This is how Slashdot breaks the news from Forbes article: “New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism”. When it hits Slashdot, you know it has gone viral.
New NASA Data Casts Doubt On Global Warming Models
from the but-scientists-love-models dept.
bonch writes:
“Satellite data from NASA covering 2000 through 2011 cast doubt on current computer models predicting global warming, according to a new study. The data shows that much less heat is retained by carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere than is assumed in current models. ‘There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans,’ said Dr. Roy Spencer, a co-author of the study and research scientist at the University of Alabama.”
Note: the press release about the study is somewhat less over the top.
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It is unfortunate that version of the story was the one to go viral. The repeated use of the word “alarmist” was beyond gratuitous and verging on the absurd. However the saving grace is that the article does explain the water vapour feedback issue in simple terms. Most AGW believers seem unaware that CO2 alone can not cause dangerous warming even if we burnt all known and projected reserves of fossil fuels.
While the top of atmosphere radiation budget analysis proves the point, I would like to see empirical testing close to the Earths surface. We know that back scattered LWIR from CO2 cannot heat the oceans accounting 70% of the Earths surface, which invalidates the case for CAGW. However the case may be fully dismissed if a spectral analysis were done for the emissions of LWIR for various materials and environments on the Earth over a full diurnal cycle. Water, vegetation and soils are unlikely to be radiating a complete IR spectrum like a black body. How much LWIR around the 15 micron band is actually emitted by Earths true surfaces (not at the top of the troposphere)? What shifts occur in the emission spectra over a diurnal cycle?
I’ve been a /. member almost since its beginning (4-digit member No. !). Since then I’ve seen it degenerate from a genuinely great News For Nerds site into something which kinda annoys me these days. The reason? It seems to be teeming with AGW alarmists! At the same time, it’s fascinating to watch their reactions to anyone who shows the remotest sign that they’re an AGW sceptic. At first I was letting their attacks, venom, and bile get to me, but I’ve since then managed to turn that into amusement, as I realise now that what I’m seeing is the dying shrieking of “The Emperor’s clothes are awesome and you are an idiot for not seeing it! DENIER!” and so on.
I’ve had the idea of picking a climate-related /. entry, and making a blog entry purely about the types and styles of comments made by the AGW-believers, as reading those comments by them gives you a fascinating insight into their thought processes (or lack thereof).
Maybe I will do that sometime. I’ve not blogged much since the March 11th quake due to having to deal with the aftermath of that and have been a wee bit too tired of late.
Great for the publicity, but don’t worry the global warming alarmists and the NY Times will attempt to destroy the study in the eyes of the public in short order.
Yeah, but when are you stupid skeptics gonna get people who aren’t doodoo heads to do science? Huh? We still have the consensus so neener neener.
“The main finding from this research is that there is no solution to the problem of measuring atmospheric feedback, due mostly to our inability to distinguish between radiative forcing and radiative feedback in our observations.”
Couldn’t you look at that and say that the limit is in a range there somewhere? Or is the range going to be too large?
dmmcmah said:
July 28, 2011 at 10:43 pm
> Great for the publicity, but don’t worry the global warming alarmists
> and the NY Times will attempt to destroy the study in the eyes of the
> public in short order.
And the authors of the study too, if they stay true to form.
dmmcmah , It has already begun in the /. comments, where some of the AGW believers are using the ad hominem fallacy against Dr Roy Spencer, in an attempt to discredit his paper. (Saying he’s a creationist quack, therefore his paper is bunk).
It’s precisely the type of venom I mentioned in my earlier post here. Fascinating.
This seems as good a place as any to mention this recent paper:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8119&linkbox=true&position=4 (July 22nd)
The paper shows how current AGW models break the laws of physics (that the amount of radiation emitted is proportional to its temperature) which explains the findings of Lindzen (and now confirmed by Spencer-Braswell in this paper) that Earth’s radiation emitted is actually fluxing with temperature.
The paper also slams the AGW models as they use equations which physicists use to model stars, which do not work for terrestrial bodies. Thus all the AGW models are completely useless.
Apologies, the link above should be:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8138
Anything with Dr.Roy Spencer’s name anywhere near it will never be given a chance by the cabal that usually feeds the Press. Despite the hoo-hah now, this paper will be widely and generally ignored.
But first of course….we have to have the RealClimate rebuttal!
Stand by your beds!
Lol, I just countered the “he’s an ID believer” ad hominem on Slashdot by mentioning Richard Dawkins, who like me is an atheist but rather unlike me he has blind faith in the AGW theory.
My point being should I discount everything Dawkins has to say about religion and evolution just because he appears (in my opinion) to have the cognitive dissonance to have complete /faith/ that humans are causing planet Earth to overheat due to a minuscule additional release of a trace gas?
I think not. 😉
I am actually amazed that this story has any traction in the mainstream media at all. Of course the BBC will refuse to show it, but the fact that Forbes printed it and various news networks picked it up as actually heartening.
I am now waiting for all the pro cAGW people who have been arguing that cAGW is proven because even the mighty NASA show it to be true, to start trashing NASA.
Talk about beating them over the head with the “alarmist” bit. The article was a touch strident, but nothing like the alarmists’ use of the emotionally laden “D” word.
The End Is Near.
A very interesting article, but it would be very helpful if Dr. Spencer (and others) would refrain from writing nonsensical articles in unrelated fields which he clearly knows nothing about, such as evolutionary biology. This article on intelligent design (if true) ( http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/roy-spencer-on-intelligent-design/ ) unfortunately makes him look like a total nutcase, and provides too easy ammunition for those who want to discredit him with ad hominem “look he wrote that stupid article so his mental abilities and logic are obviously questionable and we can´t trust that the current article is any better”. Of course such logic is flawed but providing such an easy target is less than helpful. Creationists and those subscribing to intelligent design are really equivalent to the flat Earthers.
By the standards of the maiinstream media, the Forbes article on Yahoo! is quite good. It alerts readers to the fact that Global Warming relies on positive feedback from water vapour, which has not been proved. One for the good guys, methinks.
“When it hits Slashdot, you know it has gone viral.”
In 1999 maybe.
I have not checked but i suspect this site gets more traffic then Slashdot does.
@Kevin Cave
“Maybe I will do that sometime. I’ve not blogged much since the March 11th quake due to having to deal with the aftermath of that and have been a wee bit too tired of late.”
OT Sorry to hear that. I’m in northern Yamagata. We had a big shake, but we, and more importantly our farmers seem to have escaped the fallout.
I’ve got one that always stumps Warmists…they don’t like it because they simply cannot dispute the ‘facts’ upon which my argument is based. It goes like this….
The temperature at 300hPa ranges from around minus 60C at the poles to minus 30C over the equator.
This is around 30,000 feet; the cruising altitude of long haul passenger planes and you can see it on the flight info display along with maps and arrival times.
I ask if they have been on a long haul flight and if they experienced turbulence.
The ones which say yes, I ask what they think turbulence is?
Gently I get them to admit that turbulence is air rising, cooling and falling…in short water vapour convection and radiation.
I then ask them to explain at what point in their scientific model, warm air will cease to rise into the vast frigid reservoir of cold that is our atmosphere – lose its heat (easily across the big Delta T) and fall again.
I then sit back and listen to them wriggle!
It’s true that Dr Spencer knows nothing about evolutionary biology, and should shut up about it. He gave a gift to climate alarmists everywhere when he spoke up about ID, which is creationism-in-disguise, and they won’t let anyone forget about it.
James Hansen also is a semi-creationist, but everyone engages him on the things he should be knowledgeable about, and never mentions his religious belief system.
There’s also a 542 comments-and-counting thread about this study over on fark.com (http://www.fark.com/comments/6426807/NASA-Global-Warming-is-officially-OVARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR). Fark climate threads are always a fun read.
A qualitative article about a quantative issue! Where are the NUMBERS.
What’s this, NASA checking their models with observation? What will Gore think. (Sarc. off)
It is good to hear about science actually being carried out as it should be. But how long before either some wild explanation emerges for these observations or governments take any notice.
Just what would it take to convince warmistas that AGW is a false ideology? After all, true belief is a difficult change.
Absolutely agree.
Assuming that the analysis proves to be robust [even good guys can make mistakes!], this is surely the first really definitive piece of evidence that bears directly on the AGW hypothesis – and is also surely the final nail in the coffin of the theory. Everything else has so far been, essentially, just circumstantial (pro and anti the theory – albeit increasingly anti) – even climategate has been basically of an ad hominem nature, trashing the rather dodgy deliverers of rather dodgy ‘data’ pertaining to the theory – but I fail to see how any scientist, or intelligent layman, can ignore these results. Interesting times, indeed.