Water vapor has already absorbed the very same infrared radiation that Methane might have absorbed.
Guest essay by Dr. Tom Sheahen
Q: I read that methane is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and cattle are a big source of methane emissions. How are they going to regulate that? Not just cattle, but dairy cows as well! That doubles the worry.
Fortunately, there is really nothing to worry about, scientifically. The main thing to worry about is over-reacting politicians and another layer of unnecessary government regulations.
To understand methane’s role in the atmosphere, first it’s necessary to understand what absorption means. When light passes through a gas (sunlight through air, for example), some molecules in the gas might absorb a photon of light and jump up to an excited state. Every molecule is capable of absorbing some particular wavelengths of light, and no molecule absorbs all the light that comes along. This holds true across the entire electromagnetic spectrum – microwave, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet.
The process of absorption has been studied in great detail. In a laboratory set-up, a long tube is filled with a particular gas, and then a standard light is set up at one end; at the other end of the tube is a spectrometer, which measures how much light of each wavelength makes it through the tube without being absorbed. (Mirrors are placed so as to bounce the light back and forth several times, making the effective travel path much longer; this improves the precision of the data.) From such measurements, the probability of radiation being captured by a molecule is determined as a function of wavelength; the numerical expression of that is termed the absorption cross-section.
If you carried out such an experiment using ordinary air, you’d wind up with a mixture of results, since air is a mixture of various gases. It’s better to measure one pure gas at a time. After two centuries of careful laboratory measurements, we know which molecules can absorb which wavelengths of light, and how likely they are to do so.
All that data is contained in charts and tables of cross-sections. Formerly that meant a trip to the library, but nowadays it’s routinely downloaded from the internet. Once all the cross-sections are known, they can be put into a computer program and the total absorption by any gas mixture (real or imaginary) can be calculated.
The many different molecules absorb in different wavelength regions, known as bands. The principal components of air, nitrogen and oxygen, absorb mainly ultraviolet light. Nothing absorbs in the visible wavelength range, but there are several gases that have absorption bands in the infrared region. These are collectively known as the GreenHouse Gases (GHG), because absorbing infrared energy warms up the air – given the name greenhouse effect.
The adjacent figure shows how six different gases absorb radiation across the infrared range of wavelengths, from 1 to 16 microns (mm). The vertical scale is upside-down: 100% absorption is low, and 0% absorption (i.e., transparency) is high.
It’s important to realize that these are shown on a “per molecule” basis. Because water vapor (bottom bar of the figure) is much more plentiful in the atmosphere than any of the others, H2O absorbs vastly more energy and is by far the most important greenhouse gas. On any given day, H2O is a percent or two of the atmosphere; we call that humidity.
The second most important greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), which (on a per-molecule basis) is six times as effective an absorber as H2O. However, CO2 is only about 0.04% of the atmosphere (400 parts per million), so it’s much less important than water vapor.
Now it’s necessary to scrutinize the figure very carefully. Looking across the wavelength scale at the bottom, H2O absorbs strongly in the 3-micron region, and again between 5 and 7 microns; then it absorbs to some degree beyond about 12 microns. CO2 has absorption bands centered around 2.5 microns, 4.3 microns, and has a broad band out beyond 13 microns. Consequently, CO2 adds a small contribution to the greenhouse effect. Notice that sometimes CO2 bands overlap with H2O bands, and with vastly more H2O present, CO2 doesn’t matter in those bands.
Looking at the second graph in the figure, methane (CH4) has narrow absorption bands at 3.3 microns and 7.5 microns (the red lines). CH4 is 20 times more effective an absorber than CO2 – in those bands. However, CH4 is only 0.00017% (1.7 parts per million) of the atmosphere. Moreover, both of its bands occur at wavelengths where H2O is already absorbing substantially. Hence, any radiation that CH4 might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O. The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of CH4 are completely masked by H2O. The amount of CH4 must increase 100-fold to make it comparable to H2O.
Because of that, methane is irrelevant as a greenhouse gas. The high per-molecule absorption cross section of CH4 makes no difference at all in our real atmosphere.
Unfortunately, this numerical reality is overlooked by most people. There is a lot of misinformation floating around, causing needless worry. The tiny increases in methane associated with cows may elicit a few giggles, but it absolutely cannot be the basis for sane regulations or national policy.
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t control says:
April 14, 2014 at 9:52 am
Glad I had the info available. It was a search I did the last time the UN came with this scare, at Doha COP 18.
At least they do their recycling.
According to “Environmental Chemistry, a global perspective 3rd ed.”, Gary W. vanLoon and Stephen J. Duffy, Oxford University Press, a college level chemistry textbook, “The small concentration of methane would have little effect on Earth’s energy balance if it absorbed radiation within the major absorption bands of water or carbon dioxide. Methane, however, absorbs in the ranges from 3.0-3.6 um and 7.1-8.3 um, the latter lying in the window region noted above [region where water and carbon dioxide do not significantly absorb]”.
Additionally, the most recent IPCC report state that emissions of methane alone have cause radiative forcing of 0.97 watts per meter squared – think of this as the additional energy for each meter squared due to methane. While this is certainly lower than carbon dioxide (1.68 watts per meter squared), it is still significant.
The global warming potential of methane is estimated to be 62x greater than CO2 by weight over 20 years. However, the lifetime of methane is only 12 years so it has no long-term effect on climate. There is very little methane in the atmosphere, only 1/200 the amount of CO2. It contributes less than 10% to the greenhouse effect compared to 60% by water vapor and 25% by CO2.
Willis, I object to your manner and the way you are rude and dismissive to anyone who has annoyed you or doesn’t agree with you. There is a sense, to me anyway, of arrogance and impatience. I had a lecturer like you at uni, who put down students with personal remarks without really addressing the question put to him. Dare anyone who didn’t reference anything in a quote or paragraph. Personal observations were not appropriate to him, one had to follow his thoughts on a subject and not argue that there were alternative view points that they did reference of course.
George smith
“So it is highly unlikely, that Kirchoff’s law, can be applied to the case of absorption and emission of atomic or molecular resonant radiation frequencies, such as the GHG molecules. They are not capable of transmuting some photon energy into any arbitrary frequency present in some thermal radiation spectrum.”
Kirchhoff’s law applies to GHG molecules. They follow Planck’s law that determines the spectral distribution as a function of wavelength and temperature.
“The “band” spectra of molecules and the line spectra of atoms, do not follow the same rules as the continuum spectra of thermal radiation such as black body spectra.”
Atoms and molecules are considered as gray body. They follow the blackbody spectra but reduced by their emissivity less than 1. The shape of the curve is the same but the area is smaller. All bodies are gray since there is no perfect blackbody.
bushbunny says:
April 14, 2014 at 7:44 pm
If you can’t stand the heat, bushbunny, then get out of the kitchen. I’m not asking anything of anyone that I’m not asking of myself. I quote what others say so you and others can understand my objections, and I insist that others do the same. I provide the code and data and citations and observations and the math to support my positions, and I insist that others do the same. So sue me.
You, on the other hand, say without any further details:
That doesn’t give me or anyone else the slightest clue what you didn’t like that I said. Obviously, something I said set you off … but what?
So yes, I will fight for clarity, bushbunny. I will fight for references and citations, that’s what science is about, not vague handwaving statements like you use to attack me. You want to attack me, I’ll insist that you say exactly what you are attacking, not just make vague statements about what a jerk I am.
In particular, I will insist that people quote my words. I can defend my own words. I cannot defend your fantasies about my words.
As to my “manner and the way you are rude and dismissive” to those who disagree with me, I have no objection to people who don’t agree with me. Quite the opposite. I thrive on them. They are my hope and my salvation. They keep me from going of the edge by pointing out my mistakes. Science is built on disagreement.
However, I don’t suffer fools gladly. Now, I’m working on that. I’m trying to be more Canadian, Steve McIntyre is my guru and guide.
But I doubt that I’ll get to the point where I’ll accept a lecture on manners from some anonymous bushbunny who is unwilling to sign his real name to his own words. You can disavow your strongly held claims at any time. You can say anything you want and never have to stand behind it.
You take responsibility for nothing, and you have the gall to want to lecture me on responsible behavior? Ain’t gonna happen.
So I’m sorry, bunny … but I don’t take instruction on proper action from a man who doesn’t have what it takes to stand behind his own actions.
w.
Dr. Strangelove says:
April 14, 2014 at 8:35 pm
George smith
“The “band” spectra of molecules and the line spectra of atoms, do not follow the same rules as the continuum spectra of thermal radiation such as black body spectra.”
Atoms and molecules are considered as gray body. They follow the blackbody spectra but reduced by their emissivity less than 1. The shape of the curve is the same but the area is smaller.
No they aren’t, emissivity is a function of wavenumber so the shape of the curve is not the same!
Here’s the black body for 300K:
http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn107/Sprintstar400/BB.png
Here’s the CO2, H2O and CH4 spectra (note the different wavelength ranges):
http://www.nist.gov/pml/div682/images/DIALFig2-Copy.jpg
Willis:
I’m not “attacking” anyone, and I’d appreciate you not getting me confused with other people on your hit list. I am, generally, on the same side of the CAGW debate as Dr. Sheahen and yourself. I merely pointed out a possible oversight in his analysis, without any accusation of disingenuousness.
However, for the record:
“The amount of CH4 must increase 100-fold to make it comparable to H2O.”
I took this statement to mean something very different from your interpretation. Based on the context, it seems to me that he is saying that Methane levels must increase by a factor of 100 for its effect to be equal to that of Water Vapor. Of course, given that Water Vapor fully absorbs all the IR in that 3.3-micron range, increasing methane a MILLION times current levels STILL wouldn’t result in any more absorption of IR than is already being absorbed, because there’s just not any more IR left in that range by the time the water vapor gets done with it. But it’s not like the water vapor gets first crack at it and then methane gets the “leftovers”; they are both absorbing IR in that band simultaneously, so my little crack is just that, a crack, not representative of reality. But whichever GHG absorbs a particular IR particle matters not in the grand scheme of things, because all of them in that range are going to be absorbed by one or the other, so increasing the concentration of either will not result in more warming, at least not in that range of the IR spectrum. That’s how I took the quote above, and I believe, if you ask Dr. Sheahen, you’ll find that’s what he meant.
As for whether Dr. Sheahen said that water vapor absorbs ALL the IR that methane might absorb, I offer the following quotes, with explanation of how I interpreted them:
The Title: “Methane: The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas:”
Without a modifier like “mostly”, the word “irrelevant” all by itself implies TOTAL irrelevance. For example, if I had read over your post and found a grammatical error, I could not say that the text of your post was “grammatically correct”. I would instead say that it was “MOSTLY grammatically correct”. (By the way, I did not find a grammatical error.)
In the third-to-last paragraph: “Hence, ANY radiation that CH4 might absorb has already been absorbed by H2O.” (emphasis mine)
Okay, he didn’t use the word “all”. But however you parse this sentence, it means the same thing.
The next sentence, just before the sentence you quoted: “The ratio of the percentages of water to methane is such that the effects of CH4 are COMPLETELY MASKED by H2O” (emphasis in the original – I don’t know how to bold text here, so I capitalized it instead).
He not only used the word “completely”, but EMPHASIZED it.
(Note that, even if you ignore the IR in the 3.6-3.8-micron range that I have made an issue of, I still don’t think this sentence is accurate, in the respect that it is not the relative percentages of water to methane that makes methane’s contribution to absorption irrelevant, but the fact that the ABSOLUTE percentage of water alone is sufficient to fully absorb all the IR in the 3.0-3.6-micron range regardless of the percentage of methane.)
In the second-to-last paragraph: “The high per-molecule absorption cross section of CH4 makes NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL in our real atmosphere.” (emphasis mine)
None at all means exactly the same thing as zero, to the last decimal place. It doesn’t mean 1%. It doesn’t mean 0.1%. It doesn’t mean 0.00000000000000000000001%. It means ZERO.
You have put me in the uncomfortable position of vehemently disagreeing, over a bit of minutia, with people that I generally agree with on the overall topic of anthropogenice global warming. I’m sure Dr. Sheahen’s overall point is “mostly” correct, and would be happy to agree with him, if he had only been less absolute in his statements. I have shown four occasions where he unequivocally stated, in different ways, that Methane’s contribution to greenhouse warming is zero. Not “nearly zero”. Not “negligible”. Not “mostly irrelevant”. Zero, period. And the one instance where you claim he specifically states that methane has an effect, I interpret that sentence very differently, and in any event, the specificity of that statement with regard to what you claim it means is nowhere near as specific as the four times he stated a zero contribution.
If our esteemed president had said “If you like your health care plan, you can PROBABLY keep it”, then that would not have been false, as I’m pretty sure more than 50% of Americans did not lose their insurance when Obamacare went into effect. But that’s not what he said. He said “if you like you health care plan, you can keep it. Period. No matter what.” Now, if you want to argue that Dr. Sheahen didn’t add “Period. No matter what” to his conclusion that water vapor absorbs all the IR that methane would have absorbed, and that means he didn’t really mean it to be an absolute statement (as Obama apparently didn’t mean his statement to be absolute, even WITH the “Period. No matter what”), then feel free to do so. OR, simply agree with me that methane’s effect is greater than zero (as you already have) AND that Dr. Sheahen has understated this effect as an unequivocal zero (which you have not, despite the evidence).
It was not my intention to pick a fight with you, Willis, or Dr. Sheahen. I simply wanted someone who knew more about it than me to weigh in on what I perceived to be a gap in H2O saturation of the methane absorbtion band that was not addressed, or even acknowledged, in Dr. Sheahen’s essay. But unless I misread the graph, the gap exists, and i was hoping someone could reinforce, with hard data and rigorous analysis, my suspicion that methane’s absorption of IR, in that .2-micron gap, is so small as to be neglible (but not so small as to be zero). Because this is the kind of argument that I would like to present to my alarmist friends and colleagues, but I cannot do so in good conscience if I cannot convince myself that it is accurate.
Regards,
Trevor
Trevor says:
April 15, 2014 at 1:10 pm
Trevor, this is why I asked you before to quote what Dr. Tom said that you disagree with. You didn’t quote Tom’s words upstream. Instead, you took exception to something he never said.
In response I commented:
Now, please note that I said you were attacking someTHING. In particular, you were attacking something Dr. Seagal hadn’t said …
Now, you are attacking someTHING I didn’t say. I didn’t accuse you of attacking someONE, as you fatuously claim. I accused you of setting up a straw man and demolishing it, of attacking a claim that was never made. I never said you attacked anyone, neither me nor Dr. Seagal.
So QUOTE THE WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH!!! Twice now you’ve gone off on a tangent, objecting strongly to someTHING that someone never said. It’s a tiresome habit, and neither Dr. Seagal nor I can defend something we’ve never claimed.
w.
Willis, how do we know you are whom you say. Keep out of the kitchen? I do not like the manner you approach others, not your science. Gravatars are there as not a protection but an identity.
I use it all the time on blogs, and I am female not male. Can’t you tell? Won’t shut up.
bushbunny says:
April 15, 2014 at 6:32 pm
Because I’ve met a number of people who post here—Anthony, various scientists and commenters, the moderators. You can ask them. I traveled around England and Scotland last year, so you could ask say Lord Christopher Monckton if I am who I am, or any of the other folks who I met there. Then of course I’ve spoken at various meetings, there’s video of me on line. My life is an open book, bushbunny. You picked the wrong man to ask that question of.
And why should I care what some anonymous person who won’t sign his/her own words thinks of my manner? I told you, I don’t take instruction on responsibility and manners from someone who will not take responsibility for their own words.
I don’t care what excuse you put up for your anonymity, or what reasons you have for not standing behind your words. If you don’t have the nerve to do that, I couldn’t care less why you don’t have the nerve. Maybe it’s genetic, maybe it’s work related, who cares? The fact is if you post under a false name, then what an anonymous bushbunny might like or dislike has little weight, and rightly so. Who cares what unidentifiable bushbunnys think?
Now science, that’s another matter. Science stands or falls on whether the idea is right or wrong, not who proposed it or champions it.
But opinions on my manner? Sorry, bunny. If you want to run with the big dogs, you’ve got to live like the big dogs. In other words, if you want to have your personal opinions have some weight, you’ve got to sign your own name to them.
w.
Willis:
Come on, Willis. I’ve seen many of your posts here, and I know you can do better than arguing SEMANTICS. I did not attack anyone OR anyTHING (at least not in my initial post on this thread). There! Is that better? But I would point out to you that, for most people, attacking their work, their words, their opinions, or their beliefs, is exactly the same as attacking them personally, because many people consider such products of their minds to be part of who they are. They DO take it personally, and so, in this case, the distinction between attacking the person and attacking his work is immaterial. And the accusation of attacking his work is materially equivalent to the accusation of attacking him personally. Had I TRULY attacked his conclusions (as you accused), Dr. Sheahen would have been right to accuse me of attacking HIM personally, because any such attack would not have been directed at some inanimate object (as you imply with “someTHING”), but at the product of Dr. Sheahen’s mind. BUT, I did not “attack” Dr. Sheahen’s conclusions; I merely pointed out a potential flaw, which I admitted was probably minor. But now, if we’re done arguing semantics, can I get an apology from you for accusing me of “attacking” Dr. Sheahen’s work, since, even if you don’t equate that to an accusation of a personal attack as I do, you must admit the accusation is false nonetheless, because my words were not anywhere near strong enough to constitute an attack on anyone OR anyTHING.
Contrary to your accusations of “attack”, I merely pointed out a possible flaw in Dr. Sheahen’s analysis. You denied (before I provided quotes) that Sheahen said what I understood him to say, in the process agreeing with me that IF he had said what I understood him to say he would have been wrong (no, you didn’t use those exact words, but that’s what is implied by “We all know, including Dr. Seagal [sic – but to be fair, I think I may have made that error first, and you merely copied it, assuming I had used the correct name, so I’ll take the blame for that one], that methane has some effect.”). So I pointed out FOUR instances in which Dr. Sheahen’s OWN WORDS, though not an exact duplicate of mine, clearly indicated his conclusion that the effective warming of incremental atmospheric methane is exactly zero. And instead of adressing the SUBSTANCE of my argument, you are focusing on a misstatement I made about whether you were accusing me of attacking a person or a thing. And in the process, you have now attacked ME (not someTHING) TWICE (I guess you’ll need quotes on that, so I’ll append them below). And you continue to deny what Dr. Sheahen clearly said, without even addressing my evidence that he said it. Even after I QUOTED him for you like you demanded (and before you get semantic again, I think putting it in all caps amounts to more of a demand than a request.)
So, in the interest of actually getting somewhere in this discussion, I ask you to ignore minor semantic disagrements for long enough to address the four QUOTES, from Dr. Sheahen himself, that I believe to clearly inidicate his conclusion that methane’s net marginal contribution to warming is exactly zero
Also, please note, for the record, that the only reason I did not include quotes from Dr. Sheahen’s essay in my original post was that I believed, at the time, that it was CLEAR to anyone who had read the essay, what Dr. Sheahen was saying. In fact, it never even occurred to me that someone with a high-school level of reading comprehension could read that essay and come to the conclusion that Dr. Sheahen did not say that the net effect on surface temperature of additional methane in the atmosphere was zero. Though I still maintain that I am right about what Dr. Sheahen said, I concede that I was wrong about how “clear” it was, since at least one person here did not understand it. If you still think that I am also wrong about what he said, then, as I have already asked, put this argument over semantics behind you and address the four quotes that you asked for and that I supplied (and that you subsequently ignored, despite asking for them).
Trevor
*As promised, quotes from your two replies to me that were attacks on me:
From your first reply to me:
“So … you’re attacking something he didn’t say”
You accused me of ATTACKING something. Not just some inanimate object, but a “thing” that was the product of a person’s mind, which that person considers a part of himself and a reflection upon himself. But even if you maintain that it was just a “thing” you accused me of attacking, you were still accusing me of aggressive behavior (and even you must admit that attacking somone’s behavior is completely indistinguishable from attacking that person).
From your second reply to me:
“Instead, you took exception to something he never said.”
Here you are accusing me of putting words in Dr. Sheahen’s mouth, then taking exception to them. In effect, you are accusing me of dishonesty. Now, I admit that, at the time you first took exception to my exception-taking, I had not provided quotes. However, at the time you posted this attack on me, I had provided those quotes, which I believe clearly support my claim about what he said. Yet, without even revisiting your conclusion that he never said it, in light of the newly-quoted evidence, you continued to accuse me of misquoting Dr. Sheahen.
“I didn’t accuse you of attacking someONE, as you fatuously claim.”
If you know the meaning of the word “fatuous”, then no further explanation is necessary. Except to repeat that, when the “thing” that is the target of an attack is so intimately entwined with the person’s identity, the attack IS, for all intents and purposes, on the PERSON himself.
“So QUOTE THE WORDS YOU DISAGREE WITH!!! ”
The use of all-caps is clearly meant as a criticism of my inability to follow your instructions in your first reply to me. Not only is it insulting, it is also WRONG. I did, in fact, use quotes from the original essay, exactly as you requested. I did not quote your words (the “attack” accusation) from the first reply because at that point the conversation was exclusively between you and me, and you presumably know what you said to me, and would have no problem finding it with the key word “attack”. The only purpose for quotes is to make sure everyone involved in the discussion knows what the person you are replying to actually said. Again, you and I are the only people involved in the discussion of this specific topic, so I took it for granted that you already knew what you said, and if I got it wrong (as I arguably did, if you argue fatuously), you could easily defend yourself without having to search the entire page for what you said. So your demand for quotes, in this instance, is just silly, and I believe, nothing more than a distraction contrived to avoid addressing my evidence of what Dr. Sheahen concluded.
Willis, obviously you are a public figure and overtly involved in climate science to dispute the IPCC and others who are writing rubbish. It is best you use your name to publicize yourself. (And self promote your status in the scheme of things) I don’t in anyway criticize or condemn you for that of course. However, Anthony knows who I am, I’m sure he will let you know if it concerns you so much. It is your manner for putting down people and suggestions such as ‘get out of the kitchen,’ as I find most bloggers here are very polite and I would expect someone as famous as you to be the same. Run with dogs, oh, come on Will you are sidelining others who don’t sign the real names, as pitiful in your estimation. We are on the same side I think? And an opinion is just as relevant as a scientific graph, that most people take for granted as correct anyway. Well I don’t the conclusions gained are my main concern. PS. I love dogs, some have been my best friends in life. But if they bite me, they find a new home. Goes for any pet or man I have married.
bushbunny says:
April 16, 2014 at 8:14 pm
You asked me how you could know who I am. I told you. I am amused by you telling me that you do not condemn or criticize me for standing behind my own words and using my real name … that’s awfully generous of you.
It doesn’t concern me or interest me in the slightest. You choose to be anonymous. I respect that. I almost never attempt to pierce someones anonymity, I view that as highly improper.
I don’t think people who post anonymously are pitiful. I simply have observed that nobody pays much attention to opinions from random anonymous bunnies on the internet. And why should we? For all I know you are twelve years old … why should your anonymous opinion be of interest to anyone?
Next, it appears you didn’t understand what I meant by “If you run with the big dogs, you have to live like the big dogs”. It means that if you want to play big league baseball, you have to do what big league baseball players do.
In terms of your opinions carrying weight, what that means is that you have to do what those of us whose opinions carry weight do … and the very first thing in that list is SIGN, DEFEND, AND LIVE WITH WHAT YOU HAVE SAID.
You see, bunny, because you are anonymous you don’t have to stand behind your words. You can disappear and come back tomorrow as “paulbunnyan” and I’ll never be the wiser.
Me, I don’t have that option. If I make a claim, I have to back it up or take it down. I cannot walk away from it as you can.
This should not be news to you, that anonymous opinions sell at a deep discount. It’s the same reason that police can’t use anonymous informants to get a search warrant—the informant can walk away from their words. It’s the ugly reality of the world—you can be a bushbunny if you want, but nobody will pay any attention to your opinions. If you want to run with the big dogs, you have to live like the big dogs.
Can’t say. I haven’t a clue whether you understand what “side” I’m on, as I consider myself a climate heretic rather than a skeptic. And I’m quite certain I don’t understand what “side” you are on … so I fear I can’t answer your question.
Not in a scientific discussion.. A scientific graph, a proper one, is a graphical representation of facts with an estimate of their error. In a scientific discussion, those facts carry weight. On the other hand, your opinion or mine carries no weight in a scientific discussion. Any of my opinions, for example whether I really, truly believe something is true, is IMMATERIAL in such a discussion. How much I believe something is just opinion, and carries no weight at all in a scientific discussion.
And rightly so. Science is a method, not a thing. It’s a method for determining what we might call “provisional scientific truth”. Here’s how it works. I put my scientific claim out there, with all the code, data, logic, explanations, math, observations and any other support I can find.
Then I hand around the hammers and invite everyone to find something wrong with my claim. So they marshall their code and data and logic etc etc and try to smash my beloved idea to bits.
If they can smash it, if my claim is “falsified”, it joins the long list of all of the other falsified scientific claims throughout history. And if they can’t find fault with it, my claim is accepted as provisional scientific fact … until someone comes along who can find something wrong with it.
Note that in that entire process, it doesn’t matter in the slightest what your OPINION of my claim might be. And that’s true whether you are anonymous or not. Either you can show that I’m wrong, or you can’t. Nothing else matters.
So I’m sorry, but neither your opinion nor mine are “just as relevant as a scientific graph”. In a scientific discussion of the graph, opinions are not relevant at all.
I suppose in your real life, those kinds of threats might keep both your husbands and your dogs in line. And they are certainly reasonable rules for life regarding husbands and pets.
But it seems you still don’t grasp your position here. You are a random, anonymous internet popup, but you think your opinions are important. Hey, grab a number and stand in line, we have hundreds of folks just like you. So in this case, you threatening to take your ball and go home if you think someone is biting is meaningless here. Do what you wish.
On the other hand, if you want to stick around, there’s lots to be learned on this site. Heck, you can avoid me entirely and find heaps of interesting stuff.
So let me invite you to stay. And let me invite you to use your real name. My comment about the big dogs was not meant to shut you out. It was an invitation to come run with us, and a comment on what you need to do if you want to take that run …
Or not. It’s up to you, and I support you making either choice. I’m just trying to point out the consequences of that choice. In the big world, folks don’t pay much attention to anonymous voices. That’s not a value judgement on you or anyone being anonymous. It’s just the price you pay for anonymity in every society I’ve been in, so you should not be surprised that it’s that way here as well.
All the best,
w.
Actually Willis, adding my real name wouldn’t change your opinion it seems anyway just from your attitude to me. However, I am very proactive in political circles, and writing letters to newspapers, (when I use my real name) when it comes to anything to do with bogus AGW predictions and clean energy. Especially the methane sent out by poor hapless ruminants. I do have a degree in archaeology and palaeoanthropology, a GCA, in archaeology and ancient history, and a Diploma in Organic agricultural production. (It was hard as I am not a farmer but was allowed to sit it because of former certificates in horticulture and organic farming and horticultural principles). This is in Australia of course.
But in POLITICs, I was involved in a five year long debate with our former Federal MP Tony Windsor on this, I had supported him on all of his election campaigns and was once on his think tank so to speak, and we eventually parted and I told him why? He retired instead of standing because of ill health he stated. There was support for his mate who owns a solar panel company who stood in for him and although I was present in supervising the count at the largest polling station, Rod Taber didn’t get so many primary votes, but most of the labor and green factions awarded him their preferences. (These are counted of course in the final result). So whatever I blog here, has some basis and foundation because I am interested in putting Mann et al, back into their place in history as frauds. It is not ‘just’ an opinion from an anonymous person.
This blog is not just about science (although contradictions of known data compiled by IPCC and Mann etc., are a big factor) it is also about politics and manipulation of ideologies and confounding the masses to believe we can alter the weather etc., and turn to alternative clean energy sources to save the planet. This is what interests me more, than more graphs to prove your own personal worth in scientific analysis. I suspect you have also provided these for publication in some scholarly magazine or paper? That’s where it will have peers who can overview your data, not only me and others. I am not trying to put you down with this last comment, I am just suggesting and asking if you had? It’s fine to preach to the converted I suspect.
I almost unsubscribed from this site (but the British bull dog in me, let me hold on), just because of your personal comments about me. Not your science graphs etc., and I congratulate Anthony on his blog, although some of the different themes do not interest me as much as others, then I don’t comment. But your nasty comment on my ‘opinion’ regarding the Thera eruption, you had never heard of? I didn’t put down references, because it was a subject in a post graduate essay.
But I can’t believe anyone hadn’t heard of Thera (or Santorino) it’s still active too. Anyone can Google it and there are many on line scholarly papers on this subject on the web.
I am also a published author too.
bushbunny says:
April 17, 2014 at 8:58 pm
Congrats to the bulldog. That strain in the British nature is a marvelous thing. But what on earth are you talking about? Thera eruption? Post graduate essay? Never heard of?
I’ve never heard of any of this. Are you sure you are on the right thread?
Making this kind of accusations without QUOTING MY WORDS just loses you credibility with me, bushbunny. I have no clue what it was I said about the Thera eruption that has your knickers in such a twist. I assume it must have been a bad thing in your opinion, given your comments. And perhaps it was.
But how would I know if it was good or bad, when I have no idea what you are talking about? Perhaps it’s obvious to you, but I read hundreds of comments a day … just what the heck are you on about?
Apparently you didn’t notice, or didn’t believe me upstream when I said to you (emphasis mine):
So the sight of you clutching your pearls and earnestly declaiming what a bad man I am for making some unknown comment about Thera mumble mumble?
Sorry, that just makes you look like a drama queen. Without specifying what bad thing you think I’ve done, that’s nothing but slinging mud, bushbunny.
I am happy to defend whatever I said, or to apologize to you for it if I did or said wrong things.
What I can’t defend is your vague reference to some unknown thing you think I said somewhere about something. I’m not going searching for the word “Thera” and then try to guess which of my comments about Thera you didn’t like.
I wasn’t kidding above. If you want to hold a dialogue with me, and I’m always interested in that, then I insist that you quote my exact words that you are objecting to. I’m not willing to discuss science with people who throw mud at the wall in the hope that it will stick. And so far, that’s what you’ve done.
For example, you imply that I’d never heard of Thera … say what? How can I defend myself against such a vague, underhanded charge like that, when I haven’t a clue where you got such a misconception. Where did I say that, and exactly what did I say?
Sorry for the straight talk, bushbunny, but I don’t take that kind of underhanded vague, content-free accusation of bad behavior from man, woman, or chimpanzee for that matter. I’m happy to have anyone disagree with me. But I insist that you quote EXACTLY what you disagree with, so we can all understand what has you breathing so hard.
w.
PS—I was serious about approving of your bulldog nature. It is an endearing quality in anyone, especially women. My dear lady wife is a serious bulldog … she’d have to be, I suppose, living with me.
Well I can’t remember exactly which thread it was, possibly regarding the effect of volcanoes on the climate. I mentioned Thera and also some ancient Chinese chronicle that recorded seven years of famine etc. My credibility is not lost to me, Willis. I delete posts as soon as I comment, but if you keep them, then look at a thread from which volcanoes featured.
Oh, I asked if you had been published in any scholarly papers or magazines. Just asking? To me you are using this site and blog to self serve your own credibility and reputation. That is my OPINION.
Willis, I have been confronted many times in my life just being a feminist, and a liberal one too, not a man eater or hater. And the way you are pursuing this is definitely defensive and unnecessary. Send my kind regards to your wife. And with that I refuse to enter into any more on this it is getting rather boring to me, and THAT IS MY OPINION.
ps. Willis how old are you? I’m 71 and still studying.
bushbunny says:
April 18, 2014 at 1:13 am
Great. You’re so mad at me about something I supposedly said that you’re gonna take your ball and go home, and you don’t even know what it is I said? Yeah, that makes you look like a really rational bunny… plus now you’re mad at me for pointing it out?
Gotta say, you’re not giving bunnies a good name here, you’re fulfilling all the bunny stereotypes.
Yes, I’ve published a few pieces in the scientific journals, including a peer-reviewed “Communications Arising” in Nature magazine, and three other peer-reviewed pieces.
As to whether I am “using this site to self serve”, I am far and away the most popular guest author here. I get about a million page views per year. I am overjoyed to be published here, it’s a superb site. I bring lots of folks to the site, I write interesting pieces that are often controversial and that engender interesting comments and discussion. Anthony is happy to have me publishing here.
I don’t see anyone is using anyone in this story.
Running away so soon? So your story about being a bulldog was just words? You talk about being a bulldog, but you don’t want to do what it takes to run with the big dogs?
Ah, well. Your choice. Please be clear, however, that I have not accused you of being a feminist, a liberal, a “man eater”, a “man hater”, or anything of the sort. I neither said nor implied that, nor anything even remotely resembling that.
However, instead of actually quoting me as I’ve requested, I see you sneakily tossing those words out there, hoping they’ll stick to me and folks not paying attention might believe I accused you of such things … not gonna happen, bunny. That’s all on your side of the screen. I said no such thing. I can see why you are so unwilling to quote me … because your fantasies are so very far from anything I actually said.
Finally, you say that I am being “defensive” … look, bunny. You popped in here to tell me that I’m a bad guy, so bad you are going to never read the site again … but you can’t find whatever it is that you’re so angry at me about. You accuse me of things I’ve never done, question my credibility, and refuse to quote whatever it is that has you wound up so tight … damn right I’m defensive, and I’ll tell you why.
Because you are being so offensive.
You set out to bite me, bushbunny, and now you’re all shocked and surprised that I bite back? Did you expect me to be nice to you because you’re a bunny? I thought you were the one arguing for bunny equality … well, this is part of equality—you get held to the same standards as everyone else, no special treatment because you’re a bunny.
In any case, I wish you well whether you stay or go.
w.
bushbunny says:
April 18, 2014 at 1:18 am
Me? I was born yesterday …
w.
Willis Eschenbach says:
April 18, 2014 at 2:49 am
Just kidding. I’m sixty-seven, last I looked, and still studying. And still doing research. And still writing it up. And still working a day job pounding nails, I’m a house builder.
What’s your objective in asking? Are you looking for bonus points on account of your age? Sorry … I’m an old goat myself, old bunnies can’t gain any advantage there.
w.
Willis, no comment!
Willis as this theme is about methane, [easy … Mod]
Thank you Moderator, but I stand by my comment but remember I tend to be sardonic not spiteful.
Willis:
I’m still waiting for a reply from you about the quotes you demanded (proving that Sheahen concluded that the warming effect of additional methane is zero), and which I supplied. Your first reply did not address those quotes, but instead belittled me (as a blatant attempt at distraction) for misreading your reply to my first post (and No, Willis, I’m not going to repsond to any more of your childish demands for quotes on this topic; you know what you said and you know how you meant it; besides, you’ve proven that, even when I do provide quotes, you just IGNORE them). And so I posted another reply, explaining the lack of difference between attacking a person and attacking a “thing”, when that thing is a product of a person’s mind. In any event, if it will get you to address those four quotes from my first reply to you, and explain how they do NOT prove that Sheahen’s conclusion was as I stated it, then I will gladly concede any argument between you and me over semantics.
Regards,
Trevor