![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
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Konrad says:
November 7, 2013 at 6:54 pm
“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”.”
—-
Only at WUWT could 420 million years of climate records not count as empirical evidence. If you didn’t like that paper for some unspecified reason, how about this review paper of different studies over the last 65 million years? It yields similar results, of course, because CO2 is a greenhouse gas.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7426/full/nature11574.html
—-
Konrad says:
November 5, 2013 at 2:38 am
“… the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm”
—-
What a fascinating claim! As far as I can tell, the Sky Dragon Slayers argue that greenhouse gases are unrelated to surface temperature. Konrad seems to have outdone the Slayers; he argues that they actually cool the surface. Could he possibly be serious? Let’s find out:
http://archive.is/c1lj5
—-
Konrad says:
November 5, 2013 at 1:45 pm
“CO2 is not an insulator. It acts to cool our atmosphere by radiation.”
Konrad says:
November 5, 2013 at 3:45 pm
“I am saying that CO2 does not insulate.”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 3:19 am
“… So what would happen if our atmosphere contained no radiative gases? … Atmospheric temperatures would then rise higher…”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 3:37 am
“…the net effect of radiative gases in our moving atmosphere is cooling at all concentrations above 0.0ppm.”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 2:55 pm
“Coldest – Thin atmosphere with radiative gases.
Cold – Thin atmosphere without radiative gases.
Warm – Thick atmosphere with radiative gases.
Hottest – Thick atmosphere without radiative gases.”
Konrad says:
November 6, 2013 at 3:36 pm
“the net effect of radiative gases in our atmosphere is cooling.”
—-
Do you seriously believe that adding greenhouse gases cools a planet’s surface? If so, the average surface temperature of the Earth should be lower than that of the Moon because the Earth has lots of greenhouse gases and the Moon has none. Is that the case?
Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 10:26 am
I posted that link because it contradicts the uncited temperatures you gave on November 7, 2013 at 7:48 pm. In reality, there is no significant difference between the predicted black-body temperature of Mercury and its observed surface temperature.
———-
What does the black-body temperature of Mercury have to do with its ‘equilibrium’ temperature? Your word not mine. Do you even know what equilibrium temperature means?
I am more interested in the question you are busily avoiding. What is the Surface Temperature predicted by the AGW equation ∆Ts = λ ∆F for Venus and Earth?
Surely you can answer such a simple question or at least find the answer?
If you can’t answer the question, why should anyone take your bloviations as anything more than that?
Mr. Ball ==> Revkin has not left the New York Times, he writes a very influential environmental blog in the Opinion Section ==> http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
To list him with Bill McKibben, Ross Gelbspan and Seth Borenstein does him a disservice.
You obviously don’t read his work or you’d already know these two things.
Sharpen your game sir, especially if you are going to attack and criticize.
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:02 am
“What does the black-body temperature of Mercury have to do with its ‘equilibrium’ temperature?”
—-
As I told you, “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.”
This is done by treating the planet as a black-body with an estimated albedo and setting the radiation imbalance to zero. With no greenhouse effect, the outgoing long-wave IR is easy to calculate using the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, as the link I gave you explained.
—-
“Your word not mine. Do you even know what equilibrium temperature means?”
—-
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
In equilibrium there’s no change, so the radiation imbalance is zero. Energy in = energy out. That’s what this American Chemical Society link calculated, and they don’t show the discrepancy in Mercury’s temperature that you’re claiming exists:
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/energybalance/planetarytemperatures.html
Why should I believe uncited WUWT claims from “Genghis” over science from the American Chemical Society?
—-
“I am more interested in the question you are busily avoiding. I am more interested in the question you are busily avoiding. What is the Surface Temperature predicted by the AGW equation ∆Ts = λ ∆F for Venus and Earth? Surely you can answer such a simple question or at least find the answer? If you can’t answer the question, why should anyone take your bloviations as anything more than that?”
—-
If the Sun got brighter by 1 W/m^2 or CO2 increased enough to reduce outgoing long wave IR by 1W/m^2, either of those ∆F values would result in a long-term equilibrium surface temperature change ∆Ts. But without specifying a scenario, it doesn’t make sense to solve the equation.
When I explained that you need to specify a change in forcing (which you still haven’t), you concluded it was a nonsense equation. After I provided millions of years worth of climate records constraining Earth’s climate sensitivity, you claimed that it was “completely undefined”.
I wonder why my colleagues tell me not to waste my time at WUWT…
Hey look Dumb, all you’ve gotta do is explain how immersing a warm rock into a frigid fluid gas bath, warms the rock.
It’s not complicated. You keep failing.
I’m warm under blankets even though they’re cold. That’s because my body converts food to heat, and the blankets slow down heat loss through convection (which isn’t relevant because Earth can’t convect heat to space) and radiation (which is relevant). For instance, space blankets are silver to reduce radiative heat loss.
Dumb Scientist said,
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
——–
That isn’t equilibrium. What you are describing is more analogous to a steady state much like a steel rod that is heated at one end. The temperature of the rod will drop as the distance to the heat source increases. For the rod to be in equilibrium the temperature of the entire rod has to be the same, by definition. Also the S-B equation only applies to an equilibrium condition. Are you beginning to see the difficulties here?
Now lets look at Mercury. Luckily Mercury’s rotation is so slow and has so little atmosphere that it has time to equilibrate. Thus the computation for the equilibrium surface temperature facing the Sun is straightforward and easy. I believe even you can do the computation.
Now we go to Venus. Venus is tougher : ) The surface temperature of Venus is the same on the front and the back side so it is in something of a steady state and I have no idea what the effective radiating level is for Venus. So I just did a quick and dirty S-B calc vs the measured surface temperature, close enough for government work I suppose.
The Earth is even tougher, it isn’t in equilibrium or a steady state, so I just took the surface temp of the ocean which is in a steady state vs the quick and dirty S-B calc, again good enough for government work and much more accurate than the warmists work.
————
‘If the Sun got brighter by 1 W/m^2 or CO2 increased enough to reduce outgoing long wave IR by 1W/m^2, either of those ∆F values would result in a long-term equilibrium surface temperature change ∆Ts. But without specifying a scenario, it doesn’t make sense to solve the equation.’
—————
Ahh! I see that you fundamentally misunderstand the global warming theory (good for you). The forcing in the equation has nothing to do with increased watts from the Sun. Rather the increased watts are supposed to come from net back radiation. Do you see the problem now and why the equation is nonsensical?
How does it feel to finally see the light? Welcome to the good side : )
Forgetting which direction the largest energy stream is coming from isn’t forgivable.
Your willingly idiotic assumption your body heat – the earth’s internal heat plus absorbed sun –
is the high energy side of the equation – is obviously :
pure
evil
stupidity
in an attempt at deceit.
In the REAL one the sun is on the other side of the blanket,
blasting heat energy against the outside which would get in to heat the target behind the blanket.
When the cold blanket reflects incoming energy off the thermal sensor laid on your shirt,
the reading says less heat reached you.
Everybody knows,
Everybody knows YOU know,
Everybody knows you’re lying so you can just tell lies to people.
You really should lay off the deceit sauce and grow up.
Sure it’s cold outside but when you put the blanket between you and the hot sun, you contribute to cooling yourself, which is why, when someone’s out in the wild camping and the sun comes up, people repeatedly, do the same thing:
wrap the blanket around the parts not hit by the sun, while opening the front of the sleeping bag letting incoming sun, warm the face, front of the shirt, and arms.
Because if they keep the insulation between themselves, and the higher energy sun stream,
they don’t get warm as fast.
You’re a Magic Gas Billy and you’ve been asked simple questions.
Explain how immersing the warm rock into the frigid, fluid, gas bath which blocks 22% of the incoming energy, from reaching that surface through pure reflection,
made the sensor on the surface show surface energy rise after immersion into the frigid, fluid, gas bath.
What you probably need to do is go recruit the smartest Magic Gas Billy you can find who’ll even answer you after you show him what’s happening to you in this thread,
and have him
come answer these simple questions, for you.
We’ll get to cracking a book after you prove you can find someone who understands how grandma’s goose-down blankets work.
Hey Billy Bob: if you put a thermometer in your sleeping bag with you, and illuminate the outside of the bag, with sunlight energy,
the inside of the sleeping bag will get
(A) warmer
(B) cooler
than if you did not illuminate that sleeping bag with the sun.
In magic gas billy world,
the answer is (B)
====
In the real world of course the answer is (A)
====
If you then, keep your sleeping bag around you everywhere but the front, and you expose one side of your self to the sun, without the sun passing through the insulation, the temperature on your thermal sensor will show
(A) more
or
(B)less
energy reaching your surface?
In Magic Gas Billy world,
the answer, is B.
To magic gas people, shining a light on an object brings about a temperature for it.
Wrapping it in insulation till you block 22% of the incoming energy makes surface sensors
show more energy
now reaching it.
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:38 pm
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
——–
“That isn’t equilibrium.”
——-
Maybe one of us is using the word incorrectly. Please compare our definitions to this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_equilibrium
——
“I have no idea what the effective radiating level is for Venus. So I just did a quick and dirty S-B calc vs the measured surface temperature, close enough for government work I suppose.”
—-
In other words you have no references. I’ll stick with the American Chemical Society’s estimates.
By the way, here’s a graph which can help compare the effective radiating heights on Venus and Earth:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/~bagenal/3720/CLASS6/6EquilibriumTemp.html
That’s another page that discusses equilibrium; you might want to compare our definitions to it as well. Also notice that its estimates of equilibrium temperatures with/without the greenhouse effect are much closer to the American Chemical Society’s than to yours.
—-
“The forcing in the equation has nothing to do with increased watts from the Sun.”
—-
Wrong. It refers to any change in the radiative balance, regardless of the source. Note that each type of forcing here has an estimated “climate efficacy”:
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-2-20.html
“Efficacy (E) is defined as the ratio of the climate sensitivity parameter for a given forcing agent (λi) to the climate sensitivity parameter for CO2 changes, that is, Ei = λi / λCO2 (Joshi et al., 2003; Hansen and Nazarenko, 2004).”
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-8-5.html
So each type of forcing has its own lambda. Those graphs show that most lambdas are within a factor of 2 of CO2’s lambda. That’s why you have to specify a scenario, like doubling CO2 or making the Sun brighter or burning down the rainforests or melting the Arctic summer sea ice to darken the Earth, etc. The type of forcing would tell me which lambda to choose, and the size of the effect would tell me ∆F.
Do you see why I can’t answer your question without more information?
Steven R. Vada, I’ve obviously failed to communicate once again. I’m sorry for bothering you. Have a nice day.
Steven R. Vada says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:47 pm
In the REAL one the sun is on the other side of the blanket,
blasting heat energy against the outside which would get in to heat the target behind the blanket.
—————
You are forgetting one tiny, itsy bitsy, little thing Steven, the Earths atmosphere is largely transparent to high energy short wave radiation. Have you ever picked up a black steel tool that has been lying in the sunshine on a bright sunny day? The tool is way hotter than the air around it. Think about how that happened okay?
Your theory is that the sun heated up the atmosphere (blanket) first and then the atmosphere heated the tool. How can a warm atmosphere make a tool hot? It can’t.
Thank you Genghis.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:47 pm
Thank you Genghis.
————-
Just trying to target the message to the audience : )
Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:28 pm
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 1:38 pm
As I said yesterday, “The long-term equilibrium surface temperature is determined by the radiation balance: energy in (mostly sunlight) minus energy out (mostly reflected sunlight + net long-wave IR).”
——–
“That isn’t equilibrium.”
——-
Maybe one of us is using the word incorrectly. Please compare our definitions to this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_equilibrium
——————–
Your definition
“Equilibrium means no change with time.”
And when is the Earths surface or atmosphere in radiative equilibrium? In the middle of the night? at dawn? under the noonday Sun?
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:01 pm
“And when is the Earths surface or atmosphere in radiative equilibrium? In the middle of the night? at dawn? under the noonday Sun?”
The average over a solar day.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 2:28 pm
So each type of forcing has its own lambda.
Do you see why I can’t answer your question without more information?
———–
It never occurred to me that there could be different watts/m^2, learn something new everyday.
Let’s keep it simple then. Keep everything constant, like the equation implies, and compute Venus and Earth’s surface temperature with current CO2 levels and without CO2.
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:55 pm
“It never occurred to me that there could be different watts/m^2, learn something new everyday.”
—-
No, the lambdas (climate sensitivities) are different for each forcing, and they don’t have units of watts/m^2.
—-
“Let’s keep it simple then. Keep everything constant, like the equation implies, and compute Venus and Earth’s surface temperature with current CO2 levels and without CO2.”
—-
I just described scenarios where that equation would be useful, and they all apply to Earth as it exists today. I just showed you two independent estimates of Earth’s and Venus’s surface temperatures without greenhouse gases, and briefly described the more fundamental (and thus more general) physics necessary to provide those answers.
Dumb Scientist says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:15 pm
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 3:01 pm
“And when is the Earths surface or atmosphere in radiative equilibrium? In the middle of the night? at dawn? under the noonday Sun?”
The average over a solar day.
————–
How does computing an ‘average’ derive the radiative equilibrium? Hint, it doesn’t, why do you think the warmists play with anomalies, they avoid absolute temps like the plague.
I will go back to my metal rod analogy that is periodically heated on one end. What is the equilibrium temperature of the rod? How does the equilibrium temperature of the rod change if a portion of the rod is insulated?
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:42 am
—————————————-
Congratulations! 5/6, best effort yet, and these questions have been posted on many blogs. However, I will admit that many on the pro AGW side do know some of the answers, but they will do anything to avoid admitting it 😉
Question 6 is the one you need to look at. Most materials can have their cooling rate slowed by incident IR, even if emitted from a nearby cooler material. A materials absorption of IR photons can normally be calculated by the emissivity of the material itself. However this calculation breaks down for water that is free to evaporatively cool, and you and other readers can confirm this by building this simple experiment –
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
Use a starting temperature of around 40C for both water samples and record temperatures as the water cools over 30min. Now repeat the experiment but float a thin film of LDPE on the surface of each sample. LDPE microwave safe cling wrap (not the PVC version) is largely LWIR transparent and thin enough to allow the same rate of conductive cooling. All you have done is stopped evaporative cooling. Now you will find that the sample under the hotter LWIR source cools slower.
Water does absorb IR photons in direct relationship with it’s emissivity, however these are absorbed in the first few microns of the skin evaporation layer. This simply trips some liquid molecules into phase change slightly faster than they otherwise would, and there is no significant effect on the cooling rate of the water below.
Now have another look at those Trenberthian energy budget cartoons. They don’t show land and ocean, they show “surface” with its temperature response to incident IR calculated solely on emissivity. That’s an error of 71%!
This does not alone invalidate AGW, but it does show a very clear example of the nature of climate “science”. However the physics you got correct in the first five critical questions totally invalidate not just the AGW hypothesis, but the radiative green house hypothesis as well.
Kip Hansen says:
November 8, 2013 at 11:50 am
————————————–
You comment regards Revkin has some merit, however many have read the leaked email in which the “Team” talk about Andy behind his back cautioning “be careful what you give to Andy, he many not be as reliable as we thought”.
Utterly damning for the “Team”, but being classed a “useful idiot” is not much of a fig leaf for Revkin 😉
Genghis says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:22 pm
“How does computing an ‘average’ derive the radiative equilibrium? Hint, it doesn’t…”
—-
I, the American Chemical Society, and the University of Colorado have all tried to explain that the equilibrium temperature is calculated by setting the radiative imbalance to 0 (i.e. no change with time). If the average radiative balance over a solar day is positive, the planet warms. If negative, it cools. If zero, the planet is in equilibrium. This is just conservation of energy.
If you think all three of us are using the wrong terminology, maybe you should contact them.
—-
“why do you think the warmists play with anomalies, they avoid absolute temps like the plague.”
—-
Both the links I gave you showed temperatures in absolute Kelvin.
—-
“I will go back to my metal rod analogy that is periodically heated on one end. What is the equilibrium temperature of the rod? How does the equilibrium temperature of the rod change if a portion of the rod is insulated?”
—-
I wish you luck in your quest to understand the climate by thinking about a metal rod, but it’s clear that this conversation is pointless. Have a nice day.
Konrad says:
November 8, 2013 at 4:27 pm
Congratulations! 5/6, best effort yet, and these questions have been posted on many blogs. However, I will admit that many on the pro AGW side do know some of the answers, but they will do anything to avoid admitting it 😉
Question 6 is the one you need to look at. Most materials can have their cooling rate slowed by incident IR, even if emitted from a nearby cooler material.
———–
Do you understand that evaporation cools the water? And that cooler water evaporates slower.
Trick says:
November 8, 2013 at 6:05 am
——————————————
“Kitchen lab experiments”?! You just never get it right do you Trick 😉
The whole point of those experiments was they were carefully designed for other non-scientist readers to replicate! And you think a “non iso certified” smear is going to work?
Any “call to authority” argument regarding climate science is dead in the water. Scientists still have respect, but not climate scientists. No one cares any more that “97%” of astrologers say that astrology is accurate.
Trick I am still laughing, you tried the “engineers are not qualified” argument, then linked to a paper by Callender, a steam engineer and amateur scientist. Even more hilarious, the review comments on his work included considerable critical discussion of exactly the same fluid dynamics I have shown to invalidate AGW. Seriously Trick, you couldn’t make it up!
PS. Here’s a trick, Trick. Engineers, unlike political activists, have to doubt themselves, think of worst case scenarios and triple check their work. Engineers must trust themselves over the crowd. So when some foolish little activist tries the Alinsky technique of making someone doubt themselves due to social pressure it is instantly identified, the engineers eyes narrow, and a sudden gust of rage flips the pages on the calender to “weasel stomping day”. The rapidly growing grass roots sceptic movement did not arise in spite of your efforts, well described by Dr. Tim Ball, but because of them. 😉