With much fanfare from the faithful (a grand total of 15 comments as of this writing), SkepticalScience recently released their 4-Hiroshima-Bombs-per-second widget. Their claimed intent is to “raise the awareness of global warming”.
Nonsense.
Their intent is to scare people—children and adults—into believing that something must be done about global warming. It’s nothing but propaganda—plain and simple. It’s based on estimates of the radiative imbalance caused by human-induced global warming.
Without thought—nothing new there—SkepticalScience has now opened the door for people to illustrate (1) the diminutive size of the radiative imbalance in relation to the amount of sunlight and infrared radiation that warms the planet every day, and (2) the massive uncertainties behind the imbalance.
So that’s the foundation for the first of a series of YouTube videos titled “Comments on Human-Induced Global Warming”. Episode 1 is “The Hiroshima Bomb Metric”.
SkepticalScience has used spambots in the past. I wonder whether they’ll use them again for this offensive widget. So, if you see links to that widget around the blogosphere, please feel free to leave a link to this video:
As you’ll note, the video is about 6 minutes long. My goal is to limit the lengths of all of the videos in this series to 5 to 6 minutes.
The paper referenced in the video is Stephens et al. (2012) An update on Earth’s energy balance in light of the latest global observations.
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4 Hiroshima bombs a second? I can do a better scare figure than that!
I Hiroshima bomb is about 100 million hand grenades. I hope I’ve got the decimal point right….
So that’s 1 hand grenade per 17.5 people per second. Call it 15…
So in quarter of a minute, enough extra radiation falls to give everybody in the world their own hand grenade!!! Shades of 10:10….
EXCELLENT video Mr. Tisdale. I love the real kicker at the end – where the uncertainty is something like 30 times higher that the ‘imbalance’.
ferdberple says:
November 27, 2013 at 6:52 am
The energy imbalance is 0.6w/m^2 +- 17w/m^2. Give the size of the error bars, it is more likely the imbalance is 0.0w/m^2. Occam would certainly agree.
= = =
Fredberple is eloquent, but may I add, for any passing cultists choosing to browse this: –
The error bars are so great, you don’t know your carp from your elbow.
Sensu strictu definition of carp, of course.
Auto
Pamela Gray says:
November 27, 2013 at 9:02 am
===
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I long for the return of Latin.
Ummmmmmmmmm . . . . . .
World (=English) works.
No cases. I gather Italian has 38 cases. Per my mate Francesco from near Naples.
No gender. German has Male. Female and Neuter [and – um – several cases].
World lives. You give a word [new or old] a meaning – and if it works – Voila! Apps, say. Or selfie.
Or it dies, except locally – ‘hand-phone’, say, in Singapore . . . . . . . .
I guess you’re my sort of age – I don’t keep up with the language, much – let alone all the technology.
But – hey, it’s there.
Let’s try and use it with our goitred fingers and toes.
Auto
Pamela Gray says:
November 27, 2013 at 9:04 am
Bob, how did they ever cart around that calculator?
===============================================================
I made them do math with pencil and paper before they could go high tech. Big strong kids.
Turns out that their math classes were built around using a TI85 and I was punishing my eldest by making her actually learn math and not just punch numbers. I finally surrendered to the education system.
I was in waxy white solids (carbon chemistry) grad school cramming boxes of IBM cards for x-ray crystallography into an IBM 360 and doing preliminary calc’s by hand and slipstick before a pocket calculator came out. I bought my kids a TI99 to play with and we actually had a mechanical adding machine.
_Jim on November 27, 2013 at 10:11 am
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Thank you for the good insight and info.
So, the net of what you are telling me is that of all that man made radiant energy produced, it does not add energy or heat into the Earths systems in any measurable way?
Upcountrywater wrote how thankful his/she was to George Washington for Thanksgiving. Actually it was inspired by the Pilgrims in the Plymouth colony with their bountiful harvest celebrating with American Indian neighbours. There is much to thank George Washington for though. Being an outstanding military commander and the first president of The United States. Still Happy Thanksgiving to you all in The States. As for those of us in Australia, its just another day at The Office.
Back on topic. 0.6w/m^2 with an error of +- 17w/m^2… Energy Imbalance? I don’t think it means what you think it means.
I love it that the only value given with any decimal places is the last one on the right, and its that one value , with its large error value , that gives the TINY radiative imbalance +/- 17 .. roflmao !!
Oh, and what happened with convection ?
Are these guys still in kindergarten ???
Sheer desperation…when cornered come up with something else to play for time.
Sisi says: “What about the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere? In the same article, see the top part of the figure that you use? What was that you said about ‘Failing to Tell Their Faithful Followers’?”
Sisi, did you bother to read and understand the paper I referenced and linked? In the abstract, Stephens et al (2012) write:
“This lack of precise knowledge of surface energy fluxes profoundly affects our ability to understand how Earth’s climate responds to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases.”
Have a nice day.
dccowboy says: “Dr Tisdale, Happy early Thanksgiving to you as well.”
Thanks.
A quick correction: There’s no Dr in front of my last name…just Bob.
Regards
Looking at it from a different perspective. It would take about 120 years for that 0.6 wats/m^2 to evaporate 1mm of water (without raising the temperature). No wonder it is lost in the error in calculating a global energy balance.
@Pamela Gray says:
November 27, 2013 at 7:28 am
Et tu?!
Wasn’t it fun to tell people, “I’ve got to go play with my boss’ Wang,” and tell folks, “Those people in there are COBOLing.’ The reactions I got!
I even attended a lecture by Admiral Grace Hopper, codeveloper of COBOL, and remember my first $149.95 electronic calculator with amazingly five whole functions: +, -, *, /, and square root. Wow! I sometimes used it instead of my cylindrical sliderule accurate to five, count em five, decimal places.
Bob,
Do you realise that the radiative imbalance of the earth system has nothing to do with an energy imbalance at the surface? You should compare the Hiroshima Bomb Metric with the energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. The paper you use says this is 0.6 W/m^2 +/- 0.4. Fact.
You are making a nonsense comparison. Your faithful followers here seem to uncritically accept your failings to tell the whole story.
Nice day to you as well!
Hmm. If the radiative imbalance is equal to 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs (HABs) every second, then according to Bob’s figures above the total incoming radiation at the surface is equal to 36.6 HABs every second. That means every day the earth is bombarded with the equivalent of 3.1 Million (3.141E6) HABs (standard day: 86400 seconds). This is over 1.1 Billion (1.147E9) HABs per year! If we pick 1998 as the epochal year when we should have heeded the call of James Hansen and company to take urgent action against global warming, then the entire planet has absorbed a total equivalent of over 19.5 billion HABs in those 17 years.
Numbers are wonderful. If you pick the right scale you can easily produce big, scary ones.
Maybe we should talk about the accumulating US federal debt in terms of Manhattan Projects? Maybe even make and App/Widget for it?
sisi: “The paper you use says this is 0.6 W/m^2 +/- 0.4. Fact.”
Oh, cool. So the 0.2 to 1.0 W/m^2 is right within the solar variation of 1.3W/m^2. And since you’re stating that surface radiation imbalances have nothing to do with global warming then… Your statement is that global warming is false. Right?
Does a “Hiroshima bomb a second” actually mean anything at all to 99.9% of the citizenery?
Today, close to 70 years after the actual event it is just another abstract metrics with no relationship to reality or carries any meaning at all for most people at all. It is far more likely to leave them quite cold and dismissive with little more than a shrug of the shoulders as just some more over the top advertising and propaganda as they move onto something more meaningful to their own lives.
Most are now immune to this constant barrage from every direction of this unrealistic, over the top advertising which is all that the SkS catastrophic climate meme repeated ad infinitum now means to most people. ie; They no longer can give a damn about the dangers of CAGW as they have heard it all endlessly before and nothing is seen or can be felt that is different to what has always been in their lives.
The “Hiroshima Bomb” example is for the SkS believers a bit like President Lyndon Johnson’s comments on making a speech on economics;
To paraphrase;
“It is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else”.
@Jquip
I am stating that Bob’s video is comparing pears with oranges.
Btw. I did not state that “surface radiation imbalances have nothing to do with global warming”. That’s your invalid extrapolation.
Fantastic video Anthony and Bob…….more of these please
Oh yes, since 1998 in the atmosphere accumulated the energy of 1 atomic bomb per human family.
Each and every family of 4 person has more then his own atomic bomb of energy and some spares.
We all feel the heat, since it is exactly since the pause started :). The 2 billion bombs are hiding somewhere, my guess is that most of them already passed Proxima Centauri:
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubbles-new-shot-of-proxima-centauri-our-nearest-neighbor/#.UpaAdbNCKO0
The Hiroshima metric fails as a means for trauma-conditioning the US populous. The reason being that Japan was and is an enemy state according to the charta of the UN. A more effective metric would be 9/11.
Bob reacted on my comment with:
“Sisi, did you bother to read and understand the paper I referenced and linked? In the abstract, Stephens et al (2012) write:
“This lack of precise knowledge of surface energy fluxes profoundly affects our ability to understand how Earth’s climate responds to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases.””
Bob was trying to put me down by asking if I have read the paper. Bad style. No, I didn’t read the paper, I read the abstract and the first page and looked at the figures. That is all you need to realise that Bob is telling porkies.
I do wonder if Bob read the article himself, all he is referring to is the abstract and he uses bad resolution images of the paper in the video, which look like the pictures seen at
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/full/ngeo1580.html
Sisi says: “Do you realise that the radiative imbalance of the earth system has nothing to do with an energy imbalance at the surface?”
Really? Are your sure, Sisi? What is plainly obvious (and easy for me and everyone else reading this thread to realize) is that you haven’t bothered to try to read the paper I presented as reference. The second sentence in the abstract reads (my caps): “As a result, the GLOBAL BALANCE OF ENERGY FLUXES within the atmosphere or AT THE EARTH’S SURFACE cannot be derived directly from measured fluxes, and is therefore uncertain.”
That was immediately before the sentence that quoted for you earlier.
Seems to me that (1) you don’t understand the topic at hand or (2) you’re making up stuff as you’re going along or (3) both of the above.
Here’s a link to the full paper.
http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~tristan/publications/2012_EBupdate_stephens_ngeo1580.pdf
It’s relatively easy to understand for people who want to try to comprehend it. Then again, it appears you simply may be trying to use smoke and mirrors to redirect the discussion.
Good-bye, Sisi.
Sisi: With respect to your November 27, 2013 at 3:58 pm comment, see my above reply.
The uncertainty, in each direction, is 100X the purported imbalance. Translation: They have no clue, it’s a Wild-Assed Guess (WAG), trying to look like a Scientific WAG (SWAG).