American Physical Society and Monckton at odds over paper

Another email reply to Dr. Bienenstock:
————————

Dear Dr. Bienenstock:
I must reiterate my previous question: Are we therefore to assume that Hafemeister and Schwartz’ unprefaced article has been subjected to peer review, its conclusions are in agreement with the opinion of the community and that the Council does agree with them? If so, why is there no bright green prefratory statement saying as much in front of their article? And if their article has not been subjected to peer review, in the same way that Monckton’s has not, why is that not also noted in bright red lettering? And are all and only “Con” articles to carry your Scarlet Letters?
Sir, you can cite your supposed “consensus” until you run out of ink; I am looking for facts. Measurements. Physics. And those seem strangely absent on the side of your “consensus”, a group which has expressed the desire to radically remake the planetary economy, based on the output of highly parameterized computer models and very fuzzy physical assumptions. It was the “opinion of the community” at the end of the Ninteenth Century that Physics was almost “done”. You owe your existence at SLAC to those few who ignored that Consensus. But now you cite an ever more obviously political consensus in a rather clumsy attempt to stop scientific inquiry. As such, you have moved into the realm of proclaiming a religious dogma.
You are no longer advancing the cause of Science, nor the reputation of the APS, Dr. Bienenstock. Perhaps your talents could be properly used by a marketing firm or a presidential campaign.
Yours,
Michael S. Talcott

Duae Quartunciae

On the other hand: given that Monckton himself precipitated the distortions as soon as the newsletter came out, there’s no cause to beat around the bush in deference to his finer feelings. He egregiously misrepresented the matter in the SPPI press release.

You might clarify which statements came from Lord Monckton, which from Robert Ferguson and which by “Staff”.
As ’tis said: “There’s many a slip between the cup and the lip”.

Duae Quartunciae
I do agree that: He egregiously misrepresented the matter in the SPPI press release.
Still I think the APS should not mislead the public by pointing out only his paper was not “scientifically” peer reviewed. Its not a matter of finer feelings; its a matter of confusion for the world. Clearly the paper was reviewed ( and frankly whether it was or not doesn’t matter, because people would argue after the fact), and for the APS to declare that their own editor was not doing a scientific review is a bit confusing to all, and at the same time state that the paper was incorrect if it hadn’t been scientifically reviewed is also a bit confusing.
Let me ask a science question: “They certainly don’t say that the atmosphere absorbs all IR.” actually this was one of their limit values to determine a temperature( I think) and they make this assumption in a derivation.
my question is: what did I read wrongly? I freely admit I could have missed this point but I did think it was a limit term
Some more elementary questions and confusion I have as an outsider:
why doesn’t hoffmeister include heat capacity terms in their extra added wattts/meter sq . The atmosphere is being treated like its an adiabatic system: it isnt.
whenever we burn fuel or make electricity , terrawatts of heat are given off and this heat is never a parameter in any model which contributes a c02 like term to temperature change. I dont know enough to know where it would enter: it could be additive to a co2 effect or it could simply be a reason for increased warmth: a global heat island effect.
Further more the heat capacity of the oceans and the land and dirt in the air are never used to determine the temperature effects of the calculated forcing.
Lets say you have an extra 4 watts per meter sq insolation equivalent. but also lets say that that 4 watts is going into a body that has an infinite heat capacity like a section through the crust or a section into the ocean. What does that do to the temperature? if its infinite, the answer is that the forcing doesn’t affect the temperature. So you need a heat capacity term
Please also consider that if a “global heat island effect” doesn’t contribute to a warmer earth as has been suggested by reviews of some papers, why? where does all that heat go? Could the lack of a global heat island effect be an actual measure of the useful heat capacity of the earth and water and could be used to calculate the temp change from a co2 forcing?

Duae Quartunciae
I do agree that: He egregiously misrepresented the matter in the SPPI press release.
Still I think the APS should not mislead the public by pointing out only his paper was not “scientifically” peer reviewed. Its not a matter of finer feelings; its a matter of confusion for the world. Clearly the paper was reviewed ( and frankly whether it was or not doesn’t matter, because people would argue after the fact), and for the APS to declare that their own editor was not doing a scientific review is a bit confusing to all, and at the same time state that the paper was incorrect if it hadn’t been scientifically reviewed is also a bit confusing. If they didnt review it how could they tell?
Let me ask a science question: “They certainly don’t say that the atmosphere absorbs all IR.” actually this was one of their limit values to determine a temperature( I think) and they make this assumption in a derivation.
my question is: what did I read wrongly? I freely admit I could have missed this point but I did think it was a limit term
Some more elementary questions and confusion I have as an outsider:
why doesn’t hoffmeister include heat capacity terms in their extra added wattts/meter sq forcing equations?. The atmosphere is being treated like its an adiabatic system: it isnt. It may be that they are only trying to calculate an energy effect purely for c02 and not calculate the effect of the extra energy on temp.
whenever we burn fuel or make electricity , terrawatts of heat are given off and this heat is never a parameter in any model which contributes a c02 like term to temperature change. I dont know enough to know where it would enter: it could be additive to a co2 effect on temp or it could simply be a reason for the increased warmth that is not from c02: a global heat island effect. whatever effect this terrawatts of energy term has on temp, it would subtract the observed co2 effect on temp
Further more the heat capacity of the oceans and the land and dirt in the air are never used to determine the temperature effects of the calculated forcing by co2.
Lets say you have an extra 4 watts per meter sq insolation equivalent. but also lets say that that 4 watts is going into a body that has an infinite heat capacity like a section through the crust or a section into the ocean. What does that do to the temperature? if its infinite, the answer is that the forcing doesn’t affect the temperature. So you need a heat capacity term for consideration of a non infinite heat capacity
Please also consider that if a “global heat island effect” doesn’t contribute to a warmer earth as has been suggested by reviews of some papers, why? where does all that heat go? Could the lack of a global heat island effect be an actual measure of the useful heat capacity of the earth and water and could be used to calculate the temp change from a co2 forcing?

I would like to say once more that this “forcing” definition used by climatologists is unfortunate. It is almost true that a heavenly body receives and sends energy through electromagnetic radiation. ( almost because gravitational energy is also exchanged between heavenly bodies). At the level of the outer surface of the earth radiation balance and energy balance are almost the same.
The unfortunate thing is that people using this “forcing” business forget that radiation is not conserved. It is energy that is the conserved quantity, and energy takes many forms, from heat to convection , to evaporation and precipitation. Of course heat capacities are very important. This is a a complex, chaotic, thermodynamic system one has under study, from coupled differential equations.
These “forcings”are like making a budget, using only cash flow and ignoring credit and debt, or at best “estimating” by a computer model the average credit and debt for a business.

The APS decides to play fair
The American Physical Society has decided to play fair and post the identical disclaimer to BOTH Hafemeister & Schwartz’s Pro article and Monckton’s Con article in its current global warming debate, namely:

The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review, since that is not normal procedure for American Physical Society newsletters. The American Physical Society reaffirms the following position on climate change, adopted by its governing body, the APS Council, on November 18, 2007: “Emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are changing the atmosphere in ways that affect the Earth’s climate.”

PS. These corrections have not yet been propagated to the entire July 2008 Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter pdf.

Hi peer reviewer… the APS has now added a disclaimer on top of the tutorial paper as well, to point out that there is no peer review on any of the papers.
The tutorial paper — which seems mostly fine to me, albeit limited in scope — goes through a sequence of examples.
(1) Upper atmosphere temperature using blackbody emission.
(2) Using Ts — a fraction of IR that should be absorbed to account for higher surface temperatures. Requires atmosphere to absorb 0.76 of IR.
(3) Using Ta and Ts — an atmospheric emissivity value to account for higher surface temperatures. Effectively the same as (2); emissivity is 0.76. Note from Kirchoff’s law that IR emissivity = IR absorptivity; so again, 0.76 of IR is absorbed.
(4) Using a “multi layer” atmosphere; where each layer is treated as a fully absorbing blackbody. Earth has 0.6 of a layer… again, less than the 1 for full absorption. But you need this to get a good comparison with Venus.
They do also give the limit for complete absorption; but that is nothing to do with Earth. It is only there as an illustration of how the simple model behaves in a thicker atmosphere.
As for heat capacity, this is a subtle point, and beyond the scope of the tutorial. It’s irrelevant for an equilibrium analysis, since at equilibrium you have all your heat reservoirs in balance with each other. The effect of a heat reservoir (the ocean is the big one) that it takes a long time to reach the equilibrium when everything is held fixed. And if things are not held fixed, then you basically have damping. It’s certainly important in a more complete analysis; but this tutorial is only the first step, and increasing complexity generally leaves heat capacities until after a few more complexities are introduced.
What it means for us at present is that since the Earth (for whatever reason you care to attribute) is warming; and that is coming from extra energy somewhere. As the Earth warms, it emits more longwave radiation; and this is basically the response to compensate for some energy imbalance. But there’s also heat being taken up into the ocean, and heat going into the ocean is not going out into space. This actually means there is a slight imbalance of energy at present. As the ocean “catches up” with surface temperatures, the rate of flux into the ocean drops, and then extra energy leads to a warmer surface and more energy into space. So whatever is warming earth right now, some of that warming is a heat flux into the ocean, and yet to be realized as a temperature rise. Estimates vary, but there’s probably something like another half a degree of warming that is due when the ocean comes up into equilibrium, even if nothing else changes The heat capacity of the ocean is finite; and the time lag is measured in decades, I think.
A full analysis of the heat transfers deals with convection and also with latent heat, which is energy transfered by water vapour rising into the atmosphere and then condensing. You can manage this with a “pseudo-adiabat”. The nice thing is, however, that it doesn’t actually make a lot of difference to the analysis of the tutorial.
If you look closely at the tutorial, you’ll see showing up a factor of 2^0.25 difference in temperature between surface and atmosphere. This is a real effect, and it is what gives us a troposphere. Radiation alone would mean the atmosphere was cooler than the surface, even right at the point of contact. The means convection and latent heat tend to transfer energy up from the surface, and up until everything comes into balance with radiation again… which is basically the tropopause, above which the atmosphere is no longer turbulent and convection no longer has a significant role. So it is still heat from surface to lower atmosphere, and really doesn’t alter the simple level of analysis in the tutorial how the energy gets there.
And, by the way… for “anna v”, this is why forcing is only defined above the tropopause. The energy into and out of the Earth above this level is pretty much all by radiation.
As for waste heat… global energy consumption is around 13 TeraWatts or so. For Earth’s surface of 5.15e14 m^2 that works out to about 0.025 W/m^2, which is pretty negligible in the energy balances for climate.
Cheers — Duae Quartunciae

Bottom line… the forum will continue the discussion. This is good news.

Lord Monckton responds via email to Michael Kellman’s email above:

Well spoken! Time for the entire disclaimer to be deleted: the APS can always issue a press release if it wants, but leaving the disclaimer, even in its less mendacious but still not fully honest form, merely spreads the stain on the reputation of the APS, though it is certainly helping to give as many scientists as possible the chance to learn about my paper and to comment on it. – M of B

The APS’s Forum on Physics and Society Newsletter already has an extraordinary disclaimer on its July 2008 newsletter cover (See above). It would make eminent sense to remove the extremely unusual dislamations from the top of each of the articles submitted in this greenhouse debate.
Now will politics or common sense win in this debate over the “science”?

An Open Question To Global Warming Alarmists
Isn’t it logical to take action against Global Warning (GW) only if the following four conditions are met?
(1) GW is in fact occurring. If GW is just so much “hot air” (pun intended), then GW is a nonissue–or more correctly, a nonexistent issue.
(2) In the aggregate GW is harmful to mankind. I know in this age of political correctness, it’s deplorable to express little or no concern for the world’s plants and animals; but I do, at least when compared to my concern for mankind. For example, if mankind had the power to change the environment in a way that benefited all mankind but resulted in the extinction of polar bears, I’d say go for it. After all, aren’t we doing something similar by attempting to eradicate the smallpox virus from the face of the earth? Environmentalists can’t in good conscience make the claim: “We can’t allow polar bears to become extinct because (a) it’s immoral for man to abet the extinction of a life form, and (b) the extinction of the polar bear will hurt the environment,” unless they are willing to make a similar claim about the smallpox virus. The smallpox virus is a living organism too; and by eradicating smallpox the number of the worst polluter (humans, according to many environmentalists) on the face of the earth will increase. Thus, by eradicating smallpox we are destroying a life form and making a big impact to the environment. The main difference I see between smallpox and polar bears is that young polar bears are cute; and hence telling children that the number of polar bears is decreasing brings tears of sadness not tears of joy as would happen if we tell them smallpox is becoming extinct. Once full grown, polar bears can be very dangerous. None of my friends is a polar bear, and I don’t really care what happens to them (polar bears)–good or bad. I’m not looking to harm them, but I also don’t want to spend much effort to ensure they are around when the sun becomes a red giant. So, if in the aggregate GW is beneficial to man (and I can think of at least one possible reason why it might be–a warmer climate might allow for increased production of foodstuff), then I want more, not less, GW.
(3) There is something we can do about GW. Even if (a) GW is occurring, and (b) in the aggregate it is harmful to mankind, I’m not going to worry about it if we can’t do anything about it. Just like I don’t lose sleep over the fact that the Yellowstone Caldera might erupt like it has in the past. I will listen to discussions about how to adapt to GW; but if we can’t affect it, why listen to arguments on how to stop it?
(4) What we do about GW is less harmful to mankind than GW itself. Even if (a) GW is occurring, (b) in the aggregate it is harmful to mankind, and (c) there is something we can do about it, before we take action I want to be sure that the action we take doesn’t cause more harm to mankind than allowing GW to proceed unhindered. Let’s postulate (1), (2), and (3) above are true, and throw in for good measure that man’s industrial activity is the major contributor to GW. One way to solve the problem, at least temporarily, would be to liquidate 99% of all humans now living on the earth. If I’m in the 1% who are allowed to live, it’s unlikely but conceivable that I’d go along with such a solution; but if I’m in the 99% who get sacrificed to the altar of Al Gore, then I’d just as soon ignore GW and let the chips fall where they may.
When I hear GW discussed in the main-stream media, I’m pretty sure it’s just so much “feelsuperiorism” in the sense that those who advocate doing something about GW can feel superior to us skeptics because they’re onboard the glory train to save the world by stopping the scourge of GW and we’re tearing up the tracks in front of them. The possibility that (a) the GW alarmist train doesn’t have an engine or (b) the light at the end of the tunnel is another train, not the tunnel exit, doesn’t appear to have entered the minds of GW alarmists. As such, I have a tendency to ignore the main-stream media’s propaganda about GW, and consequently have heard only a miniscule fraction of their discussion. However, in the portion I have heard, the four conditions above have never been discussed collectively, much less proven.
In closing, my father often related to me what his father told him: “Son, the world is full of people who know things that aren’t true.” It’s my perception that Al Gore, the main-stream media, and much of the western world “know GW is here, know it is harmful, and know that we can do something about it.” In my opinion, such knowledge is an illustration of my grandfather’s claim.

This is just more censorship by people who are now really starting to worry about their professional reputations.
I post on Real Climate occasionally but most of my posts are censored.
The latest post to ‘vanish’ was one were I pointed to the fact that, the generic response to posters, pointing to the 21st century global temperature et al trends, is to state that theirs and the IPCCs position is that 30 years of a trend are needed before this could be accepted as evidence of climate change. Posters have been told to come back in 2032 before they will be listened to.
I asked therefore, why, when Hansen started spouting off in 1988 about the
sharp warming trend from 1978 to 1988, was he not told to come back in 2008 and then continue the debate. I pointed out that if he had been we would have been able to say, ‘Don’t worry Jim it is currently cooler than when you first raised the subject!’

Thank you Mr. Hagen (16:30:35) for adding a fifth “required condition” before we try to do something about global warming. I’m sure there are others.

Reed Coray
On global warming models and solar forcing, Monckton addresses the equilibrium models.
For dynamic models of forcing see
Nicola Scafetta and Bruce West 2006

We estimate that the sun contributed as much as 45–50% of the 1900–2000 global warming, and 25–35% of the 1980–2000 global warming. These results, while confirming that anthropogenic-added climate forcing might have progressively played a dominant role in climate change during the last century, also suggest that the solar impact on climate change during the same period is significantly stronger than what some theoretical models have predicted.

Scafetta, N., and B. J. West, 2006. Phenomenological solar contribution to the 1900-2000 global surface warming. Geophysical Research Letters, doi: 1029/2005GL025539.
Scafetta,N & B.J. West 2008
Is Climate sensitive to Solar variablity?

We estimate that the Sun could account for as much as 69% of the increase in earth’s average temperature, depending on the TSI reconstruction used.