By Garth Paltridge
Global temperatures have not risen for 17 years. The pause now threatens to expose how much scientists sold their souls for cash and fame, warns emeritus professor Garth Paltridge, former chief research scientist with the CSIRO Division of Atmospheric Research.
Climate Change’s Inherent Uncertainties
…there has been no significant warming over the most recent fifteen or so years…
In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem … in its effort to promote the cause. It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society’s respect for scientific endeavour…
The trap was set in the late 1970s or thereabouts when the environmental movement first realised that doing something about global warming would play to quite a number of its social agendas. At much the same time, it became accepted wisdom around the corridors of power that government-funded scientists (that is, most scientists) should be required to obtain a goodly fraction of their funds and salaries from external sources—external anyway to their own particular organisation.
The scientists in environmental research laboratories, since they are not normally linked to any particular private industry, were forced to seek funds from other government departments. In turn this forced them to accept the need for advocacy and for the manipulation of public opinion. For that sort of activity, an arm’s-length association with the environmental movement would be a union made in heaven…
The trap was partially sprung in climate research when a number of the relevant scientists began to enjoy the advocacy business. The enjoyment was based on a considerable increase in funding and employment opportunity. The increase was not so much on the hard-science side of things but rather in the emerging fringe institutes and organisations devoted, at least in part, to selling the message of climatic doom. A new and rewarding research lifestyle emerged which involved the giving of advice to all types and levels of government, the broadcasting of unchallengeable opinion to the general public, and easy justification for attendance at international conferences—this last in some luxury by normal scientific experience, and at a frequency previously unheard of…
The trap was fully sprung when many of the world’s major national academies of science (such as the … Australian Academy of Science) persuaded themselves to issue reports giving support to the conclusions of the IPCC. The reports were touted as national assessments that were supposedly independent of the IPCC and of each other, but of necessity were compiled with the assistance of, and in some cases at the behest of, many of the scientists involved in the IPCC international machinations. In effect, the academies, which are the most prestigious of the institutions of science, formally nailed their colours to the mast of the politically correct.
Since that time three or four years ago, there has been no comfortable way for the scientific community to raise the spectre of serious uncertainty about the forecasts of climatic disaster… It can no longer escape prime responsibility if it should turn out in the end that doing something in the name of mitigation of global warming is the costliest scientific mistake ever visited on humanity.
Full story here at: Quadrant Online
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@Carbomontanus
Van der Waals forces are very weak and short acting. They play virtually no role in the intermolecular forces of gases. At least on the earth. They may play some role in the physics of the Venusian atmosphere which is very strange. The Venusian atmosphere has 90 times the mass of the Earth’s atmosphere but it is only five times its height so the lower part of the Venusian atmosphere may behave more like a liquid than a gas.
@Carbomontanus
Not in the slightest. But I have a question for you.
According to the history channel, the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period breathed an atmosphere which was 10% richer in oxygen than our own. The earth’s atmosphere at that time was 30% oxygen. It is now 20% oxygen. So what happened to all that extra oxygen? Well, according to the history channel’s paleontologists an asteroid hit the earth burning up all of the forests. Now, the last time I studied chemistry I seem to remember the equation O2 + wood + heat = carbon dioxide + water. So after the asteroid hit and burned up all the forests in the world we had an atmosphere which was at least 10% CO2. Our atmosphere is only 0.04% CO2 today.
Now, my question to you is where did all of that extra CO2 go to? And why did the earth not morph into another Venus?
@willhaas
What you are telling me about Venus does not make any sense. You are saying that the CO2 on Venus is in a highly compressed state. Gases in compressed states are low in heat energy. Compressing a gas is an exothermic process it releases heat from the gas. When you compress CO2 it releases heat into the atmosphere. The reverse is an endothermic process. When you let the CO2 out of a CO2 cartridge or cylinder the cartridge gets very cold because the CO2 absorbs the heat from the atmosphere.
If the CO2 is compressed on Venus then something – like some other gas- must have absorbed the heat it released when it was compressed. And if the CO2 is as hot as they say Venus is then it should not be in a compressed state.
It does not add up.
trionfo:
The gases of a planet’s atmosphere are all in a “compressed state” because they are in a gravity field. They would fly off into space if they were not in a “compressed state”.
Think of it this way. The gas at the bottom of the atmosphere is compressed by the weight of the gas above it. And that is also true for gas at any height up the atmosphere (which is why pressure changes as you go up).
Richard
@richardscourtney
The atmosphere of Venus has 90 times the mass of the atmosphere of the earth so you would expect there to be 90 times more atmospheric pressure on the surface of Venus than on the surface of the earth. 90% of the Earth’s atmosphere is within 10 km of its surface, whereas 90% of the atmosphere of Venus is within 50 km is of its surface. So you have the equivalent mass of 90 earth atmospheres compressed into a height which is only 5 times the height of the earth’s atmosphere. That is very a compressed state.
But Venus is also extremely hot. It melted the Russian probe that tried to land on it. Now heat causes gases to expand. According to the Ideal gas law
PV = nRT
Where P = pressure of the gas
V = volume of the gas
N = the number of moles of the gas (a mole is 6.02 x 10^23 molecules)
And R is a constant.
Rearranging this equation we have
V = nRT/P
Which says that the volume of a gas will rise as the temperature increases, providing that the pressure remains constant.
Now CO2 is not an ideal gas, but it seems to me that if all that heat in the atmosphere of Venus
is in the CO2 then its volume should be very much greater than it is. The molecules can move freely out into space. Why don’t they?
trionfo:
re your post at February 1, 2014 at 10:51 am.
You claimed that the atmosphere on Venus is not “compressed gas”. I explained that it is, and I am pleased that you now agree it is.
You now ask me
Nobody has suggested that all the heat in the atmosphere of Venus “is in the CO2”. It is in all the gases of the atmosphere.
I don’t know why you think the atmosphere of Venus (or its CO2?) should have greater volume.
And the atmosphere does not move “freely into space” because of gravity (which is why the atmosphere is “compressed” near the surface).
I strongly suggest that you read some text books on elementary physics because it is not possible here to reduce your confusions and immense lack of pertinent knowledge.
Richard
@richard
I never said that the atmosphere on Venus was not compressed. I said Just the opposite. I wrote:
“the pressure in the atmosphere is so high that liquid water could exist even though the surface temperature is hotter than your oven on clean.”
I was addressing the common misconception that CO2 stores heat. To make the point that the atmosphere on Venus is 96% CO2 reinforces this misconception. It implies that it is the CO2 which is absorbing the heat since 96% of the atmosphere is virtually the entire atmosphere.
This misunderstanding on how the green house effect works produces an unfounded concern about the percentage of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere.
The green house effect theory is based on CO2 reflecting infrared radiation back into the atmosphere of Venus (toward the planet) the way the panes of glass in a greenhouse reflect infrared radiation back into a greenhouse. The way CO2 does this (according to the theory) is by forming a closed canopy of gas.
But if there is convection or if other gases dilute the CO2 it would not be able to form a canopy and the heat could escape the same way heat escapes from a greenhouse when you open the windows or jalousies of the greenhouse. If the jalousies of a greenhouse are open then it will always be the same temperature inside the greenhouse as it is outside the greenhouse.
@richard
I am not confused. I am puzzled.
I am puzzled as to why the heat on the surface of Venus does not escape since there is convection on the planet. I am also puzzled as to what is storing the heat since CO2 does not store heat and the amount of sulfur gases on the planet is miniscule.
But heat may be, in fact escaping. The reason why the surface of Venus is so hot may be due to the internal production of heat by the planet.
The lack of craters on the surface of Venus as if the surface has been “wiped clean” by lava and the presence of sulfur containing gases at high altitudes in the atmosphere of Venus suggests that this may be the case.
I had no faith in climate science or any science since watching the ‘scientific’ conclusions of NIST regarding the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That was the death of science, and everybody knows that buildings do not fall that way from upper floor fires. Science is the art of talking so intelligently that nobody is able to tell that you don’t have a clue about anything you are talking about.
@Davol
“Rett i dass!” we say. That means “Down the toilet!”.