Guest post by Bob Fernley-Jones by Bob Fernley-Jones AKA Bob_FJ
CAUTION: This is written in Anglo-Oz English.
Here is the diagram as extracted from their 2009 paper, it being an update of that in the IPCC report of 2007 (& also 2001):
The unusual aspect of this diagram is that instead of directly showing radiative Heat Transfer from the surface, it gives their depiction of the greenhouse effect in terms of radiation flux or Electro-Magnetic Radiation, (AKA; EMR and a number of other descriptions of conflict between applied scientists and physicists). EMR is a form of energy that is sometimes confused with HEAT. It will be explained later, that the 396 W/m^2 surface radiation depicted above has very different behaviour to HEAT. Furthermore, temperature change in matter can only take place when there is a HEAT transfer, regardless of how much EMR is whizzing around in the atmosphere.
A more popular schematic from various divisions around NASA and Wikipedia etc, is next, and it avoids the issue above:
- Figure 2 NASA
Returning to the Trenberth et al paper, (link is in line 1 above), they give that the 396 W/m2 of EMR emitted from the surface in Fig.1 is calculated primarily by using the Stefan–Boltzmann law, and global year average conditions. Putting aside a few lesser but rather significant issues therein, it is useful to know that:
1) The Stefan-Boltzmann law (S-B) describes the total emission from a flat surface that is equally radiated in all directions, (is isotropic/hemispherical). Stefan found this via experimental measurement, and later his student Boltzmann derived it mathematically.
2) The validity of equally distributed hemispherical EMR is demonstrated quite well by observing the Sun. (with eye protection). It appears to be a flat disc of uniform brightness, but of course it is a sphere, and at its outer edge, the radiation towards Earth is tangential from its apparent surface, not vertical. It is not a perfect demonstration because of a phenomenon called limb darkening, due to the Sun not having a definable surface, but actually plasma with opacity effects. However, it is generally not apparent to the eye and the normally observed (shielded) eyeball observation is arguably adequate for purpose here.
3) Whilst reportedly the original Stefan lab test was for a small flat body radiating into a hemisphere, its conclusions can be extended to larger areas by simple addition of many small flat bodies of collectively flat configuration, because of the ability of EMR waves to pass through each other. This can be demonstrated by car driving at night, when approaching headlights do not change in brightness as a consequence of your own headlights opposing them. (not to be confused with any dazzling effects and fringe illumination)
4) My sketch below demonstrates how radiation is at its greatest concentration in the lateral directions. It applies to both the initial S-B hemispherical surface radiation and to subsequent spherical radiation from the atmosphere itself.
5) Expanding on the text in Figure 3: Air temperature decreases with altitude, (with lapse rate), but if we take any thin layer of air over a small region, and time interval, and with little turbulence, the temperature in the layer can be treated as constant. Yet, the most concentrated radiation within the layer is horizontal in all directions, but with a net heat transfer of zero. Where the radiation is not perfectly horizontal, adjacent layers will provide interception of it.
A more concise way of looking at it is with vectors, which put simply is a mathematical method for analysing parameters that 
possess directional information. Figure 4, takes a random ray of EMR (C) at a modestly shallow angle, and analyses its vertical and horizontal vector components. The length of each vector is proportional to the power of the ray, in that direction, such that A + B = C. Of course this figure is only in 2D, and there are countless multi-directional rays in 3D, with the majority approaching the horizontal, through 360 planar degrees, where the vertical components also approach zero.
6) Trenberth’s figure 1 gives that 65% of the HEAT loss from the surface is via thermals and evapo-transpiration. What is not elaborated is that as a consequence of this upward HEAT transfer, additional infrared radiation takes place in the air column by virtue of it being warmed. This initially starts as spherical emission and absorption, but as the air progressively thins upwards, absorption slows, and that radiation ultimately escapes directly to space. Thus, the infrared radiation observable from space has complex sources from various altitudes, but has no labels to say where it came from, making some of the attributions “difficult”.
DISCUSSION; So what to make of this?
The initial isotropic S-B surface emission, (Trenberth’s global 396 W/m2), would largely be absorbed by the greenhouse gases instantaneously near the surface. (ignoring some escaping directly to space through the so-called “atmospheric window”). However, a large proportion of the initial S-B 396 surface emission would be continuously lateral, at the Trenberth imposed constant conditions, without any heat transfer, and its horizontal vectors CANNOT be part of the alleged 396 vertical flux, because they are outside of the vertical field of view.
After the initial atmospheric absorptions, the S-B law, which applied initially to the surface, no longer applies to the air above. (although some clouds are sometimes considered to be not far-off from a black body). Most of the air’s initial absorption/emission is close to the surface, but the vertical distribution range is large, because of considerable variation in the photon free path lengths. These vary with many factors, a big one being the regional and more powerful GHG water vapour level range which varies globally between around ~0 to ~4%. (compared with CO2 at a somewhat constant ~0.04%). The total complexities in attempting to model/calculate what may be happening are huge and beyond the scope of this here, but the point is that every layer of air at ascending altitudes continuously possesses a great deal of lateral radiation that is partly driven by the S-B hemispherical 396, but cannot therefore be part of the vertical 396 claimed in Figure 1.
CONCLUSIONS:
The vertical radiative flux portrayed by Trenberth et al of 396 W/m^2 ascending from the surface to a high cloud level is not supported by first principle considerations. The S-B 396 W/m^2 is by definition isotropic as also is its ascending progeny, with always prevailing horizontal vector components that are not in the field of view of the vertical. The remaining vertical components of EMR from that source are thus less than 396 W/m^2.
It is apparent that HEAT loss from the surface via convective/evaporative processes must add to the real vertical EMR loss from the surface, and as observed from space. It may be that there is a resultant of similar order to 396 W/m^2, but that is NOT the S-B radiative process described by Trenberth.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ADDENDUM FOR AFICIONADOS
I Seek your advice
In figure 5 below, note that the NIMBUS 4 satellite data on the left must be for ALL sources of radiation as seen from space, in this case, at some point over the tropical Pacific. The total emissions, amount to the integrated area under the curve, which unfortunately is not given. However, for comparison purposes, a MODTRAN calculator, looking down from 100 Km gives some interesting information for the figure, which is further elaborated in the tables below. Unfortunately the calculator does not give global data or average cloud/sky conditions, so we have apples and pears to compare, not only with Nimbus, but also with Trenberth. However, they all seem to be of somewhat similar order, and see the additional tabulations.
| Compare MODTRAN & “Trenberth”, looking down from 2 altitudes, plus Surface Temperature | ||||
| Location | Kelvin | 10 metres | 100 Km. | (Centigrade) |
| Tropical Atmosphere | 300K | 419 W/m^2 | 288 W/m^2 | (27C) |
| Mid-latitude Summer | 294K | 391 W/m^2 | 280 W/m^2 | (21C) |
| Mid-latitude Winter | 272K | 291 W/m^2 | 228 W/m^2 | (-1C) |
| Sub-Arctic Winter | 257K | 235 W/m^2 | 196 W/m^2 | (-16C) |
| Trenberth Global | 288K ? | 396 W/m^2 | 239 W/m^2 | (15C ?) |
| Compare MODTRAN & “Trenberth”, looking UP from 4 altitudes: W/m^2 | ||||
| Location | From 10 m | From 2 Km | From 4Km | From 6Km |
| Tropical Atmosphere | 348 | 252 | 181 | 125 |
| Mid-latitude Summer | 310 | 232 | 168 | 118 |
| Mid-latitude Winter | 206 | 161 | 115 | 75 |
| Sub-Arctic Winter | 162 | 132 | 94 | 58 |
| Trenberth Global | 333 Shown as coming from high cloud area (= BS according to MODTRAN) | |||
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Bob Fernley-Jones says:
“Please see this simple analysis of Lambert’s law …
I don’t think that really applies here. There is no “surface” that is diffusely scattering the light. Mei scattering or Rayleigh scattering would be more applicable.
Even more applicable, however, would be isotropic emission of IR from the various sources in the atmosphere. The molecules of CO2 and H2O, along with droplets of water, would emit IR uniformly in all directions.
I think we are still not communicating clearly the key issues to each other. Hopefully various outer comments will also get at these central issues.
Again, again, again, only crickets when the facts appear. Nobody wants to address the real issues. Just argue about photons…
The Atmospheric GHG theory has been proven to be toast in several ways, yet that is ignored and the silly debates about radiation go on, as if there were no elephant in the room at all.
Rather deserving of a comical play, no?
Very worrisome, I think.
But, even of more concern, the same problem applies to many other totally irrational things going on now, because of a stupid, lazy, uneducated, rich society. Like substituting bumper sticker slogans for policy. “Hope and Change,” as a “policy,” e.g. Like calling a war a “kinetic military action” and Muslim terrorism “man-caused disasters.” Like the climate scientists and Obamabots saying that “our ideas are really right, we just need to communicate them better, and the (stupid fools) will learn to appreciate us. Like the absolute stupidity of the concepts of “green energy,” “renewable energy, and “sustainability.”
1984 is coming true in 2011, unless more people wake up!
So enlighten us, JAE.
What do you consider to be “the Atmospheric GHG theory” and in what specific ways is it “proven to be toast” ?
How does that support or refute what Bob_FJ has written?
Tim Folkerts @ur momisugly October 27, at 6:37 pm
My comment related to Bart’s comment pertaining to the surface alignment of solar panels relative to sunlight. They are fairly devoid of specular reflection or if you like are close to Lambertian reflectors/emitters. It is a tad off topic, but had relevance particularly with it giving another demonstration of vector analysis.
We could also get into semantics again, in that there are different terminologies again between optics, and your view of physics/elementary quantum theory.
Tim Folkerts @ur momisugly October 27, at 6:18 pm
OK, maybe I misunderstood you. Are you now saying that although Trenberth shows the 396 & 333 arrowed up at the high cloud level, (and adjacent clear skies), that this is the net result at the surface from all of the above? In other words, the arrows are in the wrong place, and the columns depicting the EMR transmission should really taper-off towards the higher levels?
Not all that hard to draw it that way is it?
davidmhoffer says: (to R. Gates)
October 27, 2011 at 5:19 pm
“Did you or did you not arrange for Anthony Watts and 20 guests from the WUWT forum to meet with Kevin Trenberth? You claimed very proudly in another thread that you did. How did you accomplish this without having any contact with Kevin Trenberth other than living in the same state as him?
___
100% true. I emailed him, and told him what we wanted to do…including who it was that would like to do it (i.e. a small group that I would bring and Anthony Watts and a group he would invite). He politely emailed me back his schedule of when he’d be in Boulder, and told me his assistant would be in contact. Within a day or so she contacted me and we saw that Nov. 10th was open. I then communicated directly with Anthony to set up the details. Very simple, very straight forward. Though I have been to NCAR several times, I’ve never met Dr.Trenberth in person, and have only exchanged a few emails (no more than 2 or 3) over the past few years. He’s always been quite generous and responded within a few days.
So Gates is part of the conspiracy to backstab Anthony.
Figures.
Smokey says:
October 27, 2011 at 9:06 pm
So Gates is part of the conspiracy to backstab Anthony.
Figures.
_____
Smokey, I would expect an apology from a reasonable person, but that might be asking too much from you. I would also like to see Anthony make some remark here, as he knows the full truth of the situation, and there was never any attempt to back-stab Anthony or anyone else. Though Anthony might have become more hesitant to go to NCAR after the BEST issue happened, the two were never connected in any manner, and based on things I heard, I think Dr. Trenberth and Anthony probably would have found some common ground in being critical of the way the BEST results were handled. it was a missed opportunity, but I respect Anthony’s decision not to go, but to insinuate that their was a “conspiracy to backstab Anthony” is…well, beyond the normal level of paranoia even for you.
REPLY: You wanted a response, OK here it is. I made the decision not to go, because every time I’ve ever tried to outreach to climate science by invitation, I end up getting burned. It happened with NCDC after my visit in 2008, and it happened with BEST in the spring of this year. On both occasions, people that I confided in then went to great lengths to put me and the work I’ve done down in public and in very unprofessional ways. Karl et al used preliminary data against my objections, data that was put up briefly for the benefit of survey volunteers, and never part of the final product, and then Dr. Thomas Peterson had the gall to write a ghost authored “talking points memo” about it. He circulated it to every NOAA climate division and middle manager, naming me and my work and telling everyone how it was flawed, but didn’t have the integrity to put his own name to the internal paper. Then later, Karl, Menne, and Vose offer me an option to put my name on their upcoming paper…a week before it gets submitted, but I’m not allowed to offer any criticisms, revisions, or changes to it. Name only. I ask them for a letter of invitation, they refuse to even put it in writing. The idea was to get me to endorse their paper by putting my name on it. Sheesh.
I don’t know that Dr. Trenberth had any designs, he probably didn’t, but I do know this: I asked him personally not to address people as “deniers” at the AMS conference and he declined, only rewriting his speech to change the inaccuracies we called him out on. He didn’t even have the courtesy to respond. After my two previous experiences with “professional” climate scientists and the resulting outcome, I couldn’t see spending my own money, effort, and time to stand next to a man who has so little respect for me and others that he could not refrain from calling people like myself who question the issues on a scientific basis “deniers”.
That, and none of the other 8 scientists I invited wanted to attend. It seems they couldn’t justify making the effort for visiting Dr. Trenberth. So all in all it became simply R. Gates was the only one who really wanted this to happen. In better times, perhaps it would have worked out. But Dr. Muller has put the kiss of death on any further cooperation with his media blitzkrieg. And even now, he’s complaining that “I broke the embargo” because I published my essay on the BEST paper an hour before they got their website up…he seems to think that the Economist publishing a story hours before doesn’t count, and that I was bound by an embargo that somehow wasn’t broken by the Economist, but I did. I found myself being deluged with emails and requests for interviews even before BEST got their stuff out. Judith Curry published 30 minutes before BEST got their stuff on their website, but I’m the bad guy.
There’s no scruples it seems in climate science where the treatment of skeptics is involved. And after what I’ve been through, I won’t trust any of these people again.
Leaning from that, Dr. Trenberth can go fly a kite. – Anthony
>>
KevinK says:
October 27, 2011 at 6:12 pm
Thank you, I fully understand the concept of “steady-state”.
<<
There’s no insult intended. Some here may not know what steady-state means.
>>
Unfortunately, the complex climate system of the Earth is NEVER in a “steady-state” condition.
<<
True, but I never said the climate system was. I said these models were in a steady-state mode.
>>
My point is if you model/analyze a complex chaotic system as if it is a simple “steady-state” problem you are VERY LIKELY to get the wrong answer, no matter how well you analyze the “steady-state” condition.
For example, an airplane flying towards the surface of the Earth at 500 mph is in a “steady-state” condition. Once the plane and the Earth’s surface intersect the “steady-state” becomes chaotic very quickly.
<<
Neither can these models balance your bank statement, fly you around the moon, or simulate supernovae. They are simply, back-of-the-envelope, global average energy flow models. If you want to model the climate (or a supernova) you’ll need more horsepower.
I have modeled these simple, steady-state models with a spreadsheet, and they require a macro to get around the self-referencing problem. That macro just copies the contents of one cell to another cell. After I make a small change, the macro needs to cycle several times. I’ve programmed a loop and it usually needs about fifty iterations before that small change finally stabilizes.
Jim
Speaking as a former meteorologist who observed and reported innumerable surface and air temperatures with surface observations and rawindsonde probes during routine and special operations, Increasing altitude certainly does not result in a decrease in air temperature in all atmospheric layers or in all geographic locations and their time intervals. It is quite common for air temperatures to increase with increases in altitude in some atmospheric layers, in many geographic areas, at certain times, and in many common atmospheric conditions. There are a multitude of ways in which inversion layers develop as warm air masses become positioned above cooler air masses. The adiabatic lapse rates which assume decreasing temperatures with increasing altitude are based upon Tropospheric conditions and ideal assumptions about dry air conditions adjusted for dew point measurements in the upper air soundings. Variations in atmospheric temperature and density at different altitudes also change the quantities of electromagnetic energy being modulated by the air volumes. The presence of water vapor, water, and water ice changes the electromagnetic environment and thermal environment in complex ways. Models which fail to accurately account for these widespread and common exceptions are inherently lacking in reality.
R. Gates;
100% true. I emailed him, and told him what we wanted to do…including who it was that would like to do it (i.e. a small group that I would bring and Anthony Watts and a group he would invite).>>>
Was that so hard? Of course you are now on record with the answer which I shall accept at face value unless evidence to the contrary emerges. In the meantime, thankyou for your clarification.
BTW, who is “we”?
How about the answer to Tonyb’s follow up question?
As for the bet…you’re still avoiding it. If you think Tonyb has a better grasp of the issues than I do, well, I think you are probably correct. But your over confidence in your own grasp of the issues is what led you to accept a wager that was in fact a sucker bet. There was no possible way the results as illustrated could be derived from the experiment as illustrated. Further, the experiment as illustrated could not possibly demonstrate the greenhouse effect because it used LW as the external heating source rather than SW. Even funnier, you, who claim to have a grasp of the issues, suggested changing the experiment by removing the globes because they were superfluous. Might I ask how one can demonstrate the greenhouse effect when there is nothing to absorb the SW and re-radiate it as LW? And you question MY grasp of the issues?
Since no one has really picked up on how wrong the K&T cartoon is, think about this. If CO2 doubled and that caused water vapor forcing to double twice the CO2, there would be a total of 3 times 3.7 or 11.1 Wm-2 increase in that 333Wm-2 down welling radiation. 11.1/333 = 0.033 or 3 percent increase in forcing. If that 333 is related to all of the 33C greenhouse effect, a 3 percent increase would be 1.1 degrees of warming due to a doubling of CO2 forcing and water vapor forcing. Not just a no feed back forcing, the whole enchilata. That is what Richard Lindzen has said, K. Kimoto has said, and Monckton has said. They are right, if you use that cartoon.
Isn’t it ironic how some people defend the indefensable even when it is shooting themselves in the Foot? 🙂
Unfortunately, it is not as simple as discrediting another flawed icon of global warming past. The reality is a little more complicated.
“Leaning from that, Dr. Trenberth can go fly a kite. – Anthony”
Wow. Thanks for the inside info. Things truly are much, much worse than I thought.
R Gates
Thank you very much for your reply in which you said;
“There was some recovery from the lower temps of the LIA, but it was hardly as strong as the temperature increases we’ve seen since 1980. Temperatures were wavering in the 19th century…up a little then back down before starting a pretty constant rise in the 20th century, becoming really pronounced after about 1980”
With respecf, that isn’t really so. I wrote an entire article on 19th Century temperatures viewed through the Life of Dickens
“Dickens life demonstrates the extraordinary variability of the British winters during that era, when the coldest and warmest winters in the CET records can be juxtaposed. Generally there are few examples of constant cold winters year after year-the LIA was becoming much more sporadic than it had been several centuries earlier, when bitter cold weather appears to have been the norm. To put this era into perspective mature English people might be surprised to learn they lived through a much colder winter than Dickens ever experienced. 1962/3 at -0.33C was the third coldest in the entire CET record compared to Dickens coldest year 1814 at 0.43c, the fourth coldest in the record. (1962/3 was a bit of a one off-Dickens experienced a greater number of relatively cold winters)
HH Lamb, (in ‘Climate, History and the Modern World’), says: “Indeed, the descriptions of ‘old-fashioned’ winters for which Charles Dickens became famous in his books may owe something to the fact – exceptional for London – that of the first nine Christmases of his life, between 1812 and 1820, six were white with either frost or snow.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/05/has-charles-dickens-shaped-our-perception-of-climate-change/
Within my article are also studies of Europe and the US.
The low point was the first decade of the 17th Century. The subsequent steady rise saw increases as great as the 1980’s. I am currently recostructing the temperature back to 1550 which is taking a great deal of research (and includes visits to the Met offive archives) . Good as part of Dr Manns experimental work was, it wasn’t as accurate as Hubert Lambs, although more recent evidence seems to suggest his adapted 1991 IPCC chart wasn’t wholly accurate. How Hubert Lamb would have loved the internet and the opportunities it gives someone like me to stand on the shoulders of giants
with best regards
tonyb
Dallas @ur momisugly October 27, at 2:55 pm and more recently:
Sorry for a slow response, and I note that you have made a bunch of interesting comments, including, if I can paraphrase:
I think you inferred something like: Up or down radiant energy flux is OK until reaching the TOA, when radiation can then also escape freely to space sideways
Yes, indeed, and I was wondering at one stage if I should include an observation in the article that if the TOA could be treated as a surface, (which is a tad conceptual), then the idea of surface integration at “that level” might be applied. This is a concept that has been put forward by Tim Folkerts relative to the Earth’s surface, IF we had a transparent atmosphere. However, I thought it might get into a quagmire of semantics and whatnot, and I wanted to keep it simple and towards lay language.
Bob Fernley-Jones @ur momisugly October 27, 2011 at 3:13 pm
My understanding of the 396 W m-2 is that it is an averaged net upwards oriented energy flux resulting from all phenomena taking place on a non-even emitting surface. The Trenberth and the NASA diagrams are just energy balance MODELS, not a fundamental explanation of all the physics going on on a lukewarm plate.
Even for lateral going radiation, a high enough concentration of IR absorbing gases (so called GHG) would be needed to absorb this energy. CO2 at 391 ppm and H2O at 0 – 40000 ppm cannot play that role on a very short distance (may be some methane at high concentration in cows’ flatulence could do the job). The major air components O2, N2, and Ar don’t absorb in the IR range.
To debate if [or not] a 15°C surface emits [or not] energy in its perpendicular [or not] direction is a “Nebenkriegschauplatz”, a battle not worth conducting.
What is more important is the unbalance shown in Trenberth, 333 W m-2 going only downward, and to understand what is wrong there (or if it’s right, to expain it).
And even more important is to know if a 3.7 W m-2 effect (GHG forcing for doubling CO2) can bring to a tipping point a system with huge shock absorbers like water evaporation and cloud albedo.
Re Smokey @ur momisugly October 27, at 9:06 pm, and R.Gates.
ANTHONY, in your reply thereto; you have to be admired for having initially contemplated intercourse with Trenberth. But whilst you would like to make peace with such alarmists, I think it is a stretch to hope that such leopards could change their spots. For example, Trenberth’s and the IPCC’s treatment of Chris Landsea was disgusting. (and we don’t see any acknowledgement that Chris has been right so far!)
BTW everyone, may I suggest that regardless of what his relationship with Trenberth might be we should listen to R. Gates, because it seems to me that he does produce some arguments that we should consider as worthwhile thinking-on.
>>
MostlyHarmless says:
October 27, 2011 at 3:18 am
Secondly, a correction – K&T 2009 does not compute surface radiation for a “surface temperature of 16 °C and an emissivity of 1.0″.
In K&T 2009:
“To compute these effects more exactly, we have taken the surface skin temperature from the NRA at T62 resolution and sampling and computed the correct global mean surface radiation from (SB) as 396.4 W/m².
. . .”
I see plenty to argue about in the detail of K&T 2009, but let’s get the facts straight.
<<
In the first sentence (that you quote) they explicitly state that they use the S-B law to compute that 396.4 W/m². Using an emissivity of 1.0, the S-B constant, and absolute zero at -273.15 °C, we get exactly 16.00 °C to four significant digits. The rest is all hand waving.
Jim
“There have been decades, such as 2000 – 2009, when the observed globally averaged surface-temperature time series shows little increase or even a slightly negative trend (a hiatus period). However, the observed energy imbalance at the TOA for this recent decade indicates that the net heat flux into the climate system of about 1Wm^-2 should be producing warming somewhere in the system “. This quote from the warmist publication ‘nature climate change’ shows a measure of desperation in their cause along with ‘climategate’ when hockey predictions of CAGW do not materialise. They resort to bogus claims of global energy imbalances by Trenberth (‘where has all the heat gone’) and Hansen; B F-J’s post showing the paradox in trenberth’s claims is excellent.
George E. Smith; says:
October 27, 2011 at 4:04 pm
“”””” Kelvin Vaughan says:
October 27, 2011 at 1:16 am
Thanks for the lesson George, I appreciate it
Kelvin
Bob Fernley-Jones says:
“BTW everyone, may I suggest that regardless of what his relationship with Trenberth might be we should listen to R. Gates…”
Since R. Gates was actively trying to manipulate Anthony into a public meeting, I suspect a setup. Gates was doing what he was told, and I have no doubt that some kind of dog and pony show was planned to make Anthony look bad. Trenberth and Muller are two peas in a pod. Neither one can be trusted, and Gates is their water boy, even offering here to personally bus people from the airport to the meeting.
As I’ve often said, there should be a series of debates conducted on the subject of AGW. BUT they must be held in a neutral venue, with agreed-upon rules, and a debate moderator chosen by mutual agreement. After losing all debates the AGW crowd refuses to publicly debate any more, preferring instead to have proxies like Abraham take pot shots from the safety of his ivory tower. Alarmists fear debating with skeptics. So now Anthony has been invited to come to their home turf and be subject to their unstated rules. Based on their prior unethical treatment of a straight shooting, stand-up guy, IMHO Anthony was wise to decline their suspicious invitation.
Smokey @ur momisugly October 28, at 3:14 am
Yep, I sort-of agree with your rant, but nevertheless, I think that R. Gates does come-up with some interesting thoughts. Call it playing devil’s advocate if you like, but worth considering, whereas for instance in comparison, the views of Myrrh are a waste of time and space when he cannot even accept that IR shielding glass allows high energy visible sunlight to pass through with observable consequences, but not IR which he thinks is the only source of heat.
Leif Svalgaard says:
October 27, 2011 at 8:24 am
Myrrh says:
October 27, 2011 at 5:15 am
For example, visible LIGHT cannot heat water because it doesn’t have the mechanism to do so, water is a transparent medium for visible LIGHT and so visible light is transmitted through without being absorbed, visible light cannot move the molecules of water into the vibrational state which is heat.
Yet it does.
No it bloody well doesn’t. Shine blue light on water and let me know when it’s hot enough for you to make a cup of coffee..
Bob Fernley-Jones says:
October 28, 2011 at 4:17 am
Smokey @ur momisugly October 28, at 3:14 am
Yep, I sort-of agree with your rant, but nevertheless, I think that R. Gates does come-up with some interesting thoughts. Call it playing devil’s advocate if you like, but worth considering, whereas for instance in comparison, the views of Myrrh are a waste of time and space when he cannot even accept that IR shielding glass allows high energy visible sunlight to pass through with observable consequences, but not IR which he thinks is the only source of heat.
Yeah right, that’s why there’s a whole industry selling products to stop thermal infrared passing through window, but letting in as much light as possible. According to you, generic, that’s not stopping heat getting in because it’s visible that creates it…
You are of course fully entitled to take yourselves seriously.