UPDATE2 10/18/2011 – The experiment has been replicated several ways, see:
UPDATE: New images added prove without a doubt the faked split screen. See below.
It has been over a week now since the Gore-a-thon aka “24 hours of climate reality”. The front page of the Climate Reality Project has changed from “live mode” to offering clips of video shown during the 24 hour presentation. Note the circled video on the front page below Mr. Gore. I’ve discovered that by watching carefully it reveals an “inconvenient truth” of the worst kind.
Analysis of this “Climate 101” video highlighted on Mr. Gore’s website is something I’ve been working on for the past week and a half. It has been carefully reviewed (with video graphics tools) and has been inspected by a number of science, engineering, and television professionals I’ve had review the video, my video captures, annotations, and writeup to be certain I have not missed anything or come to an erroneous conclusion. It also took me awhile to locate and get the items shipped to me to do the work I needed before I wrote this article. Now that I have them, and have done some simple replications to confirm my suspicions, I can write about them while presenting corroborating photographic evidence.
First, I wish to direct your attention to this video, produced by Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project titled “Climate 101”. I direct your attention to the 1 minute mark, lasting through 1:20. I suggest you click on the little X-arrow icon to expand full screen of the right of the slider tool bar, since this video is in high-definition and the details of my concerns require that higher resolution to view them properly.
It is worth watching a couple of times to get fully familiar with the sequence.
I’ve been in television broadcasting for over 20 years, and I’m quite familiar with editing tricks, I think I spotted more than a few in the video.
There are five scenes that appear, each an edit in that 20 second span of video during which an experiment is set up which supposedly demonstrates that CO2 in a heated jar causes that jar to be warmer than a second heated jar with ambient air in it.
In that 20 second span, I looked for things that changed, indicating that it wasn’t done in a continuous shot. I found evidence that the scene was changed at least three times, suggesting multiple takes.
The giveaways were that I saw objects change in the scene, most notably the CO2 tank, which has three different rotation positions. See the video captures from the Climate 101 video below, with my annotations. Note the position of the safety valve (1) and the label (2) change (click images for HD resolution):
Climate 101 scene @1:01 –
Climate 101 scene @1:05 –
Climate 101 scene @1:09 –
(UPDATE 10:27AM : spotted by commenter “mkelly” – note the thermometers are reversed in the 1:05 video capture versus the 1:09 video capture – note the green card mark on the thermometer scale as explained further in the story) So clearly, this wasn’t done in one take. By itself, there’s nothing wrong with that, but it did make me wonder why for such a simple sequence (putting the tube in the jar) they had to have three separate edits.
Such a simple thing could surely have been accomplished in a single take. All they would have had to do was zoom the camera in/out as the actor did the work, then take the appropriate scenes from the single shot to the final cut. They could have done several continuous takes and chosen the best one, it just seemed odd they had to keep moving/rotating the bottle to do it. It made me wonder if the experiment maybe didn’t go so well and they had to keep trying it.
These scene discontinuities made me curious, and it made me look further to see what else might have been edited in such a way to reveal that what looks like a continuous flow of scenes…actually isn’t.
I’m glad I did.
Now I know there will be lots of arguments about whether this experiment is a valid test of CO2 greenhouse theory or not. It is deceptively simple, and it fits with the claims of it is “high school physics” made by Al Gore and others before and during the 24 hour Climate Reality Project. His specific claim was:
“The deniers claim that it’s some kind of hoax and that the global scientific community is lying to people,” he said. “It’s not a hoax, it’s high school physics.” – Al Gore in an interview with MNN 9/14/2011
Let’s put the arguments about applicability of the experiment aside for the moment, and just concentrate on what was presented in the experiment section of the video, because there is plenty to look at in the video with a skeptical eye.
One thing that caught my eye after I noticed the edits with the CO2 tank positions changing was the split screen scene with the thermometers side by side, one with temperature rising faster than the other. It is located starting at 1:10 in the video continuing to 1:17 it is the longest “continuous” scene in experiment section of the video, though we all know that thermometers don’t jump up in spurts like that.
I figured at first they just cut down a longer continuous scene, done with two cameras, so that it fit into the time allotted and then rotated from horizontal and edited them in split screen, which are tried and true techniques, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that.
But thanks to the fact that this was shot in HD video, and because I was able to expand the video to full resolution outside of the web page format bounding, I noticed something that gave me reason to doubt the veracity of this section of video. I suspected it had been faked, but it would take me some time and materials to prove it.
One thing that struck me was how clean the image of the two thermometers was. Remember this is an experiment where the two thermometers are placed inside two glass jars. A proper experimental procedure would be to film them while they are inside of the jars, experiencing the conditions of the experiment, in fact, they were presented just like that with a closeup at 1:02 in the video, you can actually read the thermometer scale:
Note this video capture at 1:02 looks quite different from the video at 1:17 showing the thermometers split screen. There are several differences:
1. Throughout the video from 1:00 to 1:20, the thermometers in the jar are shown horizontal, the split screen at 1:17 shows the thermometers vertical.
2. There’s a greenish-yellow background in the split screen at 1:10 to 1:17 which isn’t seen anywhere else in the experiment video at all.
3. The split screen thermometer scene has not a hint of the optical distortion seen at 1:02 in the video. Note that the thermometer scale is distorted by the glass, and if you look closely by expanding the video capture above to full resolution by clicking on it, you’ll see that the tick marks are distorted differently all along the scale. This is what you would expect from thick glass like the jar is made of.
I considered these possibilities for each point above:
1. That was editing to show the thermometers side by side, perfectly acceptable if the edit was done from combining two separate video streams filmed simultaneously on two cameras while the temperature was rising inside the jar. Cutting down the time is also acceptable, which would account for the “spurts”
2. They may have placed a paper or cardboard background behind the thermometers while filming in the jars to make the scales more visible and to remove visual clutter, but didn’t show it in the video. While using such backgrounds is understandable, not showing that you have done so is a bit of a no-no, but it isn’t a deal killer.
3. While I thought about it a lot, I couldn’t reconcile the glass caused optical distortion issue. Why was it missing from the split screen thermometer scene? I decided I couldn’t answer the question without getting my hands on the objects and re-creating the optical situation with a camera.
That took some doing, because Al’s “high school physics” experiment didn’t come with a bill of materials and list of suppliers. So, in my spare time I started looking for the jars, the thermometers, and the globes so that I could exactly recreate the experiment scene.
I found them all, thanks to Google visual image search and Ebay.
Replicating the scene – materials:
Anchor Hocking Cookie Jar with Lid http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=187543
Geratherm Oral Thermometer Non-Mercury
http://www.pocketnurse.com/Geratherm-Oral-Thermometer-Non-Mercury/productinfo/06-74-5826/
Globe Coin Bank
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150661053386
It took a few days for everything to arrive from the three different suppliers, here they are all together on my desk at work, I actually bought two sets:
What I wanted to do was to recreate the closeup shot like we see in the video at 1:02 to see if I saw similar optical distortions, then see if there was any way that I could get a clear closeup view of the thermometer scale like we see in the split screen at 1:10-1:17.
My theory was that the thermometers aren’t actually in the jar when they were photographed for the split screen.
Checking for optical aberrations:
I used a piece of double-sided foam tape to affix the thermometer:
Here’s a closeup of the thermometer affixed to the globe. Note how clear and distortion free the scale is.
Here’s my attempts at photography of the thermometer inside the jar. I had a lot of trouble getting focused on the thermometer scale due to the autofocus mechanism being distracted by the glass which is in the foreground. Note that you can see the optical aberrations caused by the glass on the thermometer scale. The scale is not straight and the tick marks are also distorted.
Here’s another photo – I could not get the macro view focus right due to the glass confusing the autofocus sensor:
I decided that my camera was inadequate for this particular task, so I called in a someone who has a professional camera with a high quality professional lens capable of manual focus and macro function. It is a far cry from my little Kodak Easy Share Z1012 used to make the photos above:
- Camera – Canon 1D Mark IV
- Lens – Canon MACRO 100mm 1:2.8 L IS USM
Just as I did with my clunky little Kodak camera, the photographer had a lot of trouble getting a clear shot through the glass. Below is a collection of shots done by that photographer at different distances and focus settings on the professional camera. Note that I also rotated the jar to see is different sections made anything clearer. Click any thumbnail to enlarge it (warning large download ~ 10MB each)
The professional photography setup also could not capture an image through the glass jar that looked as clear as what was shown by my photo with the thermometer outside the glass, or as clear as the split screen images presented in the Climate 101 video from 1:10 to 1:17. I invite readers to inspect the images above carefully, examine the EXIF data of the unedited original JPEG images presented at the native resolution of the Canon 1D camera at 4296×3264 pixels and examine for yourselves if it is possible to shoot the thermometer scale through the glass and get an image that is free from any distortions.
Neither I nor the professional photographer could get a clear image through the jar glass that matched the clarity of the thermometer scales seen in the split screen, so I am forced to conclude that in the split screen scene from 1:10 to 1:17 on the Climate 101 video, the thermometers are not in the jars.
But wait, there’s more.
The background behind the thermometers:
Remember point 2 above where I was concerned about the greenish-yellow background in the split screen at 1:10 to 1:17 which isn’t seen anywhere else in the experiment video from 1:00 to 1:20? Well, there’s something odd about that too. The background appears identical in both sides of the split screen. What first tipped me off was a speck on the thermometer.
Here’s a video capture from the start of the split screen sequence. I’ve highlighted something I found curious, a speck on the thermometer scale that appears on both thermometers:
At first I thought it was dust, but then I realized that wasn’t possible, as dust would NOT appear identically on both thermometers in the split screen. I surmised it might be a manufacturing defect, printed on the scale. Fortunately, I have two thermometers from the same manufacturer that I can compare to. Here’s my closeup of them:
Nope, no speck, so it isn’t a manufacturing defect common to all thermometers.
========================================================
Side note: Note above in the thermometer closeup how the scales are offset, this is due to the manufacturer hand calibrating these glass thermometers by trimming the card with the scale printed on it so 98.6 lines up with the top of the fluid line when the thermometers are placed in the temperature test well. Glassblowing is an inexact science, and each thermometer must be calibrated by a technician, then sealed. You can see how the cards don’t match here:
We can see this in the Climate 101 video also:
The green section of the card for the scale is clearly different lengths as part of the trimming process for calibration, so clearly we have two different thermometers.
========================================================
OK, back to the main issue.
In addition to the identical speck on the two thermometer scales, I noted several other identical specks and aberrations in the split screen video. I’ve listed them by number on two video captures below from two different times in the video (click images to enlarge for best viewing):
Climate 101 video @1:10 –
Climate 101 video @1:16 –
I have 8 labeled points that are identical between each frame @1:10 and @ 1:16 In fact they are identical on every video frame from 1:10 to 1:17. The only thing that changes is the blue liquid in the thermometer tube.
- Dots on left top glass edge match exactly
- Speck on right top glass edge matches exactly
- Smudge/discoloration near number “38” on scale matches exactly
- Speck in background matches exactly
- Speck near number 98 on scale matches exactly
- Tick mark pattern near number “36” matches exactly
- Smudge in background matches exactly
- Reflective highlight in glass tube matches exactly
- While not numbered, note how the background shading matches exactly
Conclusions
With 9 points of agreement between the two images through all video frames there is only one possible conclusion:
The split screen is showing the same piece of video, shot by a single camera and edited to make it appear as two separate pieces of video with two separate thermometers. All that is required is to apply edits along different portions of the timeline. It is the same video shot by the same camera on each side of the split screen.
Summary of what was discovered:
- The video of the experiment showing filling of the jar with CO2 was shot in multiple takes because the CO2 cylinder has three different positions between 1:00 and 1:10. It suggests the experiment didn’t go smoothly and had to be repeated.
- The thermometers in the split screen appear not to have been filmed through the glass of the jars, because the split screen video contains no optical aberrations of any kind. Neither myself nor the photographer with professional gear was able to get clear shots through the jar glass that equaled the clarity of the thermometer scales shown in the split screen video. This strongly suggests the thermometers were never in the jars for the split screen video showing temperature rise.
- The greenish-yellow background in the split screen at 1:10 to 1:17 isn’t seen anywhere else in the experiment video at all, and not in the jars, suggesting it was used only for that scene, which also suggests the thermometers were never in the jars for the split screen video sequence.
- The video of the split screen shows two identical backgrounds, and two identical thermometers with 9 points of exact agreement in the backgrounds and the thermometers. Clearly the split screen contains two copies of the same video from one camera, edited in the timeline to make the liquid in the thermometer rise at different rates.
The only conclusion one can make from these four points is that the video of the “simple experiment” is a complete fabrication done in post production.
I’ve double checked my work, and I’ve had other people look at this video and the points I make and they see the same issues. They concur the video of the experiment was fabricated using editing techniques too.
While everyone can make mistakes (I know, I’ve made some big ones myself), this isn’t a case of a simple mistake, its a production that had to have been screened and approved before releasing it. It is mind blowing that this video, which was intended to be shown to millions of people (recall that Mr. Gore’s claim was 8.6 million views), was not clearly identified as an illustration or artistic license and not a true record of an experiment if that was their intent. Yet, they invite viewers to try replicating it themselves.
This level of fabrication on something that is so simple makes me wonder. Mr. Gore claimed in the MNN interview on 9/14 that:
“It’s not a hoax, it’s high school physics.”
Why then, does Mr. Gore’s organization go to such lengths to fabricate the presentation of the “simple high school physics experiment” they say proves the issue in that venue? Perhaps they couldn’t get the experiment to work properly using the materials chosen? Maybe it might not be so easy to perform at home after all? Maybe a few controls are necessary such as the Mythbusters team used in the video below. Why else would they need to fake it in post?
Even if Mr. Gore and his team wanted to claim “artistic license” for editing the video for the experiment, why would they do so if it is so easy to replicate and do yourself? The narrator, Bill Nye the Science Guy actually invites people to do so at about 0:46 in the video. Why not simply do the experiment and record the results for all to see? Of course a one word lower third caption on the video at that point saying “DRAMATIZATION” would be all that was needed to separate a real experiment from one fabricated in post production – but they didn’t do that. I’ve watched the film several times, checked the audio, and the credits at the end. There is no mention nor notice of any dramatization regarding the “simple experiment” segment that I can find.
If Mr. Gore’s team actually performed the experiment and has credible video documenting the success of his simple “high school physics” exercise, I suggest that in the interest of clarity, now is the time to make it available.
About the experiment:
So far all I’ve concentrated on is the stagecraft I observed. It’s clearly obvious that the split screen scene with thermometers was not filmed inside the cookie jars. I’ve established that it is a staged production from start to finish and the split screen of two thermometers but was edited from a continuous video of a single thermometer with temperature rising then frame sequences were inserted out of order to compose each side of the split screen.
Of course the whole Climate 101 CO2 experiment is questionable to begin with, because it doesn’t properly emulate the physical mechanisms involved in heating our planet. Note the heat lamps used, likely one of these based on the red color we see in the lamp fixture:
Heat lamps like this produce visible red light and short wave infrared (SWIR is 1.4-3 µm wavelength). As we know from the classic greenhouse effect, glass blocks infrared so none of the SWIR was making it into the cookie jar. All that would do is heat the glass. John Tyndall’s 1850’s experiments used rock salt windows, which transmit infrared, for exactly that reason. Adding insult to injury, CO2 has no SWIR absorption bands. What CO2 does have though is higher density than air. The gas in the cookie jars was primarily heated by conduction in contact with the SWIR-heated glass.
Moreover, the CO2 injection in one cookie jar would raise it from 0.04% CO2 to very near 100% CO2 which is hardly comparable to the atmosphere going from 0.03% to 0.04% CO2 during the industrial age. Gore’s team provides no indication of the concentration of CO2 in the jar, that’s hardly scientific. Here’s how current greenhouse theory works:
All that said, in principle it does demonstrate that CO2 absorbs long wave infrared (LWIR 8–15 µm). Energy would likely be transmitted into the gas through conduction with the heated glass (which would likely get very hot) and it would then re-radiate inside the cookie jar as LWIR, and cause the CO2 jar to heat up faster and higher. But this is hardly news. The LWIR absorptive characteristics of many different gases under different pressures and mixtures was experimentally verified in thousands of experiments performed by Tyndall 150 years ago.
This characteristic of CO2 is the theory of operation for millions of CO2 sensors routinely employed in commercial buildings with high occupancy rates to determine when ventilation fans should turn on and off to exhaust the CO2 buildup from a lot of people breathing the same air in a confined space.
So while some might say the stagecraft involved in the Climate 101 presentation wasn’t dishonest it was most assuredly staged with great literary license and dramatization of an effect that was experimentally verified elsewhere with far greater precision and attention to replicating the real world.
I should make it clear that I’m not doubting that CO2 has a positive radiative heating effect in our atmosphere, due to LWIR re-radiation, that is well established by science. What I am saying is that Mr. Gore’s Climate Reality Project did a poor job of demonstrating an experiment, so poor in fact that they had to fabricate portions of the presentation, and that the experiment itself (if they actually did it, we can’t tell) would show a completely different physical mechanism than what actually occurs in our atmosphere.
If Mr. Gore wants to convince the world, he’d do far better at emulating the Mythbusters TV show; show all the materials, steps, measurement, and results like they do.
As it stands, the video fabrications in the “simple experiment” by Mr. Gore’s Climate Reality Project is no better than the stagecraft done by Senator Tim Wirth turning off the air conditioning (to make it hot in the room) when Dr. James Hansen testified before lawmakers in June 1988 about CO2 being a problem.
The public, and especially young budding scientific minds, deserve better than stagecraft.
Of course LWIR radiative CO2 heat retention is only a small part of the global warming issue. There are still raging debates over climate sensitivity, uncertainty, feedbacks, and most recently whether clouds provide positive or negative feedbacks in our atmosphere.
But from my point of view, if everything is so certain, the science so settled, why does Mr. Gore resort to these cheap stagecraft tricks to convince people?
UPDATE: In comments, Mariss Freimanis runs a Photoshop difference analysis, proving the split screen image is the same. He emailed his analysis to me, shown below.
From Mariss
1) I have attached ‘analysis_before’ which is a cropped shot of your original with it’s circles and arrows.
2) The ‘analysis_right_thermo’ is the right thermometer overlaid already positioned to overlay the the left thermometer.
3) The ‘image_analysis_after’ shows the results of subtracting away the right overlay from the underlying left image.
Comments:
1) The attached jpegs are reasonably sized in the sense that they don’t throw away any information. The ‘after’ image black area still contains some residual ‘non-black’ background noise from the subtraction process. This is largely due to my choice of a times-4 repixelation of the original. The image offset was not precisely 0.25 pixels so it reflects some residual image alignment errors.
2) This method reveals minute differences between two images. For the background to be as featureless as it is, it requires both thermometer’s reflections to be identically lit from the exact same light source angle (parallel ray source), their seemingly identical mottled green backgrounds to actually be identical and of course, the thermometers would have to have exactly the same ‘fingerprint’ flaws. It would take one hell of a telephoto lens to see both thermometers from exactly the same perspective. This is inconceivable.
3) The 0.25 pixel offset drift is significant because it reveals the same thermometer was used to sequentially film the composite image. Little things change with time such as thermal expansion. It marks the passage of time. That drift indicates they weren’t filmed simultaneously.
For those that might be concerned about the images above not being full resolution HD and having annotations, here’s the before and after difference image at 1:17 in the video:
Note the only thing that changes is the fluid level and the reflection of it (thin line to the right) in the glass tube. This proves the “result” split screen is the same image, not two thermometers showing results.
Why didn’t mythbusters ad water vapor as a GHG?
Gore faked the video, Why am I not surprised? I have to admit that I didn’t watch any of his faked science in his broadcast.
Glad you did Anthony.
One other piece to show editing are the globes themselves.
In your first clip (@1:01), look at the size of the island in red – the one on the left is larger.
Same for the one @ 1:05.
But for the one @ 1:09, the globes have been swapped – the one with the larger island is on the right.
That’s also proof that it wasn’t one shot.
Whoever was doing continuity for editing messed up, eh?
Holy Cow! It took me more minutes than usual to read this WUWT article. One of the best I can remember, mostly because it was unexpected!
How longer can this hoax last?
Ecotretas
Bill Nye, front and center.
=============
AaH! Quite. A Fake indeed. May I also point out that of the three occasions that the ‘Jars’ appear in two of the scenes the ‘CO2’ pipe has been left in the top, dislodging the lid and allowing warm gas to escape to be replaced by cold/ambient air. Either that or the build up of heat was so rapid and serious that an injection of expanded, cooled gas was needed to slow the rise of the thermometer down to allow us to see it. I’m sure there are many other good scientific reasons for this.
Ha ha, well done. Can’t say that I’m surprized about this deception and lack of scientific understanding from the Gore team.
Excellent debunking of a bunch of bunk.
The other obvious indication the thermometer shots are fake is that the section(s) of the thermometer in the close-up are not resting on the globe coin bank; other vidcaps show the thermometers are resting on the globe in that specific section of the thermometer body.
REPLY: I considered that, then considered that they may have needed to place the background behind the thermometers to get the proper contrast for the shot. The experiment still would have been valid without the globes, so long as the thermometers were actually in the jars, but it appears they were not – Anthony
Wow, you’ve gone far beyond the call of duty. I just rolled my eyes, figured the closeups of the thermometers were out-of-jar and moved on.
I think it’s time to use the “f….” word, and I don’t mean fabrication.
No one denies that CO2 causes some warming.
The British Royal Society estimates it is .4 ° C per doubling of CO2. It is the feedbacks where the bodies are buried.
There are studies which indicate that these feedbacks are negative and actually diminish this puny warming.
As far as the “experiment” the one jar should have air without any CO2 and the other should have 380/1,000,000 parts. The difference would be unmeasurable.
Despite what some people say “size matters”. The correct fix would be different for 10 ° C per doubling of CO2 or 1 or .1 or .01 or .001.
The supposed fix isn’t painless and the purported disease had better be terrible to endure it.
Why do chemotherapy for a pimple and will chemotherapy even work on pimples ?
The difference between Good Science and Bad Science. Or reasonable experiment and circus side show.
Glass will transmit some NIR, but not the longer wavelengths. Would take a very simple test to measure the temperature of the glass itself. I have not done the test, but I think CO2 will conduct heat better than the standard 80/20 atmosphere. And 100% CO2 as you point out, is hardly reasonable. High school science? Al gets an “F”.
Dear Anthony, – What you have exposed is a serious criminal fraud. Gore was asking for money throughout the Bore-a-thon. Even though a real experiment would have shown some warming from additional CO2 in the jar, it would not have shown the over-dramatic increase faked in the purported experiment. You have kept meticulous records of your research: I hope you will be able to go to a police station, show your results and report the fraud. Then it will be up to them to decide whether Gore is as untouchable as he thinks he is. You could add, for good measure, the fabrication of the viewership figures for the Bore-a-thon. There’s no cost to you: if they decide to do nothing, they have to give you some sort of reason, but if they decide to involve the State’s Attorney-General and prosecute, then that will be a welcome step towards bringing to an end the repeated scientific frauds on which so much of the climate-extremist case is founded. Very well done indeed! Now, please, follow it through. – Christopher
Dear Christopher Monckton,
Thank you, but I suspect the court of public opinion will be far more problematic to Mr. Gore’s organization than a court of law.
So they set up an experiment that was doomed to fail, not because of an error in the greenhouse effect calculations, but because the experiment was not a reasonable representation of the greenhouse effect.
When the experiment failed, they faked it. Ouch! Shooting yourself in the foot must be painful.
Experiment replication is the hallmark of science, well done! Though I’m a little confused why this experiment is thought to replicate anything in the real world? What’s next using a snowglobe to show that earthquakes cause snowstorms? What’s up with that?
Great work Anthony … new spin on an old joke: How can you tell Al Gore (and his gang) is lying … his lips are moving
Great job Anthony. Strong evidence that they had to retake the shots several times until they got the results they wanted. Hardly scientific.
I would like to add that the planet Mars is also an ideal ‘experimental testbed’ to test the so-called “CO2 warming” hypothesis (because there is no pesky nitrogen, oxygen or water vapor to complicate the issue). Mars’ atmosphere is 95% CO2. Though much thinner, it contains almost 30 times as much CO2 per surface area unit, than Earth. Yet, it has virtually no greenhouse warming effect: the mean surface temperature is very close to the theoretical black body temperature of 210 Kelvins.
Mars Facts http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/marsfact.html
Visual geometric albedo 0.170 (Earth 0.367)
Solar irradiance (W/m2) 589.2 (Earth 1367.6)
Black-body temperature 210.1 K (Earth 254.3 K)
Average temperature: ~210 K (Earth 287 K)
The warmists say that all we need is a “trace” of CO2 to create catastrophic warming. If so, then why doesn’t the 30-times more abundant CO2 on Mars have any significant warming effect on that planet? Based on Al’s “high-school” research it should have ‘terraformed’ Mars by now.
The old co2 in one container with a light source is a normal middle school science project. The truth is the earth has no lid, so the greenhouse effect is more like a greenhouse with no roof. So to be more accurate the two containers must have no lids. The one with CO2 will warm only marginally over the the other, not several degrees as the experiment shows.
We live in a greenhouse effect, not a greenhouse.
What about the lid being propped open on the jar with the CO2 injection tube while the other was essentially sealed? Surely this has to effect the experiment as well.
As Abraham Lincoln once said…
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Thinking about it, why would the thermometers show temperatures in the range of the human body (~37ºC,~98ºF) ?
The average temperature of the Earth is below 15ºC, but that doesn’t impress much, does it?
Ecotretas
Anthony at time 0:57 the right hand jar getting the CO2 has a thermometer that “points ” down to the left as we face the video. At time 1:09 the thermometers have reversed and now the “point” down one is on the left and the tube is in the “straight” one.
Yes, Henry3. The thermometers have been swapped over – see the green ends?
Couldn’t he just put a mouse in the jar with 100% CO2 and say CO2 kills!
Bravo Anthony. If Gore had a conscience he would be embarrassed. Since he does not appear to be embarrassed…
In the first three pictures the angle the two thermometers lie at also changes. They have also been moved.
yes
henrythethird says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:21 am
Great catch – Anthony missed it! Anthony’s globe is also different – we need a close of his too.
BTW, the island is Borneo.
Clearly whereever the globes were made, the manufacturing standards were not very high. Hmm, I wonder if there’s lead in them. That could be a whole separate line of criticism.
Geeze Anthony, I hope you never get a hold of my tax returns. Keep up the good work.
This is a very damaging evaluation. RETIRED ENGINEER brought up the issue of the absorption of energy by the glass container. Interesting. Does the glass container reasonably represent anything in the climate model? Should the container not be perfectly transparent to all bands of radiation? How does the glass alter the radiation emitted within the container?. What is the spectrum of the source light? Why is there no water vapor in the container? I’d love to see the result with H2O(g) compared with CO2(g).
Incredible fraud.
Kind of odd that the black CO2 cannister found its way very close to the “warmed” jar. I kind of wonder if they had trouble and decided to fudge the results by placing an object that would absorb some heat from the lamp and radiate it back to the jar. Perhaps even that failed and they had to fall back on a dramatization. I’m curious now… does this experiment really work as shown even if it doesn’t tell us anything about our atmosphere?
There is no way this could be called an “experiment” – it’s a demonstration. And even before Gore, demonstrations like this were being shown to students on courses like “Introduction to Science for Arts Students”. No mention of the Scientific Method – or of Feynmann’s “leaning over backwards … to find other causes that might explain your results.”
There are significant differences between the properties of air and carbon dioxide – e.g. specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity, absorption spectra etc. – and no attempt was made to isolate the effects of each. (And they would have needed to prove that water vapour wasn’t messing-up the experiment!) It would have been interesting to see the experiment repeated with a range of different lamps and suitable instruments to measure the spectra.
That said, I don’t have a big problem with this part of the GHG theory. It’s the positive feedbacks that I am sceptical about.
I expect Gore will think he has done nothing wrong. This is the same person who freely admits that he thinks that it is ok to lie.
Thank you for submitting the manuscript “Video analysis and scene replication suggests that Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project fabricated their Climate 101 video, Simple Experiment” to Geophysical Research Letters. Based on the review, I believe that the article requires a major revision, and therefore I cannot accept this version of the manuscript for publication.
Even without the editing, this experiment is debunked:
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
Gosh next you’ll be telling me that Al moved the data around in C02 and temperature graphs to show that Temp follows CO2 and not vica versa. Oh wait…………..
The light on the right side sure looks significantly brighter to me than the light on the left.
Bill Nye, the
sciencepolitics guy!Must be embarrasing for Mr Gore.
Or?
Nice work. Man, that must have been fun!
Congratulations Mr. Watts on such fantastic forensic work. One additional point. The colour of the liquid in the thermometer tube on the ‘proof’ picture seems to be different from that in any of the other thermometers. As it would be rather difficult to hold the temperature at the required level for a photographic shot outside of the jars, is it possible that the liquid in the tube was re-touched also? More forensic work I’m afraid!
I figured Al would have used rectal thermometers
Wow! Impressive detective work. Thank you.
Further proof of repeat takes: between Climate 101 scene @1:05 and Climate 101 scene @1:09, the thermometers switch jars. The thermometer with the longer green section that’s perched on a tilt on the globe is in the jar on the viewer’s right in 1:05 then the jar on the viewer’s left in 1:09.
In this internet age, a fake will be found out. Good job.
One question though, could the thermometers have been photographed clearly if they were vertical in the glass jars? That position would have relieved some of the distortion caused by the curve of the glass. I think they would not be as clear as shown, but in the interest of thoroughness perhaps it should be verified.
At least the globe showed Greenland with some ice.
For 2. in the Summary:
Heating the glass in the experiment would induce thermal currents that would be moving distortions on the thermometer shots. This is why viewing the stars at night from the comfort of your home through a window is wishful thinking and an even bigger disappointment. Don’t think every kid, me included, who got tired of shivering in the cold dark night didn’t try it.
Injecting CO2 from the compressed cylinder would be to keep refreshing the gas in the jar, and the temperature in the jar would become that of the temperature of the CO2 as it left the tube. The heated glass would interact even stronger with the constant temp of the piped gas, and thermals would be more evident as moving distortions. For tis reason, I suspect the non-CO2 injected jar (lid closed)would be the one that actually warmed, thus the switcheroo.
There is little attempt at control or calibration in Mr. Gores simple High School physics experiment.
The lid is ajar in the CO2 piped jar, and there is no sensor inside each jar to record the CO2 concentration, or RH. Bad. No science teacher is going to let students off that easy.
Gore flunks again.
Specific heat of CO2 is somewhat lower than that of dry air. Exposed to the same heating power, its temperature would rise more quickly.
CO2 in the one jar would tend to displace all the air, being more dense. We have no way of knowing the CO2 concentration at any time during the “demonstration”.
There are gross misrepresentations of the magnitude of “greenhouse” gases. e.g. @1:30
And that’s where I stopped listening and watching. That’s beyond nonsense.
The guy in the lab coat at the start, standing behind a jar CO-squared made me think that this video must be a parody of some sort. But no … it got stupid beyond parody.
I believe Gore has put his FCC license at risk with this apparently fraudulent display to rake in the cash over the public airwaves.
Ha ha, this is great fun:
at 1.04 the Left thermometer level and the Right thermometer is sloped,
while at 1.09 the Left thermometer is sloped and the Right is level.
Any more for any more?
The heat lamps spill red light. Why don’t we see the white on the temperature scale with a red tint?
Anthony:
I guess you missed all the demonstrations about the effectiveness of Dual pane windows, window films, and solar screens where they used identical heat lamp set ups to demonstrate the differences between untreated and their product. It was a big thing at home improvement stores and conventions.
But I guess as you say it must have been an optical illusion that the temperatures behind the glass were changing if glass stops the IR from a heat lamp!
Al Gore is a confirmed fraud but you did not have to add an obvious error of your own to show his problems!
I am so glad that I never had Mr. Watts or Mr. McIntyre checking my expenses claim forms.
glacierman says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:55 am
Even without the editing, this experiment is debunked:
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
**************************
This video is well worth watching. If you have time watch it.
It’s main point is:
1) The CO2 warming is caused by the fact that it heats more when it is compressed. When the bottle is vented the warming goes away.
I would like to perform this experiment myself.
Even granting some artistic license, the rates of temperature rise the “thermonmeters” are showing during the experiment are much too fast given the rate of energy input from those lamps.
If Q=m*Cp*dT then I have a problem with this.
Q is stated as equal. accepted
Cp or CO2 is .844 J/g C
Cp of air is 1.01 J/g C
The jar according Anthony’s link is one gallon cookie jar.
one gallon is 3.785 liters
one mole is 22.4 liters
3.785/22.4 is .1689
CO2 mole mass is 44.01g/mol
Air mole mass is 28.97 g/mol
CO2
Q= (.1689*44.01) * .844* dT
Q/6.2736=dT
Air
Q= (.1689*28.97)*1.01 * dT
Q/4.9419 = dT
For the same amount of time and Q being equal I cannot see how the temperature of the CO2 could be higher. Please show me the error of my ways.
My first question was in regards to the CO2 concentrations in each jar. Obviously, this experiment didn’t test a change from 280/ppm to 380/ppm, so the entire
experimentpublicity stunt is invalid just on that standpoint.A second question: Why not use digital thermometers with those remote sensor wires instead? Someone already mentioned the glass jars were heated by the lamps. Is there a noticable difference in the way each jar transferred heat? And didn’t the thermometers themselves become directly heated?
Shouldn’t the lamps been something other than IR heatlamps as well? That’s not very representative of the earth. The jars should have been slowly rotating, instead of having the same face to the lamp continuously.
This was a poor
experimentpublicity stunt even by grade school standards. And since the earth doesn’t reside in a greenhouse, it’s not even relevant.Bill Nye’s video (who btw, only earned a BS degree) begins with a labelled “CO2” jar in which the 2 is a superscript rather than the chemical correct subscript. One need look no further than this to realize they are incompetent to even be discussing these issues.
LOL. And who knew the ambient temperature of a cookie jar was 98F?
(a) Must be on account of the expanded scales (resolution) on a rectal/oral thermometer; greater movement of the expanding/indicating liquid during the demonstration … a regular thermo not so much … plus (b) the variation (accuracy) from thermo to thermo of rectal/oral thermometers can be expected can be expected to be much less due to individual calibrations that are performed … a ‘regular’ thermo from Home Depot or Wal-Mart again not so much …
.
“Thank you, but I suspect the court of public opinion will be far more problematic to Mr. Gore’s organization than a court of law.”
Ah, but the public will never hear of it, ergo no court. If there were investigations ongoing, THEN the public would hear of it. News loves a scandal.
Your comments with respect to the CO2 bottles are irrelevant because the tank has a twist nozzle. One of the scenes shows the actor twisting the valve. Since the entire tank may be moved when the gas is turned on or off, it makes sense that the label orientation will vary.
As for the basic concept of the experiment, try this. Place one thermometer in direct sun light and another, right next to it, in shade. (You can use your hand or a leaf.) You will get a 20F to 40F difference. Their “experiment” would measure direct absorbed energy and not the temperature of the “air”.
And yes, I agree that they simply showed a single thermometer.
While I wouldn’t expect seeing the actual experiment in an informational/propaganda film like this, not only doesn’t the experiment work as advertised, the CO2 level is seriously out of proportion. To accurately model the atmosphere, you’d have to increase the CO2 by a scant 100 to 200 ppm. Instead of a big hose, the CO2 should have been added with a very, VERY small syringe.
All one needs to is watch the video that Glacierman linked to. It has nothing to do with aberrations of the thermometer readings or anything else. It is so obvious once one understands what the real world basic physics are, the Gore “experiment” is worse than a carnival shell game.
WATCH THE VIDEO!!
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
Al Gore has now proven himself to be an official climate scientist with that demonstration.
On a side note, I’d never actually watched any of the climate reality crap – I’m amazed at the density of the disinformation in that video.
As always great work.
Once a snake oil salesman always a snake oil salesman:
“Al Gore has warned that there is now clear proof that climate change is directly responsible for the extreme and devastating floods, storms and droughts that displaced millions of people this year.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/28/al-gore-proof-climate-change
Of course the shyster cannot provide the proof because even as slippery as he is there is none.
It was a very convincing video for the uninformed. The fact that much of its content was complete BS is obvious to anyone with any real knowledge on climate change – we can be sure there will be lots of stuff like this in the next IPCC report.
Deliberate fraud is another matter – we all know politicians are deceitful, but this is something special even for someone like Gore. Doesn’t he have enough money yet?
Anthony,
Some more ideas:
Stopping at 1:06 in the video, it seems like the right lamp is more intense than the left one. If we see the top black side of the lamp, in each case there seems to be two holes, one bigger than the other. On the left side they are both intense red, while on the right they are not. Same theory is confirmed around 1:04, when the lamps are out and there is no red; slow forwarding shows it going red as the lamps are connected. They are again visible at 1:17, and there it seems that a tiny red spot is visible on the bottom of the right lamp. Reflection from the CO2 bottle is also visible, but it’s a long shot, given the angle. Might the lamp be lower on the right side?
While at 1:06, we can also see the background reflected on the black part of the lamp. The person filming is clearly visible, as is the space itself. Some “CSI” enhancement might reveal other things…
Ecotretas
(a) Can you cite those specific CFRs (Code of Federal Regulations) he might have violated?
(b) I don’t think Algore has in his name any TV or radio station licenses; internet broadcasting (at the moment) requires no ‘licensing’ from any ‘authorities’ (at least in the USA).
.
What is really disturbing…..is that there are adults, college students…….too many people
…that will actually fall for it….and never read this post
Well done, Anthony.
If you are going to continue your investigative activities (you will!), please do a post asking for contributions to buy a new digital camera. Maybe you would get enough to fill those glass jars with your favorite cookies.
I didn’t watch any of the Gore-a-thon — were he to visit my town, I would leave.
————————–
klem says @ 8:40 …
I agree entirely, but one small note: The effect ought to be called the “atmospheric effect” because a greenhouse works by stopping circulation and Earth’s atmosphere near the surface (the tropopause) is defined by the natural circulation caused by differences in heating, densities, and the like.
I also normally question the “doublings” implied by these “experiments” in the sense of human’s use of carbon based fuels. For example, the concentration is now about 400 ppm. Can we make it to 800? The next doubling would be to 1,600. Think of demand, costs, substitutions, efficiency, and all the other issues involved. Mother Earth may act to get us to those numbers but I doubt that human activities will.
What an outstanding piece of work Anthony. I will show it to my wife, a middle school math and science teacher. This could be a object great lesson for all young scientists on honesty and integrity. Where do I send the check to help you pay for those supplies? And no my middle name is not “big oil”.
Excellent! Very Smart.
Anthony wrote: Thank you, but I suspect the court of public opinion will be far more problematic to Mr. Gore’s organization than a court of law.
It probably isn’t worth your while, but in a court of law you can establish actual guilt, and in a civil suit you can hurt him in the wallet directly; furthermore, in discovery you can find out and publicize how many actual donors there were on whose behalf you are bringing suit. There’s probably a law firm willing to take this on spec.
Oops – did I get one stuck in the spam filt?
CFR to me stands for Code of Federal Regulations, as found here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/ vs the Public Laws: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/
Thanks in advance mods. _Jim
.
I’m sorry you spent so much time debunking such an obviously edited video. The scene was probably shot a dozen times with different camera angles and lighting then edited as a commercial. It was meant to illustrate how to do this misguided “experiment” not show the actual results. This analysis reminds me of the 9/11 deniers that point to pixels in grainy handheld video stills as proof for whatever theory they have.
I would think an unedited video of this simple (minded) experiment as demonstrated would do more to proving the point.
REPLY: They could have avoided any criticism by simply placing the word “DRAMATIZATION” anywhere in that video segment showing the experiment, but they didn’t and they invited viewers to try it themselves. – Anthony
Excellent!
Just a couple of things not mentioned yet:
In normal writing, we often write carbon dioxide as CO2. However the 2 should actually be subscripted. In the video, it is superscripted on the bottle. That does not inspire confidence in the rest of the video.
“Moreover, the CO2 injection in one cookie jar would raise it from 0.004% CO2 to very near 100% CO2 which is hardly comparable to the atmosphere going from 0.003% to 0.004% CO2 during the industrial age.”
The above numbers are off by a factor of 10 and should read 0.03% and 0.04%.
I have tried to access ANYTHING in reference to this video from Al Gore’s fake science site.
It seems that the science fakers at “climaterealityproject” got caught with their proverbial hands in the cookie Jar and shut the video down.
Bill Nye and Science Lies.
Is the video cached anywhere besides Anthony’s HD.
May need it later at Lord Monckton’s dream lawsuit at The Hague.
REPLY: It is still up at Vimeo, and works via the embedded video in the story above. It also works here:
http://climaterealityproject.org/video/climate-101/
I suspect it is network or computer problems on your end – Anthony
Anthony
The BBC did a similar experimet around the time of Copenhagen. Have you seen that? I am sure that it must be on Youtube. It is difficult to see how such uncontrolled experiments would influence anyone with a scientific mind, but then again they are not aimed at that market, but rather just pure propaganda aimed at the masses.
The Gore experiment appears an obvious fake. The temp of the CO2 from the cylinder would depress the temperature, at least for a long time and as you say the heat lamp produces EMR of the wrong wave length!
Gore should be challenged to repeat the very same experiment live on TV (but with the thermometers kept in the jar). If the experiment did not work, and was not REAL, it would be interesting to hear his explanation as to why he posted this material on his 24 hours of REALITY..
.
Did Cuba disappear from the little globe with the fever just like on Al’s book cover?
Hmmm … seems like they could have metered the mains (current drawn by the lamps and voltage suppled by the mains .. using a P3 Kill-A-Watt meter even) – or measured the ‘light’ (heat) output at the least …
.
Nice work Anthony.
Another example of models just not working when it comes to climate science!!
Monckton of Brenchley says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:36 am
“Dear Anthony, – What you have exposed is a serious criminal fraud. Gore was asking for money throughout the Bore-a-thon.”
WTF? Gore is a multi-millionaire! Why is HE asking for money? He even got half of the 2007 Nobel Prize loot [LOL]!
What puzzled me with this “experiment”, is that they did not need to fake the experiment.
CO2 is heavy, so, more CO2 equals more mass.
If heated, when rigidly contained, the temperature and pressure will rise more.
Not that proves anything, other than what is already known, and simple physics.
The “real problem” is the interpretation of the “results” and those are not being questioned…
So, why did they fake the experiment, and fake it so badly???
“Any publicity” springs to my mind.
Given the “real problem” described above, that is not being questioned,
then it is a case of, let the “skeptics” spread the GHG and GH gospel.
Well done.
Al Gore loves you all.
Hey, it’s (internet) TV. Stuff like this happens all the time. That’s why TV is a profession. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the sequence was hosted by a CG polar bear instead of Bill Nye.
That supposed “experiment” only measures the heat of compression of two different gasses in a closed system. If the same measurements were taken of an open system, where the gasses are allowed to expand, as they can in the atmosphere, the temperatures would be the same in each jar. Photo editing aside, the experiment does not show a greenhouse effect.
Help somebody!
The article above claims that the temperature at the surface of the earth is warmer than it would be for a black body because a compressed gas gets warm (Boyle’s Law). Perhaps I haven’t been paying attention well enough but I haven’t heard that explanation before.
Could you check a wedding video for me as I’m not sure who was disappering into a closet with the best man but to me it looks like the bride but I can not be 100% sure.
And is anyone really that surprised that good ol’ Al would lie to people to get there money? Does anyone have figures on the $10 he was trying to get people to cough up?
glacierman says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:55 am
“Even without the editing, this experiment is debunked: http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html”
Sorry, but that is a whole bunch of crap at the link. Gases only heat up as they undergoing compression or expansion. The earth’s atmosphere has essentially static pressure at any one point. For it to heat up from gravitational compression the force of gravity must be constantly increasing otherwise when the pressure goes static there is no further temperature increase.
If it didn’t work that way it would be a perpetual motion machine. Suppose I take my shop compressor and fill up its air tank from ambient pressure to 150psi. The tank will indeed heat up. And if I bleed the pressure off very quickly the tank will cool down rapidly. But what happens if I turn off the compressor but don’t bleed off any pressure? The tank will still cool down even though the pressure isn’t changing. That’s because in order to get compressional heating the pressure must be increasing.
So let’s debunk the gravitational compression silliness and find out why the air gets warmer closer to the surface of the earth (in the troposphere, anyhow). It’s because the sun heats the ocean and the ocean heats the air. The (sunlight-heated) surface is the source of the heat. As you move further away from the source of the heat it will (obviously) get cooler.
Also, there comes a point where this relationship of falling temperature with increasing altitude doesn’t hold true. The thermosphere, for example, has a temperature in the thousands of degrees, far hotter than any layer below it. If gravitational heating had anything to do with it then the upper reaches of the atmosphere, with sub-millibar pressure, couldn’t possibly be the hottest part of the atmosphere… yet it is.
Outstanding work Detective Watts. The really sad part is that Gore admits that he is a liar and sheeple keep believing him.
“I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it [anthropogenic global warming] is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are.”- Al Gore
Well done for exposing this contemptible fakery.
However, I have to point out that 400ppm comes out at 0.04%, not 0.004%.
REPLY: Decimal point typo fixed, thanks – Anthony
A miracle has happened, courtesy of Al Gore’s science buffoons. Oops, i meant to type “boffins.”
“…Al’s “high school physics” experiment didn’t come with a bill of materials and list of suppliers….” –Anthony Watt
Why should he share his Bill of Materials data when you just want to find something wrong with it?
“Kind of odd that the black CO2 cannister found its way very close to the “warmed” jar. I kind of wonder if they had trouble and decided to fudge the results by placing an object that would absorb some heat from the lamp and radiate it back to the jar….” –Peter McCoy
Good eye, Peter. The canister looks like it’s either touching the jar or close enough to allow heat transfer from the hotter canister to the jar by convection, conduction, and radiation. But it’s worse than you thought: the CO2 in the canister is also hotter than ambient, and is flowing into the jar and over the thermometer. This is known as “cooking” the experiment.
…Perhaps even that failed and they had to fall back on a dramatization. I’m curious now… does this experiment really work as shown even if it doesn’t tell us anything about our atmosphere?” –Peter McCoy
No, it’s completely bogus, as I’m sure you know. Calling it an ‘experiment’ is a gross lie; there was little or no effort to maintain conditions equal between jars or to accurately emulate the atmosphere. It’s nothing but a Gorrible proctoganda trick intended to fool the innocent.
For those noticing the thermometers were switched, it’s probably because they were attached to the globes – switch globes, switch thermometers.
One reason they may have been switched (and I hope this makes sense) is because of the calibration used for these thermometers.
As is shown in the photo of the two thermometers Anthony purchased to replicate the presentation, the length of the “green bar” shows different calibration for the same style. In a real experiment, you’d want the length of the bars as close to each other as possible.
In the film, the thermometer with the shorter “green” (and the longer min-max “swing”) was the “control”, and the longer “green” (and shorter min-max “swing”) was the CO2 thermometer.
Later, they swap. To me, the one with the longer scale would APPEAR to rise faster (if both at min and get same temp input, one would climb higher IF THE SCALE WERE IGNORED).
So, naturally, the CO2 thermometer, even with same temp input goes higher, if all you’re looking at is the rise.
For the closeup, they could have not used the different thermometers – the scales would not have matched. Hard to explain that in a short film.
Which of the two thermometers DID they use for the closeup? Probably the one that would show the FASTER rise.
It’s just a cartoon. The 150 year old experiments wouldn’t show what they required the “experiment” to. I recall this being done on the BBC around the time of Copenhagen and the questions are the same . . .
1. Is the difference in CO2 concentration equivalent?
2. Is it an equivalent open system?
3. Is the heat signature ( frequencies ) the same as in nature?
If NO is the answer to one or more of these questions then what on Earth was the experiment supposed to illustrate? Do the warmista think that we are all so stupid as to be hoodwinked by this nonsense? How much did the “poodle man” raise on his Goreathon because that will be the idiot indicator.
What about the Mythbusters? How real is that because frankly it doesn’t seem in the least bit possible.
What was the effect of the Ice? Also a box of air isn’t a climate system. At best that was a metaphor for our atmosphere with exaggeration as its motif.
Anthony, I criticized the Mythbusters test last year and I stand by my position. If this version is not clear enough, get one with higher resolutions or the full version. Notice the CO2 concentrations used. It is an eggasuration, worse than Al Gore’s.
Obviously it is an illustration and not the real experiment. Did you notice that they used an audio cassette tape not a video tape? And that little TV was not really showing those images either. Jeez.
REPLY: They could have avoided any criticism by placing the word “DRAMATIZATION” onscreen anywhere in the experiment segment, but they didn’t, and invited people to replicate the experiment themselves (@0:46 mark). They can’t have it both ways. – Anthony
RE: comment that no SWIR (short wave infrared) will penetrate the glass.
The correct comment is that ONLY SWIR will penetrate the glass, which blocks the other IR (infrared) wavelengths. This is well known to military uses of night imaging equipment as only the SWIR is capable of seeing thru windows/auto glass…and…only a few companies make this technology & export it. In the night imaging sensor field, SWIR wavelenghts are 0.9 to 1.7 microns — significantly different from the wavelengths defined in the narrative. Reference (many, one is): http://www.sensorsinc.com/whyswir.html
All that aside, the fact that the presentation displayed was staged as indicated is not necessarily bad–if the net effect was to communicate the basic outcome. Sure, the experiment is crude, but if some IR and/or other energy gets thru the glass & warms both equally and the one containing greater CO2 stays warmer longer, the point is made. The fact the apparatus is presented inaccurately becomes a very minor point if the facts of the physics presented correctly align with what actually occurred.
In the time I had to skim the blog entry I could find no indication that the representations made about the physics were wrong.
Which suggests that they’re correct.
Which suggests the emphasis on the idealized presentation is meant to undermine & distract, rather than report the science.
And that is indicative of what’s so wrong with the whole global warming debate — the issue is so polarized that we have “sides” (bad enough itself) … but those “sides” are willing to grasp at any detail to bolter their view or undermine the other view that fundamental truth (aka “science”) is getting shortchanged.
DID the experiment as portrayed actually yield the results asserted by Gore, et. al? So far, all this very lengthy blog item does is shows that the presentation of the experiment is idealized — which, if the only effect is to enhance communication of what was done is not really a bad thing in such a forum.
IF “yes” (the experiment as portrayed did yield the results asserted) then the entire photo analysis becomes just another example of nit-picky partisan propagandizing being presented as evidence for refuting the assertion made. A sort of sleight of hand that doesn’t really do what it suggests its doing…..and done in a manner that induces the readership to reach a faulty conclusion where it counts most.
Frankly, I’d have thought this blog was better than that.
Oh for goodness sake! It was a bit of television to demonstrate that the greenhouse effect can be seen in an experiment that anyone could do. That’s all! Didn’t the guy in the white coat and the use of globe money banks give you a clue as to that? It was supposed to be midly amusing. It is so obviously not a video of the actual experiment being done that I can’t believe you wasted your time looking for specks on thermometers. Now if the experiment, when run properly, did not show warming, you would have something to whine about.
DR says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:38 am
The gravitational compression explanation given at the above link is very, very wrong. Anyone who doesn’t see the error is, frankly, a physics illiterate. A gas, once compressed to a static pressure, will not retain the heat of compression. It it worked like the author states it does then one could compress a volume of air into a tank until it was quite hot then use the heated bottle as a perpetual source of heat. The fact is that once the gas reaches a static pressure any compressional heating also goes static.
I’m not impressed with either experiment. Heated gases in the Earth’s atmosphere will expand, rise, and convect–not stay trapped in a jar or a plastic box. Maybe an insulated pipe or silo that’s 50 ft. tall by several feet wide with a hot plate at the bottom as a heat source, a cold plate at the top as a heat sink, and several thermometers, anemometers, and barometers at the various height intervals could reveal something crucial: at least one negative feedback mechanism.
Mike: “Obviously it is an illustration and not the real experiment.”
Really????? Obvious to whom? The general public viewing the video and being asked to contribute? Pure deception for monetary gain. I hope the FCC and FTC look into this.
I am glad you went to all that effort to confidently prove your theory. However, much as I am a skeptic, and I don’t want to rain on your parade at all, I’d still have to say ‘so what?’ because we all know that most of the CAGW propaganda is overhyped, falsified or just plain hockey stick fake!
The only way this would hurt the team and Gore, would be if it is pushed like the Climategate emails in the mainstream media – and we all know how likely that is!
So, a brilliant piece – worthy of all that effort – but ultimately I don’t feel it will help much!
Also, the proponents of AGW will probably turn it against you, as some sort of personal hate campaign against Big Al using ‘creative license’ to get his point across! (Over here it’s called false advertising, and generally not allowed – but not sure if that applies to internet broadcasts?)
Didn’t any of you goons notice the orang-utan walking across the lab? Or rather, did any of you actually listen to the commentary?
The experiment was not intended to demonstrate global warming but the relative effect of heat on bodies of gas of different chemical composition. To waste a week and a half on investigating the integrity of a very short film which is obviously demonstrating the various separate steps required to conduct the experiment (thereby requiring a number of takes) is beyond stupid.
As Watts already has most of the necessary equipment why doesn’t he complete the set and then carry out the experiment for himself? He could also demonstrate to himself why it is necessary when making a film in HD to do it in a number of takes. Unless, of course, he thinks it possible to make HD images of thermometers through thickish, non-planar glass. The experiment certainly won’t take him a week and half to set up and film.
I suggest also that he takes Monkton of Brenchley’s advice and visits a the police station where, doubtless, he will receive trenchant information on the quality of the good Lord’s legal knowledge. My guess is it will not be dissimilar to that of his scientific knowledge.
REPLY: You may have noticed that the thermometers were oral fever thermometers, designed to hold the high temperature reading when removed from the mouth. All they had to do was remove them after a few minutes (filming the removal) and put them side by side and photograph them in the closeup of the scales to prove the point. They couldn’t even be bothered to do that. Mr. Gore has million$ and asks for more, yet they can’t even budget to do a “high school experiment” correctly. He can’t afford a data logger or at least something better than cookie jars an oral thermometers? Your argument fails spectacularly, just like the “experiment”. I’m just getting warmed up. – Anthony
Brilliant analysis!
Athlete says:
September 28, 2011 at 10:02 am
Outstanding work Detective Watts. The really sad part is that Gore admits that he is a liar and sheeple keep believing him.
“I believe it is appropriate to have an over-representation of factual presentations on how dangerous it [anthropogenic global warming] is, as a predicate for opening up the audience to listen to what the solutions are.”- Al Gore
————-
Quote taken out of context. Gore was saying that An Inconvenient Truth spent way more time explaining the problem than discussing solutions. That is the “over-representation” he was talking about.
@commieBob
You haven’t heard that explanation because it’s bogus. Boyle’s law states only that pressure is inversely proportional to volume at a fixed temperature
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyle%27s_law
Now, it’s true that the temperature of an adiabatic process (i.e. thermally insulated) goes up when pressurized, because work is performed in pressurizing. Energy must be conserved (1st Law of Thermodynamics) so the work is converted to internal energy, which causes the temperature to rise.
But in a open system (like Earth) the heat escapes (by radiation and convection) and the system tries to reach thermal equilibrium, i.e. everything at the same temperature (Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics).
But global thermal equilibrium is never reached because the pesky old Sun keeps pumping more energy into it (along with heat energy from other sources e.g. geothermal etc).
Personally, I would conduct the experiment with one system, whereby the use of on jar, one thermometer, and one heat source, thusly eliminate any differences in glass, thermometer and heat source. Also, compare a vacuum environment as a base, then to various gases. I suspect, there would be no change of temperature over time regardless of the gas used. I suspect the thermometer simply heats up from direct radiation from the heat sources, a combination of room temperature, outside temperature, and the lamp used.
Nice work on exposing their continuation of fraud. I have to agree that someone who lives in the state where this fraud took place could file a complaint with the AG. The more complaints filed, the more likely the AG will act on it, forcing the producer to return the funds, or possible fines. Either way, it is another example of swindling the ignorant.
Cue Mr. Dan (“Fake, but accurate”) Rather. Except the demonstration wasn’t accurate.
Anthony: It is a far cry from my little Kodak Easy Share Z1012
John Hultquist: …please do a post asking for contributions to buy a new digital camera.
I’ve got one of those Easy Shares too. I can get manual focus by setting the mode dial to P and poking the landscape button 3 times. Won’t work in the Auto (red icon) mode. Took me a long time to figure out and it’s been a real pain in the duff where I tried to get distance shots through a chain link fence. (Typical airport situation) The focusing program sees that fence as a brick wall.
BTW, that CO2 tank appears to be for a paintgun system.
Anyone out there know just how much CO2 is in one of that size? If he opened it full-bore, how long would the pressure last? If the film was edited, then there was probably more than one tank used.
How much of a “carbon footprint” did this “presentation” have?
John B……That is what undisciplined science fakers always say. “it was just a demonstration, a metaphor…. it is obvious that it will work if it is done properly”…
Well, if it is child’s play and easy to do properly and important enough to make into a precious video, then why WASN’T it done properly?… if it soooo easy to do?
John B why don’t you do it properly? Apparently it is simple high school physics… ie Climate 101.
I am sure Anthony will post your validation of the work.
Science… if you choose to use the term, requires that you stick to science in fact.
Keith Battye says:
September 28, 2011 at 10:09 am
“What about the Mythbusters? How real is that because frankly it doesn’t seem in the least bit possible.”
It might not seem possible to you but if you understood the physics just the least little bit it isn’t just possible it’s inevitable.
This is old stuff, people. Absorptive properties of gases was experimentally characterized 150 years ago by John Tyndall and commercial CO2 sensors operate by that same principle. This isn’t theory it’s physical, measured properties of materials that engineers reference when they design stuff like electronic CO2 sensors. If you don’t understand at least enough to look up the physical properties of CO2 in an engineering reference you are not equipped to argue the merits, or lack thereof, of the so-called greenhouse effect.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/
The section of the OP “About the Experiment” is almost entirely my words.
I have a small machine shop and will occasionally create videos and slide shows of the evolution of a piece of metal to a final product. In many cases it is impossible to film live certain operations because of light, angle, obstructions caused by safety shields, and flying swarf. These are then “faked” by clever angles and tricks in the studio to create the final video product. So the result is not precisely what goes into the production of the part, but is representative to the degree possible of the exact process. There is no intention to deceive, and the faked sections are in fact necessary to clearly show what is happening to the work.
So my take on the Al Gore fake is it is needed in the studio, but I realize a studio is not a lab. The equipment is hardly lab quality, and while the underlying science is supportable and at least visually supported in the video, the results of this particular setup do not show what is suggested. But it does not mean it cannot be shown as suggested – you just need proper equipment.This video is shabby but does not rise to the level of fraud any more than my machine shop videos are fraudulent. The claim and the test are known and repeatable with proper equipment.
What is probably clearly in the realm of fraud is the temperature difference presented at the end of the tests. I doubt even a proper test with proper equipment is going to show such a high degree of difference in temperature between a lab quality device with and without the presence of 0.0362% CO2 *and* 4.0% water vapor. But we expect exaggeration from the Goracle.
Mr. Gore,
once more
you are
caught with your hand in the cookie jar.
🙂
As pointed out by many viewers, you missed the fact that the globes/thermometers have been swapped during the sequence. This is like the old shell game … keep your eye on the jar with the CO2 added. Left, right..no left … look away, now look back … which one was it again? 🙂
The jars have been moved and replaced in their positions at least a couple of times during the sequence. One other demonstration of this (as if any more were needed): consider the objects in the scene between the frames at 1:05 and 1:09. In the latter the Co2 bottle is still there but all hoses are gone from the scene, whereas in the earlier frame there is a massive clutter of hoses around and behind Jar 2.
Further, the red object on the shelf behind the actor. It is displaced to the left of the jars at 1:05 but is almost behind the first jar at 1:09. So the camera angles are different: the later angle, which is a close-up, is taken from an angle of about 20 degrees to the right of the other one. But now look at the position of the Indian subcontinent in the CO2 jar in the two frames. Almost identical relative to the camera, but the latter one rotated slightly toward the center — that is, in the opposite direction it ought to be, given the different camera angle.
So apparently, care was taken to make it appear that we are looking at the same scene, to the point that they reached into the jars and adjusted the positions of the globes, attempting to replicate the original scene. Complete stagecraft, but unfortunately imperfect.
Interesting that the thermometers were both reading so far above room temperature during the comparison sequence — and so close to the temperature of the human body. Seeing as the instruments (actually instrument — singular as Anthony argues) were not in the jars at the time of shooting, any guesses how they were made to shoot up like that?
This stagecraft stuff is just silliness. I am more concerned about some of the seriously wrong hyperbolic claims in the latter half of the video.
55% of CO2 in the oceans? Really? I believe it is over 90% given a rough calculation from Henry’s law. The graphs used are laughable. Notice they don’t show any scales. What exactly are they supposed to represent?
The temperature graph supposedly showing temperature for “the last million years” bound within a small range and SUDDENLY rising dramatically during the industrial age??? No competent scholar of climate would accept such a thing. Even the Holocene era looks nothing like this. It is pure fantasy.
Increased storm and extreme weather activity in the last century? Uh, that’s “inconveniently” wrong.
So I would say … let us laugh at this silly botching of the “high school science” but I would suggest concentrating on the larger errors. Let us not strain out a gnat and forget that they are asking their audience to swallow a camel.
The experiment is pointless. Everyone knows that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and produces some warming.
The question is whether CO2 alone can force climate, can it overwhelm all the other forces that combine to create our climate?
So whether the CO2 jar gets warmer or not is specious, it is outside the realm of the argument..
Marvellous bit of sleuthery. One hopes it goes viral. Like Christopher said, it is fraud of the worst kind. Swaggart Squared. Would criminal charges stick? Meh. Would embarrassment stick? Like doggy-poo to a shoe. The entire edifice is toppling.
Whoa! Anthony! Amazing detective work. Nice job.
(And here I was just trying to figure out if Al was real or faked on the show. I can’t prove it but I think they used a fake. Had to be or else 8.6 miiill-yun viewers would have instantly fallen asleep.)
Silly skeptics! He swapped the jars around because there is a pea under one of them.
Dave Springer says
The gravitational compression explanation given at the above link is very, very wrong. Anyone who doesn’t see the error is, frankly, a physics illiterate. A gas, once compressed to a static pressure, will not retain the heat of compression. It it worked like the author states it does then one could compress a volume of air into a tank until it was quite hot then use the heated bottle as a perpetual source of heat. The fact is that once the gas reaches a static pressure any compressional heating also goes static.
***************
To a point this is true but does it work that way for a planet?
At sea level it is 6 ° C warmer than at 1 Km up. Why is that ? This is a fact. Don’t believe me look it up.
The “compression heat goes away” [which is true] explanation doesn’t explain the measurable difference in temperature does it?
Venus has huge amounts of CO2 and very dense atmosphere.
“The pressure of Venus’ atmosphere at the surface is 90 atmospheres (about the same as the pressure at a depth of 1 km in Earth’s oceans). It is composed mostly of carbon dioxide.”
nineplanets.org
At the elevation where there is 1 atmosphere of pressure the temperature is earth-like.
****
In the closed bottle the warming WOULD CAUSE COMPRESSION don’t you agree ?
In the bottle the warming comes from the glass not the CO2 don’t you agree ?
For the “experiment to be valid the bottle must be vented and the jar must be made out of something which won’t block IR.
As it is the so called “experiment” isn’t valid.
Thank you Bill Nye, for setting science back 50 to maybe 100 years …
,
mkelly, I believe your calculations are correct but CO2 also has higher conductivity, so Q is higher for CO2.
In any case, I would suggest a similar experiment whereby you bet Gore that you can drink more shots of 0.08 proof ethanol than he can drink of 200 proof. For the average 300 pounder, 4 or 5 shots could have one over the DUI limit vs 12500 shots of the 0.08 proof alcohol.
I don’t know anyone is complaining, this is nothing new. As Anthony has proven. (Good eye, and good follow through to prove what you suspected!) Climate 101 is just another episode of the same fraud that we have seen again and again.
1. I’m sure everyone remembers Mann’s hockey stick fail.
2. How about Phil Jones and his I’ll destroy the data before I let anyone see it? Was anyone really surprised when the data turned out to be gone?
3. How about Eric Steig’s statistical manipulation and splicing of temperature records to find some warming and smear it over half a continent.
4. Or perhaps Briffa’s tree pruning activities to try and create a new hockey stick.
5. No list would be complete without mentioning James Hansen’s adjustments on top of adjustments, all designed to show warming where there is none.
There are dozens more.
When the BBC did the experiment they generated the CO2 with an exothermic reaction, they blew warm CO2 in to the jar and it worked. Here they have a big pressure drop from the cylinder so the CO2 is cold and it doesn’t work. Obviously the data must change to fit the facts.
Dave Springer:
So what is being measured in the closed container experiment when the light source is turned on if it is not compressional heating?
I did not mention gravitational heating, etc., but continue to argue on about it if you want.
This is very trivial, but what initially stood out for me was the incorrect CO2 notation on the jar. Shouldn’t the 2 be lower and not higher than O? It’s been a while since I was in a chemistry class but that much I remember.
Bernd Felsche says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:18 am
“…And that’s where I stopped listening and watching. That’s beyond nonsense.
The guy in the lab coat at the start, standing behind a jar CO-squared made me think that this video must be a parody of some sort. But no … it got stupid beyond parody….”
Yeah the CO-squared instead of usingCO 2 subscript is a dead give away that they are complete donkeys and I am insulting my donkey who is a lot smarter.
In case anyone wants to see an even neater video, see below:
We know how various molecules, reflect, scatter and absorb various wavelengths.
We know that C02 is opaque to IR, just as H2O is opaque
That’s why, for example, when a plane goes behind a cloud, you lose an IR track on it.
As you add more C02 to the atmosphere, you make the atmosphere more opaque to IR.
This raises the height at which radiation to space occurs. That escape happens where
the atmosphere is finally transparent to the wavelength being emmitted.
The higher and colder that altitude, the warmer the surface has to be.
This has nothing to do with computer models.
The added C02 doesnt warm the surface, it slows the rate of cooling by raising the effective
radiating altitude.
To watch C02 “block” IR watch this fun video
The problem some skeptics have is the Pro AGW people associate them with a fringe group that deny any effect for C02 whatsoever.
Anthony, great piece of detective work. I have a hard time getting too exercised about it, though. If the temperature differences they showed actually occurred in the experiment, then they are certainly free to illustrate that difference however they want: with words, a graph, an animated drawing, or thermometers going up. I suspected they weren’t actually filming the thermometers (due to the lack of glass distortion and the background) before reading your detailed writeup. They could have added “dramatization” or something, but I’d have to put this in the category of “sloppy” and not a big deal.
The real issue is that the experiment doesn’t accurately reflect the earth system. (Plus all the follow-up questions that arise even if it did.) I’d prefer to battle on that front, rather than the presentation.
@henrythethird: it is a 20 oz paintball bottle. Mine says max fill 0.54 kg CO2. If you open that full throttle it doesn’t stay put: at the temperature they are operating it (>36 deg Celsius) the pressure is about 1800 psi/125 bar. It would fly off the table. CO2 goes supercritical above 31,1 deg Celsius with pressure to match.
Besides, the bottle would freeze over with water vapor on the outside if youi opened it that way… Anyway: it would last all of fifteen seconds before it was empty.
Piotr
It wasn’t Gore. Where’s the snow cloud constantly over his head?
================
Does it really matter if Al’s experiment shows one thermometer rising over 100?… everyone knows the temperature in the centre of those two globes is several million degrees.
Fantastic work and research Anthony. I am very impressed. The fallout SHOULD be enormous – let’s see what the national papers do with this.
We’ve talked about this scam numerous times; the video trickery is NOT the issue; the science scam is.
Note how cavalierly they open the “jar”. So it is safe to assume that both jars contain plenty of water vapor (H2O) a well known greenhouse gas.
Issue #1
The “heat lamp” is an incandescent filament lamp with a source Temperature in the range of about 3000 Kelvins. A back of envelope calculation will yield about 4 megaWatts per square metre approximately black body radiation from that heat lamp. We know it should be about 1/16 of the emittance of the sun’s surface at 6,000 K.
It is also 10,000 times the emittance of the average earth surface at around 300 K.
At 3,000 K, the peak spectral output from that lamp is at around one micron wavelength; a value twice that of the sun, and 1/10 th of the emission wavelength of the LWIR from the 300 K earth.
Water (H2O) is a very good absorber of 1 micron radiation, which is why the human skin, which is mostly water records that as “heat”. In contrast, no human senses respond in any way to 10.1 micron LWIR emissions, which humans are entirely unaware of. We have to go out of our way to detect that with special instrumentation.
So to make this experiment closer to scientifically accurate, the “heat” lamp at 10,000 times too strong needs to be replaced by a 300 K source matching the actual earth emissions; like an ordinary rock or brick out of your garden. One could also use a bottle of ordinary drinking water as a perfectly good LWIR emitter that more closely matches the emission from the oceans.
All in all, this experiment, that is often repeated, demonstrates what a bunch of inept country bumpkins these fools really are. Video tricks ior not, these idiots can’t even cheat without being caught.
If I were a fraud, huckster, swindler, lier, etc. treacherous charlatan and Inspecter Watts got on my tail/trail, I would give it up!
He’s got eyes on you. You can’t run, you can’t hide!
As usual, good work Anthony!
The worse part of this is the SAFETY ISSUE!
Gore is probably using an EMPTY or almost empty paint ball cylinder. (The name shows the cylinder is normally used for paintball) Why do I think it is empty? because it is not properly chained down!!!!! Also Because All you see is the mouth of the hose and hear the valve turn , no hiss. Note there is no pressure regulator and if the tank is full it would be full of liquid CO2 and would probably make the glass jar frost to boot.
From the instructions on refilling paint ball cylinders
“…A small amount of dry ice or snow can be formed by the gas as it exits the system to a lower pressure and a large amount of dry ice if its liquid exiting to a lower pressure…..” http://www.teamonslaught.fsnet.co.uk/co2_info.htm
No matter how you slice it kids should not be messing with a cylinder of gas without a pressure regulator. The blasted things are dangerous and have already caused the death of one child.
People were killed when a CO2 cylinder unintentionally disengaged from the paintball gun: http://www.paintballdangers.com/pbd_death.htm
So Anthony, I have to agree with Lord Monckton. You need to go after this video in court.
REPLY: I thought about all these issues ahead of time. I agree they are dangerous. A better way for kids would be to uses vinegar/baking soda to make the CO2. I also have located the exact paintball tank, and the exact twist valve. It is possible to fill the jar without blowing off the lid due to pressure, but yes one must be very careful. They have no proof that there is any CO2 in the jar at all, a simple CO2 meter available here would prove the issue. More to come – Anthony
About the mythbusters show – it looks like a MASSIVE increase in CO2 – far more than anyone is predicting – created a VERY STEADY 1 degree increase. To me this proves that CO2 is NOT affecting the earth’s temperature. result = Myth
Anthony, in case it hasn’t been mentioned by commenters, carbon dioxide has a noticeably higher heat capacity than air. So, for a given amount of input energy, it takes longer for CO2 to heat. Air would heat faster. I wonder if they ran the experiment and, because of the difference in heat capacity, got the “wrong” result and so they monkeyed with it.
Without seeing what is actually warming the thermometers, er, single thermometer in the video segments of the “two side by side shots of the same thermometer” it’s not possible to know what the source of the heat was for the business end of the thermometer wasn’t visible!!! For all that one knows it could have been some other heat source.
Great work Anthony. You certainly knocked Al Gore’s and Bill Nye The Science Guy’s satellite out of orbit with this one. Although I concur with Christopher Monckton that it would be really nice to see legal fraud charges brought against Al Gore and Bill Nye.
10/10 for tenacity and reasonable conclusions. Thermometer distortion could possibly be avoided by mounting them vertically in the jars – I know they wern’t – but just saying.
Did you go on to conduct the actual experiment (you could have breathed heaviliy for some time into one of the jars)? If so, what actually happened?
R. Shearer says:
September 28, 2011 at 10:59 am
mkelly, I believe your calculations are correct but CO2 also has higher conductivity, so Q is higher for CO2.
Thanks Mr. Shearer. I based my comment on the film saying the lamps were equal (i.e. Q is equal) if the time for measuring the effect was the same then CO2 could not be higher?
Again thanks.
By the way to prove that CO2 was heating the earth should not the exxperiment show that the jar with the CO2 it was heating the lamp?
Very nice piece of work, Anthony, Sherlock Holmes has nothing on you.
I see that a number of people are saying something on the order of “so what”? They clearly seem to think that fakery is acceptable in order to make your point. And in some regards, they would be right … but for two problems.
The first problem is they didn’t acknowledge the fakery. If they had said “Dramatization” somewhere in the game, like the most bozo TV producer knows to do to avoid this very kind of blowback, it would have been fine … but only if the dramatization stuck to the facts.
But did they stick to the facts or not? Unfortunately, since we are shown bogus film of the results, we don’t know.
For those who say “so what”, please note that the real fakery is not that they “dramatized” the procedures. That’s a “white lie”, it’s done all the time, and (as folks have pointed out) that would be fine … if they had acknowledged it.
The second problem is much more serious than faking the film of the experimental setup and procedures. THEY FAKED THE RESULTS. Because of that, we have no idea of what the results actually were. We simply don’t know what happened.
And that is more than dramatization. That is more that taking repeated shots to make your experiment more clear and understandable to the viewers. Those kinds of actions (when acknowledged) are white lies, and are done all the time.
But that’s not what they did. The have faked, not just the experimental setup, but the outcome, and that is not a white lie. That is what was known in my youth as a “damned lie.”
And while I realize that showing Al Gore to be a damned liar is hardly earth-shattering news, it’s always valuable to have it demonstrated once again, and so clearly.
Extremely well done, my friend,
w.
Depends on what wavelength you’re ‘viewing’ (like the atmosphereic window at 10 um or some other wavelength) and how thick the cloud is; I flew on TI’s FLIR demonstration platform, a Convair 580 with a belly IR pod housing a fully gimballed LWIR sensor, and we could still ‘see’ vehicular traffic below us on US-75 while in co-called “cloud cover” over the highway …
.
Al Gore is going off at the deep end in the Guardian:
Al Gore: clear proof that climate change causes extreme weather
Former US vice president tells Scottish green conference that evidence from floods in Pakistan and China is compelling
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/28/al-gore-proof-climate-change?intcmp=122
The BBC / Sir David King fake “experiment” was discussed by WUWT in 2009:-
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/24/bbc-botches-grade-school-co2-science-experiment-on-live-tv-with-indepedent-lab-results-to-prove-it/
So from your evaluation of the method deduced from the video clip; Mr Gore’s assertion should actually read “It’s not high school physics, it’s a hoax.”
I believe a very similar experiment was done some time ago by an independent source using clear plastic drinks bottles and posted on YouTube. They came to an entirely different conclusion than Mr Gore’s ‘team’. As have a number of physicists as far back as the 1900’s.
I want to say again that a GH effect of CO2 has never been proven, neither, if any, how
much exactly….
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
So we should take these guys to court, to say that they are seriously misleading the public.
@ Steve Mosher:
The laser experiment does not say anything about how the real world atmosphere operates, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it too were flawed. If AGW worked as advertised, it doesn’t fit that the desert is warmer during the clear sky day than it is in the tropics at the same latitude and altitude. Convection (which swamps radiation during the day) and gravity appear to be ignored.
Where is the TLT/MLT hot spot that should be there according to Pro AGW “theory”? This is a main tenet of AGW; not even arguable, but has been pushed aside. The question is and always has been about that and surface temperature rising due to “back radiation”. What direct evidence is there, by observation, this is occurring? Santer 08 tried to make the data agree with the “basic physics”, but after 18 months of obfuscation and stall tactics, we now know that Santer rigged the game by omitting undesirable data.
Do the rules change as the hypothesis fails?
There are numerous, as in dozens, of examples of the atmosphere being compared directly to that of a real glass greenhouse (not unlike the glass jar), many from government institutions and universities. I find it incredulous the “greenhouse in a bottle” experiment is used as an approved educational tool for children when it is a complete fraud, but you failed to comment on the OP.
Che: Was Joe Bastardi used as a body double for that video?
@ Bill Sticker
Yes, all physical experiments should be ignored.
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/09/professor-nasif-nahle-publishes-new.html
“What you have exposed is a serious criminal fraud. Gore was asking for money throughout the Bore-a-thon. ”
I’ll eat my hat, in fact all my hats, if this would be considered a serious criminal fraud. It’s a typically sleazy act by a sleazy man though. And that’s more than bad enough.
glacierman says:
“Che: Was Joe Bastardi used as a body double for that video?”
Not hardly.
Heh, I wonder how many of the 8.6 million took Al Gore’s and Bill Nye’s advice and tried the ‘simple high school experiment’ at home.
Did they think this would convince people? Did they think no one would try it? Maybe Bill Nye is a stealth skeptic.
Where is Bill Nye anyway? He needs to answer for this one.
===============
It doesn’t matter that the video is fake. When you record a video teaching someone how to do something that doesn’t require you to actually do it. It only requires you to present the steps on how to do it.
This is how cookery programs work. Noone seriously gripes that cookery shows cheat by having the steps pre-done.
The video introduces the experiment as “If you want you can replicate this effect yourself in a simple lab experiment, here’s how: take two identical bottles and set them side by side….”
Ironically you got all the stuff, but didn’t do the experiment.
Smokey,
Your’e right, I short changed the man.
Thanks for your effort & expense to enlighten the public.
I’ve always attributed that to PT Barnum, and apparently Ainsworth Spofford, 6th Librarian of Congress (1864-97), appointed by Lincoln himself – agrees http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Deceit/1/
What a stupid experiment.
First of all, having a constant source of gas (which is not temperature controlled) flowing into and out of one of the jars makes any results worthless.
As gas exits the tank, it loses pressure and cools. If the tank was also at ambient temperature, their test should have gone the other way, with the colder gas entering and leaving the jar, taking some thermal energy with it.
On the other hand, the test only proves anything if
(1) one jar had its atmosphere puged to pure CO2, then
(2) both were sealed loosely (to safely allow for thermal expansion without pressure buildup), then
(3) allow the temperature in both jars to equalize with ambient air, and then
(4) turn on the lights.
The fakery shown by the “science” guy is disgracefull.
Propaganda Smackdown!
Several people have alluded to it but I suspect the problem they had was the adiabatic cooling of the CO2 coming from the pressurized tank. If they left the valve open to keep the CO2 flowing then it would always have been colder than ambient – assuming the tank was at ambient.
Good catch!!!
steven mosher provided a video proving that CO2 blocks IR radiation. Before drawing any conclusions, please consider the following.
* The CO2 used was very cold (it came from a compressed source). Even though it is not visible, there might be a thin fog that affects the results.
* The tube was about two feet (2 ft) long and the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere would fill a tube about 12 feet long. Thus, the experiment shows that the atmosphere is already saturated (by which, I mean that adding more has no additional effect at the surface).
* The “experiment” would have been better if it had used the guys face (still a bit too hot) instead of a candle.
* The “glass tube” would not allow far IR to reach the detector. Perhaps the end caps are not glass, but he did not say it.
I have seen a number of videos using a similar setup and none of them address the points I have made above.
Off topic.
A claim is making the rounds that IR thermometers are being routinely mis-used when measuring atmospheric temperature and IR flux: http://www.nationalreview.com/planet-gore/278396/its-thermometer-stupid-greg-pollowitz
It looks a bit thin to me. If true, it’s pretty damning, but I don’t see a well-documented claim there. The issues I see are: (1) What are climate scientists actually measuring with IR thermometers? (2) Does the claim that they are mis-using the thermometers stand up or not?
Can you guys take a look?
Thanks.
“LOOK! The color starts to come up!”
Ugh, too many words and too much science to read through this. Anthony, do I read (mostly skim really) this right that you’ve recreated their experiment (without all the video editing shenanigans) and found that their results are fabricated, and that the thermometer in the sealed CO2 jar doesn’t show a higher temperature than the other jar?
REPLY: I’ve recreated the scene, showing that the thermometers rising in the split screen video could not possibly have been in the jars, and that the split screen is actually one thermometer shot with one camera, duplicated on both sides, and edited to make one appear rise faster than the other. I’ll recreate the experiment next. – Anthony
henrythethird says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:21 am
One other piece to show editing are the globes themselves.
In your first clip (@1:01), look at the size of the island in red – the one on the left is larger.
Same for the one @ 1:05.
But for the one @ 1:09, the globes have been swapped – the one with the larger island is on the right.
That’s also proof that it wasn’t one shot.
I think what were seeing is the jars themselves have been switched around and that would mean the gas is going into the jar that was on the left at the beginning of the experiment. They reset the whole shot but got the jars mixed up.
My hat is off to Mr. Watt’s for this excellent analysis. Talk about keeping up with – and disecting – the news. The climate propaganda news. The controlled BS.
Video forensic analysis is a powerful ‘truth tool’ – for want of a better term. Liars are easily caught out when the liars overplay their hands and the skeptical are vigilant.
I don’t normally watch AGW propaganda but I did watch the whole CR video posted above and I must admit I was laughing out loud at it. Good laugh. If it wasn’t so bloody serious.
LIES INFECT MINDS – EXPOSE THE LIES!
Not often I shout.
Above, John Day tried to make a comparison to Mars. He claims that Mars has more CO2 than Earth and then wonders why that doesn’t make the planet warmer. He then suggests that this paradox invalidates the CO2/greenhouse connection. He is not alone in this line of reasoning. However, what everyone misses is that it is the total mass of the atmosphere that is important. The atmosphere captures and stores energy during the day. Water vapor and CO2 release that energy back to the surface (mostly at night). Without the atmosphere to store energy, there is no significant greenhouse effect. Also, note that energy is captured in the Earth’s atmosphere by both water vapor and CO2. Since Mars lacks water vapor, less energy can be captured during the days. As a result, CO2 has almost no effect on Mars, but a much smaller amount is very important on Earth.
Anthony
A fine bit of sleuthing.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in “The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet”, spoken by the character Sherlock Holmes.
tonyb
Smokey at 12.18
Please pass me the details of your lawyer-the image you posted has caiused me great distress and I will seek recompense through the courts 🙂
tonyb
The breezy speedy presentation struck me as analogy and not science. If the same material was presented via animation, would we be having this discussion.
Lets move on and not get too excited.
glacierman provided a link to the article “Greenhouse In A Bottle-Reconsidered”, http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html.
That’s a fascinating alternative hypothesis that Carl Brehmer presents, that it’s gravity causing the atmosphere to compress providing the ~33c increase over the theoretical black body radiation via the heat of compression of the atmospheric gases.
What I’m wondering is to what extent would the increases in CO2 have on the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere based upon Carl Brehmer’s hypothesis of gravity driven heat of compression? What effect on temperature would going from 280 ppm to 391 ppm to 540ppm or even 2000ppm have? What’s the math involved?
Anthony? Willis? Anyone done this sort of calculation already?
Just a side comment.
CO2 is heavier than air so it really does not matter whether the top is on or not in regards to keeping the CO2 in the jar. How ever if the CO2 tank had CO2 in it and was continuing to fill the jar, then the jar would be cooler than the air filled jar thanks to expansion of the CO2 from liquid to gas.
Of course the “experiment” is a totally incorrect. However, you indicated that the thermal conductivity of CO2 is greater than that of air. It is the other way around.
steven mosher says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:09 am
Steven since I can see the flame the CO2 is absorbing/blocking visible light. So how much of the visible light from the sun does the CO2 in the atmosphere absorb?
Gail Combs says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:32 am
The worse part of this is the SAFETY ISSUE!
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
THANK YOU!!!
This ‘experiment’ reminds me of the guy at Democratic Underground who made a model of the World Trade Center out of chicken wire and a cinder blocks, doused it with burning lighter fluid, and then announced that he had proved that a jet fuel fire could not have collapsed the towers.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=56836&mesg_id=56836&
Has anyone done this experiment with real values of CO2 and water vapour?
Such as the following ‘method’
BIG Glass Tubes – say 10 of them, selected to have an equal wall thickness and mass (so the thermal mass of each tube is the same)
a suitable base and seal for each one, again, equal in mass and insulative properties, with a single rod up the centre (just slightly less than the length of the tubes), containing equally spaced and identically calibrated thermocouples, with the wiring ‘down’ the rod and out of the base..
a suitable top/cap/lid – again each one of equal properties.
a single mix of gas at exactly 280ppm CO2 and say 10% water vapour (+ N2/O2 etc as representative)
a single mix of gas at exactly 560ppm CO2 and say 10% water vapour (+N2/O2, etc)
fill 5 of them with the 1 st mix (perhaps via an in and out valve?)
and 5 of them with the second mix
– then seal them as appropriate – attach all the thermometer monitoring gubbins, use a datalogger.
Leave to equilibriate in the same (A/C controlled but draught free) room for x (TBA) hours.
Illuminate or irradiate them all equally with energy as required (care obviously required in positioning, equal intensity sources, etc)…
measure temp differences over x hours (via datalogger!)
turn off energy source – measure temp differences over x hours..until equilibrium again achieved.
repeat and irradiate with different frequency etc…etc…
repeat with different ‘mixes’ ?
repeat with different ambient temperatures?
The objective is obviously to ONLY measure the difference that a known doubling (or other value) of CO2 causes – as we should try to keep EVERY other parameter the same. The bigger the tubes the more realistic the result, but I can’t see it likely to be able to use silo sized jobs!
Has anyone done anything remotely like this for this so called ‘simple’ experiment?
Would it not be useful to try this experiment with a number of boundary type cases.
Jar ‘a’ with 0% CO2
Jar ‘b’ with 289 ppm CO2 (pre industrial levels)
Jar ‘c’ with 390 ppm CO2 (current levels)
Jar ‘d’ with 500 ppm CO2 (possible future levels)
Jar ‘c’ with 1,000 ppm CO2
Jar ‘d’ with 10,000 ppm CO2
Jar ‘e’ with 100% CO2
All at the same standard atmospheric pressure of 1013mb and with a starting temp of 13C.
As the jar is a closed system the way temperature changes will/should/could be different (as already commented on by others) compared to the open system of our atmosphere. Has this experiment already been done?
You’ll also note the time of day changes due to the amount and angle of sun light coming into the window in the background. By the time the thermometers swapped and the CO2 canister was moved closer, it looks to be well into the afternoon.
BTW, I would wager compressed CO2 in a canister comes out damn cold ….
a simple point, the IR waves leave the earth moving towards space(colder body) then a tiny portion of those waves are grabbed by co2 then quickly released…in order for those portions to return to earth as claimed there would be REQUIRED a force that overcomes their natural movement away from the earth to PUSH them back to the earth….co2 has no such force and obviously when released those waves simply continue their journey towards colder space as opposed to moving against that flow towards the warmer earth.
in summary to make the IR wave REVERSE its direction requires a FORCE that co2 does NOT have.
another point about the experiments they used an actual greenhouse which blocks convection, there is NO GLASS at the top of our atmosphere blocking convection, so they clearly do not match the conditions of our atmosphere…to do that requires removing the glass and using gravity to hold the gases in that small area.
In other news Bears found using local woodland for personal waste disposal .
Q How can you tell when a politician lying ?
A , Its when their mouths open .
Q How can you tell when Gore is lying?
A Check to see to if his breathing , if so then his lying .
Um…. I could be wrong, but arn’t these clinical thermometers?
You have to shake them to make the temperature go down?
So what is wrong with removing them from the flasks to get a clear picture?
Just checking all the facts.
Couldn’t you just put a small piece of dry ice into one jar, representative of the additional CO2 added to the atmosphere. Wait until it sublimates or outgasses and then conduct the experiment. Of course it would be a very, very small piece of dry ice!!
“And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climatic change. To do that we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
Clearly Gore was oblivious to the ethical bind.
.
There seems to be little doubt that the experiment was fabricated, but the fundamental concept of the experiment is absurd to begin with. The greenhouse effect is operative at night. It cannot therefore be demonstrated under the conditions of the experiment as described, with the jars under heat lamps.
I applaud your efforts at taking apart this video and, having edited and shot video myself for over 25 years, I would agree. But I took it as a given that they were only doing a simulation of the experiment for illustration sake, and not suggesting this was an actual experiment, as from even a basic science perspective, the experiment is flawed. For starters of course the introduction of CO2 by tipping up the lid of the glass jar is completely an incorrect procedure. This introduces thermal transmission effects that invalidate the supposedly “identical” nature of the two jars. When introducing gas to such a container, it would have to be introduced via a very sophisticated valve, thermally isolated, so as not to transmit any heat in either direction. In addition to heat being conducted along the tube, you also would be allowing air currents to flow in or out of the jar via the opening, which one would expect might actually lower the temperature of the jar with the tube inserted.
But, like I said, I never guessed it was anything other than a crude simulation, and not supposed to be an actual experiment. Here’s a video of an actual (as opposed to a simulation) of a similar experiment, and the results are quite plain, and do show the greenhouse effects of CO2:
But truly, the greenhouse properties of CO2 are not really in question are they? The CO2 molecule absorbs certain spectrums of LW radiation (and a bit of SW too).
REPLY: “But I took it as a given that they were only doing a simulation of the experiment for illustration sake, and not suggesting this was an actual experiment, “
Sorry, not buying that. They made no disclaimer of any kind, and yet at 0:46 Bill Nye the Science guy as narrator invites people to try the experiment themselves. There’s no wiggle room in that, either it is an experiment, or it is a crude simulation or dramatization. Since they had no disclaimer, and named it as an experiment both in audio and in title, there’s no escaping the conclusion that they intended it as such.
Gore has million$ at his disposal, he hires a high priced high power NYC production firm to produce this video, yet they can’t afford a few dollars more to do the experiment correctly and show the actual results instead of fabricating the results? BOLLOCKS – Anthony
David Smith says: September 28, 2011 at 11:44 am
[…]carbon dioxide has a noticeably higher heat capacity than air. So, for a given amount of input energy, it takes longer for CO2 to heat. Air would heat faster. I wonder if they ran the experiment and, because of the difference in heat capacity, got the “wrong” result and so they monkeyed with it.
My opinion too. Besides, any hot gas would come out through the lid, while cold gas from decompression would keep coming in. Heat from the glass would be approx the same for both. They might have reached the wrong result in all likelihood, but there’s nothing better than reproducing it.
“pat says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:36 am
LOL. And who knew the ambient temperature of a cookie jar was 98F?”
It is when someone (Gore) has their hand in it. 😛
The two thermometers used in the 101 video aren’t even the same: the one on the right goes down to 35*C (there are 2 numbers left of the red 37), where as the one on the left only goes down to 36*C (or 1 number to the left of the red 37). Looking at the split screen scene we can see that both thermometers go down to 36, clearly if they are two separate thermometers, at least one of them is different from those used in the jars. Also: on further inspection the two thermometers in the jars switch places in the three different images of the 101 experiment, providing yet more evidence that the experiments were done in multiple takes.
looking for a simple explanation for my simple mind.
the one thing i do not understand , daytime earth temps v daytime moon temps, night time earth temps v night time moon temps,
it just seems to me that the earth , with its” greenhouse gases” is very efficient at keeping the planet cooler during the daytime compared to the moon and at night good at slowing down the cooling of the earth compared to the moon.
does co2 really cause any warming?
Elementary, my dear Watts. Order of the dearstalker with gold leaf clusters. Just don’t go near any waterfalls. Really fantastic work, we are all in your debt (Delingpole almost swooning!).
Hi Anthony – a remarkable piece of detective work. Would you leave this post and any followups as top posts for a while?
DR says:
September 28, 2011 at 12:13 pm
@ Steve Mosher:
The laser experiment does not say anything about how the real world atmosphere operates, and it wouldn’t be surprising if it too were flawed.
####
Then you would be wrong. I am only here talking about 1 thing and one thing only. the transmission of IR through a gas. What the little experiment shows is the effect C02 has on the transmission of IR ( not a laser ). The principles behind that lab experiment is duplicated every time you use your cell phone, al beit with energy at a different wavelength. those principle are at work when a weather radar get a return from a storm cloud. When a sensor in a heat seeking missile has to aquire a target. Those principles and that physics is at play when you use your wifi, and when a laser shoots down a missile in mid flight. That physics governs the reading of temperatures from satillites in space.
In all those devices the system relies on a certain branch of physics called radiative transfer.
A cell tower sends out a signal. Your phone receives it. How did the engineer who built that system figure out how to design those elements? Well, he had to understand how radiation interacts with the atmosphere. How does it work in the rain? what is the atmosphere made of? When Star wars engineers had to design a laser to shoot through the atmosphere they had to understand how the atmosphere would interfere with that transmission. When we built the B2 we also had to understand this physics. We had to understand it in broadband terms. The plane heats up. It gives off IR. Will that IR be detectable on the ground to somebody with a IR missile. That problem meant we had to understand the physics behind IR transmission through the real atmosphere. And test it. Lives depend upon this physics.
The science starts with a database of every type of molecule in the atmoshphere. Hitran.
Then the next step is developing a theory of how radiation will transfer through that atmosphere.
That theory is turned into a predictive model. The line by line radiative transfer code.
These models are tested and confirmed. The defense of our nation depended on them being accurate.
When you run these models they make predictions. When you test these predictions with real experiments in the real atmosphere they work. When you build devices based on this physics, they work.
C02 is not transparent to IR. We know this. We’ve measured it. you use devices on a daily basis that rely on the physics behind this being reliable.
Slightly Off-thread, but I feel this deserves a wider audience.
http://news.uk.msn.com/uk/britain-enjoys-warmest-day-of-week
Yup, we in Britain have had an official ‘Warmest Day of the Week’ – I see catastrophic storms ahead.
I’m not sure if they followed any of the other thirty-odd official ‘Warmest Day of the Week’ winners we’ve had this year; possibly those catastrophic storms passed me by, unless someone left ahose-pipe open somewhere in these (increasingly septic] isles.
Finally – well done Anthony, and the othe rposters who’ve torn SaintAl to shreds, rightly, over this.
Because scientific experiments need to be replicable.
The experiment in the video “Greenhouse effect (in a bottle) explained” that R Gates posted above is flawed since it’s not the “greenhouse effect” that is causing the temperature rise in the bottle of CO2, it’s the “Heat of Compression” of the CO2 that causes the heat rise. Poke a hole in the top of the lids and the air and co2 would have the same heat rise graph as each other. See: “Greenhouse In A Bottle-Reconsidered”, http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html.
Back in my youthful days, Don Herbert, a.k.a. “Mr Wizard” would do
his experiments live in black and white. He used two cameras,
one for general shots and pans and the other for close-ups.
There weren’t any do-overs, fancy editing, or video inserts to amplify the
scientific precept being illustrated in that day’s experiment.
The experiments were never done to provide support for a political point.
Bill Nye is not “Mr. Wizard”.
For anyone interested, there’s an even easier experiment to illustrate the principle. Water is a greenhouse gas when it’s a gas, so it should be even more so as a liquid.
Cover the bottom of a bowl with a black material, and then shine a bright (visible) light into it. The energy is absorbed at the bottom, radiated, the radiation blocked by the water and radiated back. Each layer of water on top of the previous one repeats the effect, and so you ought to get the temperature increasing very rapidly with depth. Water is 1000 times denser than air, and air contains about 5% water vapour, so the greenhouse is 20,000 times more powerful. A tub of water less than 50 cm centimetres deep contains as much “greenhouse fluid” as the entire atmosphere, and should therefore easily match its 30 C greenhouse effect.
Simply measure how much hotter the water at the bottom of the bowl is than the top.
—
Rutherford said “If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.” I was taught to try to construct the experiment to make the effect being sought as big as possible. Multiplying it by 20,000 ought to make it *sooo* much easier to observe. Right?
Saying that H2O absorbs IR is no more contentious than saying CO2 does. Tyndall proved it. Does that imply everything they claim, though?
Rgates said:
“Here’s a video of an actual (as opposed to a simulation) of a similar experiment, and the results are quite plain, and do show the greenhouse effects of CO2:”
That is why you have no credibility. That does not show a greenhouse effect.
Anthony, I suspect you may have unintentionally misdirected everyone by suggesting 1:00 – 1:20 as I’m amazed no-one’s mentioned the carbon dioxide cylinder at about 1:23/1:24 where the hose has miraculously wrapped itself round the cylinder a couple of times.
Oh aye, I should also say ‘excellent work/good spot’, I’d never have noticed even if I could have been arsed to watch the damned thing in the first place.
This same basic experiment was done by a pretend grad student at the University of Bremen in Germany in 2009. the below information was found wrong with that experiment. Most of this shows what is scientificly wrong with both experiments- Basicly the experiment proves the “greenhouse effect” which is demonstrated millions of times a day in real greenhouses and cars. The experiment does not prove the existence of the atmospheric “greenhouse gas effect”.
1. Are the two containers the same size, shape and type of glass? Different types of glass
absorb different wave lengths of IR and heat up differently.
2. Where are the thermometers located relative to the light? Are they in the light path
were they would absorb some of the IR thus skewing the data.
3. If the greenhouse gas effect exists there should be a different temperature of the black
cardboard in the CO2 container. The temperature was not measured therefore this
experiment only illustrates that the CO2 heats up. Does it heat from absorption or from
conduction of different heating of the container?
4. Was the experiment done with other “greenhouse gases?” as CH4 butane, natural
cooking gas, Nitrogen trifloride ?
5. Did the experimenters reverse the gases to the other container to evaluate differences
in the set-up.?
6. Was more than one set of test done? Is there more data to evaluate?
7. Did you monitor the temperature of the water in the trays? If the trays are in contact
with the gases there is conduction of heat from the bottom of the glass trays to the gases.
8. I can not be sure from the photos but it appears that the top of C1 container is closed ,if
this is true then you have created a confined space heating container (greenhouse effect).
It has been proved by R.W. Wood and others that the heating in a greenhouse is caused
by the restriction of heat convection and not back radiation of IR. The top of C2 appears
open thus keeping the temperature lower by convection. Good job of cheating..
9. What you have shown is what has been known from IR spectroscopes that different
gases absorb different wave lengths of IR.
10. I have done a similar experiment except I used clear Mylar balloons (very little or no
absorption of IR as opposed to glass) Based on IR thermometer reading and available
data on IR absorption by glass much of the heating in the experiment was from the glass.
This was not measured in the experiment. By using Mylar balloons in bright sunlight
there was no heating of the gases inside 4 balloons above ambient temperature (measured
with an IR thermometer reading to O.1 degrees F. The contents were 100% CO2, 100%
butane, natural gas (CH4 and CO2) and air. The black cardboard I used did not show any
differential heating between areas in the “shadow” of the balloons compared to “unshadowed”
areas –no back radiation from the “greenhouse gas effect” The black
cardboard did increase in temperature from ambient of 95 degree F to 175 degree F.
uniformly across the surface.
11. If the greenhouse gas effect exist why hasn’t it been applied to something useful like
thermo pane window filled with a “greenhouse gas” that would back radiate IR into the
house and create insulated windows with R=30 values.
You ask the question “Why can it be warmer at night than during the day? Any
elementary school students that can read a weather report know that daily temperature are
effected by hot or cold air masses moving across the area. It is also obvious that
on a clear night the temperature will cool down much faster that on a cloudy night. Water
is not a greenhouse gas in spite of what many people say- it has known properties that
explain temperature differences 24/7/365. There is no back radiation –there is reflection
of light or blockage of light(clouds) energy release as lightening and other thermo effects
that are within the Laws of physics and thermodynamic.
When you find reliable experimental data that proves that the “greenhouse gas effect
exists please share it with the world.
In the mean time read “Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 greenhouse effects within
the frame of Physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner and when you
understand it in five or ten years( a PhD level –way above your level of intelligence) and
the global temperature has dropped by the 0.6 degrees that it has gone up over the passed
120year you will realize that man-made global warming is a hoax.
Posted by: cleanwater | May 14, 2009 3:09 PM
Somewhere in my files are the comments on the fake Climate 101 experiment.
Write this down:
The sun heats the ocean. The ocean heats the air.
You want to know why the air gets cooler as distance from the surface of the ocean increases? It’s because the temperature of the ocean surface is 288K, the temperature of the empty cosmos is 3K, and a layer of air separates the two of them. WTF do you expect the temperature of air to do as you move away from the warmer thing towards the colder thing?
Like DUH. I often wonder if someone made up that silly crap about compressional heating of the atmosphere as a test of some sort because only an physics illiterate wouldn’t see right through it.
You want to know why Venus’ surface is hotter than some shallow thinkers might imagine it should be? It’s because the planet has a molten mantle like the earth but unlike the earth it has a very very thick atmosphere that retains the heat from the mantle and lets it build up in the crustal rock to a much higher degree than it does on earth. See, on the earth, the top of the crust has just a thin layer of transparent air between it and the cold of outer space. So once the heat from the mantle works its way up through the crust it can quickly escape at the surface. The same heat works its way up through the crust on Venus but there it encounters an heavily insulating atmosphere (think of it as having a R-factor hundreds of times higher than the earths) so the rocks at the surface can’t cool as quickly.
Word yo.
Forget about what the narrator says about gravitational heating.
Are you doubting his experiment? Are you doubting that a closed container heats more when excess pressure isn’t allowed to escape?
It seems to me that by allowing molecules to escape the jar fewer molecules are available for collisions with the mercury in the thermometer – hence less warming.
Glacierman: Thanks for the link.
Here you all can see what was Gores worst mistake and why he had to fake his experiment.
He didn´t seal the bottles.
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
Once again the entire focus of CAGW is on greenhouse effect of CO2 which is true – a fact. All these scientists who believe in greenhouse effect are right – it is true and it is real.
The travesty is that the leap from CO2 is a greenhouse gas to the assumption that this will cause global warming is FAULTY. To me this is the real travesty. To me it is this UNPROVEN leap of logic that is typical of high school educated people. Dumb dumb dumb.
The real world is much more complex and it is actually NOT simple high school physics to make the additional leap.
The ONLY true statement is that ALL things equal then CO2 will cause some slight warming. And the truth is that things simple aren’t all equal. Things are actually exceedingly complex – particularly considering convection and the water vapor and clouds cycle.
Ever notice that applying more and more heat to a pot of boiling water does NOT raise the temperature of the water. Now that is a simple high school physics experiment that clearly demonstrates that more heat does NOT raise water temperature above boiling point! It seems counterintuitive until one realizes that latent heat can move gargantuan amounts of energy around. The same thing happens in the atmosphere – the water cycle plays a MASSIVE influence on temperatures transporting energy around, cooling here and warming somewhere else.
Sadly the whole CAGW scare is down to some second rate scientists who have actually convinced enough people that simple high school physics can actually explain what is going on in reality. This is a lie!
Dave Springer:
I was not and am not talking about gravitational compression. Your argument is veering into strawman territory. That whole discussion is for another time and place.
Does the greenhouse in a bottle “experiment” show a greenhouse effect, or compressional heating in a closed system?
Dave Springer says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:59 am
//////////////////////////////////
Dave
What is your expnation as to why when the experiment was done with a vented top, there was no difference between the temperature rise/profile of the CO2 filled jar and the air filled jar?
As regards the compression point, is it not the case that a gas which is compressed would keep its temperature indefinitely if well enough insulated from its surroundings? Alternatively, if some small amount of energy was inputted which was sufficient to neutralise the heat loss.
For example, a metal container (which is a good conductor of heat) is filled with air at room temperature at say 20degC. It is then compressed until it reaches 150deg C and sealed (with a perfect seal) at that pressure. The metal container is left to stand in the room and eventually, the gas in the container cools to room temperature, ie., back to 20 degC. However if you repeat that experiment but once the container is sealed it is placed in a room at 150 degC, the gas in the metal container never loses temperature. It does not revert to the 20deg C at which it started.
The real issue here is whether the air at the surface is in effect constantly and repeatedly being compressed.. Perhaps by, for example, the passing over of the atmospheric bulge and/or work is being done by the passing over of the atmospheric bulge and whether heat is generated as a by product of that process. If it is, this process may be sufficient to maintain the heat that was generated by gravitaional compression.
Consider also, if I had a flat tyre and I was to inflate this to say 30psi, the air in the tyre would become warm. If I leave the tyre to stand, it will eventually cool to ambient temperature. However, if after inflating the tyre, I was to immediately drive my car, the heat in the tyre would be maintained simply by the slight flexing of the side wall of the tyre. The work done in that process would be sufficient to maintain the temperature that was initially created by compression.
In summary, I do not think that it is quite as simple as you seek to suggest and there may be other processes going on in the atmosphere which help maintain the temperature initially brought about by gravitaional pressure/compression.
kim says: “Did they think this would convince people? Did they think no one would try it? Maybe Bill Nye is a stealth skeptic.”
There was a report on CNN Headline News a number of years ago in which Bill Nye questioned anthropogenic global warming. I watched it live. I have not been able to find it online.
bravo Anthony!
the hits keep coming on wuwt!
Thanks so much for your work in exposing this ongoing hoax, Anthony.
And since you now have two surplus glass jars, I decided to send a tip to help fill them to allow you to continue your fine work.
Hopefully, others here will do the same.
Ha ha. I’m a mini – Anthony Watts.
Take a look at the video that you posted. Watch the CO2 bottle from the 58 second mark until the 1:04 mark. Notice that the cap on the CO2 bottle magically appears to have been placed on the bottle during those 6 seconds! She didn’t mention doing that at all despite the fact that the audio appears uncut.
I’m left wondering if her experiment failed to work with the cap off. In fact, I’m wondering if the air bottle (with the cap off) heated more than the CO2 bottle (with the cap on). This might provide support for glacierman’s video It’s possible that the extra warming is due to the fact that the pressure in the CO2 bottle increases more than the pressure inside the air bottle.
Anthony:
I’m not sure if it has been mentioned, but is it possible the lid produce a focusing effect onto the “properly situated” thermometer? Normal glass does not transmit MWIR or LWIR but let the NIR. Those big red IR lamp are strong NIR emitter.
It seem to me that in Video @1:09, the body of right “instance” of thermometer look like under more intense irradiance level than left “instance”. I think it is reasonable to assume that the more visible red we see, the more NIR will be present in that case. From the picture, it seem the right one has a lot more red light on it !?
Sure, it is mostly the body that is conveniently exposed & not the reservoir of the thermometer, but the effect may still be important.
REPLY: it might be important if the thermometers showing the temperature rise were actually in the jar, but it appears they were not – Anthony
Recently some interesting theories surfaced at El Reg (http://www.theregister.co.uk/) regarding signal analysis of video http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06/01/enf_met_police/
Using modern DSP it is possible to see the unique interference on the mains frequence (60Hz in the USA) which not only give an absolute time stamp but also an indication of the location.
So assuming at least the lights were running of ‘normal’ mains feed; it should be possible to use a very good DSP filter to pull any induced signal on the video from the 60Hz signal burried in the light source fluctuations. My understanding of the technique is that to see if frames are in the correct sequence you would be able to ‘see’ the imposed signals on the 60Hz carrier. These should of course be sequential; frame to frame; so some fairly simple analysis (Fourirer transform ?) should show up any discontinuities caused by missing frames or non sequential frames.
This may also prove that the thermometer sequence in the split framaes are in fact the same sequence in both frames
Of course it’s not main stream tech (yet ?) and I believe we are looking at the 60Hz signal being some 100dB down on the main viseo signal; with the imposed fluctuations some 100dB down on that ! Not trivial; and I don’t know if its reached any of the amateur electronic communities yet – may be some one on WUWT knows a bit more about this ?
Betting the 2011-2012 will end AGW. The NH ice is looking ominous for returning to normal or above extent
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Its the earliest consistent rise on the DMI record
Temps at UAH aint looking to hot either LOL
I have another experiment to show the destructive forces of CO2. Place a piece of solid CO2 in a bottle, add water……here is the important part – then put a cap on the bottle. What happens? It absorbs so much radiant energy that it blows the conainer apart. Well, thats what I saw./sarc.
I really is worse than we thought.
Anthony!!!!!
Damn nice job! I’ve taught and produced training videos for large corporations, and have no issues with dramatizing for learning sake to take a point and, ummm – expand it so it’s memorable is acceptable – but that doesn’t include lying.. The objective is to teach something important. If I were asked to video the results of an experiment, I would use a different ethics approach to assure what I presented is what actually happened – similar to court testimony.
Time code (the actual time the camera is shooting would be on the screen as a simple proof that what’s being presented occured at some specific time) or a clock if the experiment were time sensitive. This is a simple production tool as you know.
The difference between drama for instruction and drama for propaganda is the intent and use of the product. Seems many in the AGW camp have adopted an attitude of “The end justifies the means.” A sad day for teachers and videographers.
Mike
I don’t think a mere temperature gradient between a heat source and a heat sink is a thorough explanation of what is occurring.
Remember what temperature actually is. Temperature is a measure of amount of molecular activity.
10 gas molecules in a jar (a very small jar) with a certain amount of molecular activity per molecule will have a temperature of X.
20 gas molecules in the same jar with the same amount of molecular activity per molecule will have a temperature greater than X.
Certainly, you agree.
3. Smudge/discoloration near number “38″ on scale matches exactly
To be fair, that smudge also seems to match your thermometers, Anthony.
pwl says:
September 28, 2011 at 1:45 pm
“The experiment in the video “Greenhouse effect (in a bottle) explained” that R Gates posted above is flawed since it’s not the “greenhouse effect” that is causing the temperature rise in the bottle of CO2, it’s the “Heat of Compression” of the CO2 that causes the heat rise. Poke a hole in the top of the lids and the air and co2 would have the same heat rise graph as each other. See: “Greenhouse In A Bottle-Reconsidered”, http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html.”
The cableone experiment isn’t valid either. It isn’t sensitive enough for such a small volume of gas to surface area of the heat sink.
The Mythbusters experiment is much better:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPRd5GT0v0I ]
This uses carefully measured gas levels, light level, and chambers with thousands of times more gas in them. Only 1C difference is recorded. As one can see from the construction of the chambers they are not pressure-tight so there is no compressional heating being recorded.
“Remember what temperature actually is. Temperature is a measure of amount of molecular activity.
10 gas molecules in a jar (a very small jar) with a certain amount of molecular activity per molecule will have a temperature of X.
20 gas molecules in the same jar with the same amount of molecular activity per molecule will have a temperature greater than X.”
I can only assume that you’re taking the piss here?
Which has the higher temperature a litre of boiling water or a gallon of boiling water, bearing in mind both, by definition, have the same amount of ‘molecular activity’ [I’d have gone for average kinetic energy] per molecule.
Well done, Anthony. I’ve helped Cub Scouts with scientific demonstrations, graded science-fair projects and have my own little tricks that I use to demonstrate scientific principles.
Gore flunks, you pass with an “A.”
For those still arguing about gravitational compression, see here:
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/#comment-16901
The rise and fall of the atmosphere is driven by convection. It is hotter at the equator than the poles, so air at the equator rises and then descends further north/south. The continual cycle keeps the air moving, and thus maintains the adiabatic lapse rate. It’s standard theory.
I’m with Monckton; this is a now verified attempt to deceive and gain benefit by deception – 100% snake oil salesmen. Throw the book at them, please!
Given what has been found I seriously doubt the experiment was ‘ran’ at all – its seems they just went through the motions and filmed a thermometer whilst putting something warm on it. Really need to see the pre-edits..
I found my comments on the Fake Climate 101 demonstration:
The fake Climate 101 demonstration.
Now lets look at the Junk science experiment you referenced by Climate 101 narrated by Bill Nye. I have seen this many times before , including a supposed Ph. D thesis by a student at the University of Bremen. There are no less than 5 errors than show that it is” Not A creditable experiment that proves that the “greenhouse gas effect exists”.
1. The experiment demonstrates “confined space heating” aka “greenhouse effect” not the “greenhouse gas effect.” This is were the work of R.W.Wood 1909 and Dr. N Nahle 2011, come into play.
2. The experiment of Climate 101 is carried out in glass containers. It is a known fact that glass absorbs IR radiation and heats up therefore a significant amount of the heating measured is from the glass containers on CO2 and the air in the other container.
3. CO2 does not heat up when it absorbs IR radiation. The Video on Climate Change makes the statement that you can not repeal the Laws of Physics, well if the video says that the CO2 heats up it violates the Bohr Model that has been established as a Law of Physics in 1922-23 when Niels Bohr received a Nobel Prize.
4. When someone decided to include thermometers inside the glass containers and have the IR light shining on it is a Nincompoop. Put a thermometer outside the glass containers and shine the IR lights on it, it will heat up as much or more than the thermometers inside the glass containers.
5. The same Nincompoop that put the thermometer inside the containers put the small globes inside the container increased the heating of the “confined space heating”aka “greenhouse effect”. Objects that have IR shined on them will heat up,thus heating the CO2 or the air by conduction.
6. The picture frames with the thermometers side by side appears to be the same thermometer and not the same as the thermometer inside the glass containers. It appears that a different thermometer was heated up and photographed at different times to give the effect of different rates of heating. Not a very scientific proof of an effect.
7. The experiment by Climate 101 shows that the hose with CO2 is stuck under the cover while doing the experiment while the cover on the air container is closed – not the same conditions, bad experimental procedure. They do not say whether the CO2 is allowed to fill the container before they start the test. Do they continue to feed in CO2 during the test? Again bad procedure.
8. If they wanted to tell the truth (which they do not) they would fill a clear Mylar balloon with CO2 then shine the IR on it and use an IR thermometer to measure temperatures. There will be no increase in temperature of the CO2 , this test has been done many times.
9. The fact that the air in one container heated up shows that the experiment is not doing what it is supposed to do. There is nothing in the AGW fairy-tale book that says that ordinary air is supposed to heat up when IR is passed through it but here we have the air heating almost as much as the CO2. Something is wrong with the “greenhouse gas effect” theory- it does not exist. As stated above this is demonstration “confined space heating” and nothing else.
originally posted on LinkedIN 9-17-2011 under Environmental Activists-
Gores experiment is obviously crap.
If the idea is to simply demonstrate to the public that CO2 is an excellent absorber of IR radiation then this demonstration would have been much better:
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeYfl45X1wo ]
wobble says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:24 pm
“Remember what temperature actually is. Temperature is a measure of amount of molecular activity.”
I don’t need to remember, but you need to learn. Temperature is the average amount of motion in a large number of atoms or molecules.
“10 gas molecules in a jar (a very small jar) with a certain amount of molecular activity per molecule will have a temperature of X.
20 gas molecules in the same jar with the same amount of molecular activity per molecule will have a temperature greater than X.
Certainly, you agree.”
No I don’t agree. That is dead wrong. You are counting total kinetic energy in the entire system whereas temperature is the average kinetic energy per unit of mass.
To replicate the difference in atmospheric CO2 that man had contributed in the second jar, you would need to add less then 1ml of CO2 instead of cranking the tank wide like they do. What is the percentage of CO2 in the second jar? Way more than .03% I’m sure.
Plus why infrared light, shouldn’t they be using full spectrum light? The sun is full spectrum, It would be better to do the experiment outside like I did. I actually used the sun and got completely the opposite result.
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilbd702_DR0 ]
An impressive analysis – clearly this was not an actual film of an actual CO2 experiment. Seriously – cookie jars?
Of course, at the end of the video, it was equally clear that the laboratory window did not actually look out upon a rainstorm, or later at fish swimming by… It seemed quite clearly to be a visual depiction of a classic CO2 experiment, as actually done in the Mythbusters video shown.
I rather thought that the shark outside the window at @3:32 was sufficient to indicate (to any reasonable viewer) that the entire video was a dramatization…
I would agree that the chambers aren’t pressure-tight. I would also argue that the chambers are incredibly crude for such a small temperature delta. In fact, it’s interesting that they didn’t show the temperatures in both control chambers – they only show it for one.
Mosher:
Something STINKS in video demo land.
Here’s a calculator for Black Body radiation.
http://phet.colorado.edu/sims/blackbody-spectrum/blackbody-spectrum_en.html
Here’s a spectrum absorption chart for CO2. Note the strong peak at 900 nanometers.
Also note THAT is what the IR camera here is SEEING!
This makes the video you posted A NON SEQUITOR to the CO2/Atmosphere question. Sorry to come down on you so hard, but the COMPLETE absorption spectra for the atmosphere is very complex, and the outgoing IR spans 6 to 15 Micron, with the CO2 absorption peaks being about .7 micron wide each. (At primarily 6 Micron and 12 Microns. Thus, on the basis of their WIDTH they are minor players in the absorption versus H2O. (And also Re-emission. CO2 and H2O do BOTH. In point of fact, CO2 is a NET UPFLUX AGENT IN THE STRATOSPHERE, see Plass, et.al., 1957.)
I fail to see what showing that CO2 absorbs strongly at 900 nanometers, using a 900 nanomter source, and an IR camera sensitive in that range proves about Atmospheric physics.
Max
Nullius in Verba says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:34 pm
“The rise and fall of the atmosphere is driven by convection. It is hotter at the equator than the poles, so air at the equator rises and then descends further north/south. The continual cycle keeps the air moving, and thus maintains the adiabatic lapse rate. It’s standard theory.”
Movement is not needed to maintain adiabatic lapse rate. The surface of the planet is warm. The empty cosmos is cold. On average it’s a about a 280K difference in temperature between the two. A layer of air separates the warm surface from the cold vacuum. There will be a temperature gradient in the atmosphere between the surface and space with or without convection caused by uneven heating.
Good grief. People don’t even understand simple thermal gradients.
Dave Springer says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:41 pm
Temperature is the average amount of motion in a large number of atoms or molecules.
Exactly, it’s not simply a measure of motion on a per atom basis. Increase the number of atoms, with the same amount of motion per atom, into the same volume and your temperature increases – BECAUSE the average amount of motion has now increased.
I don’t think this is an accurate statement.
Here’s a thought experiment.
Jar A has 1 kilogram of a gas.
Jar B has 2 kilograms of the same gas.
Jar A and Jar B are the same volume. The gasses in both Jar A and Jar B have an equal amount of atomic motion per atom. Both have identical mercury thermometers inside.
Do you deny that the mercury in Jar B would have twice as many atomic collisions with the mercury and thus indicate a higher temperature?
Bill Nye,
Where is that guy?
We want him to
Explain his lie.
==========
I find the need to do the experiment a bit childish…I thought you people were smart in the USA.
You wouldn’t wanna know what kind of an answer Al would get here in Europe if he’d proposed such thing.
And strangely enough scientists say nothing on this. (if there are any of them left)
Shame on them, getting paid for children’s experiments.
Something else bothers me about the Mythbusters video.
At the beginning of the video the kid mentions earth’s complex climate system, and the woman claims that she thinks that the system can be replicated for an experiment. Then, the experiment doesn’t even attempt to replicate anything other than a certain concentration of gas. It’s incredibly misleading.
Even after creating the internet :), Al Gore’s Dot Eco LLC Withdraws Bid for .ECO top level domain.
From: http://nametalent.com/blog/?p=4597
“Dot Eco LLC, the company that was backed by former Vice President Al Gore has dissolved, the company’s website SupportDotEco.com has been taken down and interestingly enough the domain now forwards to MindandMachines.com.”
http://nametalent.com/blog/?p=4597
Gore is to environmentalism, as Madoff is to investing.
Sorry, got so excited, forgot the CO2 Spectrum link!
http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html
Max
Al Gore supported a presentation that misrepresented science and misleads viewers?
Again.
He’s a sho’in for whatever Peace Prize there is for Internet videos.
Apologies if another commenter already noticed…do the to jars switch orientaion (front and back instead of side to side) at the at the 1:20 mark?
But you’re ignoring the possible effect from the pressure gradient. High pressure at the bottom and zero pressure at the top. In fact, the top is cold BECAUSE of the zero pressure. Right?
So, really, the complaint is that Al Gore’s group used video editing techniques to convey a message that is otherwise …accurate?
Is there concern that they performed the experiment and got contradictory results but fudged the video to alter the actual results of their experiment?
Here’s another thought experiment.
A perfectly insulated vertical tube that is 1 mile high is filled with a gas and allowed to settle. Will the temperature at the bottom be warmer than the temperature at the top? I think it would be.
JohnWho says…
“Al Gore supported a presentation that misrepresented science and misleads viewers?”
This is exactly my question. Did this video mislead anyone about the radiative properties of CO2?
Wow! Anthony! I once nearly was impaled by a Lib because I pointed out the the font/kerning in the faked Bush Air Guard memo just happened to match the font/kerning in my version of MS Word and could not have existed on a 1970’s IBM Selectric (of which I happened to have a sample at the time!)
You’re in deep doo doo over this fellah! /sarc
A simple proof of FAKE. Look at the thermometer in the 1:02 freeze, it clearly hase a celcuis scale begining at 35 to 36 and then the red 37. while the side by side picture has both thermometers celcius scale starting at 36 than the red 37. No more proof is needed.
Stewart
I think Anthony was clear about his point when he stated this in challenge to Gore’s claim that it’s merely a high school physics issue.
“mkelly says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:33 am
Cp or CO2 is .844 J/g C
Cp of air is 1.01 J/g C
For the same amount of time and Q being equal I cannot see how the temperature of the CO2 could be higher. Please show me the error of my ways.”
“David Smith says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:44 am
Anthony, in case it hasn’t been mentioned by commenters, carbon dioxide has a noticeably higher heat capacity than air. So, for a given amount of input energy, it takes longer for CO2 to heat. Air would heat faster.”
In case there was any confusion in anyone’s mind, I thought I would add some clarification to the above. It looks like David and mkelly are contradicting each other. However when measured per gram, CO2 has the lower specific heat capacity, but when measured per mole, the heat capacity is higher for CO2.
I did the calculations for mkelly and agree with both that the air should have the higher temperature. The way I see it, the only way the CO2 can have the higher temperature is if the flask with pure CO2 has only half the number of moles as the one with air, for the same heat input. Otherwise, it appears as if we are talking about the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine, or even worse. It seems as if the flask with CO2 is actually creating more heat than is being put in.
If this works as claimed, then no one should try to sequester CO2. Instead, houses should have huge flasks filled with CO2 in each room of the house. Then when any light falls on it, it heats up more than any other material. Then at night, the heating would be cheaper since this heat could then be released. Or am I missing something?
KR says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:42 pm
I rather thought that the shark outside the window at @3:32 was sufficient to indicate (to any reasonable viewer) that the entire video was a dramatization…
So, when you took them up to try this yourself,
did any sharks swim by your window?
Just wonderin’.
🙂
I think the most proper treatment for that piece of video dreck would be for someone with more media skills than myself to take it and at every point where Mr Nye pauses for a breath insert a snippet of audio captured from Algore’s recent semi psychotic rant, i e Bullsh*t! and post the resulting video to all public video websites.
When, five days ago I drew people’s attention to the this video in a comment you stated “I have a post coming up on this video…..”, I had no idea how massively over-dramatized Gore’s video would be. Well done for so thoroughly researching this and exposing the falsity.
It still leaves the rest of the video. As Prof. Lindzen so often says, the biggest part of the global warming “forecast” is not from CO2, but the water vapor feedbacks. Climate 101 says of feedbacks
“Warm air has the capacity to hold more moisture and the water vapor is itself a greenhouse gas so there is even more warming….” (1:50)
It then goes on to mention about the hydrological cycle becoming more extreme as a result. It means that 50% of the 80% of the warming (along with the extreme consequent weather patterns) are left as assertions. It is a good summary of the science
It is a good summary of the state of mainstream climate science. It demonstrates why any proper studies of feedbacks / sensitivities are being hounded out of the journals, along with studies that show that weather is not becoming extreme.
This experiment only proves one thing -that the confined space heating exists. The Bohr model show that the air or the CO2 do not heat when they absorb radiation. The Work of R.W.Wood proved that the “greenhouse gas effect’ doesnot exist. This wasdone in 1909 and it was confirmed in July ,2011 by Dr.N Nahle.
They lie and they know that they lie, and now we know it too.
wobble… As Anthony also points out he is familiar with video editing. This is how video editing is done. The obviously did not do the whole experiment in one take. If they were good video people they probably did the whole thing 10 times from various angles, with various lighting, etc. That is how you get a good quality video product.
When you get into the ethics of journalism there are lines that can be crossed. If you quote someone but alter the quote or change the context of the quote in a way that changes the intended meaning of the quote, then you have created a deception. A journalist may rearrange the way an interview took place. You might quote something that was stated later in an interview at an earlier moment in the interview, but as long as it does not change the intent of the speaker then it is acceptable. What is not acceptable is changing the intent of the speaker.
Similar here, whether the experiment took place exactly as shown in the video is inconsequential as long as the results do not distort the truth. This video does not distort the fact that this is very much a simple lab experiment. High school kids everywhere perform this same experiment every day with the same results. The same results that are presented in the video.
The science is unsettling.
At 1:09, when the heat lamps are on, it is obvious that the CO2 bottle has been moved much closer to the jar than when it was being filled. Under a heat lamp, that tank would radiate heat and contribute to warming the glass jar. It is so close you can see the reflection on the glass jar of the writing on the bottle.
Upon further study, I am convinced that you’re wrong.
The Adiabatic Lapse Rate assumes no heat is transferred into, or out from, an ascending or descending air mass.
The temperature differences of the earth’s warm surface and cold vacuum that you describe combine with the Adiabatic Lapse Rate to form the Environmental Lapse Rate.
You might want to be a bit more conservative with your “Good griefs” in the future.
Werner Brozek says:
September 28, 2011 at 3:37 pm
“Then at night, the heating would be cheaper since this heat could then be released. Or am I missing something?”
CO2 expands when heated, so there may be a problem with your idea. Cheaper just to throw a hot rock in your sleeping bag at night.
Glenn… Do you question whether this experiment would show the radiative effects of CO2?
Al Gore is not even capable of faking a simple science experiment, let alone do one the right way. He fails even when trying to be a fake, which is all the time, so he fails all the time. Al Gore is a total failure.
Anthony–it is not surprising that it took multiple takes and editting of segments to make this experiment appear to be done in one setting AND have the results come out right. The BBC “experiment” showed the same. I think I demonstrated such in the experiment we did at LCCC, and which WUWT picked up, in 2009(?)
The reason for all the chicanery is that it is difficult to not make the results turn out oppositely to what one intends. The thermometers react not to just air temperature in the glass enclosures, but much more to the radiation temperature that each experiences. The result depends on placement of thermometers, enclosures, and everything in the enclosures relative to the heat lamps. This is why real environmental thermometry is done behind a radiation baffle–the stevenson screen.
I may have missed someone else commenting on this, but did anyone notice in the video of the amber jars with labels carbon dioxide and methane, that CO2 was botched to become CO squared? The 2 is a superscript rather than subscript. Funny! Not even high school chemistry. Of course, this was likely Nye’s contribution to the effort.
Hmmm. So apparently this “simple high school physics experiment” isn’t so simple. And if it had worked, it apparently wouldn’t have demonstrated that CO2 absorbs 4.2um and 15um IR and reradiates the absorbed energy at other wavelengths — which is my understanding of what the Greenhouse Effect is all about.
Perhaps this should suggest a few questions about the competence, judgment, and maybe integrity of the spokespersons for the climate lobby.
Is there a simple experiment that does demonstrate the Greenhouse Effect? I doubt the average High School teacher is going to have much enthusiasm for spending much of his/her meager budget on jars with salt crystal windows that are transparent to IR.
Two words: Neat – o!
Re: R.S.Brown says:
September 28, 2011 at 1:46 pm
I also thought about “Watch Mr. Wizard!”, probably because Bill Nye’s show was certainly conceived as a modern and humorous version of the original post-Sputnik science guru. Herbert developed the “role” of the low-key scientist with a cornucopia of props and (usually) pair of impressionable young “assistants”. His show ran from 1951 til 1965, when he took on other media roles devoted to science instruction.
http://www.mrwizardstudios.com/watchmrwizardtvshow.htm
WRT Nye, I like deadpan as well as the next person, but, as Anthony shows above, Nye sets himself up for charges of staginess, and even disingenuousness. Herbert’s show was always fresh and interesting, and when he rolled up his shirt sleeves amidst all that paraphernalia, you knew you were in for a treat. I never found Nye as convincing or entertaining as Don Herbert, who showed an infectious enthusiasm and delight for science in every episode.
As for the popular “Mythbusters” show, it demonstrates another “formula” which says something for our times – they represent the modern paradox of the “nonconformist team” working to stomp out the illogical groupthink and obfuscations of urban legend-mongers. Hands-on learning will forever be one of those perennially- “emerging trends” in teaching. Better scientists than I can judge the quality of MB’s “proofs”.
R. Craigen says: September 28, 2011 at 10:44 am
This stagecraft stuff is just silliness. I am more concerned about some of the seriously wrong hyperbolic claims… 55% of CO2 in the oceans? Really? I believe it is over 90%…
98% is closer.
gbreton: Bill Nye’s video (who btw, only earned a BS degree) begins with a labelled “CO2″ jar in which the 2 is a superscript rather than the chemical correct subscript. One need look no further than this to realize they are incompetent to even be discussing these issues.
Thank you, gbreton. I noticed that immediately and was dumbfounded. It was only 30 seconds into the video and there was already a demonstration of basic incompetence. It doesn’t take even a BS degree to know that this is completely wrong. How it passed the “peer review” of this program and was actually broadcast I’ll never know. Bill Nye the Science Guy – apparently NOT!
[snip – this is crap and I’ve snipped this many times before, banning the guy Wil who kept thread bombing WUWT with it -please stop submitting it – Anthony]
An ‘absolute time stamp’? I challenge that concept … you may be able at some level to discern discontinuities owing to a deep search for some sort of ripple in the audio, but, I doubt that too … and once you figure a video codec is ‘in play’ the frame to frame info isn’t preserved any more once passed thru that ‘code – decode’ process.
BTW, don’t look know, but your Pentium Quad-core (and high-end video card) can run rings around that DSP that may be under ‘consideration’ …
.
What is the CO2 experiments supposed to prove?
“Global Warming” is the cool down cycle not cooling so fast; just as a cold frame keeps the veggies warm at night. These experiment show the air heating up faster with CO2 when the heat is applied. They do not show the tin planet staying warm when the heat is removed.
With CO2 intercepting the sun’s heat, the atmosphere gets warmer in daylight and the earth gets COLDER due to back scatter from the CO2 reflecting heat back to the sun and the CO2 heating the air and then outer space.
Dave Springer
If you are at the bottom of death valley on earth the temperature is high in summer and heat from the center of the earth has nothing to do with it. Heat from the sun has everything to do with it.
I agree, however, that if the bottom is heated by the earth and the top is open to space there should be a temperature gradient.
If you are on Venus there is 90 times as much atmosphere so it is like being at the bottom of a super death valley. I haven’t been to Venus but I doubt that the heat from the core of Venus has anything to do with it . At the level at which there is 1 atmosphere the temperature was earth like.
Shouldn’t it be significantly warmer with all of that CO2 ?
There is no reason to believe CO2 has anything to do with it.
Mars has 95 % CO2 but it is cold because the atmosphere is thin.
“Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of the tiny amount of remaining carbon dioxide (95.3%) plus nitrogen (2.7%), argon (1.6%) and traces of oxygen (0.15%) and water (0.03%). ”
Nineplanets.org
The experimental heating as done with an unsealed vessel showed no extra warming in the CO2 one. [Possibly the thermometers were only accurate to 1 ° F. I have a recording thermometer and that’s how accurate it is.]
The mythbusters experiment was much better but there was no attempt to vent the chambers.
Since there was only 1 ° C difference I suspect that the compression was working but only slightly. The top of the containers should have been vented. It would be interesting if they were.
The heating that took place was probably of the plastic and the CO2 was just the carrier of the heat.
It is becoming very apparent that a number of baby boomers spent much more time watching Saturday morning cartoons than Mr. Wizard
Do you have any concept on how electromagnetic emissions (‘radio waves’) work? From an antenna? From a point source (isotropic source), or a vibrating molecule (like H2O or CO2)?
Where’s the ‘force’ there for EM radiation from an antenna? BTW, hint: LWIR (and IR in general) is an EM, “electro-magnetic” wave, this is not a point of contention today in science.)
For more info on molecule see the long posted by Max Hugoson (September 28, 2011 at 3:05 pm) here: http://science.widener.edu/svb/ftir/ir_co2.html
Or better yet, see this WUWT thread: Visualizing the “Greenhouse Effect” – Atmospheric Windows – http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/28/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-atmospheric-windows/ and see also
Also “IR Spectroscopy” showing molecule ‘bending and vibration” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_spectroscopy that leads to EM wavelength signature(s) in the IR spectrum …
Take note of the vibrational modes shown. Also note that various vibrational modes create various ‘spectrum’ lines in the IR spectrum … also note it is these molecular vibrations which are capable of “re-radiating” energy received from what is termed “up-welling” IR energy from the surface of the earth … this re-radiation occurs basically in all directions, including some back to the surface of the earth for another go-round …
.
Yet, they invite viewers to try replicating it themselves.
————
A couple of points:
It appears that you had all the materials apart from the CO2 so why not actually do the experiment? Or was the Gore bashing exercise to tempting.
The claim you made that the shortwavelength IR is absorbed by the glass is probably incorrect.
I think you are correct in claiming that the experiment is not a valid representation of the atmospheric green house effect. The conductivity of pure CO2 is different from air and so that alone would cause a temperature difference. Whether conductivity differences are enough to account for the entire actual experimental result would have to be found out.
Also I would cut Gore some slack until you find out exactly what was done. This could be a composite of stagecraft and an actual experiment with the intent of showing people how to do the experiment. If they do the experiment that is good.
“adiabatic” infers a thermodynamic process where >netforced< a closed/constrained control volume, which in general does not represent the way Earth naturally aspirates excessive heat/gas into space +/or oceans +/or vegetation. To bridge the gap from this (microscopic) 'experiment' to the (macroscopic) 'real' world was truly a leap of faith that the Berkley based science fair rig did not sell (at least me).
I can almost imagine someone saying, “Deception in the defense of our Climate is no vice.”
NetDr says: September 28, 2011 at 10:51 am
…but does it work that way for a planet? At sea level it is 6 ° C warmer than at 1 Km up. Why is that ? The “compression heat goes away” [which is true in the example you gave] explanation doesn’t explain the measurable difference in [altitudinal] temperature does it? [Take] Venus… “The pressure of Venus’ atmosphere at the surface is 90 atmospheres…” [W]here there is 1 atmosphere of pressure the temperature is earth-like.
I concur with NetDr. I think the video DR et al promote here is another “Naked Emperor” moment, brilliant. I may be misjudging it, but I don’t think I’m a physics illiterate just because I see possibilities that look “obviously” stupid to Dave Springer. I don’t ever want to feel I cannot ask “simple” questions. When one expands confined examples to the whole atmosphere, the best of us make mistakes. What I like about Brehmer’s video, like Miskolczi, is that it fits measurement ie at the atmospheric centre of gravity, 500mb/hPa, the average temperature IS what one would expect at the surface if there were no atmosphere at all.
I’ve already followed elsewhere what NetDr cites re. Venus – whose outgoing radiation exceeds its incoming radiation ie Venus is emitting heat. NEVER NEVER (caps, ha!) forget that it was the failure to pay attention to the actual evidence from Venus in this respect (because GHG effect was already assumed there) that launched Hansen on his diabolical career.
The CO2 in a jar demo would more realistically depict the greenhouse effect on earth if the heat lamps were replaced with a lukewarm bottle of water.
But who would be willing to sit that long and wait for the thermometer to move imperceptibly? Certainly not a rabid environmentalist with a successful civilization to eradicate!
The BBC experiment appears to be here:
I noticed things shifting around in that too, so the experiment was just another fake.
Why is it not possible to do the experiment properly? I think the answer is that the heating effect from the increased CO2 is too small to measure, even if they dishonestly put in 100% CO2 instead of 0.04% CO2.
Crikey! Where are all your friends? Do you not have a job to keep you occupied?
In all the excitement here, I don’t want to forget mine host, and his amazing forensic work – and the crop of good responses such classy yet commonsense work elicits.
THANK YOU ANTHONY once again. I don’t know how you manage so much, and still keep the quality.
Anthony,
For bevity, let’s call the 101 jar on the left “A” and the jar on the right “B”.
There are several other visual “hints” that indicate more than one take was
used in the making of the “101” video:
A. In the still you showed titled “Climate 101 scene @ 1:01” the two globes
have a slight tilt away from each other. The seam of the globe in jar A is
fairly parallel with the table top. The seam of the globe in jar B isn’t.
B. Also in “scene @ 1:01” the thermometer in A is parallel to the
table top. The thermometer in B starts low on the left side and raises up as
it nears the jar’s side wall nearest the canister.
C. In the pull back still of “scene @ 1:05”:
1. Both center seams of the globes are now parallel to each other and the
table top.
2.The thermometer in B has now been slightly straightened in relation to the
globe seams and the table top.
3. Although this appears to be a simple pull back view of the set up shown
in “scene @ 1:01 ” the camera angle has changed relative to the table top.
4. The black bottle is about 4″ away from jar B’s side wall.
D. In “scene @ 1:09”:
1. The thermometer in jar A now has a “low” end (the fluid reservior end) to the
left. The thermometer is no longer parallel to the globe seam or the table top.
The reserviou end of A is now farther away from the lid than the thermometer
in jar B.
2.The black bottle has jumped to where may or be actually is touching the side
wall of jar B.
3. The infrared lamps are now on… but there is a different reflection between
the two… it looks like the lamp for jar B is a bit closer to the lif that the one above
jar A.
4. The black canister is also now reflecting light from the infrared lamps…
which means it is also absorbing heat from the lamp.
5. The view in “scene @ 1:09” reverts to a close up as in “scene @ 1:01” with a
change in camera angle from “scene @ 1:05”, back to the same angle as in “1:01”.
Observation #1 is that there are three different camera angles used in
this video in the nine seconds between the 1:01 and 1:09 marks!
Observation #2 is that throughout the video the interior bottom of jar B has a
higher “kick” that of jar A. The higher “kick” means that the globe in B is
higher than in A, plcing the thermometer on top of it higher and closer to the
infrared lamp.
Observation #3 is that the stronger reflection of the infrared lamp on both the
lid and thermometer in jab B indicates a slight difference in the distance of
the lamp from set up jar A to set up jar B.
Put ’em together and what have you got ?
Watch the CO2 bottle from the 58 second mark until the 1:04 mark. Notice that the cap on the CO2 bottle magically appears to have been placed on the bottle during those 6 seconds! She didn’t mention doing that at all despite the fact that the audio appears uncut.
I think you’re right. I think it’s a difficult experiment to perform.
On the other hand, I’m also a believe in Glacierguy’s video – that an overwhelming amount of the warming is due to the increased pressure in the CO2 bottle.
This is really silly. Despite the distorted statements about skeptics made by Globalwarmists, no one denies that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But, comparing a bottle filled with CO2 to ambient air would be like comparing a jar of ambient air to a jar of methane: it’s not a valid comparison.
Okay, Al. Let’s retry your ‘high school physics’ experiment, but this time do it in one take. Oh, and instead of filling one jar with CO2 and the other with ambient air, just for fun, let’s fill one with ambient air (at 0.04%) CO2, and double the CO2 in the second jar, all the way up to 0.08% CO2. Now let’s watch the temperature difference.
Can the difference in temperature be measured? Probably. But the difference would be so tiny, it would be difficult for Al Gore to see what he wants because it would be masked by an inconvenient reality.
Abraham Lincoln said you can fool some of the people all of the time. Those are the ones who still listen to Gore.
I’m soooooo tired of hearing Bill Nye go on and on about the “science” of global warming and having people take him seriously. The man isn’t a scientist, but he’s treated like one. His degree is in engineering. In all the years that he’s been playing a scientist & pushing this crap he hasn’t bothered to go back to school and actually learn anything about what he’s “teaching.”
This is like taking boating advice from Kaptain Kangaroo.
This is great. Hard scientific laboratory evidence proving that Al Gore is a fraud.
And the debunking, by providing an example of the power of logical analysis applied to the results of careful observation, will surely give many kids their first awareness of how exciting real science can be.
The rise in temperature shown in the film could not possibly occur that rapidly. They did not say time lapse photography which is a big problem.
Since we know it was the same thermometer I have to believe a special heat source was used just like here:
http://www.barking-moonbat.com/images/uploads/mmm_mmm_mmm_toasty.gif
This isn’t the first time Algore has fabricated stuff to make a point.
Remember this one :
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/al_gore_our_choice.png
Fabricating this “experiment” comes as no surprise to me at all – a desperate act by a desperate cause that is heading to the waste bin of history !
At the beginning of the prestidigitation the lamp on the right isn’t lined up for a good broad side projection of the heat from the lamp. Later, the lamp on the left has been moved to provide a “glancing” blow to the “cooler” bottle while the bottle on the right now receives a full broadside beam. This alone could be enough to skew the results. Do we even know if the lamps are perfectly paired in their wattage? What about ambient air currents? Perhaps this would be a good presentation if I did it as a 3rd grader but it lacks a decent control mechanism to assure that the experiment is valid.
Rob Honeycutt says:
September 28, 2011 at 3:58 pm
“Glenn… Do you question whether this experiment would show the radiative effects of CO2?”
“This” experiment? Most definitely yes. Look at the pic of the video @ 1:17.
There is only one way to resolve these two images; they are of one thermometer at different times.
The background and the thermometer itself are *exactly* the same.
Billy likely took one thermometer, took it’s picture, then flicked a bic over the end and took another pic.
That is what this experiment *shows*.
It was a stupid experiment in the first place.
1) “You take two jars, and seal them”…. but then the experimenter unseals one jar to put a hose into it. Experiment parameter FAIL.
2) We have no idea if the tank was stored at room temperature. For all we know, it could have hot gas in it. Quality Control FAIL.
3) There was no way to measure the amount of CO2 relative to native atmospheric air mixture. What would have happened if, say, you simply doubled the amount of CO2 vs the current ratio of 428 ppm. Relevancy FAIL.
No one denies that CO2 is a “warming gas” to begin with, so this demonstration is silly in the first place. Hell, we don’t even know if it was CO2 to begin with.
Every boy I have ever taught knows about the rising thermometer trick. I can just imagine what is happening at the working end of that rising thermometer. More than likely it is being held upright over a regular lightbulb.
The side by side thermometers are identical. I worked on the assumption subtracting overlaid identical images should leave a perfectly black, featureless background. Any differences should as non-black shapes.
1) Change “Image Size” from 640 pixels to 2560 pixels to facilitate fine adjustment during overlay alignment. There is about a 0.25 pixel offset between the two thermometer images probably due to thermal expansion from those infrared lights.
2) Crop the right thermometer and lay its image over the left thermometer.
3) From Blending Options, select “Difference” from the “Blend Mode” drop-down box. Set “Opacity” to “100%”
4) Move the overlaid right thermometer image until it aligns accurately over the left thermometer.
If the images are identical and the alignment is accurate, only the differences between the images remain visible.
All that remained visible were the two circles used to mark the blemish, the arrows pointing to the circles and the difference in the ‘mercury’ levels between the two thermometers. Absolutely everything else became a black background.
I have the PhotoShop .psd file but I can’t find a way to post it here. In this case a picture really is worth a thousand words.
jaymam says:
September 28, 2011 at 5:03 pm
That video is quite odd, indeed. At 0:52 and other times you can see that the lamps are not connected to the jugs, and no control exists to maintain an equal distance between them and the jugs. At 1:15, take a straightedge across the tops of the jugs and compare to the angle to the table in the background. Then compare to 1:20 when the lamps have been applied. The difference is less on the left, showing that the left jug has been moved back, away from the lamp.
I’d say that with an experiment like this, distances from the sensor would be critical. Perhaps one lamp being only an inch further away than the other, in a matter of seconds could cause a dramatic difference in temperature, with or without CO2.
Friggin hilarious!
Obviously there was alot of post production to make it look right and that isn’t the point of my comments. One thing that the climate Nazis do is always call out the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere as “XX billion tons” or whatever the horrible number is. So I did a little graphic to entertain myself. What I cam up with was: If you take a rectangle, 6 feet on a side to represent the earth atmosphere, man’s contribution, as expressed in commonly found percentages, is the about the size of a period on this page (yearly). I say about because it could be a little smaller. Certainly not larger. I find it hard to believe that an amount of that size is causing all this climate havoc.
So then I have to ask this: Given that in one space in time the Brits were growing wine grapes in the UK and that in another space in time they were ice skating on the Thames and that at both of these temperature extremes mankind was getting along nicely, what makes this climate we have right now the one that we have to save at all costs? What makes this climate the right one?
Can somebody answer me that?
Pamela Gray says:
September 28, 2011 at 5:42 pm
“Every boy I have ever taught knows about the rising thermometer trick”
Oh, so girls are little angels?
After analyzing this video from a stylistic perspective, it is more than obvious that this was not meant to show an actual experiment being performed for the camera. There are many stylistic clues about this everywhere in the video, such as objects magically popping in, and thermometers going up to the beat of the background music (unless you think they are suggesting that music affects temperatures changes). All these tell you that this is not “real time”, nor meant to be a real experiment being conducted. Moreover, with the little earths inside the bell jars, and the lamps descending in unison from the top of the frame, this all adds to the obvious stylistic mood of the piece. And how about those “heat lamps”. They seem a bit too orange, and may be just colored bulbs to add to the stylistic mood. Furthermore, the narration says,
“You can replicate this yourself in a simple lab experiment…here’s how.”
This writing style, with the use of the word “You”, clearly isn’t trying to say, “We conducted an experiment…” or “Here is an actual experiment.” And the final phrase, “here’s how” is a big clue that this is just an illustration of what someone could do at home. This kind of writing combined with the popping in and out of the scene of objects in an obvious stop action type of highly edited animation, is clearly stylistic.
So, while Anthony’s analysis was quite correct, in that this was a highly edited video, as a Professional video producer myself, I can surely say, “Of course it was!”. Based on this, I think in fact, the word, “Dramatization” would have been a statement of the obvious, and would have been redundant, but perhaps could have been used for comic effect.
REPLY: Writing style? Comic Effect? Oh please. Gore couldn’t afford to do the experiment right? The producer couldn’t be bothered to put some sort of disclaimer on it? Even the dumbest greenhorn TV news reporters I know (and I’ve known many) know the perils of presenting something as real but is actually a re-enactment or dramatization without saying so. NBC’s Dateline, model rocket engines, pickup trucks, and gas tank explosions come to mind when I read what justification you’ve just written.
http://reason.com/archives/1993/04/01/crash-dummies
Sorry but your “writing style” argument isn’t gonna fly, and if I may say so myself, as one television professional to another, it’s bullshit of the highest order. Quit while you are ahead, the experiment doesn’t even demonstrate the issue properly – Anthony
Allan Harrison says:
September 28, 2011 at 12:33 pm
“…I think what were seeing is the jars themselves have been switched around and that would mean the gas is going into the jar that was on the left at the beginning of the experiment. They reset the whole shot but got the jars mixed up…”
OK, plausible – but did they purge any CO2 from the cookie jars when they swapped them?
BTW – using cookie jars – I could see this “demonstration” being done by Muppets. Dr Bunsen Honeydew and Beaker set it up, and Cookie Monster wants to know why they’re wasting perfectly good cookie jars by not adding cookies. And The Count keeps track of the temp rise.
Lots more entertaining than this…
R. Gates, if the experiment is sooo difficult that it needed to be faked, then they shouldn’t claim that anyone can do this experiment at home.
Oh, Pleeeez. I have had several classes of students try to do the NOAA (alias BBC) version of this trick, and sure, you can invite the viewer to try it themselves, but it is all pointless. There are so many factors other than CO2 which contribute to the outcome, and all of them uncontrolled and/or unrandomized. Any outcome is possible. We routinely found that the non-CO2 vessels warmed most in any particular run.
The glass could very possibly absorb UV to IR if it had iron in it, which most glasses that are blow-molded do have.
Call the gas expert Mythbusters used. He may remember what he raised the CO2 to.
Also, I thouth SWIR passed through glass and LWIR was blocked or absorbed, depeding on the glass.
Robert, you seem to be agreeing with me that CO2 has virtually no effect on Mars and that Earth has a lot less CO2 (per unit area) than Mars. So what does Earth have that Mars doesn’t?
Water vapor!
You go on to say that, on Mars, CO2 doesn’t have much capacity to store heat. So, on Earth, that capacity must even smaller because there is 30 times less CO2. So what’s storing the heat?
Water vapor!
So I think you’re saying, in effect, that you can make a very fine stew out of stones (CO2), but only if you add some meat and veggies (water vapor)!
You overlooked an important factor, albedo, which affects the emissivity of “grey bodies” like Earth and Mars. Earth has higher albedo, so less emissivity of trapped heat. Yes, higher albedo also means higher reflectivity, but Kirchoff’s Law dictates that it must retard emissions by the same amount. Guess what makes Earth’s albedo higher?
Water vapor!
I sense you don’t know a lot about radiative physics because of your statement “Water vapor and CO2 release that energy back to the surface (mostly at night). ” Of course, blackbody emission of energy is not affected by the absorption of external radiation, but only by the temperature and emissivity of the emitting body. So, hotter surfaces (during the day) emit more radiation than at night. Good absorbers are also good emitters, and vice-versa.
So water vapor, not CO2, turns out to be the evil villain in driving Earth’s temperature (287K) comfortably above the blackbody temp (254K). But the eco-Fabians know that they can’t tax clouds, so CO2 has become the sacrificial scapegoat.
😐
The Mythbusters experiment doesn’t declare the concentration levels of the gases, but the monitor showed the CO2 was at 7.3% and methane at 8.1 ppm, but at no point of the test did they report the test run concentrations. Just because the concentrations can be measured to PPB, does not mean they could be controlled at those levels. And what usefulness is it to say a 1 deg difference in temperature is conclusive? Of what? Very sloppy. Sheesh.
For the experiment to be done correctly, besides the fact it is still in a closed system (or appears to be), they should have used one box, run a test with air, purge and repeat with the next gas. Better still, use all three boxes and do the same. It wouldn’t hurt to measure the pressure either.
Other than Brehmer not using an analyzer to measure the CO2 levels, the results regardless should be fairly obvious the ‘greenhouse effect in a bottle’ experiment is a complete bust. Maybe he should have measured both with air only first, but really, who seriously contends after poking the holes in the jar tops the temperature readings being equal as purely a result of a poorly designed experiment? That the air filled jar temperature dropped several degrees is good enough alone to prove his point.
So I was playing around with this http://jersey.uoregon.edu/vlab/Piston/ . I don’t understand how Brehmer is a physics illiterate.
Pardon if I am repeating what was said in the Mythbuster video; I could not hear any sound on that clip and it seemed to be running at double speed.
RBateman (September 28, 2011 at 9:15 am) says “I suspect the non-CO2 injected jar (lid closed) would be the one that actually warmed, thus the switcheroo.” That’s true. The sealed jar containing air would heat up more than the jar with CO2 for two reasons.
1. The heat of compression would affect the sealed-air jar, warming it. But the CO2 was allowed to expand and would not be affected by compression. See http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
2. Continually refreshing the CO2 would not only make the CO2 in the jar be that of the CO2 exiting the cylinder but, unless the cylinder were artificially warmed, the expansion of the CO2 would produce a continuous stream of cooler CO2, replacing the CO2 in the jar and nullifying any heating that might have occurred.
The experiment, as described, could not possibly have the results claimed. In fact, the container with air would heat up more than the one with CO2.
This is not a case of simple editing magic. It’s a complete fraud. They could NOT have gotten the results that they reported!
Wobble you are correct. Boyle did not lie to us..
Pesky things those BTUs.
Wow Anthony, you’ve outdone yourself. TV staged! – surely no!
“Moreover, the CO2 injection in one cookie jar would raise it from 0.04% CO2 to very near 100% CO2 which is hardly comparable to the atmosphere going from 0.03% to 0.04% CO2 during the industrial age.”
In the real world the lower atmosphere is highly saturated in the IR absorption sense and CO2 doesn’t get properly potent until you get to the low pressure/temperature conditions higher up (hence the prediction of an atmospheric hot spot in the troposphere) – the additional heat then transports its way back down to ground level; see Cloud and Plass’s experiments in the early 50s. At kitchen level you will need more CO2 (the CO2/temp relationship being logarithmic) to see temps rise.
Of course The Climate Reality Project could have replicated those conditions too, but I think they were trying to demonstrate something you could do at home with your kids.
Glacierman Says:
“Even without the editing, this experiment is debunked:
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html”
Dr Says:
“All one needs to is watch the video that Glacierman linked to. It has nothing to do with aberrations of the thermometer readings or anything else. It is so obvious once one understands what the real world basic physics are, the Gore “experiment” is worse than a carnival shell game.
WATCH THE VIDEO!!
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html”
The vid and web page argue that pressure is the reason for the temperature rise, not IR absorption. CO2 is a heavy gas and thus exerts more pressure the author asserts – which is what causes the warming.
Err, no.
The real world basic physics are that Pressure is Force which is Mass * Velocity.
CO2 indeed has more mass that most, but as a consequence of having more mass CO2 molecules also have proportionally less velocity – they balance out. Force will always be a function of the energy which is the same regardless of the make of gas molecule.
The reason our intrepid investigator’s jars didn’t warm with the lid off (to prevent pressure build up) was because the lid was off.
Anyhow Anthony – you’ve got all the kit, why not give it a go and replicate the experiment. I eagerly await the video production.
Best,
JasonP.
p.s. Monckton, you really should pursue those serious criminal charges.
Wow, this is by far your best work yet…
Would it be possible for you to ‘render’ a jpg output difference image – then save that on http://tinypic.com/ ? (tinypic.com will prompt for file name, offer an option to choose from your local HD etc, you will have a captcha to answer and that is about the hardest thing to do.)
Then post the link here on another post that tinypic creates pointing to the jpg file?
.
Yale Paper Shows That Climate Science Skeptics Are More Scientifically Educated
That explains the mass of uneducated mouth-breathers who believe Al Gore’s science fiction fantasies.
The moment that the tube prevented the jar from closing, the rest of the “experiment” was a sham. High school chemistry, not physics. The problem with the Mythbusters experiment is that it fails to account for the fact that the earth’s atmosphere can expand and contract. Performing the experiment in balloons (the big, half-inflated, weather balloons) would be more accurate than fixed-capacity chambers.
Nicely done, Anthony – you’ve really skewered these shysters! I hope this gains traction in the MSM.
I look forward to reading the results when you have replicated their ‘experiment’ as they showed in the video. Whilst it’s widely accepted that CO2 is a GHG, their method of conducting this ‘experiment’ is a total crock.
BTdubs, great to see Dellers over at The Telegraph has covered your excellent work on this.
wobble says:
September 28, 2011 at 6:26 pm
R. Gates, if the experiment is sooo difficult that it needed to be faked, then they shouldn’t claim that anyone can do this experiment at home.
_______
It was obvious they were not intending this to be an actual experiment conducted for television. It was all a stylized illustration…no different than if they had simply used animation to show how to conduct the experiment. If they had not been using comical stop-animation techniques, and thermometers rising to the beat of the music, etc. I might have an issue with it, or if they had said, “we conducted the following experiment, which you can do at home…” But they didn’t.
But as it is, fancifal videos or not, Al Gore’s message is currently falling on more and more deaf ears, regardless of the techniques he uses to proselytize. People are now more concerned about jobs and/or their rapidly shrinking 401Ks, etc. The global warming and climate change message is being drowned by the rising oceans of economic worry…i.e. who cares if the climate is changing if I might lose my house, my job, and will have to work until I’m 80 because the Banksters have stolen everything.
This part struck me, speaker on video says: “These thermometers measure a tenth of a Centigrade” [sic] BUT of course we know this does _not_ necessarily mean that this is the accuracy of those devices … nor do we know how closely all three indicated (correlated) beforehand … I too would have liked to see an initial run with _no_ added GH gases then a run with; THEN the statement the kid at the end issues MIGHT have some validity.
Otherwise, we have another case of ‘confirmation bias’ as in: ‘ we found what we were looking for, and that is adding a GHG causes a temp rise in the box‘ as opposed to a proper experiment where it could more properly said IMO: “There is an indication that the addition of a GHG causes a definite, measurable rise in the temperature of the box specific to the species of GHG, on the order of x.x C degrees for Methane and x.x degrees C for CO2, corrected for deviations from baseline (no GHG) for the addition of the two respective GHGs.”
.
Rob Honeycutt says:
September 28, 2011 at 3:51 pm
1. The experiment wasn’t done as claimed.
2. Even if it was, it is completely invalid in terms of the climate system.
3, IF it is so simple that high school students do it every day as you claim, why couldn’t Gore and company, why not just video tape some high school students doing i?
The experiment I mean.
R. Gates
That last comment of yours needs no rebuttal. It stands on its own as a farcical attempt to defend the indefensible. Nothing I’ve ever seen you post so discredits you as that comment.
Mariss says on September 28, 2011 at 5:44 pm
…
Jim asks:
“Would it be possible for you to ‘render’ a jpg output difference image”
It’s being done right now. The ‘difference’ method is a very definitive way of identifying minute differences between two images. The assumption is subtracting away one image from another one on a pixel by pixel level should leave a sum of zero (pure black). If they are identical, the sum should be zero. Any non-zero residual results in our eyes interpreting the presentation as a shape. It allows us to spot minute differences between two images.
R. Gates says September 28, 2011 at 7:28 pm …
The “R. Gates Blog” – some of us are still waiting for it …
.
Where is/was the “Control?” Every experiment I did in highschool had a “control.” Why don’t they have a third chamber filled with a “NON” GHG to show “NO Effect?” Because even it would be a farce and would not work. The whole thing is pure stagecraft propaganda – for show only.
Manbearpig will be anti-science as long as he and his followers believe “the ends justify the means”, and it is obvious they could care less about the means. For them it’s all about the message. The only “how” they care about is: how can we separate the gullible masses from their hard-earned cash and enrich ourselves?
The high school physics quote is classic argument-from-intimidation, just another one of their tactics to drive the old message home. /But if you want to see for yourself, you can do this experiment at home and see how CO2 will drive the temperature of the globe into oblivion. Is it warm in here, or is it me? Look at that thermometer jump! /sarc
Science, IMO, requires that the ends determine the means. The “how” is what good science seeks to answer, and the means are everything to finding the correct answer. I guess the alarmists already have that one figured out. How convenient for them; now all they have to do is sell it.
Anthony, you obviously put a great deal of thought and effort into this, and truly care about the means. Science through and through. Wonderful job.
mkelly says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:33 am
For the same amount of time and Q being equal I cannot see how the temperature of the CO2 could be higher. Please show me the error of my ways.
I think you got yours Qs mixed up. Qin provided by the heat lamps should be the same for each cookie jar, but Q retained by the gases( air vs CO2) is what is supposed to differ.
davidmhoffer says:
September 28, 2011 at 7:32 pm
“R. Gates
That last comment of yours needs no rebuttal. It stands on its own as a farcical attempt to defend the indefensible. Nothing I’ve ever seen you post so discredits you as that comment.”
____
I am not defending the video, but neither am I critical of it. It is what it is. It was never meant to be a documentation of an actual experiment being conducted. It was obviously illustrative and the plentiful stop-action animation and other obvious editing techniques with thermometers rising to the beat of the music, etc. give plent of clues to that. You might as well prove that Lord of the Rings was edited…except the Gore video was illustrative of something that could be replicated and has been replicated and Lord of the Rings is fantasy. Get it?
REPLY: Like I said earlier, bullshit of the highest order. – Anthony
Why would a “stylized illustration” be easier to video than the actual experiment? They already had all the materials. But for that matter, why would an animation be easier than the actual experiment? Is the experiment that difficult to perform?
R. Gates;
I am not defending the video, but neither am I critical of it. It is what it is. It was never meant to be a documentation of an actual experiment being conducted.>>>
So… you’re not defending it, but then you go on to… defend it.
LOL.
R. Gates;
You might as well prove that Lord of the Rings was edited…>>>
So, you’re comparing this video to a fantasy movie? I think that’s probably fair. Like the scene (for example) where everyone is on horseback and then a moment later there’s no horses at all, they just went poof and disappeared with no explanation? Like that?
When you’ve shot off both feet R. Gates, you can choose to stop pulling the trigger… or else aim for the knees. You’ve managed to shoot off both your knees now too, and yet you want to keep pulling the trigger… I can’t bear to watch. But morbid fascination demands that I do.
Go ahead. MAKE MY DAY.
When I first saw this item, I wondered, how long til R. Gates shows up to defend it.
Bingo!
R. Gates says:
September 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm
I am not defending the video, but neither am I critical of it. It is what it is. It was never meant to be a documentation of an actual experiment being conducted.
Good grief man, watch the video with the sound on.
At about the 45 second mark you hear “if you want, you can replicate this effect yourself in this simple lab experiment…” and then the video, as explained by Anthony and many others in this thread, shows an “experiment” that if you attempt to replicate in the manner shown, will be totally meaningless.
Will the CO2 cool the inside of the bottle?
Will the “sealed” air bottle retain more heat than the “unsealed” CO2 added bottle?
Are the heat sources equal distance from each thermometer?
And many other question have been asked.
Even if they said “this is a dramatization” or overlaid the words over the video, once they said here’s an experiment you can do yourself, they really need to show the correct steps and methodology you would replicate.
Gore fail.
Nye fail.
R. Gates fail.
R. Gates said: “I am not defending the video, but neither am I critical of it. It is what it is. It was never meant to be a documentation of an actual experiment being conducted. It was obviously illustrative and the plentiful stop-action animation and other obvious editing techniques with thermometers rising to the beat of the music, etc. give plent of clues to that. You might as well prove that Lord of the Rings was edited…except the Gore video was illustrative of something that could be replicated and has been replicated and Lord of the Rings is fantasy. Get it?
REPLY: Like I said earlier, bullshit of the highest order. – Anthony
___
That;’s your opinion Anthony, and WUWT is your playground, so you will always have the last word.
Watch the BBC video again and you will notice that the lamp shining on the enhanced CO2 bottle is marked with a small piece of black tape (on the lower part of the lamp stem). This could be interpreted to mean that something is different about that lamp. Interestingly, Dr. Aderin-Pocock performed the same experiment in a different BBC program that was discussed on WUWT back in December 2009. In that video, the enhanced CO2 bottle is on the left side instead of being on the right side. Not surprisingly, the lamp with the black tape was also moved to the left side in order to stay aligned with the enhanced CO2 bottle.
“”””” Jay says:
September 28, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Wow Anthony, you’ve outdone yourself. TV staged! – surely no!
…………………………….
The real world basic physics are that Pressure is Force which is Mass * Velocity “””””
Well Jay, if you don’t understand even 4H club Physics; let alone 8th grade high school Physics, why do you come here and spout nonsense; that simply misinforms people who seriously come here to learn something that perhaps is NOT their specialty. You do nobody any service.
Pressure is not Force. it IS force per unit area which is why its units are Newtons (force) per square metre (unit area)..
And NEITHER Pressure, nor force is Mass times velocity; that would get you momentum perhaps. Mass times acceleration would get you force; but not pressure.
There are plenty of good PhD Physicists who frequent this place, (I am NOT one of them) and they can answer most of the Physics issues that arise here. It is not helpful to have nonsense spouted as if from the voice of authority; some of this stuff is hard enough for lay folks to grasp, and such misdirection, is quite destructive.
As I have said many times Ignorance is NOT a disease; we are all born with it; but stupidity has to be taught; and sadly there are plenty of people willing and able to teach it.
The moral of the story: use a 9 – 12 um wavelength IR sensitive camera (as opposed to the cheaper, shorter wavelength IR cameras) as is used on the GOES series of wx satellites that provide imaging, particularly in the 8.7 μm, – 13.4 μm LWIR wavelength range which is not affected by WV or CO2 (but _is_ affected by liquid water and ice crystals) in the atmosphere.
IR spectrum depicting w/Water Vapor and CO2 trasmission windows:
http://www.udel.edu/Geography/DeLiberty/Geog474/spectrum.jpg
.
David M. Hoffer:
Proving that an obviously highly edited piece of video is exactly that, while an interesting exercise in logical analysis, seems a bit pointless. What is the real issue here? That proselytizers like Gore will use expensive highly-edited media to make their points? But no one is really listening to Mr. Gore anymore, so what does it matter? But of course, the point is, that bashing Mr. Gore is a favorite pastime for certain folks, and if I interupt those festivities I’d better be prepared to reap the skeptical whirlwind.
@Monckton & Anthony:
Charges of fraud as you have them won’t amount to anything because you were not likely to be harmed.
Unfair competition, on the other hand, harms scientific realists by using fraud to solicit donations used to ruin the careers of scientists as well as opposing political figures. This approach might have victims all over the world, depending upon what Uncle Albert has been up to.
Anthony wrote;
“I should make it clear that I’m not doubting that CO2 has a positive radiative heating effect in our atmosphere, due to LWIR re-radiation, that is well established by science.”
Well, yes indeed CO2 has a “positive radiative heating effect”, BUT the bigger question is HOW LONG DOES IT LAST ????
If you understand the difference between the “speed of light” and the “speed of heat” it quickly becomes clear that the ”Greenhouse Effect” (aka backradiation) only causes some of the energy travelling through the atmosphere to make a few (perhaps 10 or at most 20) short (and very FAST) side trips back towards the surface of the Earth before it escapes to the cold vacuum of space.
This delay (perhaps as short as a few milliseconds, or as long a few thousand milliseconds) is so small compared to the period of the arriving energy (i.e. one day = ~ 86 MILLION milliseconds) that no “Higher Equilibrium Temperature” OCCURS.
So, yes indeed CO2 causes a ”positive” heating effect, BUT IT DISSIPATES SO QUICKLY THAT WE PROBABLY COULD NEVER MEASURE IT. AND IT DOES NOT CONTRIBUTE IN ANY WAY TO THE ANACHRONISM TERMED “THE EQUILIBRIUM TEMPERATURE OF THE EARTH”.
This is very much like believing that one single ice cube can “force” the equilibrium temperature of a big old cast iron pot down to freezing while the pot resides in a room temperature kitchen.
The “Greenhouse Effect” is a HOAX………….
Cheers, Kevin.
Someone might have already pointed these out.
1. There’s a slight distortion in the glass, far right hand side, at 37.2 .
2. Also some dark patches on the paper, mid right, at 37.3 and 37.6 .
3. Shouldn’t they be using a flat piece of glass for a lid to avoid hot spots from curved glass?
4. Watt great eyes you have!
Is that what ‘they’ want us to believe now?
(Fanning the flames of the troll further I say:) We’ve been effective, and now it is time for us to just ‘lay down our arms and go home’?
.
R. Gates;
If one were going to dramatize an experiment, one would think starting with a VALID experiment would make some sense? Why wouldn’t they have dramatized this one?
http://www.john-daly.com/artifact.htm
Wait. I know the answer. The results didn’t fit the theory, so it must be the results that are wrong!
Folks, if you want to see what a REAL experiment properly done would look like, have a read. The results are actually not accurate in that the earth’s atmosphere doesn’t have a constant rate of water vapour (it drops as temps get colder with altitude and latitude). So the final conclusions can be challenged, but THIS is what a proper experiment looks like, and the science guy ought to know that or drop the science nomiker and just be a guy.
You know this demonstration experiment can (in principle) be performed; but not likely by the average high school student.
You would have to prepare two identical samples of “pseudo air”, say 79/20/1 N2, O2, Ar with NO H2O content, and carefully add say 280 ppm of pure CO2 to one, and say 560 ppm to t[]he other to simulate a test of the fictitious “climate sensitivity”. So you are going to irradiate them equally, and discover that the 560 ppm CO2 sample is 3.0 +/- 50% deg C hotter than the other in compliance with the IPCC’s learned value of the “climate sensitivity”; they after all are the acknowledged experts; including their 3:1 obligatory fudge factor.
Anything between 1.5 and 4.5 deg C can be considered to be confirmation of the IPCC global warming theory.
The really important part is in obtaining a roughly black body source of LWIR radiation with an equivalent BB Temperature of 288 K, the purported mean global surface Temperature. That radiation source will have a spectrum that peaks at 10.1 microns wavelength and a total radiant emittance of about 390 W/m^2..
The two “air” samples would be placed inside a single integrating sphere, and a second integrating sphere that is carefully heated to 288 Kelvins, would be placed alongside the one containing the two samples, and their exit ports would be connected with a reflective duct (tube)possibly coated inside with gold or some other material that is highly reflective in the 5 to 80 micron wavelength range.
Now that would be somewhat equivalent to the real world situation. So you let the two integrating spheres equlibrate, and then you read out the Temperature difference between the two air samples.
The air samples of course need to be enclosed in containers that are transparent to 5-80 micron EM radiation.
I have NO IDEA what such a material would be.
Come back here and report your results
to paraphrase the conclusion to the courtroom scene in To Kill A Mockingbird, “Everyone, stand up, Mr Watt’s passin’.”
R. Gates;
Proving that an obviously highly edited piece of video is exactly that, while an interesting exercise in logical analysis, seems a bit pointless. What is the real issue here?>>>
The real issue would be that the experiment was faked.
Keep pulling that trigger bud.
I showed my daughter the video and the analysis. She initially liked the graphics of the movie and Bill’s narration. I felt bad pulling the wings off the butterfly revealing the reality. She will not receive this information in the public schools. What is sad is that our schools have fallen to the level of believing the tripe disseminated by the likes of Gore and now the “science guy”. She now says she will not believe any of the “Global Warming hype”.
R. Gates;
That;’s your opinion Anthony, and WUWT is your playground, so you will always have the last word.>>>
Wow, this one must have finaly rattled you R. Gates. That’s the first time I’ve seen you actually whine instead of passing off some judgmental but non sensical remark as being relevant.
Mr. Watts, after reading the original story and 330 + comments I can only express my admiration for what you do here. The subject interested me so I took the time; but however do you find the time to do all this. Amazing.
I suppose to Gates dropping polar bears from the sky and such, is simply “editing”.
Oops, I fed the troll.
Dave Springer says:
September 28, 2011 at 10:21 am
DR says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:38 am
All one needs to is watch the video that Glacierman linked to. It has nothing to do with aberrations of the thermometer readings or anything else. It is so obvious once one understands what the real world basic physics are, the Gore “experiment” is worse than a carnival shell game.
WATCH THE VIDEO!!
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
The gravitational compression explanation given at the above link is very, very wrong. Anyone who doesn’t see the error is, frankly, a physics illiterate. A gas, once compressed to a static pressure, will not retain the heat of compression. It it worked like the author states it does then one could compress a volume of air into a tank until it was quite hot then use the heated bottle as a perpetual source of heat. The fact is that once the gas reaches a static pressure any compressional heating also goes static.
Uh.. just a casual observer here but, don’t we have things in our atmosphere called “high” and “low” pressure systems? I seem to recall our local weatherman saying something to the extent of high pressure moving in our area, causing compressional heating as the air moves down out of the mountains. (I live in socal) They call it the santa ana winds. It gets pretty hot even in the winter time when the deserts are only 40 to 50 degrees. The earths atmosphere isn’t so static is my point. You would be right if it was, but it’s not.
steven mosher says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:09 am
Hahahaha!!! I remember back at the beginning of the whole global warming movement, we skeptics were referred to as a “fringe group”. That is really funny and ironic.
I think I found where this meme originated … R. Gates, do you read Mother Jones? MJ article
As reviewed at The Daily Bayonet:
.
R. Gates says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:16 pm (Edit)
David M. Hoffer:
Proving that an obviously highly edited piece of video is exactly that, while an interesting exercise in logical analysis, seems a bit pointless. What is the real issue here? That proselytizers like Gore will use expensive highly-edited media to make their points? But no one is really listening to Mr. Gore anymore, so what does it matter? But of course, the point is, that bashing Mr. Gore is a favorite pastime for certain folks, and if I interupt those festivities I’d better be prepared to reap the skeptical whirlwind.
Name single member of the democrat party – or ANY member of the administration or NASA-GISS or NOAA or NAS or ACS or EPA or FWS or Interior Dept or NWS or DOE – or the administration’s ABCNNBCBS captivated and enthralled news media – who has EVER disagreed with Al Gore or publicly or privately repudiated him, disavowed him, or pointed out his claims and his videos and his lifestyle are populated by lies and exaggerations not based on scientific facts and discoveries.
Dave Springer says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:53 pm
The surface of the planet is warm. The empty cosmos is cold. On average it’s a about a 280K difference in temperature between the two. A layer of air separates the warm surface from the cold vacuum. There will be a temperature gradient in the atmosphere between the surface and space with or without convection caused by uneven heating.
Not even close. Above the tropopause, the temperature of the stratosphere increases with increasing altitude. At the stratopause, the temperature is about -2C (sometimes much warmer than the surface below it). Above that, the atmosphere gets colder, and then hotter. The thermosphere has a daytime temperature of 4,530 °F.
In addition, a vacuum has no temperature. The idea that space is cold is simply wrong. It appears cold because only a small amount of radiation comes from space. However, since a vacuum can not conduct heat (which is why it is used in thermos bottles), it can not have a temperature. I remember when they had to rig a sun shade on Skylab because space is not cold.
Whether of not the video is edited isn’t really the point, isn’t the point – does the experiment work or not? The voice-over clearly states the temp change takes minutes, and the edit has it happen in about a second.
I kinda doubt the experiment does work, but…
RACookPE1978 says:
September 28, 2011 at 10:17 pm
R. Gates says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:16 pm (Edit)
“David M. Hoffer:
Proving that an obviously highly edited piece of video is exactly that, while an interesting exercise in logical analysis, seems a bit pointless. What is the real issue here? That proselytizers like Gore will use expensive highly-edited media to make their points? But no one is really listening to Mr. Gore anymore, so what does it matter? But of course, the point is, that bashing Mr. Gore is a favorite pastime for certain folks, and if I interupt those festivities I’d better be prepared to reap the skeptical whirlwind.”
Name single member of the democrat party – or ANY member of the administration or NASA-GISS or NOAA or NAS or ACS or EPA or FWS or Interior Dept or NWS or DOE – or the administration’s ABCNNBCBS captivated and enthralled news media – who has EVER disagreed with Al Gore or publicly or privately repudiated him, disavowed him, or pointed out his claims and his videos and his lifestyle are populated by lies and exaggerations not based on scientific facts and discoveries.
——–
They have more important things to do, perhaps?
Frankly I think Anthony has rather wasted his time here, not that he hasn’t been very thorough.
I watched the whole of the Gore video link and by the time I had got to the end I had lost count of the number of, well let’s be frank here, lies it contained such that the joke experiment was the least of its problems.
I guess Tipper just couldn’t stand him any longer.
Excellent work Anthony.
I took the side by side thermometer image in your article, copied it into Photoshop then turned the right thermometer into a difference layer overlaid on the left thermometer. A difference overlay will show anything that is different between the two images. The two thermometers and background are absolutely identical with the exception of the mercury column. There is no question in my mind the side by side thermometer comparison is a complete fake, just like the rest of what Gore the snake oil salesman peddles.
R. Gates says:
September 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm
“It was never meant to be a documentation of an actual experiment being conducted.”
Aha, so you actually knows what it was meant to be? How? You asked the producers?
A point as I made a number of times on different threads over the years here – All gases have a property called specific heat (basic gas properties) As such CO2 has a different value than O2 or N2. In fact it’s lower and as a result in a 100% concentration if you add the SAME amount of HEAT to containers with different gases you will get different temperatures. CO2 will always show a higher temperature than O2 or N2 since it has LESS capacity to absorb HEAT. What is temperature? Sensible heat. So this experiment demonstrates not AGW (greenhouse effect) but specific heat. Only an incompetent person who knows little of thermal dynamics and heat flow would make such an absurd MISTAKE. What did you expect from a person (Al Gore) who got a D in science?
Reply to John Day
September 28, 2011 at 6:46 pm
Yes, water vapor is important. However, N2 and O2 are even more important. The atmosphere itself stores the heat that returns to the surface. The greenhouse gases simply provide a mechanism to transfer that heat back to the surface. While it is possible that water vapor holds more heat than the entire rest of the atmosphere, most of that heat is simply released to space when clouds develop. The main exceptions are when dew, frost, and morning fog return heat to the surface.
To be clear, it is not the amount of greenhouse gases that matter, but how much energy can be stored in the atmosphere that makes Mars so cold.
Hmmmmn.
I want to determine if the presence of water is requirement for life – specifically, What happens to a mouse if it is, or is not, provided water.
Put mouse in closed plastic box with no water. Observe mouse running around plastic box.
Put mouse in closed plastic box. Fill with halfway with water. Observe mouse death after long period of struggling in water.
Put mouse in closed plastic box. Fill with water. Observe mouse death in approximately 20 seconds.
Al Gore’s conclusion from this equally stupid “experiment” : Water kills mice. We must tax dihydrogen oxide and penalize its use, and prevent the world’s poor from getting adequate clean, pure dihydrogen oxide for eating, drinking, bathing, cleaning, sewage disposal and industry.
—–
Now, what I would (almost) accept is a “experiment” where one large flat-sided “glass wall” was filled with air, water vapor, and 280 ppm CO2.
A second is filled with air, water vapor, and 390 ppm CO2.
Now, run the “experiment” to see how much heat is transmitted “through” the glass wall under all cases of temperature and humidity.
But R. Gates, nobody wants to do that in public. As a propaganda tool to control people and get their tax dollars to further the socialist agenda and destroy lives.
Robert Clemenzi says:
September 28, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Not even close. Above the tropopause, the temperature of the stratosphere increases with increasing altitude. At the stratopause, the temperature is about -2C (sometimes much warmer than the surface below it). Above that, the atmosphere gets colder, and then hotter. The thermosphere has a daytime temperature of 4,530 °F.
Well, that’s technically true since “temperature” is usually defined as a measure of the average velocity of the individual molecules of a gas – and the gasses at those altitudes are so thin they travel very fast between collisions. But the actual “heat content” of the gasses is very very low since the densities are so low.
“Movement is not needed to maintain adiabatic lapse rate.”
Not true.
“The surface of the planet is warm. The empty cosmos is cold. On average it’s a about a 280K difference in temperature between the two. A layer of air separates the warm surface from the cold vacuum. There will be a temperature gradient in the atmosphere between the surface and space with or without convection caused by uneven heating.”
It depends on the conditions. There might be a gradient *that is not adiabatic*, or there might be no gradient. Consider perfectly conductive solid sphere. If the surface was at the same temperature as outer space, it could not radiate, so it must be at the effective radiative temperature. Since it is heated from the outside, the inside of the sphere must settle at the same constant temperature.
“Good grief. People don’t even understand simple thermal gradients.”
True.
Anthony, very well done. Yet another example of what a fraud Gore is.
The mythbusters experiement was a bit better, but even it has a major flaw. They should have calibrated each of the “greenhouses” with the air first to see if they maintained consistent temperature without any changes in the CO2 or CH4 level. Had they done so and proven the heat output from the lights was equal over a reasonable duration, a temperature change resulting from CO2 or CH4 would be a better indication of true GH effect.
Al Gore just got tangoed by Anthony.
Sweet!
For those people saying that the thermosphere is super hot, I think you’re messing it up a little. The few particles that are up there can heat up to super hot levels, this is true. But that is because:1) they have little to shield them from direct exposure to the sun and, 2) because they have no other substances to convect or conduct their heat away as they gain it, just radiation, which is too slow. If you were to go up to the thermosphere and shield yourself from the sun, you would likely feel very cool. Probably not freezing, as there is too little air to convect your heat away quickly. Your main heat loss would be through IR radiation, which would be slow.
Of course the sequence was shot in separate takes. That’s the way television works! As a cameraman and editor for over 20 years I have shot and edited thousands of sequences similar this. I would never shoot something like this in the one take. You simply cannot cover everything needed in one continuous take, unless it was a multi-camera switched coverage. Continually zooming in and out is not good visually, and the chances of being able to capture everything in the one take is, frankly, unrealistic. It is far simpler (and indeed is common place in the industry) to shoot each shot separately and then edit them into a cohesive and understandable sequence. The author states that he has worked in the broadcast industry for over 20 years, but judging by his limited understanding of the techniques of television production I would hazard a guess and say he worked in sales or accounting, and not “on the tools” so to speak. And his “forensic” breakdown of each shot, while admirable, reminds me more of those youtube videos and websites from wacky 9/11 conspiracy theorists than a serious attempt to find the truth. I don’t think the video was ever intended to be a “live” demonstration, but was simply intended to show that the experiment can be replicated and repeated by anyone wiling enough to invest in the equipment.
And, for the record, I am not a believer in AGW, but I do believe we need to pick our battles, and this one is, quite frankly, laughable.
This experiment no more proves global warming than it disproves climate tipping points.
I don’t see any tipping points occurring within these contained gases experiments.
The warmists/alarmists can’t have it both ways.
Anthony, judging from the amount of trollist babbling showing up here, you’ve just sent a broadside through Al Gore’s fragile hull, a direct hit. The video represented the ludicrous procedure as being “an experiment,” which is a fabrication. No amount of specious logic will make Gore’s lab toys into anything other than a joke. The video clearly shows that Gore’s understanding of science is nil.
I just searched ‘Al Gore’ in Google News and no mainstream reports on this latest Gore fraud.
The top story was Gore had dropped out of the competition to control the new .eco root domain.
The reason, buried at the end of the Guardian report, was that allocating the domain was going to a competitive bid.
I guess Al is only interested in more lucrative scams.
40 Shades of Green says:
September 28, 2011 at 12:43 pm
The breezy speedy presentation struck me as analogy and not science. If the same material was presented via animation, would we be having this discussion.
Lets move on and not get too excited.
Right, 40, Dora the Explorer herself really does make much more manifest sense than Gore’s feeble “animations”. And way more than your “argument”. Seriously, 40, why do you think you’ve made any sense relevant to the question of Gore’s playschool “experiment”? Or maybe you should inform Gore in like manner, “Lets move on and not get too excited”?
But, thanks, I’m still always amazed by the Progressive mind in action. It’s an existent wonder and thus far greater than the mythical “CO2 = CAGW” verbiage itself!
Damn right, sir (sign of respect, not acknowledgement of title).
There was a discussion on the thread about James Delingpole’s book, about the usage of the term ” Watermelons “. Judging from how some of the trolls here are desperately bending over backwards to somehow justify this fraud by Gore shows that the terminology is accurate as applied to them.
Look at the green correction scale in; 1.05 and 1.09.
Proof that they swapped thermometers!
From the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15093234
“Tyndall’s climate message, 150 years on”
Seems he created the gas bell experiment
So, essentially, the myth buster is busted on its own accord? No concluding CO2 or methane readings, no temperature readings back with the statues, no temperature readings of the statues themselves, no surrounding temperature readings around the petroleum based greenhouses which respectively wasn’t equally clean, et cetera.
Oh, come look see, come look, kids, every body gather around the plastic fantastic green house and see the temperature rise and look over there by that lonely little green house how much colder it is over there in the cold. :p
Neatly pinned as a ‘non’ experiment. But then any lab experiment has little to do with the real atmosphere.
Dave Springer says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:59 am
glacierman says:
September 28, 2011 at 8:55 am
“Even without the editing, this experiment is debunked: http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html”
Sorry, but that is a whole bunch of crap at the link. Gases only heat up as they undergoing compression or expansion. The earth’s atmosphere has essentially static pressure at any one point. For it to heat up from gravitational compression the force of gravity must be constantly increasing otherwise when the pressure goes static there is no further temperature increase.
If it didn’t work that way it would be a perpetual motion machine. Suppose I take my shop compressor and fill up its air tank from ambient pressure to 150psi. The tank will indeed heat up. And if I bleed the pressure off very quickly the tank will cool down rapidly. But what happens if I turn off the compressor but don’t bleed off any pressure? The tank will still cool down even though the pressure isn’t changing. That’s because in order to get compressional heating the pressure must be increasing.”
But the Earth/Sun is not a closed system and the Sun is the ‘compressor’ via atmospheric circulation,
see,
http://judithcurry.com/2010/11/30/physics-of-the-atmospheric-greenhouse-effect/#comment-16901
And read the Nullius in Verba comments.
http://wapi.isu.edu/geo_pgt/Mod14_Neptune/mod14.htm
In it,The California Institute of Technology considers that “Neptune emits heat due to compressional heating caused by convection of its atmosphere”
Anthony,
I was not aware of any history between this site and Will Pratt. I still think that his analysis has merit, but if you can point me to something that shows a contrary analysis, then I will be happy to go and look at the evidence and make my own mind up.
Excellent work with this detailed and thorough debunking of Al Gore’s childish attempt at science. You have shown him to be the charlatan that he is.
Too sweeping a statement by me, should be more like a kitchen tabletop experiment ——- , after all there is the CERN CLOUD experiment 😉
Doubtless the ‘scientist’ conducting the ‘experiment’ is not a scientist at all, but a member of the production team.
AGW is a scam!!!!
“Orl right, guv’nor, it’s a fair cop. I’ll come quietly.”
^^^ One sentence we won’t be hearing from Gore, with or without mock cockney accent.
Very well done, Anthony. You evidently watched a lot more of the Gore bore than I could stand, and bagged a bullseye. This just oozes bogosity.
I agree 100% with Regieman, Samphire, RGates and Mosher on this one.
The issue with Gore’s how-to-conduct-this-experiment video is not that it isn’t an actual experiment, nor even is it whether such a crude set up could produce the result intended. It’s just an illustration, but an appallingly patronising one. Why do it, with clinical thermometers to fit the cookie jars, cheesy little globes (which could only impair a real experiment) and an actor caricaturing the science teacher even down to an admonitory wave of the finger? Because, of course, a real experiment with sealed containers, carefully initialised conditions, measured partial pressures, perfectly dry air, data logging equipment, etc, etc would be a) boring and b) not particularly convincing.
Of course there’s always plenty to object to in an Al Gore Warmathon. The illustrative thermometer – same one for the initial illustration of “warming… already happening” as for the two imaginary experimental results – is deliberately clinical, so that the temps shown are around 37C, with the CO2 jar running a nice fever.
I’ve always loved WUWT, but this issue is a mistake. It has brought out the worst in a lot of people, including Lord Monckton, whose Bishop Hill blog is also a favourite. Some of the pseudoscientific nonsense propounded here by others – with abusive dismissal of anyone who might disagree – is dire, but anyone pointing that out is savaged.
Bottom line: A correctly performed experiment (not with that Mickey Mouse set up) does indeed show that CO2 performs as advertised. Apart from the odd scientific illiterate, everybody reading this knows that until CO2 is taken up by the deep ocean, the extra 100ppm currently in the atmosphere contributes half a degree or so (Celsius) on average. That is the bit that Gore, IPCC and successive governments here in the UK point at when they say “The science is settled” and in that limited sense they are right. Arguing against that just makes skeptics look stupid.
>>
Julian Braggins says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:40 am
Gases only heat up as they undergoing compression or expansion. The earth’s atmosphere has essentially static pressure at any one point. For it to heat up from gravitational compression the force of gravity must be constantly increasing otherwise when the pressure goes static there is no further temperature increase.
<<
I had family that lived in Chinook, a north, central Montana town. During the winter they would sometimes get warm winds down from the Rockies–Chinook winds. I believe such winds are called Foehn winds. These are winds that descend the leeward side of mountains and heat up adiabatically.
Of course, the usual winter temperatures there were such that you wouldn’t want to stick your tongue on a flagpole.
Jim
There was shoddy work (to say the least) in “An Inconvienient Truth”. Here’s a screenshot (I’ve added the vertical guides:
http://dominion-data.com/ait/chart-guides.jpg
Note that time goes backwards!
(original without the guides: http://dominion-data.com/ait/chart.jpg)
CO2 reacts to IR by adsorbing some energy and getting warmer. This will reduce the total energy of the energy flow that reacted with that CO2. As soon as the CO2 gets warmer it will transfer energy to gas molecules that are cooler, standard heat flow. Warmer air, containing that CO2 will rise, convect, cooling as it goes adiabatically.
The experiment shows that CO2 reacts with IR radiation not what happens in the atmosphere. It does not prove AGW or that a greenhouse effect is a correct theory. Our atmosphere has a certain depth, varying with the conditions, but that depth has a mass which does much of the heating adiabatically, use of the combined gas laws will confirm that this happens.
Venus has a very dense atmosphere due to its being composed mainly of CO2 and this extra mass gives the higher surface temperature on that planet. Again the combined gas laws confirm this.
So to maintain this ‘normal’ surface temperature of 18C, the so called average, all we need is a mass od gas and adiabatic heating not any non functioning greenhouse effect.
Rolf Atkinson says:
September 29, 2011 at 2:36 am
I agree 100% with Regieman, Samphire, RGates and Mosher on this one.
…
Bottom line: A correctly performed experiment (not with that Mickey Mouse set up) does indeed show that CO2 performs as advertised. Apart from the odd scientific illiterate, everybody reading this knows that until CO2 is taken up by the deep ocean, the extra 100ppm currently in the atmosphere contributes half a degree or so (Celsius) on average. That is the bit that Gore, IPCC and successive governments here in the UK point at when they say “The science is settled” and in that limited sense they are right. Arguing against that just makes skeptics look stupid.
False.
Since the current warming is less than 1/3 of one degree from the 1970’s baseline, and since the consensus +100 ppm CO2 from man’s activities has occurred since about the 1950’s, you cannot claim that one half degree warming is due to man’s influence. I will grant perhaps 1/10 of one degree. Max.
Temp’s have risen, been steady, and fallen while CO2 has been steady.
Temp’s have risen, been steady, and fallen while CO2 has risen.
You cannot conclude “the science is settled” at any point in the debate.
Rolf Atkinson says:
September 29, 2011 at 2:36 am
“It has brought out the worst in a lot of people, including Lord Monckton, whose Bishop Hill blog is also a favourite.”
You are a little confused here. 🙂
How did you miss the 18 inch move to the left by the jar containing air and the 2 foot leap to the left by the CO2 jar. At 1:08 the CO2 jar is aligned in the first scene with the right-hand side of the window pane and the “Scientist’s” left arm and the jar containing air is in alignment with his right arm and a clear gap to the TV and Planet light. At 1:17 the centreline of the large globe is positioned to the left of where the right-hand side of the CO2 jar was, the CO2 jar is now behind the jar containing air and under the Planet light and the TV is mostly obscured. The alignment of the heating lamps has rotated and the thermometers showing the temperature rise are no longer sitting on the small globes.That and too many other differences to mention, looks like the science in this experiment is as shonky as the rest of the AGW scare.
Great for my tomatoes inside a barrier. Would have been a better experiment if they’d have put a near zero degree Kelvin heat sink on the side away from the light. Oh, and set up some sort of force field to contain their unique atmosphere. Oh, oh, and used CERN’s equipment and (as others noted) some water vapor to create clouds to reflect the light. Oh, oh, oh, and….
George E. Smith says:
“Well Jay, if you don’t understand even 4H club Physics; let alone 8th grade high school Physics, why do you come here and spout nonsense; that simply misinforms people who seriously come here to learn something that perhaps is NOT their specialty. You do nobody any service.”
George, you’re absolutely right. Pressure is Force over Area. I should have said as much and then pointed out that, of course, that the interesting thing here is the force, not the area.
The force is alleged to change due to CO2, not the area.
If you really want to quibble over whether it’s okay to say that pressure is force in a throw-away blog comment or PRESSURE IS FORCE over area (not that you’re not right) as a distraction from the basic point that the ‘Greenhouse in a bottle reconsidered’ video is fundamentally wrong to assert that the temperature change is caused because CO2 allegedly exerts more pressure than other gases because it’s heavy (the pressure it exerts is identical because gases with higher molecular mass have subsequently less velocity – see Maxwell’s molecular equations) – then knock yourself out. If you think it’s appropriate for blog comments, dock me a grade and offer corrections.
But…
George says:
“As I have said many times Ignorance is NOT a disease; we are all born with it; but stupidity has to be taught; and sadly there are plenty of people willing and able to teach it.”
…Indeed.
So don’t tell me that I’m not doing you and other readers here who largely don’t have PhDs in physics and won’t necessarily know that the greenhouse in a jar reconsidered video that is being promoted in this thread is bunkum, a favor by pointing the bunkum out.
On compression and heat.
Lots of folks are making the point that more pressure = more heat.
That’s absolutely right. But different relative concentrations of CO2 don’t result in a change the pressure. All gases exert equal pressure at a given temperature regardless of molecular mass.
I think you missed the point and wasted a lot of your time. This is an information film demonstrating a simple experiment. As is normal when making a film it was edited and cut in such a way to make it entertaining and informative. It is also normal to add in different shots to help visualise an idea – as film is a visual medium. Most modern audiences understand this process and it takes nothing away from the fact that this is a replicable experiment for anyone who has access to CO2. This does not make it a ‘hoax’, this makes it a film. All you have succeeded in doing is lifting the lid on the dark art of film production. Well done, I’m sure that was a good use of your time and money.
Now, if the experiment is a fabrication that is another matter but you have not demonstrated that this experiment is false. Whether it scales up to a global scenario is debatable, but you say yourself that:
‘I’m not doubting that CO2 has a positive radiative heating effect in our atmosphere’
So i fail to see the point that is being made here. You say that the film is not a real-time record but instead is some sort of edited info-mercial. I think that you have been disingenuous in your presentation – your stress on the ‘dishonesty’ of this film seeks to paint the makers as hoaxers and liars, when in fact they have just constructed a film in the tried and tested manner (in fact the film makers were probably given a brief and asked to fulfil it in as best a way they could and are not even connected to the Climate Reality Project). Yes I am happy for there to be a debate on the science and how to combat the effects of global warming (for it is surely happening), but it should be open and honest and not seek to slander and denigrate people.
The problem with this climate conspiracy fallacy is this: what do Al Gore and all the millions of other scientists and naturalists and lay people who are persuaded of the need to cut greenhouse emissions have to gain from it?
It’s faked. The two thermometers side by side at 1.10 to 1.17 by the captions are in fact ONE thermometer with a different length of blue line to show (fakedly) a different temperature. The similarity exists to the limits of image resolution, even to reflections on the glass thermometer tube. It’s one and the same!!!
Run this in your graphics program. Select one thermometer. Make an object from it. Invert its colour, make it 50% transparent, then move it exactly over the other thermometer. If they are identical, you’ll get a uniform mid-grey on normal combination. A pixel out of place shows up as a stronger colour against the uniform grey.
Why do scientists have to fiddle?
Smokey says:
Yale Paper Shows That Climate Science Skeptics Are More Scientifically Educated
That explains the mass of uneducated mouth-breathers who believe Al Gore’s science fiction fantasies.
No, it doesn’t explain it. The article you’ve linked says, “… the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely [emphasis mine], not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.”
There are plenty of skeptic mouth-breathers, too.
David Smith says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:44 am
Anthony, in case it hasn’t been mentioned by commenters, carbon dioxide has a noticeably higher heat capacity than air. So, for a given amount of input energy, it takes longer for CO2 to heat. Air would heat faster. I wonder if they ran the experiment and, because of the difference in heat capacity, got the “wrong” result and so they monkeyed with it.
===========
Wrong way around. Carbon Dioxide has a lower heat capacity than air. This means that it will heat up quicker, but also important to note, it means it will cool down quicker.
The BBC experiment I recall seeing, as far as I remember, showed a jar filled with CO2 compared with a jar of ‘ordinary air’, they didn’t give a content analysis of this ‘air’. Both jars then heated the temperature of the jar full of CO2 went up considerably. This they said proved CO2 was a powerful greenhouse gas heating the Earth. They didn’t run the full experiment, which would have been to show how long it took for each to cool down. The CO2 jar would cool rapidly, carbon dioxide with its low heat capacity doesn’t hold on to heat, it releases it practically instantly, the jar of ‘air’ would have taken longer because it took longer to heat up. What this would have shown was that the jar of carbon dioxide cooled down much quicker, which in the atmosphere means it gave up its heat much quicker, and heat rises. Carbon dioxide then is adding cooling to the greenhouse.
Water has by far the greater heat capacity, it takes much longer than (iirc around three times longer) to heat up than air and consequently holds the heat energy longer. This is seen in the natural cooling of the Earth by the water cycle which takes up heat away from the surface and into the colder atmosphere where it gives up its heat in condensing out to form clouds and rain. The Earth would be 67°C without the water cycle.
The con first of all is that the meme ‘greenhouse gases heat the Earth’ is taken as a base premise. Greenhouse gases cool the Earth is the fact of it. From this con meme from AGW they can only resort to fakery and be the ‘scientist magicians’ by sleight of hand. This is fraud, a real magician doesn’t pretend that his tricks are real.
Good work Anthony.
@Robert Clemenzi
> Yes, water vapor is important. However, N2 and O2 are even more important.
> The atmosphere itself stores the heat that returns to the surface.
Yes, air is a good insulator, that’s why it’s used in dual pane windows. CO2 would work there too, but there’s just not enough of it to compete with N2 and O2.
> The greenhouse gases simply provide a mechanism to transfer that heat back
> to the surface.
By GHG you mean water vapor, which warms and regulates the climate here on Earth.
> While it is possible that water vapor holds more heat than the entire rest of
> the atmosphere, most of that heat is simply released to space when clouds develop.
I think it would be more accurate to say that clouds trap heat. It’s well known that cloudy nights retain the surface heat more than clear nights. Again, what is it that is missing on Mars that prevents this from happening, IN SPITE OF 30-TIMES MORE CARBON DIOXIDE?
Wahter vaypoor!
> To be clear, it is not the amount of greenhouse gases that matter ,
> but how much energy can be stored in the atmosphere that makes Mars
> so cold.
But Mars’ atmosphere is all GHG, 30 times more abundant (per unit area) than on Earth. So if it doesn’t help to keep Mars warm, then it’s clear that it helps even less on Earth. Water vapor (did I mention that Mars doesn’t have much of this?) is what keeps our planet comfortably warm.
😐
George E. Smith says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:27 am
Water (H2O) is a very good absorber of 1 micron radiation, which is why the human skin, which is mostly water records that as “heat”. In contrast, no human senses respond in any way to 10.1 micron LWIR emissions, which humans are entirely unaware of. We have to go out of our way to detect that with special instrumentation.
Nonsense. The human body is mostly water and the heat we get direct from the Sun is what warms us up internally, and we have always had a perfect instrument to measure it, our own bodies, we sweat the extra heat away..
There’s a whole industry producing thermal infrared saunas which understand the principle very well..
The fake video is the point here, AGW is always producing fake ‘science’ explanations from ‘experiments’ but it’s difficult to nail these down. It’s through such deliberate manipulation of real science by such fakery that people end up thinking that no heat, thermal infrared, even reaches us from the Sun! .. and as here, you thinking that we only feel thermal infrared on the surface of our bodies.. Where on earth did you get that from??
To Anthony Watts
What were you thinking. Do you think this improves the Skeptics argument. Petty picking only lowers us to the level of the Believers. CO2 can produce heat but in the atmosphere where the laws of Thermodynamics rule, the heat produced cannot return to the surface of the earth. Why do you waste time even considering CO2 is involved in the temperature increase the earth is currently enjoying. Atmospheric molecules cannot determine the maximum temperature of the earth because the surface of the earth is the hottest part of the system. I realize how frustrating it is to breath the same air as people who are so stupid they believe CO2 causes Global Warming but it is the science that will prove us right, not pointing out how Al Gore and his cronies are manipulating the facts to make money. Unlike CO2 trapped inside a jar with no where to escape, the top of our atmosphere (troposphere) is cooler than the surface of the earth and all heat (energy) produced within the system after the conversion of short wave into long wave and entropy is forced (by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics) to travel up. It is possible that with an increase in the density of molecules that can absorb long wave radiation (not heat) the extent of warm air may increase and the lapse rate of temperature may slow but unless molecules that can absorb short wave radiation increase to exceed the surface absorption ability of the earth they cannot set the maximum temperature per day/day light hours of the earth. Short wave sets the temperature, long wave maintains the temperature. I could be wrong, I could be right, the science will prove it either way.
On a lighter note, I get it but I just wish it didn’t have to be this way. Keep up the fight!
FFS, this post and the comments have been hacked, right? DO ANY OF YOU UNDERSTAND IT’S TELEVISION?? It is not any kind of ‘staged scientific experiment’. Are you all dumb? Do you not know how TV works? Jeez, this is so bad I feel like going to RC. WAKE UP PEOPLE! It’s just how sh*t is shown on a film. Advocacy – do you know how lawyers work?
This kind of dishonest is endemic in the sciences and must be stamped out!!!!!!!
here is another shocking example
and another
dont tell me that was filmed live with no fancy camera tricks!
Al’s video is a pathetic attempt at propaganda, and includes both an implied straw man as well as ad hominem argument – that skeptics/climate realists deny that C02 has a greenhouse effect. But, the argument is about whether the additional 100 ppm, some part of which was probably man’s has really made much of an impact on climate, a wonderfully complex system chock-full of various influences and feedbacks, both positive and negative. So far, despite the hyperventilating and fervent wishing by Alarmists, the evidence points to no, it has had very little impact. I like how the Al Gore apologists now jump in and say “this was never meant to be an actual experiment, just a dramatization”. Sure. And Al Gore really is doing all of this “for the good of the planet”.
J Calvert N says there is no way that Gore’s presentation ‘ could be called an experiment-it’s a demonstration.’
No, not a demonstration, a perfidiou TRICK using (two??) thermometers with numerous identical flaws. ‘Trick’…Hmmm where have I heard that term mentioned before in climate ‘science?’
Thank you Anthony Watts, rival to Hercule Poirot, the world’s greatest detective
Why is there any need for a bottle of CO2? Isn’t human breath about 40,000 ppm?
Like Gore’s missing second thermometer:-)
Very well done Anthony,
The thermometer is the same in the side by side shots due to the cast shadows as well as the similarities you pointed out. They simply heated them differently in 2 takes and edited the takes together for the split screen.
The other thing I found was the security badge on the lab coat in 1:05 vs 1:09 and the soft focus on the coat in 1:09 which requires an f stop change. Its also odd the badge is so dark in 1:05 vs 1:09 which may imply some special effects editing.
Great news, great debate but for the benefit of Mr. Gates and his ilk.
Forget the science
Thats a red herring.
The Message has been wholly and substantially Falsified. End of story. start the funeral rites. The message is no more, deceased, no more existent.
RACook:
You assume that I am claiming CO2 as the only influence on temp. I’m not. Ocean cycles seem to be very important on decadal scales; and there are other forcings and feedbacks. The curve may be as squiggly as you like, but the CO2 theory is sound in itself.
You also assume that I am claiming that the extra 100ppm of CO2 is necessarily anthropogenic. Not so. I think the arguments for short residence time (<10y) are not easily dismissed, so it is not yet clear whether the CO2 increase is a forcing or a feedback – or, likely, a bit of both.
Anyway, a climate with dozens of inputs is not a good way to measure the influence of CO2 definitively, as you claim. I could probably do a better job with a couple of cookie jars…
Julian Braggins says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:40 am
“But the Earth/Sun is not a closed system”
If we include the moon then for most practical purposes it is indeed a closed system. Theoretically no system can be completely closed as it’s impossible to fully isolate anything from the rest of the universe. The universe itself may or may not be a closed system. If you disagree about earth/moon/sun being a closed system for purposes of earth’s energy budget please elaborate on where you think significant energy enters the system.
I’ve never argued that convection doesn’t cause compressional heating but this is a not a source of energy because for every descending air mass that is undergoing compressional heating there is an equal and opposite air mass that is rising and cooling. The falling air mass doesn’t leave a vacuum behind it! It displaces the air below it. So for every air mass that is heated by compression there is an equal and opposite air mass that is cooled by expansion.
Henry@Rolf Atkinson
You and Steven and others are mistaken.
An experiment that only looks at the radiative warming is not valid as it does not take into account that CO2 is also cooling the atmosphere, both the radiative cooling (by deflecting sunshine) and the cooling by taking part in the life cycle (plants and trees need warmth and CO2 to grow).
the question is: what is the net effect?
I argued the same point here with davidmhoffer:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/24/moncktons-letter-to-the-journal-remote-sensing/#comment-754794
By analysing data from weather stations, I find that the warming observed on earth in the past 50 years was largely due to natural causes and a small % may be due to increased vegetation.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
R. Gates says:
September 28, 2011 at 7:52 pm
“It was never meant to be a documentation of an actual experiment being conducted.”
Amazing.. R Gates supports a criminal conspiracy to defraud the public. This is clear evidence of his desperation. Amazing, he is willing to be a co-conspirator, facing a jury.
Rolf Atkinson says:
September 29, 2011 at 2:36 am
“It has brought out the worst in a lot of people, including Lord Monckton, whose Bishop Hill blog is also a favourite.”
——————————————————————————-
Que?
Al Gore is in Scotland at the moment and praising us for how we are leading the world in green energy. We should be happy that the countryside is covered in wind turbines? Alex Salmond (First Minister) is puffed up like a bullfrog. Should we in haggisland be worried about this? Praise from Al Gore is surely never good.
Just watched the original video and see your point about the split screen thermometer scene. The entire video is special effects tweeked to make it more interesting to view. The jumping temps in the thermometer are ridiculous. I inclined to write it off as a lab simulation (not experiment) designed to hold the attention of younger viewers (grades 3-6).
Verba says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:14 pm
“It depends on the conditions. There might be a gradient *that is not adiabatic*, or there might be no gradient. Consider perfectly conductive solid sphere.”
No, I’m not going to consider a perfectly conductive sphere. I need YOU to consider reality. The reality is that the sun heats the ocean, the ocean heats the atmosphere, and the cosmic void cools the atmosphere. The atmosphere is not perfectly conducting and in fact is a rather poor conductor. There is a temperature gradient established in the atmosphere from surface to space and it requires absolutely no motion to maintain the gradient. If you believe that to be untrue then your understanding of the real world of everyday objects and how energy moves from warmer to colder is so utterly ignorant that I’m just going to pat you on head like a dumb animal and move along. Got it? Write that down!
Rolf Atkinson writes “You also assume that I am claiming that the extra 100ppm of CO2 is necessarily anthropogenic. Not so. I think the arguments for short residence time (<10y) are not easily dismissed,". Such arguments are easily dismissed. The residence time is indeed less than 10 years, however (as pointed out by the first IPCC WG1 report, on page 8) the residence/turnover time is not relevant to the discussion of the cause of increased atmospheric CO2, what matters is the adjustment time (which is 50-200 years). The fact that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic emissions is one of the few bits of science that actually is settled, even if there are those who are unable to accept it.
For a good explanation of this issue, see Ferdinand Engelbeen's excellent website (note Ferdinand is a skeptic)
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/co2_measurements.html#The_mass_balance
Dikran Marsupial writes:
The fact that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic emissions is one of the few bits of science that actually is settled, even if there are those who are unable to accept it.
Henry@Dikran
Instead of wiping out my comments on Sceptirical Science, why don’t you analyse the results of a number of weather stations and prove to me that the modern warming observed on earth is caused by an increase in GHG’s?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
“I’m not doubting that CO2 has a positive radiative heating effect in our atmosphere”
So why have you wasted a week of your time investigating a video that illustrates that? If your “demand” is that they should have shot the whole thing live and unedited, well, your “demand” is bizarre. Obviously, though, whatever form this experiment was presented in, you would go to these amazing lengths to find whatever flaws you could convince yourself existed.
Excellent post. I noticed that at 4.02 in the video there is an image of the Solucar platform, visited by Gore and Pachauri in 2008. Solucar is owned by Abengoa and received investment in 2007 from Generation Investment Management (GIM) of which Gore is chairman.
This of course is an example of the billions of dollars of investment dependent on their ’cause’, which is why a bogus experiment is so much more serious than it may at first seem.
http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/private/relationship.asp?personId=1341924
I think Anthony, is merely performing due diligence as part of his journalistic duties, trying to find “all the news that is fit to print”. The state-controlled media have failed miserably in this respect.
For the sake of argument, pretend that Bush and Cheney not Gore, were the producers of this video. You will have to admit the state-controlled media would be having a field on this. There would be fusillades of “drive-by reporting” by major new anchors, the talking heads, the View gals, the liberal bloggers. They would all be dissecting and deconstructing this “artful” video exactly like Anthony is doing now.
Is it really newsworthy? I think so. The public needs to know how they’re being manipulated by these powerful, unseen political forces. (On both sides, if applicable, of course. ‘Fair and balanced’, right?)
So keep ’em rolling Anthony. All the news that’s fit to print!
Ask why is it so? says:
September 29, 2011 at 4:31 am
To Anthony Watts
“…CO2 can produce heat ….”
Mr. Ask.. you surely don’t mean this. If you do then you have no reason to berate anyone about anything.
CO2 cannot produce heat!
So my next question is:
Is the “greenhouse effect” exactly the same principle that heats a greenhouse?
RGates:
The video says it is an experiment to demonstrate the GH effect. You have said that even though it is edited it shows what was intented.
Do you stick by that?
I find all the defenses of “it was just a demonstration” to be equally ridiculous to the “it was just a joke” defense over the recent comments by the governor of North Carolina that the upcoming 2012 elections should be suspended.
I’m particularly disappointed in R. Gates, he should know better.
Nearly all media is attended by makeup artists. What is different about such artists now is that there are makeup artists for food, photos, animals, videos, nature shots, outer space pictures, planets, clouds, and even air. There is likely not a single photo, still, or video on your computer that has not been retouched in some fashion. The only real life view these days is through the eyes of a mature 70 plus year old with cataracts who wonders why it is foggy indoors.
John from CA says:
September 29, 2011 at 5:24 am
“… I inclined to write it off as a lab simulation (not experiment) designed to hold the attention of younger viewers (grades 3-6).”
Perhaps it would be better to say “designed to indoctrinate younger viewers (grades 3-6)”
I lost respect for Mythbusters years ago when they were doing a test of the myth that plants have empathetic responses. To start, let me say that I do not endorse such a theory,but their “test” had me pulling my hair out.
First they acquired two identical lie detectors and hooked the electrodes of one to the plant and the other they kept by their side as a control. They then thought “bad thoughts” about the plant with the electrodes and low and behold they got a blip… they were stunned, I was intrigued. They then locked the plant and the detector in a shipping crate and brought the control out with them and did it again. Again their was a blip. They switched the detectors and replicated the phenomenon yet again.
So, crazy huh? Well… they weren’t done, you see. They were convinced that there was something wrong with their detectors or methodology so they got a state of the art EKG machine and hooked the plant to it, repeated the experiment, and didn’t get a blip. They then happily declared the myth busted.
Except that they hadn’t busted the myth. They simply showed that a different machine gets a different result… but then that is expected when the machines are different
Indeed. The sore loserism on display is breathtaking.
The “Climate Reality” web site has a blog associated with the “Climate 101” video, where I submitted a comment asking if the experiment was faked in the manner described here at WUWT. ( http://climaterealityproject.org/2011/09/23/climate-101-did-you-see-it/ ). Naturally, I do not expect my comment to be posted, but perhaps the responsible “communications intern,” Michelle Eider, will see it and begin to have her young eyes opened.
Greg says:
September 29, 2011 at 3:52 am
“…what do Al Gore and all the millions of other scientists and naturalists and lay people who are persuaded of the need to cut greenhouse emissions have to gain from it?”
You’re joking aren’t you??
Al Gore is multi-millionaire, and got a huge chunk of income from “An Inconvenient Truth” and other climate-related “activities” (he even got HALF of the Nobel Prize loot in 2007 – HEH).
And you should educate yourself on the huge INCREASES in budgets for climate “science”. You can start here.
Yes, CAGW alarmism and the “green” movement is ALL about the billions of dollars in Climate Ca$h.
Lord of the Rings was edited?
@R. Gates. An Inconvenient Truth was not meant to be a scientific documentary either. For once I agree with you.
I am willing to concede that CO2 causes some heating due to absorption and re-emission of long wave radiation. The British Royal society estimates it is .4 ° C for a doubling of CO2 [open loop].
The bodies are buried in the feedbacks which appear to be negative and reduce this already small amount of warming.
The other leg of my objection to the climate alarmists is the “fixes” are more damaging than what is being fixed. Not only that, but even if you believed that CO2 was harmful, massive taxes would drive jobs overseas and actually increase CO2 worldwide emissions.
The “fix” doesn’t fix anything.
In my opinion mitigation is all that should be done and even that should be done at the last minute because it may never be necessary.
The worst part is that CO2 hysteria prevents the USA from being energy independent by development of coal, natural gas, and shale oil which we have in abundance. There is no reason we should be dependent upon the middle east and it is dangerous to us.
Greg says:
September 29, 2011 at 3:52 am
The problem with this climate conspiracy fallacy is this: what do Al Gore and all the millions of other scientists and naturalists and lay people who are persuaded of the need to cut greenhouse emissions have to gain from it?
Why do climate trolls always feel the need to invent a “climate conspiracy fallacy”? I’ll admit, it makes for an easy straw man to demolish. You’re asking us what Al Gore and Believers in manmade warming/climate/change/disruption/chaos/etc. gain from their Belief? Really? Try money, fame, ego, need to belong to a cult, and feel that one is doing Good (as in “saving the planet”), for starters. The motivations are many and varied and they all play rather well to the foibles of mankind. You might try looking in a mirror. Look closely, now.
glacierman says:
September 29, 2011 at 6:16 am
RGates:
The video says it is an experiment to demonstrate the GH effect. You have said that even though it is edited it shows what was intented.
Do you stick by that?
———–
The video is an illustration of a simple experiment that could be performed at home and it illustrates how to do it. It never claimed to be an actual recording of the experiment being done. The whole point is to let the viewers try it for themselves to see the results…and Anthony (who doesn’t doubt the greenhouse effect of co2) did exactly that so at least one person did exactly what the video was suggesting.
REPLY: And again, your claim about home replication/actual recording is bullshit of the highest order since they put up no “Dramatization” notice). And while it is true I know CO2 has a LWIR radiative property that provide sa small amount of warming (compared to water vapor) The amount of CO2 warming is pretty small by comparison, non-linear, and we are approaching the top of the saturation curve for returned LWIR. So, unlike you, I don’t see it as much of a problem, and unlike the dishonest Mr. Gore, I don’t see AGW hiding behind every weather event as he would have the world believe.
– Anthony
No surprise that Gore is incapable of representing ANYTHING of reality!
RGates Says:
“The video is an illustration of a simple experiment that could be performed at home and it illustrates how to do it. It never claimed to be an actual recording of the experiment being done. The whole point is to let the viewers try it for themselves to see the results…and Anthony (who doesn’t doubt the greenhouse effect of co2) did exactly that so at least one person did exactly what the video was suggesting.”
Again avoid the question and the point and try to argue something else. Very disciplined misdirection.
The video does not show a “Greenhouse Effect” as it states. It is called the “greenhouse effect in a bottle” afterall. That is the point. You do much to help the cause so please keep it up.
I salute your endeavours exposing this endless corruption.
Who’da thunk a really long post about glass cookie jars could be so interesting! They can’t even stand up to marketing scrutiny, let alone scientific scrutiny.
Great post & keep up the good work.
NetDr says:
September 29, 2011 at 7:24 am
Actually I can’t find any significant, demonstrable downsides to higher level of CO2 in the atmosphere. There are significant, demonstrable benefits. Plants don’t grow well on ice so any warming, which is predominantly in the form of milder nights & winters in higher latitudes, is welcome warmth as it extends growing seasons where extensions are most needed. Plants grow faster and use less water in the process in higher CO2. The earth is in an ice age so a bit more warmth provides a bit more insurance that some combination of earth-cooling events like volcanic eruptions and solar minima won’t combine to trigger the next round of glaciation.
So where are the demonstrable downsides? All I see is handwaving about possible climate disruption but no actual negative disruption is occurring.
glacierman says:
September 29, 2011 at 7:47 am
RGates Says:
“The video is an illustration of a simple experiment that could be performed at home and it illustrates how to do it. It never claimed to be an actual recording of the experiment being done. The whole point is to let the viewers try it for themselves to see the results…and Anthony (who doesn’t doubt the greenhouse effect of co2) did exactly that so at least one person did exactly what the video was suggesting.”
Again avoid the question and the point and try to argue something else. Very disciplined misdirection.
The video does not show a “Greenhouse Effect” as it states. It is called the “greenhouse effect in a bottle” afterall. That is the point. You do much to help the cause so please keep it up.
———–
To the question of “greenhouse in a bottle” there are of course two different types of greenhouse effects going on in such an experiment. One of them is happening in both bottles and one is happening to a greater extent only in the bottle with the added CO2.
Err… no. This (if it were properly done) would demonstrate the Tyndall effect. The greenhouse effect is a whole nuther experiment, with a rather different apparatus. And the greenhouse effect from CO2 would be just about impossible to demonstrate in an apparatus of reasonable size, since it would require several km of gas space.
So this faked demonstration of the Tyndall effect was misrepresented as a real experiment proving the greenhouse effect (2 strikes already), and then they jumped from that to AGW complete with feedback.
That’s at least four strikes. You’re out.
Anthony, while I am as frustrated as you are with the fabrication (and dissapointed in Mr Nye. Such fond memories of my childhood trampled recently), I have to say that you saved your best (and really, only valid) point for last. I’ve seen numerous times when someone had to fake the results of simple experiments for the cameras (I’m not meaning embarassing ones like shoving lemmings of cliffs and putting bombs in beakers) because it couldn’t be seen well on camera. While it isn’t good science, I would actually support quickly removing the thermometers for photograph (well, I’d use a digital with a probe and end the whole problem since they aren’t really visible through the glass. The resulting demonstration is quite absurd, though. I would not be surprised if they actually Fred-Flinstoned it with a lighter.
However, the important points you save for the very end. CO2 doesn’t absorb short wave infrared, Glass does, and the only change is in the density of the gas. The addition of CO2 to the one also adds convection not present in the other . This is a heat transfer problem and has nothing to do with radiation.
Al Gore can lie up to a High school physics level but not including!!!!!
R. Gates says:
September 29, 2011 at 8:04 am
To the question of “greenhouse in a bottle” there are of course two different types of greenhouse effects going on in such an experiment. One of them is happening in both bottles and one is happening to a greater extent only in the bottle with the added CO2.
——————-
Great, now all you need to do is prove that the Earth is surrounded by a gigantic glass sphere that inhibits the free expansion of atmospheric gasses.
I always like to present my simple microbiology experiment. Single cells are the most abundant form of biomass on earth so life on earth can be represented by a culture of bacteria.
Measure the temperature in the atmosphere above a liquid culture of bacteria. Slightly heat the culture and measure CO2 again. The CO2 level has increased owing to an increase in metabolism of the bacteria.
Conclusion: Increasing global CO2 is caused by increasing global temperature.
Nice job on the research.
But, oh my god! I can not believe you wasted so much time on something so stupid! You spent all that time just to prove a video that was meant only to be a cartoon-like representation of the real science was not a real experiment? Seriously? That wasn’t obvious to you before you wasted all that time and energy? IT WAS NEVER INTENDED TO FOOL ANYONE INTO BELIEVING IT WAS A VIDEO OF A REAL SCIENCE EXPERIMENT. Bill Neigh normally uses cartoons to demonstrate such things to 10 year olds. Would you have wasted the same amount of time proving the cartoon was not a video of a real science experiment?
The video was only done to illustrate the approximate level of complexity of doing a real experiment to show how it was something simple enough for a high school student to do, and to understand. IT WAS NOT A REAL EXPERIMENT and anyone over the age of 10 should have understood that without having to do all your video forensics.
The only thing worse than the time you wasted carefully proving the obvious, was that people who read your blog actually thought you had done something useful. How sad of a world do we really live in here that when all the complexity and hard political problems of the climate change debate comes down to people wasting their time proving a video created in a studio is not real life?
This is, once again, why this blog in the #1 science blog on the internets….
R.Gates says: “and Anthony (who doesn’t doubt the greenhouse effect of co2)”
Is this true, (Anthony)?
the only effect I could notice and predict from the increased CO2 is increased vegetation which indeed does cause some warming, as it appears to be trapping some heat, but I don’t think it is that much. The bigger part of modern warming (past 50 years) is due to natural reasons.
So,indirectly there is some effect from the increase in CO2 but it is what people and greenies want: more trees and more green.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
R. Gates says:
September 29, 2011 at 8:04 am
I’m with Monckton Anthony. This is actionable. If you need any funds just say the word
Curt Welch,
What color is the sky on your planet? Because here on planet earth, Algore fully intended to give the impression that he was conducting a legitimate science experiment. He provided no disclaimers to the contrary. He is simply carrying on his mendacious modus operandi from An Inconvenient Truth. And how Anthony uses his time is no business of yours at all.
Seems some are suggesting that the additional CO2 in a glass container absorbs no LW radiation, eh? That extra LW bouncing around the inside of the glass container will not register on a thermometer, eh? Wow. Well, I guess since the speed of light appears not to actually be the fastest speed in the universe, then we might as well not have LW radiation affecting thermometers either.
Red Etin writes “Conclusion: Increasing global CO2 is caused by increasing global temperature.”
No. If the natural environment were a net source of CO2 into the atmosphere then the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 would be greater than annual anthropogenic emissions (as both man and the natural environment would be net sources), but this is not the case, so we know with a high degree of certainty that the rise is not a natural phenomenon.
The experiment only shows that warm microbes produce more CO2 than cool microbes. It doesn’t prove that CO2 increases because of temperature increases becase it ignores many other factors that affect atmospheric concentrations (including man).
Now if I were WUWT, instead of pointing out a scientific flaw in the argument, as I have just done, I would make do with complaining that the experiment wasn’t filmed in a single take! ;o)
P.S. if your post was a parody, sorry, it was just too subtle for me.
Even the Mythbusters get it wrong when they say that the Digital thermometers have an accuracy of 0.1degC. in fact, they have a resolution of 0.1deg. Their accuracy is dependent upon the device specifications and how long it is since they were calibrated.
Thanks to those who pointed out my confusion of Montford and Monckton. I have a fair respect for both – but Monckton it was whose outburst I thought was rather regrettable.
HenryP says:
You and Steven and others are mistaken.
An experiment that only looks at the radiative warming is not valid as it does not take into account that CO2 is also cooling the atmosphere, both the radiative cooling (by deflecting sunshine) and the cooling by taking part in the life cycle (plants and trees need warmth and CO2 to grow).
the question is: what is the net effect?
Henry clearly doesn’t know that CO2 is transparent to sunshine but traps the IR reradiated from the surface.
Dikran Marsupial says:
September 29, 2011 at 5:31 am
Rolf Atkinson writes “You also assume that I am claiming that the extra 100ppm of CO2 is necessarily anthropogenic. Not so. I think the arguments for short residence time (<10y) are not easily dismissed,". Such arguments are easily dismissed. The residence time is indeed less than 10 years, however (as pointed out by the first IPCC WG1 report, on page 8) the residence/turnover time is not relevant to the discussion of the cause of increased atmospheric CO2, what matters is the adjustment time (which is 50-200 years). The fact that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthropogenic emissions is one of the few bits of science that actually is settled, even if there are those who are unable to accept it.
The part Dikran didn't bother to read was "likely, a bit of both". There is anthropogenic CO2, but there is also CO2 outgassed from warmer surface waters. Dikran denies the latter though it follows from the temp-solubility relationship (and, if I remember rightly, it is included in that IPPC section?) I expressed caution about the claims of 100% of 100ppm from anthropogenic sources. Dikran thinks the science is settled to that degree of accuracy.
More importantly, the IPCC position seems to be that the adjustment time is 50+ years based on an assumption (?) that there is minimal mixing between the relatively CO2-rich shallows and the relatively CO2-starved depths. I wouldn't know, but I do know that not a lot of the research billions has been spent on researching this key issue. I.also note a recent paper (last week?) from the orthodox camp suggesting that the missing heating for the last decade has mysteriously found its way into the abyss; so maybe that non-mixing assumption is less than secure, and, if so, the adjustment time of 50+ years would not be secure either, and "the fact that the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to anthopogenic emissions" would not be settled, nor indeed a fact.
@curt Welch
> But, oh my god! I can not believe you wasted so much time on something so stupid!
Not so fast. The time was actually well spent proving their intent was fraudulent.
The intent of the video was to convince the viewers that catastrophic CO2 warming is so plainly obvious that a even a ‘stupid’ high-school level experiment would demonstrate the truth of this fact.
The intent of the video was to have viewers to believe they witnessed a very simple, but deliberately overacted demonstration of scientific truth. (“See it’s _so_ true, that it’s still true, even if we overact a bit!”)
If that wasn’t the intent, then Al Gore wasted a lot his and his donors’ money on something very stupid.
Gore may be an idiot, but he’s not _that_ stupid.
It is NEVER a ‘waste’ to illustrate that someone has been fraudulent. Establishing that someone is fraudulent in one instance lays doubt to everything else they purport. That is as it should be.
R. Gates, nobody answered my question, so I’ll ask you.
Is the “greenhouse effect” exactly the same principle that heats a greenhouse?
Rolf Atkinson says:
“Henry clearly doesn’t know that CO2 is transparent to sunshine but traps the IR reradiated from the surface”
Henry@Rolf Atklinson
the truth is that I do understand and I found that CO2 is not transparent to sunshine:
try understanding the footnote here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
There are in fact very few people who do understand the GH effect and the principle of re-radiation.
It needs some serious re-thinking?
Rolf Atkinson “likely a bit of both” is also ruled out by the observation that the annual increase in atmospheric CO2 is less than annual anthropogenic emissions, which proves the natural environment is a net sink, and hence has actively opposed the rise, and has not contributed to it at all.
While it is true that the solubility-temperature relationship suggests that CO2 is less soluble in warmer waters, there is also the fact that uptake of CO2 is also governed by the difference in partial pressure of CO2 between the atmosphere and the surface waters. The evidence suggests that the latter effect is dominant, which explains why the oceans are a net carbon sink, and the magnitude of the oceanic sink is still increasing (which is a very good thing).
The 50 year estimate of the adjustment time relates to the rapid response of the surface ocean to an increase in atmospheric CO2. The lower layers of the ocean also have an effect, but on longer timescales as the CO2 has to move through the surface waters first in order to get there. Hence the “simple” model used by the IPCC characterises the response by a sum of exponential decays at different rates, representing the different mechanisms involved. David Archer’s carbon cycle primer has a good explanation of the various mechanisms involved.
The point remains, the rise in atmospheric CO2 is essentially purely anthropogenic. Those that disagree need to be able to explain how the natural environment could have acted as a net carbon source while the annual rise in atmospheric concentration remains less (i.e. about half) the level of annual anthropogenic emissions. This is a challenge that skeptics have been able to meet so far, I would be genuinely interested to hear otherwise.
However I don’t want to take the discussion off-topic, so I suggest anyone who is interested Googles for Ferdinand Engelbeen’s excellent web page on the topic, and just point out that the only think skeptics achieve by questioning this very well established point is to marginalise themselves from the discussion by demonstrating ignorance of some basic scientific facts (and indeed of the observations), and they would be much better sticking to areas where the science genuinely isn’t settled, such as climate sensitivity.
DR, the answer to your question is “No”, and this has been known at least since the work of Calendar and Plass in the 1950s. See Spencer Weart’s excellent book and website for the details.
Regarding Mythbusters, they at least appear to have created a somewhat decent apparatus for demonstrating the Tyndall effect (notice that it didn’t look as sciency as Nye’s cookie jars?). They didn’t state the concentrations. Maybe they chose the concentrations to be equivalent to an atmosphere’s worth of GHGs; I just don’t know.
What they didn’t do is:
1) Demonstrate the greenhouse effect.
2) Demonstrate how the greenhouse effect works on a rotating earth with half the surface in the dark.
3) Demonstrate feedback.
So it was kind of cheap of them to than have that kid say that the experiment proves that humans are causing most of the warming of the earth.
Mythbusters, like Snopes, usually does a decent job, but they, like Snopes, are not above cheap tricks when they have an agenda.
Even if this experiment was done in one take and not fabricated, it is still a busted experiment. Since the lightbulbs use emit shortwave that is being absorbed by the glass cookie jar and that heated glass is what is heating the CO2, then if the cookie jars are not EXACTLY the same with the EXACT same mass, then obviously they are going to heat at different rates. And considering these things are most likely made in China with the worst quality control on the planet, the chances of them being 100% identical are near zero.
Well thank you, but as Mosher says some skeptics are on the fringe, what should one think about.the EPA and multiple other government agencies and institutions that answers the question “Yes”? To prevent being eaten by the spam bot, here is but a few examples, but there are dozens of others, and it is being taught to students by “scientists”. The ‘Greenhouse effect in a bottle” is no different than a glass greenhouse.
Woods Hole Research Center:
http://www.whrc.org/resources/primer_greenhouse.html
Is how the “greenhouse effect” works?
http://www.whrc.org/resources/images/car_greenhouse.png
Now, as nobody I’m aware of has yet to review and respond to Nasif Nahle’s recent experiment that doesn’t bode well for the Arrhenius fans, here is the link again. It would be nice to see some substantive replies on his paper.
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/Experiment_on_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
The point R. Gates and others seem to be missing is that there obvious editing to allow the “experiment” to be shown in a short period of time. There is nothing wrong with this if this had been the only editing. However, it is clearly implied (you can do this on your own) that the experiments WAS done essentially as shown and the results were as shown. The fact they they were fabricated is a serious issue and all involved should be held accountable.
Steven Mosher and his candle video, it would have been more compelling if they added more humidity or other atmospheric elements as well in seperate runs. Would the spectrographic camera have reacted to other additions as well? I suspect many things in the open model or experiment could be absorbing heat and that these can vary in impact all the time in the dynamic and chaotic state. They don’t state how many parts of co2 they are actually adding but is blocking the spectrograph the same as “absorbing heat” as claimed? Increasing anything might have had similar results. Was there no way to measure an actual temperture inside the tube before and after? It’s so small which is why the spectrograph is being used in the first place.
What do you think you would have seen if the control had been .025% vs .05% vs. .10%comparision? I realize it’s an illustration but why is it assumed co2 is the unique driver of the total greenhouse effect? I’d like to see details on clouds and humidity as well. So again, it’s a question of impacts and of course the presentation that co2 is especially unique as greenhouse impact input. Especially jumping from an enclosed tube to the open earth reality.
It’s an interesting part of how and what gets debated. co2 is assumed the driver but methane and water (for example) don’t get equal examination, they are sent to the back of the bus since it distracts from the co2 narrative. I don’t think co2 absorbing heat or blocking a spectrograph is all that compelling in itself if you exclude other variables that have far more ghg importance and assumed “constants” in the ghg/co2 narrative. It’s similar to the climate “equibrium” assumption that looks bogus right on the face of it. Only changing co2 is accountable when all the inputs are changing in a chaotic fashion forever within a naturally variable form. At the very least the amounts of additions should be disclosed but the experiment is meant to be deceptive by avoiding logical comparisons and elevating co2 impact. I can’t prove anything but what if relative humidity from farming and agriculture or natural cycles not well understood was changing greenhouse conditions instead of minor co2 changes?
DR, Nahle merely demonstrates that greenhouses don’t work by trapping IR radiation. The reason nobody has responded to his paper is that it is news to nobody (or at least it ought not to be a surprise to any climatologist). It says precisely nothing about the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere, which is a bit of a misnomer as unlike a greenhouse it does depend on IR radiation (rather than preventing convection). What would be the point of responding to a paper that confirms what we have known for over a century about how greenhouses work? If Nahle extends that to the atmosphere then the kindest thing you could say was that his understanding of climatology is about a century out of date and perhaps he ought to go and read some of the important papers that were published on this in the 50s and 60s. People publish stuff that is wrong all the time, generally there is only a response if the paper gains significant attention, which thus far Nahle has not (I hope for his sake this continues to be the case).
There is no conceivable way that CO2 would have been steady without mankind in the picture since the natural warming from the LIA to the present would have raised CO2 levels 5-10 ppm. The rest of the 100 ppm rise is due to mankind’s involvement. So the most supported statement is “90-95% of the total rise is anthropogenic as well as 100% of the ongoing rise”
Eric (skeptic) If you accept estimates of CO2 levels prior to the Mauna Loa record from ice cores (e.g. Law dome) then the mass balance argument shows that the natural environment has been a net carbon sink going back to the mid 1800s at least (IIRC), I would suggest largely because emissions from land use change raised atmospheric levels sufficiently high that the increase in oceanic uptake due to the difference in partial pressure overcame the expected increase due to warming from the recovery from the LIA. In which case the natural envrionment still has not contributed to the rise, however the observations prior to the Mauna Loa dataset are more uncertain.
I’d be happy with the compromise that at least since the start of the Mauna Loa dataset the rise in atmospheric CO2 has been 100% anthropogenic and 0% natural.
Something here is ridiculous Anthony.
Hands up anyone who thinks cookery programmes prepare dishes in real time and never do the old one two switcheroo…
No takers? Really?
REPLY: Documenting a science experiment and doing a cooking show are entirely different. People expect exact documentation in science, they don’t in a cooking show, though in cooking shows at least we get to see (and watch people taste) the final results. I’ve never seen a dish “faked” by editing like Gore did with his results. And in cooking shows, they provide a list of ingredients at least, Gore didn’t do that. Gore’s video experiment was entirely fabricated.
Even the dumbest greenhorn TV news reporter knows enough not to do a re-enactment or dramatization without making it clear. Gore didn’t do that, and if he had there would be no argument.
If the experiment was so easy, so surefire that they invite people to do it at home, why not simply show the results as they actually happened? If they did, no problem. But they didn’t, and they faked it in editing.
If Gore can’t even rise to the TV science standards set by Mythbusters, then there’s no defense. Sorry, your defense of the indefensible doesn’t fly, like with R. Gates above, it is bullshit of the highest order. – Anthony
Anthony, I posted a clip from Carl Sagan’s excellent Cosmos series, which shows an experiment taking place. I very much doubt that the scientist shown is actually performing the experiment for real, just posing for the camera. Do you think that equally reprehensible? I don’t think either are a significant problem. “Experiments” have been mocked up on a regular basis on science programs for years, and as far as I can see it isn’t a big deal because it is public communication of science, not the actual science itself, so a recreation is O.K. Now if the results demonstrated can’t be replicated by performing the experiment depicted for real, that would be another matter entirely, but this does seem like making a mountain out of a molehill. However that is merely my opinion.
REPLY: And they didn’t say “you can try this yourself at home” did they? Gore has made a big deal out of “fact based presentations”, training people to do them, presenting them as fact, now you want to say facts can be faked for the sake of the presentation, sorry, doesn’t fly. If the experiment was so easy to replicate, then do it, show it, even if edited, but at least show the actual final result. But they didn’t. Instead they faked the thermometer scene using one thermometer, the fakery isn’t even good. Sorry, FAIL
Gore can clear this right up by showing the unedited video of the experiment results if he wishes, but he won’t.
But thats OK, fakery is near and dear to you, having a fake persona and all that, so I forgive your inability to come to terms with it. – Anthony
Curt Welch says:
September 29, 2011 at 8:32 am
The video was only done to illustrate the approximate level of complexity of doing a real experiment to show how it was something simple enough for a high school student to do, and to understand. IT WAS NOT A REAL EXPERIMENT and anyone over the age of 10 should have understood that without having to do all your video forensics.
Right, Curt, in order to do
REALClimate Science “experiments”, all we need instead is some Global Circulation Computer Models [GCM’s] to give us a range ofREALpredetermined numbers as dictated by “the physics” already written into the Global Circulation WARMING MODELS – which presuppose that atmospheric CO2 concentrations must be running the climate and must cause any “climate change” – by theREAL“Climate Scientists”, thereby producing someREALgenuine, certified Climate Science “data”, which has somehow never come to exist in the REAL WORLD so far, thus proving that THE REAL WORLD DOES NOT EXIST!Likewise, Curt, you and your buddies just keep repeating your magic meme de jour and it will replace reality as “truth”, just like like the GCM’s have! And then you can “WIN”, the ultimate proof of the “VALIDITY” of any otherwise unhinged POLITICAL SCIENCE PROPAGANDA OPERATION!
Clearly,
Dirkran Marsupal
has not reacted to my claim that he has deliberately wiped off many of my comments on his SS website.
Surely, he has has no right to speak here and force any of his “postings” on us?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
With the amount of money they hope to get from everyone with the falsehood of global warming why isn’t anyone calling for fraud charges be placed against Al Gore and the millions he has made and the millions more he expects to receive from the fraud he perpetuates.
When does this end and those responsible for causing this be brought up on charges.
Dikran Marsupial,
You may not be aware of it, but R.W. Wood’s greenhouse experiment has been widely criticised by the alarmist crowd. But Prof Nahle’s experiment has confirmed Wood’s:
CONCLUSION
The greenhouse effect inside greenhouses is due to the blockage of convective heat transfer with the environment and it is not related, neither obeys, to any kind of “trapped” radiation. Therefore, the greenhouse effect does not exist as it is described in many didactic books and articles.
CO2 does not have nearly the temperature effect claimed. Further, there is no evidence whatever of any global harm from the rise in that essential trace gas. CO2 is harmless and beneficial. More is better.
It’s TV Anthony, it’s staged for the camera. That’s how TV works.
I was distraught when I discovered that Roy Underhill’s Woodwright’s Shop was really a mocked up set in a studio with big lights and cameras on the other side. But then I put my best grown up hat on, decided it was probably okay and got on with life.
They were not documenting a live scientific experiment. It was not a documentary.
REPLY: Sorry, not buying it, Gore claims it is so simple, so “high school physics” that he invited people to do it at home. If it was that simple, at least show the actual results. Dirt simple to do really. Note those are oral thermometers, designed to hold the high reading. All they had to do was take them out of the jars on camera, put them side by side, and show how one was higher than the other. No fakery needed. Or, put up a one word disclaimer “dramatization”. They couldn’t lift a finger to do either.
Gore has made a career of fact based science presentations with his slide shows, now you want to claim “oh, it’s TV”. Can’t have it both ways.
But they could not even do what adults do for their children with a fever – get the actual thermometer reading. No, they had to fake it. For all of Gore’ pronouncements of “The planet has a fever” you’d think he could at least get the reading off a fever thermometer, but noooo, and your defense of this is still bullshit of the highest order. – Anthony
Mr. Watts,
As a litigation attorney, a big part of my job is evaluating evidence (usually documents and testimony) and if the evidence is false, demonstrating its falsity to a jury so they knows it’s false, too. In so many circumstances, proving someone is being less than truthful is impossible because evidence is not always falsifiable. The saying, “It’s not what you know, but what you can prove” applies. But when I am able to show someone’s deception, it is a beautiful thing and reinforces my faith in the (legal) system. Kudos to you. You’d make a great litigator (I hope that’s taken as a compliment, which is how I meant it)!
I would like to wait till Al Gore comes out with whatever clarifications. He could be wrong genuinely.But the pains he takes to spread the awareness of the hazzards of GHGs must be respected.
Anthony, what is to stop anyone from performing the experiment at home (for real)?
Jay,
Apparently you just don’t know propaganda when you see it.
I would wait for a clarification from Mr.Al Gore. He could be wrong but the mistake may not be deliberate ,if any.The GHGs are affecting the global temperature is undisputed fact. The fact need not be disbilieved simply because somebody has erred in presenting. I still hope that the mitigation of GHG emissions would be seriously undertaken by the human population to prevent the disaster looming at large.
Jay says:
September 29, 2011 at 10:43 am
They were not documenting a live scientific experiment. It was not a documentary.
Yes, that is obvious, now that Anthony has exposed it. Unfortunately, they never stated that fact, meaning they MEANT to DECEIVE people. What part of that do you not understand?
“”””” Myrrh says:
September 29, 2011 at 4:16 am
George E. Smith says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:27 am
Water (H2O) is a very good absorber of 1 micron radiation, which is why the human skin, which is mostly water records that as “heat”. In contrast, no human senses respond in any way to 10.1 micron LWIR emissions, which humans are entirely unaware of. We have to go out of our way to detect that with special instrumentation.
Nonsense. The human body is mostly water and the heat we get direct from the Sun is what warms us up internally, and we have always had a perfect instrument to measure it, our own bodies, we sweat the extra heat away.. “””””
Well Myrrh, when you call something “nonsense” you need to be very specific about WHAT you are saying is nonsense. So let’s examine exactly what YOU excerpted from my post and called it “nonsense:
“””” Water (H2O) is a very good absorber of 1 micron radiation, “””” “Nonsense” says Myrrh, of one of the most prominent of all H2O molecular absorption bands
“””” which is why the human skin, which is mostly water records that as “heat”. “Nonsense” says Myrrh; (ergo , human skin does NOT record 1 micron radiation as “heat”. Myrrh has apparently never stood in front (at a distance) of a radiant “heater” that emits strongly in the 1 micron range; and it certainly hasn’t heated the air at that distance. Myrrh adds (quite irrelevently): ” The human body is mostly water and the heat we get direct from the Sun is what warms us up internally,” Please note Myrrh, that I said “””” human skin “”””, I said nothing about internal body heat or the Sun. Biologists might claim, that it was the food that we eat that warms us up internally, by oxidation of carbon and hydrogen in that food. Sunlight however does not significantly penetrate the human body, and if it did it would generate an inward falling Temperature gradient; rather than the ever present OUTWARD falling Temperature gradient. High altitude mountain climbers frequently die from internal body heat cooking their insides, because their cold skin protective clothing does not allow their excess internally generated body heat to escape.
“””” In contrast, no human senses respond in any way to 10.1 micron LWIR emissions, which humans are entirely unaware of. “””” “Nonsense” says Myrrh: “we have always had a perfect instrument to measure it, our own bodies, ”
So here’s a simple experiment for Myrrh to try ; others may enjoy it also.
All you need is an efficient source of 10.1 micron LWIR radiation. Well nothing can be more efficient, than a true BLACK BODY, and one can obtain one with its PEAK Spectral Radiant Emmittance right at 10.1 microns wavelength, at any grocery store or even a Starbucks coffee shop; go in and ask for a 16 ounce bottle of drinking water. Take it home and put it in the refrigerator to cool it down to 15 deg C, 59 deg F or 288 Kelvins, your choice; and the correct choice for a 10.1 peak black body radiator.
So set the cooled bottle up about 10-15 feet away from you to ensure that it is not heating the air in front of you with its 390 Watts per square metre of 10.1 micron peak LWIR radiant emissions.
Describe the heating sensation difference you feel between the stae when the water bottle is absent; and the state when the water bottle is present.
Come back to WUWT, and describe the heating experience from that instrument you have always had; namely your body; that can detect 10.1 micron radiation
Some people might actually be inclined to issue an apology for such a gaffe. I’d be content, if you simply learned to read what I say, BEFORE you describe it as “Nonsense”.
Hey Eric,
Here is an eye opener for you. That last 10 million years have been unusually cold! Check out 65 million years of climate change http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png.
@ Dikran Marsupial
I asked Is the “greenhouse effect” exactly the same principle that heats a greenhouse?
You replied:
DR, the answer to your question is “No”
I then provided an example directly from the EPA which I simply cut and paste into my question. Are you saying they are wrong or Nasif Nahle is wrong? What about WHRC? Here’s another:
It is very frustrating when people obfuscate. You did not refute anything that Nasif Nahle demonstrated in his experiment which was a replication of the Wood experiment in ~1909 that was a refutation of Arrhenius as I understand it. Rhetorical essays are not constructive, so please don’t reply unless you have something substantive to add. Arrhenius was sainted as a founding father of modern CO2 AGW “theory”. Yet, after asking the question whether his experiment was ever replicated to support his hypothesis, all we’ve got are these ‘greenhouse in a bottle’ parlor game frauds.
There are many more examples of scientists comparing the atmosphere to that of a real glass greenhouse, not just as an analogy but explaining CO2 “traps heat”, which is another quote that can be found in literally hundreds of publications. Either Mosher is right that some skeptics are on the fringe, or there is an entire educational system that is promoting junk science,
Where is this heat being “trapped”? Isn’t it supposed to be most prominent in the lower and mid tropical tropospheric region?
Jay says:
September 29, 2011 at 10:12 am
“Something here is ridiculous Anthony.
Hands up anyone who thinks cookery programmes prepare dishes in real time and never do the old one two switcheroo…
No takers? Really?”
They show the same thermometer two times on a split screen, the left one rising slower than the right one. That’s like a cooking show where the food is made from Polyurethan foam and painted while all the participants act as if it were delicious. After the judge tastes the PU spaghetti and gives his verdict, the show would show a recipe to the viewers, describing how to cook real spaghetti but telling the viewers that they’ll get the Polyurethane foam they saw in the show.
That’s the level of CAGW propaganda these days.
Henry@Bhat
I am disputing the fact that CO2 causes any warming, and many people here agree with me that nobody has proven that it warms more than it cools.
Using fake experiments as by Al Gore & co. must be exposed.
Try understanding
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
or show actual evidence that disproves my conclusions?
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Harishchandra Bhat says:
September 29, 2011 at 10:53 am
“I would wait for a clarification from Mr.Al Gore. He could be wrong but the mistake may not be deliberate ,if any.The GHGs are affecting the global temperature is undisputed fact. The fact need not be disbilieved simply because somebody has erred in presenting. I still hope that the mitigation of GHG emissions would be seriously undertaken by the human population to prevent the disaster looming at large.”
Really?
So, since it is an undisputed fact, you dont really need to see the the result of this experiment?
Because you “know” the result of the experiment before it is done?
That, Mr. Bhat, is called Confirmation Bias. One of the most dangerous attidutes we have within Science.
You say it is an undisputed fact?
Here is a proffessor, and he is disputing this fact;
http://principia-scientific.org/publications/Experiment_on_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
This means that you are lying, Mr. Baht. By omission or flat out lying, when you say it is a undisputed fact.
Go for it.
But remember what Feynman said: “the easiest person to fool is yourself”.
The “CO2” jar temperature would most likely be cooled to the temperature of the incoming gas.
The non CO2 jar would have heated up since it had no gas flow to cool it. This was not even high school physics. Any physics teacher would have given an “F” to the “student” who thought up this boondoggle
(Apologies for length, my attempts to be brief didn’t work.)
“No, I’m not going to consider a perfectly conductive sphere. I need YOU to consider reality.”
Reality is what I was describing.
“The reality is that the sun heats the ocean, the ocean heats the atmosphere, and the cosmic void cools the atmosphere.”
Yes, right so far.
“The atmosphere is not perfectly conducting and in fact is a rather poor conductor.”
The conducting sphere example was a proof-of-principle experiment to illustrate the point that a temperature difference does not always cause a gradual temperature gradient. You can make the sphere non-conducting if you like, although then it is difficult to get uniform heating. The general result is the same.
“There is a temperature gradient established in the atmosphere from surface to space and it requires absolutely no motion to maintain the gradient.”
If the atmosphere is transparent to IR and does not convect, then all the heat arrives at the surface, radiates from the surface, and the whole atmosphere will eventually settle at the temperature of the surface by conduction, with no thermal gradient.
If the atmosphere is opaque to IR and does not convect or conduct, then the heat arrives at the surface, the IR radiation diffuses through the atmosphere and radiates from the top, and the temperature profile will be approximately *exponential*. You will get a gradual change of temperature but it will not be the linear *adiabatic lapse rate*, which is what I said.
If the atmosphere is opaque to IR and does not convect but does conduct, then the temperature profile will be linear with a gradient that will depend on the thermal conductivity. It’s still not an adiabatic lapse rate.
Only convection and continual vertical movement can drive the gravity-based compression-expansion that maintains the adiabatic lapse rate. Without continual movement, the gravity mechanism people were talking about will have no effect.
Don’t confuse the term “adiabatic lapse rate” with “thermal gradient”. They’re not the same.
“If you believe that to be untrue then your understanding of the real world of everyday objects and how energy moves from warmer to colder is so utterly ignorant that I’m just going to pat you on head like a dumb animal and move along. Got it? Write that down!”
There are some people who find that if the peg doesn’t seem to fit into the hole, they just reach for a hammer. It doesn’t occur to them that perhaps they need to find a differently shaped peg.
You seem to be basing your entire understanding of how energy moves on your everyday experience, which can be misleading. You are no doubt familiar with simple thermal conductors, and understand that if you raise the temperature of one end by heating it, you set up a thermal gradient. But it’s not the temperature difference in itself that causes the gradient, but the way heat flows through it. Different mechanisms can lead to different sorts of gradient, or even none at all.
People were asking about a particular case – the gravity-driven adiabatic compression/expansion – and *in that particular case*, it requires convective motion to maintain it.
It doesn’t imply anything about any other case.
Does that help?
Al “I would be president” Gore has no scruples when it comes to keeping his profits off the climatechange scam flowing. What a jerk!
DR analogies are frequently used to explain complicated scientific ideas, some of them are good, some less good. For instance the car that heats up does at least communicate the idea that the atmosphere is transparent to visible light but not to IR. So while it doesn’t really explain the way the atmospheric greenhouse effect actually works, it isn’t completely wrong either. Neither is the use of analogies based on blankets, they provide some insight, but no where near a complete explanation. It would be pretty tiresome (and rather pointless) to go through all of the analogies that are used by various bodies classifying them as good, bad or indifferent. If you are at the point where you recognise that the analogies are limited, you are ready to move onto the next level of understanding the science. However not everyone (and that includes me) can jump straight to that level in one go, so there is some value in greatly simplified analogies.
You write: “You did not refute anything that Nasif Nahle demonstrated in his experiment which was a replication of the Wood experiment in ~1909 that was a refutation of Arrhenius as I understand it. ” Yes, this is very much the point I was making, we have known that Arrhenius did not have the proper understanding of the detailed mechanism for a very long time; which is why Nahle’s confirmation of Wood’s experiment tells us nothing about the atmospheric greenhouse effect.
If you want to understand how the greenhouse effect works, why not start by reading the works of Gilbert Plass?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Plass
And there is also an Adiabatic Lapse Rate that requires no temperature gradient to maintain it.
Combined together, they form the Environmental Lapse Rate. Now, what’s your point?
DR says: or there is an entire educational system that is promoting junk science,
Henry@DR
Yes unfortunately there is in fact an entire half generation that has been promoting junk science
They don’t really understand the GH effect and the principle of re-radiation
in fact, they don’t want to understand
because it will affect their pockets
This misunderstanding is similar to not understanding to those profiting why slavery in the past was bad.
It all has to do with economics.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Dikran Marsupial says:
September 29, 2011 at 10:12 am
I’d be happy with the compromise that at least since the start of the Mauna Loa dataset the rise in atmospheric CO2 has been 100% anthropogenic and 0% natural.
Ok by me, but only if you compromise by admitting that, since the “CO2 = AGW” hypotheses, a.k.a.”the [GCM] physics”, have not been successful in producing even one relevant empirically verified prediction so far, either the hypotheses have been falsified or the “Climate Scientists” involved are not practicing real scientific method and principle science, or both – since the complete failure of Climate Science’s “predictions” doesn’t seem to bother the “Climate Scientists” in the least!
Mr. Marsupial, would it really be such a difficult “compromise” for you to admit to the reality involving over 20 years now of “Climate Science”? Or would that be unfair because your acknowledged evolutionary state simply does not allow for that?
Hey, I’d even be willing to admit that Carl Sagan is certainly no match for The Prophet, if that would make you feel better!
@ Dikran Marsupial
Is the above a scientific fact? It is precisely what Wood said does not occur, and Nasif Nahle replicated. Has anyone since 1906 replicated Arrhenius’ experiment?
Now we’re dumbed down to Wikipedia? Puhleeze.
You did not answer my other question. If the greenhouse effect operates as advertised, it is well established in the literature the most warming should be taking place in the lower and mid tropical troposphere. For 20+ years I’ve been hearing that. It is what Santer 08 was attempting to show.
[snip – Sorry Tim, no more comments from you until you address this one, accusing me of warping data. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/25/a-modest-proposal-to-skeptical-science/#comment-753300 ]
Mariss says on September 28, 2011 at 7:33 pm …
Good work, Mariss, good work …
.
Bruce Cobb says:
“Yes, that is obvious, now that Anthony has exposed it. Unfortunately, they never stated that fact [that the video short wasn’t a documentary programme or document of a real live experiment], meaning they MEANT to DECEIVE people. What part of that do you not understand?”
The part where I’m supposed to be surprised and start jumping up and down like a school girl and screaming “fraud” and “liar”.
I don’t mind that Video and TV stage things for the camera. I don’t expect TV not to. I’d be more surprised if it didn’t. In fact, I’d be really surprised. TV is the the craft of staging things for the camera.
There are worse deceits in the world than a bit of editing and and a few continuity errors.
REPLY: Well then if “TV is the the craft of staging things for the camera” I’m sure then you are prepared to admit then that Mr. Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was “staged for the camera” and therefore should not be trusted because it is staged and not fully factual – Anthony
It appears that Anthony Watts is embarrassed by my pointing out that the Whole Climate 101 video has primary scientific mistakes besides the many post production mistakes that he has rightly found. I would think that the first error he would have pointed out would be the placing of the thermometers in the light path of IR(heat )lamps. No wonder the thermometers heated up. As Anthony’s fame is from showing how 1000’s of weather station are not up to standard because of “bad” or misplaced thermometers,this would be the first one on the list of errors.
Now the next item should have been to state that the demonstration is an example of “confined space heating”aka a classic “greenhouse” and has nothing to do with the phony “greenhouse gas effect” in the atmosphere. The “greenhouse gas effect” was disproved in 1909 by Robert W. Wood and in 2011 by Dr. N Nahle
Why after about 200 posts hasn’t this been stated?
My previous two posting about this are either being blocked or Are still under review>
REPLY: No embarrassment, just waiting for parts and equipment to arrive for part 2, as for your other posts, they probably contained something that flagged them for the SPAM filter. It happens – Anthony
DR The statement has some truth to it, but is not an adequate representation of our current understanding either. For instance the glass in a greenhouse is transparent to visible light and largely opaque to IR (in fact this is used as a selling point in double glazing). Thus a greenhouse will warm slightly as a result of “trapped” IR, although in a real greenhouse this effect is swamped by the effects of preventing convection. However, it doesn’t explain that the atmospheric greenhouse effect depends on the energy balance at the top of the atmosphere and depends on the temperature of the layer at which IR can be radiated into space, so it isn’t completely accurate either. Which is pretty much what I said in my previous post.
How many times to I have to say that nobody believes Arrhenius’ explanation of the mechanism of the greenhouse effect, and hasn’t since the 1960s?
We are not dumbed down to Wikipedia. If you go to the wikipedia page you will find it has a section called “Bibliography” which gives references to Plass’ key works. I said “why not start by reading the works of Gilbert Plass?” not “why not start by reading ABOUT Plass?”.
“If the greenhouse effect operates as advertised, it is well established in the literature the most warming should be taking place in the lower and mid tropical troposphere.”
In that case, you are ill-informed, the place where warming is expected to be most rapid is the high Arctic. The carbon cycle is the area I have looked into in most detail, but as I understand it the trophospheric hotspot is not a fingerprint of AGW, but is expected to accompany ANY warming, regardless of what type of forcing. Stratospheric cooling on the other hand is a finger-print of AGW, and is observed. However if you want to discuss that in more detail, I sugest you find someone more knowledgable on that particular topic than I am,
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Dispelling-two-myths-about-the-tropospheric-hot-spot.html
Why do some of the people scoffing at Anthony’s post write, “Everybody knows that….”?
Bruce Cobb says:
“Yes, that is obvious, now that Anthony has exposed it. Unfortunately, they never stated that fact [that the video short was not a documentary or a document of a real, live experiment], meaning they MEANT to DECEIVE people. What part of that do you not understand?”
The part where I’m supposed to jump up and down like an hysterical school girl and scream “fraud” and “liar”.
I don’t mind if TV and Video stages things for the camera. I don’t expect it not to. I’d be more surprised if they didn’t. In fact, I’d be very surprised. TV programme making is the craft of staging things for the camera.
There are worse deceits in the world than a bit of editing and a few continuity errors.
REPLY: The sad truth though is this. If it were I doing that experiment, and I fabricated the results exactly as you see them, but with an opposite conclusion, people such as yourself would in fact ‘jump up and down like an hysterical school girl and scream “fraud” and “liar”.’ There’s always a double standard when it comes to protecting this sort of stuff from criticism. Paid political bloggers such as the feckless Joe Romm (who’s favorite line is “making stuff up” when criticizing skeptic data, and DeSmogs and Grist et al would pick it up from complaints and excoriate me….but dare they criticize Gore for faking results presented to millions of people….noooooo.
-Anthony
Apologies for the double post.
REPLY: Well then if “TV is the the craft of staging things for the camera” I’m sure then you are prepared to admit then that Mr. Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was “staged for the camera” and therefore should not be trusted because it is staged and not fully factual – Anthony
Of course it was. Though the factuality of what was presented information wise should be judged on it’s own merits, not the film making.
Anthony wrote: Thank you, but I suspect the court of public opinion will be far more problematic to Mr. Gore’s organization than a court of law.
The problem is, that most people, perhaps even a vast majority of people will never hear of the work you have done. Going the court of law route brings in the publicity that will influence the court of public opinion as well.
Besides, if Al is using fraud to enhance his bank account, he should be called on it.
Here’s another:
True or false?
Apologies for the double post.
REPLY: Well then if “TV is the the craft of staging things for the camera” I’m sure then you are prepared to admit then that Mr. Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth was “staged for the camera” and therefore should not be trusted because it is staged and not fully factual – Anthony
Of course it was. Though the factuality of what was presented information-wise should be judged on it’s own merits as information, not the film making.
REPLY: Likewise then by your logic, the “simple experiment” should be judged on the merits and facts presented, which were none – it was entirely fabricated. No actual data, no actual result, was presented to support the conclusion. Sorry Jay you aren’t going to win this one no matter how hard you try. – Anthony
apologies for the double post again, my Internets is misbehaving.
Harishchandra Bhat said: “I would wait for a clarification from Mr.Al Gore. He could be wrong but the mistake may not be deliberate ,if any.”
Good grief. In the face of proof that they deliberately reported falsified data, you still believe in that goon? No wonder you believe that AGW is to be the death of us.
Please do ask Mr. Gore for a “clarification” and report back the results. Even if it’s silence, which is his response to all requests that he debate the subject.
REPLY: Likewise then by your logic, the “simple experiment” should be judged on the merits and facts presented, which were none – it was entirely fabricated. No actual data, no actual result, was presented to support the conclusion. Sorry Jay you aren’t going to win this one no matter how hard you try. – Anthony
They weren’t none, The facts are that the greenhouse in a jar experiment is a fun thing to do at home with the kids and demonstrates that the greenhouse effect works (on some level at least). Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s an incomplete picture for sure. But if it gets people interested and investigating, I’m all for it.
REPLY: Those are features, not facts. Facts would have been final numbers – data – Anthony
Mark Wilson says:
September 29, 2011 at 12:10 pm
“Anthony wrote: Thank you, but I suspect the court of public opinion will be far more problematic to Mr. Gore’s organization than a court of law.
The problem is, that most people, perhaps even a vast majority of people will never hear of the work you have done. Going the court of law route brings in the publicity that will influence the court of public opinion as well.
Besides, if Al is using fraud to enhance his bank account, he should be called on it.”
I agree with Mark. Not to mention that the left constantly uses the law to its advantage in situations like this as they are street fighters. We tend to go by the Marquis de Queensbury
rules and get our butts kicked.
Technically, every sentence except the last is true per se : sunlight passes unhindered, IR is blocked by IR, the GH heats up. BUT, the heating of the GH is _not_ a ‘consequence’ of the IR being blocked, rather it is caused by convection
R.W. Wood proved this in 1909 by building a greenhouse with rocksalt windows (which doesn’t block IR). His greenhouse still heated up as much as the glass GH. He then went on to discover the true principle behind the “greenhouse effect”: convection!
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
Julian Braggins says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:40 am
[stuff deleted]
If it didn’t work that way it would be a perpetual motion machine. Suppose I take my shop compressor and fill up its air tank from ambient pressure to 150psi. The tank will indeed heat up. And if I bleed the pressure off very quickly the tank will cool down rapidly. But what happens if I turn off the compressor but don’t bleed off any pressure? The tank will still cool down even though the pressure isn’t changing. That’s because in order to get compressional heating the pressure must be increasing.”
[stuff deleted]
I think you are a bit confused. I am a scuba diver and I dive in cold water. AL80 tanks are rated for 3000 PSI. They are supposed to be filled not higher than 3000 PSI at the ambient temperature. When I enter 5C water, the pressure typically drops a 200 PSI or so from the temperature change.
on that claim that rain is bringing the warmth from the upper atmosphere down to the earth i must submit this…..is that why on hot days after a rain the temperature DROPS by 20 degrees? all that heat returning to the surface?
Just like the styrofoam “ice” cliffs in “Inconvenient Truth”, Al Gore resorts to video trickery to push his global warming agenda.
John Day says:
September 29, 2011 at 12:43 pm
“R.W. Wood proved this in 1909 by building a greenhouse with rocksalt windows (which doesn’t block IR). His greenhouse still heated up as much as the glass GH. He then went on to discover the true principle behind the “greenhouse effect”: convection!”
I think what you mean to say is;
“He then went on to discover the true principle behind the “greenhouse effect”: lack of convection!”
Right?
glacierman says:
September 28, 2011 at 2:03 pm
Dave Springer:
Talking about compressed gas heating up, this is the first time, amazingly, that I have seen anything touching upon the gas laws in all the atomospheric discussions over recent years. Monckton remarked in his latest thread on WUWT that a cold source can’t heat up a warmer source. Apparently what are called a ‘chinook’ in Alberta in the middle of the winter are warm winds due to Pacific air masses rising over the Rockies, dropping water (as snow) and then the cooled mass rushes down the eastern slopes onto the plains where it is compressed and raises the winter temp up above freezing. I’ve heard ranchers talk about being able to ride in and out of the very warm air at the boundary of one of these chinooks. Nowadays, of course, it is probably called global warming.
What would be interesting would be to replicate the experiment using a non-greenhouse gas that also had a heat capacity that was lower than air. When I say a “non-greenhouse gas” I mean a gas that does not exhibit the radiative effects of CO2. Argon would fit the bill. It is a non-greenhouse gas with a specific heat capacity of .52.
I imagine that if you filled the fish bowl with Argon, and then shined the heat lamp of the glass of the fishbowl, you would see the temperature of the Argon quickly clime to a higher level than the temperature of the air in the air fishbowl.
This would be fairly instructive for our young students at home.
I am shocked you never considered that they had a wireless cam IN THE JAR as well to film the thermometers, the colored background is the cams shadow.
The Good planet jar used an electric one, and the BAD Globe jar had one with an esbit powering it, the flames made the earth more realistic also this way.
The alternative that Al Gore with all his intelligence was duped again. [snip – over the top – Anthony]
Reading about the results others got isn’t as much fun as doing it myself.
I also want to know what to believe and what is BS. I am an engineer and am quite good at recognizing BS.
I did my own version of the 101 experiment.
I used 1 plastic jar and 1 sunlamp to eliminate the variables in jar thickness and sunlamp brightness. I lined the bottom with paper towels so the thermometer wouldn’t be sampling the jar material temperature. The distance was also measured and repeatable. I didn’t turn the sunlamp off ever. [each trial was 10 minutes]
The top was open but CO2 is heavier than air and there was no wind.
CO2 was courtesy of baking soda and water. I have no meter to measure %. But it was close to 100 %.
I bought an instant read digital meat thermometer [Farberware] accurate to .1 ° F [at least repeatable] . I used only one because different ones differ by .2 ° F or more.
Between trials I brought the vessel to the same temperature.
I repeated each trial several times and obtained a baseline.
Results:
Baseline:
Heating was about 39.7 ° F with a range of +or – 1 °
[the amount of light hitting the thermometer was hard to keep constant.]
CO2 trials
Heating was 39.4 ° F with the same error range.
The results suggest even 100 % CO2 produces no measurable warming.
Anthony, nice work. But no surprise…the whole AGW conspiracy is based on faked and manipulated data.
It is becoming more obvious each day.
[Note: This is a different Jay. ~dbs, mod.]
REPLY: Those are features, not facts. Facts would have been final numbers – data – Anthony
If you prefer. No disagreement from me.
If Al & Co. had produced actual data and started drawing conclusions I’d probably be critical. The greenhouse in a jar experiment is way too crude a model of the atmosphere to be useful as a tool for taking measurements and drawing conclusions about what happens in the wild.
In fact it was the crudeness of the Jar/Tube experiments that lead to the suggested greenhouse gas effect of CO2 being a controversial topic in the late 40s. That’s where the “CO2 is already saturated” and “but water vapor is much a more abundant GHG and overwhelms CO2” memes come from. It wasn’t until the likes of Cloud and Plass started thinking about IR absorption at higher altitudes that it was realised that the potential of CO2 had been hugely underestimated.
Still. It remains a fun thing to do at home with the kids, it does demonstrate the greenhouse effect of CO2, even if very crudely, and it is presented there in what I reckon is a fun and appealing way.
It’ll be interesting, Anthony, to see what you come up with when you try the experiment.
@kwik
> I think what you mean to say is;
> “He then went on to discover the true principle behind the “greenhouse effect”:
> lack of convection!”
> Right?
Oops, I wrote that too fast. Yes, the GH effect is due to lack of convection.
Thanks.
Dave Springer says: September 29, 2011 at 5:04 am
Julian Braggins says:September 29, 2011 at 1:40 am
“But the Earth/Sun is not a closed system”
If we include the moon then for most practical purposes it is indeed a closed system.
————————————————————————————
Significant energy is radiated from Earth to the black universe at night. Here in the desert, it gets about 20 F colder at night because of this radiation. With a cloud cover, not so much.
Heh, Blair House, too.
=========
OK, so I just watched the video, and I have to say, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Its very clear from the way the video is presented, that the ‘experiment’ they did was intended as illustration to go with Bill Nye’s narration. Nothing more. Its unimaginable that someone would think that it was intended to show an actual experiment taking place… one might as well complain that in the illustration of solar radiation hitting the earth, actual solar radiation wasn’t used, but ping pong balls! Oh its a fraud! I was deceived by ping pong balls! Give me a break.
REPLY: and if the situation was reversed you’d be hollering – Anthony
DR says:
September 29, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Here’s another:
Fort Lewis College, Colorado
This partial trapping of solar radiation is known as the greenhouse effect. The name comes from the fact that a very similar process operates in a greenhouse. Sunlight passes relatively unhindered through glass panes, but much of the infrared radiation reemitted by the plants is blocked by the glass and cannot get out. Consequently, the interior of the greenhouse heats up, and flowers, fruits, and vegetables can grow even on cold wintry days.
http://physics.fortlewis.edu/Astronomy/a….TML/AT30702.HTM
True or false?
Quite true, infrared is blocked by glass. Note, in this video, the CO2 is held inside glass jars, hence, the infrared from the heat lamp is blocked by the glass from ever reaching the CO2 directly as infrared. The only way the CO2 can be heated is by contact with the heated glass, heated precisely because the infrared is absorbed entirely by the glass and never reaches the CO2. As such, the fact that you are true here shows that this “experiment” is totally bogus for showing anything about a “greenhouse effect”, precisly because of the way actual glass covered greenhouses work, by preventing the passage of infrared through the glass.
Note also, if you increase greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as CO2 or water vapor, you will get some of the same effect, an increase of infrared absorbing gass will block some of it from ever reaching the ground, half will be radiated out back to space. This is not taking into account that the 800 pound gorilla of GhG’s, watwer vapor, tends to form sunlight reflecting clouds, and thus to a considerable extent more of it actually reduces incoming radiation, counteracting it’s greenhouse effect. And even that is not taking into acount the further fact that all that water vapos forming clouds tends to move the heat from way down here to way up there from where even more of it is radiated out into space. Water vapor as a GhG therefore comes with a built in regulator that limites the amount of heat it can trap. Get too much heat and thus more water vapor, the regulator kicks in and cools things down again.
Gary, how does a thermos bottle work?
Why are they ‘silvered’?
Anything to do with being reflective by any chance?
.
Jay says:
September 29, 2011 at 12:38 pm
“They weren’t none, The facts are that the greenhouse in a jar experiment is a fun thing to do at home with the kids and demonstrates that the greenhouse effect works (on some level at least). Nothing more, nothing less.
It’s an incomplete picture for sure. But if it gets people interested and investigating, I’m all for it.”
================
The whole point of the video, was to show there was no need for further investigation, the science was simple and had been settled.
It was not made made to encourage scientific exploration, quite the opposite.
Note on my above post, I expect someone to chime in and say “but that is not the way a greenhouse works”, quite true. However, that is the way DR thinks a greenhouse works, and DR is quite right that glass absorbs infrared, and that known fact shows that what DR knows is that the experiment by Al Gore is bogus.
Okay, so am I the only person here who’s ever actually seen Bill Nye the Science Guy? This “experiment” was just like all the other “experiments” they did on that show. A simple demonstration of a very complex bit of science. Of course, the people, like Al Gore and Bill Nye, and even some professional scientists [If you can call them that], who push the AGW story, grossly underestimate the complexity of Earth’s climate. Therefore, their conclusions in the video are very wrong, but that’s a separate issue.
In the end, spending a bunch of time, which would be better used trying to get the correct science to the public, discrediting the scientific credentials of a crappy demonstration in a “Basics of Climate Change” video, is, frankly, foolish. What’s next, are you going to go after Wishbone because Ivanhoe didn’t actually have a dog in it?
If anything will continue to give AGW support from the media and public, it’s the fact that they have people used to dealing with the scientifically illiterate. Obviously, I’m glad to have such a fine properly-scientific resource here, but for most people, giving the hard science answer of anything, especially complex things like Climate Change, is as good as telling them in Japanese. Sad as it is, the day we learn to consistently explain to a four-year-old why the basic AGW story is wrong, is the day the correct science wins.
HenryP referred me to his own webpage, where the first scientific claim was that the diffused light in a misty Dawn is due to water’s absorption and reradiation of sunlight. Water is transparent to sunlight, and can only radiate in the infrared. The footnote Henry refers to cites… himself once more.
Dikran referred me to another webpage for proof that essentially 100% of the extra 100ppm CO2 is anthropogenic. Actually the source only claims to show that the great majority is from that source, but the key datum there is that total industrial (etc) emissions exceed 100ppm. This is not disputed but nor is it to the point. I believe that any near equilibrium state for the world’s climate there may be a CO2 concentration in the atmosphere corresponding to the temperature. That is consistent with prehistoric temp-led changes, and also with potential AGW. It is possible that industrial CO2, in the absence of some hypothetical natural warming, might be 50% absorbed, or 80%, or whatever. Who knows? There are certainly unknown sinks. Natural warming – such as that which occurred after the depths of the LIA – might partially compensate by causing outgassing. The fact that IPCC use “a ‘simple’ model” for a complex process is a warning bell, and also gives the lie to Dikran’s cheap shot that failure to accept this argument in toto shows “ignorance of basic scientific facts”. It is a litle discussed issue, tucked away in a less than convincing section of the full IPCC report only read by specialists.
So I disagree. The key discussion, true, is about sensitivity. But the anthropogenic issue is not settled. Typical IPPC arguments are built on a chain of “likely” and “very likely” conclusions (for some of which the likelihood seems inflated even to the contributing scientists). It is unlikely that the whole chain is correct.
mfreer says:
“Its unimaginable that someone would think that it was intended to show an actual experiment taking place.”
Then you are thoroughly imagination-challenged, because an actual experiment is exactly what they wanted viewers to think they were conducting.
But they were caught by Anthony, and now apologists like mfreer are trying to sell people on the idea that war is peace, ignorance is strength, and this phony experiment was not trickery.
Face it, they got caught.
I have done the experiment myself. Taking others word on matters I care about is not my style.
Look at my last post.
My conclusions are that:
1) CO2 is a poor GHG at best. [The amount of warming was actually negative ]
2) The errors were large and hard to correct for.
[ The amount of light hitting the thermometer, the angle of the light, capping the container ]
3) you are measuring the heat being absorbed by the glass/plastic not CO2.
mfreer says:
“Its unimaginable that someone would think that it was intended to show an actual experiment taking place.”
********
I disagree ! That is EXACTLY what the viewer is lead to believe.
You are grasping at a non existent straw.
Glenn says:
September 28, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“Rob Honeycutt says:
September 28, 2011 at 3:58 pm
“Glenn… Do you question whether this experiment would show the radiative effects of CO2?”
“This” experiment? Most definitely yes. Look at the pic of the video @ 1:17.
There is only one way to resolve these two images; they are of one thermometer at different times.
The background and the thermometer itself are *exactly* the same.
Billy likely took one thermometer, took it’s picture, then flicked a bic over the end and took another pic.
That is what this experiment *shows*.”
*****************************
This seems to be further supported by the video starting at 0:44. I missed connecting with this yesterday.
There the same thermometer with the same background as in 1:10 and 1:17, showing the single thermometer as it rises in temperature.
They set up a stationary camera to take all the pictures shown, in front of a single thermometer both at 0:44, 1:10 and 1:17.
It’s scientific fraud.
[snip – Gore’s other foibles are unrelated to the issue – waaay off topic – Anthony]
Dan in California says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:59 pm
“Significant energy is radiated from Earth to the black universe at night. Here in the desert, it gets about 20 F colder at night because of this radiation. With a cloud cover, not so much.”
Yeah, so? The vacuum of space is part of the closed system. If want to account for the energy radiated by the earth it’s in a volume of empty space 5 billion light years in every direction.
As I stated earlier there is no such thing in the real world as a perfectly closed system. In practice we determine what things that are entering or leaving the system make a significant difference to the processes of interest within the quasi-closed system.
The energy radiated by the earth is ostensibly contained within a spherical volume some 5 billion light years in radius. Would it make a practical difference if this volume was closed instead of open? I don’t believe it will so it’s fair to consider it inconsequential in this case.
[snip – not only waaayyy off-topic, but pointless – Anthony]
DR;
I’m not certain if you are asking a question for clarification, or initiating a debate on a specific point. Either way, posting quotes of various definitions from various places won’t accomplish much. They are out of context, and most likely “technicaly” accurate in many cases, but still wrong.
The answer to your original question is NO. What happens in a greenhouse and the “greenhouse effect on climate” are very different things.
That said, sure, some materials will pass visible light by not LW. On the other hand, there are materials that will pass both. In a greenhouse, to answer the specific quotes you’ve raised, one would need to know precisely the material involved, and then investigate the statement in context. To what purpose?
In an actual greenhouse, the bulk of the warming is due to the fact that convection, which would normally allow hot air to rise and take heat with it, is blocked. It matters little if glass or plastic or whatever passes LW or not because by comparison, the heat retained by the blocking of convection is the largest factor.
The “greenhouse effect” as it applies to climate however is completely different. CO2 has no affect whatsoever on convection, hence the answer “no, they are not the same” is the BEST answer. If someone wants to argue that glass from a greenhouse retains heat by trapping LW, they may in fact be correct. But by comparison to blocking of convection, quite insignificant.
There are major problems with Gore’s experiment:
First, the world is not in a closed system like in a jar as depicted (ie: we do not live in a greenhouse). By defintion, the climate system is open.
Second, where is the water vapor, which has 26 times more of a gg effect than does CO2?
Third, where is the admission that 96.73% of all CO2 is produced by nature?
R. Gates;
You are a hoot man!
The experiment was purported to demonstrate the effect of CO2 increases on climate. It did nothing of the sort, the experiment was an outright lie from the very start, and was faked to boot, and I’ll wager that the results shown could in no way be obtained from that apparatus and that experimental process.
That’s three outright lies rolled up into one video that you continue to defend. Are you getting paid for your efforts? Or just enjoy looking foolish?
What Bill actually said:
“If we produce an excess of these gases the temperature rises, as it has. If you want you can replicate this effect yourself in a simple experiment. Here’s how…
The finished video reveals the way his experiment was done, to take a video of a single thermometer as it is being heated, and edit the video to make that one thermometer appear as two thermometers, one showing a greater temperature, and to represent that to be the results of his experiment.
Indeed, that would be easy to do at home, and to create any desired result.
Just take Bill’s video, and “edit” the parts that show closeups of the thermometer, to show that the one that recorded the temperature of the jar with no CO2 rose a hundred degrees, and the one with the CO2 dropped to freezing, and then “edit” Bill to appear to be saying “oops” at the end. Then add a pic of a sign at the end that says “dramatization only”, to be safe.
mfreer says:
September 29, 2011 at 2:02 pm
OK, so I just watched the video, and I have to say, I don’t see what the fuss is about. Its very clear from the way the video is presented, that the ‘experiment’ they did was intended as illustration to go with Bill Nye’s narration. Nothing more. Its unimaginable that someone would think that it was intended to show an actual experiment taking place…
(Bold mine)
Really?
At about the 45 second mark you hear “if you want, you can replicate this effect yourself in this simple lab experiment…”
Then, according to you, he did not show the “simple lab experiment”!?
If you look at the video and attempt to replicate what was shown, you will not get the response described.
(Hint – only one jar/bottle had the lid on properly, the other one has a hose keeping it from closing.)
To me, it is unimaginable that anyone with even a modicum of a scientific thought process would think anything other than what is being shown is being misrepresented.
The “science guy” using “CO squared” in a presentation that is supposed to show the world an undenialable truth? Is he getting his information from the guy who says the Earth’s core is millions of degrees?
Just wonderin’.
🙂
Meant the opposite and see it was corrected already – thanks!
I don’t agree with you….both are the falsification of video for propaganda purposes. But it’s your blog.
NetDr says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:41 pm
“The top was open but CO2 is heavier than air and there was no wind.”
That dog won’t hunt. As the gas heats up it expands and spills out taking the excess energy with it.
Stop screwing around and read this:
http://www.resporaesystems.com/respo_rae_doc/App_Tech_Notes/Tech_Notes/TN-169_NDIR_CO2_Theory.pdf
You don’t have the ability to build an electronic CO2 sensor but there are millions of them in the world controlling ventilation fans in high occupancy buildings. They work by measuring how much energy at a CO2-specific absorption frequency 4.26um is absorbed by a sample of ambient air compared to how much is absorbed by a reference sample with a known C02 concentration.
Pretty much only imbeciles continue to argue about this after having their noses rubbed in the 150 year-old physics experiments and theory of operation underlying millions of very sensitive electronic CO2 sensors.
Has Al Gore officially explained yet that either:
1. His CO2 experiment was falsified and he is very sorry and won’t do it again, or
2. He’s going to release the REAL video next week that was filmed without stopping, and shows that the jar with 100% CO2 in it rose by Several Million Degrees?
Anthony,
You seem to have attracted a number of commenters from SkS.
Shields up!
Dave Springer says:
September 29, 2011 at 3:06 pm
“Yeah, so? The vacuum of space is…………..”
========
I quit reading after “Yeah, so”.
Did you impart anything I should have read ?, if so, please convert it into something fools like me and first time readers might be able to digest. It is a challenge, write it down.
Wow Mr. Watts. What good investigational work. This is the final nail in the AGW coffin. When will this be published? You truly out did yourself with this work. This might be the best article ever shown on your blog. If this doesn’t prove that AGW is dead nothing will. Amazing that people would still think the world is a glass jar. this was well worth your time and effort.
REPLY: Condescending troll snark, gotta love it. – Anthony
Anthony, Watt you have done here is a sign of madness. Serious, dude. Take a vacation.
REPLY: Mental health advice from a guy who blogs about radio show on bigfoot, gotta love it!
– Anthony
Instead of all the cutting and splicing that must have taken place, it is a mystery why Bill would not have just shown a clip of him removing the glass tops, putting his hand in the jar and taking out the thermometers, and putting them closer together as the camera zoomed in a little. Perhaps he was worried that some skeptic would cry foul, that he had switched thermometers. So instead he showed a video that appeared to show two thermometers, both rising. And figured that people wouldn’t catch on to the fact that the thermometers were not in the jars at the time. This is bizarre.
It also appears that the video portions starting 0:44 and 1:10 show the same temperatures at start, and stop and start at the same increasing temperature readings. Obviously only a single thermometer was video’d as it was being heated, and various clips of that were used throughout the video.
bigcitylib says:
September 29, 2011 at 4:40 pm
“Anthony, Watt you have done here is a sign of madness. Serious, dude. Take a vacation.”
Thinking that “Anthony, Watt” has any value in any respect is a sign of madness, hippie. You know Charlie was a hippie, right?
“REPLY: Mental health advice from a guy who blogs about radio show on bigfoot, gotta love it!”
Click on “View my complete profile”. Friggin hilarious!
Obviously because the Laws of Physics, Thermodynamics, are simple to understand, they couldn’t possibly explain how the earth/atmosphere responds to heat. So Scientists around the world spend oodles of money trying to disprove the bleeding obvious. There is also a dispute over the definition of ‘system’. The Sun is a closed system, the earth is a closed system and the sun and the earth are a closed system and a closed system does not mean it cannot interact with another system. ‘System’ defines energy, energy in/energy out nothing more. When looking at the molecular composition of the atmosphere, if you increase the number of molecules that are capable of absorbing radiation, they are also capable of reflecting radiation. The more reflecting obstacles in the atmosphere, the less radiation will enter the system result less heat. To prove this hypothesis we need to allow CO2 to increase unchecked and see what happens. Experiments in jars are just kids games.
As much importance as Mr Gore places on this “simple” experiment – I wonder why this experiment wasn’t outsourced to a fully bonded independent lab. Written-up by bonded investigators and witnessed by by bonded “independent’ peer-reviewers?
DR says:
September 29, 2011 at 9:07 am
R. Gates, nobody answered my question, so I’ll ask you.
Is the “greenhouse effect” exactly the same principle that heats a greenhouse?
————
I’ll let you decide after thinking about it for a moment. What are we talking about in the larger sense of what is happening with the physics? LW radiation is being trapped in an actual greenhouse as the molecules in the glass actual reflect most of the LW. But the glass does absorb a very small amount of LW and this eventually finds it’s way across the glass to the outside. In the Earth’s atmosphere, greenhouse molecules absorb and then retransmit the LW. Some of this is reflected back to earth and some goes out into space. So in both systems, LW is kept in the system to one degree or another, hence keeping the system warmer than it would be without either the glass or the greenhouse molecules to interact with the LW radiation.
George E. Smith says:
September 29, 2011 at 11:00 am
“”””” Myrrh says:
September 29, 2011 at 4:16 am
George E. Smith says:
September 28, 2011 at 11:27 am
Water (H2O) is a very good absorber of 1 micron radiation, which is why the human skin, which is mostly water records that as “heat”. In contrast, no human senses respond in any way to 10.1 micron LWIR emissions, which humans are entirely unaware of. We have to go out of our way to detect that with special instrumentation.
Nonsense. The human body is mostly water and the heat we get direct from the Sun is what warms us up internally, and we have always had a perfect instrument to measure it, our own bodies, we sweat the extra heat away.. “””””
Well Myrrh, when you call something “nonsense” you need to be very specific about WHAT you are saying is nonsense. So let’s examine exactly what YOU excerpted from my post and called it “nonsense:
“””” Water (H2O) is a very good absorber of 1 micron radiation, “””” “Nonsense” says Myrrh, of one of the most prominent of all H2O molecular absorption bands
====
As I said, nonsense, that, 1 micron, is near infrared which we cannot feel as heat, therefore, it is not being absorbed. Re-read the NASA page on traditional science which I posted before on this. Near infrared is not a thermal energy. It is not hot. WE CANNOT FEEL IT AS HOT ON OUR SKIN. THIS IS A FACT. It does not warm us up, not absorbed by our skin, nor does it get absorbed as does thermal infrared, heat from the Sun, to warm us up inside. Near infrared is reflective not absorptive – hence its use in infrared photography. Again, the principle of this is the same as for normal photography, which captures the visible light reflected from objects, near infrared red cameras collect the near infrared reflected from bodies. It, in fact, penetrates deeper than UV and visible, but is then reflected back out.
You can of course continue to spout nonsense about this, but all it shows is that you don’t know the difference between light and heat energies from the Sun. Light energies do not have the power to move whole molecules into vibrational/rotational resonance. They are tiny, they can get an electron to vibrate, which is what happens in our atmosphere when visible light is bounced back out, reflected, by the electrons of the whole molecules of oxygen and nitrogen, hence our blue sky. You’ve still not acquired any sense of SCALE. Near infrared is microscopic, thermal infrared the size of a pin head. See the NASA page on traditional science. Which do you think can better move a whole molecule of water into rotation? This is what creates heat. Not your puny ‘highly energetic’ short wave which gets bounced around by electrons..
You have unquestioningly accepted an AGW science fiction meme. See the NASA page on traditional science. We do not feel near infrared as heat, it cannot heat up our skin.
What we feel as heat from the Sun is thermal infrared, longwave.
This is what we feel on the skin and which heats us and the Earth.
========
“””” which is why the human skin, which is mostly water records that as “heat”. “Nonsense” says Myrrh; (ergo , human skin does NOT record 1 micron radiation as “heat”. Myrrh has apparently never stood in front (at a distance) of a radiant “heater” that emits strongly in the 1 micron range; and it certainly hasn’t heated the air at that distance.
? So what if it radiates strongly in the 1 micron range?? If it isn’t felt as heat because it isn’t a thermal energy which longwave infrared is, then it can’t be heating anyone standing in front of it. And I’m supposed to roll over for that kind of logic??
Re-read the NASA page on traditional science. We cannot feel near infrared as heat.
======
Myrrh adds (quite irrelevently): ” The human body is mostly water and the heat we get direct from the Sun is what warms us up internally,” Please note Myrrh, that I said “””” human skin “”””, I said nothing about internal body heat or the Sun.
You said we couldn’t feel this 10 micron range – that “humans are entirely unaware of, etc.” I’m explaining that we do feel it and don’t need ‘special’ instruments to measure it. We are perfectly aware of it, our bodies are the perfect instruments for measuring it, because it heats us up.
=====
Biologists might claim, that it was the food that we eat that warms us up internally, by oxidation of carbon and hydrogen in that food. Sunlight however does not significantly penetrate the human body, and if it did it would generate an inward falling Temperature gradient; rather than the ever present OUTWARD falling Temperature gradient. High altitude mountain climbers frequently die from internal body heat cooking their insides, because their cold skin protective clothing does not allow their excess internally generated body heat to escape.
Sunlight certainly doesn’t significantly penetrate the human body – but HEAT from the Sun does. That is the invisible thermal infrared from the Sun, not visible Sun’s light which is shortwave. Light from the Sun does not penetrate to heat up the body, Heat does. What is so difficult to grasp here?
Our bodies are mostly water, not just our skin. What we “record as heat” on our skin is also what we record internally and that does not come from near infrared, but from Heat from the Sun, which is longwave thermal infrared.
====
“””” In contrast, no human senses respond in any way to 10.1 micron LWIR emissions, which humans are entirely unaware of. “””” “Nonsense” says Myrrh: “we have always had a perfect instrument to measure it, our own bodies, ”
So here’s a simple experiment for Myrrh to try ; others may enjoy it also.
All you need is an efficient source of 10.1 micron LWIR radiation. Well nothing can be more efficient, than a true BLACK BODY, and one can obtain one with its PEAK Spectral Radiant Emmittance right at 10.1 microns wavelength, at any grocery store or even a Starbucks coffee shop; go in and ask for a 16 ounce bottle of drinking water. Take it home and put it in the refrigerator to cool it down to 15 deg C, 59 deg F or 288 Kelvins, your choice; and the correct choice for a 10.1 peak black body radiator.
So set the cooled bottle up about 10-15 feet away from you to ensure that it is not heating the air in front of you with its 390 Watts per square metre of 10.1 micron peak LWIR radiant emissions.
Describe the heating sensation difference you feel between the stae when the water bottle is absent; and the state when the water bottle is present.
Come back to WUWT, and describe the heating experience from that instrument you have always had; namely your body; that can detect 10.1 micron radiation
As for your ‘experiment’ – another example of AGW science fiction manipulating by mis-direction with ‘black body temps’ – we radiate in the 10 micron range and we’re a lot hotter than that bottle of water.
In the real world there is a huge industry supplying thermal infrared for heating homes, businesses, in medical therapies. They know the difference between Light and Heat and which thermal range is suitable for which application. These products not only sell, but the businesses are expanding in the human body absorption range because they know that heat around the 10 micron range penetrates the human body to heat it up internally. This is the same range of heat energy we get on the surface of the Earth from the Sun.
Why don’t you do us all a favour and explore the real world applications of thermal infrared instead of continuing to regurgitate AGW science fiction meme explanations about this?
Here’s some to be going on with:
http://www.energywellnessproducts.com/hothouse.htm
http://www.emersonww.com/InfraredThermal.htm
http://www.healthisinreach.com/FIRDome.htm
http://www.infraredheaters.com/pdfs/radiant.pdf
Do make the effort to read these to aid in differentiating between heat and light energies from the Sun. Note in the last one which is about industrial drying and heating with thermal infrared, it says:
“Transmission — Most materials, with the
exception of glass and some plastics, are
opaque to infrared and the energy is either
absorbed or reflected. Transmission losses
can usually be ignored. A few materials, such
as glass, clear plastic films and open fabrics,
may transmit significant portions of the
incident radiation and should be carefully
evaluated.”
How does that gel with the AGW science fiction memes about glass?
====
Some people might actually be inclined to issue an apology for such a gaffe. I’d be content, if you simply learned to read what I say, BEFORE you describe it as “Nonsense”.
I read what you said, so my conclusion that it was nonsense stands. I hope I have given you enough information now for you to be able to see that..
.. the gaffe isn’t mine.
Industry in the real world understands and uses traditional physics on this. Your AGW science fiction memes with nonsense explanations you think ‘proved’ by nonsense experiments, wouldn’t even get these applications off the ground. It’s a good thing you don’t have to make a real living from understanding the differences.
Image at 1:01 shows both jars with hose going into jar with thermometer B (long green end past the scale)
Image at 1:03 shows closeup of jar with hose inside, but it has thermometer A (short green end past the scale)
davidmhoffer says:
September 29, 2011 at 3:27 pm
R. Gates;
You are a hoot man!
The experiment was purported to demonstrate the effect of CO2 increases on climate. It did nothing of the sort, the experiment was an outright lie from the very start, and was faked to boot, and I’ll wager that the results shown could in no way be obtained from that apparatus and that experimental process.
That’s three outright lies rolled up into one video that you continue to defend. Are you getting paid for your efforts? Or just enjoy looking foolish?
—————
I’d wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated. How much would you like to bet?
Reminds me of “Look Around You”, particularly all the pointing. AGW is about as real as Helvetica Syndrome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_Around_You
My apologies, the link to the Wood experiment is here:
Repeatability of Professor Robert W. Wood’s 1909 experiment on the Theory of the Greenhouse
Did Spencer Weart include Robert Wood in his history lesson?
The issue (my bold) is whether the following is a true or false statement:
According to Wood and Nasif Nahle’s replication of his experiment, it is false. All I’ve seen thus far is hand waiving and the usual talking points such as “this is 150 year old science” in support of the glass greenhouse “analogy”. The bottle experiment is all over the place. It is no more viable than the ‘run your car on water’ snake oil salesman. I’m not even saying Nahle is right, but NOBODY has yet to give evidence in support of the many examples given.
BTW, here is another “analogy” example from a prominent institution:
sceptical says:
September 29, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Wow Mr. Watts. What good investigational work. This is the final nail in the AGW coffin.
Yeah, Mr. Watts’ deconstruction of Gore’s Climate Science 101 “experiment” sure must have been boring for you, sceptical, since from your bold screen name we can see that you must have known about the death of AGW long ago, probably with the very first publication of Mann’s fake hockeystick, I’d guess? But for the rest of us it’s rather amazing to see a dead hockeystick, et al. Gore, still kicking! Don’t real Zombies interest you in the least? Now they even have their own Prophet!
I am instantly reminded of the infamous 1992 NBC News Dateline program which “demonstrated” that certain GM trucks explode in side impacts, by rigging them with concealed remote control explosives for their cameras. [Ref: http://history.gmheritagecenter.com/wiki/index.php/GM_vs._NBC,_a_New_Wave_of_Employee_Pride ]
Neither the fact that there is a small warming effect from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide, nor the fact that GM trucks had a small but real vulnerability, can be considered as a defense. You can’t say you broadcast a lie to convey the “truthiness” behind it.
What are the chances that Al Gore will go on the air, on his own dime, and issue a 3 minute and 30 second apology to the “millions” of viewers? I am not holding my carbon-fortified breath waiting.
Great work Anthony. It’s time I made a visit to the tip jar.
Would be interesting to find out whether the boggus experiment was performed by a hired contractor working as a consultant. ie legal distance for the nupty of Nashville to hide behind. This maybe actionable because of it being used to defraud viewers of cash. This might even fall fowl of the RICO statutes if there were enough in on the joker’s ‘physics’ presentation., .Question is: what is the proper venue for a criminal suit in relation to a nationally broadcast scam??
In the case of this video, I think the word “experiment” is being grossly misused. This is propaganda, pure and simple. In my opinion, it is nothing more than a rigged propaganda demonstration.
Its always puzzled me that people who do understand the science (to some degree) rush to the defence of Gore, who obviously doesn’t understand any of the science.
The best explanation I can come up with is Gore speaks to a Warmist core constituency, which is the scientifically ignorant.
Dump Gore and the Warmists risk losing a large number of AGW believers who would be simply baffled by any discussion involving real science.
Myrhh;
Everyone from rabid warmists to rabid skeptics to people in the middle have explained to you that spouting on about what we can feel and what we can’t and trying to define some wavelengths as not carrying energy because you can’t “feel” them is just blatant utter nonsense. Stop. Please, just stop.
Dave Springer says:
September 29, 2011 at 3:57 pm
NetDr says:
September 29, 2011 at 1:41 pm
“The top was open but CO2 is heavier than air and there was no wind.”
That dog won’t hunt. As the gas heats up it expands and spills out taking the excess energy with it.
*********
Sorry but your dog is the one which won’t hunt.
If there is excess temperature it warms the thermometer more…. end of story if some spills out the top so what ? No matter how you slice it the heat wasn’t there or was too small to measure.
I said that there was no warming measurable with the equipment I have and the rather crude experimental method. I am an engineer and know what margin of error is and the warming was less than it [1 ° F] or i would have detected it.
. The margin of error over the runs I made was substantial and the warming if any was tiny.
[my thermometer was only accurate to + or – 1/10 ° F and the amount of light hitting it seemed to cause more warming than that and it was not perfectly repeatable.
I didn’t say there wasn’t any I just said that it was immeasurably small and cannot be detected with this experiment. In this case it is less than 1 ° F.
There are those who determine truth by who has the most alphabet soup after their name, I am not one of these people. You apparently are.
R. Gates;
I’d wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated. How much would you like to bet?>>>
Really? Let’s get the terms and conditions set out then. Could you please define exactly what experiment was illustrated and how we’ll judge if it was replicated or not?
R. Gates;
I’d wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated. How much would you like to bet?>>>
Really? Let’s get the terms and conditions set out then. Could you please define exactly what experiment was illustrated and how we’ll judge if it was replicated or not?
************
Read my last several posts !
The excess CO2 warming wasn’t present or was too small to detect with the experiment.
If you have the ability do it yourself. I’ll check back to see your results.
A wise man once said:
“People who let others think for them because they think they aren’t capable of it ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT !”
I’m not a scientist. I’m retired from HVAC/R (Heating, Ventilating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration). It seems to me the experiment is really testing the specific heat of the jars and the substances inside the jars. Since the globes and thermometers should be identical, unless another substance is hidden in one of the globes, the variable should be the difference in specific heat between air and CO2 at room temperature. Carbon dioxide has a higher specific heat (about 0.85) than dry air (roughly 0.24). Exposed to the same amount of heat, measured in calories or BTUs, the dry air should heat more quickly and with a greater temperature rise. Did Gore (A: cook the thermometer, as well as the results and (B: not even realize what he was measuring? Or am I an idiot? Not being sarcastic or joking.
Frank K. says:
September 28, 2011 at 9:52 am
WTF? Gore is a multi-millionaire! Why is HE asking for money? He even got half of the 2007 Nobel Prize loot [LOL]!
Because to some, money is addictive. The more you get, the more you want. As with any addiction you will eventually betray anyone and everyone to get more. The breakup of ones marriage is a classic symptom of addiction.
Brilliant analysis! Very thorough . . . Except for the fact that the experiment was not actually done in the Climate 101 video or by the writer of this blog.
I was very P.O’d after reading your post at the deception by the Climate 101 vid and Gore’s “Climate Reality” project. So I went on the website and watched the video. LMAO! All that work you did . . . They didn’t DO the experiment! It was DESCRIBED (caps for emphasis, not yelling I have no italics on here) in about 30 secs and very very . . .very obviously dramatized. It was a dramatization, not an experiment. You aren’t supposed to count the upticks on the thermometers, you are supposed to see that one thermometer is getting hotter faster in a DRAMATIZED manner.
All that time an energy getting the equipment, why didn’t you just perform the experiment? It actually works.
The Climate 101 video was not meant to be actually be a video log of an experiment. It was a dramatized example.
REPLY: Part 2 coming up is the experiment, but I had to get some specialized extra equipment shipped in to do it right for the experiment part, and that takes time to locate, purchase and ship – This will be done much more thoroughly than Gore did, bear in mind I’m only one private person with zero budget doing this on my own dime. Gore has millions and could not be bothered to complete the experiment that is simple “high school physics”?
None of us actually know for sure if they did it or not, they may have done it, couldn’t get it to work, and then fudged it. Nobody knows and Gore won’t share. As for it being “dramatized”, uh no. The narrator says clearly at 0:46 “you can try this experiment yourself” and they have “Simple Experiment” on screen title. In TV News (where I worked for 20+ years) even the dumbest greenhorn reporter knows to put the disclaimer “dramatization” or “re-enactment” on such video. Gore didn’t bother- he can’t have it both ways, but he DOES label it as an experiment in audio and text, no mention anywhere of dramatization. So yes, you were correct to be PO’d initially, Gore failed on this one. – Anthony
davidmhoffer says:
September 29, 2011 at 7:21 pm
R. Gates;
I’d wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated. How much would you like to bet?>>>
Really? Let’s get the terms and conditions set out then. Could you please define exactly what experiment was illustrated and how we’ll judge if it was replicated or not?
————-
This is truly very simple. We’ll take two identical glass containers and put two identical thermometers in each. We’ll take two identical heat lamps and place them identical distances from the containers. Once we verify that the temperatures inside the containers have stabilized to within 0.1C of each other, we will begin to introduce CO2 to one of the containers. We will see the temperature rise in that container within a few minutes. If we don’t, I lose the bet. If we do, you lose. Very simple.
REPLY: “We will see the temperature rise in that container within a few minutes. If we don’t, I lose the bet.”
Sheesh you are clueless aren’t you? The temperature will rise in BOTH containers as they are both receiving energy. The issue of temperature is how much, how fast, how different for both heating/cooling periods for each container. Then there’s the introduction of CO2 issue, the stabilization period comes AFTER that introduction of CO2 since you don’t know (depending on source) what the temperature of the CO2 is it may be warmer/colder. You just can’t leave things like that to chance. There’s other quality control issues you haven’t even touched on.
You can’t even design the experiment fairly from the start. You really should quit while you are ahead. – Anthony
I have a feeling this one will turn out for you just like the surfacestations project…
Hey Guys, this wasn’t a experiment, demonstration or what ever you would like to call it. I was typical of the hundreds of thousands of advertisements that are dished up to us on TV every day.
Like the ads, loose 40 kilos / pounds in forty minutes with pictures of the fat punk transformed into a photo shopped size 10 beauty. Laundry detergent that will remove any stain in cold water, pictures of before and after, same with dish washing powder for the dish washer that will remove any baked on food. And don’t forget the Toyota 4X4 that will crawl over any pile of rocks up a 90 degree slope. The list of fake, false, lying advertisements is endless and I’m sure you guys could recall a couple of hundred more.
These advertisements and the above video “experiment”, are aimed at a younger generation who don’t question anything that is dished up on TV. If its on TV, it must be true. None of those, or very few, of the new younger generation would ever bother to actually get the components together and try it themselves. It was on TV so it must be OK. And an attitude that “ if I think, it makes my head hurt”.
So while I appreciate Anthony’s detective work in exposing the fraud, really the video was aimed at the “brain dead couch potatoes”.
After 567 comments of nit picking all the ins and outs of the video, no one has tweaked to the fact that this BS was not aimed at the thinkers, it was aimed at the “brain dead” and the way society is, I would think they out number us at least 1000 to 1.
mm…
the glass is an ir blocker/absorber.
the jars need to admit the ir directly and extraneous light should be blocked.
admit the co2 in one and shut it. (as high a concentration as you like suits me)
let the temp stabilize and record it (and the control, to show it’s the same)
finally, after the co2 jar measurement, change it back to plain air to show no drift/change. it should return to the same as it was before – same as the plain air control.
then i think it looks fair and i’ll put a dollar on it.
if the co2 jar gets hotter than the plain air jar by an indisputable 0.5C, you win.
Anthony @ R Gates:
You can’t even design the experiment fairly from the start. You really should quit while you are ahead.
================
Flawed to the core, no doubt.
Trying to get R Gates to quit while he is “ahead” is like trying to stop a piss in the early morning.
It just wont happen. One, nay two things shall remain:
1) E = mc squared (or some form of it as of late)
2) R Gates’ wedgy time.
Wedgy time.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I don’t know about Mr Watts actual ’20 years in TV’ I only have about 8, but have to say anyone who doesn’t understand that such segments are almost always edited, for time constraints, would not actually seem to know that much about television production at all.
Trying to spin doctor such edits into some sort of conspiracy or yet another bash Gore statement is not really much more than an indictment on the weak level skepticism has sunk to.
The basics of this experiment are well known and have been repeated in thousands of high schools across the country indeed the world and as a basic example that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and it proves that quite well.
REPLY: It proved nothing, since the experiment was staged. Video edits and stagecraft are not proof, and that’s the issue. Dramatizing is one thing as long as it it made clear, such as a super saying “dramatization”. Fabricating end results are something else entirely. Here we have an experiment where the results are fabricated via editing and stage craft. Google up NBC Dateline, gas tanks, and rocket motors if you want to see why such dramatized stagecraft can be hazardous to your television career when you don’t tell the viewer up front.
Editing is fine, so long as it doesn’t fabricate anything. I could have done that tank filling sequence in one shot with a smooth zoom though, without edits and to prove the thermometers temperatures afterward, all they would have to do is remove then from the jars, and place them side by side for the camera, no editing needed. You see these are oral thermometers, which hold the high temperature. Any parent knows this and it made proving the result simple…but they botched that opportunity and fabricated a temperature rise with editing, possibly because the experiment didn’t work right.
Gore could have simply inserted a disclaimer, one word, “dramatization” – he didn’t. Instead we have “experiment” in audio and in a fill screen slate with words. Can’t have it both ways…unless of course you work for NBC Dateline – Anthony
Surely it’s all a bit irrelevant? The experiment doesn’t show anything about the affect of CO2 in an atmosphere only that a jar full of CO2 may or may not warm more quickly or reach a higher final temperature than a jar full of air. The experiment should be whether the lamp above the CO2 jar starts to emit more heat than that above the air jar due to back radiated LWR from the CO2 in the jar. The experiment should also have been done with jars of air with no CO2 and trace CO2 (not 100%) and with varying humidity to demonstrate the difference a stronger GHG makes..
People will try to excuse what Gore did but in reality it was not only irrelevant but dishonest
Debbie King says:
September 29, 2011 at 8:43 pm
“It was a dramatization, not an experiment. You aren’t supposed to count the upticks on the thermometers, you are supposed to see that one thermometer is getting hotter faster in a DRAMATIZED manner.
All that time an energy getting the equipment, why didn’t you just perform the experiment? It actually works.”
Friggin hilarious!
You mean perform a dramatization that works, right? I agree with your statement that the viewers were not supposed to see what really happened. And it appears it took some concerted effort to make that happen, instead of just showing real thermometer readings of those in the jars. I’d rather Anthony wait till he has all the equiptment, instead of perform a repeat show.
R. Gates;
This is truly very simple. We’ll take two identical glass containers and put two identical thermometers in each. We’ll take two identical heat lamps…>>>
Anthony’s excellent response notwithstanding, may I point our R. Gates that you neatly side stepped the question I asked? You have proposed an experiment in considerable detail despite the numerous flaws in methodology and a statement regarding the expected results so ambiguous is cannot be quantified.
But I didn’t ask you to propose an experiment.
I asked you to provide the details of the experiment you claim was illustrated and so easily reproduced that it was OK to just fake it instead of doing it.
I repeat: WHAT ARE THE DETAILS OF THE EXPERIMENT THAT WAS “ILLUSTRATED”??????
>>
R. Gates says:
September 29, 2011 at 8:55 pm
This is truly very simple. We’ll take two identical glass containers and put two identical thermometers in each. We’ll take two identical heat lamps and place them identical distances from the containers.
<<
This is, of course, probably impossible. To find three identical pair of items as stated would most likely take several lifetimes. You’ve guaranteed an out so you don’t have to pay. It would be far easier to run the experiment in tandem, and the identical nature of the items in question would be assured. You should add a real-time clock and a camera so the various runs can be compared. Did I say various runs? One run each wouldn’t be very “scientific.” I’d say there should be a minimum of several dozen runs each–and in random order.
In the end, I’m not sure what this experiment would show, but it’s your bet.
Jim
davidmhoffer says:
September 29, 2011 at 9:54 pm
R. Gates;
This is truly very simple. We’ll take two identical glass containers and put two identical thermometers in each. We’ll take two identical heat lamps…>>>
Anthony’s excellent response notwithstanding, may I point our R. Gates that you neatly side stepped the question I asked? You have proposed an experiment in considerable detail despite the numerous flaws in methodology and a statement regarding the expected results so ambiguous is cannot be quantified.
But I didn’t ask you to propose an experiment.
I asked you to provide the details of the experiment you claim was illustrated and so easily reproduced that it was OK to just fake it instead of doing it.
I repeat: WHAT ARE THE DETAILS OF THE EXPERIMENT THAT WAS “ILLUSTRATED”??????
———-
You’ve lived up to my expectations of you. My outline was the essence of the experiment. I assume because you know you’d lose the bet, you want to obfuscate the issue. You are more predictable than the results.
REPLY: He’s simply asking you to quantify the steps of the Gore experiment in a step by step way, so that it can be agreed upon then replicated, if you can’t do that then as far as I’m concerned you’ve already lost. – Anthony
Let me be absolutely clear – the Climate 101 vid was made as a dramatized illustration. After watching the video, for anyone to say the vid described in this blog was a real time scientific video log of an experiment or that the vid was faking science is being underhanded and juvenile.
I am presuming you watched the Climate 101 video either on this blog, or on Gore’s website. It was an extremely obvious dramatization of a well known experiment. It was not a log of an experiment actually being performed. The myth busters video is a video log of an experiment being performed. You can watch them each, if you haven’t already, and see the differences in the production of them both.
Anyone who claims that the Climate 101 vid is an experiment log worthy of peer analysis of its procedure rather than a very brief video illustrated explanation of a common experiment is being disingenuous and absurdly ideological to the point of ridiculousness. And anyone who maintains the position that the Climate 101 video intentionally falsified science loses all credibility in this argument for those who are not ideologically bent on taking down Al Gore at all costs.
Cheers,
Debbie
REPLY: Lets’ review. You’ve accused me of being “being underhanded and juvenile”, then “disingenuous and absurdly ideological to the point of ridiculousness”.
Hmmm, I think I know where this comes from. You are projecting. You provided your public Facebook URL in both your comments for people to click on, so I did. http://www.facebook.com/DebbieKing1979 and when you go there, we find that you are a protestor trying to shut down Tampa, and Wall Street through “occupation”. Your bias screams loudly for all to see. Thanks for sharing!
This tells me all I need to know, and I forgive you for not being able to put that bias aside enough. Come back in a few days and you’ll get to see the results of the experiment as defined by Mr. Gore. We all will look forward to more entertainment from you then. – Anthony
This is why science is no longer credible.
Science is Bill Nye hand waving and telling you what the results OUGHT to be.
So now kids, indoctrinated with this corrupt view of the scientific method, are dispossessed of curiosity and incapable of apprehending when they are being deceived.
Shame on anyone who defends this abuse of the truth.
Do you all remember when the Team said that they needed to be better communicators?
This is Al Gore’s way of communicating with kids. I know someone from the past who would be very proud of him.
Anthony et al;
While I appreciate the moral support, you’re really not helping me out by pointing out R. Gates mistakes to him. I’m trying to make a few bucks here!
R. Gates;
You’ve lived up to my expectations of you. My outline was the essence of the experiment. I assume because you know you’d lose the bet, you want to obfuscate the issue. You are more predictable than the results.>>>
Sidestep, sidestep, sidestep…
If your outline was the essence of the experiment:
1. Please explain how you know this. Use only the evidence in the video itself to corroborate your opinion.
2. Anthony has proposed to do the experiment subject to certain changes to make it accurate and quantifiable from a scientific perspective. Do you accept Anthyony’s methodology as being representative of the experiment illustrated, and will you accept his results?
Please advise.
“”””” Myrrh says:
September 29, 2011 at 5:56 pm
…………………………………………………
You can of course continue to spout nonsense about this, but all it shows is that you don’t know the difference between light and heat energies from the Sun. Light energies do not have the power to move whole molecules into vibrational/rotational resonance. “””””
Well Myrrh, I’m just going to guess that for you English is a second language, and move on.
Nowhere in my original post, did I say anything about glass or plastics, as to their transmission (or not) of electromagnetic radiation. So what was all that guff about industrial uses of infra-red, and transmission.
Actually, one of the most common reasons that “glass” can be a poor transmitter of infra-red radiation around 1 micron, is because most common glasses contain trace amounts of water, so most such glasses have strong absorption in the 0.9 to 1.0 micron range.
And as for getting “light” or “heat” from the sun; actually we get neither “light” nor “heat” from the sun. But I will admit, that in your latest effort, you did say “light and heat energies” .
Light is a property of the human eye; not the sun; which is why it has its own set of units, and its own measurement science called Photometry; to distinguish it from Radiometry, which relates to the general measurement of Electro-magnetic radiation; so light is the human eye(and brain) response to a very narrow range of EM radiation from around 400 to 700 nm wavelength (in air or vaccum).
“Heat” on the other hand is a verb; not a noun, so it is a process, and not a thing.
And since the process of heating requires a real physical medium containing atoms or molecules; the sun is unable to heat the earth; or humans.
But EM radiant energy from the sun, can and does “heat” both the earth and humans; mostly in both cases because H2O is a very efficient absorber of EM radiation especially in the 1-4 micron range.
A simple experiment using a common glass or plastic magnifying glass, might demonstrate; even to you, that solar radiation in the visible and near IR (1 micron) range can and does heat even humans.
Simply focus an image (visible wavelengths) of the sun on your skin, the bigger.the magnifier, the better.
Don’t worry, because none that nasty LWIR solar spectrum around 10.1 microns, can penetrate either the glass or plastic magnifier, so you don’t have to worry about getting burned by that LWIR that you call “heat”. The purpose of the experiment is just to show that the “sunlight” doesn’t penetrate deeply into your body.
And when you start on your second half century of continuous work in Physics out in that vast world of industry that you told us about; then come back again and tell me I am full of it.
But you may be a first; it would seem that for you, ignorance really IS a disease.
But I’m not a doctor, so I don’t intend to waste any more of WUWT’s bandwidth trying to treat your malady.
DR, I don’t understand your fixation with the Wood/Nahle experiment. I have already pointed out to you that it has been well known that the atmospheric greenhouse doesn’t work that way, and has been well known for a very long time. It is almost as if Nahle had repeated the cannon-boring experiment that shows that phlogiston theory is incorrect and using that as proof that the theory of modern thermodynamics is wrong.
your write “Did Spencer Weart include Robert Wood in his history lesson?”, try showing some actual skepticism by going to his website and having a look. Using the search facility shows that yes he does include Wood’s experiment
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm
see point 11.
Hide the experiment!
For Mariss Freimanis
Comparator exercise.
You can improve on your method by reading my post at September 29, 2011 at 4:02 am
The technique I mention is more like putting a semi-transparent flim negative over a printed film positive. With your method, it is easier to see defects in the top image, with mine you see both.
I’ve used this method to compare valuable postage stamps for about 15 years now. It’s far more revealing on 1200 dpi scans than the eye can be. The limit, with stamps, is the distortion of the paper which was printed wet on engraved stamps.
Chris in Hervey Bay says:
September 29, 2011 at 8:59 pm
The problem is the people who work for a living are outnumbered by the people who vote for a living. (anon)
This is truly very simple. We’ll take two identical glass containers and put two identical thermometers in each. We’ll take two identical heat lamps…>>>
Anthony’s excellent response notwithstanding, may I point our R. Gates that you neatly side stepped the question I asked? You have proposed an experiment in considerable detail despite the numerous flaws in methodology and a statement regarding the expected results so ambiguous is cannot be quantified.
But I didn’t ask you to propose an experiment.
I asked you to provide the details of the experiment you claim was illustrated and so easily reproduced that it was OK to just fake it instead of doing it.
I repeat: WHAT ARE THE DETAILS OF THE EXPERIMENT THAT WAS “ILLUSTRATED”??????
———-
You’ve lived up to my expectations of you. My outline was the essence of the experiment. I assume because you know you’d lose the bet, you want to obfuscate the issue. You are more predictable than the results.
REPLY: He’s simply asking you to quantify the steps of the Gore experiment in a step by step way, so that it can be agreed upon then replicated, if you can’t do that then as far as I’m concerned you’ve already lost. – Anthony
——-
Wow, losing a bet before an actual very simple experiment has been performed?
Look, I’m on limited Internet access right now away from my home on my iPad, but when I get back home Friday night and run through this blog in a bit more detail and make a comprehensive response. I am more than willing to follow through on this, and we can even do it together as a group after or before a certain November meeting that some may be attending. The basic details of this experiment are quite simple and have been repeated in high school physics classes hundreds of times if not thousands. We can specify every little detail in advance, exact containers, type and wattage of light, etc. The so-called Gore experiment was only illustrative of a general experiment, with the point being that anyone could do it themselves, and certainly as an ILLUSTRATION was lacking great detail, i.e. What was the wattage and distance of the light source? How thick is the glass? How much heat is being conducted along the tube into the container? Exactly how big is the opening where the tube is entering? Is any heat from the lamp entering the opening where the tube is entering?
So we should be able to agree on these and then proceed, right? The bottom line will be: does the addition of CO2 to one of two reasonably similar container cause the temperature in that container to rise? I would even suggest that after doing the experiment once, that we switch a single variable and conduct it again to prove that it was the CO2 making the difference i.e. We could switch the light or the container or the thermometer.
Rolf Atkison says:
Water is transparent to sunlight, and can only radiate in the infrared. The footnote Henry refers to cites… himself once more.
Henry@Rolf
In the footnote I refer to this paper:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
I feel honored if you think I wrote this paper and I probably could have done the job, as spectroscopy is in my field, but I was not involved.The paper serves to prove that water and CO2 and other GHG’s are in fact not transparent to sunlight. Look at fig. 6 bottom and see how it all comes back in Fig. 6 top (bounced off from the moon). In fact, as someone already remarked earlier, they can use the 4-5 um absorption to compare and measure the CO2 concentration because of its strength. Therefore the idea of doing a test in a closed box as proposed by Gore & Cook and company is completely erroneous as it excludes taking into account the cooling effect caused by CO2 by the deflection of certain sunlight.
sed s/phlogiston/caloric/g on my previous post, obviously needed more coffee before posting early in the morning! ;o)
Seriously? There are really that many people who thought this was a real experiment? I am truly concerned about the future if so many people were duped by this. Even the sound effects are cartoony for heavens sake!
“REPLY: and if the situation was reversed you’d be hollering – Anthony”
If what situation was reversed? Don’t get into false equivalence territory here. Theres a difference in pointing out scientific flaws in an argument and getting all huffy because a 30 second description of a longer experiment wasn’t marked ‘dramatized.’
REPLY: It was labeled onscreen and in audio as “simple experiment” and at 0:46 the clear suggestion is that you can try it yourself.
Nowhere are any disclaimers posted. Even the dumbest greenhorn TV news reporter knows the kind of trouble that can cause if you “dramatize” something supposedly factual and don’t specify it for the viewer.
Mr. Gore can’t have it both ways, either it is an experiment or a dramatization. With both audio and text labels saying experiment, the intent seems very clear. The failure is that if in fact the experiemnt was so simple that viewers could try it at home, why couldn’t they do just that? Major failure.
No false equivalent. If I made a video and had an experiment like this, shoddily done and not documented, with faked results, with a results that said the opposite of what Gore claims, I’d be excoriated by people like yourself – Anthony
Dear Moderators,
The URL for this piece changed, before it contained “09/28”, now it is “09/29”. It looks like the change came when it was removed from the top post “sticky” position, presumably done automatically by the wordpress system.
Due to the importance of this post and the undoubtedly many links to it, can you change the URL back?
REPLY: Yeah one of the downsides of the WP sticky fixed – A
I think, that, apart from the “manipulations” of the experiment, as has been clearly shown, the real test would be to duplicate the experiment with water (and eventual the greenhouse effect of water vapor as a result) and sparkling water in the jar (combined effect of water vapor and CO2). This could show the “saturation” of the greenhouse effect due to the exponential nature of Beer-Lambert law; also it would give some evidence on the cumulative effect of two greenhouse gases, with overlaping absorption bands. Of course, the concentrations are not in the right proportions, but it could give some clear idea about the key questions. Finally, we have to hold in mind that there will always be a difference between a lab experiment and what happens in the atmosphere: the adiabatic expansion due to lower atmospheric pressure higher up in the atmosphere.
All very interesting & tenacious & admirable detective work.
However , if it doesn’t catch the interest of Main Stream Media, Advertising Standards, or Law Enforcement, it makes no difference whatsoever. The video has done it’s job and now it’s just about an argument in a bottle.
I love it when a thread here turns into a modified parody of a Monty Python skit:
Customer: “You sold me a dead bird !”
R. Gates: “Didn’t.”
Customer: “This bird is distinctly dead”!
D. Marsupial: ” ‘T isin’t.”
Customer: “I want my money back !”
R. Gates; “Can’t.”
Custormer: “What are you going to do about this ?!”
D. Marsupial: “Replacement ?” (Holding up another dead bird.)
There is an easier way to get a consistent experiment.
1. Set up one glass container with little globe and thermometer and lamp etc.
2. Run the lamp for 24 hours or however long it takes to get a stable temperature.
3. Introduce some CO2 (preferably a measured amount)
4. Wait for 24 hours or however long it takes to get a stable temperature.
No problems with “exact”… the only variable should then be time (and possibly external atmospheric conditions, which should be mostly accounted for by sealing the containers).
Now, the REALITY of this is simple. It doesn’t matter. Not even a little. Because unless we have a 500 mile thick layer of glass surrounding our planet a few thousand miles out, it represents absolutely nothing real.
The experiment does not even remotely take into account convection, precipitation, planetary spin, ocean currents, polar cooling, soot, etc. etc. etc, ALL of which, combined, contribute to a planetary atmosphere. And what’s more, it is simultaneously impossible and unneccessary to even DETERMINE a planetary temperature. But, hey, go ahead and stress about some tiny fractions of degrees over long periods of time…
CO2’s influence on the temperature can be compared to adjusting the thermostat in a house with all of the windows and doors open, during winter.
Re: R Gates
““We will see the temperature rise in that container within a few minutes. If we don’t, I lose the bet.””
Lets be a little bit more precise about this. The starting temperature for Gore’s experiment was 96.1F and the ending temperatures were 98 and 100.2. This means that the none CO2 container rose by 1.9F and the CO2 container rose by 4.1F or more than twice as fast.
Your replication of this simple experiment should have:
1. The starting temperature at or above room temperature (68F) and below 100F
2. The temperature in the CO2 enriched container should rise by at least twice as much as the other container with a minimum temperature rise of 2F.
3. The air pressure in both containers should be the same at the starting temperatures.
4. A minimum of 8 runs of the experiment must be completed. In each different run one or more piece of equipment is swapped so the experiment is run with all possible combinations of glass jar, thermometer and IR lamp.
R. Gates says:
September 30, 2011 at 12:20 am
Better include a pressure guage in your setup. If your raise the pressure, the temperature will rise.
The experiment need re-running, with Anthony’s equipment, to see if it really does work as advertised (with or without editing). I suspect it will not work.
It then needs rerunning with more realistic parameters, like large and thin plastic containers, that will not absorb so much IR themselves. I suspect that the experiment will still not work.
I also suspect that Anthony is doing precisely this, as we speak. And I suspect the results will be interesting.
.
R. Gates;
Look, I’m on limited Internet access right now away from my home on my iPad, but when I get back home Friday night and run through this blog in a bit more detail and make a comprehensive response.>>>
DMH: I thought it was a simple experiment? Suddenly you need detail and time to consider things?
R. Gates;
I am more than willing to follow through on this, and we can even do it together as a group after or before a certain November meeting that some may be attending.>>>
DMH: What has a meeting in November that some people may be attending have to do with it?
R. Gates;
The basic details of this experiment are quite simple and have been repeated in high school physics classes hundreds of times if not thousands.>>>
DMH: I repeat: What are the details of the experiment which was illustrated? I offered to bet that if the experiment was repeated, it would not show the results depicted in the video. You offered to take the bet. Are you welching? Why are you trying to define the experiment instead of stepping up to the bet I proposed, which is that the experiment illustrated would not show the results illustrated? I repeat: What experiment was illustrated?
R. Gates;
We can specify every little detail in advance, exact containers, type and wattage of light, etc. The so-called Gore experiment was only illustrative of a general experiment, with the point being that anyone could do it themselves, and certainly as an ILLUSTRATION was lacking great detail, i.e. What was the wattage and distance of the light source? How thick is the glass? How much heat is being conducted along the tube into the container? Exactly how big is the opening where the tube is entering? Is any heat from the lamp entering the opening where the tube is entering?>>>
DMH: Ah! So you ADMIT that you don’t know exactly what experiment was done! You’ve offered to take a bet that if the experiment was replicated, it would show the results depicted in the video. Now you admit you don’t really have a clue what the experiment was, and so you propose a NEW experiment instead.
QUESTION: I asked if Anthony’s replication of the experiment would suffice and you have not answered yes or no. Its only a one word answer R. Gates, you can do more than that even with an iPAd. Yes? or No?
R. Gates;
So we should be able to agree on these and then proceed, right? The bottom line will be: does the addition of CO2 to one of two reasonably similar container cause the temperature in that container to rise? >>>
DMH: No R. Gates, that was not the bet proposed. The bet proposed was that the experiment done properly would not show the results illustrated in the video. Not the order of magnitude, not the rapidity with which temperature supposedly changed, and so on. I said that the experiment done properly would not show the results in the video, and now you are trying to propose results that are DIFFERENT from what was shown in the video.
QUESTION: Are you going to stand up to your own word and take the bet that I proposed (and which you immediately said you would take)? Or not? Are you going to accept Anthony’s results and methodology? Or not?
I did my own version of the 101 experiment.
Some people determine truth by the alphabet soup after the name of the person speaking or writing, I am not one of those brain dead people.
I also want to know what to believe and what is BS. I am an engineer and am quite good at recognizing BS.
I used 1 plastic jar and 1 sunlamp to eliminate the variables in jar thickness and sunlamp brightness. I lined the bottom with paper towels so the thermometer wouldn’t be sampling the jar material temperature. The distance was also measured and repeatable. I didn’t turn the sunlamp off ever. [each trial was 10 minutes]
The top was open but CO2 is heavier than air and there was no wind.
CO2 was courtesy of baking soda and water. I have no meter to measure %. But it was close to 100 %.
I bought an instant read digital meat thermometer [Farberware] accurate to .1 ° F [at least repeatable] . I used only one because different ones differ by .2 ° F or more.
Between trials I brought the vessel to the same temperature.
I repeated each trial several times and obtained a baseline.
Results:
Baseline:
Heating was about 39.7 ° F with a range of +or – 1 °
[the amount of light hitting the thermometer was hard to keep constant.]
CO2 trials
Heating was 39.4 ° F with the same error range.
The results suggest even 100 % CO2 produces no measurable warming.
Oh, God, please, NO! The last thing we need is a verb form of the word “climate”!!
Stick with good old “climb”, please. I don’t want to read or think about “climing”!
NetDr says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:31 am
Fabulous. Those who can… do. Hope other people in a position to do so do also 😉
davidmhoffer says:
September 29, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Anthony et al;
While I appreciate the moral support, you’re really not helping me out by pointing out R. Gates mistakes to him. I’m trying to make a few bucks here!
Pointing out R. Gates mistakes is a paying job?
Well, the good part is that David has job security.
🙂
NetDr says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:31 am
The results suggest even 100 % CO2 produces no measurable warming.
Do you know someone who made the same experiment reversely?
I’d wonder what happens, if the jars were cooled from room temperature (sealed and vented).
Anyone knows?
Apparently, this “simple high school experiment” varies widely. This fellow: http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=312054 was attempting to reproduce it without much luck in showing any difference between the C02 and non-C02 containers.
I notice most seem more interested in showing what happens after the heat source is shut off, simulating “night”.
A key ingredient for this “experiment” may just be how strong the desire to show a C02 heating effect is.
My wife is a retired teacher and does substituting. Based on her description of what passes for education today, Al Gore may actually be correct–the quality of his demonstration may indeed matach the quality of high school physics experiments today.
Good job. I’m an avid Photoshop and 3D graphics modeler and I spotted virtually every background similarity in the split screen in seconds before reading your analysis. It’s very amaturish.
Glass has an IOR of about 1.5, which means that even if shot through a flat piece glass there should be some slight distorations just based on the slight difference in the angle of the two themometers. There is no way to photograph these themometors through curved glass without the index of refraction causing noticable distortions.
Also absent are any ambient reflections from the jar, the room, or the red heat lamp.
Notice that in the video when the heat lamp is on the ambient occlusion and subsurface scattering within the glass jar and themometers causes the themometers to have a red “glow.”
That “glow” should be as prevalent in the split screen.
The themometer is not only not in a jar, but I’ll bet everything I own that it is not under the heat lamp either.
I can only conclude that either the production crew is incompetent or they think their audience is dumber than dirt.
All:
Please look at the video, beginning at the 0:50 second mark.
The “simple experiment” is explained as “Here’s how…” and the setup clearly shown.
Now note the 1:05 mark – the CO2 filled bottle still has the hose in it and is no longer sealed as the heat lamps are applied. Then it is shown with the hose removed at 1:09 with the heat lamps still on, and “within minutes” we should see the temp in the CO2 bottle rise faster and higher than the other bottle’s temperature.
If the experiment is done exactly as shown, it will not get the results described.
However, whatever possible heat difference that the CO2 may create will be overwhelmed by the heating effects of the glass, the thermometer, and the earth globe.
Hmmm… the possible effect of the atmospheric CO2 will be overwhelmed by other more dominate effects.
That sounds familiar. Can’t quite remember where I’ve heard it though.
One look at the green background gives away that it’s the same thermometer in Gore’s video. The lighting is identical. Two thermometers separated by even a few inches would cast different shadows. Fakery.
HenryP insists that CO2 and H2O are not transparent to sunlight. On the contrary, he maintains, atmospheric CO2 reflects significant amounts of sunshine, so that increased CO2 would have a cooling effect as well as a warming effect – the balance would be important.
He cites a web article – his own work – and refers me in particular to a footnote – his own work again – but now points out that there is an article reference within that footnote:
http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/644/1/551/pdf/64090.web.pdf
This is not his own work, though he feels he has the competence to do such work, since spectroscopy is within his field.
I thought it might be a waste of my time, but it would be rude to ignore his answer after I had been scathing about his claims. The article, as you may see if you wish, describes the analysis of the Earth’s reflection spectrum as re-reflected by the Moon (Earthshine). It’s a great paper, but I pretty well knew what it would say, so I skipped to the final figure. These atmospheric spectra show the presence of molecules by the existence of absorption bands – dark bands. Sure enough, some of the radiation at key wavelengths corresponding to the energised states of the CO2 molecule (1.44, 1.59 and 2.03 microns in particular) was missing. It was never reflected. It was absorbed by CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere. The absorption of energy in this way causes various vibrations of the molecule – heat (unless you have the dictionary of one contributor here who thinks that heat is not a noun).
In short, the paper proved (inter alia) what I thought we all knew – that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. It doesn’t reflect it. Since spectroscopy lies within Henry’s field, I await correction.
Also, perhaps, since the Moon has kindly done the macroexperiment so neatly, maybe RGates won’t have to? Al Gore, like a broken wristwatch, is still occasionally right.
Sorry if this is a double post – I don’t think the first one went through properly.
As I think others have pointed out, how is this any different from cooking shows? The gist of a cooking show is to demonstrate how to make something, with intention that you will try it for yourself. However, they don’t show every single step in the cooking process but only the major steps needed to accomplish the result. For example, to demonstrate how to bake bread, its not required to show the whole process of the dough rising or the bread baking, that would be tedious and boring. As long as the final result comes out as explained, its not really that important to show every single step. And nowhere are there disclaimers that the show is a dramatization, since the audience is generally smart enough to fill in the blanks and understand the constraints of a show in a limited time slot.
I think the issue is you’re coming at this from the wrong angle. Gore’s video is not a TV news report, and therein lies the difference. In TV news, there is an expectation that what is being shown are actual events, thus any deviation from that must be specified. In Gore’s video, it is clear from the beginning, and throughout the video, that what is being shown is NOT reality, but an illustration or caricature of the concepts being described, hence the ping pong balls representing solar radiation hitting the earth, stylized effects and cartoony sound effects, among other things.
Yes, that is a false equivalent. I have no problem with Gore et al’s video because it is summarizes the setup and results of a well known and documented scientific experiment. Likewise, I would have no issues if you or anyone else were to make a video summarizing a well known experiment, no matter how shoddily or randomly the video was edited. On the other hand, if you were to make a video that greatly disagreed with established scientific results (lets say claiming that water boils at 200C at sea level), then, regardless of how the video was edited or set-up, you’d better believe I’d be extremely skeptical and nitpicky. But that situation is completely different than what we have here. Its not the video or video setup that matters, its the scientific claim thats important.
@ NetDr You, Sir, are a treasure, because you actually DID a version of the experiment and reported what you found. That is worth more to me than a thousand posts that say “suppose we did this!”
I am looking forward to Mr. Watts’ report on what happens when he tries replicating the Bill Nye version. I suspect his results will also be null, but who knows?
Thank you, NetDr!
Which one will cool faster?
Wouldn’t that also be an important part, because we are “exciting” the CO2 molecules?
What is the differences in “resting states”?
Do both jars raise to room temperatures equally?
One of the problems, I’ve always had in the AGW hypothesis is holding things as constants…such as…convections…solar variances etc.
Inquiring kids wanna know.
The experiment in no way simulates the way CO2 supposedly causes warming on a planet.
The experiment makes little sense because even the alarmists don’t claim that the CO2 is warmed by the light from the sun as it is in the experiment [supposedly].
The claim is that the sunlight hits the earth so the sunlight is converted to Infra Red but CO2 blocks the IR !
Henry@Rolf Atkinson
I am talking about deflection, meaning re-radiation or back-radiation, in fact, you could also call it reflection. It is all the same thing. The molecule acts mirror-like in the absorptive areas. Now you just want to muddle it up again by claiming the radiation stayed on earth rather than following the path sun-earth-moon-earth. I have been there before, done that, with all of you of the AGW cloth.
Clearly, you do not (want to?) understand how the GH effect works and the principle of re-radiation
so I am given up on you as I have given you all the clues.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
NetDr says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:31 am
I did my own version of the 101 experiment.
CO2 was courtesy of baking soda and water. I have no meter to measure %. But it was close to 100 %
——-
Too bad you didn’t have a way of measuring CO2, as you would have discovered that there was the exact same amount in each container, i.e., the normal atmospheric amount. Why? Because baking soda and water won’t produce CO2…you needed to add vinegar instead. Try again…
Henry@Rolf Atkinson
I am talking about deflection, meaning re-radiation or back-radiation, in fact, you could also call it reflection. It is all the same thing. The molecule acts mirror-like in the absorptive areas. Now you just want to muddle it up again by claiming the radiation stayed on earth rather than following the path sun-earth-moon-earth. I have been there before, done that, with all of you of the AGW cloth.
Clearly, you do not (want to?) understand how the GH effect works and the principle of re-radiation
so I am giving up on you as I have given you all the clues.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
As with all Leftists, you can guarantee they will always overreach. It is in their DNA to do whatever it takes to force their will upon their fellow man, regardless of truth, safety, cost or feasibility. Al Gore is just another Leftist control freak.
Thanks Anthony for exposing this fraud and his sycophants like Bill Nye the anti-science guy.
NetDr says:
September 30, 2011 at 4:31 am
I did my own version of the 101 experiment.
CO2 was courtesy of baking soda and water. I have no meter to measure %. But it was close to 100 %
——-
Too bad you didn’t have a way of measuring CO2, as you would have discovered that there was the exact same amount in each container, i.e., the normal atmospheric amount. Why? Because baking soda and water won’t produce CO2…you needed to add vinegar instead. Try again
***********
Sorry that was a typo !
I used baking soda and vinegar.
It bubbled nicely and I filled the jar with a large diameter hose. 1/2 inch so lots of gas went into the jar.
You were right though if I didn’t use the vinegar.
It showed me that if the jar isn’t sealed there is virtually no more warming in the CO2 jar.
I suspect there might be some but it is too slight to measure just like it is on planet earth.
NetDr:
your results are not valid because you used an ir detector.
there’s no telling what you were actually reading since glass, plastic and co2 block/absorb ir.
Cooking shows actually cook the food they claim they’re cooking.
This video is like a cooking show which fakes the actual cooking while telling the audience the WRONG way to cook something.
gnomish says:
September 30, 2011 at 9:06 am
NetDr:
your results are not valid because you used an ir detector.
there’s no telling what you were actually reading since glass, plastic and co2 block/absorb ir.
***************
I used a digital thermometer accurate to 1/10 ° F. [Farberware], it is more accurate and tracks temperature very quickly.. I tried an alcohol one but it was unusable. Shaking it down was unreliable.
BTW: I watched the Mythbusters CO2 experiment and noticed that the increased warming was slight and the box wasn’t vented to relieve pressure.
The boxes don’t seem to be tightly sealed but the excess warming the mythbusters detected was only 1 ° c so the slight warming is probably just slight pressure difference.
With an open top the CO2 is free to leave but since it is still heavier than air not much will leave and no excess warming is detectable.
If you don’t vent the pressure the larger CO2 molecule expands more and causes more apparent warming.
If there are any real physicists especially ones with a background in quantum physics out there they know that when any gas absorbs radiation it does not cause the gas to “heat”. The work of Dr. Niels Bohr which resulted in his getting the Nobel Prize in physics in1922, knows that any claim of CO2 heating when it absorbs IR does not know what they are talking about.
There is no question that CO2 and other IR absorbing gases (IRag) exist but there are many documented experiments that prove that they do not “heat” Anyone that claims that their experiment shows the heating of the gas by absorption is mistaking heating by conduction or convection for heating by absorption or because they are shining the heat lamp on the thermometer..
The experiment shown in the Climate 101 fake video and the British heating of a gas in a bottle are example of “Confined space heating” aka The typical greenhouse effect- NOT THE Greenhouse Gas effect.
For this experiment, such as it is, to be done properly, the CO2 jar should be filled from a 100% CO2 cylinder (we don’t want water or water-vapor in either jar), and the “control” jar filled w/say, 100% “dry” air or nitrogen. I realize it would be difficult to keep some water-vapor from infiltrating the control jar if it was open. Performing the experiment in a dry atmosphere would be best.
I’ll bet that even w/100% CO2, there won’t be a significant temp difference if done properly.
R. Gates;
you needed to add vinegar instead. Try again>>>
R. Gates gets a science fact right! I’ll mark it on my calendar! In the meantime, I see you ignored my last comment about the wager you agreed to take. I shall post it again now as perhaps you missed it by accident?
R. Gates;
Look, I’m on limited Internet access right now away from my home on my iPad, but when I get back home Friday night and run through this blog in a bit more detail and make a comprehensive response.>>>
DMH: I thought it was a simple experiment? Suddenly you need detail and time to consider things?
R. Gates;
I am more than willing to follow through on this, and we can even do it together as a group after or before a certain November meeting that some may be attending.>>>
DMH: What has a meeting in November that some people may be attending have to do with it?
R. Gates;
The basic details of this experiment are quite simple and have been repeated in high school physics classes hundreds of times if not thousands.>>>
DMH: I repeat: What are the details of the experiment which was illustrated? I offered to bet that if the experiment was repeated, it would not show the results depicted in the video. You offered to take the bet. Are you welching? Why are you trying to define the experiment instead of stepping up to the bet I proposed, which is that the experiment illustrated would not show the results illustrated? I repeat: What experiment was illustrated?
R. Gates;
We can specify every little detail in advance, exact containers, type and wattage of light, etc. The so-called Gore experiment was only illustrative of a general experiment, with the point being that anyone could do it themselves, and certainly as an ILLUSTRATION was lacking great detail, i.e. What was the wattage and distance of the light source? How thick is the glass? How much heat is being conducted along the tube into the container? Exactly how big is the opening where the tube is entering? Is any heat from the lamp entering the opening where the tube is entering?>>>
DMH: Ah! So you ADMIT that you don’t know exactly what experiment was done! You’ve offered to take a bet that if the experiment was replicated, it would show the results depicted in the video. Now you admit you don’t really have a clue what the experiment was, and so you propose a NEW experiment instead.
QUESTION: I asked if Anthony’s replication of the experiment would suffice and you have not answered yes or no. Its only a one word answer R. Gates, you can do more than that even with an iPAd. Yes? or No?
R. Gates;
So we should be able to agree on these and then proceed, right? The bottom line will be: does the addition of CO2 to one of two reasonably similar container cause the temperature in that container to rise? >>>
DMH: No R. Gates, that was not the bet proposed. The bet proposed was that the experiment done properly would not show the results illustrated in the video. Not the order of magnitude, not the rapidity with which temperature supposedly changed, and so on. I said that the experiment done properly would not show the results in the video, and now you are trying to propose results that are DIFFERENT from what was shown in the video.
QUESTION: Are you going to stand up to your own word and take the bet that I proposed (and which you immediately said you would take)? Or not? Are you going to accept Anthony’s results and methodology? Or not?
You in haggisland should be reserving passage on the emigration boats. What your government is doing to your economy and energy supplies is going to pauperize the country. Decades of living off the largess of the North Sea has brain-wiped your governing elite of all the lessons of Scots history.
Ironically, the only thing that can possibly save you is frak gas. The huge fields found in England are probably matched or exceeded by North Sea near-shore or offshore fields. But that salvation will only occur after some vicious lessons at the hand of Reality.
Geoff Sherrington;
you can refer to posts with actual links, like this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/#comment-755607
The date field under each poster name is a live URL.
Makes it much easier than scrolling or Ctrl-F searching to see a referenced post.
Thanks for that summary at It’s Faked . Just to make it perfectly clear, there aren’t even two separate photos of one thermometer. It’s one photo with the climbing temp Photoshopped in.
mfreer says:
September 30, 2011 at 6:11 am
I agree with you that this “experiment” does not reflect reality, but you claim that it
“summarizes the setup and results of a well known and documented scientific experiment.”
If that is true, and you are aware that it is documented, you wouldn’t mind providing a reference to this well known experiment with closed glass jars and infrared lighting, right? Pick one reference that includes supported explanations for why this experiment shows that CO2 to be a gas that absorbs and re-emits heat.
I’m sure that posters here, with varying levels of understanding, would really like to see this documentation. I know I would, since it appears there are some factors that I am unsure of, such as the density, specific heat, of the two gases that may be factors in the outcome. At first glance, my main concern is whether CO2, acknowledging that as a gas it does absorb and reemit infrared, can actually cause a greater rise in kinetic energy than air in closed glass jars. Perhaps CO2 creates heat? Or air conducts heat through glass better than CO2?
B.Klein says:
September 30, 2011 at 9:53 am
“The experiment shown in the Climate 101 fake video and the British heating of a gas in a bottle are example of “Confined space heating” aka The typical greenhouse effect- NOT THE Greenhouse Gas effect.”
On the nose!
This sure brought out the warmists – sorry, AGW proponents – to defend the Goreacle. Gotta love it.
Outstanding work Anthony. I thought I was reading a Sherlock Holmes plot!
davidmhoffer says:
September 30, 2011 at 10:14 am
R. Gates;
you needed to add vinegar instead. Try again>>>
“R. Gates gets a science fact right! I’ll mark it on my calendar! In the meantime, I see you ignored my last comment about the wager you agreed to take. I shall post it again now as perhaps you missed it by accident?”
Baking soda and vinegar actually creates CO2 and water vapor, which is the most potent greenhouse gas.
I’m not sure what this experiment would actually demonstrate. But I would be most interested in seeing the results shown on a time scale, to include temperatures after the lamps were turned off. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the CO2 jar did go to a higher temp while the lamps were on, but drop in temperature quicker than air after the lamps were turned off? Or that the CO2 jar did increase in temperature over air but only for the first few minutes, with air then exceeding the temp in the CO2 jar?
Controls are really needed as well, IMO. At least the experiment should be performed twice, with everything the same except to swap the jars out. Surely heating gas rises, and those jars and lids are not built to a high specification.
Anthony— Don’t forget to weed the garden. It works best if you pull them up by the roots as they won’t come back. There is a difference between intelligence and belligerence. Please.
This replication caught the attention of George Soros.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109300006
Glenn says:
Baking soda and vinegar actually creates CO2 and water vapor, which is the most potent greenhouse gas.
**********
Good point. The CO2 gas should be dried before use.
Even with the water vapor the warming effect is not measurable with this experiment if the vessel isn’t sealed..
The cooling rate with CO2 would be interesting because in the case of the earth CO2 supposedly interferes with the cooling of the earth.
It is like bringing a pan to a temperature below boiling.
Without changing the heat add a lid to the pan and it will get hotter.
The mechanism is the same. The CO2 supposedly interferes with the pan’s dissipation of heat.
I think that [cooling] experiment would be more germane.
Someone suggested it earlier and I didn’t pay much attention but it was a great post.
I agree with everything, except that you have your terminology inverted. “Mitigation” is buzz-word-ese for “Reduction of CO2 to Save Us All”. “Adaptation” is the opposing option, which basically just means deal with the consequences of whatever comes, as we inevitably must; the best way to do that is to maximize wealth and flexibility in advance and monitor the situation. Then respond as efficiently as possible to warming or cooling consequences in the real world.
Even Nordhaus, a very toasty lukewarmist, found his cost-benefit models extrapolate about a $17 trillion advantage to Adaptation over the stupidest of the “mitigation” plans, which are those advocated by the likes of Gore and Stern.
Note re the above Nordhaus cost-benefit models: they take the negative consequences of warming for granted; i.e., they include the “costs” of all the imaginary horrors that the Warmistas conjure up. Since none of them will actually occur, the (1 century) extrapolations are heavily mitigation-biased — and they still reject massive mitigation. It should be noted that his “preferred” option is a carbon tax, which he fantasizes will be cost-neutral, merely redirecting economic effort into the benign uplands of renewable energy. Which exist only in Cloud La-La-Land.
He notes that he used 1 century cutoffs because the models stabalized after that point; all the net costs and benefits had worked their way through by then.
typo: stabilized, not stabalized.
kim;) says:
September 30, 2011 at 6:25 am
Which one will cool faster?
The specific heat of CO2 is .844 J/g C so it would cool faster for the same mass.
Mkelly
Since the effect of CO2 is supposedly to slow the flow of heat from the planet isn’t the “Thermal Conductivity” the parameter which tells how much effect it would have ?
@ -100 C air has .0204 W/MK and CO2 has MORE CONDUCTIVITY .086 W/MK
I must be making a mistake, how can the greenhouse effect work if that is true ?
Well you could go back to the original work by John Tyndall in 1873 demonstrating that CO2 absorbs radiant heat (see http://www.archive.org/details/contributionsto00tyndgoog). Since that time, the experiment to show that pure CO2 is more sensitive to infrared radiation than air has been repeated many times – see here for example: http://www.espere.net/Unitedkingdom/water/uk_watexpgreenhouse.htm
Grammarnasty/
You may be incredulous; the abuse of the tool observation is indeed incredible. But only persons can be incredulous.
/Grammarnasty
“Noble Cause Corruption”
The Warmista/Progressive/Leftist mental circle-jrrk proceeds by claiming exclusive rights to define what is “noble”, and then immediately proceeds to self-corrupt “absolutely”. There are no white lies, damned lies, or abuses which are then out-of-bounds. It’s all for our own good, you see …
wobble says:
September 30, 2011 at 9:19 am
mfreer says:
September 30, 2011 at 6:11 am
As I think others have pointed out, how is this any different from cooking shows?
Cooking shows actually cook the food they claim they’re cooking.
This video is like a cooking show which fakes the actual cooking while telling the audience the WRONG way to cook something.
Perhaps, but don’t most cooking shows allow folks to write in for the actual recipe or get it from their website?
Do Gore/CRP provide the exact instructions for the “simple experiment” somewhere on their site?
In any case, they should have stated/shown “this is a dramatization” (or similar) on the video and offered a method for obtaining the exact instructions for conducting the experiment.
mfreer says:
September 30, 2011 at 12:46 pm
You said “I have no problem with Gore et al’s video because it is summarizes the setup and results of a well known and documented scientific experiment. Likewise, I would have no issues if you or anyone else were to make a video summarizing a well known experiment, no matter how shoddily or randomly the video was edited.”
So I’ll ask you one more time, Bud. What well known and documented experiment used the setup and results of Bill Nye’s “experiment”, and where’s your reference to it? Neither of your two cites use the same setup or results, so can not be seen as *a well known and documented scientific experiment* that uses the same setup or results.
I believe in slight AGW but not CAGW.
I believe that CO2 absorbs IR and causes slight warming.
I also believe it is too little to be observed in the 101 experiment.
The theoretical warming from CO2 is only .4 ° C for a doubling and negative feedbacks reduce even this pitiful amount .
Disrupting civilization with massive CO2 taxes will only scare job overseas and INCREASE CO2 emission worldwide. Mitigation is thousands of times less expensive and has side benefits.
Since the USA has hundreds of years of coal and natural gas and tar sands not using them is criminal and foolish. Depending upon the middle east is dangerous and not necessary unless the CAGW nonsense is believed.
George E. Smith; says:
September 29, 2011 at 11:41 pm
“”””” Myrrh says:
September 29, 2011 at 5:56 pm
…………………………………………………
You can of course continue to spout nonsense about this, but all it shows is that you don’t know the difference between light and heat energies from the Sun. Light energies do not have the power to move whole molecules into vibrational/rotational resonance. “””””
Well Myrrh, I’m just going to guess that for you English is a second language, and move on.
Nowhere in my original post, did I say anything about glass or plastics, as to their transmission (or not) of electromagnetic radiation. So what was all that guff about industrial uses of infra-red, and transmission.
I put it in for interest, as another example of AGW memes conflicting with traditional science. The ‘infrared is blocked by glass, therefore it is visible light heating the interior of a car..’ etc. nonsense.
Actually, one of the most common reasons that “glass” can be a poor transmitter of infra-red radiation around 1 micron, is because most common glasses contain trace amounts of water, so most such glasses have strong absorption in the 0.9 to 1.0 micron range.
And as for getting “light” or “heat” from the sun; actually we get neither “light” nor “heat” from the sun. But I will admit, that in your latest effort, you did say “light and heat energies” .
You’all do so get your knickers in a twist about heat. AGWScience has a lot to answer for.. But anyway, as long as you believe that shortwave visible heats the land and oceans as per the Kiehl Trenberth nonsense of energy budget, I can understand that you’all will stay utterly confused about it since everything you then come across has to fit in with that science fiction meme. What y’all are singularly failing to do, is to listen to what I’m saying. I’m trying to tell you that what has been passing for ‘physics’ about this for the last couple of decades is a novelty, created and put into place by those who began exploiting AGW. You cannot ‘get’ what I’m saying until you have the technique of not letting what you think about it interfere, put it to one side just for a moment. All I can say, again, is that I am presenting you with the physics of it as it was taught pre this interference, and is still taught by those teaching traditional physics. And, I have given you enough examples of the real world’s industries which work because they understand the real physics, practically, hands on, as well as the mechanism for understanding the difference in energies re visible and thermal ir, electronic transitions v rotational vibration of atoms and molecules.
Let me put it this way. You cannot show how, the mechanism, or prove practically, that Blue visible Light can heat oceans and land. Until you can, and I have shown why it can’t and doesn’t, your claims are unsupported by physical reality. Why won’t you deal with this request? What’s the problem? Why is this so difficult for you to produce? You, generic. I’ve asked.. Hasn’t AGW Science Fiction Inc come up with an ‘experiment’ to prove it…?
So here, a description from traditional physics on what heat is. You can believe it is not a noun, naming an entity in its own right, but that is simply peverse. You cannot possibly read anything written pre AGWScience Fiction Inc’s interference and know what they are talking about. You cannot put traditional physics use of this word through the prism of your now ubiquitous view of what heat is. I no longer care whether you’ll ever understand what I’m saying, but the least you can do is bear in mind that what I am presenting as traditional physics, exists. It is still taught. So if you want to argue against it, then you must deal with the fact that it exists and has been taught for many decades prior to AGW coming into our lives. And, it is internally coherent. When you manage to shine blue visible light onto a bowl of water and get it hot enough to rinse out your undies, you can claim that you are giving us real world physics. Until then, and for any who haven’t looked into this aspect of the fake energy budget from AGWScience Fiction and are interested:
Italics in the original. The heat is in transfer whether you can feel it or not. It doesn’t come into existence because you feel it.., you’re not creating it ‘out of electromagnetic energy’, it already exists.
It is thermal energy in transfer, thermal infrared is heat on the move. Light is not heat.
This is the thermal energy of the Sun which creates the visible light, which is a product of the great thermal energy of the Sun. What does thermal mean?
Myrrh;
It is thermal energy in transfer, thermal infrared is heat on the move. Light is not heat.>>>
Anthony,
You banned someone as I recall for hijackiong threads with claims regarding an “iron sun”.
Is that less plausible than Myrrh’s total and complete nonsense? At least the iron sun guy was entertaining.
kramer says:
September 30, 2011 at 11:05 am
This replication caught the attention of George Soros.
The blogger being quite dishonest about the facts. Its just one more example of many alarmist’s attitudes that the ends justify the means. No need to give them traffic.
R. Gates;
Look, I’m on limited Internet access right now away from my home on my iPad, but when I get back home Friday night and run through this blog in a bit more detail and make a comprehensive response.>>>
DMH: I thought it was a simple experiment? Suddenly you need detail and time to consider things?
R. Gates;
I am more than willing to follow through on this, and we can even do it together as a group after or before a certain November meeting that some may be attending.>>>
DMH: What has a meeting in November that some people may be attending have to do with it?
R. Gates;
It is now late Friday evening, you’ve responded to other commentors in this thread, but as to the wager you promised to make with me, you have yet to reply as you indicated that you would. I’m posting the question I raised once again. Respond here… or don’t. Might as well be here though… because if you show up in another thread, I’ll be asking you to make your bet good there too…
R. Gates;
The basic details of this experiment are quite simple and have been repeated in high school physics classes hundreds of times if not thousands.>>>
DMH: I repeat: What are the details of the experiment which was illustrated? I offered to bet that if the experiment was repeated, it would not show the results depicted in the video. You offered to take the bet. Are you welching? Why are you trying to define the experiment instead of stepping up to the bet I proposed, which is that the experiment illustrated would not show the results illustrated? I repeat: What experiment was illustrated?
R. Gates;
We can specify every little detail in advance, exact containers, type and wattage of light, etc. The so-called Gore experiment was only illustrative of a general experiment, with the point being that anyone could do it themselves, and certainly as an ILLUSTRATION was lacking great detail, i.e. What was the wattage and distance of the light source? How thick is the glass? How much heat is being conducted along the tube into the container? Exactly how big is the opening where the tube is entering? Is any heat from the lamp entering the opening where the tube is entering?>>>
DMH: Ah! So you ADMIT that you don’t know exactly what experiment was done! You’ve offered to take a bet that if the experiment was replicated, it would show the results depicted in the video. Now you admit you don’t really have a clue what the experiment was, and so you propose a NEW experiment instead.
QUESTION: I asked if Anthony’s replication of the experiment would suffice and you have not answered yes or no. Its only a one word answer R. Gates, you can do more than that even with an iPAd. Yes? or No?
R. Gates;
So we should be able to agree on these and then proceed, right? The bottom line will be: does the addition of CO2 to one of two reasonably similar container cause the temperature in that container to rise? >>>
DMH: No R. Gates, that was not the bet proposed. The bet proposed was that the experiment done properly would not show the results illustrated in the video. Not the order of magnitude, not the rapidity with which temperature supposedly changed, and so on. I said that the experiment done properly would not show the results in the video, and now you are trying to propose results that are DIFFERENT from what was shown in the video.
QUESTION: Are you going to stand up to your own word and take the bet that I proposed (and which you immediately said you would take)? Or not? Are you going to accept Anthony’s results and methodology? Or not?
Okay, back in town now, so let’s get back to this post, which was toward the beginning of the proposed wager:
davidmhoffer says:
September 29, 2011 at 7:21 pm
R. Gates;
I’d wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated. How much would you like to bet?>>>
Really? Let’s get the terms and conditions set out then. Could you please define exactly what experiment was illustrated and how we’ll judge if it was replicated or not?
_______
The key word here in the wager is the term “illustrated”, as it should be obvious that this was not an actual experiment, but only an illustration of one that someone could conduct at home, and so you asked what it was intending to illustrate.
Here’s the core of what it was attempting to illustrate:
CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas and will create a higher temperature when added to a system as compared to a reasonably identical system receiving a reasonably identical amount of energy input but without the additional CO2.
Anthony did a great job of trying to replicate the illustration (whereby he proved that it was indeed an illustration), but did he actually run the experiment?
,
“mkelly says:
September 30, 2011 at 11:55 am
kim;) says:
September 30, 2011 at 6:25 am
Which one will cool faster?
The specific heat of CO2 is .844 J/g C so it would cool faster for the same mass.”
This is true, but are not the moles equal when this experiment is done? The volume is the same and if the pressure is the same, then the moles are the same. And if the moles are the same, then the mass of pure CO2 is 1.5 times larger so it should both heat AND cool slower.
R. Gates — “Anthony did a great job of trying to replicate the illustration (whereby he proved that it was indeed an illustration), but did he actually run the experiment?”
Something I’d like to know, too. Anthony, you have the equipment, so just run the experiment and show us what happens. Same goes for Monckton of Brenchley, given his accusation of criminality.
Here’s another version of the experiment for anyone wanting to try it at home.
davidmhoffer says:
September 30, 2011 at 6:43 pm
Myrrh;
It is thermal energy in transfer, thermal infrared is heat on the move. Light is not heat.>>>
Anthony,
You banned someone as I recall for hijackiong threads with claims regarding an “iron sun”.
Is that less plausible than Myrrh’s total and complete nonsense? At least the iron sun guy was entertaining.
Wow, it’s come to this. You’re not listening. I’m telling you that this is traditional physics and it is still taught, your version only came into existence with the AGW scam. It was deliberately, with malice aforethought, introduced into the education system. You cannot understand anything written in traditional physics, all papers on heat and light are a closed book to you. You could never come up with the products now on the market today such as thermal infrared heating for buildings and open outside spaces and in healing because you have no concept of what thermal infrared is – so no concept of what it does.
The problem is, you no longer have any traditional tried tested and well understood physics under your belt to be able to spot the difference.
I can continue to give you examples from the real world, such as the use of water curtains to extract the thermal infrared in fire fighting which lets visible through but protects the firefighters from the great heat of conflagrations they’re dealing with, but it won’t really gel with you because you think visible heats water. You don’t understand what’s actually happening, you could never come up with the concept. Test it for yourself. Try heating water with blue visible light.
And as several have made the point here re the science fiction experiment con, it’s not enough to say that your beliefs about this are ‘well tested, well known experiments and traditional science wrong’, without actually producing such data. Since you’re claiming something different from traditional physics, you need to provide the evidence for your claim.
Where are the industries built on heating homes with visible light by shining it directly at the walls? What does it take for you to see that nothing exists in the real world created out of your ideas about it – how can it? Your version is science fiction. Describing only an imaginary world. That’s why none of you can come up with any real evidence for your claims about heat and light. Doesn’t that strike you as odd? Surely if your version is true then the proof would be everywhere obvious in the world around us. Go on, do yourself a favour, look for proof of your claims.
I find it interesting that Al is pushing his “theory” with a jar at almost 100% CO2 and compares it to an atmosphere with 0.038% CO2. That’s totally the same, yep. 100=0.039. Totally. My math teachers back in school were all wrong apparently.
Reminds me of 2+2=5 and the Robins Lemma “proof” for it. Cause if 100=0.039, then 1=0, thus 2+2=5.
J Bowers says:
October 1, 2011 at 1:07 am
Here’s another version of the experiment for anyone wanting to try it at home.
One of the comments from your link:
“The lamp in the co2 bottle is 100w while the lamp in the air bottle is 60w.
david222444 3 months ago”
@ Myrrh
So let Anthony do the experiment and you can all be satisfied that it was done properly.
Actually, Myrrh, here’s a child doing the experiment using the sun as the heat source. I think we can safely say there are no differences in the wattage. Of course, someone says in comments that she uses two (digital) thermometers so her experiment is invalidated, but, as Anthony points out, even mercury thermometers are calibrated.
Linda’s first CO2 experiment
Luckily, she doesn’t seem to be asking for money, so Monckton of Brenchley can relax and feel no need to call social services.
@J Bowers –
Cute girl, but not so cute the experiment.
Normal “air” in one balloon, cold, compressed, probably close to pure 100% CO2 in the other. Not exactly Gore/Nye’s ratio, or is it?
So, one balloon has .04% (approx.) CO2 and the other about 100% and we get a 2 degree difference showing that in a closed system in the set up shown, every .01 difference in CO2 would give a .002 degree difference in temperature, if it was a linear effect which it is not.
I will display some curiosity here, though – what should the difference in temperature in an enclosed system be between .04 CO2 “air” and 100% CO2 in “normal” sunlight?
Myrrh says:
October 1, 2011 at 1:18 am
“Where are the industries built on heating homes with visible light by shining it directly at the walls?”
Don’t feed the troll!
Henry@J Bowers
Any experiment in a closed box in invalid, as it does not take into account the cooling caused by the CO2 (the re-radiation causes deflection)
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Interesting to watch the experiment done by skeptics:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/09/must-see-video-exposes-greenhouse.html
or here directly:
http://myweb.cableone.net/carlallen/Site/Greenhouse%20In%20A%20Bottle-Reconsidered.html
I want to see the experiment repeated with .028% CO2 in one jar and .038% in the other….let them use time lapse photography to measure a change. I suspect they’ll die of old age while waiting for a change
Myrrh
Wow, it’s come to this. You’re not listening. I’m telling you that this is traditional physics and it is still taught, your version only came into existence with the AGW scam. >>>
Listen carefully yourself. I studied physics long before anyone started talking about AGW. When I’m uncertain of something, I go back to the original research, the original formulas, and the original calculus. I have pointed you to, as have many others, the basics in calculus and physics , the formulas and their derivations, the explanations of them, and I can assure you that the work of Stefan, Boltzmann, Planck, Milliken, Einstein and others remains well documented, completely unchanged from the original, and that you have failed to understand a single word of it.
R. Gates;
I’d wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated. How much would you like to bet?>>>
REPLY
Exactly what was illustrated? What experiment, and what specific results?
R. Gates;
The key word here in the wager is the term “illustrated”, as it should be obvious that this was not an actual experiment,>>>
REPLY
If it was not an actual experiment (your words not mine) then how could you “wager the experiment would actually work pretty much as illustrated”??? (again your words, not mine).
R. Gates;
Here’s the core of what it was attempting to illustrate>>>
REPLY
So you admit that it was only an “attempt”. In fact, you don’t know exactly what experiment was illustrated (by your own admission), you don’t know what the results were (by your own admission), the results shown were not actual results of an experiment (by your own admission) and the whole think was an “attempt” to demonstrate (by your own admission) not an actual demonstration. But of what, you don’t know. except to claim:
R. Gates;
CO2 acts as a greenhouse gas and will create a higher temperature when added to a system as compared to a reasonably identical system receiving a reasonably identical amount of energy input but without the additional CO2.>>>
REPLY
Please explain how the experiment illustrated demonstrated this. Describe the experiment, describe the theoretical results that the experiment should have yielded. Answer my question regarding Anthony’s replication of the experiment you refuse to describe. Is Anthony’s methodology and process to conduct the actual experiment acceptable to you as a fair representation of the experiment you claim was illustrated (but can’t describe)? If so, will you accept Anthony’s results as definitive? If not, why not?
“Henry@Rolf Atkinson: I am talking about deflection, meaning re-radiation or back-radiation, in fact, you could also call it reflection. It is all the same thing. The molecule acts mirror-like in the absorptive areas. Now you just want to muddle it up again by claiming the radiation stayed on earth rather than following the path sun-earth-moon-earth. I have been there before, done that, with all of you of the AGW cloth. Clearly, you do not (want to?) understand how the GH effect works and the principle of re-radiation so I am giving up on you as I have given you all the clues.”
The source you proudly tout shows that the radiation in the CO2 absorption bands does largely stay on earth. The “strong signals” for CO2 in the earthshine are strongly deficient in radiation. Since spectroscopy is allegedly within your field, you will be familiar with absorption spectra. Your source proves the opposite of what you claim.
All the clues you have given me, including the unscientific language (“deflection” or “mirror-like in the absorptive areas” etc) and the failure to understand your own primary source, make it abundantly clear that you are one of those scientific illiterates I mentioned in my first comment in this thread. Your input only harms informed climate change skepticism.
The “all of you of the AGW cloth” comment is way off the mark but symtomatic of a dysfunctional tribalism in this debate. In rational discussion, my enemy’s enemy is not necessarily my friend. Truth is the only prize.
Rolf says again
“The source you proudly tout shows that the radiation in the CO2 absorption bands does largely stay on earth. The “strong signals” for CO2 in the earthshine are strongly deficient in radiation. Since spectroscopy is allegedly within your field, you will be familiar with absorption spectra. Your source proves the opposite of what you claim.”
Henry@Rolf
Please explain to me how equipment on earth can measure it (it=radiation specific to the absorptive fields of CO2 and H2O and other GHG’s) as it bounces back from the moon, if it is not there but it stayed on earth??
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
davidmhoffer says:
October 1, 2011 at 8:49 am
“I studied physics long before anyone started talking about AGW.”
___
Wow, you were studying physics in 1896? What is your secret to longevity?
Heat containers of nitrogen and oxygen to see which one heats up more, then proclaim that whichever one that does is a greenhouse gas which should be regulated by the EPA.
davidmhoffer says (to R. Gates):
October 1, 2011 at 10:37 am
“Please explain how the experiment illustrated demonstrated this. Describe the experiment, describe the theoretical results that the experiment should have yielded. Answer my question regarding Anthony’s replication of the experiment you refuse to describe. Is Anthony’s methodology and process to conduct the actual experiment acceptable to you as a fair representation of the experiment you claim was illustrated (but can’t describe)? If so, will you accept Anthony’s results as definitive? If not, why not?”
______
I think there are some superfluous elements in the stylized illustration of an experiment as shown in the 101 video and some elements that left some unanswered questions. I could certainly accept Anthony doing the actual experiment, but before doing so, would like to remove superfluous elements and tighten of process and procedures. For example:
1) The little toy globes need to go. They were only used for the stylized illustration and only introduce another unknown element. What for example is their heat capacity and how much does it vary from globe to globe? Just eliminate them and this problem goes away. They are not essential to the experiment.
2) Anthony only made an educated “guess” at the actual light being used as far as I could see. We need to agree on the light type, intensity, and distance from the containers. This is obviously an important element of the test and was not clearly defined in the 101 video. The Mythbusters test used a rather broad spectrum video production light, which is quite different than the light Anthony guessed at.
3) I would like to agree in advance on where the light is placed in relationship to the opening in the container where the tube feeding the CO2 goes. The light should be place as far as possible from the opening. I don’t want any heat from the light entering this opening or being transmitted down the tubing into the container.
4) We need to agree upon exactly how long we will wait after the CO2 has begun to be pumped into the container before we record the results.
5) We need to agree upon what shall constitute stability of temperatures in the containers after the lights have been turned on but before the CO2 is pumped in.
6) I would like “the experiment” to actually consist of several runs the experiment, switching out (one by one) the container, the lights, and the thermometer, and let the results of multiple runs of this experiment serve as the results, rather than one pass.
7) We need to agree upon the source and validity of the CO2 being used. I’m open for suggestions, but this is obviously key to the test.
8) I would like at least two other people present during runs of the experiment. One of my choosing and one randomly selected from a predetermined and agreed upon list. This has nothing to do we me not trusting Anthony or his ability to be precise in his running of this experiment but everything to do with eliminating all possible questions about the results, no matter which way they go.
Any problems with these simple requests?
REPLY: On point 1, 7, no, sorry, I’m doing the experiment EXACTLY like Gore showed it, you don’t get to change that experiment that Gore advertises “you can do yourself” after the fact to suit your own purposes. And on 8, no I’m not inviting guests, but will record everything photographically and with video. Mr. Gore didn’t provide witnesses, much less proof of any results, just video. Why must I be subject to a different standard? It’s ridiculous,expecially coming from somebody who doesn’t have the integrity to use his real name on this forum. Quite frankly, your demand is insulting in that context.
We can do other experiments and variations later, but since the feckless Mr. Gates insists on defending Mr. Gore’s “stylized” experiment, I’m reproducing it exactly. And, there’s no “guess” on the lights, I’ve found the exact model shown in the video. I’m doing this without paying any attention to your squabble with Hoffman, because this isn’t about you Gates, it’s about replicability.
– Anthony
NetDr:
You’ve claimed to have run the experiment (now claiming also that is was “typo” when you first said you used baking soda and water to create CO2), and also claim to have seen no noticeable temperature change. So, what would be your rationale for the exact opposite results obtained in the BBC experiment, linked here:
R Gates says:
“So, what would be your rationale for the exact opposite results obtained in the BBC experiment”
The BBC is completely biased. It emits nothing but CAGW propaganda. The entire organization is untrustworthy. Is that enough of a rationale? I can provide more reasons if you want.
Smokey says:
October 1, 2011 at 1:39 pm
R Gates says:
“So, what would be your rationale for the exact opposite results obtained in the BBC experiment”
The BBC is completely biased. It emits nothing but CAGW propaganda. The entire organization is untrustworthy. Is that enough of a rationale? I can provide more reasons if you want.
___
That’s a serious charge there Smokey. You are claiming the BBC is biased and untrustworthy and produces propaganda. So, are you saying they faked or misrepresented the results of the experiment in the video?
davidmhoffer:
Just a slight addition from the prerequisites I submitted earlier having to do with procedures:
The CO2 needs to begin to be added to the one container and the temperatures stabilized before turning on the lights. I stated the lights were turned on and the temperatures stabilized, before adding the CO2, but that of course would be impossible.
Gates,
I’m saying the BBC is biased and untrustworthy. They have zero credibility in these matters. That’s not so hard to understand, is it?
R. Gates says:
October 1, 2011 at 1:24 pm
“NetDr:
You’ve claimed to have run the experiment (now claiming also that is was “typo” when you first said you used baking soda and water to create CO2), and also claim to have seen no noticeable temperature change. So, what would be your rationale for the exact opposite results obtained in the BBC experiment, linked here:”
Mine is that the lights are clamped to the forward edge of the table, and of the same length. The jug on the left is further away from its light after the light had been turned on. as well, vinegar and baking soda creates water vapor. Take a hint.
LOL @R. Gates and his BBC video.
Yeah, the lights are the not the same distance from the bottles, the temperature probes are not the exact same distance from the lights, and there is absolutely no reference to the amount of CO2 in the “infused” bottle.
Of course, the purpose of the “experiment” isn’t to show how little a difference of, say, 100 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere will effect warming. The purpose of the BBC “experiment” is to show a rapoid 5 degree difference and add to the hysteria.
Looks like it worked well on R. Gates, doesn’t it?
LOL some more.
October 1, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Anthony wrote:
REPLY: On point 1, 7, no, sorry, I’m doing the experiment EXACTLY like Gore showed it, you don’t get to change that experiment that Gore advertises “you can do yourself” after the fact to suit your own purposes. And on 8, no I’m not inviting guests, but will record everything photographically and with video. Mr. Gore didn’t provide witnesses, much less proof of any results, just video. Why must I be subject to a different standard? It’s ridiculous,expecially coming from somebody who doesn’t have the integrity to use his real name on this forum. Quite frankly, your demand is insulting in that context.
We can do other experiments and variations later, but since the feckless Mr. Gates insists on defending Mr. Gore’s “stylized” experiment, I’m reproducing it exactly. And, there’s no “guess” on the lights, I’ve found the exact model shown in the video. I’m doing this without paying any attention to your squabble with Hoffman, because this isn’t about you Gates, it’s about replicability.
I’m with you Anthony.
Let’s see if the “simple lab experiment” as shown will give the result described.
R. Gates desire to change the set up to match the way he feels it should be, needs to also be applied to Gore/Nye. I wish R. Gates good luck with that.
The BBC demonstration (like the Gore demonstration) does not demonstrate the Greenhouse Effect because it uses the the wrong lamps. Key to the Greenhouse Effect theory is the absorption by greenhouse gases of upwards radiation from the Earth’s surface which is a “grey body” at 15 degrees Celsius and emits a spectrum in the Longwave IR bands – as per Dr. Glicksteins inset in the main post. The lamps in the BBC demonstration would be at 3400 degrees Celsius – a completely different spectrum in the visible light range – not even close to being right! Complete “tosh” in fact.
“Henry@Rolf: Please explain to me how equipment on earth can measure it (it=radiation specific to the absorptive fields of CO2 and H2O and other GHG’s) as it bounces back from the moon, if it is not there but it stayed on earth??”
The light reflected from the moon shows the full solar spectrum (a smooth “black body” curve corresponding to about 6000K) minus any radiation absorbed along the way (i.e. in the solar and terrestrial atmospheres). The equipment measures the radiation at all relevant wavelengths, and conclusions are drawn from what is missing. The strong CO2 signature is a group of relatively dark lines or bands in the reflected spectrum.
Not sure who posted this, but there was the statement that CO2 only absorbs LW radiation that is upwelling from the ground, and not from sunlight, and that of course is erroneous. CO2 has absorption bands that run all the way from about .8 microns all the way up to over 20 microns. The most notable LW wavelength of direct sunlight that CO2 absorbs that is also not covered by any other gas such as water vapor is around 2 microns.
R. Gates;
1) The little toy globes need to go. They were only used for the stylized illustration>>>
REPLY
So you are saying the experiment as illustrated is invalid.
R. Gates;
2) Anthony only made an educated “guess” at the actual light being used>>>
REPLY
He found the exact precise same lights and documented what they were. How is that guessing?
R. Gates;
3) I would like to agree in advance on where the light is placed in relationship to the opening in the container>>>
REPLY
First of all, you agreed to the wager of the experiment AS ILLUSTRATED. ARE YOU BACKING OUT NOW?
Second, you don’t get to put conditions on Anthony’s methodology. He is replicating the experiment AS ILLUSTRATED and which you agreed to wager on the results of. I never asked you for a methodology, I asked if you would accept Anthony’s. Your choices are “yes” or “no”.
R. Gates>>>
4) We need to agree upon exactly how long we will wait after the CO2 has begun to be pumped into the container before we record the results.
REPLY
The wager was to replicate the experiment that was illustrated. Period.
R. Gates;
5) We need to agree upon what shall constitute stability of temperatures in the containers>>>
REPLY
The wager was to replicate the experiment that was illustrated. Period.
R. Gates;
6) I would like “the experiment” to actually consist of several runs the experiment>>>
REPLY
The wager was to replicate the experiment that was illustrated. Period.
R. Gates;
7) We need to agree upon the source and validity of the CO2 being used.>>>
REPLY
The wager was to replicated the experiment that was illustrated, and the source of the CO2 has been identified exactly.
8) I would like at least two other people present during runs of the experiment>>>
You do not get to demand witnesses. You don’t get to demand anything. I asked if you would accept Anthony’s results, yes or no. You only have two choices. Accept Anthony’s results, or do it yourself (in which case I get to have witnesses).
R. Gates;
Any problems with these simple requests?>>>
Yes. A whole bunch. you agreed to wager that the experiment conducted as illustrated would produce the results that were illustrated. You now insist on changes to the experiment and conditions that were not part of the illustration, and were not part of the wager. Anthony has made is clear that he has gone to exceptional lengths to replicate the experiment that was illustrated, documented same, and you agreed to a wager based on that specific experiment. It seems to me that your choices are:
Are you going to keep your word or not?
davidmhoffer says:
October 1, 2011 at 8:49 am
Myrrh
Wow, it’s come to this. You’re not listening. I’m telling you that this is traditional physics and it is still taught, your version only came into existence with the AGW scam. >>>
Listen carefully yourself. I studied physics long before anyone started talking about AGW. When I’m uncertain of something, I go back to the original research, the original formulas, and the original calculus. I have pointed you to, as have many others, the basics in calculus and physics , the formulas and their derivations, the explanations of them, and I can assure you that the work of Stefan, Boltzmann, Planck, Milliken, Einstein and others remains well documented, completely unchanged from the original, and that you have failed to understand a single word of it.
? What, they taught that visible light was actually capable of heating land and water?? That this shortwave is what heated the Earth’s land and oceans and that the actual heat from the Sun, the Sun’s thermal energy which arrives at the same time, didn’t reach the surface and had nothing to do with heating the land and oceans because it somehow, undefined by AGW, got stuck in the atmosphere?? Sorry, I can’t recall you giving me any references to anything about this from any of those you mention.
Please be so kind to repost.
You said to R Gates: DMH: I repeat: What are the details of the experiment which was illustrated? I offered to bet that if the experiment was repeated, it would not show the results depicted in the video. You offered to take the bet. Are you welching? Why are you trying to define the experiment instead of stepping up to the bet I proposed, which is that the experiment illustrated would not show the results illustrated? I repeat: What experiment was illustrated?
Etc. etc. rightly, imo, giving him a hard time for avoiding the issue. Yet you continue to do exactly that when I ask for proof that Visible light and short wave which you claim to be the method by which the Earth’s land and oceans are heated, can actually do such a thing. You won’t even produce experimental proof.. Instead you blather on about Planck et al as if this gives credibility to your claim, but won’t actually produce anything relevant to my point. Give me the detail I’ve requested, not more of the same avoidance.
Here, I’ll give you one more example from the real world physics which is internally coherent and consistent of the difference between Light and Heat, which categorically and definitively contradicts the AGW energy budget claims that ‘shortwave heats the land and oceans and thermal infrared which is heat from the Sun which is the Sun’s thermal energy on the move, doesn’t heat the world’s land and oceans’:
Weird isn’t it? Everywhere you look where real science is being done in applying knowledge about the differences in properties of the Sun’s energies we find consistency; the powerful bigger thermal infrared heat from the Sun which does reach the surface, heats water by moving the whole molecule into vibration, UV doesn’t, it works on a much tinier scale, its energies used in chemical changes such as producing vitamin D and in destroying the DNA of bacteria.
Kiehl and Trenberth is a joke. The AGWScience Fiction meme producing department has given the properties of thermal infrared, heat, thermal energy on the move, to Light. So prove it, because that’s what you’re claiming is real physics and this fiction meme contradicts everything that is known and already proved physically in the real world in countless applications of heat and light.
Re: “CO2 has absorption bands that run all the way from about .8 microns all the way up to over 20 microns. The most notable LW wavelength of direct sunlight that CO2 absorbs that is also not covered by any other gas such as water vapor is around 2 microns.”
This conflicts with the basic theory which is that the greenhouse effect is caused by the atmosphere being mostly transparent to incoming shortwave solar radiation, but part of the longwave energy radiated back to space is absorbed by greenhouse gases.
Look at this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png Even the 2 micron band is pretty insignificant. By far the most important CO2 absorption band is the 14.99 microns band. See http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/4/4e/Atmospheric_Absorption_Bands.png
I’ve asked Mr. Gates (privately via email) to take a breather of a couple of days. This will give him time to consider his answers before he posts again. So you may not get an answer back until late Monday. I’m rather insulted by his demands, so a cooling off period for both of us is warranted.
Myrrh;
Yet you continue to do exactly that when I ask for proof that Visible light and short wave which you claim to be the method by which the Earth’s land and oceans are heated, can actually do such a thing. You won’t even produce experimental proof.>>>
We’ve had this discussion before. I’ve tried to explain it to you, as have Joel Shore and Ira and quite a few others. You are either incapable of understanding or just simply refuse to. Photons carry energy regardless of their wavelength or frequency. The only question is how much per photon and how many photons. Ranting on about visible light not carrying any “heat” is just a mind boggling refusal to understand the “traditional” physics itself. I’ve pointed you at articles explaining the math, and at articles explaining the experiments, who did them and when, that proved the math. Study the work of Planck, Stefan and Boltzmann, you’ll need to learn some calculus to understand their work, their formulas and their experiments. But you’re on your own, I’m not taking the time anymore to post the links for you or explain the parts you don’t understand.
re; R Gates and experimental demands
Amazing. Gates doesn’t really believe the physics of greenhouse gases. He’s making demands that he knows won’t be met to hedge his bets such that if the experiment doesn’t prove CO2 longwave absorption he can claim the experiment was flawed.
Simply amazing. This experiment has been done many times. The jar with the CO2 is going to warm faster and higher provided the extra energy absorbed by the CO2 isn’t allowed to bleed out through a vent hole as the gax expands. The gas has to be allowed to increase in pressure in order to see the effect in this primtive setup with so many other things wrong with it – wrong light, wrong vessel material, wrong CO2 partial pressure, thermometer not accurate enough, etc.
In order to see the effect in open atmosphere conditions you need to set up something like the Mythbuster’s experiment and/or buy an NDIR CO2 sensor and confirm that it works as advertised.
http://www.resporaesystems.com/respo_rae_doc/App_Tech_Notes/Tech_Notes/TN-169_NDIR_CO2_Theory.pdf
Rolf Atkinson says:
The strong CO2 signature is a group of relatively dark lines or bands in the reflected spectrum
Henry@Rolf
This is getting darker, rather than brighter. I am afraid that possibly you also donot understand what actually happens when we put a beam of light of certain wavelength on a sample of liquid or gas.
We have various spectrophotometers that can measure the various ranges of UV-visible -IR etc.
Usually you have the option to vary the wavelength of the beam of light , either manually or automatically.
If the gas or liquid is completely transparent, we will measure 100% of the light that we put through the sample coming through on the other side. If the there is “absorption” of light at that specific wavelength that we put through the sample, we only measure a certain % on the other side. The term ‘absorption” was used to describe this pehenomena, meaning the light that we put on was somehow “absorbed” .
I think this was a rather unfortunate description as it has caused a lot of confusion since. Many people think that what it means is that the light of that wavelength is continually “absorbed” by the molecules in the sample and converted to heat. If that were true, you would not be able to stop the IR meter at a certain wavelength without over-heating the sample, and eventually it should explode, if the sample is contained in a sealed container. Of the many measurements that I performed, this has never ever happened. Note that in the case of CO2, when measuring concentrations, we leave the wavelength always at 4.26 um. Because the “absorption” is so strong here, we can use it to compare and evaluate concentrations of CO2.
What really happens of course is this:
in the wavelengths areas where absorption takes place, the molecule starts acting like a little mirror, the strength of which depends on the amount of “absorption” or “transmission” taking place inside the molecule. Because the molecule is like a perfect sphere, 62,5% of a certain amount of light (radiation) is send back in a radius of 180 degrees in the direction where it came from. This is the warming or cooling effect of a gas hit by radiation from the earth, or sun, respectively.
Unfortunately, in their time, Tyndall and Arrhenius could not see the whole picture of the spectrum of a gas which is why they got stuck on seeing only the warming properties of a gas
(water, carbon dioxide – the closed box experiement).
Al Gore and Cook and co. still are stuck there, and I have repeatedly stated here why the experiment in the closed box cannot work. You also have to look at the amount of cooling by the substance.
If people would understand this principle, they would not singularly identify green house gases (GHG’s) by pointing at the areas in the 5-20 um region (where earth emits pre-dominantly) but they would also look in the area 0-5 um (where the sun emits pre-dominantly) for possible cooling effects.
J Calvert N says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/#comment-756892
looking at your last presentation (it is a bit old)
You have to add all the absorptions of CO2 in the 0-5 um range together and compare that with the single 14-16 um. Note that they have recently discovered some UV absorptions of CO2. On top of that we have a huge overlap from water vapor in the 14-16 range, which is considerable.
The % water vapor in the air is 10 to 20 x bigger than that of CO2.
On top of that, you must consider that the CO2 also cools by taking part in the life cycle:
plants and trees need both CO2 and warmth to grow, so some warming will be lost there due to the CO2
if there is an increase in vegetation – which there is – see my comment on that here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/30/my-oh-miocene/#comment-756561
/////
I will bet that the net effect of more CO2 in the air, if they could really measure everything, in W/m2/0.01%CO2/m3 is zero, or very close to zero.
Al’s Climate 101 video is recorded on an ancient audio cassette tape?
I know Al invented the internet, so this is a surprisingly retro medium for such a high-tech guy.
Then again, maybe it is just one more sign that Al is not one to let facts or salient details get in the way of a good line of bu**sh*t.
@ JohnWho and HenryP (and Monckton of Brenchley to a certain degree)
Truly no offence intended, but given that no experiment, model, or theory is 100% right – they are all wrong in one way or another – I suspect that if the human species were able to conduct a real CO2 emissions experiment on a carbon copy of Earth and our solar system, fault would be found with it regardless.
davidmhoffer says:
October 1, 2011 at 8:27 pm
Myrrh;
Yet you continue to do exactly that when I ask for proof that Visible light and short wave which you claim to be the method by which the Earth’s land and oceans are heated, can actually do such a thing. You won’t even produce experimental proof.>>>
We’ve had this discussion before. I’ve tried to explain it to you, as have Joel Shore and Ira and quite a few others. You are either incapable of understanding or just simply refuse to. Photons carry energy regardless of their wavelength or frequency. The only question is how much per photon and how many photons. Ranting on about visible light not carrying any “heat” is just a mind boggling refusal to understand the “traditional” physics itself. I’ve pointed you at articles explaining the math, and at articles explaining the experiments, who did them and when, that proved the math. Study the work of Planck, Stefan and Boltzmann, you’ll need to learn some calculus to understand their work, their formulas and their experiments. But you’re on your own, I’m not taking the time anymore to post the links for you or explain the parts you don’t understand.
Oh right.. I’m supposed to be in awe of the great learning of you and that gang… Because:
Really, can’t you see how stupid this is??! But that’s what you get when you take your out of context planckianeinsteinboltzmannetc and work this through the prism of the AGWScienceFiction meme that ‘all energy is the same’! Gobbledegook.
No? You can’t see how ludicrous that is? Of course not, because that’s what you’re promoting as being real physics. Yet you refuse to give me any proof whatsover that visible light can heat matter.
That around 95% of the wavelength emitted by this kind of lightbulb is thermal infrared, which is heat, thermal energy, is now excised from physics, and in its place we have the utter nonsense that visible light is the thermal energy we feel as heat from the Sun, that warms us up. ..that the heat which we feel from this lightbulb comes from visible light..
And so, you live in the Kiehl Trenberth energy budget cartoon world.
The missing heat begins by taking out the real heat from the Sun, excluding the real great thermal energy coming to us from the Sun which is actually capable of heating matter; which we actually, really, feel as heat and which actually, really, warms us up. You probably think your toast gets brown because UV is giving it a tan… 🙂
I’m sorry, I really have tried very hard to maintain a modicum of politeness when replying to you and your gang, but that’s nuts because you think this is the physical reality here on this earth in the world we touch and interact with around us. You’re certainly not a scientist with even rudimentary knowledge about heat and light.
And its because AGWScience Fiction Inc has deliberately swapped the properties of Heat and Light that a whole generation has grown up thinking shortwave converts Earth’s land and oceans to thermal energy, ‘shortwave in-longwave out’, that visible light creates heat.. How to destroy knowledge for the masses of oiks, just tell them that carbon dioxide is a toxic and repeat and repeat. And then load them with honours and grants when they repeat it.
To those, to you, the water curtain used by firefighters to stop heat reaching them while allowing visible through is magic..
Until you can extricate your head from the AGWSF meme that ‘all electromagnetic energy is the same’ and start to learn about the differences you will not be able to comprehend the world around you, however clever you are at maths..
..and until you can provide me with “articles explaining the experiments” which give conclusive proof that visible light converts organic matter of land and oceans to heat, give me the data and show me exactly how electronic transitions can accomplish such a tremendous feat in producing the vast amount of thermal infrared radiated back out, then you’re still avoiding the point. All you’re proving so far is that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
@ J Bowers who on October, 2, 2011 at 3:21 am said:
Truly no offence intended, but given that no experiment, model, or theory is 100% right.
I’m inclined to accept the possibility of “no model and no theory”, but not so much regarding “no experiment”.
In the discussion here, an experiment to show whether Earth’s atmosphere with different amounts of CO2 will react differently to the exact same IR source, can be done.
The first thing that such an ‘experiment’ needs to do is show that the set-up has no bias.
The inherent variations in a poorly controlled experiments may lead to a bias that is greater than the hypothesized effect.
If one was only doing the experiment once, 50% of the time one could expect that the bias would be confirming the prejudice even if there was no significant effect. And for the other 50% one would keep jiggling the equipment till the bias confirms what one wanted to show.
The control could have been improved by repeating the experiment by swapping left and right and repeating a few times. Also the gas injection was rather haphazard.
And, in any case, as many have pointed out: is the set-up really a good model for our atmosphere with complex, and possibly negative, feedback mechanisms?
REPLY: I agree quality control and calibration of the thermometers are key to doing any experiment like this properly – Anthony
Both HenryP and Myrrh do not understand that the sun’s photosphere largely radiates visible light because it is at 6000K and radiates its heat away (as a “black body”) in the only way it can. When this visible light is absorbed at the earth’s surface, the earth reradiates at those wavelegths characteristic of a black body at around 300K, i.e. at much longer wavelengths. CO2 etc can trap this IR (in certain “bands” or ranges of wavelength) although these greenhouse gases are transparent to visible light. (Hence heat lamps, rather than, say, LEDs, in the disputed experiment.) Crudely, visible light experiences little difficulty in reaching the earth’s surface; but IR radiated from the earth’s surface may be absorbed and reradiated many times before it escapes to space.
Here endeth he lesson.
That’s “the” lesson.
Rolf Atkinson says:
CO2 etc can trap this IR (in certain “bands” or ranges of wavelength) although these greenhouse gases are transparent to visible light.
Henry@Rolf
yes, you are right…. we had a lesson here. I was the one teaching and you have not learned that CO2 is in fact NOT transparent to the light from the sun 0-5um at certain wavelengths. Pity.
J.Bowers says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/#comment-757170
I agree that we only have one earth and we cannot use that as a testing field. However, I would not be here, saying this experiment is flawed and completely wrong, if I had not done all my home work to make sure about the facts. Always be honest to yourself and to the truth.
I am pretty sure from all of my analyses of data of from weather stations all over the world that it was not the increase in CO2 that caused any warming.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
“….the water curtain used by firefighters to stop heat reaching them while allowing visible through is magic.”
It is!
If the temperature of the water in the curtain remains the same as the temperature of that water leaving the hydrant. At all times.
HenryP
Visible light has wavelengths in the range 0.4-0.7 microns. The absorption band described in your own key source begins at 1.44 microns. The overwhelming majority of the incoming solar radiation is in the visible range or fairly close to it. The rest has already been said.
Wiki: “When compared to carbon dioxide (CO2), N2O has 310 times the ability to trap heat in the atmosphere.”
Can you imagine the temperature rise rate with this gas, compared to air? Put a candle next to a bottle of that and you’d have enough heat to warm the house for a month.
All of these discussions about microns and absorption and laying down challenges, whilst interesting and amusing, are missing the point of Anthony’s topic.
The simple fact that has been expertly demonstrated, is that the Climate Change 101 ‘demonstration’ was rigged. Period.
And why would Al Gore’s team do that? There are a number of possible reasons, and with no explanations forthcoming from the team that produced the video, we can only speculate.
Is this another “final nail in the coffin”?
Or perhaps a slightly silly demo?
BTW, thanks for the video. It was interesting.
Henry@Rolf
Rolf, I had this argument before with those of the AGW cloth. I am sorry that I thought you were one of them. Look at this presentation here:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Solar_Spectrum.png
I found out that this graph is vaild for a clear day, no clouds.
Note that a large % of the sun’s radiation is bumbed off from the earth by the atmosphere, mostly by the combined efforts of O3, O2, CO2 and H2O. This is due to re-radiation back radiation or call it what you want.
I am standing here in the African sun and the truth is that I cannot stand in the sun for longer then 10 minutes because of the sun’s heat on my skin. This direct “heat” that I can feel is due to the sun’s IR 1.5 – 5 um, don’t you agree? My point is that without the CO2 in the air, and less humidity, I would get even more heat on top of my head. In fact, I can feel a difference in the heat on my skin when even just there is less or more humidity in the air. Now some people were arguing with me that the parts of the sunshine “absorbed” (deflected) by the CO2, even when added all together, is insignicant compared to the 14-16 um absorption of the CO2 which traps some of the earth’s radiation. I ask you to prove that to me. I need to see some test results on that. I want to know excactly how much the CO2 is cooling and how much it is warming,
in W/m2/0.01% CO2/ m3/24hours
It would also help if we could determine how much the CO2 is cooling by taking part in the life cycle.
In the end we have to add everything together and look at the net effect of an increase in CO2.
Failing that, you have to at least agree with me that the experiment in a closed box is just a continuation of the same errors made by Tyndall and Svante Arrhenius – which is why they came up with the wrong formula’s in the first place.
The climate 101 experiment is a complete mis-representation of the science invloved.
My own investigations so far, by studying data from weather stations, show that there is no warming due to an increase in GHG’s.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
J Calvert N;
As a side note, observe the absorption spectrum of methane in that second graph you posted. It is minuscule compared to CO2, not the “21X” so often touted. It seems that figure is concocted by adding the absorptions of the BURN products* of CH4, were it BURNED. Which is not what happens in the atmosphere.
Anthony;
About Myrrh;
It’s a pity, since he’s relatively sane on other topics, but has long since talked himself into permanent mental blockage on radiative thermodynamics. Neither detailed explanations nor appeal to the most impeccable authorities has any effect. And his long screeds are functionally repetitious efforts to thread highjack.
I think the ultimate sanction should be threatened, and then applied if necessary.
*1xCO2, 2xH2O
Brian H says:
September 30, 2011 at 10:27 am
“Just to make it perfectly clear, there aren’t even two separate photos of one thermometer. It’s one photo with the climbing temp Photoshopped in.”
I have taken a very close look and I don’t believe it’s Photoshopped. Thay are not actually clever enough to do that.
They simply took two photos of the same thermometer and heated the thermometer up between shots.
It’s still fraud.
@Myrhh
“No? You can’t see how ludicrous that is? Of course not, because that’s what you’re promoting as being real physics. Yet you refuse to give me any proof whatsover that visible light can heat matter.”
What the hell is the matter with you, Myrrh? Have’t you seen visible light lasers heating stuff?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=green+laser+melt+plastic&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS290US290&ie=UTF-8
[SNIP: You may be right Dave, but that was just a tad too uncivil. REP]
Please send me only the daily digests in the future.
Thanks in advance
H Masson
Dave Springer says:
October 3, 2011 at 1:16 pm
@Myrhh
“No? You can’t see how ludicrous that is? Of course not, because that’s what you’re promoting as being real physics. Yet you refuse to give me any proof whatsover that visible light can heat matter.”
What the hell is the matter with you, Myrrh? Have’t you seen visible light lasers heating stuff?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=&q=green+laser+melt+plastic&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS290US290&ie=UTF-8
[SNIP: You may be right Dave, but that was just a tad too uncivil. REP]
More to the point would be ‘what the hell is the matter with you?’, the Sun is not a laser. If you understood the properties of visible light, or even how lasers work, you wouldn’t have thought that somehow proved your idiotic point..
..so tell me, what happens to all the 95% thermal energy produced by the light bulb since ‘it’s the visible we feel as heat’?
Ah, of course, it can’t get through the glass! Yes, it’s busy busy busy back-radiating and heating up the element making it hotter and hotter and now gamma rays are being produced and that’s why light bulbs don’t last five minutes. Or maybe it’s just I buy cheap ones.. /s
What the heck, believe what you want in your cartoon world. Just don’t expect to be taken seriously by anyone with basic real world physics about this.
Myrrh;
Just don’t expect to be taken seriously by anyone with basic real world physics about this.>>>
Go find the visible light source of your choice. Big one, at least 100 watts. Go find a magnifying glass. Big one, at least six inches. Get an actual glass one, not the plastic ones. Glass doesn’t pass infrared, and it is much higher precision, that’s why you want a glass one.
Position the visible light source such that you can use the magnifying glass to focus it to a tiny dot on the back of your hand. As your skin starts to blacken and you smell the smoke from your burning flesh, keep reminding yourself that visible light doesn’t heat anything, remind yourself that glass doesn’t pass infrared through, so your skin isn’t really burning and it doesn’t really hurt.
For the rest of you, PLEASE DON’T DO THIS. You really will burn yourself, and it really will hurt. Use some paper, but keep in mind that it may catch on fire. Wood works too. In winter we wrote our names in the snow one way, in summer, on the side of the house with a magnifying glass.
Both ways had a painfull result… in the end.
Myrrh says:
October 3, 2011 at 3:59 pm
“Yet you refuse to give me any proof whatsover that visible light can heat matter.”
You’re going to have a hard time understanding a greenhouse then. Visible light passes thru and is absorbed by the matter within, which in turn releases heat in the form of infrared, which does not readily escape thru the glass.
Thought experiment: Were the infrared not trapped by the glass, and as you claim visible light doesn’t heat, what then causes a greenhouse to increase in temperature in relation to the outside temperature? It would pass in through the glass as easily as it passed out through the glass. Conclusion: Infrared doesn’t pass through glass, and visible light does and heats matter, which re-radiates absorbed heat as infrared, which is trapped in the greenhouse.
Isn’t an instructional video automatically considered a dramatization? Bill is explaining what to do to demonstrate CO2’s ability to trap heat. Al Gore and I realize most do not need delicately placed thermometers on miniature earths to understand the concept. However, Al is trying to reach out to High School dropouts that would never stop to consider.
Because he considers his fellow Americans stupid.
I’m a big fan of Anthony and anyone else who dares to challenge mainstream climate science, but I found this nit-picking exposé to be way OTT.
Glenn says:
October 3, 2011 at 9:27 pm
Myrrh says:
October 3, 2011 at 3:59 pm
“Yet you refuse to give me any proof whatsover that visible light can heat matter.”
You’re going to have a hard time understanding a greenhouse then. Visible light passes thru and is absorbed by the matter within, which in turn releases heat in the form of infrared, which does not readily escape thru the glass.
Thought experiment: Were the infrared not trapped by the glass, and as you claim visible light doesn’t heat, what then causes a greenhouse to increase in temperature in relation to the outside temperature? It would pass in through the glass as easily as it passed out through the glass. Conclusion: Infrared doesn’t pass through glass, and visible light does and heats matter, which re-radiates absorbed heat as infrared, which is trapped in the greenhouse.
Glenn, you’re taking rather a lot of things for granted here which you may well believe, but is contradicted by physical reality as explained by traditional physics.
We cannot feel visible light as heat. If we can’t feel it as heat, how is it warming us or anything else up? Visible light from the Sun is reflective, it works on the electronic transition level which does not move molecules while thermal infrared does. For example, visible light is reflected/scattered by the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen in our atmosphere when an electron of the molecule briefly absorbs visible and moves into a higher vibrational state and then bounces it back out, so we have a blue sky. To heat water the whole molecule has to be put into vibration, but water is transparent to visible light, as is glass, which means that it doesn’t even get to play with the electrons, but having tried for a while it then gets passed on, this is called transmission, there is no heat created. A lot of visible light is absorbed in chemical changes, such as photsynthesis, this is not creating heat, but sugars. Thermal infrared is invisible, we feel it as heat, this is what warms us up inside because water, we are mainly water, is in resonant absorption with thermal infrared, the whole molecule is moved. Infrared can pass through glass. Sitting in a car on a sunny day we can feel it. Since visible cannot be felt as heat and does not heat us up, it can only be the thermal infrared which is doing this. We cannot feel UV, Visible or Near Infrared, they are not hot. Etc.
Now, you might well disagree with all of that, but until you can prove to me that visible light can do what you say it does, then you are going against all traditional physics teaching in repeating it.
So, traditional physics teaches that the thermal energy of the Sun travels down to the surface of the Earth and warms it up, land and oceans and us – this is the thermal infrared we feel as heat. We cannot feel light. If we’re feeling heat carried by radiation then it can only be thermal infrared. Heat is transported by one of three methods – conduction, convection or radiation. Visible light is not a thermal energy and so the cartoon AGW energy budget is just that, a cartoon of an imaginary world.
This imaginary science fiction was put in place to sell the AGW scare mongering, it has been introduced into the education system to the extent that a whole generation thinks it is real physics and has been spread so successfully that even scientists clever in their own fields take it for granted as if it is real physical fact. This is what adds confusion here. You don’t have to believe what I say is true, but you do, this is a science blog after all, have to note that I am presenting an alternative view – it’s up to you to check it out and that has to begin with checking up whether or not what you believe is true fact. Don’t just find ‘experiments’ which someone suggests proves your view true, think about them. Is the light we get from a laser or by using a magnifying glass the same light we get from the Sun? For example. What is actually happening in the experiment of Gore’s carbon dioxide? In traditional physics you have to take into consideration the differences in properties and processes, not all energy is the same, not all molecules are the same.
Myrrh says:
October 4, 2011 at 4:24 pm
“Glenn, you’re taking rather a lot of things for granted here which you may well believe, but is contradicted by physical reality as explained by traditional physics.
We cannot feel visible light as heat…”
Sure we can, and do, as well as other frequencies of light. We also see visible light as color, the light that is reflected off the objects it hits and does not absorb.
This is obvious to most people who have experienced the fact that black cars get much hotter than do white cars. This is basic physics, but it appears that you have been confused by something you have read. The underlying actual scientific explanations can be difficult to understand.
Myrrh;
We cannot feel visible light as heat. If we can’t feel it as heat, how is it warming us or anything else up?>>>
A 100 watt incadescent light bulb emitts about 90 watts of infrared.
Question: Where did the other 10 watts go?
Really Myrrh, dealing with the bad science produced by the warmists is one thing, debunking you is a whole other level.
davidmhoffer says:
October 5, 2011 at 9:56 pm
Myrrh;
We cannot feel visible light as heat. If we can’t feel it as heat, how is it warming us or anything else up?>>>
A 100 watt incadescent light bulb emitts about 90 watts of infrared.
Question: Where did the other 10 watts go?
Really Myrrh, dealing with the bad science produced by the warmists is one thing, debunking you is a whole other level.
What debunking?? This is straw man. I’m asking you to explain what happens to that 90% thermal infrared. Instead of addressing the logical fail I posted to you as an example of the AGWScience Fiction department’s meme that ‘visible light has the properties of thermal infrared in heating land and oceans’ and ‘thermal infrared taken out of the picture’ you come back with more nonsense. Did someone help you form this supposed ‘debunking’ question, or did you come up with it all on your own?
Visible light can barely move electrons, which scatters it all over the sky, this science fiction you’re promoting says it has the properties of thermal infrared to heat matter by moving whole molecules into vibration.
Here’s the example again:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/#comment-757203
You tell me what happens to the 90% of thermal infrared emitted by the incandescent light bulb in this example.
Come on Glenn, you join in here since you’ve repeated the AGW science fiction meme that thermal infrared can’t get through glass – therefore it is trapped inside the lightbulb just as it is ‘trapped inside the greenhouse heating it up further meme’.
NASA – “
This is traditional real world physics. The heat we feel from the Sun is thermal infrared, not as Ira presented it and you keep defending. We cannot feel heat from visible light and UV any more than we can feel near infrared, these are not thermal energies, these don’t have the ability to warm us up, they are not capable of moving our molecules into vibration which is how something gets hotter.
You are unable to give me actual method and examples of visible light from the Sun heating matter. You’re floundering and avoiding because you can’t find anything in physics or in the myriad application of light in our industries to back up your claim. All you have is the junk science of fictional memes which here have reversed the properties visible light and thermal infrared – by giving the properties of thermal infrared to visible light which does not have the ability to do what thermal does.
Until it sinks in that this is a deliberate campaign to dumb down physics in the promotion of the AGW claims, you’ll keep trying to justify what is impossible in the real world. You’ve been had. Someone somewhere is having a great laugh at the confusion this has created and the thousands of discussions where this junk science is being seriously promoted by repeating even more junk science fiction memes in defence of it.
This reaches right to the top of our science communities. Here is the post when I found that NASA was changing its traditional science pages:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711614
The heat we feel from the Sun, and from incandescent light bulbs, is the invisible thermal infrared, thermal energy direct from the Sun to us, heat direct from the Sun to us. Therefore, it does reach the Earth’s surface contrary to the claims in the AGW KT energy budget fiction. Short wave cannot heat land and oceans to produce the thermal infrared then radiated out from the Earth as claimed in that fiction AGW energy budget and now widespread that this is real world physics. If you can get your heads around the fact that this is a reversal of properties in a deliberate science fiction world, you’ll find it a lot easier to understand the real physics of the world around us.
This AGWScience Fiction’s meme producing department has done the same thing with carbon dioxide, and as here with Ira’s presentation and Gore’s experiment, fantasy impossible physical claims and pretend experiments are produced by this department to promote these fictional memes. These become absurd when they are believed to apply to the real physical world around us. Keep them in fiction where they belong and re-discover what traditional science really says about their properties.
Henry@Myrrh
How do you explain that UV light, although you don’t feel the heat, still has the ability to burn your skin, quite badly. The only problem is you only feel it when it is too late?
Why don’t you find out? It’s not thermal. “Far infrared waves are thermal.” Short wave, near infrared, visible and uv, are not.
What you have to prove is that UV is able to heat the oceans and lands of Earth, to warm them up, or stop promoting the junk fiction of the AGW science budget which excludes the thermal we can all feel as direct heat from the Sun, and which we all can understand warms us up. We know what heat is, we can feel it radiating off stuff that is hot. Burning surface skin is not warming you up, you can’t even feel being burned by UV.. If that’s what you call ‘warming up the earth’ then we’d all be permanently singed.. I’ve given traditional physics explaining the differences. Explore these differences between electronic transitions, electrons, of shortwave compared with rotational resonance of atoms and molecules of thermal infrared, heat energy, for a start. When plants absorb visible light it does not create heat, the energy is used for a chemical change to create sugars. That ‘all energy creates heat therefore all wavelengths from the Sun are the same’ is a science fiction meme. They are different, they do different things, they are different sizes, etc. AGWScience Fiction reduces all this to zero dimension nonsense by stopping you thinking about the differences.
You’re involved in promoting these ideas which I’ve shown are contrary to established well known tried and tested physics in tradition science. It’s up to you to prove it. That’s why you and your ilk can’t come up with even one logical explanation to back your claims that shortwave heats up land and oceans, because it’s junk science. Because there is no method by which they can do this and, as yet, the whole of scientific literature hasn’t been corrupted or there would be no industries based on the real understanding of the differences between heat and light, you can’t find anything.
Who taught you this nonsense? You could try going back to them and asking them to prove it…
Myrrh;
You’re involved in promoting these ideas which I’ve shown are contrary to established well known tried and tested physics in tradition science.>>>
You’ve shown nothing. You ask for proof, and when it is provided, you dismiss it out of hand and claim it proves nothing. Experiments are proposed to you, and you dismiss them as proving nothing. The math formulas used every day to design everything from eye glasses to blast furnaces have been explained to you, and you claim they mean nothing. You spout on and on (and on) about “traditional physics” but you can’t quote the specific studies, formulas or scientists that you claim back you up.
Which physicists got it wrong? Watt? Ohm? Joule? Faraday? Stefan-Boltzmann? Planck? Which one?
What proof have you given me?? Show me exactly what I’ve asked for, how visible light a non-thermal energy from the Sun is capable of heating the oceans and lands of Earth as presented by AGWScience Fiction while excluding the real thermal energy from the Sun which we know is capable of heating matter and which we all experience as described in the NASA quote I gave, and which we who were traditionally taught know to be the invisible thermal infrared as it is explained there. This is real science, you’re presenting something different.
You are excluding all the properties and processes of real science and think that answers my specific question??
Heat a bath of water with blue led light or with your remote control without turning it into a lasar or magnifying it.. You have provided not one jot of proof that visible light from the Sun can do this. Show me the planckian discussions on the difference between heat and light energies from the Sun and stop pretending irrelevant information and out of context ‘experiments’ prove you know what you’re talking about. Give me a proper, logical explanation of how visible light heats water – the actual process. You’re continuing to avoid giving me the information I’ve actually asked for and which you need to be able to give to back up your claim against traditional science.
NASA traditional physics: “Far infrared waves are thermal. In other words, we experience this type of infrared radiation every day in the form of heat! The heat that we feel from sunlight, a fire, a radiator or a warm sidewalk is infrared.”
This has been taken out of the AGWScience Fiction energy budget as per Kiehl/Trenberth – immediately that makes it junk science. Your claim that shortwave is thermal is junk science, the heat we feel from the Sun and from incandescent light bulbs is the invisible thermal infrared, we cannot feel visible light as heat. You and Ira and the rest of your gang are spouting unadulterated gobbledegook.
Myrrh says:
October 6, 2011 at 3:47 am
“Come on Glenn, you join in here since you’ve repeated the AGW science fiction meme that thermal infrared can’t get through glass – therefore it is trapped inside the lightbulb just as it is ‘trapped inside the greenhouse heating it up further meme’.”
That should be enough to cause you to stop and think, since light bulbs get very, very hot, yet provide plenty of visible light. I provided you with basic physics reasoning via a commonly used subject. Greenhouses do warm and maintain that warmth over outside air during day – but not at night. If all that heated a greenhouse, as you would claim, is infrared that can as easily escape through glass as it arrived, then you should ask yourself why a greenhouse gets hotter inside than outside, without help from visible light or another source of heat inside. You basically just deny that visible light is absorbed by and heats any object and no infrared heat is reradiated. And you call that basic physics.
Sorry Myrrh
I’m sure I am not your enemy.
I think I pretty much proved (at least for myself) that the cause of the warming of our planet is largely natural. Some small portion of it may be manmade if you mean that the increase in vegetation observed over the past decades is due to man’s intervention.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
But you have not explained to me why you think I need a sunscreen to prevent UV rays burning me?
( I honestly don’t know – I have not studied much biology)
Ah, sorry Henry, scrolling too fast and my mind in answering Glenn and David. Can’t recall saying I thought you needed a sunscreen.. You don’t need a sunscreen if you give your body time to acclimatise – the melanin in your body deals with it, you’ll tan which means higher melanin which will block more, what it doesn’t block it absorbs and, “Melanin is generally considered to be the perfect protection against UV-induced photodamage” is a real science basic, and research is ongoing about UV and melanin both. Using a sunscreen except for short duration, say going to hot country for hols and unused to the Sun, but even then better if you cover up part of the time which protects rather than excluding these health giving rays altogether. The build up over the years of scaremongering about the Sun and ozone layer and associating this with skin cancer and the proliferation of sunscreens that block UV completely has had the effect that even in places like England parents have been slathering their young children with UV blocks and now cases of rickets appearing which haven’t been seen for a long time – UV is used by the body to create vitamin D, lack of which causes rickets. For example, http://www.naturalnews.com/028329_vitamin_D_rickets.html
and for an example of what parents have been subjected to http://kidshealth.org/parent/firstaid_safe/outdoor/sun_safety.html# Which says of itself: “KidsHealth is the #1 most-visited website for children’s health and development”.
UV doesn’t penetrate the skin deeper than the first layer, the epidermis, is not a thermal energy, it doesn’t move molecules into vibration, but tiny it zones in on the smaller DNA where it can do damage. This is a plus for it in its use as a water purifier, where it doesn’t heat the water.., but zooms in to the DNA of microscopic nasties lurking and does them damage.
Melanin is an astonishing thing in its own right in the way the body uses it, worth a search for what you can find on it.
Anyway, I’m still in G/M mode…, these are LIGHT rays as a category in traditional physics, not HEAT, they are tiny compared with heat energy and work on tiny bits like UV and DNA and Vit D production or as in photosynthesis, absorbed for photochemical work, not heat production. These energies do not move molecules into vibration which is the real way matter gets heated.
Glenn says:
October 6, 2011 at 11:16 am
Myrrh says:
October 6, 2011 at 3:47 am
“Come on Glenn, you join in here since you’ve repeated the AGW science fiction meme that thermal infrared can’t get through glass – therefore it is trapped inside the lightbulb just as it is ‘trapped inside the greenhouse heating it up further meme’.”
That should be enough to cause you to stop and think, since light bulbs get very, very hot, yet provide plenty of visible light.
Light bulbs if they’re incandescant provide only about 5% of their output as visible light, the majority, 95%, is thermal infrared. When you switch off the light bulb the heat which is thermal infrared which is thermal energy which is not visible is still being radiated out. As in the Sun, it is heat, thermal infrared, which creates visible light.
I provided you with basic physics reasoning via a commonly used subject. Greenhouses do warm and maintain that warmth over outside air during day – but not at night. If all that heated a greenhouse, as you would claim, is infrared that can as easily escape through glass as it arrived, then you should ask yourself why a greenhouse gets hotter inside than outside, without help from visible light or another source of heat inside. You basically just deny that visible light is absorbed by and heats any object and no infrared heat is reradiated. And you call that basic physics.
Well no, I have’t quite said all of that, but I’ve certainly said that visible does not heat the inside of a greenhouse as claimed as an example of visible heating the lands and oceans of Earth in the fictional energy budget cartoon, visible cannot heat the lands and oceans of Earth as claimed. Have you ever used a greenhouse? Of course heat escapes! When greenhouses get too hot we open their windows, when they get too cold we put on heating. A closed greenhouse will keep convected heat in longer, but when outside temps drop heat from inside will naturally and irresistably travel outside. That’s why we put in double glazing to help keep heat in our homes. Heat always travels from hotter to colder. Visible light CANNOT heat the ground of the greenhouse as you keep repeating this AGWScience fiction meme, because it physically doesn’t have the capability of doing so.
It’s tiny compared with the bigger thermal infrared, it doesn’t even move the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen in the air, it just gets bounced out by their electrons, reflected and scattered all over the sky by electrons. The higher energy blue visible gets scattered more than the lower frequency visibles. These tiny very fast moving waves are tiny because they travel at the same speed as longer waves, they get more waves in the same period of time, how big are visible waves compared with, say, radio waves? Get a sense of scale and it will be easier to grasp that it takes more than they can manage to move a molecule into vibration. And in water, water is a transparent medium for visible, light can’t even get to the electrons because the molecules of water keep it out, it is delayed and passed on, this is called transmission. [Which note, AGWSF claims the atmosphere is transparent to visible, but it isn’t, because the electrons of the gas molecules absorb it before bouncing it back out, so why isn’t the sky all hot from visible?]
If you want to find out about visible light look up pages on optics and explore the different kinds of bulbs now available which do not use heat to create visible. The best visible can do for creating energy for work is in being captured by photovoltaic cells and turned into electricity, photo means light. This is a very different process from capturing the thermal energy from the Sun, thermal infrared, by heating water directly..
I realise you think you’re giving me ‘real physics’, but you’re giving me fictional memes created by those promoting AGW. Light is not Heat and neither are x-rays. They are different energies and do different things because they interact with matter in different scales, etc.
Real physics on Heat:
http://thermalenergy.org/
http://thermalenergy.org/heattransfer.php
Take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_and_translucency
Scroll down to Absorption of Light in Solids where it begins to explain the difference between light and heat:
Continue reading UV-Vis: Electronic transitions which gives the four possible ways these light energies will act – the second is what happens when visible meets nitrogen and oxygen in the air, reflected/scattered, and the third is what happens when visible meets water, it is transmitted because the electron cannot absorb the energy (which is does in reflecting/scattering).
And take in “Infrared – bond stretching – The primary physical mechanism for storing mechanical energy of motion in condensed matter is through heat, or thermal energy. Thermal energy manifests itself as energy of motion. Thus, heat is motion at the atomic and molecular levels.”
I hope this helps.
Myrrh,
from your ref:
“Once the thermal energy leaves the sun (in the form of radiation) it is called heat. Heat is thermal energy in transfer.”
That is horsehockey. Practically no energy is transferred in space. The website is a joke. Light does not carry thermal energy, it carries radiant energy.
As to your use of Wiki as a reference, you should think twice since several other Wiki articles contradict your claim that visible light doesn’t heat anything. And the one that you cited, in the same section you referred to, says “That is, one object might reflect green light while absorbing all other frequencies of visible light.”
So now you know that visible light is absorbed by some objects, carries radiant energy which can interact with the molecular structure of certain object to produce thermal energy which is radiated or reemitted as infrared, which we call thermal radiation or heat.
Myrrh,
It is painful to weed through your posts, but I suspect you visualize infrared as hot moving photons, and visible light as cold moving photons. Am I in the ballpark? My last sentence above may have confused you. It is the transfer of thermal energy that we call thermal radiation or heat, not infrared.
Glenn says:
October 6, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Myrrh,
from your ref:
“Once the thermal energy leaves the sun (in the form of radiation) it is called heat. Heat is thermal energy in transfer.”
That is horsehockey. Practically no energy is transferred in space. The website is a joke. Light does not carry thermal energy, it carries radiant energy.
Shrug, what’s radiant heat then? Heat is transferred in one of three ways, conduction, convection and radiation. Of course energy is transferred in space! How the heck do you think light and heat get to Earth from the Sun?!
Don’t tell me, let me guess. The gods who own the Milky Way run a container business between the stars, of course we can’t see this because it’s on a supernatural level beyond our ken, but the owner gods of the Milky Way have a deal going with the lesser gods of Earth who require the Sun’s heat and sell them it by putting it in invisible containers carried on an invisible track which delivers it to Earth in eight minutes. When the gods of Earth upset the gods of the Milky Way they shut off all access to the Sun, periodic reminders are in place so the gods of Earth don’t ever get too uppity. But you’re right about light, Light does not carry heat energy.. Light is not thermal. It is not heat, thermal energy, on the move, which is thermal infrared.
As to your use of Wiki as a reference, you should think twice since several other Wiki articles contradict your claim that visible light doesn’t heat anything. And the one that you cited, in the same section you referred to, says “That is, one object might reflect green light while absorbing all other frequencies of visible light.”
Again shrug. Wiki was known to have been corrupted by Greenies, but a clearing up process put in place. However, there’s no contradiction. What I referenced is bog standard divisions in the differences between light and heat energies. Light energies work on an electron level, they are tiny dinky little waves moving very rapidly up and down and the faster they move the smaller they get because they all have a common restriction, they have to keep to the same basic speed limit (matter of course slows this down and different wavelengths in visible for example will be slowed down more than others, etc., water slows them down more than air) – as I said, the first thing you should do is try to get a grasp of the scale of this. Near infrared is microscopic and the waves get smaller through visible to gamma and larger through infrared to radio. Different size is a property of waves, they will react with matter they meet in different ways because of this, there’s rather a big difference between waves the size of a house or miles long and visible light. Look it up.
Visible light is tiny, when it meets matter, molecules, it will be affected in different ways depending on the matter. When it meets molecules of nitrogen and oxygen with is the volume of the fluid gaseous atmosphere around us, pressing down on us a ton weight per square foot (you’re carrying quite a weight on your shoulders..), visible light doesn’t have the oomph to act on the whole molecule, it can hit the electrons of the molecules and get them to speed up briefly which they do and then use that energy to eject the wave/photon of visible light, this is what reflection/scattering is, hence you see the blue sky all around, etc. Water molecules are not such an easy pushover and don’t even let visible light in to play with their electrons, the visible light tries for a while which slows it down and is then passed on, this is called transmission, this happens in a transparent medium which water is to visible light. The atmosphere of the gas air is not transparent to visible light, the electrons absorb it and scatter it around filling the sky with colour as this breaks up the wavelengths as putting them through a prism does.
So, what does it mean that one of possible ways visible light interacts with matter is that the matter will absorb some of colours and reflect back others. This happens in photosynthesis, the plants take in mainly red and blue and reflect back green, the colour green we see of plants is the reflection of the green lightwaves bouncing back into our eyes which have the ability to discern the differences from receptors to these. All the colours you see around you are those wavelengths not being absorbed, but reflected back out. The colours, the energies, perhaps they should be called pigments on the move.., that are absorbed by plants in photosynthesis are used in photochemical changes, not the creation of heat, but the creation of sugars. The plant is not heated up by visible light, because visible light doesn’t move the whole molecules of water in a plant to rotation/vibration, but is either surplus to requirements and reflected back out mainly green or absorbed for a chemical change, like UV’s energies used in the creation of vitamin D.
UV itself is divided into ionising and non-ionising radiation. What does that mean? It means that some UV, near UV is like visible light, non-ionising, which means its energy isn’t sufficient to knock an electron out of its orbit (recall that visible light is scattered in air by the electrons of the molecules absorbing its energy which makes them vibrate and then push the wave back out), ionising has sufficient oomph in its frequency, to push an electron out completely. This is where ionising UV and likewise the tinier and even more highly energetic gamma rays do their damage. Gamma rays in sufficient quantity will not just give you ‘sunburn’, they will instantly vapourise your whole body in conflagration leaving practically nothing behind, look up Hiroshima and Nagasaki to see why these were first called ground zero, ground nothing.
Here, another wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation
Glenn;
Myrrh’s made up his mind and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts. Read through his last rant. How does one even start to correct the list of complete fallacies, misunderstandings, half right (but still wrong) web of constructs? Recall the words of Einstein:
“That’s not right. That’s not even wrong.”
Myrrh,
Until you can actually answer questions like “what is a watt?” and “what is Ohm’s Law?” and “what is the Stefan-Boltzmann equation?” and “what is the Planck constant?” and cite the Laws of Thermodymics, you are just not right, you’re not even wrong.
If you dispute that these laws are “traditional physics” then show where the formulas and principles that they describe are wrong. If you accept the formulas and principles, then use them to demonstrate your theories.
You haven’t answered my question: If a 100 watt light bulb produced 90 watts of infrared, what happened to the other 10 watts? Do you know? Do you know why the question is significant? Do you know how to answer the question using the various formulas from SB Law, Planck, and Ohm? Can you cite the specific math that is “wrong” with these formulas?
davidmhoffer says:
October 7, 2011 at 7:59 am
Myrrh,
Until you can actually answer questions like “what is a watt?” and “what is Ohm’s Law?” and “what is the Stefan-Boltzmann equation?” and “what is the Planck constant?” and cite the Laws of Thermodymics, you are just not right, you’re not even wrong.
? Don’t be ridiculous. The difference between heat and light even a child can understand. You’re again avoiding answering the question – give me proof that visible light from the Sun is able to heat land and oceans as you claim or I’ll take it you can’t. I know you can’t, because as I’ve given you real world traditional physics, visible energy from the Sun isn’t capable of such a great work. When you admit that, if you ever do, welcome to rational thinking.
If you dispute that these laws are “traditional physics” then show where the formulas and principles that they describe are wrong. If you accept the formulas and principles, then use them to demonstrate your theories.
Straw man avoidance. Where have I disputed such a thing? I’ve given you the workings of energy meeting matter, proving your claims are nothing but empty vessel making much noise.
You haven’t answered my question: If a 100 watt light bulb produced 90 watts of infrared, what happened to the other 10 watts? Do you know? Do you know why the question is significant? Do you know how to answer the question using the various formulas from SB Law, Planck, and Ohm? Can you cite the specific math that is “wrong” with these formulas?
I have tried very hard to be polite against all you and your gang have thrown at me, but you really are full of shite.
Anything to avoid facing up to the idiocy Ira came up with, wich is the logical outcome of your fictional science. Go on, warm yourself on the 10% visible radiating out from the lightbulb trapping the 90% infrared heat inside which is backradiating like mad unable to escape from its greenhouse..
Bye bye
davidmhoffer says:
October 7, 2011 at 7:59 am
“Glenn;
Myrrh’s made up his mind and doesn’t want to be confused with the facts. Read through his last rant. How does one even start to correct the list of complete fallacies, misunderstandings, half right (but still wrong) web of constructs?”
I don’t hold out much hope. He’s shot himself in the foot again with his Wiki article about non-ionizing radiation. Apparently the fact that all infrared is non-ionizing as well as visible light doesn’t phase him, and some of his latest comments, such as “Near infrared is not thermal. It is not hot, we can’t feel it.” only reinforce the suspicion that he thinks that thermal infrared is “hot photons” flying through space and from one object to the next, distributing heat like bees flying around distributing pollen
Glenn;
I have no idea what he thinks. He’s got some stuff in his head that he just won’t let go of. Try and take him back to the basics and build from there…and he refuses to engage. He demands proof that visible light carries “heat” and every piece of evidence gets answered with arm waving and complaints that we’re avoiding answering his question. Its like “prove to me that two plus two equals four” and when you show him two popsicle sticks and two other popsicle sticks, put them together in one pile and count them…one, two, three, four… he fires right back with “I’m not talking popsicle sticks here, I’m talking “traditional” math, why are you avoiding answering my question? Prove to me that 2+2=4!”
He keeps describing processes like a photon raising an electron to a higher orbit, and then concluding that there’s no transfer of energy because it is an electron not a molecule. He doesn’t want to understand that moving an electron to a higher orbit requires energy, and that the energy came from the photon, and so he can’t.
He similarly refuses to explain what is wrong with the mathematical forumlas that engineers use every day to design everything from freezers to jet engines (succesfully I might add) but maintains that they are wrong. when asked if he understands Ohm’s Law, what a “watt” is, or SB Law, or Planck’s Constant, he screams that those things have nothing to do with it. Sorry, but they have EVERYTHING to do with it!
Myrrh, one more crack at it.
A unit of energy is a joule. Traditional physics, look up the physicist who came up with it. His name is Joule.
Power is measured in watts. One watt = 1 joule per second. Traditional physics, Look up that physicist, his name is Watt.
Voltage (E) = Current (I in amps) times Resistance (R in ohms). Traditional physics. Look up physicists Ohm, Ampere.
Power (P) = Volts (E) times Current (I) More traditional physics, if you looked up names above you should have all you need to know.
P=E*I Still more traditional physics.
The above is either right or it is wrong. If it is wrong, then explain what is wrong with it. You’ll most certainly win a Nobel Prize if you do as you’d be debunking a few centuries of physics not to mention a whole bunch of previous Nobel Prize winners.
Now, if you have a 100 watt incadescent light bulb, you can show that it is 100 watts by measuring the Voltage and the current running through it. If you also measure that it is producing 90 watts of infrared, the question becomes, what happened to the other 10 watts?
Now, if your have a 100 watt infrared light bulb, you can show that it is 100 watts by measuring the voltage and the current running through it. If you also measure that it is producing 99.9 watts of infrared, the question becomes what is the difference between the output of the infrared bulb and the output of the infrared bulb. What accounts for the difference in infrared energy output? Same power source, and we’ve verified that they are both consuming 100 watts. Did the other 10 watts from the incadescent bulb disappear into thin air? (Answer: YES IT DID! AS LIGHT! 10 WATTS OF IT!)
Now, if you have a 100 watt flourescent light bulb, you can show that it is 100 watts by measuring the voltage and the current running through it. If you also measure that it is only producing about 10 watts of infrared…well now, you’ve got a real canundrum, don’t you? Where’d the other 90 watts go? Why isn’t the flourescent bulb hot to the touch? Not even warm in fact? You’ve got 100 watts going in…100 joules per second…and they have to BE someplace them thar joules! Where’d they go? Your choices are they’ve collected somewhere (in which case the bulb would be hot) or that they’ve escaped somehow (but there’s only 10 watts of infrared so 90% of them escaped another way). What way was that? If not visible light, then WHAT?
Myrrh says:
October 7, 2011 at 9:53 am
“Go on, warm yourself on the 10% visible radiating out from the lightbulb trapping the 90% infrared heat inside which is backradiating like mad unable to escape from its greenhouse..”
I really doubt anyone understands what it is you are trying to say here, but I doubt anyone ever actually made a point of saying that no heat is radiated through the glass of a greenhouse. We all surely have felt window glass warmed by the sun. Saying that greenhouse glass absorbs infrared and traps heat isn’t an explicit claim that no heat is radiated by warm glass. A lightbulb is not analogous to a greenhouse, and I’m unsure whether backradiation inside lightbulbs hit much of anything to heat, but the glass certainly gets very hot, and reradiates to the surrounding air till all energy has been transferred and temperature equals the surrounding air. Infrared is absorbed by the glass of the lightbulb, and the glass reemits infrared in all directions. Such is with a greenhouse, the infrared from the sun does heat the greenhouse glass, and the surrounding air on both sides. Solar irradiance is around 350 watts per square meter, cut that in almost half to remove your “cold white light”, and you have the equivalent of roughly one 100 watt heat lamp directed over each square meter (about ten square feet) of greenhouse glass that is exposed to that amount of solar irradiance. And the glass is radiating heat in all directions, in and out of the greenhouse. Now you have perhaps less than half that energy massaging the molecules in the greenhouse, since outside air will tend to absorb more since it is not an enclosed area and you know how heat transfers.
You end up with not so warm glass heating up a greenhouse to the extent that it raises in temperature at times to the extent that it must stay vented even during times the outside temp is mild.
Exit question: Don’t you think the lightbulbs would be more efficient were they placed inside the greenhouse?
Glenn says:
October 7, 2011 at 11:06 am
I don’t hold out much hope. He’s shot himself in the foot again with his Wiki article about non-ionizing radiation. Apparently the fact that all infrared is non-ionizing as well as visible light doesn’t phase him,
?? Why should it?? You’ve really not taken anything in have you?
The comparison I’ve been making is between non-ionising UV/Visible/Nr Infrared and non-ionising Thermal Infrared, the shortwave are tiny compared with thermal infrared, near infrared is microscopic. These Light energies are reflective, they have enough energy to excite an electron, (but don’t have enough energy to eject an electron which shorter more energic UV and down has), but this does not create heat. It takes moving the whole molecule to do so and heat energy from the Sun, thermal infrared, can do that and does it. It’s the invisible thermal infrared, heat energy from the Sun, which we feel as heat, which warms us up, which heats the land and oceans of Earth.
and some of his latest comments, such as “Near infrared is not thermal. It is not hot, we can’t feel it.” only reinforce the suspicion that he thinks that thermal infrared is “hot photons” flying through space and from one object to the next, distributing heat like bees flying around distributing pollen
That is well-known in traditional real world physics. It is a fact. Near Infrared is like the shorter wavelengths of Light it is next to, reflective not absorptive. That’s why near infrared cameras can work just as visible cameras do, by capturing what is reflecting off the subjects. Near infrared is not hot, we cannot feel it, visible is not hot, we cannot feel it, UV is not hot, we cannot feel it. What we feel as hot is thermal infrared and that is absorptive in penetrating our bodies and heating us up inside, because we are mainly water, and thermal infrared heats water.
http://science.hq.nasa.gov/kids/imagers/ems/infrared.html
NASA TRADITIONAL PHYSICS
Your ‘physics’ is AGWScience Fiction memes, complete gobbledegook, contradicted in every aspect by real physics, including the real 2nd law.
And your continuing to promote it while unable to prove anything in its claims is really rather sad.
I shall forever associate your arguments with the incandescent lightbulb’s 5% radiated visible warming you up, while the 95% thermal infrared is trapped inside its greenhouse glass getting the inside hotter and hotter by backradiating..
[NASA traditional physics v AGWScienceFictiion takeover]
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711886
[AGWScienceFiction energy budge as per Kiehl/Trenberth]
I shall forever associate your arguments with the incandescent lightbulb’s 5% radiated visible warming you up, while the 95% thermal infrared is trapped inside its greenhouse glass getting the inside hotter and hotter by backradiating..
🙂
IR lasers are used industrially to cut steel. http://unitednuclear.com sells them – and the tubes are made out of glass. [Find the lasers under “death ray parts.”
Myrrh,
“Forever associate these references, they are from the same orgs as you have used:
“Incoming ultraviolet, visible, and a limited portion of infrared energy (together sometimes called “shortwave radiation”) from the Sun drive the Earth’s climate system.”
“The solar radiation that passes through Earth’s atmosphere is either reflected off snow, ice, or other surfaces or is absorbed by the Earth’s surface.”
http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/13_radiationbudget.html
“Shortwave radiation (SW) is a term used to describe radiant energy with wavelengths in the visible (VIS), near-ultraviolet (UV), and near-infrared (NIR) spectra”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortwave_radiation
“When EM waves are absorbed by an object, the energy of the waves is converted to heat (or converted to electricity in case of a photoelectric material). This is a very familiar effect, since sunlight warms surfaces that it irradiates. Often this phenomenon is associated particularly with infrared radiation, but any kind of electromagnetic radiation will warm an object that absorbs it.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiant_energy
You really shouldn’t be reading articles designed for kids, it will only confuse you.
Longwave or thermal infrared is what is radiated by objects that are primarily hit be shortwave radiation. That is why greenhouses get warm.
“I shall forever associate your arguments with the incandescent lightbulb’s 5% radiated visible warming you up, while the 95% thermal infrared is trapped inside its greenhouse glass getting the inside hotter and hotter by backradiating..”
I had just told you that greenhouses, as do lightbulbs, also radiate heat through glass, but unlike lightbulbs, greenhouses have vents. Greenhouses do get hotter by “backradiating” in the manner that incoming shortwave radiation that passes through the glass warms objects in the greenhouse, which those objects then radiate that heat into the air. Lightbulbs get very hot for one reason because they can not vent, and also that a continuous source of infrared radiation exists within the bulb. But both lightbulb and greenhouse do radiate heat through the glass. I just explained this to you in a previous post, but you can forever associate whatever you wish, it does not matter to me. I can easily understand the basics, and as easily experience them. After the sun rises, a window in my home warms, and I can feel that warmth on the glass both inside and outside the house, as well as in the air some distance from the window. As I move away from the inside of the window, the air (if the house is cool) I can feel that the air is cooler. As I move further away, I can feel the warmth on a wall that is in the path of the sunlight that is entering the house through the window.
Smokey says:
October 7, 2011 at 1:45 pm
“IR lasers are used industrially to cut steel. http://unitednuclear.com sells them – and the tubes are made out of glass. [Find the lasers under “death ray parts.”
The site claims “The Death Ray (actually a high power IR laser) produces an invisible beam of heat”.
Heat is energy transferred from one object to another. This only serves to confuse some people. Heat only occurs when a laser beam comes into contact with an object, such as molecules of air or other objects.
Myrrh,
Haven’replied to me huh? Because you can’t?
Little fact for you. When a photon strikes an electron and moves it to a higher orbit (as per your description) the molecule itself has more energy by the exact amount that the photon carried. That’s why some frequencies of light can be absorbed my some molecules and not by others. The molecule can only absorb a photon that carries the exact amount of energy to raise that one electron. Like it or not, the molecule now contains more energy than before it absorbed the photon, despite only a single electron being advanced to a higher energy state. Or are you going to debunk Bohr now as well?
Regarding your light bulb, no, the energy doesn’t stay trapped in the light bulb. BUT, it DOES raise the temperature of the inside of the light bulb by absorbing infrared and re-emitting it. On re-emission, some goes inside and some goes outside. Do you know why most incadescent light bulbs have white frosting on the inside of the glass? Do you think that the white frosting lets more light through? Of course not, it BLOCKS some of the light that a clear bulb would otherwise let through. However, the white frosting increases the range of frequencies that the glass+frosting absorbs versus clear glass. The process of absorption and re-emission having more spectrum to work with, increases the temperature inside the bulb to a higher temperature than would occurr in a clear glass bulb. That in turn increases the temperature of the filament, causing it to emitt photons at higher frequencies. The result is a greater percentage of the energy emitted from the filament being in the visible light spectrum versus infrared. Technically, the increase is very small, but if infrared goes from 95% to 94% as a result, that means visible light went from 5% to 6% which in lumens would be a 20% increase.
Or are you going to debunk Edison now too?
Myrr is the kind person that believes tat if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to there it that it could not possibly be making any sound.
Myrr classic quotations: “Near infrared is not a thermal energy. It is not hot. ”
Can we really say that any frequency electromagnetic radiation is “hot”. I think this kind of loose language is in itself nonsense.
For the sake of the argument let us define that we mean a radiation is “hot” is it causes direct heating sensation. So the statement “Near infrared is not a thermal energy. It is not hot. ”
Translates to “Near Infrared does not cause a heating sensation”
To test this we need to understand how a EM radiation that does cause a heat sensation produces this effect. So let’s go back to Myrrh for some guidance
“Near infrared is not a thermal energy. It is not hot. WE CANNOT FEEL IT AS HOT ON OUR SKIN. THIS IS A FACT. It does not warm us up, not absorbed by our skin, nor does it get absorbed as does thermal infrared, heat from the Sun, to warm us up inside. Near infrared is reflective not absorptive – hence its use in infrared photography.”
Myrr talks about an absorption as being the key mechanism. So far so good.
But he states that Near IR is not a “thermal Infrared”. Myrr defines thermal infrared as radiation absorbed by our skin and therefore sensed as heat.
So the claim is Near infrared is not absorbed by our skin. By Myrrs own claims, we only now have to test this claim.
Near IR is from about 800 nm to 2500 nm. So the claim is that our skin predominantly reflects this radiation to such a degree that we can not sense it as heat via absorption. Having done IR myself I do know that skin appears somewhat milky and translucence in such pictures. So that seems to support Myrr. Type in “Infrared b&W photography” into google images and you’ll see some examples.
However the images do not support claiming 100% reflection or even anywhere near it, as humans would then look more like ‘mirrors’ in such photographs.
According to the paper: “Near-infrared Absorption Property of Biological
Soft Tissue Constituents” (google it)
“Near infrared (NIR) can penetrate relatively deep into biological soft tissues. The NIR absorption property of tissue varies with tissue constituents especially water, fat, collagen, and their combination ratio.” and
“The strong absorption of NIR by water generally limits the penetration depth of light in tissue.”
So Myrr’s argument depends on the refelctivity of skin and energy content of the sun’s radiation in the NIR region relative to his “thermal radiation”. For arguments sake let’s say that 99% of the radiation is reflected, does that mean we can not feel the 1% and herefore NIR does not qualify as “thermal radiation”? Maybe someone else can run the numbers from here.
BTW to be a lottle on topic, the video is a stunt and not proof.
BTW to be a little on topic, the video is a stunt and not proof.>>>
Its so much worse than that. Gore used infrared heating lamps to demonstrate the effect of CO2 commonly called the “greenhouse” effect. But that isn’t how the greenhouse effect works at all.
CO2 would tend to BLOCK incoming infrared from ever reaching the earth. If the experiment was done properly, with highly sensitive and highly accurate equipment, it would have demonstrated that the CO2 filled jar actually warmed more slowly than the regular atmosphere jar.
To demonstrate the greenhouse effect, Gore would have had to use a heat source in the visible and UV range. That heat source would pass through the glass and the CO2 unimpeded, strike the globe (and thermometer for that matter) and be absorbed. This would then heat up the globe, causing it to radiate energy away from itself. Since the globe is MUCH cooler than light sources that produce visible or UV, it would radiate in the infrared band, which would then be absorbed and re-radiated by the CO2 in the jar…
In other words, the greenhouse effect depends on SW going right through the CO2, water vapour and other GHG’s, being absorbed, and then re-radiated as LW. Without that conversion, there is no greenhouse effect in the first place. By using an infrared source, Gore not only had to fake the experiment in order to get the results he wanted to show, but the experiment itself that he proposed shows very clearly that he hasn’t a clue how the greenhouse effect actually works in the first place.
I was in the middle of negotiating a bet as to what the results would be with another commenter, who proposed doing the experiment for real, and simplifying it by taking the globes out of the jars as he considered them superflous to the experiment. That shows you how quickly people who are certain of their “Science” jump to conclusions that show they don’t understand at all. With no globe in the jar to absorb SW and re-radiate it as LW, there would be no greenhouse effect to demonstrate. With the only heat source being infrared, all CO2 would have done is act as an insulator and result in the CO2 filled jar rising in temperature more slowly.
The notion proposed by Gore that this experiment is done every day in high schools is equally preposterous. If THIS is the experiment they do, then there’s a lot of science teachers trying to explain to students why the results come out opposite to what they expected. We’ve heard nothing of the sort for the simple reason that if high schools do ANY experiment to show the results of the greengouse effect…this isn’t it.
davidmhoffer says:
October 7, 2011 at 5:44 pm
Myrrh,
Haven’replied to me huh? Because you can’t?
I’ve replied to you. You either haven’t the ability to understand what I’m saying or are deliberately using straw man arguments to avoid answering, as I’ve already noted in asking you several times to prove that visible light is actually capable of heating water, method and observation. I’ve shown that it can’t by giving you standard traditional physics. It isn’t capable of it. You keep avoiding this.
I have nothing more to say to you who are doing everything you can to avoid giving me what I asked for, proof, while continuing to support the intelligence of your gang against me already proved to be nothing of the kind, example I gave in quoting Ira. My summary stands as reply to anything and everything you have to say further in avoiding the point I’m making.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/#comment-761876
davidmhoffer says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/09/28/video-analysis-and-scene-replication-suggests-that-al-gores-climate-reality-project-fabricated-their-climate-101-video-simple-experiment/#comment-762162
I agree.
Closed box would not work in anyway.
As I said before, CO2 is not transparent to all 0-5 um, so there is a cooling effect
that nobody seems to want to acknowledge, but is clearly proved
see footnote, here,
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Myrrh;
I’ve replied to you. You either haven’t the ability to understand what I’m saying or are deliberately using straw man arguments to avoid answering, as I’ve already noted in asking you several times to prove that visible light is actually capable of heating water, method and observation. I’ve shown that it can’t by giving you standard traditional physics. It isn’t capable of it. You keep avoiding this>>>
I’ve answered your challenge directly. I’ve proposed experiments that you could do yourself, which you haven’t. I’ve presented the known physics as demonstrated by Bohr, Watt, Ampere, Joule, Ohm, Stefan-Boltzmann, Planck and Edison.. I’ve demonstrated the math that proves you wrong according to their discoveries and mathematical formulas, and challenged you to dispute the math, or their physics. All you’ve done in response is scream that I’ve offered no proof.
Do the experiments and/or the math and show where either is wrong.
There’s only one person guilty of avoidance here, and it isn’t me.
[snip]
REPLY: Myrrh, no more of this, you are DONE. Tired of you thread jacking here and learning nothing – from now on it is highly moderated troll bin for you, be as upset as you wish. Go have a drink at the pub or something, maybe it will help you see clearly. – Anthony
Myrrh;
I feel sad for you.
You`ve cobbled together a bunch of explanations of various things that prove the opposite of what you claim. You claim for example that a photon may be absorbed by a molecule, but that no chanmge in energy contained in the molecule takes place. Sorry, but you can`t have it both ways. If the photon carried no energy in the first place, it couldn`t make the electron do anything at all. The fact that the electron is now in a different orbit and the photon no longer exists means that the energy of the photon is now in the molecule.
Do the experiment I suggested. Get a large wattage flourescent light and a magnifying glass. Burn yourself and call me arrogant if you want. Never look directly at the arc from an arc welder because even though you might be far enough away from it that you cannot feel any heat from it, the visible light will burn the backs of your eye balls and make you go blind. Get an infrared meter and use it to measure the infrared coming off of a stove element. Put a piece of glass between the stove element and the meter and watch what happens, the reading will instantly drop to ambient conditions. That will prove to you that infrared doesn`t pass through glass. Look through a clear glass window directly at the Sun and you`ll go blind after a while from the visible light burning the backs of your eyeballs, even though there is no infrared (as you will have proven to yourself) passing through the glass. Build a wooden box and try heating it with a flourescent bulb and then try heating it with an incadescent bulb of the same wattage. Try and find a difference in how they respond to being heated with the same wattage even though on emitts over 90% infrared and the other only 20%.
I told you to read up on the physicists who did their work in some cases centuries ago, and tell me what is wrong with the formulas they developed, and which are used to this various day unchanged. Either their physics was wrong or the formulas are wrong. Show where they are wrong, where they have been changed from `traditional`physics to something different today.
You see Myrrh, I`ve done every one of these experiements and dozens and dozens more. I learned how the formulas work, and how to apply them in real world applications, and that they are in fact accurate.
I said it before and I will say it again. If you want help understanding the formulas and how they work and how they have been proven thousands upon thousands of times by engineers designing equipment that functions according to these formulas, glad to help. You want to wave your arms, refuse to learn how the formulas work and how to test to see that they are accurate, refuse to read the information you`ve been directed to, and refuse to do the very many experiments I and others have suggested, then that`s up to you.
But I`ll be repeating my request to Anthony regarding providing you a forum to spout utter nonsense, calling people who`ve done the actual experiments names, and suggest you deserve the same fate as the commenter who hijacked every thread about the sun with his theory that it has an iron core.
REPLY: OK we are done with Myrrh discussions – Anthony
Just for fun, I took the split screen image of the Thermometers and attempted a Charles Johnson style animated .gif. Actually, I didn’t even get that far because it was simply too perfect of a match. Cutting the right half of the image off and pasting it in a new layer on top of the left half, then sliding the layers around revealed a perfect match. Everything lined up perfectly. Turning the top layer on and off provided the animating effect, and the ONLY thing that changed was the level of the mercury. I invite you to repeat the process yourself. The “Split Screen” is simply the same video of ONE thermometer played out at different speeds.
Henry@davidmhoffer
Whereas some small part of energy may be exchanged when radiation hits a substance and if the substance is not transparent to that specific wavelength radiation, i.e. when it hits the absorptive region, it is not so that all that radiation specific to that absorptive region is continuously converted to heat inside the molecules of that substance. That is not what I see is happening. Most of it is re-radiated,or, using the other term: back radiated.
This is a basic misunserstanding related to the term “absorbed” and what many people think what the GH effect is.
See
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Do you agree with me on that?
It’s quite obvious what to make of the fact Watts can’t tell the difference (or pretends he can’t) between a dramatized, enhanced video describing a scientific principle for a short video, and the accurate repeat of an entire experiment. He actually complains of not being told, poor man:
“It is mind blowing that this video, which was intended to be shown to millions of people (recall that Mr. Gore’s claim was 8.6 million views), was not clearly identified as an illustration or artistic license and not a true record of an experiment if that was their intent.”
It’s like not being able to tell the difference between a stylized account of something and the thing itself. Would Watts complain that there’s no warning telling him TV sets show representations of things, not the things themselves? Or perhaps that maps aren’t the actual landscape they represent? Or that documentaries about the Big Bang don’t show actual footage of intrepid explorers travelling back in time to find out what happened 13.7 billion years ago? Watts indubitably gains credit amongst his congregation here but that doesn’t mean his pursuit of the experiment wasn’t a absolutely obvious waste of time from the start.
Those who are interested in a video of the actual experiment – which I’ve not seen linked to amongst the hundreds of comments here – can see the bottom of by blog post. It is certainly possible to measure a temperature difference between two bottles, one of which contains air and the other an additional amount of CO2. The basis of the experiment Watts complains about is well known, repeatable and not undermined in the slightest by the labyrinthine rant in the blog post above.
http://www.lukesci.com/2011/10/05/1375/
Luke Scientiae:
What you have employed is called ‘Higher Criticism’, in other words arguing from a point of view that you are right and anyone of the opposing viewpoint is therefore wrong. Arguments coming from such a base are typically devoid of facts and properly reasoned discussion, and tend to focus instead on ridicule, scorn, innuendo and generally troll-like behaviour.
Anthony Watts has rightly highlighted the fraudulent behaviour of Al Gore.
If it is so easy to recycle the same thermometer footage, it would be equally easy to use the genuine original footage for each thermometer – it’s as simple as that. The kind of shoddy snow-jobbing carried out by Gore and his team is evidence enough of the deceptive nature of that man.
Henry@Luke the science man!
It lukes like you are a bit late to the party. I thought the party was over.
The closed box experiment is not valid because it does not take into account the atmospheric cooling effect of the CO2:
see here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
Henry@davidmhoffer
You did not answer to my last post here?
Henry P:
I have looked at your post about global cooling. Firstly, it’s terribly written, and secondly, full of false claims. For example:
“Because the molecule is like a perfect sphere, 62,5% of a certain amount of light (radiation) is send [sic] back in a radius of 180 degrees in the direction where it came from. This is the warming or cooling effect of a gas hit by radiation.”
For a start, we both know (or perhaps you don’t) that molecules of CO2 are NOT spherical but linear. In group theory terms, CO2 belongs to the D(infinity)h point group, whereas a sphere does not. The point group of a molecule determines its spectroscopic properties, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise given your claim that you “happen to be familiar with spectrophotometry.” It is precisely their non-spherical shape that permits molecules to absorb IR in the first place, since it depends on the change in their dipole moment (through vibrations, bond stretches, etc.) which a spherical object could not undergo.
None of the rest of what you have written countermands the perfectly well established fact that CO2 has a heating effect on the Earth overall, irrespective of how many papers you cite showing that some incident radiation is re-emitted into space by CO2. The Earth heats up as a result of incoming sunlight, heat is re-radiated from the Earth in the IR region whereupon it interacts with atmospheric CO2, which acts as an insulator. The way you describe it, it’s as though the “cooling effect” is down to re-radiation of incident IR from the Sun. That’s not even slightly the point. And, by your own admission, you don’t know the quantities involved:
“So, my question is: how much cooling and how much warming is caused by the CO2? How was the experiment done to determine this and where are the test results?”
If you don’t know the quantities involved, then you cannot validly conclude “The closed box experiment is not valid because it does not take into account the atmospheric cooling effect of the CO2” since for all you know, this might be negligible.
As for the Al Gore video about which Watts complained, which is the point of the whole blog post: Watts did not say the experiment’s premise is invalid. He complained of not being told that it wasn’t a repeat of a genuine experiment and my reply was TO THAT. Firstly, the genuine experiment works. Secondly, Watts should be able to tell the difference between a dramatization and the repeat of a genuine experiment (which would be considerably longer than the few seconds in the vid to begin with) if he presumes to comment on matters scientific. None of what you’ve said goes against this. As I wrote originally: “It’s quite obvious what to make of the fact Watts can’t tell the difference (or pretends he can’t) between a dramatized, enhanced video describing a scientific principle for a short video, and the accurate repeat of an entire experiment.” Does he object to Tom and Jerry cartoons on the basis of animal cruelty, too?
Speros:
You’ve spent the majority of his reply guffing on about Higher Criticism and accusing me of trolling, rather than considering the salient point: Watts gains points amongst his fanboys for attempting to repeat an experiment most sane people with some semblance of vision and common sense would know was dramatized for effect. That does not mean the actual experiment doesn’t work. It does, and I’ve already linked to a video of it.
It’s manifestly obvious that this place, WUWT, is a denialists’ Mecca. Just look at all the energy people here have put in on this post alone, analyzing stills from what is obviously a dramatization, congratulating themselves as they go on revealing what they portray as some grand, malevolent deception. There is precious little I’ll be able to say here to persuade Watts’ fanboys that there’s something wrong with the judgement of people unable to tell a video of something from the real thing itself, so I’m not going to make the mistake of continuing the effort.
Henry@Luke
I don’t see your reply here yet but I can read from my blackberry that you said,
that I said:
So, my question is: how much cooling and how much warming is caused by the CO2? How was the experiment done to determine this and where are the test results?”
and then you said
If you don’t know the quantities involved, then you cannot validly conclude “The closed box experiment is not valid because it does not take into account the atmospheric cooling effect of the CO2″ since for all you know, this might be negligible
The quantities we know: CO2% has risen from 0.03% to 0.04% in the last 50 or 60 years.
So I say again:
where are your test results that prove that its warming effect is greater than the cooling effect?
I am concerned that you did not publish my comment that I left at your blog, especially the one that shows all my tables that prove that there is no warming caused by an increase in GHG’s.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
It rather proves your dishonesty and your actual unwillingnes to “argue from the authority of evidence”
You’re now asking me questions that have nothing to do with my original point, or my reply to your criticism of my original point. Moreover, I have published your comment on my blog; but believe it or not I don’t spend every second of the day monitoring whether you’ve posted something. The comment is up – before I saw this remark of yours above – so I’d be glad if you retract the accusation. And how about replying to the points I made instead of moving the goalposts?
Henry@Luke
You honestly don’t expect me to react to such stupity as your belief that a gas molecule is not round? I suggest you prove to me that it is not round by showing me the actual picture of the gas molecule CO2 (not a school/college play model)?
If the comment was up – before you saw my remark above – yes, then I do apologize.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Hi HenryP,
No, the CO2 molecules is not “round”. In fact, be honest now. Your EXACT words were “perfect sphere”. You aren’t going to deny THAT, now, are you? Here’s a reminder:
“Because the molecule is like a perfect sphere…”
The CO2 molecule is NOTHING like a “perfect sphere”. It’s insane that you would even bring this up. I already referred you to its mathematical property, the point group it belongs to (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_group, and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_symmetry). It’s point group is D(infinity)h. The point group describes which aspects of symmetry the CO2 molecule has and which it does not (e.g. symmetry planes, axes of rotation, etc.) Clearly the CO2 molecule IS NOT a “perfect sphere”. It consists of three atoms joined in a linear geometry, the bonds between which vibrate and stretch. Stretching and vibrating frequencies are different, which leads to different absorption bands in the CO2 molecule’s IR (or Raman) spectra, and this can be predicted from the point group to which it belongs (and its associated character tables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_character_tables_for_chemically_important_3D_point_groups). IR bands are given only for absorptions corresponding to unsymmetrical stretching or bending modes. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOTCJxWmdks
As I already said, were it true — as you have claimed — that you “happen to be familiar with spectrophotometry” you would be VERY familiar with all this, it’s basic undergraduate physical chemistry (e.g. http://books.google.com/books?id=eH_1dIZr-zMC&lpg=PA901&vq=point%20groups&pg=PA902#v=snippet&q=point%20groups&f=false)
There are only three possibilities with respect to your assertion that CO2 is a “perfect sphere”. Either you are completely deluded and actually scientifically illiterate on the topics about which you comment, or you are deliberately wasting everyone’s time, or both. Clearly you aren’t nearly as informed what you’re saying as you’d like others to believe. Which underlines my original point about this site being a Mecca for reality [SNIP: we don’t use that word here. REP].
Henry@Luke
You use a lot of words and references and you still did not prove to me that a gasmolecule like CO2 and H2O is not round. As long as you don’t have an exact picture I have to go with what I and anyone else (I hope) can understand: anything > 100.000.000 x smaller than that of the head of a needle pin must act and behave like a perfect sphere, especially if it floats around in a gas mixture.
Anyway, all that has nothing to do with the problem on hand, which was whether or not the increase in CO2 causes any warming.
You have not shown me any of your actual measured results?…
The tests (video’s) that you show have all been featured here before and the results have been discussed at great lengths. I am sure someone here can give you the references.
.
Why don’t you start your own pool table on global warming prove me wrong?
So far, the score on my pool table is as follows (after 15 weather stations’ analyses):
MAXIMA: rising at a speed of 0.036 degrees C per annum
MEANS : increasing at 0.012 degrees C per annum
MINIMA: increasing at 0.004 degrees C per annum
HUMIDITY: decreasing at a rate of -0.02% per annum
PRECIPITATION: increasing at a rate of 0.26 mm /month /year
The ratio of the rate of increase in Maxima, Means and Minima is 9:3:1
Surely anyone looking at these results, will understand that it was the maximum temperatures, that ocurred during the day, that pushed up the mean average daily temperatures and minima?
This means that the global warming that is observed on earth is largely natural and is not caused by an increase in greenhouse gases.Either the sun shone brighter or there were less clouds.
If it had been the other way around, i.e. minimum temperatures pushing up the average temperature, (i.e heat being trapped), minima rising faster than maxima and means, then we should agree that the increase in greenhouse gases on earth was the cause.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
lIf you ook again carefully at my tables quoted above and if you really take some time to study them you can easily figure it all out for yourself:
1) first the so-called ” global warming” is not global at all.
In the SH there is almost no warming. Clearly, you can see a big difference in the results for Means between NH and SH? But now, how can that be? We know from real science and experiments that the CO2 is distributed everywhere exactly the same. So, if increases CO2 were to be blamed directly due it causing an increased greenhouse effect, should not the warming be the same everywhere in the world? So, we conclude (again) it never was the increase in GHG’s that caused any warming.
2) If you look in Argentina (where there was considerable de-forestation) you find severe cooling. If you look at Norway (where there is much increased forestry) you find warming.
3) the fact that SH has little landmass and that the NH has a lot of landmass is an another indicator that should give a clue.
4) we also know that there have been reports, e.g. from the Helsinki university that there has been increased vegetation in the past decades, especially in the NH…..
for more proof that earth is greening especially in the northern hemisphere, look here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/24/the-earths-biosphere-is-booming-data-suggests-that-co2-is-the-cause-part-2/
…..Did you figure it out?
It is just like I said before. More carbon dioxide is better.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
HenryP,
As cranks tend to, you’ve gone off on a tangent and are now discussing things utterly irrelevant to what I originally posted, and things that are utterly irrelevant to my criticism of your chemical ignorance about CO2, except for this…
“You use a lot of words and references and you still did not prove to me that a gasmolecule like CO2 and H2O is not round… anything > 100.000.000 x smaller than that of the head of a needle pin must act and behave like a perfect sphere, especially if it floats around in a gas mixture.”
…which is just to re-affirm that you don’t know what you’re talking about. Pick up any book or go to any course on spectrometry.
The very fact that CO2 and H2O show IR absortptions is EXPERIMENTAL PROOF that they cannot be round, or as you put it a “perfect sphere”, since NO PERFECT SPHERE CAN UNDERGO THE NECESSARY CHANGE IN DIPOLE MOMENT TO RESULT IN AN IR ABSORPTION. Not to mention huge swathes of other data about the geometry of these molecules, like X-Ray crystallography, single molecule interferometry and all the rest. It’s perfectly obvious that your claim that you “happen to be familiar with spectrophotometry” is false. (Which is to say, you lied or confabulated.) Group theory, the symmetry of molecules and their dipole changes are the very basics of understanding ANYTHING about IR spectroscopy, about which you pontificate at length. Not to mention that each of CO2 and H2O consist of three atoms in a row and so CANNOT be “perfect spheres” even BY DEFINITION. Chemical bonds are DIRECTIONAL! CO2 and H2O are linear (H2O is bent at an angle of 109 degres due to the repulsion between its oxygen’s electron lone pairs – look up VSEPR). But there’s clearly no point in discussion reality with you, since if you had been genuinely interested in any of this, or had even a passing knowledge of spectroscopy, you’d have found out by now.
I have no intention of teaching you basic chemistry, chasing around after your irrelevant remarks, nor indeed wasting my time talking to someone clearly suffering deeply from the Dunning-Kruger effect. Doubtless you’ll continue generating pseudoscientific gibberish, but as your impervious to rational – or even on topic – discussion, I’m going to dedicate my time to other things.
Henry@Luke
Your endless, endless (and rather pointless) discussion about whether a gas molecule is spherical or not has nothing to do with the topic on hand which is whether or not a net effect of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming or not.
You have nothing to say about all the balls on my pool table?
Do you agree with me that CO2 has a cooling effect in the atmosphere that may largely cancel out any warming effect and that this cooling effect cannot be measured if you put it in a box?
For proof of a cooling effect: see foot note here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
If your answer is yes, the tests you (and Gore) do are invalid.
If you say no, you are the one who does not know what “you are talking about.”
Happened here on WUWT……
DISCUSSION ON CLOSED BOX EXPERIMENTS TO PROVE THAT CO2 IS CAUSING THE PLANET TO WARM
PRO-agw man
It’s quite obvious what to make of the fact Watts can’t tell the difference (or pretends he can’t) between a dramatized, enhanced video describing a scientific principle for a short video
Here are two other video’s…you must rather watch these.
SCEPTICAL scientist
The closed box experiments are not valid because it does not take into account the atmospheric cooling effects of the CO2.
PRO agw man
I have looked at your post about global cooling. Firstly, it’s terribly written, and secondly, full of false claims. Clearly you have no idea “how long is a piece of string”.
As I wrote originally: “It’s quite obvious what to make of the fact Watts can’t tell the difference (or pretends he can’t) between a dramatized, enhanced video describing a scientific principle for a short video, and the accurate repeat of an entire experiment.”
SCEPTICAL scientist (trying to agitate)
Clearly, you don’t know how long is a piece of string. Why don’t you give me a picture of the string, or prove to me exactly how long is it?
Anyway, the quantities we know: CO2% has risen from 0.03% to 0.04% in the last 50 or 60 years. So I say again: where are your test results that prove that its warming effect is greater than its cooling effect?
PRO agw man
(…trying again to explain how long is a piece of string……..) long story that ends with:
Either you are completely deluded and actually scientifically illiterate on the topics about which you comment, or you are deliberately wasting everyone’s time, or both. Clearly you aren’t nearly as informed what you’re saying as you’d like others to believe. Which underlines my original point about this site being a Mecca for reality [SNIP: we don’t use that word here. REP]…..
SCEPTICAL scientist
(Not really interested in knowing how long the string is, precisely)
Well, I don’t think you have really proven to me how long the string is, exactly, but anyway, all that has nothing to do with the problem on hand, which was whether or not the increase in CO2 causes any warming.
The tests (video’s) that you show have all been featured here before and the results have been discussed at great lengths. I am sure someone here can give you the references.
Here are the results of my statistical analyses of 15 randomly chosen weather stations
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
Shall we discuss those?
PRO-agw man (feeling a trap coming up)
As cranks tend to, you’ve gone off on a tangent and are now discussing things utterly irrelevant to what I originally posted, and things that are utterly irrelevant to my criticism of your chemical ignorance about CO2, except for this…
….again long discussion on how long the string is, ending with:
I have no intention of teaching you basic chemistry, chasing around after your irrelevant remarks, nor indeed wasting my time talking to someone clearly suffering deeply from the Dunning-Kruger effect. Doubtless you’ll continue generating pseudoscientific gibberish, but as your impervious to rational – or even on topic – discussion, I’m going to dedicate my time to other things.
SCEPTICAL scientist
Your endless, endless (and rather pointless) discussion about how long a piece of string is has nothing to do with the topic on hand which is whether or not a net effect of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere causes warming or not.
You have nothing at all to say about the balls on my pool table?
Do you agree with me that CO2 has a cooling effect in the atmosphere that may largely cancel out any warming effect and that this cooling effect cannot be measured if you put it in a box?
For proof of a cooling effect: see foot note here:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
If your answer is yes, the tests you (and Gore) do are invalid.
If you say no, you are the one who does not know what “you are talking about.”
if you came as far as here, you should carry on reading here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/18/replicating-al-gores-climate-101-video-experiment-shows-that-his-high-school-physics-could-never-work-as-advertised#comments
Al threw the election back in 2000, and his recompense was to become the Climate Guru.
Guess what, Al – you rolled SNAKE-EYES.