton
This is also many times sound economic policy, but sadly we have gotten caught up in the cult of “do something” rather than letting the system fix itself. “Do nothing. Be courageous.”
I agree completely. I work in manufacturing and there’s always the knee-jerk response to do something, any random thing, when there’s a change in the output of the manufacturing process. This is called “chasing the mean” and has been shown to actually increase the variability of the process. A prudent course is to study carefully for real cause and effects and then fix the actual problem with a robust repair.
Overall quite a good summary. I do have one nitpick, though. You say
Temperature always rises eight-hundred or more years before CO2 increases.
This is only true if no other atmospheric CO2 sources other than ‘natural’ ones are present. Temperature is not responsible for the ~100 ppm rise in CO2 concentration since ~1850.
Ira said:
“I’m interested in your critique and comments.”
There you go. I was going to stay out of your way this thread but then I saw your plea in the very last sentence. Btw, you’re getting pretty good at bypassing the sticky science points! Better!
However, on the correct science side; you do want to be correct don’t you?; you have just one big misstep in topic A. The 33 ºC greenhouse effect (GHE) is not correct, at all. That is what some would call AGW science propaganda, plain and simple, toss all GHGs, water and co2, and keep the clouds, ‘bout normal.
If you have a pure nitrogen atmosphere, or any atmosphere without greenhouse gases, there are no clouds. Right?
And with no clouds then there isn’t 77 to 79 Wm-2 of albedo from the clouds. Right?
Here, I’ll calculate the correct greenhouse affected offset for you from the figures in Trenberth & Kiehl 2009 paper:
1364/4*(1-23/341) = 318 Wm-2 incoming solar irradiance, not 240 Wm-2, that is with clouds. And as you said, the output has to equal the input so the OLR (outgoing long radiation) would also be 318 Wm-2.
And this 318 Wm-2 gives you an effective temperature of (318/σ)1/4 or 273.7 K (0.5 ºC) mean surface temperature.
And this gives you 288K−274K or about 14 ºC of a GreenHouse Effect, not 33 ºC. Hate that term! Applies better to bugs. See how snidely they trip you? I’m sure you just overlooked that picky little science fact. You should correct all references to that in your paper to be scientifically correct. Is it real? Yes, but the sum total is a max of 66 Wm-2 and even Trenberth himself has fessed up and admitted to it (hidden in his 390−324 = the real 66 Wm-2 upward flux).
Also, I noticed in you PowerPoint presentation on slide #3 your bold TOA flux is listed at 1336, it should be 1366 Wm-2.
———
Now on the nitty-gritty of your post. I agree with nearly all of what you have said but, as many have raised, I must complain of D.#8 on some kind of carbon tax, NEVER!
I don’t take this point so politely and softly and cushy as many others here, soft words have proven to have no effect.
Never appease terrorists, never! You don’t ever cave in Ira. The AGW side of this fiasco is just that to myself, family and friends, mental terrorists that have brought terror to this entire world’s populous, and, they have done it using warped science, it’s in the papers every single day. They have been proved wrong over and over and over and over again. Dr. Ferenc Miskolczi has proved all of this AGW ‘science’ wrong now years ago.
Science is one thing I have always loved, enjoyed and respected for it’s purity and clarity over the many decades and they spit on it. Ticked? You bet! We should give absolutely nothing to the AGW pushers, especially taxing life itself, for that is what carbon is, life. The only thing the AGW side haven’t moved to yet is munitions…. wait…. 10/10 showed bombs is on their minds…. well, not real ones, yet. Ira, never appease terrorists, never. They live a lie.
Poor Aussie friends, got bald-faced lied to by their government. Surely we in USA are of better temper if our government ever tries to lie to us, our forefathers taught us that there is proper time to fight for what you believe and hold to be true:
Ira, you write ” The Warmists tend to accept the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimate of 2.0ºC to 4.5ºC. The Skeptics tend to set carbon sensitivity much lower, perhaps 0.2ºC to 1ºC. The third group, which I call Lukewarmers, would suggest 1ºC to 3ºC.”
There is a fourth group (I call the out and out deniers) who claim that all these figures are based on estimates which have not been validated, since the numbers have never been measured. It is theoretically possible to measure total climate sensitivity, but the estimate of no-feedback climate sensitivity, which is a vital step in the estimate of the numbers you quote, can NEVER be measured, and is, therefore a hypothetical and meaningless number. There is doubt that it can even been estimated.
We simply do not know what the climate sensitivity for a doubling of Co2 is.
Chris Wright says:
May 31, 2011 at 3:44 am
Overall, a very good piece.
I regard the ice core evidence as crucial. As far as I’m aware, the data shows no instance when a change in CO2 caused a corresponding change in the temperature. This strongly suggests that, presumably due to negative feedbacks, changes in CO2 has a completely negligible effect on the climate.
No this is not correct. Following the ice ages, CO2 was a feedback which amplified the (probably solar-induced) warming trend. The temperature shift from glacial to inter-glacial is of the order of 5-8 degrees. It is inconceivable that the sun is solely responsible for any more than a fraction of this.
The question is: what happpens now that CO2 is an independant ‘primary’ forcing. Will strong positive feedbacks be induced as they have in the past or will the feedbacks be neutral or even negative. I tend to agree with Willis E. (I think it was him) who suggested that climate sensitivity is not a constant. For this reason I go with a modest temperature increase of <1.5 deg C for 2xCO2.
According to Marcel Leroux, man is responsible for 0.28% of the “greenhouse gaz”. All the models considers CO2 as a blackbody, that is not science! We have to consider each molecule as independant .Any temperature effect due to “human CO2″is quite small.Also, as told by by Tim Ball, Earth is not a cold planet, and geothermy takes a role.
I guess we shall have a social agenda for the world :
-more energy available in poor countries,by helping them to develop their own ressources ( coal, uranium….)
-more grain for the poor by stopping biofuels and controlling speculation,
-Improve employment level by developing economically sustainable technologies,
-improve efficiency of our technologies,
-more funds for the civilian research on H2 fusion, that will give low cost energy for more time than earth,life!
I apologise for my poor broken pidgin english ; I just want to show you we can propose a brighter future than the greens.
Jean “Littlejohn”Guichard
I do not think anyone has mentioned the most powerful argument.
Earth’s temperature has only risen about 0.8 Degrees C over the past 120 years. Future predictions of catastrophic rises are based on computer models. The reality is that temperatures have not risen since 1998 but humans are pumping out record volumes of CO2. I think that in this short period we have emitted 25% of human produced co2 for no rise in temperature.
For a simpler audience you can make the argument simpler and, perhaps, more convincing…..1. It is agreed by all main sources that temperatures rose less then 1C during the 20th centuary, much the same as they rose over the 19th. This is a very small rise and drastically less then has occurred even in the recent past i.e the 10C rise in temperatures over 50 year shown by Greenland ice deposits 11,000 years ago. 2. Temperatures have not risen this century despite the continuing rise in CO2. 3. Water vapour accounts for c.85% of the green house affect and varies we don’t know how. 4. We cannot (yet) forecast future weather long-term or even over more than 4 weeks (as deviation from annual average for the period). Any longer forecasts are scientifically invalid or, more prosaically, guesses. 5. Were CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to double, temperatures would (all else being equal) rise by around 1C. Any additional rise is posited on a runaway feedback effect on water vapour concentrations for which there is no evidence at all. CO2 has risen by around one third from man’s activity so far. 6. For what it is worth we are still, geologically, still in an ice age. For the vast majority of the earth’s history (85-90% of it) there has been no permanent ice at the poles. There is now which makes this an ice age, albeit in an ‘interglacial phase’.
There is no evidence of a problem from rising temperatures which appear to be as stable as over any period, there is no evidence to support the theory of runaway feedback from increases in CO2. What completely beats me is how such nonsense got such a grip on worlwide bien-pensant imagination. But then, why did so few see that bankers were lending to people who obviously weren’t going to repay?
One strong argument that should be added is the futility of the developed world’s cutting CO2 emissions on its own–and the impossibility of getting the undeveloped world to do so (even if it “agrees” to do so).
No matter how many proofs are shown, I fear that the core of skeptics will never change its mind. The only hope is to find politicians sympathetic to the case, and there seems to be more of them in the US.
Of course, the sky-rocketing costs of “green” energy could help in these times of high debts
btw it’s not a “carbon tax”, it’s a carbon dioxide tax.
no to any carbon dioxide tax.
as for the so-called instability of the countries where some western countries source oil, how about giving up military control of those countries and instead just compete in the market for the oil like everyone else.
“2. However, the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels and human actions are PART of the Cause.”
There is no hard evidence to prove this.
Thanks, Gerald, for your praise for 95% of my presentation. I am sorry you do not agree with the small part about a Carbon Tax.
I tried to be clear that my support for a straight Carbon Tax was not due to any worry about Global Warming, but strictly because of the high cost, in blood and treasure, of defending our access, and that of our allies around the world, to low-cost petroleum from unstable sources. Who is paying that cost? The general population, in the form of taxes towards the defense budget, plus the lives of thousands of their sons and daughters, and serious injuries to tens of thousands more.
Absolutely true. If a Carbon Tax is passed into law, it will be the consumers of fossil-fuel products who will pay the costs. However, creative corporation will be motivated to reduce the fossil-fuel content of their products and services, by efficiency and use of alternative carbon-free and carbon-neutral fuels. They will do that so their products and services cost less to produce than that of their competitors, and those savings will be passed along to their customers, workers, and stockholders.
If the Carbon Tax, as supporters say, is revenue-neutral, the overall economy will not suffer. The government already taxes and regulates products at the mine, well, and port, so the Carbon Tax will be inexpensive to collect and hard to cheat on. It will start off at a low rate but have a pre-defined growth that will allow producers and consumers to plan ahead and take prudent actions to reduce future costs.
Yes, it is re-distributive to some extent, as is our basic income tax system. If the revenues are distributed equally to every citizen and legal resident, those who use less than the average amount of products and services with high fossil fuel content will get back more than the added costs of these items. That will encourage low and moderate income folks to use walk, bike, or use public transportation to get to work, to vacation locally, and so on to save money. If they adjust their behaviors, the money they get back will more than compensate for the higher prices they pay. High income people will, for the most part, just pay the added cost, and therefore will get back less than the higher prices they pay.
I do not think the type of revenue-neutral Carbon Tax I favor (along with Charles Krauthammer and others on the right) will ever pass in the form specified. So, as a political tactic, it gives us something to oppose the Cap & Trade scam, without much chance our Carbon Tax will become law. If the politicos try to change our straight, across-the-board scheme to something different, we will shout our opposition. When you get a chance, read about Machiavelli http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niccol%C3%B2_Machiavelli
Jaypan and a few others beat me to it, Ira – your well made point that CO2 lags temperature – but I’d like to add that if that is the accepted direction of causality, shouldn’t the question be, “How much must the temperature rise to double atmospheric CO2?” And of course the other question would be, “How much must the temperature drop to halve the amount of atmospheric CO2?”
@- Joel Heinrich says:
May 31, 2011 at 1:39 am
“For any given amount of energy to be emitted, a black body has the lowest possible temperature. Any body that is not a black body MUST have a higher temperature then that. The fact that the Earth is not a black body, and not even close to one, accounts for much of the 33K in question.”
Correct, and the rising CO2 is a key component in changing the effective albedo of the Earth in the very part of the EM spectra that carries most of the energy away from the surface.
It is because water vapour, CO2 and CH4 have such pronounced interactions with longwave radiation that they dominate the energy balance of the surface while the absorption/emissivity of O2 and N2 are several orders of magnitude smaller and therefore of little relevence EXCEPT as part of the ‘heat-sink’ that stores the thermal energy that the CO2 and other GHG’s convert from the OLR.
“We cannot fight something with nothing, so we need something more than a passive policy of do nothing because nothing is necessary.”
“Therefore, I favor reduction of the carbon footprint by efficiency, conservation, recycling, and so on, plus the introduction, if and when economically practical of so-called “Green” energy, including Nuclear, Water, Wind, Biomass and, particularly, “Clean” Coal.”
“You may be surprised that I favor some version of a straight Carbon Tax, collected at the mine, well, and port, with the proceeds returned on an equal basis to citizens and legal residents.”
I believe in true science and the free market, so I disagree with you, although I admire your work greatly.
I don’t see why mankind has to act on flawed science and I don’t see why the government should tell us how to heat our house, based on that flawed science.
Lets get the science back to how it’s supposed to work and let the people vote with their wallet on what to choose.
What we really need is another Age of Enlightenment after this Age of Stupid.
Mr. Glickstein, like all the “lukewarmers” and “alarmists”, does not know what he is talking about, and like all of them he has learned nothing from the intense debates (which I predict can therefore only increase in intensity, limited only by common sense, which unfortunately is at a low ebb everywhere now). In the face of such entrenched incompetence, one can only point to the critical evidence that definitively invalidates the greenhouse effect as promulgated by the mass of scientists:
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect [this is not a link . . kb]
I strongly suggest you also read the comments following that article.
Hint: See how I have approached the “radiating temperature” of a planet in that article, versus how the mass of scientists keep trying to make the surface of the Earth a blackbody. Then note how clear and simple (on several fundamental points concerning the warming of the atmosphere) are the results of my approach, absolutely and unconditionally confirming that approach. The lessons should be clear, to any competent physical scientist: There is NO greenhouse effect (an increase in “global temperature” due to increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere); the Earth’s surface is NOT a blackbody, and DOES NOT RADIATE AS ONE; the planetary atmosphere is basically warmed (during the day) by direct absorption of incident solar infrared radiation, NOT from the surface; and the effect of increased infrared (heat!) absorption and emission in the atmosphere is just increased efficiency of heat transfer within the controlling hydrostatic (vertical temperature lapse rate) structure of the atmosphere, not increased warming (nor cooling) of the atmosphere. If you want to clean up climate science, you will eventually have to confront, and accept, my simple analysis of the Venus/Earth atmospheric temperatures — because that is where the truth lies, in the definitive evidence instead of in all the competing theoretical arguments so many find reassuring, but are in fact wrong and misleading. You are miseducating the world, and a whole new generation of students.
The trick to hide the decline, as far as I can recall, only refers to post-1960 proxy values.
Your figure mentioning this and the medieval warm period at the same time is rather confusing to me, as it seems to conflate the two.
I think the figure should be split in order to adress each point separately.
This is incredible work Ira. I just wish there was an audio narration to go with it. Of course, if any of us use this we must know the stuff for ourselves before we can share it to ensure we are not hypocrites.
It’s not new. 100 years ago, alarmists (usually people in a moral panic about something or other) were shouting, “For Gawd’s sake, do something!” H.G. Wells called them “Gawdsakers,” a term that had a brief vogue back then.
Venus: No Greenhouse Effect
I think your point D.2 bothers me more than any other meme in the climate debate.
To which I respectfully respond: Please prove it, or qualify, refine, or retract the statement.
I’ve heard that before, and looked in vain for accompanying proof. I could be ill-informed in this regard, but as far as I can tell there are no (zero, zip, nada, none-at-all) unimpeached measurements that support any (that is “a-n-y”) assignment of causation for any degree of change in Earth’s global temperature, whether positive or negative, to either carbon dioxide or to humans or to human-produced carbon dioxide.
I could well be wrong about that, I’m not a meteorologist, climate scientist, or dendrophrenologist. If I am wrong and you point me to respectable reasoning based on reproducible data I’ll thank you. (But Jeez! Your own post points out CO2 lags temperature.)
I’m not a physicist either, but I did stay in a room with some network theory books once. It seems to me that if the assertion D.2 relies solely on the thermodynamic argument, as I suspect it does, then it reflects a naivete regarding complex systems. Certainly CO2 absorbs and re-emits a fraction of radiant energy that would otherwise escape. If the world was linear one might reliably reason from this measured fact to the conclusion that despite whatever damping mechanisms may exist, the global temperature must rise at least a tiny amount. The climate system is not linear, however, it’s complex verging on chaotic and D.2 does not follow from the basic CO2 heating model alone.
Finally, I do hope you don’t advocate a “strategy” of throwing a sop to soften an “astute audience” or shorten the distance they have to travel. Reasoning from idealized models (for the best of reasons, of course) is near the heart of this whole mess.
“Carbon Tax … revenue neutral … return all revenue to the people”.
Except that the process of diverting investment to non-preferred ends destroys wealth. There is no such thing as ‘revenue neutral taxation’.
As an extreme but logically equivalent example imagine the government taxes everyone at 100% in order to make chocolate, then gives all the chocolate back to the people. Are people then as wealthy as they were before (ignoring ancillary costs)? According to the “revenue neutral” concept the answer must be ‘yes’. But clearly the correct answer is ‘no’. (For anything other than chocolate the answer would he “hell no!”)
One thing that would help greatly is for scientists to read the first few chapters on introductory economics. It’s not hard, but it’s a way of looking at things that brings the meaning of liberty to life (and don’t bother with the later chapters, for the same reason; most economists make a fatal mistake around about chapter 3 or 4 that invalidates subsequent chapters). But the basic stuff is good, and should really be taught in primary school.
Basic physics of radiation cooling in this presentation is also wrong. Imagine atmosphere without CO2, but with clouds and water vapor. Its wet adiabatic lapse rate (that is, drop of temperature with altitude due to adiabatic cooling of air going upward, or heating of air going downward) will be 5C per 1 km. At the altitude at which outgoing radiation is in equilibrium with temperature (effective blackbody radiation) this temperature should be -18C. It is around 4 km altitude. So, the surface will have average temperature 20 C warmer than that, that is, 2C. This is approximately what we would have if there were thermal equilibrium of ocean and atmosphere, without any GHE involved. The whole difference between calculated surface temperature (2C) and measured temperature (14C) is due to absence of thermal equilibrium between ocean and atmosphere.
“1366 Watts per meter”
Anthony, I had no idea your family was so large.
Ira,
A sterling effort but I think you have a massive task in trying to align skeptics. The problem is that even if you remove the outliers, skeptics do not all agree with each other. The AGW argument can be summarized as something like this:
1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
3. Human emitted CO2 has a significant added greenhouse effect over natural effects
4. Recent warming has been measured
5. This warming is unprecedented
6. It can be attributed to human emitted CO2
7. The warming will get worse due to positive feedbacks
8. We are fairly confident on the sign and magnitude of those feedbacks
9. The effects of the continued warming will be bad
10. There are things we can do about to mitigate the continued warming
11. The effects of those things will be good
Let’s not get sidetracked onto how accurate that summary is – you get the idea.
It is clear even from this thread that skeptics don’t agree on which step in that chain to refute. And you can’t just say “all of them”, because if you are skeptical about, say, step (3), then it makes no sense to even discuss the later steps. I honestly don’t know what the answer is. Being a skeptic of, say, homeopathy or creationism is easy – you argue that the whole thing is a crock. There are AGW skeptics that hold that view of AGW, but I think they are in a minority.
What do you think?
“That will encourage low and moderate income folks to use walk, bike, or use public transportation to get to work, to vacation locally, and so on to save money”
=====================================================
good grief
Kumbaya, group hug
And all this saving money won’t hurt a single person on the other end that needs to make money.
Ira, I had my doubts before, now I don’t. Take off the rose colored glasses and the flip flops.
There are lots of things I’m ignorant on, but unlike some people here, I try not to advertise just how dumb I am.
One thing which confuses me is that bit about the 800 year lag of CO2 rise following temperature rise. Does the extra CO2 amplify the warming? In the absence of warming, can increased CO2 cause warming?
Compliments Ira on a well crafted presentation.
PS Please correct to:
“Yes, James Hansen and (pardon the expression) Ralph Nader . . .”
Why are you in favour of a tax on carbon bearing in mind you said?:
Are you in favour of a tax on man-made soot which is responsible for much of the Arctic ice and glacial melt?
Skeptic Strategy for Talking About Global Warming
Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
800 y is about right for phase-lag if what you are seeing is variable geological (carbonate rock at ocean floor) carbon dioxide brought into atmosphere through, say, mechanisms like the Thermohaline Circulation. This is potentially seen in radiocarbon callibration data for Mangerud boundaries, from say, the Younger Dryas, when such ‘overturning circulation’ is thought to be shut-down or greatly reduced, with less old carbon being introduced to atmosphere. Here the callibration curve adds at least 1000 years to get ‘true’ date, reflecting a radical decrease in availability of old carbon. As the callibration is brought further into the Pleistocene (work of Goslar and others), I suspect other similar correlations will become apparent.
Here you go again. ;>) Please can you let me know your source that states that wind is carbon-free? You really do need to clarify that one. Co2 is released in wind power’s production costs, transportation, grid, roads plus conventional power has running as a back up for periods of no wind. The turbines have to be kept turning by conventional power [when] there is no wind to avoid damage………………………………..
I would mention thorium, specifically, as an alternative. This is surprisingly little
known. Here is a link I found helpful:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
I enjoyed the presentation. …..Lady in Red
*clearing throat*
Rational friends, reasonable romans. Down to earth countrymen!
It is worse than we thought. This reefer madness.
We are gathered here today, not because it was where we really wanted to be, but because of necessity.
We are surrounded by the crazed climate communist hippie parade and they “wantses” to get paid.
For doing absolutely gobbledygook!
They are, of course, a bunch of heedless headless chickens running around screaming in alarm, just about what ever. Essentially, what about is of little import. It’s the screaming that they find so exciting. An inner ear thing perhaps, or just mindless?
There’s, apparently, not enough dope for them to smoke to even turn up to their own debate. No cohones.
According to reasonable logical conclusion there appear to be absolutely no neuron firing inside the skull of the hippie drone masses. It is like they’re all mindless puppies running around to their masters every whim only to gobble up the last of humanity.
We’ve all heard about it. Their message of what is to befall the rest of us if nothing is done.
It has been depicted time and again in movies. It has even been totted by hysterical media and government agencies alike, sometimes just for fun even.
Deep down we all know what it is the crazed climate communist hippie parade is all about. So let me ask you a simple question:
From where, do you think, does the mindless, gutless, heedless, shrieking z o m b i e spring from?
Typo:
by conventional power when there is no wind to avoid damage………………………………..
Great stuff Ira.
Just a word of caution, in 2008 I did a similar presentation to a ‘third age science ‘ group – one of whom, would you believe, was a Cambridge (UK) alumnus (is that it?) of a world renowned scientist. They havn’t spoken to me since! Who was that said ‘If you tell people what they know, they think you are great, and if it’s what they don’t know they hate you’ All the best.
A very good presentation It is realy good, clear and Succinct. Thank you.
The one theme that is lacking in your presentation is that you don’t question the hypothosis that CO2 and global warming will be bad for the planet. Plants need CO2, water, warmth and nutrients to grow. Higher levels of CO2 and warmer temperatures will promote plant growth that will certainly improve crop yields. I can’t quote a proper study, but I believe the increase in farmable regions in the north will more than offset farmland submerged by rising sea levels. We know that we can deal with warmer temperatures, we can’t deal with significantly cooler temperatures, so we should all be relieved that CO2 warms the earth (or at least doesn’t cool it).
Mr. Glickstein, under section D point 1 you write, “1.I am quite sure that Global Warming is REAL (i.e. the mean temperature of the Surface has increased by 0.5 to 0.6ºC since 1880) but, most of that increase is due to Natural Cycles over which we humans have no control.”
Could you expand on which Natural Cycles and quantify each cycles role in the current warming?
We tax Gasoline to pay for highways. Simple and obvious — no way for that to fail – be unfair, etc. etc. We tax gasoline to pay for highways – and bike paths — and urban mass transit — and health care — and public sector pensions……….
When you tax something you get less of it. You raise its cost, falsely assigning capital to less efficient alternatives. You assign great judgement and wisdom to the public sector to direct the consequential spending, a presumption yet to yield a succesful real world trial.
Pooh, sir! Publish the truth and let Adam Smith’s invisible hand work. It will be messy and inefficient, but less messy and inefficient that your proposed alternative.
Mr. Glickstein, in section B point 12 you write, “12.Skeptics have well-justified suspicions that the official climate data keepers were “cooking the books” to lend whatever support they could to the highest estimates of carbon sensitivity. Around the year 2000, US Mean Temperature data was “adjusted” down by 0.1 to 0.2ºC for years prior to the 1970′s, and upwards by 0.2 to 0.3ºC for years after the 1970′s, increasing supposed warming by 0.3 to 0.5ºC.”
Does a new paper which Mr. Watts was a part of show that these suspicions about US temperatures are mostly unfounded, that there is no known warming bias in the US temperature record?
I would concentrate on Climategate and climate debates. The primary tool the warmists and eco-communists cling to is the appeal to authority, claiming all the scientists on thier side. I would spend a lot of time on Climategate and also introduce the fact that all the major “open” debates between the warmists and sceptics have been won by the sceptics. The debates in NYC with Michael Criton and Gavin Schmidt and the debate in Oxford should be highlighted in my opinion
Look, one of the assumptions is that global warming is bad. It isn’t. It improves the ability of agriculture to take care of earth’s human population. After all that showing that the alarmists are all wet, you still want to go along with them in some form? That doesn’t make any sense.
We’re about due for another big cold period, ie ice age. Were their predictions about CO2 and it increasing temps substantially actually true, we would want to get out ahead of the problem by stuffing as much CO2 as we could into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, I don’t think it is that effective at holding energy in and exacerbating increased moisture that will kick the temps up to catastrophic levels. Taking any action on reducing CO2 or deliberately stuffing more into the atmosphere just for the sake of appeasing the warmists or the coolists is a waste of money. It costs money to get carbon out of the ground. People want cheaper energy. People have always found a way to do it and there are several promising technologies for getting it. The problem is the warmists aren’t really about solving CAGW, they want control and they’ve found a lever to get it. As soon as they get control, they won’t care any more. And we will all be hosed to the max.
The green’s hypocrisy shows in the manner they treat mercury. When I was a teen, it was all the rage to worry about that element. They were about eliminating all sources of it. But wait, now we are being forced to switch to mercury bearing light bulbs and not a peep out of them. They are willing to poison the environment to get control over energy production. They hate energy in ANY form. Most people do not want to go back to the stone age. They want to advance, go to the stars, go where peeps haven’t been before (where have I heard that before? :). We need energy to do that. While we’re waiting on new technologies, carbon is our best alternative. The cost of carbon was high enough before the current administration that lots of research was being devoted to researching new technologies. I’m all for not having to pay for carbon if there is something cheaper.
We need to fight back. We can’t give in. The bureaucrats want to take our freedoms away. The motto for the campaign of the current administration was “yes we can”. They are in office now and saying ala Megamind “no you can’t”. They are telling us we can’t buy the products we want by prohibiting manufacturers from making them. We are less safe because car manufacturers have to make lighter and more energy efficient vehicles. We can’t have what we want because the government won’t let us use the energy necessary to have what we want, even if we have the money.
This post basically says, sure the AGW crowd is wrong, but we’ll go along just to look like we’re doing something. STOP IT.
“Greenhouse” warming is primarily done by the ocean. Sunlight penetrates and warms the ocean to a depth of 100 meters. Water is quite opaque to infrared wavelengths thus the energy from the sun cannot escape radiatively except from a very thin film on the surface. Conduction and convection are the only means by which the energy from sunlight absorbed below the ocean surface can make its escape.
This is EXACTLY the same mechanism by which greenhouse gases work. The big difference is there’s more water in the first meter of the ocean than there is in the entire column of air above it.
This is an elephant in the AGW debate room. It isn’t the atmosphere that warms the earth 33C warmer than a barren rock like the moon. It’s the ocean that’s responsible for most of that. The atmosphere does little more than establish a high enough surface pressure to allow an ocean to exist in the first place.
Many here seem to think that we are winning the war. While some battles are being won – the war is still being lost. Once AGWists infiltrated our schools and other social institutions, we were outflanked. As a good example, peruse todays BBC headline about OXFAM’s declaration that AGW is the direct cause of current high food prices AND all future price rises.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13597657
No one suspects OXFAM of being a subversive or conspiratory group, therefore this article is accepted, by most, as valid.
I always thought the Greek mythical monster (Hydra) was a fairy tale, but cut the pseudo scientific head from the AGW body and seven heads replace it. Where-o-where will we find a gorgon’s head? We are fighting against real sorcery with spoons. GK
Mr. Glickstein, in Section B point 6 you write, ” What this shows, if anything, is that TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2, or, that something else causes both to change, with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years. Gore got the direction of causation backwards.” Then in Section D point 2 you write, “However, the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels…”
Your Section d point 2 would indicate that Gore did not get the causation backwards, CO2 can cause an increase in temperature even if increased temperatures of the past were not initially caused by an increase in CO2. It would seem the relation between CO2 and temperature is not as simple as you imply in Section B.
Charles Krauthammer is IMO in the elitist ‘we know best’ camp on the Right, together with Karl Rove who also likes to choose our candidates. It won’t happen this time around.
Your tax proposal smacks of just another form of wealth redistribution.
Further, there is no need to rely on energy from unstable regions of the world when the U.S. sits on vast quantities of our own energy; the largest on the planet. What we need is a strong majority of representatives in government who are actually serving the people and not the other way around.
Mr. Glickstein, in Section B point 5 you write, ” It has become the mantra of the Alarmists and an excuse for governments to regulate all fossil fuels as well as land use that affects albedo. Since all industry and agriculture and civilized life itself depends upon fossil fuels and land use, the Alarmists give suitably oriented politicos an excuse to regulate and tax and restrict virtually everything. We outdoors types will need an indulgence from the government every time we pass wind. And, we can forget about lighting a campfire :^).”
I think your fear of the government regulating passing wind is unfounded and shows an Alarmism which is not well grounded in rational thought. This Alarmism seems to be the basis of much of the “Skeptical” (I use the “scare quotes” around “Skeptical” to denote a semantic issue with the use of the term “Skeptical”) understandings of climate science.
Why not just stop letting them define the argument….
Stop letting them start their charts after the 1800’s.
Start the charts and graphs at 1700, and have them explain the fastest rise in global
temperatures that could not have been man made.
If you consider that temperatures rose over 1/2 a degree from 1700-1800, and that had nothing to do with CO2….
…then you are only left with the conclusion that the recent rise in CO2 has slowed recent temperature rise down.
Carl Chapman says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:07 pm
“I think some quotes from Richard Feynman are worthwhile. I’m sure I know what he would have said about people who ignore measurements and study the output of models, who “lose” their data rather than share it, and who continue on pushing a theory after their predictions repeatedly fail.”
=======================
It isn’t necessary to wonder what Feynman would have said about global warming as presented by Gore and Hansen. What he actually said about the somewhat similar issue of Nuclear Winter was “You know, I really don’t think these guys know what they’re talking about”
(In fairness to modern nuclear winter theorists, they may have a much better grounded structure nowadays than they did in the 1980s. That’s due to the debacle when Carl Sagan rather spectacularly mispredicted on national TV the results of the Kuwaiti oil well fires. And also to the mountain of information on particulates provided by the Mt Pinatubo eruption.)
Dr. Glickstein still insists on conjuring out of thin air (literally) a human-controlled outgoing radiation modulator. Amazing. To those who say we should give the progressive activists nothing, except, perhaps, a figurative stake through the heart, I agree completely.
Good article. I thought I was a skeptic but seeing the difference between that and disbeliever I am now a disbeliever. When anyone has to lie, hide their work and exaggerate to make their point as the global warming crowd has done and for the purpose of outrageous taxation and regulations and restrictions, then I can give them no credibility. These are scientists who should know better and politicians who should know their restrictions and don’t know or care.
The word greenhouse has been misused and there is no proof nor has there been enough time to know the cause of any warming or cooling or that any change is unusual. What has happened has been a giant leap in the improvement in living conditions for humans due to favorable climate.
I believe global warming is a human invention and cause for political power and tax dollars are flowing to support the claim. I personally think my freedom and tax dollars can be put to better use than having either abused.
Good Presentation indeed! But I would add some discussion about the emaning of the Mean Surface Temperature. I like to compare the mean earth temperature with human body temperature. Both are systems far from isothermal equilibrium (Gott sei Dank!), but the human body has a thermal regulation that makes its temperature almost constant with variations of less than 1 oC (for healthy people) during almost all his life (~100 years). On the other hand, the Earth has 10 oC variations in one location during 24 hours, and almost 100 oC at two different points at the same time! Then, we can put in context a 0.7 oC change in 100 years.
You cannot make this up!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/30/environmental-tax-threatens-green-energy-research
Ira, you have missed the most important item. The cooling effect of GHGs. What do you think causes the atmosphere to cool during the night?
Once a proper view of both the warming and cooling effects are given it is easy to show two things:
1) The CAGW proponents have intentionally skipped the discussion of an important part of the physics.
2) The overall effect of GHGs only warms the atmosphere to a certain degree. The cooling effect eventually takes over.
Your presentation could be MUCH shorter.
German nuclear cull to add 40 million tones CO2 per year (as they move to coal).
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/31/us-german-nuclear-carbon-idUSTRE74U2Y220110531?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
Germany’s plan to shut all its nuclear power plants by 2022 will add up to 40 million tones of carbon dioxide emissions annually as the country turns to fossil fuels, analysts said on Tuesday.
“We will see a pick-up in German coal burn,” said Barclays Capital analyst Amrita Sen. “Longer term, they will be using more renewables and gas but this year and next, we should see a lot of support for coal burn.”
The next commodity boom is going to be coal. When Germany no longer gives a damn about carbon emissions it is time to take note. The future is bright for coal and stocks in coal companies.
Dr Glickstein did a pretty good job summarizing many of the main points in the ongoing “debate” (if one can still call it one). But, if we can for a moment ignore the politics, there is one over-riding factor that has been ignored – the destruction of Climate Science as a relatively pure science void of the kind of politiking one sees in the humanities. After the IPCC and Mann, Climate Science has gone the way of economics. There are now Conservative and Progressive wings in Climate Science. In the present case, the Conservatives are the sceptics and the Progressives are the Alarmists. The Progressive hold the initiative as that’s where all the money, prestige, and connections are. Gone is the idea of discovering the Truth for the sake of the Truth. Both sides have thier bloggers, partisans, politicians, and media personalities. But, lost in the public discourse is the idea of looking at the data and formulating reasonable theories. Now, it is an agenda into which the data must fit no matter what. The Alarmists have been guilty of this many times; however, the defensiveness of many skeptics have turned thier minds off to other ideas that might not be convenient.
The politics of this debate cannot be ignored, as the stakes are too high. The programs and regulatory protocols in many cases circumvent normal constitutional checks and balances. Already, we’ve seen this with the Supreme Court and the EPA. What will happen if new sets of CO2 mitigation regulations come from international bureaucracies? The costs of carbon trading and federally mandated emission controls could be in the hundreds of billions. And with these regulations there is very little recourse to the law.
Dear Ira,
To quote you in response to Gerald:
“Yes, it is re-distributive to some extent, as is our basic income tax system. If the revenues are distributed equally to every citizen and legal resident, those who use less than the average amount of products and services with high fossil fuel content will get back more than the added costs of these items. That will encourage low and moderate income folks to use walk, bike, or use public transportation to get to work, to vacation locally, and so on to save money. If they adjust their behaviors, the money they get back will more than compensate for the higher prices they pay. High income people will, for the most part, just pay the added cost, and therefore will get back less than the higher prices they pay.”
I would like to point out that walking and biking do not reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by humans or the amount of fuel consumed by humans. The energy expended in these activities must be replaced with an increased consumption of organic materials (food). These materials must be grown using fertilizer and feedstocks. They must be transported, processed and packaged, utilizing fossil fuels at every stage. The human consumption byproducts include an increase in solid wastes and gaseous byproducts such as methane and sulfur dioxide. The increase in activity causes an increase in metabolic activity causing an increase in respiration causing an increase in the conversion of O2 into CO2.
There is no energy free lunch. I would daresay that the use of high energy content fuels like gasoline in an automobile are far more efficient and nonpolluting (and less expensive) than human-powered transportation will ever be.
Ira says” 1.Light energy from the Sun warms the Earth System, which consists of our Atmosphere and the Surface. Based on satellite measurements, the Sun provides 1366 Watts per square meter (W/m^2) at the Top of the Atmosphere. After accounting for the Earth’s spherical shape and albedo (reflectiveness), the absorbed energy averages out to about 240 W/m^2 for each square meter.
Daytona Beach, Fl latitude is 29.21 N
Mt. Everst latitude is 27.59 N
Since Mt Everest is in general above the clouds no .7 reduction is needed for incoming solar. It gets the full dose.
Why, then Ira, is Daytona Beach which farther north and has a .7 reduction in incoming solar hotter than the top of Everest?
Why do we have a “heat index” ? Does that come from CO2?
Or for that matter a wind chill index?
Since, the wealthy buy more diamonds than the rest of us a carbon tax would hit them quite hard. I wonder what Tiffany’s feels about this.
Barry says:
May 30, 2011 at 11:45 pm
I haven’t had the chance to complete the article yet, but something caught my eye. It says
Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming. I think you meant Anthropogenic
Correct. Otherwise, that means “A catastrophe, global warming, shaped like a man” So, apparently, that would be Al Gore? Put another way, it follows the alarmist “algorerhythm”.
To the basic scientific points I’d like to add:
What is called “surface temperature” of the Earth largely resides in the oceans not the atmosphere. Roughly speaking the heat capacity of the atmosphere is represented by its weight. This is just 33 feet of ocean – the height a suction pump can lift water.
Given the well documented good that enhanced CO2 does for plant growth. Given the fact that warmer temperatures are, on the whole, better for us and plants than are colder temperatures. (We are all in agreement that even doubling CO2 will only increase temperatures by a few tenths of a degree to at the absolute most 1 or 2 degrees C.)
It’s easier to make the argument that we should be subsidizing the production of CO2, not taxing it.
“However, the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels and human actions are PART of the Cause. ”
You need to point out this is a THEORY not yet proved. You should then go on to describe the experiments and data that are needed to support the theory and what might disprove the theory. Science, not politics.
The main thesis of AGW is that Anthropogenic c02 causes global warming.
the secondary thesis is that this nominal global warming will cause catastrophes on the earth .
Lab experiments disprove the former proposition, as co2 is a much researched gas from the radiative aspect.
the secondary hypothesis is purely rhetorical
“B. Divergent Views – There is a valid, science-based argument between people I refer to as Warmists, Lukewarmers, and Skeptics. I distinguish their reasoned views from the far out, unscientific rantings of people I refer to as Alarmists and their equal and opposite reaction opponents, who I call Disbeliever”
Ira has learnt nothing from the previous threads on this topic
He is doing the sceptics cause harm now. And as for his support of a CO2 tax and calling it a carbon tax.
What always bothered me about the CO2 and temperature history chart of Al Gore (and the ones used by the IPCC and the pro-AGW’ers), besides the fact that CO2 lags behind temperature throughout the entire 800,000 year record by 800 to 2000 years, …
… is mainly that the scale used for CO2 is wrong. CO2 can only explain about 1.75C of the 5.0C change in temperatures. Gore and the IPCC leave the reader thinking CO2 explains all of it. CO2 is just a small amount and all that sunlight-reflecting ice and snow in the ice ages explains the vast majority of the temperature change.
http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/1640/last800klr.png
also, the amount of radiation that c02 interfered with is fixed at approx 8% of longwave radiation, which itself, doesn’t cause global warming or any more warming than shortwave did prior. Adding more c02 doesn’t change this percentage.
The only argument that c02 would cause global warming is if it increased the global air pressure on earth. This it cannot, since the percentage of c02 of the atmosphere is too tiny a fraction, and regardless of which, the volume of the atmosphere would increase to maintain similar pressures than would otherwise be the case (sincere there isn’t a lid to keep the atmosphere at a fixed volume)
G. Karst’s link to the bbc article on food prices (May 31, 2011 at 6:22) contained this: “. . . regulation of food markets and invest in a global climate fund.” Initially, the backers of the AGW intended to regulate the energy markets. Now, not surprisingly, they want to regulate world food markets. This is consistent with Maurice Strong’s plan to devise a central one-world government through the UN.
Dr. Glickstein’s well-reasoned explanation of the science is useful, but not complete. The AGW tortured science is used to promote a collectivist ideology. [snip, this type of analogy trivializes the Holocaust – Ira]
Any discussion of climate change with a reasonable audience must include mention of the political and ideological underpinnings of the movement. One need not go far for the evidence. Ottmar Edenhofer, recently elected co-chair IPCC Working Group III said publicly only last November:
“Climate change policy has almost nothing to do with environmental protection any more. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economic summit during which the distribution of the world’s resources will be negotiated . . . One must say clearly that we redistribute defacto the world’s wealth by climate policy.”
It’s not about climate, or ice, or sea levels, or even energy anymore. It’s about redistribution of “the world’s wealth” including food resources.
“I am quite sure that Global Warming is REAL (i.e. the mean temperature of the Surface has increased by 0.5 to 0.6ºC since 1880) but, most of that increase is due to Natural Cycles over which we humans have no control.”
Pray tell me, Dr Glickstein, what it is that convinces you so.
If one looks at the metrology uncertainties and then assume that all other bias has been eliminated, then there is no credible evidence that the atmosphere has warmed. The error bars have to be drawn in so wide that it is impossible to arrive at a valid mathematical conclusion that there has been warming rather than cooling, and, warm or cool, any change has been minute. I believe that too many otherwise sound thinkers are glossing over the appalling state of the data.
Ira,
Only a tiny fraction of the defense budget goes to defending oil. We aren’t in Iraq or Afghanistan because of oil. We would still be defending the trade lanes even if the middle east didn’t have a single drop of oil.
If you really are concerned with using less middle eastern oil, then the obvious answer is to increase oil production everywhere else in the world, especially here at home.
The fact that you first bring up a disproven claim and then present a false dichotomy in order to solve it, does no service to the rest of your argument.
This presentation is way too complicated!
Three points.
1. The planet is warming well inside of natural variation and there is no proof it will continue to warm.
2. The is no real world evidence supporting manmade global warming.
3. Warming is not a danger, warming has always produced positive results.
Support each point with three simple examples. Then conclude with that is wy you are a skeptic.
Even if the “lukewarmers” are right, and the earth is going to warm up 1 to 3 degrees C.
So freaking what? That’s not enough warming to make a difference in anything. So why should we impose massive taxation on energy in order to reduce what is a non-problem to begin with.
Thank you for your excellent clarifications, Dr Glickstein. Alas, like many here, I’m also confused over your suggestions on compromise. A “revenue-neutral carbon tax” is not only a pipe dream (when has any tax in the world remained “revenue-neutral”?), but more importantly, it’s an unnecessary concession to the key Warmist claim, that CO2 is a deletirious gas which needs to be somehow controlled. I can’t think of a single case where a concession on a core issue has done the generous party any good. Such a major give-away of a key principle with concessions to language and paradigm for political, instead of scientific reasons is not, in any way I can see, related to Machiavelli’s musings on practical statecraft, but an attempt to play clever, cynical and ultimately self-defeating “machiavellian” games with a powerful, well-funded, connected and recently, a very frightened and desperate opponent.
Since this battle now is waged primarily in the political, financial and cultural arenas, I would suggest that the simplest, most honest and straigh-forward push-back is still the only effective and principled strategy. We need to show and repeat the plain facts; that Warmist science is a pseudo-science; that Warmism represents identifiable and traceable commercial and political interests; and that adoption of Warmist solutions to a manufactured problem will undeniably result in nothing less than truly catastrophic global disruptions and levels of misery we thought we left behind in our past.
Dave Springer says:
May 31, 2011 at 6:21 am
Yes, that should be enough food for thaught to move Ira G. from Luke-skeptic to Disbeliever.
hehe.
I suspect that as cost of oil goes up due to middle east instability, we’d NATURALLY conserve oil and gradually phase in other competitive energy sources REGARDLESS of any carbon tax. Any government intervention would tend to muck up the open market, much as government intervention in the past- urging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take on more subpar mortgage loans mucked up the housing market.
I didn’t appreciate Ira Glickstein’s carbon tax proposal, but I DID appreciate his argument that the proposal is Machiavellian.
Ira:
Have you read Ezra Levant’s “Ethical Oil”? Highly recommend it.
The price of crude reflects the magnitude of that risk as perceived by the market. What is the risk behind middle east oil? Essentially, the risk behind that oil is relatively low as perceived by the market. What drives the risk factor of domestic oil, (and I consider US, Canadian and Mexican oil as domestic; perhaps politically incorrect, but I bet you get my drift; I am Canadian BTW).
North America could easily be self sufficient on oil, but why would we when it is cheaper to buy the oil from the middle east?
The bigger question is why is the risk behind domestic oil greater than the political risk associated with totalitarian, right denying, woman abusing, gay hating radical Islam, regimes? Our political risk is all based on the environmental profiteers. The regulations, put in place to to appease that particular voting block, push the cost of exploration and recovery to points where it just doesn’t happen. (An outright ban is essentially pushing the cost to infinity).
The Alberta oil sands are the biggest on going toxic cleanup on the planet and Canadians are getting paid billions by oil companies to do so. Yet, they are demonized by the enviro profiteers. Why? I’m sure there are multitude of reasons but a large one is their green investments can’t economically survive without artificial costs placed on oil and coal. Look at Nat. Gas. Now that there is a glut on the market, due to technological developments, it has fallen out of favor with the enviro profiteers. Your tax at port, etc. only serves to artificially push the risk factor behind oil even higher which in turn makes the enviro profiteers waste of money projects more valid. Those ventures will not work, at least not with today’s technology, and we’ll end up paying for the coal, gas, nuclear, dams, etc in the future. Another question is what will politicians do with that revenue? They already have too much. Chances are they will toss it away on other worthless projects.
Regulations also have another hugely detrimental potential. Mark my words, one day, there will be a substitute for fossil fuels. Probably not in my lifetime which will hopefully at least another 40 – 50 years, but there will be. So the USA, due to its environmental regulations, sends all this money overseas to these unfriendly countries and essentially funds terrorism. Then along comes a substitute and voila, they have these huge expanses of oil sitting in the ground worthless. Congratulations. You financed these regimes through oil purchases and then get nothing for an asset sitting underneath your feet.
While getting off foreign oil is an excellent goal, placing a tax at port is not the answer. Reducing over burdening enviro regulations put in place only to satisfy a voting block of people, (who incidentally couldn’t shout from their metaphorical soap box if it hadn’t been built on the back of oil and coal), is the answer.
Read Ezra’s book. It is excellent.
Cheers
Mike Hodges
The biggest problem with wind and solar, is not that they are uneconomical at current energy prices. It’s that they plain and simple, don’t work. Neither is reliable enough to be used for base energy production. The fact that they can and do go from 100% to levels much less in a mater of minutes means that some other form of energy production has to be available to take over from them, in a matter of minutes. The only form of energy that can do this is hydro. But hydro is only available in limited parts of the country. Other than hydro, the only other solution is some form of carbon based fuel, kept running in idle. The problem here is that these plants do not have an “idle” setting. These plants must be kept running at near their rated capacity, with the energy being produced just thrown away because it isn’t needed at this moment.
Until there is a proven method of storing terawatts worth or power at an economical price, wind and solar are nothing more than play things.
Does a new paper which Mr. Watts was a part of show that these suspicions about US temperatures are mostly unfounded, that there is no known warming bias in the US temperature record?
—
The paper shows no such thing.
G. Karst says:
May 31, 2011 at 6:22 am
“Once AGWists infiltrated our schools and other social institutions, we were outflanked.”
mmmmm…..yes, but it didnt happen that way. They were already in our schools, but under another flag. The red flag. All they had to do was to add green to the red.
Then the flag is brown.
With all due respect to Ira Glickstein, I take exception with his term of “Disbeliever”. The term, like “Deniers”, implies that man-induced Global Warming is settled science or absolute fact, and not being believed by some. Similar, using the term “Alarmist” to describe the pro-pundits of Global Warming (aka Al Gore, Michael Mann) gives them some credibility, where there should be none. One should never give the pro-pundits of Global Warming even a hundredth of a degree F., otherwise they will claim Global Warming is fact.
Given the lack of credible scientific evidence (hype don’t count) to back the claims of Global Warming, the credible scientific evidence that shows humans are not causing Global Climate Change, and the laws of physics and established science that run counter to the arguments set forth by Ira Glickstein’s so called “Alarmist”; a better description for “Alarmist” would be 419ers. In that the 419ers have promoted Global Warming to scam people and their governments out of money to pay for their unscientific non-work, and to force 419ers’ political beliefs and policies on the world.
As for Ira Glickstein’s “Disbeliever”, a better description would be ‘Down to Earth’ (as in those who didn’t fall for the 419ers scam). With the aforementioned description suggesting the term “Ungullible”.
Well, I was going to comment with a few corrections, however your document has already “DISMISSED” me out of hand as some sort of crank. So it seems only fair to do the same.
I was enjoying what I was reading until I got to ‘D’.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
May 31, 2011 at 4:24 am
“Yes, it is re-distributive to some extent..”
It is not ‘to some extent’. Climate policy is all about wealth redistribution.
The Global Warming Policy Foundation posted an November 2010 interview with IPCC official Ottmar Edenhoffer who said, “(I)t’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization.”
We all know the UN is trying to rule the world through its environmental governance scheme, Agenda 21, IPCC, NGOs, etc. It makes me sick to think anyone would give even 1/1000th of a breadth of hair to these evildoers.
Edenhoffer goes on to explain, “But one must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy… One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole.”
Please, free yourself from the touchy-feely world of appeasement and delete part D.
And please stop mentioning Krauthammer. He’s gotten plenty wrong and on this he is totally wrong. Remember, Krauthammer was once a staunch leftist and expounded the virtues of Marx’s ‘social justice’, and he may even still believe that, I don’t know. What I do know is that if you want some kind of carbon dioxide tax, stand on your own two feet and accept the hits should and when they befall.
No to appeasement. No to climate thugs.
Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Professor Bob Carter
Alan Jones talks to Professor Bob Carter about climate change and a carbon tax.
http://www.2gb.com/index2.php?option=com_newsmanager&task=view&id=9032
“The public can smell a dead fish
You support a carbon tax?!?! Appeasement was tried by Chamberlain. And we all know where that lead. Great article, up until the point you caved into the insane demands of the ecofascists
“…We could go all out with Thorium…”
On this point, I wholeheartedly agree.
Anyone who knows the history of thorium reactors knows the U.S. had an early lead.
Take this exerpt from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
“…US physicists in the late 1940s explored thorium fuel for power. It has a higher neutron yield than uranium, a better fission rating, longer fuel cycles, and does not require the extra cost of isotope separation.
The plans were shelved because thorium does not produce plutonium for bombs. As a happy bonus, it can burn up plutonium and toxic waste from old reactors, reducing radio-toxicity and acting as an eco-cleaner…”
This fact is still true – when seeing the current arguement with Iran. If they were only concerned with supplying their people with cheap, clean energy, they’d see thorium as the answer.
Instead, they’ve put millions into the plants needed to “enrich” the uranium (and leading to the scare of them having “weapons grade” uranium).
If this little essay contains your views on Warmista and on Sceptics, then you have given away the argument to the Warmista, something that you admit when you say that Sceptics cannot have nothing so must propose a modest mitigation of CO2.
Your little essay makes the egregious error of accepting Warmista terms for the debate and then attempting to show that, within those terms, Sceptics can present a reasonable alternative set of facts. Given this position, the Warmista have only to insist that the consensus is on their side and they have won. To actually oppose the Warmista, you have to reject they way they frame the debate and recognize that the debate is not about “facts” but about theories and methods.
You point out the dishonesty of the Warmista, Climategate and 1934-gate, and it is important that you do so. However, you say nothing about what this dishonesty says about the quality of science practiced by Warmista. To be in a position where “hiding the decline” is tempting requires people who are scientific buffoons to begin with.
More Coming…
I disagree.
The skeptic strategy for talking about CAGW is asking tough questions, and it’s been working quite well so far.
You don’t need slides, you don’t need talking points. Ask people who are sure that the globe is warming and humans are the primary cause tough questions. The best one is this:
–> How many weeks/months/years of no change in temperatures or decline in temperatures would it take for you to question the presumed “consensus” view?
You are guaranteed a good discussion with that one question. That question *will* make someone think. They’re essentially trapped with that question, they must come up with a number at which they feel the consensus is disproved. Most wont want to admit this, because the “science is settled” and it “cannot be wrong.” But if they think like that, then you can nail them for not thinking scientifically, they’ve essentially conceded that they act on faith, not disprovable hypotheses.
I do like the reasoned and sensible tone of your article. Although I think people like Al Gore are snake oil salesmen, there are many genuinely concerned people who worry about these issues and are more likely to be persuaded by reason than vitriol. I know that for many CAGW is akin to a religion but the best way to get through to them is the quiet voice of reason.
Ira says: ” A Watt is a Watt, no matter what :^)”
If this were absolutely true (temperature wise) then the hottest spot on land would be the square meter underneath the 50000 W transmission towers of several radio stations.
Smokey says:
May 31, 2011 at 3:35 am
Ira has a talent for writing articles that generate lots of resposnses. I like that.
====================================================
true…..
I’m amazed at the amount of people that think this is a good presentation though……
steptoe fan says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:10 pm
yes, a good summary, still, it’s hard to swallow and stick to the basics when the AGW crowd seems to continually have their way with govt and media. makes a person want to repeatedly bat them with every exposed falsehood the IPCC cranked out.
in Seattle, this same group of the agenda have had their way for decades now, and the public schools have been teaching this gospel long enough that it is simply a matter of we are past the science now …
so, what’s a heated rhetoric correct comeback for … we’re past the science ?
They said something similar to Galileo when he said the Earth orbited the Sun – were they correct?
Should “we are past the science” have been said to Einstein when he showed the consensus Newtonian concepts were incorrect?
For science to advance it is almost always the consensus that is incorrect
New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the Norse disappearance from Greenland shows a significant temperature drop around 1100 AD as well as an earlier episode in 850 B.C. Climate variability with warming and dramatic cooling is acknowledged in this National Academy of Sciences-funded research.
http://news.brown.edu/pressreleases/2011/05/vikings
You do not take up the question of theory at all. This is a most egregious error. As anyone familiar with scientific method knows, to consider facts independently of the theory that is used to specify and explain them is to consider them in a void. Also, the matter of theory is the Achilles Heel of the Warmista position because they have none. Well, of course, they use Arrhenius’ theory when they claim that atmospheric CO2 can reduce the flow of radiation from Earth to space. However, to draw conclusions about atmospheric warming from Arrhenius’ theory requires a theory of forcings. Specifically, Warmista have no physical hypotheses (no science) which can be used to explain and predict whether atmospheric CO2 will cause an increase or decrease in atmospheric temperatures. In other words, Warmista have no scientific account of warming produced by CO2.
Your constant reliance on the “facts” causes you to miss the absolutely crucial point that Warmista have no clothes. All that they have been able to present to the public are the hockey stick, Hansen’s ever-changing temperature records from the 1930s, and similar matters. Just think how little actual science went into the hockey stick.
After 1960, the tree ring data began showing a decline in temperature while thermometer data showed an increase in temperature. Briffa stated that he did not know what caused the tree ring data to decline. Do you not understand that the man admitted that he did not understand the decline. Was it a change in moisture? Who knows what it was? To this day, no one knows because Briffa did not have the scientific instinct to pursue the matter. But the one thing that can be known is that only vastly incompetent scientists will present tree ring data as a proxy for temperature when they do not know what natural features cause tree rings to change size. All of climate science is this weak and you are overlooking it. Why? Are you a Warmista?
Great summary and analysis of the full body of arguments surrounding AGW. Two points;
I am pretty sure in section B item 5 you meant to say anthropogenic instead of anthropomorphic.
Also; your final analysis . . . I will refrain from using the words that come to mind, but I strongly disagree with the notion we should just go along with the CAGW crowd and see where we end up. LETS BE CLEAR: A CARBON TAX IS JUST ANOTHER FORM OF CAP AND TRADE. YOUR RECOMMENDATION TO JUST GO ALONG WITH THE CAGW CROWD MAKES ME WONDER IF YOU ARE PRESENTING A TROJAN HORSE! You know; Win the argument by getting the other side to forfeit on the end game in the name of compromise. That kind of rope-a-dope stuff has no place in the world of scientific or political debate. We cannot achieve progress by solving problems that do not exist.
Conservation is a prudent strategy in all things, and doesn’t need some fairy tale about the evil air spirits to be credible.
We don’t solve our problems by putting on masks and dancing around a fire anymore, or making necklaces out of chicken bones and invoking magic spells. What you are advocating is, in effect, appeasing the CAGW crowd by allowing them to have the dance floor at night. If you do that, eventually all of the villagers will see your concession as an admission of the science, and the witches will soon be calling for an end to the blasphemers. This game has been played before.
Do not get confused here. Win it on the science and make the charlatans find a new job.
Mr. Glickstein, the “Disbelievers” are out in full force on this thread and are coming after you for talking about physics.
I think your recommendation is wrong. There is no doubt that if we do a little bit now it won’t stop the alarmists, it will instead embolden them. They will come back for more and more. These are big government types. They’re never are satisfied. It has never once work where people have said “we’ll expand government just a little bit here and that will stop them from expanding there.” George W. Bush Thought that would work with the prescription drug plan, but now have both that plan and Obamacare.
I don’t like your appeal to authority in evoking the name of Charles Krauthamer. I don’t think that Krauthammer knows a lot about global warming. But more importantly as of late Krauthammer has been a don’t make waves conservative, someone who believes that if conservatives give in a bit the other side will give a little too. There is no evidence that the other side will ever be satisfied.
The facts are on our side there is no reason to concede ground. This is an issue that the truth will win out in time. One can not run around saying “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” all the time if the sky never falls. Sure it might take another decade or so but eventually it should be clear that major changes to the climate aren’t happening. But if we allow for CO2 taxes and the like, it will only make them say “see even they admit global warming is a disaster, so we have to do even more.”
Ira,
I would cover the huge uncertainties in everything, actual measurements, models, projections the lot, and how little we actually know.
e.g.
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/guest-post-in-the-beginning-was-the-confusion-by-angelo-ribino/
The proper solution to a non-problem is to do nothing. If you want to talk about reducing our dependence on foreign oil, that’s worthwhile. If you want to talk about conserving scarce resources, that’s worthwhile too. But proposing solutions to non-problems is counterproductive.
I think any manipulation of the market via taxes or legislation is interference with the natural ebb and flow of capitalism in its truest form.
The housing market bubble is a perfect example. Creating artificial markets or manipulating existing [free] ones via bureaucratic meddling or legislation thereby picking winners and losers is not an American ideal.
Now we have a ban of incandescent light bulbs ready to take affect next February. And for what reason? When the CFL bulbs first came out I thought they were neat, but over time I’ve learned to hate the very sight of them. They burn out, are horrible in cold weather and a health hazard. I recently cleaned off the shelves of our local hardware store of incandescent bulbs in preparation for the ban.
izen says:
May 30, 2011 at 11:19 pm
@- Carl Chapman says:
May 30, 2011 at 9:07 pm
“For me, the most important point in the debate is the role of feedbacks. The Alarmists assume, with no reason and no evidence, that positive feedbacks will magnify the insignificant primary effect of CO2 by a factor of at least 3. A relatively stable system has to have negative feedbacks, which counteract any forced change.”
“But the climate DOES change in response to the Milankovitch cycles, ice-cover loss and volcanoe eruptions. The magnitude of those changes to small causative effects are the reason and evidence the ‘warmists’ have for the present estimates of climate sensitivity.”
Stick to the topic of forcings. The physical hypotheses that are needed would explain how CO2 causes changes in cloud cover and cause an increase or decrease in temperatures. There are no such physical hypotheses. If you have them, please publish them here. Do not assign homework.
While Edenhofer tells clearly “it’s not about climate change at all anymore” and the German WGBU drafts the “Great Transformation”, sceptics are wasting time discussing the science. The one-world-government party is moving on, convinced that the public majority has accepted their propaganda already and is ready for the next step.
They even accelerate, before the climate facts get stronger against them.
We need to take their words serious and confront them.
Logan says:
May 30, 2011 at 11:39 pm
“Then, go on to Carl Chapman’s point that a dubious positive feedback is required. Mention Roy Spencer.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-101/
who is an expert critic of feedbacks and includes an overview on his website.”
Ira, you actually provide no evidence whatsoever in support of the Warmista claim that sensitivity is high. You should be thorough enough to realize that you cannot say that Warmista have evidence if you cannot state their hypotheses and the confirmation records for those hypotheses. As scientists, Warmista have the duty to provide hypotheses and evidence, something they have not done.
Dr. Glickstein, I see that your academic discipline is in the field of Systems Engineering.
Science should drive the AGW debate, but the essentials of that science ought to be organized and documented in a way that conveys the essential scientific facts both to professional scientists and to the non-scientific public. A Systems Engineering approach could be of considerable value in accomplishing this objective .
In the mode of deliberately simplifying the scientific issues to their barest essentials, and in the interest of not exceeding the general public’s attention span, the science side of the AGW debate boils down to this: “Is there reason to believe that the warming trend we have seen over the last three decades is anything more than an extension of the general warming trend which has been evident since the end of the Little Ice Age?”
If a disciplined Systems Engineering philosophy were to be applied to the process of answering this question, one would employ a knowledge-managed, procedurally-driven approach to accomplish two very essential subsidiary objectives:
(1) Assess the validity, accuracy, and reliability of the published temperature record from the end of the Little Ice Age to the present.
(2) Assess the validity, accuracy, and reliability of the General Circulation Models (GCMs) used to predict warming trends beyond 1 degree C for a doubling of CO2.
The science side of the AGW debate is quite simple: If the reliability of the published temperature record is open to question; and if the reliability of the General Circulation Models is open to question, then the fundamental premise of AGW is therefore open to question.
That being said, no one should underestimate the considerable time and expense which would be necessary to properly evaluate — while employing a disciplined Systems Engineering approach — the validity, the accuracy, and the reliability of both the published temperature record and the General Circulation Models.
As far as I am aware, no such disciplined evaluation currently exists. The need for such an evaluation is obviously self-evident.
“The Alarmists assume, with no reason and no evidence, that positive feedbacks will magnify the insignificant primary effect of CO2 by a factor of at least 3.”
But most alarmists don’t know that they assume that.
****************
More importantly the big gorilla of feedbacks is water vapor which has gone down steadily since 1950 or so.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0147e2fc6895970b-pi
Without increasing water vapor the CO2 sensitivity is small and CAGW can not be defended.
Dear Ira,
I believe points 5 & 6 are flawed.
They do not take into account the properties of water – the energy needed to warm and cool water and the huge energy that water releases when freezing (50 times more then warming at 1 degree) as well as the huge energy that water needs to evaporate.
I trust that these “water properties” and the fact the earth is spinning explain most of the temperature and not greenhouse gases.
When facing the sun the surface would get very hot (moon +100°C – earth in the deserts +50°C) but the oceans do not heat so fast. In the night the oceans cannot lose so fast the energy to freeze in 12 hours.
Greenhouse comes in second position, after the oceans, to explain average temperature, if any. The average +240 W/m2 is not giving proper results.
OK this is my gut feeling, haven’t done the calculations actually, shame on me, but it should not be impossible to check, will do it maybe tomorrow…
sceptical says:
May 31, 2011 at 9:15 am
Mr. Glickstein, the “Disbelievers” are out in full force on this thread and are coming after you for talking about physics.
At least Dr. Glickstein has the fortitude to present here what he understands as the physics involved with the issue. He is treated with respect and intelligent discussion does take place.
I just don’t happen to agree with him on all he says.
I and others here are willing to discuss the physics with you. Please go ahead and start.
“Given the well documented good that enhanced CO2 does for plant growth. Given the fact that warmer temperatures are, on the whole, better for us and plants than are colder temperatures….It’s easier to make the argument that we should be subsidizing the production of CO2, not taxing it.” [MarkW, May 31, 2011 at 7:18 am]
WHAAAAT? Are you totally….wait…uh…actually, why not? Seriously. Unlike Mr Glickstein’s “machiavellian” scheme of giving away the prize in the hope that by blowing away our own heads, we’ll somehow trick the opposition, MarkW’s seemingly flippant suggestion has a much better chance. Imagine; offering prizes to serial CO2 emitters and showering R & D subsidies for CO2 generation technology! Why’s everyone cringing? Would it be illegal? Not yet. Shocking? Heck, yeah! Over the top? No, not compared to the chutzbah behind the CAGW scheme. Would it work? Of course it would; unlike the never-successful strategies of well-reasoned appeasement, such an in-yer-mug approach would demand courage and conviction, forcing real (and very entertaining) science and fact-based dialogues…for a change.
Ira, thank you for the post.
From my perspective, you give short shrift to one of the most important anti-CAGW arguments. Specifically, “Where is it proven that additional CO2 (however produced) and/or global warming of a few degrees (however produced) are bad for the world?” It can be argued that more CO2 means enhanced plant life which translates into increased food for carnivores. It can be argued that for mankind warmer climates on the whole are better than colder climates. Maybe the latter can’t be proven; but by the same token there’s no proof that climates as is or colder climates are an improvement.
As many commenters have noted, to argue for a “carbon tax” is to appease the warmists. The skeptic argument says there is no problem. If there’s no problem, there’s no need for a tax. Just what problem is a carbon tax supposed to solve?
Finally, in response to
John B says:
May 31, 2011 at 5:11 am
My comments in [bold]
Ira,
A sterling effort but I think you have a massive task in trying to align skeptics. The problem is that even if you remove the outliers, skeptics do not all agree with each other. The AGW argument can be summarized as something like this:
1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere [Probably.]
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas [Only if both the denotation and connotation of a greehouse gas is limited to a gas that absorbs IR radiation. If a “greenhouse gas” connotes warming, then I take exception. After all, a blackbody absorbs all incident radiation including IR, but increasing the radius of a blackbody sphere in a circular orbit about the sun will not result in a surface temperature increase–at least for orbital radii large compared to the sum of the blackbody and sun radii.]
3. Human emitted CO2 has a significant added greenhouse effect over natural effects [I don’t like the word significant–it’s too subjective. Furthermore, in this claim the connotation of a “greenhouse gas” includes surface warming, which as noted above, I take exception to.]
4. Recent warming has been measured [Yes, but two points. First, I don’t trust many of the measurements–hell, many temperature records have been lost, so who can trust them? Second, the last decade has seen cooling, not warming.]
5. This warming is unprecedented [Disagree.]
6. It can be attributed to human emitted CO2 [Disagree.]
7. The warming will get worse due to positive feedbacks [This is a truism. If this claim is included in the warmist list, then I demand a claim 7a: “The warming will be reduced by negative feedbacks.”]
8. We are fairly confident on the sign and magnitude of those feedbacks[No opinion as to the ‘sign’, but I have no confidence in the ‘magnitude’.]
9. The effects of the continued warming will be bad [Maybe/maybe not. I believe a few degrees of warming over a period of one or two centruies will be “good.”]
10. There are things we can do about to mitigate the continued warming [Unlikely–at least to any measurable degree.]
11. The effects of those things will be good [Doubtful. And when compared to the negative effects of “those things”, I believe the net effect of try to ‘do something about global warming’ will be bad for mankind.]
em>
Thanks for the kind words, jaypan.
Statement 1 has to do with the ice core record which shows that Temperature moves 800+ years before CO2, so, according to the ice cores Temperature causes CO2, or something else (Solar radiation? Cosmic rays? Milankovitch cycles?) causes Temperatures to rise and CO2 follows, perhaps due to net outgassing from the oceans.. Therefore the ice core record has absolutely nothing to tell us about the current situation, so it is a “red herring” and Gore was totally wrong to even bring it up, much less implie that mean temperatures would increase in proportion to projected CO2 levels and that “tipping point” “runaway” catastrophe would follow.
Statement 2 has to do with basic climate science. CO2 is a so-called “greenhouse gas” and, as such, doubling the pre-industrial level of about 270 ppmv to 540 ppmv (or the current level of 390 ppmv to 780 ppmv) is bound to cause mean temperatures to rise at least a little bit over what they would be due to natural cycles alone. IMHO, the valid scientific questions (and my answers) are: 1- How much of the past 50 year rise in CO2 is due to human activity? (substantial, but less than half), 2- How much would mean temperatures rise if CO2 doubles, and all else remained constant? (no more than 1ºC), and, 3- Considering climate feedback (clouds, etc), what will be the net mean temperature rise above natural cycles due to doubling of CO2? (between 0.2ºC and 1ºC).
Hi Ira,
Any possibility of you giving a TED talk?
Two more things….
As part of demonstrating that current times are unusual:
For historical proxies, there are relatively few studies, by a few scientists, that attempt to tie everything together, and they are cross-contaminated by relying primarily on proxies which they never attempted to demonstrate were valid as *temperature* proxies, and currently show no correlation with temperature.
Rate of temperature increase: There’s a chart used by the IPCC which purports to show accelerating warming.
vs.
or
Ira, after re-reading your accounts I may be one of the 95%’ers that cannot accept a carbon tax. I think with all the good that you have done with this, it still enables those government types who wish to tax and spend, a huge issue in the USA and abroad. The industries will still pass that tax on in the form of COGS to the buyers as a tax is simply a punishment that tends to decrease activity.
But keep going. I think you are onto something. Very close.
Well, Layne Blanchard, I dismissed the Alarmists as anti-reason and un-scientific, and I have no plan to negotiate with them. So we agree on that part.
However, you seem to be dismissing the Warmists and Lukewarmers as well, and even Skeptics who dare to believe in the science behind the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. That will leave you alone with the bogeyman under your bed.
I feel sorry for you because you cannot distinguish between merely mistaken scientists (the Warmists, who truly believe human civilization is headed for long-term problems if mean temperatures and CO2 continue their rise) and the irrational, rogue Alarmists who use scientific argument to support their need for continuing government grants and increased political control.
I may be wrong, but I think rational, science-based argument can move the media and political elite, and the general population, to a more moderate view of climate change.
I am sure that your plan to distance yourself from everyone and then, in your words, “declare a national energy emergency” is a loser. On what planet do we have an national energy emergency?
Graph links should be:
Rate of temperature increase: There’s a chart used by the IPCC which purports to show accelerating warming.
“http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo5.png?w=509&h=339”
vs.
“http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/orssengo3.png?w=510&h=328”
or
“http://bbickmore.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/monckton_accelerating.png?w=460&h=292”
Great summary of a complicated topic. Since you’re inviting comments, I have a few.
First I would move the scare quotes in “Inconvenient” Truth so it reads Inconvenient “Truth” — the whole darn thing is pretty inconvenient if you ask me, it’s the truth that still eludes us.
Regarding the distinction between AGW and CAGW, I think it’s significant that even though the catastrophic part is not as widely believed as it was, AGW is still presented as a bad thing. Never mind that warmer temperatures mean more crops and less freezing to death, (and never mind that people almost certainly are not the driving force we egotistically believe we are) media outlets and politicians still put an alarmist spin on climate because scary stories sell better and a frightened populace is more easily led. My point is that once you’ve ruled out “catastrophic”, it’s fair to ask if a warming trend is bad at all.
I strongly disagree with your conclusion that skeptics gain ground by playing along with any kind of carbon tax or gratuitous greening. This is no time for fence sitting. Here in the US, while a few brave politicians have rejected Cap and Trade, the EPA is charging ahead with the very carbon regulation our elected representatives rejected. Recycling and biomass are great, but they are not going to reduce our dependence on foreign oil any time soon. Developing our own resources will.
In my opinion, the benefit we can gain from the global warming scandal is that the general public (such as myself) will snap out of the blind allegiance to media sources we’ve lapsed into in recent years and just say STOP! We’re on to your game, knock it off!
I appreciate the presentation you put together. It is a good tool for discussing the subject, breaking out the various elements so they can be examined and debated each in turn. Very helpful!
Did someone mention trees?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/05/26/1979-before-the-hockey-team-destroyed-climate-science/
Ira, I favor at the minimum an emphasis on showing that ipcc Climate Science is simply not real science and is therefore not credible, period, which can be fairly easily hammered home to an audience of scientists from the facts that, 1] it has not been able to make any correct predictions yet, but 2] still holds onto its “tenets” such that it will not allow them to be falsified. 3] The empirical evidence is always wrong, and counting, including the fact that that there has been no net disaster yet vs normal or natural climate.
But, regardless, have you considered making your finished lecture also a handout, so that the audience can take it home, go over it, and spread it around, thus also allowing some real “peer-review”, of at least your arguments?
@- Jeremy says:
May 31, 2011 at 8:23 am
“You don’t need slides, you don’t need talking points. Ask people who are sure that the globe is warming and humans are the primary cause tough questions. The best one is this:
–> How many weeks/months/years of no change in temperatures or decline in temperatures would it take for you to question the presumed “consensus” view?”
An EXCELLENT suggestion.
Personally I would at least question the “consensus” if three consecutive years of this decade (2011-2020) were colder than the hottest year in the last decade (2001-2010), even if the decade was hotter on average than the last.
I would not just question, but be actively looking for alternative explanations if this decade is NOT hotter overall than the last.
I would point out that this is a high bar for AGW to pass, during the past century of warming there have been several instances of three years being colder than the hottest year in the previous decade, (it happened in the last decade) and a few times when the subsequent decade was NOT warmer than the preceding one.
But sauce for the goose….
What pattern of climate would cause the ‘skeptics’ here to at least question their presumed absence of AGW? What amount of warming/sea level rise and ice loss would cause ‘skeptics’ to doubt the proposition that the warming is entirely natural or insignificant??
It is pointless of course to ask this question of those for whom AGW is a matter of belief or disbelief, they are not thinking scientifically, they’ve essentially conceded that they act on faith, not disprovable hypotheses.
Thanks Dave Wendt for the “thumbs up”, even if it has to be “conditional” :^)
Please have a look at my three WUWT postings related to “Clean Coal”(#1 – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/30/clean-coal-say-watt-our-energy-future/, #2 – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/06/co2-is-plant-food-clean-coal-say-watt/, and # 3 – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/18/nuke-tsunami-makes-clean-coal-look-better/)
In the first one, I say, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/30/clean-coal-say-watt-our-energy-future/#comment-563095 : “As a matter of fact, I do not favor artificial re-sequestration of carbon. Wait till my next Guest Post, in about a week, for the brilliant (if I have to say so myself :^) conceptual solution.”
In the second one, I say “There are proposals to capture the CO2 and re-sequester it by pumping it into old oil wells, perhaps extracting additional oil by doing so. It seems to me it would be smarter to use the CO2 for the purpose Nature intended, as plant food! … CO2 has been wrongly depicted as a poison. There are projects underway to re-sequester the carbon by pumping it into abandoned oil wells and so on, possibly recovering additional oil in the process. However, since CO2 is plant food, I think it makes far more sense to capture and utilize this valuable product to grow food! … sequestering CO2 by pumping into old oil wells strikes me as a waste of a valuable plant food resource. …
I also express total disagreement with re-sequestration of CO2 in the third posting.
@- Theo Goodwin says:
May 31, 2011 at 9:57 am
“Stick to the topic of forcings. The physical hypotheses that are needed would explain how CO2 causes changes in cloud cover and cause an increase or decrease in temperatures. There are no such physical hypotheses. If you have them, please publish them here. Do not assign homework.”
Okay, no homework! -grin-
The physical hypothesis that explain how changes in CO2 causes changes in the ‘greenhouse’ effect by slowing the rate of cooling at the surface by converting outgoing longwave radiation to thermal energy within the atmosphere is well known, established and recognized. Ira Glickstein, Prof Lindzen and Roy Spencer have all explained and acknowledged this rather basic bit of physics in the past.
The magnitude of this effect may be in dispute, but the reality of its existence is not.
After all the changes in the spectra of energy of OLR and DLR have been detected and measured as anyone who follows this subject will be aware.
I think that is why Ira Glickstein created a category of ‘Disbelievers’ who reject the physics and placed them beyond the pale with the ‘Alarmists’. He quite correctly identified both groups as beyond rational argument and can see any concession to the cohort who reject the known physics in favour of unfeasible processes that either negate the existence of the ‘Greenhouse effect’, or attribute it extreme abilities to derange the climate, undermines his own credibility with an informed audience.
steptoe fan:
so, what’s a heated rhetoric correct comeback for … we’re past the science ?
My best try so far is “You’re right. You’re past the science. You missed the turn.”
Cheers,
Neil
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
May 31, 2011 at 11:19 am
Layne Blanchard says:
May 30, 2011 at 11:01 pm
“I feel sorry for you because you cannot distinguish between merely mistaken scientists (the Warmists, who truly believe human civilization is headed for long-term problems if mean temperatures and CO2 continue their rise) and the irrational, rogue Alarmists who use scientific argument to support their need for continuing government grants and increased political control.”
Well, Ira, you really asked for this one. Ira, you have no clue what counts as criticism of scientific theory. The Bottom Line on your understanding of the debate about global warming is that you can identify a claim by one side and pair it with a counter-claim from the other side. You show no ability to inform your readers about the relative merit of the claims or of the science, so-called, practiced by the individuals making the claim. You do not understand the fundamental point of scientific method that the burden of proof rests on the scientist but that the sceptic need only show that the scientist has failed in his attempts at proof. Because you have no facility for criticism of science, you are the last one to tell another that they cannot distinguish between the honest and the dishonest science.
“I may be wrong, but I think rational, science-based argument can move the media and political elite, and the general population, to a more moderate view of climate change.”
Sir, a “more moderate view of climate change” is a fantastically tortured idea. To claim that such a thing exists is exactly analogous to claiming that we should hold a more moderate view of “E=MC2.” The theory or hypothesis has the evidence that has been presented for it, nothing more nor less, yet you are incapable of criticizing evidence offered or even identifying what would count as evidence. Your task amounts to nothing more than a nice person’s attempt to apply to this debate some vision of “balance” that is known only to you and that has no foundation in science or scientific method. In science, there is no truth to split. There is only Scientific Method and you are abysmally ignorant of it. You are going down the road of the benighted “Postmodern Science” which would have us throw our science and our policy preferences in a pot and stir them. That is madness, except for the communist whose goal never had anything to do with truth except to distract his victims from it.
Sir, are you unaware that, in your presentation that we are discussing, you correctly identify some of the crooks and charlatans, such as Jones, Hansen, and Gore, but then you end with the policy proposal that we compromise with them. How nutty can you get? You might say that you want to compromise with the moderate Warmista. But who are they and what do they claim? Sweep Jones (hockey stick), Hansen (temperature record and Schmidt’s models), and Gore off the table and what remains? Nothing that you mention. Who are they and what do they hold that you can defend?
If WUWT is to willingly subject itself to this level of discussion then it has given up opposition to the Global Warming Steamroller.
You say that for “black body radiation” the Earth’s temperature should be -18c, rather than the +15C it actually is, and attribute this to “greenhouse gases.” I have read that, if you calculate the “greenhouse effect,” Earth’s temperature should be +60C. The difference is caused by the most important “greenhouse gas,” -water vapour. Water vapour can form clouds, increasing the albedo. It can also produce thunderstorms which cause ” convective overturning” of the atmosphere, punting surface heat straight up to the top of the tropospher, where it is more readily radiated to outer space.
Wow!….Awesome presentation all the way up until you dropped the ball on the one yard line.
I’m all for finding and using better Technology, but agreeing with a specific carbon tax just made your whole presentation BUNK!
Fossil Fuels are already taxed too much. For the sake of economics you can claim that we need a “Technology” tax, to use less fossil fuels, but to call it a “Carbon Tax” reinforces the idea that human are bad for the Planet, which you yourself admit is not the case. Humans may “contribute to change,” but that is a long distance drive from “cause damage.”
If you really feel it is important to call for a added tax, then at least add to your presentation a detailed explaination on exactly how the money is to be spent. Being Vague adds to our economic whoas!
1) This “blood for oil” pratter is even sillier than CAGW. Sadaam invaded Kuwait because he wanted to be the one to sell off their oil, and that’s how it would have gone down had we not invaded. Wars cost more than oil, and raise the price of oil. So which is it: did we invade to bring the price up or down?
2) No presentation could be complete without teaching the history of sea level rise. They will be amazed to learn that nothing catastrophic can be extrapolated from current trends–only theorized.
3) Right, T does not force CO2; ice sheet extension forces both in tandem, and the delay may be explained by CO2 absorption. One would expect any amplification to show up as feedback like a rounded step function–the ocean circulates to some extent from the bottom up, i.e., in discrete quanta, but not discretely enough to press the issue–that CO2 absorbing rock complicates things.
4) What good is C&T with China around, and what good is it without China (see 1 above)?
So that the takeaway message is precisely what we’re fighting against. Other than that, you are reasonably informative. But “blood for oil”? That’s what I would expect from AP. –AGF
izen says:
May 31, 2011 at 11:25 am
“@- Jeremy says:
May 31, 2011 at 8:23 am
[…]
But sauce for the goose….
What pattern of climate would cause the ‘skeptics’ here to at least question their presumed absence of AGW? What amount of warming/sea level rise and ice loss would cause ‘skeptics’ to doubt the proposition that the warming is entirely natural or insignificant??”
To say that humans affect global climate I’d have to see more change in global climate than what the earth has seen before, such as:
– more than 100 meters of sea level rise.
– more than 100 meters of sea level drop.
– snowball earth… forever
– aligators and humingbirds at the poles… again
just to mention a few.
Wake me up when the earth experiences global climate that’s truly unprecedented, show me irrefutable evidence that humans dunnit with their e-e-evil CO2, and then I’m all in. Until then… I’m inclined not to buy.
Point 7.
Can’t agree. There is no way a cooler atmosphere can warm the warmer earth’s surface by any means, including ‘back radiation’.
The ‘raised’ temperature of the earth has nothing to do this. It has to do with knowing what it is supposedly raised FROM. We don’t know that fact. All we know is theoretical calculations based on ‘black body radiation’ concepts – which are themselves to a degree theoretical – a true black body does not exist in the real world – it is a theoretical contruct.
Arrhenius deliberately ignored a basic fact about any real absorbant surface: heat is conducted DOWNwards and conducts back to the surface as the surface cools by convection (and some radiation). His paper stated clearly that he ignored this. A mega mistake.
However we can now test how a planetary body without an atmosphere behaves in this regard. We have real temperature data from the moon since the Apollo landings. These show a temperature elvation of 40K above the theoretical temperature. Not a greenhouse gas in sight.
details:
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/RadiativeNonEquilbrium_BHermalyn_Final.pdf
Steeptown, I dealt with the Postma paper in a comment http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/07/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-light-and-heat/#comment-669975 on my previous WUWT topic, after reading Postma completely through and thinking about his intriguing idea:
.
He had me going for a while until I realized he was confusing cause and effect. The simplest example is when someone notices the more firemen at a fire, the bigger the fire is, or the more police directing traffic, the worst the traffic jam, etc. We consider those examples jokes because, at least most of the time, firemen put out fires and police help traffic move. When a fire is big, more firemen are called to fight it, and when a traffic jam is bad, more police are called to move it as fast as practical, etc.
Postma, IMHO, is describing the effect of gravity, humidity of the air, gases present in the air, Solar radiation, and the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” that causes the Surface temperature to be what it is, as well as the lapse rate. The constancy of the sum of potential and thermal energy in a parcel of air is not the immediate cause.
Imagine, if you will, the Sun being replaced by a cold object of the same mass. Of course, the Earth would cool to some low temperature, but gravity would remain the same as will most gases in the air (except for water vapor, which will precipitate out). Absent Solar radiation, the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” will cease as well. OK, on cold Earth some lapse rate will occur. Will Postma’s math work in that case?
Another analogy is a roller coaster. When the cars are released from the top of the first hill, all they have is potential energy. That exact amount of energy is conserved as the potential energy changes to kinetic energy and (by friction) to heat on the wheels and rails. At the bottom of the first hill all the cars have is kinetic energy, but that is conserved as the cars climb the second hill, transforming the kinetic to potential and (by friction) heat, and so on. It seems to me that it would be perverse to describe the ups and downs and faster and slower of the roller coaster cars as the result of conservation of energy (the constant sum of potential and kinetic and heat) ignoring the role of the rails that shape the hills.
I would say that the cause of the path and speed of the cars is the shape of the rails (and the mechanics of the wheels, weight of passenger, etc.) Of course, energy is conserved, as it is in all physics but that is not the immediate or proximate cause.
If interested in the philosophy of cause and effect, you might want to have a look at my Google Knol on Aristotle’s Physics – the four causes http://knol.google.com/k/aristotle-s-physics-the-four-causes#
In the case of the Earth’s Surface temperature, conservation of energy may be Aristotle’s FORMAL cause, but his EFFICIENT cause is the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. To attribute conservation of potential and thermal energy as the specific cause of the Earth Surface being warmer than an equivalent blackbody is specious because the conservation of energy (and mass) is the cause of everything in the Universe!
I have to take issue with the portrayal of DAGW. IMHO, the “greenhouse” theory is ripe for a paradigm-change, that will make it more comprehensive of real-world situations. Just like when classical Newtonian physics was “expanded” into quantum physics and relativity.
I would find it very peculiar if the “greenhouse” theory were to be the one area of physics where no progress is ever done. Or has ever been done, since Arrhenius’ times.
You say that for “black body radiation” the Earth’s temperature should be -18c, rather than the +15C it actually is, and attribute this to “greenhouse gases.”
There is a big problem with this and has never really been solved. The ocean should be included with greenhouse gasses or missing a great energy value of the planet. This is general mainstream problem not just the statement of it. The atmosphere from the ground decreases temperature with height so the main source of energy must be the ocean. Without this body of water this energy would have already been lost to the atmosphere, so +15c would be reduced significantly still with the same atmosphere greenhouse gases composition. Therefore the true value =33c = greenhouse gasses + ocean heat. Greenhouse gases are still overestimated by a large amount, no wonder predictions are always wrong.
Hi Doug in Seattle, welcome to the discussion. Have a look at the sentence I have put in bold in your comment. Who will support research into alternatives, and why? Industry will only put up their own money if they see a good chance of relatively short-term recovery of that investment, or if they see it as a way to get a government research and development contract. So, the only way to develop energy alternatives that are “thinking outside the box” is for the government to support it, by choosing the winners and losers.
As I wrote above, I think the government made a bad choice when they (we, because I favored it at the time) passed the Ethanol scam. When the government funds research, they will always favor those corporations and universities that are politically connected, and they will therefore make the wrong choices more often than not. (For example, if the government was in charge of the Sahara Desert, within a few years, they would be researching the shortage of sand :^)
With a revenue-neutral Carbon Tax (across-the-board, all fossil fuels, no exceptions, etc., and all revenues distributed equally to citizens and legal residents, and a pre-set schedule for regular increases to the initially small tax percentage) it would be individual industries and individuals who would decide for themselves what would be in their own best interests. Some would sit on their duffs and pay the Carbon Tax and try to pass their costs on to their customers, others would make good (and bad) choices and invest in efficiency and alternative energy and other changes in behavior. Overall, I think this would be far more effective than letting the government fund advanced research and make political decisions.
In any case, if ALL my conditions were not met (across-the-board, all fossil fuels, no exceptions, etc., and all revenues distributed equally to citizens and legal residents, and a pre-set schedule for regular increases to the initially small tax percentage) I would withdraw my support for the Carbon Tax. As I wrote above, I proposed it mainly as something to counter the Cap and Trade scam. If the idea of the Carbon Tax issue succeeds in dividing the Alarmists, and throwing them off their perch, it will have served its purpose even if it never becomes law.
Added to previous post.
Temperature increases with higher pressure so this has to be taken into account, so putting a value on how much the ocean contributes would be very difficult.
““We cannot fight something with nothing” ”
But apparently, we can fight it by cutting our own throats?
The sum total of your position is that we do not need to accept the Alarmist reasoning, just their mandates. We dont have to believe in the god of the volcano, we just have to sacrifice our daughters to appease those that do.
Sorry. No.
Perhaps we cannot fight something with nothing, but that is not the situation. They do not have ‘something’. They have nothing. We can fight the unsubstantiated assertion of something, with the reasoned demonstration of nothing. And we should.
We cannot capitulate our way to victory.
izen says:
May 31, 2011 at 11:48 am
@- Theo Goodwin says:
May 31, 2011 at 9:57 am
“Stick to the topic of forcings. The physical hypotheses that are needed would explain how CO2 causes changes in cloud cover and cause an increase or decrease in temperatures. There are no such physical hypotheses. If you have them, please publish them here. Do not assign homework.”
“Okay, no homework! -grin-
The physical hypothesis that explain how changes in CO2 causes changes in the ‘greenhouse’ effect by slowing the rate of cooling at the surface by converting outgoing longwave radiation to thermal energy within the atmosphere is well known, established and recognized.”
What you describe is Arrhenius’ hypothesis. Forcings are the effects on the atmosphere of this “slowed rate of cooling at the surface.” Now you can address those, which is the topic. Originally, Warmista held that the effects would be increased moisture whose overall effect on temperature would be an increase, a positive forcing. The facts never supported this. The Warmista have no physical hypotheses which describe the natural regularities that might make up positive forcings.
That’s easy, when the temperature follows dominant-positive-feedback models, I’ll accept the CAGW hypothesis. It doesn’t, hasn’t, so I don’t. When the sea level rise exceeds what it has been doing for the last century, I’ll think about things. It hasn’t, has actually started levelling off, so I dont. When the reduction of ice sea/land ice is no longer explainable by PDO cycles and is the same sign in both hemispheres, I’ll rethink. It isn’t, so I dont.
Thanks Kieth Minto for your kind words. I only looked at a small part of the ice core record in detail and if you look closely at the graphic, I identify one 800 year lag and one that is 1200 years. I do not remember where I got the detailed graphic but it is available on the Internet and someone could compute the average lag, min and max lag, etc. Of course, it is not simply Temperature and CO2 that were in play over those 600,000 years. There are Milankovitch cycles of around 100,000, 40,000, and 20,000 years that affect our orbit around the Sun, as well as changes in the Sunspots and cosmic rays and so on and on. Suffice it to say that all the ice core evidence points to Temperature changing before CO2. There is almost certainly some feedback where higher CO2 levels cause Temperatures to be higher than they would be otherwise. However, it is also true that Temperatures always start to rise when CO2 is near minimum levels and Temperatures also start to fall when CO2 is near maximum levels.
A “carbon tax” even if the proceeds are “given” back to the citizens, still has the affect of making everything made in the US more expensive. If you want to see more companies fleeing this country, that is the way to go.
You can’t stop at just taxing oil imports, you have to tax the energy content of every product brought into the US. You also have to refund this tax for any product that is exported.
Then you have to quintuple the size of the Coast Guard in order to stop all of the new smuggling of untaxed products. So there goes your transfer of tax funds back to citizens. All of the money and then some will have to go for policing the tax and it’s consequences. If you thought the drug war was bad …
The science part of Ira’s presentation is very enlightening. Then Ira goes on to state that since the warmists have political momentum behind them we should compromise with them, have a carbon tax, etc. Thank God when Reagan came to office and the Soviet Union seemed on a roll he didn’t say “lets split the difference” and accept the Soviet Union as it was.
There is no place in public policy for accepting a scam that, because of its unjustified limitations on carbon-based energy, will sink our civilization into economic ruin. There is a need for righteous indignation over the global warming hoax. Ira is not up to that.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
May 31, 2011 at 1:06 pm
There is almost certainly some feedback where higher CO2 levels cause Temperatures to be higher than they would be otherwise. However, it is also true that Temperatures always start to rise when CO2 is near minimum levels and Temperatures also start to fall when CO2 is near maximum levels.
=====================================================
Ira, the elephant in the room is temperatures falling fast and very low, while CO2 levels stay elevated.
If there is any feedback from CO2, it obviously doesn’t work when compared to everything else.
There are several examples of elevated CO2 levels – staying elevated for 10’s of thousands of years (not 800 – 1200 years) – while temperatures fall and fall fast.
Obviously, if elevated CO2 levels can not even hold temperatures up….
…elevated CO2 can’t drive temperatures up
Ira says:”Imagine, if you will, the Sun being replaced by a cold object of the same mass. Of course, the Earth would cool to some low temperature, but gravity would remain the same as will most gases in the air (except for water vapor, which will precipitate out). Absent Solar radiation, the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” will cease as well. OK, on cold Earth some lapse rate will occur. Will Postma’s math work in that case?”
Is it your contention that in PV=nRT that T is the driver via the sun and P of atmosphere has nothing to do with the mass of the atmosphere?
Reed Coray
“1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere [Probably.]”
Probably on what grounds. Human emissions are around 8% or less of the total. Natural 92%. It seems unlikely that the increase is due to humans. A better answer might be unknown but unlikely.
How can you (or anyone else) prescribe a Carbon (Dioxide) Tax for 0.7° (0.6° – or less) over a century?
“The science part of Ira’s presentation is very enlightening.”
But is now being seriously challenged. Ira just will not let his old beliefs go. Especially this one
“This absorbed radiant energy accounts for most of the extra 33ºC or 58ºF.”
This is nonsense. Energy can not leave earth and somehow magically return as more to further heat the earth.
My own critiques Part 1:
D 1; I am quite sure that Global Warming is REAL (i.e. the mean temperature of the Surface has increased by 0.5 to 0.6ºC since 1880) but, most of that increase is due to Natural Cycles over which we humans have no control.
I disagree. I think that the quality of the pre-satellite measurement is so poor that you can not be sure. Personally I think it’s warmed up but I’m not sure and I certainly wouldn’t put an estimate of any kind let alone one that tight. Anthony showed that the current US data is crap. God knows what it was like 20, 50, 100 or 130 years ago. It is probably better Today then ever before and that’s a scary thought.
Jan v J
“How can you (or anyone else) prescribe a Carbon (Dioxide) Tax for 0.7° (0.6° – or less) over a century?”
A good question. Unless Ira is just trying to break his comments record.
My own critiques Part 2:
B 12; Skeptics have well-justified suspicions that the official climate data keepers were “cooking the books” to lend whatever support they could to the highest estimates of carbon sensitivity. Around the year 2000, US Mean Temperature data was “adjusted” down by 0.1 to 0.2ºC for years prior to the 1970′s, and upwards by 0.2 to 0.3ºC for years after the 1970′s, increasing supposed warming by 0.3 to 0.5ºC.
They’ve adjusted since then as well at least on the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
Between 1/30/2010 and 2/18/2010 the lowered the January 1880 Temp anomaly from + 0.49ºC to -0.02ºC. Overall they’ve dropped 1880 from 0.099ºC to -0.195ºC. I’ve got partial data if anyone is interested.
Dr Glickstein, I may not have a scientific bone in my body, but I’ve no doubt that you are a brilliant scientist. The respect most here express over your science and your ability to clearly explain issues over which I’ve scratched my head assure me of that. However, with all due respect Doc, please keep your day job and avoid speculating over clever schemes.
To wit:
“If ALL my conditions were not met (across-the-board, all fossil fuels, no exceptions, etc., and all revenues distributed equally to citizens and legal residents, and a pre-set schedule for regular increases to the initially small tax percentage) I would withdraw my support for the Carbon Tax.” Seriously, any chance that any of your conditions will be met? And then what? When the inevitable happens, in small part thanks to your concessions, you’ll write a letter to someone and withdraw your crucial support for the carbon tax? O, yes, that’ll teach them.
“As I wrote above, I proposed it mainly as something to counter the Cap and Trade scam. If the idea of the Carbon Tax issue succeeds in dividing the Alarmists, and throwing them off their perch, it will have served its purpose even if it never becomes law.” And the Warmist-Alarmist crowd is so stupid, of course, they’ll never clue in. How diabolically devious, what a trap! Niccolo would’ve been proud! Please, Doctor, this is cringe stuff. About as brilliant as the generous handing over of Gaza to a pseudo-government of a pseudo-nation (in the hope of dividing the crazies ?), not getting it why they’re repaying with thousands of rockets aimed at playgrounds and malls and then, perhaps to prove that idiocy can afflict even the smartest of people, trying to improve the situation by offering the gomers even more legitimacy, perks and land.
jaypan says: May 30, 2011 at 10:31 pm
“However, it is starting with “TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2, … with CO2 lagging by hundreds of years”, to concede later on that “… the warming is PARTLY Due to Rising CO2 Levels and human actions are PART of the Cause”.
How’s that working? If statement 1 is true, then statement 2must be wrong, and the other way around. Or am I wrong? Have been in the past …”
Hi jaypan. As Ira Glickstein has alluded to above, the two statements are not mutually incompatible. Ice ages are started and ended when orbital forcing dominates other forcings (Milankovitch cycles). When ice ages end CO2 is believed to degas as oceans warm, increasing its concentration. Because, as Ira has also alluded to above, CO2 is a greenhouse gas it has its own effect, further increasing temperature (a positive feedback in engineering terms). Temperature and CO2 are coupled.
Further, observed post ice-age behaviour can be used to gain an estimate of climate sensitivity to rising CO2. It is not 0.2C. It is not 1.0C. It falls within the IPCC 2.0-4.5C range. The effects of positive feedback are not “assumed”, they are deduced from observable behaviour and known physics.
Ira said:
“I am quite sure that Global Warming is REAL (i.e. the mean temperature of the Surface has increased by 0.5 to 0.6ºC since 1880) but, most of that increase is due to Natural Cycles over which we humans have no control.”
====================================================
I know people like to start at around 1880 or even ~1970’s, to try to show the most dramatic increase in temperatures………
….If you start at ~1700, you see an even faster 100 year increase in temperature….
..that can’t possibly be man made
Ira, this whole global warming scam started about 30 years ago.
They used the first 20 years of data to prove it was happening, and
temperatures cooperated with them.
These last 10 years, temperatures have gone down, ocean temperatures have gone down, sea levels have gone down…..
What kind of theory/hypothesis/guess do you have when 1/3 of your data is going the wrong way?………………………………
Maybe step 6 is a bit different. Maybe that the difference between black body temperature and actual surface temperature is not caused by greenhouse gas effect.
What if we applied the null-hypothesis? Suppose that the Earth atmosphere was inert, not capable of absorbing nor emitting electromagnetic (IR) radiation? Would it be not be heated then? But how about conduction, convection and advection. Clearly also an atmosphere without greenhouse effect would be heated to some extend by these means.
But if that heating happens at daytime, how does a non-radiating atmosphere cool at night time. Actually it doesn’t hardly at all, since there is no negative convection. Only the lowest boundary layer cools by conduction, causing the so called inversion. So that means that the atmosphere -devoid of radiation, in the null hypothesis- continues to accumulate heat by convection at daytime, until the convection stops. Hence a radiationless atmsphere is a lot warmer than the surface of the earth.
Human emissions are around 8% or less of the total. Natural 92%.
—
And concentrations are increasing at rates much less than 8% per year.
We are facing your preferred approach in Australia as we speak, and let me tell you, the citizens are not happy at the prospect of a carbon (sic) price (sic). The current Labor-Green-Independent minority government is trying to frighten the public with extreme alarmism and is facing a lashing in the polls.
Nothing is better than the something of a carbon tax. I say that as an economist and firmly believe it. I do not agree that a politically expedient compromise that wastes billions of dolars (ours being worth more then yours these days… go figure) is justified. The “climate change” politics has become too established in modern politics and nothing short of a radical change in politics can erradicate it.
I should note at this point that I am centre-left politically (especially as measured in the US political landscape), but I cannot begin to imagine voting for the left-leaning parties in Australia as long as they continue to peddle the lunacy of curbing CO2 emissions ahead of the major emitters of the world. We could stop all emissions in Australia from today and henceforth and you wouldn’t be able to measure the impact on climate.
Otherwise I liked the presentation 🙂
Ira,
“Statement 2 has to do with basic climate science. CO2 is a so-called “greenhouse gas” and, as such, doubling the pre-industrial level of about 270 ppmv to 540 ppmv (or the current level of 390 ppmv to 780 ppmv) is bound to cause mean temperatures to rise at least a little bit over what they would be due to natural cycles alone. IMHO, the valid scientific questions (and my answers) are: 1- How much of the past 50 year rise in CO2 is due to human activity? (substantial, but less than half), 2- How much would mean temperatures rise if CO2 doubles, and all else remained constant? (no more than 1ºC), and, 3- Considering climate feedback (clouds, etc), what will be the net mean temperature rise above natural cycles due to doubling of CO2? (between 0.2ºC and 1ºC).”
Like the alarmists, you have failed to distinguish between theory and evidence. There is no evidence that recent CO2 increases (or temp increases) have been caused by man. It is possible they have been caused by the warming since the LIA. You have already pointed out that CO2 increases are an EFFECT of warming, not a CAUSE. It is impossible to claim to what extent, if any, additional CO2 output by man would have on global temperatures. In THEORY, you might claim some effect of an indeterminable magnitude but in practise, this has not been established.
JJ says:
May 31, 2011 at 1:00 pm
“Perhaps we cannot fight something with nothing, but that is not the situation. They do not have ‘something’. They have nothing. We can fight the unsubstantiated assertion of something, with the reasoned demonstration of nothing. And we should.”
Very well said. Ira makes the egregious error of assuming that the scientist and the critic are in symmetric positions. False. The scientist proposes and supports, the critic criticizes the proposal and its support. There is no symmetry. Ira uses his bizarre concept of “balance” that might be appropriate when guiding kindergarteners through soccer practice but never appropriate in debate among scientists. If the scientist cannot provide support that renders his physical hypotheses well-confirmed then he has failed. Game Set Match. It is as simple as that. There are no other “values” to be spread around among scientists, critics, and audience.
I see comments all the time that there is a temperature “anomaly” to explain hence it must be “Greenhouse Gases”.
When you understand the chicanery the IPCC has pulled to justify this you will wonder how anyone ever got conned – for a con it is – I don’t know why but I know it is.
It is all about the way they estimate incoming solar radiation.
First they reduce 1366 W/sq m to 683 W/sq m BECAUSE half of the earth is always in darkness.
C’mon – how does this work ? It is nonsence. It is like saying because I have my backed to a radiator its emission is cut in half.
Of course the solar constant is not cut in half because half the world is in darkness. It doesn’t make sense from an “averaging” perspective because the world is constantly spinning and parts are going from dark to light and vice versa.
The second is because they want to consider the earth as a circular disk – not a hemisphere. A disk has half the surface area of a hemisphere so this justifies cutting incoming solar radiation in half again ?
So now they’ve got it where they need it 342 W/sq m – apply the albedo – they say 0.31 – and its down to 235 W/sq m.
Stefan-Boltzman says 235 W/sq m = minus 18 C –
C’mon Big Daddy – we’ve got ourselves an anomaly.
So invent a “greenhouse” theory and away we go.
How do they explain that 50 degrees C – a temperature which is recorded on earth – requires 883 W/sq m by Stefan-Boltzman.
Back Radiation ??
C’mon – their often cited energy budget model (Kiehl & Trenberth, IPCC) has only 168 W/sq m incoming solar plus 324 W/sq m “back radiation” – 492 W/sq m.
C’mon – this is laughable.
492 W/sq m gives a maximum of about 32 degrees C so you’ll be pleased to note that meterologists that report higher temperatures than that must be lying.
I know they are talking averages – that is what is wrong with their whole theory.
In my previous post I have 883 W/sq m for 50 degrees C – I meant 883 is incoming solar – apply albedo and it becomes 618 which gives 50 degrees C.
Should have clarified that.
The IPCC is wrong to base a whole raft of “science” on their incoming solar radiation of 342 W/sq m – where did all this extra energy that is their “back radiation” come from – they say “its not the sun”.
It is Voodoo Science – sorry to call it science elevates it above its real station.
Ira
Claiming that CO2 doesn’t cause any warming will just get skeptics dismissed as anti science. The fact that sunlight shone through a bottle of 100 % CO2 gets warmer than if the bottle were filled with air proves that CO2 causes warming.
Disputing basic science is not a way to “win friends and influence people”!
As you point out the amount of warming is in dispute not the fact. If our bottle had 380 PPM of CO2 and the control had 0 % the difference would be unmeasurable . What about a planet.
The basic amount of warming is not a cause for CAGW [1 degree C per doubling of CO2] the feedback must be present and strong for serious warming to occur.
Since the primary positive feedback is theorized to come from water vapor the fact that atmospheric water vapor has gone down since 1950 or so causes CAGW to be an untenable position.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0147e2fc6895970b-pi
I have to disagree with you on one point. The right response to a non problem is the courage to do nothing.
Ira, here’s the problem.
Some snippets from further up the thread:
Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere [Probably.]
Probably on what grounds. Human emissions are around 8% or less of the total. Natural 92%. It seems unlikely that the increase is due to humans. A better answer might be unknown but unlikely.
There is no evidence that recent CO2 increases (or temp increases) have been caused by man.
There is not a unified skeptic position to align around. Skeptics are all against AGW but not for the same thing.
John
RE: main article
“What should a responsible Skeptic say to an astute audience?”
Perhaps another question that might be asked as well would be “What should a responsible Skeptic say to the non-astute audience?” Many of these people tend to see climate-change skepticism as a closed-minded ideology supporting the interests of “Big XXX” while the planet boils.
However, the presentation above does look very good.
Ira – again you begin with the Alice through the Looking Glass impossible AGWScience as your base premise of the KT97 energy budget – that Light energies heat the Earth… All Thermal Infrared is excluded!
Thermal Infrared is the Heat that everyone can feel from the Sun, that penetrates into our bodies and warms us up, that really warms the land and oceans of the Earth, but no, through the looking glass with Ira we have the impossible cold Light of day energies heating the land and sea. Have you tried heating a cup of water with Blue Visible Light yet?
You keep selling AGWScience fiction against real physics and keep pushing support for the egotists who want to screw us into slavery by their sociopathic masterplan, there’s nothing to disbelieve in that, to disbelieve something one has to take it seriously, to give it credibility in the first place, but, it’s same old, same old; yet another fictional meme to excite religious fervour as a means of control by the still unevolved genetic has beens self-deluded by mistaking power over others for intelligence.
Ouch!
It seems to me that you’re very confused about some fundamentals here – for example your claim that CO2 both lags significant change and causes it is based on.. what? a first trimester view of causation? (I.e. the belief that CO2 gets you partially pregnant)
Ultimately I think you preclude too many alternatives: check your logic and you’ll see yourself repeatedly discrediting two extremes and then adopting the middle position as the only thing left when, in reality, there are other explanatory mechanisms leading to other choices.
This is great for TV interviews, but it isn’t science – and, in that same vein, the range of change you cite as credible is well within known error bounds on the measurements, and therefore, indistinguishable from a claim of no change at all.
You do the same thing when you discuss policy options: assume that assuming away the extremes leaves the middle as the only option. That’s wrong: when bad science meets policy agendas to start the funding ball rolling for more and worse science, the right answer isn’t to slice a disk out of snowball and keep that, it’s to start over and re-do the bad science at the core of the whole mess.
RJ says:
May 31, 2011 at 1:52 pm
I agree – I still struggle to understand how the back radiation works to cause such alleged massive (as in currently due to CO2!) change over such a short timescale (decades?). I have no problem with an atmospheric warming effect (due to GHG’s or not , I mean, its really the whole atmospheric effect not just GHG’s), the sum of which is that the atmosphere acts to ‘slow down’ the radiant heat loss from the planet.
But I do have an issue with the fact that this energy loss (OR gain from the sun) MUST vary and will take time to establish a measurable surface effect. i.e. The sun chucks out some extra heat, and maybe decades later, the planet reflects the warming, with increased temp and subsequently increased radiant output – in the meantime, the sun has gone quiet, and the earth is sat there outputting more that it recieves and subsequently cools – its not really difficult to envisage. When you add in the fact of the ‘thermal mass’ of the oceans, land, atmosphere, humidity, orbital variations, etc, these all further affect the time lag/observational delay – and it is entirely clear (in my mind, anyway) that variations in temperatures are therefore highly likely to vary in some kind of semi chaotic natural and cyclic manner, with an equally variable semi chaotic or natural ‘time lag’ (or delay) from any input or output change to any observable differences. As a geologist, I say cyclical deliberately, because we know full well that temps have been much warmer AND much colder in pre-so called ‘anthropogenic’ times! Ergo, there must be some form of ‘cycles’?
Even if one accepts that AGW is significant (which I absolutely do not!) – the important point is whether a relatively minor increase in CO2 will result in a MAINTAINED increase in temp – because logically, what will happen is that radiant heat output will increase to match the (alleged) temp increase and the situation will stabilise? Indeed, if the time lag is so short (decades according to the IPCC alarmists?!) severely cutting emissions could precipitate a serious cooling as the planet readjusts! (i.e. continuing chucking out our heat to space whilst we are ‘reducing’ the so called GHG effect?)
Again, as a geologist, I can only say that the scale of the ‘natural world’ is far greater and far more complex than any computer frickin model can ever hope to produce!
Ira Glickstein
This might set the adiabatic lapse rate in context.
1. Start with the Sun heating the Earth surface (Average 15C).
2. Air molecules hitting the surface leave with the characteristic temperature of the surface.
3. Pick one air molecule moving vertically without colliding with others as it illustrates the energy interchange.
4. Convert air molecules KE (3kT/2) into PE as it works against gravity also involving PV expansion of gas formula.
5. This gives you the adiabatic lapse rate.
6. Exactly the same result is found by thermodynamics = -g/Cp or – 9.8K/km This formula and its thermodynamic calculation is an accepted part of serious climate science.
All the energy comes from the Sun.(bottom up approach)
All energy accounted for.
All this I knew before reading Postma
Now Postma’s contribution is to say that measured from space it appears that the effective radiating temperature is -18C and the effective average radiating altitude is 5km.
By picking the existing well known average lapse rate figure you arrive back at 1.
All Postma says is that the space calculations match up with the observed surface temperature of 15C.
You can dispute Postma’s analysis that the average effective radiating level is around 5km but as far as I know nobody disputes this point.
Tim Spence, last time I checked, living plants are net consumers of CO2. When you burn wood, where do you think the carbon comes from? When that tree was growing, it utilized water and certain nutrients from the ground plus CO2 from the air. When the tree is harvested or dies naturally, the wood is burned by us for fuel, or it decays naturally, releasing the carbon back into the air.
Sergey, where did you get the impression that I, or anyone of sound mind, would or could make the assumption that the balance between Incoming and Outgoing radiation holds at every moment of time. It certainly does not hold for the night side of the Earth, where there is Outgoing radiation but no Incoming. I said that I was considering the mean energy balance over day/night, equator/poles, and seasons.
John Finn, thanks for the kind words. The part you quoted had to do with the ice core data when all CO2 was “natural”.
I agree with you that the ~100 ppmv rise in CO2 is not all “natural”. I mentioned above that I thought the human contribution was substantial, but less than half.
Why would Dr. Glickston consider a “carbon tax” to discourage fossil fuel use and to “change behavior,” at a time food prices are already rising as much as 36% above last year’s prices, and at a time when Americans are paying $1,000 per year more for gas at $4/gal., and at a time when unemployment remains at 10%?
It appears on the face of the argument that this kind of economic punishment is not enough, and that further economic distress is necessary to satisfy the green calls for a “reduced carbon footprint.”
“I favored Ethanol when it was first approved for special subsidy, but I was wrong.”
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the benifits of “Ethanol”. It helps keep conventional, non electric cars on the road and in high production rather than increasing the manufacture and use of electric cars. We can always go back to pure gas after the warming that was supposed to take place due to “global warming” doesn’t occur.
If politicians didn’t have “Ethanol” they might have had much higher subsidies for electric cars, which can not easily be converted to run on conventional gas.
I STRONGLY disagree with the carbon tax. The amount of warming produced by additional CO2 appears to be only miniscule as the feeback mechanisms, especially clouds, appear to be negative meaning the temperature rise to CO2 is even less than without feedbacks at all. It would be much better to use shale, natural gas and especially coal to make energy CHEAP again. There is plenty of these fuels available here in the US for well over 100 years, afterall the US has the largest reserve of fossil fuels of any nation on the planet. We should also invest heavily into fusion energy research as that is the ultimate energy supply. We have made great strides in fusion energy research already, with more effort we can get there before 2100, well before we run out of fossil fuels.
In the mean time, we need inexpensive and abundant energy to grow our economy and raise the standard of living for everyone. It would be much cheaper to adapt to the small temperature increase due to CO2. So I say….. NO NEW TAXES! Increased taxes is absolutely the WRONG way to go.
@- Dr A Burns says:
May 31, 2011 at 2:33 pm
“There is no evidence that recent CO2 increases (or temp increases) have been caused by man. It is possible they have been caused by the warming since the LIA. ”
Actually the recent CO2 increase has a clear fingerprint of its human origins in the change in isotopic ratios of the atmospheric carbon. The fall in C14 and C13 percentages show that the additional CO2 has come from fossil fuels. To attribute the rise to “the warming since the LIA ” would require a physical process that would release the required amount of extra CO2 from biological sources. No such process is known, and certainly not one which would exclude all C14.
It also begs the question; WHAT CAUSED the warming since the LIA ?
If you attribute it all to changes in the solar energy output then climate sensitivity must be quite high, with a significant temperature change for a small increase in Watts/m2. That would seem to refute the claim that negative feedbacks suppress/negate any warming effect of extra energy at the surface.
“You have already pointed out that CO2 increases are an EFFECT of warming, not a CAUSE.”
Its both.
That is the nature of positive feedbacks.
Because the positive feedback gives diminishing ‘returns’ (the CO2 effect is logarithmic and energy emissions rise proportionately to the fourth power of the temperature in Kelvins) it can never be a ‘runaway’ positive feedback.
“It is impossible to claim to what extent, if any, additional CO2 output by man would have on global temperatures. In THEORY, you might claim some effect of an indeterminable magnitude but in practice, this has not been established.”
It is entirely possible to calculate from the basic THEORY what the range of possible effects might be from the additional CO2 from man.
In practice those predictions can be compared with the observed climate – and the anthropogenic CO2 theory has been established as the best explanation we have of the continued warming from the LIA after the rise in solar output and drop in volcanic activity have ceased to be a credible cause.
“You may remember that anything above absolute zero emits radiant energy and that 0.0 Kelvin corresponds to -273ºC or -460ºF. The “issue” is that the Earth Surface has a mean temperature closer to 288 Kelvin, corresponding to about +15ºC or +59ºF. In other words, the Surface is about 33ºC or 58ºF warmer than the “black body” formula would indicate. How to explain this added warmth?”
This ‘added warmth’, could it not come from the massive thermal actions present below our planet’s crustal mantle? Heat cannot be contained in an enclosed space without its energy being transferred in some shape or form?
“mainsteam science”, I read that as “steampunk science”.
izen says:
May 31, 2011 at 5:23 pm
Actually the recent CO2 increase has a clear fingerprint of its human origins in the change in isotopic ratios of the atmospheric carbon. The fall in C14 and C13 percentages show that the additional CO2 has come from fossil fuels
==========================================================
More CO2 Peculiarities: The C13/C12 Isotope Ratio
Roy W. Spencer
January 28, 2008
In my previous post, I showed evidence for the possibility that there is a natural component to the rise in concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. Briefly, the inter-annual co-variability in Southern Hemisphere SST and Mauna Loa CO2 was more than large enough to explain the long-term trend in CO2. Of course, some portion of the Mauna Loa increase must be anthropogenic, but it is not clear that it is entirely so.
Well, now I’m going to provide what appears to be further evidence that there could be a substantial natural source of the long-term increase in CO2.
One of the purported signatures of anthropogenic CO2 is the carbon isotope ratio, C13/C12. The “natural” C13 content of CO2 is just over 1.1%. In contrast, the C13 content of the CO2 produced by burning of fossil fuels is claimed to be slightly smaller – just under 1.1%
BOTTOM LINE: If the C13/C12 relationship during NATURAL inter-annual variability is the same as that found for the trends, how can people claim that the trend signal is MANMADE??
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/28/spencer-pt2-more-co2-peculiarities-the-c13c12-isotope-ratio/
Many good things on this post. One question I have concerns the 800 year lag. I’ve tried to actually find this in the data, and have been unsuccessful. For example, looking at the Vostok ice core, the CO2 data doesn’t even have 800 year resolution, so I don’t see how the delay is calculated. Is there a reliable dataset to support this, and perhaps some R or Matlab code to look at the delays?
(QUOTE)This ‘added warmth’, could it not come from the massive thermal actions present below our planet’s crustal mantle? Heat cannot be contained in an enclosed space without its energy being transferred in some shape or form?(END QUOTE)
Oh so true and yet largely ignored as well as the release of huge amounts of Co2 with it,ESPECIALLY in periods of INCREASED seismic and thermal vent activity in the same time frame caused by the solar system nearing the Galactic equator.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13569442
Just as it did 65 million years ago!!!
We ARE in the SAME location as the end-Permian extinction…. AGAIN.
We ARE in the SAME spiral arm as the end-Permian extinction….. AGAIN
We are crossing the SAME thin magnetic disc of the Galactic Plane equator …..AGAIN
We ARE experiencing the SAME increase in Volcanic activity as the end-Permian extinction…. AGAIN
We ARE experiencing the SAME increase in Co2 as the end-Permian extinction ….AGAIN
We ARE experiencing the SAME increase in OCEAN temperature just before the end-Permian extinction …AGAIN
http://tinyurl.com/2d5fwrz http://tinyurl.com/23dfm2n
http://tinyurl.com/2d5fwrz
http://tinyurl.com/23dfm2n
Just look at the Ice core records there HAS ALWAYS been a catastrophic disaster after NATURAL Co2 reaches around 400ppm. In the last 12 catastrophic disasters,there has been a correlation of;
A SEISEMIC Co2 rise=THIS TIME,YES.
A spiral arm encounter,= THIS TIME,YES.
A Galactic Equator encounter,= THIS TIME,YES.
A magnetic reversal,= THIS TIME ““IS IMMINANT”“,SO YES.
A deep ice age after,= TIME FRAME EVIDENCE AGREES,!! SO YES.
An extinction event, = TIME FRAME EVIDENCE AGREES,!! SO YES.
An encounter with a Photon Band =THIS TIME YES.
A Harmonic convergence = THIS TIME YES.
At the EXACT same position in space where there has two major extinction events, Cambrian and Permian Now join to that fact, this interglacial warm period is due to end circa 2012 and we just happen to be crossing the thin magnetic disc of the Galactic Plane circa 2012,plus a ““magnetic reversal imminant”” circa 2012 says National Geographic.
The Oceans warming IS the source of the carbon dioxide rise.
The SORCE of the Oceans warming IS the INCREASED OUTPUT from 3 MILLION + VOLCANOES,BLACK SMOKERS,A HUGE INCREASED AREA OF HOT ROCK SURFACE AND GIGANTIC SUPER-HEATED HYDROTHERMAL VENTS OF BOILING WATER,JUST AS IAN PLIMER HAS STATED !!. JUST THE SAME AS IT HAS DONE IN EVERY PAST EPISODE JUST BEFORE ENTRY TO A >> ““DEEP ICE AGE”“<<
Is increasing atmospheric co2 man made or natural? by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/01/increasing-atmospheric-co2-manmade…or-natural/
” The rate of human emissions is very small in magnitude compared to the average rate of CO2 exchange between the atmosphere and the surface (land + ocean): somewhere in the 5% to 10% range.”
“A decrease in the relative amount of C13 in the atmosphere is also consistent with other biological sources. And since most of the cycling of CO2 between the ocean, land, and atmosphere is due to biological processes, this alone does not make a decreasing C13/C12 ratio a unique marker of an anthropogenic source.”
Always great to hear from you Wayne and THANKS for catching the typo on my Powerpoint chart (you are correct it is 1366 Watts/meter^2 Solar irradiation at the top of the Atmosphere, not 1336). I have fixed the master copy on my laptop but not the copy at https://sites.google.com/site/bigira/climate-related-ppt/TESP-Climate-May2011.ppt?attredirects=0&d=1 because I am concerned an update there will change the URL and make the Powerpoint unavailable to those who have the current URL.
You are correct that a pure nitrogen Atmosphere would change the albedo of the Earth System since there would be no clouds to reflect Sunlight. But, in which direction?
Absent the albedo contribution of clouds, you calculate “273.7 K (0.5 ºC)” rather than the 288 K we have now with clouds and the GHE. But, at tat low a mean surface temperature, would we not have more surface ice and does not ice have higher albedo than bare ground? So, even without clouds, we might have about the same albedo, perhaps more, which would reduce the net absorption back to 240 Watts/m^2.
I have read about the Aussie version of the carbon tax and also watched the video you linked to and it is nothing like what I have suggested. As I have written above, I support a revenue-neutral Carbon Tax mainly as a tactical ploy against Cap & Trade (and a carbon tax of the Aussie variety), and for reasons of energy independence and to get the government out of the business of picking winners for alternative fuels. I only support such a tax if it is across-the-board, all fossil fuels, no exceptions, etc., and all revenues distributed equally to citizens and legal residents, and a pre-set schedule for regular increases to the initially small tax percentage. If any of these points is absent, I oppose it.
Interesting except for the blackbody thing.
‘NASA Abandoned Flawed Climate Calculations in 1960’s
Siddons, Hertzberg and Schreuder were astonished to find that “the principal method for predicting a planet’s temperature is surprisingly arbitrary and simplistic.” That was, they believe, why NASA needed to set aside the blackbody equations when doing their own calculations for the Moon landings.
Stefan-Boltzmann Calculations Way Out
The paper tells us how far out Stefan-Boltzmann’s equations could be, “the surface of the real moon is roughly 20° cooler than predicted by day and 60° warmer by night, the net result being a surface that is 40° warmer than predicted.”
Read more at Suite101: Apollo Mission: A Giant Leap Contradicting Greenhouse Gas Theory | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/apollo-mission-a-giant-leap-to-discredit-greenhouse-gas-theory-a241363#ixzz1Nz9sI454
Jim Cripwell, at the head of part B of my posting I rejected both the Alarmists and those I call Disbelievers as lacking reason and being un-scientific. They are unworthy of participating in a scientific discussion. (Those I call Disbelievers are sometimes termed, as you called them “the out and out deniers”, but I have changed the name because of the “baggage” that the term “deniers” carries.)
On the other hand, while I do not agree with the Warmists, I do respect their dedication to scientific fact and conversation. I hope most of them extend the same courtesy to those of us who are Lukewarmers and Skeptics. I think it prudent for members of these three groups to totally reject both the Alarmists and the Disbelievers so we can have a rational conversation. Furthermore, I believe a rational conversation can lead to agreement closer to the Skeptic position than to that of the Warmists. For example, I think that in a decade or less, you will be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks CO2 sensitivity is above 2ºC, and the general consensus will be closer to 1ºC, which, for all practical purposes, is way too small to take any action that will wreck economies.
I think that a presentation of the actual absorption spectra of the components of the atmosphere is important. Often CO2 is characterized as a blanket covering the Earth, but it is more like a scarf around the neck with a principle absorption band at 15 microns. Water as H2O and H2O:H2O: aggregates in the atmosphere can be as much as 75 times more prevalent than CO2 at the surface in the tropics.
All heat convected out must be converted to radiant energy by the time it reaches the tropopause. Below that level, water vapor has the primary radiant express ticket out.
All greenhouse gases both absorb and emit the same radiant energy, I believe, as a consequence of time reversal invariance. Note that the temperature at the tropopause (~ -55 deg C) is much colder than the vacuum average black-body temperature of the Earth. I believe that radiation from water vapor in the atmosphere is the only way that this can happen, as it is my understanding that CO2 only has cooling effect for those levels of the atmosphere above the stratosphere.
Water vapor, I understand, goes from concentrations, perhaps, as high as 30,000 ppm at the surface to less than 10 ppm at the tropopause due to progressive condensation. Thus water vapor emission wavelengths have a clear path to outer space from there on out. Perhaps the stratopause is that level in the atmosphere where CO2 radiation begins to have a direct path to outer space.
Here are a couple of example charts:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/atmospheric_spectral_absorption.png
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
THANKS Jamie Cawley, and AMEN!
Ahem.
It is the surface of the earth (blades of grass, surface of cars, concrete, etc) that cools, not the air.
Do you know what dew is?
How it is formed?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dew
Excerpt:
Dew is water in the form of droplets that appears on thin, exposed objects in the morning or evening. As the exposed surface cools by radiating its heat, atmospheric moisture condenses at a rate greater than that at which it can evaporate, resulting in the formation of water droplets.
When temperatures are low enough, dew takes the form of ice; this form is called frost.
Because dew is related to the temperature of surfaces, in late summer it is formed most easily on surfaces which are not warmed by conducted heat from deep ground, such as grass, leaves, railings, car roofs, and bridges.
Dew should not be confused with guttation, which is the process by which plants release excess water from the tips of their leaves.
.
Do you think it is possible for a cloud deck at 10,000 feet (whose temp might be -15 deg C) could keep a surface (at say 25 deg C) ‘warmer’ overnight? (Ans: Yes this is true; has been observed methodologically many times)
That is to say, the overnight temperature drop is 7 deg C w/o a cloud deck, but the drop is only 3 deg C with clouds?
Now substitute your choice of a GHG (WV or CO2) from the surface up to that 10,000 feet level …
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Great question H.R.! If we assume (worst case) that the human contribution to CO2 over the past century is about 50 ppmv (a bit less than half of the total 100 ppmv rise) and that mean temperatures rose about 0.5ºC over the same period, about half of that rise, 0.25ºC would have caused about 50 ppmv of CO2. Thus, assuming a linear relationship (which may not be exact) temperatures would have to rise about 2ºC to double CO2 naturally via temperature rise. If actual CO2 sensitivity is around 0.5ºC for doubling, then humans have over a century before CO2 (both natural and artificial) doubles.
Of course, if we are at the start of a multi-decadal cooling period (as some predict based on Sunspot cycles and ocean oscillations) natural cycles may result in net cooling. If that happens, CO2 may follow downwards, and we may come to be thankful for the warming of the past century.
Hey, if I was looking for a government grant I would suggest catastrophic Global Cooling is on the horizon. So, we’ve got to cancel all the “green” alternative energy projects and revert to dirty coal to keep our Big Blue Marble from frosting over, increasing albedo, and “tipping pointing” us into “runaway” freezing.
Oh, how I wish I was still in the business of writing proposals for government contracts! Lucky for me I moved to Florida from New York which will keep me from totally freezing. (But, I wish I had hung on to my cross-country skis :^)
Latitude says:
May 31, 2011 at 8:46 am
Smokey says:
May 31, 2011 at 3:35 am
Ira has a talent for writing articles that generate lots of resposnses. I like that.
====================================================
true…..
I’m amazed at the amount of people that think this is a good presentation though……
Well, one or two of the slides sure are pretty.
🙂
An “Alarmist” probably won’t like it because, well, it simply isn’t alarming enough for them at all.
A “Warmist” probably won’t like it because, well, anything that implies that anything they say is wrong is, uh, wrong.
A “Lukewarmer” probably won’t like it because, well, it’s not too hot and it’s not too cold, but neither is it “just right”.
A “Skeptic” probably won’t like it because, well, it has too many “certain” uncertainties and while it implies nothing can be done it then tells us what we should do.
and
A “disbeliever” probably won’t like it because, well, it asks them to believe something.
I’m alarmed by some of it, somewhat warmed by what I perceived as the heartfelt portions, lukewarm regarding some of the assertions, skeptical over the conclusion, and in disbelief that many don’t see that the overall presentation ultimately will “give them an inch” and allow them to “take a mile”.
But, that’s just me. Perhaps, I’m just not in one of Ira’s “five” – maybe we need a sixth category – “Believer” – believing that the science position and the political position in this discussion should be kept separate until the science position is much better defined. Indeed, a well defined scientific truth would set us all free, would it not?
Attention those still having doubts about ‘surface radiation’ directly into space (as the primary means of cooling the surface of the earth) – in the History Of Refrigeration (pdf file) one finds this notable tidbit:
Hmmm … IR radiation directly into space from the surface as a cooling mechanism … amazing …
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izen says:
May 31, 2011 at 5:23 pm
“Actually the recent CO2 increase has a clear fingerprint of its human origins in the change in isotopic ratios of the atmospheric carbon. The fall in C14 and C13 percentages show that the additional CO2 has come from fossil fuels.”
A change in ratios cannot show what you think it can. Since both items are free to change, a change in ratios cannot show that one item changed and the other did not. You are assuming that one of the items is held constant, the default Warmista assumption. Eternal peace until man disturbs it.
“To attribute the rise to “the warming since the LIA ” would require a physical process that would release the required amount of extra CO2 from biological sources. No such process is known, and certainly not one which would exclude all C14.”
That would be the same physical process that caused the part of “the warming since the LIA” that occurred before manmade CO2 could have had an impact. If you want to argue that manmade CO2 is necessary as a cause, you must first establish that the warming since 1980 or so could not be an extension of recovery from the LIA. That requires a Hockey Stick. Hockey Sticks are made by LIARS.
“That is the nature of positive feedbacks.
Because the positive feedback gives diminishing ‘returns’ (the CO2 effect is logarithmic and energy emissions rise proportionately to the fourth power of the temperature in Kelvins) it can never be a ‘runaway’ positive feedback.”
Since talk of Positive Feedbacks flows so easily from your lips, do you happen to have a description of one? Not a theoretical fantasy of one, but an actual description that has been validated in the normal scientific way? It would contain some physical hypotheses which describe some natural regularities whose behavior is the vehicle for increased warming. These hypotheses would be reasonably well-confirmed from a prolonged series of observations of the environment. Do you have anything like that? I won’t hold my breath waiting for your answer. Given that no one has a scientific description of an actual existing Positive Feedback, why does talk of them flow so easily from your lips?
(Arrhenius’ hypotheses do not count because they are the starting point; that is, they tell us simply that CO2 particles can recycle radiation. We are interested in the forcings caused by such recycled radiation, forcings which might increase cloud cover, for example. But we might find that the increased cloud cover yields a net cooling of the atmosphere. You are aware that this matter of forcings has not been sorted out at all, right?)
Don’t you think it is peculiar that Positive Feedbacks exist only in computerized climate models. No Positive Feedback has been discovered in the wild. I find it equally interesting that every computerized climate model does contain Positive Feedbacks. Why are climate models that way? Are they based on innate ideas that are brought to light through meditation on one’s own ideas rather than through empirical work?
Ira:
I dunno… Let’s see, your planned audience is a “Technology, Engineering, and Science Plus” group in your community. So, everyone will follow you when you jump from rough Black Body concepts to scare quotes around greenhouse? In just a few short paragraph’s you’ll aggravate people from English majors to Physicists and bore the pants off the electronic techs.
Leave off the technical dross and structure the presentation so that it is easily understood by everyone in the audience; including the spouses and dates.
Avoid unclear or mysterious allusions; scare quotes really… State the issue clearly and succinctly. Alarmism is not science. Scaring the public is just an attempt to cause a stampede that serves the purpose of the stampeders.
Lose the terms disbeliever, alarmist, warmist, sceptical, and lukewarmers. Yes, they are cute terms for blogs but they have no place in a serious presentation. These terms are still insulting, wimpy insults yes, but still demeaning to both presenter and presented. Do the right thing. Focus instead on what science is and how a legitimate scientist studies and conducts science. It is the duty and right of scientists to question! Science is never settled! Also when you dismiss individuals categorically, you decidedly alienate anyone in your audience who rightly or wrongly believe you mean them.
You devote a lot of space and print to Gore’s inconvenient lie, almost all of that is aboout the Co2-Temperature chart. You could chop that segment down to a digestible few sentences without giving Gore so much press and highlighting that is just one of Gore’s errors.
Any accusations you make, whether about statements, emails, modelling or data mishandling, you need to include proof. Your say so, is second and third hand evidence and amounts to gossip, slurs and potentially libel. Be careful of these statements in public without documentation in hand. Perhaps it would be better to introduce the documentation timely during the presentation, leave off possibly incorrect characterizations and let the audience draw their own conclusions.
Carbon tax? When some friends of mine found their pseudo science climate argument with me imploded, their final attempt at justification was “Don’t I think mankind has caused at least some damage to our environment?” Of course, the logical conclusion of that final tidbit was that mankind deservered punishment aka “carbon tax” Phooey!
All in all, I think your heart is in the right place. I just don’t think this presentation is ready for prime time. You need to focus the message(s) you are delivering, avoid unnecessary prattle, document anything that might be construed as an aspersion, drop the insulting people characterizations and keep your personal opinion beliefs(carbon tax indeed, do you have any idea just how much tax is already on carbon fuels?) to separate pontifications, preferably in a bar amongst friends.
amabo, as I understand the facts and implications of “Mike’s Nature trick” and “hide the decline” (from CRU Director Phil Jones’ Ciimategate emails):
1) It was “inconvenient” to the Alarmists for it to have been warmer 1000 years ago since the thrust of their theory is that human activities of the industrial age, such as large-scale use of fossil fuels and land use, are warming the planet in a dangerous way. If it was warmer 1000 years ago, before large-scale industrialization, that must have been due to natural climate cycles, so their human-caused argument goes away.
2) Thus, the Medieval Warm Period, featured in the IPCC 1990 report as figure 7c (and reproduced above as the top panel in my second graphic in this posting), had to be replaced by a more friendly graph of temperatures from 1000 AD to the present.
3) So, a new figure, a version of which was published in 1998 in the prestigious journal Nature by Michael Mann, was used in the 2001 IPCC report (and reproduced above as the lower panel of my second graphic in this posting). Read the caption in the lower right corner and you will see that the blue line (and the black smoothed line) from 1000 to the 1990’s are based on “tree rings, corals, ice cores, and historical records (blue)” and the red line from 1880 to 1998 is based on “Data from thermometers (red)”. There is nothing inherently wrong with this technique. No reliable thermometer readings are available prior to the 1880’s so they had to use proxies for that period, and, given reliable thermometers since 1880, it makes sense to use them. So far so good.
4) The problem (for the Alarmists) is that historical records show that the Medieval Warm Period undoubtedly happened, because, for example, they reported growing grapes in places where it is now too cold to do so, there was successful agriculture in Greenland, etc. So, according to a Climategate email by CRU Deputy Director and tree-ring expert Keith Briffa, there was “… pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’…” So, I believe, they “cherry-picked” the tree-ring data for samples that, for whatever reason (probably local conditions) did not show the warming that occurred between 1100 and 1300.
5) The problem with that tree-ring data was that it also did not show any temperature rise from about 1960 on, despite the fact that thermometer data showed a rise. So, what to do? If a given set of trees did not record the undoubted temperature rise from 1960 to the present (and even showed a decline), how could they be reliable proxies for any time in the past? That was when IMHO they crossed the line from science to fraud. Instead of discarding that clearly faulty proxy, or presenting ALL of it in their graphic, they decided to “hide the decline” by either not including the tree-ring data from 1960 on -or- adding what the programmer, in his or her notes in the actual code (reproduced in my Powerpoint set) called a “fudge factor” and “Apply a VERY ARTIFICIAL correction for decline !!” (Upper case and double exclamation in original.)
6) That was what Phil Jones called “Mike’s Nature trick” to “hide the decline” – terminating the wayward tree-ring proxy data after 1960 or substituting a fudge factor. Pay attention to the last part (which I highlighted) of this extract from Briffa’s Climategate email: “… pressure to present a nice tidy story as regards ‘apparent unprecedented warming in a thousand years or more in the proxy data’… I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.” So, Briffa, the tree-ring expert, and Deputy to Phil Jones, believed the Medieval Warm Period was real. Despite that, and his email, the CRU and the IPCC went ahead and published the graphic that does away with the Medieval Warm Period, which I think is a clear violation of scientific ethics.
Thus, the Medieval Warm Period, and the efforts of the Alarmists to make it go away, is directly related to “Mike’s Nature trick” to “hide the decline”.
I believe that the recent warmth was probably matched about 1,000 years ago.”
THANKS Alvin. Each Powerpoint chart has a sort of script that could be read when the charts are presented. (In the Notes section under the chart which you can see and print out if you use the Powerpoint program to open it.) However, since your audience will have questions (as mine did), it is best if you know the stuff so you can answer them.
Do you see any problems with our importing any amount of ethanol?
(Aside from cries from the farm/ag lobby?)
“Currently, imported ethanol is subjected to a 2.5 percent ad valorem tax and an additional 54 cents a gallon surcharge …” (Ref 1)
Refs
1) http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/04/11/understanding-the-ethanol-tariff-issue/
2) http://automotivediscovery.com/ethanol-tax-credit-and-tariff-could-be-repealed/928292/
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THANKS John B and here is what I think of the items in your list:
1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere yes, absent human activities CO2 levels would be perhaps 50 ppmv lower
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas yes, but H2O has more of an effect
3. Human emitted CO2 has a significant added greenhouse effect over natural effects yes, if you consider 0.1ºC or 0.2ºC significant compared to the supposed 0.8ºC rise
4. Recent warming has been measured yes, but at least a third, and perhaps half of the supposed 0.8ºC rise is due to data bias “cooking the books” as evidenced by the UK Climategate and US FOIA emails
5. This warming is unprecedented Absolutely NOT. According to historical records, it was warmer 1000 years ago, even according to CRU Deputy Director Keith Briffa
6. It can be attributed to human emitted CO2 Absolutely NOT. Only 0.1ºC or 0.2ºC of the warming is due to human activities.
7. The warming will get worse due to positive feedbacks Absolutely NOT. Even if natural cycles ceased altogether -which is impossible- and human CO2 continued to rise -which is likely- the cloud feedbacks are mostly negative, so net warming will continue to be small, perhaps another 1ºC over the coming decades.
8. We are fairly confident on the sign and magnitude of those feedbacks Absolutely NOT, and any estimates we have will likely be overwhelmed by the effects of natural cycles, over which we humans have no control.
9. The effects of the continued warming will be bad Absolutely NOT. Modest increases in temperature and CO2 are most likely to have net benefits for human civilization.
10. There are things we can do about to mitigate the continued warming Technically very little we can do, even if a benevolent dictator was in charge of the whole world. In practical real politic terms, there is nothing we can do to mitigate the warming, except wreck our economies, and even that will not accomplish much, And, we may see cooling due to natural cycles, and come to be thankful for the modest warming of the past century.
11. The effects of those things will be good What “things”? If you mean the modest warming and CO2 rising, yes, that is and will probably be good. If you mean drastic government programs to “mitigate” anything, then the results will most likely be bad, very bad indeed!
RJ says:
May 31, 2011 at 1:38 pm
Reed Coray
“1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere [Probably.]”
Probably on what grounds. Human emissions are around 8% or less of the total. Natural 92%. It seems unlikely that the increase is due to humans. A better answer might be unknown but unlikely.
I say “probably” because (a) a by product of the burning of most fossil fuels is CO2, (b) from the Mauna Loa data atmospheric CO2 levels have increased since 1950, (c) it seems to me some of this increase (unknown amount) comes from that burning, and (d) the original statement didn’t specify what percentage of the buildup is human induced. I may have fallen into Ira’s trap in that I wanted to throw the warmists a bone. You’re “probably” correct.
Best article I’ve read on AGW yet. However I disagree with this: “We cannot fight something with nothing, so we need something more than a passive policy of do nothing because nothing is necessary.”
There is another way: PRETEND to be doing something. This seems to be Tony Abbott’s adopted stance. He is pretending that the Liberal Party will do something when elected, but of course he will scale back any policies once in government. It’s a good strategy and it’s working.
A carbon tax is a tax on a fundamental human technology – control of fire.
It is pointless and probably harmful to do this.
No compromise, no mercy and no prisoners when dealing with the warmist barbarians.
The problem with assuming that much of the current rise in CO2 came from the ocean is the extreme sensitivity required. 110 ppm for a 0.8 degree C temperature rise is equivalent to a 137.5 ppm/deg C rate. At this rate, a temperature drop of about 2.8 degrees would remove all the CO2 from the atmosphere. Given that the average temperature of the ocean is about 17 deg C, this would imply that cooling the ocean to 14.2 degrees C would cause it to suck up all the CO2 in the atmosphere.
I know that it is possible to match the two curves to a high degree of accuracy with a selected multistage low-pass filter on the temperature data with selected optimum initial states but this yields a much higher long-term sensitivity when all the filters finally settle out.
Perhaps the only way to absolve Man of adding 110 ppm CO2 to the atmosphere (which is like adding a fourth scarf around your neck) might be to generate a compilation of the total carbon pumped or mined from the ground over the last 100 years and compare that to the observed CO2 increase.
@- Theo Goodwin says:
May 31, 2011 at 8:19 pm
“Since talk of Positive Feedbacks flows so easily from your lips, do you happen to have a description of one? Not a theoretical fantasy of one, but an actual description that has been validated in the normal scientific way?”
Positive feedbacks are certainly NOT just a conceptual exercise, they are a frequent aspect of biological systems, here are a few examples culled from the top of a list…
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21595927
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21604764
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21618217
But there is a familiar example of positive feedback that most people would recognise from their common experience. When people gain weight they become less physically active and require fewer calories so that a constant intake results in more weight gain. At the same time the increased mass of fat cells is more efficient at storing the calorie intake so there is another positive feedback making it ‘easier’ to gain weight when obesity is already established.
Given the level of problem morbid obesity has become in the US and UK this positive feedback amplifying weight gain should be easily recognized.
The most obvious positive feedback in climate is the way that a warmer climate reduces snow and ice cover which increases the amount of solar energy absorbed by the surface as the albedo changes – causing more warming….
_Jim says:
May 31, 2011 at 9:11 pm
Gary Mount says on May 31, 2011 at 4:50 pm :
…
Don’t be too quick to dismiss the benifits of “Ethanol”. It helps keep conventional, non electric cars on the road and in high production rather than increasing the manufacture and use of electric cars. We can always go back to pure gas after the warming that was supposed to take place due to “global warming” doesn’t occur.
…
Do you see any problems with our importing any amount of ethanol?
(Aside from cries from the farm/ag lobby?)
“Currently, imported ethanol is subjected to a 2.5 percent ad valorem tax and an additional 54 cents a gallon surcharge …” (Ref 1)
I don’t know anything about the American ethanol situation as I am a Canadian, and we are trying to spend billions of dollars to build a series of tubes… (or is that the Internet?) …pipelines so that we can export even more of our excess oil and gas, and we don’t really need to have enforced ethanol levels in our gas.
I am not advocating Ethenol, rather I abhor the thought of governments forcing this additive upon the general public, under the guise of that weasel word “sustainability”, meaning top down regulations designed to replace the free market system, I am comparing it to the alternative of destroying three trillion dollars worth of infrastructure in the United States and replacing it with hydrogen fill stations and electric charging stations, as well of destroying trillions of dollars worth of personal private cars that can’t run off of electricity or hydrogen.
The last thing we need is another tax. “…with the proceeds returned on an equal basis to citizens and legal residents.” That’s leftist style “spread the wealth around”, which will only serve to drive up the price of everything. The cost of energy and the cost of labor are the bottom two rungs on the ladder of the economy. Raise the cost of either, or both, and it causes not just a “trickle up” it creates a cascade upwards of increased costs at every stage of production from harvesting the raw materials through to the finished goods. Labor and energy have a feedback loop where each drives the cost of the other. Increase the cost of energy and labor wants to be paid more so they can afford the higher priced energy. Increase the cost of labor and energy costs more to produce. Much of the cost of things comes from the cost of of transport, which goes up as the cost of energy and labor increases.
People, including Ira Glickstein, should know this bit of elementary economics. Anyone advocating such a tax on energy only proves how clueless they are about economics. It’s impossible to twiddle and tweak one part of the economy without causing “splash damage” somewhere else. Shoving a tax stick into the spokes of energy prices can have no effect other than increasing the cost of 100% of everything, which naturally leads directly to demands for higher wages.
Jamie Cawley says: May 31, 2011 at 4:16 am and Ira Glickstein PhD sees merit in the list:
** some obvious responses…
1. It is agreed by all main sources that temperatures rose less then 1C during the 20th century, much the same as they rose over the 19th. This is a very small rise and drastically less then has occurred even in the recent past i.e the 10C rise in temperatures over 50 year shown by Greenland ice deposits 11,000 years ago.
** it is misleading to compare a 1C global rise with a 10C Greenland rise
2. Temperatures have not risen this decade despite the continuing rise in CO2.
** a difficult assertion given NASA GISS rates 2010 as equal first in the instrumental record…
3. Water vapour accounts for c.85% of the green house affect and varies we don’t know how.
** Water vapour content rises with increasing temperature
4. We cannot (yet) forecast future weather long-term or even over more than 4 weeks (as deviation from annual average for the period). Any longer forecasts are scientifically invalid or, more prosaically, guesses.
** having confidence average global temperature will rise is consistent with the inability to say exactly how it will be distributed
5. Were CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere to double, temperatures would (all else being equal) rise by around 1C. Any additional rise is posited on a runaway feedback effect on water vapour concentrations for which there is no evidence at all. CO2 has risen by around one third from man’s activity so far.
** Positive feedback does not imply runaway. This is a strawman.
RE: _Jim: (May 31, 2011 at 8:09 pm)
“Attention those still having doubts about ‘surface radiation’ directly into space (as the primary means of cooling the surface of the earth)”
In my case, I was referring to convected heat. That energy must go somewhere. On condensation, the heat of vaporization is shared with the surrounding components of the upper atmosphere. The CO2 radiation-absorption bands are saturated all the way up to the mesosphere. Thus heat escaping by this pathway must go through many emission-absorption cycles before it finally gets out.
For water vapor the situation is more complex. As water wants to be solid or liquid in the atmosphere, it must be going through a continual process of collision-caused molecular aggregation and separation, especially in a rising air column. As each clump of water molecules has its own unique set of emission and radiation wavelengths, their emissions from the top of a rising column of otherwise clear air must have a unique opportunity to escape into outer space.
It may be no accident that the typical temperature of the tropopause is typically the same -55 degrees C that you mention in your reference. Be aware that the convection temperature of the surface and the temperature of the tropopause are linked by the adiabatic lapse rate. If the temperature at that altitude were 10 degrees warmer, cloud-forming general convection would not start until the surface was also 10 degrees warmer.
Dr Glickstein
Two (I home significant) comments:
1. You have forgotten to include the whole issue of feedback, without which your arguments carry little force.
2. You give in to the Warmists much too easily, thereby loading the world’s taxpayers with completely unnecessary and non-affordable costs.
Sorry, but your comments have missed their target.
Regards
So then if we put the right amount of C02 into the atmosphere we wont need the sun to keep us warm.
The c02 alone cant warm us.
@-Mark.R says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:11 am
“So then if we put the right amount of C02 into the atmosphere we wont need the sun to keep us warm.”
I presume this comment is intended to be fatuous.
“The c02 alone cant warm us.”
No, like a coat it can only slow the rate of cooling from a body.
When comparing the greenhouse effectiveness of water vapor and CO2 remember that it is the overall absorption bandwidth that counts. If CO2 is like a scarf then water vapor is like a shirt. Both are saturated at ground level. That means that you get a progressively diminishing increase in thermal insulation as you add more because most of the effect of adding more is masked by what is already there. It is like repeatedly painting a four-inch wide black stripe over the exact same place on your window. The stripe just gets a little wider each time it is painted.
Ira;
Using the CT as a way to fend off C&T is wasted effort. As soon as the market gets access to the pricing for offsets, they head for zero, or whatever artificial floor the gubmint sets. I.e., the market wants nothing to do with them, and the pols are left carrying 100% of the cans. Meanwhile, giga-scams proliferate. (They’re 1000X worse than mega-scams.)
You get less of what you tax, and CT and C&T are thinly disguised taxes on energy production. For the hundreds of millions, or more, on the thin edge of survival, that’s a death warrant. For industrial society, a metabolic poison.
Neither-nor, thank’ee very much.
Myrrh says:
May 31, 2011 at 3:44 pm
Thermal IR is not the only thermal source, this your mistake of misunderstanding. Thermal IR is emitting from the hotter source, it is the effect not the cause. The ocean surface is warmer than the air above it because this is emitted energy. Where is the thermal IR in a star, based on this idea the emttied energy from a star is keeping the center hotter. A cup and a large bowl of water warms well during the day in the sun. This includes the whole volume increasing many degrees centrigrade. How does thermal IR warm a volume of water significantly during one day? A human body is emitting thermal IR, not the thermal IR that is keeping the human body at 37c. A fire is emitting thremal IR, again not his keeping the fire at several hundred degrees centrigrade.
Ammonite says:
“Positive feedback does not imply runaway.”
Actually, it does. A dynamite explosion is an example of runaway positive feedback. OTOH, if you’re saying that runaway global warming is a fiction, then there’s really nothing to worry about, is there? A good engineer can provide solutions to any minor temperature changes.
And Ira, thanx for handily refuting John B @9:12 pm above. The guy’s On/Off switch is shorted, and he can’t be turned off. But others, including me, are educated by your detailed response.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
May 31, 2011 at 9:12 pm
…
THANKS John B and here is what I think of the items in your list:
1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere yes, absent human activities CO2 levels would be perhaps 50 ppmv lower
2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas yes, but H2O has more of an effect
3. Human emitted CO2 has a significant added greenhouse effect over natural effects yes, if you consider 0.1ºC or 0.2ºC significant compared to the supposed 0.8ºC rise
4. Recent warming has been measured yes, but at least a third, and perhaps half of the supposed 0.8ºC rise is due to data bias “cooking the books” as evidenced by the UK Climategate and US FOIA emails
5. This warming is unprecedented Absolutely NOT. According to historical records, it was warmer 1000 years ago, even according to CRU Deputy Director Keith Briffa
6. It can be attributed to human emitted CO2 Absolutely NOT. Only 0.1ºC or 0.2ºC of the warming is due to human activities.
7. The warming will get worse due to positive feedbacks Absolutely NOT. Even if natural cycles ceased altogether -which is impossible- and human CO2 continued to rise -which is likely- the cloud feedbacks are mostly negative, so net warming will continue to be small, perhaps another 1ºC over the coming decades.
8. We are fairly confident on the sign and magnitude of those feedbacks Absolutely NOT, and any estimates we have will likely be overwhelmed by the effects of natural cycles, over which we humans have no control.
9. The effects of the continued warming will be bad Absolutely NOT. Modest increases in temperature and CO2 are most likely to have net benefits for human civilization.
10. There are things we can do about to mitigate the continued warming Technically very little we can do, even if a benevolent dictator was in charge of the whole world. In practical real politic terms, there is nothing we can do to mitigate the warming, except wreck our economies, and even that will not accomplish much, And, we may see cooling due to natural cycles, and come to be thankful for the modest warming of the past century.
11. The effects of those things will be good What “things”? If you mean the modest warming and CO2 rising, yes, that is and will probably be good. If you mean drastic government programs to “mitigate” anything, then the results will most likely be bad, very bad indeed!
(Bolding lost in “cut & paste”)
Then *say* those things very clearly and very succinctly. Leave no doubt in your audience’s minds.
Leave out the “Carbon Tax” part entirely since it has nothing to do with the “CAGW” discussion and would be better left for another time and place if it is even worth pursuing. It is part of a political/environmental discussion, not a scientific discussion about “CAGW”.
IMHO
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
May 31, 2011 at 8:37 pm
This is a pretty compelling line of reasoning, however I still feel that the nature trick refers to ‘fixing’ the graph where we know for sure that something is ‘wrong’ with the proxies since we have a derived global temperature that disagrees with them, whereas the MWP is a question of which proxies or other more anecdotal evidence to use.
So in once case we’ve got values that clearly don’t match with eachother but it gets swept under the carpet, whereas in the other case everyone is throwing a bunch of proxies at the wall and checking if the resulting squiggles matches their preferred narrative.
izen says:
May 31, 2011 at 11:12 pm
I specifically said “not your fantasy of a positive feedback.” You offered examples of positive feedbacks from outside the field of climate science. So your response is truly fantastic. I regret that I can no longer take your posts seriously.
It just may be my Irish ways, but I don’t like to use somebody else’s talking points. No matter which side they are on. Nope. Don’t like talking points, talking strategy, or any other name it comes under.
I prefer to use my own well-read understanding and be always cognizant of that old saying, better to remain a silent fool then to open your mouth and prove it. Both AGW’ers and natural global warmers fail to remember that saying rather often and spout off all kinds of ridiculous statements about cause.
If you find yourself memorizing/using somebody else’s talking points, the wiser person would keep quiet.
To Jim at 8:09: Thankyou, thankyou. I’ll have to try that experiment. The first time I heard about “deep space radiation” it was told as an explanation for cold metal at night and I laughed at it–high density and conductivity makes it FEEL cold. But eventually I went and bought a cheap thermometer gun and went around measuring surfaces. One morning all the cars in the parking lot at work had frost on one side and not the other. Looking up at the sky I saw that half was clear and half was cloudy. Now I’m a believer. –AGF
Smokey says: June 1, 2011 at 4:46 am
Ammonite says: “Positive feedback does not imply runaway.”
Smokey says: “Actually it does…”
Smokey, it doesn’t. Some positive feedback systems exhibit runaway. Some do not. The oceans are not going to boil any time soon.
“OTOH, if you’re saying that runaway global warming is a fiction, then there’s really nothing to worry about, is there?”
More glib semantics… Please allow for possibilities between “everything is wonderful” and “we’re all dead”. Not all of them are guaranteed to be pleasant.
>> Ira Glickstein = “Skeptics have well-justified suspicions that the official climate data keepers were “cooking the books” to lend whatever support they could to the highest estimates of carbon sensitivity. Around the year 2000,…”
You left out two other aspects of the cooked books.
The (non)keepers of the Weather Station temperature data started reducing the number of Weather Stations temperature readings being record. Near 1970 there were ~9,400 Weather Stations being recorded, with a decline down to ~2,920 Weather Stations in 1994, and by 2006 the number had dropped to ~2,530. The number of Weather Stations dropped to ~1,490 in 2007 and by 2009 the number was further reduced to approximately 1,600.
The (non)keepers of the Weather Station temperature data also failed to enter temperature data for one or more months for some of the aforementioned Weather Stations, which resulted in less Weather Stations with full years of data for analysis. Their failing to enter the data resulted in only ~970 Weather Stations with full records for 2006, ~750 entries for 2008, and approximately 600 Weather Stations with full data for 2009.
The last part of the story is the (non)keepers of the Weather Station temperature data, conveniently failed to enter data less frequently for Weather Stations located in colder areas (closer to the poles or locations at higher altitudes). While conveniently managing to more frequently enter data for Weather Stations in warmer areas.
Summary: The Weather Station temperature data we have now is practically worthless due to inaccuracies as pointed out by the audit of Weather Stations (surfacestations.org project), and the lemon-picking of Weather Station temperature data to be kept by the so-called “official climate data keepers” that resulted in further warming bias of Global temperatures.
Latitude, I do not get your point.
When gas prices hit $4 and even $5 a couple times in the past few years, many people adjusted their behaviors to save their own money. It was not any kind of “Kumbaya, group hug” moment, but simply people looking out for their own good. Yes, when gas prices went up some of us were hurt and inconvenienced. It is a pain to take public transport or walk or bike to work, but people will do that to save their own money. It is disruptive for businesses and industries to change their processes to reduce use of fossil fuels, but they will do that to save their own money, particularly if they know that their fossil fuel costs will go up in a pre-defined way over the long term. In the current economic climate, fuel prices yo-yo every time some Mid-East sheikh or terrorist gets up on the wrong side of one of his wives.
The only people who benefit from fuel price fluctuations are the oil companies (most oil used in the US is from foreign sources) and speculators.
With the proposed revenue-neutral Carbon Tax, the revenues would stay in the US and benefit citizens and legal residents, while penalizing illegals. It would give industry additional incentives to improve the efficiency of alternative fuels. It would get the government out of the business of choosing their favorite alternative (Ethanol, Wind, Solar, …) on the basis of political connections and emotions. What is wrong with that?
Please note also that my support for the Carbon Tax is NOT predicated on any Global Warming issue, and that I do not think it has any real chance of passing in a form I would support. However, I think it is a good Skeptic strategy to take the focus off of the panic-driven CAGW crowd and their Cap & Trade indulgence scheme.
@Ira
Your articles consistently produce a hellacious number of comments!
This is as it should be for a science blog when the subject matter is physics because physics ultimately explains everything else. Biology is explained by chemistry and chemistry is explained by physics. At that point we arrive at philosophy and more specifically what if anything explains physics. Theologians say God explains physics. Theoretical physicists are at a loss at this point for an explanation with the current best answer being the so-called multiverse hypothesis which states that there are an infinite or near-infinite number of universes wherein each has a different set of underlying physical laws and constants. The so-called “fine tuning problem” is widely acknowledged and boils down to there being no theory which predicts the laws of physics. Fundamental laws and constants could have taken on any values whatsoever and the slightest deviation (out to dozens of decimal points) from the fundamentals we observe today would have rendered our universe incapable of forming galaxies, stars, planets, life, and even matter itself. The most vexing is called the “cosmological constant” which Einstein had initially put into his theory of general relativity but then decided it wasn’t necessary and zeroed it out. He called its inclusion the biggest mistake of his life. Well sirs, as it turned out long after his death, experimental precision advanced to a degree that measurement of the cosmological constant became possible. It’s close to zero. In fact so close that it has 100 zeroes to the right of the decimal point and appears to be what is responsible for the recent discovery that the rate of expansion of the universe is accelerating. If the cosmological constant varied in the slightest degree we’d have a universe that either flew apart so fast that matter could not have clumped into stars and galaxies or that collapsed in on itself due to gravity before stars and galaxies could have formed. And that’s just the most notable of the fine tuning problems. There are very many others such as the ratio of the mass of protons and electrons which if different by any small amount would preclude the formation of atoms. The unanswered questions in physics are broad and deep. We really only have a good handle on physics as it applies to our everyday lives and as you go further into the fringes of the cosmically large and infinitesimally small spatial and temporal domains the surprising differences between predictions of theoretical physics and observations from experimental physics just keep on rolling.
Great questions, John Brookes, and here is my answer to both questions, which I hope is equally great :^)
Short Answer: Yes, a little bit.
Explanation: The ice core record shows that, at least over the past 600,000 years, something else causes Temperatures to rise and fall around every 100,000 years, and CO2 follows hundreds of years later. That something else is unknown for sure, but suspects include Milakovitch cycles that affect Earth’s orbit and change the distribution of Solar energy between equator and poles, Sunspot cycles that may affect cosmic rays that, in turn, affect cloud formation and therefore albedo, plant growth rates affected by excessively cold and warm eras, multi-decadal ocean oscillations, and who knows what else.
When Surface Temperatures rise, the oceans slowly get warmer, and the net out-gassing of CO2 increases Atmospheric CO2 levels. That process takes hundreds of years and the peaks and valleys are not reached for 1000 years or more. During the rise, and during the several thousand year period CO2 is at or near its peak, the effect of CO2 as a “greenhouse gas” in the Atmosphere and the “greenhouse effect” causes Temperatures to rise a bit higher than they would absent the extra CO2, and stay up longer. During the fall, and during the period CO2 is in its valley, the relative lack of CO2 in the Atmosphere and the reduced “greenhouse effect” causes Temperatures to drop a bit lower and stay down longer.
Sal Minella says:
May 31, 2011 at 7:06 am
“I would like to point out that walking and biking do not reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by humans or the amount of fuel consumed by humans. The energy expended in these activities must be replaced with an increased consumption of organic materials (food). ”
Actually that’s mostly wrong. Walking and especially biking are far more energy efficient than automotive transport. However, in the most efficient hybrid vehicles, it’s actually more energy efficient per kilometer for four average size men to ride in the vehicle than to run the same distance. Running consumes a lot more energy per distance travelled than walking or cycling. See May 2011 issue of SciAm: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=when-cars-are-greener-than-people
@- Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
May 31, 2011 at 9:12 pm
“1. Human CO2 emissions have caused CO2 build up in the atmosphere // yes, absent human activities CO2 levels would be perhaps 50 ppmv lower ”
Where on Earth do you think the other ~40ppm has come from?!
“2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas // yes, but H2O has more of an effect”
The effects are cumulative/additive, not either/or. And as the air temperature approaches 0degC the water content drops so that CO2 IS the dominant GHG.
“4. Recent warming has been measured yes,// but at least a third, and perhaps half of the supposed 0.8ºC rise is due to data bias “cooking the books” as evidenced by the UK Climategate and US FOIA emails”
No amount of Climategate cooking has warmed the sea surface or increased sea level by amounts comensurate with the 0.8degC warming measured from land surface instruments. The ~0.8 degC is also supported by the borehole, sediment and ice-mass data.
“6. It can be attributed to human emitted CO2 // Absolutely NOT. Only 0.1ºC or 0.2ºC of the warming is due to human activities.”
Could you reveal the source of your ‘absolute’ certainty that only 0.1/0.2 can be attributed to human emitted CO2. What are the ‘error bars’ on this statement?
“9. The effects of the continued warming will be bad // Absolutely NOT. Modest increases in temperature and CO2 are most likely to have net benefits for human civilization.”
Warming may have been a benefit for the Greenland Vikings and possibly for the Tehuaco in Chile, but in Europe it brought Plague and stagnation. It wasn’t until the LIA that the Industrial revolution and modern society got established.
Familiar with Scattering Matrix Parameters (S-parameters or s-params to the uWave RF types on the board)?
Rather than focus on the individual electrons (or even the complex (-j) quantities E and I in a circuit) the use of S-Parameters allows the easy description of such facets of circuit operation as insertion (or transmission) loss (or gain, as S21), return (reflection) loss (as S11) , reflection coefficient (among others).
Per wiki: “The term ‘scattering’ is more common to optical engineering than RF engineering, referring to the effect observed when a plane electromagnetic wave is incident on an obstruction or passes across dissimilar dielectric media. In the context of S-parameters, scattering refers to the way in which the traveling currents and voltages in a transmission line are affected when they meet a discontinuity caused by the insertion of a [resonant or tuned/frequency selective] network into the transmission line [or medium]. ”
Through the use of S-parameters, the gross forward energy and back-scattered energy (across a particular spectrum) can be expressed without getting bogged down in intricacies of individual particle, molecule or atom (or electron) action thermodynamically (and invoking laws of thermodynamics that fall apart when dealing with radiative energy/EM energy exchange involving gases).
Considering the diatomic and dipole nature of water IR spectroscopy may be performed to ascertain its ‘scattering’ performance (S21 or transmission property and S11 or reflection property to short incident EM wavelengths) of an LWIR source (such as the surface of the earth) as that spectrum is modified owing to the various vibrational modes of WV that work to create various blocked portions of the EM spectrum (IR spectrum) through a parcel of air (an atmospheric path). Those blocked portions of the IR spectrum are there because of the electronic dipole nature of the gaseous molecules of H2O.
CO2, while not possessing an intrinsic electric dipole, nonetheless has certain responses to IR radiation owing to physical properties, and inter-element properties (the O-C-O structure) defining the ‘resonance’ and absorption of that gas molecule : “Molecular responses to radiation”
‘Back-scatter’ then is the “S11” (refelection) property each of these molecules as IR/EM energy is first coupled into a molecule, then later re-radiated away.
Adding GHGs to an atmosphere then has the effect of raising the amount of IR flux energy ‘in play’ as 1) insolation warms the earth and 2) later LWIR energy is radiated energy away from the earth, with GHG molecules acting to intercept certain percentage of EM wavelengths, in ‘windows’, and reflecting that small amount of LWIR back to earth … where eventually it is radiated away from the earth’s surface once again … again, the affect being to increase slightly the amount of IR flux ‘in play’ in the atmosphere (between TOA and earth surface).
Now enters the ‘phase change’ of the molecule H2O; energy transfers occur as each phase change takes place, exchanging the ‘heat’ content with other materials or air molecules in the vicinity (or perhaps some direct radiation as well.)
And that effective -55 deg C (as seen at ground level looking up) I think rises on those nights when the atmosphere contains a bit more WV (as the otherwise unplugged holes in the IR spectrum are plugged as WV increases) … those nights with higher humidity do not cool (radiatively) as rapidly as nights which are ‘dry’ (lower atmospheric humidity).
On the ‘adiabatic lapse rate’; an observed, physical property of a theoretical air parcel under consideration, but which does not yield to an observer the specifics of the atmosphere in his or her particular part of the world at that particular time; useful for explaining the physics of atmospheric dynamics (what happens if that parcel of air is ingested into a T-storm for instance) .
Regards, _Jim
.
Well Jimbo, I do not favor special subsidy for Wind as compared to alternative sources (but, I would love to see the North-East ultra-liberal environmental hypocrites near Cape Cod surrounded by windmills :^)
When comparing any alternative source, be it Nuclear, Wind, Water, Solar, Biomass, and so on, we have to measure relative carbon content. You are correct that nothing is completely carbon-free or carbon-neutral.
Yes there was carbon emitted during the manufacture of the wind turbine, during maintenance, distribution of the electricity, provision of storage and/or back-up generators when the wind stops blowing, and so on. However, most of the same carbon emission is involved when manufacturing, maintaining, and distribution electricity from fossil-fuel generators, PLUS the CO2 from burning the fuel.
In the case of Wind generation (when the wind is blowing, or Solar when the Sun is shining, etc.) some of these carbon emissions are avoided, which is why we call these alternatives (relatively) carbon-free.
In the case of Biomass, the living plants take CO2 out of the Atmosphere while they are growing, and return the CO2 to the Atmosphere when burned as Ethanol or other Biofuels, which is why we call these alternatives (relatively) carbon-neutral. As I mentioned, I no longer favor Ethanol subsidies, but I hope the basic processes and distribution may be adapted to use Bio-waste from agricultural and food-processing industries, restaurants, and even residential kitchens and gardens as the fuel stock. But, only if this turns out to be economically viable with no special subsidy over other alternate energy sources.
@Ira
A carbon tax is an atrociously bad idea. You catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar. What inevitably happens with any new taxes is additional bureaucracy springs up to collect and redistribute them skimming a portion of those taxes off the top to fund the bureaucracy. A far better approach than punishing carbon consumption by beating consumers with a tax stick is to reward carbon conservation with tax breaks.
I agree however that reliance on foreign oil is a big problem begging for a remedy. CO2 emission in and of itself is a good thing so that’s no remedy. The short term remedy is cost effective alternatives we have in abundance i.e. natural gas and coal. There should be a federal tax break on these fuels but instead they are being punished by giving the tax breaks to so called renewables like wind and solar power. The long term solution of course, given that coal and natural gas aren’t infinite resources and will someday become scarce, is conversion of solar energy into liquid and gas fuels that are drop-on replacements (no massive change in distribution and consumption infrastructure) for fossil fuels. I believe that synthetic biology will win the day and within the next decade biological generation of liquid fuels will be far more economical than digging/pumping it out of the ground. Already pilot synthetic biology fuel plants are getting near to competitive (on a level playing field!) with oil at $30/bbl. At $100/bbl for oil it’s already far more competitive. I believe this is pretty common knowledge amongst oil producers and they are now, as we speak, trying to milk every dollar out of the ground they possibly can before they are driven back to the $30/bbl range by biological fuel production. If synthetic biology keeps making big gains (which they will) it will drive fossil fuel producers out of the fuel business because they simply aren’t able to compete anymore down in the historic $15/bbl range because too much of the low hanging fruit in fossil oil has been plucked. So while fossil oil inevitably becomes more expensive to harvest solar energy harvested through synthetic biology become less expensive. The writing is on the wall.
Lets not also forget the problem with ice core data. The slices of each ice core are melted into liquid water to measure the CO2 content. Liquid water depending on the temperature dissolves CO2 gases different to the content of the atmosphere. A good example is comparing CO2 gas levels in ocean/lake/pond water compared with the atmosphere. The observed results show them all to significantly below levels than the current atmosphere, with samples as low as 90/100 ppm compared with the recent 391 ppm in the atmosphere. Just another example how complicated climate science can be.
Izen says:
“Warming may have been a benefit for the Greenland Vikings and possibly for the Tehuaco in Chile, but in Europe it brought Plague and stagnation. It wasn’t until the LIA that the Industrial revolution and modern society got established.”
So cold is good, warm is bad, down is up, evil is good, ignorance is strength…
Smokey says:
June 1, 2011 at 8:19 am
“So cold is good, warm is bad, down is up, evil is good, ignorance is strength…”
Well… if you say so, – but more to the point, can you give three examples of civilisations that benefited from a warming period?
As the embers disappear, it seems to me that we can all agree that calling people “Deniers” is really stupid, though it might rally the troops. It seems to me that Ira’s list of names for people pro or con AGW is putting lipstick on a slur.
Ira please read below paper. It highlights the importance of water vapor on the transmission of energy around the globe.
Mr. Springer you would be interested in this also as it dove tails nicely with what you have put forth. To which I have stated several times I am in roughly 90% agreement.
It adds some more flesh to Mr. Wilder’s hot water bottle theory.
http://junksciencearchive.com/Greenhouse/Earth-s_Climate_Engine.pdf
MarkW says:
May 31, 2011 at 7:59 am
“Until there is a proven method of storing terawatts worth or power at an economical price, wind and solar are nothing more than play things.”
That should be painfully obvious to all but evidently it eludes most the environmental whackos.
The only viable means of storage and distribution that I can on the horizon is conversion of solar energy into chemical energy. Green plants have been doing this for at least a billion years. The base technology comes to us on a silver platter. The crux is that green plants (particularly blue-green algae) produce hydrocarbon fuels as an unwanted by-product of metabolism so they produce rather little of it. Natural selection rewards the critters which are most efficient at metabolism and reproductionwhile punishing the less efficient. Humans, through genetic engineering and artificial protection, can turn that equation upside down. We genetically alter the critters so that hydrocarbon production is maximized and we reward them by creating an environment where they are nutured and natural competitors are artifically excluded. This is happening as we speak. Synthetic (GM) organisms with optimized hydrocarbon production are being awarded patents left and right while means of excluding competitors are being improved. The best thing about this is that blue-green algae thrive in both brackish and municipal wastewater, will take up all the additional CO2 you can give them to convert to hydrocarbon fuels, and the best places to exclude natural competitors are the worst places for conventional agriculture. The Texas panhandle is ideal as it isn’t being used for much of anything except oil wells, wind farms, and cattle grazing. A fraction of it devoted to synthetic biology fuel production so small it would be almost unnoticeable in a satellite view can provide enough hydrocarbon fuel to replace all other energy sources in the entire country. No joke – I ran through the numbers using pilot plant numbers of 20,000 gallons of bio-diesel per acre per year. The number of acres required at that rate to meet the energy needs of the entire country is just a small fraction of the number of acres in the Texas panhandle alone.
Ira,
I’m in broad agreement with your scientific explanations. But really, you should stick to what you’re good at and forget economics. Higher taxation is the goal of the alarmist crowd. Throwing them a bone will only whet their appetite. They will instantly spend every extra dollar they can take, then hold their hand out for more, more, more. We’ve got to put a stop to it some time. How about now?
# # #
Izen, there are lots of examples, such as the Roman, Mayan, Viking, Minoan, Aztec, etc. You’re not seriously suggesting that colder is better than warmer… are you?
WELCOME, Dave Springer, to this topic thread and I hope you have the time and inclination to help keep us on the straight and narrow science-wise.
As I’ve said before in a previous topic thread, I am intrigued by your Ocean “greenhouse” theory. I would love to hear more about it, including a new topic here at WUWT. I am quite willing to believe, given more information and some calculations, that the oceans are partly responsible for the difference between the 255 K and 288 K calculations. Feel free to use this topic thread for more details.
As I understand it, the oceans absorb Solar energy at depth because the water is mostly transparent to short-wave radiation. Then, the warmed ocean stores this energy for a time because it can only release it via short-wave radiation from a very thin surface film (and convection/conduction from that same thin surface). That would explain the moderation of temperatures, making the daytime (and summer) cooler than otherwise and the nighttime (and winter) warmer than otherwise.
However, your Ocean “greenhouse” concept does not change the energy flow to Space.
As I understand the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”, the so-called “greenhouse gases” in the Atmosphere absorb and recycle long-wave radiation to the Surface that would otherwise escape to Space. That is similar to the reflector behind the light bulb in a flashlight that re-directs the light that would otherwise go out the back and sides of the flashlight, and be lost to the entire room, and concentrates it into a more intense beam directed towards what you want to see. The reflector does not amplify or store the light energy, it merely re-directs it.
Other than storing Solar energy and dispensing it at night and in the winter, while moderating temperatures in the daytime and summer, how does your Ocean “greenhouse” work to increase the mean temperature at the Surface (i.e., the estimated +33ºC difference between 288 K snd 255 K that is derived from black body calculation).
I agree that the Oceans (and other bodies of water and the mass of the solid ground as well) provide a valuable service in moderating local temperatures over day/night and seasons, thus promoting conditions conducive to life. But, how do they affect mean temperatures over longer, multi-century periods?
Global Warming caused the desiccation of North Africa, the downfall of Islam and the rise of Christian Europe. If you tally Hellenistic thinkers of note, more hale from North Africa and the Middle East than from Europe for the simple reason that the population of North Africa was greater than that of Europe. E.g., all three flat earthers were from Africa and the Orient, none from Europe, though Lactantius settled in Rome to become the tutor of Constantine’s son.
Leptis Magna supplied the wheat for the Roman dole and one emperor, Septimius Severus. It was later covered with sand till modern times, when the population of the coast began to rise again. I think it was Pliny the Elder who reported an average of three thunderstorms per summer in Egypt. Timbuctu was a great city until sea trade and warming left it an isolated outpost. Camels replaced horses for coastal transport around 300BC.
So Barbaria declined with climate change while Europe flourished. And now the desert is blossoming again–due to whatever is going on. The Great Salt Lake will rise this spring. –AGF
Izen says:
“Warming may have been a benefit for the Greenland Vikings and possibly for the Tehuaco in Chile, but in Europe it brought Plague and stagnation. It wasn’t until the LIA that the Industrial revolution and modern society got established.”
Getting mixed up with the Little Ice Age when this period occurred between about 1250 and 1850. It wasn’t until around 1850 when the industrial revolution began after the LIA had ended. Europe had serious Plague and stagnation problems during the LIA when climate was colder. Ever heard of the bubonic plague (back death) which killed millions of Europeans during this time? Malaria was a big problem for Europe during the Little Ice Age. Warming has benefited Europe greatly and can be seen over recent decades too.
http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/climate/little_ice_age.html
typo – (black death)
Its past time for you to get more Skeptical. Mr. (or Ms.) “sceptical”!
Gore misused the ice core data to implie that rising CO2 would cause a corresponding increase in temperatures, which is not true, and used that to launch into graphics of massive flooding and general catastrophe.
The ice core data tells us absolutely nothing about the current situation where a modest human-caused CO2 rise is expected to cause a very minor mean Temperature rise that will be swamped out by much larger Natural Cycle Temperature changes in both directions.
If it rains, people generally carry umbrellas. So, we might say, RAIN CAUSES UMBRELLA USE. On the other hand, if we all go out on a nice day with our umbrellas unfurled, does that increase the chances of rain? Of course not! If TEMP causes CO2 that does not mean the reverse is true.
The mechanism of TEMP causes CO2 is due to net outgassing of the oceans as they get warmer. The mechanism of CO2 causing mean Temperatures to rise is a consequence of a totally different type, the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”. Different causes, different mechanisms, different effects, and, in particular, way different sensitivities.
When I wrote that I thought it was a far-out joke that no one would take seriously.
However, the EPA has been on the flatulence case since 2008!
Read this from NY Times Blog http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/farmers-panic-about-a-cow-tax/
“The comment period for the Environmental Protection Agency’s exploration of greenhouse gas regulation ended last Friday, with farmers lobbying furiously against the notion of a “cow tax” on methane, a potent greenhouse gas emitted by livestock.
The New York Farm Bureau issued a statement last week (PDF) saying it feared that a tax could reach $175 per cow, $87.50 per head of beef cattle and upward of $20 for each hog. … “
Cows passing wind are regulated first, then humans :^) -OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK
Guigue, very well stated! How can we get excited by a temperature change so small when, every day of our lives, we see temperature changes an order of magnitude greater.
I thought the cows were belching methane. –AGF
I don’t know why it cools during the night where you live, but here in Florida, things cool down at night because the Earth rotates and the Sun no longer shines on us :^)
Generally, the Surface and Atmosphere, and everything else above absolute zero, radiate energy as a function of T^4. So, quite naturally, when Solar energy in no longer coming in, the Surface continues to radiate energy to the Atmosphere and the Atmosphere to Space, and both cool down. The role of GHGs is to re-radiate some of the energy in the Atmosphere back to the Surface, which reduces the rate of nighttime cooling. Unless you are on a strange planet long ago and far away, I suspect it works that way where you live. :^)
OK, let me get this straight. If I did not bike to water aerobics almost every day, and, instead sat home on my butt, I would eat less? That may be true of a starving society, but, in our increasingly obese nation, it seems to me that those who do not exercise tend to eat more than I do. And, they also tend to be less healthy, which adds to medical costs.
Ira;
yes, you’d eat less. More of what you did eat would pad your situpon, though. Just for an extreme contrast, a competitive cyclist can burn 6,000 Cal/day during a Tour de Whatever.
And lose weight in the process.
First of all, the 0.7 reduction for albedo is due to clouds and ice and snow. (Reduction for albedo is the inverse of the albedo. Average Earth System albedo is around 30%.) I do not know the albedo at Mt. Everest, but, given the snow and ice, it is unlikely to be much lower than 30% and may be higher. But, let us humor your suggestion, and assume Mt. Everest absorbs the full dose of Sunlight, that is it gets 340 Watts/m^2 rather than 240 W/m^2 that is average for the Earth. Of course, both Daytona Beach and Mt. Everest both also get above average Solar input because they are closer to the Equator than the average point on the Surface.
Mt.Everest Altitude ~9 km
Daytona Beach FL Altitude ~ 0 km
Altitude of the Tropopause (where the lapse rate reaches its coolest) ~10 km
Altitude above 90% of the mass of the Atmosphere ~17 km
So, mkelly, although Mt. Everest does not get much of the reduction of Solar energy Input due to Atmospheric absorption of Solar short-wave radiation, it gets even less of the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” since so little of the Atmosphere and GHGs are between it and Space. In short, long-wave radiation from the Surface at Mt. Everest has to pass through hardly any of the Atmosphere to get out to Space. That, my friend, is why Mt. Everest is colder than Daytona Beach. Got it?
I support, practice and encourage efficiency of all manner, be it energy or raw materials. Waste of any kind is wrong.
That being said, I cannot support any efficiency measures done under the false pretense of saving the planet from Climate Change. Such measures (windfarms for example) tend to be the inefficient and unsustainable knee jerk reactions of shallow thinkers and the opportunists that feed on them.
Further, we need to collectively counter the attempted redefinition of the words “Climate Change” by folks who repeatedly use the phrase in the wrong context. They need to be called out and repeatedly embarrassed in pubic for this abuse of our language.
I would love to do a TED talk! If anyone wants to nominate me, please feel free to do so (at http://www.ted.com/nominate/speaker).
You may provide a link to these Powerpoint charts https://sites.google.com/site/bigira/climate-related-ppt/TESP-Climate-May2011.ppt?attredirects=0&d=1 and give my email for contact as ira@techie.com, and I am in the phone book in Florida.
For those who may be unfamiliar with TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), it is a wonderful resource for short, well-thought-out and well-presented talks limited to about 18 minutes each. Videos of the talks may be viewed via links from their home page which is http://www.ted.com/
Although they are not outright political, I doubt they would approve a Skeptic (or even Lukewarmer-Skeptic) point of view. But, who knows?
David Springer: ” I believe that synthetic biology will win the day and within the next decade biological generation of liquid fuels will be far more economical than digging/pumping it out of the ground. “
So, what you are saying implies this ….. if and when biofuel becomes as cheap and accessible as conventional crude oil once was, then we in the US really don’t need to worry that the Chinese and the Indians will — through their growing economic power — eventually gain a dominant position over the US in terms of having greater access to the world’s remaining petroleum supplies, which they would then employ to expand their own use of the automobile tenfold. They — and we — could manufacture all the cars we could ever want without fear we will eventually run out of gasoline.
If that is so, this development could have profound impacts on my own personal life choices.
For example, I usually keep my cars for ten to fifteen years. Does this mean that if I trade in my four-cylinder Mazda 6 for the six-cylinder model — there is a lot more zoom-zoom in the six-cylinder Mazda 6 than there is in the four — I shouldn’t have to worry that ten years from now, I won’t be regretting the small mileage penalty of the six cylinder version?
Ira,
“So, mkelly, although Mt. Everest does not get much of the reduction of Solar energy Input due to Atmospheric absorption of Solar short-wave radiation, it gets even less of the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” since so little of the Atmosphere and GHGs are between it and Space. In short, long-wave radiation from the Surface at Mt. Everest has to pass through hardly any of the Atmosphere to get out to Space. That, my friend, is why Mt. Everest is colder than Daytona Beach. Got it?”
The slightly different composition with gases spread out more, has a little influence on the atmosphere at that height, but the real reason is down to pressure. The atmosphere composition of gases from sea level to 2000 feet above has no noticable change, yet temperatures are often different per 100m by 0.6c. The same for 1atm compared on other planets, where the temperatures at this pressure are similar to Earth, yet the gas composition very different.
_Jim says:
May 31, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Richard M says on May 31, 2011 at 6:59 am
Ira, you have missed the most important item. The cooling effect of GHGs. What do you think causes the atmosphere to cool during the night? …
Ahem.
It is the surface of the earth (blades of grass, surface of cars, concrete, etc) that cools, not the air.
So, you believe that when it cools from 90°F during the day to around 50°F at night in a spring time desert location that the air temperature did not cool?
Sorry, does not compute.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 1, 2011 at 9:58 am
Richard M says:
May 31, 2011 at 6:59 am
Ira, you have missed the most important item. The cooling effect of GHGs. What do you think causes the atmosphere to cool during the night? …
I don’t know why it cools during the night where you live, but here in Florida, things cool down at night because the Earth rotates and the Sun no longer shines on us :^)
So, the heat vanishes from the atmosphere without any mechanism to make it disappear. Interesting.
Generally, the Surface and Atmosphere, and everything else above absolute zero, radiate energy as a function of T^4. So, quite naturally, when Solar energy in no longer coming in, the Surface continues to radiate energy to the Atmosphere and the Atmosphere to Space, and both cool down. The role of GHGs is to re-radiate some of the energy in the Atmosphere back to the Surface, which reduces the rate of nighttime cooling. Unless you are on a strange planet long ago and far away, I suspect it works that way where you live. :^)
I see, GHGs only radiate energy in one direction … “back to the surface”.
Yes, I can see we live on different planets. Mine is Earth, what is the name of yours?
Sorry Ira, but you missed the point completely. Open your mind a little and maybe you will understand. The atmosphere is heated during the day from both the Sun and the surface. The energy is constantly being radiated away and it is NOT just the toward the surface. The GHGs enhance the radiation of energy that is already in the atmosphere for the exact same reasons they can block outgoing radiation from the surface. Good absorbers are good radiators.
Not all energy in the atmosphere got there from the LWIR emitted by surface. Once you realize this you will understand that GHGs have both a warming AND a cooling effect. Why do you ignore the cooling effect?
For some reason, I cannot post a longer (few paragraphs) comment on this thread.
Every time I read Dr. Glickstein’s articles, I feel that something is very, very wrong. This “something” is hiding behind his seemingly indisputable, scientific-sounding arguments. This “something” is his general approach to the question of human influence on the environment.
Yes, I know that human activity can be detrimental to the environment. Back in the USSR, I remember our “cement forest” near Siberian town of Berdsk, where every step in the grass produced a small cloud of cement dust. I remember “green skies” of Cherepovets, the Soviet hub of copper industry. Kremlin “managed to disappear” the whole Aral sea, and only the revolt of some of the most loyal Soviet scientists prevented Moscow from going ahead with their wackiest project of all, that of turning great Siberian rivers back into the Central Asia by nuclear explosions.
But everyone who grew up in the totalitarian police state, knows how clean and green are fields and forests of the Western countries, in comparison. Clean and green — not as a result of some ideology being pushed by the government policies but, on the contrary, as a result of the existence of private property, as simple as that. Government’s meddling is the most dangerous activity not only where economy and culture are concerned but in ecological terms as well.
So, what is wrong with Dr. Glickstein’s approach? The not-so-latent assumption of guilt, among other things. Western civilization should not be portrayed as guilty of ecological sins, it should be proud of its achievements in the area of environmental protection. Also, Dr. Glickstein talks about human influences on global climatological parameters as if they can be calculated or estimated with any degree of certainty.
But the truth of the matter is that our science is far from being able to produce any reliable estimate of the global human influence on climate, given the numerous and complex, mutually counteracting feedback factors, meteorological, geological and biological processes, not to mention the dependency of Earth’s climate on the processes in the surrounding space, the research of which is literally in embryonic state.
Finally, I don’t want to be labelled or categorized. Dr. Glickstein’s addiction to using various awkward names, such as “disbelievers,” “lukewarmers,” and “skeptics,” is disconcerting, incorrect, and slightly insulting. I am not a “disbeliever.” I am not a “skeptic” even. I am just an honest thinking human being, facing the obvious huge lie.
So, is Dr. Glickstein’s way of talking about global warming correct? It is, perhaps, for him, and for others who beguile themselves with honorific titles, elitist approach, and certain amount of detachment from reality leading to simplistic, formulaic classifications and conclusions. But for real people like me it’s not the way to talk about anything.
Ira,
“So, mkelly, although Mt. Everest does not get much of the reduction of Solar energy Input due to Atmospheric absorption of Solar short-wave radiation, it gets even less of the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” since so little of the Atmosphere and GHGs are between it and Space. In short, long-wave radiation from the Surface at Mt. Everest has to pass through hardly any of the Atmosphere to get out to Space. That, my friend, is why Mt. Everest is colder than Daytona Beach. Got it?”
340 W/m^2 = e(SB)T^4 let e = 1 for incoming solar
T= 278 K top of Everest (it probably gets near 1100 W/m^2 in mid June)
average T on Everest -73 C , 200 K
Being a well mixed gas there is still thousands of feet of CO2 above it.
Average Daytona Beach temperature is 60 F winter and 78 F summer. Call it 69 F year round. 69 F (293 K)
Your explanation seems to say that “back radiation” is more powerful than direct sunlight.
But I disagree as I think pressure and water vapor are the reason. You allude to the lapse rate in your full explanation to which I think you could have stopped there. Using a lapse rate of 9.8 and an altitude of 8.848 km the change is 87 degrees. Almost fully explaning the 293 to 200 K difference in temperature.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 1, 2011 at 7:31 am
Latitude, I do not get your point.
==============================================
Obviously or you wouldn’t feel about a carbon tax – gas tax.
You’re are not only comfortably urban but not old enough. Public transportation, walking, riding a bike, etc is doable for someone urban or big city. It is not doable for the vast majority of this country.
The largest demographic in this country is getting to be retirement age, and a very large portion of those people are not urban, they are rural. On a fixed income, and can not and will not buy a new little “Precious” car. They are driving cars that take gas, and will continue to repair those cars because it’s cheaper than buying a new “Precious”.
What you are proposing, is driving up the cost of everything for those people. They paid your way.
So yeah, this is a “Kumbaya, group hug” moment for you.
Stop and think about the unintended consequences.
I live way south of you, on a rock, in the middle of the ocean.
It won’t work for me at all. I take a boat to do almost everything.
Ira Glickstein:
I just want to say Kudos for sticking around and doing your best to respond to comments. I may not agree with you, but I must admire the professional character demonstrated. Thanks GK
Intentional misread? At some point the air ‘cools’ there is no dispute about that … it is the method by which it cools which would seem to be in contention.
BTW, this in no way is part of a belief system as it is an observed fact and not in dispute as a ‘scientific frontier’. It may be proved by easy an experiment conducted in your own back (or front) yard with the simplest of equipment – an example is the experiment conducted by A G Foster and I quote from above:
Reiterating, it is the surface (literally: things on the surface like grass, tree leaves, roofs, sand etc), which cool at night (via IR radiation directly into space) and being in contact with the air then cools the air.
Direct IR radiation from ‘air’ occurs from only two molecules that are capable of capturing or radiating IR energy (since these molecules are capable of vibrating/rotating etc. in modes that correspond with wavelengths in and about the LWIR spectrum) : CO2 and H20. See Vibrational modes of molecules (pdf file) for vibrational mode and corresponding wavenumbers.
But, those two molecules present in the boundary layer airmass do not dominate cooling in the boundary layer airmass (the boundary layer is the air layer meeting the surface of the earth see Ref. 4) as surface IR cooling does.
At this point it would be good to consult a good college text on meteorology, e.g. Aguado and Burt (Ref 1) or C. Donald Ahrens (Ref 2) and begin to become familiar with atmospheric physics, particularly the radiative part. If you want a heavy duty read strictly dealing with the radiative physics, take a gander at Zdunkowski, Trautmann and Bott (Ref 3).
Refs:
1. Understanding Weather and Climate
2. Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment
3. Radiation in the Atmosphere: A Course in Theoretical Meteorology
Also: http://ebookee.org/Radiation-in-the-Atmosphere-A-Course-in-Theoretical-Meteorology_325798.html
4. Formal definition: “Atmospheric Boundary Layer Structure”
.
Ira. There is no such thing as a revenue-neutral tax unless those who administers it donate their time and energy to collect the tax. What you advocate is a tax to pick winners and losers, to control outcome and give more power to elected officials which will use it to choke pathway on the individual’s economic success. It’s a pay to play mentality at the expense of consumer/tax payer. I’ll have no part of it and will fight to defeat any type of CO2 tax.
old construction worker says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Ira. There is no such thing as a revenue-neutral tax unless those who administers it donate their time and energy to collect the tax. What you advocate is a tax to pick winners and losers, to control outcome and give more power to elected officials which will use it to choke pathway on the individual’s economic success. It’s a pay to play mentality at the expense of consumer/tax payer. I’ll have no part of it and will fight to defeat any type of CO2 tax.
======================================================
Amen……
Ira is in a university environment, urban, and insulated from the real world. 😉
As soon as the road is paid for, we will get rid of the toll booths.
Social Security is safe, unless we put it in the general fund and spend it.
All the money from the lottery will go to education, unless we use it to bail out DOT.
and on and on…………..
Dr Glickstein:
Good presentation. Hope the rude comments some make here are taken in stride.
A few quibbles:
1. I agree with Chapman far above here: the crux of the whole issue is positive versus negative feedbacks. The Earth’s climate must be dominated by negative feedbacks given its stability for eons.
2. It is possible to construct a system that has the Earth’s climate driven by a large external forcer (eg solar changes), have CO2 levels lag by 800 years, and yet have CO2 contribute some positive feedback to the system. It would require some large inertia/momentum in the system—–this role could be played by the oceans as a huge heat sink, which in fact it is. The primary driver starts the temp up, but the ocean as a buffer slows the rise. CO2 is outgassed progressively, and helps the temp rise. The primary driver starts into a negative phase. It would take a long time before the temp of the system falls enough to stop the net outgassing of the CO2, so even as temps fall, CO2 can rise. I do not “believe” in this, but consider it plausible.
3. In your presentations, the role of the oceans and their currents and cycles as buffers and distorters of the signal of the primary forcers of climate change should be mentioned up front. This is the main reason, I think, that the “science” of climate change is so difficult. If it were just energy in/energy out/greenhouse effects/and surface temps, the system would be easy to successfully model. The bufferings, lags, and oscillations of the oceans are so complex as to remove this “science” into the realm of chaotic systems that cannot, even in theory, be tightly modelled (as defined by the ability to accurately predict weather and climate.)
4. Do not give up on the truth winning out over time. The Berlin Wall fell. “Communist” China now embraces free enterprise more strongly than the US. Amazing things can happen.
KW
_Jim says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:37 pm
Richard M says on June 1, 2011 at 12:31 pm:
_Jim: “It is the surface of the earth (blades of grass, surface of cars, concrete, etc) that cools, not the air.”
Richard M: So, you believe that when it cools from 90°F during the day to around 50°F at night in a spring time desert location that the air temperature did not cool?
Sorry, does not compute.
Intentional misread? At some point the air ‘cools’ there is no dispute about that … it is the method by which it cools which would seem to be in contention.
I was just following what appeared to be your intentional misread of my statement. I’m not discounting the surface radiative cooling. I’m simply stating there is another form of cooling as well. The same GHGs that intercept surface radiation are also energized by the heat from the atmosphere itself. When it radiates the energy it gained from the atmosphere it is cooling the atmosphere.
So, your reference to GHGs radiative cooling of the air is exactly my point. Did you realize that? I assume you are not claiming that the atmosphere cannot energize GHGs, so you must be claiming the effect is minimal. But, why would GHGs have a minimal effect in one sense and a catastrophic effect in another.
Yes, HankHenry, the heat energy is mostly stored in the oceans, but the “surface temperature” is officially recorded at about six feet above the surface. So, when we talk about mean temperatures, it is of the air at about six feet up.
Point A 2. “To maintain a relatively constant mean temperature, Output Energy must equal Input Energy, so the Earth System must emit about 240 W/m^2 out to Space, which it does.”
At the same time Earth System doesn’t care about maintaining a mean temperature. From the point of energy conservation it has no problem building energy up to reach the same temperature as the sun.
It is the Second Law that gives directions to the thermodynamic processes in the Earth System, and that means the only goal of the system is to disperse energy mainly by generating heat (in the atmosphere), turning liquid into vapour and degenerating radiation into lower frequencies.
It does this by using all it’s coupled subsystems with in the first line evaporation, conduction, convection and radiation and the result will be the lowest temperature possible (at any given location).
If a restriction in the radiation output would occur, this would provide the driving force for the subsystems to counteract the possible shift.
Let’s look at Le Chatelier’s principle “if a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, volume, or partial pressure, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established” or in general ” Any change in status quo prompts an opposing reaction in the responding system.”
Don’t think this is just some chemical thing because it is all about thermodynamics, all about the Second Law. The origin is the same as the in physics known principle of least action (first by Maupertuis) that comes down to the fact that nature desires a state of minimal energy (maximal dispersion).
It is the basis for many more principles or laws like for instance Henry’s law, that can be used to look into the balance between CO2 in the ocean and in the atmosphere. One of the many different balances in the Earth System ruled by the Second Law, all working together to get the same result: the lowest energy.
The not so wise IPCC clan invented a non-physical concept of least action principles and named them positive feedbacks, that do not create opposing action, but create amplifying action. A case of bad physics.
Well, MarkW, although officials are usually mum, and the media has been known to obscure history, the Iraq wars, which I supported at the time and still think were necessary, were about oil. The operation that deposed Saddam was originally called “Operation Iraqi Liberation”(OIL) and former Fed Chairman, Alan Greenspan, said it was “largely about oil”.
In his 2007 book, Greenspan wrote (LA Times story: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-oil17sep17,1,553323.story?coll=la-news-a_section) says:
“The Iraq war is largely about oil … I’m saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows. … Whatever their publicized angst over Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction,’ American and British authorities were also concerned about violence in an area that harbors a resource indispensable for the functioning of the world economy.”
In a news conference (the text of which was available in 2007 on the WHITE HOUSE WEBSITE, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030324-4.html, but is not available now) Ari Fleisher, the President’s Press Secretary said, way back on March 24, 2003,
“The President this morning has spoken with three foreign leaders. He began with Prime Minister Blair, where the two discussed the ongoing aspects of Operation Iraqi liberation“. [Emphasis added]
See http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2007/09/operation-iraqi-liberation-oil.html for what I wrote about it in 2007.
Ira: Your presentation was very good and no doubt helpful to the audience. But like many others I can’t disagree more strongly with your recommendations.
There is simply no carbon-neutral energy alternative to fossil fuels save nuclear,, which is already so overregulated in the US that new reactors are prohibitively expensive. Wind and solar simply cannot provide the needed power, not today, not ever.
And after you demonstrate the benign nature of CO2, you then advocate a carbon tax? This not only flouts logic, but common sense. Such a tax would surly have negative economic ramifications, most obviously inflation, which is already in the rise. And like all taxes of this nature, it would never go away. All this for a cure worse than the disease. Thanks doc!
JPeden, the Powerpoint is available for anyone in the world to freely download at https://sites.google.com/site/bigira/climate-related-ppt/TESP-Climate-May2011.ppt?attredirects=0&d=1
If you open that .ppt file with Powerpoint, you will find Notes under each one that you could print out in what they call “Notes View”. That will give you an image of each slide with notes under each. I look forward to any and all serious discussion ofmy arguments. So far, most of the discussion has focused on the lower half of one of my charts. Of course, anyone who wants to may delete that chart, or simply edit it to keep only the top part that debunks the Cap & Trade scam. Good luck!
I don’t think we’re on quite the same wavelength, but continue to read and contribute here on WUWT.
I do sincerely recommend those books and references above in my previous post:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/30/skeptic-strategy-for-talking-about-global-warming/#comment-671984
Maybe they’ll allow clearer picture to be developed in the mind on the processes/characteristics of radiative heat/thermal/IR energy transfer …
Cheers.
.
MattG (and all you adiabatic compression fans) that statement is only true when the gas is initially compressed.
Take an air-filled cylinder with an air-tight piston. Compress the air to half the volume. At first, it will be warmer than room temperature. Then, it will cool to room temperature and remain compressed. Therefore, compression (high density of air per se) is not a cause of its higher temperature.
Great question Fit _Nick but we’ve been assured by people who ave done the calculations that warmth from the hot core as well as radioactive decay in and on the Earth only add a fraction of a percent to the Surface temperatures, and may thereefore be ignored in discussions at the level of this posting.
MarkW,
Dr Glickstein has a good point on the oil question, I’m afraid, and I would even take it a bit further.
To be blunt, no other issue in the region, except for possible WMDs, is as important as the economy-driving, civilization-building and life-giving oil. We should own up to reality and admit that it is a legitimate and yes, a moral goal, to fight for access to key resources.
Those who sit on top of the stupendous reserves and who, happen to find themselves beside the vital trade lanes you mention, receive more than fair compensation for just being behavung themselves. The left riles about how it’s all about oil …a fair point, atually… and our governments have to satisfy them and the hand-wringing centrists with “democracy building” theatres and whatnot, but both the left and the centre forget how quickly we and our civilization would wind up in the tank without reasonable access to this resource. Access guaranteed by our brave men and women in desert camo.
With all the philosophising about having “progressed” or whatever, the critics (typically the prime beneficiaries of the system) forget that thanks to the kind of civilization we are, many of us even care. And while we may be selfish, as is the entire world, we let the inhabitants who squat over the “black gold” play at nationhood, and preen themselves with bombastic claims to being heirs of amazing and superior civilizations and religions. We politely applaud their prattling at the UN, bow to their “royalty,” and patiently watch and smile as they fritter away their lives with costly diversions and luxuries.
This is historically unique; the reality is that if the Euro-American civilization had been so inclined, it could have simply gone in, killed, chased off or pacified anyone in the way and grabbed the spoils. As this has been the human pattern and the historical norm until recently, and as most of the world acts in much more selfish and brutal ways, we have more things to be proud of than ashamed of.
RE: Smokey says: (June 1, 2011 at 4:46 am )
“Ammonite says:
‘Positive feedback does not imply runaway.’
Actually, it does. …”
Provided that the overall feedback-loop amplification is unity or greater. (cf. The Armstrong Regenerative Radio Receiver — 1914) A net positive feedback-loop gain of 0.75 results in a stable system that has four times the amplification it would have without feedback. In practice, such stability is often problematical.
Spector,
Thanks for pointing that out. However, there is no evidence of positive feedbacks. The current climate is exceptionally benign.
Dave Springer, Thanks for our kind words and I always value your erudite comments.
In particular, it is amazing that you bring up Einstein’s Cosmological Constant, which he said was his “greatest blunder”. Several years ago I mentioned that in my free online novel. It takes place several decades in the future, and I have a character say these words (towards the end of chapter 7 – http://2052hp.blogspot.com/2009/01/chapter-7-charade-and-confrontation.html):
“… We sometimes make mistakes. Our mistakes tend to be big ones! Historic ones even! Our mistakes have contributed more to the knowledge of human civilization than the non-mistakes of everyone else combined! For instance when Einstein said his suggestion of a ‘cosmological constant’ was his ‘greatest blunder’. That turned out to be the key that unlocked our current understanding of the unified field theory! … “
In the same chapter, the same character says something that came to me as a revelation (it is still meaningless to me :^):
“…the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight. Starlight passing near the Sun appears, to us, to curve. It came to me that if a supposedly ‘straight-edge’ measuring stick was actually slightly curved; a straight light beam would appear to be curved and longer than it was. I’m convinced the Universe is finite and far smaller than it appears. The ten or eleven dimensions of spacetime are wrapped up in each other making many Earth-like planets as close to us as faith is to reason, if only we can discover how to travel via a wormhole. …”
Until I read your most recent comment, I did not know that Einstein’s Cosmological Constant had been quantified, nor that it was just a wee bit over zero. And, do you have any idea what it means to say “the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight” If so, please let me know! advTHANKSance!
Indeed, so problematical, in fact, self-sustaining oscillations result (when gain .GE. 1). In the Armstrong Super-Regenerative receiver as ‘loop gain’ IS greater than one (far, far greater as it turns out) – the thing (the super-regen receiver) DOES break into oscillations (at the RF frequency)! (The wiki coverage of this topic does not do it justice IMO; see better reference below.)
In fact, the whole operation, including AM detection depends on this – and something called a ‘quench’ rate (or quench function that is self-sustaining as to rate).
The quench rate is the rate at which the RF oscillation is essentially stopped – quenched … as it is impractical to build a one-tube (valve for the English) super-regen RF receiver that is usable for much if one has only managed to _increase_ the original (tube/transistor/FET) gain by only a factor of four (from say x40 gain to 160 even).
Using positive feedback as the Armstrong SR does to the point where one has a self-sustaining oscillation the ‘effective’ gain increase is to a factor so large, that the noise level (of the gain device) is a limiting factor to sensitivity. There is actually a trick involved, the old ‘negative resistance’ trick is actually used to accomplish this feat, and the fact that a series of ‘samples’ are taken of the original incoming RF signal (owing to this periodic oscillation behavior at the ‘quench’ rate).
From this point forward, I’ll let someone with a fully researched presentation pick it up:
Designing Super-Regenerative Receivers, By Dr Eddie Insam
http://www.eix.co.uk/Articles/Radio/Welcome.htm
Excerpt from Fig 1:
Figure 1
Okay … back to climate-related, atmospheric physics stuff …
.
Ira says:
“the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight”
Light only thinks it’s going straight because it travels along a geodesic. And if you want to get really technical, a photon doesn’t subjectively travel at all. It is emitted and reabsorbed in no time because it is traveling at exactly light speed, therefore time is slowed to a complete stop for the photon. It can travel 13 billion light years instantaneously. Subjectively, of course.☺
>>
Smokey says:
June 1, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Light only thinks it’s going straight because it travels along a geodesic.
<<
Technically speaking, geodesics refer to extremum paths on the surface of the Earth, or more generally on the surface of a sphere. Bernoulli coined a term for shortest path time: brachistochrone. For light, shortest distance and shortest time are usually equivalent (if you can pin down the time dimension).
Using the calculus of variations, you can derive Snell’s law by computing the brachistochrone for light travelling, for example, through air and then glass.
>>
And if you want to get really technical, a photon doesn’t subjectively travel at all. It is emitted and reabsorbed in no time because it is traveling at exactly light speed, therefore time is slowed to a complete stop for the photon. It can travel 13 billion light years instantaneously. Subjectively, of course.☺
<<
True, if you’re talking about light travelling through a vacuum or free space. It goes slower than c when travelling through a transparent medium such as water or glass. By the way, since light travelling through water or glass goes slower than c, are the photons aware of passing time? 🙂
Jim
“Therefore, I favor reduction of the carbon footprint by efficiency, conservation, recycling, and so on, plus the introduction, if and when economically practical of so-called ‘Green’ energy, including Nuclear, Water, Wind, Biomass and, particularly, ‘Clean’ Coal.
If nothing else, these will do minimum harm and, if successful, will reduce US dependence upon foreign oil. ”
—-
Ugh. I was with you until that point. With the exception of biofuels none of these does anything to reduce dependence on foreign oil (much of it Canadian for us, but yes it is fungible). All of those sources are sources of electricity and so require electrification of the transportation system if you want to actually displace oil. Do not get me started on using that electricity to make hydrogen… OK, they make heat too, but show me a practical heat battery. We already have sufficient generating capacity to electrify much of the US fleet so these “green” alternatives only serve to displace coal and gas powered generation. Unless you’re aiming for a carbon agenda these sources of power do nothing whatsoever to help oil dependency.
I do agree that oil dependency is a real strategic and foreign policy problem and that a fuel tax is the best way to encourage practical alternatives. Certainly it’s better than some silly cap and trade monstrosity that can only encourage corruption and distortion of the markets. Plus I favor it on the simple principle that consumption taxes are more efficient and “fair.” I’m sure that last bit will get some grumpy replies so I’ll add that I don’t live in some mass transit fairyland like NYC nor do I bike my way around town.
RE: _Jim says (June 1, 2011 at 8:20 pm)
Indeed, so problematical, in fact, self-sustaining oscillations result
Yes, this is often the problem because it is difficult to keep the closed loop gain below positive one for all conditions. Perhaps this is the reason early movies used a loud squeal as the signature sound of a radio.
BTW I notice that the temperature of the universal cosmic microwave radiation is around -270 degrees C and the dark side of the moon typically cools to as low as -110 degrees C, so -55 degrees C appears to be the unique temperature of the tropopause.
I still maintain that all excess heat convected upward must be converted to some form of radiation that departs the upper atmosphere. I believe this must happen primarily below the tropopause because that is where most convective activity stops. If this extra heat were not radiated out, we would have the equivalent of a blocked chimney and progressive warming would shut down convection as in a temperature inversion.
In the troposphere, the temperature drops at a typical rate of 6.5 degrees C per kilometer until it reaches -55 degrees C at the tropopause. At this point, most of the water vapor has been condensed out of the atmosphere. Above this level, the residual water in the atmosphere should have a minimal greenhouse effect. Thus radiation from the minimal water vapor and what might be called micro-fine ice-crystals and other dust in the upper atmosphere remain as primary candidates for keeping this level of the atmosphere (the tropopause) as cold as it is. Perhaps an increasing convection trend would release more cooling particles (negative feedback) at the tropopause.
We do not need or want another tax, thank you very much.
We need cheap energy, and lots of it. And IF the price of that is a planet that is 1 degree warmer 200 years from now – then that is a price worth paying.
The kind of temperature impacts that are supposedly being “mitigated” by the taxes are minuscule compared to natural variability. I do not understand why anybody is even remotely interested in entertaining the idea of trying to “mitigate”, possibly, perhaps, maybe, 1 degree of change over a few hundred years when nature can all by itself cause changes of +/-5 or even +/-20 degrees. It is complete and utter nonsense.
Matt G says:
June 1, 2011 at 4:16 am
Thermal IR is not the only thermal source, this is your mistake of misunderstanding. etc.
I think the mistake here is that you’re actually missing my point of view, understandable in the complex muddle of these discussions, it’s the claims for the output, the effects, which I’m arguing against. The AGWScience claims are that Solar, UV and Visible and Near IR, are the actual energies converting to heat the land and oceans of our Earth. This AGWScience energy budget, as in the KT97, claims that it’s these and not Thermal IR which they exclude completely in their downwelling budget.
Moreover, the claim is as Ira gives it, repeats it, that it’s these Solar shortwave energies which are the heat we feel from the Sun. This is attributing the property of one wavelength to others which do not have the same property. This is frankly BS. However, it is believed because the meme has been deliberately spread as misinformation from those organising the tweaking of the science here. Traditional science teaching is real science fact on this point, see the NASA page, now gone but web captured, the heat we feel from the Sun is thermal IR. AGWScience is science fiction in its entirety.
See my post to you and Brian H here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/25/snowball-earth-ended-by-methane-now-an-impossible-theory/#comment-672215
“Alexander Feht says:
June 1, 2011 at 1:47 pm
Finally, I don’t want to be labelled or categorized. Dr. Glickstein’s addiction to using various awkward names, such as “disbelievers,” “lukewarmers,” and “skeptics,” is disconcerting, incorrect, and slightly insulting. I am not a “disbeliever.” I am not a “skeptic” even. I am just an honest thinking human being, facing the obvious huge lie.”
Its an alarmists tactic though.
Ira supports a carbon tax even though it will not reduce future temperatures even if the IPCCs projections are correct. He supports the GHG backradiation theory (and this backradiation heating the earth an extra 33 degrees) even though it is unscientific nonsense. And criticises papers by scientists like Postma and the slayers book.
Ira is not a sceptic. He’s an alarmist pretending to be a sceptic. His approach is there is no real danger but however we must do something. Based on AGW pseudo science that he churns out thread after thread.
RJ says:
June 2, 2011 at 1:43 am
Ira is not a sceptic. He’s an alarmist pretending to be a sceptic.
My conclusion too after trying to engage with him on a few of his threads..
What he manages to do is to keep pushing the same disinformation from AGWScience as sound bites, repetition, repetition, repetition, as someone said, tell the lie often and loud enough and it will be believed. People take these sound bites of tweaked impossible physics as real because they think ‘it is well known’, that it is standard science. And then he always comes in with the cruncher, that this means that we must do something, we must impose higher and higher taxes and waste billions into the ever deeper pockets of those milking the subsidies for nonsense windmills and solar panels in cold countries regardless that this will not only lower the standard of living of the majority, but actively subject them to draconian serfdom, if they don’t freeze to death first.
[snip]
I’m taking a break from posting on this, I hope that someone with the resources, if not here then on some other blog, can pull together enough experts from the various disciplines to systematically analyse the basics misinformation produced by AGWScience pretending it is real traditional science. Please see http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/so-what-is-the-second-darn-law post 423
It’s the nitty gritty of the basics where this has been tweaked, and until sorted this will continue to create more and confusion, the ideal state of affairs for those promoting it.
Ira, adiabatic warming/cooling of air during thermogravitational convection is not some freaky opinion, as you seem to believe, but universally accepted science of atmospheric circulation. This convection is responsible for 70% of surface cooling (heat transport) in atmosphere, and it supports temperature gradient between 5 to 9,8 C per 1 km in the whole thickness of troposphere. It is based on universal equation of gas expansion/compression, which does not depend on chemical composition of gases, except for water vapor, because it does not behave as ideal gas (too close to the point of condensation). This simply makes so-called greenhouse effect redundant as explanation of difference between effective radiation temperature (-18C) and surface temperature. The very existence of GHE can’t be measured, calculated or derived by any available method, so hypothesis of its existence is not a scientific hypothesis, but an article of faith. And yes, I do not believe in this assertion, denying it not because I can disproof it, but because articles of faith should not be a part of any scientific discussion (Occam’s Razor principle).
_Jim says:
June 1, 2011 at 4:32 pm
Richard M says on June 1, 2011 at 3:20 pm:
I don’t think we’re on quite the same wavelength, but continue to read and contribute here on WUWT.
I believe we’re having a forest for the trees problem. I’m not talking about any complex interactions. I’m simply referring to the claim I’ve often heard that GHGs are responsible for much of the heat that eventually leaves good ole planet Earth. What percentage of the total photon energy radiated from the Earth atmosphere/surface is directly from GHG gases? If the answer that question is “high” and GHGs can be energized through contact as well as radiation absorption, then GHGs must have a “cooling effect”.
Thanks Tsk Tsk for your comments and partial agreement.
Efficiency and conservation reduce the consumption of all types of energy and, in an elastic market, should reduce the amount of oil we have to import. “Clean coal” (if done right which means underground gasification or liquifaction to reduce above ground pollution and use of the CO2 as plant food in enhanced-CO2 greenhouses rather than the silly idea of re-sequestering the carbon) will use plentiful US coal resources and, to the extent that all types of energy are somewhat fungible, will reduce the need for imported oil. For example, for the past 7 years my wife and I have shared one car, a Prius hybrid that uses gasoline to generate the electricity. We also have an electric golf cart. Our next car, in a couple years, will be a plug-in hybrid, which, for nearby travel up to 60 miles or so, will be electric-only.
Much of the US may even be able to use liquified coalgas for transportation, particularly in truck fleets.
We are totally in agreement that a straight, honest tax is better than the alternative and I second your words: “…oil dependency is a real strategic and foreign policy problem and that a fuel tax is the best way to encourage practical alternatives. Certainly it’s better than some silly cap and trade monstrosity that can only encourage corruption and distortion of the markets. Plus I favor it on the simple principle that consumption taxes are more efficient and ‘fair.'”
Human ingenuity is amazing, particularly when we use it to save our own money at the individual and corporate levels! No one can predict what alternative fuel source is most practical (algae vs tidal power? who knows?) BUT, we can be sure that the future holds some great solutions. Let us unleash the power of self-interest and find out.
@Ira
No. “Tsk Tsk” is right. There are two distinct types of energy consumption in the U.S. Electricity and liquid transporation fuels. Never the twain shall meet. As Tsk Tsk said we don’t import a bit of oil to generate electricity and for all practical purposes not a bit of electricity is used for transporation. Dependence on foreign oil is wholly driven by air/ground transportation fleet.
The practical ways to fix it is some combination of:
1) more fuel efficient vehicles
2) less distance travelled
3) alternative liquid fuels
“Drill baby drill” only shuffles the problem off into the future but it’s probably advisable to give us breathing room needed to implement fixes 1 through 3.
The commercial transportation fleet is already doing everything they can to increase fuel efficiency and optimize distance travelled. That would require a breakthru internal combustion engine to change things much there. The non-commercial transportation fleet is another matter because individuals generally aren’t as good as professional bean counters at finding ways to save money. Individuals generally aren’t proactive like businesses but are rather reactive to immediate pain. In this case the reaction doesn’t happen until gasoline price goes so high as to take a painful chunk out of disposable income. The response to that pain is less unessential driving, better route planning, and acquisition of a more fuel efficient vehicle. For many folks the acquisition cost of a more fuel efficient vehicle is too high especially in a recession. So they hole up at home and drive their gas guzzler less. Home entertainment industries prosper at the expense of away-from-home entertainment industries. Make a note of that for the benefit of your investment portfolio.
@Ira
“Much of the US may even be able to use liquified coalgas for transportation, particularly in truck fleets.”
Doubtful. Liquifaction process to make gasoline/diesel/ethanol equivalents from methane or coal feedstocks is bloody expensive. Any other liquid hydrocarbon fuel requires extensive engine modification and makes adoption of it a glacial process at best. Even ethanol is limited by the amount you can mix into gasoline without ruining a gasoline engine. That limit is 10%. You can’t mix any ethanol into diesel fuel. That said a significant number of vehicles on the road nowdays are E85 capable meaning they self-adjust to any percentage of ethanol in gasoline up to 85%. This is actually a good thing because it closes the loop for bio-synthetic liquid fuel production where those fuels require no engine modifications. Naturally ocurring organisms, you see, already produce ethanol and diesel-compatible oils. The crux is they produce it in small quantities as an wanted byproduct of metabolism. The trick for us is genetically modify organisms for maximal production of the byproduct and shelter said organisms against more metabolic-efficient natural competitors that minimize the unwanted byproduct. It’s a slam dunk solution for anyone who knows beans about biology and genetics and I happen to have studied both topics for years and keep up with recent developments in genetic engineering. Genetic engineering technology is advancing so fast it reminds of the advances in semi-conductor technology. Just 10 years ago it was a billion-dollar effort to map a single human genome and took several years. Today it’s about $10,000 and takes several days. When it gets down to $1000 dollars a new medical field will open up where just about everyone has their genome mapped and therapies for various ailments can be tailored to them resulting in much higher curative success at lower cost.
Don’t forget sensible heat transfer to the poles (via airmasses); were it not for movement of ‘air’ from warmer points the poles would be much colder (and pole cooling is effected by radiative cooling into space of course).
Zdunkowski, Trautmann and Bott should provide an answer: Radiation in the Atmosphere: A Course in Theoretical Meteorology
Nota Bene – I believe a pdf copy can be downloaded from the link above.
.
Zero engineering courses there Ira?
I think the proper term for the original hybrids should be “Kinetic energy recovery vehicles“.
You see, upon application of the brakes rather than convert kinetic energy into wasted thermal energy (via friction in the brake pads upon contact with the rotors/discs/drums) that kinetic energy is converted into electricity – which is then stored for later motive use.
Quite a benefit if living in Vancouver or Burnaby BC for instance (very hilly).
.
(This is why certain courses have mandatory prerequisites …)
Have you read any of my posts to other posters in this thread?
In particular: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/30/skeptic-strategy-for-talking-about-global-warming/#comment-671668
.
From an Ira quote: “…the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight.”
If the above is true then the gravitational lensing effect of curving light must be explained better.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090921.html
That should have been “From and Ira post” not quote.
Re. _Jim says:
June 1, 2011 at 2:37 pm
“Reiterating, it is the surface (literally: things on the surface like grass, tree leaves, roofs, sand etc), which cool at night (via IR radiation directly into space) and being in contact with the air then cools the air. ”
But only the bottom few feet of course, enough to help frost form, and the reason for which thermometers should be placed several feet up. Cold air inversions are the exception–as all know, the air gets colder with altitude. In fact ground heat usually warms the air more than isolated surfaces can sink heat. But I’ve seen Idaho potato fields get very cold on July nights when ground heat gets insulated by all the radiating green leaves.
Most of the land surface is not covered with straw insulation. So are we to assume that the air temperature above the rain forest canopy is much lower than that beneath it? Has this effect been quantified?
If desertification be linked to GW, then it would constitute positive feedback, but if it’s linked to global cooling, that would translate to negative feedback. If current Sahara greening is in fact due to decreasing temperatures, we are presented with positive feedback and amplified cooling. I haven’t heard of any heat records in the Libyan desert since King Idris was deposed. –AGF
David Springer, concerning production of biofuels from genetically modified organisms:
Mr. Springer, I have posted references to your commentary on other internet forums, and there is great skepticism that your figure of 20,000 gallons of bio-diesel per acre per year is actually possible in the context of large-scale commercial production.
Virtually everyone who has commented views the use of genetically modified organisms for producing hydrocarbon fuels as being fundamentally no different than growing corn for the production of ethanol.
Do you have any further information concerning what the basis is for your estimate of 20,000 gallons of bio-diesel per acre per year?
As far as moving into commercial-scale production, why would the use of genetically modified organisms not carry the same kind of economic and environmental baggage that growing corn for the production of ethanol carries?
Let’s call that “The Boundary Layer”, as the mets define it.
Formal definition
(as initially addressed to Richard M above):
“Atmospheric Boundary Layer Structure”
For frost to occur, I’ll give you “the bottom few feet”, since that would be the boundary layer for that period/point in time.
As far as: “Cold air inversions are the exception–as all know, the air gets colder with altitude. ” – are we exploring new meteorological grounds? This would seem to be the normal state of things –
(Bolding mine)
Did you have something else in mind?
.
@ Hans:
June 1, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Right on the physics spot as usual Hans, all of it. Always enjoy seeing others who really understand actual physics, it is rare. You are right, IPCC/AGW ‘science’ has made a mess of it, it is physically impossible.
That is certainly impressive, Myrrh. You and Postma have certainly done what I thought to be impossible, which is to make Joanne Nova look like the most intelligent, reasonable person on the planet by comparison!
RE: Ira Glickstein, PhD: (June 1, 2011 at 7:59 pm)
“’the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight’”
I believe that ‘straight’ indicates the shortest possible path (a straight line) through that space as in a great circle on the curved surface of a sphere. One has to imagine our three-dimensions as a curved fabric in a four or more dimensional universe.
Human ingenuity is amazing, particularly when we use it to save our own money at the individual and corporate levels! No one can predict what alternative fuel source is most practical (algae vs tidal power? who knows?) BUT, we can be sure that the future holds some great solutions. Let us unleash the power of self-interest and find out.
======================================================
Good grief Ira, you sound like some stary eyed 14 year old….
…with mixed metaphors all over the place.
You talk about “American Ingenuity”/”Free Market” and mix it up with a tax/subsidy, and then want to unleash the power of self-interest, while giving the government the power to pick and choose……..
All the time talking about another tax on something that the government already taxes so high that the government makes more money on gas than even the business that produce it.
And thinking this kumbaya huggy feely that the government is honest. That somehow the government will not create some huge bureaucracy around all this and keep all of the money —- and just hand some of it back to their chosen few…..
Oh sorry, that’s the way communism works……………..
You’re a mess………….
_Jim, you are correct that the principal energy savings on my Prius hybrid is when the the brakes are applied gently and, instead of wasting the kinetic energy as friction heat, it is instead used to turn a generator and store electricity in the batteries, for later use in the electric motor to move the car. The other saving is automatically turning off the gasoline motor when coasting to a stop, going downhill, or when stopped. During one week when my wife was away, I infuriated other local drivers with extremely slow accelerations and long-distance anticipation when I coasted to traffic lights that were red or about to change to red. I got an average of 54 MPG for one tankful, my current record.
The point I was making in my comment, in a shorthand way, was that the only source of energy in my current hybrid is gasoline, and the principal energy savings comes from turning that gasoline-generated motive power into electricity.
Our next car will be a plug-in hybrid with a battery-only range of 60 miles or more. That car will primarily be energized by charging the batteries from the electric mains, using energy that mostly comes from domestic coal and nuclear, rather than mostly foreign petroleum. Since nearly all of our driving is local and at speeds below 50 MPH, we will use gasoline only occasionally, for the very few longer trips we take on the Interstate.
Ira Glickstein says:
Actually, I am not sure if the regenerative braking is really THE principle source of energy savings or not (my guess is not); it would be interesting to see a study on how much that actually contributes. Also, in addition to that and the turning off of the engine when coasting, there are other subtler contributions to saving energy in the Prius: The fact that electrical power is available to supplement the gasoline engine when necessary means that the engine can be sized smaller and can be optimized more for fuel efficiency and less for performance.
Great NASA image,mkelly, showing gravitational lensing. Or, is there an alternate explanation in a ten- or eleven-dimensional Universe?
As the character in my free online novel says, he does not understand the real meaning of his revelation that the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight. And, neither do I! When characters are created for a novel, they often say things that come as a complete surprise to the Author! My character goes on to speculate it has to do with the dimensions beyond the three Space and the half dimension of Time that our limited human minds can perceive. It is a mystery why our mathematics can handle any number of dimensions with ease while we get stuck at three Space dimensions and (although Einstein tells us that Time is the same as Space) why the arrow of Time only goes one way. As I understand it, there are supposed to be ten or eleven dimensions, with most of them curled up somehow due to gravitational attraction, whatever that means.
I guess the human brain’s limit of three Space dimensions is due to evolution which, being economical, and stopped where it was cost-effective. Flatland is a fictional place where the residents can only handle two Space dimensions. We are asked to imagine that, unbeknownst to them, they actually live within a thin spherical surface the size of the Earth. So, for them to travel from pole to pole, in their 2D world, they have to go about 12,000 miles. They are visited by someone who can travel in 3D, and goes from pole to pole in only about 8,000 miles. Although we, as 3D-brained people, can easily understand that a wormhole shortcut from pole to pole through the center of the Earth is only 8,000 miles, the 2D-brained people cannot picture how it can possibly be less than 12,000 miles.
The point of my novel, 2052 – The Hawking Plan is to save human life and civilization for an infinite future by colonizing Earth-like planets. At out current level of knowledge, we think we are many light-years distant from any other Earth-like planets. However, if the Universe is actually 10-D or 11-D, there may be “wormhole” shortcuts between Earth and Earth-like planets in far away solar systems and galaxies that are much, much, much closer than they appear to be to us.
As for the revelatory statement that the fabric of spacetime curves but light goes straight we are all familiar with “optical illusions” where absolutely straight lines, in a given pattern, appear to curve when we look at them, due to limitations in our visual systems. So, perhaps the curvature of Space/Time is merely an illusion we perceive due to limitations of our 3-D-brains. What appears to us to be light from a distant star being curved as it passed by our Sun during an eclipse, may well be an illusion. The truth, in higher-dimensional Space, may be that the light is actually going straight through a “wormhole” and it only appears to us to be curving because the Space/Time is curved the other way.
Re. Jim at 3:29 and earlier: “Reiterating, it is the surface (literally: things on the surface like grass, tree leaves, roofs, sand etc), which cool at night (via IR radiation directly into space) and being in contact with the air then cools the air. ”
Please don’t be annoyed if I remark on the obvious (I claim no expertise here): We could as well say it in reverse: the air heats the leaves which radiate into space, i.e., with an efficiency which the air molecules of themselves cannot approach in degree or kind. This is something I didn’t believe, yet alone understand, just a few years ago, and I still find it amazing. The thermometer gun is an education in itself.
Regards, –AGF
RE: _Jim: (June 2, 2011 at 9:41 am)
“Don’t forget sensible heat transfer to the poles (via airmasses);…”
Perhaps the most germane comment I have, relative to ‘Skeptic Strategy for Talking About Global Warming’ is the suggestion to include graphics that show the absorption in the atmosphere so that the relative unimportance of CO2 is more obvious. Of course, even these can be misleading as they are usually plotted on a wavelength scale and energy is proportional to frequency or wave-number bandwidth.
Again, I still maintain that there must be some mechanism for cooling the upper troposphere. As descending air warms adiabatically (without energy exchange) at 9.8 degrees C per km, in order to descend all the way down to the surface, it must, after all this warming, still be cooler (or more dense) than the air that it replaces. If water or ice can radiate from the surface, it would seem reasonable to assume that this can also happen in the more transmissive upper atmosphere. Note that small particles have more surface interaction area in proportion to their mass than large ones. I am focusing on water because the atmosphere becomes very dry and progressively warmer above the troposphere.
Food for thought…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/02/spencer-earths-sans-greenhouse-effect-what-would-it-be-like/
Months of intensive review has failed to show me any net atmospheric warming effect. It should be amenable to experiment, and I’ll keep looking. Anyone got proof in either direction? Brett Keane (B Appl Sc)
“Joel Shore says:
June 2, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Please see http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/so-what-is-the-second-darn-law post 423
That is certainly impressive, Myrrh. You and Postma have certainly done what I thought to be impossible, which is to make Joanne Nova look like the most intelligent, reasonable person on the planet by comparison!”
A childish comment Joel. But as you are losing the science battle why not?
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformation
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/05/twenty-five-rules-of-disinformation.html
5. Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach.
Ira:
“Take an air-filled cylinder with an air-tight piston. Compress the air to half the volume. At first, it will be warmer than room temperature. Then, it will cool to room temperature and remain compressed. ”
A really bad and inappropriate comparison. The piston is in physical contact with surrounding air, which is a sink for the heat. A planetary atmosphere is in physical contact with nothing, literally (vacuum). So the heat of compression is not going anywhere that the local radiant budget doesn’t permit. Hence Venus at 500K or whatever, and Mars at half that, and Earth in-between.
None of the three affected more than negligibly by CO2 back-radiation. Now, in the past, or in the future.
More exactly about the surface temps: Venus ~750K, Mars ~210K, Earth ~290K.
Myrrh says:
June 2, 2011 at 1:19 am
I understand what you are saying, that light from the sun can’t warm the planet. Fair enough lets assume that this is correct, energy from the sun is warming the planet and light is just taking a ride with it. There is no thermal IR energy from ths sun because it is from a all shortwave source. This shortwave energy source (gamma even, natural very low background levels) has been hitting the Earth for billions of years. If only thermal IR warms the Earth you are contradicting yourself with what warms the sun. If Earth was only being warmed by thermal IR you could fly in some sort of rocket right up to the sun and not heat up, until it reaches it’s atmospshere. In fact there is no thermal IR here so why is this hot? (1,000,000c in the outer atmosphere of the sun, about 5000c at the surface)
You say blue visible light doesn’t warm (the energy from the same source does), but if I agree with this the energy from sun still warms water. This is evident by warming water in the sun compared with shade. Thermal IR comes from all surfaces that emit in this wavelength range, so why doesn’t this warm water in the shade compared to in the sun? If only thermal IR warmed the water why doesn’t it warm in the shade? No warming volume of water in the shade, during one day compared with a 20c rise in the sun. (actual observed experiment, initial water temperature 15c, maximum atmospheric temperature that day 21c.) For example the water in the sun warmed to a value much higher than the atmopsheric temperature during that day. I would say this is conclusive evidence that the sun’s energy warms water and thermal IR doesn’t. It doesn’t even matter if actual blue visible light doesn’t warm because it’s the energy that comes as part of the same package that does.
RJ says:
Myrrh has shown himself to be utterly impervious to scientific evidence or discussion. That opinion is shared not just by me but by others across the spectrum on AGW (look back in particular at what David M Hoffer wrote to him). How can you “win” a scientific battle against someone who does not argue science but just nonsense? We have spent a truly incredible amount of time very patiently explaining the science and answering all of his (and your) objections in Ira’s threads on visualizing the greenhouse effect. To blame us for your own failings is ridiculous…You are asking us to move what are immovable objects.
However, it is important for him to know that his little diatribes that he seems to believe are flashes of true brilliance are recognized by most people for what they actually are, which is nonsense.
_Jim says:
June 2, 2011 at 9:52 am
Richard M says on June 2, 2011 at 6:23 am
(This is why certain courses have mandatory prerequisites …)
Have you read any of my posts to other posters in this thread?
Yes, and they don’t answer the questions I asked.
Why are you avoiding the questions? They were quite simple questions and despite your continued attempt to talk down to me, you appear to have no answer.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 1, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Thats true, but the cooling in this example is down to conduction not because the increased pressure doesn’t cause a constant energy increase. Once the energy is lost by this it can’t remain the initial higher temperature in a sealed unit. Give it a constant energy source (real life) and it would remain higher than a cylinder at normal pressure. A glass, gas sealed cylinder with 100 percent CO2 warms with an initial energy source, but take this away it cools down to room temperature. While the energy source was on, the 100 percent CO2 would warm no more than 3c higher than identical atmospheric air glass cylinder. (both at 1atm)
RE: Matt G: (June 3, 2011 at 5:30 am )
“You say blue visible light doesn’t warm…”
This appears to be a common misconception. An object that is red-hot is warmer than one that is dark and warmer yet is a white-hot object like the sun. Most of the heat energy we receive from the sun is in the form of visible light. Infra-red light is the primary heat-exchange radiation mechanism for cooler objects that emit no visible thermal radiation.
The energy of a photon can be expressed as Planck’s constant times the speed of light divided by the wavelength; so the shorter the wavelength, the higher the energy per photon.
Solar Radiation Spectrum (Wikipedia file)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
Spector says:
June 3, 2011 at 8:28 am
I agree, this below in the same post is a clue.
“Fair enough lets assume that this is correct, energy from the sun is warming the planet and light is just taking a ride with it.”
My point is even if this wasn’t true, the claim made by Myrrh is still incorrect. Due to all observed scientific experiments don’t support only thermal IR warming the planet arguement and therefore oceans.
Matt G to Myrrh:
June 3, 2011 at 5:30 am
“There is no thermal IR energy from ths sun because it is from a all shortwave source.”
Matt G says:
June 3, 2011 at 9:12 am
My point is even if this wasn’t true, the claim made by Myrrh is still incorrect. Due to all observed scientific experiments don’t support only thermal IR warming the planet arguement and therefore oceans.
—
But Matt, you do realize the energy received from the sun at 5778 K between 0.78 µm and 1000 µm (LW down) is 43% of all received joules. Of course 57% is in the visible and higher frequencies (UV, X-ray) but don’t marginalize infrared so easily from the sun’s radiation. Also consider that a smaller portion of the energy in LW radiation reflects compared to reflected SW visible radiation, most UV is absorbed high above and that net energy never touches the surface, etc.. Ask yourself… “What is the spectrum of what is called ‘albedo’ and the radiation absorbed by the atmosphere and how much in each band”… might surprise you.
I’m not saying Myrrh is correct, he isn’t in more than one point, but it is Myrrh that led me to look a bit deeper at exactly how much of the sun’s radiation comes in which spectral bands and how much per band. You should pause too and get some curiosity, for your blanket statements above were also wrong.
Myrrh just needs to learn that any radiation that “IS ABSORBED” does warm that matter that absorbs it, always. Even gases that scatter any radiation gain thermal energy and therefore warms, or, chemically used. I know, he refuses to freely acknowledge those facts and that is where he seems to stay outside well known physics in his statements. Myrrh… can’t believe you are back on that very same subject, doubt if anyone else will look deep in your conjecture, I did, and learned some new things.
As for how much from what bands does what, dig! I can’t find it all.
Ok Ira, you write” There is a valid, science-based argument between people I refer to as Warmists, Lukewarmers, and Skeptics. I distinguish their reasoned views from the far out, unscientific rantings of people I refer to as Alarmists and their equal and opposite reaction opponents, who I call Disbelievers.”
As I am one of those people who do not believe I have, as yet, seen any scientific evidence for the existence of AGW – and as all scientific research undertaken to prove “warming by GHGs” – has (to my knowledge) failed, I feel perfectly happy for you to think of me as a non believer, or as a member of the group you refer to as “Disbelievers”. –
But if you are of the opinion that this one “Disbeliever’s” views are “far out, unscientific rantings” then I ask you to take a look at some of what you wrote in your article above.
Yes Ira, – we must never forget that anything above absolute zero emits radiant energy. – However, while the “generally accepted explanation” (for the missing 33 deg. C) is the “Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect” (AGHE) may be a true statement, I say – yes, may be so – but is not necessarily true science and does definitely not “prove” that the Greenhouse theory has become “fact proven”
We are dealing with a “scientific theory” that mainly has to do with the atmosphere, yet – astonishingly – it ignores 99.99 % of all the dry atmospheric gases. (i.e. it concentrates on the so called GHGs and as such is happy with a CO2 concentration of 290 ppm. – or rounded up to 0.03 %, but it is very unhappy with 390 ppm. – or rounded up to 0.04 %. – (If 0.01% = 0.6 °C then what will the doubling of CO2 to 0.08 % do? That Ira, gives you the Catastrophic answer.)
Furthermore the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect” theory mainly deals with radiation and completely ignores conduction between the top of the surface and the bottom of the atmosphere.
Convection is called something completely different (K&T) like “Evapo-transpiration” –
Heat and Infra Red (IR) light are closely related but they are not the same. This is one of the many reasons you and those who believe in “The Science” as seen by Kiehl & Trenberth are under the impression that Nitrogen (N and N2) and Oxygen (O and O2) and for that matter Argon (Ar) do not radiate energy towards the surface.
If you believe that, then you are the one who use pseudo-scientific arguments in your claim that only GHGs can warm the surface by radiation. Nitrogen was warmed not by radiation from-, but by conduction between it and the surface. – So you will do well to remember “that anything above absolute zero emits radiant energy.” –
Which means that the combination of all the atmospheric gases emits radiant energy towards the surface.
But as the energy emitted (by gases) towards the surface was emitted away from the surface in the first place, how can it add to the total?
Only radiation from the Sun can add heat. And once again your “Accepted Science” uses a bias in favor of sunlight (or as you say to about 240 W/m^2 for each square meter.)
Not mentioning the fact that – The Earth’s surface is exposed to a temperature of close to 0 Kelvin or say – 270 °C/m² for exactly the same length of time as it is exposed to 1366 watts per square meter of sunlight.
It is not good enough to pretend that the surface is exposed to 240 W/m² all the time (or 24/7) the rotation of the Earth is important. –Only pseudo science cannot see that.
You say you have dismissed what you regard as “the unscientific Alarmists and Disbelievers”. You should come down off your “High Horse” and take a very close look at what you believe in. Try to parry theory with known facts for a change, – Your “climate heroes” who talk to parrots – could be wrong!
Some facts are that we know that Nitrogen can be heated (it can be both liquid and gas, both forms dependant on temperature) And theory says that it must emit the heat it has acquired, (mainly from the surface) back to space through electromagnetic radiation. –
In which case, – it must also be radiating at least half of its acquired energy content towards the surface. – Bang goes the “Greenhouse Theory” – nice as it was.
So you see your “Science” that says only those gases that can absorb radiation and can be heated by radiation are able to emit radiation have created a situation by which 99.99 % of the atmosphere cannot get rid of its energy “back to space” – as for that purpose radiation is the only option.
On one hand, then, if surface-heated nitrogen, oxygen and argon do not radiate away the thermal energy they acquire, they rob the earth of a means of cooling off – which make them “greenhouse gases” by definition.
On the other hand, if surface-heated nitrogen and oxygen do radiate infrared, then they are also “greenhouse gases,” which defeats the premise that only radiation from the infrared-absorbers raises the Earth’s temperature. Either way, therefore, the convoluted theory your’e going by is shot down by known facts.
If Nitrogen does not emit radiation it is a true “wonder of physics” – or are you telling me that 99.9 % or more of our atmosphere holds a temperature close to “Absolute Zero”? _ There is absolutely nothing special about CO2. –
Sometimes the best posts don’t happen in the beginning………
Thank you
Whatever you do, DON’T use ref #4 in this post.
They are entirely disreputable lot masquerading as physicists claiming to know something about atmospheric radiative physics ..
/sarc
.
Mea culpa
Make that ref #3 in:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/30/skeptic-strategy-for-talking-about-global-warming/#comment-671984
.
B/c I grow weary … (and no signs you’re even trying, sport. Sorry.)
A
June 2, 2011 at 7:40 pm
..
Please don’t be annoyed if I remark on the obvious (I claim no expertise here): We could as well say it in reverse: the air heats the leaves which radiate into space, i.e.,
No, we could not. Sorry. Non-negotiable. : )
However, it would be safe to say that heat energy is removed from boundary layer air, as it is affected (in contact with) the quote surface unquote.
Carts do not work well when placed before the cart! (Mind the order or sequence of events … it helps to keep things in their proper perspective and in the order in which they occur.)
It is, I think, a pretty big surprise to most people to learn the power of nighttime radiative cooling.
See for instance:
Wiki (of course) – Radiative cooling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Commercial product (I am not affiliated):
“Night Radiation Cooling with Roof Mounted SolarWall® Panels”
http://solarwall.com/posts/night-radiation-cooling-with-roof-mounted-solarwallr-panels21.php
“The use of a building’s roof to take advantage of long-wave radiation to the night sky has been long identified as a potentially productive means to reduce space cooling in buildings.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
“NIGHT RADIATIVE COOLING
The effect of clouds and relative humidity” by Mike Luciuk
http://www.asterism.org/tutorials/tut37%20Radiative%20Cooling.pdf
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Theoretical Evaluation of the NightCool Nocturnal Radiation Cooling
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/en/publications/pdf/FSEC-CR-1502-05.pdf
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Video: Radiative Cooling (3 part series)
“Cooling buildings and cities naturally with higher albedos and night sky radiation. Large cooling capability without external power is easy once you know which materials and structures to use. In addition these approaches to cooling pump heat directly back into space, to improve microclimates around buildings.”
(See also parts 2 and 3)
.
_Jim says:
June 3, 2011 at 7:12 pm
Richard M says on June 3, 2011 at 7:24 am
..
Yes, and they don’t answer the questions I asked.
Why are you avoiding the questions?
B/c I grow weary … (and no signs you’re even trying, sport. Sorry.)
This has nothing to do with me, SPORT. You responded to my post with arrogance. And then you can’t answer even a couple of simple questions. Now you claim you are “weary”. LOL.
Joel Shore says: /#comment-672762
June 2, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Re my: “Please see http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/so-what-is-the-second-darn-law post 423″
That is certainly impressive, Myrrh.
Thank you, I’m so glad you noticed.
You and Postma have certainly done what I thought impossible, which is to make Joanne Nova look like the most intelligent, reasonable person on the planet by comparison!
Hmm, well, I haven’t read much Postma, who argued that AGW should be flagged as a theory and I don’t agree on giving AGWScience any credibility at all, science fiction is art not science. As for JoNova, in this, 2nd Law, she’s giving arguments from AGW justifying the fiction, which is the point I’m making in post 423, that this fiction passing itself off a real world science has become viral to the point that only those who really understand the 2nd Law, the applied scientists and such, are able to explain it properly and why that doesn’t make it clear for those affected by the virus can vary.
But it’s really my previous post 420 you’re commenting on here isn’t it? Your tick of disapproval..? My argument is from another direction altogether, directed to the specific wording which I also made to you – you have no answer for it any more than she has. You however appear still determined to continue the farce of pretending this is real science, she I hope will also see as you have that there’s a complete meltdown in the logic and having seen that it creates an impossible science will, hopefully, bear that in mind when reading any AGWScience’s ‘basic statements’.
As Ira has shown here in his recent series of posts – from being flummoxed by my objection to his claim that the heat we feel from the Sun is the Solar of UV/Visible/Nr Ir of the AGW science fiction energy budget, he continued in his next discussion post to attempt to simply dismiss it by misdirection re NASA, not referring to the actual NASA statement that the heat we feel from the Sun is Thermal IR, and now, he avoids it altogether, but still slips it in sideways, the fictional claim still there, but not directly stated, now it just sounds silly (A.3).
Now we call the imput energy ‘light’ because we see so much of it… ROTFL
That’s only the second time I’ve ever used that shorthand. He’s still avoiding it, because he’s still determined to promote the BasicScienceFiction memes of AGWScience.
I wasn’t going to bother replying to you, but I’d just read Wayne’s post and couldn’t get it out of my mind. It was why I had enjoyed Han’s post, his lucid explanation worth all the effort of having to force myself to read yet more Ira et al..
So, I began wondering just who this audience was of Ira’s from his “community”. He said it was the “”Technology, Engineering, and Science Plus”” group, and described them as ” astute” and “tech-savvy professionals” and said
Now, it’s been concluded by many through the various posts by Ira here that he is not the “Skeptic” he presents himself, but, as someone said in one of them, ‘a wolf in sheep’s clothing’, a confirmed AGW ‘warmist’ passing himself off as a skeptic to further the ‘warmist’ cause from somewhere in the background of it.
So thinking of this and the theme of this new post and the way it’s constructed, language and phrasing and so on, and thinking of previous discussions where it became obvious that such a method was being worked on, of presenting a supposed ‘skeptic’ view all while re-inforcing the AGWScience memes and promoting the ‘aims’ of the ‘background’, I had no sensible choice other than to come to the view I did – was his audience a group of disparate science background gathered together from common interests in science and in the general conned to believe the AGWScience meme and so this talk a first step in converting them to becoming skeptics, as he claimed, or a savvy real world science literate group being given the blue print to further the ’cause’, with all the niggly bits ironed out or removed from the knowledge gained by dint of the arguments against AGWScience in his previous posts (which Tim could do on the fly)?
If the second, then clearly popular to an already ‘skeptical’ audience because saying all the right things by first confirming some well-known examples, like Gore’s misdirection on the 800 year time lag, but, in between, the same old AGWScience controlled blame game against humanity, emphasised in bold, and, by the end even while dissing an obvious and junkable failure, cap and trade, producing a vast swathe of even more disastrous to humanity in general restrictions, a comprehensive list w*nk*d over by totalitarians to be imbided with the relaxed geniality of the presenter pretending to be a ‘skeptic’, so believed one their own and defences down. Hmm. How big is this group? What is the “community”?
So Joel, the NASA page said that the heat we feel from the Sun is Thermal IR, that’s a lot of heat energy on the move, why has that been excluded from the AGWScience’s Energy Budget as in KT97, and, why put in its place the Solar Light energies and shortwave either side which are claimed to be ‘thermal’, giving the properties of Thermal IR to them?
Where is the real world science proof that UV/Visible Light/Nr IR, which are not Thermal, are capable of converting to heat the land and oceans of the Earth raising its temperature as claimed, to produced the upwelling Thermal IR claimed? Show me real world science proof that Blue Visible Light heats the oceans, for a start.
Light energy is ‘cold’ in real science in contrast to Heat energy which is Thermal IR, it is therefore not thermal, remember that if you want to see clearly in the cold light of day.. 🙂 We do not feel Light energy as heat, Light can’t warm us up, and so, in real world science Blue Visible Light cannot and does not heat the oceans; its light weight nature scatters off the molecules simply changing direction, the water of the oceans as transparent to it as is the gas Air, our atmosphere. No conferring.
Quoting Omar Khayyam:
“The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”
– Omar Khayyam
>>Matt G to Myrrh: June 3, 2011 at 5:30 am
>>There is no thermal IR energy from the sun because it is from a
>>all shortwave source.”
>Wayne says
>But Matt, you do realize the energy received from the sun at 5778 K
>between 0.78 µm and 1000 µm (LW down) is 43% of all received joules.
wayne, I don’t thing there is any inconsistency here. “Thermal IR” generally refers to > 4000 nm = 4 um. So while ~47% if the energy is IR, only a few percent is “thermal IR”, while the vast majority of the IR from the sun is “shortwave IR” and “midwave IR”. So while matt’s statement that there is _no_ thermal IR from the sun is an exaggeration, the vast majority of the “long wave” thermal IR reaching the surface is indeed from the atmosphere.
O H Dahlsveen says many things @ June 3, 2011 at 4:30 pm, like
“Convection is called something completely different (K&T) like “Evapo-transpiration” ”
No,”thermals” are the convective energy transfer from ground to atmosphere. “Evapo-transpiration” is the earth cooling by “sweating” (water evaporating from the surface or by plants releasing water).
“If Nitrogen does not emit radiation it is a true “wonder of physics” – or are you telling me that 99.9 % or more of our atmosphere holds a temperature close to “Absolute Zero”? _ There is absolutely nothing special about CO2. -”
There is something special about CO2 and H2O and CH4 and the other GHGs — they have 3 or more atoms. This allows those molecules to vibrate in ways that emit IR photons. Theory and experiment both strongly support this special feature of triatomic molecules. If you consider this fact a “wonder of physics” I can’t argue — lot of things in physics (like the quantum mechanics of molecular vibrations) seems wondrous even when you do understand them.
And no, we are telling you that 96-99 % (not 99.9%) of the atmosphere is at about the same temperature as the the other 1-4% (the H2O and CO2 and other GHGs). If the GHG’s absorb extra IR energy and warm up, they pass that energy on the N2 & O2, so the entire mix will be about the same temperature.
“So you see your “Science” that says only those gases that can absorb radiation and can be heated by radiation are able to emit radiation have created a situation by which 99.99 % of the atmosphere cannot get rid of its energy “back to space” – as for that purpose radiation is the only option. ”
Again, that is not right — our science says nothing of the sort. The N2 & O2 can get rid of energy if the GHGs cool by radiation and the warm non-GHGs collide with the cooler GHG.
Most of the rest of your post continues with the same incorrect perspective of the gases in the atmosphere.
Wayne – I’m back on this because Ira continues to claim that Visible light heats the organic matter of land and oceans as per the AGWScience’s Energy Budget, and the only Thermal IR in the upwelling from Earth as a result of this.
It’s an AGWScience meme that all energy creates heat. Simply not true. There can be chemical changes, Visible light in photosynthesis is not creating heat but powering the creation of sugars, and, fluorescence and phosporescence, the reflection of Visible Blue light off a molecule can be seen as an absorption and re-emittance of the same wavelength, no heat created, our blue sky and sea. Each energy must be looked at individually and related specifically via its own properties to the properties of whatever it encounters.
What is confusing here in the KT97, and deliberately so, is first of all excluding these other possibles and talking only of heat creation, and then, swapping round the properties of Heat and Light energies, of the classic simple traditional science description of the differences in their properties, misattributing. UV’s range is limited, it doesn’t penetrate any deeper than the first layer of skin, the epidermis, and our bodies utilise it for the creation of vitamin D. How is this heating land and oceans if at all? Thermal IR directly heats stuff.
It is, to me, inconceivable that Thermal IR is not the actual primary energy heating the land and oceans of Earth, it’s what it does, we know this every time we stand in front of a fire. That this is not included in AGWScience’s energy budget immediately makes it nonsense, but also, that these shortwave non-thermal energies have been given thermal ir’s basic property “converting to heat” can’t be claimed without giving proof that they can actually do so, light energies are well-known in physics for doing other things.
I keep bringing it back to Blue Visible to keep it focused, because the Visible has been given as the main heater of land and oceans and Blue light is given as an example of ‘this great power of Visible’, the ‘peak energy’, ‘because it penetrates deeper’ in the oceans. Can blue light from the Sun heat water?
If it can’t, then it must be taken out of the KT97, ditto the other Visible. What’s left then since they’ve excluded Thermal IR which we know heats stuff and reaches and has the affinity to heat the organic matter of Earth?
OK, we each think the other has far out beliefs, and, I assume, we both agree that the folks I call Alarmists are also far out. You are entitled to your opinions, as am I, and so are the Alarmists.
OK, let me agree that AGHE is not absolutely proven by empirical experiment because we cannot remove all the CO2 and H2O from the Atmosphere and measure the resultant Surface temperatures, which is the only evidence Disbelievers would accept. I am not sure if the AGHE is responsible for exactly 33ºC, and I would accept evidence that it was some number of degrees more or less,but I have no doubt that the majority of the difference between 255 K and 288 K is due to AGHE. There is no other theory in the running as far as I know.
Postma comes up with about the same results by doing a conservation of energy calculation (constant thermal and potential energy for a parcel of air at various altitudes) but that is not news because we expect energy to be conserved, so his calculation is neither a theory nor an explanation, is it?
It does not ignore the non-GHGs at all. As a System Engineer, I know I can, at least for the first analysis, ignore parameters that are less than a tenth as effective as other parameters. We know that H2O and CO2 account for over 90% of the AGHE.
As for the CO2 concentration, which pre-Industrial Age may have been around 270 or 280 ppmv, and is now about 390 ppmv, it is the Alarmists who predict Catastrophe if it doubles to 550 or 780 ppmv. But, I dismissed the Alarmists, so I do not care about their worries of impending disaster in the coming decades.
The Warmists are concerned with what they consider high CO2 levels and, as I wrote in my Topic, they think that doubling will raise mean temperatures by 2ºC to 4.5ºC, and that that will be bad for human life on Earth. Temperature changes of that magnitude will, absent natural cycle cooling that compensates, cause additional melting of the glaciers and will flood low-lying coastal areas, and affect some crops, and so on. However, even if that happens, some other areas on Earth will benefit from the additional heat and will get more rain, etc. There may be a net benefit.
I, as a Lukewarmer-Skeptic, am not all that concerned about CO2 levels up to around 2000 ppmv, which may never occur, and, if they do, are several centuries in the far future. I also think CO2 sensitivity is much less than the Warmists say it is. So, even if CO2 levels double, the temperature rise will be around 1ºC or perhaps 2ºC, which I think will be a net benefit to human civilization. Humans will, over time, adapt, as we have for the past thousands of years.
Conduction, convection, and phase change effects are all net losses of energy from the Surface that add energy to the Atmosphere. Therefore, if they have been under-estimated, radiation has an even larger role than the AGHE, which recycles energy in the other direction.
Oxygen (O2) and Ozone (O3) are specifically mentioned in my postings. Their “bite” can be seen in the Perry graphs in my previous topics. So they do act as weak GHGs. Methane (CH4) is also pretty strong GHG but is at low levels. Nitrogen does absorb and radiate, but weakly, and around the 4 μm band. Argon is very weak and also at very low levels. So, yes, a complete analysis would have to consider all the gases in the atmosphere, but, if you just consider H2O and CO2, you’ve got 90% which, in engineering terms, is sufficient to convince me.
I don’t get the points you are trying to make in the above sub-section. Sorry.
Perhaps your last sentence could be explained as follows. Suppose your child has saved 900 coins and you give him 100 coins every morning. But, because he has a hole in his pocket, he loses 10% of them each day. So, starting with 1000 coins (900 from the previous day plus the 100 you gave him that morning), And losing 10%, he again ends up with 900. So we have a steady-state condition. He leaves the house in the morning with 1000 and comes back with 900 and you give him another 100 the next morning.
OK, he makes a friend who notices the coins dropping. The friend picks them up and keeps half and gives the other half back to uour son. So, now your son comes back with 950 coins and you give him 100 the next morning and he goes out with 1050 coins. Again, his friend picks up the 105 dropped coins and gives half back, 53, and your son comes back with 1003. You give him 100 the next morning and he loses 10% and his friend gives half back, etc. I hope you can see that this will go on, day after day, until he builds up a stash of 1900 coins, and then he will again reach steady state. Where did the extra stash come from? You continued to give him the same amount, 100, each morning and his friend certainly did not create any new coins, did he? What the friend did was simply give your son half of the coins that your son dropped and that, absent the friend would have been lost forever.
That is what the GHGs in the Atmosphere do. They recycle about half of the radiant energy the Surface would have lost to Space back to the Surface, increasing the “stash” of energy. The Sun gives the Earth System the same amount of Energy each day, the Earth System radiates about the same amount away to Space each day. But, given the AGHE, the “stash” of energy at the Surface (i.e., mean temperature) is at a higher equilibrium point due to the AGHE. (By the way, due to the Stefan-Boltzmann Law, rather than lose 10% each day, the loss is a constant multiplied by T^4, but the concept is the same.)
I showed the exact calculation that comes up with 240 W/m^2 as the MEAN ABSORBED RADIATION FROM THE SUN TO THE EARTH SYSTEM. You know what “mean” means (in this case the average over day/night, seasons, and considering albedo). No one doubts the satellite measurement of 1366 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere. Since the Earth is a sphere, and not a flat disk, we divide by 4 (which is the ratio between the surface area of a disk, Pi R^2 and a sphere, 4 Pi R^2). We then adjust for the amount of Solar radiation that enters the Earth System and is reflected back out to Space without adding any of its energy to the Earth System. The albedo of the Earth System is about 0.7. Do the math: 1366 x 0.7 / 4 = 240.
Yes, the nightside gets zero Solar input and the dayside gets about 480 W/m^2, and Florida gets more than Alaska, but, for postings at the WUWT level of detail, I think the long-term average estimate of 240 W/m^2 is close enough to the truth.
Do you dismiss the Alarmists? If so, you are on the same “High Horse”.
N2 does absorb heat energy, mainly by conduction from the Surface, and, at altitude, by collision with H2O and CO2 and O2 and O3 and CH4 and other molecules. N2 releases that energy, again mainly by the same means. N2 also absorbs and radiates at some wavelength, but so weakly, that we may ignore that effect for the purpose of explanation at the level of these postings.
I hope the above answers your concerns about the AGHE.
Matt G, Tim thinks my info given to you is not correct but it is, I gave those using the divisions you gave at the visible. I no longer spend time with such trolling arguments so here is a table I did up for you and so you or anyone else can pick and choose the wavelength ranges as you wish or find useful. Just trying to help, unlike some others here. This uses a direct integration of Planck’s equations to make the splits. The sun’s temperature used is 5778 K with emissivity of one. Need others, just get my attention.
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 0.060 0.100 2.61 Super UV 0.100 0.200 94350.30 Vacuum UV 0.200 0.300 1923198.17 Mid UV 0.300 0.400 5708519.50 Near UV 0.400 0.460 4657907.14 Visible - Violet 0.460 0.475 1227578.83 Visible - Indigo 0.475 0.490 1238162.04 Visible - Blue 0.490 0.565 6155092.62 Visible - Green 0.565 0.575 797941.00 Visible - Yellow 0.575 0.600 1956409.05 Visible - Orange 0.600 0.800 13057823.72 Visible - Red 0.800 1.000 8567835.93 Near IR 1.000 2.000 14001755.96 Near IR 2.000 3.000 2473319.05 Near IR 3.000 4.000 726064.96 Near IR 4.000 5.000 284199.66 Near IR 5.000 6.000 133033.68 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 70322.14 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 40589.71 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 25041.22 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 16276.09 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 11032.54 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 7740.87 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 5590.44 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 4137.63 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 3127.61 Mid IR 15.000 16.000 2407.84 Mid IR 16.000 17.000 1883.74 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 1494.81 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 1201.27 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 976.38 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 2886.09 Mid IR 25.000 999.000 3087.49 Far IR ----------- 63200990.09Thanks for your responces Wayne and Tim.
The sun hardly has a radiaoactive flux above 5µm.
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/ees/slides/climate/blackbody.gif
5µm is only just in the MR, so essentionally there is no flux from the sun in the thermal IR. They probably is a tiny amount just going into the mid IR, but this indeed extremely small compared. Reason why this is not clear because different data sources have the flux not as high as 5µm, this is an exception.
These give an interesting presentation on all related backbody and how atoms emit light.
http://www.iem.cfmac.csic.es/departamentos/fismol/Jaca2009/Lectures/OpticalProperties_JACA_Delia_color.pdf
http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/christensen/astro101/Lectures/Day5.pdf
Tim Folkerts says:
June 3, 2011 at 8:41 pm
“Again, that is not right — our science says nothing of the sort. The N2 & O2 can get rid of energy if the GHGs cool by radiation and the warm non-GHGs collide with the cooler GHG.”
So what you seem to be saying is the atmosphere would have no way of releasing energy if it did not include GHGs.
There is something special about CO2 and H2O and CH4 and the other GHGs — they have 3 or more atoms. This allows those molecules to vibrate in ways that emit IR photons.
But as you well know O H Dahlsveen did not claim CO2 etc do not emit IR photons (or shouldn’t this be IR radiation as photons may or may not exist).
The question is not whether GHG’s emit IR radiation. It whether non GHGs like nitrogen can also emit radiation (it is accepted I believe that non GHGs can not absorb the surface emitted IR radiation).
Wayne, I don’t think you are incorrect at all. Thanks for posting the chart, which looks correct to me and will help everyone be better informed.
The only point is that you, me, Matt and the rest of the posters could spend a long time in pointless arguement if we didn’t recognize that the division between “long wavelength” and “short wavelength” is rather arbitrary.
It is possible for both to be correct:
__ ~ 50% of the sun’s energy is “long wavelength” when you make the arbitrary “LW” division at ~ 0.8 um
(This is a natural division for people, since it divides visible from IR.)
__ ~ 1% of the sun’s enengy is “”long wavelength” when Matt makes the arbitrary “LW” division at ~ 4 um
(This is a natural division in climate science, since it divides the sun’s spectrum from the earth’s spectrum)
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 3, 2011 at 9:28 pm
“I am not sure if the AGHE is responsible for exactly 33ºC, and I would accept evidence that it was some number of degrees more or less,but I have no doubt that the majority of the difference between 255 K and 288 K is due to AGHE. There is no other theory in the running as far as I know”
No other theory. There is the outstanding Postma paper as you well know.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 3, 2011 at 9:28 pm
“Perhaps your last sentence could be explained as follows. Suppose your child has saved 900 coins and you give him 100 coins every morning. But, because he has a hole in his pocket, he loses 10% of them each day. So, starting with 1000 coins (900 from the previous day plus the 100 you gave him that morning), And losing 10%, he again ends up with 900. So we have a steady-state condition. He leaves the house in the morning with 1000 and comes back with 900 and you give him another 100 the next morning.”
This is a very silly example Ira as you should know by now.
Myrrh,
Mars emits thermal radiation at the wavelengths of 6000k. The Earth doesn’t emit at this wavelength beause all of it is absorbed by the atmosphere and ocean. This is the reason why Mars is colder than Earth because it is not able to absorb as much of this energy as the Earth and that isn’t is directly reflected back to space. The reason why Mars emits at a higher wavelength than Earth is because it is cooler and therefore emits energy at that wavelength of around 225k. The Earth emits at thermal IR because it is the temperature of the Earth’s blackbody. A blue star is much hotter than a red or dark one, links with info suggesting this before.
http://www.astro.washington.edu/users/christensen/astro101/Lectures/Day5.pdf
Matt G says:
June 3, 2011 at 5:30 am
I understand what you are saying, that light from the sun can’t warm the planet. Fair enough lets assume that this is correct, energy from the sun is warming the planet and light is just taking a ride with it. There is no thermal IR energy from the sun because it is from all shortwave source. This shortwave energy source (gamma even, natural very low background levelss) has been hitting the Earth for billions of years. If only thermal IR warms the Earth you are contradicting yourself with what warms the sun. etc.
Interesting, you see my explanations as contradicting myself and I see yours from AGWScience as likewise impossible garble.
This relates to the point I made that these ‘impossible in the real world memes’ because from AGW science fiction department, have gone viral, and those whose work does not directly hinge on knowing real science will take such things on trust, because these are now in the general domain as ‘well known’, and consequently, even ‘skeptics’ arguing from their own disciplines, background, who can pick holes in AGWScience from their own perspective, will take such science fiction memes on trust, even using them in their own calculations. This is what Jo Nova is doing, and every ‘skeptic’ who says, for example, well yes, Carbon Dioxide helps warm the Earth to some extent, and so on. Because the meme has become so ingrained in the general consciousness of those arguing for AGW, when not deliberately used knowing these are junk science as I see Ira doing here, then real science appears to ‘create’ all kinds of contradictions where in fact there is none and the merry-go-round of arguments continues – real science is consistent. But, you cannot see that consistency until you begin with the base premises as given in real, traditional, well tested and understood, science in our real world.
For example as I gave JoNova, with CO2 the science fiction meme gives it, and Oxygen and Nitrogen our atmosphere, the quality of an ideal gas, that is, no quality at all – no weight, no volume, no interactions with other molecules except elastic collisions in a vast empty space, etc., and so all the claims that it behaves like an ideal gas, which is purely imaginary, a useful tool for calculations, and so thoroughly mixes in the atmosphere of like imaginary gases. Real scientists working with these daily in all kinds of applications know that there is a difference between real gases and the artificial construct, like ‘average’, of the ideal gas, they understand how the laws apply in different contexts and how to use them and compensate for their deficiences when applying the formulas to real gases. No real gas molecule obeys the ideal gas law. That’s a meme from traditional science.
If you begin with traditional real world science with this you can see how the misapplication of ideal gas descriptions to real gases creates impossible worlds, if you don’t start with the basic real science premises you get stuck waiting for methane to spontaneously un-pool itself from the ceiling of the mine.. While all the time still arguing from the premise that real gases obey the AGWScience fiction laws, so how can it be understood that the weight of real gases relative to each other is an actual known fact because in the real world the atmosphere has volume, is not a vast empty space with molecules travelling at ideal gas speeds through it? So ask yourself, is it consistent with other known facts from traditional science, such as, how then does sound travel in the AGWScience fiction world if these ideal molecules are at vast distances from each other in a vast empty space? Tradition science is consistent, because gases have volume and subject to the variety of pressures and temps and gravity they do not move as an ideal gas in the imaginary space, they may well be moving extremely rapidly, but it will be ‘on the spot’, not through the other gas molecules, because the real volume of other molecules exist as an actual entity, an actual real medium through which they have to travel to get anywhere. Sound travels because molecules of the gas Air, don’t.
In the real world traditional science, gases are fluids, as are liquids and in contrast to solids, and movement of molecules within them will be as in fluid mediums, and, understanding this, that it is not empty space but a fluid medium with volume, the way sound travels is consistent with this. When you give a shout the force of the sound hits the molecules of the fluid gas Air near you and they in turn hit the molecules next to them, and so vibrate. That vibration is passed along through the medium until it reaches an ear and is heard or fades away when the force propelling it is gone. Like the way waves travel in the sea, it’s not the water moving from the start of the wave to travel to far distant shores because the water stays in place in its spot but the energy of the wave transmitted through which does the travelling, like ripples in a pong, just so, the molecules of gases in our fluid volume atmosphere stay on the spot, only the vibration is passed along as they bump into the molecules next to them. Where’s the empty, volumeless ideal gas space in that? There can be no sound in the descriptions of molecules and atmosphere from AGWScience.
So my point, and why I’m not a ‘skeptic’, AGW claims are based on premises that have no actual reality, there’s nothing to be skeptical about, it’s simply nonsense fiction because of the mixing of properties and processes.
So, if you begin with the real world traditional science about Thermal IR the rest of what I’m saying is consistent in other areas, just as real molecules like CO2 being heavier than Air sink and can separate out and sound can travel through the gas Air because they’re consistent with the properties of real gas molecules, which have real volume and interact with each other.
The real world traditional science is now very hard to find articulated directly and where it is still available in places in control of AGWScience it is being removed, such as the NASA page I’ve referred to.
So, your base premise about Thermal IR comes from AGWScience fiction, I can see this and you can’t. I can see it because I know what traditional science has been teaching about this for a long time, still teaching it because its properties and processes are still extremely well understood and used in real world applications. Just as in the real world real science understands the 2nd Law and that’s how real scientists can make things work, so real thermal infrared appliances are really built and really used to heat real houses and the people and stuff in them, and no appliances exist which produce visible light to heat these.
The AGWScience meme that is ‘ingrained’ in your consciousness as ‘well-known’ is shown here : There is no thermal IR energy from the sun because it is from all shortwave source.
Which is a variation on the description, explanation, from the meme from the AGWScience fiction Energy Budget, as in KT97, that it is the short wave light energies which convert to heat land and oceans of the Earth, that Thermal IR isn’t included in the downwelling from Sun and only included as a ‘result’ of the heated by short wave “Solar” Earth, because it doesn’t reach Earth in downwelling.
This is totally and completely aat to what is said about it in real traditional science: http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kid/imagers/ems/infrared.html is where traditional science was clearly and directly and unambiguously stated, that the heat we feel from the Sun is Thermal IR. You can now find the page cached on http://www.webcitation.org/5y68yeeRD – thanks to Anthony, I didn’t know how to do this.
Now think about that, if we can feel Thermal IR from the Sun on Earth, then it must be included in any ‘energy budget’, because it does reach Earth. Whatever variation you’re presenting, I’ve not heard it expressed as such before, has been built on creating the viral meme that only short wave heat energies heat the land and oceans.
There is still widespread understanding and teaching that the heat we feel from fires and stoves and the Sun is Thermal IR, but, if you’ve been following Ira’s posts on this, there is a concerted effort being made to obliterate this knowledge, by presenting the AGWScience meme in its place.
Even where it is mentioned and acknowledged as different teachings is become very rare, here’s one: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Infrared & http://www.webcitation.org/5y6Any4VA
Which says that in traditional physics Thermal IR is still being taught as the source of heat for the Earth, and then tries to misdirect out of this by repeating the AGWScience fiction meme.
So, I hope this ‘clears the air’ between us, that you’ll appreciate that I’m not contradicting myself, but that you are relating what I am saying to various memes about this which you have been taught. If you can separate these out and relate what I am saying back to my traditional science meme and so not applicable to the variations of your meme, you’ll see there is no contradiction.
Although, you must also appreciate that I too am on a learning curve of discovery in this, and am also liable to mistake an AGWScience meme for traditional science when it is slipped into something I haven’t sufficiently explored to tell the difference. But, I’ve explored it enough to be absolutely sure that real science teaching is that the heat we feel from the Sun is Thermal IR and this is what is heating us and the organic matter of the Earth, including the oceans. That in traditional science, Visible light is not thermal, does not create heat, but its energies used for chemical changes as in photosynthesis or in producing light energies. In simple scattering such as off the molecules of Nitrogen and Oxygen in the Air giving us a blue sky and by transmission through the transparent medium water in the oceans, where Blue visible transmits deeper than the other colours, the same wavelength going out as coming in until it fades away, or, in phosphorescence, a change of wavelength, as in the glow in the dark lights.
You can see how AGWScience builds up its impossible world when you start putting together the various false memes, that ‘all energy creates heat’ together with ‘thermal ir does not reach the earth’ is not our real world. And see then how this is limited to this impossible world only applicable to AGW, because it doesn’t travel into other fields of science knowledge – because it must perforce exclude real properties and processes and mangle by applying out of context laws and giving the property of one thing to another which doesn’t have it, to ‘prove’ it is ‘real science’ in the AGW claim.
For example, sound travelling cannot be explained by AGWScience because it has changed the properties of gas molecules to have no volume, the real energy budget cannot be explained because it has excluded the real source of heat thermal ir and given its properties to another wavelength which doesn’t have them in the real world because it needs the false fact of ‘backradiation’ to be from thermal ir only in the upwelling, if including in the downwelling, then we have to go back to the object producing it, the Sun, and that distracts from the object blamed, Carbon Dioxide. And so on.
It is an extraordinarily complex scam, but noting that some promoting it are deliberately doing so, changing ‘the explanation’ to suit the argument for example, shows that at some point in the evolution of this scam that it was taken over by those fully aware of what real science teaches, and so are deliberately undermining real science to produce a generation of scientific illiterates – the teaching in schools is now firmly in place in the ‘west’, those teachers objecting are subject to ridicule and worse..
So, that’s why there’s so much confusion in arguments pro and con, there’s a plethora of false science memes which are believed to be real science, so, for example, a pro AGW will be filtering real science fact given in an argument through what is considered real science in AGW. The 2nd Law arguments are a classic example of the confusion created here, ‘skeptics’ arguing against real science explanations because they believe that the false meme from AGWScience is real, and so try to ‘create’ an explanation that fits it. Creativity is our nature.
While we still have it available, and still acknowledged that there is such a thing as different teaching from traditional science, try beginning with the premises from real traditional science, just as an experiment – that heat doesn’t travel from cold to hot, that short wave energies do not heat the land and oceans but thermal ir which we feel as heat from the Sun does..
At the very least, you’ll be able to see where I’m coming from, so know not to expect that any of your explanations have any meaning in it and that filtering through such which don’t will only add to the confusion in trying to understand what the other is saying. In other words, each statement made by us must be examined in its context, we come from different worlds which have different physics. I hope I’ve gone some way to making this clearer.
[The JoNova post on this I linked to for the Methane/mine story and general point of confusion in the basic premises: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/so-what-is-the-second-darn-law post 423]
Matt G says:
June 4, 2011 at 4:23 am
Matt in the JACA 2009 lecture page 14 left hand graph has measured solar radiation outside atmosphere higher than theoretical blackbody at 5900 K.
I have always worked under the understanding that BB is the maximum so how can this graph be possible?
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 3, 2011 at 9:28 pm
“I am not sure if the AGHE is responsible for exactly 33ºC, and I would accept evidence that it was some number of degrees more or less,but I have no doubt that the majority of the difference between 255 K and 288 K is due to AGHE. There is no other theory in the running as far as I know”
I and others have stated that PV=nRT can account for at least 18 degrees of the supposed 33 degrees. If gravitational pressure on a gas can create stars/black holes it can add energy to the atmosphere.
Ira states: “That is what the GHGs in the Atmosphere do. They recycle about half of the radiant energy the Surface would have lost to Space back to the Surface,”
Yes, but that is not ALL they do. That was my point before. You are only looking at what GHGs do with energy being radiated from the surface. What about the energy that warms the atmosphere from other sources?
Yes, if one is to believe KT there are 3 other methods of warming the atmosphere. The thermals (17), latent heat (80) and the Sun (78). That is a total of 175 wm2 of energy that enters the atmosphere outside of surface radiation. That is about half of the amount of surface radiation. How is that energy dissipated? Well, it seems to me it is primarily radiated out to space by GHGs. What happens if we add more GHGs? Well, it would seem to me this energy is radiated even faster. Is that not a “cooling effect”?
Now, you might claim that half the energy is radiated downward, and while true the big catch is that energy would have stayed in the earth/atmosphere system had it not found it’s way to a GHG to be radiated downward. So, just like the energy a GHG absorbs from surface radiation and radiates it upward is not important, neither is a GHGs capturing non-radiated energy and radiating it downward. Opposite sides of the coin.
My problem is I do not know how to compute this effect. My feeling is that this cooling effect starts out low but is not logarithmic. It operates in 3 dimensions vs. 2 dimensions for the GHG warming effect. Therefore, it may approach the warming at some level of GHGs. Does adding more CO2 make much of a difference? I don’t know, but it seems to me that we need to at least mention this effect to have a complete description of GHGs. Ignoring it only leads makes one wonder if something is being hidden.
From traditional science and the understanding the light energies can be used to do work, etc. not just create heat, as in photosynthesis, here’s a page on Melanin, fascinating stuff: http://www.suzar.com/BOTW/BOTW-ch5a-pages53-54.html Melanin uses light energy to create images in the eyes.
And, that these processes are still understood by some working on them takes on a strange twist re melanin and nano-technology, I hesitated posting this, but the recent outbreak of yet another strange superbug blamed at first on cucumbers from Spain has the possibility of being something created during the experiments on melanin, the connection is there, it is being produced out of E-coli:
Could this outbreak, which has been spreading and killing people throughout Europe in the last few days be an escapee from a science lab in Germany, as the recent foot and mouth in England turned out to be from a lab, or even, more insidiously, a deliberate experiment, as the ‘swine flu vaccine’ turned out to have been patented a couple of years before there was any such thing as swine flu? Shrug, I’m putting it in for general interest, it might have something to do with keeping the real knowledge of properties away from the public at large as we know that many in control of the AGW misinformation have eugenic ideologies driving them.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/cucumbers-in-clear-ndash-so-what-is-causing-deadly-ecoli-outbreak-2291600.html
Checking the labs in Germany might be a quicker way of finding which veggie is the problem..
RJ says:
And, we have explained to you in detail what the problem is. Postma assumes some effective radiating level (using the experimentally observed value of ~5km). That level is in fact determined by the infrared absorptive properties of the atmosphere…i.e., by the greenhouse gases (and clouds).
mkelly says:
You can’t just rewrite the laws of physics to suit what you want to believe. The reason that gravity can “add energy” in the cases you mention is because of conversion of gravitational potential energy into other forms of energy. However, for this to occur there must be continual gravitational collapse. If you do not have that then energy conservation says that you are not going to “add energy to the atmosphere”.
Most physicists will not look kindly on a theory that violates the conservation of energy, one of the cornerstones of our understanding of our universe.
Richard M says:
Could you please show me a model…any model…of the greenhouse effect, whether it be a “toy model” or a full radiative-convective model that ignores Kirchkoff’s Law (i.e., the fact that the emissivity and absorptivity are equal at a given wavelength)? Good luck finding one because in fact all models represent this faithfully. Hence, you are just making up a problem that does not in fact exist.
This is what continually amazes me in the ongoing discussion about the greenhouse effect: People post nonsense like Postma’s paper or the notion that “if gravitational pressure on a gas can create stars/black holes it can add energy to the atmosphere” and we tell you EXACTLY why these notions are wrong. It is not like we ignore them or just re-iterate what we believe to be a correct view of the greenhouse effect. We face these arguments head-on and tell you precisely where the error is made. And yet, they persist as if we have never discussed them.
Why does this happen exactly?
Richard M says:
“Does adding more CO2 make much of a difference? I don’t know, but it seems to me that we need to at least mention this effect to have a complete description of GHGs. Ignoring it only leads makes one wonder if something is being hidden.”
Yes, plenty is being hidden. The null hypothesis remains unfalsified, and it shows that the current climate parameters are indistinguishable from past parameters. That is why Kevin Trenberth is so desperate to replace the null hypothesis with his own perversion of the scientific method. Trenberth writes: “The null hypothesis should now be reversed, thereby placing the burden of proof on showing that there is no human influence.”
So the scientific method, which has brought about unparalleled prosperity, should now have the onus of proof tranferred from those proposing a hypothesis, onto scientific skeptics instead. Preposterous. But there it is.
The reason is because Trenberth knows he cannot get around the null hypothesis, which falsifies the alternate CO2=CAGW hypothesis. So Trenberth is willing to propose discarding the scientific method, and replacing it with his own invented version requiring that skeptics must prove a negative.
That is indicative of the alarmist crowd’s view of science: they are confounded by the scientific method because it makes a mockery of CO2=CAGW. But rather than accept the fact that there is no evidence showing global harm from CO2, they cannot let go; they want to dishonestly change the rules in their favor, so they can keep riding that gravy train at our expense.
Sometimes it just helps to see the numbers. I should not have only posted the full solar curves without some critical points showing the IR portions. So, here’s the four before I put this away. Someone might need these hard to find numbers one day and can just bookmark this.
In a spreadsheet, scale the radiance column if needed to fit your situation.
This is blackbody curve at sun’s temperature of 5778 K with an emissivity of one sized to Earth’s projection and divided by four for the daily average. ( solar sized to TSI/4, dividing by 185061.74, that is 1/(RSun/DistToSun/2)^2 ).
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 0.060 0.100 0.000014 Super UV 0.100 0.200 0.509831 Vacuum UV 0.200 0.300 10.392198 Mid UV 0.300 0.400 30.846568 Near UV 0.400 0.460 25.169476 Visible - Violet 0.460 0.475 6.633347 Visible - Indigo 0.475 0.490 6.690535 Visible - Blue 0.490 0.565 33.259671 Visible - Green 0.565 0.575 4.311756 Visible - Yellow 0.575 0.600 10.571656 Visible - Orange 0.600 0.800 70.559283 Visible - Red 0.800 1.000 46.297176 Near IR 1.000 2.000 75.659917 Near IR 2.000 3.000 13.364832 Near IR 3.000 4.000 3.923366 Near IR 4.000 5.000 1.535702 Near IR 5.000 6.000 0.718861 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 0.379993 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 0.219331 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 0.135313 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 0.087950 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 0.059615 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 0.041829 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 0.030209 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 0.022358 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 0.016900 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 0.013011 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 0.010179 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 0.008077 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 0.006491 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 0.005276 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 0.015595 Mid IR 25.000 999.000 0.016684 Far IR ---------- 341.512998This is blackbody curve at 288.15 K with an emissivity of one.
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 2.000 3.000 0.019725 Near IR 3.000 4.000 0.549302 Near IR 4.000 5.000 3.201913 Near IR 5.000 6.000 8.524765 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 14.833360 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 20.194765 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 23.689671 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 25.294810 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 25.405858 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 24.501374 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 22.991859 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 21.179958 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 19.268895 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 17.385244 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 15.601686 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 13.955208 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 12.460244 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 11.117647 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 40.137411 Far IR 25.000 30.000 23.421553 Far IR 30.000 35.000 14.302277 Far IR 35.000 40.000 9.136796 Far IR 40.000 45.000 6.076563 Far IR 45.000 50.000 4.184623 Far IR 50.000 999.000 13.482325 Far IR ----------- 390.917832This is blackbody curve at 252.43 K with an emissivity of one that is found according to the 1976 Standard Atmosphere at 5500 meters above the surface. At this point basically ½ of the mass of the atmosphere is above and ½ of the mass is below this level (see: mass attenuation coefficient).
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 2.000 3.000 0.001602 Near IR 3.000 4.000 0.080973 Near IR 4.000 5.000 0.690134 Near IR 5.000 6.000 2.389563 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 5.024350 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 7.878447 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 10.303465 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 11.987368 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 12.901878 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 13.168030 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 12.953043 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 12.415310 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 11.683168 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 10.851613 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 9.986564 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 9.131243 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 8.312282 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 7.544718 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 28.279166 Far IR 25.000 30.000 17.313046 Far IR 30.000 35.000 10.908120 Far IR 35.000 40.000 7.122324 Far IR 40.000 45.000 4.813368 Far IR 45.000 50.000 3.355542 Far IR 50.000 999.000 11.140849 Far IR ----------- 230.236166This is blackbody curve at 216.7 K with an emissivity of one that is found according to the 1976 Standard Atmosphere at 11000 meters above the surface at the top of the atmosphere (TOA).
Lower Upper Radiance λ(µm) λ(µm) W/m^2 Desc. ===== ===== =========== ========= 4.000 5.000 0.090784 Near IR 5.000 6.000 0.443090 Mid IR 6.000 7.000 1.195019 Mid IR 7.000 8.000 2.258799 Mid IR 8.000 9.000 3.413127 Mid IR 9.000 10.000 4.452624 Mid IR 10.000 11.000 5.257472 Mid IR 11.000 12.000 5.791057 Mid IR 12.000 13.000 6.070939 Mid IR 13.000 14.000 6.140564 Mid IR 14.000 15.000 6.050201 Mid IR * 15.000 16.000 5.846680 Mid IR * 16.000 17.000 5.569117 Mid IR 17.000 18.000 5.248015 Mid IR 18.000 19.000 4.906004 Mid IR 19.000 20.000 4.559176 Mid IR 20.000 25.000 18.004644 Far IR 25.000 30.000 11.776087 Far IR 30.000 35.000 7.747360 Far IR 35.000 40.000 5.213577 Far IR 40.000 45.000 3.602315 Far IR 45.000 50.000 2.554038 Far IR 50.000 999.000 8.841037 Far IR ----------- 125.031726Smokey,
I have come to respect your opinions and inisghts, even if I don’t always agree with you. You say that “the null pypothesis has never been falsified” — I would be interesting in knowing just which null hypothesis you think has never been falsified. I keep coming back in these discussions that people are talking past each other.
For example, the hypothesis
has certainly in my mind been confirmed at a p < 0.001 level.
At another extreme, the hypothesis
has NOT in my mind been confirmed even at a 0.05 level. For one thing, the specific “catastrophe” is not defined. For another, people are pretty resourceful.
I try to avoid dicsussing “catastrophe” precisely because it is scientifically imprecise. There varying degrees of catastrophe (from “life will be a little tougher for some plants and animals” to “we’re all gonna die”) over varying timeframes (form “next decade” to “thousands of years from now”).
So Smokey, could you clarify just what YOU mean by “CAGW” — some thing quantifiable at a specific time? I suspect that if you propose a specific hypothesis, then we will find that not so many scientists actually feel confident of such a “catastrophe” being certain.
Tim Folkerts,
Using the definition of the null hypothesis [which can be found here many times], it is the statistical hypothesis that states that there are no differences between observed and expected data.
Expected data is that which is within the parameters of past variability, including temperatures, trends, duration, etc. Alternate hypotheses such as that CO2 will cause runaway global warming must have evidence that one or more of the global climate parameters have been exceeded. Since they have not been exceeded, the null hypothesis remains unfalsified. Dr Roy Spencer puts the null hypothesis this way: “No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.”
The observed changes really are very minor. As you can see from the Vostok ice core chart above, the current climate is very mild; not too hot, not too cold, but
ju-u-u-st right. We are currently in a Goldilocks climate. Past variability has at times been much greater, on the order of tens of degrees of change within about a century. That change is extreme, but there have been many T rises and declines that dwarf the current 150 year rise of 0.7°C, in both temperature and trend. Temperatures prior to the Holocene look very scary.
I agree that ‘catastrophe’ is a vague label, but it was used for quite a while by the alarmists. To me it means the climate will exceed the temperature parameters and/or trends during the Holocene. Anything less is indistinguishable from natural variability, no? And since we’re here following those past natural warming episodes, we should be able to handily survive any smaller changes.
Smokey says:
June 4, 2011 at 12:18 pm
For example, the hypothesis
The IR properties of GHGs like H20 and CO2 have a warming effect on earth’s surface.” has certainly in my mind been confirmed at a p < 0.001 level."
Warming impact. Or an effect on the rate of cooling?
@ Matt G
http://tes.asu.edu/MARS_SURVEYOR/MGSTES/TIR_description.html says:
“Near-infrared is the “color” of the heating coil on an electric stove just before it glows red. ”
You really think this ‘color’ is not hot? What did someone just tell you in some lecture or book that it not thermal IR therefore it doesn’t heat matter?
There is 142 wm-2 of the 391 wm-2 solar radiation that is below red in “color”, it is invisible infrared. I really don’t care what AGW science’s climatologist define as “Thermal IR”.
Of the visible radiation from the sun a great portion of visible light is reflected back to space. Of 157 wm-2 in the visible frequencies some 36.7% (ref:NASA) or 58 wm-2 is rejected back to space. So we are left with 99 wm-2 of visible and 142 of infrared from which we end up with 67 being absorbed by the atmosphere and 168 being absorbed by the solid or liquid surface (and 8 wm-2 got lost there somewhere, probably UV absorbed high).
See, Myrrh defines the bands differently but some of what he is saying is correct. That’s ok, take a deep breath. I really think it is a mixture on both fronts but that does not imply that most of the 168 wm-2 is visible light, much of it IS infrared.
So you tell myself and Myrrh, what portion of those last two numbers, 67 & 168, is from visible and which portion is from infrared. Refs would help.
Joel Shore says:
June 4, 2011 at 8:46 am
Richard M says:
I don’t know, but it seems to me that we need to at least mention this effect to have a complete description of GHGs. Ignoring it only makes one wonder if something is being hidden.
Could you please show me a model…any model…of the greenhouse effect, whether it be a “toy model” or a full radiative-convective model that ignores Kirchkoff’s Law (i.e., the fact that the emissivity and absorptivity are equal at a given wavelength)? Good luck finding one because in fact all models represent this faithfully. Hence, you are just making up a problem that does not in fact exist.
Doesn’t Kirchkoff’s Law cover emissivity/absorption? I’m talking about energy transfer through other means when GHGs contact other gases. Are you stating GHGs cannot gain energy except through radiation? If not, then isn’t it likely that Kirchkoff’s Law does not apply?
Joel Shore says:
June 4, 2011 at 7:21 am
“If you do not have that then energy conservation says that you are not going to “add energy to the atmosphere”.
Sorry Joel the energy is internal energy and the convective movement of air conserves energy. We near the surface just happen to be at the bottom/warm part of the cycle.
But the real question is not why the sunny side gets warm (the sun), but why does the dark side not get real cold. hint think H2O
Smokey,
Summarizing what you said, I come up with
HYPOTHESIS: Current temperatures ARE “outside the parameters of past variability, including temperatures, trends, duration, etc. ”
NULL HYPOTHESIS: Current temperatures ARE NOT “outside the parameters of past variability, including temperatures, trends, duration, etc. ”
Thanks — that does help clarifiy the discussion!
I find it interesting that your statment says nothing about 1) the “catastrophic” nature of the change, and 2) there is nothing specifically about “warming”, and 3) there is nothing about people being the cause. So this seems to simply be a “CC” (climate change) hypothesis, not a “CAGW” hypothesis.
Certainly the argument could made that
> If there has been no change beyond normal variations,
>> then there is no unsual variability specifically toward warm temperatures,
>>> then there is no human cause of unusual warming,
>>>> then there can be no catastrophic results of the none-existant changes in variability.
Let me further this discussion on a purely statistical front. Suppose I start an experiment where I flip a coin and get heads 12 times out of 13. I don’t have my calculator handy, but I am sure that statistacally I can reject the hypothesis “the coin is fair and comes up 50% of the time”. On the other hand, if I flip a coin 10,000 times and find a streak with 12 outof 13 heads, that would not be all that surprising and I probably can’t reject the null hypothesis.
In a sense, we “started an experiment” ~100 years ago when people started burning CO2 in earnest. Since that experiment started, we have seen results kind of like that coin flipping experiment — while the results may not be outside the most extreme results seen in the last 10,000 years, i think they are outside the “typical results”. The results don’t have to be outside the MOST EXTREME observations for a 100 year period in the last 10,000 years to be significant, they just have to be outside MOST OF (eg 95% or 99%) the observations to be significant.
I’m not saying here that we ARE outside of the 99% typical range for change — that is a further discussion! There is an old saying often called the “chinese curse” that says “May you live in interesting times”. Perhaps we ARE truly just living in interesting times — times where the observed changes are natural but simply unsual. But if we have started an experiment and if that experiment did immediately lead to conditions that are happen less than 5% (or 1% or 0.1%) of the time, that by definition is statistically significant!
Re temps of Earth, with the added bonus of another AGWScience meme which makes no sense. In both links used to obfuscate that the main greenhouse gas is water vapour and the real greenhouse effect of the atmosphere around our Earth is that of cooling.
So without our atmosphere which is the volume of gases surrounding us, the temp would be -18°C, with an atmosphere but without the Water Cycle, the temp would be 67°C. Why really? It tells you in 3., because water vapour evaporates from the ocean and land cooling the surface.
The meme in 2., “The planet would be so hot because greenhouse gases in the atmosphere help keep heat near the surface” has replaced the fact that water vapour cools the surface of the Earth, the actual reason that without it the Earth would be very much hotter as noted in 3.
Even having admitted that water vapour is a greenhouse gas in the title, especially about this particular one, and saying in 3. that water vapour cools the Earth, the meme deliberately confuses the issue by not including the reason in 2, and, because switching in mid explanation by excluding water vapour as a greenhouse gas in the meme that greenhouse gases keep the heat near the surface, water vapour suddenly becomes something apart from this.
The other greenhouse gases are insignificant in ‘helping keep heat near the surface’, being trace gases among the rounded up 100% nitrogen and oxygen and 1% argon, the dry air, but he’s had to exclude water vapour in claiming this.
It’s not these keeping the heat near the surface, but the lack of water vapour to cool the Earth which is what would raise the temp to 67°C.
The cooling of the Earth by greenhouse gases is excluded from AGWScience, yet that is the main function of them, or rather of it, water vapour. In the wonder that is the Water Cycle.
Any amount of ‘heat it keeps near the surface’, is insignificant compared with the huge cooling effect of the water cycle, think deserts. This is our real Greenhouse atmosphere, and, the trace greenhouse gases will also have this property, of taking heat away from the earth, cooling it.
Any carbon dioxide in hot air rising will also be taking heat away as it spontaneously joins with water. When the water vapour rises into the colder higher levels and condenses out into rain, carbon dioxide will come down to earth with it, as carbonic acid. So exactly as water vapour does, as noted in 3, will release any heat also, which moving from hotter to colder will take it further from the earth cooling it.
Does anyone have this book? Because this piece says that the points made are ideas based on what the book is saying, so possibly the creative use of this meme to obfuscate is not in the original.
The second link has some interesting things to say about the amount of water on Earth, but,
http://www.juliantrubin.com/encyclopedia/earthsciences/watercycle.html
Under the heading Climate regulation it says:
Again this meme makes no sense because the actual greenhouse effect being described is the main greenhouse gas cooling the earth. There’s no ‘greenhouse effect heating the earth’ when the main greenhouse gas cools it.
Same sleight of hand as in excluding thermal infrared from the downwelling and attributing its properties to light energies which don’t have them, the ‘greenhouse effect’ has simply been changed to calling it ‘warming’, not the physical reality which is ‘cooling’, as is actually being described.
Does anyone have the equations of how to determine the rate of absorption of CO2 friendly radiation? Many places say it is absorbed fully within 6 feet of the surface. So, but I cannot find the rate of absorption. Does the first half of the 6 feet absorb half and the next half the other half of the radiation, or does the first half absorb most of the radiation and only a small amount gets absorbed in the second half of the distance.
My intuition says that if it takes x distance to absorb y energy of radiation in one direction such that there is no remaining original radiation left at the end of the distance, that what ever the energy there is at this point, it does not have enough to get back the distance that it has already traveled and must therefore continue out to space.
I have seen the depictions of some peoples attempt to make it show as a physical process so it is easier to visualize and understand, but in every case, they seem to think that if y radiation travels x distance and then randomly picks a new direction that the theoretical half the energy that is pointed downwards has the same opportunity as the original energy to travel x distance through the same radiation absorbing CO2 atmosphere. I do not think it can travel that far through the same medium. I think that y/2 radiation can travel <x distance before being fully absorbed. In fact, I think that it can travel <x/2 distance.
So, does anyone have an answer for this?
mkelly says:
I’ve totally lost what you are even trying to say here. Let’s make it real simple: The earth’s surface absorbs ~161 W/m^2 from the sun; because of its temperature, it radiates ~396 W/m^2. Where does that additional energy come from?
Richard M says:
Kirchkoff’s Law says that emissivity and absorptivity are equal, period. How the substance gains energy doesn’t enter into it. But, my point was simply that nobody is ignoring the part of the equation that you claim is being ignored. Any model of the system would have the greenhouse gases radiating according to their temperature and emissivity.
astonerii says:
Your intuition is way off…In fact, backwards. What you are describing is called a “random walk” and, in fact, in the limit that you describe (of the length of each “walk segment” to the total thickness of the medium being very small), the random walker is much more likely to make it back to the origin than it is to make it through the medium. (It is in fact in the other limit, i.e., of the walk segment being much larger than the thickness of the medium that it has a reasonable likelihood of escape.)
You can do the simulation yourself with a coin. For example, let’s make the medium thickness 10 units where a “unit” is how far the walker moves in one step. We start at x = 0 and move to x = 1. Now, flip the coin to determine if you move “up” to x = 2 or back to x = 0. If you go back to x = 0, you have come back to the surface and stop. If not, continue until you either reach x = 0 (“the surface”) or x = 10 (“space”). You will find that you much more often will end up back at the surface than out in space. In fact, you can pretty much see how this is going to go from looking at the first few steps: When you are at x = 1, then half the time you will end up going back to the surface; if you are at x = 1 and then go to x = 2, then half the time you’ll jump back to x = 1 and then on the subsequent flip, half the time you’ll be back to the surface. So, right there, you already know you have AT LEAST 3/4 probability of ending back at the surface. [In fact, I think that the exact formula is that for a medium N units thick, you end up escaping a fraction of 1/N of the time and end up back at the surface a fraction of (N-1)/N of the time.]
Joel Shore says:
yeah, that does not help. The medium does matter, otherwise there would not be a laboratory test that demonstrates precisely what the thickness of ocean level atmospheric CO2 is required to absorb the Earth level emitted radiation to extinction, and by my reading, I have seen several places where this number is listed, but it just has not been shown how to calculate the rate of absorption from first entry to last absorbed. As in, if they started with 1 inch thick atmospheres and worked their way up to the 6 feet and at each thickness how much was absorbed.
astonerii: I was answering the later part of your post, not your first question. (And, yes, the medium would matter…However, in the abstraction of the problem that I proposed the nature of the medium is incorporated in the measurement of the medium thickness in the units I specified. The technical way to look at it is provided by the quantity called “optical thickness” (also called “optical depth”): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_depth )
As for your first question, the answer for what the extinction length is doesn’t have a simple answer because it depends strongly on the precise wavelength that you are talking about. Once you have the number for a given wavelength, then the calculation for different thicknesses would not be difficult…It would essentially follow an exponential if what you wanted to do was to calculate the probability of a photon making it through without being absorbed at all. (So, for example, if you had an amount of atmosphere thick enough to absorb half of the radiation, then doubling that would mean that 1/4 of the radiation gets through without being absorbed, tripling it would mean that 1/8 gets through unabsorbed, and so on. It works the same as “half lives” for radioactive substances.
However, if you wanted to know what would happen to the radiation after multiple absorption / emission events, then it becomes more like the random walk problem that I described, except more complicated because of the fact that the emitted photon can have a different wavelength than the absorbed one.
Re: CO2 lagging temperature.
Simple rebuttal – That’s the way it works when nature is driving the show. With mankind providing the driving factor, the natural process is overridden.
Paul says:
“With mankind providing the driving factor, the natural process is overridden.”
And you evidence of this is what, exactly?
Tim Folkerts,
I’m in agreement with most all of what you wrote [any differences are what makes a market, no?]
The ‘experiment’ you refer to should have some evidence showing global harm due to CO2, after a ≈40% rise, shouldn’t it? But despite furious searching, the CAGW crowd has produced no verifiable global damage at all. There just isn’t any evidence that CO2 is causing harm. That being the case, what would you conclude?
Smokey says:
June 4, 2011 at 8:35 pm
“The ‘experiment’ you refer to should have some evidence showing global harm due to CO2, after a ≈40% rise, shouldn’t it? But despite furious searching, the CAGW crowd has produced no verifiable global damage at all. There just isn’t any evidence that CO2 is causing harm. That being the case, what would you conclude?”
But the CAGW crowd don’t care in the slightest what real evidence shows. Or whether their solutions like a carbon tax (Ira’s solution) will make a worthwhile difference even if the IPCCs projections are correct.
Joel Shore says:
June 4, 2011 at 5:29 pm
“Let’s make it real simple: The earth’s surface absorbs ~161 W/m^2 from the sun; because of its temperature, it radiates ~396 W/m^2. Where does that additional energy come from?”
Forget about science as this whole AGW / CAGW discussion mostly ignores science and evidence. Using common sense it can not come from the atmosphere. Energy can not leave earth and somehow magically multiply itself in the atmosphere and return as a greater amount. (not unless CO2 and water vapour act as mini suns or mini power generators which I don’t think the GW crowd have directly claimed yet).
So its obvious that energy comes from the sun and only the sun. And if you read the Postma paper with an open mind (something so far you have refused to do) you would see the science to back this up.
Sorry it should read
leave earth’s surface and etc.
RJ makes a very telling comment: June 4, 2011 at 11:33 pm
“Forget about science… Using common sense … ”
What can you say after that!
RJ, your common sense is contradicting conservation of energy! Why do you think your common sense trumps fundamental principles like Conservation of Energy built up by the scientific community over hundreds of years?
The surface emits~390 J of IR energy from each square meter each second. Beyond this, over 100 J of energy leaves the surface via evaporation and convection, for a total of ~ 500 J every second from each square meter. But only ~160 J arrives in the form of sunlight. That leaves ~330 J energy needed to conserve energy. And — WOW! — there is a measured influx of ~ 330 J of IR energy arriving at each m^2 each second that matches that missing energy.
RECAP: There is a measured flux of IR energy from the atmosphere that agrees with the principle of conservaton of energyand with the principles of thermal radiation. Who is it that is ignoring science and evidence?
Tim Folkertsq says:
June 5, 2011 at 5:31 am
“RJ, your common sense is contradicting conservation of energy! Why do you think your common sense trumps fundamental principles like Conservation of Energy built up by the scientific community over hundreds of years? ”
There is no way that energy can be magically multiplied by the atmosphere. This is covered in both the slayers book and the Postma paper. The energy comes from the sun not the atmosphere.
If there are 100 balls in a box. 50 are thrown in the air and 25 return. This does not now equal 125 balls. Yet this is what you are claiming. If another 100 additional balls arrive this is the equivalent to additional energy from the sun NOT additional energy from the atmosphere.
Energy comes from the sun and only the sun. But some hide behind so called science to claim otherwsie
mkelly says:
June 4, 2011 at 5:32 am
“Matt in the JACA 2009 lecture page 14 left hand graph has measured solar radiation outside atmosphere higher than theoretical blackbody at 5900 K.
I have always worked under the understanding that BB is the maximum so how can this graph be possible?”
Think this is related to the coronal heating problem, where direct heat can’t explain it, but the solar corona rises to a temperature of 1,000,000–2,000,000 K.
RJ says:
“There is no way that energy can be magically multiplied by the atmosphere”
Which is absolutely correct. Fortuantely for me and Joel and everyone who understands science, we are not relying on any sort of magical multiplication! We are relying on simple science.
Notice that you could not address any of the specific ideas or numbers or facts. Once again — what specific facts that I stated require magic to understand? Which experimental numbers do you think are wrong, and what numbers would you use instead?
wayne says:
June 4, 2011 at 12:50 pm
The near IR not hot from 93 million miles away, the main issue that I was trying to respond too is the incorrect assumption that only thermal IR warms the planet Earth. A star maximum in the near infra red, would stuggle to warm any planet from that distance much above absolute zero.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Electromagnetic_radiation
I wasn’t clear with the reflected light part, of course light is reflected by clouds on Earth, etc. The light that reached the surface at the correct angle of absorbance =~240w/m2, all of this is absorbed by the atmosphere, land and oceans. On Mars even light reaching the surface at the correct angle has some reflected back to space (as visible light) and is not absorbed. Whereas on Earth it is all absorbed (240w/m2) and eventually reflected back as long wave. I have not found an example where reflected light from clouds etc is reflected back in the visible wavelength. The example of blackbody at Earth’s temperatures shows no emission from visible light wavelengths.
http://marine.rutgers.edu/mrs/education/class/yuri/erb.html#dosh
@ Matt G — June 5, 2011 at 9:09 am
First, you claimed I said the paragraph below and it was you who was speaking, not me. Please, be careful when you claim who says what. I’ll forgive this time.
Also, I spent over two hours creating those black body readouts above and it seems you spent zero time even looking at what they are telling you. At first I thought you knew at least the basics of science but I might have been mistaken. From those you can easily get gray body readouts if you adjust for the emissivity.
Matt G says:
“The near IR not hot from 93 million miles away, the main issue that I was trying to respond too is the incorrect assumption that only thermal IR warms the planet Earth.”
Oh, but the near IR is just as hot as visible light even from 1.49×10^11 meters away. Look at the second table. A watt is a watt is a watt. The decreased power from longer wavelengths has already been accounted for in those figures. This is why you are showing your lack in pure physics.
On your main issue, no one was saying “all”, well, maybe Myrrh but not me, you were claiming no invisible infrared warming. I made that clear above and was asking you to provide the division of the portions of visible and above in comparison to the infrared.
Matt G says:
“A star maximum in the near infra red, would stuggle to warm any planet from that distance much above absolute zero.”
Of course a star so cool that it has no visible light would have trouble warming planets but we are not speaking of such a cool star, we are speaking of our Sun and it’s portion of radiation in the infrared.
Matt G says:
“I wasn’t clear with the reflected light part, of course light is reflected by clouds on Earth, etc. The light that reached the surface at the correct angle of absorbance =~240w/m2, all of this is absorbed by the atmosphere, land and oceans. On Mars even light reaching the surface at the correct angle has some reflected back to space (as visible light) and is not absorbed.”
Yes, clouds reflect light, and what I was saying is a portion is in the infrared, how much. Like Mars, the reflection form the surface (30 Wm-2 per KT97) is how much in visible and how much infrared. You do know the difference in geometric albedo and Bond albedo don’t you? That 168 Wm-2 (or 161 by TFK98) is a mixture of infrared and visible+UV. I was asking you how much of which. From the calculations above you know that all is not visible and it seems not even half, Matt… what is the divisions at the 0.78-.80 µm wavelength, upward for visible-UV, below for IR.
Don’t just keep dribbling wrong facts to the readers here. Most here know the numbers well.
Matt G says:
“Whereas on Earth it is all absorbed (240w/m2) and eventually reflected back as long wave. I have not found an example where reflected light from clouds etc is reflected back in the visible wavelength. The example of blackbody at Earth’s temperatures shows no emission from visible light wavelengths.”
All absorbed solar radiation in the atmosphere (78 wm-2 (TFK98)) and by the surface (161 wm-2) is then thermal in nature and radiates in IR, no surprise there, of course no visible. Are you just trying to belittle me? You have not addressed one specific question I asked you to supply if you were questioning how much solar radiation is IR (I have already found that) and how much is visible and above.
wayne says:
June 5, 2011 at 11:30 am
Sorry I have confused you and thankyou for those data readings. I really do appreciate the time you spent on them. Part of the problem has been this discussion between me and Myrrh had continued from another thread, so we both knew what we meant, but of course the vagueness caused misunderstandings for others.
I have now noticed this just is a little misunderstanding.
Only reason why stated near IR is not hot was due to compared the overall sun, thats why stated a star of this type would struggle to heat a planet at this distance. It is enough to contribute with warming the planet Earth as a source from our star combined with the shorter wavelengths.
“On your main issue, no one was saying “all”, well, maybe Myrrh but not me, you were claiming no invisible infrared warming. I made that clear above and was asking you to provide the division of the portions of visible and above in comparison to the infrared.”
This is the main mis-understanding as I was replying to Myrrh, who was claiming no shortwave IR actually warming the planet and that the warming was just emissions from absorbed shorter wavelengths. The data you have given also backs up thermal IR to be a very small amount from the sun. I have not seen near IR and visible values hardly any different from quoted in the data you posted.
p.s. Thermal IR in this context was the bands including only MIR and LIR. (from 4-5µm) Sometimes when posting about the same topic in different threads can get mixed up what was mentioned before in the same one.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/25/snowball-earth-ended-by-methane-now-an-impossible-theory/#comments
“I don’t include most of MWIR (thermal) and none of LWIR (thermal) because it doesn’t penetrate the skin surface of water and can be classed as longwave. Shortwave radiation has never been meant to be thermal IR in my descriptions. These include skin layer mentioned, with longwave radiation that thermal IR mainly comes into. To be clear by shortwave from the sun, it represents a range of total energy from 0 – 4μm. This includes for example visible, uv and infrared (but only part of it)”
This was when Myrrh was claiming only thermal IR (heat) was from only the bands named thermal MIR and LIR.
Typo.
(from 4-5µm+)
RJ says:
Well, yes, you certainly seem to be doing that. Tim and Ira and I, on the other hand, are not.
You have failed to show either that the accepted empirically-measured values quoted are wrong or that they violate the conservation of energy in any way whatsoever. On the other hand, you are defending nonsense that clearly does violate conservation of energy.
You have read the Postma paper with such an “open mind” that you allow the nonsense that he spews to enter your mind with no actual thought process to consider whether it is science is pseudoscience. I, on the other hand, have explained EXACTLY what Postma gets right and what he gets wrong.
OK, RJ, let us take your balls in a box in two steps.
1) There are 100 balls in a box. 50 are thrown in the air and NONE return. Another 50 additional balls arrive from the Sun. There are now 100 balls in the box, OK. Now, repeat this step, 100 balls in the box, 50 are thrown in the air and NONE return. Another 50 additional balls arrive from the Sun, and there are 100 again. Repeat this sequence as many times as you want, and there will be 100 balls in the box at the start of each cycle. OK?
2) There are 100 balls in a box. 50 are thrown in the air and 25 return. Another 50 additional balls arrive from the Sun. There are now 125 balls in the box, OK. Now, repeat this step, 125 balls in the box, 50 are thrown in the air and 25 return. Another 50 additional balls arrive from the Sun, and there are 150 balls in the box. Repeat this sequence as many times as you want, and there will be more and more balls in the box at the start of each cycle.
In (2) the Sun is still sending 50 balls each cycle, just like in (1). But, the number of balls in (2) is building up by 25 each cycle, while the number stays constant in (1). Why is that? It cannot be from the Sun because the Sun sends the exact same number, 50, each cycle. Therefore, it MUST be due to the fact that in (1) NONE of the balls are returned, while in (2) half of the balls, 25, are returned each cycle. QED.
Joel Shore: Any model of the system would have the greenhouse gases radiating according to their temperature and emissivity.
Yes, and nothing I said contradicts that. All I stated was GHGs may get heated through other means. Also, all the models are showing a hot spot where none exists. Maybe the situation is more complex than you and the modellers think.
Richard M says:
This is just a meaningless skeptic talking point. See http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/03/yes-impossibly-stupid-weather-panic-is-the-new-normal/#comment-673349 and here http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/03/yes-impossibly-stupid-weather-panic-is-the-new-normal/#comment-673360
Wayne, I’d written a post to you about the divisions of thermal and non-thermal, and posted it on the JoNova page by mistake, too many windows open.. If it’s still there, you can read it on:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/so-what-is-the-second-darn-law/comment-page-9/#comment-332060
Smokey,
I think I am getting closer to understanding one more of our differences — and it is mostly about terminology.
We were agreeing (I think!) that the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis is something like:
“HYPOTHESIS: Temperatures of the last 100 years ARE INDEED higher than expected compared to temperatures of the previous several millennia due to human “experimentation” with the environment in the form of increased CO2. ”
The null hypothesis would then be that temperatures are within normal ranges compared to past millennia.
However you then ADD an additional condition that “the ‘experiment’ you refer to should have some evidence showing global harm due to CO2.” That is a completely different hypothesis.
It is completely possible to have evidence for the first hypothesis (which is what I believe) without evidence for the second (which is what you believe).
Or stated another way, I accept AGW; you don’t accept CAGW. That, in and of itself, does not put us in disagreement. In fact, it has been pretty clear that Ira accepts AGW but not CAGW.
If we (and everyone) else is clear about WHICH hypothesis they are discussing and how various data supports or refutes that hypothesis, then discussions will be much more productive.
Tim Folkerts,
Let me be clear: I accept the radiative physics that says there will be some warming due to CO2. In other words, I’m in agreement with Ira. The question is: how much warming? Dr Miskolczi estimates the sensitivity to 2xCO2 at zero. Dr Spencer estimates it to be 0.46°C. Prof Lindzen estimates it to be ≤1°C. No one has a definitive answer, but since there has been no warming for the past decade [while CO2 continues to rise], common sense would indicate that the sensitivity number is somewhere between Lindzen’s and Miskolczi’s. The IPCC’s estimate of 3°C appears to be increasingly preposterous – and they have a vested financial interest in alarming the public, so anything they say must be taken with a big grain of salt.
I don’t accept catastrophic AGW [CAGW] because there is absolutely no evidence that the climate is doing anything out of the ordinary. When a conjecture is completely evidence-free, the wise course of action is to accept that it is evidence-free for a good reason: the conjecture is simply wrong.
And you’re right, it is a different hypothesis to declare that CO2 is “harmless.” But in order to falsify that hypothesis, you must provide testable evidence of global harm due specifically to CO2. So far, my hypothesis states that CO2 is harmless, and that hypothesis remains standing. No one has falsified it per the scientific method.
Finally, I should point out that the trend line from the LIA is on track. It has not accelerated, which it certainly should have if CO2 was causing increased global warming.
I would suggest that you open your mind to the possibility that CO2 is, in fact, harmless for all practical purposes, and that a degree or two of warming from whatever cause is, on balance, a net positive for the biosphere – as it always has been in the past. The atmosphere is more starved of CO2 now than it has been for the past 570 million years, and agricultural production tracks the current increase in CO2, indicating that the rise in CO2 is beneficial.
Conclusion: CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better. And solid empirical evidence of global damage from CO2 is necessary to falsify that hypothesis.
Joel Shore says:June 4, 2011 at 7:49 pm
The equation is worthless. The authors of the notes state that the CO2 radiation band is 100% absorbed within a specific distance. Your equation always leaves some energy left over that miraculously could in theory make it all the way out to space unmolested by CO2.
As an example, if I start with 12 steps which accounts for 99.975% of the energy, and use the 6 foot that is reported for extinction, that leaves half the units absorbed in 6 inches of atmosphere. If I change it to 36 steps which accounts for 99.9999999985448% of the energy, that distance for half of the energy absorbed changes to 2 inches.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 5, 2011 at 2:52 pm
“It cannot be from the Sun because the Sun sends the exact same number, 50, each cycle.”
But your example clearly shows the 50 balls are from the sun??
I don’t even know why we are debating this. The energy must come from the sun. If not the atmosphere is somehow (magically) creating additional energy.
Is science so confused by detail and poorly understood theories (conservation of energy) that scientific fiction (the extra 33ºC) can pass almost without comment.
Smokey says:
June 5, 2011 at 8:42 pm
“Let me be clear: I accept the radiative physics that says there will be some warming due to CO2. In other words, I’m in agreement with Ira. The question is: how much warming? ”
I think sceptics need to be clearer with their wording. CO2 does not directly cause some warming. All CO2 can do is (maybe) slow the cooling rate (which might increase the average temperatures over a period) after the sun and only the sun warms the surface. (but the amount from extra CO2 would be tiny).
Until this point is clearly made by sceptics we are just playing into the alarmists hands.
A colder body (the atmosphere) can not heat a warmer one (earth). This applies to all energy flows including radiation.
MattG – re your post: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/30/skeptic-strategy-for-talking-about-global-warming/#comment-673015
And your “I don’t include most of MWRI (thermal) and any of LWRI (thermal) because it doesn’t penetrate the skin surface of water and can be classed as longwave.” as in /comment-674343
I’d really like to sort this out because it doesn’t make any sense to me. What exactly do you mean by “doesn’t penetrate the skin surface of water”? Where does this come from?
What this implies is that 100% of thermal IR bounces off all the oceans, and land, and is reflected back into the atmosphere. Doesn’t it?
To remind what I’m saying, (trying also to avoid the confusion created by discussing this with you elsewhere), I’m saying that shortwave energies don’t have the ability to heat water and land because of the nature of their properties, they are light and not heat energies from the Sun.
Light energies from the Sun, the shortwave, and we are in agreement that these are not thermal (unlike Ira’s claim that these are the heat we feel from the Sun), in the KT97 are said to be the only ones which heat the Earth on reaching the surface, directly heating land and oceans. I’m arguing that these light-weight energies, energetic as they are, are practically incapable of doing so.
For example, in Visible light-weight passing through our atmosphere, these are easily scattered by all the bigger molecules of oxygen and nitrogen which is what gives us our blue skies, neither I nor the KT97 say that these are creating heat in the atmosphere, in shorthand, this is because the atmosphere is ‘transparent’ to them. What is actually happening according to the photon theory (for any rooting for wave only), is that the atom of these molecules is briefly raised in energy in the bounce which then relaxes back into its previous state and emits a photon of the same light wavelength in doing so. Wave theory ditto effect, the higher energy of the light wave is still very much light-weight compared with the bigger molecules of nitrogen and oxygen, it simply bounces off and goes off in another direction. Either way, Blue light gets scattered. In the oceans, these same constraints are in place, visible light is light-weight compared with the molecules of water, it to is ‘transparent’ to visible light, blue light being more so than the slightly bigger/longer wavelengths of red, so the red doesn’t travel as deeply as the blue.
Here, all the ‘high energy hype’ of the photon/wave length of visible light is capable of doing in air and water is to bounce off staying the same wavelength, its energy merely ‘used’ to emit a wavelength of itself. Like the ball in a pinball machine, this energy has hardly any effect at all on the bigger molecules, it is certainly not creating heat.
Again just to remind, direct creation of heat is only one of the effects energy can have. Reflection unchanged wavelength and chemical changes in photosynthesis do not include heat creation for example, the energy is used differently. Although the plant may then create heat when using the results of the sugars created by burning them for growth etc, this is not direct heat creation from shortwave from the Sun which KT97 claims directly heats land and oceans to raise the temperature of the Earth to give off said amount of thermal infrared.
You are claiming that the AGWScience is right here, that these shortwave non-thermal energies actually heat land and oceans. How if you’re also saying with AGWScience that these do not heat the atmosphere on their way to the surface? Describe the process.
So my question, to help concentrate this problem because of the claim that blue light heats the oceans even deeper, how with a wavelength/photon of blue visible shortwave?
I on the other will stick to known physics that thermal IR has this particular ability to heat land and oceans, because, whether you think of it as real heat on the move as the thermal wavelength as in the heat radiating out from a non-glowing hot plate, or as energy creating heat in the subject by a difference in action, rotational resonance in contrast to shortwave’s reflecting by briefly and minutely knocking an atom into a higher energy state sufficient for that to release the same light and not heat as it says, wtfwast and gives a little scratch, this physics is known to actually work in our real world. We don’t have any blue light heaters and cooking appliances, we do have thermal infrared heaters for our homes and our bodies and appliances in actual viable production using thermal infrared to cook dinners (there’s a ceramic grill for example).
The Smokey test I’ve been calling it from something he said..
Some reminders from my viewpoint.
Here’s another reference from a NASA question and answer page on the Sun: http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sun.html to remind that it is traditional physics that the heat we feel from the Sun is thermal infrared:
From http://www.telelec.com/heat_transfer_fund.htm to show that light and heat energies are distinct in common usage in applied science:
And from http://www.biocab.org/Heat_Transfer.html
So, I’m interested to know exactly what you mean that water’s surface doesn’t allow penetration by thermal infrared, “doesn’t penetrate the skin surface”. And, if you can remember, where you came by this, or give an example or more of someone teaching it.
Re claims for Carbon Dioxide from AGWScience:
http://www.suite101.com/content/greenhouse-gas-theory-discredited-by-coolant-carbon-dioxide-a365870
Has this been posted for general discussion anywhere on WUWT?
Indeed.
I once laid out a thought experiment/model, such that all the CO2 in the atmosphere was added at one go, instantaneously. There would be a brief interruption of OLR, with the resultant warming of the atmosphere and surface to a new balance point, which would then be maintained. The total amount of retained heat would be a function of that lag X the energy of the interrupted photons.
Then, if later the CO2 is (magically) instantaneously removed, the balance point would hang on for the same lag time, and then revert to the previous value (always assuming unchanging solar influx).
So the crucial computations are of the lag and the energy level of the interrrupted/delayed photons.
Myrrh;
Your posts are becoming more risible, if that were possible.
We don’t have blue radiant heaters for the simple reason that they take too much energy to heat to that point, and would be dangerously hot if we did. We warm hotplates to red heat, because that’s enough. Bringing them to white heat (all visible wavelengths included) is very dangerous, and would burn everything placed on them prettydamnquick.
Elaborated ignorance is still ignorance.
Tim Folkerts says:
June 5, 2011 at 8:12 pm
“HYPOTHESIS: Temperatures of the last 100 years ARE INDEED higher than expected compared to temperatures of the previous several millennia due to human “experimentation” with the environment in the form of increased CO2. ”
The null hypothesis would then be that temperatures are within normal ranges compared to past millennia.”
Speaking for myself I disagree with the above specifically this part “…ARE INDEED higher than expected compared to temperatures of the previous several millennia”.
Holocene Optimum temperatures were higher than today by 6-9 degrees F. So until we go higher than past Holocene temperatures we are not have an “experimentation”.
BrianH – you’re still missing my point. This is precisely the claim from the AGWScience’s Energy Budget, that Visible light, that includes Blue Visible, is what converts to energy on reaching the Earth’s surface, and thus heats the land and oceans.
I don’t care how it is produced, it doesn’t actually take great heat to produce blue light, there are other ways, led ring a bell? The science of light energies and what they can and cannot do is understood extremely well now, do a search on different lightbulbs etc.
So, I don’t care how you produce the Blue Visible Light, prove that this can convert to heat land and oceans as CLAIMED in the AGWScience Energy Budget, Kt97. Until you can prove that Visible light direct from the Sun can raise the actual temperature of the Earth to radiate out the amount of Thermal IR as claimed in this AGWScienceFiction, then it cannot be included in the ‘Energy Budget’.
AGWScience is full of these kinds of tweaks which have otherwise ‘skeptics’ believing that it is REAL science. I’m asking a specific question, try and answer it.
They are really quite expert at mixing and matching out of context properties and processes, deliberately to confuse the unsuspecting. It is these very very basic premises where this takes place.
For example, this “Solar” of the energy budget of our atmosphere is likened to a ‘greenhouse glass which lets in “Solar” and blocks Thermal IR from entering’, which then these “Solar” shortwaves heat the ground of the greenhouse which produces Thermal IR and which in keeping with the meme that Thermal IR cannot penetrate glass, is then trapped in the greenhouse raising the temperature.
So first of all, I require proof that these “Solar”, UV,Visible,NrIR, can actually heat the ground. Why can’t I get it?
Then I ask, where’s the proof that glass excludes/traps Thermal IR? I give an example of an ordinary lightbulb which produces 95% of its energy as heat, thermal infrared, and only 5% as light, visible shortwave light. If you put your hand close to the bulb, but not touching it you’ll get burned, you can feel the heat from the 95% of thermal infrared being radiated out. You cannot feel visible light as heat.
So what the fracking h*ll is that as an explanation from AGWScience? It’s gobbledegook.
Now, try to answer the question I have actually asked about Blue Visible light.
As I said in the post to Wayne, and MattG, that I in error wrote on JoNova’s page, linked to a few posts up, I HAVE A RIGHT to get this question answered, because those promoting this gobbledegook science fiction are impacting my life to its detriment.
Ira continues to avoid answering. He continues to set himself up as the voice of ‘skeptic reason’ while all the time still plugging this nonsense and urging us to give up and give them all our money.
Why doesn’t he directly give me the information I’m asking of him? Because he knows it doesn’t exist, that it is nonsense gobbledegook, either that or I’ve misjudged him, I thought he had ‘scientific’ intelligence and could actually appreciate the objections I have and understand my question.
Since he can’t prove it. You have a go. So tell me exactly how Visible Blue light, however it is produced, can heat water (and land as in the greenhouse ground).
I’ve already gone to considerable effort to show that water is transparent to Blue light, that all it does is transmit through it, reflecting all the way down which means its energy is producing nothing more than the same wavelength, unless it is being utilised in photosynthesis as it is on land and so absorbed and its energy used to produce a chemical change which is not a direct creation of heat. Look up information on Light and reflection/refraction/transmission etc.
Answer my question, give me proof, or stop promoting this which is clearly seen to be nonsense in real traditional physics.
RJ says: June 6, 2011 at 12:47 am
“I think sceptics need to be clearer with their wording. CO2 does not directly cause some warming.
A colder body (the atmosphere) can not heat a warmer one (earth)”
Actually RJ, you also need to be more careful with wording (or better yet, we could all communicate using equations and agreed upon scientific definitions of all the words, but that will never happen here.)
WARMING ≠ HEATING (as you seemed to be implying in the above quote)
Adding insulation can “warm” your house (ie raise the temperature) because the thermal energy from the furnace does not escape from your house as easily.
Adding insulation cannot “heat” your house (ie add a net flow of energy) because the insulation does not supply any thermal energy, let alone a net flow into the house.
(And conversely, you can heat ice without warming it ie melting ice to water @ 0 C)
Similarly CO2 does “warm” the earth even though it does not “heat” the earth. I know this will fall on many deaf ears, but please, everyone, use the words properly.
HEAT ≠ THERMAL ENERGY (it is worth adding this while we are at it)
In thermodynamics, heat is energy in motion, while “internal energy” or “thermal energy” is used to describe the energy within an object. An object can no more “contain heat” than it can “contain work”. Heat and work only exist in the interaction of two different objects or systems.
/End Public Service Announcement/
mkelly confuses me with his comments:
June 6, 2011 at 7:04 am
That’s why it was call a HYPOTHESIS (it was in all caps even for emphasis)! This is the hypothesis we are testing; the thing we hope to accept or reject.
ANY change in conditions can be called an “experiment”. Since when does an experiment have to show more extreme values than the control group before it is called “experimentation” ???
And, as I said before, if I flip a coin enough times, I might get heads 10 times in a row. If I then start a new experiment (say, flipping the coin with my left hand instead of my right) and it comes up heads the first 8 times, that is STILL unusual, even if it is not the MOST extreme case I have ever seen. I would still recheck the coin to make sure it was not heads on both sides.
Similarly IF the temperatures of the last 100 years are unusually high (EVEN IF they are not all time highs), THEN that can be statistically significant and worthy of further investigation. This is where it becomes important to know 1) what the temperatures are and have been historically and 2) what changes there have been to the one “experiment” we have ( the earth as a whole) so that we could predict what might have happened in the absence of changes in CO2.
These are not easy question, and not ones that can be answered at the level of high school science.
PS Do you have a source for you claim “higher than today by 6-9 degrees F”? A few quick web searches suggest that the the global temperature was maybe 2-3 F warmer than today.
Tim Folkerts says:
June 6, 2011 at 8:10 am
Completly agree with:”In thermodynamics, heat is energy in motion, while “internal energy” or “thermal energy” is used to describe the energy within an object. An object can no more “contain heat” than it can “contain work”. Heat and work only exist in the interaction of two different objects or systems.”
You could have added “trap heat”, but a very very minor point. I endorse the use of equations in support of an idea or point being made.
Tim Folkerts,
Your 8 out of 10 coin flips argument is very weak. It appears that you’re looking for a reason to be alarmed. There is nothing unusual about current temperatures. The globe has warmed on its trend line from the LIA, always regressing to the mean. Over the past century and a half that warming has amounted to only ≈0.7°C. During the Holocene optimums temperatures have been significantly higher.
If CO2 caused any measurable warming on top of the natural warming trend from the LIA, then temperatures would be accelerating. But they are not. Observed temperatures are fully explained by natural variability, and the wild-eyed arm waving over every temporary spike is anything but scientific.
Doesn’t the fact that thermal expansion of the oceans does not support AGW? In fact, practically every AGW prediction made has been falsified. A reasonable scientist would conclude that the AGW hypothesis is basically in error, no?
Tim Folkerts says:
June 6, 2011 at 8:10 am
“Similarly CO2 does “warm” the earth even though it does not “heat” the earth. I know this will fall on many deaf ears, but please, everyone, use the words properly. ”
But wouldn’t it be clearly to say might (or does) reduces the rate of cooling.
Warming or heating food means similar to me. But reducing the cooling rate of food is something quiet different.
I know it might be seem like nit picking but as a non scientist (when first trying to get my head around this issue) reading a comment stressing that CO2 only reduces the rate of cooling provided clarity that claims of warming did not.
CO2 might reduce the rate of surface cooling after the sun sets and after the surface is warmed by the sun. It does not and can not directly warm or heat the surface. Only maybe increase average temperatures (very slightly) over a period of time.
Tim Folkerts says:
June 6, 2011 at 8:35 am
PS Do you have a source for you claim “higher than today by 6-9 degrees F”? A few quick web searches suggest that the the global temperature was maybe 2-3 F warmer than today.
“The Holocene Climate Optimum warm event consisted of increases of up to 4 °C near the North Pole (in one study, winter warming of 3 to 9 °C and summer of 2 to 6 °C in northern central Siberia).[1]” From Wikipeadia.
Depends on where you cherry pick from. 4 C = 7.2 F 7.2 F is between 6-9 F
It is amazing how many times Myrrh can be told basic science and STILL not understand!
Or more correctly, they are quite expert at collaterally confusing the uninformed.
“BrianH – you’re still missing my point. This is precisely the claim from the AGWScience’s Energy Budget, that Visible light, that includes Blue Visible, is what converts to energy on reaching the Earth’s surface, and thus heats the land and oceans. ”
Myrrh, you are once again missing the point. The claim from AGW science is that visible light is PART of what converts to heat on reaching the surface (along with other wavelengths of EM energy from the sun and other wavelengths of EM energy from the atmosphere).
As Wayne, posted earlier,
0.475 0.490 6.690535 Visible – Blue
blue light (which for the sake of discussion he defined as 0.475 – 0.490 um) from the sun provides 6.69 W/m^2 at the top of the atmosphere. Some of this is reflected by the clouds. Some is reflected by the clouds. Some is reflected by the surface. About 30% of visible light is reflected, so about 70% reaches the surface. As I explained to you once long ago, only a very small fraction of this goes into photosynthesis (and even then, most of that is released when the plants decay/get eaten).
Net result — roughly4 W/m^2 of energy from blue light reaches the surface (ie is not reflected or used for photosynthesis). From conservation of energy, this energy must be going SOMEWHERE, and the only “somewhere” is thermal energy of the land and oceans.
Blue light transmits pretty well thru water, but if you dive down 1000 m into the ocean, I guarantee you will not see any blue sunlight, so it does not “reflect all the way down” as you claim. ~ 4 W/m^2 of blue light enters the top; ~ none leaves. The 4 W/m^s must get absorbed by the water (or impurities in the water).
Now add up all the other wavelengths from the sun (roughly 0.1 um to 4 um), determine how much of each is reflected (or goes to any form of energy other than thermal), and you get the ~170 W/m^2 from K&T.
Only the uninformed think that there is a direct correlation between glass greenhouses and the atmospheric greenhouse effect. It is a simple analogy to help the scientifically uninformed get a starting idea. For a deeper understanding, you need to actually study science and the real “atmospheric greenhouse effect”.
As just pointed out, this is a complete red herring in terms of global warming, that only the uninformed would worry about.
But even so, Google images of “IR spectrum glass” and you will get lots of hits. This one is especially simple http://www.electro-tech-online.com/attachments/general-electronics-chat/17262d1202591701-infrared-illumination-ir-through-glass-soda-20lime.jpg The specific glass transmits visible and a goo bit of the IR, and absorbs much of the long wavelength IR. It is not that hard to find or understand if you know a bit about the topic
No constitution that I know of provides a right to answers. There are some rights to information, which you may well have where you live. There is a responsibility of public servants to try yo serve the public, which includes publicly-employed scientists to communicate what they learn.
But answers and understanding you have to come to yourself. If you cannot understand or work with basic science concepts, then no one can answer you.
So, Myrrh, show us that you have some basic knowledge of the topics of with you speak.
You seem quite sure of yourself here. Please define (preferably with equations or numbers) what you understand the following to mean. Then we can have an intelligent discussion of your issues.
“heat”
“thermal infrared”
“light”
“visible shortwave light”
Please teach us how you know that the energy from the bulb is 95% thermal infrared (a calculation likes Wayne’s or even a reputable citation would do). preferably, Show us the distribution of energy at different wavelengths.
After you have calculated how much energy from a light bulb is visible, tells us what happens to this energy if the visible light hits something like a black piece of paper. Or the ocean. Or your hand
mkelly,
I guess my hypothesis didn’t specifically say “Global Temperatures of the last 100 years ARE INDEED higher than expected compared to temperatures of the previous several millennia due to human “experimentation” with the environment in the form of increased CO2. ”
I thought that was implied since the discussion was global warming, but I could have been more precise. You did indeed find a reference for local warming of several F, but that same page suggest that global warming was much less.
mkelly says:
June 6, 2011 at 9:17 am
Tim Folkerts says:
June 6, 2011 at 8:35 am
PS Do you have a source for you claim “higher than today by 6-9 degrees F”? A few quick web searches suggest that the the global temperature was maybe 2-3 F warmer than today.
“The Holocene Climate Optimum warm event consisted of increases of up to 4 °C near the North Pole (in one study, winter warming of 3 to 9 °C and summer of 2 to 6 °C in northern central Siberia).[1]” From Wikipeadia.
Depends on where you cherry pick from. 4 C = 7.2 F 7.2 F is between 6-9 FM
Indeed it is but the North Pole is not the globe! “the global temperature was maybe 2-3 F warmer than today.”
Tim – I’m trying to make it so very easy for you. Not asking for information on how exactly UV heats land and oceans, not asking for information how exactly Nr IR heats land and oceans, not even asking for all of the Visible, just the little ol’ blue light wavelength. What could be simpler?
It doesn’t exist. I know that. You know that. That’s why it’s never produced.
However, some supporting this AGWScience fiction as if it is real science, don’t know that.
What they can see for themselves here though, I hope, is that Ira and you and Joel don’t ever come back with a simple answer showing proof.
That the whole of your time in exchanges with me is to avoid doing so.
Idiotic put downs and distraction from the actual question which you continue to generate in reply don’t count as scientific proof I’m requesting from you, the self-proclaimed and pal confirmed scientific expert you present yourself.
I’m still waiting for proof of this basic premise of the AGWScience Energy Budget, as in Kt97.
Either produce it or admit it doesn’t exist.
Continually not producing is certainly proof that it doesn’t exist, surely? After all these years there isn’t tons and tons of material readily available and explaining and proving the basic premise here? The alternative is to think that for all your claims, voiced so loudly to me in these discussions, of how well educated you are all are in ‘science’, is just a con. You’re probably cleaners in labs somewhere passing yourselves off as PhD’s, because, it can’t be just that you’re too thick to understand such a simple question on a basic scientific premise, can it?
So, out of the Blue Visible Light of the AGWScience Energy Budget, as in KT97, how much is actually reaching the surface of Earth? How exactly is this converting to heat the land and oceans of Earth? Show me proof in the real world that it is actually doing this.
Myrrh says:
June 6, 2011 at 3:58 am
This is the observed scientific evidence that shows only shortwave warms the ocean, but longwave doesn’t. (at least to any measurable amount)
Here it is. (measured shortwave)
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7i_1.html
(measured longwave)
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7i_3.html
Which one looks closest to ocean SST’s?
http://weather.unisys.com/archive/sst/sst-010114.gif
SHORTWAVE – so this is the source. (longwave, looks nothing like it)
Myrrh,
The proof is as simple as this:
* Blue photons arrive at the surface of the earth, at a globe-wide long-term average rate of ~ 5 J of energy each square meter. Some reflects, leaving ~ 4 J of energy each square meter that does not leave.
* The energy cannot be destroyed.
* Measured photosynthesis can only account a small amount of the energy. (And even with photosynthesis, the energy simply goes into chemical bonds — those chemical bonds release the energy again when the plant gets eaten or decomposes, so there is essentially 0 net change in any square meter over the course of a year).
* The only reasonable conclusion is that the energy goes into thermal energy of the surface.
The experiments to confirm this are so simple as to be almost not worth mentioning.
–> Shine sunlight on different colored paper. See if darker paper gets warmer.
–> Shine sunlight thru a clear plastic sheet onto black paper. Shine sunlight thru similar plastic sheets that have various colors and/or saturation of color. See if the clear plastic results in the highest temperature.
In both cases, the only difference in the warming would be due to various visible components of visible light. This is “proof” that visible light can and does heat objects. You could repeat the experiments with rocks or cars or water or your hand. I am 100% confident that you will indeed find the surfaces that absorb more visible light will be warmer.
PS I am NOT going to do the experiments for you.
astonerii, I accept your numbers above, which indicate that 99.999%+ of the long-wave IR energy emitted by the Surface is absorbed in 36 steps, and, since I am an engineer, I am more than willing to round that out to 100%.
But, what does that mean? You seem to think that if 100% of the Surface radiation is absorbed by the first 36 layers of the Atmosphere, that is the end of it. In your words none is left to “…make it all the way out to space unmolested by CO2.”
But, since energy can neither be created nor destroyed that absorbed energy continues to exist as the temperature (i.e., excited kinetic energy) of the CO2 molecules that absorbed the energy and that collided with and transferred some of it to other gases that make up the Atmosphere.
So, all the 100% absorption by CO2 (of wavelengths near 15μm) does is account for what I have called first-generation photons from the Surface to some CO2 molecules. When any material is at a temperature above absolute zero, it radiates. So, the excited CO2 (and other excited molecules) emit second-generation photons that, in sum, are equal in energy content to the sum of the first-generation photons. At each of your 36 layers, the second-generation photons head off in random directions, which means that about half will be at an angle that is towards the Surface, and half towards Space.
Of course, except for the lowest (and highest) layers, most of those second-generation photons will not make it out to the Surface (or Space). They will be re-absorbed, excite CO2 and by collision other molecules, and their energy content will be re-emitted in random directions as third-generation photons, etc. The net result is that a majority of the energy emitted by the Surface (as well as the energy from Surface to Atmosphere that rises due to conduction, convection, and phase change) will eventually, after a number of transactions, emerge from the Bottom of the Atmosphere and be absorbed by the Surface, and a minority will make it out to Space and be lost to the Earth System (which consists of the Surface plus the Atmosphere).
The mean temperature of the Earth System will either rise or fall until an equilibrium is reached between Energy In (from the Sun) and Energy Out (to Space). When, on average, about 240 Watts/meter^2 is lost to Space, the mean temperature of the Earth System will stabilize.
YOU, RJ, brought up the balls thought experiment. I came up with two situations, where the Sun contributed 50 balls each cycle. In my case (1), where NONE of the balls thrown into the air came back (i.e., no Atmospheric GHGs) there was equilibrium. In my case (2), with the exact same input from the Sun and where about HALF the balls thrown in the air came back (i.e., Atmosphere with GHGs), the sum of balls increased each cycle.
YOU “wrote the check” (i.e., came up with the balls example) and I “cashed it” (used your example to show how returning half the balls thrown in the air causes the sum of balls to increase each cycle). Please explain why YOUR analogy to the GHGs in the Atmosphere works for me and not for you. advTHANKSance.
Matt G says:
June 6, 2011 at 2:24 pm
This is the observed scientific evidence that shows only shortwave warms the ocean, but longwave doesn’t
? Where do these show this?
The first one; so there’s more sunlight, visible, in the tropics than at the poles.
The second one; that more longwave loss, heat, occurs in deserty regions with little cloud cover and less from cold surfaces, duh.
The third one; measured heat of the oceans in °C colour coded for temperature, not showing that visible light is heating the oceans.
Do you know what a rainbow is? It’s created by water droplets breaking apart Visible light.
Y’all seem, quite unable to examine high energy/highly energetic and low energy outside of the AGWScience meme that these mean that highly energetic is powerful and low energy means it is weak, and that therefore believe these weak are powerful enough to create heat, to raise the temperature of organic matter.
But in real world traditional science this is the description of thermal infrared. A simple sleight of hand, giving the properties of one thing to another, and an impossible world is created pretending to be ours.
And from taking that on trust, because real scientists, especially those in the applied sciences such as engineers who work with these wavelengths and really understand them and can’t be conned into believing this, everything else that AGWScience says is then believed, and any real world science of actual physical fact is viewed through the distorting lenses it creates.
Light energies, and the shortwave either side, are actually very weak, their size is tiny compared with the longer infrared, they are bounced around the sky by molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, that’s how we get a blue sky – light scattered by molecules of the gas Air which is our atmosphere. A little bitty water droplet in the sky breaks up visible light to create rainbows, just how powerful does that make visible light? Same thing when they reach the oceans which around 70% of Earth’s surface, the water breaks them up and scatters them in a particular way called transmission, water is transparent to visible light (obviously the clearer the ocean waters), near IR also. There are good pages around which go through the different ways light can be reflected.
That’s how we see the colours of the world around us, by visible light energies reflecting back, not being absorbed. A near IR camera works on the same principle, it captures the reflecting wavelength, it’s bounced back out, reflected back, just as visible light is which is captured on film. Putting on a shirt stops UV from reaching your skin. They are not thermal. It’s the thermal energies which have the punch to heat organic life on Earth. S’fact. They have different qualities, properties, size, they can do different things, are used in different ways by Earth and the life in it. We use all these energies for life in one way or another.
Why do you have a shadow?
Light waves stay light waves in the oceans as they do on land; some wavelengths absorbed for photosynthesis where the energies are used in a chemical change not heat creation, or for transmitting more light. It’s the heat energies that create heat. That’s why they’re called thermal.
There are some, to me, irritating bits of fear mongering about UV creeping into the following piece on light in oceans, but otherwise a well-written piece. Enjoy it: http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewArticle.do?id=2472
After I’d posted my earlier reply to you, asking for information on what you meant by saying that longwave didn’t penetrate the skin of water, I’d not heard that before and wondered where it came from, I remembered another AGWScience meme I see often, even on the NASA page I linked to, and perhaps it is somehow tied in with this statement of yours.
The NASA page for example, that the heat we feel from the Sun is because our bodies can sense the difference in temperature between inside and outside, and stops there, at skin level. So doesn’t go into the way this heat from the Sun, thermal infrared, penetrates our bodies and warms us up, as in the description I posted how thermal raises our internal temperature because of its affinity with water in our bodies, by the vibrational state of energy and molecules. The biocab.org link on Heat Transfer.
What we have here then, is two vital pieces of information missing from AGWScience which only those who still know real world traditional science can appreciate.
The first is re the KT97 energy budget, that it’s thermal infrared which heats the oceans not these short wave light energies, so all those believing AGWScience here have absolutely no idea of the real physics, the real physical properties of energy and molecules in our world, and the second, that all the work done to date and knowledge gained about using different energies, especially infrared, for healing, which ironically NASA itself began in earnest when looking to find ways of keeping astronauts healthy in space, is a closed book to them.
How incredibly sad that so much energy is being devoted to deliberate create generations of ignorants in science, people who won’t be able to make things work or come up with new discoveries about our physical world because the basics have been so mangled.
Tim – I asked for proof that that Blue Visible light converts to heat land and oceans.
Visible light reflecting and transmitting through transparent mediums to propagate more light is no loss of energy, this is not creating heat. It is not raising the temperature of the water.
Show me the proof that Blue Visible light raises the temperature of the oceans.
Specifically this proof.
Show me the experiments where this has been done.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 6, 2011 at 6:32 pm
astonerii says:
June 5, 2011 at 10:05 pm
Joel Shore says:June 4, 2011 at 7:49 pm
The equation is worthless…………
astonerii, I accept your numbers above, which indicate that 99.999%+…….
==================================================
Ira, I loved your explanation. And I didn’t follow the conversation, I only read your comment. But, if it was too elegant or long-winded, we could try …….
Guys, CO2 emits as does all the other GHGs and absorbs multi-directional. You ought to be able to figure it out from there…..and your 12 step program to hell.
Sorry for butting in, just thought it was too amusing to pass on………. carry on. 🙂
Myrrh says
“Visible light reflecting and transmitting through transparent mediums to propagate more light is no loss of energy, ”
That is true as far as it goes — the light that is transmitted thru a materiel or the light that gets reflected from a material does not add energy to the material.
But no material is 100% transparent. Some light entering a sheet of glass gets absorbed. Some light entering a column of water gets absorbed. Some light traveling thru the atmosphere gets absorbed. Not reflected, not transmitted — absorbed.
For water, visible light can travel tens of meters, but it DOES get absorbed eventually. The darkness deep in the ocean is the simplest proof. Also, the fact that the ocean gets warmer where there is more sunlight is supporting evidence that the sunlight is warming the oceans.
See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Water_absorption_spectrum.png
or
http://www.oceanopticsbook.info/view/absorption/definitions
for measured results.
These are indeed the results of experiments to measure the absorption of light energy by water.
RECAP: Photons go in — they don;t come out. The result is thermal energy of the water.
P.S. I would still like to hear your definitions of
“heat”
“thermal infrared”
“light”
“visible shortwave light”
You use these terms with certainty, so presumably you can tells us what you think they mean.
Wayne, I’ve been looking at this and trying to get my head around it, the following might be a bit jumbled.
http://ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/02SprgClass/geo117/lectures/Lect15.html
This is saying that 60% of the Solar energy reaching the sea surface is absorbed in the first metre and this is thermal infrared, heat. The ratio then of thermal infrared to visible light at the surface of the Earth is 60/40, i.e., the higher % is Thermal IR.
This appears to be a disjunct with what it also says earlier the usual meme that most of the energy at the surface is light and not heat.
[On the slide presentation (http://ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/02sprgclass/geo117/ppts/Lect15.pdf) the slide, “Absorption of solar radiation by the oceans”, .Radiation reaching the sea surface: .visible .infrared = heat .(ultraviolet)]
It also says re that 18°C of the heated earth that it is direct relation to the heat of the source the Sun at 6000. New sentence. Saying that’s why the Earth radiates out in the infrared.
Isn’t there something about matter not being able to radiate energy it hasn’t received?
So, even if there is more visible than heat reaching the surface, since it has no part to play in heating the land and oceans it can be simply discounted, that leaves only what is left of the thermal reaching the Earth’s surface accounting for all the heating of land as well as oceans as described here. But, that doesn’t explain the disjunct in the actual absorption in the ocean.
The water is absorbing the longer wavelengths first, the larger in size being stopped earlier by the mass of the water and progressively so through the longer but now reflective nr ir and visible red orange yellow to the deeper levels where the shorter smaller continue to be reflected and transmitted through the transparent medium.
If it’s 60% of all solar in the ocean, then its 60% on the surface, isn’t it? And that applies to all Earth’s surface.
Am I missing something?
Tim – do stop with “sunlight”.. Just give me the proof I require of you, and all you pushing this AGWScience Energy Budget, prove that Blue Visible light, that particular wavelength with its particular properties and with its particular processes in actions and reactions, etc., creates heat in oceans. Just do it.
That you keep avoiding just doing it is simply reinforcing the conclusion of your lack of ability to do it.
Myrrh says: “Just do it. ”
IMHO, I have done it, many times in many ways. I’m sure Ira understands. I’m sure Joel understands. Your lack of understanding shows more about your lack of ability, not mine.
You REPEATEDLY refuse to tell us what you actually know — making it impossible to ascertain what more you want to know. You have refused my suggestions that you do some studying of the topics to become more informed (telling me in another thread to “stop assigning you homework”).
If you are not willing to bring yourself to an understanding of basic physics, no amount of explaining on my part will help you understand. If you are not willing to tell us what you DO know, we have no way to know where to start teaching.
So tell us your understanding (preferably in the form of numbers and equations) of:
“heat”
“Thermal IR”
“thermal”
“blue light”
“visible light”
“light”
“attenuation”
“visible shortwave light”
“Light energies are actually very weak”
“They have different qualities, properties, size, they can do different things”
(what are these different properties and what are their values for UV, blue, red, and IR? )
@ Myrrh says:
June 6, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Wayne, I’ve been looking at this and trying to get my head around it, the following might be a bit jumbled.
http://ijolite.geology.uiuc.edu/02SprgClass/geo117/lectures/Lect15.html
—
Neat Myrrh, I’ll study it. BTW, got your comment at jonova’s, I’ll comment later, got sidetracked reading the rest of the some 500 comments there.
That link’s info is along the lines I have been looking for all along, knew it was there somewhere. Not all real science is dead, yet. 60% infrared huh? Interesting. I’m still here but my time got suddenly clamped! ☺
I’m getting even more interested as other commenters keep complaining of your persistence. I now wonder how much blue visible light is actually reflected to make our blue globe blue. Logically, there is also bound to be a mixture portion across all of violet, indigo, blue and green of various portions to give any photos of Earth the deep blue-green color. Your question is a good one and I’m not surprised of uiuc’s lecture on the relevance of IR.
@ Matt G:
Thanks for your first two links even thought I appreciate them for a completely different reason being the mean global averages on both. Those two pieces of data had also eluded me, the -42 wm-2 is very interesting. (but sorry, I do agree that those links prove what you thought they do)
@ Tim
The named divisions in those figures above were from an astrophysics site. The steps within ir ranges were by me to make all fine enough and consistent but not to make any meaningless tiny across all three (that is, a good spread).
Tim – how much longer do you think you can avoid giving me an answer?
I don’t have to tell you anything.
As you well know. Or should do.
This is your supposed ‘scientific truth’.
I’m asking you for an explanation and you are, according to the scientific principle in the real world, required to answer me.
You explain every one of those to me in the process of explaining EXACLTLY how Blue Visible Light heats oceans.
Just do it.
Myrrh
Myrrh– how much longer do you think YOU can avoid giving ME an answer !?
I can’t give an answer in Russian to someone who doesn’t speak Russian.
I can’t give an answer about British literature to someone who doesn’t know who Shakespeare or Dickens or Austen is.
I can’t give an answer about the origins of the American Civil War to someone who doesn’t know about the Missouri Compromise or the Dred Scott case or Fort Sumter.
Similarly, I can’t give an answer about conversion of light into thermal energy to someone who can’t define “light”, “heat”, “thermal energy”, or “thermal IR” is! I can’t use mathematics to prove a result to someone who someone who admits he doesn’t know much math.
I’m not going even attempt to answer you until we are “on the same wavelength” as it were about basic science terminology. Define these terms and MAYBE we can move forward.
Phil. says:
June 6, 2011 at 11:13 am
“Indeed it is but the North Pole is not the globe! “the global temperature was maybe 2-3 F warmer than today.”
Phil think about the implications of over a thousand years of 6-9 F higher temperatures in the Artic/Northern Siberia etc. There was no methane runaway, the polar bears are still here, the Artic was ice free for some period, etc. All the horrible things folks talk about today already happened and as far as I can tell nothing bad was the outcome.
So the temp globally was 2-3 degrees higher than today it was still higher than today. And until we exceed natural past tempertures we cannot say that we are experimenting or that anything out of the ordinary.
CO2 was much lower back then but the temperature was higher. Kinda kills the whole theory don’t ya think?
Tim – Gone on, have a go, we’ll all, whoever is left reading this, look at the experiments and the data and the measurements and follow along with you and I’m sure those with real science knowledge here can help explain anything I’m not sure of if you get stuck.
How difficult can it be to provide this? Surely there are pages and pages and pages of AGWScience describing the proofs for this premise, no? Showing how much UV heats water, salty and unsalty and how it does this given its properties and the properties of the water, how much Orange Visible raises the temperature of different rocks and soils by its physical properties and so on – how difficult can it be to pull out from such standard comprehensive physics and data that AGWScience must have built up over these decades supporting its premise that shortwave visible and invisible sunlight directly heats the Earth and raises the temperature of land and oceans to radiate out the thermal infrared claimed, just how much Blue Visible Light heats the oceans? But wait! This is claimed to be real world physics by AGWScience, not even presenting something new, so you also have the wealth of Science of decades previous to show how shortwave Light energies from the Sun heat the oceans and land!
So, don’t worry about any difficulties that I personally might have following the explanations of the physics and the research and applications, go for it.
Spread it out before us to have a really good look at it all.
How and how much does Blue Visible Light heat the oceans?
Show me figures, and the methodology and physics in the testing, show me the actual real world science to prove that Blue Visible Light heats the oceans of Earth as claimed by AGWScience in their Energy Budget, as in KT97.
Because you can’t even prove that Blue Visible Light is capable of heating water.
Matt G – by the way, the duh comment I made was to the explanation, but realised after I’d posted that I didn’t actually see that of course it was obvious only because I’d read the explanation pointing out what had to be looked for, so the duh’s on me..
Anyway, what are you thoughts on the uiuc lecture I posted re absorption of thermal heating the oceans? Really would like to know where you got your information from that it doesn’t penetrate at all, “doesn’t penetrate the skin surface”.
Do you have any information from the same source which explains how and how much blue visible lightwaves raise the temperature of water?
And this brings us back to the topic of the original post: “Skeptic Strategy for Talking About Global Warming”
Intelligently discussing ANY subject requires a common vocabulary. There are lots of terms that are similar, but not the same:
* GW and AGW and CAGW
* atmospheric greenhouse effect and horticultural greenhouse effect
* heat and thermal energy
* heating and warming
* Thermal IR and IR
Intelligently discussing ANY topic requires understanding the key principles of the subject. For the greenhouse effect and determining the expected average temperature of the earth, this includes (among many other things)
* 1st and 2nd Laws of Thermodynamics
* temperature & heat
* Planck’s Law, Stefan-Boltzmann Law & black body radiation
* emissivity and albedo of typical surfaces of the earth
* Quantum theory of vibrations of polyatomic molecules
* attenuation of light and optical depth
* IR absorption bands of CO2 & H2O
* the photon theory of light
* lapse rate, troposphere, & tropopause
It is quite possible to give broad outlines without knowing the details. It is quite impossible to “prove” anything without knowing the science. Ira knew his audience was the “Technology, Engineering, and Science Plus” group, so he aimed his talk at that level.
So it is easy to say (yet again) ” Blue photons carry energy into the ocean, but blue photons do not come out of the ocean. Photosynthesis & other chemical reactions absorbs only a small fraction of energy of the blue photons. QED the majority of the energy from the blue photos gets absorbed and turned to thermal energy within the water.” Ira’s audience would understand that as sufficient “proof” that blue light helps warm the oceans.
But, Tim, the ocean looks blue! Have you not heard the phrase “sail the ocean blue”? Is that not proof that blue photons do come out of the ocean, more than any other light from the Sun? Therefore, the blue light from the Sun is reflected and not absorbed. Thus blue light foes not contribute to the warming of the oceans. (/sarc)
THANKS for your comments and for being a voice of scientific reason in this and other threads. I have given up on replying to certain elements here because our reason is reflected and not absorbed. (And, like the reflection from a fun house mirror, our reasonable, science-based information is reversed and distorted beyond recognition.)
Myrrh says:
June 7, 2011 at 2:16 pm
I have looked further into the absorption coefficients for water and this link near the bottom shows them quite well. Firstly, I have to agree with your doubts about blue visible light with water. It is not good at absorbing blue visible light, but incorrect to suggest it doesn’t absorb at all. It is fair to say that blue visible light is the poorest at absorption in visible band because it has the lowest coefficient, travels the furthest and the colour we see with our own eyes, is mainly the one with is generally not being absorbed. It is absorbed eventually, but takes much further to absorb it. This in turn causes the water to warm per mm much less than other visible bands, but warms this little amount for a much further distance.
http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/o4s/001/mt001a_2.php
I seen the link about solar infrared suppose to warm the ocean by 60 percent in the first meter. I have looked into this further and this is shortwave radiation, not longwave radiaiton. The infrared in this context is that of mainly in the near IR band. Near IR (red visible) has a absorption coeffient 100 times bigger than blue visible light, but can warm the ocean about one meter below. The observed evidence why longwaves can’t warm the ocean below the surface is down to the absorption coeffient is extremely high, all is absorbed within the first 3 mm’s, depending on where in the band. (just nm’s in some regions)
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
The problem then is this energy is easily lost being so close to the surface by latent heat. It makes it extremely difficult for energy to build up in the ocean depths. Thats why energy from shortwave can be long lasting and have a long term trend when it penetrates much deeper. Cloud albedo especially affects how much light penetrates the oceans. The absorption coeffient of water is the solid evidence that supports shortwaves warming the oceans and the previous links for observed shortwave and longwave over a period of years.
Tim – so we agree about something then… (the level of Ira’s audience of astute and tech savvy Technology, Engineering and Science Plus group).
Yes, I can quite imagine it’s very easy to say to such an audience:
“Blue photons carry energy into the ocean, but blue photons do not come out of the ocean. Photosynthesis & other chemical reactions absorbs only a small fraction of energy of the blue photons. QED the majority of the energy from the blue photons gets absorbed and turned to thermal energy within the water.” Ira’s audience would understand that as sufficient “proof” that blue light helps warm the oceans.
But it’s Myrrh you’re talking to.
Your QED is BS as I’m sure all the real scientists reading this understand very well indeed.
Provide the figures, provide the physics which shows exactly how Blue Visible light acts in water, and take out of the AGWScience energy budget whatever ‘amount’ has been given as Blue light’s contribution to heating the oceans and land.
Now, let’s do the other colours shall we?
Typo- below is the correct spelling.
“coefficient”
Jim Masterson says:
” By the way, since light travelling through water or glass goes slower than c, are the photons aware of passing time? 🙂 ”
I’ve asked my pet photon. He says there’s no time elapsed between emission and absorption. It’s in the nature of photons, no matter how fast we think they’re traveling. To them it’s all the same. 🙂
# # #
Tim Folkerts,
Since you never disputed my post of June 5, 2011 at 8:42 pm, are we in agreement that my hypothesis remains unfalsified?
Matt G:
Except near IR is not red-visible as you just stated, it is invisible IR. Some people and even some climatologists and books try so hard to totally ignore all of this solar IR warming but none of their definitions are correct, it is manufactured words to prove a fallacy, a figment in someone’s imagination. IR is not visible and much of solar radiation is IR..
wayne says:
June 8, 2011 at 2:21 pm
I thought near IR was in this range (0.7-1) to 5 µm?
Matt G says:
June 8, 2011 at 10:44 am
I have looked further into the absorption coefficients for water and this link near the bottom shows them quite well. Firstly, I have to agree with your doubts about blue visible light with water. It is not good at absorbing blue visible light, but incorrect to suggest that it doesn’t absorb at all. It is fair to say that blue visible light is the poorest at absorption in visible band because it has the lowest coefficient, travels the furthest and the colour we see with out own eyes, is mainly the one which is generally not being absorbed. It is absorbed eventually, but takes much further to absorb it. This is turn causes the water to warm per mm much less than other visible bands, but warms this little amount for a much further distance.
Firstly, I don’t have any doubts at all about how Blue light acts in water, it is bog standard real world science, it doesn’t heat water. Blue light is transmitted through water by being briefly ‘absorbed’, its miniscule wavelength impinging only long enough to shoot it back out again, to reflect it, as do the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in the sky. I am using the word reflect loosely here, specific types of reflection have specific terms attached depending on the way light travels, suffice to say that here reflection is merely passing along the colour, in other words, its energy is being used to ‘create’ light. It is not strong enough to do anything else in water any more than it can pit is puny energy against the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in the sky, which ‘bounce’, absorb briefly and reflect back out scattering it. The blue colour we see the sea is blue light that has not been absorbed to be used in chemical changes such as photosynthesis and is being reflected back at us from the water molecules, just as the green we see plants is the colour that plants do not absorb but reflect back out. Highly energetic means only that a wavelength moves more rapidly in the the same distance, it is smaller. Blue light travels further in water because of this, until it gets to a depth where its energy can’t take it any further.
So, ‘absorption’ includes being reflected out back the way it came, which our eyes pick up in seeing the sea as blue, of being actually absorbed and used as in chemical transformations of water and carbon dioxide into sugars in photosynthesis, and by running out of puff. The depths of the ocean are dark because no more light reaches them, which can also be described as ‘absorption’.
This new system of posting is extremely irritating, there must be something wrong with their coding.
Please see http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/light/u12l2c.cfm on how light reflects back out, scatters and transmits. I don’t know how this fits in with your absorption coefficients, too much maths and I don’t have time to translate into english. Ditto what Wayne noticed, infrared is invisible. Near infrared behaves as do the shorter wavelengths of visible, which is how near infrared cameras work, because the camera captures the light reflected back from the subject, thermal infrared cameras are different, they pick up on the heat coming out from the subject.
Sorry, the first paragraph should be in italics, quoting Matt G, the rest is mine.
I was searching around in the files on my laptop and discovered that there is more to the insight the character in my novel had. For some reason the full insight did not make it into the free online version of my novel.
Here is the full version of the insight. Anyone know what it means?
Spacetime curves, but light goes straight
Just as Time is incoherent without motion, Space is incoherent without material.
So, there must be an equivalency relationship between motion and material.
I think it may apply to gravitational lensing, as the material in the Universe is what causes “Space to curve” and motion is what causes “Time to advance”.
I know most of the range that I was discussing is actually near IR, only around 0.7-1.0µm that it seems there is a little overlapping going through red visible into near IR. (only meant some of this range to be red visible) Most of the thermal infrared where warms the one meter depth of the ocean was in the near IR band. (shortwave)
http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/vibrat.html
The visble light interacts with the rotational bonds of water, this is how it warms the ocean. (near IR is even more effective) The reason why blue visible light is still absorbed is due too that not only was this actually measured, but the blue colour you see is not that convincing. If it was 100 percent reflected you would see a much more complete blue.
Matt G
Re range of near IR.
If if wasn’t odd enough having this conversation in two places on WUWT, I misposted a reply to Wayne and you and on JoNova’s site, you might have missed it because I meant to but forgot to mention here it was also to you. Anyway, it’s about IR bands: http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/so-what-is-the-second-darn-law/comment-page-9/#comment-332060
Matt G – please see the wikipedia page Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water.
It makes the point that all absorption is in the infrared and the rest of the spectrum having no effect to speak of. This is because visible is reflected while thermal ir is absorbed and has the power to move the molecules creating heat. This is the simple division in traditional physics between Light and Heat energies as encapsulated on the NASA page, which simply divides it into far and near. Far the thermal, the heat we feel from the Sun and from a fire, near not felt hot.
Near ir is reflective as are the visible colours and do not created heat, but builds up to thermal – all the longer heat energies are around the peak amount. Since AGWScience says thermal IR does not reach the Earth’s surface and is not creating heat here we know it is spouting BS. If we can feel the heat from the sun so can the oceans and land.
Be aware too, as demonstrated here, that there are some promoting AGWScience who really do know traditional physics, and actively work to confuse. As Ira catching Tim’s ‘in joke’ about the ocean being blue because all the blue light is absorbed and none escapes, came back with the real reason we see the sea as blue, because blue light is reflected, but then added a /sarc to make it appear not true. Make of them what you will.
We see the sea as blue because it reflects the sky, which is blue because blue light from the sun scatters in the atmosphere and appears to come from all directions (because of blue light’s short wavelength). Nothing to do with the sea water. Except that it’s reflective.
Brian Hall – please see http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1312335/posts
See Figure 2 on that page for further explanation, same as the wiki extra info:
Water doesn’t absorb the visible spectrum but reflects it, within that the minute differences between the different colours are enough to give us a blue sea. Our world is full of such wonders, be aware that some are deliberately working to prevent your true appreciation of it.
Water is a very strong absorber of thermal infrared, Heat, and reflects back and transmits through visible light, it is transparent to visible light and near infrared which acts as these shorter waves do. See transmission here: http://ledlight.osram-os.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Optical-Principals.pdf
Thanks Myrrh for your link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water which does indeed have a graph that shows that the absorption of water is minimum for Blue Light. However, since the reflectivity of water is less than 10% for light at angles within +/- 55º of normal, over 90% of Blue light is NOT reflected and the light energy must therefore be absorbed by the water.
The main impact of the low absorption of water for Blue light is that Blue light must penetrate further down before all of it gets absorbed. That is why, when we see photos of deep-sea divers, the water looks Blue. The other colors of visible light are absorbed nearer the surface and therefore it is mainly the Blue light that penetrates down to their level. However, given deep water, the 90% or more of Blue light that is not reflected by the water surface is eventually absorbed, adding to the Solar energy contribution to the temperature of the Earth.
Brian Hall is also correct that the reason the sky looks Blue is because the Atmosphere scatters Blue light more than other visible light and the reflectivity of the sea surface, particularly for light that strikes the surface at shallow angles, is mainly of the Blue sky.
Brian Hall – happened yesterday and today, I kept typing brain instead of brian.. Don’t be confused by the Ira/Tim duet being played out in these discussions, they both know very well that blue light can’t heat water because they’re not powerful enough to move heavy water molecules into vibrational/rotational states and the confusion created by the terms used in different contexts is a muddy puddle for them to splash around in to promote and even create more nonsense memes, all to keep pushing that Light energies from the Sun which are not capable of creating heat in organic matter and that actual real thermal energies from the Sun, Heat transported by electromagnetic waves which do heat organic matter especially so water, plays no part in this. This is AGWScience, it is basic gobbledegook. It is the same basic gobbledegook creation which has people believing that oxygen, nitrogen and carbon dioxide behave as ideal gases. Until you look closely into this, or unless you are already a practical applied scientist in the particular field or otherwise well educated in it, it can be difficult to see the joins where a real statement is followed by gobbledegook and the gobbledegook promoted by association.
Please see my analysis above of the way this has been done with temperatures of the Earth with and without ‘greenhouse’ gases – what is the meme in popular current usage from that? That the Earth would be -18°C without greenhouse gases. What are the ‘greenhouse gases’ which actually give that figure? The REAL greenhouse gases of our atmosphere, all of them, nitrogen and oxygen predominantly. Our whole atmosphere is the real greenhouse around the planet Earth, and like a real greenhouse where we have to regulate the temperature by opening and shutting windows, putting in and taking out heat, our Earth does this naturally. Mixing up contexts is the method used to create belief in the imaginary AGWScience world, through the looking glass with them they attempt to make you believe any number of impossible things.
The context they are mixing up here are these, the use of the concept reflection in the difference between Light and Heat in thermal understanding of these energies, and reflection in the specific sense it is also used in optics and the science of reflection of light waves.
Much as it is interesting to look into the optical detail where the paths of reflection of Light have different names, they are all kinds of REFLECTION. The paths through water have both internal and external reflections, the difference between a clear still lake reflecting the mountains around is obvious direct reflection, the lake acting like a mirror, while in the oceans the transmission of light include refraction when the speed of the medium, the difference between air and water changes the speed light travels and therefore changes the path of light by splitting it at the boundary, some to be reflected back and some to transmit through the water, where there is internal reflection exiting in different paths in diffusion. Like a rainbow created by light which travels at different speeds through a medium depending on the colour gets split up by defraction and re-emitted by internal reflection scattered in all directions. These Light energies are highly energetic because they are very small, being very small they do not carry any punch, they act on the atomic level and briefly agitate such which then emits the same lightwave as it settles down, no heat is being created, merely Light being Reflected.
The energies carrying Heat are bigger, longer, more powerful, not only able to withstand being knocked every which way by molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in the gas Air of our atmosphere, which scatter the puny Light energies and spit them out remaining unaffected by them, but the Heat energies are powerful enough to move the molecules of water themselves, to agitate them, to affect them. Which is how water in both our atmosphere and in our oceans gets heated by these electromagnetic energies carrying Heat, by actually moving them, agitating them which creates heat, raises their temperature.
The difference in size between Near Infrared which is closer to the shorter smaller more energetic meaning moving more quickly in the same distance puny nervy Visible and the bigger, longer, slower more powerful Thermal Infrared, is between the microscopic size of near and the pin head size of thermal. Which then do you think is actually carrying more energy to affect organic matter when energy means power to change something?
So, interesting as this foray into optics has been, the bottom line is that the “Solar” energies of the AGWScience fiction Energy Budget are REFLECTIVE, not THERMAL, they do not get ABSORBED but REFLECTED by the big heavy molecules of nitrogen, oxygen and water. The thermal energies get absorbed when their energy is used up creating heat.
So Ira’s nonsense in the opening to this discussion that ‘light from the Sun is called light because we see so much of it’, is gobbledegook and an insult to real science analysis which has already categorised Light as REFLECTIVE because they are reflected away; puny speedy pin balls in a pin ball machine of big weighty molecules of nitrogen and oxygen scattered across the sky and the heavy molecules of water in the oceans. They are not absorbed, they are reflected away by these heavy molecules in the transparent to Light mediums of the fluid gaseous Air of our atmosphere and the fluid liquid water of our oceans. (Our atmosphere is not empty space, but the FLUID gas AIR; liquid Water is also a FLUID, in contrast to SOLID, and stuff moves different through fluids and solids; CONVECTION is the method of transport through FLUIDS.)
Water has an extremely big capacity to HOLD HEAT. Thermal infrared radiation having heated the molecules of water by moving them and so giving up the heat energy it is carrying plays no further part, it is absorbed in this, and the heated water molecules then pass on the heat through convection. Heat always travels from the hotter to the colder, so these will pass that heat energy on by moving the colder molecules around them, raising their temperature by giving up, losing, their some or all of their heat and so on. This is the real NET effect of heat tranfer, in molecules gaining from the molecules losing heat by giving up their own as they in turn do, until an equilibrium comes about.
Light waves are not absorbed by the water in oceans as Ira says in his last post to me, blue light travels the furthest but eventually simply stops, its energy is not eternal that ‘something has to absorb it to make it stop’ giving the opportunity for more science fiction deliberate confusion by playing with the word ‘absorb’.
Blue and Red Visible, and also near IR at greater depths than visible red can reach, is ABSORBED by plant life in the oceans in photosynthesis, where their energy is used not to create heat but to effect a chemical change, to produce sugars. These do not have any noticeable affect on actual water molecules, see chart, they are NOT ABSORBED BY THE MOLECULES OF WATER, THEY ARE REFLECTED AWAY. Heat energy of thermal infrared is absorbed by water in the creation of heat.
It’s these invisible Heat energies, Thermal Infrared, which warm you up by penetrating your body and causing the water of which we’re predominantly composed, to heat up. Light energies enter and are quickly reflected back out of the body, that’s why you cast a shadow and we can’t see inside you.
REFLECTIVE and THERMAL are the
But back to this and the deliberate confusion being generated by AGWScience fiction supporters.
We see colours because they are the wavelengths being reflected back to our eyes.
This new system is utterly daft. I have lost half of my last post and the box below input is showing my previous post to Brian Hall, not the one with the lost second half. Unless someone is messing with it. I have lost several posts I had written while trying to get replies out to Matt G.
[nobody is messing with anything . . kb]
Ah, OK, my bad this last call. But, then why have I been losing posts and now still seeing the same post to Brain, aka Brian I posted yesterday rather than the latest?
Myrrh, do you accept the scientific concept of conservation of energy (and matter)? If so, you have to explain where the energy in the Blue light goes as it travels down through the depths of the water and becomes dimer and dimmer until it cannot be seen. Yes, some of it is taken up in chemical reactions by bacteria in the sea, but most of that energy is absorbed by water molecules.
Indeed, as I acknowledged, your link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water shows that absorption of Blue light by water is much less than that of other visible light, but it is not zero. Therefore, as we both agree, the Blue light penetrates further below the surface, but, eventually, in your words it “eventually simply stops”, and in my words (and scientific truth) it is eventually totally absorbed.
Consider a straight and level section of railroad track. Take a train car (or carriage as you might call it) and impart it with kinetic energy by giving it a hefty push so it is moving at 1 MPH. Of course, we both know it will eventually stop. But why? The only reasonable, scientific explanation is that the kinetic energy we imparted to the train car must be conserved. Therefore, it did not “simply stop”, but it kept moving until every Joule of energy was transformed, by friction, to heat, in the wheel bearings, along the tracks, and even into the air as the train car moved along from the place where it started until it stopped. If we ran this experiment in a vacuum and with perfectly friction-less bearings and hard, smooth tracks, the train car would never stop.
Thus, the portion of the Solar spectrum that is in the wavelength range we call “Blue” has X amount of energy when it enters the top of the Atmosphere. Some of that energy is reflected back to Space by the air molecules, some by clouds, and some by light colored materials on the Surface. Some of that energy is scattered and eventually comes down to the Surface at shallow angles which is why the sky looks Blue. Some of that energy is absorbed by air molecules.
However, the majority of the Blue light energy comes down at angles that are steep enough such that, when the Blue light strikes the ocean surface, 90% or more of it penetrates and is gradually absorbed by the water. Since energy is conserved, that Blue light energy must warm the water and is partially responsible for the mean Surface temperature of the Earth.
If you accept the scientific principle of conservation of energy (and matter) you should accept the basic truth of this explanation. If you do not believe in conservation of energy (and matter), and you think that energy can “simply stop” and go away with no further trace, you (IMHO) have no right to be part of a science-based conversation.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 12, 2011 at 10:31 am
Re my: “Light waves are not absorbed by the water in oceans as Ira says in his last post to me, blue light ravels the furthest but eventually simply stops, its energy is not eternal that ‘something has to absorb it to make it stop’ giving the opportunity for more science fiction deliberate confusion by playing with the word ‘absorb’.”
Myrrh, do you accept the scientific concept of conservation of energy ( and matter)?
Irrelevant whether I do or don’t. This isn’t about what I accept or don’t accept, it’s about what real science says about energy/matter in our world against what is claimed by AGWScience fiction..
If so, you have to explain where the energy in the Blue light goes as it travels down through the depths of the water and becomes dimer and dimmer until it cannot be seen.
As before Ira, I don’t have to explain anything, I’m just hanging around waiting for my coffee that you’re going to make me when you prove that Blue visible light heats water..
Who says it gets dimmer and dimmer? Scattering doesn’t make the light dimmer. The light is simply reflected off into another direction. If you like, you can think of its energy being used to propel it in another direction, there, energy conserved, happy now? But, you really need to stop thinking about ‘highly energetic’ as meaning ‘more powerful’, your shirt stops the even more highly energetic UV. These waves are tiny tiny tiny. They bounce off atoms. They’re not big or strong enough to move molecules around. They’re the tiny balls whizzing around a pin ball machine, bouncing off the atoms which hardly move at all because these light waves are so piddlingly small and insignificant to them.
Indeed, as I acknowledged, your link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_absorption_by_water shows that absorption of Blue light by water is much less than that of other visible light, but it is not zero.
Not my link, I didn’t put it in as a link and deliberately so. Come off it Ira, it is for all practical purposes zero. Visible is not absorptive. Absorptive is all in the Infrared. That’s exactly what it is saying.
These are LIGHT energies, they’re REFLECTIVE, in contrast to HEAT energies, which are ABSORPTIVE.
Heat energy changes, affects, the whole MOLECULE, sets it spinning and vibrating, the electromagnetic energy carrying HEAT is used in raising the temperature of the molecule AND IN DOING SO IT IS ABSORBED. That’s what is meant when we talk of absorbed and not absorbed here in the difference. Thermal Infrared is the energy which converts to heat, that’s what it does in the real world. Visible and the shortwave either side cannot do this, because they are incapable of doing it. They are not absorbed. They are reflected.
These energies are QUITE DIFFERENT FROM EACH OTHER. Light energies are electronic, Heat energies vibrational. Going into further detail is irrelevant here, what is important is to understand that these are different and the one can’t do the job of the other. Visible Light in the AGWScience Energy Budget CANNOT convert to heat the land and oceans as it is claimed.
Stick with the basic bog standard traditional understanding of the differences, one is Light the other is Heat. If you remember Light is Reflective, Heat is Absorptive, then you can’t go wrong.
Therefore, as we both agree, the Blue light penetrates further below the surface, but, eventually, in your words it “eventually simply stops”, and in my words (and scientific truth) it is eventually totally absorbed.
But it’s not a scientific truth when it comes to using absorbed in the context of the difference between Light and Heat energies.
Don’t get hung up on ‘absorbed’ any more than getting hung up on ‘reflected’, in the fine detail these are used and further divided into different effects in relation to different matter. It is more than sufficient to remember that Light is reflective and does not create heat, their energies are bounced away, Heat energies create heat, convert to heat, they are absorbed.
The AGWScience fiction Energy Budget is Gobbledegook because the qualities and properties of HEAT have been given to LIGHT.
AGWScience fiction is constantly doing this, misappropriating terms from one context and applying to something in another.
Yes, some of it is taken up in chemical reactions by bacteria in the sea, but most of that energy is absorbed by water molecules.
Some estimate the photosynthesis of the oceans to be 75% of the total of land and seas. There’s more than ‘bacteria’ in the oceans.. As photosynthesis produces 98% of our Oxygen in addition to helping create abundant life, I’d say this is where most of that energy goes.
Water does not absorb light energies, they go through one bounce too many relative to their wavelength under more pressure of water the deeper they go and they run out of puff to move any further, and stop. AGAIN, how they actually physically do this in all its fascinating but irrelevant detail you can explore at your leisure.
Light energies do not get absorbed to create heat in water, water is a transparent medium for them, they just pass right on through, reflecting as they go.
Bouncy bouncy every which way down until they’re stopped. And when they’re stopped, they are not creating heat any more than could do when they were moving. Lights go out, where does their energy go when you switch off the light?
Don’t get hung up on ‘absorbed’, the OCEAN absorbs the Light, it doesn’t notice it any more when it’s done so, than we notice the bacteria in us working busily away keeping us healthy.
The real problem here, in and through all AGWScience fiction, is there is absolutely zero appreciation of scale. You’re all so one dimensional in your beliefs about the properties of stuff, you don’t have any. Because one dimensional stuff isn’t anything. Your AGWScience understanding of energy is all fiction because of it, because your energy is one dimensional. None of your one dimensional stuff has any properties particular to it and which relate to and interact in different ways with other real stuff.
Consider a straight and level section of railroad track. …..but it kept moving until every Joule of energy was transformed, by friction, to heat, in the wheel bearing, along the tracks, … If we ran this experiment in a vacuum and with perfectly friction-less bearings and hard, smooth tracks, the train car would never stop.
See? Regardless of how many times I’ve mentioned it here, even though you’ve repeated some in agreement as you acknowledge there are chemical changes, but you’ve not quite appreciated that energy can produce simply more non thermal Light, you’re still stuck in your one dimensional AGWScience fiction world where only heat is created by energy, ever hear of work? There are other uses of the energy in that scenario. AGWScience fiction creates perpetual motion here too? Amazing. I really wish your fiction was true, I’m spending even more money than ever having to buy oil to heat my home and it’s bloody cold outside and its June and it should be hot. You think you can create eternal light, where does it go when you switch off your lamp?
Didn’t someone try something like inventing a car that used every bit of energy it genenerated and lost unused and ended up with something that went about 3 miles an hour? Walking speed.
However, the majority of the Blue light energy comes down at angles that are steep enough such that, when the Blue light strikes the ocean surface, 90% or more of it penetrates and is gradually absorbed by the water. Since energy is conserved, that Blue light energy must warm the water and is partially responsible for the mean Surface temperature of the Earth.
Blue Visible Light is Reflective, it does not have the power to move molecules of water to heat. It’s energy is used in bouncing around making such a small impact that it is for all practical purposes, no impact at all, hence transmitted through water which is a transparent medium for it.
Unlike Thermal Infrared, which has a very great affinity for resonating with water (vibrational resonance energy) which means that water is therefore strongly absorbing to Thermal IR. Thermal ir with its more powerful bigger wavelengths gets water molecules into moving and so heats them up. Heat is a powerful energy, you can feel how powerful it is when you stand too close to an open fire, or put your hand on a hot plate that is not quite glowing in visible red and that’s why you spit on an iron rather than use your hand to test if it’s hot enough to iron your shirt which you want to put on to stop those pesky little blighters UV rays from burning you when you go outside. Aha, another oldie but goodie. That’s why we talk of Light rays, not Light energy as if it is like energies capable of doing heavy duty work, internal combustion engine.
If you accept the scientific principle of conservation of energy (and matter) you should accept the basic truth of this explanation. If you do not believe in conservation of energy (and matter), and you think that energy can “simply stop” and go away with no further trace, you (IMHO) have no right to be part of a science-based conversation.
Your one dimensional ‘conservation of energy (and matter)’ is meaningless drivel when you come up to real traditional science which understands there are different ways energy can be conserved because traditional science lives in the real world where energy (and matter) are different shapes and sizes and weights and able to things that another can’t do and affect and interact with each other; not all processes, uses of energy, create heat. Since in your ‘science’ you have none of these things, what makes you think you’ve any right to be part of a science-based conversation?
That’s why AGWScience fiction can think totally nonsensical things about matter without noticing it can’t exist in the real world. That oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide have the qualities of an ideal gas and obey ideal gas law. duh. That Heat flows from colder to hotter. duh. That Light energies convert to heat water. duh. That molecules are moved by Brownian motion to mix thoroughly in the atmosphere which is empty space. double duh
You, generic, really can’t have any idea whatsoever what a ludicrous world these AGWScience fiction premises conjour up because you have no idea of real physics in the real world. You don’t have sound in the AGWScience fiction world, did you know that?
Can you hear me?
Further to what Ira says, you are fundamentally wrong, not even slightly correct, when you say that light and heat radiation are different. From gamma rays down to radio and electrical waves, it’s all EM, it’s all the same stuff, just different frequencies.
And it all ends up as heat. No exceptions. Some delays and side-excursions, which permit life to exploit it etc., but NO DIFFERENCE OTHERWISE.
Get over it. You have thoroughly high-jacked and messed up several interesting threads with your obdurate refusal to learn basic thermodynamics.
Myrrh;
More verbose nonsense.
Move your hand with a small single wave motion about 1 foot, right to left, taking 1 second to do so.
Now, repeat, but move it up and down twice, still in one second, keeping the wave height the same.
Now, again, but with 4 cycles in the same distance and time.
Now with eight cycles. Still hangin’ in?
Now try for sixteen.
When your arm and shoulder cramps and twitches ease off enough, come back and report your observations and conclusions.
Here: wiki/Transparency_and_translucency
Visible Light in Water – reflection and scattering by briefly ‘absorbing’ and bouncing it back out the way it came in, transmission (provided no other absorption mechanisms active) when an electron cannot absorb the energy of the photon and the photon continues on its path.
The selectively absorbs a portion of the photon is what happens when light meets life waiting to absorb some colours in photosynthesis, no heat created in the chemical use of the selected colours and the rest reflected back out.
All ways of Light showing its Reflective properties. Heat creation is zero for Visible and for all practical purposes with all the shortwave. Even UV which can have the effect of burning the skin, is still not felt as heat because it is not a thermal energy – we do not feel it as heat even as it ‘burns’ by messing with the DNA. UV doesn’t penetrate the skin beyond the first layer, the epidermis, it is reflected out. Only when intense in amount, such as high up in mountains or skin unused to it, does it ‘burn’. Sure, even Visible can be artificially intensified to create a high energy drill to burn through something, but this is not Heat energy, but reflective Light which is thoroughly unburning and benign in the natural world.
The AGWScience fiction Energy Budget KT97 and its ilk, is unabashed gobbledegook.
You need to start again.
You will have to work out for yourself when it comes to the description of thermal infrared on that page that water is one such with a strong resonance with it and so highly absorbing. Water also has a high heat capacity, takes longer to heat up and longer to lose the heat. Water is so strange.
Myrrh says:
June 12, 2011 at 3:54 pm
“That’s why AGWScience fiction can think totally nonsensical things about matter without noticing it can’t exist in the real world. That oxygen and nitrogen and carbon dioxide have the qualities of an ideal gas and obey ideal gas law. duh. That Heat flows from colder to hotter. duh. That Light energies convert to heat water. duh. That molecules are moved by Brownian motion to mix thoroughly in the atmosphere which is empty space. double duh
You, generic, really can’t have any idea whatsoever what a ludicrous world these AGWScience fiction premises conjour up because you have no idea of real physics in the real world. You don’t have sound in the AGWScience fiction world, did you know that?
Can you hear me?”
Myrrh
Thanks for your comments and this post.
You are partly answering some of the questions I still had after reading the slayers book and the Postma paper. Not all because I still can not see what happens to light if it does not turn to heat. But I can see logically that it must not be absorbed by the water otherwise it would be black fairly quickly. Is it used in other ways (to create images in the brain) but just not to generate heat.
Hopefully this is not a dumb question. Where does the light go when the light is turned off.
RJ, your last question is a famous one, as is the answer:. It goes the same place your fist goes when you shake hands.
As for your comment that light “must not be absorbed by the water otherwise it would be black fairly quickly”, when divers go down far enough in the sea it does become almost perfectly black and dark. All the Sunlight is absorbed and it as dark as it is at night. They have to bring searchlights to see anything.
RJ – doesn’t look like you’ve seen my last post, should help in sorting out what happens to Visible as it gives the different things it says can and will occur, under UV-Vis: Electronic transitions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_and_translucency
The ones I’ve been talking about here particularly because relevant to Light v Heat in water are the two in the middle- straight reflection/scattering and transmission.
The reflection/scattering using the energy to simply bounce the photon back out the way it came in, how that actually relates to the angle of incidence/angle of reflection I haven’t looked into, but there are all kinds of internal reflections possible which an optics should explain somewhere. The transmission is the explanation for the photon travelling in the transparent medium water which is the standard term, description of it, how visible light travels through water. The default if nothing else is happening which is using or doing something else with the energy, which means that it has no effect at all on the electrons as it simply passes through the water.
The last of the four has photosynthesis as an example. In photosynthesis the plant selectively takes out blue and red and uses that energy for a chemical change in creating sugars out of carbon dioxide and water. Heat isn’t created directly, this is not heating the plant up, but heat is then later created when the sugars are used to fuel growth and so on. The colours not selected are reflected out, this in plants is the green we see them as the light is reflected back to our eyes. Chemical changes are ‘rearrangements’ of the constituent parts to create something different. As with all these things, it gets more complex the more detailed one goes in it.
The first of the four is a vast field, the links on the wiki page to luminescence, fluorescence and phosphorescence are fascinating reads.
Where does light go when the light is turned off?
Perhaps someone here can enlighten us both..
Myrrh says:
June 12, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
June 12, 2011 at 10:31 am
Re my: “Light waves are not absorbed by the water in oceans as Ira says in his last post to me, blue light ravels the furthest but eventually simply stops, its energy is not eternal that ‘something has to absorb it to make it stop’ giving the opportunity for more science fiction deliberate confusion by playing with the word ‘absorb’.”
Myrrh, do you accept the scientific concept of conservation of energy ( and matter)?
Irrelevant whether I do or don’t. This isn’t about what I accept or don’t accept, it’s about what real science says about energy/matter in our world against what is claimed by AGWScience fiction..,
Yes and real science is something you don’t know the first thing about Myrrh!
Not my link, I didn’t put it in as a link and deliberately so. Come off it Ira, it is for all practical purposes zero. Visible is not absorptive. Absorptive is all in the Infrared. That’s exactly what it is saying.
Absolute crap, visible is typically absorbed in electronic transitions, infrared absorbs in the vibrational spectrum, they both absorb.
These are LIGHT energies, they’re REFLECTIVE, in contrast to HEAT energies, which are ABSORPTIVE.
More nonsense there is no such distinction.
Phil – Visible Light cannot and therefore does not convert to heat the land and oceans of Earth. That comes from bog standard traditional science which I have outlined above. I have also gone to some considerable effort to show that “absorb” is used in different contexts, the context of “absorb” here is in the difference between Light and Heat electromagnetic energy. In this context, Visible is not absorbed to convert to heat as the AGWScience Energy Budget KT97 claims. Because it cannot. It physically cannot. It physically does not. It is Light. Light energies are used, affect, react with matter in a completely different way from the Thermal Infrared electromagnetic wave carrying Heat.
Re my: ” These are LIGHT energies, which are REFLECTIVE, in contrast to HEAT energies which are ABSORPTIVE.”
More nonsense there is no such distinction.
But I’ve just given you the distinction.
You don’t have any distinction in AGWScience fiction, because you’re one dimensional., you don’t have differences between properties of matter and energy.
Read the wiki piece I gave about how real Visible light waves/photons act in the real world. Read the links to the pages on luminescence etc. That information has been gathered over considerable time by a considerable amount of people who have done real work and real thinking exploring the differences between Light and Heat energies. The myriad applications of this knowledge are in real use by real people who all live in our real world.
That there is a difference is a CATEGORY distinction in REAL TRADITIONAL SCIENCE.
mods – i THINK THE INTERFERENCE IS KEY STROKE HACKING.
aND IT’S BLOODY Iirritating.
Back to the wiki page above and the categories of what can and will happen when Light meets matter.
The third is a description of transparency, which is what the medium Water is to Light. The term used to describe how Light behaves in water is transmission:
“An electron cannot absorb the energy of the photon and the photon continues on its path. This results in transmission (provided no other absorption mechanisms are active).”
I’ve found this description which I hope you enjoy as much as I did (and if you didn’t know, Light can be slowed down when it passes through matter, different materials having different effects on it), this is looking at glass which is transparent to Light as is water:
Anyway, Visible Light cannot and does not heat the oceans of Earth – the AGWScience fiction energy budget KT97 which claims it does is junk science. It should be scrapped immediately if you want to retain a modicum of sanity in looking at how our world really works.
Myrrh, sorry you are having computer and posting problems. Perhaps your fingers are too close to the keyboard? (Just trying to be helpful :^)
Poor Mooorrh;
permanent pervasive confusion.
WP has changed its comments box software to “remember” the previous post entered, and offer it as a greyed prompt. Highlight (CTRL-A) and begin typing and it vanishes.
And all energy still becomes heat. No escape.
I’ll repeat a post to Myrrh I put up on Jo Nova’s site — it is a simple experiment that he can do to discover if he is right (assuming he is interested);
There is a very simple device used to estimate the output power of large lasers. You let the laser light be (nearly) totally absorbed by a black body and measure the temperature increase of the blackbody. From the difference between the blackbody temperature and ambient temperature, you can calculate the heat energy being lost by IR radiation — this is a pretty good measure of the laser output energy.
The point here is that the laser doesn’t have to be an IR laser — it can radiate in the visible, or even in the ultraviolet: The energy, when absorbed, becomes heat.
There is a simple way to build your own blackbody to try this. Take a stack of double-edged razor blades — about 20 or 30 is fine — and bolt them into a tight stack using screws and nuts in the blade holes. The center hole makes a good place to mount the thermocouple, using thermal cement. When you look at the stack edge on, it will be the blackest thing you have ever looked at. I guarentee this device will absorb light energy at any wavelength and convert it to heat.
There’s an even easier experiment Myrrh could try to see if visible light can be converted into heat. Your local university probably has an argon laser somewhere which radiates blue-green light (488 nm). Many of these have output powers in the 1-3 watt range. The experiment is this: Hold your hand steady in the beam for 4 – 5 seconds and see if blue-green light can be converted into heat. (Warning: bring a bandaid and antibiotic cream).
If you don’t want to do an experiment as drastic as this (which I actually did once when I was young and foolish), you might simply google “diabetic retinopathy” and note that argon lasers are used to seal leaking blood vessels in the eye by burning them and creating scar tissue.
Brian Hall says:
June 12, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Further to what Ira says, you are fundamentally wrong, not even slightly correct, when you say that light and heat radiation are different. From gamma rays down to radio and electrical waves, it’s all EM, it’s all the same stuff, just different frequencies.
And it all ends up as heat. No exceptions. Some delays and side-excursions, which permit life to exploit it etc., but NO DIFFERENCE OTHERWISE.
Brian if you and Ira (a watt is a watt) are correct then the hottest place on earth is at he foot of a 50000 watt transmission tower for any of the several radio stations that are “blow torches” of the mid west.
mkelly says:
June 15, 2011 at 8:44 am
Brian if you and Ira (a watt is a watt) are correct then the hottest place on earth is at he foot of a 50000 watt transmission tower for any of the several radio stations that are “blow torches” of the mid west.
mkelly: You may have noticed that radio frequencies are chosen for their ability to go great distances without absorption, which maximizes their communication potential. This does not mean that they don’t create heat when finally absorbed. In the case of the “blow torches” of the mid west — the 50,000 watts is absorbed over several hundred thousands of square miles, resulting in an infinitesimal temperature increase.
This doesn’t mean that radio waves are completely harmless, however. The microwave oven principle was discovered in 1946 by Percy Spencer who had the chocolate bar in his shirt pocket melt from standing too close to a magnetron microwave source during a test at Raytheon. (http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/microwave.asp)
Thanks, bobc2010; I was about to point out my words “ends up as”, but your response is more detailed. We live on the delayed and circuitous paths various energy emissions take before ending up as heat. But that end is always the same, even for the bluest of EM.
😉
I think you’re getting a bit sidetracked here, water, therefore the oceans of the AGWScience fiction energy budget KT97, is transparent to visible light.
What does that mean?
Myrrh: “Transparency” is a relative thing. Nothing is completely transparent (except a perfect vacuum, and there are astrophysicists who postulate otherwise about that even.)
Here is a more direct article on water transparency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_absorption — and the graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water_absorption_spectrum.png
Like you say, water is far more transparent to the visible spectrum than UV or IR. However, also note from the graph that essentially all the visible is absorbed by 100 meters (10^4 cm) of water.
Most of the oceans are more than 100 meters deep, so absorb most of the visible light that penetrates the surface.
Correction: all of the visible light that penetrates the surface. (Unless the water is so shallow that some light bounces off the bottom and makes it out again.)
Did you all go to the Al Gore school of graph reading..?
And comprehension.
The AGWScience fiction claim is that not Thermal Infrared but Visible light and the two shortwave either side directly convert to heat the Earth’s land and oceans, as in the KT97 energy budget, which then heat the Earth radiates back out as Thermal Infrared. I am saying that this basic premise is obvious nonsense from ga ga land because Light energies cannot physically do this, it is Thermal Infrared which heats the Earth’s land and oceans.
In real traditional science there is a a
In real traditional science there is an immense understanding of the difference between Light energies and Heat energies. Visible is Light energy, sometimes written, light.
BobC2010 – I have already in my last few posts referred to that graph. It shows that Visible electromagnetic, light, is billions times less able to be absorbed by water and the vast heating of water is ALL in the Infrared region, this is what the absorbed means here, and this is what transparent means here. For all practical real world conditions the graph shows clearly that Visible is NOT ABSORBED. Blue light is even less absorbed than the other colours, which is why it travels further in the oceans being not absorbed but continually transmitted through the water which is a TRANSPARENT medium for it. Just as is glass.
Please read my last few posts from my discussion with MattG on, and my links.
Myrrh says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:14 am
“Did you all go to the Al Gore school of graph reading..?”
No, Myrrh, we went to college. Here is how to read this graph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Water_absorption_spectrum.png):
The left side is the absorption coefficient, given in inverse centimeters. Absorption is an exponential process, in that the same fraction of the remaining energy is absorbed in each linear distance. The meaning of the absorption coefficient is that its inverse is the distance that 1/e (about 37%) of the light remains.
So looking at the graph with this understanding, we see that the most transparent wavelength is in the green, at about 490 nm (that is the point on the graph with the smallest absorption coefficient). The coefficient at that point is not quite 10^4 cm^-1. Assuming it was 10^4 cm^-1, then the inverse would be 10,000 cm, or 100 meters.
Hence, we can conclude that, at a depth of 100 m, no more than 37% of green (490 nm) light would remain. All other wavelengths are absorbed faster than this.
This is not the same thing as “visible light is not absorbed”. If visible weren’t absorbed by ocean water, then the bottoms of the oceans would be brightly lit whenever the sun was up. In reality, they are always pitch dark, if more than a 1000 feet down.
bobc;
I’ve been wondering why this highjack of a thread is drawing as much effort and attention as it is. Perhaps there’s some hope that with gentle enough taps, it will be possible to drive the Knowledge Nail into the Skull of Concrete. Or that a heavy enough hammer will crack it wide open?
I no longer think there’s much hope of either.
Way back on another thread I concluded that our bitter “Skull of Concrete” was impenetrable and gave up replying.
However back a week ago, I thought I detected a glimmer of hope and tried a gentle tap on the “Knowledge Nail” (my comment, June 12, 2011 at 10:31 am).
But, it was not to be. (See Mathew 7:6.)
Good bye Ira.
Thanks all.
There is an inner contradiction in the article.
Ok, CO2 rise causes some global warming. But later,
This is a direct contradiction.
It doesn’t matter what causes the rise (industrial emissions or rising global temperatures from other sources [glacial termination]), or if there are lag effects.
Either more atmospheric CO2 = warmer planet or it doesn’t. Not both.
barry;
‘Fraid not. “rising CO2 levels would cause corresponding increase” — note the word “corresponding”. I.e., linear and predictable, and substantial. If doubling of CO2 produces about 0.3°C increase, e.g., or even 1.3°C, it has nothing important to do with climate trends, and is not responsible for the warming since the LIA (for which warming, BTW, we should be profoundly thankful; that was the coldest it’s been since the ice sheets went back home to the Arctic.)
CO2 is a bit player, an “attendant lord”, in Shakespeare’s phrase, “one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two, advise the prince.”
Correction: T.S. Eliot’s phrase, in “Prufrock”. (The Love Song of)
Thanks Barry for your comment, but you have fallen into the “all or nothing” fallacy.
Global Warming is real in that, over the past century or so, mean temperatures have risen, perhaps 0.5ºC (no one knows how much for sure, but it is almost certainly more than 0.3ºC and less than 0.7ºC).
Higher CO2 levels cause (slightly) higher temperatures, ALL ELSE BEING EQUAL. However, as we all know, all else is seldom equal. For example, there are Natural Cycles, not under human control or influence, that, based on historical climate data, overwhelm the effects of CO2 on mean temperatures.
Much of the approximately 0.5ºC rise over the past century is due to those Natural Cycles, and, if the current Sunspot cycle is an indicator of reduced activity, we may see several decades of Natural Cycles that cause mean temperatures to decrease. We may come to be thankful for the human contribution to warming.
Thus, former VP Al Gore was misleading the public when, in his famous movie, he showed the recent rise in CO2, and, by hiking himself up on that elevated platform, he implied that mean temperatures would rise by a corresponding amount.
As you may know, the IPCC and the rest of the official climate Team claim that mean temperatures since 1880 have gone up around 0.8ºC. IMHO, the best allocation of that rise is about 0.1º to 0.2ºC due to human activities, mainly CO2 from burning unprecedented amounts of fossil fuels and land use changes that have reduced the albedo. About 0.3ºC to 0.4ºC is due to Natural Cycles. Finally, about 0.3ºC is due to data bias, where the official climate Team has been “cooking the books” (i.e., Climategate).
Ira, thanks for replying personally.
I am an ‘astute’ audience. To me Gore’s message is simple – when CO2 rises, so does global temperature. I’m not some gape-mouthed idiot that assumes CO2 and temps rise on some quasi-equivalent scale just because of some visually simplifying choices with the Y axis.
In the ice age records, CO2 rise is ‘PARTLY’ responsible for rising temperatures. This is exactly what you assert regarding the modern temp/CO2 rise. So when you say, “ice core data… has absolutely nothing to say about the current Global Warming”, and “What this shows, if anything, is that TEMPERATURE CAUSES CO2”, and “Gore got the direction of causation backwards” and “the truth is still that the ice core record is of a time when there were no humans to burn fossil fuels, so why did Gore bring it up since it has no relationship to our current situation?”, you are arguing that temperature rise causes CO2 to rise – and NOT the other way around – and that Gore has this causation backwards. This is the opposite of what you later say in your piece. CO2 rise is ‘PARTLY’ responsible for the temperature rise in both periods. Natural influences are different in magnitude and timing (CO2 follows natural forcings in the ice age record), but the basic message is the same.
If I were in your audience, I would put my hand up and ask, “are you saying that rising CO2 causes rising temperature or not? Because it seems to me that Gore is saying it does. As he doesn’t speak about timing or magnitude, the relationship he draws is very simple. You assert he has this simple relationship backwards. But you also assert that rising CO2 will cause higher global temperatures. How do you reconcile this contradiction without leaning on issues that go beyond this simple relationship?”
barry;
just so.
I’m afraid I have a special kind of contempt for “lukewarmers”. The paleo record shows LONG [periods] (millions of years) of utter disconnect between CO2 and temperature. To the extent there is any sequence of events, warming precedes CO2 rise, but even that is not consistent.
Yet … lukewarmers are prepared to defer to grossly unrealistic “laboratory physics”, Arrhenius-style, to impose back-radiative forcing on all atmospheric models and theories, albeit with lower sensitivities than Warmists prefer.
But the rats’-nest of plugged (parameterized) unknown factors is somehow not credited with enough influence to resolve the issue. Which is, as you say, that there’s no point in trying to be a little bit pregnant with CO2 forcing, just so Warmists won’t call you bad names.
My advice to all lukewarmists is have the courage to join with M4GW in “I’m a Denier”, and say loud and clear, “It’s just a lie.”
P.S. I know that’s not what you meant. But it’s what what you said means.
The simple fact is that CO2 “Can” be a powerful greenhouse gas and but only if other natural influences are ignored, it can be shown that CO2 will caus untold devistating effects on the climate. The ugly truth is that when there is more heat in the atmosphere, there is more solar radiation (Heat dissipated into outer space) through water vapor. One natural check and balance to climate regulation.
Second, current CO2 levels are due to volcanic venting of gasses. http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9105-climate-change-paradox-current-co2-levels-are-not-of-anthropogenic-origins Humans only contribute to 3% (three per cent) of CO2 emissions. Te current volcanic eruption alone in Iceland emitted enough CO2 in four days, to negate all the CO2 we tried to sequester and eliminate emissions of in the last ten years. From 600 million years ago to about 1 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 levels have been about 1200 to 1500 ppma average. Only in the last million years has CO2 levels have been so low.
And the book can be closed on the presentation that humans are causing CO2 levels to rise, and that humans need to eliminate all emissions. We would have to live less than caveman lifestyles and have no effective change on the CO2 levels. http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/home/9130-global-warmingclimate-change-paradox-closing-the-book-on-an-illusion
Using nothing but the phrases “if”, “suppose”, and other suggestive phrases is a way that it is shown that humans are destroying the planet. “If” an armored car were to back up to my front door and dump their load into my house, I would not have to ever work again. The “Hockeystick Chart” is a (for a lack of a less blunt word to state what it actually is) lie. That humans are causing CO2 levels to rise is a lie. Humans emit about 30 billion tons of CO2 per year , but there is 1.25 trillion tons emitted naturally, so humans only emit about 3% and only contribute to about 9 to 12 ppma only out of the current 390 ppma.
This is not the first time in history a politician or someone has lied to prove their opinion. Mr. Gore’s new agenda is overpopulation, and thinks something needs to be done to resolve the problem. Mr. Gore has even stated that you “need to exaggerate” the information to get your point across. An exaggeration would be a stretch for what is actually lies.
Brian H,
The deep paleoclimatic records includes the reformation of the continents, which has major impacts for teleconnections, albedo and other climate and weather components. It is difficult to make straight comparisons with the current tectonic configuration. The radiative budget of Gondwanaland Earth is radically different to that of the late quaternary. CO2 plays its greenhouse role in all eras, but in very different circumstances. Late quaternary Ice age shifts are good periods to assess WRT the current situation, because the tectonic configuration is virtually identical.
Horse laugh. What does “forcing driver” mean to you today, barry?
In my book, it requires ever change of the driver be followed (rather closely and clearly) by changes in the driven variable(s), and that no changes in the driven variables occur in direct opposition to the movement of the driver.
CO2 fails those and all other real world tests, paleo or modern.
typo: “every change”
Thanks again, Barry. Without taking anything away from from the astuteness of my audience of retired engineers and scientists, you are certainly more tuned in to climate issues than most of them. IMHO, even an astute science-oriented person who has not been following the issue closely, would assume, based on Gore’s chart, that, given the approximately equal magnitude of the CO2 and temperature excursions over the Ice Core record period, and the apparent correllation between them, that the projected CO2 increase would “cause” a similar jump in temperatures.
Yes, the “simple” story is that Human-caused CO2 is unimportant, and may be ignored when it comes to practical public policy. However, when our CAGW opponents are pushing an equally “simple” story (and opposite and wrong) that human CO2 and land use is totally responsible, I think we should set an example and be as truthful as possible.
You’ve heard the observation that “the more cops directing traffic, the worst the jam.”
If someone draws the “simple” and false the conclusion that COPS cause JAMS we might reply equally simply that that, no JAMS cause COPS to be called to direct traffic around the proximate cause of the jam. However, it is true that the very presence of the COPS does cause a bit of a slow down in traffic and IMHO it does not hurt our position to admit it.
bobc2010 says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:14 am
mkelly: You may have noticed that radio frequencies are chosen for their ability to go great distances without absorption, which maximizes their communication potential. This does not mean that they don’t create heat when finally absorbed. In the case of the “blow torches” of the mid west — the 50,000 watts is absorbed over several hundred thousands of square miles, resulting in an infinitesimal temperature increase.
This doesn’t mean that radio waves are completely harmless, however. The microwave oven principle was discovered in 1946 by Percy Spencer who had the chocolate bar in his shirt pocket melt from standing too close to a magnetron microwave source during a test at Raytheon. (http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/microwave
Bob my point was be careful when comparing watts or saying a watt is a watt. I instructed some basic radar theory years ago in the navy.
Sorry, mkelly, but bobc2010 and I are correct that a watt is a watt. You, despite your instruction in “some basic radar theory years ago in the navy”, are missing the point we are making.
You (mkelly) claim that if “a watt is a watt” is true, then “the hottest place on earth is at the foot of a 50000 watt transmission tower”. Well, by your logic, the wettest place on earth is under a water aqueduct! Several, months ago, I stood under the Alaska oil pipeline, carrying thousands of gallons of oil, and nary a drop fell on me. Yet, I have no doubt every gallon of oil passing over my head in that pipeline must go someplace, either to heat someone’s home or power someone’s car or leak out of the pipe, etc.
Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
July 8, 2011 at 7:08 am
By definition you are correct a watt is a watt, but my radar range heats water but not the air in side. As Bob points out the absorbing medium plays a role. That is my point which you missed or ignore. Sunshine can heat water at some depth IR not so much. Metal can be warmed by sun light, but radar waves bounce off. A watt is not a watt when discussing what will heat what.
OK, mkelly, we are in absolute agreement that the absorbing medium plays a role. As I pointed out in my http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/05/07/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-light-and-heat/ (Visualizing the “Greenhouse” Effect: Light and Heat):
The key point is that ALL of this net Solar energy of 240 Watts/m^2 is absorbed by the Atmosphere or the Ocean or the Land Surface and thus warms the Earth System.
Some participants in this thread have expressed the view that some wavelengths, such as blue light, do not have any energy (or “oomph” :^) and thus do not participate in warming the Earth System. Or, they say that blue light is almost totally reflected by the Ocean surface (false, only a small percentage is reflected), and that water is transparent to blue light (also false, though blue light does penetrate further than other colors).
The bottom line is that the blue light that is not reflected by the Surface is absorbed by the great depth of the Oceans and thus does have the same type of warming effect as other colors of visible light and infrared radiation, albeit at a greater depth.