Another fall from grace.
From Sourcewatch:
John Cook, on his website Skeptical Science, states that “the usual suspects in natural climate change – solar variations, volcanoes, Milankovitch cycles – are all conspicuous in their absence over the past three decades of warming.
Let’s see:
Solar variations? New Scientist.
Volcanoes? Ever heard of Pinatubo’s temperature dip ? FYI June 15, 1991
Milankovitch Cycles? Ummm much longer time scale than three decades John.
Yet the smugness of believing you are somehow more knowledgeable and better than others shows through loud and clear in this botched attempt at satire:
From the Skeptical Science “about” page:
About the author
Skeptical Science is maintained by John Cook. He studied physics at the University of Queensland, Australia. After graduating, he majored in solar physics in his post-grad honours year. He is not a climate scientist. Consequently, the science presented on Skeptical Science is not his own but taken directly from the peer reviewed scientific literature.
Unless peer reviewed science is now accepting the ugly word “denier” in manuscripts, I’d say the “science” of this article shown above comes from John’s own opinionated disdain of people who have a different viewpoint on the science, and not any peer reviwed literature.
I at one time applauded John Cook for what I called “his scholarly demeanor”. Since he has clearly descended from that position (with his blog content from John Bruno), I now withdraw any such praise. – Anthony
Addendum: I should add that what is doubly insulting to me is that the author of the content on John Cook’s website, John Bruno, came up to me after my presentation in Brisbane, where he acted as compatriot to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg (which John Bruno runs the website “climateshifts” of) who made a fool of himself by abusing his rights as an audience member. Bruno told me how he respected my tone and my right to say it. He also said to me that I seemed “more open” than other people he’s talked to that are on the skeptical side.
John Bruno reiterated his moderate view of me in comments on that article:
John Bruno says:Interesting post and comments. I am writing in to identify myself as the guy in the green shirt. (I am a prof of marine ecology at UNC Chapel Hill, NC, USA, http://www.brunolab.net).
Like I told Anthony, in person he was very calm and pleasant in his talk. A nice change. I don’t agree at all with his broader views about the patterns and causes of climate change, but I really got a kick out of his slide show of poorly (to put it lightly) placed weather stations. A very funny yet sad commentary on something-not sure what.
I am also a big supporter (and consumer) of the type of citizen-science that Anthony has been doing and promoting (and I don’t mean that in a critical way). A fair amount of the work I do relies on data from citizen volunteers that do coral reef surveys, e.g., ReefCheck.
Full comment at this link
And the kicker from the main article at SkepticalScience.com:
And yet, here he is today, calling me a “denier”. “…as respectfully as is done here at SkepticalScience” This is “respectfully”? I’d hate to see your “disrespectful” Mr. Cook and Mr. Bruno. – Anthony
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gryposaurus says:
September 28, 2010 at 5:25 am
“The stratosphere is cooling. ”
Er, no it’s not.
It was cooling whist the sun was active. It stopped cooling as solar activity declined after the peak of cycle 23 and now seems to be warming slightly:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be
revisited. This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.”
As we all know CO2 in the air has been continuing to increase so a shift to
stratospheric warming appears to suggest that the AGW fears may
already be falsified.
I don’t have much respect for people who repeatedly resort to straw man arguments.
——————
Kevin MacDonald,
Your strawman and your “quote mining” themes are what? Claims used as discussion points. OK, been discussed. My perception is that you want more. I think you want to exit WUWT with some kind of sense that you have achieved a moral victory of sorts against something/ someone here. That is a familiar occurrence everywhere in the blogosphere. Kind of routine.
You don’t like what Anthony posted about John Cook’s blog. So you came here and were given total access and opportunity to say it. I personally am very thankful to Anthony for providing that kind of venue. Are you?
John
The “denier” thing is totally offensive, purposefully so, and distinctly meant to link people to nutty Holocaust deniers, with all the attendant unpleasantness .
Else, they wouldn’t cross it out, but leave it, as a passive/aggressive, insult and psych-out of the uninitiated .
And they will happily jump on it and say things like ” Don’t you care about the children ?”, “Do you want people to die “, when in fact, it is they, as we have seen, who do not care about children and want people to die, in their “great die off”.
Enough with the apologism, hair splitting, and hand waving , Anthony is right.
Smokey says:
September 28, 2010 at 8:22 am
gryposaurus says: [ … ]
Thanks for that Smokey.
That is a very well written and concise summary of the CAGW/CACC/CACD theory
I like it — a lot.
[snip] – I’m not going to let you bring in words not said, not part of this argument, and not posted here and make an issue of it for your own argumentative purpose. The issue is right here, one word, use of the term “denier” in pejorative. Don’t want to limit your discussion to that? Tough noogies, take it elsewhere. – Anthony
“Abstracts are insufficient. Pay and post the actual papers, and we’ll have something to discuss, and likely falsify.”
You are asking me to do something illegal. If you want to see the article, you must pay to see it. And some of the articles I posted have the entire paper. Please falsify.
“Much of the putative warming may be an artifact.”
Everyone knows that temperature changes. The point of science is to discover the reason for anomalies a different stages. Please show what the reason is for the recent anomaly. The climate does not make dramatic changes without a reason.
“Sensitivity to CO2 is much lower than the UN/IPCC claims. ”
Evidence? This goes against the vast amount of knowledge gained from both models AND paleo-research. And the climate is sensitive to radiative forcing or it isn’t. There is no such thing as, “climate is sensitive to sun, but not CO2” or “the climate is more sensitive to ENSO” etc. To prove your point, you need to show that the current knowledge of CO2 absorption properties is wrong.
“Next, the models are not confirmed by empirical observations. So as usual, the alarmist contingent believes there is a problem with the real world data and observations, and the models must be correct. They are only fooling themselves.”
What is the reference for your picture? Is it based on the IPCC A2 projection range? Of course it isn’t because there is no range in your img. So you picture is a red herring. If you think the IPCC does not use ranges, please show your evidence. Here is picture with correct A2 range, different temp reconstructions, complete with 2010 data. Form here:
http://www.fool-me-once.com/2010/09/temperatures-are-below-projections.html
“The planet has had numerous temperature swings during the Holocene, many much, much greater than the insignificant 0.7° natural variation over the past century and a half – and none have caused “runaway global warming.” Nothing unusual is happening, and in fact, today’s climate is extremely benign compared to past natural extremes.”
All this shows is that the climate is sensitive to outside forces. This is all well known and fits in perfectly in the AGW theory and in fact, the theory would fail without this knowledge.
“On all time scales, CO2 is the result of increasing temperatures, it is not the cause. That fact alone debunks the preposterous notion that a tiny trace gas, comprising only 0.00039 of the atmosphere, is the primary driver of the Earth’s climate.”
Once again, you are saying something that every already knows. It is detailed in the Volstok paper I sited earlier. We know that the CO2 content in the atmosphere is a feedback due to the planet warming following a change in orbit and tilt. This was predicted to be the case even before the Volstok core was studied. The number associated with atmospheric content is irrelevant unless you look at how changes in that number effect the trapped energy in the atmosphere. It is certainly not preposterous, and making that claim is only an attempt to confuse.
“This is a typical tactic of the CAGW crowd, as they tap-dance ever faster trying to prop up their debunked CAGW models.”
“Climate alarmists refuse to operate according to the scientific method, because they are well aware that by “opening the books” on their methods and data, their CO2=CAGW hypothesis would be promptly falsified, and their lucrative grant income would be jeopardized. So they refuse to share their suspect information, instead saying, “Trust us.” Yet you claim: “…this is how science has been performed for centuries now, right?””
“Wrong. ‘For centuries’ the scientific method required that all information necessary for others to reproduce and replicate a hypothesis must be provided for the specific purpose of confirming or falsifying the hypothesis in question, including all methodologies, raw data, metadata, and calculations. But in the post-modernist version of climate pseudo-science, this is not done due to the thoroughly corrupt pal review system. Thus, there is no scientific method being employed. Until there is full and complete cooperation with the requests of skeptical scientists, the system will remain corrupt. It provides large government and NGO grants for the gate-keepers of the pal review set-up. But it is not science. It is scientific charlatanism.”
Please see the first characteristic detailed in the peer-reviewed article I posted earlier:
Expecting me to participate in this conspiratorial nonsense when discussing science is not going to work. We all know what the prevailing consensus is here and how this tactic is used to attack valid science. Nice try but this has been used by [snip] of all sciences for a long time and I could care less to discuss such uneducated drivel.
Stephen Wilde says:
September 28, 2010 at 9:15 am
gryposaurus says:
September 28, 2010 at 5:25 am
“The stratosphere is cooling. ”
Er, no it’s not.
It was cooling whist the sun was active. It stopped cooling as solar activity declined after the peak of cycle 23 and now seems to be warming slightly:
http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/sola/5/0/53/_pdf
“The evidence for the cooling trend in the stratosphere may need to be
revisited. This study presents evidence that the stratosphere has been
slightly warming since 1996.”
As we all know CO2 in the air has been continuing to increase so a shift to
stratospheric warming appears to suggest that the AGW fears may
already be falsified.
___________________________
Please read this paper up to date and uses more data. It goes over the uncertainties in mid-upper stratospheric temp reading and discusses the problems with the SSU (used in the Liu study) data and why is not as useful.
http://arlsun.arlhq.noaa.gov/documents/JournalPDFs/RandelEtal.JGR2009.pdf
While neither paper is conclusive about the size of the trend, it certainly is not the consensus that the stratosphere is on a significant warming trend and that AGW fears are falsified due to this. Do you really think that’s what it means?
Kevin MacDonald says: September 28, 2010 at 4:11 am
“I’m sorry, but this is unfettered nonsense. By their very nature, all quotes are selected, but it does not follow that all quotes are selected because they misrepresent thier author and it is this specific practice that quote mining refers too.
Good grief man. You certainly display an insatiable need to be correct. Are you long on CO2 contracts at the Board of Trade? How about you define the word “it”.
Anthony, you forgot to put a direct link to the skeptical science website in your post.
People would go anyway there and find it. It’s good to make the posts more click-friendly.
What’s your view on http://www.skepticalscience.com/argument.php ?
Is there any of the 123 explanations that you would agree with?
This would be helpful to narrow down the list.
“John Whitman says:
September 28, 2010 at 9:39 am
Kevin MacDonald,
Your strawman and your “quote mining” themes are what? Claims used as discussion points. OK, been discussed. My perception is that you want more. I think you want to exit WUWT with some kind of sense that you have achieved a moral victory of sorts against something/ someone here. That is a familiar occurrence everywhere in the blogosphere. Kind of routine.
You don’t like what Anthony posted about John Cook’s blog. So you came here and were given total access and opportunity to say it. I personally am very thankful to Anthony for providing that kind of venue. Are you?
John”
John, it really doesn’t matter whether I like or dislike what Anthony has posted, merely if what has been posted is accurate; in so far as Cook’s alleged ignorance of various phenomena is concerned that appears not to be the case.
Tim Clark says:
September 28, 2010 at 1:18 pm
Good grief man. You certainly display an insatiable need to be correct. Are you long on CO2 contracts at the Board of Trade? How about you define the word “it”.
Sorry, I had no idea that accuracy was verboten, I can’t promise anything, but I will try and restrain myself in future.
Kevin MacDonald,
Wake us when Cook allows equal access to writing and commenting on articles on his mis-named blog. Like the typical alarmist blog owner, he is a propagandist attempting to sell a debunked hypothesis. Anthony Watts, OTOH, encourages free discussion. The fact that most visitors to this heavily-trafficked “Best Science” site view the CAGW conjecture with a jaundiced eye has no bearing on whether you believe you are right. So far you’ve only engaged in projection; you’ve been accurate in that.
paul w:
Pick any one of your “123 explanations.” Any one of them:
Ready… Set… GO!
I’ll play defense. Shooting holes in hypotheses is what skeptics do. Anything left standing I will concede. Good luck.
gryposaurus:
Accusing scientific skeptics of engaging in conspiracies isn’t so far from calling skeptics [the only honest kind of scientist] “denialists,” a derogatory label often attached to preeminent climatologists such as the head of MIT’s atmospheric sciences department, Prof Richard Lindzen — who puts climate sensitivity to CO2 well below 1°C.
IMHO Dr Lindzen has forgotten more hard science than wannabes like Schmidt, Cook and Mann have ever learned. Read his article on alarmism.
When Lindzen [and other reputable climate scientists] state that the sensitivity number is well under 1°C per doubling, you and Cook blow it off with the d-word. But you don’t have the credibility or the stature to dispute it; it’s only your opinion, because it fits in with your evidence-free belief in looming climate catastrophe.
But maybe you simply have a hard time following the basics. In that case I’ll make it easy for you with visual aids. If CO2 had a significant effect on temperature, then temperature would closely track changes in CO2 — more closely the higher the sensitivity number.
So, does the temperature track rising CO2? No. In fact, the only CO2/T correlation is the one you’ve already admitted to: rising CO2 is a function of rising T, not vice versa.
Next, you say: “The point of science is to discover the reason for anomalies a[t] different stages…” [Not really, but that’s not the issue here.] “…Please show what the reason is for the recent anomaly. The climate does not make dramatic changes without a reason.”
‘Recent anomaly’?? You need to get up to speed here. I assume you could be referring to the coincidental rise in T & CO2. So show us, in a testable, falsifiable way, that CO2 caused the rise in T — and not vice-versa. Assumptions not allowed; empirical evidence only, please. Testable results, not model outputs that predict non-existent a tropospheric hot spot, or pal reviewed grant-sniffing papers hidden behind a pay wall.
The planet has been warming since the LIA. By your own admission, CO2 is rising as a result. If rising CO2 was the cause of rising T, why is the rise moderating?
And the null hypothesis of natural climate variability debunks your claim of “dramatic changes.” Not only are there no unusual climate changes [per Phil Jones], but the current climate is truly a “Goldilocks climate.” Compared with past temperature fluctuations, it could hardly be more benign. There is no evidence of any runaway global warming. None.
No doubt you get a thrill from scaring yourself over “what-if” scenarios, but the more data that is collected, the more normal the current climate is shown to be compared with most of the Holocene. Going back farther, we’re damn lucky the Earth is as warm as it is; that won’t last.
You’ve been watching Skeptical Science for months just waiting for it to use the D-word, haven’t you? It may be a lapse in civility, but it’s an exception at Skeptical Science, not the rule. Besides, since when does “denier” only mean “Holocaust denier”? A denier of something is one who denies that thing. It’s not a nice term, but it’s no nastier than “alarmist” or “warmist” or “believer”. Still, I agree that it was not constructive of Bruno to use it. Personally, I prefer to use to the word “contrarians”, as it is more neutral and so does not distract people from the argument.
I also notice how you carefully avoided linking to the post in question (http://www.skepticalscience.com/2010ClimateChangeResourceRoundup.html) so as to avoid giving Skeptical Science any traffic. At least John Bruno bothered to link to your site, even if he was rather snarky about it.
The Skeptical Science comments policy (http://www.skepticalscience.com/comments_policy.shtml) does not mean deleting comments with an opposing view – you only need to read any comments thread at SkS to see there are plenty of those. Mostly it’s just attempting to keep the discussion civil and on-topic. Conspiracy theories and political rants tend to be deleted, but scientific debate is not.
Enneagram, the story about the UN ambassador to aliens is fake (http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2010/sep/27/un-alien-ambassador-mazlan-othman).
REPLY: Watching for months? Heh, no. When they make a post that links to WUWT (as does any blog), I get a notice in my traffic section showing incoming links. I saw this one and clicked on it. I have Cooks site linked in the sidebar, right next to RealClimate, an honor I gave him for being “civil”. So your “carefully avoided linking to the post in question” really rather falls flat since he has something so few other pro AGW blogs have here – a permanent link. Fact is, I was pretty upset when I wrote the post, because after talking with Mr. Bruno personally in Brisbane after my talk, and seeing his supportive comments in a previous WUWT thread, it felt like a punch in the stomach.
You’d do better to tell Mr. Cook to end this sort of name calling, as it is pointless and insulting. If Cook values his blog’s reputation at all, maybe he’ll have the decency to apologize. – Anthony
“Smokey says:
September 28, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Kevin MacDonald,
Wake us when Cook allows equal access to writing and commenting on articles on his mis-named blog.”
I have no idea what you are saying here, the only inference I can draw is that Cook’s moderation policy somehow gives Watts free reign to misrepresent him, but that logic is clearly bonkers and I have to assume I have interpreted you incorrectly.
REPLY: What he’s saying is that Cook’s been deleting comments challenging articles. It’s a common theme on AGW proponent blogs. – Anthony
“[snip] – I’m not going to let you bring in words not said, not part of this argument, and not posted here …”
In fact, the words were said, they are posted on this site, and they are very relevant to the issue.
REPLY: I don’t know that they are, or are not. They’ve been erased from your comment above so I can’t do a search. But the decision stands. Your intent here is to inflame, not gonna happen. – Anthony
Perhaps, but you haven’t distanced yourself from it either. Look we could argue until the next ice age, it’s pointless. Strawman? Your count is high also.If you want to gain some respect here, you could denounce the use of the word “denier” in the context used by SkepticalScience. Ball is in your court, but unless you can make that step, your comments won’t get any traction here. – Anthony
Brilliant, you are actually arguing that legitimate criticism of one issue is rendered null unless it is accompanied by legitimate criticism of another, seperate, issue.
How does Bruno’s use of a pejorative justify your use of a fallacy?
REPLY: Nice diversion. Answer to the issue. So, by lack of an answer about the use of the word, you encourage the use of the word “denier”. Since you had your chance. We’ll just leave it at that. – Anthony
Smokey:
–Accusing scientific skeptics of engaging in conspiracies isn’t so far from calling skeptics [the only honest kind of scientist] “denialists,”–
Accusing scientists of fraudulent and illegal behavior and libeling them as thieves of public funds without proof is very different from saying someone exhibits denialism, and that, ironically, is actually a known symptom if it. Please read the paper I posted above about it.
–Prof Richard Lindzen — who puts climate sensitivity to CO2 well below 1°C.–
Have you read the paper, or even seen what he himself said about it.
Here’s a detailed summary of the peer-reviewed commentary in GRL.
And here’s a response from Linden
I guess we’ll need to see that next paper to declare climate sensitivity victory, which I’m sure will be hailed as words from God without even waiting for post-commentary.
–IMHO Dr Lindzen has forgotten more hard science than wannabes like Schmidt, Cook and Mann have ever learned. Read his article on alarmism.–
Your opinion of him is irrelevant. I asked for evidence, not a scientist who says what you want — so therefore he must be correct. And we all know Lindzen’s stance on alarmism. You might be interested in his thoughts on the link between tobacco and cancer. He’s made a second career fighting for anti-regulatory groups. So what?
–When Lindzen [and other reputable climate scientists] state that the sensitivity number is well under 1°C per doubling, you and Cook blow it off with the d-word. But you don’t have the credibility or the stature to dispute it; it’s only your opinion, because it fits in with your evidence-free belief in looming climate catastrophe.–
Nonsense. I discredited the sensitivity number with peer-reviewed literature and his own words about it. But the research will be useful in cloud formation models in the tropics area, so it isn’t a total loss.
–But maybe you simply have a hard time following the basics. In that case I’ll make it easy for you with visual aids. If CO2 had a significant effect on temperature, then temperature would closely track changes in CO2 — more closely the higher the sensitivity number.–
You have no idea what you are talking about. Temperature would track closely to the forcings of all the elements that effect it, including the year-to-year noise like ENSO and volcanoes and solar cycles, etc.
–So, does the temperature track rising CO2? No. In fact, the only CO2/T correlation is the one you’ve already admitted to: rising CO2 is a function of rising T, not vice versa.–
Admitted? It’s scientific fact that CO2 DID follow temperature change. But maybe you can tell me how temperature remained warm for thousands more years following the lag from orbital change and didn’t immediately change back into an iceball. The fact that CO2 was introduced into the atmosphere as a feedback (as it does now from drying peat moss) to orbital climate change does not change the fact that CO2 will change temperature if it introduced by humans. Why is this so hard to accept?
–‘Recent anomaly’?? You need to get up to speed here. I assume you could be referring to the coincidental rise in T & CO2. So show us, in a testable, falsifiable way, that CO2 caused the rise in T — and not vice-versa. Assumptions not allowed; empirical evidence only, please. Testable results, not model outputs that predict non-existent a tropospheric hot spot, or pal reviewed grant-sniffing papers hidden behind a pay wall.–
This is hilarious. You want me to show you evidence, but you don’t want me to show you the evidence, and you don’t even look at what I’ve posted previously. It’s all “grant-sniffing” and “pal reviewed”. That makes it really easy to disregard, don’t it? Especially when you come up with catchy names for this nonsense. Why do you even bother asking for something in which you only are willing to accept it if it states what you want from certain scientists? You’ve yet to counter the carbon isotope issue, specify the natural variance that has caused the recent anomaly that you seem to think is “coincidental” somehow, or even explain the gigantic contradiction of how if climate sensitivity is so low, why is it that you keep referring to the dramatic climate changes that happen all the time. It’s either one or the other. The climate is sensitive and changes frequently to outside forces or climate sensitivity is low. You can’t argue from both ways and then claim to be a credible source.
And we have tracked the tropospheric hot spot on short time scales. It just that we don’t have the data for a long term trend. What you are doing is, first of all, misrepresenting the hot spot situation, and secondly, using this as a way to disprove a theory which is based on solid physics and backed by reams of evidence (but it’s all grant sniffing, right?). Finding a long term hot spot doesn’t actually prove or disprove AGW, it just gives a better understanding of the lapse rate between the cooling air in the upper atmosphere and the surface. The presence of a long term hot spot would only show us what we already know, the Earth is warming. It does not prove what is causing it.
–The planet has been warming since the LIA. By your own admission, CO2 is rising as a result. If rising CO2 was the cause of rising T, why is the rise moderating?–
The natural causes for climate change have not been present. We know that the CO2 in the atmosphere now that is rising significantly is due to fossil fuel burning because of the carbon isotope level. This is just a fact. The global temperture doesn’t rise just because of the LIA. You need to explain why. Just saying that global temperature is rising because it was cold and it is getting warmer isn’t even close to real explanation.
And the rise is not moderating to any significant degree. This decade was hotter than last, as was the last one hotter than the previous. Where do you come up with the numbers that show any moderation of significance? Have you seen the record temperatures lately, also? Do you call this year, one of moderating temperatures?
–And the null hypothesis of natural climate variability debunks your claim of “dramatic changes.” Not only are there no unusual climate changes [per Phil Jones], but the current climate is truly a “Goldilocks climate.” Compared with past temperature fluctuations, it could hardly be more benign. There is no evidence of any runaway global warming. None.–
You are taking Jones’ comment out of context. He said the warming (which is still happening) was not statistically significant over the short period that he asked about. Any statistician will tell you that the shorter the period, the harder to show statistical significance. And they will also tell to look at the 30-40 trend instead — which IS significant.
Once again, by referring to past climate fluctuations, all you are doing is stating that the climate is sensitive, even though you claim it is not. This is why it is important to look for the reason for each change. Right now, could you please show the “natural” reason for the anomaly.
–No doubt you get a thrill from scaring yourself over “what-if” scenarios, but the more data that is collected, the more normal the current climate is shown to be compared with most of the Holocene. Going back farther, we’re damn lucky the Earth is as warm as it is; that won’t last.–
Once again, just looking a graph of past temperature doesn’t actually tell you anything unless you really look into the reasons for the temperature change. The temperature doesn’t change for no reason, just because it has in the past. Each event has its reason. It just happens to be the case that currently, man-made contributions and the energy imbalance caused by them far outweigh any known natural imbalances that could cause the troposphere to warm at the current rate.
Well in my view, all this talk about CO2, and where it comes from; where it goes to and who is responsible for it, is simply a diversion from reality.
The first thing that one has to get firmly fixed in the head is that the energy involved with CO2 and other GHGs is NOT the same thing as the energy that comes directly from the sun; and you can’t simply cite Watts per m^2 as if that’s all there is to it.
The Solar spectrum photons that come directly from the sun, are real ordered energy that is capable of being harnessed to do real work; and in particular essentially all of it can be converted to “heat” if one wants to.
But GHGs like CO2 and CH4, and the daddy of them all H2O that interract with the LWIR spectrum are consuming hay that has alredy been once through the horse; and if you try to feed that recycled hay to YOUR horse, you will find it is less useful than the original stuff.
So LWIR from either the surface; or the Atmosphere (oceans too) has already been degraded by going at least once through the horse.
The real thing though; directly from the sun; is either rejected and returned to space by the Al Bedo effect; which leaves it still as solar energy, or some of it is absorbed in the atmosphere gases and clouds, leaving a smaller amount to reach the ground still as sunlight.
And ANY increase in Atmospheric water vapor and/or clouds or both, must of necessity ALWAYS reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the sureface still in pristine condition. In crease the clouds no matetr where or when, and you decrease the surface level solar insolation; and there is no getting around that simple fact.
Th earth of cours starts to do things with that “real” solar energy; like grow plants for example; or run people’s PV electric farms.
But the vast majority of it is simply wasted; and converted into the one horse cycle crap known as “heat”.
Only then does it get involved in the affairs of green house gases and other processes; it becomes the food of “heat engines” which must operate within the efficiency constraints of the Carnot cycle or even worse efficiency heat engine cycles.
So there isn’t any way that it can make up for the degradation that occurred when that good solar energy was turned into waste heat.
The part of it that is generated on the surface itself, becomes partly stored, and partly exhausted to space, through various thermal processes like Conduction, Convection, and Evaporation; and some part of it is even converted back into electromagnetic Radiation; but at 20 times lower (you know what that means) effective source Temperature than the original sunlight, so it is 160,000 times lower emittance than what originally left the sun’s surface. That solar emittance is itself attenuated by about 46,300 by the time it reaches earth, and about 35% of that is turned back by reflection.
As for the thermal radiation that is intercepted by the atmosphere; and then again subsequently re-emitted (the energy ) but in an isotropic fashion so half of that is lost to space.
All of those processes have various kinds of warming effects; but none of them come close to the effectiveness of the original solar energy; and regardless of how clouds treat those LWIR sources; they still can’t make up for the simple fact that clouds ALWAYS reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches the earth surface; and more clouds leads to less received sunlight; no matter what.
Several comments here about the Milankovitch cycles not being involved in current cooling and supposedly being about to cause a cooling phase.
Not according to my understanding of the Milankovitch cycles – I’m sure to get some enthusiastic corrections if I’m wrong!
There are three Milankovitch Variations.
The two axial variations change the distribution of solar radiation between N. & S. hemispheres, cooling one as it warms the other by the same amount.
The orbital Variation actually changes the total amount of heat received by the planet annually, due to the change of the ellipticity of Earth’s orbit magnified by the inverse square law. Evidence from many different fields of science firmly link the maximum ellipticity orbit with ice ages and the minimum ellipticity orbit with peak interglacial warming.
At present orbital eccentricity is at about 1.6, down from about 5.0 about 30,000 years ago, with about 20,000 years to go to the peak of the warming which will occur as Earth’s orbit bocomes very nearly circular. During that time Earth’s climate will, overall, become slowly but surely warmer, but with “overlays” of cooler or still warmer periods as other cyclic factors come in to play.
So, according to Milankovitch, we are heading for about twenty thousand years of warming before the 50,000 year descent into the next ice age starts.
REPLY: Nice diversion. Answer to the issue. So, by lack of an answer about the use of the word, you encourage the use of the word “denier”. Since you had your chance. We’ll just leave it at that. – Anthony
Thanks, but I really can’t take credit for any diversion, I have been consistent and unwavering throughout, steadfast even, monotonously so; you are quote mining in this article. It was my initial point back in my first posting and it is still my point now, the diversionary tactics are yours and yours alone, a series of obvious evasions employed to wriggle out of addressing a valid criticism.
REPLY: But you still can’t denounce the use of the word denier. You think way too much of yourself when clearly you won’t address the central question. Like I said, we could argue forever, and you still would sidestep it. From my view, you are dishonest in doing that.
You seem woefully unaware of how reporting works. As for quote mining, show me a newspaper reporter anywhere that uses every bit of information gathered, every quote spoken during an interview, do TV news shows show all of an interview? I can tell you from firsthand experience working in TV news, no they don’t. Every news story you read, every radio news program you listen to, every TV news program you watch has been written with the reporter’s “take” on the story, then afterwards, edited. That’s why editors exist. I gathered and edited this story, I chose what I wanted to illustrate. I edited it. Did I include everything John Cook said? No. Has John Cook included everything I’ve said or done about certain topics? No. He’s left out plenty. I fact, we could do an examination of every climate blog on the internet, pro and con for climate issues, and find examples of what you call “quote mining” We could extend that to Wikipedia, and call up all the pages that have been controlled by the cabal of climate gatekeepers such as William Connoley, and find lots of examples of what you call “quote mining”.
You whole point is pointless, when you look at the whole context of climate reporting, or for that matter all reporting. Discussion closed.- Anthony
“REPLY: But that is not how it is used, “denier” is used in the rephrehensible “holocaust denier” connotation. – Anthony”
So Inquisition forbids words like ‘denialist’, ‘denier’ and ‘to deny’ whenceforth (to protect free speech, of course).
In fact, if I use a word like ‘to deny’, I will define it’s meaning.
And oh well, if ‘denying’ is out of the discussion, I will settle for ‘populism’, as in: ‘climate populism’.
[Reply: If it isn’t a Holocaust reference, it is an Inquisition reference. If you don’t understand why those particular references are unacceptable, then please take them to another blog. ~dbs, mod.]