Why did the Royal Society need secret meetings?
Guest essay by Dr. Tim Ball
Recent events underscore problems with understanding climate and how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) achieved their deception. Comments about my recent article appreciated it was a synopsis. The problems were central in my presentation to the First Heartland Climate Conference in New York relating to climatology as a generalist discipline in a world that glorifies specialization. The dictum in academia and beyond is specialization is the mark of genius, generalization the mark of a fool. In the real world each specialized piece must fit the larger general picture and most people live and function in a generalized world. The phrase “it is purely academic” means it is irrelevant to the real world.
A secret meeting occurred between Lord Lawson of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) and members of the British Royal Society. Why the secrecy? It is likely because this collective of specialists is scrambling to recover reputations after being misled.
Claiming they were deliberately deceived in the propaganda campaign orchestrated through the British Royal Society is no excuse. The supposed prestige of that Society was used to persuade other national Science Societies that human caused global warming was a serious and proven fact. The only Society that refused to go along was the Russian. It was a deliberately orchestrated campaign that allowed media to use the consensus argument with focus. I was frequently challenged with the interrogative in the form of a consensus argument that you must be wrong because science Societies all agree.
Climate science is the work of specialists working on one small part of climatology. It’s a classic example of not seeing the forest for the trees, amplified when computer modellers are involved. They are specialists trying to be generalists but omit major segments, and often don’t know interrelationships, interactions and feedbacks in the general picture.
Society has deified specialized academics, especially scientists. Consider the phrase “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist” used to indicate intellectual superiority. Substitute a different occupation and prejudices emerge. “You don’t have to be a farmer”. Now consider the range of specialized areas required for success on a modern farm. Then count the specializations included in Figure 1, a very simple systems diagram of weather. (Note that three “boxes” include the word “flux” but the 2007 IPCC Science report says, “Unfortunately, the total surface heat and water fluxes are not well observed.)
Ian Plimer said, studies of the Earth’s atmosphere tell us nothing about future climate.
An understanding of climate requires an amalgamation of astronomy, solar physics, geology, geochronology, geochemistry, sedimentology, tectonics, palaeontology, paleoecology, glaciology, climatology, meteorology, oceanography, ecology, archaeology and history.
 |
Figure 1: Source: After; Climate Stabilization: For Better or for Worse? William W. Kellogg and Stephen H. Schneider, Science, Volume 186, December 27, 1974
It’s an interesting observation that underscores the dilemma. Climatology is listed as a subset, but must include all the disciplines and more. You cannot study or understand the pattern of climate over time or in a region without including them all.
A frequent charge is I have no credibility because I only have “a geography degree”. It’s, ignorant on many levels, and usually used as a sign of superiority by specialists in the “hard sciences”. My PhD was through the Geography department at Queen Mary College because climatology was traditionally part of geography. The actual degree was granted in the Faculty of Science.
Climatology, like geography is a generalist discipline studying patterns and relationships. Geography is the original integrative discipline traditionally called Chorology. In the late 1960s when I looked for a school of climatology there were effectively only two, Hubert Lamb’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia and Reid Bryson’s program in Madison Wisconsin. Neither was a viable option, although I was privileged to consult with Professor Lamb about my thesis.
Unlike most students, instead of going through the sausage-maker machine of education I pursued my studies later and with deliberation. Environmentalism was a new paradigm changing the focus from the Darwinian view of humans as a passive to an active agent in the environment. An undergraduate course on Soils taught me the formula for soil-forming factors included parent material (rock), weather, and the letter “O” for Organic. I wondered why this included everything except humans.
Early German geography recognized the impact distinguishing Landschaft, the natural landscape, from Kulturschaft, the human landscape. Others were considering the differences. George Perkins Marsh’s work, Man and Nature (1864) and William L. Thomas’ 1956 publication Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth influenced me and provided a central theme – the impact of climate on the human condition.
All three theses were deliberately designed. An Honours thesis titled, Some Philosophical Considerations of Humans as a Source of Change, considered the historical and philosophical context. The Masters thesis titled, The Significance of Grain Size and Heavy Minerals Volume Percentage as Indicators of Environmental Character, Grand Beach, Manitoba provided scientific method especially related to energy inputs in an environment. The doctorate addressed two problems in climatology. Lack of long-term weather records, which Lamb identified, and the challenge of linking historical records with instrumental records. My doctoral thesis title, Climatic Change in Central Canada: A Preliminary Analysis of Weather Information from Hudson’s Bay Company Forts at York Factory and Churchill Factory, 1714-1850 involved creating a long term record from daily journals of the Hudson Bay Company. It blended daily weather observations with instrumental records through a numerical coding for each weather variable. Once the data was digitized, statistical and scientific analysis was possible.
Lack of a “science” degree was a focus early. Immediately after a presentation to Forestry graduates at the University of Alberta a professor in the front row asked, “Is it true you were denied funding by the major agencies in Canada?” This referred to two government agencies, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Sciences and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. (SSHRC). I was not denied, I just didn’t qualify, my category of historical climatology was considered Social Science by NSERC and Science by SSHRC. Fortunately, the National Science Museum of Canada, particularly Dick Harington head of the Paleobiology division, understood the problem and provided funding.
I knew as a climatologist I needed to consult with specialists. I obeyed Wegman’s warning in his Report on the Hockey Stick fiasco.
As statisticians, we were struck by the isolation of communities such as the paleoclimate community that rely heavily on statistical methods, yet do not seem to be interacting with the mainstream statistical community. The public policy implications of this debate are financially staggering and yet apparently no independent statistical expertise was sought or used.
Consultation is essential. The challenge is to know enough to ask the right questions and understand the answers. As a climatologist I try to place each piece in the puzzle. If it doesn’t fit I consult specialists for answers.
The claim that the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) didn’t exist is a classic example of a piece that didn’t fit. Many knew it existed and Soon and Baliunas provided evidence in their article Proxy climatic and environmental changes of the past 1000 years; it’s why they were so viciously attacked. Statistician Steve McIntyre showed how the infamous “hockey stick” graph was created. The Wegman Report confirmed his findings and exposed a major misuse of statistics and dendroclimatology. The misuse of tree rings was further confirmed by a forestry expert. Few areas of IPCC climate science bear examination by specialists.
The claim that CO2 is greenhouse gas does not fit. I itemized the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deliberate diversions to demonize CO2 for a political agenda. Years ago at a conference in Calgary I heard a skeptic challenged by a knowledgeable audience member about the claim of CO2 as a greenhouse gas (GHG). The reply was troubling. We (skeptics) would lose all credibility if we suggest CO2 is not a GHG. It is better to say it is, but the effect, especially of the human portion, is minuscule and of no consequence.
I pursued my policy asking physicists about the role of CO2 as a GHG. I thought they would agree. They didn’t. It’s partly reflected in estimates of climate sensitivity. They range from the IPCC high through those who believe it is zero to some who believe it is a negative quantity with CO2 as a cooling agent. The conflict appears to be disagreement in how temperature is modified by the physical processes involved in energy transfer. If the physics was known and agreed presumably weather and climate forecasts would work, but they don’t.
Traditional climatology included a mechanism called continentalism. It measured the modifying influence on temperature range of the distance from the ocean. Here are ranges for three Canadian cities at approximately the same latitude.
Station Maximum Minimum Range
Gander, Nfld 35.6°C -28.8°C 64.2°C
Winnipeg 40.6°C -45°C 85.6°C
Vancouver 33.3°C -17.8°C 51°C
Both Vancouver (west coast) and Gander (east coast) are close to the ocean but they are in the zone of the prevailing Westerlies. Gander experiences continental air more frequently than Vancouver. The different specific heat capacities of land and water explain the difference. Water acts to modify temperature range.
The greatest daily land temperature ranges occur in regions with very low atmospheric moisture (hot and cold deserts). Water vapour acts like the oceans to modify temperature range, as a result desert biomes record the greatest daily temperature ranges. It has nothing to do with CO2. Similarly, lowest daily temperature ranges occur in tropical rain forests where water vapour levels are highest. Total modification of global temperature range is achieved by water in all its phases.
Climatology is a generalist discipline that requires incorporating all specialist disciplines. The modern glorification of specialization allowed climate scientists to dominate by claiming their piece of a vast puzzle was critical. IPCC climate scientists misused specialized areas, especially in climate models, to achieve a predetermined result. It is only exposed when specialists examine what was done or climatologists find a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit.
=================================================================
For the record, I don’t agree with Dr. Ball’s opinions on CO2, not being a greenhouse gas, the science is quite clear on that issue long before global warming being an issue. The only valid question is climate sensitivity – Anthony
here is a simple explanation of the GH effect
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2011/08/11/the-greenhouse-effect-and-the-principle-of-re-radiation-11-aug-2011/
If you were able to follow what I said there, then:
From all of this, you should have figured out by now that any study implying that the net effect of more CO2 in the atmosphere is that of warming, must exhibit a balance sheet in the right dimensions showing us exactly how much radiative warming and how much radiative cooling is caused by an increase of 0.01% of CO2 that occurred in the past 50 years in the atmosphere. It must also tell us the amount of cooling caused by the increase in photosynthesis that has occurred during the past 50 years.
There are no such results in any study, let alone in the right dimensions. For example, consider the fact that time and (CO2) concentration must be in the dimensions…..
For more on why it is considered highly unlikely that CO2 is a contributory cause to global warming, see here:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
I have read Henry’s blog before. Seems to me that what Henry is saying and what Steven R Vada is saying are similar, and I understand it. Whereas I have no idea what LdB is talking about. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong of course, but I have no way of knowing either way. The link doesn’t help, and on page 2 says:
“The interaction of electromagnetic radiation with molecules is complex. An
understanding of the process requires an understanding of some elements of
quantum mechanics. The discussion below is based on quantum mechanical theory.
If you have never taken a course in quantum mechanics, you probably will have
difficulty with the theoretical treatments”
If understanding the GHE now requires taking a course in quantum mechanics, is it any wonder if people don’t understand it? Yet if you question the GHE, you are told that it’s all “basic physics”, settled science, and you’re stupid if you don’t get it. You will then be given a simplification, or an analogy, which will make sense in itself – except it won’t in fact be analogous or relate to what’s really going on in reality.
@Graham w
True
The agw theory is made so difficult that only they understand it…… Why Anthony believes that more co2 causes warming is a mystery to me as well . See note at end of tim ball s post.
REPLY: there’s no mystery, the CO2 effect is real and is demonstrated by spectral analysis and the operation of IR based CO2 detectors like this one. If CO2 didn’t interact with infrared, the meter wouldn’t work. With CO2 in our atmosphere, most of the warming is occurring in the first 100 ppm of concentration. Additional increases in CO2 produce a warming that decays per this exponential curve below.
We are nearing the plateau of the effect, i.e. the law of diminishing returns.
The “blue fuzz” on the graph represents measured global CO2 increases in our modern times.
To say CO2 has no effect at all is to deny the existing science on it. That’s why I often say “slayers/principia” fit the definition of “deniers”. The only real question is climate sensitivity along the top of the diminishing returns curve.
-Anthony
Just so you know, LdB, I may not have a degree yet, as I’m still in school, but I’ve been studying the universe since I could read and reach the bookshelves… so figure around 26 years now. That means everything from the impact of socialist policy on Venezuela in outdated encyclopedia sets to the Feynman lectures in the library.
My issue with your description isn’t due to ignorance, quite the opposite, it is because I understand how lasers work that I was baffled by your choice to compare atmospheric phenomena with a laser. Similarly with your mentioning gain media and implying that the greenhouse gases are gain media, leaving open the idea that gain media are greenhouse gases, when no one that I know of would claim helium, neon, argon, or nitrogen are particularly important for a GHE, yet all are used in lasing.
That the sets “gain media” and “greenhouse gases” overlap does not imply an equality between the members or mechanism thereof.
Oops, I think the socialist bit was Chile, I forget, it’s been years and they were 1963 Brittanica I think? Lots of random factoids that pop up and make me wonder where I picked them up like that.
The thing is I can understand the concept of “pumping” in simple terms ie energy is going into making the atoms rotate within the molecule, rather than going into making the molecule itself (as a whole) move through physical space. That seems simple enough and I don’t see why you necessarily need a thorough grasp of quantum mechanics just to mentally visualise that concept.
It’s the bit inbetween this concept and “there you go, the GHE is proven” that still needs explaining. No attempt has been made to explain that at all as far as I can see. If CO2 molecules can store more energy than classical physics suggest how does this negate what Steven and Henry are saying since it cuts both ways…ie if they trap more energy radiated from the Earths surface then they also trap more radiation from the sun!
@Anthony
Clearly, you also did not present me with the balance sheet of how much (more) warming or (more) cooling is caused by the (more) carbon dioxide, in the correct dimensions, including time and concentration?
So how do you know the net effect of more CO2 is more warming rather than more cooling?
quote from recent nasa report:
“NASA’s Langley Research Center has collated data proving that “greenhouse gases” actually block up to 95 percent of harmful solar rays from reaching our planet, thus reducing the heating impact of the sun,” says to this article on principia-scientific.org.
“The data was collected by Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry, (or SABER). SABER monitors infrared emissions from Earth’s upper atmosphere, in particular from carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitric oxide (NO), two substances thought to be playing a key role in the energy balance of air above our planet’s surface.”
“Carbon dioxide and nitric oxide are natural thermostats,” explains James Russell of Hampton University, SABER’s principal investigator. “When the upper atmosphere (or ‘thermosphere’) heats up, these molecules try as hard as they can to shed that heat back into space.”
Which is exactly what your “spectral analysis”
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png
is telling me.
This is notwithstanding the fact that the increase in greenery due to more CO2 also traps some heat, of which you also did not present me with any figures.
Clearly, Anthony, you must understand that when global cooling sets in, people will quickly forget about your “theory”
In fact, I now suspect that sowing confusion is what you want to keep business going as usual.
However, I am warning you: keeping to the Truth is what opens up many roads, including getting many more comments….
Margaret Smith says:
November 29, 2013 at 9:07 am
The above essay is very interesting and just adds to the green shoots of recovery from the climate change disaster.
A bit OT but I wanted to note that for the first time in many years I have found a brand new book on weather & climate for general consumption which has absolutely no mention of AGW or CC even when talking about climate.
There! this just pleased me.
[The moderator notes that you did not identify what book it was? !? Mod]
Sorry this took so long but today was the first chance I had to get the info. The book lets itself down with a couple of paragraphs on CFCs and the ozone layer but this scam has not got much publicity so is, perhaps, understandable. Decided to buy the book as it’s quite good, actually.
It’s:
WEATHER
A Guide to Earth’s Weather and Climate
by Maria Costantino
The amazing thing is it was first printed in 2005 and this edition in 2009! Unless it has been edited it is very good for a time when cAGW was sweeping all science and logic before it.
@Graham W
Just to check if I had the right general idea about the interaction of EM and molecules/atoms: microwaves rotate, infrared vibrates, visible makes electrons hop, and higher energy starts to dissociate.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/imgmod/radnion.gif seems to agree.
Generally lasers make use of state changes more extreme than vibrations offer, while there are IR lasers, naturally they aren’t as… exciting as other areas of the EM spectrum, if you see what I did there.
Ah, so it’s more of a vibration than a rotation then in the case of IR. Thanks for the link, that was helpful, and yes I see what you did there! Nice.
So I will wait to see if LdB explains how we get from this extra energy which can go into pumping/vibrating the CO2 molecule internally (rather than moving it through space) to “proof of a GHE”.
If you remotely understood lasers then you would understand they do equate but the effects can also be blocked by the presence of other gases and hence I gave you the moon titan. I usually ignore some of the more idiot comments on here but I did suspect you were studying. The problem you having at the moment is the way you have been taught light moves thru a media is actually itself a fairly bad simplification itself they will correct it up for you at university. That is why I am sure you don’t really get how a laser really works.
You are probably aware that light slows thru a media but you are probably unaware you can actually stop light to a complete stop in a media (the current record is 60 seconds) and you can actually make it go faster than the speed of light while in a media (superluminal media).
I will try to fill in some gaps so probably start here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_light
The key point is this one:
Hopefully you will get it that the simple picture we gave you at school of light moving thru a media that it moves free or sometimes bangs into something is a really a horrible simplification the media is as important as the light itself because there is a complex interaction with the electrons in the media.
To ultimately show you how complex the interaction is you can take a material which doesn’t allow light to pass thru it like most of your everyday surfaces and use your QM knowledge and make it allow light thru it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetically_induced_transparency)
So hopefully you will never view light moving through a media the same way ever again like the simpleton way we taught it to you at school.
That is why I hate the way climate science deals with greenhouse effect because they treat the light and media as unrelated or isolated things and they aren’t. To fully understand what is happening with light in a media you need to understand both the light and the media because they are linked. That is what makes spectroscopy so hard is you need both the media and the light characteristics to be able to determine what is really going to happen.
What the dragon slayers and Tim Ball in the book he co-authored did was totally divorce the light from the media then used classic physics to try and prove the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist which given the real science I have given you above is about as close to stupid as you can get.
You have simplified it too much but lets stick with it because even in this simplification you have a problem the molecule has the extra energy so if it reacts while its excited what happens to the extra energy??????? You know the laws of physics about creating and destroying energy.
The real story is a little more complex than this fairy tale perhaps read my post above back to Max as a start point.
Wow we actually have a real science discussion going on this is amazing.
Anthony, you state: “To say CO2 has no effect at all is to deny the existing science on it.”
The question is not whether or not CO2 absorbs some of the IR being emitted from the Earth’s surface. Everyone knows it does. It is not even whether or not this absorption would help heat the atmosphere (through common radiative heat transfer from surface to atmosphere).
The question is whether or not this atmospheric absorption of IR will make the surface (being the source of that IR) even warmer than what it was when it originally emitted it as radiative heat loss. The central claim of the radiative GHE hypothesis is that it does.
But warming of the atmosphere in order to insulate the surface better would require the temperature gradient away from the surface to become smaller. On Earth, this wouldn’t work. The lapse rate is what it is. Convection would always automatically maintain it. The atmosphere is free to expand upwards. Putting more CO2 into the atmosphere cannot change this.
Everybody knows about this. That’s exactly why they’ve had to come up with the clever (?) idea that it is rather by raising the atmospheric layer emitting Earth’s radiative flux to space that we get the enhanced surface warming. Not by the so-called ‘back radiation’. And not by a gentler temperature profile from surface to tropopause.
For a baseline, assume I’ve at least read–and I happen to think understood–the Feynman Lectures: http://www.feynmanlectures.info/
Because, well, I have, years ago, and many other texts since.
Again, I’m not disagreeing out of ignorance, I’m disagreeing because you’re the only person I’ve ever seen try to describe a greenhouse like effect as being similar to a laser.
I’ve read lots and lots and lots of books by lots of people who understand physics better than either of us, I’m confident.
Feynman doesn’t cover much of this area it post dates him I am not even sure why you think it’s relevant which mildly worries me. You may have read the lectures but somethings missing so lets test your understanding because somethings missing
1.) Does light of the “right” frequencies actually have to hit a CO2 molecule to interact with it?
2.) If you had a thin sheet one atom thick of a media would it still refract light or would most of the light go through the gaps between the atoms?
3.) Why does increasing the pressure of a gas or increasing the density of any media change the speed of light in it?
Lets start with those basics
Feynman covers more than you might think, and remains relevant for college level physics courses at the very least, while your explanations seem aimed far far lower. Plus, it’s not like QED is invalidated just because we added the “Chromo” into the mix. I still happen to prefer the “drawing arrows and squiggly lines” method, your tastes may vary. Aaaaanyways, I think it is relevant because you’re talking like I’m a newb who doesn’t understand basic things.
The first question seems to be asking if an interaction of a transverse wave with (at least idealized, but more like a lumpy cardioid for CO2) “spherical” wave functions can be described as “hitting” something, the second question is completely dependent upon which atoms, which angles, and what wavelengths are being discussed, the third question involves changes in the group velocity according to the properties of the medium being examined.
Let’s skip the basics and go to why you think the properties that make a gas suitable as a gain media are related to the greenhouse effect, ideally with a source of some kind supporting this explanation, as I’ve been unable to find any.
Ok cool you pass enough to discuss and are not a newbie definitely and for my part I vote we get LaTex :-).
Yes question one was aimed at making sure you understood that there really isn’t any hitting involved. You see it time and time again in the comments here about light hitting a molecule of CO2 and it does this that or the other. So whatever analogy we use needs to remove this ridiculous idea of things hitting the CO2 molecule.
Question two you got partially wrong but I asked the question really badly. I should have said if you had a beam passing thru a medium and refracting and I started whittling it away until the medium was only one atom thick would it still refract the same way. You know the answer yes of coarse it does and you know the why because the electrons in the media still form a plane and the light wave sees the electric field plane and reacts with it no matter how thin you make it.
Third question again you got partly right you got what is changing but not why. When you compress a gas or increase a density of a media you are putting more electrons per unit area hence you get more reaction with the electric field of light. That’s what generally happens but there are special materials that have critical points and weird stuff happens but lets ignore that stuff.
But yeah you know enough to have an opinion that I can respect or even care about.
Are you familiar with how we are explaining laser cooling these days? There were a lot of problems trying to explain how something they think is hot can cool because that usually does layman heads in. Go and look how that gets simplified on Wikipedia and it will sort of show you were I was going with this it sort of follows the theme.
Now getting back to the laser, there are old optical pump CO2 versions of the laser they are notoriously inefficient. In all actual modern and commercial gas lasers you pass an electric current through the gas mixture because it is a hell of a lot more efficient but look carefully at the old optical designs you will have to ferret around the net if you are really interested. It’s not perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than say NASA does at the moment, here read this garbage (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/GlobalWarming/page2.php)
You have enough science to have an opinion to me so if you don’t like my simplification that’s fine I will accept it but I will ask how the hell are you simplifying this stuff down when you discuss it surely not using the NASA version 🙂
Just realized I never directly answered your question about what relevance has optical gain media got to do with greenhouse gas. It’s covers the most important vibrational and rotational transitions resonant frequencies of the media molecules and the gases will definitely absorb and/or emit at those frequencies and how sensitive it is.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/hitran/vibrational.html
Look carefully at the red and brown coloured entries and why they are coloured.
The whole problem you have is that CO2 reflects any light of any frequency.
Sunlight that would otherwise energize heat sensors on earth.
Your bizarre claims, are preposterous ramblings – about whether it matters which rotational and vibrational energizations take place.
You can’t escape the fact they do take place whatever the spectra.
Placing you in the
“check-mate before you even reach the gate” position.
The one where you claim
you can explain
a screen of reflective gas
arrayed around a target
removing energy from target sensors
making more energy arrive at target.sensors.
=======
LdB says:
December 3, 2013 at 12:26 am
Just realized I never directly answered your question about what relevance has optical gain media got to do with greenhouse gas. It’s covers the most important vibrational and rotational transitions resonant frequencies of the media molecules and the gases will definitely absorb and/or emit at those frequencies and how sensitive it is.
I agree with Steven, that’s what I was trying to get at here with my comment at December 2, 12:07 pm:
“If CO2 molecules can store more energy than classical physics suggest how does this negate what Steven and Henry are saying since it cuts both ways…ie if they trap more energy radiated from the Earth’s surface then they also trap more radiation from the sun!”
(OK I know they don’t “trap” energy, they absorb and then release)
I’m still waiting to see how we get from the difference between classic and modern physics re how CO2 absorbs energy, to a confirmation of the GHE. So far there are lots of comments apparently starting to build to a point but not getting there…
The only people on this earth
who try telling other adult humans
they think
illumination in vacuum
until temp stabilization
followed by immersion
into cold nitrogen/oxygen gas
makes every single heat sensor on an object
rise
by thirty degrees
are people who
believe in the G.H.E.
Only in climate pseudo-science will people repeatedly tell you
they believe
illumination immersed in cold, reflective, thermally conductive fluid
leads to higher temperatures on objects immersed
than illumination with 20% more energy,
in vacuum.
In the very words of the people who invented this,
“Conduction, convection, and radiation, combined,”
due to freezing fluid fanned on sensors
leaves temperatures on them
30 degrees warmer
than if you removed the conduction and convection
by removing the cold fluids blown onto the sensors
and letting the sensors simply absorb light in vacuum
and lose heat through radiation alone.
Some posts disappeared then appeared an hour later sorry.
perhaps we all go back to “Start”?
Quote from Wikipedia (on the interpretation of the greenhouse effect);
“The Earth’s surface and the clouds absorb visible and invisible radiation from the sun and re-emit much of the energy as infrared back to the atmosphere. Certain substances in the atmosphere, chiefly cloud droplets and water vapor, but also carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, and chlorofluorocarbons, absorb this infrared, and re-radiate it in all directions including back to Earth.”
that this definition holds well can easily be demonstrated by the fact that during winter here (Pretoria, South Africa) it is warmer on a winters night when there are clouds then when there are no clouds.
I have also been able to prove quite conclusively that just higher humidity (no clouds yet) will have the effect of less heat on my floor, compared to lower humidity, meaning that water vapor re-radiates a portion of the 0-5 um where water absorbs, back to space.
So the effect is real. It is at least a warming effect during the night when there is no sun. There is a cooling effect during the day. Hence my insistence on seeing “time” as a factor in any balance sheet.
In hindsight, what I saw has happened is that everyone got stuck at Tyndall and Arrhenius, i.e. the closed box experiments. Obviously that won’t work with gases that also have absorption in the 0-5 um and therefore re-radiate during the daylight portion of the day.
If, as I suspect, the effect is neutral, or it largely balances out, so that an increase in either gas has little or no effect, then the term GHG is rather misleading and incorrect.
There’s only one group of people on earth who claim they think that makes heat sensors rise.
That’s the climateurs – the people who’ve become known as “climate clowns,” who act as though asking them “we haven’t cracked a book yet, we’re just checking to see if you’re delusional” questions
is unethical.
After they answer the questions incorrectly.
Scientist: “Do you believe immersing a sphere heated in vacuum, into cold fluid, makes it get warmer?”
Believer: “Yes.”
Scientist: “Do you believe physically reflecting 20% E away from sensors on an object will make sensors all over it indicate more E arriving?
Believer: “Yes.”
Scientist: “Do you believe adding more reflective media to a reflective insulating bath already blocking 20% E in,
until it is blocking 21% of E in, will make energy sensors indicate more energy arriving?”
Believer: “Yes.”
What is a scientist supposed to say to someone like that?
Sorry, had to get my classes sorted back out for the semester, and then those damnable trees decided they would begin crapping leaves everywhere so I had to deal with that as well.
Now then…
Well, in the case of CO2 and the red 667 cm^-1 it is because it can vibrate up and down:
” ~ ,, ~ ” #> ,, ~ ” ~ ,,
^ ~ v ~ ^ #> v ~ ^ ~ v
…where the ,, and ” are an O and two C molecules but I figure this won’t work:
₀ ~ ⁰ ~ ₀ #> ⁰ ~ ₀ ~ ⁰
as I’m not sure if the subscript/superscript zeroes will carry over on wordpress right.
And it can vibrate like this:
O ~ o ~ O #> o ~ O ~ o
(+ ~ – ~ +) #> (- ~ + ~ -)
…where the capital and lowercase o’s represent motion in and out of the plane of the page.
So a CO2 molecule can be excited to the same energy level in two ways, and mathematically this is represented as an eigenvalue of the Hamiltonian with more than one eigenstate available, and all of the n-dimensional spaces that come along with it… which is a bit spooky to deal with since I’ve been catching up on Stross and his Laundry stories as it happens.
Now, as I’m sure you know, as I know, and as probably anyone who has continued reading this exchange knows, there are transitions where the degenerate vibrational state gives up more energy to a rotational state, and there are transitions where the opposite happens. The latter transitions can produce IR photons, while the other dips down into the microwave range.
In a CO2 laser you make use of various mechanisms to get more of one transition than the other, pumping heated nitrogen in can work, as it lacks the vibrational modes and is only able to lose energy rapidly by pumping CO2 molecules. Do this properly and you wind up with more CO2 molecules poised to fall into the weaker rotational state than you would normally get, and they readily cough up those tasty photons so we can burn stuff with pew-pew deathrays, weee!
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How is this not like a greenhouse effect?
In the system typically described in GHE discussions you have the ground/water providing energy to CO2 molecules in the form of photons, and a fairly normal population of states means some of them give a tasty IR photon back up, some crap out weaksauce microwaves instead and just end up spinning a bit faster, and some lose energy by bumping into other molecules.
Yes, it is true that other molecules–warmed in various fashions–bump into CO2 molecules and jostle them properly to cause an excited vibrational state to drop to a lower rotational state and dump that energy as an IR photon.
Yes indeed, and some of those photons will wind up heading back down to the ground… but that isn’t exactly the mechanism implied now is it: having other gases heating up and losing energy to CO2–through collisions–which then radiates it away in whichever direction.
That sounds like an unlikely heating mechanism if you ask me, as it kinda seems like the CO2 is helping cool the other molecules when it is put that way, doesn’t it?
Now, in a CO2 laser the nitrogen molecules need to be dealt with after they do the bump and grind with a CO2 molecule, as they generally aren’t energetic enough to kick off another one of the desired transitions, so they need to be excited again by some other source of energy before you’re likely to get another lasing event, right?
In the atmosphere, if there is a greenhouse effect functioning like a laser, the only energy source is the sun, and in a roundabout manner the surfaces heated by the sun.
If said nitrogen molecules are dropping back down to pick up more energy from said source so they can head back up and smack into a CO2 molecule to trigger off another lasing event (which again is just about as likely to occur as the less exciting interactions unless you’re dealing with a specifically manipulated population of molecules under controlled and carefully modulated conditions) and said CO2 molecules are then releasing that energy in the form of photons, let’s be charitable and say half go up and half go down, and let us ignore the possibility of said photons being intercepted en route.
At best you’re looking at a bit less than half the energy carried away from the surface by said nitrogen molecule making it back down to the ground.
Said N2 molecules can’t be assumed to bounce off the surface and beeline straight for a CO2 molecule without losing any energy 100% of the time, can they?
So there’s a loss creeping into this laser mechanism you’re describing.
Said CO2 molecules can’t be assumed to immediately emit that energy directly back at the ground 100% of the time, even assuming half of all lasing events are fired directly back at the ground, that’s another rather significant loss in your laser mechanism.
Then we have the lasing events which go up and out into space, which is a strange place to dump energy for a mechanism meant to be heating the surface, isn’t it?
I mean yeah, more realistically we have to account for the energy carried upwards which doesn’t quite make it to a CO2 molecule before being dissipated in collisions or weaksauce microwave emissions…
Then we have to tally up the shots which were fired towards the ground that don’t quite make it, some of which may get emitted back towards the ground, some will head back up, and some will get lost in the molecular bump and grind on the way…
…hmmm, I’m not sure which side of the argument you’re supporting with this atmospheric greenhouse laser idea…
Oh, but wait, the ground will no doubt emit as well, and some of those photons will make it up to waiting CO2 molecules, and some of those won’t lose that energy to collisions or fire it uselessly towards the stars, and some of those photons shot back towards the surface won’t be intercepted and will actually make it back, along with however many don’t get wasted by this atmospheric greenhouse laser, carrying back a bit less energy than the very same mechanism helped lose to space?
Just not seeing it, and arguably looking at it from a laser paradigm doesn’t help counter the idea that CO2 does a pretty good job helping the atmosphere cool.
I mean, if you wanted to waste a lot of energy, running a very low efficiency CO2 laser with no containment whatsoever open to the sky sounds like decent way to do it.
Max says
Just not seeing it, and arguably looking at it from a laser paradigm doesn’t help counter the idea that CO2 does a pretty good job helping the atmosphere cool.
Henry says
It might help us a bit if you let us know exactly who you are arguing with?
For proof that CO2 is (also) cooling the atmosphere by re-radiating sunshine, see here:
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/644/1/551/64090.web.pdf?request-id=76e1a830-4451-4c80-aa58-4728c1d646ec
They measured this re-radiation from CO2 as it bounced back to earth from the moon. So the direction was sun-earth (day)-moon(unlit by sun) -earth (night). Follow the green line in fig. 6, bottom. Note that it already starts at 1.2 um, then one peak at 1.4 um, then various peaks at 1.6 um and 3 big peaks at 2 um. You can see that it all comes back to us via the moon in fig. 6 top & fig. 7. Note that even methane cools the atmosphere by re-radiating in the 2.2 to 2.4 um range.
The problem I posed to Anthony was to come up with a balance sheet showing me exactly how much (more) cooling and how much (more) warming is caused by (how much? more) CO2.
(Hint: concentration and time and energy must all be in the dimensions, at least). In addition we would need to know the amount of cooling caused by the increase in photosynthesis that has occurred during the past 50 years.
Anthony has not given me an answer to this problem because he knows there are no studies providing such answers.
Or he thinks I am stupid…..