This came out some days ago, but I never got around to posting it, this corrects my oversight. The description of the TED video reads:
Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.
TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world’s leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the “Sixth Sense” wearable tech, and “Lost” producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate
The video is below:
The utilization of simply physics in an atmosphere over-laying a liquid and biologic earth is far different than Venus. His take-off point in 1982. Venus is not hot merely because in has CO2. It is hot because it has a 96% infra-red absorbing atmosphere 92 times thicker than that of Earth and is 30% closer to the sun. The denser atmosphere accounts for a great deal of the retained heat. The Venusian atmospheres chemical make up is such that there is no condensation, something achieved in Earth’s atmosphere, as well as other planets and moons, by multiple processes. There is also speculation that Venus’ extreme vulcanism and its slow rotation may have or do contribute to its current inhospitable atmosphere and warmth. There are a few who cling to the idea that Venus was once Earth-like, with water oceans. I suggest this is now put out as a means of ‘demonstrating’ the runaway greenhouse effect and there is no evidence whatsoever.
“… Is it not the case that gases absorb more radiation the higher the pressure?”
Yes. It is called “pressure broadening, and the effect is well-known.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_line#Broadening_due_to_local_effects
Thanks tjfolkerts.
For me that just makes the comparison with Venus all the more incredulous.
Maybe his PR guy told him, Jim, keep on the hat, so that the opponents will make jokes about your hat and then we can send in Sparks telling them that they’re juvenile. That’ll discredit them.
Hope that they continue with this tactic and have Mike Mann deliver a TED talk in a clown costume.
This is the first time I have heard someone try to explain away the historical temp-lead/CO2-lag record by claiming that the increasing CO2 “amplifies” the warming trend. The same record shows that cooling leads the decrease in CO2, i.e., the earth starts to cool while CO2 continues to increase! Oops! CO2 as a major forcing factor is a myth! How could any serious scientist, no matter his religious commitment to AGW, make such a claim?
Geat reponse! It’s just so TRAGIC that PURE SCIENCE(PHYSICS) is being DISCREDITED BY “our” MARXIST SCHOOL SYSTEM!! WOW!!!
Scrubbed from his earlier work is any mention of the role of H2SO4 in Venus’ greenhouse effect. He originally attributed a significant amount of warming to H2SO4. It’s been airbrushed out of history.
Richard M says:
>>No, it does take GHGs to create the lapse rate and warm the surface
Stephen Wilde says:
>Incorrect. Simple mass and conduction is sufficient.
No, some sort of differential heating is needed to maintain that lapse rate. The bottom of the atmosphere must be warmed (typically by conduction as you note) and the top must be cooled (typically by GHG radiation to space from the top of the atmosphere). Without the GHG cooling, the heating by conduction would eventually stop as the atmosphere came to equilibrium.
(Hmmmm … cooling by conduction nearer the poles could set up some sort of convective Hadley cells, which might maintain the lapse rate independent of the GHE. However, this would not warm the surface above the 255 K effective average temperature. So the statement “to create the lapse rate AND warm the surface “, does require the GHGs. )
Indiana James and the discovery that Bolivia was very cold indeed just recently.
http://www.real-science.com/hansen-cooling-bolivias-past-by-5c-per-century
Having watched Mr Hansen’s video podcast, I, too, must speak out!
Unless we continue to counteract the disinformation spread by the shills of the massive herpetological hydrocarbon industry, the consequences for the planet will indeed be catastrophic!
Hansen’s idea of redistribution of confiscated oil wealth was tried in Canada starting in 1980. It was a big failure, especially to Albertans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Energy_Program
MostlyHarmless says:
March 25, 2012 at 11:12 am
All the references to “hat” are surely ad hominem and have no place here. He’s speechifying – criticise what he says, analyse what he means, not what he wears, or does not wear.
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The hat’s funny…and he’s obviously wearing it inside as a costume…for effect, he’s trying to make it his trademark and image
If he was wearing a Bozo the clown costume, for effect…..no one would be expected to ignore that either
….not too many people care what he has to say any more 😉
“David Ross says:
March 25, 2012 at 10:02 am
Anthony, or anyone with a good physics grounding. Is it not the case that gases absorb more radiation the higher the pressure?”
I didn’t see an answer, much less one from somebody that actually actually knows what she is talking about, I (who does not meet any test for “knows what he is talking about” will leap in where others (apparently) were afraid to tread.
My first guess was “I don’t think so, why would it?”. My second guess was “Wait, when you compress a gas, it gets hot, which suggests that it can’t hold as much and the excess is being driven out.”
My third and final public guess is that the second guess is the one I ‘ll go with unless “absorb” is not the same as “hold” or “contain”., in which case my final answer is “I don’t know”.
I think we may be seeing Dr. Hansen’s endgame here. Happy is the man who attains the final oblivion with all his life’s delusions intact and all his sycophants in full voice. Tragic, really.
The more I observe the “Climate Change” wars, the more I am reminded of the many shades of delusion and their outworkings as masterfully portrayed in The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Theoden, Wormtongue, Denethor, Saruman. Makes me deeply grateful for heroes such as Anthony, Lord M., the good doctors Lindzen, Choi, Baliunas, Soon, Ball, Spencer, Braswell, Michaels, Singer, and many many more, (recently and notably the awakening Luning and Vahrenholt who should be getting more attention than Gleick) who are pulling back the curtains to let in the light. My cap is doffed, my tankard raised high!
I do think that this video will be widely viewed and will do damage among those many who are lacking the data and background to see through it. Is there any way a well-constructed skeptical response could be made and widely publicized? Heartland?
Meanwhile, next up on Ted: Fidel Castro on “How I Saved Cuba”, followed by Mr. Fox speaking on his lifetime of work in henhouse security.
@ur momisugly mostlyharmless, with ref to your ad hatinem sqeamishness.
I applaud your desire to stick to the facts when discussing climate science, but in this case I think its fair to comment on The Hat, because it is a clue that Hansen’s talk is more theater than science. And he does look a bit of a fool in it, you must admit–detracting, or perhaps distracting, from his logical arguments, or lack of them. Certainly it would have been nice if he had shown the global T data since 2005 relative to his 1986 projected temperature trends, and discussed possible reasons for the embarrassing divergence, but that would have just confused all the true believers…can’t have that! Wheel out the chubby-cheeked grandchildren…better theater. Actually, to stray into snipland, I am really glad I watched this video (several weeks ago) because before I did I thought Hansen was a serious scientist. Now, what with the hat, the grandchildren, and the nuclear bomb, I think he has become a bit of a nut case…almost as bad as the sainted Mann. Possibly adulation corrupts, and absolute adulation corrupts absolutely.
Do reticent mid-western scientists describe themselves as such? – in front of Longbeach audiences – as they talk about how they’ve been arrested in front of the White House. (Once with that other famous, reticent, mid-western, scientist, Daryl Hannah.) Such unwarranted self-seriousness.
aaron says:
March 25, 2012 at 10:43 am
His carbon tax that is fully and evenly redustributed isnt a bad idea though.
It redistributes wealth from suburban/rural dwellers to Urban dwellers. It also redistributes wealth from regions with relatively high heating/cooling requirements to regions with moderate heating/cooling requirement.
I would personally be better off with such a plan. I live in an area with moderate heating and cooling requirements.
But whether I like it or not there are 25 US States with population density’s of less the 100/sq mile.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density
So the math in the US Senate is not going to work out. The US House of representatives is generally quite favorable to plans that benefit Urban Dwellers…but in the US Senate the Senators from ‘rural’ states have just as much clout as the Senators from ‘urban’ States.
This is one of the problems with scientists becoming ‘political activists’. They struggle with ‘electoral’ mathematics.
in re: DirkH 9:58 AM Thanks for that video link.
in re: treegyn1 10:04 AM I recall that the US, and other,
governments make way more money through taxes than
the oil companies make profit. California’s state government
loves higher pump prices because sales taxes rise.
Remember the 6th of November.
Hansen said that 20th century solar cycles couldn’t explain the rise in global temps, however, this isnt true.
According to Solenki et al (Nature Oct 2004) solar cycles 18-22 exhibited the greatest 65-year string of sunspot activity in the past 11,400 years.
Now that the Svensmark Effect seems to have been verified, it seems that much or even most of 20th century warming could be explained by decreased cloud cover caused by strong solar winds from record-breaking sunspots blocking cosmic rays from creating cloud seeds.
Now that SC23 had low sunspot activity and SC24 is turning out to be the lowest cycle since the Dalton Minimum (temps have been flat for 14 years) and SC25 is projected to be the lowest since the Maunder Minimum, CAGW theory may well be invalidated.
Why is Hansen so obsessed with Venus, CO2, and Runaway Greenhouse Effect on Earth ?
I can imagine Hansen as a child, looking at Venus in a telescope saying, “When I grow up I want to go in a spaceship and visit Venus.” This could have been a childhood dream for him.
When he was told that the surface temperature of Venus was over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, it killed that dream. He blames CO2 and has demonized it as “that evil gas”, the destroyer of planets ever since.
Now he is worried about the dreams of his grandchildren being destroyed by the same evil CO2 gas that is also present on Earth. This is the very same gas that destroyed the livability of our “sister” planet Venus and his plans to visit it. Ignore Mars and its CO2 atmosphere. Blindness works for that.
His theory has morphed into a delusion and a fantasy quest. The hat, the beard, the attire, all fit the mindset. He has also discovered the “golden ring” that will save us. This magic ring is fashioned from the gold out of our pockets. In reality, it is a carbon ring of thieves.
Clear rational critical thinking is left wanting in his presentation.
He had so much potential, and created so much a mess.
May sanity eventually prevail.
Disapointing tone of discussion, not really worthy of this site; with a few honourable exceptions including – alcheson, michael palmer,dp,mostly harmless and pat. Hanson gave a calm exposition of his beliefs, and deserves calm point-by-point refutation if it’s available.
[SNIP: Enough of the unproductive remarks. Please engage substantively. -REP]
Here’s TED Talks on climate change, and who are the speakers? Apart from objective paragon James Hansen, I mean: Al Gore, thrice, James Balog a photographer dedicated to documenting green alarm, David Keith, Prof. of Applied Physics at Harvard, an AGW believer whose research offers carbon capture and geoengineering to ameliorate the impending catastrophe, and who also just happens to be, “President of Carbon Engineering a start-up company developing industrial scale technologies for capture of CO2 from ambient air,” and Andy Hobsbawm, an internet entrepreneur and green activist, among others.
The only person of known skeptical credentials was Bjorn Lomborg, who believes “global warming is real and man-made. It will have a serious impact on humans and the environment toward the end of this century“, but who takes a commendably rational approach to dealing with it.
So there we have the TED vision of informing the public. Did TED approach John Christy, or Richard Lindzen, or Pat Michaels, or Ross McKitrick, or Steve McIntyre, or Chris Essex, or anyone else of known high ability to give, known able to give a TED audience, and has already publicly given, a thoroughly science-based description of the skeptical position? Someone well able to completely embarrass the AGW position on purely scientific grounds.
None of that. TED is evidently prejudicial and partisan on AGW. It seems TED is afraid of inviting, and has avoided inviting, any of the above-named scientists to speak. And that, of course, makes TED a lie.
Joanna says:
March 25, 2012 at 12:00 pm
I am really glad I watched this video (several weeks ago) because before I did I thought Hansen was a serious scientist.
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You did until several weeks ago? You should have read this: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1987/1987_Hansen_Lebedeff.pdf . The key manipulation the guys are doing there has no basis in science.
I just caught the replay of John Stossel’s great show in illegal jobs. He ended it up with Dr. Spencer, who blasphemed that more co2 could have benefits and a warmer Earth could be a good thing. I imagine the alarmists are writing a letter as we speak.
Stephen Wilde says:
March 25, 2012 at 10:37 am
If it were true that the atmosphere cools the surface rather than the other way around, we would expect the denser atmosphere of lower altitudes to lead to cooler surfaces than at higher elevations, which is clearly not the case. Both the air and surface temperatures of the Tibetan Plateua and the Andean Altiplano are much lower than the Sahara’s or the Dead Sea Valley’s. If we allow minor conduction at the ground/air interface, we must allow all the more radiation to earth from the thicker atmosphere at lower elevation. Clearly the atmosphere heats the earth. –AGF