I have been remiss at posting reviews on several books that people have sent me. I hope to get some of them up in the next week. Dr. Spencer’s announcement below is a start, though his is the one book I don’t have. – Anthony
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The Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the Worldās Top Climate Scientists
By Dr. Roy Spencer
Today (April 20) is the official release date of my new book entitled: āThe Great Global Warming Blunder: How Mother Nature Fooled the Worldās Top Climate Scientistsā, published by Encounter Books.
About one-half of Blunder is a non-technical description of our new peer reviewed and soon-to-be-published research which supports the opinion that a majority of Americans already hold: that warming in recent decades is mostly due to a natural cycle in the climate system ā not to an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.
Believe it or not, this potential natural explanation for recent warming has never been seriously researched by climate scientists. The main reason they have ignored this possibility is that they cannot think of what might have caused it.
You see, climate researchers are rather myopic. They think that the only way for global-average temperatures to change is for the climate system to be forced āexternallyāā¦by a change in the output of the sun, or by a large volcanic eruption. These are events which occur external to the normal, internal operation of the climate system.
But what they have ignored is the potential for the climate system to cause its own climate change. Climate change is simply what the system does, owing to its complex, dynamic, chaotic internal behavior.
As I travel around the country, I find that the public instinctively understands the possibility that there are natural climate cycles. Unfortunately, it is the climate āexpertsā who have difficulty grasping the concept. This is why I am taking my case to the public in this book. The climate research community long ago took the wrong fork in the road, and I am afraid that it might be too late for them to turn back.
NATUREāS SUNSHADE: CLOUDS
The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earthās sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming ā or global cooling.
How could the experts have missed such a simple explanation? Because they have convinced themselves that only a temperature change can cause a cloud cover change, and not the other way around. The issue is one of causation. They have not accounted for cloud changes causing temperature changes.
The experts have simply mixed up cause and effect when observing how clouds and temperature vary. The book reveals a simple way to determine the direction of causation from satellite observations of global average temperature and cloud variations. And that new tool should fundamentally change how we view the climate system.
Blunder also addresses a second major mistake that results from ignoring the effect of natural cloud variations on temperature: it results in the illusion that the climate system is very sensitive. The experts claim that, since our climate system is very sensitive, then our carbon dioxide emissions are all that is needed to explain global warming. There is no need to look for alternative explanations.
But I show that the experts have merely reasoned themselves in a circle on this subject. When properly interpreted, our satellite observations actually reveal that the system is quite IN-sensitive. And an insensitive climate system means that nature does not really care whether you travel by jet, or how many hamburgers or steaks you eat.
CARBON DIOXIDE: FRIEND OR FOE?
The supposed explanation that global warming is due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide from our burning of fossil fuels turns out to be based upon little more than circumstantial evidence. It is partly a symptom of our rather primitive understanding of how the climate system works.
And I predict that the proposed cure for global warming ā reducing greenhouse gas emissions ā will someday seem as outdated as using leeches to cure human illnesses.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that scientific knowledge is continually changing, it is increasingly apparent that the politicians are not going to let little things like facts get in their way. For instance, a new draft climate change report was released by the U.S. yesterday (April 19) which, in part, says: āGlobal warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced ā¦ Global temperature has increased over the past 50 years. This observed increase is due primarily to human-induced emissions of heat-trapping gases.ā
You see, the legislative train left the station many years ago, and no amount of new science will slow it down as it accelerates toward its final destination: forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But in Blunder I address what other scientists should have the courage to admit: that maybe putting more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing. Given that it is necessary for life on Earth, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is surprisingly small. We already know that nature is gobbling up 50% of what humanity produces, no matter how fast we produce it. So, it is only logical to address the possibility that nature ā that life on Earth ā has actually been starved for carbon dioxide.
This should give you some idea of the major themes of my new book. I am under no illusion that the book will settle the scientific debate over global warming.
To the contrary ā I am hoping the debate will finally begin.
I just finished reading Dr Roy Spencer’s book “The Great Global Warming Blunder” and I highly recommend it to warmistas and skeptics alike because it is clearly written, short and to the point. I enjoyed it and it has given me a lot to think about.
I see it is selling very well. #78 a few minutes ago.
I will buy one and send it to Michael Mann. I may have to ‘splain it to him.
So the warmers grabbed the term “Climate Change” not knowing that’s earth’s modus operandi? And these guys are being taken seriously as “scientists”?? I recommend they go back to their alma mater and ask for their tuition back.
I just finished Pat Michaels’ and Robert Balling’s Climate of Extremes and I was trying to decide what to read next… Looks like a trip to Barnes & Noble this weekend is in order.
No Kindle version as of yet. š
The inability to model clouds accurately is the Achilles Heel of GCMs.
Harry Chance,
Mann might turn the book on its side and confuse the pages with tree rings.
“You see, the legislative train left the station many years ago, and no amount of new science will slow it down as it accelerates toward its final destination: forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions”
you could substitute “forcibly increasing taxes”.
I think we have a bestseller here, on climatology.
Imagine that.
“that life on Earth ā has actually been starved for carbon dioxide.”
If the politicians looked down at the old growth wood found in their multi-thousand dollar desks and asked why the tree rings were so close together 200 hundred years ago…. alas
Read up on how “radiation fog” occurs. A fascinating example of how water vapour in the atmosphere interacts with changing surface temperature.
It seems this book covers everything that I have discovered in the past 8 months or so after I decided to see for myself what evidence there are is about CO2 causing global warming…
I wonder if Dr R Spencer could clear this is up (he may have already). Is the current high trend UHA temp data based mainly on one extreme hot spot over Canada/NH?
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
because the rest of the world is not showing any warming at all!
See COLA. analysis of current conditions etcā¦ climate. One would presume that if this is the case the data would be pretty useless (That is ONE very hotspot responsible for all the average world temps)
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/global_warming.png
“the climate system to cause its own climate change. Climate change is simply what the system does”
This is the best explanation I’ve yet seen to explain everything!
Very good. At least he can be proud of the humble title of conservationist. It only took killing one tree for his proxies.
Did he pay the tree for using it in his picture?
Joe Romm also has a new book out. When I first checked, it ranked 39,499 on Amazon. If he has purchased the obligatory 2 dozen for friends and family, he may spike at a rank as high as 2,000th.
Dear Dr. Spencer, I have not read your book yet, but followed your reasoning about clouds as cause of temperature changes.
Cloud cover is the biggest problem of current models (together with the effect of aerosols) and that is what makes the wide range in output, including the non-prediction of any natural cycle between 1 and 100 years.
I will buy the book anyway!
“that life on Earth ā has actually been starved for carbon dioxide.”
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tables/elabund.html
Plenty of oxygen atoms, but so little Carbon. Humans and animals and plants use so much of it. Why Carbon? Why does life on Earth base itself around this scarce element?
Competition, I suppose, amongst the species for who controls the Carbon.
So, why the rush to bury all the Carbon, thereby extinguishing as much life on Earth as possible?
Tough questions.
Spencer says “The climate research community long ago took the wrong fork in the road, and I am afraid that it might be too late for them to turn back.”
These folks didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that (a) this approach would be fun, (b) they could shill some good research dollars, or (c) both.
These are true believers who actually buy into the end-of-the-world stuff that we lampoon, and who also see this as a great way to re-engineer society away from dreaded fossil fuels & onwards to something else, all the while instituting new government controls.
They won’t go into the night quietly, I can guarantee that much. I’m in and amongst these types in my chosen field of public health, and even a glacier plopping down on top of the Sahara would be due to “climate change.”
Check out the presentation slides from Dr. John Holdren’s talk at the Chicago Grand Challenges Summit, I can’t recommend them enough for you folks to see where the Obama administration is taking this (nowhere that you want to go, believe me):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/04/22/ostp-director-holdren-keynotes-engineering-academy-summit
The counterpart to this myopia, is the myopic use of Lyell’s uniformitarianism… “The present is key to the past.”
It always seems to be assumed that since greenhouse gases are driving modern climate changes, they must have driven past changes. Yet, it’s plainly obvious in the geologic record that CO2 and GHG’s have never driven climate change at time during the Phanerozoic Eon… Yet it’s assumed that they did, because it “fits the narrative.”
The assumed modern GHG driver is evidence for a paleo GHG driver.
The assumed paleo GHG driver is then used as evidence for a modern GHG driver. It’s a circular calculation error.
Excellent. I will put this on my reading list.
After watching “Not evil just wrong” last night, this book will be next.
Here’s a quote from Hansen in that movie:
“Iām not going to use McIntyreās name, I donāt think he deserves the publicity but I can make some statement … Unfortunately the public does not have the scientific background to interpret whether or not itās important and the same thing happened recently with the fellow from Canada who found a flaw in our data record of temperature stations.”
You may have to read it twice. What it basically says is:
1. The public, me, you, all of us, except the warmists, are simply to stupid to understand.
2. Errors found have no significance at all, but the finders are nothing but confusing ordinary people, distract them from the real thread.
And then compare the other persons contributing on both sides. Great movie.
RE Ted Dooley (11:18:17) :
“If the politicians looked down at the old growth wood found in their multi-thousand dollar desks and asked why the tree rings were so close together 200 hundred years agoā¦. alas”
Well, that might be a problem, because they use tropical hardwoods in that furniture.
The AGW movement isn’t even about reducing C02. It’s a swirling vortex of Marxist/Communist Ideologues, Religious zealots, anti Capitalist/ Anti American /Anti Industrial Nutballs, Rent seekers and idiots. Did I forget anyone?
Bravo Dr. Spencer:
“The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earthās sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming ā or global cooling. […] they have convinced themselves that only a temperature change can cause a cloud cover change, and not the other way around. […] They have not accounted for cloud changes causing temperature changes. […] ignoring the effect of natural cloud variations on temperature […] results in the illusion that the climate system is very sensitive.”
I would advise them to show:
a) more respect for nature.
b) less obsession with anthropogenic computer fantasies.
Dr Spencer is being generous in presenting that the scientists were fooled by their thinking, ignorance, or circular logic.
The basics of their aberrant science is a collage of junk science that arrives at the conclusion that they want – climate change is our fault – and produces the political clout to impose radical economic, wealth, and social changes in the name of saving the planet.
This is a political effort and a specific agenda, not a group of scientists that went astray. They were purposely sent astray by the mandate (a la Maurice Strong) to show that global warming is manmade (a la Trofim D Lysenko). They knew the answer, and just needed to fabricate the science.
The more that the real science can be nailed down and demonstrated and the jun science revealed and debunked, the greater the chance of shooting down this agenda as word spreads of the supportable science and the planet continues to do its own thing.
It is quite convenient, I must say that they used the latest warming period to begin to sell manmade global warming. It took them so long to get going that by the time they were ready to close the deal/scam (Gore released his movie, Copenhagen), the planet had already begun to cool.
I cringe at the idea that, if the natural cycle was longer or happened to skip a cycle, the reality of the planet would not have been realized until it was too late and the idiots had taken over. Of course, that does not mean that they will not continue to try.
People here would do well to google and read up on the work of (Russian Breathing researcher) Dr Konstantin Buteyko’s (1923-2003) Breath Retraining methodology. He once worked on the Russian Space program and argued that much of human illness is supported by our trained overbreathing (over-emphasis on O2 intake), which lowers our internal C02. Dr. Buteyko’s decades long research and treatment of asthma and hypertension worked off the radical idea that it is the lack of adequate supplies of CO2 in our bodily tissues (a vasodilator and smooth muscle relaxant) that prevents our bodies from being able to access the O2 that is held by our hemoglobin. This cause all sorts of spasms and mal-reactions in our bodies that appear as the chronic diseases we end up wrestling with.
See also the “Bohr Effect” (1904 – named after Niels Bohr’s father, Christian Bohr) — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr_effect –which states that breathing more actually reduces our abilty to utilized O2 and you will understand the starting point for Buteyko’s perspective. Increasing blood levels of CO2 is the emphasis of the therapy: From the Wikipedia Bohr Effect page on the effects of increased amounts of C02: “This causes the pH of the tissue to decrease, and so promotes the dissociation of oxygen from hemoglobin to the tissue, allowing the tissue to obtain enough oxygen to meet its demands.”
For Buteyko, the paucity of atmospheric C02 is a problem that humans had to adapt to and thus his therapeutic emphasis is on nose breathing and less volumes of air so as to minimize C02 escape from the body.
We have more than enought O2, but without adequate CO2, the body lacks the chemical flag that weakens the affinity of 02 to hemoglobin and thus you suffer from lack of 02.
Buteyko today is endorsed as a non-medicinal asthma treatement in Britain and in Russian and is relatively well known in Australia.
This is quite a different take from the common mistake of seeing C02 purlely as a metabolic waste product. The emphasis on the dangers of atmospheric CO2 is supported by this misconception of C02’s role in our own bodies. See also http://members.westnet.com.au/pkolb/but_bov.htm
Dr.Spencer says:
You see, the legislative train left the station many years ago, and no amount of new science will slow it down as it accelerates toward its final destination: forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
However VAT will surpass any Cap&Trade tax, so it will wipe away any arguments at all about Global Warming or whatsoever…
Great, let’s send a book to all members of Congress and the Senate because they are preparing to vote on their Energy Bill, obviously using “stealth tactics’ in order to prevent blockage of the phone lines!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2498983/posts
Mother Nature had nothing to with the hockey stick nor hide the decline nor bad temp data nor useless tree ring data nor…
Indulge me in setting the global warming discussion aside for a moment:
“And an insensitive climate system means that nature does not really care whether you travel by jet, or how many hamburgers or steaks you eat.”
Is a corallary to the skeptical viewpoint one that condones boundless consumption of natural resources? Judging by the impairment of air and watersheds in this country, I would hazard a guess that Nature does indeed care how many steaks we eat or how many jets we fly.
Let’s go a step further and set aside all environmental consequences of jets and hamburgers. Does a disregard for consumptive limits make sense yet? Should we be telling our children that eating five pounds of corn-fed, hormone-laced beef everyday is just fine by us, and Nature? Has anyone here been paying attention to the statistics on obesity in the USA?
Wise though he may be, Dr. Spencer is clearly not an ecologist. To say that the Earth has historically been CO2 limited and, therefore, an increase in CO2 is a beneficial thing is ridiculous. If this were true, shouldn’t excess N and P in terrestrial waterbodies also be beneficial to humans? Instead, we get algal blooms, which have all sorts of negative impacts on human systems.
As usual, what ruffles my feathers is not the fact that skeptics feel the way they do about AGW. It’s everything else they have to say.
CRS, Dr.P.H. (11:38:32):
” … in my chosen field of public health …”
What if the air quality co-benefits (reduced ozone, PM, and air toxics concentrations) for public health of a GHG reduction policy outweighed some/all of the costs? How would you feel then?
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/1/014007
Charles Higley (11:58:21) :
Precisely, that is the danger of Anthropogenics Agenda. By the time the Alarmists have gained enough momemtum to actually put a Climate Forcing Operation into motion, the climage will have reversed itself.
We have run this in another thread (probably more than once).
Plans were close to reality in the late 1970’s to force emergency warming.
Now, plans are close to reality to force emergency suicide cooling.
There are fingers on buttons that are very twitchy.
Well I hate to say it; but how many times have I said it here already ?
“IT’S THE WATER; DUMMIES!”
It is at least five years now since I first posted on that Tech Central Station web site my suggestion for two mental exercise experiments.
I came to call them the BIRDSEYYE EXPERIMENT, and the VENUS EXPERIMENT.
The first was named whimsically for that chap Birdseye; who invented flash freezing of food to preserve it; without destroying the cells.
The aim of the Birdseye experiment is to rid the atmosphere of every last molecule of H2O, while leaving all othe components including GHGs unchanged. To assist in the removal process, it is assumed that the entire earth surface; defined here as the boundary between the Atmosphere, and the Non-Atmosphere is flash frozen; well actually it is only frozen in the sense that the temperature is instantly reduced to zero deg C at that boundary, and above UNLESS the place is already colder than zero deg C, in which case it retains its present temperature. Note that this does NOT freeze the oceans; only the surface temperature is zero which is above freezing for sea water. All water in the atmosphere simply drops to the surface where it is; either as rain or snow depending on what the pre-existing surface temperature was. This zero C or less atmosphere then has a much lower saturated vapor pressure for water; and finally we use tweezers or what have you to remove the last remaining H2O molecules, and drop them on the surface.
So that is the starting condition. The atmosphere is zero or less, with no water molecules but otherwise same as normal, the surface is zero or less, and below the surface is what it was previously.
So now we restart the movie and watch what happens.
Without any water vapor, there is of course no H2O GH effect; only CO2 and the rest; so the night side of the earth should start to cool; BUT ! remember that this is not too dissimilar to the Gobi Desert night condition; so the cooling is not catastrophic.
The cloud cover is now zero; so suddenly the earth albedo is reduced dramatically, with only the surface ice and land giving very much reflectance.
Without any water vapor; the total solar absorptance of the atmosphere goes down significantly as normal water vapor absorbs as much as 20% or more of the incoming solar spectrum from about 750 nm on.
DO YOU GET THE PICTURE ! we have the Mother of all climate forcings going on, with the peak ground level insolation suddenly going from about 1000 W/m^2 up to perhaps 1250W/m^2; and the cloud contribution to albedo has completely vanished; so the albedo probably has dropped from about 0.35 with 60% of global cloud cover to something less than 0.1 with zero cloud cover.
Is this a big enough global warming FORCING for you AGW fans ? How long do you think it takes for the very first H2O molecule to break free of the surface, and contaminate the atmosphere with H2O ?
1st question: Do you think this is a big enough forcing to combat the night time cooling on the dark side of the earth.
Now the tropical oceans were maybe at 25 to 30 deg C; except for the surface which is at zero; and the daytime surface irradiance is about 1250 W/m^2. Is this enough forcing to raise the surface temperature of the ocean from zero, and get some more water molecules into the atmosphere ?
Well if that happens, I would expect (please note I have never actually done this experiment; so I am postulating what might happen), that the presence of some H2O molecules in the atmosphere, will immediately start to block some of the incoming sunlight; and also warm the atmosphere on the day side of the earth, so the surface insolation will start to fall, as more H2O absorption of the 760nm + spectrum occurs. But even with this reduced insolation we still have a gynormous positive forcing, that is going to cause a veritable stream of H2O molecules to leave the surface, and enter the atmosphere; and all the while the surface of the ground is going to increase from its starting zero value, given the up to 1250 W/m^2 insolation; and the fact that below the surface some of it was already warmer than zero so will heat the surface by conduction.
As the water pollution of the lower atmosphere increases; along with the enforced warming; the lower moist air is going to start to rise, since everything above it was at zero deg C, so is denser.
Eventually some of that moisture contaminated air is going to reach the saturation vapor pressure at zero deg C, and with all the dust blown up from the non-wet ground, some water droplets are going to form and clouds will start to appear. This will bring on a new phase, since the clouds will now reflect some of the sunlight back out into space; despite all the CO2 in the air above; and they will also block additional sunlight from the ground; thus lowering the warming rate.
Since the earth is rotating, this super blow torch is going to scan the surface, and all the previous phenomena will start to occur on the previously dark side of the planet.
Well I’ll let you think the rest out for yourselves; where on earth is this phenomenon going to end up; and what will planet earth look like; say in 30 years time or so ?
I have to go to lunch now; so I’ll have to describe the Venus Experiment later.
Enjoy !
Aren’t clouds primarily water vapor? Seems to me that I’ve heard something about water vapor having an influence on climate (or was that just weather?). Unfortunately for Dr. Spencer, warm-mongers likely won’t buy his cloud shade argument because it is too simplistic and rational to possibly be true.
Bravo Dr. Spencer!
I will buy your book, and recommend it to my friends.
One problem in non-english-speaking countries is that the majority only read books in their native language.
And guess who makes sure they control which books should be translated?
Now if only we could force all MPs to read this (plus The Hockey Stick Illusion of course)! Trouble is of course they prefer telling us pygmies what to think.
No, David Middleton. The present is the key to understanding the past. It is not myopia but ignorance that you are talking about. It is hubris combined with ignorance that drives ideology.
Ref – Dave In CA (11:16:01) :
āYou see, the legislative train left the station many years ago, and no amount of new science will slow it down as it accelerates toward its final destination: forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissionsā
you could substitute āforcibly increasing taxesā.
____________________________________
You’re right, new science will not do anything; we’re going to have to revert to that oldest trick in the book of human evolution. Its on page 3, immediately after the introduction and opening statements: “How to Tar and Feather Chiefs, Senators, Representatives, & Medicine Men”.
I haven’t read it in years. It was buried under a bunch of old copies of National Geographic (pre-1969 copies, before they ruined it with all the Eco-friendly junk).
You see, geophysicists are rather myopic. They think that the only way for angular momentum to change is for the planet to be forced āexternallyāā¦by a change in the incoming flux of stuff. These are events which occur external to the normal, internal operation of the globe .
But what they have ignored is the potential for angular momentum to cause its own change. Violating the first law of thermodynamics is simply what the system does, owing to its complex, dynamic, chaotic internal behavior.
I’ve been trying to get this sentiment across in peer reviewed print ever since hearing Roy voice what he repeats here today at the first Heartland conference in 2007, where he assured us it was about to appear in JGR.
Roy’s published another whole un-peer reviewed book since then, but we’re still waiting for the paper, so maybe I should hold off on submitting my own just-so story until Rupert Murdoch buys JGR and puts this blog’s sainted editor in charge.
[snip]
In other Global Warming news today, there are heavy snowstorms across Colorado.
Must be because this is the warmest month EVAH or something.
Looking forward to the read.
“…, a new draft climate change report was released by the U.S. yesterday…”
Everyone needs to read the article referenced in the post; http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63I6HD20100419
If this is accurate, there are some wins and some serious problems. The language has dramatically changed from CO2 to Carbon Pollution which is great as long as it doesn’t include CO2, the EPA has been stripped from regulating carbon dioxide emissions, but the rest appears to cloak the carbon pollution permit scheme and transfers power from the states to the Fed.
Anthony, please consider posting an article related to the Bill when its released on Monday.
” rbateman (11:30:59) :
āthat life on Earth ā has actually been starved for carbon dioxide.ā
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tables/elabund.html
Plenty of oxygen atoms, but so little Carbon. Humans and animals and plants use so much of it. Why Carbon? Why does life on Earth base itself around this scarce element?
Competition, I suppose, amongst the species for who controls the Carbon.
So, why the rush to bury all the Carbon, thereby extinguishing as much life on Earth as possible?
Tough questions.”
Think about it logically. The biosphere generates a large number of mineralization sinks, mainly in the form of calcium/magnesium carbonates, coal, oil and methane.
Plants will fix carbon until a steady state is reached whereby the rate of carbon mineralization is equal to the rate of geological (non-biotic) carbon influx; basically vulcanism.
Plants, photosynthetic and chemolithotropic bacteria use a hung amount of energy in fixing carbon, CO2 is essentially limiting to the overall biosphere, at least on land. This opportunity cost limits the size of the biosphere; more CO2, more plants, more animals and more niches open up.
When CO2 has high, places like the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina/Virginia and the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia fix CO2, grow and then die in anaerobic water. No oxygen, no oxygenases can break down the lignin, peat formation, then brown coal formation and finally bituminous coal formation.
The actual Lyell quote is, āthe present is the key to the past.” However, geology is an extremely interpretive science… So it’s all about understanding the past through interpretation of the rock record in the context of modern Earth processes.
I don’t think that the scientists who comprise the so called “scientific consensus” are ignorant; nor do I think that most of them are driven by ideology.
I think that they are blinder-ed by ruling theories (paradigms). This is a form of self-inflicted myopia. It’s unfortunate that they did not employ Chamberlain’s Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses.
A copy must be sent to all political parties in the UK before the election, although, on second thoughts, not one ‘leader’ nor their supposed scientific advisors will understand what they are reading!
Well done Dr Spencer. Along with most regular readers here, I follow your writings with interest. I will certainly buy your book.
Interesting to note some people confusing atmospheric and land/water pollution with CO2. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially if you are not aware that your knowledge is ‘little’.
It is hubris combined with ignorance that drives ideology
No, I don’t think so, that could be if you refer to the servants (like charlatan Al) but not to the masters, for them it is just cold blooded calculated agenda.
George E. Smith. You water free atmosphere would be easy to do, take a couple of soda bottles and purge them with nitrogen. In one add dried silica gel and the other 5 ml of water. Add tops, but have a pressure/temperature gauge in the two tops.
Now just place them out doors and wait. I suspect that one will see a huge difference in the temperature of the one with water, compared to the one without.
You could then compare Air/N2 +/- silica gel. My guess is that the CO2 in normal air isn’t worth a bucket of spit.
Bravo for your last paragraphs about the planet being starved for CO2. I have contended this for a while; stating it publicly is a good way to make yourself a magnet for criticism, but I think we must boldly state the truth regardless of how much ridicule it draws. In the end vindication will come; the weight of research is on this side. The biosphere would absolutely love us to stabilize the CO2 content around 800-1000 PPM, between 2 and 3 times what we have now. It is unlikely we can get it up this high, even with all the fossil fuels we’re burning in the next century, but we can try. Problem is, like climate, while we may have a “significant effect”, it is not as big as the natural influences, and increased biomass (for one) is a powerful negative feedback mechanism for CO2, so it’s not at all clear that we can find a new point of stability much higher than 400 or 450 PPM, which is where I expect to see things level out.
Guys like me (my PhD is in mathematics) are easily dismissed as crackpots for such assertions, but Dr. Spencer is not so easily mocked.
I am afraid CRS is exactly correct above. If you are not close enough to a nest of AGW alarmists to actually know what they believe, you better wake yourself up!
If every person reading and enjoying this site do not take a few moments every day to talk and/or e-mail those persons and friends for who you care, what CRS describes will all happen in spite of what we discover or say here on WUWT. Please, wake up your families and friends to the fact a freight train is heading for us right now on this track called life, itās coming and only you can help derail it in time.
wayne (13:42:09) :
Please, wake up your families and friends to the fact a freight train is heading for us right now on this track called life, itās coming and only you can help derail it in time
This looks like an omen: That train is the one J.Hansen et al. was preparing for us, filled up with coal….that’s a black and bleak future.
I checked the reviews at amazon.com and one person gave him two stars for this book because the man had the audacity to believe in God and argue for intelligent design. (*GASP*) How dare a scientist believe in God! (end sarcasm)
Enneagram (13:10:28) :
“It is hubris combined with ignorance that drives ideology
No, I donāt think so, that could be if you refer to the servants (like charlatan Al) but not to the masters, for them it is just cold blooded calculated agenda”
I’m in complete agreement with Enneagram.
I have a relative who often remarks ‘Never attribute to malice, that which can be attributted to stupidity’, this, I think is a mental crutch for many people – the idea that a select group of people (AGW architects) would really plan to socially engineer on such a global level, is too big and threatening to entertain.
I would say the planners actions are self evident, fully disclosed and hardly secretive. A quick read of Thomas Paine lays bare the machinations of those who would be Emperors.
Add to that a groomed and primed public, in part superstitious, in part educated to be gullible, and in part adherents to millenial doom/death cult religions. Add a dash of cruelty – playing on the genuine concern people have for their love ones, manipulate compassion, corrupt their children across every spectrum – isolate them from traditional roles/values/support – and give them a new club/cult/group to belong too – sustained by that oldie but goodie – the need to belong. Steam for one generation, serve cold to the next.
Thank you Roy, Steven, Willis, the two M’s and Anthony, the moderators and others, for keeping the candle lit.
Phil M. (12:32:19) : “Is a corallary to the skeptical viewpoint one that condones boundless consumption of natural resources?”
No, Phil, sceptics do not “condone boundless consumption of natural resouces”. Mankind, including supporters of the AGW hypothesis, is causing unacceptable destruction of the Earth’s finite resouces in many ways: e.g. deforestation, destruction of habitat, water polution, biofuels, wind turbines, etc, etc. We should seek to conserve energy as a matter of economic prudence while developing better, less polluting (e.g. not batteries or windmills), more efficient alternatives. We have plenty of time to do this and must not allow greed and puerile politics to drive us into a wild, destructve panic. “Condoning boundless consumption of natural resources” would be stupid and cannot be described as a corollary to the proposition that increases in atmospheric CO2 will not lead to a world-wide climate catastrophe.
Enneagram (13:57:46) :
No, that train is the legislative laws and acts that are going to be crammed down our throats to de-construct our modern way of life, and for no real, physical reason.
“But in Blunder I address what other scientists should have the courage to admit: that maybe putting more CO2 in the atmosphere is a good thing. ”
I remember watching a show on one of the cable science-oriented channels where the likely demise of the life on Earth was put forward. The conclusion was that it would be due to CO2 depletion long before the Sun became too hot. The notion was that we had maybe 200 million years left before CO2 became so scarce in the atmosphere that the plants would be dead and the animals would be dead. It was said that this would happen very gradually with one species after another becoming less and less successful until they finally die out.
We can already see evidence of that with gymnosperms where a 2x increase in ambient CO2 results in a 10x increase in seed production. Clearly current CO2 levels are not optimal for gymnosperms, once the dominant forest group.
If nature takes half the CO2 we inject, and then if we double our rate of production and nature *still* takes half of it, that should tell you right there that life on Earth is starved of CO2 and wants to take more.
George E. Smith (12:34:10) :
āITāS THE WATER; DUMMIES!ā
yup – except that it’s not about climate and never was – so who are the dummies? Same rules as ever – who ends up with the cash when the music stops.
Who paid for all this? Who are the dummies? The know they are getting buggered and they giggle over chatting points while the shaft is sunk. Who are the dummies?
CRS, Dr.P.H. (11:38:32) :
“Check out the presentation slides from Dr. John Holdrenās talk at the Chicago Grand Challenges Summit, I canāt recommend them enough for you folks to see where the Obama administration is taking this (nowhere that you want to go, believe me)”
Holdren is a terrible alarmist and his presentation is simply dishonest. It’s scary that this man has the ear of President Obama.
His slides in PDF form are here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/jph-chicago-04212010.pdf
Holdren says, in the context of Climategate:
“Nothing that has come to light in e-mails or controversies about the IPCC rises to a level that would call into question the core understandings from climate science about what is going on…the key findings from climate science have been subjected to an absolutely unprecedented multiplicity and depth of peer reviews. Itās therefore very unlikely that new data or insights will alter these findings in a fundamental way. Policy makers should not bet with the publicās welfare against such long odds, and the public should punish at the polls those who do.”
I’m sure those familiar with the history of science will feel rather nauseated by such a comment.
So that’s it folks: nothing shakes the confidence of the true believers, and nothing ever will. It’s now an inviolable dogma to be believed by all the faithful; civil government must enforce the infallible pronouncements of the Church of Global Warming; and all disobedient heretics must be silenced and punished.
As Dr Spencer says, “it is increasingly apparent that the politicians are not going to let little things like facts get in their way…You see, the legislative train left the station many years ago, and no amount of new science will slow it down as it accelerates toward its final destination: forcibly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
The role of clouds in influencing temperature was discovered by yours truly long before the good doctor began his education. When I was about 8 years old (56 years ago) I arrived at that conclusion as I noticed whenever my view of the sun was blocked by a cloud it felt cooler, only to have the reverse occur when the cloud no longer blocked the sun. Then again this was not a peer reviewed observation. Oh well.
Phil M. (12:32:19) :
“Is a corallary to the skeptical viewpoint one that condones boundless consumption of natural resources?”
No. I am a skeptic of AGW, and I do not condone boundless consumption. I in turn resent the arrogant and self righteous attitude of the core of AGW believers, particularly when merely questioning is treated with such hostilaty.
“Wise though he may be, Dr. Spencer is clearly not an ecologist. To say that the Earth has historically been CO2 limited and, therefore, an increase in CO2 is a beneficial thing is ridiculous. If this were true, shouldnāt excess N and P in terrestrial waterbodies also be beneficial to humans? Instead, we get algal blooms, which have all sorts of negative impacts on human systems.”
No again. Why do you draw a straight line between attitudes towards CO2 and excess N and P? If I agree with the idea that the Earth has been CO2 limited, why would I then think that excess N and P is beneficial?
“As usual, what ruffles my feathers is not the fact that sceptics feel the way they do about AGW. Itās everything else they have to say.”
Who is “they”?
You have a valid point about excess but please don’t pick the extreme sceptics as speaking for all, unless that is what you want. You could argue that also applies to proponents of AGW, but the difference is AGW has managed to bring about political action that is built on a hypothesis that doesn’t like criticism. That in itself is enough for me to be cynical and critical. And do you think it is healthy to stifle questioning, disagreement, dissent?
I am somewhat angry about AGW because I think far from helping raise awareness of the world around us (I loathe that expression) it has created strong partisan view points, when what we really really need is open and free thinking.
For me Easter Island is an incredible example of what happens when we humans do not comprehend that there are limits. They (Easter Islanders) must have been so fixated on fighting each other, probably brought about by running out of space, that they cleared all the trees. Once they had achieved that they could no longer catch the fish that supplemented their diet, because they couldnāt build any boats, and then it must have got a whole lot worse. I can imagine one of the islanders being sceptical about following the course they were on and how they would have been treated. Well, we know what happened. They just had to keep on building those statues, and making them bigger and bigger, because that is the way we are.
A lot of our problems a far simpler than the complexity of a runaway warming caused by a trace element that occupies 3% of 1% of the atmosphere, that after the sun;s heat has hit the earth and bounced back up, this trace element catches this reflected heat and sends it back down again and then the earth really starts to warm up. We should deal with the simple problems first.
I have ordered my copy.
While I agree that one should never ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity, there is a class of operators in politics whose goals are sheer power. They will use any available tool to achieve power.
This book is needed.
We need to support politicians who clearly understand that any form of coercion is a warning flag.
Kindle version please. Don’t need a (rather expensive) Kindle — rather I use the free Kindle PC software.
After decades of computer use, I prefer to read blogs, news, and books off the screen now.
Kindle book delivery is instantaneous and a couple bucks cheaper than printed media. Nothing not to like, for me. I could be reading right now.
Epistemic Closure (12:54:07) :
I suggest you examine the difference between energy and temperature. You can start by looking at the constant pressure specific heat capacity of water vs. the constant pressure specific heat capacity of air.
Layne Blanchard (11:52:01) :
The AGW movement isnāt even about reducing C02. Itās a swirling vortex of Marxist/Communist Ideologues, Religious zealots, anti Capitalist/ Anti American /Anti Industrial Nutballs, Rent seekers and idiots. Did I forget anyone?
______________________________________________________________________________
Yes! You forgot the key people who want complete control, the central banksters.
“The common enemy of humanity is man.
In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up
with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming,
water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these
dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through
changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome.
The real enemy then, is humanity itself.”
– Club of Rome,
“We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis…”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march
towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty
of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable
to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
The Danish text
The UN Copenhagen climate talks are in disarray today after d
developing countries reacted furiously to leaked documents…
The draft hands effective control of climate change
finance to the World Bank…
John Vidal
guardian.co.uk
Tuesday 8 December 2009
I suggest reading A PRIMER ON MONEY: by US House Committee on Banking and Currency and History, HACCP and the Food Safety Con Job The bankers are very good at gradually grabbing control of what they want.
Well if you worked your way through my Birdseye thougth experiment above, you should have a process of continuing increase in atmospheric water vapor, and also increasing atmospheric temperature, but the increasing water vapor will absorb an increasing amount of incoming sunlight which will further warm the atmosphere but further cool the surface, by lowering the ground level insolation. The continually warming moist atmosphere, whether warmed by incomeing solar absorption, or by increasing absorption of outgoing LWIR emissions from an increasingly warm surface, will rise through the colder upper layers bring moisture to ever higher atmospheric layers, and increasing cloud formation which will further lower the ground level insolation.
It is conjectured that the diminishing ground level insolation, and increasing cloud cover will eventually bring the warming to a halt at some unknown temperature and atmospheric ,moisture condition. I say this is a conjecture, because I have never done the actual experiment so I can’t say for sure that it ever stops warming.
So that is why we should now do the Venus Experiment; which is the complete opposite of the Birdseye Experiment. In the Venus experiment we want to establish complete cloud cover over the entire earth essentially from the ground to say 20 Km height; pick a number. We want full saturated vapor pressure of water vapor, and nano water droplets forming a single complete cloud from teh ground to 20 km bordering on precipitation. To get even more water into the atmosphere, we warm the atmosphere from the surface up to say out 20 km up to + 50 deg C; unless some place is already hottere than that; in which case it retains its present temperature. We did this so fast that no snow or ice on the ground or ocean has melted; and only the air adjacent to the surface is at 50 deg C. I really don’t care if you make it 99 deg C; if we are trying to emulate Venus; we aren’t concerned whether any life exists. Well all the people and animals can go inside; where it is anormal temperature.
So now we let reality set in.
Th earth albedo is now much higher; probably higher than 0.8, since the thick clouds are highly reflective in the solar spectrum. so not a lot of the solar spectrum enters the clouds where it is highly scattered.
With 20 km of this total saturated atmosphere; it’s a fairly safe bet that virtually no solar radiation reaches the surface, which is near total darkness.
The top of the clouds being at 50 deg C (or 99) will be quite strongly radiating LWIR thermal radiation at double or more the average 390W/m^2 that we get at 288 K; and with the clouds reflecting 80% of the 1366 W/m^2 TSI we are capturing less than 275W/m^2 from the sun; with maybe 700 going out.
So the upper atmopshere is cooling, and convection and conduction is transporting heat from the surface to the top of the clouds; so the surface too is cooling.
Since we postulated that the atmosphere is everywhere saturated and even nano droplets of liquid exist (part of the cloud); we can hypothesize that some sort of precipitation should start to occur. Given that we started with +50 deg C (or 99), this is most likely in the form of rain.
It might rain for 40 days and 40 nights; but precipitation in some form, is going to start removing vast amounts of excess H2O molecules from the atmosphere, so the cloud density is going to thin. Some of the water vapor, will even start to form new droplets, and the atmospheric temperature will continue to fall, since even at 288 K it should be losing 390 W/m^2, while the albedo is only allowing 275 or less back in from the sun.
Well as the cloud density reduces, the absorption of solar spectrum energy diminishes, and some sunlight starts to reach the ground, which will slow the cooling rate of the surface due to LWIR emissions.
Eventually, the clouds will start to break up, as the moisture content diminishes with all the precipitation, and the upper reaches of the clouds may eventually reach the local freezing point so that ice crystal clouds can also form, and eventually snow and maybe even hail will precipitate.
As precipitation continues, the amount of cloud cover diminishes, and more sunlight reaches the ground so the cooling process continues to slow, and the surface temperature may eventually stop falling.
It is conjectured that at some point the amount of sunlight reaching the ground is enough to halt the cooling and a stable amount of cloud cover is established. But I have never actually done this experiment; so I do not know for sure that that is what happens; which is why we should do the Birdseye experiment; to see if the earth can cool withoug limit as this Venus process continues.
Without proof, it is my thesis that the Birdseye experiment reaches a stable temperature (the Birdseye Temperature) where further heating results in more evaporation and cloud which blocks enough extra sunlight to halt the warming. It is also hypothesized that in the Venus Experiment, the cooling process eventually stops when further cooling results in the precipitation of more water, thus reducing the cloud amount by enough to let more sunlight in to stop the cooling. This would stop at the Venus Temperature.
I have no way of knowing if the Venus Temperature, and the Birdseye Temperature are the same value. Presumably the Venus Temperature would be equal to or greater than the Birdseye Temperature.
If those two temperatures are in fact distinct; then presumably an atmospheric state at a Temperature warmer than the Birdseye Temperature, but Colder than the Venus Temperature is inherently unstable, and the system would be drive either up to the Venus Temperature; or down to the Birdseye temeprature.
However it is also possible that there could be more stable Temperature conditions intermediate between these two. They shoud occur in pairs, and each pair would either boud a stable region or an unstable region, with stable and unstable zones alternating.
So right now, we don’t know whether planet earth is at or near either of my two special temperatures; or is indeed in transition between them.
I know of absolutely no experimental observed evidence, that any more stable atmospheric Temperatures and corresponding states, besides the Venus, and Birdseye Temperatures, actually exists; nor am I aware of any theoretical basis for believing that the Birdseye and Venus Temperatures are in fact different.
It seems to me, that the results of these mental experiments suggest that so long as the general orbital and solar TSI conditions remain generally in the present range; that neither thermal runaway to an increasingly hot state; or an increasingly cold state is even possible.
The starting points of each of these two mental experiments, are so hostile to stable existence; that it is inconceivable that either one can ever exist or that our planet can ever be driven to either state.
So i will reiterate, what I believe to be true; and have been saying in one form or another for at least five years.
The range of comfortable temperatures on planet earth are a direct result of the Physical, Chemical and probably Biological properties of the H2O molecule; and so long as we have those oceans, we can neither raise nor lower the temperature of the planet; even if we wanted to.
Leif is always hinting that he doesn’t think the sun (TSI) is a controlling factor of earth climate (or words to that effect).
And eons of geological history proxies suggest that CO2 has very little effect either.
The mechanisms described in these two thought experiments show that variations in both of those variables is easily compensated by the feedback control, due to the co-existing three phases of H2O in the earth atmosphere.
So I am interested to see what Dr Spencer has revealed in his book; all I have done is doodle in the sand on a desert island with a stick.
Thanks for the book. I’ll put it on my list. I appreciate that your comments and articles always seem balanced to me. First and foremost, I am interested to see the science done right, regardless of political persuasion.
This is not Spencer’s new angle on clouds, but this quote from a CRU scientist does remind us that, with this debate, when it comes to the account for clouds and moisture in the GCMs it is plus Ƨa change, plus c’est la mĆŖme chose:
Climate Present, Past and Future Vol 2, 1977 by H. H. Lamb (1913-97), founding director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia
1/ Leeches are extremely useful medical devices and are essential to limb re-attachment procedures!
2/Satellites show a 4% decrease in cloud cover, a forcing of about 3.5W/m2.
This is almost the same as from a doubling of CO2 (3.7W) yet the temperature only rose by 0.4deg C, not 3 to 4 deg.
Without negative feed back the temp should have gone up by at least 1 degC
Clearly Negative feedback dominates and the IPCC estimate is out by a factor of ten.
3/We are in a “Carbon drought!”
Much more catchy than trying to say the world is starved of carbon š
Phil M. (12:32:19) :
Indulge me in setting the global warming discussion aside for a moment:
…..Should we be telling our children that eating five pounds of corn-fed, hormone-laced beef everyday is just fine by us, and Nature? Has anyone here been paying attention to the statistics on obesity in the USA?…..
_____________________________________________________________________________
I suggest you read History, HACCP and the Food Safety Con Job
Eating beef is NOT the problem. That is just as much of a hoax as CAGW. I lost thirty pounds by eating lots of grass & corn fed beef and a tiny salad. The real problem is the high fructose corn syrup and salt put in everything as well as the soft drink and candy machines placed in the schools. All that salt makes everyone buy more drinks full of corn syrup. Fat actually curbs my appetite, perhaps that is why we have the well publicized no fat campaign to make people hungry.
Then take the current craze for recycling plastics. Recycling chops the chain length making the plastic weak so now a pair of rubber muck boots last less than three months before they crack, while my old ones are over 15 yrs old. The same goes for the muck buckets. I have old ones that are fifteen years old and the new ones break in three to six months. As far as I am concerned “GREEN” is a big sales promotion for the corporations to make more money off of us.
No one here is suggesting we should all live like Al Gore. Heck I was a member of Greenpeace and Sierra Club back in the sixties. That does not mean I think that a totalitarian government is what we need to “SAVE THE PLANET” and THAT is the ultimate goal of the people behind the green curtain.
“”” berniel (16:16:04) :
This is not Spencerās new angle on clouds, but this quote from a CRU scientist does remind us that, with this debate, when it comes to the account for clouds and moisture in the GCMs it is plus Ƨa change, plus cāest la mĆŖme chose: “””
So just who was it that gave these chaps the authority to increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere and yet keep both the amount of cloud cover and the relative humidity caonstant ? Who gave them such control over the laws of Physics ?
And why did they not simply hold all the temperatures constant, while they increased the CO2 so they could see what the climate effect of that is ?
Here’s an interesting quote relevant to the tendency for experts (whose social standing etc. depends on their “knowing better” than what’s obvious to Joe Schmoe) to go off half-cocked with some outrĆ©, ass-backwards interpretation of what’s happening (from Anthony Standen’s Science Is A Sacred Cow):
Johnny D (12:32:55) :
CRS, Dr.P.H. (11:38:32):
ā ā¦ in my chosen field of public health ā¦ā
What if the air quality co-benefits (reduced ozone, PM, and air toxics concentrations) for public health of a GHG reduction policy outweighed some/all of the costs? How would you feel then?
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/1/014007
——-
REPLY: Well, that is exactly what I work on! My own emphasis is upon neurotoxic metals, and most of the mercury in our seafood originated in coal-fired utilities. That is the source of the surge in autistic disorders we are seeing.
Illinois high-sulfur coal is selling very well, as utilities are upgrading their sulfur scrubbers in order to burn this inexpensive source of fuel. Our mines haven’t had such good business in many decades.
However, there is a difference between these toxic elements, which are relatively easy/inexpensive to control, and carbon dioxide, which is not. The emphasis of the climate community and their political patrons is upon re-engineering societies habits, energy consumption patterns and transportation choices.
If you doubt me, look at Hanson’s powerpoint slides, above.
Anthony,
Would having an “Amazon” link on your site be a worthwhile revenue generator for you?
AGW was a Reign of Fear* with its inquisitors from the AGW Inquisition* of the UN/IPCC.
The fear was the Fear of our planet being cremated in an apocalyptic fire-hell ignited by AGW, aka a man-made disaster as O would say.
“*Chapter 11”
“*The Threat of Knowledge”
“Thus silence has been imposed upon the learned;
and as for those who ran to the call of science, as you say,
great terror has been inspired in them (the Skeptics).”
Fear’s sister was Hope; the Hope of the remission of the Mann-made Devil CO2, including indulgences, aka carbon credits. Thus, the CO2 apocalypse would be avoided.
Underneath was the left-liberal urge for totalitarian Power and central control of the entire world population by the United Nations.
The Torquemada’s included Hansen, Gore, Mann, Jones, Suzuki, de Boer, Pachauri, Merkel, and Canadian Maurice Strong, et al.
Their torture chamber was at the CRU.
H/T:
“*Inquisition”
“The Reign of Fear”
Toby Green(sic)
Pan Books 2007
The mirror image of the AGW Fear/Hope is the Hope/Fear of Obama, et al.
Re: David Middleton (13:06:13) :
Re: Dennis Nikols (12:41:39) :
No, David Middleton. The present is the key to understanding the past. It is not myopia but ignorance that you are talking about. It is hubris combined with ignorance that drives ideology.
The actual Lyell quote is, āthe present is the key to the past.ā However, geology is an extremely interpretive scienceā¦ So itās all about understanding the past through interpretation of the rock record in the context of modern Earth processes
In point of fact guys, the expression, āthe present is the key to the pastā, is not from Lyell and, to quote Stephen J Gould, is but “loosely translated textbook catechism”. Uniformitarianism was Hutton’s idea, not Lyell’s. The actual quote appearing in Lyell’s Principles is, “an attempt to explain the former changes in the earth’s surface by reference to causes now in operation.” And, by the way, the term uniformitarianism was used by neither Hutton no Lyell but William Whewell in an early review of Principles.
Given that it is necessary for life on Earth, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is surprisingly small.
This is what started me questioning the ‘CO2 causes global warming story’ about five years ago. The comment by Dr Spencer The climate research community long ago took the wrong fork in the road, and I am afraid that it might be too late for them to turn back. is a good analogy. The further our viewpoints diverge the more difficult it is to understand each others argument. This is very unfortunate for reputation of science, in the future there are going to be some red faces out there.
Wade Burchette says:
There is a difference between “believ[ing] in God” and claiming that “intelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionism” ( http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I ) The former is a statement of personal religious belief that lies beyond the realm of science; the latter is a statement about science that some us feel shows poor scientific judgement.
Gail Combs writes, “No one here is suggesting we should all live like Al Gore.” I’m guessing GC doesn’t know how Al Gore lives – it’s nothing like what he prescribes for the rest of us. I would love to live like Al, but can’t afford it. I’m not so much into houseboats, but a fast 6-place turboprop would be really convenient.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity” is an application of Occam’s Razor. One must be careful not to trim away too much using the Razor, as malice has a way of causing far more damage than does stupidity. As Einstein famously put it, “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
There is no way to distinguish what is happening from intentional subversion. Herein lies an appropriate application of the precautionary principle.
The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover. Clouds are the Earthās sunshade, and if cloud cover changes for any reason, you have global warming ā or global cooling.
============
Fluctuations aren’t trends. Fluctuations are things that come and go. The notion that fluctuations in the global cloud cover is the cause of the long-term trend in waring just doesn’t make sense to me, if that’s what is meant.
David Middleton (11:00:43) said “ā¦ Looks like a trip to Barnes & Noble this weekend is in order”.
Good luck. Last time I was in there, I couldn’t find a single volume of anything that wasn’t 100% AGW party line. However, they did have a half dozen copies of algore’s latest screed. Maybe if their ‘science’ section was a quarter of the size of their psychology section, they might have some room for differing opinions.
Phil M. (12:32:19) said several strange but revealing things:
“Is a corallary to the skeptical viewpoint one that condones boundless consumption of natural resources? Judging by the impairment of air and watersheds in this country, I would hazard a guess that Nature does indeed care how many steaks we eat or how many jets we fly.”
Sounds like his goal is to return the planet to a an idyllic state of balance and harmony that could only have existed before the dawn of man! His romantic notion of nature unemcumbered by the ‘impairment’ of man’s endeavors is simply not realistic. He’s probably coming from the perspective of an urbanite to who has had liitle life experience with the rigors of nature. By the way, why does he use a capital ‘N’ in the word nature? Is it a proper noun?
He also said, “Wise though he may be, Dr. Spencer is clearly not an ecologist.”
What is an ecologist? Ecology is not a science. It is political philosophy cobbled together from politics and religion with a little bit of science mixed in. It is based mostly on objective opinion and faith and less on empirical observaton and facts. I’ve never met anyone who describes themselves as an ‘ecologist’ who was not a subscriber to other collectivist political philosophies. Fortunatley, Dr. Spencer is not an ecologist. On the contrary, he is a skeptical scientist.
“To say that the Earth has historically been CO2 limited and, therefore, an increase in CO2 is a beneficial thing is ridiculous. If this were true, shouldnāt excess N and P in terrestrial waterbodies also be beneficial to humans?”
Nice try, but sorry, no analogy here! Nitrates and phosphates are not the constructional basis for all life in aquatic ecosystems. But, if you’re saying that simply stating well documented scientific fact is grounds for being considered ridiculous, then we could stand for a few more ridiculous people in this public debate.
Wren (20:18:51) :
“Fluctuations arenāt trends. Fluctuations are things that come and go.”
Wren, get a grip on reality. Climate fluctuations are simply deviations from the trend. Some folks call them anomalies.
My wife happened to be out on a shopping trip today, and I happened to have a couple of Barnes and Noble gift certificates left over from Christmas. I asked her to see if they had Spencer’s book. Sure enough, they did, and I’m more than half way through it already. It’s thought provoking to say the least, and I look forward to the interesting discussions (arguments) that it will inspire.
Unfortunately, Barnes and Noble didn’t have Climategate: the CRUtape Letters, or Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion. I may have to spend my own money for those. š
@mbabbitt: Regarding the Bohr effect: shouldnāt this mean that submariners have better than ordinary health? Has anyone checked? If not, they should.
Gail was aware of that. She was being facetious.
(She was responding to Phil M.’s rhetorical question, “Should be recommend eating five pounds of hamburger per week”? Her response implied he was a high-consumption icon.)
Analogy Fail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Medical_Leech#Today
Dr. Spencer,
One tiny flaw in your logic. Most complex systems contain natural cycles and resonances. This means external forcing does become an issue if there is a synchronization between these the periodicity of the internal natural cycles and the periodicity of the external forcing agent.
This is the case with the PDO (Pacific Decadal Oscillation). A natural internal cycle governing the sea-surface temperature patterns in the Pacific ocean are synchronized with a combination of the 20.3 year lunar/solar tidal cycle (since 251 synodic months = 269 anomalistic months approx = 20.2928 Anomalistic (Earth orbit) years) and the 62.0 year
lunar/solar tidal cycle.
Smokey (20:24:29) :
Wren (20:18:51) :
āFluctuations arenāt trends. Fluctuations are things that come and go.ā
Wren, get a grip on reality. Climate fluctuations are simply deviations from the trend. Some folks call them anomalies.
====
Which is what I said, except for the “anomalies.”
A temperature anomaly is an index with a base period, not a measure of a deviation from a trend. A temperature anomaly could be on the trend line.
Mmmmmmmmm Global warming’s real.
“”George E. Smith (16:36:22) :
And why did they not simply hold all the temperatures constant, while they increased the CO2 so they could see what the climate effect of that is ?””
Because CO2 covers a small unique ‘window’ itself! However, convection and latent convection renders this inconsequential! Nothing to see here, move along please!
High five George, nice to see you in threads on an educational POV. š
As soon as a ‘radiative’ forcing component of energy is ‘absorbed’ into the ‘kinetic’ system, it’s no longer a ‘radiative forcing’! Thus, the energy trans-locates to the attractor of ‘sensible heat transport’ and ‘latent heat transport’. IOW, CO2 in the lower troposphere makes no difference to temperatures. It only makes a difference in the more ‘rarefied’ regions of the atmosphere (low pressures [high altitudes] that are more open for irradiation into space). Thus, lower troposphere temperatures aren’t altered much by CO2 as they rely on convection with latent transport.
Got to go now!
Best regards, suricat.
Joel Shore (20:10:45) :
……The former is a statement of personal religious belief that lies beyond the realm of science; the latter is a statement about science that some us feel shows poor scientific judgement………..
Martin Rees the Astronomer Royal (AGW consensus advocate) is also a believer in “intelligent design”
Which of these two positions would qualify for “some us feel shows poor scientific judgement”
John from CA (12:56:34) : Looking forward to the read. āā¦, a new draft climate change report was released by the U.S. yesterdayā¦ā
… The language has dramatically changed from CO2 to Carbon Pollution …
Sounds much like the PDF pointed to in Tipsy Notes yesterday, John.
“Meeting the Energy-Challenge” (John P. Holdren)
Fact and fiction are seamlessly blended. Acknowledgements in the nature of “Wal… we may have been a little hasty in the past on this…” followed by “But consider this cold, hard fact!” which is an injection of blatant scaremongering fiction — over and over.
It absolutely infuriated me with its simplistic “lessons” and condescending tone and the obvious presumption that it would fool sufficient of the populace to give it authority.
It ends with the words: “it’s a huge asset and a huge opportunity to have a President who gets it! A President with vision.”
I think your president is being fooled; or else is wilfully careless — however, I fear enough good folks of trust but no expertise (and why should they have any?) will take the bait.
It all sounds so reasonable; as does any successful confidence trick.
“The most obvious way for warming to be caused naturally is for small, natural fluctuations in the circulation patterns of the atmosphere and ocean to result in a 1% or 2% decrease in global cloud cover.”
Considering we’ve cut down over 50% of the rainforests, is this not enough on it’s own to explain the required decrease in cloud cover?
I watch a lecture about a reforestation program to restore Baboon habitat, satellite pictures clearly demonstrated a marked increase in cloud cover over the massive area of the scheme within 20 years, which seems pertinent to this.
Dr. Spencer, I have your book on order; I greatly look forward to reading it.
Phil M. – Get a life! Dr. Spencer’s point was a metaphor about the relative insensitivity of the climate system, not a justification of reckless consumption of resources. You completely misunderstand or, more likely, refuse to understand, because you have been trapped in that “ecological” mind frame that everything humans do in nature is bad for nature.
CO2 remains a trace gas in our atmosphere, yet it is fundamental to the development of plant life. So your analogy to N and P in terrestrial water bodies limps very badly. We have not yet understood the climate system sufficiently enough to be able to talk about whether (and how) a circumstance could arise in which a certain amount of CO2 is “too much.” That, in fact, is one of the essential questions you warmist ecologists fail to even ask, much less answer.
Pops (20:17:23) :
Gail Combs writes, āNo one here is suggesting we should all live like Al Gore.ā Iām guessing GC doesnāt know how Al Gore lives ā itās nothing like what he prescribes for the rest of us. I would love to live like Al, but canāt afford it. Iām not so much into houseboats, but a fast 6-place turboprop would be really convenient….
____________________________________________________________________________
Pops,
I meant exactly what I said. Al Gore lives the type of life Phil M. (12:32:19) : is scolding us about and I was trying to point out what hypocrites many of the “green” leaders are. I do much of my shopping at flea markets and buy my food direct from farmers locally. However our hypocrite leaders are trying to kill that type of “free enterprise” by the little guy. My favorite flea market has been under attack by the holier than thou green community of Orange county NC for the last three years. Orange county is very Marxist with Duke University & Chapel Hill, the town with more phds per capita than most other towns in the USA.
Roger Knights,
a quick search of ‘Health submariners’ in a study of one nuclear sub crew over 101 days submerged, brought up the cherry picked quote
“Of significance is the trend of decreasing numbers of complaints of any kind over time, suggesting resolution of pre-underway health conditions and secondary infections, isolation from further exposure to certain infections, and adaptation to submarine conditions.”
Interesting, as a friend with emphysema found relief with Budeyko techniques, which is a bit counter intuative.
Joel Shore (20:10:45) :
Starting discussions on evolution versus intelligent design is a warmer’s trick.
I think they have crash courses on how to deal with the uncanny situation where someone is trying to discuss AGW versus NGC. (Normal Global Cycles)
The trick is to
1) Attack the messenger. ( He said something about tobacco. He is religious. He is supported by Big Oil)
2) Mention the 2500 Scientists mantra.
3) Information overflow with lots of references to Red Herring papers in order to bog you down with Arrhenius and others
They don’t want a scientific discussion to disturb their true agenda.
The true agenda is the disbandment of the Western civilisation, and starting a new dark era of socialism and control of every mans activity via the UN.
Roger Knights 21:02:25, and my 02:27:36
Sorry, should have mentioned conditions, averaged at O2 at 19.2% CO2 at 0.49% , Ok, I’m a bit dyslectic but doesn’t that equate to 4900 ppm ?
Which does tie in with other submarine data I have read, so isn’t this another answer to the “CO2 is a pollutant” edict coming into force?
Bryan says:
That is simply not true. Rees does not dispute evolution. He does argue that the physical constants of the universe are pretty precisely tuned for life, but this does not deny that life evolved and does not even address the question of how they were tuned. (For example, one hypothesis is that there are many universes and this is the only one in which things worked out that way and thus we are here to see it.)
And, Rees is quite clear here http://saturn.astrobio.net/interview/1752/expectations-for-a-final-theory about what he thinks about intelligent design:
That hardly sounds like an intelligent design advocate.
At any rate, the issue is not whether or not one can find intelligent design advocates on either side of the AGW debate. Rather, the issue is that Roy Spencer is one of the few scientists on the “skeptic” side who is doing real scientific research and has any sort of even vaguely credible hypothesis of why climate sensitivity might be lower than is generally believed.
CRS, Dr.P.H. (17:49:39) :
I think the least we can expect is that you spell “Hansen” correctly. Where do you get this “Hanson” spelling from?
I noticed that good ole Phil Jones in his BBC interview said that the alleged temperature increase over the last 50 odd years must be caused by CO2 because the sun and volcanos? were not the cause and the only thing left was us criminals.
Argumentum ad ignorantum can also lead to Zeus and Thor if he doesn’t watch out.
Jones calls himself a scientist? What a crock of BS!
I’d think about a change of cover. Some years ago this was debated from Internet-sized images with the general consensus that it was one of the most extreme examples of a popular photoshopped image not stated to be so.
If it’s authentic and looks that way at high res, that’s beaut. If it’s make-believe, well, not so good.
Dr. Roy Spencer is the voice of reason in a mad, mad, mad world. And, not only regarding the science of the science of the science of Climate guesstimating.
The String Theory of Human Motivation and the Chaos Theory of Human Interaction have a long way to go before they start to make any sense of what people are and why they think and do the things they do. And, still further before they are (if ever) ‘Unified’.
Why? Because people are driving the boat that they built with their own little hands, on an ocean of ideas that they’re not quite sure are real, on a planet they don’t have a glue about how it operates, in a Solar System…, in a Galaxy…, in a Universe… etc.
Numerous ‘problems’ confront us and we do our level best to guess right every āday-in-and-day-outā during our stay. We generally tend to ‘listen’ to those ‘advising’ us in what to do next, or which way to go, or not. Its very confusing. Frequently, we take the ‘wait and see’ approach. Sometimes, we do things and guess right. Many times, when we do things, we end up making everything worse. Very infrequently, we remember our prior ‘mistakes’, usually we don’t.
Fat Albert and Friends are not new to us. They are always there. They’re always trying to scare us into trusting them to do what they say, or just give them our money. In difficult times there is always GREAT Opportunity;-)
One thing ‘new’, today. There are a heck of a lot more of us than ever before using up scarce resources and making a mess of the Garden of Eden. We all know that things are ‘changing’. We all fear that things are going to get worse. Many think that āsomethingā has to be done. This is when things get dangerous. Today, things ARE dangerous.
When many think ‘something’ has to be done. Mistakes happen. And, these are almost always very Big, Big, Big Mistakes.
Its not just the āscienceā!
Ninderthana (22:26:13) :
“synchronized with a combination of the 20.3 year lunar/solar tidal cycle (since 251 synodic months = 269 anomalistic months approx = 20.2928 Anomalistic (Earth orbit) years) and the 62.0 year
lunar/solar tidal cycle.”
Jupiter and Saturn align every 20 years. Every 60 years they align within 9 degrees of the starting place, every 800 years they align within 1 degree of the starting place. Changes on the center of gravity of the solar system would logically have an impact on earth.
harrywr2 (07:16:15) :
Changes on the center of gravity of the solar system would logically have an impact on earth.
Two men walk down the street on opposite sides of the street. their center of gravity is somewhere in the middle of the street between them. One man walks faster that the other. That causes the center of gravity to move with respect to the men. Logically that has an impact on the men…
One thing which I think Roy has missed, correct me, someone, if I’m wrong.
The fact is that the same area coverage of cloud of a particular density will have an albedo effect directly related to it’s latitudinal position.
Thus it will reflect more sunlight the closer to the equator it is.
We see that when the Earth is warming the mid latitude jets and the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) move further from the equator and when the Earth is cooling they move closer to the equator.
The distance is 1000 miles or more, over and above normal seasonal variability.
Common sense suggests that the albedo effect of those latitudinal shifts is going to have a greater effect on the global energy budget than anything else currently under discussion.
Leif Svalgaard (08:15:55)
“harrywr2 (07:16:15) :
Changes on the center of gravity of the solar system would logically have an impact on earth.
Two men walk down the street on opposite sides of the street. their center of gravity is somewhere in the middle of the street between them. One man walks faster that the other. That causes the center of gravity to move with respect to the men. Logically that has an impact on the men.”
Obviously not.
But only because far stronger forces are acting on both men at the same time. Gravity being a very weak force compared to the ongoing biological processes in human bodies.
However in the case of Sun and Jupiter and the other planets of the solar system gravity is acting unopposed and is the strongest force acting on those bodies.
Indeed gravity affects, perhaps controls, the movement of the interiors of such bodies especially where liquids are present or where pressure gives solids liquid characteristics.
So if shifts in gravitational influence can affect the interiors of planets they can also affect the state of those planets in myriad ways as the internal planetary systems process that gravitational energy one way or another depending on their individual compositions.
So, Leif, a clever post but not quite the truth.
Ref – Stephen Wilde (08:57:32) :
“Thus it will reflect more sunlight the closer to the equator it is.”
_____________________________
But, the effect on higher latitudes will be proportionally greater?
Joel Shore (05:42:39)
Still putting ‘skeptics’ in quotation marks, I see.
The reason is clear: you can not falsify the null hypothesis, so you attempt to marginalize skeptics instead. Well, you play the cards you’re dealt, I guess.
And in science it doesn’t matter what is “generally believed.” The planet is acting as if the climate sensitivity to CO2 is close to zero. I’ll listen to the planet – or even Phil Jones – over the political appointees emitting their climate propaganda from the UN/IPCC. They’re in it for the money, not for the science; science is just their cover story.
And enough with the constant discussing of skeptics while discussing religious beliefs. Stop it, or I’ll start equating CAGW true believers with communist “useful fools.”
But come to think of it…
Pascvaks (09:11:07)
Due to the lower angle of incidence of sunlight on the northern latitudes the net effect will be an increase in total albedo if the clouds shift equatorward.
The increased sunlight in the higher latitudes will not offset the reduced sunlight in the lower latitudes.
Then there is the landmass distribution to consider.
For a more detailed consideration please see here:
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/ANewAndEffectiveClimateModel.pdf
where I said:
“It is apparent that the same size and density of cloud mass moved, say, 1000 miles nearer to the equator will have the following effects:
i) It will receive more intense irradiation from the sun and so will
reflect more energy to space.
ii) It will reduce the amount of energy reaching the surface compared to
what it would have let in if situated more poleward.
iii) In the northern hemisphere due to the current land/sea distribution
the more equatorward the cloud moves the more ocean surface it will
cover thus reducing total solar input to the oceans and reducing the
rate of accretion to ocean energy content
iv) It will produce cooling rains over a larger area of ocean surface.
As a rule the ITCZ is usually situated north of the equator because most ocean is in the southern hemisphere and it is ocean temperatures that dictate itās position by governing the rate of energy transfer from oceans to air. Thus if the two mid latitude jets move equatorward at the same time as the ITCZ moves closer to the equator the combined effect on global albedo and the amount of solar energy able to penetrate the oceans will be substantial and would dwarf the other proposed effects on albedo from
changes in cosmic ray intensity generating changes in cloud totals as per Svensmark and from suggested changes caused in upper cloud quantities by changes in atmospheric chemistry involving ozone which various other climate sceptics propose.”
I hope that helps.
kwik (06:09:49) :
CRS, Dr.P.H. (17:49:39) :
I think the least we can expect is that you spell āHansenā correctly. Where do you get this āHansonā spelling from?
—–
Sorry, John Holdren. I saw him speak at the “Grand Challenges Summit” in Chicago a few days ago:
http://www.grandchallengesummit.org/
I tend to get all these extremists mixed up in my mind! He gave quite a stem-winder keynote speech on AGW, look for the slides. I expect they will post the video soon.
Believe me, I had to bite my tongue! It was the wrong audience to do that in!
What Dr. Spencer omits in an effort to focus on the science is that political forces have shaped the science.
Yes, there are political forces that want to control CO2 for their own purposes quite independent of science. Many pro-AGW “climate scientists” are simply the hand-maidens of political schemes.
kwik says:
Well, I look at it this way: Ultimately, Spencer’s work (at least that of which is published in peer-reviewed journals) will be available to and will be reacted to by the larger scientific community.
But, what those on the “skeptic” side seem to want us to do is, in the meantime, to elevate Spencer’s ideas above the whole body of the other science on climate change and use it to make policy decisions instead of all that other science. So, in absence of the time yet for other scientists to evaluate and respond to his work, I think it is fair to ask what sort of track record Spencer has, since this can help us to decide whether it is all that likely that this one climate scientist has made a major breakthrough that has alluded most of the climate scientific community or whether it is he himself who is misguided. And, I think that if you look at Spencer’s support for I.D., look at the history of the analysis of the satellite record, and look at some of the misguided analysis he has done on other aspects of climate change (e.g., the blunder discussed here: http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/19/a-bag-of-hammers/ ), then it does not seem to be very wise to bet his scientific judgment and analysis over that of almost the whole rest of the climate science community. I think to not remain very skeptical about Spencer’s work would certainly not be being a “skeptic” in any broader use of the term.
It is not surprising that someone who has these sorts of paranoid and strongly ideological beliefs would come to the conclusions that you apparently have regarding the science. So, who do you think wants the “disbandment of the Western civilisation”: Most of the Democratic party and some in the Republican party (like McCain before he had a right-wing primary opponent)? Most of the climate science community? The National Academy of Sciences and analogous bodies in all the other G8+5 nations? The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the AGU, the AMS, the APS, …?
Smokey says:
Maybe once most of the so-called “skeptics” start displaying true skepticism in their approach to the science (rather than simply dismissing almost anything that goes against their preconceptions and credulously accepting almost anything that supports their preconceptions) then I will be able to drop the quotation marks.
No matter how many times you attempt to mischaracterize it, āintelligent design, as a theory of origins, is no more religious, and no less scientific, than evolutionismā ( http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I ) is not just a statement about one’s religious beliefs. It is also a statement about science and one that I think reflects rather poorly on the scientific judgment of the person who made it.
Joel Shore (05:42:39) :
Bryan says:
Martin Rees the Astronomer Royal (AGW consensus advocate) is also a believer in āintelligent designā
That is simply not true. Rees does not dispute evolution. He does argue that the physical constants of the universe are pretty precisely tuned for life, but this does not deny that life evolved and does not even address the question of how they were tuned. (For example, one hypothesis is that there are many universes and this is the only one in which things worked out that way and thus we are here to see it.)
Stand corrected by your update.
My impression was gained from a TV program in which Rees commented that if the Gravitational constant changed by one part in ten to the power thirty then our universe would be impossible.
He then went on to say that if an intelligent “spaceman” set up the system with such fine tuning it would be a possible explanation.
I then thought, intelligent “spaceman” and “God” seemed much the same to me.
Stephen Wilde (09:08:34) :
So if shifts in gravitational influence can affect the interiors of planets they can also affect the state of those planets in myriad ways as the internal planetary systems process that gravitational energy one way or another depending on their individual compositions.
So, Leif, a clever post but not quite the truth.
The gravitational forces have [except for negligible tides] from the planets have nothing to do with the center of mass of the solar system, so indeed the truth.
Leif Svalgaard (10:53:46)
Ok, I’ll accept that as regards the position of the centre of mass of the solar system but there is still the issue of gravitational effects between the solar or planetary bodies involved.
Although in ‘free fall’ together that does not preclude interactions between them.
As an example we see that one of the moons of Jupiter (or was it Saturn) has such a state of internal excitement from conflicting gravitational forces that the surface is frequently showing volcanic activity.
The concept of ‘negligible’ doesn’t apply there.
Leif Svalgaard (08:18:55) :
harrywr2 (07:16:15) :
Changes on the center of gravity of the solar system would logically have an impact on earth.
Two men walk down the street on opposite sides of the street. their center of gravity is somewhere in the middle of the street between them. One man walks faster that the other. That causes the center of gravity to move with respect to the men. Logically that has an impact on the menā¦
I take it you are assuming neither of the men are armed. Bad assumption in certain neighborhoods.
It is my considered opinion that our climate is pretty much controlled by the fact that we have 70+ % of the earth covered by liquid water and the physical properties of said liquid.
Stephen Wilde (11:22:08) :
As an example we see that one of the moons of Jupiter (or was it Saturn) has such a state of internal excitement from conflicting gravitational forces that the surface is frequently showing volcanic activity.
The concept of ānegligibleā doesnāt apply there.
Tides are very important in the Universe. Tides can tear a galaxy apart, can tear a moon apart to form Saturn’s rings, can melt a moon [Io], etc. Tides depend on size of body acted upon time mass of tide-raising body divided by the cube of the distance. The Sun raise tides in our oceans [say of the order of 15 cm]. Jupiter is 1000 times less massive than the the Sun and 5 times as distant, so the Jupiter tides on the Earth are 1/1000/5^3 = 1/25,000 smaller, i.e. 0.0006 cm, negligible does apply to the situation on Earth.
Leif, I also agree about the ponds we have surrounding our continents. While CO2 certainly plays into our greenhouse gases, and thank the Almighty we have them, the variations in long term weather patterns (climate if you prefer) cannot be explained by the rather steady state and predictable seasonal changes in greenhouse gases.
Pamela Gray (12:46:30) :
Leif, I also agree about the ponds we have surrounding our continents.
Read here about the importance of water:
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009RG000301.pdf
Leif, the sun has no sunspots again! I don’t know why not (you’ve set me straight on the Jovian planet/gravitational tidal forces theory), but something sure seems amiss!!
From Spaceweather.com:
“QUIET SUN: Just when you thought solar minimum was over… The sun has been blank for nine consecutive days, the longest stretch of spotlessness since 2009. Solar activity is very low and no sunspots are in the offing.”
It seems a bit like trying to start a camp fire with damp wood….this Cycle 24 star gets going, blows off some EM energy & CME, and then slips back.
Could this be something to do with internal dynamics (conveyor belt system)? My astronomy professor at University of Illinois is similarly baffled, but he admits that he is not a solar physicist.
Leif Svalgaard (11:56:06)
I don’t think the original poster was suggesting Jupiter affects Earth directly via gravitational effects.
The idea seems to be that the planets as a whole and Jupiter in particular raise tides on or within the sun which then varies internally so as to have an effect on the innermost planets including the Earth.
I do find that plausible because even a very slight deformation of the Earth by solar gravitational effects would affect overall vulcanicity on Earth.
Anyway that’s the idea. I’m not entirely sold on it but I don’t find your objections entirely convincing either.
“Joel Shore (10:18:16) :
[…]
It is not surprising that someone who has these sorts of paranoid and strongly ideological beliefs would come to the conclusions that you apparently have regarding the science.[…]”
So on one side we have these paranoid and strongly ideological skeptics and on the other side we have rational thinkers like…
James “Death Train” Hansen.
Al “2 million degrees” Gore.
Polly “Ecocide” Higgins. (Ok, she’s a small fry but she’s a Club Of Rome puppet via the desertec link… what did you say about paranoia? Check the facts, Joel, it’s all out in the open.)
CRS, Dr.P.H. (13:14:55) :
Leif, the sun has no sunspots again! I donāt know why not (youāve set me straight on the Jovian planet/gravitational tidal forces theory), but something sure seems amiss!!
It is quite normal that in the ‘ramp up’ to a small cycle that there will be brief periods with no spots. Also, there is actually still solar magnetic activity [e.g. http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mdi_mag/1024/latest.html ]
That it has no associated spot may be because of the Livingston&Penn effect, or simply because activity is just low.
Here is solar cycle 14 [which I think will be what #24 will look like]: http://www.solen.info/solar/cycl14.html and some tabular data from back then:
19021022 1902.806 17
19021023 1902.809 28
19021024 1902.812 25
19021025 1902.814 37
19021026 1902.817 39
19021027 1902.820 22
19021028 1902.823 28
19021029 1902.825 23
19021030 1902.828 16
19021031 1902.831 7
19021101 1902.834 0
19021102 1902.836 0
19021103 1902.839 0
19021104 1902.842 0
19021105 1902.845 0
19021106 1902.847 0
19021107 1902.850 0
19021108 1902.853 0
19021109 1902.856 0
19021110 1902.858 0
19021111 1902.861 0
19021112 1902.864 0
19021113 1902.867 0
19021114 1902.869 10
19021115 1902.872 26
19021116 1902.875 20
19021117 1902.877 13
19021118 1902.880 21
19021119 1902.883 24
19021120 1902.886 32
19021121 1902.888 40
19021122 1902.891 33
19021123 1902.894 26
19021124 1902.897 32
19021125 1902.899 19
19021126 1902.902 13
19021127 1902.905 0
19021128 1902.908 0
19021129 1902.910 0
19021130 1902.913 0
19021201 1902.916 0
19021202 1902.919 0
19021203 1902.921 0
19021204 1902.924 0
19021205 1902.927 0
19021206 1902.929 0
19021207 1902.932 0
19021208 1902.935 0
19021209 1902.938 0
19021210 1902.940 0
19021211 1902.943 0
19021212 1902.946 0
19021213 1902.949 0
19021214 1902.951 0
19021215 1902.954 0
19021216 1902.957 13
19021217 1902.960 10
19021218 1902.962 10
19021219 1902.965 0
19021220 1902.968 0
19021221 1902.971 0
19021222 1902.973 0
19021223 1902.976 0
19021224 1902.979 0
19021225 1902.982 0
19021226 1902.984 0
19021227 1902.987 0
19021228 1902.990 0
19021229 1902.992 0
19021230 1902.995 0
19021231 1902.998 0
As you can see, long stretches of zero sunspot numbers occur between bunches of activity.
“DirkH (13:44:23) : Your comment is awaiting moderation
[…]
Al ā2 million degreesā Gore.
”
I completely forgot that our mathematical genius himself is a member of the Club Of Rome. Sorry. Sometimes you just forget how widespread it is.
“mbabbitt (11:58:54) :
[…]
Buteyko today is endorsed as a non-medicinal asthma treatement in Britain and in Russian and is relatively well known in Australia. […]”
Thanks a lot! I’ve never heard of him. This is fascinating, i know quite a lot of asthma sufferers and will tell them about it.
AGW true believers, looking theoretically at radiational effects in isolation from all other factors, think that trace gas concentrations regulate the surface temperature. Skeptics are convinced, on the basis of observations, that the hydrological cycle in all of its phases is the regulatory mechanism. The debate between the camps will never end, because of the political investment made in the AGW hypothesis.
I don’t have the time to write Smithsonian mini-essays, let alone Spencerian books, but the crucial issue boils down to the balance between the rate at which Earth’s climate system thermalizes insolation and the rate at which it emits thermal radiation to space. It should be apparent to all that clouds are the gatekeepers of insolation, thereby affecting the SUPPLY of energy driving the whole climate system. Trace gases are physically incapable of any such effect. At best, they can only affect how thermal energy is STORED within the system. AGW believers constantly conflate these distinct processes and confuse the issue with misleading terminology and nonsensical notions of “water vapor feedback,” for which they have never produced any compelling evidence. I dare say there has never been a tropical thunderstorm that did not, within an hour, drop surface temperatures by several degrees. Until they do, their entire radiative greenhouse paradigm is open to question.
Joel Shore (10:29:12) :
“So, who do you think wants the ādisbandment of the Western civilisation”
Erlich and his friends. The IPCC top folks. Greenpeace. WWF. Lots of top government people. Like Brown, Milliband, Merkel. Obama (slightly silent, lately), Rudd. I could go on forever.
Its repeated on a weekly basis, Joel.
They want laws and regulations, like saying CO2 is a pollutant. Regulations in minute detail on who is to do what regarding energy and CO2. Who can fly where. Who can drive where.
Who can buy what.
Because otherwise, it was only 18 months until it was too late. Right? The end of the world? Wasn’t it Brown saying that?
And enforcing this will in practice disbanding democracy and free markets. Hence the western civilisation is gone. Step by step.
Either one believes in this, and that means shutting down civilisation. (Otherwise we all cook) Or you dont.
Haven’t you understood the message from the warmers?
Or have I misunderstood? The world isn’t ending (according to the warmers), after all?
Thanks, Leif!! Good job!
I highly recommend visiting the following site, as it is a strong endorser of the Buteyko method and contains links to Buteyko practitioners and other sites’ articles, as well as a video explaining the method (plus a long article itself).
http://www.trisoma.com/breathing.html
Steven, I believe there is already a gravitational land tide, as well as a water tide solar effect that has been known for a while. If there are changes in volcano activity as a result of that tide, I believe it would be an Earth bound variability related to plate tectonics. The fact that our crust is a highly variable entity with lots of thickening and thinning activity happening (relatively speaking), far out performs any land tidal differences the Sun may impose on pressure build up and release.
Dr. Spencer,
I suggest that you submit an editorial to the WSJ describing your several theses, and putting your book in the trailing byline. They have recently published several submissions by Dr. Lindzen and I expect that they would welcome yours; and it would serve to publicize your book.
Rated #77 on Amazon I am impressed with Dr Spencer.
….they sure don’t have much good to say about Dr. Spencer’s book on the Realclimate.org blog!!
I’m actually amazed that they published a few of my posts for once! I wasn’t particularly confrontational, just giving them some realistic advice regarding the changing attitudes of the public….they just don’t seem to get it over there!!
You can only cry “WOLF!!” so many times, or so I’ve been told….
Thanks. Do you happen to have a link to that document, if it’s a PDF? I couldn’t find a site with those phrases online when I googled.
RE: “As an example we see that one of the moons of Jupiter (or was it Saturn) has such a state of internal excitement from conflicting gravitational forces that the surface is frequently showing volcanic activity.”
Planet Saturn, Moon: Enceladus.
Photographed in action November 2005 by Cassini: Multiple jets of 180 Kelvin (60 watts sq. meter surface radiation (comparison: Yellowstone active area 2.5 watts sq. meter) to an altitude of about ‘several hundred kilometers’.
Analyzed in a 2.5 km fly-through in March 2006 as being composed of:
Water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, acetylene, hydrogen cyanide; traces of ethane, propane, benzene, formaldehyde and other organics.
Carolyn Porco, was the lead at the time (Director of CICLOPS).
Fascinating stuff.
Organics in extra-terrestrial geysers.
Science still lives.
Pamela Gray (16:52:48)
I think I see your point but would just say that the heat energy inside the Earth comes only from two sources:
i) Radioactive decay which is all internally generated
ii) Convective movement leading to friction induced by external gravitational forces.
I would imagine that i) is pretty steady but that variability mostly comes from ii). On that basis it would not matter if the energy value of ii) is less than that of i)
Both must contribute to the basic temperature of the Earth system as a whole but the general evidence is that the energy which seeps into the oceans from below is insignificant compared to the energy flows dictated by oceanic processes. The energy which is thrust into the air from time to time seems to be quickly dissipated by the negative feedback processes represented by the variable speed of the hydrological cycle.
So although I accept that external gravitational influences have an effect they seem to be second or third order compared to sun and oceans and of a short term nature only.
“Roger Knights (16:51:31) :
[…]
I highly recommend visiting the following site, as it is a strong endorser of the Buteyko method and contains links to Buteyko practitioners and other sitesā articles, as well as a video explaining the method (plus a long article itself).
http://www.trisoma.com/breathing.html
”
Thanks to you as well, Roger!
Henry chance (10:43:31) :
“I see it is selling very well. #78 a few minutes ago.”
Henry, how did you manage to find that information?
Joel Shore (10:18:16) :
So, who do you think wants the ādisbandment of the Western civilisationā: Most of the Democratic party and some in the Republican party (like McCain before he had a right-wing primary opponent)? Most of the climate science community? The National Academy of Sciences and analogous bodies in all the other G8+5 nations? The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the AGU, the AMS, the APS, ā¦?
_______________________________________________________________________________
If you are asking that question you have not been paying attention:
In Sept. 14, 1994 David Rockefeller, speaking at the UN Business Council,.
“This present window of opportunity, during which a truly peaceful and interdependent world order might be built, will not be open for too long – We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”( He is speaking of the current financial crisis)
– Admiral Chester Ward, former CFR member and Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy said “Once the ruling members of the CFR shadow government have decided that the U.S. Government should adopt a particular policy, the very substantial research facilities of (the) CFR are put to work to develop arguments, intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy, and to confound and discredit, intellectually and politically, any opposition.”
David Rockefeller has had a lifelong association with the Council on Foreign Relations. He was appointed a director in 1949 and chairman, from 1970 to 1985. His father provided major funding for its first headquarters. Ongoing funding is provided by the family’s Rockefeller Foundation.
In the 2002 Rockefeller autobiography āMemoirsā on page 405,” Mr. Rockefeller writes: āFor more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents… to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as āinternationalists and of conspiring with others around the world … If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.ā
Strong worked for the Rockefellers in Saudi Arabia (oil) in the fifties. Maurice Strong is a member of the Club of Rome, a Rockefeller Foundation trustee and senior adviser to the World Bank. It is instructive to read Strong’s 1972 Stockholm speech and compare it with the issues of Earth Summit 1992. Strong warned urgently about global warming, the devastation of forests, the loss of biodiversity, polluted oceans, the population time bomb. Then as now, he invited to the conference the brand-new environmental NGOs [non-governmental organizations]: he gave them money to come; they were invited to raise hell at home. After Stockholm, environment issues became part of the administrative framework in Canada, the U.S., Britain, and Europe.
http://www.afn.org/~govern/strong.html
Even the people at Radio for Peace at the Peace University saw through Maurice Strong and his ties to big business and the big banks! Can’t you spot a wolf in sheep’s clothing with a hidden agenda by now???
http://www.w4uvh.net/dxldtd3g.html%5DMaurice Strong and Radio for Peace Internationa
“The university’s administrator, Canadian Maurice Strong, came in on a wave of influence based on the promise of Ted Turner’s foundation to give a billion dollars to the UN. His connections to the Turner foundation, the World Bank, and to those environmental groups you hear criticized for allowing domination by big business, are just the tip of the iceberg.
Anyone searching “Maurice Strong” on the web encounters a very interesting array of entries. (To quote Lewis Carroll, the story becomes “Curious and curiouser”) If we can believe even 10% of the story of his ascent to power and influence, an astonishing tale of subterfuge emerges, consistent with his attack on RFPI. Beyond the fig leaf of NGO’s that he uses for cover, Strong’s real alliances are with the enemies of the UN, which they are busily “reforming”
Where does Maurice Strong stand as a CO2 emitter? If you thought Al Gore was a hypocrite, Strong has him topped by a mile as the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Canada!
“…Ontario Hydro, an industrial concern, headed by Earth Summit secretary general Maurice Strong, which [b]is the biggest source of CO2 emissions in Canada.[/b] This corporation is currently selling nuclear reactors to Argentina and Chile…. “
“He is a huge political donor, not just in Canada, but in the USA to both the Republican and Democratic parties….
…he became president of Power Corporation, he has served as president of energy companies such as Petro-Canada and Ontario Hydro, and on the board of industrial giant Toyota. “
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/27/061.html
Strong had a history as a conman and swindler long before his involvement with Obama, Gore and the Chicago Climate Exchange click Strong has also been caught up in a series of U.N. scandals and conflicts of interest. not to mentions several insider trading scams such as the AZL Resources Lawsuit the food for oil scandal and the Molten Metal Inc swindle involving Al Gore, tax payer money, lawsuits and aHouse Committee investigation
Elaine Dewar, who interviewed Strong, described why he loved the UN.
“He could raise his own money from whomever he liked, appoint anyone he wanted, control the agenda,” wrote Dewar.
“He told me he had more unfettered power than a cabinet minister in Ottawa. He was right: He didn’t have to run for re-election, yet he could profoundly affect lives.”
Strong prefers power extracted from democracies, and kept from unenlightened voters. Most power-crazed men would stop at calling for a one world Earth Charter to replace the U.S. Constitution, or the UN Charter.
Strong explained: “Licences to have babies incidentally is something that I got in trouble for some years ago for suggesting even in Canada that this might be necessary at some point, at least some restriction on the right to have a child.” Strong himself has five children.” http://www.taxtyranny.ca/images/HTML/Maurice-Strong/article1.html
“David Rockefeller praised the major media for their complicity in helping to facilitate the globalist agenda by saying, “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years. . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.” http://www.newswithviews.com/Cappadona/heidi5.htm
THESE are the people you want us to believe have NO influence on the global Warming issue????
Phil M. (12:32:19) :
āAs usual, what ruffles my feathers is not the fact that sceptics feel the way they do about AGW. Itās everything else they have to say.ā
Phil, you are constructing and living in a Fantasyland concerning the “they” you speak of, one where you can transfer all of your own fears onto the “they”, blame “them”, then think you have solved what is really your own failure to confront your own life – your own self-realisation of your existence as alive and thinking, and the fact that it is you who has to reconcile yourself with the conditions of your existence. It’s the same for the rest of us. It is not “them” or “they” who are the first and main problem you have to deal with before moving on. It is that you have not faced your self, its situation, reactions, and capabilities.
But I’m assuming that you can “know yourself”, if you just slow down and take a look at it. Try it, or at least stop blaming the “others” for your own fears and uncertainties. Apart from not being “fair”, it’s irritating, and it also allows you to be a tool for people who would manipulate you toward their own selfish and otherwise malign goals. Take control of your self first.
Joel Shore (10:29:12) :
“Maybe once most of the so-called ‘skeptics’ start displaying true skepticism… & blah, blah, etc.”
Climate skepticism begins at the null hypothesis, which recognizes the fact that the climate’s actions are fully explained by natural variability, with no need to resort to the belief that a minor trace gas drives everything. To the extent that CO2 has any effect at all, it is so insignificant that it can be entirely disregarded. The climate is entirely benign.
Alarmists like yourself have never been able to falsify the null hypothesis because the planet is right in the middle of its long term temperature parameters. Nothing unusual is happening, despite your fervent hope for a climate catastrophe.
And when someone points out: “The true agenda is the disbandment of the Western civilization, and starting a new dark era of socialism and control of every man’s activity via the UN.”
You respond with a mindless retort: “It is not surprising that someone who has these sorts of paranoid and strongly ideological beliefs… & more blah, blah, etc.”
Even Stevie Wonder could see the incessant world wide push to regulate everything and everyone in the name of “carbon.”
Plastic grocery bags will cost 25¢ each starting next year. The never ending talk about peoples’ “carbon footprint” is intended to pave the way for a drastically reduced and much more expensive lifestyle, because CO2 is emitted from manufacturing everything from fertilizer to plastics. Air travel is under attack. The totally corrupt, unelected UN kleptocrats demand a “World Tax” starting at over $100,000,000,000 a year from U.S. taxpayers alone [with almost all other countries exempted from the tax], etc., etc., etc.
This is all propaganda marching us in a direction away from freedom, and toward complete regulation and control by nameless, faceless, self-serving bureaucrats who will have total authority over every aspect of your life… and you can’t see it??
In the 1930’s the communists used to call people like you “useful fools.” You would sell out our freedom to these greedy thieves with their hands ever deeper in our pockets in order to win a lame argument, just because you can’t admit what is happening right in front of you.
REPLY: With Joel’s “so called skeptics” comment, maybe it is time for him to hit the road. Frankly I’m getting tired of him, and when he says things like that, it displays his contempt. I really don’t care for people visiting my home on the Internet that have contempt for me and the people who frequent here. If you want to engage in contempt, there’s plenty of other places for that. – Anthony
Gail Combs (05:42:06) :
And Rockefeller is member of Club of Rome?
For The Record –
mbabbitt (11:58:54) :
People here would do well to google and read up on the work of (Russian Breathing researcher) Dr Konstantin Buteykoās (1923-2003) Breath Retraining methodology. He once worked on the Russian Space program and argued that much of human illness is supported by our trained overbreathing (over-emphasis on O2 intake), which lowers our internal C02. Dr. Buteykoās decades long research and treatment of asthma and hypertension worked off the radical idea that it is the lack of adequate supplies of CO2 in our bodily tissues (a vasodilator and smooth muscle relaxant) that prevents our bodies from being able to access the O2 that is held by our hemoglobin.
Nah, ftr, this idea is all wrong. No one is “trained” to overbreathe. Though it can be voluntarily overridden for some period of time, respiratory drive is automatic and primarily controlled by the CO2 concentration reaching chemoreceptors in the brain so that the appropriate bodily pH can be maintained for the chemical-metabolic reactions necessary for life. No one who knows anything about CO2 in relation to human physiology makes the allegedly “common mistake of seeing C02 purlely as a metabolic waste product.”
The normal body CO2 mixed venous concentration [right before the blood goes back into the right side of the heart, then to the lung] is about 56,000ppm, pCO2 = 40-44, and there’s plenty more always being produced by aerobic combustion of fuels, depending on your level of activity, core body temp., etc..
As to Butyeko’s claim about an alleged learned breath training which “overemphasizes” O2 supply, low oxygen respiratory drive doesn’t even kick in at all until O2 concentration drops to around pO2= 60, down from a normal arterial pO2 of about 100. At pO2 = 60, Oxygen starts to be much more easily dissociated from hemoglobin and is therefore already automatically more available, especially for tissues whose pO2 has dropped to that level or lower, as in the case of muscular exertion.
Butekyo seems to be arguing that simply because decreased pH to the point of “acidosis” makes Oxygen dissociate from hemoglobin “easier” or sooner than when pH is not acidotic, the Bohr effect, that therefore acidosis is to be desired, which is wrong because lower pO2 already accomplishes this automatically all by itself. And you can’t easily manufacture a CO2 induced acidosis anyway because, 1] an increased CO2 concentration from decreased “ventilation” per breath by breath slowing or holding, or by obstuction to ventilation – blocking inhaling and exhaling – will only cause you to automatically breathe faster which will then drive down CO2 and H+ concentrations back to normal; and, 2] even if you did manage to cause a longer term increase in CO2 concentration and thus a transient “respiratory acidosis”, your kidney’s would manufacture/reabsorb more bicarbonate, HCO3-, so as to correct the acidosis back to a normal pH over a few days and continuing as needed.
Finally, CO2 retention in an asthma attack is a very bad sign, causes an acute respiratory acidosis, and certainly doesn’t reverse the attack.
“”” stevengoddard (11:07:16) :
The inability to model clouds accurately is the Achilles Heel of GCMs. “””
Steve; it also is not simply the inability (well let’s say “difficulty”) to model; but also to measure clouds.
I have not read; and probably won’t read Brian Sussman’s book on “Climategate”; well unless I find it lying around somewhere. Based on what he himself has said about it, I think he went off on the wrong track; even though he may be right about his conclusion.
There’s no future in arguing that the earth did not warm a little; well up to about 15 years ago, or that it may have been in a long term recovery from the last ice age. So what; we can find somewhere between -90 deg C and +60 deg C to live comfortably on this planet. There’s also no future in denying the LWIR absorption mechanism of CO2. But it is not sensible to claim that the GCMs do not MODEL WATER VAPOR; and I deliberately accented that to point out that this is the way it is always stated “VAPOR”.
I’ve never seen anybody claim that the GCMs properly model “WATER”. There does seem to be acknowledgement that they don’t model CLOUDS very well.
So how about CLOUD MEASUREMENT ? Here we have a real problem; because there simply is not way (that I am aware of) to continuously monitor globally the effect of cloud cover.
Satellite measurments, and lunar earthshine measurments claim to be able to make observations of cloud cover largely by making albedo measurments; and even those are inadequet. Clouds come and go so rapidly, that no single satellite can continuously monitor the entire earth.
I suspect that if every satellite in the GPS network was also a cloud monitoring satellite, that we might have good enough data to get at least a credible measurement of the earth’s albedo.
But that still does not solve the problem.
I don’t see any way that an extra-terrestrial cloud observation network; however extensive, can ever monitor the grlound level effect of cloud cover.
Some people who do monitor albedo now by whatever method they use, claim that they see no evidence of changes in cloud cover; well maybe they don’t see much. But they largely dismiss the idea.
Well that is not surprising, since the extra-terrestrial measurments, cannot determine the optical absorption of PRECIPITABLE clouds.
A midwestern Sunday afternoon (4PM) thunderstorm looks pretty much the same as a powder puff, when viewed from a commercial jet flying high above. I have flown from JFK to STL over virtually solid cloud cover that looked like powder snow; and the only clue to what havoc was going on underneath the snow, was to watch the wall to wall lighning strikes going on in those clouds; sometimes jumping cloud to cloud on top; from horizon to horizon, almost the whole trip.
An albedo measurment isn’t going to register anything much different from a benign cloud layer that is thick but not moisture laden to the point of heavy precipitation.
So I place no stock in cloud measurments that are NOT made at ground level; and no suitable network for doing that exists.
If we can’t put enough Owl Boxes around the planet to properly sample the Temperature; we certainly can’t afford to put out a network of all sky cameras to properly sample the real cloud cover.
But Wentz et al in SCIENCE july-7/2007 gave us the clue; although not specifically. A one deg C change in mean global surface Temperature gives a 7% change in, Total Global Evaporation, Total atmospheric Water Content, and Total Global Precipitation. What the missed was that the last item pretty much guarantees somethign in the range of a 7% change in Total Precipitable Cloud Cover; dictated by the fact that precipitation is often accompanied by clouds bearing moisture. That is what is missing from the extra-terrestrial albedo measurments; and apparently from the computer modelling.
In dismissive criticism of Sussman’s book (“missfiring on all cylinders”) Stanford’s Stephen Schneider; who evidently bestowed on us his invention of “Climate Sensitivity” Claims that water vapor is a “weak greenhouse gas”
compared to CO2, and that is what is important; not the great difference in the atmospheric abundance of H2O and CO2.
The lie to Schneider’s claim is demonstrated by the dry desert night cooling that everyone is familiar with.
There is no reason to believe that the all powerful CO2 and methane GHGs are not present in full complement in dry desert night skies; yet they fail miserably to hold up the daytime intense heat of those deserts; Strangely Dr Schneider it seems that it is only when H2O is present in the night sky; either as high humidity water vapor; or as liquid or solid H2O clouds; that the nigh time cooling of those hot places is inhibited.
If Schneider’s postulate was true; then we would not have the total greenhouse effect we presently enjoy; but ice ball earth would prevail; notwithstanding the power of CO2.
I’m not sure I can afford to spend $14 on Dr Spencer’s book; but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Incidently; what is it that people don’t like about the iceberg cover. I suppose the underwater volume, is likely considerably larger than the 10-11 times the above water volume; and somebody should work out the cube root of 10-11, and rescale the underwater size. Other than that, I suppose it is an impossible camera shot.
Evidently Dr Spencer also uses the 8th grade high school science student as an achievement level for scientific common sense; at least one reviewer of his book claims so.
The deliberate spelling misteaks in the above are all the author’s own work; as a result of a manual typing dylsexia.
If Chasmod can’t fix that; then just live with it.
@george E. Smith
I agree that clouds are still the great unknown regarding our understanding of climate. There are so many different types of cloud, and as you mention, measuring them is an impossible task (link below) .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cloud_types#Notes_and_references
Some years ago I was on a hot beach in Corsica, blue sky and a pint of cold lager by the side of my chair. Suddenly I noticed a round white cloud appear out of the blue, then another which I saw being created on the peak of a small hill just behind the beach. In less than an hour a broad white swath stretched out to the horizon, then just a couple of hours later cloud production had stopped and the sky was unsullied again. In view of this, any measurement system would have to work real-time, I think, to capture these capricious events.
Last year I saw a new (to me) phenomenon in the sky over the UK – noctilucent clouds. My wife and I saw the pale blue wraiths on several occasions, floating high in the ignorosphere. I never found a convincing reason how these clouds of ice crystals form in the high thin upper atmosphere wjere water vapour shouldn’t even exist!
I’m afraid accurate cloud cover measurements are going to remain a mystery and ‘guestimates’ of cloud effects will continue to dog the GCMs.
George E. Smith (10:40:19) :
The deliberate spelling misteaks in the above are all the authorās own work; as a result of a manual typing dylsexia.
If Chasmod canāt fix that; then just live with it.
——-
REPLY: HAH! My own spelling mistakes are almost always the result of posting in haste, because the missus is shooting me evil-eye glances and wondering why I’m spending so much time on the laptop at home!!
Chasmod, don’t worry, you won’t get involved in my domestic spat!
Somehow, I think Anthony is sympathetic to my plight….
It looks like this book is getting one of the highest sales rankings I have seen for a book on this topic in the Amazon general books category. Congratulations Dr. Spencer.
Here’s what the title should have been:
An Inconvenient Goof
I just heard Spencer’s interview on Coast-to-Coast. It was very good and I hope it is transcribed and posted.
I once had a daily view of a peninsular with vertical sides that jutted into a large valley. When a cool southerly (southern hemisphere) came along, sometimes a wall of cloud would form over the peninsular, flow down into the valley as a magnificent waterfall, and fill it within a few minutes.
The weird thing was that standing on the nearside cliff edge the cloud would flow vertically very fast, and give the sensation that the ground beneath you was falling, and within minutes again, fog would set in for days. Unforgettable.
The Cloud Mystery
Now I get it! Seriously, this will show how important clouds are in controlling the earth’s temperature and how they relate to cosmic activity. Must watch.
REPLY: With Joelās āso called skepticsā comment, maybe it is time for him to hit the road. Frankly Iām getting tired of him – Anthony
We might not like this comment from Joel but its an intellectual one not personal or emotive. (Much worse things are said on both sides.) We shouldn’t be too thin-skinned, and risk ending up being a closed mutual back-slapping club. (Like Realclimate for instance.)