![Spin[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/spin1.jpg?quality=83)
Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
“Half the work done in the world is to make things appear what they are not.” E.R. Beadle.
In a 2003 speech Michael Crichton, graduate of Harvard Medical School and author of State of fear, said,
I have been asked to talk about what I consider the most important challenge facing mankind, and I have a fundamental answer. The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance.
We are in virtual reality primarily as Public Relations (PR) and its methods are applied to every aspect of our lives. The term “spin doctors” is more appropriate because it is what they are really doing. A spin doctor is defined as: “a spokesperson employed to give a favorable interpretation of events to the media, esp. on behalf of a political party.” It doesn’t say truthful interpretation. There are lies of commission and omission and this definition bypasses the category of omission. It’s reasonable to argue that if you deliberately commit a sin of omission it encompasses both. A ”favorable interpretation” means there is deliberate premeditated deception. The person knows the truth, but selects information to create a false interpretation.
Despite all the discussion and reports about weather and climate the public are unaware of even the most fundamental facts. Recently, I gave a three hour presentation with question and answers. The audience was educated people who distrust government and were sympathetic to my information. I decided to illustrate my point and concern by asking a few basic questions. Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases, let alone explain the mechanics of the greenhouse theory. My goal was not to embarrass, but to illustrate how little they knew and how easily PR can deceive and misdirect.
Few people exemplify or describe the modern PR views better (worse?) than Jim Hoggan, President of a large Canadian PR company, Hoggan and Associates, in the Vancouver Sun December 30, 2005.
Want good coverage? Tell a good story. When your business is under siege, you can’t hope to control the situation without first controlling the story. The most effective form of communication is a compelling narrative that ties your interest to those of your audience. This is particularly critical when you’re caught in the spotlight; it doesn’t matter if you have the facts on your side if your detractors are framing the story. So, don’t just react. Take some time now to define your company story. Then you’ll be ready to build a response into that narrative should something go wrong.
Environment and climate suffer more from spinning than most areas and Hoggan, as Chair of the David Suzuki Foundation and owner of a large PR company, has a long connection with both. He is the proud founder and supporter of the web site DeSmogBlog as he explains in his book about the climate cover-up. The objective was to denigrate people by creating “favorable interpretations” to the following questions. “Were these climate skeptics qualified? Were they doing any research in the climate change field? Were they accepting money, directly or indirectly, from the fossil fuel industry?” This wasn’t about answering the questions skeptics were asking about the science. Richard Littlemore, Hoggan’s co-author and senior writer for DeSmogBlog, revealed what was going on in a December 2007 email to Michael Mann.
Hi Michael [Mann],
I’m a DeSmogBlog writer [Richard LIttlemore] (sic) (I got your email from Kevin Grandia) and I am trying to fend off the latest announcement that global warming has not actually occurred in the 20th century.
It looks to me like Gerd Burger is trying to deny climate change by “smoothing,” “correcting” or otherwise rounding off the temperatures that we know for a flat fact have been recorded since the 1970s, but I am out of my depth (as I am sure you have noticed: we’re all about PR here, not much about science) so I wonder if you guys have done anything or are going to do anything with Burger’s intervention in Science. (Emphasis added)
The hypocrisy is profound because nobody ever questioned Al Gore’s qualifications or financial, career or political rewards. No promoters of global warming, such as Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan, Seth Borenstein, Andrew Revkin or most members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are challenged. Borenstein exposed his bias in a leaked CRU email from July 23, 2009 to the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) gang. He wrote, “Kevin (Trenberth), Gavin (Schmidt), Mike (Mann), It’s Seth again. Attached is a paper in JGR today that Marc Morano is hyping wildly. It’s in a legit journal. Watchya think?” A journalist talking to scientists is legitimate, but like the leaked emails, tone and subjectivity are telling. “Again” means there was previous communication. At least Revkin left the New York Times apparently because of such exposure.
The problem began the moment environmentalism and climate were exploited for political agendas and people asked questions. If you can’t answer the questions you either admit that or initiate personal attacks. Spin-doctors use two basic types.
• The individual is named and a slur applied. These are usually false or at best taken out of context. This includes guilt by association and taking payment from an agency or belonging to a group the slanderer considers inappropriate. It is an ad hominem.
• Individuals are marginalized by putting them in a group with a term created that marginalizes by implying they are at best outside any norm. For example, despite obvious limitations of data availability anyone who asks about President Obama’s biography is called a “Birther”. Anyone who is troubled by incomplete, unclear, or illogical explanations for events is called a “Conspiracy theorist”. There is no word or phrase for falsifying information about a group. A collective ad hominem is a contradiction. Guilt by association has some application, but a term like “Birther” has a different function. It is a collective designed to discredit anyone assigned. There can be no general name because the objective is to identify the group with a specific issue. This is necessary as part of the goal of marginalizing or isolating.
Early indicators of the politicizing of climate included the claim of a consensus. The word applies in politics not science Calling people who questioned the science “skeptics” was greater evidence. “Skeptic” is negative for the public and defined as “A person inclined to question or doubt all accepted opinions.” Most think it is the definition for a cynic, “A person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons.” The problem is most people don’t know that scientists must be skeptics.
The epithet “global warming skeptic” was applied to me years ago and was used in questions from the media. When I explained I accepted global warming the media was surprised. They didn’t understand when I explained my skepticism was about the cause – the claim it was due to human CO2. Some labeled me a contrarian, but it wasn’t effective because few know what it means.
When the basic assumption of the IPCC hypothesis that increased CO2 causes increased temperature stopped occurring after 1998, the attackers changed the subject and the pejorative. They raised the smearing level because they were losing the battle for the public mind. Now it became climate change and questioners deniers with the deliberate association with “holocaust deniers”.
Ironically, like all so-labeled, I am anything but a denier. My 40-year career involved teaching people how much climate changes naturally over time. The IPCC were deliberately constrained by their terms of reference to human causes and don’t consider natural changes. Rather they provide a “favorable interpretation” for their political objective to blame human CO2. It’s an interpretation a required spin to counter what Huxley called ugly facts.
Every time a problem appeared public relations people appeared and strategized a defense, usually to divert from the problem. When the emails were leaked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) a public relations person was engaged. After the November 2009 leak the University of East Anglia hired Neil Wallis of Outside Organization to handle the fall out. University spokesperson Trevor Davies said it was a “reputation management” problem, which he said they don’t handle well. Apparently they didn’t consider telling the truth. The leaked emails triggered a shock wave that required a top political spin-doctor. Wallis, a former editor at the News of The World, was later arrested in connection with the phone hacking scandals that led to the resignation of London Metropolitan Police Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, as well as Andy Coulson, Prime Minister Cameron’s press secretary.
Michael Mann’s 2004 email to CRU Director Phil Jones was evidence of the PR battle. Confronted by challenging questions they apparently developed a defensive mentality.
“I’ve personally stopped responding to these, they’re going to get a few of these op-ed pieces out here and there, but the important thing is to make sure they’re loosing (sic) the PR battle. That’s what the site is about. By the way, Gavin did come up w/ the name!”
The “site” is the web site Realclimate, named by Gavin (Schmidt). But science doesn’t need PR, so why do climate scientists use it? The apparent answer is they are not telling the truth and worse, know it.
I opened with a quote from Michael Crichton so it is fitting to end with his closing remarks.
Because in the end, science offers us the only way out of politics. And if we allow science to become politicized, then we are lost. We will enter the Internet version of the dark ages, an era of shifting fears and wild prejudices, transmitted to people who don’t know any better. That’s not a good future for the human race. That’s our past. So it’s time to abandon the religion of environmentalism, and return to the science of environmentalism, and base our public policy decisions firmly on that.
The problem and challenge is the population generally divides into 80 percent who struggle with science and 20 percent who are comfortable. I taught a science credit for arts students for 25 years so know the challenges. This makes resolving Crichton’s challenge of “distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”, even more difficult. It is almost impossible when professional spin-doctors are deliberately diverting, misleading and creating confusion.
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.” – Thomas H. Huxley
“A danger sign of the lapse from true skepticism in to dogmatism is an inability to respect those who disagree” – Dr. Leonard George.
“It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.” –Thomas Jefferson
Richard Doll showed that smoking is statistically linked to lung cancer.
http://www.bmj.com/content/328/7455/1519
The mechanism is the increased work done by the antibodies in the bloodstream and the build-up of colloidal mucus/dust in the lungs causing abnormal growth.
Now second-hand smoke is less clear. But total refusal to engage with the observations about first-hand smoke obstructs your debating ability.
Truly you’ve lost your mind Dolls study was atypical statistical analysis not toxicology and it never showed end point connections to disease outcomes………….Or do you have that part as Nobody else seems to have it! LMAO
Dumb scientist:
I’ll give you a hint. As the satellite probe decended into the Venus atmosphere, what was the temperatre when the pressure was equal to earths ground pressure? There is a lot of discussion of this fact in the reference I gave you.
The London Hospitals study generated a storm of controversy. If Richard Doll and George Godber were convinced by it, others were not. Among these was Sir Ronald Fisher, widely regarded as the father of statistics, who was able to obtain Doll and Hill’s data, and to show that smokers who inhaled tobacco smoke were less likely to get lung cancer than those who did not inhale. Fisher eventually wrote a short book on The Cancer Controversy.
There is another approach that can be taken to studies of this sort. If 65% of some population eats apple pie every day, and the rest never touch the stuff, then 65% of hospital patients from this population can be expected to be apple pie eaters, if eating apple pie neither increases nor decreases the risk of falling ill with any disease. If more than 65% of the patients are apple pie addicts, then eating apple pie becomes a risk factor. And if less than 65%, eating apple pie offers protection.
So, in the same way, we ought to ask of the London Hospitals study what fraction of its overall sample population were smokers, for this would give the fraction of lung cancer patients that might be expected to be smokers, if smoking carried no risk.
And this figure is available in Table 4 of the study. There were 2 non-smokers and 647 smokers in the lung cancer study group. And there were 27 non-smokers and 622 smokers in the non-lung-cancer control group. So that, in the study as a whole, 97.7% of patients were smokers. This being so, we would expect that 97.7% of lung cancer patients would also be smokers, if smoking was unconnected to lung cancer. Instead we find that 99.7% of them were smokers. Is that particularly alarming? All we have discovered is that in a population in which nearly everybody smoked, nearly everybody with lung cancer also smoked: which is precisely what would be expected. Just as if nearly all the patients in the London Hospitals study were Londoners, it would be expected that nearly all the lung cancer patients would be Londoners as well.
Looked at this way, the London Hospitals study tells us nothing. If anything, it might even be said to give smoking a clean bill of health.
http://cfrankdavis.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/the-london-hospitals-study/
As a smoker, this will be my only comment on this.
If you don’t smoke and really want to “go green”, don’t start. If you do smoke and would like more “green”, quit. (Someday I’ll get back to working on that.)
When the tobacco tax revenue drops and they start to target dihydrogen monoxide for “extra” taxes, maybe people people will wake up to the fact that targeted taxes are about control, not revenue.
I just wanted to respond to Jim’s claim that “propagandists portray CAGW skeptics as people who don’t believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so they can compare them to flat-earthers.”
Strangely, I now seem to be engaging with people who don’t believe CO2 is a greenhouse gas. But I can’t be sure because I’m not telepathic, so I’ve repeatedly asked you a yes/no/dunno question: are you claiming that Venus would have the same surface temperature if its atmosphere were pure nitrogen, which isn’t a greenhouse gas?
Ed_B says:
November 7, 2013 at 2:35 pm
“I’ll give you a hint. As the satellite probe decended into the Venus atmosphere, what was the temperatre when the pressure was equal to earths ground pressure? There is a lot of discussion of this fact in the reference I gave you.”
Again, you seem to be implying that the surface temperature of Venus is due to pressure alone: no greenhouse effect. If so, one implication would be that swapping the current largely CO2 atmosphere of Venus for an otherwise identical pure nitrogen one wouldn’t change the equilibrium surface temperature of Venus. But I don’t know if this is what you mean. Could you please answer my yes/no/dunno question so I can better understand your position? Thanks in advance.
Anyone not convinced that smoking causes lung cancer, have a look at this study
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10926586
the full text is freely accessible.
Is Gavin working full time, or nearly, on RC? If so, what’s he doing at GISS? Congress should ask.
What I think would be most effective is a document responding with a counterpoint to SkS’s list of rebuttals to contrarian claims. SkS has been very influential with its rebuttals, so it needs to be addressed directly.
Only about 6-9% of life long smokers if ever get LC! Not 100% not even 50% not even 10% ever get LC…………………EXPLAIN THAT ONE!
Average age of LC onset is in the 80 year old bracket! Making it an old age disease not a smoker disease!
Danish doctor Knud ( aka Canute?) Wilson. I’ve not attempted to correct the translation, as it’s fairly readable.
Canute Wilson became famous in Denmark in 1984 when he was on TV after having revealed a lung cancer epidemic in the small fishing Strandby at Frederikshavn with approx. thousand inhabitants. Here spread the local asphalt plant through 22 years invisible cancer-causing dust particles into the air as the wind blew cross shopping streets in the city, 600 meters east of the factory.
Wilson is today over 80 years and retired, but in 1960 he became the city’s general practitioner. In 1964 he asked the authorities shut down the factory because he observed among his patients more lung cancer cases “should not occur.” He was convinced that it was stone dust from the asphalt plant. But the Health Protection Agency would not recommend the closure, the factory went on for 11 years while the disease spread like a regular epidemic, which until today has killed 30 people in the small town life.
The Health Authority’s refusal did Canute Wilson himself a very thorough study of the epidemic, which he has described in two books,“Mågecanceren”. As early as the first 9 cases of disease had appeared, there was no longer any doubt about the cause and the first part of his study was published in the journal The Lancet.
But over the years unfolded clinical picture is completely out and revealed a consistent pattern: Lung Cancer hit primarily the residents of Strandby, who had stayed in town, while the factory was driving during working hours. It was often housewives and shopkeepers in the small town. Fishermen, however, which accounted for 90% of men in town, was at sea during the day while the plant was running, and they were completely free of the disease.
“And among the fishermen, there were many heavy smokers. The smoke actually all together,“says Knud Wilson.“While none of the housewives, who was suffering from lung cancer have never smoked a cigarette.”
This fact made it difficult for Canute Wilson to penetrate with his knowledge to the prevailing medical opinion in the capital – the one which was founded in 1950 by Richard Doll: That it is smoking, which causes up to 90% of all lung cancer.
Strandby affair showed that this can not be true – the industrialization and the accompanying air pollution may play a much larger role. Especially in cities, says Knud Wilson.
Although the factory closed in 1975, there are still new cases of lung cancer in Strandby, because dust particles get, according to Wilson lying in the lungs for many decades.“The last death occurred in 2010 – ie 35 years after the factory’s closure. We have just buried a homemaker lady mid 60s, who was born in Strandby, and who lived here in all the years of the factory,“he says.
“There is no doubt that it is asfaltbabrikken, which cause lung cancer in this town. It is also recognized by the researchers who have gone through my study, for it is a clear clinical picture: The first cases of lung cancer came in 1968 – it was 15 years after plant start – and we’ve probably not seen the last event yet. One must remember that before 1968 there was no cancer in Strandby.“
Knud Wilson died last month. I had never heard of either him or Strandby. I wonder why?
“But Cancer Society hiding the truth about cancer. They run propaganda against the people’s lifestyle by delude them into thinking that cancer is their own fault. And so they earn even big money on it and retain most of the money itself. I’ve been promoting this criticism several times over the years and every time I get many comments from private physicians who agree with me, but who can not – or dare not – tell the meaning of the mountain opposite.“
The first Doll and Hill study – the London Hospitals study – apparently included questions about asphalt, because at the time it was suspected to be a cause of cancer. But after collecting the data, they never published it. They only published the part about smoking. So nobody has any idea whether they found any link between asphalt and lung cancer. They don’t even seem to have bothered to look. Or perhaps they decided to bury it.
It’s like a bunch of detectives producing all the evidence showing that their prime suspect was the guilty man, but none of the evidence exculpating the other suspects. It stinks
The dramatic growth of lung cancer in the 1920s and 1930s was not at first attributed to smoking: the influenza pandemic of 1919 was sometimes blamed, as were automobile exhaust, dust from newly tarred roads, diverse occupational exposures (including tar and diverse polycyclic hydrocarbons), increasing exposure to X rays, exposure to chemical warfare agents during the First World War,..”
“Automobility was growing even faster than lung cancer rates, which led some to suggest that engine exhausts might be the decisive factor.
Roads were being paved at an accelerating pace: Günther Lehmann of Dortmund pointed out in 1934 that German road-tar production had increased from 3,000 tons in 1924 to 120,000 tons only five years later, a fortyfold increase.”
http://toxicology.usu.edu/endnote/Proctor-Naz…
“If physicians came to agee that smoking was such a universal and important cause of lung cancer, even in their work-patients, then liability and compensation suits by workers in the industries that did cause lung cancer in workers, such as coke, chromate, or asbestos production stood in dire jeopardy.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1…
Coke Oven Emissions
“Known to be a human carcinogen
First Listed in the Second Annual Report on Carcinogens (1981)Carcinogenicity
Coke oven emissions are known to be human carcinogens based on sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity in humans that indicates a causal relationship between exposure and cancer in humans.
Prior to 1950, there were numerous case reports that linked employment in coke production with cancers of the skin, bladder, and respiratory tract. Since then, several cohort studies conducted in the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Sweden have reported an increased risk of lung cancer in humans exposed to coke oven emissions.
Smoking was accounted for in some of these studies and was not found to be a significant confounding factor.”
A large cohort study of 59,000 steelworkers reported that lung cancer risk increased with increasing duration of exposure to coke-oven fumes or intensity of exposure. Several studies
of coke plant workers have reported an increased risk for kidney cancer.
An excess of cancer at other sites (prostate, large intestine, and pancreas) was reported in single studies (IARC 1984, 1987).
Coke oven emission samples applied weekly to the skin of mice for up to 52 weeks caused malignant skin tumors. These samples also showed tumor-initiating activity in mice. Several inhalation studies, using coal tar aerosols generated by samples collected from coke ovens, caused both benign and malignant lung tumors in rats and mice, and skin tumors in female mice.
Chemical analyses of coke oven emissions revealed the presence of numerous known carcinogens and potentially carcinogenic chemicals, including several polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), nitrosamines, coal tar,arsenic compounds, and benzene. In addition to these carcinogens, coke oven emissions contain several agents known to enhance the effect of chemical carcinogens, especially on the respiratory tract.
Exposure
The primary routes of potential human exposure to coke oven emissions are inhalation and dermal contact. Occupational exposure may occur during the production of coke from coal or while using coke to extract metals from their ores, to synthesize calcium carbide, or to manufacture graphite and electrodes.
Workers at coking plants and coal tar production plants, as well as the residents surrounding these plants, have a high risk of possible exposure to coke oven emissions.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20110608220535/htt…
Angel H Roffo: the forgotten father of experimental tobacco carcinogenesis
Robert N Proctor
“Reasoning by analogy from the production of cancer using coal tars, he argued that the carcinogens in tobacco smoke must be the complex, tarry, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, rather than the (chemically simpler) inorganic constituents or the alkaloid nicotine.”
http://www.scielosp.org/scielo.php…
The Urban Distribution of Lung Cancer Mortality in England and Wales 1980-1983
“Lung cancer area mortality rates for the period 1980-1983 in England and Wales followed the pattern observed for previous years, with high rates concentrated in urban districts and low rates in remote rural districts”
http://usj.sagepub.com/content/25/6/497.short
[snip – getting way off topic here – mod]
Think Bloombergs new 21 age restriction for buying smokes and how this could easily have been in NYC!
Dumb Scientist, Ed B,
You two are talking past each other, and both of you are wrong, or at least only partially correct. Pressure doesn’t directly determine temperature and the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight.
Comparing Venus’s surface temperatures to the Earth’s surface temperature is a lot like comparing Jupiter’s surface temperature to Venus’s surface temperature, meaningless.
harleyrider …
Cancer by and large is, as you say, an old age disease. However, old age is not the only factor. From your comments, I’m not quite sure whether or not you looked at the recommended paper. Note that Figure 3 gives the cumulative risk; you would have to take the first derivative to find the curve for the age of onset. Old age would still come out ahead, but middle age would be quite conspicuous as well. That matches my (limited) clinical experience.
Cancer arises from DNA mutations, and mutagenesis is an inherently stochastic process. Take for example the Ames test, a simple bacterial test to evaluate the mutagenic potential of chemicals – a certain dosage of the compound in question is applied to a large number of a bacteria, and mutations are induced in a small fraction of these. Nevertheless, we can evaluate the mutagenic potential of compounds based on those fractions. The induction of cancer typically requires not just one, but multiple mutations, and therefore tends to take considerable time.
The mutagenic compounds in tobacco smoke – or really any kind of smoke, for that matter, gram for gram marijuana isn’t much different – are well known, as are the biochemical mechanisms that lead to their activation. For a brief explanation, see for example
http://watcut.uwaterloo.ca/webnotes/Pharmacology/heveanotes023.html#sec128
You really have no leg to stand on in this argument.
I totally agree. Since the reduction of smoking started in earnest the incidence of lung cancer has been dropping at an increasing rate. That really is good enough for me and I hate the nanny state.
With regard to smoke, if you go down the vapouriser road you can escape that issue completely. Whether you use tobacco or other combustibles you can access your active ingredients without all of the other bad stuff. Nicotine on its own, in sensible quantities, seems to have no adverse effects. That is what is driving the rapid growth in e-cigarettes. Also the marijuana cognoscenti are shifting away from joints and bongs and using vapourisers.
Not starting at all is the best route but if you need your hit then vaping is a much less damaging way to get it. Also it doesn’t pollute your and others environment with smell, ash and residue.
I have never smoked in my life. My did, a lot, and he died of lung cancer when I was twelve so I had a powerful, if anecdotal, incentive not to bother.
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 4:36 pm
“… Pressure doesn’t directly determine temperature and the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight.”
Indeed, pressure doesn’t directly determine the long-term equilibrium surface temperature; the radiative balance does. I don’t see the relevance of your second point.
“Comparing Venus’s surface temperatures to the Earth’s surface temperature is a lot like comparing Jupiter’s surface temperature to Venus’s surface temperature, meaningless.”
That’s why I compared Venus to Mercury’ which is closer to the Sun and darker than Venus. Again, Venus is hotter than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:11 pm
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 4:36 pm
“… Pressure doesn’t directly determine temperature and the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight.”
Indeed, pressure doesn’t directly determine the long-term equilibrium surface temperature; the radiative balance does. I don’t see the relevance of your second point.
——————-
I didn’t think you did. The fact that sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus is evidence that Venus’s surface temperature is not from the GHG effect. Do you fundamentally misunderstand the greenhouse effect?
——————-
“Comparing Venus’s surface temperatures to the Earth’s surface temperature is a lot like comparing Jupiter’s surface temperature to Venus’s surface temperature, meaningless.”
That’s why I compared Venus to Mercury’ which is closer to the Sun and darker than Venus. Again, Venus is hotter than Mercury because of the greenhouse effect.
—————————
Mercury has the least atmosphere of any of the planets. Why aren’t you comparing Venus to Jupiter? Jupiter’s surface temperature is due to the greenhouse effect too, just as much as Venus’s is anyway.
Like I said. You are wrong.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:11 pm
—————————————–
Well, if you’ve be trying to apply SB equations to moving planetary atmospheres with a pressure gradient and a diurnal heating cycle, then you really would be a dumb scientist. (or science “communicator” as the case may be). However I would be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt if you could provide clear and direct Yes or No answers to the following six simple questions –
1. Do radiative gases such as H2O and CO2 both absorb and emit IR radiation? Yes or No?
2. Are Radiative gases critical to strong vertical tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
3. Does altering the quantity of radiative gases in the atmosphere alter the speed of tropospheric convective circulation? Yes or No?
4. Is convective circulation including the transport of water vapour the primary mechanism for transporting energy from the surface and lower atmosphere to the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
5. Are radiative gases the primary mechanism for energy loss to space from the upper atmosphere? Yes or No?
6. Does down welling LWIR emitted from the atmosphere significantly effect the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool? Yes or No.
In 1896 Arrhenius got most of these wrong. However this is 2013 so I’m sure you can do better 😉
Genghis says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:38 pm
“The fact that sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus is evidence that Venus’s surface temperature is not from the GHG effect. Do you fundamentally misunderstand the greenhouse effect?”
First you said “the surface of Venus doesn’t receive any direct sunlight” which is technically true because every day on Venus is overcast. It’s all indirect sunlight. But now you’re saying “sunlight doesn’t warm the surface of Venus” which is just wrong. Remember that Venera 9 landed on the surface of Venus and found “surface light levels comparable to those at Earth mid-latitudes on a cloudy summer day.” Check out the panorama:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venera_9
“Mercury has the least atmosphere of any of the planets. Why aren’t you comparing Venus to Jupiter? Jupiter’s surface temperature is due to the greenhouse effect too, just as much as Venus’s is anyway.”
A planet with no atmosphere is a simple case where the effective radiating level is at the surface, so the equilibrium surface temperature can be determined using the planet’s albedo and distance from the Sun. The greenhouse effect modifies this simple case, which is why Venus is hotter than Mercury.
Jupiter doesn’t have a clearly defined surface, and generates substantial internal heat in ways that tiny rocks like Venus and Mercury simply can’t.
Ed_B 2:35pm: “As the satellite probe decended into the Venus atmosphere, what was the temperatre when the pressure was equal to earths ground pressure?”
For planetary atm., P=density*R*T. If P is equal and density at that altitude is adjusted from earth’s for Venus orbit insolation & albedo, the temperature would then come out to be the same as earth. Pretty easy to suspect this, but had to be proved. The in situ probes matched the satellite radio occultation experiments measuring Venus density v. altitude very closely, differing a little due local Venus weather. Venus GHE is already in its satellite measured density numbers.
******
Konrad 5:43pm: Have you ever gotten around to answering your own questions? Do the work yourself.
Konrad says:
November 7, 2013 at 5:43 pm
“Well, if you’ve be trying to apply SB equations to moving planetary atmospheres with a pressure gradient and a diurnal heating cycle, then you really would be a dumb scientist. (or science “communicator” as the case may be). However I would be willing to extend the benefit of the doubt if you could provide clear and direct Yes or No answers to the following six simple questions”
Those questions are familiar:
http://archive.is/tvliV
It’s interesting that there are so many people at WUWT trying to disprove the fact that adding CO2 to the atmosphere produces a long-term net warming of the surface. But after reading through your previous claims I doubt anything I say will matter, so I’ll have to regretfully pass on your offer.
For others, please note that for the past 420 million years, CO2 has acted as a greenhouse gas which warmed the long-term climate by 1.5C to 6.2C per doubling of CO2:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7135/full/nature05699.html
@harleyrider1978
For the record, I find find your arguments pointless. Further, they have nothing to do with the issue at hand in this thread. Moderators should have shut you down long ago.
Also for the record, both of my parents were pack a day smokers, both died of smoking related related illnesses, and I suffered not only the loss of my parents at an early age, but the effects of that secondhand smoke made me prone to numerous ear infections as a child, which turned into a severe hearing loss due to treatment by tetracycline for those infections.
The hearing loss affected me greatly. If affected my ability to attend school, it affected my social status, it affected my self esteem, and it affected my choice of jobs. Fortunately, in TV weather, I didn’t have to hear much, only speak.
So it is with great restraint that I say to you that your garbage smoking arguments aren’t welcome here. (what I really want to say to you would violate my own blog policy)
Go ahead, smoke yourself to death, that’s your right. But do it elsewhere where I don’t have to be reminded of the pain your preferred disgusting filthy habit has caused me.
See you in the troll bin.
Trick says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:25 pm
“Have you ever gotten around to answering your own questions? Do the work yourself.”
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But of course I know the answers as I have done the empirical experiments myself. Well before I asked you.
Remember when you tried to claim that removing energy from a fluid column played no part in convective circulation? The Internet does 😉
“…..Nobody could tell me the difference between weather and climate. Nobody could name the three major so-called greenhouse gases, let alone explain the mechanics of the greenhouse theory. ….”
Sounds like the commentators on WUWT.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:27 pm
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So the summary of your response is that you have found an excuse to avoid answering six simple science questions and instead reasserted your previous claims about CO2 (which are wholly unsupported by empirical evidence) and claim they are “fact”.
This is what could be called the “politicians” response, certainly not a scientific response. It’s something a propagandist like David Appell may stoop to, but no credible scientist would.
Now, about that “benefit of the doubt” thing… 😉