Replicating Al Gore's Climate 101 video experiment shows that his "high school physics" could never work as advertised

Well it is complicated after all.

So basically what you discovered is that had Gore and Nye performed this experiment, they would have “proven” CO2 is a cooling agent in the atmosphere. Of course we know CO2 does not do that unless it displaces Water Vapor or Methane in the atmosphere.

Hi Anthony,
Great post again!
I think I found a tiny mistake, in the conclusions you state in point 5 that air warms faster and cools slower, shouldn’t that be cools faster?
Thanks,
Doede

REPLY: Yup, typo, fixed, thanks. – Anthony

This is emblematic of AGW in a nutshell, a flawed theory based on shoddy “science”, presented as fact, but a fraud in reality.

you should invite Gore to either tell you what you’re missing from the experiment, or to put up the raw footage fom his experiment.

Now I see…. the thermometer FROM JAR B is in front of jar A. Sorry for my confusion.

This shows Nye is a fraud too.
REPLY: Not necessarily, he may have been given a voice over script to read in a studio in Los Angeles and the audio sent out. The video was shot in Brooklyn. He may have assumed that due diligence was being done by Gore and his video producers. Maybe somebody can bring this to Nye’s attention and we can get the full story as to whether he had any hand in the experiment or simply served as a voice over agent – Anthony

Now will someone explain to Mythbusters why their experiment sucked and was no better than the Gore fraud.

There was no reason for Gore to verify it in the real world by actually doing the experiment. The science was already settled.

Has anyone tried asking Bill Nye for information regarding how to exactly replicate the experiment? It seems like that would be a good first step. If it’s a valid experiment then it should be easily reproducible given clear instructions. Obviously it wasn’t reproducible at all here.

Good work, Inspector Watts! Brilliant! Present this to the jury and you’ve got a conviction.
I’m sure your results will be judged by a jury of your peers in the following comments.
And remember, Gore made it all possible!

Why don’t you send this to the “team”. They seem to be labouring under some misconceptions as well. Plus, it would do them good to see how real scientific experiments are done. I think they all probably skipped lab while in school.

“The way an actual greenhouse works is by tapping infrared radiation. ”
No, real greenhouse works by preventing the escape of warm air up. Proved by Wood experiment and replicated by Nasif Nahle here.
http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html

So while showing how this “experiment” was a complete farce, you brought up a question for me.
If an increased concetration of CO₂ acts as an insulator by slowing the cooling of an air mixture, wouldn’t this slow nighttime cooling, which would typically lead to a higher low temp for the day? Thus leading to the thought process of a warmer low temperature for each day even with the same high temps could be a factor to how the average temp for a month/year could be officially going up.
REPLY: No, remember the CO2 in the jar is saturation, not at 390ppm like our atmosphere, big difference. The heat tables are for saturation at sea level at 300 kelvin – Anthony

The comments on Media Matters are now even more delicious, it is almost as though the delay in announcing the results of repeating the experiment was there to give them enough rope, and now it is time to reel them in. Anyone volunteer to go over there and break the news to them?

Edit (typo); “In fcat it was exactly the opposite.”
I wonder how the experiment would have gone if plexiglass(?) or suitable IR-transparent jars or containers were used.
REPLY: Already fixed, refresh – A

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Typo, Step 3:
The way an actual greenhouse works is by tapping infrared radiation.
Trapping?
BTW, Great job.
REPLY: Typo fixed thanks – A

I’m looking at the first 2 graphs of temp vs humidity vs dewpoint. Interesting observations w/ regards to dew point and relative humidity between A and B. I need to think about this for a while. The CO2 replaced some of the air / H2O at start. Why the bumps in humidity and dewpoint near end?
What is the vertical lavindar colored line in A?
You should seriously apply for a grant to replicate your work on a bigger scale using your technique. Perhaps a pair of 8x8x8 glass ‘houses’ set outside in a field and use natural sunlight. Vary CO2 levels and H2O contents. This could possibly result in some very scientific results to better understand the principles of atmospheric phenomenon.
You should be the one to perform this as apparantly none of the so called ‘climate scientist’ view anything other than a cookie jar (pun intended).

REPLY: Lid removal at the end and moving dataloggers to USB port caused the bumps, can’t stop it until you connect – Anthony

Anthony, do you have any links with local schools? Could they be persuaded to undertake the experiments for themselves using your equipment (so no cost to the school). Mr Gore suggests that it is a simple enough experiment and I am sure it would be a valuable contribution to the children’s science (or should that be politics) curriculum.
Now, if you could persuade your local TV or press to cover it too………..

I give your series of recreated Gore Lies Climate 101 experiments an F – for falsified!
Well done Anthony.

Anthony,
Your do great work. You are a hero of mine. Your attention to detail and dedication to checking on the experiment in the Al Gore video is an example of your exceptionalism. Thank you.
You have suggested Mr Nye may have not have known he was fronting for a staged experiment. I wonder if Al Gore may also having been only presenting from a script written by others. I cannot see him going through the process of doing the experiment himself. Of course, ignorance is no excuse and would only further diminish his credibility.

If he thinks it’s millions of degrees hotter just meteres below the planet’s crust, why would you trust him when he proclaims “It’s high school physics!”???

These are only two little words but they are offered with some emotion – thank you.

Congrats. Anthony, proof, if proof were needed, that Gore is no scientist.
This also shows that CO2 is not an IR reactive gas as alarmists claim and goes some way to disprove the GHG theory.

Well done sir. Surely what Mr Gore has done is not just falsification but illegal?

Oustanding work again Mr. Watts. As it is such a vital rubbishing once again of all Al Gore stands for, are you going to put a press release out on your findings to all the pro. AGW media such as the BBC, NYT. Washington Post etc. to see how they re-act?

Caught with his hands in the cookie jar? Al Gore, shame on you! Stealing candy from babies again! (the silence is deafening)

You are one world-class “bulldog”, Mr. Watts! Fluffy poodles beware.

Watt a wonderful post!

Well falsified, Sir.
At the moment, I’m wading through Popper’s ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery,’ so this is quite apt.
You could have made it easier by getting Kenji to operate the camera, after all, he is a (concerned) scientist, and six hand equivalents are better than two.

What a hoot. Nye and Gore can’t even do high school physics. ROFL. :p

@ Juraj V.

No, real greenhouse works by preventing the escape of warm air up. Proved by Wood experiment and replicated by Nasif Nahle here.
http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html

Yes, as I and others have also brought up, this should be a major topic.
Like Trenberth’s missing heat in the ocean which “back radiation” supposedly is being absorbed by the oceans, the hot spot in the lower/mid tropical troposphere as predicted by AGW “theory” by “trapping heat” is missing too. Observations trump theory every time, and I suggest despite being told it is about basic physics, in reality it is figuring out how the atmosphere behaves in the real world.

How hard do you think it would be to keep a somewhat steady CO2 concentration in the jars using the general apparatus you used. My daughter was thinking of growing some seedlings simultaneously under several ranges of CO2 concentrations. Also, can anyone think of a way to scavenge the small amount of atmosheric co2 down to zero, for experimental control?

Wonderful! I admire your dedication.
To those who mentioned the Mythbusters episode: Did they use IR-transparent containers? (Plexiglass?)

I’m missing just one thing in this article:
How to do it right.
Because we all now greenhouse effect is real. The fact that Gore’s video is fake does not change that.
Of course you can’t use glass jars and infrared light. But I really wonder what would it take to do this experiment correctly using affordable tools.

Anthony – You say “STEP 3 Demonstrate how glass blocks IR using the Infrared Thermometer
The way an actual greenhouse works is by trapping infrared radiation. Glass is transparent to visible light, but not to infrared light, as we see below.”
That’s false as the primary mechanism, and has been known to be false for over 100 years. You could replace all the panes with a material that is permeable to IR and the result is almost identical. The greenhouse works by stopping convection with the atmosphere. See my old 2008 post about this here:
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2008/12/08/greenhouse-nonsense
Here I pointed out that
“Such an idea was debunked a hundred years ago by R.W Wood in his Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse, published in the Philosophical Magazine (1909). Wood wrote
‘There appears to be a widespread belief that the comparatively high temperature produced within a closed space covered with glass, and exposed to solar radiation, results from a transformation of wave-length, that is, that the heat waves from the sun, which are able to penetrate the glass, fall upon the walls of the enclosure and raise its temperature: the heat energy is re-emitted by the walls in the form of much longer waves, which are unable to penetrate the glass, the greenhouse acting as a radiation trap.’
By experiment, Wood demonstrated that the temperatures in greenhouses are barely affected when glass is replaced by material transparent to visible light that is transparent to infrared radiation as well. He concludes
‘This shows us that the loss of temperature of the ground by radiation is very small in comparison to the loss by convection, in other words that we gain very little from the circumstance that the radiation is trapped.’
Greenhouses do not work by reflecting, trapping or re-radiating infrared radiation but by preventing the escape of warm air.”
Also, the post shows that schoolkids in England are expected to do this experiment. The relevant page on the Royal Society of Chemistry website is here:
http://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/jesei/co2green/home.htm
But they use plastic bottles and incandescent lights, and, most tellingly, one bottle filled with CO2, i.e. hundreds of thousands of ppm, not hundreds of ppm.
As I point out in my post, even the Royal Society of Chemistry don’t understand how a greenhouse works.

Thank you Anthony for everything you do. I owe Climate Change one thing. It has introduced me to you and many other upholders of scientific truth and along the way I have learned quite a bit.
Here in Australia, we have Labor PM Julia Gillard’s nineteen “Clean Energy” Bills passed in the Lower House ready to go to a compliant Greens Upper House by end of the year. Greg Combet – get this – Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency – what a contradiction in terms – bores us to death with his undertaker monotone repetitive drumming of “climate change is real”, “carbon pollution is caused by humans, “being on the right side of history”, “in the national interest”, “doing what’s right for the country”, “need to act now for our children and grandchildren”, etc etc. One has to force oneself to listen to the lies.
Thank heaven, we have in Opposition, the Liberal/National Coalition, whose Leader, Tony Abbott, has sworn “a pledge in blood” to overturn the carbon tax package when he wins the next election – the polls say he’ll romp it in. However, Labor has written into the legislation that the Certificates are property rights and therefore any future government disbanding it will have to pay enormous compensation. What a spiteful thing to do to the Australian people who didn’t want the carbon tax in the first place.

Hi Anthony, great experiment. In the words of Mythbusters……. BUSTED!
Just a question, but how possible would it be to replicate the experiment simulating the real world better? For instance a heat lamp instead of an IR lamp and an object in the jar that radiates IR in comparison to Earth?
Would be good to see the “real world simulation” as well as the Gore’s version.

Alec Rawls says:
October 19, 2011 at 3:16 am
Looks like maybe it is not just Al Gore that is misrepresenting the actual results of these high school experiments, but a whole raft of supposed educators. If so, it implicates our entire educational system. How many thousands of times have students tried and failed to replicate the stated experimental results without these failures ever managing to emerge as a challenge challenge to those results? The scandal here could really be huge.
Let’s hope… The AGWScience Fiction department continues to create ‘experiments’ and give ‘examples’ which have no basis in physical reality. This begins with the ‘energy budget’, claiming that Visible light heats land and oceans. How? It’s not physically possible. So many have bought into this, even scientists clever in their own fields, that it is presumed true because now ubiquitous, it became ubiquitous through the education system. The opened scent bottle in the classroom supposedly proving that CO2 mixes thoroughly in the atmosphere another one ripe for debunking. That’s how all these junk fictional science ‘facts’ are first promoted. As said above, they wouldn’t have to fake experiments if what they said was true.
This experiment is a great start to debunking the methods used to promote their science fiction. How can Nye be contacted for comment?

Your final figure is an almost perfect steady state, pre-steady state/post-steady state plot. The only problem is that the baseline at the beginning and end are not long enough.
This is your system;
You have a true equilibrium where temp in = temp out and the heat influx = heat efflux.
You then switch on the light and introduce an increase in influx, this is a zero order rate (heat unit time is constant).
The influx of heat increases temperature, and thus heat efflux. The pre-steady state can be used to give us the order of the efflux rate. As we know influx is fixed, the line-shape of the pre-steady state is full of information about the system.
When you switch off the lamp, you have provided us with gold-dust. At steady state, influx = efflux. The moment you switch off the lamp the RATE of the temperature change tells us the efflux rate at steady state, moreover, the line-shape of the post-steady state gives us the order of the relationship between temperature and efflux.
So here us what you have to do,
1) Run the system for at least twice as long, the baseline at the beginning and end should be flat; baselines are very important.
2) Make sure you get to a true steady state, you need the lamp on for at least twice as long as you have run the system in you figure.
3) I need to have the post-steady state curve going to baseline.
Do all those things, package it as a txt file, and I will give you a complete steady state analysis of your system.
I would also ask you to do a few more things. Get some silica gel and heat it to about 150 degrees in you oven, let it cool and weigh out equal amounts into two small zip lock bags.
In one air filled tank place the sealed bag in the bottom and in the other have the bad open. Wait about 2 hours, then run the experiment.
You can buy little helium cylinders. Helium has a high heat conductivity and is less dangerous than H2. This should be a positive control for heat conductivity effects.

Presumably the experiment failed because Anthony is not a “climate scientist”. I’m sure that if a team of “climate scientists” had done the experiment, they would have reported that the jar with CO2 was warmer. I was about to type /sarc but then realised I wasn’t being sarcastic at all – I sincerely believe that is what they would have reported.

Anthony, for proper completeness, the experiment should be run twice. On the second run, the CO2 would be put into jar “A” and the air into jar “B”. Everything else – thermometers, heat lamps, etc. – must be left as-is.
This would guarantee that there is no effect due to individual differences caused by the equipment setup used in the experiment. In particular, the distances of the lamps from each jar may not be identical (notice the slight tilt in lamp B) which could produce the observed differences in the data-logged graphs.

Actually, this *does* remind me of high school physics — experiments often didn’t turn out as expected!
How difficult would it be to do the experiment more accurately? That is, replace the infrared lamps with incandescent bulbs, or halogen bulbs. Show that the two bulbs dissipate the same amount of power — perhaps make a baseline run with no added CO2, to show that jars A & B heat up at the same rate. [If the bulbs aren’t identical, one might need to make two runs, exchanging the position of bulbs or jars.] I’m a little stumped about how to mitigate the cooling effect of the decompressed CO2. One idea is to have a canister of compressed air, and introduce it to jar A — but the flow rates may well be different. Perhaps one needs to have a largish container in the path from CO2 canister to jar B, in which the CO2 can warm to ambient before being introduced to the jar. Or remove the hose from jar B after introducing higher levels of CO2, if the jars are reasonably airtight. As CO2 is heavier than air, the CO2 levels should remain elevated. Since you have a CO2 meter, you can determine if the levels stay high.

Why did you not swap the jars gasses.
This would be normal peractice

That’s a lot of work to prove something that Algore claims is false.
Over the years I have carefully observed Algore and statistically plotted and matched his claims with reality. This decades long observation and data testing has led me to this develop a fairly good theory to explain Algore’s claims visa vie reality.
The Goron Theory: Algore’s moving lips have a causal inverse relationship to reality.
At this rate the Goron Theory will become a universal law. I haven’t heard back from the Nobel Prize people yet
Well done as usual Anthony.

Really well done Anthony.
Just think of how many people actually believed the results of the previous demonstrations.
That should put an END to all these same kind of experiments (and some people have some serious explaining to do).
————
I would like to see more examples using the IR camera. Daytime; nightime; cloud-cover; clear-sky; different surfaces like grass concrete soil; inside a greenhouse; how far can the camera see (how far do the IR photons actually travel so that an image of warm object can be seen) etc.
The IR camera can bring many of the abstract theories into REALITY (just like your great demonstration has).

Great experiment, I like.
I don’t doubt this experiment at all, but for the sake of the completeness of the experiment
I think you should have tested both jars with air only, heat them and watch the temp
and then test both jars with CO2 only, heat them and watch the temp
to prove that the jars aren’t different, then you would test it as you did.
Good job.

Those of us who are Planetary Society members space science supporters need to bring this bogus experiment to Bill Nye’s (Plan Soc) attention.

Can anyone who believes that CO2 does not absorb infra-red explain how Antony’s “portable CO2 meter” ( “It uses a non-dispersive infrared diffusion sensor (NDIR) which is self calibrating, which seems perfect for the job.”) was able to measure CO2 concentration?

Interesting comment regarding the solicitation of money based on a fraudulent presentation (aka snake oil presentation). However, in the good ol’ US of A, snake oil sales are still allowed. We expect our general population to have brains enough to see through talking hats. And if some can’t, they deserve to spend their money and drink the snake oil.
If the greens really want this CO2 business to get off the ground and make serious money, they need to get their little selves together and start selling stuff related to CO2 reduction. Buy infomercial time and have at it. Sad to say, there will be folks who will send serious coinage for whatever is hocked at midnight on infomercial channels.

Re: “Air is a better conductor of heat than CO2.”
Of course it is. Air has water vapor in it. CO2 does not. Algore is a scam artist.

Truly outstanding work, Anthony!

This experiment does not work, but it does not disprove AGW. The atmosphere is much thicker than a cookie jar.

Dear Anthony,
there is amistake in Your excellent Work, The sentence after step three is wrong.; A real glass house is not heated by the trapped IR as Prof. Wood has shown in his experiment by using NaCl,which is transparent for Infrared, instead of glass. The glass house is heated by the trapped air.

Anthony demonstrates what it is to have an instinct for the empirical. Not one Warmista has demonstrated that he possesses an instinct for the empirical. Many Warmista have demonstrated in peer reviewed work that they have no such instinct.
Many thanks to you, Anthony.

It’s worth noting that the whole origin of global warming involves reusing Arrhenius’s work from 1896. The problem here lies that Arrhenius was falsified in his own time. This didn’t stop Callender and Keeling building greenhouse warming off a decades-disproven body of work.
After all, millions in grants are far more important than academic honesty.
For those interested, I recommend “Falsication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects
Within The Frame Of Physics” by Gerhard Gerlich and Ralf D. Tscheuschner.

What about the heat capacities of air vs. CO2? CO2 has a lower heat capacity than air, so if I remember my P-chem correctly, the same heat addition should cause the temperature of CO2 to rise more than the temperature of air.

There could be differences in the bulbs so I recommend repeating but switching jars. Put CO2 into Jar A and leave Jar B as air. Do not move anything when you repeat, other than lifting the lids. Let Jar B air out, and then put CO2 into Jar A and repeat. This will eliminate most experimental errors and is a good control.

@Anthony
What you’ve shown is what I have been trying to tell lay people to think of when considering the effect of GHGs. They are insulators. Clearly in your experiment you’ve shown the enriched CO2 acting as an insulator slowing down both warm-up and cool-down. If people would simply acknowledge this insulating property and then take a step further and acknowledge that the gases have a peculiar effect where they let visible sunlight pass through to warm something up on the surface unimpeded then impede the thermal radiation that is emitted when the surface is cooling they pretty have all the conceptual information they need to understand what’s going on.
Gore’s experiment however is an outright fraud. He didn’t actually perform it and the results he claims are not replicable. One needs to use visible light for this experiment to work as advertised. The heating must occur from the inside out not the outside in. This becomes obvious if one merely considers CO2 as an insulator. If you apply heat from the outside, which you did by heating the glass, then the higher fraction of CO2 provides better insulation between the thermometer and the glass. If you applied heat from the inside then the CO2 would impede the heat from escaping the jar. In order to perform this properly you need to use visible light as the heat source like the Mythbusters did:

You are my hero Anthony! Being a former instrumentation engineer who used to accurately measure temperatures at nuclear power plants, I loved this experiment! I know you wanted to duplicate Gore’s experiment, but I would have placed the two jars outside in direct sunlight. That would have eliminated any possibility of one infra-red lamp being stronger than the other, as well eliminate the problem you noted with the glass of the jars blocking the infra-red on the way in.
P.S. Mr. Clapham, your “terrier with a rat” analogy is perfect. LOL!

Anthony, the only thing I would have added is thermocouples on the glass jars. At the top middle and bottom of the jars to show the glass heating up. Then you would have been able to demonstrate that the glass jars were the heat source not the IR from the lamps.

Anthony
Could you please respond to the comment by Juraj V.:
Juraj V. says:
October 19, 2011 at 12:19 am
“The way an actual greenhouse works is by tapping infrared radiation. ”
No, real greenhouse works by preventing the escape of warm air up. Proved by Wood
experiment and replicated by Nasif Nahle here.
http://www.biocab.org/Wood_Experiment_Repeated.html
I ask because the referenced article by Nasif Nahle has the following sentence in its conclusion:
“The greenhouse effect inside greenhouses is due to the blockage of convective heat transfer with the environment and it is not related, neither obeys, to any kind of “trapped” radiation.”
If Mr. Nahle is correct, then your post here has not been helpful to people trying to understand greenhouses.

Nicely done. Excellent straightforward design and you gave their claims far more examination than was warranted. You could not have been fairer in your “replication”. Outstanding!

Good protocol and methodology. And you carried it much further than was strictly necessary to prove your hypothesis.
Mr Gore’s experimental design may please the hoi polloi, but it does not come close to being an atmospheric model, and is problematic in several aspects; primarily 1). IR blocking properties of glass. 2). Adiabatic cooling due to expansion of CO2. But he’s trying. If he had majored in science instead of journalism he might be a fair bench tech by now.
Charlie

Great work. One minor criticism is that it would have been beneficial as a control to swap the lamps (and maybe gas mixtures) between the jars and repeat the exercises. This would have allowed elimination of energy source differences between the heat lamps. (Or I am assuming since I cannot actually see the videos right now and have only read the write up.)

Robert Wood: “This experiment does not work, but it does not disprove AGW. The atmosphere is much thicker than a cookie jar.”
Anthony doesn’t have to disprove AGW with the experiment. He attempts to replicate Gore’s experiment, which proports to demonstrate that CO2 causes a temperature increase in a cookie jar. Despite his best effort, no difference results, throwing Gore’s integrity in doubt.
He takes it a step further by explaining why an increase might occur for reasons other than CO2 absorption of infrared.
If Gore believes the cookie jar model is an accurate portrayal of atmospheric dynamics, he has the burden of proof. I believe the serious scientists who push climate change would be embarrassed by Gore’s shell game deception.

I gave up on Gore’s claim to be an intellectual leader when I realized that he almost never went to class at Harvard . As an underclassman he arrogantly claimed he already learned everything at St Alban’s prep school. Later he joined the antiwar crowd and stayed high until graduation. There was also a long New Yorker article that documented his pretentious phoney intellectualism. So now he refuses to debate because he is just a wannabe dictator. None of this sits well with this PhD.

Anybody with a background in Physics can tell you that this wasn’t going to show results like they did.
First any global warming is a very large scale effect. Lots of forces in nature don’t scale down (or up) easily. Small things like the orientation of the thermometer could make a lot of difference in the heating.
But in this case it was pretty easy to see what he did. “Take 2 identical bottles … and seal therm”. He then unseals the CO2 bottle to put the hose in. At 1:01 — “then run a hose from a source of CO2 into one of the bottles”. The lid is laying on the hose that was putting CO2 in the bottle, so it wasn’t sealed. With the heat lamp over the bottles more heat entered through the roof. Running the experiment with 1 sealed bottle and one unsealed is really bad form.

Anthony, Well done! What you have shown is that the “Real World” is actually a lot more complicated. This is why real experiments are necessary to test theories and hypotheses. It is a travesty that there are next to NO real experiments attempting to verify the assumptions of man-made CAGW. The CLOUD experiment in CERN has taken years to design and construct and will take years to get data – demonstrating how complex real world systems are!
Considering the way public policies are being adjusted in the face of the CAGW threat, it is a total travesty that there is not one iota of robust experimental evidence to support CAGW.

steven mosher says: October 19, 2011 at 4:52 am
I’ve read this blog for many years and from it learned basically just what you said about the effects of additional CO2, but you said it in such a clear, understandable, and concise way…that was really awesome.
Thanks,

Anthony, that took me back to my first science experiment in school involving a metal ball, a Bunsen burner and a metal ring, the aim to explain thermal expansion!
After clearing the cobwebs and searching the attic I found I still have the school excersise book and guess what? There was an accurate list of the items used, along with the makers names and even serial numbers all laid out in experimental scientific form, as we were taught in the 1960’s.
I find it extremely sad that you have had to waste your valuable family time replicating the rubbish Gore’s people put out (there is no doubt in my mind that he could not have even put this basic experiment together without assistance)! Then again, anything stopping Gore making more money from terminological inexactness is worth the effort…(with thanks to W. Churchill for giving me the vocabulary to avoid saying liar!)

This shouldn’t come as a surprise–Al Gore never was, isn’t, and never will be a scientist. This evidence clearly demonstrates it.
Al Gore the Fraud! Maybe it should be Al Gore the Failure! Or Al Gore the lying rascal!

Haven’t read all the comments, but the ‘experiment’ fails at container. Those cookie jars are what I use to steep brandies. The lids do not fit. Period. I have had *adult* Drosophila make their way inside. Gas exchange would be a breeze.

Kohl says:
October 19, 2011 at 2:04 am
This is just so sweet!
Perhaps the problem is that Mr Gore really does think that it is just science 101. That is why he goes astray…. But then again, he KNEW the experiment was fabricated.
I’m beginning to think that he is really just another charlatan showman desperately ‘scratching a living’ from the whole AGW thing ….. But then again, he MAKES SO MUCH out of it.
The Big Lie makes Big Money! So thanks a lot Big Al, it’s worse than we thought! Well almost, since, like leapords, these Climate Science charlatans can’t ever change their spots.
[Likewise, is anyone still for Obama’s Spendulus et Lootus Maximus? At least he already repeated the experiment for us right out in the open. Again!]

Great effort!
I’d swap the jars then swap the lamps.
The jars and lamps are also variables.

Man, that’s a lot of work. Well done, Anthony.

Lie an intentionally false statement
Fraud wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain
See also: cheating, swindling, embezzlement, deceit, deception, double-dealing, chicanery, sharp practice.
Arrest Al Gore !!!!
On a side note: perhaps Anthony you could “reach out” to Bill Nye the Science Liar and see if he was duped or was he fully aware of the fraud { which would indicate a conspiracy }
REPLY: Never attribute malice to what can be explained by simple incompetence – Anthony

stevo says: October 19, 2011 at 6:33 am Watts fail, I think. Tyndall did better than you and that was more than a century ago.
Uh, Stevo, you may wish to brush up on your “reading for comprehension” skills. Mr. Watts was not testing whether CO2 absorbs IR. No one is arguing that CO2 is transparent to IR. Mr. Watts was only testing whether certain CAGW advocates just make up things and present them as fact. Gore fail. Nye fail. Stevo fail.
Turboblocke says: October 19, 2011 at 6:06 am Can anyone who believes that CO2 does not absorb infra-red explain how Antony’s “portable CO2 meter” ( “It uses a non-dispersive infrared diffusion sensor (NDIR) which is self calibrating, which seems perfect for the job.”) was able to measure CO2 concentration?
You may want to get with Stevo and see whether the two of you can get a group discount on those “reading for comprehension” courses.

Anthony:
Brillant work! I would caution you however, about the “Greenhouse warmth” claim, with regard typical borosilicate glass being a “one way valve” for 6 to 12 Micron IR.
Please see this: http://principia-scientific.org/publications/Experiment_on_Greenhouse_Effect.pdf
I also have a couple 1950’s and 1960’s Meteorology/Atm Physics texts which explicitly call out Dr. Wood’s 1909 tests, and then say “The so-called Greenhouse effect should be refered to as the ‘Atmopsheric Effect’, and it is unique to a planetary atmospheric situation..”
Thus the term “Greenhouse gas” is, at its base in error.
I hope you realize this in NO WAY detracts from your trashing the Gore-a-bull work!

Gore has no idea that for science to be real is must be reproducible. This is the same mistake ClimateGate made. They thought they were safe if they could keep others from seeing the data they were working with. It amazes how stable tempertures have been in the last 100 yrs moving less than 0.8 degrees celcius. That’s only 0.008 degrees per yr. Building one new road or building that replaces some trees can do that.

Matt says:
October 19, 2011 at 7:36 am
What a good Warmista you are! You do not address the details of Anthony’s work to reproduce the Gore “experiment.” Instead, you cite testimony about others who have done similar experiments. You cite theory which, according to you, requires that the Gore experiment must work. No instinct for the empirical. Good Warmista.

The claim is this shows the greenhouse effect. Well, it is perhaps a greenhouse but it certainly is not an atmosphere which is open at that top. It is nice to see this nonsense challenged directly.
The experiment can be (slightly) challenged on the basis that the lamps or jars may be different. Changing nothing else, let it run with the lamps swapped. Then swap the CO2 to the other jar, and lastly swap the lamps back, performing a run each time.
You have everything bought and set up so let ‘er run. It is quite possible the small difference in temperature will reverse for one of the runs. If the results are consistent, it will be difficult challenge the null result. The claim that the setup will demonstrate the greenhouse gas effect will have been conclusively falsified. This falsification is implicit in the faked temperature display, nicely exposed, but you have shown it explicitly.

Kohl says: October 19, 2011 at 2:04 am Perhaps the problem is that Mr Gore really does think that it is just science 101.
Yes! I have several very bright friends who think that CAGW is a fact, and the thing that they hold in common is the belief that climate study is explainable by Science 101. I have had one of them tell me “It’s just simple physics!”
Uh, no. Climate science is NOT science 101. Climate science is not even rocket science. It is MUCH, MUCH, more complicated than mere rocket science. Rocket science can be modeled by systems with only a limited number (ten? or twenty? thirty?) of variables, pretty much all of them directly measurable and predictable. Not so climate. Climate is intrinsically hard!
Bill Nye is a person who has achieved success and fame in his field, that of playing make-believe as a tool for illustrating middle school level science. It is sad that he thinks his success as a pedagogue qualifies him to preach to real scientists.

Not one comment from R Gates? Curious.
Was the bet from the original post still on?

yay!!! now we no longer have to listen to the co2 fetishists claiming supernatural powers for their favorite gas! this settles the issue for all time and the co2 shrimpers will slink off in shame.
right? and all the corollary baloney whirls down the vortex with a whoosh and a gurgle. right?
no more demonic carbonic ghg freaks! right?

With such further damning proof of Gores continued cheating and lying on everything he promotes on the back of the GW scare, should we not put together a complete list of the proven lies and scientific fraud that formed the basis of his and Pachauri’s awarding of the Nobel Prize, and send it to the Nobel Prize committee in an effort to have the award overturned and thereby have the dignity of the prize restored?

Just looking at this experiment it’s obvious to anyone who’s worked in IR that the majority of the heating is not going to be from IR acting on the gases, glass is pretty opaque to IR. The method is as Anthony says, the glass heats up and heats the gas by conduction/contact. I’ve had experience with IR windows for both near and far IR applications, and they are pricey, plain glass won’t work. For far IR, take a look at the windows on something like an Army Apache TADS pod, the window for the FLIR is opaque to visible, it’s made of germanium. But hey, I guess a little white lie in something like this is justified if, like, the cause is really, really important, right?