Heh, this is entertaining.
While Bill Nye argues for “in whose best interest is denial?” and brings up the ridiculous CO2 on Venus argument, Joe Bastardi runs circles around him with technical graphs and explanations on forcing factors and their magnitudes.
Warmists scream “weather is not climate!”. We need to shout back “Venus is not Earth!” since the Venusian atmosphere is entirely different in compositions and forcings, and we understand it far less than Earth’s.
Meanwhile, Bill O”Reilly seems more concerned about making his commercial break on time than saving the planet.
Nye needs a better argument, as Fox News viewers can see past the appeal to emotion. Bastardi while far more technically competent than Nye, needs to focus on explaining a bit about natural cycles, since few viewers would know what the “PDO” is.
A caveat for both men, doing live TV debate by the seat of your pants is tough. You can’t see each other, and you are communicating via earpiece audio. Live TV is never easy, live via satellite interlinks is even tougher.
Watch the segment => here.
h/t to WUWT reader “pwl”
Anthony – I meant to address Phil, not Lon
@ur momisugly gkai (06:07:31)
Many of the readers and moderators at Slashdot are young and have little real-world experience outside of game programming and software. There are some voices of sanity there but they generally tend to get voted down via groupthink.
Nye obviously has a couple of coaches for his “science” talks about global warming, I wonder who they are.
Whoever they are, they are not very effective, leaving a rather unprepared Nye an easy target; Science Guy’s handlers must have a low budget for his “coaches.”
Not that his “coaches” have A-1 grade material to coach, either, and the “coaches” must be well aware of that; they probably don’t give their 100% effort into the end product, either.
Brian G Valentine (13:08:03) :
Hunh?
Sulfuric acid forms in one way ONLY, and that is from SO3 combining with water vapor, the heat of that reaction (which is a “heat of solution” if you want to call it that)
Actually I don’t, we’re talking about the formation in a solution of supercritical CO2 at pressures up to 90 bar and temperatures up to 740K!
When hot sulphuric acid rises due to convection eventually it reaches a temperature and pressure where it condenses to form a cloud of H2SO4 droplets, it does not dissolve in liquid droplets so any heat release would be due to the latent heat of vaporization not solution.
haven’t been in a college chem lab? You can boil water that way
Been in one, taught in one, researched in one! You certainly can boil water that way (dangerously), which is why you should always add the acid to the water rather than v.v., but we’re talking about the formation in the gas phase not in aqueous solution.
I truly enjoyed Bastardi’s arguments against Nye in this piece, because contrary to what the latter espoused in simply regurgitating the same old IPCC/NOAA mantra, the former actually manages to bring forth and highlight fresh research and lesser known yet well established data-sets. Mr. Bastardi never falters within this debate, not only due to his ability to keep a seemingly locked chest full of fresh graphs and data from which he can choose appropriate pieces at any given moment, but also through his amazingly professional and well versed understanding of our atmospheric dynamics.
Mr. Bastardi wasn’t exaggerating in regard to the accurate U.S. Winter projection from July of 2009 either, and his point was extremely poignant in posing the question: “How did I do that?”. As he stated in certain terms, he simply understands atmospheric science. Such in-depth understandings are what set him (As well as others) apart from the AGW theory proponents (I can also directly attest to the fact that when some in my area where concerned during our dry January this year, that we might never see anymore snow this Winter, Bastardi directly responded with a forecast about certain time-frames in February, and he said that we would be getting slammed. Sure enough, when February rolled around, we in the Washington, D.C. area were hit with the snowstorm equivalents of a proper carpet bombing campaign).
Mr. Nye was fun to watch as I grew up in elementary school, and he seemed extremely interesting in capturing childrens’ attention towards science and such, but sadly he is now nothing more than a broken record when speaking upon the AGW issue (Not to mention his comment which dared to question the Patriotism of our “Greatest Generation” to say the least, which in my view, took away any shred of respectability he might have still possessed).
The reaction
SO3 + H2O -> H2SO4
could be taking place only in the vapor phase, and evidently the particles upon which the droplets condense are the catalysts for the oxidation of SO2 to SO3, my guess is vanadate, which is oxidized at the surface.
Anyway have a wonderful week, Phil!
bgvalentine@verizon.net
Brian G Valentine (13:08:03) :
Hunh?
…
Suffice to say, all that “feedback” crud from CO2 in the Venusian atmosphere is just that, total crud.
And you can take that right to the bank, Lon!
Gracious, how did my model for CO2 heating get moved from the earth to Venus? I gather you didn’t look at it: http://www.2bc3.com/warming.html.
I would be glad to hear your comments.
I referred to the wrong person Lon
I sincerely apologize for my error or any confusion
Phil, I hope you understand that I believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is partly responsible for keeping us warm. I also know how it functions as a greenhouse gas though probably not as well as you do. Before I go get my links (and I do have them) regarding possible correlations between CO2 and the warming trend, do you have a good paper that demonstrates that the rise in CO2 is responsible for the rising temp trend? Mine is a 2008 paper (thanks Leif) and says it is responsible for some of it (it does not include data past 2006).
I also use climate4you for most of my personal study of the issue because it is so handy to have it all updated and on one website. I also appreciate the fact that the data is simply graphed. No fancy codes for the most part unless the data came that way.
Brian G Valentine (17:20:45) :
The reaction
SO3 + H2O -> H2SO4
could be taking place only in the vapor phase,
I would expect so since there’s no liquid H2O in that part of the atmosphere.It should be an equilibrium in the gas phase:
SO3 + H2O ⇋ H2SO4
which by Le Chatelier’s principle would heavily favor H2SO4 at the high pressures involved (I’m sure the K is known in the combustion literature)
The papers I have read say that it’s H2SO4 that condenses to form the clouds and those drops are 95%+ H2SO4. Any vapor phase H2O around would be absorbed on the drop.
and evidently the particles upon which the droplets condense are the catalysts for the oxidation of SO2 to SO3, my guess is vanadate, which is oxidized at the surface.
Those papers imply that this has happened elsewhere, but as you say there’s a good chance that this is a heterogeneous reaction, many candidates for the catalyst I’d think.
Anyway have a wonderful week, Phil!
You too, I’m going to be competing in a track meet so it should be fun.
What, may I ask, is the basis of your belief that CO2 in the air is “partly responsible for keeping us warm,” Pamela?
Have you any evidence other than some others evidently told you so?
Or can be calculated to be so?
There are radiant exchange models which do show that CO2 in and of itself, can result in 1.2 deg C of “warming” in the atmosphere. That of course is within the range of natural variability of the natural climate and so could never be discerned within any (decade or more) period and is why there is no geological record that can be discerned.
With but the slightest adjustment of radiant exchange calculation, the contribution of CO2 to atmospheric temperatures is zero.
People seem to prefer a positive value only because it coincides with their intuition.
In either case the contribution is not measurable to date, I have written at length how it could be discerned, it is more convenient for people to assume it than it is to demonstrate it
At the T and P of the Venusian surface and calculating the fugacities of the vapor phase components (at this T and P these are not ideal gases) I calculate
ln (K_phi) = 10.3 per gm mol of H2SO4
=> the equilibrium ratio of the mol fractions of the components is exp(10.3) in favor of H2SO4
That is to say, the reaction to H2SO4 is complete (gotta be, if you think about it)
Brian G Valentine (20:57:53) :
At the T and P of the Venusian surface and calculating the fugacities of the vapor phase components (at this T and P these are not ideal gases) I calculate
ln (K_phi) = 10.3 per gm mol of H2SO4
=> the equilibrium ratio of the mol fractions of the components is exp(10.3) in favor of H2SO4
That is to say, the reaction to H2SO4 is complete (gotta be, if you think about it)
Sure, at the surface, but I’d expect that the reaction might take place high in the atmosphere where there is more H2O, so H2O, H2SO4 and SO3 coexist. When circulation to lower altitudes takes place the equilibrium will shift to H2SO4, the Wiki article suggests that dissociation takes place at low altitude but I think high pressure would preclude this (as your calc shows).
Wik-a-wiki-wiki-wiki-wa-ka-ki … dat’s jes’ ’bout ’nuff o’ dat dere Wiki.
On a less circular topic here are some Interesting fun facts:
m Venus=0.185 m of Earth
ave. density Venus = 4.9, Earth = 5.52 g/cc
surprisingly though
g Venus=0.86 and g of Earth
escape velocity Venus=10.3, escape velocity Earth=11.1 km/s
Trick question: Why then is the atmospheric pressure of Venus so high near the surface?
In this interview, I agree with others here who have said that Bill Nye brought up the real ‘red herring’ issue when he mentioned the carbon dioxide atmosphere of the planet Venus. He seems to be using the logic says Venus is hot and Venus has a carbon dioxide atmosphere, so carbon dioxide must be the planet heater.
From a zetetic point of view, I have never seen convincing evidence presented that proved CO2 alone was primarily responsible for the deadly high surface temperatures on Venus.
That’s because none exists. It’s interesting that Venus’s rotational period is just a bit longer than Venus’s sidereal year, and the rotation is retrograde.
I had the following rather interesting discussion with Eli Rabbit some while ago:
I noted that Mars, with an atmosphere nearly 100% CO2 at about 2-5 mm Hg pressure, had a diurnal surface temperature difference of nearly 250 K (maximum).
Eli: “That would be expected, given a surface of iron oxide with a heat capacity of about clay dust, the atmospheric pressure, and the diameter of Mars.”
Me: So you agree with me, then, there is no “greenhouse” effect on Mars.
Eli: [no response at all]
I note that Bill Nye got away with a dismissive comment about Climategate in this interview. I suggest that Joe forward a copy of the recent IOP statement on Climategate to Bill O’Reilly as I believe that Bill tends to respect official statements of this type.
What’s really hilarious is that people think that they can learn anything from 2 minute “debates” like this. Read science journals if you want to know about science. There is very little controversy among those who actually study climate and understand it. The earth is definitely getting warmer, and although some of the cause is natural climate cycles, there are clear anthropogenic causes as well.
Yes, please read science journals,
500 Peer-Reviewed Papers Supporting Skepticism of “Man-Made” Global Warming
You will find extensive controversy.