“The Oceans will begin to boil…” – yes he actually said that, along with some other silly things. Watch this video:
One wonders, if Dr. Hansen realizes that no scientist has yet presented any credible evidence that the “oceans boiled” millions of years ago when atmospheric CO2 values far exceeded the 390 ppm we have now. Of course, given that this is a “Climate Progress World” production, such inconvenient facts don’t matter, as its all about the scare.
Hansen apparently has Venus on the brain. Even normally alarmist Wikipedia doesn’t embrace Hansen’s “runaway greenhouse effect” on Earth.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_greenhouse_effect
The situation on Earth is very different from that which existed on Venus, as any terrestrial runaway effect is not irreversible on geological timescales. Potential runaway greenhouse effects on Earth may involve the carbon cycle, but unlike Venus will not involve boiling of the oceans. Earth’s climate has swung repeatedly between warm periods and ice ages during its history. In the current climate the gain of the positive feedback effect from evaporating water is well below that which is required to boil away the oceans. Climate scientist John Houghton has written that “[there] is no possibility of [Venus’s] runaway greenhouse conditions occurring on the Earth”.
h/t to WUWT reader “coldlynx”
Hmm -this is from NASA? I thought their job was to better public relations with the Muslim world -to be proud of their past achievements. Would that be because 1.000 years ago they didn’t burn – or sell – any of their oil, and they should go back to that, pronto?
On the other hand: if that is what you get from NASA: spin, bluster, ignorance, lies and damned lies – does anyone wonder why there are people out there who don’t believe they could have put a man on the moon, and just resorted to fakery?
Robert Brown says:
January 12, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Before discounting a runaway greenhouse one needs to consider internal heat in a different light. You probably know enough earth science to know that the earth’s core is molten. The sun isn’t responsible for that. The excellent insulating properties of rocks are the culprit. Now consider what happens if you have a cloud layer so thick that it insulates the rocks on the surface to such a great extent that the puny 100mW/m2 of internal heat that leaks out of the crust can’t escape so easily. Sufficient insulation can raise the surface temperature enough to boil water or melt lead. This what is actually happening on Venus with its 80 bar of CO2 and impenetrable cloud layer. Contrary to scientific legend it isn’t solar energy that’s being trapped at the Venusian surface it’s heat of formation and radiactive decay that is being trapped at the surface. The atmosphere changes the temperature gradient between the core and the surface. Calling that a greenhouse is rather inapt but the term is abused into meaninglessness already anyhow. I’m not saying it’s possible on the earth with its greater remove from the sun to build up an atmosphere similar to Venus anytime soon (it will happen in another few billion years sol’s progression along the main sequence however) but it shouldn’t be discounted out of hand either.
Cmon now. I watched Hansen’s video. He is saying we have to preserve the earth’s precious bodily fluids. Is that so strange? It’s just a type of love. Of the precious bodily fluids of earth.
tokyoboy says: January 12, 2012 at 7:47 pm
Ric Werme says: January 12, 2012 at 7:27 pm
“Looks like just a case of missing data to me. Check it next update.”
They moved the data for some reason in November. JunkScience may not have realised. It’s now shown on:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/_graphs3/Fig.C.txt
“Howling Mad” Hansen didn’t get his name for nothing.
Reminds me of “The Secret Policeman’s Ball”. That started about 1980 too.
And will this wind…?
A Lovell says:
January 13, 2012 at 3:22 am
“R. Gates says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:45 pm
Dr. Hansen didn’t seem terribly “unhinged” to me.”
Ah, so just somewhat unhinged then? Perhaps slightly unhinged? Or maybe quite, hardly, narrowly, after a fashion, in a manner of speaking, just a little bit, a whit, a jot, nearly, on the brink of, at the very least or even virtually unhinged?
Unhingedness in the eye of the beholder.
or
Unhingedness is as unhingedness does.
So, essentially, people will have cooked fish a plenty in the future and since they cook at different temperatures there will be plenty of cooked fishes for years to come. The starving people goes huzzah, the ageing crazed climate communist hippie collective goes: Nooo!
Warmer now means colder http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20120113/climate-cold-winters-weather-climate-change-20120113/
This despite no significant warming and no significant change in global temps for 10-15 years now?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2011.png
I suspect a very large drop in global temps January – March 2012 judging from COLA
http://wxmaps.org/pix/clim.html every continent SH and NH + Poles showing intense cooling + La nina mein gott!
David says:
January 13, 2012 at 2:08 am
“Does the often discussed logarithmic decrease in the warming potential of CO2 include this, or is that based strictly on radiative principles and the ever increasing energy required for the water cycle would be a negative feed back to that?”
The logarithmic response of CO2 or other IR-absorbing gases is based on radiative principles alone. Any negative feedback from the water cycle or the likes would be another limiting or counteracting factor.
Venus is 40 million kms closer to the sun than earth, I think if we placed our beloved earth in Venus’ orbit our oceans would boil too.
I think he is genuinely insane. Were he a rational fraudster, he would suppress the more outrageous blunders to avoid being canned. I don’t think NASA still has the capability or will to differentiate between sane and insane warmist scientists, but a rational fraudster would try to err on the side of caution, and be more like Rahmstorf or Schellnhuber in his predictions – he’s too over the top for a rational fraudster.
Hansen is the leader of climate science. He is the main spokesman, a recipient of countless awards, a highly respected peer, author of numerous peer reviewed climate papers, leader of a major government climate research group, respected by Presidents and Vice Presidents, author of best sellers on the climate, and has never been asked publicly by his peers to change one word he says.
James Hansen is the face of climate science.
He may be crazy, he may be absolutely flat-out wrong, he may be a fear monger and deceptive manipulator of the public square, but he is not some outlier of climate science. He is their guy. He is their spokesman. He is the main reason climate science has grown to the successful and lucrative enterprise it is.
Think about the implications of that.
I paraphrase. “There has been times when methyl hydrates melted and pushed global temps up 9 or 10 degrees” Yet the earth didn’t experience run a way global warming and boiling oceans. How is this guy not laughed out of media existence?
Things that make you go hmmmm?
“R. Gates says:
January 12, 2012 at 6:45 pm
Dr. Hansen didn’t seem terribly “unhinged” to me.”
Mr Gates, would you go with pixilated perhaps?
Has anyone ever seen James Hansen and Sacha Baron Cohen together in the same room at the same time?
Just asking…
NASA:
Needs Another Stupid Administrator
Boiled whales, fish and giant squid, eh? Can we fill a containership with marinara and tartar sause so we will be ready?
His assertion that storms will be made worse by melting ice because of the temperature differential surprised me. Don’t hurricanes always lose strength when they move over cooler waters?
I think I’ve squared Hansen’s “the seas will rise” and “the seas will boil” circle. See, the seas will rise to an extreme altitude — a mile above current levels — and the higher altitude will mean a lower boiling point. So we’ll get both!
Or the guy thinks the rest of the world is populated by the stupid and the gullible.
Hansen is certifiably insane. The more he escalates his rhetoric the less believable he becomes.
“How is this guy not laughed out of media existence?”
The press NEVER abandons a colorful doomsayer who is politically useful. Note that Hansen has made ludicrous predictions in the past and the predictions failed, but they keep going back to him and treating him as a serious person, while the preacher who predicted a couple dates last year for the Rapture was subjected to endless ridicule. Hansen’s mania supports totalitarian government; the preacher’s does not. Thus Hansen’s latest predictions will be treated seriously and his past failures buried, and the preacher will be turned into a joke.
We took Hansen for an authority. Turns out his dart missed the dartboard completely. New game!
“Minor” differences between Venus and Earth:
Venus is closer to the Sun (.72 AU vs 1 AU for Earth) If my math is right, Venus gets almost double the insolation Earth gets
Venus’s atmosphere is 96.5% CO2 vs 0.04% for Earth
Venus’s atmosphere is more massive than Earth’s, resulting in higher pressure at the surface (~91 atm), and almost twice as thick (scale height 15.9km vs 8.5 km for Earth)
Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes…
The dead rising from the grave!
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!