(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.
mpainter, Yes, warmer emits more CO2. Even the IPCC admitted that in an earlier report….they showed a plot of how atmospheric CO2 goes up after a warm El Nino, down after a La Nina. 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.
@Scottish Sceptic at 7:11 am
I’m sorry the title is really stupid.
Because if they don’t hold water then they are not skeptical arguments.
A good point. The title sets up a strawman and paints too broad a brush. My I suggest:
Top Ten
SkepticalAnti-CAGW Arguments that Don’t Hold WaterThat properly separates the ideas from those who hold them.
Here’s something I’d like answered: is there such a thing as a ‘global’ climate? Isn’t climate regional by definition? Mind you, Earth is a region in the solar system. But still, this question bugs me.
“greenhouse effect” specifically refers to the net temperature-increasing effect on the lower atmosphere of IR absorbing/emitting gases in the atmosphere. If there is a pop culture definition of the term, I’m not referring to that.
what is the formal scientific definition of the term “the greenhouse effect”?
Resourceguy, my “agenda” is to take over the world. But shhhh…that’s just between you and me.
Very useful article. I think the problem that some skeptics have is that they know there is something wrong with the CO2 is warming the earth argument and don’t have enough knowledge of either the actual CAGW arguement or what is wrong so they try to explain the problem.
They don’t realize that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that warms the earth is a perfectly reasonable thing and it is the magic multiplier they add with no proof of such a thing that is the problem.
Roy W. Spencer:
Thankyou for this excellent list. And I applaud your statement saying
All such untruths need to be refuted, and the most damaging of such untruths is the blatantly untrue assertion that IPCC ‘science’ is a left-wing political ploy.
As for your list, I agree them all except that two need clarification.
Your point 9 rightly disputes the assertion that
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE.
But the real problem is that THERE IS NO AGREED DEFINITION OF GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE (GAT).
This means that each team (including yours) which determines GAT provides a different datum from the datum provided by each other team. Indeed, individual teams often change the definition they use so they alter their time series of GAT; see e.g. http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/giss/hansen-giss-1940-1980.gif
An undefined parameter has no accuracy, no precision, and no reliability.
A much more full assessment of this real problem is provided by Appendix B of this item
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
Also, your point 7 rightly disputes the assertion that
WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
However, you go on from that to wrongly assert
I have “thought” and I know your certainty is misplaced.
As Mike M says at May 1, 2014 at 6:31 am, there are reasons to doubt the ice core data and the stomata data refutes the ice core data.
The existing data is such that the recent rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration can be modeled as being entirely natural, entirely anthropogenic, or some combination of the two. And there is no data which resolves the matter.
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) ).
However, with those clarifications, I strongly support your article.
Richard
This is another defence of the greenhouse effect theory.
There have been a number of posts (some very plausible) about why there must be an increase in the Earth near surface temperature with increased atmospheric CO2.
This they say is due to the greenhouse effect.
They all fail to see the enormous elephant in the room!
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?
So it’s mostly about the asumption that may be made that CO2 is an ideal gas.. I do have problems with that.
Point 7 yes but warming does increase CO2 production from the sea and in turn the seabed puts more CO2 into the water. It must be valid to say that the increased temp over the last 40 years has increased some of the CO2 load.
This makes the argument that humans have put CO2 up at 200 times the rate of the last 300,000 years which should be 4 ppm/year a little specious as you do say that it has only gone up at 100 times the rate (2 ppm/year) Where did the other 100 times (2ppm/year) go and why has it not caused more warming.
300,000 years is very short in the context of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and ice measurements do not go back much further. Other techniques suggest that CO2 may have risen as fast or much faster at other times in the more distant past and of course without human involvement.
A valid point is where did it come from then?
Roy Spencer says: May 1, 2014 at 7:26 am
“Yes, warmer emits more CO2.”
Da. Could you please complete assertion no 7 with it’s explanation accordingly.?
re 9, somebody rat’ed me out!
I supposed, in the abstract there might be such a thing as a Global Mean Temperature but I doubt we will ever be able to accurately compute it. My experience with temperature is that it can change in a few seconds (in changing weather conditions) or in a few meters (in stable weather conditions). So one would have to be able to sample every few hundred cubic meters of atmosphere every few seconds to get an accurate measurement of Global Mean Temperature.
I also question it’s value should we one day be able to compute it. If Antarctica warms by 10C then Global Mean Temperatures would go up, indicating a warming Earth. Antarctica would still be frozen and the rest of the Earth largely unaffected. Dido a colder Antarctica, dedicating a cooling Earth but topics and mid latitudes are unaffected. I think a better approach would be to identify crucial climate regions, regions such as the topics, that drive global weather and monitor their temperature by region to determine if we are in danger of falling into some sort of runaway cycle (either warming or cooling).
What we are really interested in, is the Earth warming, cooling or stable? Is not sea level an excellent proxy for that? Would not it make more sense to look at sea level rise fall to determent a temperature delta and long range temperature trends?
I agree with the article, but still, there are plenty of skeptical arguments that DO hold water.
Roy Spencer says:
May 1, 2014 at 7:28 am
“greenhouse effect” specifically refers to the net temperature-increasing effect on the lower atmosphere of IR absorbing/emitting gases in the atmosphere
==========
Dr Spencer, thank you for your reply. You anticipated my next question. In science is it normal to label a physical process by its effect? Isn’t it more correct to label it by its cause? For example, I could label addition by the term “sum” or “summation”, but this could well lead to confusion once I introduce negative numbers. Similarly, using “greenhouse effect” for IR warming could lead to confusion when discussing the role of convection in man made greenhouses.
Top warmest argument that doesn’t hold water….
We know what we’re talking about and it is not based on wonky science and wonky measurements.
Whoops fell into 3 of the top 10 traps there but agree with all your other points. Does this make me 7/10ths a true skeptic?
Hope some of the regulars here can point out my errors and save Dr Spencer wasting any valuable time.
I do not wish to quibble with Dr. Spencer’s statement in Number 9 where he states that:
‘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.’
However, I wonder if the concept of an average temperature presents such an infinite number of ways in which to measure, and interpret that average, that it may be so meaningless that a statement that there is no such thing could be valid. For instance, we all know that a room temperature will go up slightly when it’s full of people, or drop slightly when they leave. This small temperature change is largely irrelevant. But, while they are occupying that room, the individual body temperatures of the people within it are also part of the average temperature that is measured of that room. And, if their body temperatures change, either individually, or en mass, just a few degrees, while it will have an almost unmeasurable difference in the room’s overall temperature it will still be hugely consequential to those people. It will indicate whether they are alive, dead, healthy, or sick. How does one, then, interpret a change in temperature measurement, up or down, of that room?
Richard, I like that last quote from your article. The uncertainty you state is similar to what I conclude about climate sensitivity, the cause of recent warming, and other matters.
Sure you can calculate an average, but it won’t have any physical meaning, only mathematical. It doesn’t represent the energy in the system. It also gives the false impression, to those who don’t know better, that all points on the surface of the planet warm and cool at the same rate. Global Average Temperature (Or anomaly or whatever) is simply a fiction used by both sides to beat each other over the head.
Daft response number 1 ^.^
Mr Spencer makes a mistake common to many on both sides of this argument, he assumes that current scientific theories (i.e. theories emanating from qualified scientists) are correct.
Mr Spencer understands the currently accepted science and uses it to back his position.
Scientific knowledge is transient, today it is state of the art but tomorrow it is disproved.
I am sure there will be a time when our knowledge gets close to perfect but right now we are in the foothills of knowledge abut climate.
Logic is a far better guide than science for the foreseeable future.
As someone already pointed out, The ice core records show that over long periods temperature rises before levels of CO2. We do not not know how or why but that is what the ice core records show. The figures are questioned only by the true (it seems to me) need to take into account the period when ice is not totally frozen solid and molecules are still able to move up. However that process takes decades not thousands of years and therefore does not change the basic observations.
The world has done a real experiment and in that experiment CO2 levels rise after temperature; I trust that experimental result far more than any theories.
What we are all getting excited about is a very very short term record of events that we do not fully understand, However the Earth has given you experimental proof of what the relationship is.
If there’s one average temperature, then there are at least two of them. Temperature on its own is a meaningless thing to average, you can only do so relative to some standard, so:
1) The temperature that will tell you a body’s total heat content: heat content average, if you like. This is not the same as:
2) The temperature that will tell you the rate at which the body radiates. This differs from (1) because radiation is proportional to T^4.
One that really annoys me is the “trace gas” argument, as in “how could a trace gas necessary for life etc etc…?” It’s a favorite of Joe Bastardi for one, who should know better.
Roy Spencer,
I think your positions do debunk those skeptical positions, but was your use of the unprofessional ‘stupid’ and ‘ludicrous’ words necessary? Oh, yes, I see they were because your goal was to get 1,000+ nasty comments. You could have just used professional scientific words like; contrary to observation,, incorrect, unsupported, etc.
My esteem for you is lowered somewhat today. Personally, Lindzen’s approach of never taunting and always low key polite behavior serves science incomparably better than your approach with this article’s unbecoming unprofessionalism.
John
ferdberple: An “Effect” given a name in science can imply a specific cause, e.g.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leidenfrost_effect