(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.
Ivan says:
May 1, 2014 at 9:42 am
NO 7 is arguing against prominent scientists who know the problems of CO2 measurements and ice cores much better than Roy Spencer: Zbignev Jaworowski and Tom Segalstad.
I had a quite heated discussions with Tom Segalstad some time ago as several of his arguments don’t hold water. And sorry to say, the arguments of the late Jaworowski were already refuted in 1996 by the drilling of the 3 ice cores at Law Dome by Etheridge e.a.:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/jaworowski.html
Good post, Dr. Spencer.
I cringe when I here skeptics say crazy things, because the reputation for “crazy” gets pasted on all of us. One of the nice things about WUWT is that when crazy ideas are put forth there is usually somebody around to squash them.
On your point #7: “Warming causes CO2 to rise, no the other way around.” It is a no-brainer that CO2 increases for the last 150 years are due to burning fossil fuels. But what about the evidence for CO2 leading temperature during the transitions from glacials to interglacials?
Rob says:
The ice cores show increase in T prior to increase in CO2… However, what Dr Spencer is referring to is the recent increases in CO2…
That is not the issue. The issue is causation. Does ∆T cause ∆CO2? Or does ∆CO2 cause ∆T? All the available evidence shows that ∆T causes ∆CO2, on time scales from years, to hundreds of millennia.
I am willing to be proven wrong. But I’ve been requesting empirical evidence, and so far, none has been posted showing that CO2 causes global T changes — on any time scale. All the evidence shows that T changes cause CO2 changes.
=========================
barry says:
Points … 7 … are being contested by plenty of people. This is because those views are proliferated in the climate blogs articles and comments sections.
Hand waving. Base your argument on measurable evidence, then we’ll see. Next:
Transposing the ice age lead/lag relationship between temperature/CO2 onto the modern age is an extremely prolific trope in the climate blogosphere. I’m genuinely surprised you are not aware of it.
It is prolific because it is fun to bash the alarmist crowd with verifiable facts that deconstruct their narrative. Next:
For those “clobbering” number 7, yes, ocean outgassing of CO2 lagged warming transitions from glacial periods in the geologic records. But that is not what is happening now.
Yes, it is.
Next:
The evidence is conclusive. Simple arithmetic is all it takes. Human industry has emitted twice as much as the increase in atmospheric concentrations. It can’t be coming from the oceans, because CO2 in the oceans has been increasing at the same time. Oceans are absorbing about half of the CO2 human industry has omitted. These are not the only evidence, by a long shot, but they are hard to refute. Where is all the anthro CO2 going? And how is the system squirreling it away while pumping out the supposedly natural CO2? This is an argument that sincere critics definitely need to let go of.
barry dislikes the causation argument, because it deconstructs his belief in catastrophic AGW. Yes, the rise in CO2 is due to human emissions. But so what? It does not follow that the ≈40% rise has caused any measurable rise in T. That is what Planet Earth is clearly telling us.
Alarmists love to point to the rise in harmless, beneficial CO2 as their “Look! A kitten!” argument. But the real issue is causation: T is the cause of ∆CO2. Prove me wrong, my feelings won’t get hurt. Just post a chart showing that changes in CO2 cause changes in temperature. Make sure it’s based on reliable, empirical measurements. TIA.
An idle, naked human being emits CO2 in addition to water vapor. For this reason it doesn’t feel right to look down on anyone voicing their opinions about the AGW-hoax – even if we don’t always agree with them.
Sorry, didn’t find this at all helpful. Most of these points are far too subtle to have such trite explanations/rebuttals. For me in particular #2 makes little sense.
Fun post, I got a chuckle out of several of your comments Dr. Spencer.
“THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE”
My best response, simply because one can do a thing doesn’t make it appropriate or insightful.
Can you give me some examples where Global Average Temp. is useful. The only purpose I can think of is to scare children.
Roy,
Great article. Thank you.
If you have time, could you please address Prof Brown’s question “rgbatduke says: May 1, 2014 at 8:58 am” about pressure broadening and partial pressures?
Some good responses to keep Roy on his toes.
Regarding averages, there is no “average global climate”
Land biology does not average with marine biology.
There are distinct climates, tropical land and water, temperate land and water, polar North and South. You don’t combine “rainforest” with “desert” and get any meaningful average.
You don’t combine trees and termites into an average.
Every day, sunlight is not “dim” for 24 hours, except at the poles. 240 watts per square meter for 24 hours is not the same as the average of 480 watts for 12 hours with 0 watts for 12 hours.
The atmosphere has evolved for the last billion years. In response, the atmosphere has become 100 percent biological, except Argon. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is a response to biological activity, the amount of that global biogeochemical flux due to fossil fuel burning is about 3 percent. This is because CO2 never “accumulates” in the atmosphere. Without biological respiration, CO2 would fall exponentially by about 20 percent per year.
Your number 7 ignores biology, but keep up the good work
Before dismissing the trace gas argument of 400 ppm CO2, could you please provide the CO2 concentration numbers associated with recently revived moss occurrence in Antarctica and boreal forest-type occurrence in recent Greenland bore hole analysis? These were ice-free times under those ice sheets. I need to the CO2 numbers now, not comments and claims. Just the facts.
Richard S. Courtney: 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.
Well said.
I think the same is true of temperature rise since the end of the Little Ice Age: it can be modeled as a function of CO2, and as a function without CO2 in the argument list. It is very difficult to tell how much effect anthropogenic CO2 has had. imo
ferdberple: “For example, what if you took addition and subtraction and called them both addition.”
This isn’t much to the point, just a fun fact: I’ve been told by people who use that kind of thing that addition and subtraction do end up being the same in some orders of Galois-field arithmetic.
This reminds me of reading some screed at Huffington on conservatives. All of their supposed reasoned refutations of conservative beliefs are based on – what they think conservatives believe. They have no idea what conservatives believe or think. No matter how many times they say something, or how convincingly they try to say it – they will never get to determine what I believe. Most of these appear to be refutations of arguments I’ve never made and are rarely – if ever – made here. Though I disagree about the global average temperature mental masturbation. I’ve seen their charts, graphs, and figures calculating temperatures to fractions of a degree fahrenheit when I question if we have measurement accuracy to within a single degree centigrade.
Henry Galt.
It’s a tall glass.
Are you disagreeing with the fundamental point, or merely my imperfect presentation?
1. Juergen MIchele says:
May 1, 2014 at 6:28 am
Looking at your point 4. :
CO2 in the upper atmosphere blocks outgoing radiation from the earth surface.
But the incoming radiation from the sun in the relevant frequency range is hundredfold compared to the back radiation from earth.
As a consequence more CO2 cools!
You didn’t quite finish your thought here, Juergean, but I THINK you’re trying to say that the solar radiation blocked from entering the atmosphere by CO2 far outweighs the radiation blocked from leaving the atmosphere by CO2. If so, your error here is in assuming that the radiation coming from the sun is identical to the radiation coming from the surface. That assumption is incorrect. The vast majority of the radiation coming from the sun is in the visible light portion of the spectrum. CO2 (and other “greenhouse gasses”) don’t do a very good job of absorbing that radiation, so a large percentage of it reaches the earth, where it is absorbed, and then re-radiated, but mostly in the infrared portion of the spectrum. CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses) DO do a good job of absorbing certain wavelengths within this portion of the spectrum.
If the incoming and outgoing radiation had the same distribution across the spectrum, then there would be no greenhouse effect at all, put instead a “parasol effect” that would reduce our temperature far below even what we would have without the greenhouse effect. Of course, there wouldn’t be anyone around to CALL it a “parasol effect”, because it would be far too cold for life (as we know it) to exist.
Regards,
Trevor
The nice thing, Richard C. & Matthew M., is that however much AnthroCO2 has warmed us, it is just by that much that we are not colder.
==========================
In regard to #9: I agree with Dr. Spencer. I am a CAGW skeptic, in particular of the accuracy and balance of the data supporting the hockey stick, and especially of the high levels of statistical probability published by the IPCC and its acolytes supposedly computed from this data. And it is good to be reminded to stay factual, logical, and reasonable in this truly serious battle not only to counteract the CAGW hypothesis, but to save Science as we have known it. As an engineer with a fair amount of experience in atmospheric sensing and transmitting devices, and interaction with professional scientific and technical people for over 50 years, I have a couple of observations: Without really frequent and technically competent maintenance and calibration, even high quality NIST traceable industrial sensors will quickly become unreliable, giving rise to justifiable doubts about the accuracy of the recorded data. Also, the well-known problems with sensing station location and condition and the lack of geographic balance of data points add to the problems with absolute raw data. However, as inaccurate as the individual readings may be, with ethical recording and a long history of data accumulation, wouldn’t errors be “averaged out,” and general increases or decreases in the averaged temperature over time be valuable for comparative purposes, such as “global warming” and “the pause?”
Tom Moriarty says:
May 1, 2014 at 10:12 am
CO2 does not lead T during transitions from glacial to interglacial conditions. It follows.
Sad to observe that WUWT has turned it’s back to real science and became more and more a “consensus” and “science is settled” blog, only marginally different from the rest.
Roy,
Good read, good information. Always appreciate your work.
I’m afraid I don’t know that you’re 100% on all points, in my opinion.
2) How do you account for the fact that an atmosphere, warmed by whatever means (not warmed by itself), would necessarily expand in accordance with the Ideal Gas Law to reach a new equilibrium density at something less than the temperature increase that would occur in a sealed container? I’m not saying there isn’t a greenhouse effect, but it seems that, sans a sealed two liter bottle, it isn’t nearly the boogeyman they make it out to be. But no, the 2nd law of thermodynamics doesn’t actually preclude warming, in and of itself.
#9) If your bath tube were the size of an Olympic swimming pool punctuated with grass islands of varying sized and heights, heated externally via radiative energy from a point source several hundred meters away and with strong fans above, constantly circulating the atmospheric boundary, how many thermometers would you need in order to accurately measure the temperature, not of the water in the pool, but the atmospheric gases immediately above the surface? Could you do so with very few of the thermometers placed above the surface of the water? What if, for the first 50 or 75 years of data, you were only allowed to look at your thermometers once per day and rounded all measurements to the nearest degree?
Just curious. Because that’s what I mean when I point out that our notions of ‘average’ AND our notions of precision are greatly challenged by these issues. Now, go replace 1 square inch of the grassy islands, particularly in the areas where your thermometers are located, with asphalt or concrete every minute. Now, about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way through the expirement start taking thermometers out of your data set, but mostly only on one end of the pool.
Then, at the very end, you get to climb up on a catwalk and install an infrared beam thermometer on a device that methodically scans the surface.
Do you have a data set, or do you have a hodge podge?
Next, go back and recalibrate your early readings, based on TOBS adjustments for metadata you don’t actually have, and do this every 4 or 5 years, but only adjusting the older data down and the more recent data upward.
Finally, explain to me again about the ‘average’ temperature of your ‘bathtub’.
Or, to explain this in yet another way; This would be akin to trying to measure the average velocity of an automobile by taking random snapshots of the speedometer.
Sometimes the car would be moving very fast, sometimes it would move more slowly or not at all. Of course, the tendency would be to take photos when someone was actually driving the car, which would tend to coincide with a moving car, so your calculated ‘average speed’ wouldn’t correlate to the ‘average speed’ of the car very well. As the car gets older it gets handed down to younger drivers with even less propensity to photograph the speedometer when the car isn’t moving and a much higher predilection for fast driving . . . you might start warning everyone about ‘global acceleration’. And then, of course, with GPS, you could finally get an accurate average speed . . . and you might then proclaim that automobiles used to be much faster in past. Such is the nature of your ‘global average’.
In short; a lot of what passes for CAGW may in fact be statistical artifacts of things we did not intend to measure. Increased population, the fall of communism, more accurate measurements today vs. a tendency to not measure the temp in the hottest part of the day in the past.
And no; before satellite records became available we have very little idea what the ‘average’ temperature of this particular bathtub was. We do not have enough data.
Good read none the less.
Dr Spenser,
Some of your “10” are canards. I am a AGW skeptic.
I think your post would have been better if you also included 10 reasons there is no stat sig AGW.
Also:
1) THERE IS NO GREENHOUSE EFFECT
I have not heard any skeptics say that one to me. So?
2) THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT VIOLATES THE 2ND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS.
I have not heard any skeptics say that one to me. So? Also the issue maybe the use of the overused term “greenhouse”, but I am speculating.
3) CO2 CANT CAUSE WARMING BECAUSE CO2 EMITS IR AS FAST AS IT ABSORBS.
Again, I have not heard this specifically. I have heard that CO2 is much less effective a GHG than H2O but not this.
4) CO2 COOLS, NOT WARMS, THE ATMOSPHERE.
This is the first time I heard this.
5) ADDING CO2 TO THE ATMOSPHERE HAS NO EFFECT BECAUSE THE CO2 ABSORPTION BANDS ARE ALREADY 100% OPAQUE.
I have never heard or repeated such a claim. Am I alone?
6. LOWER ATMOSPHERIC WARMTH IS DUE TO THE LAPSE RATE/ADIABATIC COMPRESSION.
I am not in this academic circle so I will pass as ignorant on this one.
7. WARMING CAUSES CO2 TO RISE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND
Technically Roy, as well you know, CO2 vapor pressure increases with increased temp of the solution. You have chosen a narrow application of the concept to knock down. On the 1,000,000 year time scale CO2 concentration follows warming. Maybe in your narrow application you are correct, but what most people are talking about, you are wrong. CO2 vapor pressure/ solubility is a property one can look up.
8. THE IPCC MODELS ARE FOR A FLAT EARTH
???? What?
9. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A GLOBAL AVERAGE TEMPERATURE
I agree that one can try to arrive at a number but it is a meaningless figure and can’t be compared to anything in the past with any precision that bear relevance to the small changes in modern measurements, especially considering the suggested PRECISION of the IPCC…. So I disagree with you.
10. THE EARTH ISN’T A BLACK BODY.
Well it isn’t black. Snow is white. Water is shiny. Any attempt to pick a number is outside the precision of the claimed global temperature rise is suspect as well.
I don’t know why you made this post because you are a smart guy. Were you drinking? I would, as a skeptic made most of these claims of nuanced the remainders in the way you have.
It will make for a very popular post nevertheless.
oops,
I don’t know why you made this post because you are a smart guy. Were you drinking? I would, as a skeptic made most of these claims of nuanced the remainders in the way you have.
should be:
I don’t know why you made this post because you are a smart guy. Were you drinking? I would, as a skeptic, NOT have made most of these claims. Of the nuanced remainders, I would not have parsed the ideas in the way you have.
Like several other people here, I am puzzled by one thing. Where can I witness this alleged dizzying proliferation of examples of these ten mistakes? How come I almost never encounter them, but on the contrary, routinely encounter cases where Skeptics point out that they do not accept one or another of these ten arguments?
There are hundreds of websites and blogs putting a Skeptical case. Can Dr. Spencer give ten examples of websites or blogs which propagate even one of these ten erroneous arguments? I very much doubt it.
It has become almost a formal ritual for Skeptics arguing their case to point out early on: “No one disputes that there is a greenhouse effect, no one disputes that there has been some warming over the past two hundred years, no one disputes that human CO2 emissions have made some contribution to that, . . .” and so on. I have spoken these words hundreds of times.
After years of uttering this kind of disclaimer, I recently came across a site that does seem to deny that there is a greenhouse effect (It’s run out of Edinburgh, called something like Scottish Skeptic). I actually got in touch with a catastrophist I had been arguing with and said: “You were right after all. There are people who deny the greenhouse effect. But they must be far fewer than 0.1 percent of Skeptics.” I made a note to go back and try to figure out just what argument the
Scottish Skeptics had, but so far haven’t done so.
A few of the ten arguments are sufficiently technical that they rarely crop up. A few of them might just conceivably be defended if parsed in a certain contorted way. But most of the ten are arguments I just never hear (and I hear or read dozens of arguments on global warming every week, if not every day).
In some cases, people may be arguing for something that Dr. Spencer has misunderstood. For example, in response to Al Gore, Skeptics might point out that a past correlation between temperature and CO2 is due to rises in temperature causing increased CO2. This doesn’t mean the current increase in CO2 is due entirely to prior increases in temperature. In my experience, Skeptics nearly always hold that industry is entirely or mainly responsible for current increases, and that the effects of these increases are predominantly benign.
I used to say that “No one has ever denied that the current increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human industrial activity.” Then I watched Murry Salby’s Hamburg lecture (available at many places online). I was absolutely flabbergasted. Here was an atmospheric physicist who had written a textbook on the subject, apparently saying that current increases in CO2 are entirely due to warming! I was so amazed that, having watched this lecture once, I immediately watched it again, to make sure I had got it right. It still seemed to me that this was what Salby was saying. So now I routinely say, “No one has ever disputed that the current increase in atmospheric CO2 is due to human industrial activity, except Murry Salby. He’s a brilliant man, but generally Skeptics don’t agree with him on this.”
While I have almost never encountered people who propound these ten arguments, I have frequently encountered people who talk as though such people do actually exist. My theory to account for why they do this is that catastrophists like to keep off the real points of disagreement (sensitivity, feedbacks, clouds, cosmic rays, the net welfare repercussions of a few degrees’ warming) while Skeptics sometimes feel embarrassed to appear extreme and think that they can appear more middle-of-the-road by intimating that they take a judiciously moderate position between that of the catastrophists and the silly people who deny there is a greenhouse effect. Me, I’m an extremist by nature and it never embarrasses me.
The results are in!!!!
97% of WUWT posters agree with Dr. Roy’s list.
This finding should be cited as frequently as possible.
This comment is about #1 and #2 explicitly and also #3 thru #10 implicitly.
Simple things in climate science communications to the public can cause legitimate doubt about the science.
For example; The bizarrely unscientific and seriously misleading term ‘greenhouse effect’ used to represent the theoretical effect (all other things being equal) on the Earth-Atmosphere System (EAS) of the well-known IR absorbing/emitting properties of some gases such as; water vapor (&clouds), methane, nitrous oxide, carbon dioxide, and a few others.
All laymen see the ‘greenhouse gas effect’ doom extolled in the MSM by some very vocal scientists. All laymen know that an actual greenhouse on a farm or in a garden is a strictly man-made thing. To call what happens in our atmosphere unscientifically and inaccurately after an irrelevant man-made thing is just setting up laymen to think with derision, “That’s professional objective science?”
A way to be more precise scientifically in the terminology would be first the make a concept called the Planetary Atmosphere Effect (PAE) on surface temperature. The PAE can then be identified as a net effect of the individual various effects of each of the ~12 gases (or so) in the EAS. The effect of each gas on the EAS can just be called the affect the gas itself. For example: Atmospheric Oxygen Effect, Atmospheric Nitrogen Effect, Atmospheric Water Vapor Effect, Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Effect, etc. If you need a common name for the effect of gases who have IR absorb/emit properties then just call it scientifically something like the Radiatively Active Gas Effect.
Seriously, climate science needs to get more scientifically clear in its public communications.
John
7 is wrong, “where is the 100x as fast rise in today’s temperature causing this CO2 rise?”
A causes B. B is true therefore A must be true is a logical fallacy.
Really Mr Spencer, i would expect more from you.