This may be the only entry ever made by Bob Tisdale that doesn’t contain a graph. I thank him for the unsolicited notice he gives to WUWT – Anthony
Date: May 11, 2012
Subject: New York Times Op-Ed Titled “Game Over for the Climate”
From: Bob Tisdale
To: James Hansen – NASA GISS
Dear James:
I just finished reading your opinion that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times. I enjoyed the title “Game Over for the Climate” so much that I’m considering changing the title of my book to something similar, like “Game Over for the Manmade Global Warming Scare.” Yes. That’s got a nice ring to it. Thanks for the idea. I’ll have so see how difficult it would be to change the title of the Kindle edition. Yet, while I enjoyed the title, the content of your opinion shows that you’re still hoping to appeal to those who are gullible enough to believe your claim that carbon dioxide is responsible for the recent bout of global warming. I hope you understand that many, many persons have weighed your opinions and found them wanting.
The internet has become the primary medium for discussions of anthropogenic global warming, as I’m sure you’re aware. You have your own blog. Your associate at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies Gavin Schmidt is one of the founders of the once-formidable blog RealClimate. What you may not be aware of is that one of the other contributors to RealClimate Rasmus Benestad in a recent post expressed his feelings that all of their work there might have been for naught [my boldface].
However, if the notion that information makes little impact is correct, one may wonder what the point would be in having a debate about climate change, and why certain organisations would put so much efforts into denial, as described in books such as Heat is on, Climate Cover-up, Republican war on science, Merchants of doubt, and The Hockeystick and Climate Wars. Why then, would there be such things as ‘the Heartland Institute’, ‘NIPCC’, climateaudit, WUWT, climatedepot, and FoS, if they had no effect? And indeed, the IPCC reports and the reports from the National Academy of Sciences? One could even ask whether the effort that we have put into RealClimate has been in vain.
I can understand Rasmus Benestad’s doubts when a website skeptical of manmade global warming, WattsUpWithThat, has gained visitors since 2008 while RealClimate is floundering. The web information company Alexa shows that WattUpWithThat’s daily reach began to surpass RealClimate’s in May 2008. And for the last 6 months, Alexa could no longer rank RealClimatebecause its percentage dropped too low. On the other hand, the daily reach of WattsUpWthThat increased greatly and WattsUpWthThat has become the world’s most-viewed website on global warming and climate change.
Over the past 30 years or longer, James, you’ve created a global surface temperature record called the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index. It shows global surface temperatures have warmed since 1880. While there are some problems with that dataset we need to discuss, it is something you can be proud of. But in those 3 decades, you’ve also developed and programmed climate models with the sole intent of showing that manmade greenhouse gases were responsible for that warming. Those models are included, along with dozens of others, in the archives used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for their reports. Unfortunately, your efforts with climate models, and the efforts of the other modeling groups, have not been successful. Far from it. And since your opinions are based on the results of your climate models, one has to conclude that your opinions are as flawed as the models.
I’m one of the independent researchers who study the instrument-based surface temperature record and the output data of the climate models used by the IPCC to simulate those temperatures. Other researchers and I understand two simple and basic facts, which have been presented numerous times on blogs such as WattsUpWithThat. Keep in mind WattUpWithThat reaches a massive audience daily, so anyone who’s interested in global warming and climate change and who takes the time to read those posts also understands those two simple facts.
Fact one: the instrument-based global surface temperature record since 1901 and the IPCC’s climate model simulations of it do not confirm the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming; they contradict it.
The climate models used in the IPCC’s (2007) 4th Assessment Report show surface temperatures should have warmed about 2.9 times faster during the late warming period (1976-2000) than they did during the early warming period (1917-1944). The IPCC acknowledges the existence of those two separate warming periods. The climate model simulations are being driven by climate forcings, including manmade carbon dioxide, which logically show a higher rate during the later warming period. Yet the observed, instrument-based warming rates for the two warming periods are basically the same.
If the supposition you peddle was sound, James, manmade carbon dioxide and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases should have warmed the surface of our planet at a much faster rate in recent decades, but they have not. In other words, there’s little evidence that the carbon dioxide you demonize in your op-ed has had any measurable effect on how fast global surface temperatures have warmed. We independent climate researchers have known this for years. It’s a topic that surfaces often, so often that it’s joked about around the blogosphere.
Some independent researchers have taken the time to present how poorly climate models simulate the rates at which global surface temperatures have warmed and cooled since the start of the 20th Century. We do this so that people without technical backgrounds can better understand that very fundament flaw with the hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming. I resurrected it again in a two-part post back in December 2011 (see here and here), both of which were cross posted at WattsUpWithThat. I’ve published numerous posts about this since December using different datasets: sea surface temperature, land surface temperature and the combination of the two. I’ve published so many posts that show how poorly the IPCC’s climate models simulate past surface temperatures that it’s not practical to link them all. The posts also include the new and improved climate models that were prepared for the IPCC’s upcoming 5thAssessment Report. Sorry to say, they show no improvement.
Fact two: natural processes are responsible for most if not all if the warming over the past 30 years, a warming that you continue to cite as proof of the effects of greenhouse gases.
In your opinion piece, you mentioned the predictions you made in the journal Science back in 1981. Coincidentally, that’s the year when satellites began to measure the surface temperatures of the global oceans. Those satellites provide much better coverage for the measurement of global sea surface temperatures, from pole to pole. You use a satellite-based dataset as one of the sea surface temperature sources for your GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) data. That NOAA sea surface temperature dataset is known as Reynolds OI.v2. It is the same dataset I have used to illustrate that natural processes, not greenhouse gases, are responsible for surface temperature warming of the global oceans since 1981. Since land surface temperatures are simply along for the ride, mimicking and exaggerating the changes in sea surface temperatures, the hypothesis you promote has a significant problem. Climate models are once again contradicted by observation-based data.
I’m one of very few independent global warming researchers who study sea surface temperature data and the processes associated with the natural mode of climate variability called El Niño-Southern Oscillation or ENSO. ENSO is a process that is misrepresented by many climate scientists when they use linear regression analysis in attempts to remove an ENSO signal from the global surface temperature record. Those misrepresentations ensure misleading results in some climate science papers.
ENSO is a natural process that you and your associates at GISS exclude in many of the climate model-based studies you publish, because, as you note, your “coarse-resolution ocean model is unable to simulate climate variations associated with El Niño-Southern Oscillation processes.” In fact, there are no climate models used by the IPCC that are capable of recreating the frequency, magnitude and duration of El Niño and La Niña events. And I know of no scientific studies that show any one climate model is capable of correctly simulating all of the fundamental coupled ocean-atmosphere processes associated with ENSO.
If climate models are not able to simulate ENSO, then they do not include a very basic process Mother Nature has devised to increase and slow the distribution of heat from the tropics to the poles. As a result, the climate models exclude the variations in the rates at which the tropical Pacific Ocean releases naturally created heat to the atmosphere and redistributes it within the oceans, and those climate models also exclude the varying rate at which ENSO is responsible through teleconnections for the warming in areas remote to the tropical Pacific.
Climate scientists have to stop treating ENSO as noise, James. The process of ENSO serves as a source of naturally created and stored thermal energy that is discharged, redistributed and recharged periodically. Because these three functions (discharge, redistribution and recharge) all fluctuate (see Note 1), impacts of ENSO on global climate vary on annual, multiyear and multidecadal timescales. Common sense dictates that global surface temperatures will warm over multidecadal periods when the frequency, magnitude and duration of El Niño events outweigh those of La Niña events, causing more heat than normal to be released from the tropical Pacific Ocean to the atmosphere and to be redistributed within the oceans. And the opposite will occur, global surface will cool, when La Niña events dominate ENSO over a multidecadal period. It is no coincidence that that is precisely what has happened since 1917.
Note 1: El Niño events (the discharge mode) are not always followed by La Niña events (the recharge mode). Both El Niño and La Niña events can appear in a series of similar phase events like the El Niño events of 2002/03, 2004/05 and 2006/07 and the La Niña events of 2010/11 and 2011/12. El Niño and La Niña events can also last for more than one year, spanning multiple ENSO seasons, like the 1986/87/88 El Niño and the 1998/99/00/01 La Niña. When a strong El Niño is followed by a La Niña like the El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 it is very obvious that two portions of ENSO are acting together and redistributing warm water that’s left over from the El Niño. The results of the combined effects are actually difficult to miss in the sea surface temperature records.
The satellite-era sea surface temperature data reveals that ENSO, not carbon dioxide, is responsible for the warming of global ocean surfaces for the past 30 years, as noted earlier. It illustrates the effects of La Niña events are not the opposite of El Niño events. In fact, the satellite-based sea surface temperature data indicates that, when major El Niño events are followed by La Niña events, they can and do act together to cause upward shifts in the sea surface temperature anomalies of the Atlantic, Indian and West Pacific Oceans. And since the Eastern Pacific Ocean has not warmed in 30 years, those ENSO-induced upward shifts in the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data are responsible for practically all of the global sea surface temperature warming for the last 3 decades.
I have been presenting and illustrating those ENSO-caused upward shifts for more than 3 years. I have plotted the data, discussed and animated the process of ENSO using numerous datasets: sea surface temperature, sea level, ocean currents, ocean heat content, depth-averaged temperature, warm water volume, sea level pressure, cloud amount, precipitation, the strength and direction of the trade winds, etc. And since cloud amount for the tropical Pacific impacts downward shortwave radiation (visible light) there, I’ve presented and discussed that relationship as well. The data associated with those variables all confirm how the processes of ENSO work for my readers. They also show and discuss how those upward shifts are caused by processes of ENSO. I’ve written so many posts on ENSO that it is impractical for me to link them here. A very good overview is provided in this post, or you may prefer to read the additional comments on the cross post at WattsUpWithThat.
James, you are more than welcome to use the search function at my website to research the process of ENSO. With all modesty, I have to say there’s a wealth of information there. I’ve assembled that same information in my book If the IPCC was Selling Manmade Global Warming as a Product, Would the FTC Stop their deceptive Ads? You might prefer the book since then you’d have a single source of more detailed discussions on the topics presented in this memo. It also illustrates and discusses how the climate models used by the IPCC in their 4th Assessment Report show no skill at being able to reproduce the global surface temperature record since 1901. Using those IPCC climate models in another group of comparisons, it shows that there are no similarities, none whatsoever, between how the sea surface temperatures of the individual ocean basins have actually warmed over the past 30 years and how the climate models show sea surface temperatures should have warmed if carbon dioxide was the cause. An overview of my book is provided in the above-linked post. Amazon also provides a Kindle preview that runs from the introduction through a good portion of Section 2. That’s about the first 15% of the book. Refer also to the introduction, table of contents, and closing in pdf form here. My book is written for those without technical backgrounds so someone like you with a deep understanding of climate science will easily be able to grasp what’s presented.
In closing, I was sort of surprised to see your May 10, 2012 opinion in the New York Times. I had discussed in the second part of my August 21, 2011 memo to you and Makiko Sato that ENSO, not carbon dioxide, is responsible for the recent 30-year rise in global sea surface temperatures. You must not have read that memo. Hopefully, you’ll read this one.
Sincerely,
Bob Tisdale
Richard M says:
May 13, 2012 at 8:14 am
I’ll have to echo the concern that ENSO may be nothing more than an effect. Bob has done an outstanding job of showing the correlation between temperature increases and ENSO. However, correlation is not enough and we probably don’t have enough data at this time (need another 30 years at least).
For example, take my somewhat imaginary conjecture that Arctic warming could be the cause of recent increases in temperature. This would slow the flow of heat from the equator to the Arctic. The slowdown could lead to reduced cooling during La Niña and cause the next El Niño to produce a step change upwards. Seems to fit the data that Bob has provided, but is based on a different cause.
Just saying, we need to be skeptical of all ideas.
Of course ENSO is an effect – the effects of solar radiation modulated by clouds, winds modulated by solar radiation and air temperature and possibly changes in angular momentum (length of day changes) all drive ENSO. Then ENSO by releasing warm moist air into the lower atmosphere (El Nino) modulates the clouds and the winds that modulate ENSO. Its a ‘strange loop’.
But that is what a chaotic system of chaotic systems with multiple positive and negative feedback loops looks like. You cannot point at ONE aspect and claim that it is ‘the controlling aspect’. With one exception, the Sun, which is external to the chaotic system of chaotic systems that is the climate. However, the Sun itself is chaotic and has cyclic changes that may be caused by all sorts of other external inputs. Also although it is very slow to change – the Earth’s orbit around the Sun is also chaotic influenced by the other planets. These two mechanisms (and others) modulate the solar radiation in ways that are just being understood.
What we can say is that the Earth ocean and atmosphere has been considerably different in make up with larger amounts of carbon dioxide and methane and oxygen and various forms of life – yet the ‘climate’ has stayed within the ‘Goldilocks’ zone of just right; often on the cooler side sometimes warmer. This means that the chaotic system of chaotic systems is homeostatic – or in chaos terms – the strange attractors in the chaotic systems of which the climate is comprised, tend to keep Earth’s climate in that Goldilocks zone. Or we would not be here.
It is good to be skeptical – but it is better to be informed and skeptical
joeldshore says:
May 12, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Jimbo says:
Can you please write a letter off to the IPCC and ask them nicely to STOP USING NON-PEER REVIEWED LITERATURE when compiling it so called reports.
Since the topic here is material that make up the IPCC Working Group I report (“The Scientific Basis”), the issue of whether there was some use of non-peer-reviewed work for the subjects covered by Working Group II and III on impacts, mitigation, etc. isn’t really relevant.
I think things like Bob Tisdale’s letter here make nice exhibits as to why the “AGW skeptic” community is not going to be taken seriously by the scientific community. If you are seriously interested in influencing scientific opinion, you would not be doing such things. Are you guys really unable to recognize this?!?
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Soooo …. scientific input from scientist doesn’t influence the IPCC. OK. I got it!
Bob, re changing the title, it would be a good idea- it is too long and it is clearly aimed at the converted. Try: “Getting a Handle on AGW Theory” or “AGW, what the models are telling us” or “AGW- The Facts” Note Mann’s title: Hockey Stick……The Climate Wars. An interesting title at least.
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 7:47 am
They hide behind their foot troops like Joel Shore. Do you not understand? A CONSENSUS was reached and the DEBATE IS OVER, the only question left is how are we going to destroy western civilization, that CO2 belching monstrosity, and how fast.
Bussiness Insider International: The Inside Story Of Germany’s Incredible Green Power Revolution (Worth a read for the pro-green side of the story)
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Some have been trying to destroy or revamp western civilization for decades. Since Rachael Carson the lever used more and more is “The Environment”. They keep throwing things against the wall to see what sticks. (Whatever happened to the ozone hole?) A lot of us “Joe Sixpacks” may be ignorant of the details but we’re not dumb. (Gail, my name’s not “Joe”. 😎
joeldshore says:
“I think things like Bob Tisdale’s letter here make nice exhibits as to why the “AGW skeptic” community is not going to be taken seriously by the scientific community.”
Oh, but we are, as your comment proves. The Climategate emails are full of comments referring to scientific skeptics. Your boys are on the run, and if it were not for the immense piles of money supporting the climate scare, you would have collapsed by now.
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 5:22 am
Ian W says: @ur momisugly May 12, 2012 at 4:23 pm
…..And others – infrared radiation does not penetrate more than a few microns into the water surface. Any warming it does create merely results in surface water molecules evaporating and taking the latent heat of evaporation with them. However, the higher frequencies in sunlight, visible light and ultraviolet, do penetrate deeper into the ocean and heat it. But after a few hundred meters even that light is greatly attenuated…..
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Here are the graphs that go with your information.
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The problem is that water is transparent to visible light.., it is not absorbed but gets transmitted through. The shortwaves this AGW energy budget claims heat the oceans, is physical nonsense.
The direct heat from the Sun, longwave infrared aka thermal infrared, is the heat direct from the Sun we feel heating us up, which it does because it penetrates into us several inches and heats the water in us.. And this can’t get through the surface tension of the ocean..?
This comic cartoon energy budget says that this, the direct heat from the Sun which is the thermal, meaning heat, energy of the Sun on the move to us, does not reach the surface and plays no part in heating Earth’s land and oceans… Until this is understood, just how utterly ludicrous this is, any ‘analyses’ made are going to be gibberish.
NASA used to teach this, that the heat we feel direct from the Sun is longwave infrared, (it’s invisible), but now it teaches the AGWScience Fiction meme that this doesn’t reach the surface.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/28/spencer-and-braswell-on-slashdot/#comment-711614
Near infrared isn’t hot – we can’t feel it, it does not warm us up, neither is visible nor uv hot – these are not thermal energies, they are light, not heat.
I’m not going to get into more arguments about light…, but, until it is recognised how ludicrous it is that the direct great actual thermal energy of the Sun has been taken out of this budget then those saying shortwave in longwave out have also to prove that visible and the shortwaves either side can do what they claim…
Thermal infrared direct from the Sun, which is physically capable of heating land and oceans and which does actually heat land and oceans, is missing..
I’ve been struck by how little this has bothered those sceptics using the AGW greenhouse cartoon…
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 9:19 am
EEB says:
May 13, 2012 at 8:59 am
Hey, wait a minute. I thought we were supposed to be clinging to clouds.
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Climate is a complicated system with a lot of factors such as the sun, clouds albedo, oceans… That is why CO2 as the “Control Knob” is so laughable. We barely have touched on SOME, not all of the influences. The “Debate is settled”? – not even close. We are still at the stage of trying to identify all the possible factors. Until that is done you can not get anywhere close to an all inclusive theory on how climate works.
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One of my “Now, wait a minute!” moments when I first heard the AGW line is along the lines of waht Gail is talking about. (My first one enters “snippable” teritory.) Local weather forecasters have problems going more than 10 days out because there are so many real and measurable factors that influence the weather. How will they all interact 20 days out? No one can say for sure. Yet these guys are making a “weather forcast” going out to 100 years?! Nonsense. Throw Al “There’s no controlling legal authority” Gore into the mix and it’s obvious there’s something more going on.
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 9:14 am
Myrrh says: May 13, 2012 at 6:48 am
Thank you for that fascinating information. I would like to add the Anasazi Droughts: http://www.learner.org/interactives/collapse/chacocanyon.html
..Why would the Anasazi leave — potentially for good — pueblos it had taken them decades to construct? Scientists have found one possible answer by looking at tree rings (a study called dendrochronology) in the Sand Canyon area. In the period between A.D. 1125 and 1180, very little rain fell in the region. After 1180, rainfall briefly returned to normal. From 1270 to 1274 there was another long drought, followed by another period of normal rainfall. In 1275, yet another drought began. This one lasted 14 years….
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Glad you enjoyed it – I was really impressed too by Gill’s dogged determination to work this out, a blast from the past watching him go through thousands of numbers in over a thousand pages of hard copy..
There’s a Greenland graph on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland which does show two distinct cooling dips during the first period, I think it could match by dates, but not sure. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Grtemp.png
The second period beginning in 1270 looks like part of the downward dip into colder which bottomed out in the mid 14th.
Most of this discussion is way above my pay grade.., but it looks like that high pressure system moving from cold in northern Europe could be the link for all these?
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 8:19 am
“ENSO is a modifier or as I said above a sort of capacitor. The oceans STORE HEAT and RELEASE HEAT later.”
AGW is concerned with what “charges” the capacitor.
“There are plenty of other examples of the oceans’ influence on temperature.”
Influence on the temperature of what? You may be correct that AMO can influence the temperature of your state on certain time scales. However, AGW is concerned with influences on global mean temperature, not North Carolina. JP
Myrrh wrote: The problem is that water is transparent to visible light.., it is not absorbed but gets transmitted through. The shortwaves this AGW energy budget claims heat the oceans, is physical nonsense.
That’s why it’s so bright at the bottom of the ocean. But seriously, let’s just say that when any EM radiation is absorbed by a molecule and is not re-emitted by fluorescence or phosphorescence, then the energy of the photon will be redistributed at lower and lower wavelengths. It doesn’t take long (actually it’s quick) before those wavelengths are on the order of molecular vibrations.
Gunga Din says:
Read and learn: http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-03/weather-prediction-climate-prediction-what%E2%80%99s-diff
Smokey says:
I don’t see any concerns expressed in the Climategate emails that the AGW “skeptics” are going to win the argument in the scientific community. The concerns are the effect that they are having regarding the communication of the science to the larger public. That is very different.
It is, by the way, the very same kind of concern that one sees biologists having in regards to the evolution / intelligent design discussions.
atarsinc says: “AGW is concerned with what ‘charges’ the capacitor.”
AGW is NOT concerned about what charges the capacitor. If it was, climate models would be able to simulate ENSO, but they cannot.
The “capacitor” is charged by downward shortwave radiation (visible sunlight), not downward longwave radiation from anthropogenic greenhouse gases. This can be seen best in the tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content data:
http://i46.tinypic.com/5ey39x.jpg
The significant rises in Tropical Pacific Ocean Heat Content occur during and are caused by the La Niña events of 1973/74/75/76, 1995/96, and 1998/99/00/01. Why? Stronger than normal trade winds are associated with La Niña events; the stronger trade winds reduce cloud cover, which allows more visible sunlight to warm the tropical Pacific to depth. Notice that between the upward surge in the mid-to-late 1970s, tropical Pacific Ocean Heat content declined steadily, and it wasn’t until the 1995/96 La Niña that it rose again. It’s now declining again.
Gail Combs says: @ur momisugly May 13, 2012 at 8:19 am
“There are plenty of other examples of the oceans’ influence on temperature.”
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atarsinc says: @ur momisugly May 13, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Influence on the temperature of what? You may be correct that AMO can influence the temperature of your state on certain time scales. However, AGW is concerned with influences on global mean temperature, not North Carolina. JP
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The oceans are 70% of the surface of the earth. They influence the temperature of the coast at the very minimum. That bring the oceans’ influence up to somewhere around 75% of the global mean temperature at least.
GOTTCHA!
joeldshore: This post was not written for the scientific community. It was written for the visitors to my blog and to WUWT (assuming that Anthony would cross post it here). The vast majority of the readers here and there do not have technical backgrounds.
Juice says:
May 13, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Myrrh wrote: The problem is that water is transparent to visible light.., it is not absorbed but gets transmitted through. The shortwaves this AGW energy budget claims heat the oceans, is physical nonsense.
That’s why it’s so bright at the bottom of the ocean. But seriously, let’s just say that when any EM radiation is absorbed by a molecule and is not re-emitted by fluorescence or phosphorescence, then the energy of the photon will be redistributed at lower and lower wavelengths. It doesn’t take long (actually it’s quick) before those wavelengths are on the order of molecular vibrations.
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Water, is a transparent medium for visible light. Transparent means that it is not absorbed. It is not absorbed but transmitted through. Transmitted through because it is not absorbed.
Transmitted through – which is what AGW energy budget cartoon says visible light is in the atmosphere – but – the atmosphere is not transparent to visible light in the real world, the electrons of the molecules of oxygen and nitrogen absorb visible light, and bounce it back out – blue being more energetic gets bounced around more, hence our blue sky.
Visible light works on the electronic transition scale, not molecular vibrational.
Visible light is tiny. The electrons of the molecules of nitrogen and oxygen bounce it around and so it isn’t powerful enough to bounce around the molecules., and it’s pretty much useless even when captured in photovoltaic cells to make electricity…
But, water is really transparent to visible light, the electrons of the molecules of water do not absorb visible light, but transmit it through without being absorbed. Transmitted is a technical term in optics. And, visible light does not have the power – as from the Sun – don’t confuse yourself with lasers here, the Sun isn’t a laser, visible light does not have the power to move the whole molecule of water into vibration which is what it takes to heat it up. So, it doesn’t heat the oceans.
But – where is the missing heat in the energy budget? Why have you taken out the real heat direct from the Sun?
Thermal infrared does have the power to heat water, it moves the molecules into vibrational states. Just as when you rub your hands together the mechanical energy you are using moves the molecules in your skin into vibrational states, and heats the skin up. visible light from the Sun can’t do this – it doesn’t heat matter, heat direct from the Sun can and does.
The pavement gets hot because the invisible heat, thermal infrared, direct from the Sun heats it up. Why isn’t it in your energy budget? Because you’ve called it ‘backradiation’?
The heat we feel direct from the Sun is the actual Sun’s heat that is radiating out to us, the invisible thermal infrared. Just as the heat you feel from a fire or from a hot pavement is actual heat radiating out to us.
That’s not visible light or uv or near infrared radiating out from a hot pavement, but thermal infrared, longwave. Why isn’t this direct heat from the Sun in the energy budget?
I find it astonishing that you don’t use this in your arguments with Hansen and Mann and Trenberth…
Myrrh says:
May 13, 2012 at 11:27 am
Gail Combs says:
May 13, 2012 at 5:22 am
Ian W says: @ur momisugly May 12, 2012 at 4:23 pm
…..And others – infrared radiation does not penetrate more than a few microns into the water surface. Any warming it does create merely results in surface water molecules evaporating and taking the latent heat of evaporation with them. However, the higher frequencies in sunlight, visible light and ultraviolet, do penetrate deeper into the ocean and heat it. But after a few hundred meters even that light is greatly attenuated…..
________________________
Here are the graphs that go with your information.
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The problem is that water is transparent to visible light.., it is not absorbed but gets transmitted through. The shortwaves this AGW energy budget claims heat the oceans, is physical nonsense.
If water is “transparent to visible light” have you never wondered why it is so very dark at depths in the ocean? After all if you are correct it should literally be as bright as day. .
The short wave light that penetrates the ocean slowly attenuates and impinges on all sorts of matter in the ocean some live some not – sea water is not distilled water. Energy cannot ‘disappear’ so as with most energy the light energy becomes heat.
Juice says:
May 13, 2012 at 1:23 pm
That’s why it’s so bright at the bottom of the ocean.
http://www.pasco.com/earth/experiments/online/turbidity-trouble.cfm
“Imagine being in a boat on a sunny day, heading out onto a lake. The clearer the water, the more sunlight can penetrate the surface, and the deeper you can see. If the water is cloudy because of solid particles floating in it, less light can pass through it, and an object submerged beneath the surface will soon be invisible from the boat. Turbidity is a measure of this cloudiness. It is measured in units called NTU’s (nephelometric turbidity units), based on how light is scattered by the particles suspended in the water.”
Ian W says:
May 13, 2012 at 4:03 pm
If water is “transparent to visible light” have you never wondered why it is so very dark at depths in the ocean? After all if you are correct it should literally be as bright as day. .
I’ve just posted on turbidy. But please, think about this. It is actual real world physics that water is a transparent medium for visible light. Molecules of water do not absorb visible light on the electronic transition level because the electrons of the molecules of water do not absorb it, and, visible light is not POWERFUL enough to move the atoms and molecules into vibrational states – which is how something is heated up. Heat heats things up. Something a little over absolute zero is not hot! The electronic transition level is the level on which the tiny visible light operates, not on the molecular/atomic vibrational level.*
Why do y’all have such a problem with this? You know what heat is, you can feel it! It is the invisible thermal infrared that you are feeling! It is heating you up. Visible light can’t do this.
You’re, all generic, just repeating meaningless memes which tell us nothing about heat or the process of heat transfer.
Take an ordinary incandescent light bulb. 95% of the energy given off is invisible heat, only 5% visible light. The invisible heat given off is thermal infrared. You can feel that as heat because it is heating you up.
http://physics.about.com/od/thermodynamics/f/heattransfer.htm
“Forms of Heat Transfer
Under the kinetic theory, the internal energy of a substance is generated from the motion of individual atoms or molecules. Heat energy is the form of energy which transfers this energy from one body or system to another. This heat transfer can take place in a number of ways:
•Conduction is when heat flows through a heated solid.
•Convection is when heated particles transfer heat to another substance, such as cooking something in boiling water.
•Radiation is when heat is transferred through electromagnetic waves, such as from the sun. Radiation can transfer heat through empty space, while the other two methods require some form of matter-on-matter contact for the transfer.”
There is one very important fact you also have to know about water, it has a very high heat capacity, this means that it can absorb vastly greater amounts of heat direct from the Sun without showing a change in temperature. It takes longer to heat up and so, longer to cool down.
But anyway, it’s heated by its molecules being put into the vibrational state, visible light direct from the Sun cannot do this. Can not do this.
You cannot feel visible light, it is not hot, it is not heating you up. You cannot feel near infrared, it is not hot, it is not heating you up.
NASA:
This is what NASA used to teach kids, real physics for real children. AGWScience Fiction is imaginary fisics for virtual reality children. This is simply bog standard physics knowledge, as still understood by real scientists and used in countless applications in the real world.
If you take the thermal infrared heat energy out of an incandescent lightbulb, you can use the visible energy, light, to enable the chemical energy conversion in photosynthesis as used in countless greenhouses around the world; chemical conversion to sugars, not conversion to heat. Those now taught this AGWScience Fiction fisics would cook their plants..
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_and_translucency for a closer look at the difference
between heat and light on electron and atomic/molecular levels.
http://thermalenergy.org/
“What is thermal energy ?
Thermal Energy: A specialized term that refers to the part of the internal energy of a system which is the total present kinetic energy resulting from the random movements of atoms and molecules.
The ultimate source of thermal energy available to mankind is the sun, the huge thermo-nuclear furnace that supplies the earth with the heat and light that are essential to life. The nuclear fusion in the sun increases the sun’s thermal energy. Once the thermal energy leaves the sun (in the form of radiation) it is called heat. Heat is thermal energy in transfer. Thermal energy is part of the overall internal energy of a system.
At a more basic level, thermal energy comes from the movement of atoms and molecules in matter. It is a form of kinetic energy produced from the random movements of those molecules.”
http://thermalenergy.org/heattransfer.php
“Thermal energy and heat are often confused. Rightly so because they are physically the same thing. Heat is always the thermal energy of some system. Using the word heat helps physicists to make a distinction relative to the system they are talking about.”
It’s all heat. When it stops being heat it stops being thermal infrared…
There is a huge amount of heat direct from the Sun reaching us on the surface of the EArth and heating us up…
It’s missing…, what have you done with it?
joeldshore says:
“I don’t see any concerns expressed in the Climategate emails that the AGW ‘skeptics’ are going to win the argument in the scientific community.”
Then your reading comprehension sucks. There are numerous emails strategizing about how to deny skeptics [or anyone else who disagrees with the clique] a voice. Their shenanigans are found thoughout the two email dumps. Sad to say, Mann and his ilk have been largely successful in corrupting many of the journals, which are now his tame pets. But the general public is becoming aware of the fact that every wild-eyed prediction of doom from Hansen and his gang that the avergge Joe is becoming jaded.
As for your hogwash trying to compare intelligent design folks with skeptics, that is, well, hogwash. Creationists believe in something. CO2=CAGW believers like yourself believe in something. But there is no evidence supporting either belief. Both are faith-based. On the other hand, scientific skeptics/climate realists are simply saying: Prove it! Or at least provide convincing, empirical, testable evidence per the scientific method showing that human CO2 emissions have unequivacally raised global temperatures, and show the specific fraction of the otherwise natural temperature rise that is due to human activity. Be prepared to back your assertions with convincing scientific evidence.
Your problem is that there is no such evidence. If there were, the question of the climate’s sensitivity to 2xCO2 would be known and agreed upon. But it is not known any closer than a SWAG, which ranges from the IPCC’s preposterous 3+ºC, down to Lindzen’s ≈ ±1ºC, down to Spencer’s ≤ 0.5ºC, down to the Idsos” < 0.5ºC, and finally, down to Miskolczi's 0.0ºC. And they all know more about it than you and the IPCC combined.
Smokey says:
Ah, yes, the journals have been corrupted? Where have we heard those sorts of excuses before. Oh, here’s an example: http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1163
What those e-mails express is a concern that crappy papers will get into the journals and then these crappy papers will be trumpeted by the ideological echo chamber as evidence that there is serious scientific debate in the literature. There is no evidence whatsoever that they are concerned that the scientific community will be swayed by these poor papers; the concern is how these papers will be used to hoodwink the public. There is even discussion in the e-mails about how the system is being gamed in this way.
That is why the Climategate e-mails have for the most part provoked a collective yawn in the scientific community. But, again, this is clearly not the audience that the AGW “skeptic” crowd is making any serious attempt to win over, which is more evidence of how weak their scientific arguments are that they spend nearly all their time peddling nonsense to the public and almost no time trying to make serious arguments to the scientific community.
joeldshore says:
May 13, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Gunga Din says:
Local weather forecasters have problems going more than 10 days out because there are so many real and measurable factors that influence the weather. How will they all interact 20 days out? No one can say for sure. Yet these guys are making a “weather forcast” going out to 100 years?! Nonsense.
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Read and learn: http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-03/weather-prediction-climate-prediction-what%E2%80%99s-diff
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Perhaps I should have said, “Yet these guys are making a GLOBAL “weather forecast” going out to 100 years?! Nonsense.”
Plug in “climate prediction” for “weather forecast” if you like. There are more variables affecting climate than any computer on Earth can process to produce a 100 year prediction worth betting a few trillion dollars on … whether the data has been mannipulated or not.
Here’s Joel Shore again with his ‘ideology’ comment, which shows us where he’s coming from. It’s all ‘ideology’ to Joel Shore, because he has zero evidence supporting his CO2=CAGW conjecture. Notice how he completely sidesteps the issue of scientific skepticism, versus his personal version of Creationism? Not one word about the scientists I cited, who all contradict Joel Shore’s anti-science belief system. To Joel, it’s all ‘ideology’.
Earth to Joel: skeptics have nothing to prove. The onus is completely on Joel’s climate alarmist crowd to show us convincingly that human emitted CO2 is causing runaway global warming. But Joel Shore and his gang have failed miserably. There is no evidence to support his fantasy beliefs. So Joel hides behind his ‘ideology’.
As I’ve pointed out many times before, if it were not for psychological projection folks like Joel Shore would not have much to say. And the simple fact that Joel Shore, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, and all the rest of the purveyors of CO2 globaloney run away from any public, moderated debate, tells us all we need to know about their pseudo-scientific horse manure. If they believed what they’re shoveling, they wouldn’t be so afraid to defend it in public. They would be in our faces, showing us the evidence that CO2 causes runaway global warming [when the truth is that rising CO2 is largely the result of global warming]. Instead they hide out, all of them, scientific charlatans that they are, petrified of defending their ideas in a public debate. Cowardly money-grubbers all.
joeldshore says:
May 13, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Gleick! Set! Match!
Gunga Din: The point is that there is a very specific reason involving the type of mathematical problem it is as to why weather forecasts diverge from reality. And, the same does not apply to predicting the future climate in response to changes in forcings. It does not mean such predictions are easy or not without significant uncertainties, but the uncertainties are of a different and less severe type than you face in the weather case.
As for me, I would rather hedge my bets on the idea that most of the scientists are right than make a bet that most of the scientists are wrong and a very few scientists plus lots of the ideologues at Heartland and other think-tanks are right…But, then, that is because I trust the scientific process more than I trust right-wing ideological extremism to provide the best scientific information.