Human shadow etched in stone from Hiroshima Atomic blast.These stone steps led up to the entrance to the Sumitomo Bank Hiroshima Branch, 260meters from the hypocenter. The intense atomic heat rays turned the surface of the stonewhite, except for a part in the middle where someone was sitting. The person sitting on the steps waiting for the bank to open received the full force of the heat rays directly from the front and undoubtedly died on the spot. The building was used for a time after the war. When it was rebuilt in 1971, these steps were removed and brought to the museum. Source: Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum
Why comparing global warming to the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb is ridiculous
Some days, you just have to laugh. That’s what we’ll have to do today after reading the latest ridiculous scare story from cartoonist turned pseudo-psychologist now elevated to ‘climate scientist’ John Cook from the antithetically named ‘Skeptical Science’ website.
He’d like people to think the effect of global warming is as powerful as the effect of an atomic bomb, but as we’ll see, it is another one of those scare by scale stories where you grab some iconic image from the public consciousness and use it to make your issue seem bigger than it really is. For example, in 2010 normally calving glacier ice was compared to Manhattan Island to give it scale: Oh no! Greenland glacier calves island 4 times the size of Manhattan
Now, the same trick is being used by John Cook to try to scare people, because what could be more scary than getting vaporized by an Atomic Bomb? It just goes to show the depths of desperation used to try to sell the public on a problem that isn’t getting much traction.
Humans are emitting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than any other time in history, says John Cook, Climate Communication Fellow from the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland.
“All these heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere mean … our planet has been building up heat at the rate of about four Hiroshima bombs every second – consider that going continuously for several decades.”
Whoa, four Hiroshima bombs every second. How scary is that? Well not only is it not an original idea by Cook, compared to the amount of energy received by the Earth from the biggest fusion bomb in our solar system, our sun, it hardly registers a blip.
“…equivalent to exploding 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day 365 days per year. That’s how much extra energy Earth is gaining each day.”
That’s 278 atomic bombs worth of energy every minute – more than four per second — non-stop. To be clear, that is just the extra energy being gained each day on top of the energy heating our planet by 0.8 degree C. It is the rate at which we are increasing global warming.
Let’s do the numbers. First, let’s convert the extra heat into an iconic image people can understand that isn’t quite as scary: the incandescent light bulb (not the twisty kind). Willis Eschenbach calculated:
Hansen says increase in forcing is “400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs per day”, which comes to 2.51e+19 joules/day.
A watt is a joule per second, so that works out to a constant additional global forcing of 2.91e+14 watts.
Normally, we look at forcings in watts per square metre (W/m2). Total forcing (solar plus longwave) averaged around the globe 24/7 is about 500 watts per square metre.
To convert Hansen’s figures to a per-square-metre value, the global surface area is 5.11e+14 square metres … which means that Hansens dreaded 400,000 Hiroshima bombs per day works out to 0.6 watts per square metre … in other words, Hansen wants us to be very afraid because of a claimed imbalance of six tenths of a watt per square metre in a system where the downwelling radiation is half a kilowatt per square metre … we cannot even measure the radiation to that kind of accuracy.
What a 0.6 watt light bulb might look like when turned on.
So imagine the output of a 0.6 watt light bulb in a standard Edison base such as at right, with 1/100th the power of a common household 60 watt light bulb.
Could you even see its output?
And, more importantly, can that 0.6 watt of energy imbalance even be accurately measured on a global basis?
Note the figure on the Earth that I highlighted in yellow: Surface imbalance 0.6±17
That’s an uncertainty of 17 watts, or if you prefer Hansen-Cook parlance, 4 Hiroshima Atomic bombs an uncertainty of ±113 Hiroshima bombs every second.
The ±17 watts uncertainty of the 0.6 watt surface imbalance is two orders of magnitude larger than the claim! But, activists like Cook say global warming will “Cook’ us for sure.
Hmmm. Something bigger is needed to keep it scary. How about comparing Hiroshima bombs to the biggest fusion bomb in the solar system, the sun? From our article:
The Hiroshima bomb released ~ 67 TeraJoules (TJ) = 6E13J. source
The earths circular area is 3 * (6E6m)^2 = 1E14m2.
The suns TSI is ~ 1kW = 1E3 J/s, so the earth gets ca 1E17 J/s on the sunlit side, so the sun explodes about 1E17/6E13 = 1E3 Hiroshima atomic bombs on this planet EVERY SECOND.
(h/t to bvdeenen)
Gosh, a thousand Hiroshima bombs exploding on this planet every second? How frightening! With that sort of threat, one wonders why Obama isn’t going to announce taxing the sun into submission next Tuesday.
These calculation just go to illustrate that in the grand scheme of things, not only is the global energy associated with global warming small, it isn’t even within the bounds of measurement certainty.
Da bomb, it isn’t. Time to ‘Cook’ up a new scare story.
Here’s the funny thing though, as Donna Laframboise points out, in addition to the laughable statement that Cook plagiarized from Hansen above, somehow the amazing “postdoctoral fellow” without a PhD has somehow been elevated to the status of “climate scientist” by the French in a recent article. Climate Change Likened to Atom Bomb by Scientists.
Although that article talks about “climate scientists” it names and quotes exactly one person – Cook himself. Moreover, the claims here are nothing short of fantastical. It says that climate scientists
have given figures of rising and changing climate. These figures are almost like a warning that states that escalating temperatures are equivalent to four Hiroshima bombs in a week.
They’ve completely attributed the condition to human actions.
It’s clear that this reporter’s first language is not English, so I’m sure she has misunderstood. No official document of which I’m aware has declared humans 100% responsible for current temperature trends (see, for example, the discussion here).
UPDATE: Jo Nova also has a essay on the subject here: http://joannenova.com.au/2013/06/climate-scientists-move-to-atom-bomb-number-system-give-up-on-exponentials/
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davidmhoffer
June 23, 2013 8:57 pm
dbstealey;
Astonishing. Now global armageddon has been pushed out 200 – 500 years!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hysterical, is it not? On the one hand he wants to claim that rapid temperature increases are proof positive that the world is warming, and on the other hand that they happen over a period of 500 years (so very slowly) as an explanation as to why we haven’t seen measurable warming for over 15 years.
davidmhoffer
June 23, 2013 10:01 pm
The albedo of open water at low angles of incidence is higher than that of water.
Sigh. Proof read, dave, proof read.
Of course I meant that albedo of open water at low angles of incidence is higher than that of snow and ice. When you model it over the course of a year, you get less absorption of energy and more radiance to space due to open water versus ice and snow. In other words, the very warming you are so concerned about comes with a built in cooling response that prevents it from happening.
Dave Wendt
June 23, 2013 10:07 pm
jai mitchell says:
June 23, 2013 at 4:21 pm
RESPONSE
yes, and I have a basic conceptual understand of the physics behind global warming as determined by Svante Arrhenius back in 1893 when he calculated,
“any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth’s surface by 4°” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
If you had read just a tad bit further down the page you might have come across this
“Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 °C.[8] In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C). “
davidmhoffer
June 23, 2013 10:30 pm
Gail Combs;
There are only two sources of heat. Sunlight and the heat from the core of the planet
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well there’s heat generated by tidal friction and there’s also heat generated by decay of radioactive elements. Of course they are too small to be significant and they are pretty much steady state (at least in terms of human time frames) so it is reasonable to ignore them. (but hopefully this serves as a lesson to you know who that skeptics frequently disagree on many points and in this forum that is allowed, even encouraged. Disagree on a warmist site and you just get snipped. In fact, the more valid your point is, the more likely you will get snipped)
Jai, thank you for your answer, we obviously have a large time difference between where we live, it is currently 06:30 here. Nevertheless, “Jai, if the world was 8C warmer in the past with CO2 levels virtually identical to what they are now, why is the world not 8C warmer now? ”
To turn the question on its head, why was the world warmer then and why did this not lead to catastrophic GW as we are told it will now?
jai mitchell says that the chart here shows warming. It doesn’t. Note that it shows falling temps from ≈1997 — the pas sixteen years, as stated.
Further, as I have pointed out many times here, the Wood For Trees algorithm can be made to show spurious events that are not actually happening. For example, GISS manipulates the temperature record to show non-existent warming.
Here are ten (10) separate temparature data sets, all showing a decline in global temperatures. jai mitchell is still trying to sell us a pig in a poke, but the fact is that global temperatures began declining about 16 years ago.
Finally, jai mitchell still avoids answering the charge that moving the goal posts out 500 years is preposterous nonsense. He simply cannot accept the fact that his “carbon” conjecture has been falsified by the only real Authority: Planet Earth. The temperature trend lines are all down, no matter how mitchell tries to spin it.
Dave Wendt
June 23, 2013 11:05 pm
Dave Wendt says:
June 23, 2013 at 10:07 pm
jai mitchell says:
June 23, 2013 at 4:21 pm
BTW Jai, in re the above, although I must admit old Svante made a pretty good guess, at least in his 1906 version, i think to suggest it was based on anything like the modern IPCC version of the GHE is a bit of a stretch. Since you seem fond of Wikipedia I offer you this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
“The modern photon concept was developed gradually by Albert Einstein to explain experimental observations that did not fit the classical wave model of light. In particular, the photon model accounted for the frequency dependence of light’s energy, and explained the ability of matter and radiation to be in thermal equilibrium. It also accounted for anomalous observations, including the properties of black body radiation, that other physicists, most notably Max Planck, had sought to explain using semiclassical models, in which light is still described by Maxwell’s equations, but the material objects that emit and absorb light, do so in amounts of energy that are quantized (i.e., they change energy only by certain particular discrete amounts and cannot change energy in any arbitrary way). Although these semiclassical models contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, many further experiments[2][3] starting with Compton scattering of single photons by electrons, first observed in 1923, validated Einstein’s hypothesis that light itself is quantized. In 1926 the chemist Gilbert N. Lewis coined the name photon for these particles, and after 1927, when Arthur H. Compton won the Nobel Prize for his scattering studies, most scientists accepted the validity that quanta of light have an independent existence, and Lewis’ term photon for light quanta was accepted.”
Christopher Hanley
June 23, 2013 11:41 pm
Jai Mitchell’s model or inspiration is probably the ‘Sceptical Science’ ‘escalator’ thus: http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/SkepticFrame.jpg
Even though Cook cherry-picks the start of the 70s as his kick-off point, the resultant warming amounts to about 0.16C / decade, hardly enough to rush into economic suicide even if that warming is entirely due to human industrial development.
If Cook had taken the middle of last century as the start point of human influence as per the IPCC claim, the resultant warming is about 0.12C / decade: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1950/trend
99.99% of climate scientists don’t know for sure what is causing the moderate warming (ref. IPCC summary 2007).
Aynsley Kellow
June 24, 2013 2:14 am
DiogenesNJ:
Disparaging Cook’s cartooning would be one thing, if that was the sole basis of criticisms of him. But I think Anthony was being humorous, and a cartoonist can hardly complain about the use of humour, satire, etc. Besides, is Monckton ever treated on the merits of his argument by this lot?
Mind you, I think he should be taken seriously as a cartoonist. The Wiki reference states that his comics ‘are also printed in the Adelaide Sunday Mail, Fiji Times & Herald, The Cairns Post, S-press, and AZ Weekly. They have been formerly printed in the Dalby Herald, Gympie Times, Weipa Bulletin, and Milton-Ulladulla Express.’
I can see why he took up climate science! When the Dalby Herald, Gympie Times, Weipa Bulletin, and Milton-Ulladulla Express cease publishing your cartoons, you know you’re not up there with Gary Larson. (For the non-Australians, Google Dalby, Gympie, Weipa and Ulladulla and you’ll get my drift).
izen
June 24, 2013 2:20 am
Accusing Cook of plagerism when he used the Hiroshima bomb measure of energy before Hansen is evidence of ignorance of the literature. The ‘Hiro’ as a colloquial measure of energy as the with the ‘Manhatton’ as a measure of area predates both of them.
Complaining it is ‘scary’ when it is factually accurate seems to be a projection of ones own fears rather than anything realistic.
@- dbstealey
“Here are ten (10) separate temparature data sets, all showing a decline in global temperatures. jai mitchell is still trying to sell us a pig in a poke, but the fact is that global temperatures began declining about 16 years ago.”
But have started rising sharply again in the last five years. As can be seen from this wft graph – http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2008/trend/plot/wti/from:2008/to:2013
And every other measure of how many ‘Hiros’ the rising CO2 is adding to the climate in terms of ocean heat content, melting ice and the shift in growing seasons and regions confirm the influence of the increased energy retention.
steveta_uk
June 24, 2013 2:31 am
So imagine the output of a 0.6 watt light bulb, 1/100th the power of a common household 60 watt light bulb.
Could you even see it?
Of course you could see it – the bulb in a key fob, you know, the teeny one that lets you see the car door lock in the dark, is typically a 0.5W bulb.
So image the whole world illluminated by key fobs – oooo scary!
Your 500W/m2 is the correct average insolation at the surface of the daytime hemisphere NOT the whole planet surface. You then display that abortionate flat earth model with all those mythical energy transfers.
Reality, which rules OK., has a rotating spherical earth receiving energy on one face only, during daylight. Nightime receives zero insolation but radiates heat over the 12hr. period. Use a realistic model gets realistic energy transfers.
izen
June 24, 2013 3:39 am
@- Bob
“I strongly suggest each and every person complains to the Australia Press Council about this flaunting of journalistic integrity, John Cook was reported (with no back ground checking) as being a ‘scientist’ when his own bio says he isn’t. This goes against the Press Council rules and we can get them to make Murdock Press to print retractions and stop John Cook from getting unwarranted media exposure. ”
I am afraid that the Murdoch press and John Cook are not the only guilty parties in this behaviour. Another Australian is still being credited as a professor with an Australian university (JCU) when he left and ceased being paid or working for them some time ago.
In this case it is the Heartland institute who has …’missdescribed’ Bob Carter.
Aynsley Kellow
June 24, 2013 3:59 am
izen: I think you’ll find that Bob Carter was until very recently (a matter of weeks, I believe) an Adjunct Professor at James Cook. As such, he was an active researcher, he was entitled to the title and affiliation, and his publications are still listed to this day as outputs by JCU staff on their web site. Do you have evidence to the contrary – or are you just being deliberately mendacious?
izen
June 24, 2013 4:24 am
@- Aynsley Kellow
“izen: I think you’ll find that Bob Carter was until very recently (a matter of weeks, I believe) an Adjunct Professor at James Cook. ”
Over six months according to this source.
But for several years his research activity has been fossil fuel funded and nothing directly to do with or paid by JCU. http://www.readfearn.com/2013/06/heartland-institute-climate-sceptic-author-has-no-status-with-australian-university-james-cook-university-says/
Professor Paul Dirks, head of school at JCU’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences where Bob Carter’s affiliation was held, has told me that since 1 January 2013, Bob Carter has had “no official status” at JCU. He said Bob Carter’s previous adjunct status ceased on that date.
Anthony Violi
June 24, 2013 4:47 am
I like the part where Cook mentions that ACCESS changed the colour code to allow for 54 degrees.
Of course, no mention that it was a model run 162 hours out, and that the max temp only reached 49.7 that day.
You could go on and on, he should be at the Comedy Festival, hardly a fact in the article, which is probably the reason it didn’t make the news here in any shape or form.
Aynsley Kellow
June 24, 2013 5:07 am
izen: ‘Over six months according to this source.’ ‘since 1 January 2013’
Last time I looked it was June 24. Can’t you guys get anything right? You cite Readfearn? Seriously? His research was funded by the mining industry? A geologist! Who knew? Stop the presses!
If Readfearn knew anything about academia he wouldn’t have to state that ‘Adjunct’ meant unpaid. It usually means ‘retired’ but still active.
Heartland failed to correct Carter’s affiliation cited in a report that was last updated in 2011 – when Carter, by your own admission, was still an Adjunct Professor. No sh*t Sherlock! Climategate really pales into insignificance, doesn’t it.
Joe
June 24, 2013 5:29 am
On the subject of units of measure, maybe we should invent our own to bring some balance? taking the lead from a comment earlier, about available incandescent bulbs, I’d like to suggest the PPR – penlights per room.
As a provisional definition, the room I’m typing this in is about 12 square metres of floor space. Working with the standard 1.19 Watt “penlight” bulb, those 4 newclear bombs (hat-tip to jai’s FB page) become 6 PPR. That’s 6 cheap 2-cell flashlights in an otherwise dark room.
Now I’m scared – I could trip over something in all that darkness!!!
Michael F
June 24, 2013 7:42 am
Those of us in nuclear world often roll our eyes at comparisons of events to nuclear weapons. Well, Alex Wellerstein, who works as an historian at the American Institute of Physics finally decided to make it easy on everyone and built a calculator for this type of nonsense. Now you too can “Cook” your own claims using Hiroshima-equivlanets: http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2013/06/07/a-modest-proposal/
izen
June 24, 2013 7:44 am
@- Joe
” Working with the standard 1.19 Watt “penlight” bulb, those 4 newclear bombs (hat-tip to jai’s FB page) become 6 PPR. That’s 6 cheap 2-cell flashlights in an otherwise dark room.”
Use modern LED lighting and that is sufficient to achieve good working light levels.
I light a slightly smaller room with 3Watts of led strip light.
Gail Combs
June 24, 2013 8:28 am
jai mitchell says: @ur momisugly June 23, 2013 at 8:11 am
….I post here because the paranoia and anti-science/science ignorance here is a focal point for likeminded conspiracy theorists and extreme right-wing conservatives to champion their false beliefs based on lies and ignorance.
In sharing the absolutely easy rebuttals to the insane ruminations coming out of this blog, by people who are given editorial rights here, I hope to show to the public viewing this site just how closed off (censoring my comments) and ignorant (how easy is this for someone with just an engineer’s background in physics to show the idiocy of these theories!) your theories and arguments are…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
ROTFLMAO….
I could name FIFTY scientists and engineers some with PhDs who post comments here. I can also name several socialists. Richard Courtney for a start. WUWT runs the gamut from interested laymen to professional scientists and engineers and from socialist to conservative.
You seem to be very steeped in Post Normal Science and not reality.
Izen says:
“But have started rising sharply again in the last five years.”
Not really, izen. You’re just cherry-picking. See here.
Backslider
June 24, 2013 8:51 am
@ur momisugly Jai Mitchell – “you probably don’t realize that the amount of solar energy hitting the earth’s surface north of the arctic circle right now per day is more than the amount of solar energy hitting the tropics per day right now “.
Tommy rot. It’s back to school for you buddy.
You “blanket” analogy is… how shall I put it?….. childish. To compare the effects of GHGs to a blanket is just plain wrong. Think about this – double CO2 is double CO2 that radiates into space.
davidmhoffer
June 24, 2013 8:52 am
Keitho says:
June 24, 2013 at 2:11 am
Dave, the dude is a troll.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure. And like all trolls, once you get him into a discussion of the science itself, he soon discovers that he doesn’t know as much as he thought, that even his assumptions about the “consensus science” he is supporting are wrong. Trading endless insults with them is pointless. Directing them to what the literature and the science actually says is, in my experience, far more effective in dealing with them, and both they and other readers may learn something along the way.
dbstealey;
Astonishing. Now global armageddon has been pushed out 200 – 500 years!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Hysterical, is it not? On the one hand he wants to claim that rapid temperature increases are proof positive that the world is warming, and on the other hand that they happen over a period of 500 years (so very slowly) as an explanation as to why we haven’t seen measurable warming for over 15 years.
The albedo of open water at low angles of incidence is higher than that of water.
Sigh. Proof read, dave, proof read.
Of course I meant that albedo of open water at low angles of incidence is higher than that of snow and ice. When you model it over the course of a year, you get less absorption of energy and more radiance to space due to open water versus ice and snow. In other words, the very warming you are so concerned about comes with a built in cooling response that prevents it from happening.
jai mitchell says:
June 23, 2013 at 4:21 pm
RESPONSE
yes, and I have a basic conceptual understand of the physics behind global warming as determined by Svante Arrhenius back in 1893 when he calculated,
“any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth’s surface by 4°”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
If you had read just a tad bit further down the page you might have come across this
“Arrhenius estimated that halving of CO2 would decrease temperatures by 4–5 °C (Celsius) and a doubling of CO2 would cause a temperature rise of 5–6 °C.[8] In his 1906 publication, Arrhenius adjusted the value downwards to 1.6 °C (including water vapor feedback: 2.1 °C). “
Gail Combs;
There are only two sources of heat. Sunlight and the heat from the core of the planet
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well there’s heat generated by tidal friction and there’s also heat generated by decay of radioactive elements. Of course they are too small to be significant and they are pretty much steady state (at least in terms of human time frames) so it is reasonable to ignore them. (but hopefully this serves as a lesson to you know who that skeptics frequently disagree on many points and in this forum that is allowed, even encouraged. Disagree on a warmist site and you just get snipped. In fact, the more valid your point is, the more likely you will get snipped)
Jai, thank you for your answer, we obviously have a large time difference between where we live, it is currently 06:30 here. Nevertheless, “Jai, if the world was 8C warmer in the past with CO2 levels virtually identical to what they are now, why is the world not 8C warmer now? ”
To turn the question on its head, why was the world warmer then and why did this not lead to catastrophic GW as we are told it will now?
jai mitchell says that the chart here shows warming. It doesn’t. Note that it shows falling temps from ≈1997 — the pas sixteen years, as stated.
Further, as I have pointed out many times here, the Wood For Trees algorithm can be made to show spurious events that are not actually happening. For example, GISS manipulates the temperature record to show non-existent warming.
Here are ten (10) separate temparature data sets, all showing a decline in global temperatures. jai mitchell is still trying to sell us a pig in a poke, but the fact is that global temperatures began declining about 16 years ago.
Finally, jai mitchell still avoids answering the charge that moving the goal posts out 500 years is preposterous nonsense. He simply cannot accept the fact that his “carbon” conjecture has been falsified by the only real Authority: Planet Earth. The temperature trend lines are all down, no matter how mitchell tries to spin it.
Dave Wendt says:
June 23, 2013 at 10:07 pm
jai mitchell says:
June 23, 2013 at 4:21 pm
BTW Jai, in re the above, although I must admit old Svante made a pretty good guess, at least in his 1906 version, i think to suggest it was based on anything like the modern IPCC version of the GHE is a bit of a stretch. Since you seem fond of Wikipedia I offer you this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon
“The modern photon concept was developed gradually by Albert Einstein to explain experimental observations that did not fit the classical wave model of light. In particular, the photon model accounted for the frequency dependence of light’s energy, and explained the ability of matter and radiation to be in thermal equilibrium. It also accounted for anomalous observations, including the properties of black body radiation, that other physicists, most notably Max Planck, had sought to explain using semiclassical models, in which light is still described by Maxwell’s equations, but the material objects that emit and absorb light, do so in amounts of energy that are quantized (i.e., they change energy only by certain particular discrete amounts and cannot change energy in any arbitrary way). Although these semiclassical models contributed to the development of quantum mechanics, many further experiments[2][3] starting with Compton scattering of single photons by electrons, first observed in 1923, validated Einstein’s hypothesis that light itself is quantized. In 1926 the chemist Gilbert N. Lewis coined the name photon for these particles, and after 1927, when Arthur H. Compton won the Nobel Prize for his scattering studies, most scientists accepted the validity that quanta of light have an independent existence, and Lewis’ term photon for light quanta was accepted.”
Jai Mitchell’s model or inspiration is probably the ‘Sceptical Science’ ‘escalator’ thus:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/SkepticFrame.jpg
Even though Cook cherry-picks the start of the 70s as his kick-off point, the resultant warming amounts to about 0.16C / decade, hardly enough to rush into economic suicide even if that warming is entirely due to human industrial development.
If Cook had taken the middle of last century as the start point of human influence as per the IPCC claim, the resultant warming is about 0.12C / decade:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1950/trend
99.99% of climate scientists don’t know for sure what is causing the moderate warming (ref. IPCC summary 2007).
DiogenesNJ:
Disparaging Cook’s cartooning would be one thing, if that was the sole basis of criticisms of him. But I think Anthony was being humorous, and a cartoonist can hardly complain about the use of humour, satire, etc. Besides, is Monckton ever treated on the merits of his argument by this lot?
Mind you, I think he should be taken seriously as a cartoonist. The Wiki reference states that his comics ‘are also printed in the Adelaide Sunday Mail, Fiji Times & Herald, The Cairns Post, S-press, and AZ Weekly. They have been formerly printed in the Dalby Herald, Gympie Times, Weipa Bulletin, and Milton-Ulladulla Express.’
I can see why he took up climate science! When the Dalby Herald, Gympie Times, Weipa Bulletin, and Milton-Ulladulla Express cease publishing your cartoons, you know you’re not up there with Gary Larson. (For the non-Australians, Google Dalby, Gympie, Weipa and Ulladulla and you’ll get my drift).
Accusing Cook of plagerism when he used the Hiroshima bomb measure of energy before Hansen is evidence of ignorance of the literature. The ‘Hiro’ as a colloquial measure of energy as the with the ‘Manhatton’ as a measure of area predates both of them.
Complaining it is ‘scary’ when it is factually accurate seems to be a projection of ones own fears rather than anything realistic.
@- dbstealey
“Here are ten (10) separate temparature data sets, all showing a decline in global temperatures. jai mitchell is still trying to sell us a pig in a poke, but the fact is that global temperatures began declining about 16 years ago.”
But have started rising sharply again in the last five years. As can be seen from this wft graph –
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2008/trend/plot/wti/from:2008/to:2013
And every other measure of how many ‘Hiros’ the rising CO2 is adding to the climate in terms of ocean heat content, melting ice and the shift in growing seasons and regions confirm the influence of the increased energy retention.
Of course you could see it – the bulb in a key fob, you know, the teeny one that lets you see the car door lock in the dark, is typically a 0.5W bulb.
So image the whole world illluminated by key fobs – oooo scary!
I strongly suggest each and every person complains to the Australia Press Council about this flaunting of journalistic integrity, John Cook was reported (with no back ground checking) as being a ‘scientist’ when his own bio says he isn’t. This goes against the Press Council rules and we can get them to make Murdock Press to print retractions and stop John Cook from getting unwarranted media exposure.
Here is the article to complain about:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/climate-change-like-atom-bomb-scientists/story-fn3dxiwe-1226668054364
Here is the info and back ground:
http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2013/06/22/media-fail-john-cooks-atom-bombs/
Here is the place to lodge your compalint (scroll to the bottom and click the online complaint form):
http://www.presscouncil.org.au/complaints/
Your 500W/m2 is the correct average insolation at the surface of the daytime hemisphere NOT the whole planet surface. You then display that abortionate flat earth model with all those mythical energy transfers.
Reality, which rules OK., has a rotating spherical earth receiving energy on one face only, during daylight. Nightime receives zero insolation but radiates heat over the 12hr. period. Use a realistic model gets realistic energy transfers.
@- Bob
“I strongly suggest each and every person complains to the Australia Press Council about this flaunting of journalistic integrity, John Cook was reported (with no back ground checking) as being a ‘scientist’ when his own bio says he isn’t. This goes against the Press Council rules and we can get them to make Murdock Press to print retractions and stop John Cook from getting unwarranted media exposure. ”
I am afraid that the Murdoch press and John Cook are not the only guilty parties in this behaviour. Another Australian is still being credited as a professor with an Australian university (JCU) when he left and ceased being paid or working for them some time ago.
In this case it is the Heartland institute who has …’missdescribed’ Bob Carter.
izen: I think you’ll find that Bob Carter was until very recently (a matter of weeks, I believe) an Adjunct Professor at James Cook. As such, he was an active researcher, he was entitled to the title and affiliation, and his publications are still listed to this day as outputs by JCU staff on their web site. Do you have evidence to the contrary – or are you just being deliberately mendacious?
@- Aynsley Kellow
“izen: I think you’ll find that Bob Carter was until very recently (a matter of weeks, I believe) an Adjunct Professor at James Cook. ”
Over six months according to this source.
But for several years his research activity has been fossil fuel funded and nothing directly to do with or paid by JCU.
http://www.readfearn.com/2013/06/heartland-institute-climate-sceptic-author-has-no-status-with-australian-university-james-cook-university-says/
Professor Paul Dirks, head of school at JCU’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences where Bob Carter’s affiliation was held, has told me that since 1 January 2013, Bob Carter has had “no official status” at JCU. He said Bob Carter’s previous adjunct status ceased on that date.
I like the part where Cook mentions that ACCESS changed the colour code to allow for 54 degrees.
Of course, no mention that it was a model run 162 hours out, and that the max temp only reached 49.7 that day.
You could go on and on, he should be at the Comedy Festival, hardly a fact in the article, which is probably the reason it didn’t make the news here in any shape or form.
izen: ‘Over six months according to this source.’ ‘since 1 January 2013’
Last time I looked it was June 24. Can’t you guys get anything right? You cite Readfearn? Seriously? His research was funded by the mining industry? A geologist! Who knew? Stop the presses!
If Readfearn knew anything about academia he wouldn’t have to state that ‘Adjunct’ meant unpaid. It usually means ‘retired’ but still active.
Heartland failed to correct Carter’s affiliation cited in a report that was last updated in 2011 – when Carter, by your own admission, was still an Adjunct Professor. No sh*t Sherlock! Climategate really pales into insignificance, doesn’t it.
On the subject of units of measure, maybe we should invent our own to bring some balance? taking the lead from a comment earlier, about available incandescent bulbs, I’d like to suggest the PPR – penlights per room.
As a provisional definition, the room I’m typing this in is about 12 square metres of floor space. Working with the standard 1.19 Watt “penlight” bulb, those 4 newclear bombs (hat-tip to jai’s FB page) become 6 PPR. That’s 6 cheap 2-cell flashlights in an otherwise dark room.
Now I’m scared – I could trip over something in all that darkness!!!
Those of us in nuclear world often roll our eyes at comparisons of events to nuclear weapons. Well, Alex Wellerstein, who works as an historian at the American Institute of Physics finally decided to make it easy on everyone and built a calculator for this type of nonsense. Now you too can “Cook” your own claims using Hiroshima-equivlanets:
http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/2013/06/07/a-modest-proposal/
@- Joe
” Working with the standard 1.19 Watt “penlight” bulb, those 4 newclear bombs (hat-tip to jai’s FB page) become 6 PPR. That’s 6 cheap 2-cell flashlights in an otherwise dark room.”
Use modern LED lighting and that is sufficient to achieve good working light levels.
I light a slightly smaller room with 3Watts of led strip light.
jai mitchell says: @ur momisugly June 23, 2013 at 8:11 am
….I post here because the paranoia and anti-science/science ignorance here is a focal point for likeminded conspiracy theorists and extreme right-wing conservatives to champion their false beliefs based on lies and ignorance.
In sharing the absolutely easy rebuttals to the insane ruminations coming out of this blog, by people who are given editorial rights here, I hope to show to the public viewing this site just how closed off (censoring my comments) and ignorant (how easy is this for someone with just an engineer’s background in physics to show the idiocy of these theories!) your theories and arguments are…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
ROTFLMAO….
I could name FIFTY scientists and engineers some with PhDs who post comments here. I can also name several socialists. Richard Courtney for a start. WUWT runs the gamut from interested laymen to professional scientists and engineers and from socialist to conservative.
You seem to be very steeped in Post Normal Science and not reality.
Izen says:
“But have started rising sharply again in the last five years.”
Not really, izen. You’re just cherry-picking. See here.
@ur momisugly Jai Mitchell – “you probably don’t realize that the amount of solar energy hitting the earth’s surface north of the arctic circle right now per day is more than the amount of solar energy hitting the tropics per day right now “.
Tommy rot. It’s back to school for you buddy.
You “blanket” analogy is… how shall I put it?….. childish. To compare the effects of GHGs to a blanket is just plain wrong. Think about this – double CO2 is double CO2 that radiates into space.
Keitho says:
June 24, 2013 at 2:11 am
Dave, the dude is a troll.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Sure. And like all trolls, once you get him into a discussion of the science itself, he soon discovers that he doesn’t know as much as he thought, that even his assumptions about the “consensus science” he is supporting are wrong. Trading endless insults with them is pointless. Directing them to what the literature and the science actually says is, in my experience, far more effective in dealing with them, and both they and other readers may learn something along the way.