Public Relations (Spin Doctors) Deliberately Deceived Public About Global Warming and Climate Change

Spin[1]Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball

Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not. E.R. Beadle.

In a 2003 speech Michael Crichton, graduate of Harvard Medical School and author of State of fear, said,

I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.

We are in virtual reality primarily as Public Relations (PR) and its methods are applied to every aspect of our lives. The term “spin doctors” is more appropriate because it is what they are really doing. A spin doctor is defined as: a spokesperson employed to give a favorable interpretation of events to the media, esp. on behalf of a political party. It doesn’t say truthful interpretation. There are lies of commission and omission and this definition bypasses the category of omission. It’s reasonable to argue that if you deliberately commit a sin of omission it encompasses both. A favorable interpretation means there is deliberate premeditated deception. The person knows the truth, but selects information to create a false interpretation.

Despite all the discussion and reports about weather and climate the public are unaware of even the most fundamental facts. Recently, I gave a three hour presentation with question and answers. The audience was educated people who distrust government and were sympathetic to my information. I decided to illustrate my point and concern by asking a few basic questions. Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases, let alone explain the mechanics of the greenhouse theory. My goal was not to embarrass, but to illustrate how little they knew and how easily PR can deceive and misdirect.

Few people exemplify or describe the modern PR views better (worse?) than Jim Hoggan, President of a large Canadian PR company, Hoggan and Associates, in the Vancouver Sun December 30, 2005.

Want good coverage? Tell a good story. When your business is under siege, you can’t hope to control the situation without first controlling the story. The most effective form of communication is a compelling narrative that ties your interest to those of your audience. This is particularly critical when you’re caught in the spotlight; it doesn’t matter if you have the facts on your side if your detractors are framing the story. So, don’t just react. Take some time now to define your company story. Then you’ll be ready to build a response into that narrative should something go wrong.

Environment and climate suffer more from spinning than most areas and Hoggan, as Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and owner of a large PR company, has a long connection with both. He is the proud founder and supporter of the web site DeSmogBlog as he explains in his book about the climate cover-up. The objective was to denigrate people by creating “favorable interpretations” to the following questions. “Were these climate skeptics qualified? Were they doing any research in the climate change field? Were they accepting money, directly or indirectly, from the fossil fuel industry?This wasn’t about answering the questions skeptics were asking about the science. Richard Littlemore, Hoggan’s co-author and senior writer for DeSmogBlog, revealed what was going on in a December 2007 email to Michael Mann.

Hi Michael [Mann],

I’m a DeSmogBlog writer [Richard LIttlemore] (sic) (I got your email from Kevin Grandia) and I am trying to fend off the latest announcement that global warming has not actually occurred in the 20th century.

It looks to me like Gerd Burger is trying to deny climate change by “smoothing,” “correcting” or otherwise rounding off the temperatures that we know for a flat fact have been recorded since the 1970s, but I am out of my depth (as I am sure you have noticed: we’re all about PR here, not much about science) so I wonder if you guys have done anything or are going to do anything with Burger’s intervention in Science. (Emphasis added)

The hypocrisy is profound because nobody ever questioned Al Gore’s qualifications or financial, career or political rewards. No promoters of global warming, such as Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan, Seth Borenstein, Andrew Revkin or most members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are challenged. Borenstein exposed his bias in a leaked CRU email from July 23, 2009 to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gang. He wrote, “Kevin (Trenberth), Gavin (Schmidt), Mike (Mann), It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?A journalist talking to scientists is legitimate, but like the leaked emails, tone and subjectivity are telling. “Again” means there was previous communication. At least Revkin left the New York Times apparently because of such exposure.

The problem began the moment environmentalism and climate were exploited for political agendas and people asked questions. If you can’t answer the questions you either admit that or initiate personal attacks. Spin-doctors use two basic types.

• The individual is named and a slur applied. These are usually false or at best taken out of context. This includes guilt by association and taking payment from an agency or belonging to a group the slanderer considers inappropriate. It is an ad hominem.

• Individuals are marginalized by putting them in a group with a term created that marginalizes by implying they are at best outside any norm. For example, despite obvious limitations of data availability anyone who asks about President Obama’s biography is called a “Birther”. Anyone who is troubled by incomplete, unclear, or illogical explanations for events is called a “Conspiracy theorist”. There is no word or phrase for falsifying information about a group. A collective ad hominem is a contradiction. Guilt by association has some application, but a term like “Birther” has a different function. It is a collective designed to discredit anyone assigned. There can be no general name because the objective is to identify the group with a specific issue. This is necessary as part of the goal of marginalizing or isolating.

Early indicators of the politicizing of climate included the claim of a consensus. The word applies in politics not science Calling people who questioned the science “skeptics” was greater evidence. “Skeptic” is negative for the public and defined as “A person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions. Most think it is the definition for a cynic, A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. The problem is most people don’t know that scientists must be skeptics.

The epithet “global warming skeptic” was applied to me years ago and was used in questions from the media. When I explained I accepted global warming the media was surprised. They didn’t understand when I explained my skepticism was about the cause – the claim it was due to human CO2. Some labeled me a contrarian, but it wasn’t effective because few know what it means.

When the basic assumption of the IPCC hypothesis that increased CO2 causes increased temperature stopped occurring after 1998, the attackers changed the subject and the pejorative. They raised the smearing level because they were losing the battle for the public mind. Now it became climate change and questioners deniers with the deliberate association with “holocaust deniers”.

Ironically, like all so-labeled, I am anything but a denier. My 40-year career involved teaching people how much climate changes naturally over time. The IPCC were deliberately constrained by their terms of reference to human causes and don’t consider natural changes. Rather they provide a “favorable interpretation” for their political objective to blame human CO2. It’s an interpretation a required spin to counter what Huxley called ugly facts.

Every time a problem appeared public relations people appeared and strategized a defense, usually to divert from the problem. When the emails were leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) a public relations person was engaged. After the November 2009 leak the University of East Anglia hired Neil Wallis of Outside Organization to handle the fall out. University spokesperson Trevor Davies said it was a “reputation management problem, which he said they don’t handle well. Apparently they didn’t consider telling the truth. The leaked emails triggered a shock wave that required a top political spin-doctor. Wallis, a former editor at the News of The World, was later arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandals that led to the resignation of London Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, as well as Andy Coulson, Prime Minister Cameron’s press secretary.

Michael Mann’s 2004 email to CRU Director Phil Jones was evidence of the PR battle. Confronted by challenging questions they apparently developed a defensive mentality.

“I’ve personally stopped responding to these, they’re going to get a few of these op-ed pieces out here and there, but the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing (sic) the PR battle. That’s what the site is about. By the way, Gavin did come up w/ the name!”

The “site” is the web site Realclimate, named by Gavin (Schmidt). But science doesn’t need PR, so why do climate scientists use it? The apparent answer is they are not telling the truth and worse, know it.

I opened with a quote from Michael Crichton so it is fitting to end with his closing remarks.

Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better. That’s not a good future for the human race. That’s our past. So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.

The problem and challenge is the population generally divides into 80 percent who struggle with science and 20 percent who are comfortable. I taught a science credit for arts students for 25 years so know the challenges. This makes resolving Crichton’s challenge of “distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda, even more difficult. It is almost impossible when professional spin-doctors are deliberately diverting, misleading and creating confusion.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.Thomas H. Huxley

A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism in to dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagreeDr. Leonard George.

“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” –Thomas Jefferson

5 1 vote
Article Rating
232 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
November 6, 2013 4:36 pm

Reblogged this on makeaneffort and commented:
This is a must read… and is applicable in every area of life.

November 6, 2013 4:49 pm

Well said. It is an extra pity that our schooling systems (everywhere) seem to have devoted the last few decades to dumbing down their students. It’s harder than ever to get many thinking critically or clearly for themselves. They’ve been taught it’s easier to trust the pop-stars and priests and computer models of climate religion. It’s changing, largely thanks to nature and the non-arrival of the promised doom, but it’s changing slowly. They believe so deeply, some of them.

November 6, 2013 5:15 pm

Great post. Thanks, I don’t feel so stupid now for almost believing this bs
Thanks to Christopher Booker and wuwt I have seen the light.

November 6, 2013 5:20 pm

The aforementioned Jim Hoggan would be more correctlly termed the co-founder of the web site DeSmogBlog. Who was the other founder? None other than Ross Gelbspan, who says as much just 8 seconds into this audio interview: https://soundcloud.com/sciencepope/ross-exposing-coal-media
As I’ve said in guest posts here at WUWT, in my blog and elsewhere ( http://gelbspanfiles.com/?page_id=86 ), Gelbspan is the epicenter of the accusation that skeptic climate scientists are ‘on the payroll of the fossil fuel industry’. McKibben, Borenstein, Gore, Oreskes, Monbiot and scores of others cite Gelbspan’s work for that accusation.

Txomin
November 6, 2013 5:28 pm

It’s an interesting post that I’ve enjoyed reading. Thank you
However,I must have to confess that, in my experience, people deceiving others are far fewer in number (and significantly less effective) than those deceiving themselves.

wayne
November 6, 2013 5:31 pm

Such an article has been needed for so long! It is very welcomed.

Jquip
November 6, 2013 5:31 pm

TLDR: Any one can say any thing at any time for any reason. Your choices are to believe their facts or believe their social status.

Tom
November 6, 2013 5:39 pm

Case in point:
Would something like this (see link below) get published if Professor Soon was at odds with the current theories for dark matter or string theory? I like how the writer seems to think that someone with a PhD in astrophysics at Harvard is somehow not a qualified ‘climate scientist’. There is no one on the planet over 40 that has a PhD in climate, they did not exist back in the dark days before we could simply believe rather than question.
Questioning is so tiring.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/11/05/harvard-smithsonian-global-warming-skeptic-helps-feed-strategy-doubt-gridlock-congress/uHssYO1anoWSiLw0v1YcUJ/story.html

November 6, 2013 5:51 pm

Another example of the syndrome is the revelation that in the US, the administration’s policy experts advised the President to stop making the claim that “you can keep your policy/doctor….” because it was not factual. The political folks (spin people) over rode the recommendation because even if untrue it was politically advantageous..

thingadonta
November 6, 2013 5:53 pm

I like this quote from Hawthorne:
“No man for any considerable period can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true”
In other words, I think very often part of the deception is self-deception, and an inability to be able to determine what is true anymore, even with good intentions. (Think of various ‘investigations’ which tend to find no evidence of wrongdoing etc. etc.).
The same applies to social groups and movements. They get to the point where even with good intentions, nobody within the group can really trace what is true anymore, so the ‘truth’ simply becomes what suits the agenda of the group. i.e. ‘The Cause’.

Pedro Oliveira
November 6, 2013 6:25 pm

jc: OUTSTANDING comment

jeanparisot
November 6, 2013 6:50 pm

Even the spin doctors are reaching, now it time to fear the return of the Titanoboa
http://news.yahoo.com/a-snake-the-size-of-a-school-bus–it-happened-before–and-could-happen-again-153534343.html

RockyRoad
November 6, 2013 6:56 pm

Warmistas are like a bunch of squawking geese–you avoid them because they’re so doggone annoying.
They don’t realize their only value is to be roasted–for dinner or otherwise.

Chad Wozniak
November 6, 2013 6:57 pm

A perfect example of disinformation spread by the mainstream media is tonight’s report on greenhouse gases on CBS nightly News.
Inter alia, this report conflated pollution in China (uncontrolled coal-fired electric generation) with carbon dioxide as pollution, and repeated the IPCC’s lies about seal level rising a foot by the end of the century. It talked about how even the South Pole is being polluted – by CO2.
Of course the source for all this was the IPCC and some of its alarmist satraps. No mention of skeptics, not even that they disagree. Not exactly “fair and balanced.”
Somebody needs to tape these reporters on the shoulder and remind them of the following: (1) warming stopped in 1996, and it’s been cooling at least since 2002, despite continuing increases in atmospheric CO2;; (2) it’s cooled overall since the 1930s despite a 40 percent increase in CO2 since then; and (3) calling pone of the three substances most essential to life a “pollutant” is insane.
Anyone have any ideas as to how we can compel these institutional lairs to stop their lying and get the story right?

stan stendera
November 6, 2013 7:08 pm

Bravo, Dr. Ball.

SAMURAI
November 6, 2013 7:10 pm

In any rational world, CAGW theory would have been disconfirmed by now given the overwhelming empirical evidence which doesn’t come close matching hypothetical projections of: global temperature trends, severe weather, ocean rise, ocean pH and Antarctic ice extents.
CAGW sycophants are now relegated to scouring the world in search of one-off weather events to propagandize in an effort to keep the CAGW swindle in play. They’re also riding the Arctic ice hobby horse for all it’s worth, but even that pony is growing lame.
Virtually all long-term climate indicators show no substantive evidence supporting CAGW’s premise that rising CO2 levels will cause catastrophic climate consequences. Conversely, an excellent case can be made that rising CO2 levels have been a net benefit to humans in terms of: increased crop yields/forest growth from increased photosynthesis efficiencies, reduction of excessive ocean alkalinity (now at pH 8.1, with the 250 million year average at pH 7.7), slightly warmer temps have increased arable land area and longer growing seasons, slight increase in precipitation, etc.
Climate history shows it’s falling global temperatures that cause catastrophic climatic consequences, not warming.
The CAGW hypothesis is in its final stages of viability and the CAGW advocates realize this. Politicians are doing all they can to milk this cash cow for all it’s worth, but taxpayers are getting rather sore form the milking process….
And so it goes….. until freedom and rationality is restored.,,

R. de Haan
November 6, 2013 7:12 pm

And the worst aspect of all, the bastards breed like rabbits. They have infested virtually every corner of society. Wait until they show their true colors and start marching….(LOL)
Great article. Thanks

November 6, 2013 7:15 pm

Russell cook @ 5:20 add greenpeace and the boston globe(11-5-13 on Dr Soon) to your list

Stan
November 6, 2013 7:19 pm

[SNIP – we don’t care about your defamation issues and whining, especially when you use fake email addresses. A valid email address is required here, chump – mod]

Stan
November 6, 2013 7:32 pm

[[SNIP – A valid email address is required here, fake ones don’t cut it – mod]]

Reply to  Stan
November 6, 2013 7:49 pm

Thanks mod for bringing this to my attention
“stan” with the fake email address has used several aliases and fake emails here:
Edd Ward
Mughal
Phobos
Stan W.
Sedron L
Typical warmist, no integrity, hides behind shadows taking potshots. Isn’t that right, David Appell?

November 6, 2013 7:32 pm

Russian scientists laughed at this crap from the start. They are quiet now because
Russia made a deal to be classified as a third world country, no carbon tax, in fact I
Believe they will receive money as will china and india. Ironic that russian scientists
Are more truthful than those in the west( present co. Excluded)

JohnWho
November 6, 2013 7:32 pm

[snip – the commenter used a fake email address to make posts here – don’t engage him – mod]

November 6, 2013 7:33 pm

[snip – the commenter used a fake email address to make posts here – don’t engage him – mod]

November 6, 2013 7:38 pm

I totally agree with the statements presented here – my thoughts precisely.
On the other hand, it is a very depressing state of affairs that we are dealing with : when you consider the 80/20 percentages on those who are “comfortable” with science, the odds of the real Truth prevailing in the long run ( either with the issue of CAGW or any other politicized topic of science) are depressingly low. Anthony, I want to thank you for running this blog & all others running similar blogs, whose goal is presentation of the real Truth. It is the only real force preventing us from slipping into the “internet version of the Dark Ages”, as Dr. Ball would call it.

albertalad
November 6, 2013 7:40 pm

The Calgary Herald could perhaps explain the climate science degrees of all the activists the IPCC are using as documented. Then in this case – Dr Ball is indeed a step up from that group of morons the IPCC uses themselves. Or the IPCC lead – a railroad engineer – Dr. Ball is a genius to that fake.

Sedron L
November 6, 2013 7:41 pm

[Copying what Stan has been trying to post under that false email address, eh? Mod]

gopal panicker
November 6, 2013 7:42 pm

Eloquent Essay…well done Dr Ball..

JohnWho
November 6, 2013 7:50 pm

[snip – this “Sedron L.” is a fake persona used by David Appell, don’t engage him. – Anthony]

November 6, 2013 7:53 pm

I don’t think the debate should be whether or not increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the world. Some fairly simple science shows it does. What I see as the question is *how much* (or how little).
Claiming that CO2 increase has no effect at all makes it easier for those claiming more effect than “the truth” to dominate the debate.
It appears to me that CO2 increase accounted for possibly as much as half the warming from the early 1970s to 2005 according to HadCRUT3, the surface index that has best resemblance to satellite indices of the lower troposphere. Most of the other half appears to me as being from a natural cycle. The hiatus of global warming could continue another 20 years as the natural cycle downturn and the effect of CO2 increase continue to roughly cancel each other out.

November 6, 2013 7:55 pm

Great article.

R. Craigen
November 6, 2013 7:56 pm

I disagree with the final Crighton quote in one aspect:
“So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism”
Should be
” So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of the environment”
(or “environmental science”). “Environmentalism” is not a science.

November 6, 2013 8:06 pm

Dr. Walter Elsasser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Elsasser
Refered to as “Walter Maurice Elsasser, PhD, physicist and theoretical biologist”…
Hum, funny…no mention of “Infrared Heat Transfer of the Atmosphere”, by Elsasser, in 1942 (found in PDF form here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34962513/elsasser1942)… Funny thing, it must be MEANINGLESS, because Elsasser wasn’t a “climate scientist”. YET, this document gave the Elsasser Diagram to all “weathermen” from 1942 until the ’80’s to even ’90’s, which allowed them to use the day’s Radiosone balloon measurements of pressure, temp. and humidity (from sea level to about 80,000 ft) to predict the daily “heat up” and “cool down” of the Atmosphere, for regions (usually the size of a midwestern state or two), covered by the Radiosone(s).
Obviously, since he wasn’t officially a “climate scientist”, his work (again, sarcasm ON), must be meaningless. Actually, NOT SO. In many respects his work was PURE GENIUS! Reducing the Integral/Differential equations to a tabular/chart form so that within an hour or two, given the Radiosone readings, even the most basic of plotters could give you a decent estimate of the day to day temperature profiles for a day or two ahead (depending how fast the “fronts” would be moving, and how fast the composition of the atm. would be changing.)
A good illustration of the Elasser Diagram at work is given here: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/161984855/Elsasser-diagram
Yep, the “Internet” is a problem too. Particularly when drones as I can easily find the evidence to show (hat tip to Willis also!) that the “real climate scientists” continuously need to be saying, “PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!”

Chad Wozniak
November 6, 2013 8:11 pm

@Donald L. Klipstein –
Whatever effect CO2 has had on climate is too small to be detectable with certainty, let alone measurable. The historical record, including (1) four prior periods of temps warmer than today when CO2 was lower, (2) cooling overall since the last century’s peak temps in the 1930s, a period of 80 years during which CO2 increased by 40 percent; and (3) the fact that significant increases in atmospheric CO2 began about 150 years after the climate began to warm, in keeping with the observed lag of CO2 behind temps. Ergo, the rise in CO2 is due to the warming, not the other way around, and is to be expected when oceans and soil warm, and there is no other correlation of temps to CO2.

milodonharlani
November 6, 2013 8:14 pm

Donald L. Klipstein says:
November 6, 2013 at 7:53 pm
On what basis do you find that CO2 could possibly account for half of the warming allegedly observed from the early 1970s to 2005? Even accepting the manipulated data at face value still only produces warming comparable to that which occurred during a similar period in the first half of the 20th century. To derive such a result, you must apply a high climate sensitivity to the increase in CO2 concentration recorded at Mauna Loa during that interval.
Also, warming began c. 1977 & ended c. 1996. Before that cooling from the 1940s occurred, despite rising CO2, & since 1996 temperature has remained flat, despite being heavily “adjusted” & in spite of continuing rise in magic gas levels.

wayne
November 6, 2013 8:14 pm

Donald L. Klipstein: “I don’t think the debate should be whether or not increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the world. Some fairly simple science shows it does.”
That so? Simple science huh? Pray tell us of this simple empirical proof that additional co2 raises the Earth’s atmospheric temperature at these current concentrations that this side has been searching for over the years. And since it is so simple, please include the equations and the data if you don’t mind. Will check back on your enlightenment for all of the scientists and engineers reading here tomorrow.

November 6, 2013 8:15 pm

“stan” and “sedron” are inadvertently making Dr Ball’s point for him. From behind a wall of anonymity, they sling mud that is not only misleading, but highly irrelevant. They are the epitome of those with an agenda who, having no ability to participate in the discussion of the science itself, have no other tools at their disposal.

philincalifornia
November 6, 2013 8:16 pm

Donald L. Klipstein says:
November 6, 2013 at 7:53 pm
It appears to me ….
————————————————————-
Other than what appears to you, do you have any hard, citable evidence for any measurable effect of CO2 going from 280 ppm to 400 ppm on any aspect of climate and its change ??
Do you have any hard data to support the conjecture that any effects on climate by the recent 40% increase in CO2 are anything other than somewhere between zero and immeasurable ?
Please take these questions at face value as I’d like to see what the state of play is here (and others please do too).

Reply to  philincalifornia
November 6, 2013 8:22 pm

David Appell apparently STILL doesn’t have any class
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/24/david-appell-denies-he-has-any-class/

milodonharlani
November 6, 2013 8:22 pm

Max Hugoson says:
November 6, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Keeling was a chemist & Revelle an oceanographer. I guess that excludes them, too.

November 6, 2013 8:23 pm

The “site” is the web site Realclimate, named by Gavin (Schmidt). But science doesn’t need PR, so why do climate scientists use it?

=====================================================================
Shouldn’t that be “ReelClimate” as in “reel ’em in”?

November 6, 2013 8:27 pm

Typical warmist, no integrity, hides behind shadows taking potshots. Isn’t that right, David Appell?

===========================================================
Was Appell the guy who inflated someone talking about culling kangaroos into people threatening climate scientist? Or do I have the wrong guy?

November 6, 2013 8:29 pm

Way I’m seeing it, more and more regular people are waking up to something wrong. More and more are getting onto the Internet to find out what else is being said about the issues. We can see the polls and stats changing. We see that more people are getting angry about the situation.
I think the real change will come when that number grows so big that there is a common backlash every time these alarmists claim something scary and false with no data to back it. It will come and I suspect when it does, things will move very rapidly, primarily for the politicians.
I just wish I knew when.

Jim Clarke
November 6, 2013 8:33 pm

Donald L. Klipstein says:
November 6, 2013 at 7:53 pm
“I don’t think the debate should be whether or not increasing atmospheric CO2 warms the world. Some fairly simple science shows it does.”
That is not the debate and never has been, but it is how the spin doctors like to portray the debate. The propagandists portray CAGW skeptics as people who don’t believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so they can compare them to flat-earthers. This is one of the tactics that Tim Ball is talking about. Judging from your post, it looks like the spin is working.
When someone defines their opponent’s argument, it is very likely they are lying.

Admin
November 6, 2013 8:33 pm
shano
November 6, 2013 8:35 pm

Sedron L presents a fine example of what Dr. Ball illustrates in the article above. First he calls him Mister then he goes into a detailed ad hominem. He must have studied his “Rules for Radicals” and passed with flying colors. Congrats Commrad. Back at ya.

November 6, 2013 8:39 pm

Anthony Watts says:
November 6, 2013 at 8:33 pm
@ Gunga Din, yes, you have it right http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/24/david-appell-denies-he-has-any-class/

============================================================
In that case,

Gunga Din says:
May 31, 2012 at 3:28 pm
(I still didn’t do the whole song but I revised the second verse to fit the situation better.)
To the tune of “Stuck in the Middle with You”
Well I don’t know why I caused such a fright,
I had the feeling that something ain’t right,
I made a scare of some emails out there,
And I’m wondering how my rep now will fare,
Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in Yamal on a yew.
Yes I’m stuck in Yamal on a yew,
The “threats” were against kangaroos,
It’s so hard to keep this egg off my face,
Damage control, yeah, “Someone invaded their space,”
Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right,
Here I am, stuck in Yamal on a yew.

john robertson
November 6, 2013 8:41 pm

Good post Dr Ball, however the actions of Canada’s Liberal Party should not be left out, the attack on science by the CAGW public relations shills was funded and promoted far too much with canadian tax dollars.
Far too many statists who are more than happy to lie, if lies will further their goals, lurking in the politicians cheering the IPCC on.

Paul Baverstock
November 6, 2013 8:46 pm

Could someone please go to the Taranaki Daily News and retrieve the story about the river running orange, amazing viewing. I don’t have the skills to do this. Sorry

Segue C
November 6, 2013 8:50 pm

A delightful read despite the tragedy of it all. Will those who fight the effects of Agenda 21 succeed in stopping the spin?
We see greed energy still destroying green and special places throughout Ontario though fewer people genuflect to its monuments the unspoiled vistas of Lake Superior may be despoiled even as that particular sWINDle fails in Europe.

Dumb Scientist (@DumbSci)
November 6, 2013 9:06 pm

[SNIP a valid email address is required to post here DumbSci@twitter.example.com is not a valid email address – feel free to resubmit with a valid email address – mod]

Dumb Scientist
November 6, 2013 9:22 pm

Jim Clarke says:
November 6, 2013 at 8:33 pm
“The propagandists portray CAGW skeptics as people who don’t believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so they can compare them to flat-earthers. This is one of the tactics that Tim Ball is talking about.”
Isn’t Dr. Tim Ball an author of Slaying the Sky Dragon… the book which denies the existence of the greenhouse effect?
[‘Dumb Scientist’ link to screen name removed due to admittedly profane commentary. This is a family blog. ~mod.]

papertiger
November 6, 2013 9:27 pm

“Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases…”
Or maybe nobody wanted to step out and be embarassed in an argument. Or maybe the audience could tell you were on a roll. Didn’t want to knock you off your line.
Maybe a combination.

Bernal
November 6, 2013 9:35 pm

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right, here I am,
Stuck in Yamal on a yew.
All right then. You roll like that you have to imagine the scene in Reservoir Dogs where Mr. Blonde dances the Funky Chicken with the can of gasoline and… Mike Mann in the nasty seat.
“…Freddy, how do I look.”

papiertigre
November 6, 2013 9:44 pm

Russell Cook (@questionAGW) says:
November 6, 2013 at 5:20 pm
If oil companies are offering money for someone just to tell the truth, it’s a mistake for scientists not to take it.
It’s the kind of mistake that puts a Terry Mcauliffe in office.

RockyRoad
November 6, 2013 9:51 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 6, 2013 at 9:22 pm

….
Isn’t Dr. Tim Ball an author of Slaying the Sky Dragon… the book which denies the existence of the greenhouse effect?

Well, I jumped into Amazon, looked up the book, found the authors include a Tim Ball.
However, Tim Ball is responsible for two chapters in the book that describe how climate research became politicized and how the IPCC came into existence as an organization whose mission was to convince governments that they needed to introduce policies based on the danger of man-made global warming.
Ten more chapters were written by six other authors, and some experts have taken exception to the concepts of climate physics they present–persumably the denial of the existence of the greenhouse effect being one of them.
So, being the devious fellow you are, you’ve tried to besmirch Dr. Ball by association. And that, dear sir, is typical of this very thread’s subject–Deliberately Deceiving the Public!
You have a nice day, now.

John F. Hultquist
November 6, 2013 9:55 pm
Dumb Scientist
November 6, 2013 9:57 pm

RockyRoad, “CO2 is not a Greenhouse Gas that Raises Global temperature. Period!”
http://drtimball.com/2012/co2-is-not-a-greenhouse-gas-that-raises-global-temperature-period/

John F. Hultquist
November 6, 2013 10:06 pm

RockyRoad says:
November 6, 2013 at 9:51 pm

Thanks, Rocky – I found that interesting enough I clicked on the “dumb” link.
The link to “dumb scientist” and then to ‘about’ claims to be written by Bryan Killett and in the 2nd paragraph one finds “Ironically, I find it difficult to grasp most concepts (scientific or not).
So, one more person commenting that WUWT readers can safely ignore.

Konrad
November 6, 2013 10:08 pm

Appell
As you can see some here may be critical because your actions have contributed to –
– Trashing of the scientific method and respect for science
– Damage to democracy
– Blighting of the landscape with subsidy farms
– Slaughter of wildlife by subsidy farms
– Radioactive pollution of the Chinese landscape producing subsidy farm magnets
– Driving manufacturing from countries with environmental protections to those without
– Corruption and crime fuelled by carbon ponzi schemes
– Transferring wealth from poor to rich through subsidy farming
– and the endless list of snivelling stupidity goes on…
However your actions have also contributed greatly to creating a better future –
– UN kleptocracy discredited and permanently compromised
– All hope of a “bio-crisis” with bio-debt collected and redistributed under a frame work of UN global governance destroyed
– EUSSR parliament discredited and permanently compromised
– Every activist, journalist, politician or party of the left permanently compromised
– Lame stream media no longer the gatekeepers of opinion
– The rise of New Media and global grass-roots movements that can never be controlled or influenced by the regulating class
Thanks David 😉
PS. David, if you have any further post election wailing and gnashing of teeth to get through, please take it to the outer darkness. That’s what it’s there for.

Chad Wozniak
November 6, 2013 10:16 pm

@Konrad –
Beautifully said – but the alarmies ain’t listening.

November 6, 2013 10:21 pm

Humanity is found guilty of destroying Mother Earth by Extremists Environmentalists who use the power of the State to outlaw the use of Fossil Fuel, the fuel of human progress. Renewable energy (that can provide only a fraction the energy fossil fuel does) is deemed by the green elite in power as the replacement for fossil fuel. The scant and high cost energy provided by renewable energy will dial back human progress and create more poverty is for the greater good of “saving the earth” from Climate Change so say the environmentalists. Inevitably the environmentalists’ quest to subjugate human progress in the name of “saving the earth” creates more harm than good. Eagles are struck down by the blades of Wind Turbines. Tropical Virgin forests are chopped down to grow crops for biofuel. When the outcome of the environmentalists quest for a Utopian primal world (sans so many evil nasty humans) turns into a nightmare, no matter, their vision of Utopia is what counts, not reality.

RockyRoad
November 6, 2013 10:23 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 6, 2013 at 9:57 pm

RockyRoad, “CO2 is not a Greenhouse Gas that Raises Global temperature. Period!”
http://drtimball.com/2012/co2-is-not-a-greenhouse-gas-that-raises-global-temperature-period/

Then you’ve learned something today, Dumb–But that still doesn’t mean you can drop the “Dumb” and claim to be a “Scientist”.
Or do you have incontrovertible proof that CO2 DOES INDEED raise global temperature?
If so, please post it. (And no, somebody’s “assumptions” or “guesses” or “SWAG” simply won’t do.)
(Oh, this ought to be good.)

Dumb Scientist
November 6, 2013 10:33 pm

Aside from the end-Permian, the PETM, and the thawing of Snowball Earth?

Konrad
November 6, 2013 10:41 pm

Chad Wozniak says:
November 6, 2013 at 10:16 pm
——————————————–
Yes and no. Those with no escape such Mann, Karoly and Flannery have jammed the throttles to Full Stupid Ahead. However some of the Professional Left in Australia seem to be aware that things are about to end badly. They can be seen test driving exit strategies on the political blogs including –
“we were giving the planet the benefit of the doubt” ie: Noble cause
“but, but but, the conservatives believed too!” ie: It wasn’t just us
The good news is that none of this is going to work. The conservatives didn’t vilify sceptics and those that vilified cannot use the Noble Cause excuse. The bitterness of some of the posts is revealing. Some of the Professional Left are starting to realise what they have done. They have used all the tactics Tim Ball has listed, and they have done so in the Age of the Internet. The Internet is a game changer. None of the old lame stream media techniques such as “walkback”, “snowstorming”, or “issue fade and replace” work any more.
The thing both Tim ball and Michael Crichton did not consider about the Internet is memory. The lame stream media’s memory is selective but the Internet remembers everything forever, and is instantly accessible by billions at the tap of a keyboard or click of a mouse. The Professional left have not shot themselves in the foot. They have not even shot themselves in both feet. They have been tap-dancing on an anti-tank mine. For the Professional Left it’s pink mist time.

Keitho
Editor
November 6, 2013 11:03 pm

But, as we all know, the truth will out and it will set you free.

November 7, 2013 12:18 am

One of the problems with spin is that you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
The website RealClimate was set up to dominate the internet discussion just like the gatekeepers in the mainstream media were spun (thanks to Roger Harribin who is still at the BBC).
Yet the debate was beyond the feeble hand-waving of the self-proclaimed Climate Experts at RealClimate.
Now WUWT has become the main forum for internet climate debate. SkS tries hard but has far less reach.
That’s why the self-proclaiemd Climate Scientists (authenticated by Pal Review) have to come here to push their agenda.
The spin is out of control. And that is more of a problem for the doom-mongers than the lack of warming this century.

Brian H
November 7, 2013 1:10 am

Max Hugoson says:
November 6, 2013 at 8:06 pm
Dr. Walter Elsasser: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Elsasser
….
which allowed them to use the day’s Radiosone balloon measurements of pressure,

Since you use the word so often, you might as well learn it:

Radiosonde

A miniature radio carried aloft by an unmanned balloon to broadcast the pressure, temperature, and relative humidity of the upper air and to automatically transmit that information to the ground.

November 7, 2013 1:12 am

Great post.
It is wonderful to see posts exploring the idea that Global Warming scare is nothing to do with science, but with PR, politics, money and influence.
And what a brilliant idea that is, if 80% of population can be scared stiff to hand over their money and freedom as they cannot tell basic scientific truth from a lie, and 20% intimidated and called names if they dissented.
The question I would like to ask – is there ANY reputable scientific institution that stood the ground and survived the assault? Russian Academy of Science, maybe?

Brian H
November 7, 2013 1:34 am

The site RealClimate is owned and (richly) funded by the activist PR firm Fenton. Just try tracing its connections!

Jeff Id
November 7, 2013 3:25 am

Well written sir!

DirkH
November 7, 2013 3:43 am

kretchetov says:
November 7, 2013 at 1:12 am
“The question I would like to ask – is there ANY reputable scientific institution that stood the ground and survived the assault? Russian Academy of Science, maybe?”
The eco science scare is a strategy conceived by the UN and rolled out since 1971 at the Stockholm Conference on the environment, by Maurice Strong, where he flew in green NGO’s created for the purpose as Ersatz citizen representatives for the first time.
At that time the USSR and China were still the outcasts at the UN. So, the enviroscare strategy was applied throughout the “West”, i.e. the Trilateral Commission territory; Japan, USA, Europe – a.k.a. the American Empire – not in Russia or China.
Later, Russia and China opened up to capitalism – and they found that the self-dismantling of the “West” fit into their local strategies very well – maybe the KGB even had a hand in enacting the rollout of the strategy in the West in the first place; after all, all the small communist parties in the West and some social democrats were controlled by the Comintern / the KGB.
(and at least the German Greens got infiltrated and taken over by members of those communist parties right after the founding of the Greens – so the influence is in that party as well, to this day)
In short: You can bet that Russian and Chinese scientists know exactly what’s going on and are unimpressed by Cultural Marxism strategies applied throughout the West.

rogerknights
November 7, 2013 4:10 am

kretchetov says:
November 7, 2013 at 1:12 am
The question I would like to ask – is there ANY reputable scientific institution that stood the ground and survived the assault? Russian Academy of Science, maybe?

Here:

Monckton Rebuttal to Skeptic magazine article:
http://heartland.org/sites/default/files/moncktonskepticreplylong.pdf
The Professor goes on to say: “Every major scientific organization in the world has endorsed the conclusion of anthropogenic climate change as well.” Three problems with that. It is the logical fallacy of argument from consensus; it is the logical fallacy of the argument from appeal to authority; and it is not true.
Members of the Japanese Academy of Sciences have described the true-believers’ position as being no better than a belief in astrology; the Russian Academy under Dr. Illarionov, having heard both sides, rejected the alarmist position as politically motivated; the former director of the Dutch Meteorological Institute has rejected the alarmist view of “global warming”; the Royal Society, having relieved itself of the Marxist president under which its original and embarrassingly absurd statement on “global warming” had been published, has rewritten it from top to bottom to take out nearly all of the extremist nonsense to which the Professor appears uncritically to subscribe; and a Norwegian expert group has recently issued a report saying that proper attention must now be paid to determining the influence of natural variability on recent climatic change.

eyesonu
November 7, 2013 4:13 am

Excellent post. Thank you.

Alberta Slim
November 7, 2013 4:17 am

Thanks Dr. Ball
Your work has helped get Canada a new Evironment Minister.
Although I have no proof it, seemed like our previous EM was a CINO[Conservative In Name Only].
He was a journalist that won an award for writing about the dangers of CAGW.
Then he weasled his way into being the EM.
It will be interesting to see if our new EM, Leona Aglukkaq, will make changes.
See this: http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/minister/honourable-leona-aglukkaq

November 7, 2013 4:24 am

It’s very possible that the trolls are paid by the comment. This is not uncommon in obamaland, I’ve run into them often.
I would suggest publishing their IP addresses which I theorize would often trace back to an organization called OFA.

Gail Combs
November 7, 2013 4:34 am

davidmhoffer says:
November 6, 2013 at 8:15 pm
“stan” and “sedron” are inadvertently making Dr Ball’s point for him. From behind a wall of anonymity, they sling mud that is not only misleading, but highly irrelevant. They are the epitome of those with an agenda who, having no ability to participate in the discussion of the science itself, have no other tools at their disposal.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is worse than that if the David Appell (freelance writer) is this guy: http://www.davidappell.com/ with a BS in math and physics and a PhD in physics.
He has the scientific knowledge to engage in a scientific debate but instead descends to mud slinging. Says a lot about the “Science” behind CAGW doesn’t it? :>)
…..
Dr. Ball, Hats off an excellent article.

DirkH
November 7, 2013 4:37 am

Bob Mac Innes says:
November 7, 2013 at 4:24 am
“I would suggest publishing their IP addresses which I theorize would often trace back to an organization called OFA.”
Stupid idea. We all know already the Obama administration plays these games. Their own Cass Sunstein has told us so.

Gail Combs
November 7, 2013 4:43 am

DirkH says: @ November 7, 2013 at 3:43 am
…Later, Russia and China opened up to capitalism – and they found that the self-dismantling of the “West” fit into their local strategies very well – maybe the KGB even had a hand in enacting the rollout of the strategy in the West in the first place; after all, all the small communist parties in the West and some social democrats were controlled by the Comintern / the KGB…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For what it is worth The Wall Street Journal had a small buried article in the spring of 1994 (April?)
That stated the KGB not only funded but actually ran the activist groups here in the USA. I did not clip it because I figured it would become front page news more fool me.
I have searched for that darn article for years and have never found it again.

November 7, 2013 4:50 am

Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Well said. These quotes are so applicable to all aspects of our current political media-driven world:
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” – Thomas H. Huxley
“A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism in to dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagree” – Dr. Leonard George.
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” –Thomas Jefferson

Gail Combs
November 7, 2013 5:14 am

rogerknights says:
November 7, 2013 at 4:10 am
…. Monckton Rebuttal to Skeptic magazine article:
http://heartland.org/sites/default/files/moncktonskepticreplylong.pdf
…..Members of the Japanese Academy of Sciences have described the true-believers’ position as being no better than a belief in astrology; the Russian Academy under Dr. Illarionov…rejected the alarmist position as politically motivated; the former director of the Dutch Meteorological Institute… the Royal Society, having relieved itself of the Marxist president under which its original and embarrassingly absurd statement on “global warming” had been published, has rewritten it from top to bottom to take out nearly all of the extremist nonsense to which the Professor appears uncritically to subscribe…. a Norwegian expert group…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seems like the backpedaling has started. Soon to become a stampede I hope. :>) No doubt do in large part to people like Anthony, Jo Nova Dr. Ball and all the rest. Thanks
BTW, Great article Dr Ball.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 5:18 am

Lets not forget the rest of the JUNK SCIENCE being spread across the globe in support of smoking bans!
This pretty well destroys the Myth of second hand smoke:
http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16741714-lungs-from-pack-a-day-smokers-safe-for-transplant-study-finds?lite
Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds.
By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News.
Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.
What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.
“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study………………………
Ive done the math here and this is how it works out with second ahnd smoke and people inhaling it!
The 16 cities study conducted by the U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY and later by Oakridge National laboratories discovered:
Cigarette smoke, bartenders annual exposure to smoke rises, at most, to the equivalent of 6 cigarettes/year.
146,000 CIGARETTES SMOKED IN 20 YEARS AT 1 PACK A DAY.
A bartender would have to work in second hand smoke for 2433 years to get an equivalent dose.
Then the average non-smoker in a ventilated restaurant for an hour would have to go back and forth each day for 119,000 years to get an equivalent 20 years of smoking a pack a day! Pretty well impossible ehh!

Bruce Cobb
November 7, 2013 5:47 am

Stick around, “Dumb”, and you might actually learn something. If your apparent attachment to your CAGW Belief system will allow you to, that is. Mumbling about the Permian, PETM, and “ice ball earth” won’t cut it, though.

CodeTech
November 7, 2013 6:07 am

Nice quote:

“A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism in to dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagree” – Dr. Leonard George.

I try not to insult or denigrate believers, because I know that they’ve likely been the victims of this sort of disinformation. Usually when discussing climate stuff I go with an educational theme. The idea is to point out things they didn’t know, or didn’t think about, that essentially dismantle their belief system. The “no warming for 17 years” thing is very effective for this, since it’s so easy to prove, then move on to the fact that hurricanes, tornadoes, and extreme weather events have not, in fact, increased, even though we’ve been repeatedly told that they are/will/should.
In the other direction, however, I find myself only subject to ridiculous insults. I’m an idiot, a denier, know nothing about science, the people I quote aren’t really climate scientists, etc. Heck, it’s the game plan Suzuki was going with when he humiliated himself on Australian TV. Dr Ball’s essay easily explains this.
I’m searching for an effective, quick summary of the theory and science that I can send people to. Although there is a wealth of knowledge and references at WUWT, there’s still no clean, simple summary that would start a believer on the path to knowledge.

Steven R. Vada
November 7, 2013 6:22 am

Look this is a field where you have people claiming they have “reputable”
‘ ‘ s c i e n c e ‘ ‘
revealing to the world someone figured out using a computer model that can’t forecast jack s**t,
that immersing a warm rock, into a frigid, fluid, gas bath,
and spinning it a thousand miles an hour at the bottom of it,
warms it.
—–
This is a field where about 14 or 15 employees of, basically, several national weather services, generated a scam using computer modeling and some other non sciences, like ice and wood bores – the reasons they’re both about as reliable as watching birds crap are almost endless for those – they are, in fact, pseudoscience, themselves –
these people were, and are, using government paid press, to simply broadcast u t t e r fabrications, so business associates can nudge markets.
A frigid fluid gas bath had a warm rock dropped into it, and the rock GOT WARMER?
Say WHAT?
This is a field that goes further.
These are men who not only claim immersing the warm rock into the frigid fluid bath heated it,
they are further trying to tell you to teach your children that adding a one percent shot of phase change refrigerant,
that’s water,
doesn’t create a refrigeration cycle.
These men are telling your children, the refrigerant is a heater.
And that there’s a giant infrared light on in that refrigerant
and that it’s controlling the temperature of the planet.
And, that the phase change refrigerant, water – it evaporates, that’s a phase change, and then as it rises per classical mechanics, pressure differential creates a second phase change, so this is a
pressure differential driven,
phase change refrigerant,
having collected heat in evaporation,
risen dumping energy upward toward space and the upper atmosphere –
it becomes ice. The contraction re-adjusts the gravity/mass ratio it falls.
It evaporates, it rises again. This goes on 24/7/365, mostly in a line following the sun.
Government employees are telling you to your face that this is not refrigeration,
that this is a heater.
That refrigerating this frigid, fluid, nitrogen/oxygen gas bath, we’re breathing,
makes it hotter even more than the previous “heating” of the warm rock when it became immersed in the
again,
frigid fluid gas bath.
—–
It’s simple political crime period, and always was.
Al Gore was left some Occidental Oil stocks by Daddy Senator Gore who was an Oilman.
But little Al Jr didn’t get real oil stocks from daddy, he got ALTERNATIVE ENERGY stocks,
and when Al Jr lost the election he needed a come back tour to gin up cash and stay relevant with the hippie chicks.
He seized on Jim Hansen and Phil Jones and Tom Wigley and Mike Mann’s CO2 scam about the “magical asploding tropopause” and in putting the spotlight on it,
started swooping up the college girls and cash showing polar bear pictures and making people go ooooh, and aaaah…!
When he saw his energy market manipulation was putting lots of ooh and aah into his alternative energy/oil company stocks (Occidental Oils a huge oil company but because almost half it’s investments are in Alternative Energy they don’t show up much in the news; however they are or were until recently, the #2 oil company supplying the state of California)
When he saw his energy market manipulation working out so well,
he just doubled down, and dared anyone to prosecute any of his friends as they sought to
go ahead
and install his policies in spite of the election.
His environmental oil and alternative energy markets related ones at least,
out of terror
for our lives
if we didn’t do what he said do.
And he told his followers that it was for real and they had a moral obligation to even break the law, drag down the system by sheer inertia and disobedience, because “this time it’s too dangerous to rely on these old [duly constituted governmental checks and balances, and law enforcement] systems, they’re what got us into this.”
And so he had his liberal followers simply break the law en masse so he could manipulate energy markets, you name it – with impunity.
Teaching your children
to punish you for not making him president
that a frigid fluid bath with a phase change refrigeration system
will warm something you immerse in it.
To make your children obey regulations saying they’re guilty of climate sins.
That’s called evil as a snake and that’s what Al Gore and these grant whores are doing.
That’s all they’re doing, there never was any science, in ANY of this, it was a second energy markets scam, built on an obscure, but profitable, gas energy statistics in climate projections, scam.
It was about 15 guys, and they ginned up papers with dozens upon DOZENS of students to make it look like “jillions of scientists” were doing some kind of ground breaking research,
and discovering that when you drop things into refrigerated fluid baths, they actually get hot.
So you all had better be really afraid because it’s all different now. The rules of physics have changed and it’s too big for you to check my work.
No, no it’s not too big, I can check it just by describing what these hickbillies claim to me and it’s bald faced lying from word one.
The atmosphere is a thermally connected cold mass, physically pulled into contact with a warmer mass, in this case by gravity, and that heat can only leak off one way,
when you immerse the warm rock, and spin it a thousand miles an hour in the frigid, fluid,
phase change refrigerated,
gas bath.
That’s simply all there ever is or was to it and anybody whose got their explanation of the magically backerdistical flow had better have some heat engines patented and working on that principle,
because the entire world is still awaiting the first example of immersion of a warm object into a frigid fluid bath,
creating a thermometer rise.

November 7, 2013 6:31 am

A very thoughtful and beautifully written piece.
While the dubious quality of scientific education may be a factor in the equation, we cannot assume that scientifically literate people are immune to this kind of scam. I have brought up this topic more than once to several of my colleagues in a university chemistry department, whom I respect for their intelligence and knowledge in their own areas of expertise. Most are not aware that there is no solid scientific evidence whatsoever for dangerous man-made global warming; they take it all at face value. (One of them even used the d-word in a discussion, at which I really was taken aback.)
Another colleague who has a very pretty collection of ivy-league degrees and works in a high research-related position at an American pharmaceutical company, and who in his own scientific work takes a very thorough and rigorous approach, once brought up the rejection of global warming to illustrate to me how far the right-wingers in his country had departed from reality. Obviously, he considered global warming a simple, self-evident example of scientific truth. He was a bit confused when I called him on it and asked whether he had spent any time looking into the evidence, which he admitted he had not done.
If intelligent, well-educated people, whose job it is to create new and to question existing knowledge, are this easily taken in, then the problem is more fundamental than just the deviousness of PR agencies and the easy spreading of unfiltered information on the internet. The people who lived in the dark ages were not any more stupid than we are — if mass delusion and superstition could take them in, the same can happen to us.

Gail Combs
November 7, 2013 6:43 am

CodeTech says: @ November 7, 2013 at 6:07 am
…I’m searching for an effective, quick summary of the theory and science that I can send people to. Although there is a wealth of knowledge and references at WUWT, there’s still no clean, simple summary that would start a believer on the path to knowledge.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You might want to check out Lucy Skywalker’s Green World Trust in a Nutshell: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Problem.htm
or John Kehr’s (The Inconvenient Skeptic) The Science of why the Theory of Global Warming is Incorrect!: http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2012/05/the-science-of-why-the-theory-of-global-warming-is-incorrect/
or Jo Nova’s Skeptics Handbook: http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/
Lucy has several other suggestions.

herkimer
November 7, 2013 7:02 am

One of the weaknesses of the general public that the global warming PR people pray upon is our brain’s desire for certainty about the future. We seem to be attracted to those who predict the future confidently. That is why IPCC say ( in error in my opinion) that they can predict the future 100 years with absolute certainty and , that the science is settled and firm This claim continues to be made despite 17 years of failed predictions and the continued need for more studies and funds indicating that the science is far from being settled or firm . Yet the media and public continue to follow the failed science as if it was still gospel. Even the policy makers tried to hide this fact from the public. . I recently confronted a major TV network on their biased science reporting when they fail to report any science or news that disputes the current global warming science or points out the serious errors in their science. The answer that I got is that the network supports the view that global warming is all anthropogenic and this dominates their coverage. This continued to be their policy even after it was shown to them that the AGW science which in their view is supported by the majority of world’s climate scientists has proven to be false for 17 years and the science is far from being settled. As long as there is free money from our governments to underpin this deception, this nonsense will continue. The media continue to follow and believe the opinions of experts even after they are shown to be completely false.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 7:05 am

Global warming,Climate Change take your pick of the JUNK SCIENCES even in the smoking wars!
What proof exists of any smoking disease………..None
The junk scientists doing GW are using the same epidemiology statistical junk science and calling it proof as is used for tobacco studies and its all STATISTICAL MANIPULATION OF TORTURED DATA!
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS”
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
http://cot.food.gov.uk/pdfs/cotstatementtobacco0409
“5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke – induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease.”
In other words … our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can’t even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact … we don’t even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 7:06 am

The rise of a pseudo-scientific links lobby
Every day there seems to be a new study making a link between food, chemicals or lifestyle and ill-health. None of them has any link with reality.
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/13287

Steven R. Vada
November 7, 2013 7:16 am

Also a good simple understanding of the fundamentals, of physics, is of great aid in mocking this voodoo nonsense. The atmosphere’s a mass the sun doesn’t heat, so it’s cold. It’s attached to a solid planet the sun does heat so it’s warm.
Go look at the IPCC/Kiel/Trenberth cartoon exemplifying it all: a magical gas mirror in the sky receiving 168 watts per sq meter but emitting, 324 back to it’s source, and (left out of the cartoon so as to not be even more ridiculous) an additional 324 up, out of the back of the mirror, toward the upper atmosphere, and space?
The very best way for you to learn the utter bunk of the Magic Gas effect is have your very most basic fundmentals in place, and then go read their hockey.
So to speak. Literally speaking of that, they had a guy, whose name is Dr Mike Mann, who swore that he invented a statistical algorithm that always spits out hockey stick shaped graphs, even when fed calibration data,
to analyze some bore holes of trees,
turning those tree bore hole samples of wood into 600 year old treemometers accurate to within a tenth of a degree.
He took a couple of hundred from a stand in Norway and claimed the entire planet has not been as warm as it is now for like 1,000 or more years.
His grant whoring work involved the simple elimination of all previous known climatic events within the past thousand years and added, you guessed it, a hockey stick shaped projection to current temperatures, with bombastic claims of 90s percentiles certainty he was right.
* * *with work his own colleagues were later seen mocking saying, “I ran a thousand iterations of Mike’s work last night, it gave me hockey sticks. I guess that’s what McIntyre was talking about.”
Mann HID his WORK for YEARS until he accidentally left it, on an ftp server for one of his associates, and one of the citizen watchdog characters downloaded it. He had worked for mining companies and seen people run statistics scams trying to do the bums’ rush on claims that land was worth mining, so he just kept pecking away, trying each and every day, at the University Mann worked at… one day, *bingo,* Mann had left his work up online overnight which he used to tell Congress, he had invented magical treemomiturs. It was the Hockey Stick algorithm.
Just the whole thing is obviously fraud. That’s your first real clue to it all, it immediately hits you that every single claim made by those who try to portray it as legitimacy or science, is a simple falsehood about less vs more, hot vs cold, light vs dark..
their claim is that literally there is a giant infrared light built into the water and CO2 of the planet controlling the temperature, and making it warmer as more is added, not colder.
You can’t add refrigerants and radiation screening particles to a space between an object and an energy source and through installation of refrigeration and that energy screen, make the object behind the refrigerating screen, warmer.
When the whole thing first came out you constantly saw it being referred to – as “absurd.”
It is absurd, it’s not even possible from the stand point of a refrigeration technician’s understanding about warming and cooling.
Warm air rises and drags cooler air by the earth. It gets to a certain height and the lack of competition for space creates molecular expansion; this in turn creates physical change in geometries of photonic energy on board the molecule, and the molecule itself. The molecule dumps energy skyward because of energy charge differentials above being greater than below, generally, and this whole concept is vastly aided through the much more potent convection mechanics of water; which is about a percent of it all, and acts as
like I said – phase change, refrigerant for this system.
This is a large gas array, a screen, between an illumination system, and a target. The vast majority of the mass of the screen is inert to the illumination, nitrogen and oxygen don’t really interact a lot so their temps aren’t really much altered,
the infrared resonant gases block substantial sunlight, and warm some.
But there you are again with the voodoo : infrared gases are the ONLY ones that really interact much with the sun, and they spend all day every day, REJECTING about a quarter or whatever it is of the total sunlight load.
If you add more of them, you have to first REJECT more before you can consider the concept of how much initially gets by, that can’t get out.
And remember on the back side of the planet’s atmosphere all night, there’s the energy sink of deep night time space.
How great a stream of energy’s being REJECTED by infrared gases
versus how much is even available to CONSIDER being handled, coming off earth?
It’s not even comparable. It’s several times the intensity difference.
When they block more than they keep in for any length of time that’s -again – called cooling.
Seriously to any of you who are learning of this for the first time: learn your basics, your fundamentals, and you’ll own the argument because – really –
they have no reality based argument, as soon as they tell you, they dropped a warm rock into a frigid fluid bath, and that rock warmed.

Bruce Cobb
November 7, 2013 7:26 am

@harleyrider1978,
Certainly there is a lot of chaff out there amongst the wheat. One just has to be able to separate the two, which is not always easy. It doesn’t mean throwing out the wheat, though.
People have a tendency to want to blame a certain thing in particular for negative outcomes, when the truth is far more complex. But, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the warnings, for example about smoking. In the end, it is up to each individual to weigh the pros and cons of how they choose to live. It is, and should be, an ongoing process.

Jeff Alberts
November 7, 2013 7:35 am

The article would have been much better if proofread by someone other than the author.

Admin
November 7, 2013 7:58 am

Brian H says:
November 7, 2013 at 1:34 am
The site RealClimate is owned and (richly) funded by the activist PR firm Fenton. Just try tracing its connections!
Indeed, I’m reading some emails to that effect right now.

November 7, 2013 8:07 am

Wonderful article…..good reading. Lets wait another 3 – 4 years and the Warmist
house of cards will crumble down….and all PR will not be able to save it…..
Talking about the search of truth: Hopefully, Anthony will soften up more to those who
are on the way to the truth….JS

Steven R. Vada
November 7, 2013 8:07 am

Well, not exactly.
Experiments on animals recreating long term high particulate inhalation show and always have, that when you coat the lungs, the breathing system’s functions choke back, and performance suffers. Eventually parts designed for proper through flow, working under abnormal back pressure, and working with improper pH limits and oxydation/reduction chemistry, fail.
The world of medicine is replete with the highly reproducible photographs of smokers’ lungs vs non smokers’ lungs in cadavers.
Even a Harley has an air filter. Ride the bike through varnish mist long enough or even wood smoke, and there’s gonna be a physical, and eventually a chemical-charge induced physical, change in structure of the filter; and obviously there’s going to be the performance issues that co-exist with the evolution of that accelerated physical, chemical, material break-down, process.
So nobody’s going to be probably joining you in the charge to ramp up tobacco usage.
That’s just nasty.
and a very real fire danger,
and a dental health danger
to boot.
=====
harleyrider1978 says:
November 7, 2013 at 7:05 am
What proof exists of any smoking disease………..None

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:34 am

Experiments on animals recreating long term high particulate inhalation show and always have, that when you coat the lungs, the breathing system’s functions choke back, and performance suffers.
Smokers lungs are used for transplants with similar outcomes of survival.
Human lungs ‘brush’ themselves clean of contaminants
Friday, September 07, 2012 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Human lungs contain a tiny network of constantly moving “brushes” that flush contaminants out of the respiratory system, according to research conducted by scientists from the University of North Carolina and published in the journal Science.
Scientists have known for a long time that the respiratory system protects itself by means of a coating of mucus, which is sticky enough to trap pollutants and keep them from reaching the body’s cells. When needed, the body can expel this mucus through a runny nose or a cough.
“The air we breathe isn’t exactly clean, and we take in many dangerous elements with every breath,” said lead researcher Michael Rubinstein.
“We need a mechanism to remove all the junk we breathe in, and the way it’s done is with a very sticky gel, called mucus, that catches these particles and removes them with the help of tiny cilia. The cilia are constantly beating, even while we sleep.
“In a coordinated fashion, they push mucus, containing foreign objects, out of the lungs, and we either swallow it or spit it out. These cilia even beat for a few hours after we die. If they stopped, we’d be flooded with mucus that provides a fertile breeding ground for bacteria.”
Sources for this article include:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19357090
http://www.sciencecodex.com
http://health.usnews.com
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037099_lungs_contaminants_respiratory_system.html#ixzz25oTsdUCA

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:34 am

Experiments on animals recreating long term high particulate inhalation show and always have, that when you coat the lungs, the breathing system’s functions choke back, and performance suffers.
Smokers lungs are used for transplants with similar outcomes of survival.
Human lungs ‘brush’ themselves clean of contaminants
Friday, September 07, 2012 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Human lungs contain a tiny network of constantly moving “brushes” that flush contaminants out of the respiratory system, according to research conducted by scientists from the University of North Carolina and published in the journal Science.
Scientists have known for a long time that the respiratory system protects itself by means of a coating of mucus, which is sticky enough to trap pollutants and keep them from reaching the body’s cells. When needed, the body can expel this mucus through a runny nose or a cough.
“The air we breathe isn’t exactly clean, and we take in many dangerous elements with every breath,” said lead researcher Michael Rubinstein.
“We need a mechanism to remove all the junk we breathe in, and the way it’s done is with a very sticky gel, called mucus, that catches these particles and removes them with the help of tiny cilia. The cilia are constantly beating, even while we sleep.
“In a coordinated fashion, they push mucus, containing foreign objects, out of the lungs, and we either swallow it or spit it out. These cilia even beat for a few hours after we die. If they stopped, we’d be flooded with mucus that provides a fertile breeding ground for bacteria.”
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/037099_lungs_contaminants_respiratory_system.html#ixzz25oTsdUCA

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:36 am

The world of medicine is replete with the highly reproducible photographs of smokers’ lungs vs non smokers’ lungs in cadavers.
Dr. Duane Carr – Professor of Surgery at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, said this: “Smoking does not discolor the lung.”
Dr. Victor Buhler, Pathologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Kansas City: “I have examined thousands of lungs both grossly and microscopically. I cannot tell you from exmining a lung whether or not its former host had smoked.”
Dr. Sheldon Sommers, Pathologist and Director of Laboratories at Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York: “…it is not possible grossly or microscopically, or in any other way known to me, to distinguish between the lung of a smoker or a nonsmoker. Blackening of lungs is from carbon particles, and smoking tobacco does not introduce carbon particles into the lung.”

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:37 am

The Black Lung Lie
Posted on August 6, 2012 by Frank Davis
A discussion of ‘smokers’ black lungs’ started in the comments today. It’s the widespread belief that smokers’ lungs turn black. Rose pointed out that it all started with James I about four centuries ago. She also dug up some refutations:
http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2012/08/06/the-black-lung-lie/

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:40 am

Judge doesnt accept statistical studies as proof of LC causation!
It was McTear V Imperial Tobacco. Here is the URL for both my summary and the Judge’s ‘opinion’ (aka ‘decision’):
(2.14) Prof Sir Richard Doll, Mr Gareth Davies (CEO of ITL). Prof James Friend and
Prof Gerad Hastings gave oral evidence at a meeting of the Health Committee in
2000. This event was brought up during the present action as putative evidence that
ITL had admitted that smoking caused various diseases. Although this section is quite
long and detailed, I think that we can miss it out. Essentially, for various reasons, Doll
said that ITL admitted it, but Davies said that ITL had only agreed that smoking might
cause diseases, but ITL did not know. ITL did not contest the public health messages.
(2.62) ITL then had the chance to tell the Judge about what it did when the suspicion
arose of a connection between lung cancer and smoking. Researchers had attempted
to cause lung cancer in animals from tobacco smoke, without success. It was right,
therefore, for ITL to ‘withhold judgement’ as to whether or not tobacco smoke caused
lung cancer.
[9.10] In any event, the pursuer has failed to prove individual causation.
Epidemiology cannot be used to establish causation in any individual case, and the
use of statistics applicable to the general population to determine the likelihood of
causation in an individual is fallacious. Given that there are possible causes of lung
cancer other than cigarette smoking, and given that lung cancer can occur in a nonsmoker,
it is not possible to determine in any individual case whether but for an
individual’s cigarette smoking he probably would not have contracted lung cancer
(paras.[6.172] to [6.185]).
[9.11] In any event there was no lack of reasonable care on the part of ITL at any
point at which Mr McTear consumed their products, and the pursuer’s negligence
case fails. There is no breach of a duty of care on the part of a manufacturer, if a
consumer of the manufacturer’s product is harmed by the product, but the consumer
knew of the product’s potential for causing harm prior to consumption of it. The
individual is well enough served if he is given such information as a normally
intelligent person would include in his assessment of how he wishes to conduct his
life, thus putting him in the position of making an informed choice (paras.[7.167] to
[7.181]).

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:44 am

Bruce Cobb says:
@harleyrider1978,
Certainly there is a lot of chaff out there amongst the wheat. One just has to be able to separate the two, which is not always easy. It doesn’t mean throwing out the wheat, though.
People have a tendency to want to blame a certain thing in particular for negative outcomes, when the truth is far more complex. But, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the warnings, for example about smoking. In the end, it is up to each individual to weigh the pros and cons of how they choose to live. It is, and should be, an ongoing process.
Bob the ongoing process is an 80 year historical process of PROHIBITION……Its happened before to tobacco and its happening again now as we speak.
Same lies,same propaganda and the same REPEALS will be forth coming
Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.
1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. “Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity” (Dillow, 1981:10).
1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue,” the arresting officer says.
1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: “Business … is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do.”
1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.
1937: hitler institutes laws against smoking.This one you can google.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 8:44 am

Bruce Cobb says:
@harleyrider1978,
Certainly there is a lot of chaff out there amongst the wheat. One just has to be able to separate the two, which is not always easy. It doesn’t mean throwing out the wheat, though.
People have a tendency to want to blame a certain thing in particular for negative outcomes, when the truth is far more complex. But, that doesn’t mean we should ignore the warnings, for example about smoking. In the end, it is up to each individual to weigh the pros and cons of how they choose to live. It is, and should be, an ongoing process.
Bob the ongoing process is an 80 year historical process of PROHIBITION……Its happened before to tobacco and its happening again now as we speak.
Same lies,same propaganda and the same REPEALS will be forth coming
Heres a time line starting in 1900,dont be surprised to see the same thing playing out today nearly 100 years later.
1901: REGULATION: Strong anti-cigarette activity in 43 of the 45 states. “Only Wyoming and Louisiana had paid no attention to the cigarette controversy, while the other forty-three states either already had anti-cigarette laws on the books or were considering new or tougher anti-cigarette laws, or were the scenes of heavy anti- cigarette activity” (Dillow, 1981:10).
1904: New York: A judge sends a woman is sent to jail for 30 days for smoking in front of her children.
1904: New York City. A woman is arrested for smoking a cigarette in an automobile. “You can’t do that on Fifth Avenue,” the arresting officer says.
1907: Business owners are refusing to hire smokers. On August 8, the New York Times writes: “Business … is doing what all the anti-cigarette specialists could not do.”
1917: SMOKEFREE: Tobacco control laws have fallen, including smoking bans in numerous cities, and the states of Arkansas, Iowa, Idaho and Tennessee.

RockyRoad
November 7, 2013 8:49 am

Dumb Scientist says:
November 6, 2013 at 10:33 pm

Aside from the end-Permian, the PETM, and the thawing of Snowball Earth?

Better yet, actual measurements from ice core that show a distinct ~800 year lag where CO2 FOLLOWS temperature rise.
The rest, as I said before are simply “SWAG”. And please, don’t “Al Gore” us by switching the data.
But good try.

November 7, 2013 8:50 am

Dumb Scientist says:
November 6, 2013 at 10:33 pm
Aside from the end-Permian, the PETM, and the thawing of Snowball Earth?
If that’s all you got then you have earned half your name.

November 7, 2013 8:51 am

Thank you all for replies.

November 7, 2013 8:59 am

john piccirilli November 6, 2013 at 7:15 pm: Yep, got the Globe covered here https://twitter.com/questionAGW/status/397771698558087168 and I covered how Greenpeace USA (née Ozone Action) not only cites Gelbspan for their source of the ‘corrupt skeptics’ accusation, they worked hand-in-hand with him: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=987
@papiertigre, November 6, 2013 at 9:44 pm: The point I make has nothing to do about acceptance of money from any donors that agree with what scientists say. It is entirely about the portrayal of skeptic scientists as ‘crooked shills paid to lie about AGW via illicit industry money’ – a poorly handled and utterly baseless accusation having its roots in Al Gore’s Senate office that got turned into one getting media traction at the hands of Ross Gelbspan.
@Anthony WattsNovember 7, 2013 at 7:58am: Fenton Communications had Al Gore’s former spokesperson Kalee Kreider working for them before AND after her stint with Gore…. and she was at Greenpeace and Ozone Action before that…. along with being in a 1997 IPCC special report’s section of “authors, contributors, and expert reviewers”: http://gelbspanfiles.com/?p=919 . I previously mentioned that in a Nov 2011 WUWT comment: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/30/the-genesis-of-realclimate-org-appears-in-the-climategate-emails-and-surprise-the-bbcs-roger-harrabin-seems-connected/#comment-814668 , plus I added one more two posts below that one.

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 9:09 am

RockyRoad: I chose those examples because CO2 preceded warming during the end-Permian, PETM and thawing of Snowball Earth.
mkelly: Also, Venus is hotter than Mercury despite the fact that Mercury is closer to the Sun and darker than Venus.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 9:16 am

Just for chits and Grins I lived a few miles from Al Gores Tennessee farm in Carthage tenn. The man still grows tobacco and uses ILLEGAL MEXICANS to crop it. He raises nearly 100,000 pounds a year on that farm in tobacco yet he is MT ANTI-TOBACCO NOW. Yet in the 1980s I voted for the worthless scumbag as senator from tenn. He made commercials where Ive chopped the tobacco ,hung it in the barns and etc etc……………A lying piece of PROGRESSIVE TRASH who owns more
The Greening Of Gore’s Bank Account – Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/…/the-greening-of-gores-bank-account/‎
May 21, 2013 – Al gore giving his global warming talk in Moun. … Rich in oil that Occidental sought to gain drilling rights to develop, the region … controlled between $250,000 and $500,000 of Occidental stock throughout his terms of office.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 9:21 am

November 7, 2013 at 9:21 am
The Kyoto Conspiracy (Gore, Enron, Carbon Trading, Global Warming)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1813229/posts‎
The name Enron has all but faded from our news pages since the company went … This commodity exchange of emission allowances caused Enron’s stock to …
Gore Invests In Carbon Credit Company, Will Media Care …

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 9:31 am

The precautionary principle itself is a catch 22 argument. It entails giving no proof the same standing as actually having positive proof. In essence it makes a negative a positive which we all know you can never prove a negative. By using this principle we might as well all just kill ourselves as chance living with possible threats that might harm us. Its actually created to let the nazis claim whatever they want and get away with it! Its use must be destroyed as its led to total destruction of the scientific process trying to create proof where none exists to begin with,hense the mountain of evidence we hear the nazis preach all over the place without actually being held to any proof at all!
The principle itself cannot stand, it means an end to all we hold dear TRUTH.
Without truth we have no meaning,we have no future,we have no life,no culture. We have only created hazzards that never existed,a culture defeated by fanaticism and led by radical nut cases passing laws based upon NOTHING! It gives basis to outlawing anything based upon nothing,it lowers the standard of proof in court to that of hearsay evidence to now convict!
How did it happen,quite simply ENVIROMENTALISM!
Precaution as Customary Law
The question whether the precautionary principle is a principle of customary international
law has received a great deal of attention, particularly since the principle’s inclusion
in the Rio Declaration.
http://www.ejil.org/pdfs/17/2/82.pdf
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,
http://www.unep.org/Documents.Multilingual/Default.asp?documentid=78&articleid=1163
Having met at Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992,

Genghis
November 7, 2013 9:39 am

Richard Feynman said,
“Looking back at the worst times, it always seems that they were times in which there were people who believed with absolute faith and absolute dogmatism in something. And they were so serious in this matter that they insisted that the rest of the world agree with them. And then they would do things that were directly inconsistent with their own beliefs in order to maintain that what they said was true.”

Bruce Cobb
November 7, 2013 10:23 am

@Harleyrider, how about this; you don’t light up your foul, putrid-smelling cig next to me, and I won’t light a trash can on fire and wave it in your face. How’s that?

Steven R. Vada
November 7, 2013 10:52 am

And with a single search, “Smoker’s Lungs,”
another story checked.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=smoker%27s+lungs&FORM=HDRSC2

Gail Combs
November 7, 2013 10:57 am

Michael Palmer says: @ November 7, 2013 at 6:31 am
… If intelligent, well-educated people, whose job it is to create new and to question existing knowledge, are this easily taken in, then the problem is more fundamental than just the deviousness of PR agencies and the easy spreading of unfiltered information on the internet. The people who lived in the dark ages were not any more stupid than we are — if mass delusion and superstition could take them in, the same can happen to us.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It is the mob effect. I first noticed it in grade school. Kids you can talk to one on one will turn nasty when in a crowd if the leaders turn on you.
We are social animals and safety is with the crowd. It is very much evident if you watch domestic herd animals. The one at the bottom of the totem pole will get beaten up all the time but he never leaves the group’s vicinity completely even if the other repeatedly try to drive him off.
Look at WUWT, how many times have we read someone say they were grateful there was a group like us where they were not an outcast?
Also it is impossible to learn everything from scratch or be an expert on everything so we go with the prevailing ‘Knowlege’ without checking. This is the trait that is exploited by PR.

November 7, 2013 11:01 am

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 9:09 am
mkelly: Also, Venus is hotter than Mercury despite the fact that Mercury is closer to the Sun and darker than Venus.
==============
You forgot to mention that Mars has the about the same per cent CO2 as Venus (95 vs 97) in atmosphere and is not hotter than it should be. Oh ya you also forgot that Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 90 times that of Earth.

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 11:39 am

mkelly says:
November 7, 2013 at 11:01 am
“You forgot to mention that Mars has the about the same per cent CO2 as Venus (95 vs 97) in atmosphere and is not hotter than it should be. Oh ya you also forgot that Venus has an atmospheric pressure of 90 times that of Earth.”
Exactly. Venus has ~15,000 times more CO2 than Mars does, so the effective radiating level on Venus is much higher. That’s the greenhouse effect. Are you claiming that Venus would have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas?

Ed_B
November 7, 2013 12:13 pm

Dumb scientist:
Hmm.. you chose your own name for a reason.. Check out the gas laws and the kenetic theory of gases and report back.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 12:18 pm

that?
The Black Pig Lung Hoax
It was an outright bald-faced lie.
“Pankiw described the centerpiece of his anti-smoking display as the diseased lung of a 150-pound man who smoked for 15 years. Actually, it was a pig’s lung shot full of various carcinogens on purpose, but, Pankiw said later, his lesson was made stronger by not passing along that tidbit of truth.”
The Black Pig Lung Hoax
Here is an “oldie but goodie”. This is the article everyone always talks about, but is so difficult to find: April 5, 2001. It was an outright bald-faced lie.
“Pankiw described the centerpiece of his anti-smoking display as the diseased lung of a 150-pound man who smoked for 15 years. Actually, it was a pig’s lung shot full of various carcinogens on purpose, but, Pankiw said later, his lesson was made stronger by not passing along that tidbit of truth.”
SMOKERS LUNGS USED IN TRANSPLANTS
Chris Watson, vice president of the British Transplantation Society, told CNN that 49 percent of last year’s lung donors in the UK were smokers.
“We’re not in the luxurious position in transplantation to turn down organs because they’re not absolutely perfect — there are very few perfect organs,” he said.
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-10-15/he…
Steven R. Vada says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:52 am
And with a single search, “Smoker’s Lungs,”
another story checked.
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=smoker%27s+lungs&FORM=HDRSC2

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 12:22 pm

Bruce Cobb says:
November 7, 2013 at 10:23 am
@Harleyrider, how about this; you don’t light up your foul, putrid-smelling cig next to me, and I won’t light a trash can on fire and wave it in your face. How’s that?
Government sanctioned hate,you must love that………….

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 12:22 pm

Ed_B says:
November 7, 2013 at 12:13 pm
“Check out the gas laws and the kenetic theory of gases and report back.”
Just to be clear, are you claiming that Venus would have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas? Is this the claim supported by “gas laws and the kenetic theory of gases”?

November 7, 2013 12:36 pm

Gail Combs says:

It is the mob effect. I first noticed it in grade school. Kids you can talk to one on one will turn nasty when in a crowd if the leaders turn on you.

Also it is impossible to learn everything from scratch or be an expert on everything so we go with the prevailing ‘Knowlege’ without checking. This is the trait that is exploited by PR.

Both valid points – however, there is more. We may be intimidated in grade school, but as we grow older and better understand the general human comedy, many of us acquire the ability to take and maintain an outsider’s position, when we feel compelled by reason and evidence. Also, the individuals I was referring to, as trained chemists, certainly have a sufficient background to check the facts on this particular issue (heck, I have, and I’m only a dumb MD).
What I’m driving at is that, even if academics should be sceptics, they very often are not. My somewhat cynical explanation goes like this: You will be happy in an academic career if you feel satisfied with the kind of scientific work that you can do. Whether or not you feel so satisfied depends on two parameters: 1, the quality of your work, and 2, your scepticism. Basically, you will be happy if enough of your ideas and data withstand your own critical evaluation. You can achieve happiness by generating very many ideas and solid data, so that enough of your work survives your own critical filter. Alternatively, you can achieve happiness by pursuing ideas that are silly or unsupported by your data, if you lack an effective critical filter.
From ample first hand observation, I’m afraid that the number of career academics that fall into the second category is not small – and this includes well-meaning people with high IQs and comprehensive learning. In keeping with this, it is my (unscientific) impression that the audience of this blog contains many intelligent and well-educated indviduals, but that career academics are under-represented.

Ed_B
November 7, 2013 12:52 pm

Dumb scientist:
try reading this, and you will get your answer : http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/06/hyperventilating-on-venus/

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 1:19 pm

Ed_B linked to Steve Goddard claiming that “If 90% of the CO2 in Venus atmosphere was replaced by Nitrogen, it would change temperatures there by only a few tens of degrees.”
If a pure nitrogen atmosphere were dumped on Venus until its pressure were the same as the real Venus atmosphere, the gas laws Goddard describes would indeed warm the nitrogen initially. But nothing magically traps that heat forever. The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR). The nitrogen atmosphere would allow the surface to directly radiate away that initial heat from compression, so the surface would eventually be cooler than Mercury’s (holding albedos constant).
But a CO2 atmosphere doesn’t let the surface radiate directly. Instead, the opaque atmosphere radiates at an “effective radiating level” which gets higher as CO2 increases, but remains at the surface in a pure nitrogen atmosphere. A higher effective radiating level is like more insulation above the surface. That’s why Venus is hotter than Mercury.

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 1:54 pm

Maybe Ed_B was referring to MKELLY’s claim that “PV=nRT. Venus is hot because of the pressure. I also maintain that some of the supposed 33C temperature increase due to GHG is really caused by the pressure of our atmosphere.”
The partial pressure (in bars, not percent) of greenhouse gases directly affects the long-term surface equilibrium temperature. The partial pressure of gases like nitrogen which aren’t greenhouse gases only indirectly matters sometimes because greenhouse gases are more effective at higher total pressures, a phenomenon called pressure broadening. If and only if greenhouse gases are present, adding nitrogen indirectly raises the effective radiating level.
Again, if Venus had the same albedo and pressure but a pure nitrogen atmosphere it would be colder than Mercury. That because there wouldn’t be a greenhouse effect on Venus at all. The effective radiating level of Venus would be at its surface, just like Mercury, the Moon, etc.

November 7, 2013 1:54 pm

harleyrider1978, welcome. It is unusual to actually meet a person who doubts that smoking is harmful on this website. But as you are here I will engage with your debate.
Richard Doll showed that smoking is statistically linked to lung cancer.
http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1519
The mechanism is the increased work done by the antibodies in the bloodstream and the build-up of colloidal mucus/dust in the lungs causing abnormal growth.
Now second-hand smoke is less clear. But total refusal to engage with the observations about first-hand smoke obstructs your debating ability.

Ed_B
November 7, 2013 2:15 pm

Dumb scientist:
You are totally ignorant of the gas laws. You pontificate but are clueless. Give it a rest.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 2:27 pm

Richard Doll showed that smoking is statistically linked to lung cancer.
http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1519
The mechanism is the increased work done by the antibodies in the bloodstream and the build-up of colloidal mucus/dust in the lungs causing abnormal growth.
Now second-hand smoke is less clear. But total refusal to engage with the observations about first-hand smoke obstructs your debating ability.
Truly you’ve lost your mind Dolls study was atypical statistical analysis not toxicology and it never showed end point connections to disease outcomes………….Or do you have that part as Nobody else seems to have it! LMAO

Ed_B
November 7, 2013 2:35 pm

Dumb scientist:
I’ll give you a hint. As the satellite probe decended into the Venus atmosphere, what was the temperatre when the pressure was equal to earths ground pressure? There is a lot of discussion of this fact in the reference I gave you.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 2:36 pm

The London Hospitals study generated a storm of controversy. If Richard Doll and George Godber were convinced by it, others were not. Among these was Sir Ronald Fisher, widely regarded as the father of statistics, who was able to obtain Doll and Hill’s data, and to show that smokers who inhaled tobacco smoke were less likely to get lung cancer than those who did not inhale. Fisher eventually wrote a short book on The Cancer Controversy.
There is another approach that can be taken to studies of this sort. If 65% of some population eats apple pie every day, and the rest never touch the stuff, then 65% of hospital patients from this population can be expected to be apple pie eaters, if eating apple pie neither increases nor decreases the risk of falling ill with any disease. If more than 65% of the patients are apple pie addicts, then eating apple pie becomes a risk factor. And if less than 65%, eating apple pie offers protection.
So, in the same way, we ought to ask of the London Hospitals study what fraction of its overall sample population were smokers, for this would give the fraction of lung cancer patients that might be expected to be smokers, if smoking carried no risk.
And this figure is available in Table 4 of the study. There were 2 non-smokers and 647 smokers in the lung cancer study group. And there were 27 non-smokers and 622 smokers in the non-lung-cancer control group. So that, in the study as a whole, 97.7% of patients were smokers. This being so, we would expect that 97.7% of lung cancer patients would also be smokers, if smoking was unconnected to lung cancer. Instead we find that 99.7% of them were smokers. Is that particularly alarming? All we have discovered is that in a population in which nearly everybody smoked, nearly everybody with lung cancer also smoked: which is precisely what would be expected. Just as if nearly all the patients in the London Hospitals study were Londoners, it would be expected that nearly all the lung cancer patients would be Londoners as well.
Looked at this way, the London Hospitals study tells us nothing. If anything, it might even be said to give smoking a clean bill of health.
http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/the-london-hospitals-study/

November 7, 2013 2:39 pm

As a smoker, this will be my only comment on this.
If you don’t smoke and really want to “go green”, don’t start. If you do smoke and would like more “green”, quit. (Someday I’ll get back to working on that.)
When the tobacco tax revenue drops and they start to target dihydrogen monoxide for “extra” taxes, maybe people people will wake up to the fact that targeted taxes are about control, not revenue.

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 2:53 pm

I just wanted to respond to Jim’s claim that “propagandists portray CAGW skeptics as people who don’t believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so they can compare them to flat-earthers.”
Strangely, I now seem to be engaging with people who don’t believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But I can’t be sure because I’m not telepathic, so I’ve repeatedly asked you a yes/no/dunno question: are you claiming that Venus would have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas?
Ed_B says:
November 7, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“I’ll give you a hint. As the satellite probe decended into the Venus atmosphere, what was the temperatre when the pressure was equal to earths ground pressure? There is a lot of discussion of this fact in the reference I gave you.”
Again, you seem to be implying that the surface temperature of Venus is due to pressure alone: no greenhouse effect. If so, one implication would be that swapping the current largely CO2 atmosphere of Venus for an otherwise identical pure nitrogen one wouldn’t change the equilibrium surface temperature of Venus. But I don’t know if this is what you mean. Could you please answer my yes/no/dunno question so I can better understand your position? Thanks in advance.

November 7, 2013 3:06 pm

Anyone not convinced that smoking causes lung cancer, have a look at this study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10926586
the full text is freely accessible.

rogerknights
November 7, 2013 3:46 pm

Anthony Watts says:
November 7, 2013 at 7:58 am

Brian H says:
November 7, 2013 at 1:34 am
The site RealClimate is owned and (richly) funded by the activist PR firm Fenton. Just try tracing its connections!

Indeed, I’m reading some emails to that effect right now.

Is Gavin working full time, or nearly, on RC? If so, what’s he doing at GISS? Congress should ask.

rogerknights
November 7, 2013 3:53 pm

CodeTech says: @ November 7, 2013 at 6:07 am
…I’m searching for an effective, quick summary of the theory and science that I can send people to. Although there is a wealth of knowledge and references at WUWT, there’s still no clean, simple summary that would start a believer on the path to knowledge.

What I think would be most effective is a document responding with a counterpoint to SkS’s list of rebuttals to contrarian claims. SkS has been very influential with its rebuttals, so it needs to be addressed directly.

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 3:53 pm

Only about 6-9% of life long smokers if ever get LC! Not 100% not even 50% not even 10% ever get LC…………………EXPLAIN THAT ONE!

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 3:55 pm

Average age of LC onset is in the 80 year old bracket! Making it an old age disease not a smoker disease!

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 3:58 pm

Danish doctor Knud ( aka Canute?) Wilson. I’ve not attempted to correct the translation, as it’s fairly readable.
Canute Wilson became famous in Denmark in 1984 when he was on TV after having revealed a lung cancer epidemic in the small fishing Strandby at Frederikshavn with approx. thousand inhabitants. Here spread the local asphalt plant through 22 years invisible cancer-causing dust particles into the air as the wind blew cross shopping streets in the city, 600 meters east of the factory.
Wilson is today over 80 years and retired, but in 1960 he became the city’s general practitioner. In 1964 he asked the authorities shut down the factory because he observed among his patients more lung cancer cases “should not occur.” He was convinced that it was stone dust from the asphalt plant. But the Health Protection Agency would not recommend the closure, the factory went on for 11 years while the disease spread like a regular epidemic, which until today has killed 30 people in the small town life.
The Health Authority’s refusal did Canute Wilson himself a very thorough study of the epidemic, which he has described in two books,“Mågecanceren”. As early as the first 9 cases of disease had appeared, there was no longer any doubt about the cause and the first part of his study was published in the journal The Lancet.
But over the years unfolded clinical picture is completely out and revealed a consistent pattern: Lung Cancer hit primarily the residents of Strandby, who had stayed in town, while the factory was driving during working hours. It was often housewives and shopkeepers in the small town. Fishermen, however, which accounted for 90% of men in town, was at sea during the day while the plant was running, and they were completely free of the disease.
“And among the fishermen, there were many heavy smokers. The smoke actually all together,“says Knud Wilson.“While none of the housewives, who was suffering from lung cancer have never smoked a cigarette.”
This fact made ​​it difficult for Canute Wilson to penetrate with his knowledge to the prevailing medical opinion in the capital – the one which was founded in 1950 by Richard Doll: That it is smoking, which causes up to 90% of all lung cancer.
Strandby affair showed that this can not be true – the industrialization and the accompanying air pollution may play a much larger role. Especially in cities, says Knud Wilson.
Although the factory closed in 1975, there are still new cases of lung cancer in Strandby, because dust particles get, according to Wilson lying in the lungs for many decades.“The last death occurred in 2010 – ie 35 years after the factory’s closure. We have just buried a homemaker lady mid 60s, who was born in Strandby, and who lived here in all the years of the factory,“he says.
“There is no doubt that it is asfaltbabrikken, which cause lung cancer in this town. It is also recognized by the researchers who have gone through my study, for it is a clear clinical picture: The first cases of lung cancer came in 1968 – it was 15 years after plant start – and we’ve probably not seen the last event yet. One must remember that before 1968 there was no cancer in Strandby.“
Knud Wilson died last month. I had never heard of either him or Strandby. I wonder why?
“But Cancer Society hiding the truth about cancer. They run propaganda against the people’s lifestyle by delude them into thinking that cancer is their own fault. And so they earn even big money on it and retain most of the money itself. I’ve been promoting this criticism several times over the years and every time I get many comments from private physicians who agree with me, but who can not – or dare not – tell the meaning of the mountain opposite.“
The first Doll and Hill study – the London Hospitals study – apparently included questions about asphalt, because at the time it was suspected to be a cause of cancer. But after collecting the data, they never published it. They only published the part about smoking. So nobody has any idea whether they found any link between asphalt and lung cancer. They don’t even seem to have bothered to look. Or perhaps they decided to bury it.
It’s like a bunch of detectives producing all the evidence showing that their prime suspect was the guilty man, but none of the evidence exculpating the other suspects. It stinks
The dramatic growth of lung cancer in the 1920s and 1930s was not at first attributed to smoking: the influenza pandemic of 1919 was sometimes blamed, as were automobile exhaust, dust from newly tarred roads, diverse occupational exposures (including tar and diverse polycyclic hydrocarbons), increasing exposure to X rays, exposure to chemical warfare agents during the First World War,..”
“Automobility was growing even faster than lung cancer rates, which led some to suggest that engine exhausts might be the decisive factor.
Roads were being paved at an accelerating pace: Günther Lehmann of Dortmund pointed out in 1934 that German road-tar production had increased from 3,000 tons in 1924 to 120,000 tons only five years later, a fortyfold increase.”
http://toxicology.usu.edu/endnote/Proctor-Naz
“If physicians came to agee that smoking was such a universal and important cause of lung cancer, even in their work-patients, then liability and compensation suits by workers in the industries that did cause lung cancer in workers, such as coke, chromate, or asbestos production stood in dire jeopardy.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1
Coke Oven Emissions
“Known to be a human carcinogen
First Listed in the Second Annual Report on Carcinogens (1981)Carcinogenicity
Coke oven emissions are known to be human carcinogens based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans that indicates a causal relationship between exposure and cancer in humans.
Prior to 1950, there were numerous case reports that linked employment in coke production with cancers of the skin, bladder, and respiratory tract. Since then, several cohort studies conducted in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Sweden have reported an increased risk of lung cancer in humans exposed to coke oven emissions.
Smoking was accounted for in some of these studies and was not found to be a significant confounding factor.”
A large cohort study of 59,000 steelworkers reported that lung cancer risk increased with increasing duration of exposure to coke-oven fumes or intensity of exposure. Several studies
of coke plant workers have reported an increased risk for kidney cancer.
An excess of cancer at other sites (prostate, large intestine, and pancreas) was reported in single studies (IARC 1984, 1987).
Coke oven emission samples applied weekly to the skin of mice for up to 52 weeks caused malignant skin tumors. These samples also showed tumor-initiating activity in mice. Several inhalation studies, using coal tar aerosols generated by samples collected from coke ovens, caused both benign and malignant lung tumors in rats and mice, and skin tumors in female mice.
Chemical analyses of coke oven emissions revealed the presence of numerous known carcinogens and potentially carcinogenic chemicals, including several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), nitrosamines, coal tar,arsenic compounds, and benzene. In addition to these carcinogens, coke oven emissions contain several agents known to enhance the effect of chemical carcinogens, especially on the respiratory tract.
Exposure
The primary routes of potential human exposure to coke oven emissions are inhalation and dermal contact. Occupational exposure may occur during the production of coke from coal or while using coke to extract metals from their ores, to synthesize calcium carbide, or to manufacture graphite and electrodes.
Workers at coking plants and coal tar production plants, as well as the residents surrounding these plants, have a high risk of possible exposure to coke oven emissions.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20110608220535/htt
Angel H Roffo: the forgotten father of experimental tobacco carcinogenesis
Robert N Proctor
“Reasoning by analogy from the production of cancer using coal tars, he argued that the carcinogens in tobacco smoke must be the complex, tarry, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, rather than the (chemically simpler) inorganic constituents or the alkaloid nicotine.”
http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php
The Urban Distribution of Lung Cancer Mortality in England and Wales 1980-1983
“Lung cancer area mortality rates for the period 1980-1983 in England and Wales followed the pattern observed for previous years, with high rates concentrated in urban districts and low rates in remote rural districts”
http://usj.sagepub.com/content/25/6/497.short

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 4:26 pm

[snip – getting way off topic here – mod]

harleyrider1978
November 7, 2013 4:30 pm

Think Bloombergs new 21 age restriction for buying smokes and how this could easily have been in NYC!

Genghis
November 7, 2013 4:36 pm

Dumb Scientist, Ed B,
You two are talking past each other, and both of you are wrong, or at least only partially correct. Pressure doesn’t directly determine temperature and the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight.
Comparing Venus’s surface temperatures to the Earth’s surface temperature is a lot like comparing Jupiter’s surface temperature to Venus’s surface temperature, meaningless.

November 7, 2013 4:47 pm

harleyrider …
Cancer by and large is, as you say, an old age disease. However, old age is not the only factor. From your comments, I’m not quite sure whether or not you looked at the recommended paper. Note that Figure 3 gives the cumulative risk; you would have to take the first derivative to find the curve for the age of onset. Old age would still come out ahead, but middle age would be quite conspicuous as well. That matches my (limited) clinical experience.
Cancer arises from DNA mutations, and mutagenesis is an inherently stochastic process. Take for example the Ames test, a simple bacterial test to evaluate the mutagenic potential of chemicals – a certain dosage of the compound in question is applied to a large number of a bacteria, and mutations are induced in a small fraction of these. Nevertheless, we can evaluate the mutagenic potential of compounds based on those fractions. The induction of cancer typically requires not just one, but multiple mutations, and therefore tends to take considerable time.
The mutagenic compounds in tobacco smoke – or really any kind of smoke, for that matter, gram for gram marijuana isn’t much different – are well known, as are the biochemical mechanisms that lead to their activation. For a brief explanation, see for example
http://watcut.uwaterloo.ca/webnotes/Pharmacology/heveanotes023.html#sec128
You really have no leg to stand on in this argument.

Keitho
Editor
Reply to  Michael Palmer
November 8, 2013 4:58 am

I totally agree. Since the reduction of smoking started in earnest the incidence of lung cancer has been dropping at an increasing rate. That really is good enough for me and I hate the nanny state.
With regard to smoke, if you go down the vapouriser road you can escape that issue completely. Whether you use tobacco or other combustibles you can access your active ingredients without all of the other bad stuff. Nicotine on its own, in sensible quantities, seems to have no adverse effects. That is what is driving the rapid growth in e-cigarettes. Also the marijuana cognoscenti are shifting away from joints and bongs and using vapourisers.
Not starting at all is the best route but if you need your hit then vaping is a much less damaging way to get it. Also it doesn’t pollute your and others environment with smell, ash and residue.
I have never smoked in my life. My did, a lot, and he died of lung cancer when I was twelve so I had a powerful, if anecdotal, incentive not to bother.

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 5:11 pm

Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 4:36 pm
“… Pressure doesn’t directly determine temperature and the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight.”
Indeed, pressure doesn’t directly determine the long-term equilibrium surface temperature; the radiative balance does. I don’t see the relevance of your second point.
“Comparing Venus’s surface temperatures to the Earth’s surface temperature is a lot like comparing Jupiter’s surface temperature to Venus’s surface temperature, meaningless.”
That’s why I compared Venus to Mercury’ which is closer to the Sun and darker than Venus. Again, Venus is hotter than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect.

Genghis
November 7, 2013 5:38 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 4:36 pm
“… Pressure doesn’t directly determine temperature and the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight.”
Indeed, pressure doesn’t directly determine the long-term equilibrium surface temperature; the radiative balance does. I don’t see the relevance of your second point.
——————-
I didn’t think you did. The fact that sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus is evidence that Venus’s surface temperature is not from the GHG effect. Do you fundamentally misunderstand the greenhouse effect?
——————-
“Comparing Venus’s surface temperatures to the Earth’s surface temperature is a lot like comparing Jupiter’s surface temperature to Venus’s surface temperature, meaningless.”
That’s why I compared Venus to Mercury’ which is closer to the Sun and darker than Venus. Again, Venus is hotter than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect.
—————————
Mercury has the least atmosphere of any of the planets. Why aren’t you comparing Venus to Jupiter? Jupiter’s surface temperature is due to the greenhouse effect too, just as much as Venus’s is anyway.
Like I said. You are wrong.

Konrad
November 7, 2013 5:43 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:11 pm
—————————————–
Well, if you’ve be trying to apply SB equations to moving planetary atmospheres with a pressure gradient and a diurnal heating cycle, then you really would be a dumb scientist. (or science “communicator” as the case may be). However I would be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt if you could provide clear and direct Yes or No answers to the following six simple questions –
1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?
2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
4. Is convective circulation including the transport of water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.
In 1896 Arrhenius got most of these wrong. However this is 2013 so I’m sure you can do better 😉

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 5:57 pm

Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:38 pm
“The fact that sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus is evidence that Venus’s surface temperature is not from the GHG effect. Do you fundamentally misunderstand the greenhouse effect?”
First you said “the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight” which is technically true because every day on Venus is overcast. It’s all indirect sunlight. But now you’re saying “sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus” which is just wrong. Remember that Venera 9 landed on the surface of Venus and found “surface light levels comparable to those at Earth mid-latitudes on a cloudy summer day.” Check out the panorama:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_9
“Mercury has the least atmosphere of any of the planets. Why aren’t you comparing Venus to Jupiter? Jupiter’s surface temperature is due to the greenhouse effect too, just as much as Venus’s is anyway.”
A planet with no atmosphere is a simple case where the effective radiating level is at the surface, so the equilibrium surface temperature can be determined using the planet’s albedo and distance from the Sun. The greenhouse effect modifies this simple case, which is why Venus is hotter than Mercury.
Jupiter doesn’t have a clearly defined surface, and generates substantial internal heat in ways that tiny rocks like Venus and Mercury simply can’t.

Trick
November 7, 2013 6:25 pm

Ed_B 2:35pm: “As the satellite probe decended into the Venus atmosphere, what was the temperatre when the pressure was equal to earths ground pressure?”
For planetary atm., P=density*R*T. If P is equal and density at that altitude is adjusted from earth’s for Venus orbit insolation & albedo, the temperature would then come out to be the same as earth. Pretty easy to suspect this, but had to be proved. The in situ probes matched the satellite radio occultation experiments measuring Venus density v. altitude very closely, differing a little due local Venus weather. Venus GHE is already in its satellite measured density numbers.
******
Konrad 5:43pm: Have you ever gotten around to answering your own questions? Do the work yourself.

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 6:27 pm

Konrad says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:43 pm
“Well, if you’ve be trying to apply SB equations to moving planetary atmospheres with a pressure gradient and a diurnal heating cycle, then you really would be a dumb scientist. (or science “communicator” as the case may be). However I would be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt if you could provide clear and direct Yes or No answers to the following six simple questions”
Those questions are familiar:
http://archive.is/tvliV
It’s interesting that there are so many people at WUWT trying to disprove the fact that adding CO2 to the atmosphere produces a long-term net warming of the surface. But after reading through your previous claims I doubt anything I say will matter, so I’ll have to regretfully pass on your offer.
For others, please note that for the past 420 million years, CO2 has acted as a greenhouse gas which warmed the long-term climate by 1.5C to 6.2C per doubling of CO2:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7135/full/nature05699.html

Admin
November 7, 2013 6:28 pm

@harleyrider1978
For the record, I find find your arguments pointless. Further, they have nothing to do with the issue at hand in this thread. Moderators should have shut you down long ago.
Also for the record, both of my parents were pack a day smokers, both died of smoking related related illnesses, and I suffered not only the loss of my parents at an early age, but the effects of that secondhand smoke made me prone to numerous ear infections as a child, which turned into a severe hearing loss due to treatment by tetracycline for those infections.
The hearing loss affected me greatly. If affected my ability to attend school, it affected my social status, it affected my self esteem, and it affected my choice of jobs. Fortunately, in TV weather, I didn’t have to hear much, only speak.
So it is with great restraint that I say to you that your garbage smoking arguments aren’t welcome here. (what I really want to say to you would violate my own blog policy)
Go ahead, smoke yourself to death, that’s your right. But do it elsewhere where I don’t have to be reminded of the pain your preferred disgusting filthy habit has caused me.
See you in the troll bin.

Konrad
November 7, 2013 6:36 pm

Trick says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:25 pm
“Have you ever gotten around to answering your own questions? Do the work yourself.”
———————————————————————
But of course I know the answers as I have done the empirical experiments myself. Well before I asked you.
Remember when you tried to claim that removing energy from a fluid column played no part in convective circulation? The Internet does 😉

orion
November 7, 2013 6:48 pm

“…..Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases, let alone explain the mechanics of the greenhouse theory. ….”
Sounds like the commentators on WUWT.

Konrad
November 7, 2013 6:54 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:27 pm
————————————–
So the summary of your response is that you have found an excuse to avoid answering six simple science questions and instead reasserted your previous claims about CO2 (which are wholly unsupported by empirical evidence) and claim they are “fact”.
This is what could be called the “politicians” response, certainly not a scientific response. It’s something a propagandist like David Appell may stoop to, but no credible scientist would.
Now, about that “benefit of the doubt” thing… 😉

Trick
November 7, 2013 7:13 pm

Konrad 6:36pm: “But of course I know the answers…”
Great. Let’s see those 6 answers. Using proper theory, proper experiments. Cites, etc.

Genghis
November 7, 2013 7:48 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:57 pm
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:38 pm
“The fact that sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus is evidence that Venus’s surface temperature is not from the GHG effect. Do you fundamentally misunderstand the greenhouse effect?”
First you said “the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight” which is technically true because every day on Venus is overcast. It’s all indirect sunlight. But now you’re saying “sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus” which is just wrong. Remember that Venera 9 landed on the surface of Venus and found “surface light levels comparable to those at Earth mid-latitudes on a cloudy summer day.” Check out the panorama:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_9
——————–
Let me be clearer then. Direct solar radiation does not reach the surface of Venus and heat it, it heats the surface indirectly and is not analogous to Earth.
Why don’t you use Hansen’s equation and compute Venus’s surface temperature? ∆Ts = λ∆F that should be trivial for you : )
——————–
“Mercury has the least atmosphere of any of the planets. Why aren’t you comparing Venus to Jupiter? Jupiter’s surface temperature is due to the greenhouse effect too, just as much as Venus’s is anyway.”
A planet with no atmosphere is a simple case where the effective radiating level is at the surface, so the equilibrium surface temperature can be determined using the planet’s albedo and distance from the Sun. The greenhouse effect modifies this simple case, which is why Venus is hotter than Mercury.
Jupiter doesn’t have a clearly defined surface, and generates substantial internal heat in ways that tiny rocks like Venus and Mercury simply can’t.
—————–
That is interesting. Mercuries ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ surface temperature is apx. 700K (S-B says it should be 633K but the rock doesn’t rotate). Venus’s ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ surface temperature is 460K. (S-B should be 327k). The earths ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ ocean surface temperature is 295K (S-B number is 278k).
Hmm, Mercury’s ‘equilibrium’ surface temperature without an atmosphere is higher than its SB number? How is that possible without greenhouse gases?

Ed_B
November 7, 2013 7:51 pm

Dumb Scientist: here is some physics for you:
by Harry Dale Huffman
Surprisingly to most, there is no greenhouse effect at all, and you can prove it for yourself. You can find the temperature and pressure profiles for the Venusian atmosphere at
http://www.datasync.com/~rsf1/vel/1918vpt.htm
With those graphs, you can confirm that, at the altitude where the pressure = 1000 millibars, which is the sea level pressure of Earth, the temperature of the Venusian atmosphere is 66ºC = 339K.
This is much warmer than the temperature at the surface of the Earth, at pressure = 1000 millibars, which is about 15ºC = 288K. HOWEVER
Venus is closer to the Sun, and gets proportionally more power from it. Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun, on average, while Venus is only 67.25 million (on average) from the Sun. Since the intensity of the Sun’s radiation decreases with distance from it as 1 over r-squared, Venus receives (93/67.25) squared, or 1.91 times the power per unit area that Earth receives, on average.
Since the radiating temperature of an isolated body in space varies as the fourth-root of the power incident upon it, by the Stefan-Boltzmann law, the radiating temperature of Venus should be the fourth-root of 1.91 = 1.18 times that of the Earth. Furthermore, since the atmospheric pressure varies as the temperature, the temperature at any given pressure level in the Venusian atmosphere should be 1.18 times the temperature at that same pressure level in the Earth atmosphere, INDEPENDENT OF ANY INFRARED ABSORPTION in the atmosphere. In particular, the averaged temperature at 1000 millibars on Earth is about 15ºC = 288K, so the corresponding temperature on Venus, WITHOUT ANY GREENHOUSE EFFECT, should be 1.18 times that, or 339K. But this is just 66ºC, the temperature we actually find there from the temperature and pressure profiles for Venus.
So there is no greenhouse effect. You have just proved that climate science is utterly wrong to think otherwise. This is the scandal that so many “experts” in climate science, and all the scientific authorities, will not face. Listen to the physicists that tell you there is no greenhouse effect; they know without having to go to the Venus data — and I am one of them. The continuing incompetence on this vital point among so many scientists, for more than a century, is amazing, and tragic..

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 8:09 pm

Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 7:48 pm
“That is interesting. Mercuries ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ surface temperature is apx. 700K (S-B says it should be 633K but the rock doesn’t rotate). Venus’s ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ surface temperature is 460K. (S-B should be 327k). The earths ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ ocean surface temperature is 295K (S-B number is 278k).”
Citations? Especially for your claim that Mercury doesn’t rotate. I thought it was in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29#Orbit_and_rotation

Konrad
November 7, 2013 8:17 pm

Trick says:
November 7, 2013 at 7:13 pm
——————————————-
Trick,
while we give “dumb scientist “ a chance at those six simple questions, perhaps you could help out in an area you appear to be knowledgeable in. Was Arrhenius’ lab ISO9001 accredited? 😉

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 8:20 pm

Ed_B says:
November 7, 2013 at 7:51 pm
“… the radiating temperature of Venus should be the fourth-root of 1.91 = 1.18 times that of the Earth. …”
What about albedo?
But seriously, could you please answer this yes/no/dunno question: are you claiming that Venus would have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas?
Your answer sounded like a very long “yes”.

Genghis
November 7, 2013 8:27 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 8:09 pm
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 7:48 pm
“That is interesting. Mercuries ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ surface temperature is apx. 700K (S-B says it should be 633K but the rock doesn’t rotate). Venus’s ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ surface temperature is 460K. (S-B should be 327k). The earths ‘EQUILIBRIUM’ ocean surface temperature is 295K (S-B number is 278k).”
Citations? Especially for your claim that Mercury doesn’t rotate. I thought it was in a 3:2 spin-orbit resonance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_%28planet%29#Orbit_and_rotation
_______
Yes Mercury rotates every 175 days, that is essentially non rotating for our ‘equilibrium’ purposes. As far as cites can’t you do simple S-B calculations?
Which reminds me, What is your answer to Hansen’s equation for Venus (or Earth for that matter)? ∆Ts = λ∆F That should be trivially easy to look up or solve shouldn’t it? It is the underpinning of the GHG theory after all.
If you can’t solve the equation, why not?

Trick
November 7, 2013 9:02 pm

Konrad 8:17pm: “Was Arrhenius’ lab ISO9001 accredited?”
ISO9000 series starts around 1987. Svante August Arrhenius: 19 February 1859 – 2 October 1927. Konrad lab now has the opportunity to get ISO certified and do even better than some of the earlier experimental work.
Apparently Konrad doesn’t have the proper answers to his own 6 questions, has to wait for “Dumb Scientist” to do all the proper work?
While we give Konrad a chance at understanding the simple atm. science known from prior experiment and 1st principle theory as early as Callendar 1938, perhaps Konrad could just go ahead and propose answers to his 6 questions citing published lab tests consistent with that publication.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.49706427503/pdf

Dumb Scientist
November 7, 2013 9:05 pm

Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 8:27 pm
“Yes Mercury rotates every 175 days, that is essentially non rotating for our ‘equilibrium’ purposes. As far as cites can’t you do simple S-B calculations?”
———
Apparently the American Chemical Society can’t:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/energybalance/planetarytemperatures.html
———
“Which reminds me, What is your answer to Hansen’s equation for Venus (or Earth for that matter)? ∆Ts = λ∆F That should be trivially easy to look up or solve shouldn’t it? It is the underpinning of the GHG theory after all. If you can’t solve the equation, why not?”
———
You didn’t specified the change in forcing, ∆F. That equation describes the equilibrium change in surface temperature ∆Ts when the radiative forcing changes by ∆F.
It’s also increasingly hard to believe that any of these comments are motivated by curiosity. I’m sorry to have bothered you gentlemen. Cheers.

Konrad
November 7, 2013 9:45 pm

Trick says:
November 7, 2013 at 9:02 pm
—————————————-
Trick,
you’re not very good at this are you? Why on earth would you post a link to to that copy of Callendar 1938?
Callender is yet another that tried to solve for radiation only without solving for fluid dynamics and the role radiative gases play in driving atmospheric circulation.
For other readers seeking further entertainment from Tricks efforts, simply follow the link Trick posted and scroll through the pdf to Sir George Simpsons discussion comments. Then look again at the six questions I asked of Dumb Scientist above.
Another epic fail Trick 😉

Genghis
November 8, 2013 4:10 am

Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 9:05 pm
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 8:27 pm
“Yes Mercury rotates every 175 days, that is essentially non rotating for our ‘equilibrium’ purposes. As far as cites can’t you do simple S-B calculations?”
———
Apparently the American Chemical Society can’t:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/energybalance/planetarytemperatures.html
———-
———-
Then you also agree that for ‘Equilibrium’ purposes Mercury’s rotation is too slow to matter?
———-
———-
———
“Which reminds me, What is your answer to Hansen’s equation for Venus (or Earth for that matter)? ∆Ts = λ∆F That should be trivially easy to look up or solve shouldn’t it? It is the underpinning of the GHG theory after all. If you can’t solve the equation, why not?”
———
You didn’t specified the change in forcing, ∆F. That equation describes the equilibrium change in surface temperature ∆Ts when the radiative forcing changes by ∆F.
————
————
That is correct, I didn’t specify anything. It is the warmist equation after all.
The most important part of the equation is the λ (sensitivity) and that is completely undefined.
You have put your finger on the most important part of the equation though, it is a nonsense equation.
————
————
It’s also increasingly hard to believe that any of these comments are motivated by curiosity. I’m sorry to have bothered you gentlemen. Cheers.
———
———
No bother at all Dumb Scientist. The odd part was why you thought you had any answers? Maybe you should first try to solve the GHG equation before becoming the fount of knowledge.

Ed_B
November 8, 2013 4:20 am
Trick
November 8, 2013 5:11 am

Konrad 9:45pm: “Callender is yet another that tried to solve for radiation only without solving for fluid dynamics and the role radiative gases play in driving atmospheric circulation.”
There is no try, only do or do not. Callendar’s 1st principle simple science citing prior experiment succeeded & predicted the range of future earth Tmean anomaly 75 years into the future remarkably well. Unlike Konrad doing experiments drawing conclusions about molecule avg. kinetic energy in a box by measuring temperature at 1 point and certain supercomputer climate models.
Read the paper? Callendar discusses effects of atm. circulation & oceans. The reason Konrad is vitriolic: Callendar 1938 paper and subsequent modern text books thoroughly disprove Konrad assertion that “The net effect of radiative gases is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.”
Note Callendar 1938 not a CAGW enthusiast: “…likely to prove beneficial to mankind…For instance, the above mentioned small increases of mean temperature would be important at the northern margin of cultivation…return of deadly glaciers…postponed.”
I recommend lighten up Konrad, read up on the proper science. Get your experiments tuned into the proper scientific method, my suggestion of ISO standardization/certification is only one way.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 5:12 am

Ed_B says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:20 am
More Venus discussion:
Ed, if you take a tank and pressurize it with air it will heat up, exactly in accordance with the gas pressure laws. The problem is what happens later after the hot tank has cooled. The pressure has stayed the same, but the temperature has dropped.
So the question is, what keeps the pressurized air in our atmosphere warm, if It isn’t pressure?
The answer is that GHG’s thermalize the IR radiation. GHG’s are responsible for creating the lapse rate in the atmosphere.

Gail Combs
November 8, 2013 5:14 am

Steven R. Vada says: @ November 7, 2013 at 7:16 am
Also a good simple understanding of the fundamentals, of physics, is of great aid in mocking this voodoo nonsense. The atmosphere’s a mass the sun doesn’t heat, so it’s cold. It’s attached to a solid planet the sun does heat so it’s warm.
Go look at the IPCC/Kiel/Trenberth cartoon exemplifying it all: a magical gas mirror in the sky….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
John Kehr (Chemical Engineer) has an excellent thread dismantling that cartoon: http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2010/11/the-earths-energy-balance-simple-overview/
He also has a Radiative Heat Transfer series:
Radiative Heat Transfer is “The linchpin of the global warming debate…”
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/tag/radiative-heat-transfer/

Konrad
November 8, 2013 5:39 am

Trick says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:11 am
————————————–
Fool. It wont work now. You linked to the wrong copy of Callenders paper. The copy where the review discussion is attached. You failed so unbelievably badly it beggars the imagination! The scientists offering criticisms in discussion are concerned about the very physics my experiments cover. And in 1938 no less. Why on earth did you link to that?
But it’s not your first epic fail is it Trick? Remember January at Talkshop? Totally owned.
But then I did warn you that AGW physics only works for spherical chickens in a vacuum. Chickens may rapidly become spherical when introduced to the hard vacuum of space. They just don’t stay that way for long…
Trick, I think your chicken asplode again. Like always, you lose. 😉

Trick
November 8, 2013 6:05 am

Konrad 5:11am: “The scientists offering criticisms in discussion are concerned about the very physics my experiments cover.”
Very good reading my friend. This Callendar 1938 paper is just like a blog post at the end. It even lists the peer reviews! Callendar way ahead of his time. Yes indeed, of course I get Konrad view must be every physicist bearing proper science and experiment that counters his assertion I clipped gets a fail. Konrad avoids just improvement or accepts ISO cert.s would help his kitchen lab conclusions.
Got those 6 answers using scientific method properly cited for us Konrad?

Genghis
November 8, 2013 6:42 am

If you don’t mind Konrad and if Anthony indulges us I would like to take a crack at your questions : )
Konrad says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:43 pm
Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:11 pm
—————————————–
Well, if you’ve be trying to apply SB equations to moving planetary atmospheres with a pressure gradient and a diurnal heating cycle, then you really would be a dumb scientist. (or science “communicator” as the case may be). However I would be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt if you could provide clear and direct Yes or No answers to the following six simple questions –
1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?
————-
Absolutely, H20 is the number one GHG.
————–
2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
————
Absolutely, without H20 there would be no convective circulation.
————
3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
————-
Absolutely, No H2O no convective circulation, the other radiative gases may initiate it earlier.
————–
4. Is convective circulation including the transport of water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
—————
absolutely
—————
5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
————-
Absolutely, and I should note that all gasses radiate.
————-
6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.
————-
Absolutely
————-
In 1896 Arrhenius got most of these wrong. However this is 2013 so I’m sure you can do better 😉
————
I don’t know how anyone could get those wrong.

Ed_B
November 8, 2013 7:43 am

Genghis says:
” The pressure has stayed the same, but the temperature has dropped”
????
Please cite an actual experiment to back that up.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 8:00 am

Ed_B says:
November 8, 2013 at 7:43 am
Genghis says:
” The pressure has stayed the same, but the temperature has dropped”
????
Please cite an actual experiment to back that up.
———
Ed, think about what I said. Take an IR thermometer (or any thermometer) and point it at some aerosol cans in your cupboard. They are all at room temperature, right? They are also all at higher than room pressure right?
There is your actual experimental data to back up what I said.
The air inside the cans was warmed when it was pressurized but the heat radiated away. Pressure, by itself, has no relationship to temperature.

Ed_B
November 8, 2013 8:24 am

Genghis says:
“Ed, think about what I said.”
I did, then fell off my chair laughing. Clearly you have never heated up an enclosed container to get it to burst from the increased internal pressure. Even as a child I knew intuitively that would work.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 8:39 am

Ed_B says:
November 8, 2013 at 8:24 am
Genghis says:
“Ed, think about what I said.”
I did, then fell off my chair laughing. Clearly you have never heated up an enclosed container to get it to burst from the increased internal pressure. Even as a child I knew intuitively that would work.
—————
Yes indeed, cans of beans, Scouts and fires are dangerous things : ) Did you notice in your example and admission that I am right, you have to heat up the container?
You are confusing the work done by pressurizing the gas thereby temporarily raising the temperature. The increase in temperature was the result of work done on the system. Containers of gas at different pressures can all have the same temperature.
An atmosphere in equilibrium is isothermal.

Gail Combs
November 8, 2013 8:59 am

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 8:00 am
… Ed, think about what I said. Take an IR thermometer (or any thermometer) and point it at some aerosol cans in your cupboard. They are all at room temperature, right? They are also all at higher than room pressure right?
There is your actual experimental data to back up what I said.
The air inside the cans was warmed when it was pressurized but the heat radiated away. Pressure, by itself, has no relationship to temperature.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sorry, you have it backwards. If you place hot liquid into a pan leaving an air space (hot soup in a saucepan for example) and seal it, once it cools you have a ‘Vacuum’ from the lowering of the air pressure inside. I have a very nice example of it sitting in my frig. that I am about to eat if I can unseal the darn lid. :>)
PV=nRT

Genghis
November 8, 2013 9:43 am

Gail Combs says:
November 8, 2013 at 8:59 am
Sorry, you have it backwards. If you place hot liquid into a pan leaving an air space (hot soup in a saucepan for example) and seal it, once it cools you have a ‘Vacuum’ from the lowering of the air pressure inside. I have a very nice example of it sitting in my frig. that I am about to eat if I can unseal the darn lid. :>)
PV=nRT
—————-
I see what you did there : ) Are you claiming that your ‘Vacuum’ is at a lower temperature than the soup? Think about it. The first question you should ask is if it is reasonable.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 10:26 am

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:10 am
Apparently the American Chemical Society can’t:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/energybalance/planetarytemperatures.html
———-
“Then you also agree that for ‘Equilibrium’ purposes Mercury’s rotation is too slow to matter?”
—-
I posted that link because it contradicts the uncited temperatures you gave on November 7, 2013 at 7:48 pm. In reality, there is no significant difference between the predicted black-body temperature of Mercury and its observed surface temperature.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 10:31 am

Konrad says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:54 pm
“So the summary of your response is that you have found an excuse to avoid answering six simple science questions and instead reasserted your previous claims about CO2 (which are wholly unsupported by empirical evidence) and claim they are “fact”.”
—-
Only at WUWT could 420 million years of climate records not count as empirical evidence. If you didn’t like that paper for some unspecified reason, how about this review paper of different studies over the last 65 million years? It yields similar results, of course, because CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7426/full/nature11574.html
—-
Konrad says:
November 5, 2013 at 2:38 am
“… the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm”
—-
What a fascinating claim! As far as I can tell, the Sky Dragon Slayers argue that greenhouse gases are unrelated to surface temperature. Konrad seems to have outdone the Slayers; he argues that they actually cool the surface. Could he possibly be serious? Let’s find out:
http://archive.is/c1lj5
—-
Konrad says:
November 5, 2013 at 1:45 pm
“CO2 is not an insulator. It acts to cool our atmosphere by radiation.”
Konrad says:
November 5, 2013 at 3:45 pm
“I am saying that CO2 does not insulate.”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 3:19 am
“… So what would happen if our atmosphere contained no radiative gases? … Atmospheric temperatures would then rise higher…”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 3:37 am
“…the net effect of radiative gases in our moving atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 2:55 pm
“Coldest – Thin atmosphere with radiative gases.
Cold – Thin atmosphere without radiative gases.
Warm – Thick atmosphere with radiative gases.
Hottest – Thick atmosphere without radiative gases.”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 3:36 pm
“the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling.”
—-
Do you seriously believe that adding greenhouse gases cools a planet’s surface? If so, the average surface temperature of the Earth should be lower than that of the Moon because the Earth has lots of greenhouse gases and the Moon has none. Is that the case?

Genghis
November 8, 2013 11:02 am

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 10:26 am
I posted that link because it contradicts the uncited temperatures you gave on November 7, 2013 at 7:48 pm. In reality, there is no significant difference between the predicted black-body temperature of Mercury and its observed surface temperature.
———-
What does the black-body temperature of Mercury have to do with its ‘equilibrium’ temperature? Your word not mine. Do you even know what equilibrium temperature means?
I am more interested in the question you are busily avoiding. What is the Surface Temperature predicted by the AGW equation ∆Ts = λ ∆F for Venus and Earth?
Surely you can answer such a simple question or at least find the answer?
If you can’t answer the question, why should anyone take your bloviations as anything more than that?

Editor
November 8, 2013 11:50 am

Mr. Ball ==> Revkin has not left the New York Times, he writes a very influential environmental blog in the Opinion Section ==> http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
To list him with Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan and Seth Borenstein does him a disservice.
You obviously don’t read his work or you’d already know these two things.
Sharpen your game sir, especially if you are going to attack and criticize.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 11:54 am

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:02 am
“What does the black-body temperature of Mercury have to do with its ‘equilibrium’ temperature?”
—-
As I told you, “a planet with no atmosphere is a simple case where the effective radiating level is at the surface, so the equilibrium surface temperature can be determined using the planet’s albedo and distance from the Sun.”
This is done by treating the planet as a black-body with an estimated albedo and setting the radiation imbalance to zero. With no greenhouse effect, the outgoing long-wave IR is easy to calculate using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, as the link I gave you explained.
—-
“Your word not mine. Do you even know what equilibrium temperature means?”
—-
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
In equilibrium there’s no change, so the radiation imbalance is zero. Energy in = energy out. That’s what this American Chemical Society link calculated, and they don’t show the discrepancy in Mercury’s temperature that you’re claiming exists:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/energybalance/planetarytemperatures.html
Why should I believe uncited WUWT claims from “Genghis” over science from the American Chemical Society?
—-
“I am more interested in the question you are busily avoiding. I am more interested in the question you are busily avoiding. What is the Surface Temperature predicted by the AGW equation ∆Ts = λ ∆F for Venus and Earth? Surely you can answer such a simple question or at least find the answer? If you can’t answer the question, why should anyone take your bloviations as anything more than that?”
—-
If the Sun got brighter by 1 W/m^2 or CO2 increased enough to reduce outgoing long wave IR by 1W/m^2, either of those ∆F values would result in a long-term equilibrium surface temperature change ∆Ts. But without specifying a scenario, it doesn’t make sense to solve the equation.
When I explained that you need to specify a change in forcing (which you still haven’t), you concluded it was a nonsense equation. After I provided millions of years worth of climate records constraining Earth’s climate sensitivity, you claimed that it was “completely undefined”.
I wonder why my colleagues tell me not to waste my time at WUWT…

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 12:12 pm

Hey look Dumb, all you’ve gotta do is explain how immersing a warm rock into a frigid fluid gas bath, warms the rock.
It’s not complicated. You keep failing.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 12:27 pm

I’m warm under blankets even though they’re cold. That’s because my body converts food to heat, and the blankets slow down heat loss through convection (which isn’t relevant because Earth can’t convect heat to space) and radiation (which is relevant). For instance, space blankets are silver to reduce radiative heat loss.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 1:38 pm

Dumb Scientist said,
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
——–
That isn’t equilibrium. What you are describing is more analogous to a steady state much like a steel rod that is heated at one end. The temperature of the rod will drop as the distance to the heat source increases. For the rod to be in equilibrium the temperature of the entire rod has to be the same, by definition. Also the S-B equation only applies to an equilibrium condition. Are you beginning to see the difficulties here?
Now lets look at Mercury. Luckily Mercury’s rotation is so slow and has so little atmosphere that it has time to equilibrate. Thus the computation for the equilibrium surface temperature facing the Sun is straightforward and easy. I believe even you can do the computation.
Now we go to Venus. Venus is tougher : ) The surface temperature of Venus is the same on the front and the back side so it is in something of a steady state and I have no idea what the effective radiating level is for Venus. So I just did a quick and dirty S-B calc vs the measured surface temperature, close enough for government work I suppose.
The Earth is even tougher, it isn’t in equilibrium or a steady state, so I just took the surface temp of the ocean which is in a steady state vs the quick and dirty S-B calc, again good enough for government work and much more accurate than the warmists work.
————
‘If the Sun got brighter by 1 W/m^2 or CO2 increased enough to reduce outgoing long wave IR by 1W/m^2, either of those ∆F values would result in a long-term equilibrium surface temperature change ∆Ts. But without specifying a scenario, it doesn’t make sense to solve the equation.’
—————
Ahh! I see that you fundamentally misunderstand the global warming theory (good for you). The forcing in the equation has nothing to do with increased watts from the Sun. Rather the increased watts are supposed to come from net back radiation. Do you see the problem now and why the equation is nonsensical?
How does it feel to finally see the light? Welcome to the good side : )

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 1:47 pm

Forgetting which direction the largest energy stream is coming from isn’t forgivable.
Your willingly idiotic assumption your body heat – the earth’s internal heat plus absorbed sun –
is the high energy side of the equation – is obviously :
pure
evil
stupidity
in an attempt at deceit.
In the REAL one the sun is on the other side of the blanket,
blasting heat energy against the outside which would get in to heat the target behind the blanket.
When the cold blanket reflects incoming energy off the thermal sensor laid on your shirt,
the reading says less heat reached you.
Everybody knows,
Everybody knows YOU know,
Everybody knows you’re lying so you can just tell lies to people.
You really should lay off the deceit sauce and grow up.

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 2:01 pm

Sure it’s cold outside but when you put the blanket between you and the hot sun, you contribute to cooling yourself, which is why, when someone’s out in the wild camping and the sun comes up, people repeatedly, do the same thing:
wrap the blanket around the parts not hit by the sun, while opening the front of the sleeping bag letting incoming sun, warm the face, front of the shirt, and arms.
Because if they keep the insulation between themselves, and the higher energy sun stream,
they don’t get warm as fast.
You’re a Magic Gas Billy and you’ve been asked simple questions.
Explain how immersing the warm rock into the frigid, fluid, gas bath which blocks 22% of the incoming energy, from reaching that surface through pure reflection,
made the sensor on the surface show surface energy rise after immersion into the frigid, fluid, gas bath.
What you probably need to do is go recruit the smartest Magic Gas Billy you can find who’ll even answer you after you show him what’s happening to you in this thread,
and have him
come answer these simple questions, for you.
We’ll get to cracking a book after you prove you can find someone who understands how grandma’s goose-down blankets work.

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 2:25 pm

Hey Billy Bob: if you put a thermometer in your sleeping bag with you, and illuminate the outside of the bag, with sunlight energy,
the inside of the sleeping bag will get
(A) warmer
(B) cooler
than if you did not illuminate that sleeping bag with the sun.
In magic gas billy world,
the answer is (B)
====
In the real world of course the answer is (A)
====
If you then, keep your sleeping bag around you everywhere but the front, and you expose one side of your self to the sun, without the sun passing through the insulation, the temperature on your thermal sensor will show
(A) more
or
(B)less
energy reaching your surface?
In Magic Gas Billy world,
the answer, is B.
To magic gas people, shining a light on an object brings about a temperature for it.
Wrapping it in insulation till you block 22% of the incoming energy makes surface sensors
show more energy
now reaching it.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 2:28 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:38 pm
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
——–
“That isn’t equilibrium.”
——-
Maybe one of us is using the word incorrectly. Please compare our definitions to this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_equilibrium
——
“I have no idea what the effective radiating level is for Venus. So I just did a quick and dirty S-B calc vs the measured surface temperature, close enough for government work I suppose.”
—-
In other words you have no references. I’ll stick with the American Chemical Society’s estimates.
By the way, here’s a graph which can help compare the effective radiating heights on Venus and Earth:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bagenal/3720/CLASS6/6EquilibriumTemp.html
That’s another page that discusses equilibrium; you might want to compare our definitions to it as well. Also notice that its estimates of equilibrium temperatures with/without the greenhouse effect are much closer to the American Chemical Society’s than to yours.
—-
“The forcing in the equation has nothing to do with increased watts from the Sun.”
—-
Wrong. It refers to any change in the radiative balance, regardless of the source. Note that each type of forcing here has an estimated “climate efficacy”:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-2-20.html
“Efficacy (E) is defined as the ratio of the climate sensitivity parameter for a given forcing agent (λi) to the climate sensitivity parameter for CO2 changes, that is, Ei = λi / λCO2 (Joshi et al., 2003; Hansen and Nazarenko, 2004).”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-8-5.html
So each type of forcing has its own lambda. Those graphs show that most lambdas are within a factor of 2 of CO2’s lambda. That’s why you have to specify a scenario, like doubling CO2 or making the Sun brighter or burning down the rainforests or melting the Arctic summer sea ice to darken the Earth, etc. The type of forcing would tell me which lambda to choose, and the size of the effect would tell me ∆F.
Do you see why I can’t answer your question without more information?

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 2:38 pm

Steven R. Vada, I’ve obviously failed to communicate once again. I’m sorry for bothering you. Have a nice day.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 2:43 pm

Steven R. Vada says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:47 pm
In the REAL one the sun is on the other side of the blanket,
blasting heat energy against the outside which would get in to heat the target behind the blanket.
—————
You are forgetting one tiny, itsy bitsy, little thing Steven, the Earths atmosphere is largely transparent to high energy short wave radiation. Have you ever picked up a black steel tool that has been lying in the sunshine on a bright sunny day? The tool is way hotter than the air around it. Think about how that happened okay?
Your theory is that the sun heated up the atmosphere (blanket) first and then the atmosphere heated the tool. How can a warm atmosphere make a tool hot? It can’t.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 2:47 pm

Thank you Genghis.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 2:52 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Thank you Genghis.
————-
Just trying to target the message to the audience : )

Genghis
November 8, 2013 3:01 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:38 pm
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
——–
“That isn’t equilibrium.”
——-
Maybe one of us is using the word incorrectly. Please compare our definitions to this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_equilibrium
——————–
Your definition
“Equilibrium means no change with time.”
And when is the Earths surface or atmosphere in radiative equilibrium? In the middle of the night? at dawn? under the noonday Sun?

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 3:15 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:01 pm
“And when is the Earths surface or atmosphere in radiative equilibrium? In the middle of the night? at dawn? under the noonday Sun?”
The average over a solar day.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 3:55 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:28 pm
So each type of forcing has its own lambda.
Do you see why I can’t answer your question without more information?
———–
It never occurred to me that there could be different watts/m^2, learn something new everyday.
Let’s keep it simple then. Keep everything constant, like the equation implies, and compute Venus and Earth’s surface temperature with current CO2 levels and without CO2.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 4:14 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:55 pm
“It never occurred to me that there could be different watts/m^2, learn something new everyday.”
—-
No, the lambdas (climate sensitivities) are different for each forcing, and they don’t have units of watts/m^2.
—-
“Let’s keep it simple then. Keep everything constant, like the equation implies, and compute Venus and Earth’s surface temperature with current CO2 levels and without CO2.”
—-
I just described scenarios where that equation would be useful, and they all apply to Earth as it exists today. I just showed you two independent estimates of Earth’s and Venus’s surface temperatures without greenhouse gases, and briefly described the more fundamental (and thus more general) physics necessary to provide those answers.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 4:22 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:15 pm
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:01 pm
“And when is the Earths surface or atmosphere in radiative equilibrium? In the middle of the night? at dawn? under the noonday Sun?”
The average over a solar day.
————–
How does computing an ‘average’ derive the radiative equilibrium? Hint, it doesn’t, why do you think the warmists play with anomalies, they avoid absolute temps like the plague.
I will go back to my metal rod analogy that is periodically heated on one end. What is the equilibrium temperature of the rod? How does the equilibrium temperature of the rod change if a portion of the rod is insulated?

Konrad
November 8, 2013 4:27 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:42 am
—————————————-
Congratulations! 5/6, best effort yet, and these questions have been posted on many blogs. However, I will admit that many on the pro AGW side do know some of the answers, but they will do anything to avoid admitting it 😉
Question 6 is the one you need to look at. Most materials can have their cooling rate slowed by incident IR, even if emitted from a nearby cooler material. A materials absorption of IR photons can normally be calculated by the emissivity of the material itself. However this calculation breaks down for water that is free to evaporatively cool, and you and other readers can confirm this by building this simple experiment –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
Use a starting temperature of around 40C for both water samples and record temperatures as the water cools over 30min. Now repeat the experiment but float a thin film of LDPE on the surface of each sample. LDPE microwave safe cling wrap (not the PVC version) is largely LWIR transparent and thin enough to allow the same rate of conductive cooling. All you have done is stopped evaporative cooling. Now you will find that the sample under the hotter LWIR source cools slower.
Water does absorb IR photons in direct relationship with it’s emissivity, however these are absorbed in the first few microns of the skin evaporation layer. This simply trips some liquid molecules into phase change slightly faster than they otherwise would, and there is no significant effect on the cooling rate of the water below.
Now have another look at those Trenberthian energy budget cartoons. They don’t show land and ocean, they show “surface” with its temperature response to incident IR calculated solely on emissivity. That’s an error of 71%!
This does not alone invalidate AGW, but it does show a very clear example of the nature of climate “science”. However the physics you got correct in the first five critical questions totally invalidate not just the AGW hypothesis, but the radiative green house hypothesis as well.

Konrad
November 8, 2013 4:33 pm

Kip Hansen says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:50 am
————————————–
You comment regards Revkin has some merit, however many have read the leaked email in which the “Team” talk about Andy behind his back cautioning “be careful what you give to Andy, he many not be as reliable as we thought”.
Utterly damning for the “Team”, but being classed a “useful idiot” is not much of a fig leaf for Revkin 😉

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 4:53 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:22 pm
“How does computing an ‘average’ derive the radiative equilibrium? Hint, it doesn’t…”
—-
I, the American Chemical Society, and the University of Colorado have all tried to explain that the equilibrium temperature is calculated by setting the radiative imbalance to 0 (i.e. no change with time). If the average radiative balance over a solar day is positive, the planet warms. If negative, it cools. If zero, the planet is in equilibrium. This is just conservation of energy.
If you think all three of us are using the wrong terminology, maybe you should contact them.
—-
“why do you think the warmists play with anomalies, they avoid absolute temps like the plague.”
—-
Both the links I gave you showed temperatures in absolute Kelvin.
—-
“I will go back to my metal rod analogy that is periodically heated on one end. What is the equilibrium temperature of the rod? How does the equilibrium temperature of the rod change if a portion of the rod is insulated?”
—-
I wish you luck in your quest to understand the climate by thinking about a metal rod, but it’s clear that this conversation is pointless. Have a nice day.

Genghis
November 8, 2013 4:56 pm

Konrad says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Congratulations! 5/6, best effort yet, and these questions have been posted on many blogs. However, I will admit that many on the pro AGW side do know some of the answers, but they will do anything to avoid admitting it 😉
Question 6 is the one you need to look at. Most materials can have their cooling rate slowed by incident IR, even if emitted from a nearby cooler material.
———–
Do you understand that evaporation cools the water? And that cooler water evaporates slower.

Konrad
November 8, 2013 5:16 pm

Trick says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:05 am
——————————————
“Kitchen lab experiments”?! You just never get it right do you Trick 😉
The whole point of those experiments was they were carefully designed for other non-scientist readers to replicate! And you think a “non iso certified” smear is going to work?
Any “call to authority” argument regarding climate science is dead in the water. Scientists still have respect, but not climate scientists. No one cares any more that “97%” of astrologers say that astrology is accurate.
Trick I am still laughing, you tried the “engineers are not qualified” argument, then linked to a paper by Callender, a steam engineer and amateur scientist. Even more hilarious, the review comments on his work included considerable critical discussion of exactly the same fluid dynamics I have shown to invalidate AGW. Seriously Trick, you couldn’t make it up!
PS. Here’s a trick, Trick. Engineers, unlike political activists, have to doubt themselves, think of worst case scenarios and triple check their work. Engineers must trust themselves over the crowd. So when some foolish little activist tries the Alinsky technique of making someone doubt themselves due to social pressure it is instantly identified, the engineers eyes narrow, and a sudden gust of rage flips the pages on the calender to “weasel stomping day”. The rapidly growing grass roots sceptic movement did not arise in spite of your efforts, well described by Dr. Tim Ball, but because of them. 😉

Genghis
November 8, 2013 5:21 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:53 pm
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:22 pm
“How does computing an ‘average’ derive the radiative equilibrium? Hint, it doesn’t…”
—-
I, the American Chemical Society, and the University of Colorado have all tried to explain that the equilibrium temperature is calculated by setting the radiative imbalance to 0 (i.e. no change with time). If the average radiative balance over a solar day is positive, the planet warms. If negative, it cools. If zero, the planet is in equilibrium. This is just conservation of energy.
If you think all three of us are using the wrong terminology, maybe you should contact them.
—————-
I am confused, the American Chemical Society ‘computed’ the earths equilibrium temperature at 280k. I gave the S-B number at 278K (which you rejected). Not much of a difference, but significantly different than the IPCC’s 255k number.
If you agree with the American Chemical Society’s number and that GHG’s are only responsible for apx 8˚C total additional warming we may not be in disagreement.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 5:38 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:21 pm
“I am confused, the American Chemical Society ‘computed’ the earths equilibrium temperature at 280k. I gave the S-B number at 278K (which you rejected). Not much of a difference, but significantly different than the IPCC’s 255k number.”
—-
I objected to “the discrepancy in Mercury’s temperature that you’re claiming exists.”
In reality, the American Chemical Society (ACS) gives Earth’s back-body equilibrium temperature as 255K. It’s in the blue column in the table. The string “280” isn’t on the ACS page at all:
http://archive.is/8owZe
The LASP/CU link gives Earth’s back-body equilibrium temperature as -17C (256K). It’s in the fourth column of the table. The string “280” appears, but only as an intermediate step in in equation:
http://archive.is/foqZJ
—-
“If you agree with the American Chemical Society’s number and that GHG’s are only responsible for apx 8˚C total additional warming we may not be in disagreement.”
—-
The ACS actually calculates the GHG effect at 288-255=33C, and LASP/CU calculates it at 32C.

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 5:46 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:43 pm
.
—————
You are forgetting one tiny, itsy bitsy, little thing Steven, the Earths atmosphere is largely transparent to high energy short wave radiation. Have you ever picked up a black steel tool that has been lying in the sunshine on a bright sunny day? The tool is way hotter than the air around it. Think about how that happened okay?
=====
I didn’t forget Genghis.
If the insulation isn’t there,
that admits 100% incoming energy.
When the blanket blocks 22% ever touching the tool,
energy sensors show that reduction.
I think what you’re alluding is the atmosphere causes that heat to remain.
That atmosphere, carries off energy through contact long, LONG before it would leave if radiation is the sole transport mechanism.
As SOON a that tool begins to have more heat in it than the air around, it starts handing some off through thermally conductive, physical contact.
Stopping energy from reaching an object makes the temperature go down.
Not maybe or maybe Thursday.
It doesn’t matter how many innumerates come in here and can’t tell 1 from 0, + from –
If you have an object you can heat
illuminating it with light to do so
and you immerse it in a frigid fluid gas bath
all thermal sensors embedded or attached to the surface of that object
will show a reduction in value of energy.
Again not maybe or maybe Thursday.
It’s simply the fraud of the absolute inversion
of the process of atmospheric energy handling, itself.
The frigid fluid bath
cools the warm object immersed and spun in it.
No sensor on any black tool is going to show one temp in a vacuum,
then a higher temp when immersed into a frigid, fluid, gas, bath.
Not once.
Not ever.

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 5:56 pm

And no Dumb Scientist you didn’t fail to communicate your point.
Someone told you that if you attached sensors to a giant sphere and placed it in space and irradiated it with the sun, the sensors would all register a temperature T
and immersing the sphere into a frigid, fluid bath,
would make thermal sensors all over the planet, shoot up.
You’ve communicated your point perfectly well: you believe in magical gas insulation that reduces total energy to the target 22, is frigid, but makes thermal sensors show more temperature than WITHOUT that insulation.
Go get someone you think can explain the magical inversion from cooling to warming you claim is happening. Tell him you have someone who insists that if you place thermal sensors onto a sphere and irradiate it in a vacuum,
then you immerse and spin the sphere in a frigid gas bath
the thermal sensors on the surface are going to show the surface has gotten warmer.

wayne
November 8, 2013 6:02 pm

“I wonder why my colleagues tell me not to waste my time at WUWT…”
Because you and your colleagues can’t bear the truth, and that truth is why temperatures are not rising in nearly two decades over the increase from the recent solar maximum. Get a life. You live in a sea of man-made adjustments and assumptions.

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 6:04 pm

“that reduces total energy to the target 22, is frigid, but makes thermal sensors show more temperature than WITHOUT that insulation.”
should be:
that reduces total energy to the target 22,% *
is frigid, but makes thermal sensors show more temperature than WITHOUT that insulation.
above.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 6:20 pm

wayne says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:02 pm
“… temperatures are not rising in nearly two decades over the increase from the recent solar maximum. Get a life. You live in a sea of man-made adjustments and assumptions.”
—-
I put many links in the first paragraph of this article showing that Earth continues to gain heat. Not just over the last decade but also over the last two decades, etc.:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/schmitt-happer-wsj.html
This comment provides open source code to calculate trends and statistical significance (accounting for autocorrelation) and confirms that there hasn’t been a statistically significant change in the surface warming rate:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/has_the_rate_of_surface_warming_changed.html#94660

Konrad
November 8, 2013 6:24 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 10:31 am
—————————————-
Still not getting any smarter?
Yes, yes I know. Control the language, control the “narrative” right? Wrong. The Internet is acid-dip to “narrative”. It does not matter how often you call radiative gases “greenhouse gases” they remain radiative gasses which both absorb and emit IR. Nothing you can say will change the fact that most of the energy that radiative gases are emitting from the atmosphere to space was acquired via surface conduction and the release of latent heat. The real “greenhouse gases” on this planet are N2 and O2 as these acquire energy via conduction and release of latent heat, but are very poor at radiating it.
I state -”the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm”
You foolishly try claiming -“he argues that they actually cool the surface” then amazingly provide
a link and quotes of me clearly using the word “atmosphere” not “surface” no less than 8 times!
As to “surface” , as the permanent Internet record shows, I have clearly stated many times on this blog and and others that downwelling LWIR measurably slows the cooling of the land surface, but has no significant effect over the oceans.
You have, amazingly, managed to outdo Trick at fail. It’s not like there are prizes or anything…
Truly a “David Appell” moment. It must be big shoes and red noses day today. All we need now is a bear on a bicycle and a big tent and we could sell tickets. 😉
Remember those simple physics questions about the role of radiative gases in atmospheric circulation, the ones Genghis got right? The ones Arrhenius and Callander forgot to ask? The answers should tell you that the role of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm. All you need to get the answer is one extra fact of atmospheric physics –
– The surface is far better at conductively heating a mobile gaseous atmosphere in a gravity field than it is at conductively cooling it. (yes I have an experiment proving this that others can replicate)
Without radiative gases the land surface (not the oceans) may have a lower Tav than present but it is surface Tmax that is most important in terms of conductive flux into a moving atmosphere. But a moving atmosphere does not preclude the stagnation of the Hadley Ferrel and Polar cells without radiative cooling at altitude. Without strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation, the troposphere would trend isothermal (no lapse rate) with its temperature set by surface Tmax. This means a non-radiative atmosphere would run far, far hotter than our current radiative atmosphere.

Konrad
November 8, 2013 6:47 pm

Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:56 pm
—————————————-
Genghis,
yes, of course evaporation cools water, and when you run the two variants of the experiment, in the run without the LDPE film, the two samples cool much faster. The question is the divergence between the cooling rate of the sample under the strong LWIR source and the one under the weak LWIR source. The is no divergence rate when the samples are free to evaporatively cool, but when evaporative cooling is prevented, while the samples both cool slower but the divergence rate is easily measured.
I should probably have pointed out that you need to run two boxes as shown in the picture side by side, with both filled from the same 40C water source. The only difference between the boxes is the strength of the IR source. Do one run with both samples free to evaporatively cool, and one with both samples evaporatively restricted by LDPE film.
Essentially this is just the LWIR version of the old hair dryer trick –
Q. how do you heat a plastic bowl of water with a hair dryer?
A. point the hair dryer at the side of the bowl, not the surface of the water.
Hot air or LWIR, it doesn’t matter, the physics of the skin evaporation layer remains the same.

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 7:18 pm

Konrad says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:24 pm
“… I state -”the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm” You foolishly try claiming -“he argues that they actually cool the surface” then amazingly provide a link and quotes of me clearly using the word “atmosphere” not “surface” no less than 8 times! As to “surface” , as the permanent Internet record shows, I have clearly stated many times on this blog and and others that downwelling LWIR measurably slows the cooling of the land surface, but has no significant effect over the oceans.”
—-
Mainstream science recognizes that adding greenhouse gases to our atmosphere warms the surface (land or ocean) but cools the stratosphere. That’s consistent with this 5 minute explanation of the greenhouse effect, which might sound familiar to anyone who’s been reading my comments:
http://thiniceclimate.org/blog/details/1907/how-co2-warms-the-climate-ray-pierrehumbert
If you agree with the physics summarized in that video then you haven’t said anything controversial. You seem to reject the fact that greenhouse effect operates over ~70% of Earth’s surface, but I’m sorry for misrepresenting ~30% of your statement.
—-
“Without strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation, the troposphere would trend isothermal (no lapse rate) with its temperature set by surface Tmax. This means a non-radiative atmosphere would run far, far hotter than our current radiative atmosphere.”
—-
In equilibrium, energy in = energy out. Without greenhouse gases but holding albedo constant, Earth’s surface would be at ~255K to balance energy in with energy out. That’s because the surface would actually be the effective radiating level. The real Earth with greenhouse gases can only radiate from its effective radiating level because the atmosphere is opaque to long wave IR. In other words, the effective radiating level is currently where it is (~6km above Earth’s surface- land or ocean) because that height is above most of the CO2 “insulation”. When the Earth’s climate is in equilibrium, the effective radiating level has to be at ~255K, or about -18C, otherwise energy isn’t conserved.
Removing all the radiative gases from our atmosphere would make the surface (land or ocean) become the effective radiating level. To achieve equilibrium, the land/ocean surface temperature (even assuming albedo remains constant) would plunge to about -18C. In reality, the oceans would freeze even at the equator, making the planet much whiter and thus even colder. A new Snowball Earth would be born.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth
Was that what you meant by “far, far hotter than our current radiative atmosphere”?

Konrad
November 8, 2013 8:56 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 7:18 pm
———————————————-
“Mainstream science recognises…” Bwahahahaha! Would this be the same “Mainstream science” that believes that adding radiative gases to the atmosphere will reduce its radiative cooling ability? The same “Mainstream Science” that has developed 113 climate models, all of which have utterly failed against empirical observation?
The use of the term “Mainstream Science” is a blatant “call to authority” technique, and wholly unscientific. Something McKribben, Flannery or Appell would do.
As to “snowball earth”, equally laughable. For that to even be possible, incident LWIR would have to have the same effect over the oceans as it does over land. I have shown how simple it is to run an experiment to prove that liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool is not effected by LWIR. No amount of typing from you can prevent others from replicating it. It proves that not only would the oceans not freeze over under a non-radiative atmosphere but also that Trenberths missing heat is not hiding at the bottom the deep oceans with his credibility.
I challenge you to provide a simple experiment comparable to this –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
-that shows incident LWIR is in any way capable of heating liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool or slow it’s cooling rate. This should be easy for a scientist. There are only a few ways to fail the challenge –
1. Find an excuse why you don’t have to – fail
2. Criticise the experiment shown without showing your own – fail
3. Point to the maths of emissivity without empirical evidence – fail
4. Point to non lab based noisy empirical observation – fail
5. Show experiments that other readers can’t easily replicate to check – fail
That should be simple for a scientist, dumb or otherwise. A simple empirical experiment showing incident LWIR on the surface of liquid water heating it or slowing its cooling rate. After all it is a fundamental claim of the “snowball” earth hypotheses. It wouldn’t be like climate scientists to advance a hypothesis with no empirical basis now would it?

Dumb Scientist
November 8, 2013 9:26 pm

Konrad, I’ve obviously failed to communicate once again. Take it easy.

Konrad
November 8, 2013 10:12 pm

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:26 pm
————————————-
Well in these, the last days of the AGW inanity, one has to take it a bit easy 😉
For sceptics, Schadenfreude is rising to dangerous levels. It seems every single public figure of the Professional Left was hiding behind the one stalking horse and they have all left a permanent record of vilifying sceptics on the Internet. None of them seem to have a viable exit strategy. The shrieking panic as they try to flog their dead stalking horse back to life could cause sceptics to die laughing…
As to communication, this is the Internet. Some of it is for now, and some for readers in the future 😉

Trick
November 8, 2013 10:53 pm

Konrad 5:16pm – It is Callendar. Followed by more & extensive vitriol w/o any science content.
Top post: “The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda.”
I see no cites from Konrad supporting, defending the Konrad 6, no text book ref.s supporting Konrad work distinguishing reality from propaganda. For Konrad, science and scientific method has left the room. Not one new text book on the atm. confirms main conclusion from Konrad manifestly uncontrolled experiments. Nor should they.
Nature reasonably confirmed Callendar 1938 Tmean anomaly Fig. 2, Table 6; modern text books and research papers extend his work, build on his experimental cites. Cite even one text book that concludes ““The net effect of radiative gases is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm” and I will go get it. Until then, without truthful cites traceable to 1st principles, Konrad is just another top post PR spin doctor deliberately deceiving public about global warming and climate change.

Steven R. Vada
November 8, 2013 11:28 pm

Trick says:
November 8, 2013 at 10:53 pm
Yadda, Yada Yadda…
====
Don’t take it so hard, looptard.
You’re a hick who believes in magic gas who left the reservation.
You can’t answer any questions that don’t involve frantic appeal to authority, which of itself admits you don’t think you’re qualified to analyze the elements under discussion.
====
Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 9:26 pm
Konrad, I’ve obviously failed to communicate once again. Take it easy.
======
You haven’t “failed to communicate.”
You tried to claim, adding molecules to the atmosphere reducing the total energy reaching the earth,
increases the total energy reaching the earth.
It’s simply that it’s on it’s face,
obviously,
not even remotely possible.

Keitho
Editor
Reply to  Steven R. Vada
November 10, 2013 12:35 am

Which would explain why in the desert the surface heats more rapidly, and to higher temperatures in the daytime and cools more rapidly and to lower temperatures at night than a place of similar latitude that has significant amounts of H2O in the atmosphere.

Konrad
November 9, 2013 12:11 am

Trick says:
November 8, 2013 at 10:53 pm
—————————————
Sadly it looks like Trick has just punched one too many cones. That last post was verging on the unintelligible.
Here’s another trick, Trick. A nylon stocking placed over the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner is a safe and effective way of collecting the contents of a cone lost to the carpet by poor shoddy control 😉
“Konrad is just another top post PR spin doctor deliberately deceiving public about global warming and climate change”
Nice try, but as I have indicated to “dumb scientist”, I already have precautionary measures in place to avoid death by laughing 😉
Now here’s a tissue, wipe off the rabid foam and start again….

Genghis
November 9, 2013 5:26 am

Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:38 pm
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:21 pm
“I am confused, the American Chemical Society ‘computed’ the earths equilibrium temperature at 280k. I gave the S-B number at 278K (which you rejected). Not much of a difference, but significantly different than the IPCC’s 255k number.”
—-
In reality, the American Chemical Society (ACS) gives Earth’s back-body equilibrium temperature as 255K. It’s in the blue column in the table. The string “280″ isn’t on the ACS page at all:
http://archive.is/8owZe
——-
The ACS very clearly computes the Earths Equilibrium temperature at 280k. They give it in bold twice.
“Tequilibrium = 280K [(1-A)/a2]1/4
OR
Tequilibrium = 280K [1-A]1/4/a1/2”
At this point Dumb Scientist you are once again changing definitions, now to ‘Blackbody equilibrium’ and you have failed to answer my first basic question.
SInce you aren’t honestly dealing with the issue, i have no choice but to say adios.

Genghis
November 9, 2013 5:46 am

Konrad says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:47 pm
Essentially this is just the LWIR version of the old hair dryer trick –
Q. how do you heat a plastic bowl of water with a hair dryer?
A. point the hair dryer at the side of the bowl, not the surface of the water.
Hot air or LWIR, it doesn’t matter, the physics of the skin evaporation layer remains the same.
———–
Air flowing across the top of the water dramatically lowers the temperature of the water through evaporation and convection. You can test this by blowing across the top of a boiling pot. So a heat gun blowing hot air across the surface of the water heats and cools at the same time.
The way you heat a bowl of water with a hair dryer is to stop the fan and just aim the heating element at the water. It will heat up nicely and ruin your hair dryer, but that is the price we pay for science : ) LWIR can heat the water easily.
I will continue this conversation with you on some other thread, soon okay?
This thread has become too long and cumbersome for me.

Genghis
November 9, 2013 6:22 am

Steven R. Vada says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:46 pm
I think what you’re alluding is the atmosphere causes that heat to remain.
That atmosphere, carries off energy through contact long, LONG before it would leave if radiation is the sole transport mechanism.
As SOON a that tool begins to have more heat in it than the air around, it starts handing some off through thermally conductive, physical contact.
Stopping energy from reaching an object makes the temperature go down.
—————-
Relax, take a deep breath, I am on your side : ) Figuring out this stuff is actually fun.
Let me remind you that dry air is a great insulator, it conducts very poorly. That is why it makes a good insulator between two window panes, and that is also why the hot tool actually gets hot and isn’t quickly cooled by conduction to the air first. Your analogy would be correct if the tool was in water. Water is a very good conductor.
The tool gets hot because of radiation from the Sun and it primarily cools by radiation. The atmosphere doesn’t really play much of a role, the tool would get just as hot on the moon : )
I will leave you something to think about. Why don’t the warmers measure the actual surface of the earth instead of the air about 6 feet above the surface? What are they actually measuring? Also remember this, the average temperature of the surface of the ocean is 22˚C and the average temperature of the air 6 feet above the surface is 15˚C.
I will catch you on another thread. : )

Trick
November 9, 2013 6:39 am

Konrad 12:11am:
Once again Konrad offers plenty vitriol but no science based rebuttal to Callendar 1938 which has stood the test of time and which solidly refutes Konrad’s spin doctor contention: “The net effect of radiative gases is atmospheric cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm”
A spin doctor is defined in top post as: “a spokesperson employed to give a favorable interpretation of events to the media, esp. on behalf of a political party.”
******
S.R.Vada 11:28pm, 12:47am et.al.: “…go find someone who can explain, in their own words, how their religion has a frigid fluid bath, causing the heat sensors on the surface of an object immersed in it, to show temperature RISE on that surface. Notice how much it’s pure crickets on that?”
Some ears (like mine) cannot hear the crickets chirping in certain freq. bands, your ears can’t hear the crickets of Callendar 1938 and subsequent text book theory of IR active gas effects on earth’s global near surface atm. Tmean. Or please offer a science based rebuttal to that paper not spin doctor stuff.
“…you can attach temperature sensors to a warm rock, spin it, immersed, in a frigid, fluid, gas bath, and those heat sensors show more heat than before immersion in the frigid bath. Just explain it.”
1st Law:
Energy in – energy out = m*Cp*DT/dt
If energy in&out balances, DT/dt=0 meaning no temperature change with time. “Adding the frigid, fluid, gas bath” to a rock keeps energy in the same and reduces energy out meaning DT/dt becomes positive until near surface Tmean changes to once again reach energy in&out balance where DT/dt becomes 0.
2nd Law: Sun to earth atm. & surface energy flow SW, lapse rate shows a surface to atm. LW energy flow to deep space sink therefore in compliance.
These are cricket freq.s SRV ears cannot hear so few bother waste energy chirping to warn of their presence.

Dumb Scientist
November 9, 2013 8:11 am

Genghis says:
November 9, 2013 at 5:26 am
“The ACS very clearly computes the Earths Equilibrium temperature at 280k. They give it in bold twice. “Tequilibrium = 280K [(1-A)/a2]1/4…” At this point Dumb Scientist you are once again changing definitions, now to ‘Blackbody equilibrium’ and you have failed to answer my first basic question. SInce you aren’t honestly dealing with the issue, i have no choice but to say adios.”
—-
Again, that’s on the LASP/CU page, not the ACS page. Again, that’s an intermediate step because you have to plug in the albedo (A) and distance from the Sun (a). It’s an equation, not an answer. Again, plugging in Earth’s albedo and distance from the Sun yields 256K.
Your accusation of dishonesty is unproductive.

Steven R. Vada
November 9, 2013 9:18 am

Massive delusional fail : into outright claim,
to be trying to explain
a frigid bath
making thermal sensors rise.
——-
Trick says:
November 9, 2013 at 6:39 am
1st Law:
Energy in – energy out = m*Cp*DT/dt
If energy in&out balances, DT/dt=0 meaning no temperature change with time. “Adding the frigid, fluid, gas bath” to a rock keeps energy in the same and reduces energy out…”

Steven R. Vada
November 9, 2013 9:23 am

This clown just came in here and told us,
he proved that when you immerse a warm sphere into a frigid bath
it gets warmer
than it was before
you immersed it in the
frigid fluid
gas bath.

Steven R. Vada
November 9, 2013 9:55 am

It appears that “Big Oil” is abusing the mentally ill, having them participate in political blogging, posing as Magic Gassers; so people think that’s how crazy they ALL are.
Sad thing is, I think we all know “Big Oil” isn’t paying this guy.
He’s actually what Septical Science sends over here to “defend the science. With math.”
=======
[mumbles] “Let’s see here… explain… the thermal sensors on a warm sphere, immersed and spun in a frigid gas bath, showing the entire sphere warmed due to immersion in, the frigid, gas bath.”
[mumbles] yes.. yes. Cancel the ten there, … add that divided by… this…
ah-HaH! ADD that ten BACK here, and…
[speaks clearly and articulately]
“…There’s the math! Right there! I proved it!”
=======
That’s the intellect that’s been in here arguing with people for three days.
He told us he just proved, immersing a warm object into a frigid gas bath made it warmer.
“There’s the math, check it for yourself,” he says.
There’s the math,
check it
for yourself.
LoL

John Whitman
November 9, 2013 9:55 am

Guest Essayist Tim Ball wrote,
“. . .
The problem and challenge is the population generally divides into 80 percent who struggle with science and 20 percent who are comfortable. I taught a science credit for arts students for 25 years so know the challenges. This makes resolving Crichton’s challenge of “distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”, even more difficult. It is almost impossible when professional spin-doctors are deliberately diverting, misleading and creating confusion.
. . .”

– – – – – – – – –
Tim Ball,
I was stimulated by your well-constructed critique of the propaganda (PR & spin doctoring) used to attempt to influence our culture on views of climate behavior.
In your above quoted paragraph I see the conclusion of your essay. And I have a fundamentally different conclusion from your essay.
Science is merely one of several derivatives of the homo sapien’s voluntary choice to use its reasoning capability with focus and discipline. The fundamental problem is not deficiency by many (your 80%) in science, the fundamental problem is the non-use of one’s reasoning capability in any focused and disciplined way. The cause of that has nothing to do with science. Your essay is a corollary to a larger problem which is the one that allows PR and spin-doctoring to be effective.
John

Steven R. Vada
November 9, 2013 10:02 am

When you guys are done with whatever you’re doin’ there,
you want join in, and help us check Trick’s math?
He said he calculated that immersion of a warm spinning sphere, into a frigid, fluid, gas bath, makes every sensor on it’s surface several degrees warmer.
How’s his math look to you?
LoL.
Did he calculate it right?
LoL.
====
Dumb Scientist says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:11 am
Your accusation of dishonesty is unproductive.

Trick
November 10, 2013 8:26 am

S.R.Vada 10:02am – “Did he calculate it right?”
Good question.
Let’s take my text book 1st law calculation for a no-Spin-Doctor science based test drive in compliance with 2nd law. Add my deep space furnace with thermostat using up hydrogen in a fusion process that sets your spinning rock to a desired initial equilibrium temperature.
Test Case 1: Rock initial temperature set to 288K by space furnace. Take the rock and insert into your frigid, fluid gas bath. Energy in = energy out, DT/dt = 0 and nothing much happens to surface Tmean except a monthly anomaly report of a few tenths degree is issued by rock surface inhabitants. They keep close track of the system surface Tmean fearing for their lives.
Test Case 2: Rock initial temperature set to 255K by space furnace. Take the rock and insert into your frigid, fluid gas bath. Energy in becomes greater than energy out, DT/dt = positive and by 2nd law thermal energy transfer from higher T frigid, fluid gas bath (lower surface 288K) flows to rock (255K). There is a transient T response by rock while surface inhabitants shiver & run their own furnaces more. This transfer transient stops by 2nd law when rock reaches 288K, inhabitants eat better, go outside more in the winter to play lake hockey & rejoice.
Test Case 3: Rock initial temperature set to 321K by space furnace. Take the rock and insert into your frigid, fluid gas bath. Energy in becomes less than energy out, DT/dt = negative and by 2nd law thermal energy transfer from higher T rock (321K) flows to frigid, fluid gas bath (surface 288K). There is a transient T response by rock while surface inhabitants buy more A/C from the grid. This transfer stops by 2nd law when rock reaches 288K, inhabitants run A/C less have more free cash, go outside more to play lake hockey & rejoice.
QED: Test drive science shows text book 1st law calculation is correct (and in compliance with Callendar 1938 theory & cited experiment). Can you think of another good test case for the calculation?

Steven R. Vada
November 12, 2013 4:54 pm

Trick says:
November 10, 2013 at 8:26 am:
I’m an innumerate hick!
=======
Indeed.