By S. Fred Singer
Gallia omnia est divisa in partes tres. This phrase from Julius Gaius Caesar about the division of Gaul nicely illustrates the universe of climate scientists — also divided into three parts. On the one side are the “warmistas,” with fixed views about apocalyptic man-made global warming; at the other extreme are the “deniers.” Somewhere in the middle are climate skeptics.
In principle, every true scientist must be a skeptic. That’s how we’re trained; we question experiments, and we question theories. We try to repeat or independently derive what we read in publications — just to make sure that no mistakes have been made.
In my view, warmistas and deniers are very similar in some respects — at least their extremists are.
They have fixed ideas about climate, its change, and its cause. They both ignore “inconvenient truths” and select data and facts that support their preconceived views. Many of them are also quite intolerant and unwilling to discuss or debate these views — and quite willing to think the worst of their opponents.
Of course, these three categories do not have sharp boundaries; there are gradations. For example, many skeptics go along with the general conclusion of the warmistas but simply claim that the human contribution is not as large as indicated by climate models. But at the same time, they join with deniers in opposing drastic efforts to mitigate greenhouse (GH) gas emissions.
I am going to resist the temptation to name names. But everyone working in the field knows who is a warmista, skeptic, or denier. The warmistas, generally speaking, populate the U.N.’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and subscribe to its conclusion that most of the temperature increase of the last century is due to carbon-dioxide emissions produced by the use of fossil fuels. At any rate, this is the conclusion of the most recent IPCC report, the fourth in a series, published in 2007. Since I am an Expert Reviewer of IPCC, I’ve had an opportunity to review part of the 5th Assessment Report, due in 2013. Without revealing deep secrets, I can say that the AR5 uses essentially the same argument and evidence as AR4 — so let me discuss this “evidence” in some detail.
Read the full essay here: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/climate_deniers_are_giving_us_skeptics_a_bad_name.html#ixzz1nn0SciyO
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Chris Watson says:
February 29, 2012 at 7:05 pm
…”I think the focus on CO2 has distracted from other much more important environmental issues.”
Indubitably.
“… I’m not opposed to most other environmental legislation.”
I’m certainly not opposed to all of it. But, beware! Observing how the AGW faction manipulates data, and takes other shortcuts to push its cause by any means fair or foul, might open your eyes to similar shenanigans taking place in less publicly prominent environmental controversies.
A large portion of people who evince an overweening concern about the environment suffer from an OCD neurosis which compels them to strive for unattainable perfection in a world where choices between good and bad are not so clear cut, and the road to hell is often paved with good intentions. These are people for whom the phrase “we had to destroy the village in order to save it” actually makes sense.
Bart says:
February 29, 2012 at 6:50 pm
I fully agree that there is lots we do not know about where CO2 can come from and go to. And during a very cold year, it is certainly possible for the oceans to absorb more CO2 to give a slight decrease in a given year. As well, I agree it takes time to reach equilibrium, especially with regards to the deep ocean, but not so much for the top 200 m. “Surface temperature” seems to be very imprecisely defined, but if it is not too deep, equilibrium should occur in a matter of months. While some details may need refining, I believe Ferdinand Engelbeen has an excellent overall grasp of things.
BombertheCat says
We have actual measurements of downwelling radiation from the atmosphere.
Henry says:
You really seem to think that everything has been “tested”.
So how much W/m2/m3 {in the range 0.03-0.06% CO2} /0.01% CO2/ 24 hours was that exactly for the CO2?
More importantly, how much was the upwelling radiation caused by the CO2 that causes cooling by re-radiating in the near infra red (1-2 um) and infra red (4-5) and at various places in the UV?
I need that also in the same dimensions please, and if you can show me where those test results are and how the tests were done?
Finally, the increase in greenery fed by the increase in CO2 also uses energy. I am sure most here are aware of the reaction
UVlight + CO2 + chlorophyl => O2 + leafs, fruit, sugar (wine, food, etc.)
So how much was that (in the right dimensions please)?
Be sure to read the paper quoted at the footnote, so that at least you will understand why I am saying that CO2 is also cooling the atmosphere:
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-Aug-2011
otherwise you will never get what I am saying.
i.e. nobody did any such relevant testing, they all relied on the “closed box” experiments from ages ago.
Simple observations do not confirm that the increase in average temps. over the past 3-4 decades was due to an increase in GHG’s.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/climate-deniers-are-giving-us-skeptics-a-bad-name/#comment-908519
AndyG55 says:
February 29, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Burning coal is not producing CO2, it is releasing CO2 that was once available, but got buried.
While matter cannot be created or destroyed (ignoring E = mc2), I believe “releasing CO2” would apply more to what happens when you open a bottle of pop and gas fizzes out. But when you take any carbon or hydrocarbon or carbohydrate and burn it, you are producing new chemicals. Of course, CO2 is plant food so there is no problem with humans producing it as plants grow better because of it. And yes, we will “keep up the good work” as you allude to in your following post.
Chris Watson says:
February 29, 2012 at 7:05 pm
I don’t like the fact that AGW skeptics are so rabidly anti-environmentalist…If you really care about the bad science, you should pay attention to this criticism.
I suggest instead that if you really do care about nailing the bad CO2CAGW science, then you should forget about your own mind’s “political baggage”.
Werner.
I guess it all depends on how you look at it 😉
Coal is part of a cycle of carbon, just as plants are, just as the bugs are that create the CO2 in beer are, just as………
Its just that coal has be buried for a long time.
If you look at the level of CO2 over the last many 1000’s of years you will see it sitting just above the plant subsistence level. CO2 has been limiting plant life !!
Fortunately, we are now releasing that sequestered carbon from its tomb, by combining it with oxygen, to make more of the essential CO2 gas.
And for Chris Watson.. I am an AGW sketic, but in no way am I anti-environmental. I do not advocate lowering the levels of plant food in the atmosphere. I’m not trying to starve plant life, I cherish plant life, its feed and nourishes me, physically and psychologically.. !!
You want anti-environmental, just look at the mess created by the manufacture of wind turbine magnet, and by the shocking environmental damage done by the turbines themselves.. then think..
……. who are the ones that are really anti-environmental. !!!
E.M.Smith, I agree with what you say and would add that the overall weather patterns you talk about (regulated by solar) are what modulate ENSO and other ocean current “weather”. What that does it determine how much CO2-sucking cooler water comes to the surface and how much warm water gets sequestered in the deep ocean (never to be seen again for time scales we care about).
As for the GH effect and back radiation, every now and then I point my IR thermometer at the sky. Clear sky with dry air can give me a -34F reading. In light rain last night I got a +38F reading (air temp was 45). I know to the best of my knowledge that back radiation exists. But I also know that CO2 is a bit player on the local level. It is more important when integrated across the planet, but I don’t know how important.
Fred Singer said: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/climate_deniers_are_giving_us_skeptics_a_bad_name.html#ixzz1nr5rMOTJ
“Another subgroup accepts that CO2 levels are increasing in the 20th century but claims that the source is release of dissolved CO2 from the warming ocean. In other words, they argue that oceans warm first, which then causes the CO2 increase. In fact, such a phenomenon is observed in the ice-core record, where sudden temperature increases precede increases in CO2. While this fact is a good argument against the story put forth by Al Gore, it does not apply to the 20th century: isotopic and other evidence destroys their case.
______________
Much as I like and respect Fred, I’m not sure I like being classed as a denier. This term was originally concocted to link climate skeptics to Holocaust deniers – all part of the dirty politics practised by the global warming alarmists. I also think this categorization is overly simplistic and anti-intellectual. Sorry Fred – I really do like you, but …
I used to be a skeptic as defined by Fred, as evidenced by our 2002 paper at http://www.apegga.com/members/Publications/peggs/Web11_02/kyoto_pt.htm
Then in early 2008 I discovered that atmospheric dCO2/dt varied ~contemporaneously with average global temperature T, and CO2 lagged temperature by about 9 months.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/CO2vsTMacRae.pdf
This observation is very interesting, and correlates with the ice core data that shows a 600-800 year lag of CO2 after temperature on a much longer temperature-time cycle. I don’t claim to have it all figured out, and frankly no longer have the time to play with this idea, but I have a strong hunch that all the necessary information is there to sort out the big picture, and there is a reasonable probability, based on fundamentals such as Occam’s Razor and the Uniformitarian Principle, that the warmists and Fred’s skeptics have got the cart before the horse.
As far as the isotopic data that Fred mentions above, I thought this argument had been tossed out some time ago. It is not necessary that the lag of CO2 after temperature is caused simply by exsolution of CO2 out of warming sea water – there certainly is a huge biological component as well – one simply has to look at the seasonal CO2 ”sawtooth” of ~6ppm per year – It is also obvious that the natural seasonal CO2 flux greatly outweighs the humanmade component from burning fossil fuels.
I suggest that the entire CO2-H2Ovapour system is probably driven primarily by global temperatures, and that atmospheric CO2 is mostly a result, not a cause. That does not mean that humanmade emissions of CO2 have no influence – they may or may not have – they are small compared to the seasonal biological flux, but not necessarily insignificant.
One final clue for anyone out there who wants to win the Nobel Prize in 20 years:
Here is the 15fps AIRS data animation of global CO2 at
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It is difficult to see any impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power. There is no evidence of CO2 plumes around industrial centers – but huge annual CO2 increases occur in the Arctic, every Spring.
Go figure!
Allan MacRae, your detrend graph is interesting, but those signals are rather small compared to the trend signal. To show that the primary trend of CO2 is due to ocean warming, there would have to be a lot more ocean warming (like 16K warming per atmospheric CO2 doubling).
Since fluctuations in human CO2 output are invisible in the Mona Loa graphs, it is impossible that human output currently controls or measurably affects atmospheric concentrations. You can’t have it both ways: if you attribute the increases to humans, you have to falsifiably predict variation, too. And that’s a Fail.
I think the evidence is going to continue to accumulate that the oceans and flora of the planet conspire to set CO2 wherever they want, and “swallow” human contributions pretty much without trace. Which is too bad. It would be lovely to be able to ramp it back up to a nice healthy 1,000-2,000 ppm. Maybe flaring off a few of the world’s larger subsea methyl hydrate deposits would do it, though. Hmmmmm …
E.M.Smith says on February 29, 2012 at 9:23 pm:
“OK, I’ve pondered this a while. ———– Aquarius”
… “
=========
Well written, you are describing my thoughts quite accurately. I may for a long time have been wrongly understood as I assume everybody automatically know that if I talk about global warming = climate change, I am always talking about what happens in the Troposphere – unless I specifically state otherwise.
It is my fault entirely and I shall have to change my tack – a bit.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/climate-deniers-are-giving-us-skeptics-a-bad-name/#comment-908476
What Bob says ^p thread….
… and – I have yet to be dissuaded that the majority effect of doubling CO2 likely happened around the 22ppmv point. Maybe when it doubled to 44ppmv. Far less when it doubled, once more, to 88ppmv. Ah, it seems so long ago now…..
When I use the word ‘majority’ I mean very nearly ALL of CO2’s GHE capability. Does that make me a denier Fred?
E.N.Smith & Eric (Skeptic)
As you know, I also deny that carbon dioxide “matters.” But I do consider it important to understand the physics which makes it very clear why it has totally insignificant warming effects, but more significant cooling effects due to absorbing solar-IR and sending it back to space.
What it does not do is capture photons and fire them back at the surface where they crash land and warm us all up a bit. CO2 might seem to have the ability to do that much faster than water vapour, so, even though there’s less than 5% as much of it, it is supposed to have a comparable effect.
Well, as I have explained in other posts (and on my site) the process is totally different. These so-called GH molecules are setting up standing waves with the surface, and WV can do so just as effectively as CO2. In fact, it can do it more effectively because it can radiate in a far wider frequency range, so it supports many more standing waves in all these extra frequencies. The end result may be that all the CO2 has less than 0.5% of the effect of all the WV, but don’t quote me on that because I have not done accurate calculations.
But doing calculation like this is also pointless because, even though radiation from the atmosphere can slow the rate of cooling of the surface (but never warm it) the other processes – evaporative cooling, diffusion,, chemical processes – will start to cool the surface at a faster rate. (Reasons for this are on my ‘Explanation’ page.)
It is my hope that scientists who are against AGW will focus on the false physics in the IPCC “explanations” and models, rather than continually argue about temperature trends. Such trends are following a ~1,000 year roughly sinusoidal natural cycle which probably has another 0.5 to 1.0 degrees of rising to do before reaching a maximum in perhaps 150 to 250 years from now. In any data extending for over a century you should see a trend of about half a degree per century, but with a slight decline in the gradient, as in the yellow line in the plot at the foot of my Home page http://climate-change-theory.com It is for this reason that I have submiited an article which hopefully may be published within a week or so.
.
Allan MacRae says:
March 1, 2012 at 2:18 am
It is difficult to see any impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power. There is no evidence of CO2 plumes around industrial centers – but huge annual CO2 increases occur in the Arctic, every Spring.
The increase of CO2 in the Arctic and subsequent decline in spring comes not from the Arctic itself but from the mid-latutudes where the spring gives a huge change in CO2 levels because of the start of growth of leaves and wood. That is forwarded to the Arctic by the atmospheric Ferrel cells. The seasonal changes over e.g. the Black Forest (Southern Germany) measured at Schauinsland above 1000 m altitude shows larger swings than in the Arctic.
The point is that the increases in fall/winter/spring are followed by near equal decreases in spring/summer/fall. The huge flows in/out don’t matter, it is the difference between both that matters. And that is going up with about half the amount of what humans emit. Even the year by year temperature fluctuations are giving changes in dCO2 less than halve the human emissions.
BTW, dCO2/dT shows the influence of temperature on CO2 growth rate, but that doesn’t say anything about the cause of the growth itself…
I don’t call anyone a denier, it is a laden word and I regret that Fred Singer uses that. On the other hand, if one doesn’t have firm evidence that humans are not the cause of the increase that stands the test of the observations, it is a distraction from the real discussion about the (lack of) impact of the increase on temperature…
Brian H says:
March 1, 2012 at 3:22 am
Since fluctuations in human CO2 output are invisible in the Mona Loa graphs, it is impossible that human output currently controls or measurably affects atmospheric concentrations. You can’t have it both ways: if you attribute the increases to humans, you have to falsifiably predict variation, too. And that’s a Fail.
Some problems with this. Compare that to: Since fluctuations in local sealevel are invisible, it is impossible that there is a sealevel rise (or drop).
All depends of the signal/noise ratio and the detection limits. In the case of the tide gauges the signal is very small compared to the tides, thus one need at least 25 years to be sure that there is a change. In the case of the CO2 levels, 2-3 years are sufficient to separate the increase in CO2 levels from the “noise”, the influence of temperature on the CO2 sink rate. The increase is about halve the emissions, but the year by year changes in emissions are quite small (even during an economical crisis), compared to the noise and in general under the detection limit of the CO2 measurements.
HenryP says:
February 29, 2012 at 11:04 pm
“So how much W/m2/m3 {in the range 0.03-0.06% CO2} /0.01% CO2/ 24 hours was that exactly for the CO2?”
Henry, the graph I provided ,,,,
http://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/longwave-downward-radiation-surface-evans.png
…..had power units marked on the vertical axis and so, if you can read a graph, you can find the answer for yourself. This would be a good exercise.The graph is very instructive in that it shows the contribution of the various greenhouse gases to the total downwelling ‘back-radiation’. Notice that there is no contribution from the bulk gases in the atmosphere, oxygen and nitrogen, because they do not radiate in these IR wavebands. An intelligent question to ask would have been – Where is the contribution from water vapour? Good question, for the answer read the whole article on back radiation that this graph was taken from – it’s very educational.
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/24/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation-part-two/
It will also save you having to integrate the CO2 contribution from the first graph to get the answer you want. The total downwelling radiation is typically about 340 watt per sq.metre. This does not vary very much between day and night.
“More importantly, how much was the upwelling radiation caused by the CO2 that causes cooling by re-radiating in the near infra red (1-2 um) and infra red (4-5) and at various places in the UV?”.
The wavelength distribution of emitted radiation depends on the temperature of the emitter. At typical Earth ambient temperatures of about 300K there is very little emission at short wavelengths below 4 micron. So CO2 in the atmosphere does not emit significantly in the bands that you enquire about. Was that your question?
http://scienceofdoom.com/2009/11/28/co2-an-insignificant-trace-gas-part-one/
As for CO2 causing cooling, at higher altitudes it does do that. The greenhouse gases are able to radiate at atmospheric temperatures whereas oxygen and nitrogen do not (perceptibly). So greenhouse gases cool the upper atmosphere. But we don’t live in the upper atmosphere. We live on the surface and there, greenhouse gases cause warming.
“If you can, show me where those test results are and how the tests were done??”
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/17/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation/
You see Henry, it has all been measured and attacking empirical measurements is not a fruitful way to attack greenhouse gas theory. So read the articles this time and become an informed sceptic – and help give us sceptics a good name.
I have to agree w/Singer. Just here on WUWT I see otherwise intelligent people going off established physics into unsupported “theories”. I’ve learned I have to restrain myself from doing the same sometimes. And no, that doesn’t make one a “warmist” — I think 1000-1500 ppm CO2 would be ideal for the biosphere & people. That might even help delay the inevitable slide into the next glaciation, but I doubt it.
Eric (skeptic) says: March 1, 2012 at 2:35 am
Allan MacRae, your detrend graph is interesting, but those signals are rather small compared to the trend signal. To show that the primary trend of CO2 is due to ocean warming, there would have to be a lot more ocean warming (like 16K warming per atmospheric CO2 doubling).
I agree Eric – that is why I said IN THE SAME POST:
“It is not necessary that the lag of CO2 after temperature is caused simply by exsolution of CO2 out of warming sea water – there certainly is a huge biological component as well – one simply has to look at the seasonal CO2 ”sawtooth” of ~6ppm per year – It is also obvious that the natural seasonal CO2 flux greatly outweighs the humanmade component from burning fossil fuels.”
BTW, the dCO2/dt vs. T relationship holds with or without detrending – see my Fig.1.
_______________________________
Ferdinand Engelbeen says: March 1, 2012 at 5:05 am
Allan MacRae says: March 1, 2012 at 2:18 am
It is difficult to see any impact of humanity in this impressive display of nature’s power. There is no evidence of CO2 plumes around industrial centers – but huge annual CO2 increases occur in the Arctic, every Spring.
Ferdinand says:
The increase of CO2 in the Arctic and subsequent decline in spring comes not from the Arctic itself but from the mid-latutudes where the spring gives a huge change in CO2 levels because of the start of growth of leaves and wood. That is forwarded to the Arctic by the atmospheric Ferrel cells. The seasonal changes over e.g. the Black Forest (Southern Germany) measured at Schauinsland above 1000 m altitude shows larger swings than in the Arctic.
The point is that the increases in fall/winter/spring are followed by near equal decreases in spring/summer/fall. The huge flows in/out don’t matter, it is the difference between both that matters. And that is going up with about half the amount of what humans emit. Even the year by year temperature fluctuations are giving changes in dCO2 less than halve the human emissions.
BTW, dCO2/dT shows the influence of temperature on CO2 growth rate, but that doesn’t say anything about the cause of the growth itself…
—
Thank you Ferdinand, you may be right, and you may be wrong. Richard Courtney and you have had this argument for years. I have difficulty with your “material balance” argument, which seems to assume that everything else is static, so the humanmade component is making up most or all of the increase in atmospheric CO2 growth. I question this – human CO2 emissions are a small part of a large, DYNAMIC system.
You correctly point out that “dCO2/dT shows the influence of temperature on CO2 growth rate, but that doesn’t say anything about the cause of the growth itself”, and I agree. I see unanswered questions that fall outside the “mainstream argument“ between the “warmists” and “Fred’s skeptics”, who both accept that CO2 drives global warming but disagree on the magnitude and sign of the feedback.
You correctly say: “And that (CO2) is going up with about half the amount of what humans emit.” Right again – but why half? To me, half proves nothing except that the two numbers are of the same approximate magnitude. Note that in some cooler periods such as the twelve months from midyear-1973 to midyear-1974, atmospheric CO2 did not increase at all. Global industrial activity did not shut down for a year in ~1974.
I am not only a skeptic of the warmist position (OK – maybe I’m a “denier of the warmist position”, since there has been no net global warming for a decade or so); Since 2008 I am also a skeptic of the skeptic’s position.
There are too many unanswered questions, too much contrary evidence. I certainly do not claim to have it all sorted out – if I did, I would have written it down and moved on.
I suppose over time, as the evidence mounts that the world is cooling, not warming, both sides of the “mainstream argument” will conclude that feedbacks are moderately negative, and CO2 is an small and not a dangerous driver of global warming. OK – we wrote that in 2002. That agreement will solve the political argument, but not the scientific one. Perhaps that is Fred’s objective – it certainly would be a relief to stop squandering scarce global resources on global warming mania. Regrettably, a trillion dollars has been wasted to date on global warming hysteria.
Then, in ten or twenty years as the world cools, we’ll see further evidence that proves or disproves your or my hypotheses. The science will win.
I wish you well. And thanks for not calling me a denier. 🙂
Henry@BombertheCat
1) …..had power units marked on the vertical axis and so, if you can read a graph, you can find the answer for yourself
Henry says
If we are talking about trapped heat per 0.01% CO2 increase, which was the increase in CO2 over the past 56 years,
then clearly your units in this graph are wrong.
I has also asked you for the test procedure and the actual test results.
So where are they? Why”hide” them? I have been at “Science of Doom”. All they have is “calculations”. I need to see the actual test procedures and test results.
Oxygen/ozone and water vapor both absorb in the same band 14-16 as where CO2 absorbs.
Can I suggest you look at the irradiance graphs from the sun and earth to check that.
2) At typical Earth ambient temperatures of about 300K there is very little emission at short wavelengths below 4 micron
Henry says
You did not get what I was saying because you did not read the paper that I quoted in the footnote.
In hindsight, sorry, perhaps it was I who used the wrong words. I was not talking about it coming from earth. I was talking about the deflection (back radiation) of sunlight by the CO2. We can measure it coming back to us via the moon.
So how much cooling does that cause?
So it is same story here. I need that cooling in the correct dimensions.
You don’t have them?
(I have never seen any figures on this, never mind with time brought in, which should be a factor, because we only have 12 hours sunshine per day!)
3) Finally, the increase in greenery fed by the increase in CO2 also uses energy. I am sure most here are aware of the reaction
UVlight + CO2 + chlorophyl => O2 + leafs, fruit, sugar (wine, food, etc.)
So how much cooling was that (in the right dimensions please)?
Bomber, you did not even bother to try and answer this last question.
So, all in all, in all of this, how can you be sure that the net effect of more CO2 is that of warming?
You do not have the proof of how much warming and how much cooling is caused by the CO2.
Simple observations of the pattern of the warming do not confirm that the increase in average temps. over the past 3-4 decades was due to an increase in GHG’s.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/29/climate-deniers-are-giving-us-skeptics-a-bad-name/#comment-908519
Sorry Dr Singer but I am one of those you despise because I think that the 2nd law is sacrosanct. I do not deny that CO2 adsorbs IR radiation strongly in the laboratory but how many times have laboratory results had to be modified after looking at the real world. In the atmosphere there are other energy exchanges/reactions going on. When an object is heated, by whatever means, its temperature rises and simultaneously that body must share that heat with surrounding objects that are cooler whether that is done radiatively or kinetically that exchange must take place, otherwise 2nd law is meaningless. I do not argue with the outgoing radiation from the atmosphere which must take place to maintain a given temperature level on the surface. I am arguing about the exchanges in the troposphere. You claim that downwelling radiation proves the GHG theory. OK so some incoming radiation has been observed. I will not argue with that but, and it is a big but, has that radiation actually come from radiating water or CO2 molecules at cooler areas or from the energy exchanges between molecules in the atmosphere that solar radiation goes through on its way from space to the surface, or energy exchanges in the lower say 30m of atmosphere. We know from actual greenhouse experiments that glass is opaque to IR radiation but IR is found inside and the temperature rises for two reasons lack of mixing and the imprisoning of the IR that cannot escape through the opaque glass. That IR inside comes from energy exchanges inside by visible light loosing energy in those exchanges. This will happen in the atmosphere.
There is new evidence that makes the GHG theory questionable. Currently temperatures are falling, slowly but still falling, but CO2 is rising. Not what this theory predicts. The mid troposphere temperature anomaly has never been found. Another prediction fails. Radiation from the top of the atmosphere, for which data starts in 1979, has remained constant for the past 30 odd years despite rising CO2 levels. The theory predicts a fall in radiated heat with rise in CO2.
So Dr Singer, there is much wrong with the beloved theory and, to my questioning mind, much to review with current research that insists that the GHG theory covers it all.
beng says:
March 1, 2012 at 5:27 am
I have to agree w/Singer. Just here on WUWT I see otherwise intelligent people going off established physics into unsupported “theories”. I’ve learned I have to restrain myself from doing the same sometimes. And no, that doesn’t make one a “warmist” — I think 1000-1500 ppm CO2 would be ideal for the biosphere & people. That might even help delay the inevitable slide into the next glaciation, but I doubt it.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Back-radiation was never even mentioned as “established physics” when I studied the subject in the 1960’s.
It appears to be a concept cobbled together to enable a correlation between CO2 content and temperature that bog standard classical physics did not.
It is not ‘established science, but smells heavily of dogma and politics.
When climate and all it’s variation, feedbacks, forcings, bio modifications, galactic influence, are perfectly understood and accurately projected, then we can start labeling the opinion holders. Until then we should refrain from poo-poing any splitting contrary opinion as skeptic or denial. Continuing to point out error, is the only way forward, for skeptic and denier alike. GK
I think there is a problem with the word ‘skeptic’ as this implies AGW is a valid claim but you are just not convinced. As one reads more (with an open mind) then you realise there is no credible science to support AGW. In the context of this article one would be described as a ‘denier’ – an inelegant propaganda word as it implies AGW is still valid but you refuse to believe it. We need better words!
Another problem is that people in the skeptic area tend to be more scientifically literate and fair so would have to agree that any increase in CO2 caused by humans will have a warming effect, the question is whether it is significant, and the answer is ‘no’. I have a similar problem with the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ – when Woods investigated this in the 1920s he found that although almost non-existent there WAS a slight effect of about half a degree. This means I can not say there is NO AGW, nor can I say there is NO greenhouse effect, it is just that the effects are minimal. But I am reminded of the phrase ‘if you give an inch they’ll take a mile’.
AGW proponents claim to have science on their side, but this is obviously not true in key areas. The main claim that additional CO2 creates forcing through water vapour of about three times the warming of the CO2 alone. This figure was simply made up and has not been shown to be true. Also why doesn’t the heat from the water vapour create more water vapour and increased warming, in a loop, until the seas boil!? Have they discarded this idea of forcing – no – not scientific.
Next consider the climate models – global temperatures are well below any forecast so all these climate models are false. Have they been discarded – no.
Next are all the wild claims in the last IPCC report – mostly shown to be made up. Have they been discarded – I suspect not.
Now they resort to unsupported claims and suggest that if you don’t disprove it (with no resources) it must be true! Aerosols suppressing global temperature rises comes to mind, but there are many others : climate change, extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc…
Another question is if AGW had not been invented when it was – could it be invented now. With the lack of rise in global temperatures and falling sea-levels the answer would be no. AGW is simply something that seemed plausible a couple of decades ago but no longer does.
Unfortunately none of this matters – so many people are making so much money from it, or rely on it for their jobs, that only when the West can no longer afford it will it finally die. Obviously that time is approaching rapidly. It is just a bit sickening to think that without AGW the financial state of the West would not be so critical.
BTW
the common answers when I asked this question:
How much cooling is caused by the CO2 by re-radiating sun light in the near infra red (1-2 um) and infra red (4-5) and at various places in the UV?
was:
“we already counted that. it is in earth’s albedo”
“it means it is simply not counted at incoming SW i.e. the 342 W/m2 we get on average on earth”
Obvioulsy such reasoning defies all logic.
As the CO2 goes up, so must both its cooling effect and its warming effect?
If we do not have any figures on that cooling effect, you really have no proof that the net effect of more CO2 is that of warming.
Anyway, seeing that nobody had those results was the reason why I decided to shoot some pool. Looking at the results of the balls on my pool table,
it seems likely that it is pretty much evens with the cooling and warming of the increase in CO2.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
RKS said @ur momisugly March 1, 2012 at 7:08 am
Earliest reference I came across is Rotty, RM & Mitchell, JM 1974, Man’s energy and the World’s climate, a paper delivered to the 67th Annual Meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Rotty and smelly seem to be similar terms… I suppose.