Guest post by Reed Coray
The following example illustrates the issues I have with reasoning often used to argue that increasing the amount of CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere will increase both the Earth’s surface temperature and the Earth’s atmosphere temperature. Immediately following is a direct quote from URL
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/heat_transfer_earth.htm
“The present situation is that there has been an increase in infrared-absorbing gases in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4). Energy that would normally escape into space is absorbed by these molecules, thus heating the atmosphere and spreading through convection currents. The average temperature of the atmosphere has increased 0.25 °C since 1980, mainly attributed to an increase in infrared-absorbing gases in the atmosphere.”
Although the above statement makes no direct reference to Earth surface temperature, I believe it carries the implication that greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere increase the Earth’s surface temperature.
I make two comments: the first is relevant only if the above implication is valid, the second is relevant independent of the validity of the implication. First, placing matter adjacent to a warm surface such that the matter is capable of absorbing/blocking radiation to space from the warm surface can lead to a decrease in the warm surface’s temperature. Second, increasing the amount of the absorbing/blocking matter can lower the temperature of the absorbing/blocking material.
Take for example an internal combustion engine whose metal surface is exposed to a vacuum. In addition to doing useful work, the engine produces thermal energy (heat). That thermal energy will produce a rise in the temperature of the engine’s surface such that in energy-rate equilibrium the rate energy is radiated to space from the engine’s surface is equal to the rate thermal energy is generated within the engine. By attaching radiating plates to the engine’s surface, some of the energy radiated to space from the engine’s original surface will be absorbed/blocked by the plates; but because thermal energy can be transferred from the engine to the plates via both radiation and conduction, the temperature of the engine’s original surface will be lowered. This is the principle of an air-cooled engine[1]: provide a means other than radiation of transferring heat from an engine to a large surface area from which heat can be removed via a combination of conduction, convection and radiation, and the engine’s surface temperature will be lowered.
If plates at a temperature lower than the original engine surface temperature are attached to the engine, it’s true that the temperature of the plates will increase to establish energy-rate equilibrium. Once energy-rate equilibrium is established, however, increasing the plate radiating area (adding additional matter that blocks more of the energy radiated from the original engine surface) will likely lower the plate temperature.
Thus, blocking the amount of surface radiation escaping to space does not necessarily increase the surface temperature; and increasing the amount of radiation blocking material does not necessarily increase the temperature of that material. In both cases (the Earth/Earth-atmosphere and the internal combustion engine in a vacuum), the heat eventually escapes to space–otherwise the temperature of the Earth’s surface and the engine would continue to rise indefinitely. The difference isn’t that the energy doesn’t eventually escape to space (it does in both cases), the difference is in the path the energy takes to reach space. The amount of generated thermal energy in conjunction with the path the thermal energy takes to get to space determines temperatures along the path; and adding more material may increase or decrease those temperatures. To say that “Energy that would normally escape into space is absorbed by these molecules, thus heating the atmosphere…” by itself is unwarranted; because an equivalent statement for the case of adding extra plate material to the engine would be “Energy that would normally escape to space from an engine with small attached plates is absorbed by additional plate material, thus heating the plates…” For air-cooled engines, this statement is not true—otherwise the plate surface area of air-cooled engines would be as small as possible.
It’s fairly easy to visualize why (a) adding thermally radiating plates to an air-cooled engine might decrease the engine’s surface temperature, and (b) increasing the area of the radiating plates might decrease the plate temperature. It’s not so easy to visualize, and may not be true, why (a) adding greenhouse gases to the Earth’s atmosphere decreases the Earth’s surface temperature; and (b) increasing the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases lowers the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. I now present one possible argument. I do not claim that the argument is valid for greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, but I do claim that the argument might be valid, and can only be refuted by an analysis more detailed than simply claiming “Energy that would normally escape into space is absorbed by these molecules, thus heating the atmosphere.”
If we assume that (a) matter cannot leave the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system, and (b) non-greenhouse gases radiate negligible energy to space, then for a non-greenhouse gas atmosphere the only way thermal energy can leave the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system to space is via radiation from the surface of the Earth. The rate radiation leaves the surface is in part a function of both the area and temperature of the surface. For a greenhouse gas atmosphere, energy can leave the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system to space both via radiation from the Earth’s surface and radiation from greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Suppose it is true that the density of greenhouse gases near the Earth’s surface is such that radiation emitted from low-altitude greenhouse gases does not directly escape to space, but is in part directed towards the Earth’s surface and in part absorbed by other atmospheric greenhouse gases. As the atmospheric greenhouse gas density decreases with increasing altitude, radiation emitted from high-altitude greenhouse gases can directly escape to space.
Now it’s not impossible that since (a) in addition to radiation, heat is transferred from the Earth’s surface to greenhouse gases via conduction, and (b) convection currents (i) circulate the heated greenhouse gases to higher altitudes where energy transfer to space can take place and (ii) return cooler greenhouse gases to the Earth’s surface, that the process of heat transfer away from the Earth’s surface via greenhouse gases is more efficient than simple radiation from the Earth’s surface. Many engines are cooled using this concept. Specifically, a coolant is brought into contact with a heated surface which raises the coolant’s temperature via conduction and radiation, and the coolant is moved to a location where thermal energy transfer away from the coolant to a heat sink is more efficient than direct thermal energy transfer from the heated surface to the heat sink.
One way to realize increased thermal transfer efficiency would be to use a coolant, such as greenhouse gases, that efficiently radiates energy in the IR band (i.e., radiates energy at temperatures around 500 K). Another way would be to spread the heated coolant over a large surface area. Since surface area increases with increasing altitude, thereby providing expanded “area” (in the case of a gas, expanded volume) from which radiation to space can occur, it’s not clear to me (one way or the other) that greenhouse gases won’t act as a “coolant” reducing both the temperatures of the Earth’s atmosphere and the Earth surface.
[1] It’s true that for most air-cooled engines the main transfer of heat from the engine plates is via a combination of (a) conduction of heat to the air near the plates, and (b) convection that replaces the warm air near the plates with cooler air. To aid this process, a fan is often employed, or the engine is located on a moving vehicle and the vehicle’s motion through an atmosphere provides the flow of air across the plates. Although conduction/convection may be the primary means of heat dissipation from the plates, radiative cooling also dissipates heat.
An enclosed space stays warmer only when being heated and second because the warmer air can not escape and be replaced by colder air from the outside. If you mean it is because of “back radiation”, then you need to prove it, and you know very well that neither you nor other warmists have ever presented a real experimental proof. All what we have seen are either fakes or unrelated stuff or “thought experiments”.
Ah, Greg. How exactly can one provide proof to someone who is so ignorant that the actually state that an enclosed space only stays warmer when being heated and because warmed air cannot escape? A real experimental proof is that the Earth — from which warmed air cannot escape and which is constantly being heated — doesn’t become infinitely hot. Now stop being silly.
Also stop being silly about “real experimental proofs”. Open up any physics book and you can read about conduction, convection and radiation as being ways that warmed objects cool. There are mountains of literature on radiative cooling, most of it completely disconnected from climate science. Why do you think physicists silver the inside of Dewar flasks (from the time of Dewar on)?
I mean seriously. It’s just embarrassing. Why not try to learn something before making silly — and false — statements?
Personally, I can “experimentally” observe back radiation as you like to call it just sitting out on a shaded porch next to a sunny piece of pavement, or getting into a heated car. Not that there is any difference between back radiation and the other kind, since there is no other kind, radiation is radiation.
rgb
rgb
wobble says:
You missed this post http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/21/some-thoughts-on-radiative-transfer-and-ghgs/#comment-1039067 where I showed that a reasonable estimate of the two effects (radiation decreases with height of emission layer because it gets colder and radiation increases with height of emission layer because surface area increases) shows that the first effect is about 300 times greater than the second.
Getting very confused here …
rgbatduke: “GHGs do not warm anything. They slow the cooling of something being actively warmed elsewhere”
Ok.
Camping in the “Outback”. Nights get cold much more rapidly under clear skies than cloud cover, even allowing for “bioclimatic comfort zone”, eg evaporative cooling less, RH higher.
(Not hard to check these days – $50+ temp/RH data logger?)
O H Dahlsveen: “On the “Dark side of the Earth” convection only happens at and around the Urban Heat Islands (UHIs). ”
Don’t think so. My observation (of tropical UHI) is that convection continues to occur after dark.
With TUHI the problem is that absorbance (by concrete in particular) throughout the day can take longer to re-radiate than it takes for the sun to return. Re-radiation is of course inwards as well as outwards. 200mm exposed concrete walls at 19°S can take 7 months to cool down.
Bitumen gets much hotter but cools down faster. Cattle camp on unfenced bitumen roads early, but move off well before dawn (watch your speed approaching the brow of a hill).
rgbatduke says:
July 21, 2012 at 5:41 pm
someone who is so ignorant…stop being silly…stop being silly…embarrassing… silly…
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What a high level, I am impressed.
Reed Coray says:
If you find the arguments incomplete, then the best solution is to search out more detailed arguments or to look at the online radiation codes or what have you. If someone in chemistry tells me of a fundamental accepted concept in chemistry and gives me simple arguments that I don’t find entirely convincing, I would not go off and write blog posts saying that I think it is wrong and presenting lots of counterarguments and examples. First, I would endeavor to understand in more detail the evidence and calculations and theoretical understanding that has gone into coming up with that conclusion. And, I would not say that the person making the argument should be ashamed of himself for not inundating me with lots of chicken-scratch chemical formulas up on the blackboard.
Besides which, in my experience dealing with those who deny the reality of the greenhouse effect, I have found that the issue is not with the quality of the arguments that are presented to them. The issue is that they have a mental block and are unable to process scientific notions that conflict so strongly with their worldview.
My very simple question for Joeldshore and Eli Rabett, can non condensing radiative gasses such as CO2 radiate as IR energy they have acquired conductively? All that is required is a simple yes or no answer. The name “Pierrehumbert” need not be invoked. Just yes or no.
Bucky Cochrane says:
July 21, 2012 at 4:12 pm
The whole idea of GHG “absorbing heat” is erroneous. CO2 absorbs a photon, goes into the “bending” mode of molecular vibration and almost immediately radiates the photon which it absorbed. It cannot give up any fraction of this energy; there is no state between this 667 wavenumber excited state and its vibrational ground state. It cannot “warm the air”
Sorry Bucky but it does warm the air. The CO2 molecule is always vibrating from collisions with other air molecules. Due to these collisions, translational motion and vibratory motion are freely and very quickly exchanged at the gas pressures and temperatures typical of the lower atmosphere. This is precisely why gamma, the ratio of specific heats of gases comprised of triatomic molecules differ from diatomic molecules which differ yet from single atoms. The difference is due to the additional degrees of freedom to vibrate that effectively hide some heat energy from contributing to pressure and temperature. Rapidly cool the gas and, as long as there are collisions, the vibrational energy is released along with the reduction in translational energy. This process is very quick and fully reversible. There is no difference between vibration due to a collision and that due to absorbing a photon.
joelshore says:
“…in my experience dealing with those who deny the reality of the greenhouse effect, I have found that the issue is not with the quality of the arguments that are presented to them. The issue is that they have a mental block and are unable to process scientific notions that conflict so strongly with their worldview.”
If it were not for psychological projection, joel shore wouldn’t have much to say.
A ‘worldview’ is not the same as real world evidence. Empirical [real world] evidence shows clearly that GHG’s have no measurable effect.
eyesonu says:
I think that how the RIT Physics Department chose those particular textbooks is largely irrelevant since they are not obscure textbooks but among the top few textbooks, used by hundreds if not thousands of universities throughout the U.S. and the world. Besides which, those aren’t the only textbooks that talk about it; in fact, I know for a fact that others do. I was just using it as an example of how ubiquitous and accepted the concept of the greenhouse effect and of anthropogenic global warming is in the physics community.
First of all, my original response was directed at someone who claimed that “top physicists scorn the theory” [of the greenhouse effect]. You may not like argument from authority (although authorities in science are usually authorities for a reason); however, it is even worse when the person using such an argument is making false statements about what the authorities say. So, I was correcting that.
However, your views also incorporate a few fallacies. The first is that because the most famous people in science went against a consensus, that means that most of the attacks on consensus are correct and we can thus safely ignore the consensus. The actual fact is that for every Galileo or Einstein, or whoever AGW skeptics imagine themselves to be, there are probably a thousand people of various levels or seriousness or crackpot-ness that challenge the scientific consensus and are wrong.
A second point is that even when a consensus changes, it seldom sweeps away all of the past views. For example, we still teach Newton’s Laws to our students even though Einstein (and whoever you want to credit for the creation of quantum mechanics) showed that there are regimes in which these laws are no longer an accurate approximation for the behavior of objects.
A third point (closely related to the 1st and 2nd) is that although the scientific consensus might at any time be incorrect, it still represents the best way that we know of to represent the current understanding of the science that we have. If we decide that public policy should ignore science that we don’t like (because, say, it conflicts with our ideological or religious beliefs) then this is a recipe basically to no longer have science help inform public policy, a recipe that most of us scientists (and presumably many non-scientists) find quite repugnant. If you think the current scientific consensus is wrong, it is your job to change the consensus by convincing the scientists of the correctness of your views. If you instead choose instead to influence policy by making either ignorant or deceptive arguments to the public, then scientists will generally conclude that you are trying not to change the consensus but basically just to subvert the role of science in our society when the current scientific consensus disagrees with what you want it to say.
rgbatduke says:
July 21, 2012 at 5:41 pm
I can “experimentally” observe back radiation as you like to call it just sitting out on a shaded porch next to a sunny piece of pavement, or getting into a heated car. Not that there is any difference between back radiation and the other kind, since there is no other kind, radiation is radiation.
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What you are trying to make people think you “observe” and what it really is are two different things. And if you claim they are the same you need to prove it. I know, these unproven claims can already be found in some recent “textbooks”, this is very sad.
Your notion about warming back radiation is a misunderstanding from the 19th century and it was easily debunked experimentally by professor Wood in 1909. Look, some warmists have already switched to “radiating from a higher altitude to the space”, they even do not mention back radiation. Some however still do. You guys have a really wide range of conflicting narratives.
So, radiation from a colder body directed to the warmer body is radiation, but no warmist has been able to present a real falsifiable scientific experiment proving that this sort of radiation can warm the warmer body (or slow down it’s cooling, whatever).
Now, your main narrative is that a -18C cold surface radiates IR and some portion of it gets returned by the “greenhouse gases” and warms the surface by 33C. IR cameras have no difficulties however to see through the “greenhouse gases”, hence the most IR escape the “trap”. Given that the small part produces so much warming, just turn off your freezer, open it and enjoy the heat. Be careful, if your hypothesis is correct, you can easily get burned by the freezer’s heat.
This is how ridiculous your warmist theory is. I also hope a notion of reductio ad absurdum is familiar to you.
LET US HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE GOT TO CONTRIBUTE!
I may admit I may not always be right but sure as hell you lot do not even know the people you are quoting.
You not only aren’t “always right” in regard to radiation theory, you are so infinitely wrong that you are, quite seriously, almost stunning in any conversation. Worse, you haven’t a clue that you are clueless, and make your vastly incorrect statements to correct somebody that actually has a clue.
Here’s what I have to contribute. Light is electromagnetic radiation. Go on, look it up. The entire electromagnetic spectrum is light. Radio waves are light. Microwaves are light. Infrared radiation is light. Visible light is a narrow band of light. Ultraviolet radiation is light. X-rays are light. Finally, gamma rays are light. The only thing that differentiates a gamma ray from a radio wave is its frequency and wavelength, and those aren’t even invariant properties — one can in principle doppler shift a radio wave into an x-ray by moving through it fast enough.
Second, the only thing the human eye can see is light. I mean good God, man, why do you think they call it turning on the lights when you enter a dark room?
Third, radiation from the sun does not, for the most part “turn into light” only when it reaches our atmosphere. Again, this is so wrong it is difficult even know how to begin. Children understand this better than that. Sunlight is emitted as light by our very hot sun. It travels as light — both visible and invisible, an entire spectrum of light — through the near-vacuum in between the Sun and the Earth. When it reaches the Earth, in very crude terms some of it is reflected at some point or another by the atmosphere without losing (much) energy, some of it is transmitted, and some of it is absorbed. How much of each depends on a host of things — clouds reflect more energy back to space than clear dry air, but clouds and water vapor also absorb more on the way to the ground than clear dry air. Of the radiation that reaches the ground, some is reflected and again passes more or less completely out of the atmosphere without significant loss, and the rest is absorbed. Of the radiation that reaches the ocean, some is reflected at or near the upper surface, and virtually all the rest is absorbed.
Fourth, if you want to understand the way electromagnetic radiation is created, transmitted, absorbed, scattered, you have to begin by learning Maxwell’s Equations. Maxwell’s equations are the classical partial differential equations that describe the electromagnetic field. They aren’t complete — they are classical and atoms and molecules are really quantum mechanical — but to even think of understanding quantum electrodynamics it helps to start with classical electrodynamics. To understand classical electrodynamics, it would really help you to take a class in introductory physics one day, assuming that your calculus background is up to the task. Even in a first year intro physics course in E&M, like the one I am teaching right now, you would learn all of the things I listed above and more besides — I generally try to teach my students that transmitted electromagnetic power is the flux of the Poynting vector through the specified surface, for example, which is entirely apropos of the current conversation.
If you cannot afford a physics textbook, feel free to use the ones I’ve written — they are available for free online here:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/intro_physics_1.php
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/intro_physics_2.php
and if you want to try to tackle real graduate level electrodynamics, you can try:
http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Class/Electrodynamics.php
but be warned, it isn’t for the faint of heart and you’ll need a reasonable proficiency with partial differential equations and non-Abelian algebras and Lie groups to get through the book. A knowledge of tensors would also be very useful, but sadly few students (even physics graduate students) have much of one so the book tries to be self-contained in this regard. It is also intended to be the second semester of a two semester series, so it presumes you’ve already mastered the Poisson equation and spherical decompositions and magnetostatics and are ready to get on with Maxwell’s equations and true Electrodynamics.
Now “we lot” — by which I assume you means “warmists” used as a pejorative term — sometimes do know very, very well precisely of what we speak. I, for example, do. And I’m not a “warmist”, for that matter. That smacks of religion, and I can and do justify my opinions about almost anything all the way down to the microscopic level — or admit ignorance.
So it is from a state of very much non-ignorance that I repeat — your previous statement, criticizing the entirely correct statement of Mr. Hoffer who is also no warmist, merely a rational skeptic who doubts the alleged magnitude or importance of the GHE, not its very existence — was something that left anyone who read it very slightly dumber. I could feel my own brain cells reeling in shock from it. Radiation turning into light only when it hits the atmosphere? Eyes unable to see light? It made me feel that my entire professional career, spent teaching people far better than that, has been wasted. How is it even possible for a high school education to turn you out into the world that ignorant? I knew better in grade school.
So your statement was not only not a rebuttal of David Hoffer — it was an open insult to the entire US educational system. It was unamerican! Do you want the entire world to laugh at us?
Hence my unaccustomed vigor in striking down your contribution, which, you will note, I am continuing. I’m quite serious. You owe it to yourself, you owe it to simple honesty to crack a physics book and at least try to understand what electromagnetic radiation is before again entering a public debate on the subject and attempting to correct people that have actually studied it, or teach it.
But of course you won’t, will you? Neither will Greg House, or any of the others that make absurd statements about radiation being unable to be reflected back to a warm surface and thereby slow its cooling. It’s so startlingly ignorant a statement that it makes one want to simply throw one’s hands up in despair. Not even my suggestion to go buy a space blanket and wrap yourself in it to gain firsthand experience of “warming” by trapping your own body’s radiation — an “experiment” you can actually perform at home — will actually get you to do it. Or taking an ordinary light bulb and placing it in front of a sheet of plastic wrap, then in front of a sheet of aluminum foil, to see which one reflects more heat (and note well — reflects heat from something much cooler than the light bulb filament). I could probably think up a half dozen other table top experiments to demonstrate radiative heating and cooling — they are elementary school science fair stuff — but of course to you they can’t exist because you know radiation only turns into light when air molecules experience friction or some other long line of complete, utter, absurdities.
I do declare, with people like you “helping” the skeptical “cause”, it doesn’t need to be opposed — the real warmists of the world can just point at you and wait for people to stop laughing themselves to death. Which is a logical fallacy, of course — you can disbelieve in CAGW because a pink unicorn came to you in a dream and told you to and still be right, just as they can be supported by not entirely implausible arguments and still be wrong, and wise people look at the arguments themselves and not individuals — but it does make it all to easy for sensible skeptical arguments to be dismissed when there exist “skeptics” whose arguments are only a hair better than pink unicorns.
rgb
Michael Hammer,
“Adding cooling fins to a motor decreases its surface temperature because it increases the surafce area availabel to radiate that heat away,…”
You seem to be forgetting that parallel finning at a right angle to the surface being cooled irradiates themselves mostly!!! Without air flow and conduction/convection finning has limited cooling ability. Motorcycles without circulation fans are notoriously finicky about being stopped and idling in hot weather!!
By the time the world runs into scarcity issues the world may no longer be interested in coal, oil, and natural gas.
Then why did you include it in your list of energy sources which will “run into issues of scarcity” that would make it an “undesirable fuels to use”?
Oh, so the problem isn’t a scarcity issue. Your claiming that the problem is with the risk and hidden cost to mine it. Well, first, what’s the risk of mine coal. What risk are you talking about, and isn’t this risk already priced into coal? And what energy source will be risk free? Second, what’s the “hidden” cost of mining coal? Is there a cost of mining coal that we don’t know about because it’s been hidden from us?
And do the “risk” or “hidden” cost have anything to do with CO2? If so, then you’re using circular logic.
What?? When did this happen, and why didn’t anyone tell me that all the trees have been cut down. Wait…I just saw trees today…actually I saw lots of trees…what are you talking about??
Peak oil is so last decade, Dude. Get up to speed. And if oil is so expensive, then it will price itself right out of the energy market, right?
As a physicist you should know that far too little solar energy/area hits the surface of the earth for it to be broadly useful – even if conversion was 100% efficient.
Feel free to explain why fission doesn’t make your list – even your runner up list. Cookie cutter plants that are inexpensive to regulate and operate.
(Obviously, you mean independence from fossil fuels not domestic independence.)
Fine, so initiate the project, but utilize efficient project management principles. Don’t irrationally attempt to accelerate lab experiments into infrastructure builds that we all know will be inefficient and deliver an negative EROEI. That’s pure stupidity.
If fact, we shouldn’t over expend our precious resources on developing energy technologies faster than what’s efficient. Don’t enlist the services of 9 women in your attempt to produce a baby in 1 month. It’s expensive and won’t work anyway. It will still take 9 months.
You even said, that we have centuries to solve this problem. It doesn’t make sense to pretend that we only have 20 years – unless you’re worried about a CO2 tipping point – which after everything you’ve written – seems to be your obvious concern.
But you already admitted that coal isn’t really scarce so this ruins your conclusion. Try again.
rgb,
You have more patience than I would under the circumstances. Much appreciated.
rgbatduke says:
July 21, 2012 at 6:27 pm
Neither will Greg House, or any of the others that make absurd statements about radiation being unable to be reflected back to a warm surface and thereby slow its cooling….space blanket … trapping your own body’s radiation — an “experiment”
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Of course, it is an “experiment”, but not the experiment.
A blanket reduces or prevents convection and you feel a warmer air therefore, warmed by your own energy, this is what people knew before there was the word “physics”. Then 150 years ago the first warmists came up with the idea of “back radiation”. By the way, the father of warmism Tyndall also had an idea about “cold radiation” inducing cold. This has a potential. After the warmism is eventually dead the “climate scientists” can use it. The “physics” is very simple and obvious: just hold the hand above a frozen chicken and you will feel cold, this must be “cold radiation”! I am sorry, but this is the level the warmism functions on.
rgbatduke say:
Indeed.
Yeah…It is a logical fallacy. But, I think it also does illustrate an important point which is that no matter how good the science is on some particular matter, you will have people not believing it simply by virtue of the fact that it goes against what they want to believe. In particular, it illustrates the fallacy in the claim that the various arguments that you see here and at other websites demonstrate that the science of AGW is clearly too unsettled (to take any policy action), or, to put it another way, it demonstrates the dubiousness of claims to the effect that “If scientists could provide sufficiently strong evidence of AGW then I would be convinced. The fact that I am not convinced demonstrates that the science is not sufficiently strong.”
Faux Science Slayer says:
July 21, 2012 at 8:40 am
Therefore the absorbed incoming IR is 20 times the available absorbed outgoing.
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Could you please elaborate on the issue of incoming IR? Because warmists have made the solar IR disappear, thus avoiding the necessity to account for, let us say, “inverted CO2 effect” of CO2 letting less solar energy arrive at the surface thus contributing to cooling.
joel shore says:
“If you think the current scientific consensus is wrong, it is your job to change the consensus by convincing the scientists of the correctness of your views. If you instead choose instead to influence policy by making either ignorant or deceptive arguments to the public, then scientists will generally conclude that you are trying not to change the consensus but basically just to subvert the role of science in our society when the current scientific consensus disagrees with what you want it to say.”
Exactly. And as it happens, the scientific consensus states overwhelmingly that CO2 is harmless, and beneficial to the biosphere:
That statement was co-signed by more than 31,400 scientists, all with degrees in the hard sciences — including more than 9,000 PhD’s.
That is the true consensus regarding the effect of CO2 on the biosphere. A small minority in the alarmist crowd pretends they represent the consensus. But clearly, they do not: numerous attempts to obtain as many signatures on their alarmist counter-petitions have ended in abject failure. The total number of signatures attempting to dispute the OISM Petition is but a very small fraction of the OISM numbers. Even if the OISM co-signers were reduced by two-thirds, they would still heavily outnumber the alarmist so-called ‘consensus’. And most of the same names appear repeatedly on the various alarmist counter petitions, so their number is smaller still.
Therefore, the real consensus regarding the effects of CO2 is heavily in favor of the OISM Petition as stated above. There is no scientific evidence showing that CO2 is harmful. In fact, at both current and projected concentrations, more CO2 is better. There is no downside.
If joel shore wants to try and convince the consensus of scientists that he is right and they are all wrong, he has an uphill battle. As shore says: “If you think the current scientific consensus is wrong, it is your job to change the consensus by convincing the scientists of the correctness of your views. If you instead choose instead to influence policy by making either ignorant or deceptive arguments to the public, then scientists will generally conclude that you are trying not to change the consensus but basically just to subvert the role of science in our society when the current scientific consensus disagrees with what you want it to say.” That all applies directly to joel shore, who constantly makes deceptive statements. The onus is on him, not on the true consensus of scientific skeptics.
joel shore is trying to subvert the role of science in our society, because the current scientific consensus disagrees with what he wishes it would say. The true consensus is heavily on the side of scientific skeptics — as is the scientific evidence, which challenges the mistaken conjecture that CO2 causes any harm. It does not, as the lack of any supporting evidence shows.
I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
Every day, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of engineers all over the world use the exact principles and equations that rgb is explaining to design everything from boilers to ovens to nuclear reactors to freezers…. the list is endless. These things work because that’s how the physcis works and if it didn’t, the designs would fail. But they don’t. Yet House et all still insist that the physics is wrong. Do they suppose that hundreds of thousands of engineers world wide are secretly using completely different physics than what is in the text books? Do they think that engineering is somehow not physics?
If so much were not at stake, this would simply be amusing. But the point is that there IS much at stake, so I find it as frustrating and aggravating as rgb (though he is much more eloquent in his expression of disgust 😉 ).
The research that has been done to arrive at the equations is public. The experiments used to verify the equations is public. The results have been summarized in text books that are used by theoretical physicists and applied physicists (engineers) are public. The products that are designed and built upon these very physics are all around us, every single day, by the tens and hundreds of millions. How much more can it take?
Unfortunately, crass and willful stupidity are also public.
Here’s your answer: Less than what the world is spending now.
Try to remember that technological advances accelerate over time. If you believe that the equivalent of $30 trillion is a reasonable bet against probability weighted negative effects of warming and that such warming will start to negatively impact the world’s wealth within 30 years, then it’s irrational to start spending $1 trillion per year now.
Again, it’s cheaper to hire one woman and allow for 9 months to have a baby. Throwing excessive resources in an attempt to overly accelerate technological development is a waste of resources. Acceleration will occur naturally, and, more importantly, resources can be better focused at a time when they are more valuable (later in time) after more promising directions are identified.
Also, it’s strange that you framed the question of resource spend from a game “winning” perspective when it’s quite clearly more appropriate to use an insurance and/or risk management framework. Do you know anything about these?
joeldshore says:
July 21, 2012 at 6:20 pm
If you think the current scientific consensus is wrong, it is your job to change the consensus by convincing the scientists of the correctness of your views.
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The problem with the alleged “scientific consensus on climate change” is that it does not exist. This can be very easily derived from a well known study: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/30/consensus-argument-proves-climate-science-is-political/#comment-972119
davidmhoffer says:
July 21, 2012 at 7:25 pm
Yet House et all still insist that the physics is wrong… hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of engineers…The experiments used to verify the equations is public…
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Physics is just fine. Warmism is not.
“Experiments used to verify the equations is public”… What experiments? All the warmists presented was unrelated stuff like “space blanket” or fakes like the recent one from Al Gore.
Why would Al Gore resort to a fake if he could present a genuine one? The only rational answer would be: he desperately needed one but had no other choice.
Come on, do not beat around the bush with your “millions of engineers”…
Because Mr House, Mr Gore is as incompetant as you.
Physics is just fine. Warmism is not.
>>>>>>>
LOL
ROFLMAO
Greg House inquires about a comment from Faux Science Slayer
July 21, 2012 at 8:40 am
Therefore the absorbed incoming IR is 20 times the available absorbed outgoing.
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Greg, this starts with a confusion between IRs. IR from the sun (the solar spectrum) extends from ~0.8 to 2.5 microns or so. The region between 0.8 and ~2 microns is call the near IR usually written NIR. There is very little overlap with the region where the greenhouse gases absorb, 2.5 to 20 microns, often called the fingerprint region or mid-IR. Beyond 20 microns you have the far IR (FIR, who said chemists were very original), where water vapor rotational lines are strong.
This is compounded by the usual error of comparing the solar insolation at the sun with the solar insolation at the surface or at the top of the atmosphere. When you do so, the incoming solar, less outgoing reflection (albedo), matches the outgoing IR. If the incoming NIR were really 20 x the outgoing mid/far IR, then the Earth would be hotter than Venus.