(Note: this originally published on Dr. Spencer’s blog on April 25th, and I asked if I could reproduce it here. While I know some readers might argue the finer points of some items in the list, I think it is important to keep sight of these. – Anthony)
by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
There are some very good arguments for being skeptical of global warming predictions. But the proliferation of bad arguments is becoming almost dizzying.
I understand and appreciate that many of the things we think we know in science end up being wrong. I get that. But some of the alternative explanations I’m seeing border on the ludicrous.
So, here’s my Top 10 list of stupid skeptic arguments. I’m sure there are more, and maybe I missed a couple important ones. Oh well.
My obvious goal here is not to change minds that are already made up, which is impossible (by definition), but to reach 1,000+ (mostly nasty) comments in response to this post. So, help me out here!
1. THERE IS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT. Despite the fact that downwelling IR from the sky can be measured, and amounts to a level (~300 W/m2) that can be scarcely be ignored; the neglect of which would totally screw up weather forecast model runs if it was not included; and would lead to VERY cold nights if it didn’t exist; and can be easily measured directly with a handheld IR thermometer pointed at the sky (because an IR thermometer measures the IR-induced temperature change of the surface of a thermopile, QED)… Please stop the “no greenhouse effect” stuff. It’s making us skeptics look bad. I’ve blogged on this numerous times…maybe start here.
2. THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS. The second law can be stated in several ways, but one way is that the net flow of energy must be from higher temperature to lower temperature. This is not violated by the greenhouse effect. The apparent violation of the 2nd Law seems to be traced to the fact that all bodies emit IR radiation…including cooler bodies toward warmer bodies. But the NET flow of thermal radiation is still from the warmer body to the cooler body. Even if you don’t believe there is 2-way flow, and only 1-way flow…the rate of flow depends upon the temperature of both bodies, and changing the cooler body’s temperature will change the cooling rate (and thus the temperature) of the warmer body. So, yes, a cooler body can make a warm body even warmer still…as evidenced by putting your clothes on.
3. CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT ABSORBS. No. When a CO2 molecule absorbs an IR photon, the mean free path within the atmosphere is so short that the molecule gives up its energy to surrounding molecules before it can (on average) emit an IR photon in its temporarily excited state. See more here. Also important is the fact that the rate at which a CO2 molecule absorbs IR is mostly independent of temperature, but the rate at which it emits IR increases strongly with temperature. There is no requirement that a layer of air emits as much IR as it absorbs…in fact, in general, the the rates of IR emission and absorption are pretty far from equal.
4. CO2 COOLS, NOT WARMS, THE ATMOSPHERE. This one is a little more subtle because the net effect of greenhouse gases is to cool the upper atmosphere, and warm the lower atmosphere, compared to if no greenhouse gases were present. Since any IR absorber is also an IR emitter, a CO2 molecule can both cool and warm, because it both absorbs and emits IR photons.
5. ADDING CO2 TO THE ATMOSPHERE HAS NO EFFECT BECAUSE THE CO2 ABSORPTION BANDS ARE ALREADY 100% OPAQUE. First, no they are not, and that’s because of pressure broadening. Second, even if the atmosphere was 100% opaque, it doesn’t matter. Here’s why.
6. LOWER ATMOSPHERIC WARMTH IS DUE TO THE LAPSE RATE/ADIABATIC COMPRESSION. No, the lapse rate describes how the temperature of a parcel of air changes from adiabatic compression/expansion of air as it sinks/rises. So, it can explain how the temperature changes during convective overturning, but not what the absolute temperature is. Explaining absolute air temperature is an energy budget question. You cannot write a physics-based equation to obtain the average temperature at any altitude without using the energy budget. If adiabatic compression explains temperature, why is the atmospheric temperature at 100 mb is nearly the same as the temperature at 1 mb, despite 100x as much atmospheric pressure? More about all this here.
7. WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND The rate of rise in atmospheric CO2 is currently 2 ppm/yr, a rate which is 100 times as fast as any time in the 300,000 year Vostok ice core record. And we know our consumption of fossil fuels is emitting CO2 200 times as fast! So, where is the 100x as fast rise in today’s temperature causing this CO2 rise? C’mon people, think. But not to worry…CO2 is the elixir of life…let’s embrace more of it!
8. THE IPCC MODELS ARE FOR A FLAT EARTH I have no explanation where this little tidbit of misinformation comes from. Climate models address a spherical, rotating, Earth with a day-night (diurnal) cycle in solar illumination and atmospheric Coriolis force (due to both Earth curvature and rotation). Yes, you can do a global average of energy flows and show them in a flat-earth cartoon, like the Kiehl-Trenberth energy budget diagram which is a useful learning tool, but I hope most thinking people can distinguish between a handful of global-average average numbers in a conceptual diagram, and a full-blown 3D global climate model.
9. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE Really?! Is there an average temperature of your bathtub full of water? Or of a room in your house? Now, we might argue over how to do the averaging (Spatial? Mass-weighted?), but you can compute an average, and you can monitor it over time, and see if it changes. The exercise is only futile if your sampling isn’t good enough to realistically monitor changes over time. Just because we don’t know the average surface temperature of the Earth to better than, say 1 deg. C, doesn’t mean we can’t monitor changes in the average over time. We have never known exactly how many people are in the U.S., but we have useful estimates of how the number has increased in the last 50-100 years. Why is “temperature” so important? Because the thermal IR emission in response to temperature is what stabilizes the climate system….the hotter things get, the more energy is lost to outer space.
10. THE EARTH ISN’T A BLACK BODY. Well, duh. No one said it was. In the broadband IR, though, it’s close to a blackbody, with an average emissivity of around 0.95. But whether a climate model uses 0.95 or 1.0 for surface emissivity isn’t going to change the conclusions we make about the sensitivity of the climate system to increasing carbon dioxide.
I’m sure I could come up with a longer list than this, but these were the main issues that came to mind.
So why am I trying to stir up a hornets nest (again)? Because when skeptics embrace “science” that is worse that the IPCC’s science, we hurt our credibility.
NOTE: Because of the large number of negative comments this post will generate, please excuse me if I don’t respond to every one. Or even very many of them. But if I see a new point being made I haven’t addressed before, I’ll be more likely to respond.
Konrad;
Radiative gases cool our atmosphere.
AGW is a physical impossibility.
It really is that simple 😉
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
On a planet with no radiatively active gasses in the atmosphere, photons radiated from earth surface would zip straight out to space. Inject some radiatively active gasses into the atmosphere, and some portion of those photons get absorbed in the atmosphere instead, and some of those get radiated back toward the surface.
If you want simple there it is. If you wish to continue to mouth off about how the former is warmer than the latter, you can make as big a fool of yourself as you wish.
tjfolkerts says:
May 1, 2014 at 5:26 pm
“80 C corresponds to ~ 880 W/m^2. So you would be right if the ocean were heated 24/7 by midday sun in the tropics. :-)”
———————————-
Only if you incorrectly use blackbody calcs on selective surfaces like climastrologists do 😉
Empirical experiment shows that liquid water heated by solar alone accumulates energy at depth not at the surface where some is immediately re-radiated. Empirical experiment shows that liquid water will reach 80C or beyond in the absence of atmospheric cooling, regardless of DWLWIR.
Only at the tropics? Solar ponds can reach 80C or beyond even in Canada.
Heated 24/7? When you understand the science of selective coatings, you will know that the slower the speed of internal non-radiative energy transport in transparent materials, the closer the temperature of a material being heated with intermittent diurnal pulses of SW over 1000 w/m2 rises toward the temperature achievable by constant illumination.
Tim, there is no way around it. Without atmospheric cooling the sun would superheat our oceans. Climatrologists have instead claimed that without DWLWIR and atmospheric cooling our oceans would freeze. The claim of “-18C for the “surface” in the absence of atmosphere” is locked in. There can be no escape from the shame.
Nor and there be any excuses. Research into solar ponds at Texas A&M university showed how water acts as a selective coating back in 1965. Black top covers on the ponds didn’t work. Skin temperature ended up 30C higher than the water just below. The black skin just ended up radiating away energy before it could conduct into the water. Clear covers and black base worked best.
Now how do the failed S-B equations of the climastrolgists treat our oceans? Black at the top! Just that one inane mistake invalidates the whole radiative GHE effect claims.
Our atmosphere is provably cooling our oceans not warming them. How do you think the general public are going to react when they find out that all the claims of the global warming propagandists depends on claiming the atmosphere is heating the oceans?
davidmhoffer says:
May 1, 2014 at 6:01 pm
——————————-
Radiative gases are the only effective cooling mechanism for our atmosphere and the atmosphere is the only effective cooling mechanism for our oceans.
In terms of who has a habit of making a fool of themselves, remember when you were asked the very simple question –
“given 1 bar pressure, is the net effect of the atmosphere over the oceans cooling or warming of the oceans”
You tried to avoid giving a clear and direct answer 6 times before finally settling on the incorrect answer that excepting pressure our atmosphere was warming the oceans.
The Internet remembers –
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/04/10/the-great-credibility-gap-yawns-ever-wider/#comment-1610424
I don’t care much for the post, so ill help you hit your 1000. Be more accurate when your setting up baby straw men. Some of the line items are obviously red herrings in that there is as much wrong with your explanation as your wording of the arguments. Being flippant with the facts does not help the cause as it were. Lots of good points made in the previous posts, particularly concerning 1,2,7,9. I will also point out that 10 is just dumb. There has to be a better point than “X is not Y; duh X is not Y but.”
Sorry Roy I usually like your stuff but this post is not up to your usual standards.
v/r,
David Riser
davidmhoffer says:
May 1, 2014 at 6:01 pm
“On a planet with no radiatively active gasses in the atmosphere, photons radiated from earth surface would zip straight out to space.”
Yes, but the air in contact with the ground would gain heat from conduction, and transport it higher via convection. With no way to rid itself of the heat acquired, the atmosphere would continue heating all the way up until it was isothermal, at the same temperature as the ground (assuming no day/night cycle, of course).
Now, allow the atmosphere to radiate heat away. What happens?
A lapse rate is going to have to develop. The question is, will the ground heat up while the atmosphere stays the same temperature, or will the atmosphere cool down to less than the ground? Please explain the reasoning behind your answer in detail. Because frankly, I can see arguments for both sides.
It would be nice if we could perform experiments to confirm it for us, but we really can’t. Who, really, has made the measurements? Where is the planet sized laboratory to confirm under controlled conditions all these conjectures the warmists take for granted? On what basis are laboratory experiments under constrained conditions validly extrapolated to the entire planetary atmosphere at large?
Given that the AGW hypothesis is failing so dramatically right now, I think one should be cautious about labeling those who disagree with the failing orthodoxy as fools based on the tenets of that failing orthodoxy.
A lot of this stuff is just unexamined cant. Somewhere, on some level, when applied to the entire dynamic planetary atmosphere, it’s wrong. We’re seeing that play out right before our eyes.
One minor point, two major.
1. The argument that if an argument does not hold water, it is not a skeptical argument is sheer sophistry. It implicitly defines “skeptic” as one who never makes an incorrect argument.
2. Everyone or almost everyone here who has complained about “global average temperature” seems to be ignorant of the fact that it’s just shorthand for an average of temperature differences at numerous locations; the differences are not differences between locations but rather differences between temperatures at the same location. That may have its own problems, but it’s much harder to criticize. Even James Hansen has pointed out that “global average temperature,” literally interpreted, is very problematical, not because it misrepresents the actual calculation, but because we wouldn’t really know how to calculate it with decent accuracy.
3. Contrary to what many seem to believe, the fact that, in paleo-estimates, CO2 increase lags temperature increases does not falsify the claim that increasing the CO2 level increases the temperature. I wish I could think of a very clear and brief argument for this, but I’ll just have to say, think about it!
Roy Spencer says:
May 1, 2014 at 7:26 am: “… But that does not mean that when we pump CO2 into the atmosphere (at 100x the rate we see in the ice core record), that it won’t cause warming. Both directions of causation can happen….it’s not just one or the other….”
I say, thank God we ARE pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. The last Ice Age nearly brought us to ruin: CO2 at 180 ppm is close to the point that plant life begins to gasp and die. Now, arguably, we are at 400 ppm. This is still at the bottom of the range of Earth’s atmospheric CO2 content over at least half a billion years (the geochemical evidence doesn’t exist for time before that, to my knowledge). Earth eats CO2; it isn’t coming back from the trillions of tons of calcite and aragonite and so on contained in the rocks and sediments that have been deposited. Without CO2, plants die. When plants die, so do we. So get off the “PUMPING” bullshit. We are not harming Gaia or whatever you want to call it. Frankly, Gaia doesn’t give a damn what we do. We, however, do care, and CO2 is a friend in our existential battle.
Otherwise, I have no problem with your list. Now, where’s the list (called for by several above) where we are right. ‘Splain to me, for example, how the 1930s now look like the Little Ice Age, when only a short time ago, Jim Hansen showed a chart where the present was only re-attaining the “global average temperature” that my parents (now passed) recall as hotter than blue blazes – back in the 30s, when they were migrating from Arkansas and Tennessee to the promised land of California (in their Ford Model As).
Your friendly geologist, JimF
Sorry, but my skepticism has nothing to do with science, and a lot to do with being an older person who has had a lot of sense beaten into them over the years. Since I was a child, I have been inundated with yearly proclamations of something that would harm or kill me or the world. Sad to say, none of those proclamations came true, as both the world and I are still here. However, I did pick up on one thing that was always a common thread in all of these predictions of doom and gloom, and that was that someone made money from it. So everyone can argue the science, or lack thereof, as much as you want. I will simply look at where the money is going, and who it is going to. This is not rocket science, this is smoke and mirrors and extortion, but on a grand scale.
Rather than having a bunch of scientists discuss this, we would be better served to have a bunch of ex-confidence men discuss it. As Nassim Taleb said in one of his books, if you tell a scientist that you have flipped a coin 100 times and had it turn up heads each time, they will say that it is statistically possible. If you tell a con-man that you have flipped a coin 100 times and had it turn up heads each time, they will tell you that you have a coin that has been tampered with.
We’ve been had, led by the nose to argue about nonsense, both in the warmist and the skeptical sides of the house, while certain individuals and organizations have been busy picking our pockets. If after ten minutes at the poker table you do not know who the patsy is . . . you are the patsy. Welcome to the poker table.
Bryan says:
May 1, 2014 at 7:34 am
“….
Atmospheric CO2 has varied widely historically and in the recent past.
Yet apparently there is no link to surface temperatures.
The recent ‘pause’ in the last 17 years is well documented.
Is it not time to move on and reject the greenhouse theory as a failed conjecture without any link to reality?”
———————————————
“…no link to surface temperatures” is too strong, in my opinion. What we can say is that apparently the climate sensitivity is significantly smaller than alarmists claim.
As for calling the theory a failed conjecture, I would say it is neither failed nor a conjecture. It is not failed, because the theory predicts (ignoring feedback effects) about 1 Celsius degree increase in average global temperature per doubling of CO2 concentration, other things being equal; and warming so far (although admittedly difficult to measure) seems roughly in line with that prediction (with feedbacks being small). And it is not a conjecture, since it is based on principles of physics, not guesses.
If my understanding is correct, assertions of large positive feedbacks might be fairly referred to as conjecture, since they start out as plausible guesses, and then are backed up by models which (if my understanding is correct) simply parameterize the behavior clouds. Unless I am missing something, if you parameterize clouds you can get whatever you want out of a model. And if you can get whatever you want from a model, then it provides no real support for the plausible guesses, leaving only conjecture.
Bryan says:
May 1, 2014 at 7:34 am
“….
Atmospheric CO2 has varied widely historically and in the recent past.
Yet apparently there is no link to surface temperatures.
The recent ‘pause’ in the last 17 years is well documented.
Is it not time to move on and reject the greenhouse theory as a failed conjecture without any link to reality?”
———————————————
“…no link to surface temperatures” is too strong, in my opinion. What we can say is that apparently the climate sensitivity is significantly smaller than alarmists claim.
As for calling the theory a failed conjecture, I would say it is neither failed nor a conjecture. It is not failed, because the theory predicts (ignoring feedback effects) about 1 Celsius degree increase in average global temperature per doubling of CO2 concentration, other things being equal; and warming so far (although admittedly difficult to measure) seems roughly in line with that prediction (with feedbacks being small). And it is not a conjecture, since it is based on principles of physics, not guesses.
If my understanding is correct, assertions of large positive feedbacks might be fairly referred to as conjecture, since they start out as plausible guesses, and then are backed up by models which (if my understanding is correct) simply parameterize the behavior clouds. Unless I am missing something, if you parameterize clouds you can get whatever you want out of a model. If they get the large feedbacks and thus high climate sensitivity from the models by choosing suitable cloud parameters, then the models provide no real support for the plausible guesses, leaving only conjecture.
Bart says, May 1, 2014 at 4:43 pm:
“Yes, the gap is there. However, the weakness in this argument is that it only tells the impedance to IR up to the current atmospheric constitution. What it does not tell us is the incremental sensitivity of IR impedance to increased GHG concentration.”
Bart, read what rgb writes. He seems to think that since there are ‘bites’ in the spectrum, then that means less W/m^2 escapes the earth system. That for a 255K blackbody the spectrum should be complete and that that is what the spectrum from earth would and should look like and that everything less shows the warming from ‘GHGs’.
This spectrum is not about OLR flux to space from the earth. It’s about radiation wavelength spread to space.
Bart says:
May 1, 2014 at 6:30 pm
“A lapse rate is going to have to develop. The question is, will the ground heat up while the atmosphere stays the same temperature, or will the atmosphere cool down to less than the ground? Please explain the reasoning behind your answer in detail. Because frankly, I can see arguments for both sides.”
Actually, I will go ahead and tell you what I think is the answer: both. It helps to look at the two reductios. We’ve already examined the non-radiative case. Until challenged, I will assume we all agree that the atmosphere would become isothermal (again, ignoring day/night cycling), and the ground would be at the temperature dictated by the SB relationship. Let us, in fact, assume that the planet under question is a perfect blackbody, just to avoid having to qualify things with emissivities.
Now, we go the other way, and make the atmosphere perfectly radiative. What happens then? Well, then the atmosphere is just an extension of the blackbody, and you end up with the same isothermal condition.
Now, what happens for an in-between point, where the atmosphere is partially radiative, and partially not? At both extremes, the atmosphere is the same temperature as the surface. If the surface is not trivially the same temperature for any atmospheric composition, then mathematically, there must be an extremal point somewhere in-between. Assuming that the surface temperature function is bounded below and non-trivial, it follows that there is at least one local maximum, and beyond that point, the incremental sensitivity to increasing radiativity is negative.
Aha! Here, then, is a technical description of the inchoate thought I have been trying to get through by displaying this plot from time to time. We are dealing with a complex, nonlinear system here. Yet, the analyses in general tend to assume simple constant or linear functions. Assumed forms which work fine in a constrained laboratory setting, or in localized neighborhoods under specific conditions, but may well fail when extended to the entire planet.
May well fail and, I should say, evidently do.
Janice says:
May 1, 2014 at 6:49 pm
“Since I was a child, I have been inundated with yearly proclamations of something that would harm or kill me or the world.”
Testify! You said it, sister!
““The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” “
-H. L. Mencken
Bart says:
May 1, 2014 at 7:05 pm
Whoops. This plot.
Dear Dr Roy,
You had me at: “Stupid arguments” and I wanted to agree with you!
It matters very much, what use a list like this is put to! That is why it is very important to be pedantic about meaning.
In urban connotative parlance, the language used to explicate your items, has a prescribed meaning that made sense (Meaning, I think I know what you meant! 😉
But in a scientific discussion you must define your terms in order to be transparent and to safeguard against obscurantism.
Your list, had the smack of controlled debate, for me, because it occulted more than it illuminated.
You set up your main argument to debunk myths but fail to appreciate that such an argument is immediately falsified by the least equivocation.
For example, #4: “CO2 Cools, not warms, the atmosphere”.
Your breakdown equivicates and thus rather than negate the position, you confirm that the opposite is also false!
Rather than removing the contradictions your head post promised, you add to them, serving to mire the argument in further mystification.
I know what you mean (I think 😉 but this is just the point!
You strike a mortal blow to your own argument when you attempt to reveal equivocation by equivocating!!
You straight out contradict your own #7: “Warming causes CO2 to rise, not the other way around” when you say in comments:
“Yes, warmer emits more CO2. Even the IPCC admitted that in an earlier report…”
And then you add further insult to you own post by equivocating with: “But that does not mean that when we pump CO2 into the atmosphere (at 100x the rate we see in the ice core record), that it won’t cause warming. Both directions of causation can happen….it’s not just one or the other.”
As an aside to the point I think you are making about causation in #7, semantically, it could be argued that even you would agree that the statement is itself true because even the anthroprogenic contribution is produced by the warmth/heat of internal combustion and coal firing etc!!
I guess this “warmth” may only be a small contribution, but it does make me wonder about all that heat, fixed from the Sun by processes in the past and where it fits into the heat budget today?
I remember actually getting #1: “There is no greenhouse effect” as a true or false, science exam question and the correct answer in that context, was “True”. As discussed by others above, the process is a misnomer!
There are many more points, I wanted to make but I’m on the road which makes writing a challenge!
Here are other stupid ones.
‘Humans are not causing global warming’. ‘C02 is not causing global warming/has no effect’. SUVs are not causing global warming. AGW does not exist. etc
Saying ‘not causing’ opens up ridicule because in all cases the effect is real, but perhaps only small. There is a big difference between none and some, especially in perception and communication.
Kristian says: May 1, 2014 at 6:57 pm:
”Bart, read what rgb writes. He seems to think that since there are ‘bites’ in the spectrum, then that means less W/m^2 escapes the earth system.”
Further, rgb (and anyone else using this argument to ‘prove’ the warming effect from the so-called ‘GHGs’) seems to forget that what the satellites out there in space are actually detecting and measuring is earth’s emitted radiation, not absorbed radiation. Hence my question to him. Does he think that CO2 and H2O ‘unemit’ radiation to space? If there is 200-220 W/m^2 being emitted from the atmosphere to space, what gases emit this radiation spectrally, since pretty much all radiation seems to be emitted at the ‘atmospheric window’ centred (mean temperature specified) wavelengths and ‘unemitted’ in the ‘GHGs’ bands:
http://www.barrettbellamyclimate.com/userimages/Sun2.jpg
Bart;
I will assume we all agree that the atmosphere would become isothermal (again, ignoring day/night cycling), and the ground would be at the temperature dictated by the SB relationship.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Well let’s think that assumption through. You’ve created an unreal world by eliminating night/day, but it seems to me that you still don’t get to isothermal on that alone. You’ve got convection to consider, and since the energy fluxes (absorption and emission) will be different over land versus over ocean, you’ve still got all sorts of atmospheric mixing going on. Then you have to assume you’ve got no evaporative or precipitative processes on top of that. There’s probably more that I’m missing, but if you eliminate all of those things, you STILL have earth surface at SB Law temp and the moment you inject radiative gasses into the atmosphere if this artificial construct….
Some of the photons emitted by earth surface in accordance with SB Law no longer zip straight out to space, they get absorbed in the atmosphere instead and some of them get radiated back to earth surface. Same end result. A surface warmer than SB Law and an effective SB Law temperature that occurs at some height above the surface.
Dr. Spencer is correct about argument #1; however, the real greenhouse “effect” doesn’t work like a real greenhouse. It’s real, but a misnomer. If I remember correctly, Dr. Spencer made this point in one of his books. Greenhouses restrict convective cooling. The greenhouse effect reradiates certain bandwidths of outgoing IR radiation.
I totally agree with 8 of other points; however, I substantially disagree with this one…
“””””……Kristian says:
May 1, 2014 at 4:07 pm
rgbatduke says, May 1, 2014 at 3:18 pm:
“(…) this is literally a photograph of the GHE at work:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/10/visualizing-the-greenhouse-effect-emission-spectra/“……”””””
This reference to Ira Glickstein’s paper I probably saw when it posted; but also probably “missed” much of what was in it.
Of particular note, and a great revelation for me, is the wave number referred Nimbus 4 look from space.
This graph, almost brings tears to my eyes.
My “Infrared handbook” has a slew of graphs, that look EXACTLY like that figure. ( “exactly” is used here in its “climate uniform”, and not in its “measure the value of c ” uniform.
Now the reason it elates me, is that ALL of the similar graphs in my handbook, ARE COMPUTED from modtran or whatever; from a variety of seasons, slant angle views, and locations.
So for years, I had been asking myself; “why the hell doesn’t somebody look out the window of some spacecraft and look down and MEASURE WHAT’S COMING UP” ?
Voila ! there it is in Ira’s paper, and it is an oriental copy of what is in my book, even to the tiny upticks in the middle of the “CO2 hole”, and the “ozone hole”, which are around 15 and 9.6 microns respectively.
So now I know I can trust the computed graphs in the book, or just look up Nimbus 4 again.
And note once again, that the vertical scale is Watts per square meter per cm^-1 (wave number).
And there are a whole lot more wavenumbers up at the SW end than at the LW end, which is why the spectral peak is around 15 microns, instead of around 10, for W / m^2 / micron (of wavelength increment), in the wavelength x scale graphs.
That little glitch in the middle of those two holes, has some well understood quantum mechanical explanation. That is well understood by everybody but me. I know how to spell “E = h nu,” and that’s about the sum total of my QM knowledge..
So a Doctor wanders into a lukewarmist bar, slaps his hand on the bar and yells out; “I sick and tired of all you skeptics being so danged ignorant and here are the ten things I hate hearing from you absolute disbelievers. I can lick any one of you on any one of these points…!”
And you are accusing us of having closed minds?
Uh, the absolute skeptic bar is down the internet somewhere; this is a lukewarmist bar and we mostly agree with you.
Mostly agree because your heated wording and topic choices leaves a lot to be desired. I may agree with your statement if it is clearly defined and well stated, but that is not how your ten points are framed.
for example:
What do mean by a ‘greenhouse effect’? And the geek shouting style is not helpful.
My idea of ‘greenhouse effect’ is exactly that; a closed system without open ventilation in all directions. Even a glass roof can make it seem hotter under the glass.
Obviously you are arguing something that I think is entirely different.
Is this another word issue?
Frankly I’ve never heard that CO2 emits IR as fast as it receives it. My limited understanding physics is that when an atom/molecule absorbs a photon/wave it’s excitation level increases. Those molecules either reach an excitation level where a photon is emitted and excitation level decreases or the molecule bumps and grinds it’s way to a lower excitation level through atmospheric molecules…
This latter part is the ‘warming’ process.
Now there are a lot of ‘calculations’ and ‘models’, many with rather specific predictions.
Are any of these predictions proven? Any?
While we’re speaking about proven. Are you telling us that there is definitive research that has actually measured IR due to CO2 and can explain the residence time before IR escapes to space from Earth’s last atmospheric IR absorbing molecule?
I’ve stood outside when the skies cleared and the Milky Way could be seen clearly; not only that it got cold downright quickly much as any person used to cold clear nights expects.
So how long did CO2 delay that cooling? I can probably look up day, date and location if that’ll help.
On this complaint of yours, you’ve really lost me. Just what claim are you making?
200 times as fast as what?
2ppm per year which is 100 times as fast as a 300,000 year ice record? Who cares? Or do you mean to tell us that mankind is responsible for every ppm rise?
Your QED, (which is normally the abbreviation for “quod erat demonstrandum”); are you sure it isn’t for ¿Qué es la verdad??
Is my comment negative?
What is the line between negative, constructive and I suppose approval? Or is this about quantity not quality?
Well, here is my negative take; this has to rank as one of the most disappointing articles of your that I’ve read. Where you have the ability very much like ‘Dr. Robert G. Brown’ (rgbatduke) and ‘Ross McKitrick’ to carefully define and delineate cogent arguments; instead you have chosen to paint generalized groups of people with a very broad negative brush of accusations.
I have to say this all seems to be a straw man.
Of course an excess of CO2 will have some effect on climate. How could it not?
The question is, how much?
The bare physics alone without ‘amplification’ seems to say ‘almost none’
The ‘amplification’ as I understand it, is not actually of the CO2 directly, but of the rising temperatures themselves. Allegedly.
So it would apply to ANY climate driver that affected temperature. Like orbital variations etc. etc.
And yet as far as I cam tell form moderately perusing the climate models, it is assumed ONLY to amplify CO2 induced temperature rises.
I leave you with that appallingly simple thought.
Anything that might knock the earth’s temperature up or down a few degrees, like a large volcanic eruption will lead to scary and probably irreversible cliamte change, and must have done so hundreds of times in the past. lf the AGW advocates are correct.
#9 is fine. Let’s say the actual temperature in May 2014 is 55.0F and for the sake of argument, is 100% accurate and precise. The problem is in May 2019 it will be measured the same exact way at 54.6F but the 2014 reading will be adjusted downward to 54.0F and the headline will be “Earth’s average temperature skyrockets 0.6F in 5 years!”. In May 2024 it will come in at 54.2F; the 2014 reading will be adjusted to 53.2F, the 2019 reading to 53.7F, and the headline will be “Earth’s average temperature up a full degree F in 10 years! More funding for climate change desperately needed!” And so on…
The other Phil says:May 1, 2014 at 8:28 am
“If you really believe that, would you mind drinking this water, laced with 400 ppm of arsenic? After all, how can it possibly be enough to do anything to you?”
Would you mind drinking this water, laced with XXXX ppm of carbon dioxide ? (AKA soda water, you know the stuff with little bubbles of CO2?) After all, how can it possibly be enough to do anything to you? **Burp** Laced with C6H12O6 until it is syrupy sweet?
See…I can do argumentum ad absurdum also.
Richard G says:
May 1, 2014 at 7:50 pm
Would you mind drinking this quart jar filled 100% with the atmospheric pollutant dihydrogen monoxide?