Watch yesterday's blockbuster performance by Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. and Dr. Roy Spencer at Senate climate hearing

The performance was great; I thought it would be all over the news. Some county papers did report it.

It’s sort of frightening to me, to see exactly how thick our elected government representatives are. I mean, of course we all know this abstractly, but to see those geniuses in action…
~wuwghhghgh~
Does anybody think Whitehouse would have dared to ask Spencer about his views on evolution if Spencer had happened to be muslim? I don’t, personally. Amazing that he’d have the audacity to go there at all in a hearing on climate change. Talk about sleazy lawyer tactics.
And the sum up point to walk away with according to Whitehouse, that if only we could get our CO2 emissions under control fishermen wouldn’t have to sail so far to fish. I was flabbergasted. I don’t know if Whitehouse honestly believed that or not. I hope he didn’t, some part of me would still like to pretend that he couldn’t possibly be such a simpleton.
On a different but related note, I wish we had a skeptic authority there on the effects of climate change on the oceans. The stupid 30% more acidic quote comes up and nobody can put it in context. Measurable increase in temperature? Sure, to an extent, but once again it’s misleading.
Still, Dr. Spencer did as well as anybody could I think, and Dr. Pielke certainly did as well.

Video won’t run for me. XP pro Firefox.

Boxer is just doing her job, that is to be the most biased and partisan that she can be. She does a good job.

What brians356 says.

Pielke concedes things that he shouldn’t such as agreeing with Whitehouse that the IPCC reports are credible. Some parts are, but some parts assuredly are not. Spencer’s monologue on Cook’s bogus research sounds like he agrees with it. I’m disappointed in the performance of both witnesses. Whitehouse will take their statements to reinforce his position rather than change his position to a reasonable one.

Heidi Cullen to Senator Vitter’s question about who agrees that temperature around the globe have continued to rise even faster even than was predicted ten years ago: “I think right now I we need to focus on the fact that warming is happening very, very quickly.” [Repeat the mantra over and over …] … “With to respect to President Obama’s specific statement, I can’t comment on that.” [Avoid answering inconvenient direct challenges] … “Bottom line is, greenhouse gases have continued to move quickly in the atmosphere” [Just blurt out a sound byte however incoherent or comical. Yep, those gases are moving around up there, perhaps even quickly, if there happens to be a big mixer like hurricane or something]
And dear little Heidi is one of the “experts” in the 98%.

I have to say, that I wasn’t overly impressed with Pielke Jnr. To me he seemed to be almost crying ‘I’m a warmist but I don’t have the data to support that’? or perhaps, he simply accepts, like most of us – that human co2 is likely to cause some climate effects – but we dont yet know how much?
Whitehouse seemed keen to brush aside Spencers graph and the major point he made – i.e. that it has warmed, but it is not necessarily ALL human co2 emission induced based on the past best estimated RWP and MWP. Without clear and unequivocal explanantion for these past warming and cooling changes – the ‘sole’ CO2 induced warming claims become very dubious.

[snip]

“I thought it would be all over the news.”
No mention of it here in Oz.
@Mark Bofil
“It’s sort of frightening to me, to see exactly how thick our elected government representatives are. I mean, of course we all know this abstractly, but to see those geniuses in action…”
Remember that these people need to get the votes of the Homer Simpsons to stay in office. And yes, it is scary to see it in the raw.

I am left wondering where the blockbuster performance was. I thought perhaps that I had selected the wrong video but no, it was Pielke and Spencer so it must be the right one. What I took away from this was that Pielke Jr agrees entirely with the IPCC and that Dr Spencer is a creationist. Sorry, but if this is what passes as blockbuster stuff then we should all start getting our heads around paying carbon taxes.

[snip]

Whitehouse needs an education. He is obviously an un-informed politician (except what the greenies have fed to him).

Janice Moore says: @ July 19, 2013 at 6:49 pm
“Spencer’s testimony was destroyed by his stance on evolution – it made him seem like a lunatic!” [Alberta Lad at 5:39 PM 7/19/13]
Destroyed in the eyes of whom?…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My comment to Dr. Spencer at his site.
Next time they bring up Christians ask them how many of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were Christians. Ask if we should toss out the works of the following Christians because of their religious beliefs:
Galileo Galilei, Robert Boyle, Michael Faraday, Gregor Mendel, William Thomson Kelvin, Max Planck, George Gabriel Stokes and James Clerk Maxwell.
I am agnostic but I see red every time someone uses Christianity as a tool for bashing people.

Janice Moore says (July 19, 2013 at 7:18 pm): “To whom did Spencer come off as not credible?”
Gallup: “In U.S., 46% Hold Creationist View of Human Origins”.
Of course using a witness’s views on one subject to discredit his views on another, unrelated subject, is a logical fallacy known as “poisoning the well”. It would be equally fallacious for his fellow believers to assume his religious views increase his credibility on climate science issues. Logically, his climate science stands on its own merits.

Scientists who are Christians have to accommodate evolution. Most have no trouble doing this. Evidence of evolution is clear in every antibiotic we use routinely. The bacteria change and evolve rapidly. The earth is about 4.5 billion years old, not 270,000 years old. Wells are drilled 30,000 feet deep in water that is 7000 feet deep and cost $100 million on the basis of the earth being 4.5 billions year old. The universe is still expanding. For all of these reasons, scientists who wish to testify should adhere to the principle of not answering personal questions on the witness stand when the topic is science. Religion is not a matter of science but theology. Roy screwed up. We need to learn from this episode. Other hearing will be held.

Must agree that Dr Spencer should not have gone down the path of debating his religious beliefs – although, it may have won him a few points among devout Christians. He should have just said that his religious beliefs are irrelevant to the science surrounding climate change, and perhaps asked why no other witness was questioned on that topic; surely the only answer would be that grilling every witness about their religion in this context would be grossly offensive (as it was in his case).
Anyway, while Pielke Jr’s testimony didn’t deliver what many readers here would have liked, his written submission is a devastating, fully referenced critique of a big chunk of alarmist lies, and is well worth keeping at hand for whenever anyone raises the “extreme weather” issue.

Hey you guys. Ease off on Senator (Box of Rocks) Boxer. If you’re a skeptic, she’s better than a mole in the enemy camp. A mole may eventually be discovered and discredited. “Don’t call me ma’am” Boxer can’t be “discovered” because she genuinely supports the AGW cause. She’s the most effective weapon we skeptics have in the enemy camp. I say promote her to be head of the entire movement.

Hey, Bob Murphy is on the panel. It’s good to see an anarcho-capitalist on a senate committee hearing.

[snip]

[ok thats enough -mod]

Excellent testimony from Spencer. He didn’t read from a script but (in his words) ‘winged it’ Demonstrated mastery of his subject, cool under pressure and handled objections well. A few devastating put downs too.
Dr Pielke also knew his subject and made some good points, but his formal piece would have been even better if he’d been a little less rigid in just reading from his script. His answers to real-time questions was much more persuasive
It’s called a ‘hearing’ not a ‘reading’. There is an element of theatre involved. Otherwise it could be all done as background reading. Spencer grasped this truth and benefited from it. Other academics should take note.

I wouldn’t drink that Diet Coke in front of him. It has Aspartame made from excrement of e-coli bacteria.

Anthropoid
As a counterbalance to Meyer, try Why Evolution Is True by Jerry Coyne. Then try his website for more on evolution.

[snip -juvenile language -mod]

Pielke jnr is a warmist and always has been. The only scientist there was Roy Spencer and he doesn’t have the forthright character to shoot the idiots down. Sadly it was all just another monkey’s tea party.

Does anyone realise that the title of the debate is deliberately misleading?
I mean – ‘Climate Change – It’s happening now.’ – would be a perfectly valid title for a debate 5, 50, 500, 50000 or 500000 million years ago! Climate is always changing. This is an undisputed fact!
ALL, and I mean ALL, the real scientists in the debate should have pointed this out at the start of their testimonies to at least demonstrate that they understood the misdirection of trying to imply (via the title) that current climate change is abnormal and may or may not be due to humans.
As long as the science is allowed to be by-passed due to such deliberate misrepresentation within the political arena – the policymakers will never have the correct ‘start’ point to ask questions and make decisions.

SamG says:
July 20, 2013 at 1:42 am
yeah I know – see my comment upthread somewhere. My point is that any genuine and thinking scientist or person working in the climate field would know full well that the title was deliberately misleading (to ordinary folk) and should have said so. Climate change is as reliable as the sun rising and setting (and it’s been doing that on earth for 4.6 billion years).
The skeptic position (well, mine, anyway) is mostly about scale, cause and effect, and in the end, potential mitigation.
I wonder, if you put Spencers graph on the front page of every newspaper, with a poll to ask for readers to place an ‘imaginary bet’ on the future climate trend – how many would mentally predict the risk of cooling as higher than the risk of warming.
I would also like to point out that Whitehouse’ closing statement about Nasa and the last 12 out of 15 years have been the warmest or whatever is also TOTAL bunkum in consideration of Spencers graph. Anyone with half a braincell can work out that if we are at the top of warming cycle, the most recent years will be the warmest (Duh!) – anyone using this argument within the climate change debate is either an idiot, or deliberately trying to obfuscate the issue – personally, that particular line of claims annoys the feck out of me!

The problem with Pielke and Spencer is that they haven’t yet accepted the fact that all the IPCC heat generation and transfer science is wrong and that the Earth adapts to ensure CO2-AGW is near zero.
1. The 3x positive feedback is a mistake, or a confidence trick, from 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf Look for the fals claim in para 2 that CO2 blocks 7-15 microns, wrong, also the claim that if there were no ghgs, the -18 deg C virtual emission temperature [it doesn’t exist in rarity] would be at the Earth’s surface. No ghgs mean no clouds or ice so 43% increase in temperature hence the real average surface temperature would be 4-5 deg C, a GHE of 11 K.
2. As the models use 33 k as calibration, they are plain wrong.
3. The way they are made apparently to work is to add in imaginary back radiation and then claim Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation applies at ToA. This increases atmospheric heat absorption by 157.5/23 = 6.85. By heating up the sunlit oceans in the model, it increases evaporation. The excess temperature is then offset by double real low level cloud optical depth.
It’s a clever confidence trick.

No valid scientist should be a creationist as Spencer is! So anything else he claims should be doubted!

Is it possible to create a video with the ability to increase the volume a significant amount.
It’s a shame to have a full audio like this and then have such a pitifully inadequate audio, that is hard to hear, via a normal computer output.
Perhaps those with additional speakers don’t have a problem. But maxing out the audio on this “HD” video and the computer audio, this is very hard to hear.
Thanks for anyone who can jack up the volume.

Patrick says:
July 20, 2013 at 10:53 am
yet you exclude it outright as having any influence at all?
No, i point out that no matter which variable you select, none of them show any compelling effect. As I said, if the sun were a major driver [including any and all of the variables you can think of] the effect would be obvious and accepted as a fact and good science would ensue from it [as with evolution or plate tectonics], but this is not happening [much to my chagrin as it would vastly increase the significance of my own field with attendant increased flow of funding]. None of the speakers at the hearing [even Roy Spencer] presented ANY evidence that the Sun is important [for good reason: there aren’t any]

at rpSorry, it took me until today to have time to watch the portion of the video at the very end in which Pielke and Spencer appear.
I thought Pielke’s testimony was very strong. He remained narrowly focused on extreme weather events, which was good. He also indicated why they are a poor thing to focus on — even if there were a positive signal to detect there, it will be lost in the noise for decades if not a century or more.
Poor responses in general were made to the question about whether or not warmer oceans will generate more or more violent storms. Ocean storms (weather in general, in fact) is indeed a heat-driven phenomenon, but heat engines run between a warm reservoir and a cold reservoir. Global warming largely occurs because of a REDUCTION in temperature extremes — because the Stefan-Boltzmann equation scales like temperature to the fourth power, all that it takes to cause warming is better/faster global atmospheric mixing and all that it takes to cause cooling is a reduction of global atmospheric mixing (e.g. confinement of tropical heat to the tropics). [Parentheically, it is entirely possible for CO_2 to increase and the globe to cool (on average); all it takes is a diversion in the Gulf Stream or alteration in the decadal oscillations or Hadley circulation patters that inhibits the convection of tropical heat northward. The tropics would warm a little, but a little warming to the fourth power equals a lot more radiative heat loss from the largest single band of the Earth’s surface area, and the temperate zone and poles would cool much more than the tropics warmed. Similarly, it is entirely possible for CO_2 levels to go down or remain flat and for it to warm, all that it takes is an alteration of global circulation patterns (which are chaotic, very likely not stable at all on long time scales) that increases tropical convection to the temperate and polar regions.]
It is therefore by no means clear that a reduction of the temperature differential between the tropics and poles would result in an increase in the number or frequency of extreme weather events ever, even theoretically. If we could precisely model the climate, we might well find that they should decrease. But as Pielke noted, detecting any change at all is a matter of decades the centuries, as there is no detectable signal here across a time span that includes a fairly non-controversial increase in global average temperature of at least 0.5 C.
Spencer’s testimony was strong, but sadly he failed to make certain points that IMO should have been made (Pielke missed this too; I think one question on the point might have been addressed to him). The most important point concerns the interpretation of the GCM spaghetti curves, and the validity of the IPCC AR4 GCM “average” that (as Spencer DID point out) it uses as the suggested basis for policy making in its summary for policy makers.
No opportunity should ever be missed for pointing out that this curve is a horrendous abuse of every scientific principle I know of, and that the correct application of statistics to these curves should be, as Spencer pointed out but failed to articulate, the rejection of the GCMs one at a time on the basis of failing elementary hypothesis testing and the rejection of the “average” of these failed models as having the slightest meaning whatsoever in any statistical sense.
In particular, the average of the GCMs is meaningless. The standard deviation of the distribution of GCM results about this average is meaningless, except as evidence that the GCMs collectively suck. The “fit” of GCMs to the period pre-1990 or thereabouts is not evidence that they are predictive as they were initialized TO fit that period — they can no more hindcast the curve Spencer held up presenting global temperatures over the last 2000 years than they can predict the stock market ten years from today.
Finally, and most damning — the application of hypothesis testing methodology in a statistically permissible way to each GCM, one at a time, to the actual climate data under the null hypothesis “this is a perfect climate model whose results can be trusted” consists of looking at the range of the Monte Carlo results that do form an ensemble and noting what fraction of the individual trajectories match the actual climate. When this is done, the number is very, very small, for nearly every GCM. Indeed, we would be entirely justified in rejecting this null hypothesis for nearly all if not all of the GCMs.
This makes the AR4 summary for policy makers even worse than a mere abuse of statistics. It’s one thing to average over twenty models each one of which is individually in pretty good agreement with the data and hence passes a basic sanity check as being a valid model and then arguing that the mean “could” — “not has according to the theorems of statistics” to but could somehow average over irrelevant but small errors in the details in the implementation of the same basic physics and hence yield a better average than any single model alone. It’s another to average over twenty models that individually fail a basic internal hypothesis test when compared to reality and worse all fail in the same way, consistently coming in far too hot and then assert that the average is meaningful and that the standard deviation of that average is a valid measure of the probable bounds of the future climate.
Even small things should have been called. Pielke let pass the assertion that one of the warmist testifiers made that the average temperature of the US isn’t what is important it is the extremes in temperature, that some places are far too hot and others too cold to compensate. First of all, she should have been accused on the spot of cherrypicking and data dredging, and the obligatory reference to the xkcd comic titled “Green Jelly Beans Cause Acne” should have been inserted into the Congressional Record as mandator reading by all congresspersons. Second, Pielke in particular must have studied the second cumululant of temperature distributions (which is basically the variance and/or standard deviation and should have been prepared to point out on the spot that if one cannot detect a signal in the mean, it is quadratically more difficult to detect it in the variance and that in any event there is no statistically defensible observation of greater temperature variability in the weather records of the US or the globe.
Yes, we have the warmest global temperatures of the last 150 years right now, or at least it is plausible that we do if one buys error estimates on global temperatures from a period when the entire continent of Antarctica and much of the Australian outback and a goodly chunk of Africa and South America and almost all of the world’s oceans were either terra incognita or infrequently sampled with poor equipment and indifferent techniques, or buys the proposition that temperatures in the parts of the globe that were better sampled were proxies for global temperature with some sort of knowable/predictable variation and hence possible error. However, we aren’t getting hotter hots and colder colds or greater variability around/relative to the mean, again no more so than we observed in e.g. the Dust Bowl pre-CO_2.
Finally, why didn’t any of them call the Rhode Island senator on his concern for the oceans and sinking Rhode Island and point out that whatever is happening to the shoreline in Rhode Island, it is a simple matter of fact that the total SLR from 1870 to the present, inclusive, is 9 whole inches, so his assertions that Rhode Island has suffered from 10 inches of higher ocean levels (if true!) has absolutely nothing to do with actual sea level rise. The ocean is isostatic, is rising currently at somewhere between 2 and 3.5 mm/year, period, and not even Trenberth is asserting that it is going to rise more than a whole foot by the end of the century, and that is predicated on it maintaining at least the same level of rise in the face of at best relatively slowly rising temperatures.
I didn’t consider either Spencer’s or Pielke’s testimony to be a “home run” for skeptics. They did a good job, of course, but the deck was stacked against them. They went dead last in the progression of events, attendance at their session was poor, most viewers no doubt had long since tuned out with the crap that they (eventually) refuted firmly fixed in their minds. If they had been among the first testifiers their testimony would have had a much greater impact and indeed would have refuted a priori a lot of the crap that preceded them. But they left far too much unsaid.
What was sorely missed at the hearings was a statistician. In fact, a statistician with a big red button marked “Bullshit!” that goes “Baaaaaaa” when you press it, overriding any speaker, to call each and every testifier when they made a statistically indefensible or misleading statement, such as the implication that the sea has risen 10 inches in 30 years, or that the IPCCs average over GCMs is somehow meaningful or that it is somehow surprising that predictive models fit data from the immediate past of the time the models were built and that it could hardly be so if the models were not valid.
As Nicholas Nassim Taleb and countless market plungers that lost their shirt on precisely that sort of model would testify (if given the chance), not so. Show me a model built to fit only the data from (say) 1960 to 1990 that predicts the MWP and LIA — then we’ll talk.
rgb

Whitehouse throws GCM’s and atmosphere/surface temperature measurements under the bus, retreats to oceans. Fun! Last resort of the common warmist. Trenberth’s Heat Hideout.

Quite right, Anthony, argue the science, not the Mann.

What is interesting is that Sen. Whitehouse keeps referring to the rising level of the oceans. Since Geology is constantly changing (as is climate), sea level is a relative term. Is the water rising or is the land subsiding? I would think more involved GPS measurements may be in order.

@X Anomaly
Well the CO2 IR absorption bands, may be overlapped by the water bands. That does not mean that the individual lines overlap.
As for “residence” time; that is a red herring. CO2 and H2O are PERMANENT components of the earth atmosphere. It matters not a jot, that one CO2 molecule goes and sits down on the bench, while another takes its place.
And in most places, there is always more water in the atmosphere than CO2..
The feedback comes from the fact, that H2O, and also CO2, to a lesser extent, also absorb incoming radiant energy from the sun; in the case of H2O, starting around 700 nm wavelength; and that solar spectrum energy NEVER reaches the ocean surface to be stored deep in the ocean.
So more water cools rather than warms. 24 hours a day, water vapor, and clouds continually scatter/reflect incoming solar energy falling on half of the earth surface at all times.

And it got next to no media coverage at all.

peter says:
July 20, 2013 at 12:20 pm
I’m not sure I understand the argument that the Sun can have no effect. We’d be a frozen ice-ball without it. All temperature we are concerned with comes from it.
What is important is the variation with solar activity of the solar output, and that is tiny [1/1000 of the whole], so there an effect, but tiny.

@Leif
Sorry this is so far down, Anthony gets a lot of comments between the time I go to sleep and wake UP – The whole other side of the world gets to comment.
Doesn’t the magnitude 0.1% or maybe 0.5% even using TSI depend on earth’s response to different wavelengths. So for example could not the change in the UV result in upper atmosphere heating, which by virtue of the laws of thermodynamics, slow down the rate of conduction/Convection from the surface by creating an inversion (Anthony, you’re the Meterologist?) In this sort of case we might have a situation where amplification could occur, by heating a small layer of atmosphere we could markedly change the rate of conduction/convection loss from a lower layer. Has the warming effect of every wavelength been investigated in detail for different mechanisms of interaction? UV ionizes particles, does this have an effect, say on cloud formation , or albedo (yes via Hydroxyl radicals) or even smog (though these are likely cooling effects of increased UV). Even ozone itself has temperature effects since its a greenhouse gas, increased UV means increased ozone, does it not?
Also, I already pointed out that the Solar and Luna perigee do correspond strikingly to the occurrence of floods in Queensland Australia. Clearly the climate minimums do correlate broadly to solar events, the prima-facie evidence is that the Sun does control earth’s climate. We know the gravitational effect changes the air pressure which controls wind (not much but hey, we aren’t talking about much) and it changes ocean distribution. I think therefore it is very premature to say, there are NO mechanisms other than TSI where the sun can affect the earths climate. Is it not prudent at this point to say we don’t know enough yet about the interactions, rather than boldly “It is not the sun” ?
Leif, the math says it’s clearly not GHGs, so if it’s not the sun then what is it?

milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 5:55 pm
my impression is that about 5% of the TSI reaching the surface is UV. Therefore, it seems possible to me that a variation of, say, around three to seven percent UV could make a difference
TSI varies 0.1%, 5% of that is 0.005%. A variation of that 0.005% between 0.003 and 0.007% is a variation of total energy from 0.098% and 0.102%, hardly anything to write home about…

What is frustrating to me is that we have no one in the Senate that can put sentences together that that appears they understand the science. I know that Whitehouse is only regurgitating what he is told, but Sessions looks like he is ready to gaff into a soundbite that would kill the effort. Seeing him quote a Kingston Trio song during testimony makes me hope his family doctor was watching and scheduled a cat scan.

george,
Negative cloud feedback is an interesting proposition, but no more interesting then any other potential albedo related negative feedback arising from dust, ice sheets, snow, vegetation, etc.
Co2 impacts long wave radiation, and so does water vapor. The question is why the two are in the atmosphere at all (i.e. why is it ocean warm enough to emit the two?). Without an alternative explanation, one is restricted to pulling apart the AGW assumptions such as:
1) The ocean and it’s enormous heat capacity simply has no consequence besides hiding Trenberths heat and causing 15 years pauses in global temperature!
2) Without Co2 there is no water vapor because the surface is frozen because there is no GH effect without Co2!
Yes, it’s all very likely ridiculous bullshit. Problem is no one can show it to be so.

On the bright side, no one was actually watching this, which basically means that there isn’t much likely hood of any ground breaking, us destroying new laws going to be created anytime soon. If the CAGW crowd can’t generate any media enthusiasm there it is less likely that any senator is going to waste his/her time creating a new law that wont pass anyhow. Having the voice of reason there in the form of Pielke and Spencer put a serious dent in the “show” as far as new law being generated. The idea in something like this is not to debunk the CAGW crowd but to demonstrate that we aren’t going to die tomorrow and keep things on an even keel. Governments rarely look farther out than 10 years, with most folks sticking to the next election. The best win for a debate like this isn’t that we change someone’s viewpoint but that we rob them of the momentum to get some useless and dangerous laws passed. So BRAVO to Pielke and Spencer for a job well done!

milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:28 pm
As you must know, albedo of UV-A & UV-B is very low.
The albedo that is important in determining what reaches the surface is that of clouds and that is about the same at all wavelengths. UV does not penetrate a cloud.
Or it could just be the Margaritas talking.
No, it is being imprecise and throwing around numbers without thinking about what they mean.
bobl says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:42 pm
Still we can’t ignore the high energy particles because they cause actual chemical changes in the atmosphere, the method of action has implications for the climate. It’s not all about energy, it’s also about energy transfer (flow).
As usual, people stray. The fact is that there is no good evidence that solar activity [with all what is in it] regulates the climate in a major way. So whatever the implications are they are minor, and hence only of academic [but exciting] interest.
You haven’t answered my question, if it isn’t the sun, and it isn’t GHGs then what was the little ice age caused by?
Try ocean circulation and add in volcanos at various times. Just because we don’t know does not mean that it must be the sun or GHGs. “if the burglar is not Mr. A and not Mr. B, then who else could it be?” implying that it must be either A or B.
milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 8:47 pm
contribution to TSI is tiny in this region
As I said. It doesn’t matter that the percentage variation down there is large. It is like variation of the amount of loose change in Bill Gates’ pockets not having a large impact on his total wealth.

“”””””……
X Anomaly says:
July 20, 2013 at 7:35 pm
george,
Negative cloud feedback is an interesting proposition, but no more interesting then any other potential albedo related negative feedback arising from dust, ice sheets, snow, vegetation, etc.
Co2 impacts long wave radiation, and so does water vapor. The question is why the two are in the atmosphere at all (i.e. why is it ocean warm enough to emit the two?). Without an alternative explanation, one is restricted to pulling apart the AGW assumptions such as:…….”””””””
Well X, I’m not greatly interested in “interesting propositions”.
Specially trying to debate against “potential” things.
According to NASA / NOAA, the earth’s (permanent) cloud cover is about 60 % by area, and most clouds are in tropical regions over the oceans, where most of the solar energy arrives. More water/clouds, more solar energy scatter reflected / absorbed, therefore less surface solar energy, and surface cooling, so less water evaporation.
THAT IS NEGATIVE FEEDBACK.
Snow and ice is a small percentage of the earth’s projected area facing the sun.
More snow and ice results in MORE reflected solar energy (not as much as you think), and more reflectance leads to less solar energy absorption, so more COOLING.
THAT IS POSITIVE FEEDBACK Not negative.
The atmospheric absorbed solar energy WARMS the atmosphere; but it COOLS the surface. The laws of thermodynamics work AGAINST the warmer atmosphere warming the surface. “heat” aka THERMAL ENERGY tends to flow from hot to cold. That is UP in the atmosphere, NOT DOWN.
Now yes LWIR radiation goes both ways, but up is favored, because the Temperature and density gradients are negative upwards, so the active spectral lines are narrowed as you go up, so more radiation escapes their net, compared to going down where you encounter greater Doppler and collision broadening, so more recapture.
But X, you are free to believe whatever you find to be “interesting propositions.”
I make it a rule, to not get between anybody, and a cliff they are determined to leap off.

With regards to overlap, in the tropics, if you negate the impact of co2 due to water vapor, it reduces co2 impact by around 75%. Co2 does a little better in the polar regions, but again its around a 63% reduction. So that was my original point. Of course if you are an alarmist you can argue the exact opposite, that in the tropics, the contribution of water vapor is reduced by around 30% because Co2 is already there.
So just say your an warming advocate, you believe co2 drives 20% of the GHE directly, and 75% indirectly from water vapor and clouds. There is no empirical evidence which says the opposite isn’t true, that co2 drives a mere 5% at the very most.
Meh.

milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Does it matter how small the total amount may be? Maybe, but maybe not, in a system perched on the edge of stability.
The climate system is very stable and has endured tremendous disasters in the past without run-aways. In addition, there is no evidence that the climate follows solar radiation more than at the 0.1C level, so it does seem to matter how small the variations are. “Size matters”.

BlackAdderthe4th …you may not realise this but your comments re ID being uncheckable is also true for ALL the theory of Evolution. Both are theories. None of what is written can be proved. Radiometric dating has certain assumptions. When you look at them and change the beginning assumed value or belief, the whole calculation becomes null and void. So its NOT science. What we have is evidence and all the various groups interpret this through their own filters. Generally to fit their own presuppositions.
Whoever said there are heaps of transitional fossils in the evolutionary tree please post them somewhere and tell us all. ALL evolution believing scientists will be very interested in your data! They will tell you there is no transition fossils and that’s what stumps them all the time.
Thanks Anthony for your time on WUWT.

Atheists crack me up. They can’t even wrap their pea brains around the simple fact that if they can exist so can God! And i thought I was dumb. Meanwhile, that we exist at all, is 99.9% of the argument for an afterlife! Can’t have one w/o the other… Also, that time is not constant leaves open the debate on how old anything is and by whose measuring stick. Anything is possible.

Leif
You said
Try ocean circulation and add in volcanos at various times. Just because we don’t know does not mean that it must be the sun or GHGs. “if the burglar is not Mr. A and not Mr. B, then who else could it be?” implying that it must be either A or B.
This is exactly what I was trying to draw out of you, I am not implying A or B, I was trying to draw out of you that there is a C-Z and that C-Z may in fact have something to do with the sun either directly or indirectly through a mechanism that is either currently thought to be minor, or perhaps completely unknown. I think it pays to always accept that there are possibilities that have not yet been explored or maybe we are wrong about, and thus the best statement that can ever be made in science is “To the best of our current knowledge, It’s not the sun”.
I certainly agree the possibilities or climatic coupling minor or not are an exciting prospect for scientific discovery, it certainly fascinates me.

Gary Hladik says:
July 19, 2013 at 8:17 pm
“”The testimony of Ms. Diana Furchtgott-Roth (Manhattan Institute) is also worth reading.””
Yes, very interesting. Cost based analysis, just like it should be. Doesn’t seem to be holding back either.

Just for the record, I am an optimist but also a realist. You can make the best performance of your life but in a company of cheats and liars with no serious audience attending you could just the same make your performance at the moon.

[snip – as warned upthread, argue the science, not the man – Anthony]

milodonharlani says:
July 20, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Still, at the height of the UV ratio v. IR ratio, the oceans are penetrated more deeply by twice as much shortwave radiation.
When I said that your numbers were not right in the first place, I was referring to your factor of two. The variation of UV that reaches the surface is not a factor of two, but only a couple of percent.
bobl says:
July 21, 2013 at 1:56 am
and thus the best statement that can ever be made in science is “To the best of our current knowledge,…”.
This is trivially true for every scientific statement, so is usually simply understood without having to be tediously repeated after every statement made,

R. de Haan

says:
July 21, 2013 at 5:16 am
…
If they don’t attend the hearings, they will not be influenced by the outcome of such a hearings.
Hell, they don’t even read the Bill’s they vote on….

The impression I got wasn’t that they were looking to understand or learn anything. My impression was that they were just they looking for ammunition to justify their policies. Of course I could be wrong, of course I hope I am wrong.

On a philosophical note: let us try PD for a change – playful design. Partially good designing, partially bad designing, and a lot of chance and chaos left to happen. Like in climate 😉