It always helps to review the topics discussed here, as doing so always provides an educational opportunity for everyone.
Given we are starting a whole new year of bringing the science to people who have doubts about the veracity of some claims in climate science, this seemed like a good opportunity to run this excellent global warming primer video from Warren Meyer who runs climate-skeptic.com.
It is well worth your time to watch, and it is edited for the layman with some real-world examples to help explain concepts.
NOTE: If you can’t see the video, it may be due to your Windows Internet security zone being set too high. Try Control Panel> System and Security> Internet Options> Change security Settings and set to Medium or Low.
This video is a critique of catastrophic man-made global warming theory, based on presentation slides used in a series of public presentations and debates in late 2009 and early 2010. The author is Warren Meyer, author of the web site climate-skeptic.com.
While the world has almost certainly warmed since the end of the Little Ice Age in the early 19th century, and while it is fairly clear that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses may be responsible for some of this warming, climate alarmists are grossly overestimating the sensitivity of climate to CO2, and thus overestimating future man-made warming.
While the theory of greenhouse gas warming is fairly well understood, most of the warming, and all of the catastrophe, in future forecasts actually comes from a second theory that the Earth’s climate system is dominated by strong positive feedbacks. This second theory is not at all settled and is at the heart of why climate models are greatly over-estimating future warming.
Note: Charts last updated Jan 2010. The earlier live version of this video has 8000 views on Vimeo.
Is there an update to this?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/04/nasa-giss-being-sued-over-foia-failures/
it may be a great video but advocating for a carbon tax at the end means I cant link to it or show others particularly here in Aus. There is nothing more posionous than a tax based on a lie.
Thank you for that and here’s wishing you a cool 2012 in every way. A very good resume into which Warren Meyer has devoted a lot of time and effort.
This video is also serialised on Youtube but not with many hits:
It would be good to see it re-edited with slower diction and perhaps less words and re-done for mass consumption on Youtube.
I agree with just about all of the content except the author’s favoured solution. I believe we have enough taxes and as Lord Monckton’s solution of “do nothing” may not be favourable to the global population at large, perhaps we can have an incentive based precautionary solution that will be beneficial to the environment without buying a “$6000 insurance policy for a $3000 car”.
This can be done with soil sequestration, tree planting, programmed land use, town planning, use of public transport etc in other words incentives rather than penalties. I also believe that each country should do this in their own way dependent on their geography and economy.
I do however agree with Warren Meyer on his two other conclusions that a cap and trade type ETS can never work certainly internationally and the IPCC is in fantasy land if they think that the world will ever instigate such a scheme let alone that it would be effective.
Secondly the global warming debate has certainly sucked energy away from the some of the real environmental issues such as clean air and the abuse of land use to produce ethanol. Any solution humans can make to maintain an acceptable balance in the atmosphere should at least ensure that land usage and the quality of the air we breath are part of the equation.
Leonard says “With no greenhouse effect, the ground is where the outgoing long wave radiation energy level matches the absorbed solar radiation.”
Not so. The Earth plus atmosphere is the complete system because …
(a) The surface/atmosphere interface is merely an internal interface. If you apply SBL without adjusting for surrounding temperature then it must be applied to the whole system because it assumes 0 deg.K in the surrounds – ie space. If you apply SBL to the surface only, you must deduct theoretical radiation in the opposite direction which just about cancels out because diffusion (molecular collision) ensures close thermal equilibrium. Applying SBL only gives you a kind-of weighted mean somewhere perhaps at least 5km up in the atmosphere. The net radiation from the surface is negligible and most energy transfers to the atmosphere by evaporation and by diffusion followed by convection.
(b) In 2011 it was proven that backradiation cannot add thermal energy (ie warm) an already warmer surface because its frequency is always below the cut off determined by Wien’s Displacement Law. See; http://climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html and read Prof Claes Johnson’s “Computational Blackbody Radiation” if you can understand the calculations. If not, just read Prof Nahle’s experiment also proving the point. Hence, the greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility. The IPCC has never proved its most unphysical assumption that radiation from a cooler atmosphere can warm a warmer surface. It cannot.
Prove me wrong and I’ll scrap my book plans, close my websites and shut up!
Today’s Leftist Toronto Star home page got off to a good start in my opinion.
For some reason an article on Texas droughts and La Niña didn’t mention you-know-what.
“Published On Tue Nov 29 2011”?
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1108830–why-a-weather-system-in-the-pacific-is-causing-havoc-in-texas?bn=1
Folks who don’t have the time to watch the entire video should at least check out the couple of minutes starting at about 43 minutes in. Michael Mann’s supporters need to explain how he didn’t engage in scientific misconduct and outright fraud.
For those with the time, the whole video is well worth watching.
I just realized during the past couple of days that we’re using lapse rate in two different ways here, and it is causing confusion.
Lapse rate use #1: A term for the temperature profile in the atmosphere which is approximately a linear decrease with height. In this manner the term lapse rate fits your “The lapse rate is an EXPLANATION of a phenomena.”
Lapse rate use #2: The temperature change with elevation that accompanies work done in moving air vertically. The very specific term “adiabatic lapse rate” fits this use of the phrase. In this case the lapse rate describes a process and fits what Leonard is saying. One cannot explain much about weather or climate unless one considers work processes and how they affect air temperature.
Two further quick thoughts on Warren Meyer’s video:
If he believes that big socialist governments will compensate salary based taxes once they get their hands on a new carbon tax he believes that Dracula could run the Red Cross.
Add to environmental concerns that come way above global warming – the earth’s sustainable human population.
My tip for the biggest global warming issue in 2012:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2011-12/29/content_24282887.htm
M.A.Vukcevic
CET rising
UHI rising as well (probally – more cement on the earth, more wide screen TV’s etc etc)
What about natural cycles (solar – water vapor etc)?
Deduct those and we’ll know the residual contribution by CO2 – perhaps very little or nothing.
I’m sure you understand all that, but showing the chart by itself can mislead some.
Very pretty though, well presented and all that, but potentially misleading.
R. Gates – happy new year to you as well.
I’ll leave you with a good thought for 2012.
Warm is good – cold is bad.
Sit back and enjoy any increased warmth that come your way.
Ask yourself why do so many plants, animals and people live in the tropics and so few live at the poles?
@Climate Change Theory
“(b) In 2011 it was proven that backradiation cannot add thermal energy (ie warm) an already warmer surface because its frequency is always below the cut off determined by Wien’s Displacement Law. See; http://climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html and read Prof Claes Johnson’s “Computational Blackbody Radiation” if you can understand the calculations. If not, just read Prof Nahle’s experiment also proving the point. Hence, the greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility. The IPCC has never proved its most unphysical assumption that radiation from a cooler atmosphere can warm a warmer surface. It cannot.
Prove me wrong and I’ll scrap my book plans, close my websites and shut up!”
+++++++++
OK
Back radiation is no different from the effect of insulating air pockets in pink fibreglass insulation. The pink insulation is not so important to the insulation, the air pockets are because they conduct heat poorly. The fibres conduct a bit but mostly radiate IR. For any stable system of a heat source (say, inside a box) and a given amount of pink insulation around it, there is a temperature gradient from hottest (inside the box) to ambient (well outside the insulation). I think you will agree that the heat gets into the ‘box’ by multi-wavelength radiation and mostly is converted to IR. The details of that are not important. Concentrate on the temperature gradient.
In a stable condition (there being no change in the power applied inside the box) the temperature can be observed to be droping continuously until the outside air is reached. It is not hotter anywhere between the inside of the box and the outside air. Why? because the heat is ‘working its way out.” It scatters back and forth in all directions as it does so, never travelling far at all, but it is certainly re-radiated in all directions at all times. If it is heading back to the source, is temporarily prevents a nearby molecule closer to the box from picking up a photon from the box. If it is to a molecule away from the box, it has a greater change of being absorbed and passed outward. No one sensible person claims the photons ‘sent back’ warm the surface of the box. They delay cooling.
Add some insulation to the box (akin to adding a GHG) and leave the power input the same. The temperature of the box will rise because the air pockets next to the inside will have more difficulty getting rid of their heat in an outwards direction. Obviously. That is why two blankets keep you warmer than one. At some point ( a higher box temperature) the system will stabilise.
You suggest that others claim that ‘back radiation’ heats up the box. Not so. By disproving that lower energy photons cannot increase the temperature of a warmer surface, you declare victory. This is in error. Back radiation is not never the box, it slows cooling. The more back radiation, the slower the cooling, but cool it does. Back radiation impedes the flow of heat out of the box by maintaining a ‘more difficult path’ through the entire layer of (now thicker) insulation.
The heat can’t get out as easily (as quickly) so the system will become hotter in the box until the heat transfer rate is once again in equlibrium. This is routinely calculated in thermodynamics classes. No one talks about ‘back radiation heating the box’. You are disproving something that does not happen by claiming that adding insulation (CO2) cannot increase the temperature of the box. But the temperature does increase, but not by the means you are discrediting.
They confuse photon level heat transfer with wollen blankets.
Note of course that the Earth is not a box with a heater inside it, the CO2 in the atmosphere absorbs incoming and outgoing IR which is very different from a pink fibreglass blanket but the physical principles remain. You may recall that early on there was a notion of a ‘hot spot’ at 8-16 km altitude where heat would be seen accumulating in the (additional) CO2. Monckton showed eloquently that this hotspot does not exist. It is not going to exist either so the claim evolved into ‘it will be hotter on the surface’ which is a pretty basic climb-down. I understand that all GCM’s still show the expected hotspot even though any oven or toaster or house or furnace can show them there is no such thing as a higher temperature part way between a heat source and a heat sink if insulation is added.
High in the atmosphere there are much higher tempeatures on individual molecules than at the surface, but this is caused by incoming radiation being selectively absorbed, not by those molecules preventing heat escaping from below. Ozone gets very hot if it can get near the incoming beam and is dispersed enough to prevent it transferring its vibrational energy to other molecules nearby. Get lower in the atmosphere and see that is happening. Any GHG can increase the temperature at ground level by decreasing the ability of that ground heat to escape upwards. By how much? Apparently, precious little because as soon as there is additional heat in the system, thermal columns effectively disperse it upwards until gravity overwhelms the phenomenon and the atmosphere again settles into quietude. Further, clouds caus significant cooling so ‘in the absence of an atmosphere’ it is not yet clear what the temperature of the Earth’s surface would be. It would be heated more and insulated less. The diurnal variation would be greater but the average temperature? The answer is elusive because adding water vapour creates reflection and shading and insulation. The horrible truth is, we don’t know.
We do however know that adding GHG’s warms the surface by reducing heat loss, not by back radiation warming it. Were this not so, wearing a winter coat would serve no (thermodynamic) purpose.
Ouch, you’ve been seriously pwned there, mate – goes the book plans!
Another good video is a lecture by Bob Carter: blip.tv/file/791876/
Thanks
JK
Excellent – I wonder if there is a 2011 update to this. I am sharing it out on my Facebook link – I think it is the best look at this issue that I have seen presented in one place.
Scarface says:
January 1, 2012 at 1:01 pm
I keep on wondering about the whole CAGW-theory and greenhouse gases, especially CO2.
How on earth can we fear a LITTLE trapping of heat by CO2, while burning the hydrocarbons in the first place produces a LOT of heat anyway?
CO2 dosen’t trap heat. If you look at the solar spectrum you will see the energy reaching the Earths surface is greatly reduced where so called greenhouse gasses block it. Therefor the surface of the earth is colder than it would hacve been! The energy is missing! It is not a surplus.
If there were back radiation it would be filling in the holes in the spectrum! Seeing is believing!
Hi AusieDan
2C down 2006-2010, then 2C up in 2011, nothing to do with few molecules of CO2., the CET is all about events in sub-polar area of the North Atlantic.
Just take a look at the two bottom lines of the MetOffice data:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
It is the winter months that were much warmer, and that is welcome by the most of population in the mid and higher latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, burning of fossil fuels for heating was greatly reduced. Only disappointing fact about whole process was that Jun & July were cold and miserable, if they were on the par with 2010, the CET would have broken all records, average annual temperature would be highest ever at ~ 11C.
Watched the whole thing. Good job! Little that is important is left out. I don’t see how any rational human could see this and not come out of it extremely skeptical about the entire CAGW scenario, even if they entered it with substantial biases.
rgb
Report to your 4th grade class. Your promotion has been revoked.
Arithmetic: 0.6 x 2/3 = 0.4. The 1/3 (0.2) is the UHI postulated, the remainder is 0.4.
I almost didn’t watch this because I feared it would be a case of preaching to the converted (i.e. I know the arguments already). However, there were a couple of points I was glad to be reminded of: sea level rate of rise and glacier rate of loss are not on the increase. Add that to the other well-known facts including a lack of upward trends in hurricanes, droughts or floods and the case for catastrophic man-made global warming is lost, Mr. Gates. Sorry – you’ll have to find another way of being a world-saving hero.
@Kelvin Potter Vaughan: Thanks! That’s another, new way to look at it. You could be right with that. That would mean that adding more CO2 would lead to a lower surface temperature!
Meanwhile I’ve been doing some searching to find an answer to my own question (stated before):
1 litre of petrol is the equivalent of 9.7 kWh.
1 kWh = 3600 kJ of energy
1 watt= 1 joule/seconde
When driving a car for 1 hour at 100 kmh that consumes 1 liter on every 15km,
I would be using 100/15= 6,7 liter.
6,7*9,7 Kwh = 65kWh
But then I have no further answer, because I dont know how to calculate the forcing of CO2.
Gasoline burning 1 liter: 2.3 kg CO2
6,7*2,3 kg CO2 = 15,4 kg of CO2
How much forcing does that provide?
I really hope that someone can solve my problem.
Because I think the energy released by burning 1 liter of gasoline is SO MUCH MORE than what ever the produced CO2 could ‘produce’ as warming, but I cannot be sure since I cannot make the final calculation.
Therefore a final call for help: Could someone make the calcultations and share them here???
Thanks in advance!!!
Further calculations: I hope this is correct. Please react!
Change in Radiative Forcing Due to Anthropogenic Emissions
since 1750 (W/m2): +1.66
CO2 1750: 280 ppm
CO2 now: 390 ppm
7.8 Gt CO2 correspond to 1 ppmv CO2
so that would mean 110*7,8= +858 Gt CO2
That has led to +1,66 W/m2
So 858 Gt is equivalent to 1,66W/m2
But burning 1 liter gasoline produces 65Kwh, with an endresult of 15,4 kg CO2
1 gigatonne (Gt) =1 000 000 000 000 000 g
858 000 000 000 000 000 g leads to 1,66 W/m2
15 400 g leads to (1,66 * 15400 / 858 000 000 000 000 000)=3*10^-14 W/m2
But the original burning of the gasoline produces 65kWh
Earth: r = 6365 km
Surface = 4*π*r^2 = 4*π*6365000^2=5*10^14
65000*3600/5*10^14 = 4,6*10^-7 W/m2
So: energy produced: 4,6*10^-7 W/m2
And: CO2-forcing afterwards: 3*10^-14 W/m2
So, what’s to worry…. Or am I completely wrong?
Crispin: You cannot understand this issue without reading Professor Claes Johnson’s “Computational Blackbody Radiation” and understanding quantum mechanics, vibrational states in molecules, resonance and near resonance. Any back radiation does not slow down the cooling of the surface at night, nor increase the rate of warming in the morning sunshine. What does that is the rate at which thermal energy rises by convection after being diffused from the surface. Please don’t write about things that have already been covered in my sites and the work of Professors Johnson and Nahle as I don’t have time to reiterate it all here in detail. Fair enough?.
The surface handles radiation with frequencies above the cut off in a totally different way from that with frequencies below cut off. The cut off frequency is documented on my site.
Crispin and others – Kelvin raises an interesting point regarding the fact that incoming solar radiation actually does include infra-red as well as UV and visible wavelengths. Note the “notches” in the IR part of the yellow shaded area which demonstrate absorption by carbon dioxide and water vapour. http://earth-climate.com/spectral-content.gif
It can be shown that the amount of radiation emitted by the surface which is absorbed by carbon dioxide has energy only about 13% that of the energy absorbed by carbon dioxide on its way to Earth, half of which is re-emitted back to space and thus has no more effect than radiation reflected by clouds.
So, if you still believe low energy infra-red radiation warms the surface, then you should believe carbon dioxide’s cooling effect is 7 times that of any warming effect you believe in. I believe in neither, so I don’t make a big point of this issue. But you can’t sit on the fence and only believe in a warming effect.
Scarface says:
January 2, 2012 at 2:18 pm
“But burning 1 liter gasoline produces 65Kwh, with an endresult of 15,4 kg CO2
Correction, should be:
Driving 1 hour at 100 kmh at 1l/15km produces 65 Kwh, with an endresult of 15,4 kg CO2.
____
I have calculated that the energy produced is 4,6*10^-7 W/m2 (see earlier comments)
And that the forcing of the CO2 that’s produced is 3*10^-14 W/m2
Based on that the AGW scare-theory looks like a complete marginal effect of CO2.
I would really like to hear if someone could do the calculations.
Will someone give it a try? Thanks in advance!
I found this video a year ago and liked it so much I imported the powerpoint presentation (pics with words) it comes from and made my own improvements. Asked Warren Meyer if he was ok with my work – but got no reply so I just put it up on my website.
Click my name then click the top right hand corner ofr the page.
PS if anyone can video my version (I can’t do videos) that would be nice. Plus there’s room to edit my pictures further, and my text so it’s not as gabbled as Warren’s.
PPS Anthony I hope you add this to your resources list for newcomers.