Guest post by James Padgett
If the average person was asked to describe the runaway greenhouse effect, and given a bit of prep time, how would they do it? Most people would type it into their favorite search engine which would lead them to the Wikipedia article on the subject. They would read through it, try to memorize the basics, understand the fundamentals and then prepare a summary for their audience.
But how would a climate scientist do it? Specifically, how would the head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies describe it? I expect he would rely on his past work, his models of Venus’ atmosphere, which he jerry-rigged to apply to Earth (yes, I learned about that from Wikipedia). Most assuredly he would cite the latest peer-reviewed work on the subject.
Right? Let’s take a look:
“…it gets warmer and warmer then the oceans begin to evaporate and water vapor is a very strong green house gas, even more powerful than carbon dioxide. So you can get to a situation where, it just, the oceans will begin to boil and the planet becomes, uhh, so hot that the ocean ends up in the atmosphere, and that happened to Venus…” (1)
Now compare James Hansen’s words with this passage:
“increasing the temperature and consequently increasing the evaporation of the ocean, leading eventually to the situation in which the oceans boiled, and all of the water vapor entered the atmosphere”
That certainly looks rather similar now doesn’t it? That second passage is from Wikipedia’s article on the runaway greenhouse effect – in the Venus section.
Of course, if Mr. Hansen had read down to the section about the Earth, then he would’ve noticed this:
“Potential runaway greenhouse effects on Earth may involve the carbon cycle, but unlike Venus will not involve boiling of the oceans.”
I know many schools and teachers will fail students who use Wikipedia as their source, but what does NASA do with employees that scare people by misquoting Wikipedia with the authority and prestige of their agency?
In any case, I look forward to the IPCC naming Wikipedia as a lead author and NASA using Wikipedia as a lead engineer. Well, that isn’t entirely fair, NASA depends on real flight, while the IPCC relies on “when pigs fly.”
Cheers,
James Padgett
References:
Origin of the Passage on Wikipedia – Apparently written by NASA employee and sci-fi writer Geoffrey Landis
Full Video of Hansen’s interview
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“In his ” Storms of My Grandchildren ” he [Hansen] says oil shale mining will result in runaway greenhouse on Earth.” (Wiki, Earth) Decidedly, anything goes for this guy.
GeneDoc says:
Well, his whole point was that 0.6 W/m^2 may sound really tiny but while the imbalance might seem rather small, there is actually a lot of energy involved. It is rather providing a sort of counter-context to the intuition one might have of how one could possibly be worried about such a small amount of intensity (W/m^2). So, it is another way of looking at it.
His statement is completely factually correct. You seem just not to like it because it goes against what you want people to believe, which is that such an imbalance couldn’t possibly have important effects, a notion that most of the scientific community would disagree with you on.
@joel
The banning of DDT was wider than just the USA. Many countries were pressured to ban it and finally South Africa did so. After one year the resurgence of Malaria was significant and DDT was reintroduced because nothing else was as effective. This is still the case.
DDT has been used for malarial spraying programmes in Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa and other SADC countries since the 1950’s. It is still effective which is why it is still used. It is only because of spraying DDT in the lowveld of Swaziland that the area was opened to cattle and sugarcane 50 years ago. Malaria remains endemic in Mozambique because the low level spraying was ended. Travellers from Mozambique continuously carry malaria into all the neighbouring countries as a result. The Swaziland and Kruger Park lowveld receive malarial doses, so to speak, each summer as the mosquitoes travel upstream from Mozambique. They are frozen out each winter.
>Peter Crawford says:
>>P. Solar said “I think you’ll find water vapour is transparent”
>…The opaque gas billowing above is the water vapour.
Actually that is fog, composed of water droplets which scatter light very effectively if they are larger than 0.1 microns. Water vapour is a gas composed of H2O molecules which are far too small to scatter light. Thus it is transparent as far as our eyes are concerned.
In the IR band, water vapour looks like a haze.
The reason the steam above the kettle mouth is transparent is that it is water in the form of a hot, uncondensed vapour.
Can someone tell me if the earth’s atmospheric water vapor has increased appreciably in the last 10 to 15 years? If it has, then maybe that explains why sea levels haven’t risen as predicted by the CAGW models – the water is all in the atmosphere. I’m just being facetious, unless there is a lucrative grant available to research the problem. Then I’m deadly serious.
DirkH said, March 14, 2012 at 11:25 pm
“But that situation isn’t stable. The higher layers of the atmosphere would constantly precipitate water out; while this precipitation falls, it would boil away again in the lower, hotter layers. Result: The fastest biggest heat engine ever, resulting in a very fast transport of heat upwards by convection. And what can water vapor do very well? Right: Emit IR to space, resulting in enormous radiative cooling. The tendency of that system would be to become cooler, not warmer.”
It does not work like that. The TOA (Top of the Atmosphere) would have clouds similar to today but with 100% cover. Working down through the troposphere temperatures would increase as they do now. Below the ice crystal clouds there would be “regular” clouds that precipitate rain. We call that kind of rain “Virga” because it evaporates before it reaches the ground.
The atmospheric pressure would be ~320 times what it is today so the temperature at the current sea level would be ~780 degrees Centigrade.
I’m may be wrong, but I don’t think the President has such power. I am certain that he shouldn’t have such power.
TomB says:
Indeed. There are very good reasons why civil service employees are protected from the whims of the politicians and political appointees at the top of the executive branch.
Joel,
I’m amazed by your ability to read my thoughts. I believe that you used the term “ideological propaganda” somewhere in this thread. I find Dr. Hansen’s use of atomic bomb equivalents (without context) to fall into that category–using frightening images to influence people’s thoughts about how terrible atmospheric CO2 is. I understand the explanation that he’s trying to put the amount of energy into a unit that people might more easily comprehend. But he didn’t choose puppy dog equivalents (or a simple fraction of a percent of the total insolation). He chose to show images of his cute grandchildren juxtaposed with mushroom clouds. That’s manipulative. I find it amusing and irresponsible, but sadly predictable from someone with a message (and a book) to sell. Others are terrified. It seems to work. He received a standing ovation at TED.
My point about effects is this: If you can predict it, but can’t measure it, how do you know it exists? An example: Why have we spent so much effort and so many resources to observe a Higgs boson? Isn’t it enough to predict it? I have yet to be convinced by empirical data. Others have faith in predictions. How hard is that to understand? Why is it ideological? Why does Hansen need “ideological propaganda” to make his point? Could it be that the data are inadequate?
@joel Shore “How is one possibly supposed to describe the phenomenon of a runaway greenhouse effect due to water vapor feedback without using several words in common?”
Well, if one didn’t read the wikipedia article on the subject and simply described it according to their expertise/POV then they might say something along the lines of:
“First temperatures increase due to the radiative forcing of carbon dioxide. This, in turn, has several effects such as causing permafrost to melt, releasing methane and increasing the rate of evaporation which adds more water vapor to the atmosphere.
This additional heating can melt glaciers and snow, reducing the albedo of the earth, and perhaps even heat oceans to the extent that the methane clathrates release their methane into our atmosphere at an exponential rate.
This combination of effects, and others, could cause a “runaway greenhouse effect” as each forcing exacerbates the previous forcings in an ever increasing cycle until a new equilibrium is reached.”
Of course, if one were describing the effect based exactly on what one read on wikipedia (misinterpreted) then it would sound very similar to what Hansen said – like boiling oceans that end up in entirely in the atmosphere.
“I also doubt that one couldn’t find statements from Hansen describing the runaway greenhouse effect with many of the same words or phrases that predate the Wikipedia”
You can’t find the exact words, meaning and order of the words both wikipedia and Hansen used, but you “doubt” he simply got his definition from wikipedia? You should go by the available evidence – not your assumptions of the existence of evidence.
@wmconnolley “Here is a diff for your “ref”, though confusingly, its a different article.”
That’s essentially the same link I have in the references. It is a different article because the text was initially in the greenhouse effect article and you later moved that text into the runaway greenhouse effect article.
I was simply showing the earliest reference of the text on wikipedia.
James Hansen’s loony radicalism brings NASA/Goddard into serious disrepute. It’s a mystery why he hasn’t been given the boot.
JR says:
March 15, 2012 at 1:36 pm
James Hansen’s loony radicalism brings NASA/Goddard into serious disrepute. It’s a mystery why he hasn’t been given the boot.
________________________________
If I recall correctly his old boss wanted to but he was “Protected”
From where I sit at the moment the higher the concentration of water vapour goes the cloudier it becomes and the rain begins to fall while the corresponding air and surface temperatures are up to 5 or 6 degrees cooler than a clear March day.
What the hell is going on here and what have we done to the climate to break it so badly that it acts in the opposite to the predictions ?? More research I suspect !
Gail (2:40 PM): “… he was “Protected”
Thanks for that. Now it’s a little less of a mystery, but still a mystery. One can appreciate, given the extreme politicization of the issue, that NASA would, like most government agencies around the world, adopt a pro-AGW stance. But still, you’d think they’d see the merits in filling Hansen’s position with someone who isn’t such an embarrassing activist kook.
Dang! I wish I thought those up. ROTFLMAO!
P.S. Anthony and Mods … WordPress changed something again. Getting various messages like “You must be logged in to comment with that email address.” and “That email address is associated with an existing WordPress.com account, please log in to use it.”, while using the same email address as always. I noticed that Goddard’s site has also been on the fritz. Trying a different email address for now.
[Reply: Contacting WordPress.com Support will help resolve these issues. ~dbs, mod.]
Wonder if the head of NASA realizes that Venus is a couple million miles closer to the big hot ball of light in the sky, and that might have a *little bit* to do with heating up water and such?
Pull My Finger says:
Indeed, the general thinking in the climate science community is that the Earth is not in any danger of having a true Venus-style water vapor feedback runaway, at least not for a few billion years when the sun gets brighter. Why Hansen feels otherwise is not completely clear, at least in my mind.
James Padgett says:
Your way is a little wordy…and might be the way that one would describe it to a more technical audience. It also has the benefit of having read the Wikipedia article so that you could make an explicit attempt not to use any of the language in there. I suppose that people like Hansen should now read through Wikipedia and all other popular sources and purposely avoid using any wording even minutely close, lest it be insinuated that they plagiarized!
By the way, if you want to see what real plagiarism really looks like, I suggest you look at Wegman’s stuff that was analyzed. You’ll see a huge difference between that and what you are showing here!
@joel Shore “It also has the benefit of having read the Wikipedia article so that you could make an explicit attempt not to use any of the language in there.”
I can unequivocally say that I would not have described the runaway greenhouse effect along the lines of “boiling the oceans until they wind up in the atmosphere.”
The most plausible explanation for someone using such language is that they acquired it from another source. For self-directed research online wikipedia would be the first place a person would be directed which makes the source of such language, most likely, the wikipedia article or its sources.
You are of course free to disagree with that assessment. I simply think the other alternatives that have been proposed lack evidence, plausibility or both.
Joel Shore says:
“By the way, if you want to see what real plagiarism really looks like, I suggest you look at Wegman’s stuff…”
Translation: “Hey, look over there! A kitten!”
The fact is that Prof Wegman showed unequivocally that Mann’s MBH98.99 statistics were bogus. So let’s talk about a
kittenplagiarism charge instead of Mann’s pseudo-science.– Hansen live – Wednesday 11th April EDINBURGH Science Festival, UK
– 90 mins – Price: £8 / £6 – Venue: National Museum of Scotland http://www.sciencefestival.co.uk/whats-on/categories/talk/our-climate-future
..”Here he is joined by some of the UK’s leading voices, including Professor Pete Smith and Lord Giddens, to discuss the status of the climate change debate and shine a light on current and future challenges.”
– Guess what’s on photo on the webpage they use to promote the event ?
– also note not Suitable For Ages below 14
– You can put in the rest of the irony in yourself
James,
Just to give you a picture of what plagiarism from Wikipedia actually looks like: http://deepclimate.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/wegman-social-networks-v-2-1.pdf See the cyan-colored material…That is the part that is exactly the same in both sources? Makes your comparison look pretty lame, doesn’t it!?!
I really enjoy reading this. I like the way you write. it was a very easy read.