Note: This will be the top post for a day or two, new posts will appear below this one.
Readers may recall my original post, Nature’s ugly decision: ‘Deniers’ enters the scientific literature. followed by Dr. Paul Bain Responds to Critics of Use of “Denier” Term (with thanks to Jo Nova, be sure to bookmark and visit her site) Dr. Robert G. Brown of Duke University, commenting as rgbatduke, made a response that was commented on by several here in that thread. As commenter REP put it in the update: It is eloquent, insightful and worthy of consideration. I would say, it is likely the best response I’ve ever seen on the use of the “denier” term, not to mention the CAGW issue in general. Thus, I’ve elevated it a full post. Please share the link to this post widely. – Anthony
Dr. Robert G. Brown writes:
The tragic thing about the thoughtless use of a stereotype (denier) is that it reveals that you really think of people in terms of its projected meaning. In particular, even in your response you seem to equate the term “skeptic” with “denier of AGW”.
This is silly. On WUWT most of the skeptics do not “deny” AGW, certainly not the scientists or professional weather people (I myself am a physicist) and honestly, most of the non-scientist skeptics have learned better than that. What they challenge is the catastrophic label and the alleged magnitude of the projected warming on a doubling of CO_2. They challenge this on rather solid empirical grounds and with physical arguments and data analysis that is every bit as scientifically valid as that used to support larger estimates, often obtaining numbers that are in better agreement with observation. For this honest doubt and skepticism that the highly complex global climate models are correct you have the temerity to socially stigmatize them in a scientific journal with a catch-all term that implies that they are as morally reprehensible as those that “deny” that the Nazi Holocaust of genocide against the Jews?
For shame.
Seriously, for shame. You should openly apologize for the use of the term, in Nature, and explain why it was wrong. But you won’t, will you… although I will try to explain why you should.
By your use of this term, you directly imply that I am a “denier”, as I am highly skeptical of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (not just “anthropogenic global warming”, which is plausible if not measurable, although there are honest grounds to doubt even this associated with the details of the Carbon Cycle that remain unresolved by model or experiment). Since I am a theoretical physicist, I find this enormously offensive. I might as well label you an idiot for using it, when you’ve never met me, have no idea of my competence or the strength of my arguments for or against any aspect of climate dynamics (because on this list I argue both points of view as the science demands and am just as vigorous in smacking down bullshit physics used to challenge some aspect of CAGW as I am to question the physics or statistical analysis or modelling used to “prove” it). But honestly, you probably aren’t an idiot (are you?) and no useful purpose is served by ad hominem or emotionally loaded human descriptors in a rational discussion of an objective scientific question, is there.
Please understand that by creating a catch-all label like this, you quite literally are moving the entire discussion outside of the realm of science, where evidence and arguments are considered and weighed independent of the humans that advance them, where our desire to see one or another result proven are (or should be) irrelevant, where people weigh the difficulty of the problem being addressed as an important contributor (in a Bayesian sense) to how much we should believe any answer proposed — so far, into the realm where people do not think at all! They simply use a dismissive label such as “denier” and hence avoid any direct confrontation with the issues being challenged.
The issue of difficulty is key. Let me tell you in a few short words why I am a skeptic. First of all, if one examines the complete geological record of global temperature variation on planet Earth (as best as we can reconstruct it) not just over the last 200 years but over the last 25 million years, over the last billion years — one learns that there is absolutely nothing remarkable about today’s temperatures! Seriously. Not one human being on the planet would look at that complete record — or even the complete record of temperatures during the Holocene, or the Pliestocene — and stab down their finger at the present and go “Oh no!”. Quite the contrary. It isn’t the warmest. It isn’t close to the warmest. It isn’t the warmest in the last 2 or 3 thousand years. It isn’t warming the fastest. It isn’t doing anything that can be resolved from the natural statistical variation of the data. Indeed, now that Mann’s utterly fallacious hockey stick reconstruction has been re-reconstructed with the LIA and MWP restored, it isn’t even remarkable in the last thousand years!
Furthermore, examination of this record over the last 5 million years reveals a sobering fact. We are in an ice age, where the Earth spends 80 to 90% of its geological time in the grip of vast ice sheets that cover the polar latitudes well down into what is currently the temperate zone. We are at the (probable) end of the Holocene, the interglacial in which humans emerged all the way from tribal hunter-gatherers to modern civilization. The Earth’s climate is manifestly, empirically bistable, with a warm phase and cold phase, and the cold phase is both more likely and more stable. As a physicist who has extensively studied bistable open systems, this empirical result clearly visible in the data has profound implications. The fact that the LIA was the coldest point in the entire Holocene (which has been systematically cooling from the Holocene Optimum on) is also worrisome. Decades are irrelevant on the scale of these changes. Centuries are barely relevant. We are nowhere near the warmest, but the coldest century in the last 10,000 years ended a mere 300 years ago, and corresponded almost perfectly with the Maunder minimum in solar activity.
There is absolutely no evidence in this historical record of a third stable warm phase that might be associated with a “tipping point” and hence “catastrophe” (in the specific mathematical sense of catastrophe, a first order phase transition to a new stable phase). It has been far warmer in the past without tipping into this phase. If anything, we are geologically approaching the point where the Earth is likely to tip the other way, into the phase that we know is there — the cold phase. A cold phase transition, which the historical record indicates can occur quite rapidly with large secular temperature changes on a decadal time scale, would truly be a catastrophe. Even if “catastrophic” AGW is correct and we do warm another 3 C over the next century, if it stabilized the Earth in warm phase and prevented or delayed the Earth’s transition into cold phase it would be worth it because the cold phase transition would kill billions of people, quite rapidly, as crops failed throughout the temperate breadbasket of the world.
Now let us try to analyze the modern era bearing in mind the evidence of an utterly unremarkable present. To begin with, we need a model that predicts the swings of glaciation and interglacials. Lacking this, we cannot predict the temperature that we should have outside for any given baseline concentration of CO_2, nor can we resolve variations in this baseline due to things other than CO_2 from that due to CO_2. We don’t have any such thing. We don’t have anything close to this. We cannot predict, or explain after the fact, the huge (by comparison with the present) secular variations in temperature observed over the last 20,000 years, let alone the last 5 million or 25 million or billion. We do not understand the forces that set the baseline “thermostat” for the Earth before any modulation due to anthropogenic CO_2, and hence we have no idea if those forces are naturally warming or cooling the Earth as a trend that has to be accounted for before assigning the “anthropogenic” component of any warming.
This is a hard problem. Not settled science, not well understood, not understood. There are theories and models (and as a theorist, I just love to tell stories) but there aren’t any particularly successful theories or models and there is a lot of competition between the stories (none of which agree with or predict the empirical data particularly well, at best agreeing with some gross features but not others). One part of the difficulty is that the Earth is a highly multivariate and chaotic driven/open system with complex nonlinear coupling between all of its many drivers, and with anything but a regular surface. If one tried to actually write “the” partial differential equation for the global climate system, it would be a set of coupled Navier-Stokes equations with unbelievably nasty nonlinear coupling terms — if one can actually include the physics of the water and carbon cycles in the N-S equations at all. It is, quite literally, the most difficult problem in mathematical physics we have ever attempted to solve or understand! Global Climate Models are children’s toys in comparison to the actual underlying complexity, especially when (as noted) the major drivers setting the baseline behavior are not well understood or quantitatively available.
The truth of this is revealed in the lack of skill in the GCMs. They utterly failed to predict the last 13 or 14 years of flat to descending global temperatures, for example, although naturally one can go back and tweak parameters and make them fit it now, after the fact. And every year that passes without significant warming should be rigorously lowering the climate sensitivity and projected AGW, making the probability of the “C” increasinginly remote.
These are all (in my opinion) good reasons to be skeptical of the often egregious claims of CAGW. Another reason is the exact opposite of the reason you used “denier” in your article. The actual scientific question has long since been co-opted by the social and political one. The real reason you used the term is revealed even in your response — we all “should” be doing this and that whether or not there is a real risk of “catastrophe”. In particular, we “should” be using less fossil fuel, working to preserve the environment, and so on.
The problem with this “end justifies the means” argument — where the means involved is the abhorrent use of a pejorative descriptor to devalue the arguers of alternative points of view rather than their arguments at the political and social level — is that it is as close to absolute evil in social and public discourse as it is possible to get. I strongly suggest that you read Feynman’s rather famous “Cargo Cult” talk:
http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm
In particular, I quote:
For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a
friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. “Well,” I said, “there aren’t any.” He said, “Yes, but then we won’t get support for more research of this kind.” I think that’s kind of dishonest. If you’re representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you’re doing–and if they don’t want to support you under those circumstances, then that’s their decision.
One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish both kinds of results.
I say that’s also important in giving certain types of government
advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether
drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it
would be better in some other state. If you don’t publish such a
result, it seems to me you’re not giving scientific advice. You’re
being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don’t publish it at all. That’s not giving scientific advice.
Time for a bit of soul-searching, Dr. Bain. Have you come even close to living up to the standards laid out by Richard Feynman? Is this sort of honesty apparent anywhere in the global climate debate? Did the “Hockey Team” embrace this sort of honesty in the infamous Climategate emails? Do the IPCC reports ever seem to present the counter arguments, or do they carefully avoid showing pictures of the 20,000 year thermal record, preferring instead Mann’s hockey stick because it increases the alarmism (and hence political impact of the report)? Does the term “denier” have any place in any scientific paper ever published given Feynman’s rather simple criterion for scientific honesty?
And finally, how dare you presume to make choices for me, for my relatives, for my friends, for all of the people of the world, but concealing information from them so that they make a choice to allocate resources the way you think they should be allocated, just like the dishonest astronomer of his example. Yes, the price of honesty might be that people don’t choose to support your work. Tough. It is their money, and their choice!
Sadly, it is all too likely that this is precisely what is at stake in climate research. If there is no threat of catastrophe — and as I said, prior to the hockey stick nobody had the slightest bit of luck convincing anyone that the sky was falling because global climate today is geologically unremarkable in every single way except that we happen to be living in it instead of analyzing it in a geological record — then there is little incentive to fund the enormous amount of work being done on climate science. There is even less incentive to spend trillions of dollars of other people’s money (and some of our own) to ameliorate a “threat” that might well be pure moonshine, quite possibly ignoring an even greater threat of movement in the exact opposite direction to the one the IPCC anticipates.
Why am I a skeptic? Because I recognize the true degree of our ignorance in addressing this supremely difficult problem, while at the same time as a mere citizen I weigh civilization and its benefits against draconian energy austerity on the basis of no actual evidence that global climate is in any way behaving unusually on a geological time scale.
For shame.
Robert Brown says:
“I’m not taking a beer …”
May I suggest a Lienenkugel “Honey Wiess”. I take at least one every day for medicinal purposes.
Having had some time to discuss my question with a friend and think about it some more, it seems that the basic gas laws may answer my question. Please feel free to correct any errors.
peak to minimum, daily) as a function of relative humidity up the air column and measured CO_2 up the air column. It’s probably been done, but I don’t know about it.
Firstly, if the spectrographic analysis shows an absorption notch, that indicates not only that absorption is taking place but that reradiation is not. Therefore, the conclusion is that the CO2 is transferring the absorbed energy to neighboring molecules kinetically. Therefore the space blanket analogy is flawed, i.e., it is neither reflecting nor radiating nor ‘back-radiating’.
Secondly, if water shows no absorption notch, then it must be a net radiator in the direction of the satellite viewing the TOA, i.e., it is radiating energy to outer space, therefore it is cooling the atmosphere.
Corollary implications exist as well, but that assumes no error in this amateur analysis.
This is closer, but see my earlier reply. The point is that a single molecule cannot “absorb heat” in the form of photons (to first order). It has no place to put it. It can absorb the photons by going into an excited state, but that excited state is manifestly coupled to the vacuum electromagnetically so after sitting on it for a radiative lifetime or so, it reradiates it, in an effectively random direction. True absorption DOES require transfer to neighboring molecules during the time between absorption and recoil and before re-emission. This process actually attenuates the outgoing radiation and helps the otherwise nearly transparent air remain equilibrated with the CO_2.
The resonant scattering, however, is not “absorption”, it is merely delay. It is almost exactly what you get in a solid material heated at one end and cooled at the other, except that the warm end of the solid generates phonons (quanta of oscillation) instead of photons and those have to diffusively scatter from the hot end to the cold one, with the gradient of diffusion dictated by the simple fact that there are fewer (localized) phonons per unit volume at the cold end, and the cold end remains cold because it is in contact with a cold reservoir. The longer it takes the phonons to diffuse, the warmer the warm end with a constant input rate of energy per unit time stays relative to the cold one. Note well that I’m heating the warm end with a 100 watt light bulb, if you like, but the cold end is being kept in the freezer.
Now replace the light bulb with Mr. Sun, and the freezer with the 3 K BB temperature of “space” (aside from the tiny angle subtended by Mr. Sun) and the phonons bouncing pinball style down between the atoms with phtons bouncing pinball style between CO_2 molecules, and superpose a DALR on the latter to establish a much more complicated self-consistent temperature distribution in the atmosphere.
The conduction of heat through a metal bar is relatively simple and illustrates most of the points needed to understand. The radiation of “heat” through an atmosphere with a density and thermal gradient across an entire range of wavelengths from a warm surface at the bottom is more complicated but there is nothing thermodynamically invalid with the idea that the GHGs that do the scattering prevent the surface from cooling as fast as it would without them.
Regarding water — as noted, water bands DO exhibit such “notches”, but they aren’t as clean for a variety of reasons. For one they aren’t at a uniform height or temperature. For another, CO_2 is simply opaque and well-mixed, where water vapor is often translucent or variable (depending on relative humidity, which can be EXTREMELY localized, inside a cloud or outside). So you’ll see water have a very different GHE over the ocean, over a desert, over a mountain, rainy day, cloudy day, and so on. As Henry P. (correctly) points out, we all (should) have made the observation that the temperature outside experiences much larger diurnal temperature swings when it is dry (e.g. in the desert) than it does where it is humid or cloudy. In the desert it can be over 45 C in the middle of the day and still go down to freezing at the surface overnight. Pure GHE in action.
This does raise an issue that I’ve long thought about — using stratospheric or higher observations of IR spectra over deserts over very long experiments to directly observe any mean variation of the IR spectra AND the directly correlated surface cooling (
rgb
So the mechanical enery of collsions and particle velocities, can transfer from one molecule to any other molecule in any direction, whether hotter or colder. True the net heat energy propagation will be from hot to cold, but there is “heat” going in both directions, just as Clausius required. And a molecule right at the cold end can send energy through collisions, that can ultimately reach the hot end. That won’t happen as often as energy coming the other way.
Again, brilliantly stated, succinct, and accurate. You even put “heat” in quotes (as it must be in context).
I’d listen to George, if I were you.
rgb
Robert Brown says: June 25, 2012 at 12:33 pm
OK, that was cool. I did seem to detect more heat on the back of the hand encased in the foil mit. Not sure I would have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it, but the effect does seem to be real. Thank you. Your patience here and the lucidity of your explanations are much appreciated.
Robert Brown said: “Hi Camel … Sadly, over a decade of abuse has left the literature badly distorted, and letting phrases like “denier” into Nature won’t improve matters. Or maybe it will. It could be a bit over the top, and might inspire some changes…”
That, to me, is the real point. As a lawyer (with a science masters, long ago) I don’t pretend to understand very much of the detailed science these days – but still try to take an interest and hope that I have a proper lawyerly view of legalities (and otherwise) of curtailment of speech, and a good level of plain common sense.
It strikes me that the alarmist position has many hallmarks of a (reverse) Ponzi scheme: it must all the time seek to attract the attention of the public (potential “investors”) by offering ever-increasing catastrophic scenarios (yields) on the basis of what is an increasingly dubious prospectus (actual observational evidence), to keep the money rolling. But at some point (if the sceptical position is right) the edifice will crash as Ponzis do, and this will inevitably “push the reset button” on the tone of the scientific dialogue.
I also have thought that Nature must already know the risks it is taking with its reputation for objectivity – and I am sure it will now be aware of your article here in Anthony’s columns. For myself, I would continue to favour the purist position of just letting them get on with whatever they want to print, suffering any reputational consequences – hoping (as you say) that it might in due course “inspire some changes”. And you have here given fair and clear warning of what is potentially at stake if they let “deniers” enter the dialogue – as much as they are entitled at law to use this label all they wish (my point, throughout).
Anyway, now this thread seems to be winding down a little I just wanted to post one final word of appreciation for this thought-provoking article and debate; for the level of interest and attention you have given to this thread and the detailed replies you have made to the more scientific of our co-commenters, which they have clearly found of great interest – even if somewhat passing me by!
Great job. Thanks.
Tim C
Thank you for trying, Dr. Brown, but, I am unable to absorb your responses. I’ll have to drop your class.
Jim Clarke’s replies do resonate with my questions, so to whatever degree he may be inclined to carry on, I appreciate the discussion.
… First of all, if one examines the complete geological record of global temperature variation on planet Earth (as best as we can reconstruct it) not just over the last 200 years but over the last 25 million years, over the last billion years — one learns that there is absolutely nothing remarkable about today’s temperatures! Seriously. …
All in all an excellent rebutal. One very definite mistake in the above. The present global climate is either the coldest, or the second coldest period in the last 500 my. Which position is debatable since the estimates are made using proxy data, but the near-nadir position is otherwise indisputable at present. Consequently, the present global climate is highly unusual – unusually cold.
The dirty “d-word” is a classic case of “Stop thief!” What have THEY got to hide?
Phil M. says:
June 25, 2012 at 12:47 pm [ … ]
Are all government employees dishonest? Or just the ones who post here?
~dbs said:
Sir/Madam:
I would like to politely point out that Federal Employees, like every other working American I know, are afforded two paid 15 minute breaks as well as a unpaid 30 minute lunch break per 8 hours worked. Federal Employees in non-sensitive position are given expressed, written permission to use computers, internet, etc. for ‘normal’ personal use during those times.
Your apology is accepted in advance, though as a fellow taxpayer I appreciate your concern.
[Reply: No apology necessary, since you have posted multiple times under different aliases, and I do not believe you could have composed and posted those comments in the one 15 minute break consistent with your posted time stamps. And now you’re doing it again. ~dbs, mod.]
I used to love watching Cassius Clay box. Now this Brown/Bain match puts me in mind of his rope-a-doper Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman. Here RGB is Clay and Bain is Foreman, except that RGB has decided to skip the rope trick and go for the KO straight out of the bell. Excellent, Dr Brown! Ha ha!
By the way, and since this isn’t Queensbury Rules, while he’s down for the count I suggest you knee-drop him and split his spleen just to be sure. Oh wait! I see you’ve taken that precaution already. Very wise. 🙂
Gail Combs says (June 23, 2012 at 5:17 pm):
“Because I am in favor of the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms, I was told by a dance partner in Massachusetts “When we take over we will kill people like you.” and he was completely serious.”
Good for you. As far as I’m concerned we in England have always had the right to bear arms — or, more precisely, that no one, and certainly no form of government, has ever had any right to stop us bearing arms. But our so-called parliament has passed laws to do precisely just that. Parliament be damned.
You say he was completely serious. How odd that he clearly felt comfortable enough in telling you that to your face. I’ll take it as a given then that, because of its nature, you satisfied yourself fully that he meant it. In which case, and irrespective of any law to the contrary, I think your exercising of a ‘precautionary principle’ there and then to make sure he was never going to be part of any ‘we’ taking over would have been fully justified. No jury I was on would ever say otherwise anyway.
[snip]
Dr. Brown puts into words what I – a mathematician / researcher – have felt for some time: that climate science has become horribly debauched and politicized. Amongst its most vocal leaders, at least, it has ceased to be a science.
RGB:
I thought you were going fishing. ….Lady in Red
Robert Brown,
It is refreshing that you understand the basics of radiative transfer and the greenhouse effect, but your post rests on some very odd logical fallacies and geologic misconceptions.
Your post begin with descriptions such as ‘catastrophic global warming’ which has no scientific meaning. Framing the discussion with a value judgment call is not usually a good start for debating science. But your broader reasons for ’skepticism’ are not compelling. The unusual-ness of Earth’s current climate is not relevant. Sure, you can find climates millions of years ago that were 3,4 ,5 degrees warmer than today. Sea levels were also tens of meters higher, palm trees in the high latitudes, etc. Believe it or not, people in insurance, agriculture, infrastructure-planning, etc actually care about this. Ecosystems also do not really care what the climate was like 100 million years ago, because they have adapted to the climate now. These are all rather elementary points.
Your description of stable states is also pointless, because in no time during the last several million years did CO2 increase to levels expected over the course of the 21st century (which could double to quadruple). It’s nonsensical to talk about Earth’s tendency to a particular climate state, or tendency to fluctuate between states, if a control parameter (like CO2) is overwhelming the governing factors behind climate change over the last several million years. It’s as absurd as thinking that the typical observed pattern of glacial-interglacial variations would be a meaningful proxy for the future if the sun suddenly dimmed by 50%, rather than actually using physics to show the Earth would easily collapse into a snowball state. At no time did global temps rise to 3-4 C higher than present in the last several million years, and when CO2 levels were much higher in the past, this is typically associated with warmer climates with extremely few geologic exceptions…all this despite a fainter sun. You know, you actually need to account for that when talking about Earth’s ‘climate direction’ in the near future.
Chris Colose,
You should read the article before commenting. Dr Brown gave his definition of catastrophic.
Chris Colose says:
June 25, 2012 at 3:40 pm
” It’s nonsensical to talk about Earth’s tendency to a particular climate state, or tendency to fluctuate between states, if a control parameter (like CO2) is overwhelming the governing factors behind climate change over the last several million years.”
What’s your definition of “overwhelming”? Temperatures are not going up since 1998. That control parameter (CO2) seems to be broken. Check the computer.
Chris Colose,
You always throw out misinformation. Yes, CO2 and temperature have been much higher in the past [and you don’t have to go back “millions of years”]. The fact you neglected to mention is that changes in CO2 follow changes in temperature. You have cause and effect confused.
CO2 has been much higher in the past, when the biosphere teemed with life.
Your speculation about CO2 causing problems is baseless nonsense. I challenge you to produce verifiable, testable scientific evidence showing global harm due directly to human emitted CO2. If you can, you will be the first. If not, then take your scare stories to a science fiction blog like RealClimate.
Robert Brown;
You have my sympathy, David. Your arguments are clear and I completely agree, but you’re doing so well trying to teach this that I see no good reason to jump in.>>>
Well thank you! Nice to have someone of your stature and qualifications jump in like that from time to time. Physics is not my profession, and I haven’t formaly studied it for…. well a few decades. Good to know I’ve still got the basics running around in my head and that they haven’t gotten garbled up with the newest storage array specs.
I seem to get embroiled in this specific issue a lot. To a certain extent it drives me mad (OK, madder than I already am) because, well…. it isn’t that complicated. But explaining it to someone who doesn’t understand and doesn’t WANT to understand….is. I keep telling myself that one day I’ll come up with an explanation that the doubters will simply say…. oh, I get it. But I think I’m fooling myself. Explain the physics, they claim that’s impossible. Provide everyday examples, and they come with with…oh….well it was probably convection or something. Come up with detailed iron clad examples and they demand to see a text book that actually says that. Show them a text book, and they claim that it isn’t applicable, they want experimental proof. Show them experimental proof….and they suspect it is irrelevant.
That’s actually where my frustration turns to amusement. Witness Greg House’s last response to me. He sorta suspects that the experiment I’ve provided is some sort of trick or red herring. He suspects, even accuses me of that, but he can’t actually say anything against it, because he hasn’t studied the physics, and if he tried to refute it he’s be over his head on word one (and he think he knows that).
So… have a I convinced this one person this time? I doubt it. If he heeds my advice and goes and actually learns the calculus and physics and then comes back to the discussion… but he won’t, because he fears changing is world view more than he desires to know the facts for himself. With any luck though, for every one person that debates the matter, there are dozens more who merely lurk and read an learn and hopefully get set on the right track as a consequence.
Dr. Brown, thank you for your June 25, 2012 at 12:14 am reply. I think I understand what you are saying. Let me see if I have this correct. Current temperatures are within past bounds so this shows the current warming is mostly caused by natural forcings which we don’t know about because what we do know about doesn’t explain a natural cause. Past temperatures have fluctuated much more than is currently happening but has stayed within bounds which means there is an unknown negative feedback which stabilizes temperatures so there is nothing to worry about. Am I close?
no wonder aussie CAGW zealots are terrified of mining magnate, gina rinehart:
26 June: Australian: Andrew Burrell: Carbon tax putting brake on Roy Hill finance: Rinehart
Mrs Rinehart suggests that the media should also permit to be published that climate change has been occurring naturally since the earth began, not just the views of climate extremists.
“It is a fact that there have been ice ages, then periods of global warming to end the ice ages, for thousands of years, and these have occurred naturally, including due to the earth’s orbit, and not due to mankind at all.”
Mrs Rinehart said some people had received notoriety claiming a few decades ago that the earth was about to enter an ice age.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/carbon-tax-putting-brake-on-roy-hill-finance-rinehart/story-e6frg9df-1226408327186
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Gary Hladik says:
June 24, 2012 at 4:01 pm
Greg House says (June 24, 2012 at 3:06 pm): “Why didn’t Roy Spencer made a real experiment, by the way?”
Because he has absolutely nothing to gain by proving (again) what he and other physicists already know (the remote possibility of convincing a few believers in voodoo physics isn’t much of an incentive).
So why don’t you do the experiment and claim your Nobel Prize? Slay the CAGW dragon? Make the cover of Time Magazine?
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Normally in the science people who make claims should prove scientifically that these claims are scientifically correct. And, of course, normally nobody simply considers a scientifically unsupported claim to be true until it is proven otherwise.
Since until now no warmist has come up with a link to a real genuine experiment proving that that cooling of a warmer body can be slowed down by transferring energy (in our case it is infrared radiation) to this warmer body from a colder body without external work, this claim looks very much like unsupported scientifically and should be actually considered a sort of science fiction.
Now I would like to encourage warmists to provide a link to a real genuine experiment proving that CO2 in it’s usual concentration 300-400 ppm (ca. 1 molecule CO2 from 3000 air molecules) warms (reduces cooling) by 7 degrees. I know that warmists have produced at least 3 conflicting narratives about how CO2 does it, but no problem, you can choose a narrative you like. Experiment, ladies and gentlemen, and please, if possible, do not beat around the bush.
Greg House:
You’ve mis-stated scientific orthodoxy. The orthodox position is that heat does not flow from a colder to a warmer body unless pumped. For example, heat does not flow by electromagnetic radiation from the colder to the warmer of two parallel graphite plates of infinite extent unless pumped. If the colder of the two plates is removed, the heat flux from the hotter plate increases. The presence of the colder of the two plates has an insulating effect. Such is the claim of scientific orthodoxy.
The heat flux from the warmer to the colder of the two plates can be represented by a vector. This vector can be decomposed into a pair of vectors. One of these vectors represents the flux of energy that is incident on the surface of the colder of the two plates; this vector is called the “vector irradiance.” The other vector represents the flux of energy that is emitted by the colder of the two plates; this vector is called the “vector radiosity.” The radiative heat flux from the hotter to the colder of the two plates is the vector difference between the vector irradiance and the vector radiosity. The magnitude of this heat flux is positive. Thus, in the picture I have presented, there is no violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
A number of climatologists have described the vector radiosity as a “heat flux.” This usage of the term “heat” has led many with backgrounds in thermodynamics to point out that the implied claim of heat flowing from a colder to a warmer body without being pumped violates the second law of thermodynamics. However, rather than negating the AGW conjecture, labelling the vector radiosity as a “heat flux” is merely a misuse of the word “heat.”
OK, that was cool. I did seem to detect more heat on the back of the hand encased in the foil mit. Not sure I would have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it, but the effect does seem to be real. Thank you. Your patience here and the lucidity of your explanations are much appreciated.
And you are most welcome! After I described the experiment(s), it occurred to me that I might find it or similar experiments written up on the internet, and google led me to this site:
http://www.radiantbarrier.com/physics-of-foil.htm
It describes radiant transfer of energy very compactly (and I promise, it isn’t a grand conspiracy site of anybody with a global warming bone to pick:-). It also describes almost exactly the same ten second experiment I suggested — a sheet of foil in front of your face quickly raises the temperature of your lips enough to detect it (and other parts of your face soon after).
You are constantly producing heat — the human body produces around 100 watts of waste heat energy, the same as an electric light bulb. Your brain actually generates between 1/4 and 1/3 of that waste heat as a byproduct of its function, and radiation is the primary way your body loses heat, much of it through your head and face. Putting a foil barrier between you and cooler surroundings doesn’t actually heat you, but it does keep you from losing heat as rapidly by reflecting some of the energy you are radiating away back to be re-absorbed, basically reducing the NET RATE at which you lose heat. Since you are constantly producing 100 Watts, blocking the rate that you lose heat via radiation will increase the temperature of the surface that is radiating until losses in all channels — radiation, convection, conduction and evaporation (of perspiration) once again balance heat production.
No Laws of Thermodynamics are injured in this demonstration.
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Chris Colose,
“It’s nonsensical to talk about Earth’s tendency to a particular climate state, or tendency to fluctuate between states, if a control parameter (like CO2) is overwhelming the governing factors behind climate change over the last several million years.” [CC]
‘If’, and only an ‘if’? Are you sure?
Besides, what if it isn’t? You don’t mention that case. Why? That’s not very scientific of you, covering only half the logical domain.
Moreover, you say [Brown’s] post rests on some very odd logical fallacies. Would you mind pointing them out specifically for me please as I found the fog index of your post to be very high and it wasn’t at all clear to me where I could find them? Also, you say they are odd, but in what way are they odd, and how do they differ from the regular variety?
All in all an excellent rebutal. One very definite mistake in the above. The present global climate is either the coldest, or the second coldest period in the last 500 my. Which position is debatable since the estimates are made using proxy data, but the near-nadir position is otherwise indisputable at present. Consequently, the present global climate is highly unusual – unusually cold.
Point well taken. Although it does depend on how you coarse grain “the present global climate” — I agree that we are in an ice age where much of the last 500 million years (up until maybe 30 Mya) we didn’t even have icy polar caps, at least not like they are today, but today’s global climate as in the Holocene is cold relative to much of that but not the coldest, IIRC. A point that I make myself when discussing this, along with the point that we don’t really know why the non-glacial period ended or why even the cooler warm period that followed cooled further and started the bistable oscillation into deep glaciation, or why and how the oscillation occurs. What we do know is that this oscillation occurs in spite of the 3 decibel variation in Carbon Dioxide that occurs in approximate phase with the temperature (not going to get dragged into a discussion of whether it lags or leads, thank you very much, at least not now:-) not because of it. That is, at the coldest point in the last glacial era, CO_2 levels were at their lowest roughly half what they are today (and doubling is a three decibel increase, as any engineers on list should know).
Decibels, you say? Why decibels? Because CO_2 forcing is logarithmic in the concentration at the current levels of saturation. Which means decibels are the right units to describe it. Precisely what to use as a reference concentration is a reasonable question — if we choose 100% then the current concentration (in decibels) is -34.1 dB. The minimum concentration during the last ice age was around -37.5 dB. If we more than double CO_2 to 800 ppm it will be -31 dB.
In any event, the low CO_2 concentration during glaciation does not suffice to prevent the Earth from warming and certainly did not cause it to warm (although it got dangerously close to the partial pressure limit land plants can tolerate and still live), and the higher CO_2 concentration during the interglacials has not sufficed to prevent the Earth from cooling and has certainly not caused it to cool, it has cooled in spite of CO_2.
It does seem to me to require more than an heuristic explanation of this in order to have a lot of confidence that it is CO_2 variation on the order of a half a decibel is dominant over climate forces that are clearly capable of overwhelming glaciation, higher albedo, low CO_2, and a chilled ocean and warming the planet back up anyway or taking a planet with greatly reduced glaciation, a consequently lower albedo, high CO_2, and a warm ocean and cooling it back down anyway on a timescale of mere centuries (if not faster).
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I thought you were going fishing. ….Lady in Red
Dearest L.I.R.
Thanks you for your concern. I cast a lure a few times from my dock, no hits, runs, or (fish) errors, and it is windy (20 mph and gusty) and wet. Not a great day/time to run out through the Beaufort gap, unless you like to go up and down in five to seven foot swells. My boat can take it, I can take it, but it makes fishing too damn much like work…
Maybe tomorrow…
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