The central climate fallacy is that the unknowns are known

By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley

What is science for? Its end and object is to stretch out a fumbling hand for the truth by a humble and eternally-unsatisfied attempt to constrain uncertainties.

The scientific method is hungry curiosity, followed by acute observation, followed by careful measurement, followed by the meticulous application of pre-existing theory to the results, followed by the detailed drafting and reviewed publication of a hypothesis, followed by other scientists’ attempts to overturn the hypothesis, which is either discarded or slowly accorded credence to the extent that it has survived the process of error elimination.

In the physical sciences, absolute proof – which mathematicians call demonstration – is very seldom available. In mathematics, the art that is the language and the queen of the sciences, demonstration is more often available, particularly in number theory, the branch of discrete mathematics that concerns itself chiefly with the integers. Die ganze Zahl schuf der liebe Gott, said Kronecker. Alles übrige ist Menschenwerk.

One of the reasons why the Thermageddonite superstition has been so successful until recently is that just about the only formal demonstration that nine-tenths of the population recall – and even then hazily – is that in the Euclidean and hyperbolic planes the square (or semicircle) on the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares (or semicircles) on the other two sides.

Now, the problem with the theorem of Pythagoras is that it is unquestionably true. For those who agree with the philosopher Schopenhauer that Euclid’s demonstration is “a triumph of perversity”, here is the admirably clear proof by dissection attributed to the fifth-century Hindu mathematican Aryabhatta.

clip_image002

However one looks at the theorem, the wretched thing is objectively true. There are hundreds of distinct demonstrations of it. It is true whether or not you or I or anyone else wants it to be true or believes it to be true or knows it to be true. In the language of theology, it is intrinsice honestum. It is right in itself.

I submit that it is the theorem of Pythagoras that has allowed the Thermageddonites to succeed when, scientifically speaking, they should simply have been laughed at.

For the truth of that venerable theorem has misled generations who have been given some acquaintance with the sciences but little or none with the philosophy of science into believing that every scientific finding is definitive, unalterable, unchallengeable and unquestionable.

Yes, liberating greenhouse gases by combustion will cause some warming – all other things being equal. Yes, we are liberating greenhouse gases by combustion. These things have been established beyond reasonable doubt. But what has not been established is the crucial quantitative question how much warming we may cause.

That simple fact has been relentlessly and artfully concealed from the population, who have been sedulously deluded into believing that “the science is certain” and that anyone who questions how much warming we may cause is by implication also challenging the well-established experimental results showing that greenhouse gases cause warming.

It is worth briefly considering the how much question – or, as the climate scientists call it, the question of climate sensitivity.

In response to my recent posting pointing out that on the RSS satellite record there has been no global warming for 17 years 10 months, a commenter, one Stacey, asked:

“Please could you … demonstrate the actual climate sensitivity in respect of the last 30 years due the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere? My guess is that it’s zero. :-)”

“Stacey” is adopting a sound, scientific approach, beginning with that vital first step: curiosity. Socrates used to say that the first step on the road to knowledge was an awareness of one’s own ignorance. And what is curiosity, the wellspring of the sciences, if not an awareness of one’s own ignorance coupled with a determination to do something about it?

“Stacey” offers the hypothesis, that climate sensitivity to CO2 over the past 30 years has been zero, and asks whether she is right.

So let us examine the hypothesis. We begin with the observation that in the climate there appear to be quasi-periodicities of about 60 years in global temperature – roughly 30 years’ tendency to warm followed by 30 years’ tendency to cool – and that these cycles are tied to, and may be caused by, the great ocean oscillations, of which the most influential seems to be the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Therefore, in order to cancel these naturally-occurring cycles, it is necessary either to take periods that are multiples of 60 years in length or to take periods that straddle a phase-transition from one 30-year phase of the PDO to another.

Usefully, the most recent phase-transition in the PDO was in about the year 2000, so that the past 30 years will have been about equally influenced first by a warming phase of the PDO and then by a cooling phase. That removes the most obvious potential natural distortion of our attempt to determine climate sensitivity from what has actually occurred.

Next, measurement. How much global warming was there in the past 30 years? For this, we shall take the mean of the global mean surface temperature anomalies on all five principal datasets – GISS, HadCRUT4, NCDC, RSS, and UAH.

clip_image004

We now make the assumption, for the sake of beginning somewhere, that all of the global warming over this 30-year period was attributable to us.

As the CO2 record on the chart shows, CO2 concentration rose by 54 ppmv over the 30-year period. We shall assume that all that increase in concentration was anthropogenic. If so, official theory suggests it caused 0.78 Watts per square meter of radiative forcing.

We shall also assume that over the period CO2 represented 70% of all anthropogenic forcings, so that the total anthropogenic forcing was 1.11 Watts per square meter. This assumption is derived from the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report.

We shall further assume that none of the warming was committed but unrealized warming from before 1984, or that, if there was some, it was approximately balanced by uncommitted warming generated over the 30-year period but not yet apparent in the temperature record.

Now we can divide the measured temperature change of 0.48 Cº by the total anthropogenic forcing of 1.11 Watts per square meter to obtain the transient-sensitivity parameter λt where t = 30 years, which is 0.43 Cº per Watt per square meter.

However, the instantaneous, Planck or zero-feedback sensitivity parameter λ0, which is the mean of the first derivatives across all latitudes of the fundamental equation of radiative transfer at the characteristic-emission altitude, where incoming and outgoing radiative fluxes balance, is just 0.31 Cº per Watt per square meter (IPCC, 2007, p. 631 fn.).

Next, some handy equations, that you will not find in most textbooks, will help us to determine the system gain Gt, the closed-loop feedback gain gt, and the feedback-sum ft directly from the Planck sensitivity parameter λ0 and the transient-sensitivity parameter λt:

clip_image006

The transient system gain Gt, which is the factor by which the direct warming from anthropogenic forcings is multiplied to allow for the action of feedbacks over the 30-year period, is simply 0.43 / 0.31, or 1.39, showing that short-acting feedbacks have increased the direct warming by almost two-fifths.

The loop gain gt, which is the product of the sum of the short-acting feedbacks and the Planck parameter, is 1 – 0.31/0.43, or 0.28.

Then the feedback sum ft, the sum of all short-acting feedbacks over the period, is 1/0.31 – 1/0.43, or 0.9 Watts per square meter per Celsius degree of warming over the period.

The IPCC’s current central estimate is that at equilibrium, when all short-acting and long-acting feedbacks have acted, the feedback sum is just 1.5 Watts per square meter per Cº (IPCC, 2013, table 9.43, red dot at top right). This is a substantial reduction from the 2.1 Watts per square meter per Cº (blue dot at top right) central estimate implicit in IPCC (2007).

From that current estimate of the equilibrium feedback-sum f, which is the sum of all feedbacks acting over the thousands of years till the climate has established a new equilibrium following perturbation by a forcing, the equilibrium system gain G may be determined, using the Bode system-gain equation:

clip_image008

From the Bode equation, the equilibrium system gain G is [1 – 0.31(1.5)]–1, or 1.87. In short, the IPCC’s current implicit central estimate is that feedbacks increase the direct forcing-driven warming by seven-eighths.

clip_image010

The central estimate of Charney sensitivity implicit in the IPCC’s current central estimate of the feedback sum is given by

clip_image012

Thus, the IPCC’s current central estimate of Charney sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 concentration ought to be (5.35 ln 2)(0.31)(1.87), or 2.1 Cº. So the 3.2 Cº that is the current central estimate of the CMIP5 model ensemble is too big by at least half.

The eventual warming as a result of the anthropogenic forcings of the past 30 years will be (1.11)(0.31)(1.87) = 0.64 Cº, of which 0.48 Cº, or three-quarters, has already occurred, leaving just 0.16 Cº warming committed but unrealized over the period. Yet the IPCC says there is about four times that amount of committed but unrealized warming in the pipeline.

Now, all that is set out above is mainstream climate science. It is possible that we caused some of the warming of the past 30 years. It is possible, though by no means certain, that we caused at least half of it.

Why, then, can we not be more precise in deriving a climate-sensitivity estimate from the temperature change and CO2 concentration change we have seen over the past 20 years?

The answer – though you will very seldom hear it from the Church of Thermageddon – is that there are far too many unknowns. The biggest outright lie in the IPCC’s 2013, 2007, and 2001 reports is the notion that we can determine with any confidence the fraction of global warming over recent decades that is attributable to us.

In 2001 the IPCC said it was 66% confident we had caused most of the warming since 1950; in 2001, 90% confident; in 2013, 95-99% confident. All of these confidence values are direct lies. For there is no dataset from whose values any such supposed confidence levels can be determined by any recognizable statistical process.

It is a measure of the contempt in which today’s scientific elite holds the rest of the population that the IPCC, as the elite’s soi-disant spokesman on climate change, could have made and persisted in and doubled down upon these particular lies. It knows it can get away with them, for scientists have abdicated, forfeiting their high priesthood to far-left politicians and profiteering environmental protection rackets.

We do not know enough about the climate to say in what direction, let alone by how much, the climate would be changing in the absence of any anthropogenic influence. We do not know the forcing from CO2 or any other greenhouse gas to a sufficient precision. The official value of the CO2 forcing was cut by a massive 15% in 2001.

We do not know the value of the Planck parameter to any great precision. We thought we did: then the actual mean surface temperature of the Moon was measured, and was found to be 40% adrift from the official value that had been determined on the basis of the lunar sensitivity parameter, and had been confidently published on official government websites.

We do not know what fraction of manmade warming is attributable to each of the greenhouse gases. We do not know the magnitude or even the sign of the forcing from our emissions of soot to the atmosphere.

We certainly do not know the values of the individual temperature feedbacks to anything like the narrow error bars falsely claimed by the IPCC. We do not even know the sign of the cloud feedback, and the IPCC has recently been forced to reduce the value of that feedback drastically.

Then there are the major non-radiative transports: evaporation and convection up, advection across, and precipitation and subsidence down.

We cannot predict the behavior of the oceans – indeed, we cannot even measure changes in their heat content with sufficient resolution to give a meaningful result.

We cannot predict el Niño and la Niña events. Look how many enviro-left news media predicted a record-busting event this year. They predicted it because they wanted it.

They needed it, desperately, to bring the Great Pause to an end and reduce the humiliation that the less dishonest among them are beginning to feel now that the laymen like me at whom they have viciously snapped and sneered for so long are – so far, at any rate – closer to the mark than they and their expensive but useless models.

For it would take only a very small reduction in each of the assumed values on the basis of which the IPCC makes its predictions to reach a climate sensitivity far less than the models’ currently-claimed central estimate of 3.2 Cº per CO2 doubling. And there are powerful theoretical reasons why some of those values must have been greatly overstated, though there is no space to consider them here.

My own best estimate, for what little it is worth, is that a doubling of CO2 concentration would warm the world by about 1 Cº, if that. The IPCC is heading – albeit far too slowly – towards the same answer. It has cut the CO2 forcing; it has accepted that the next-biggest anthropogenic forcing, from methane, has been vastly overestimated; it has slashed the feedback-sum and consequently the equilibrium system gain; it has all but halved its near-term predictions of global warming.

However, the honest answer to Stacey’s question about what climate sensitivity is indicated by the temperature record of the past 30 years is, “We do not know”.

But you will never hear that honesty on the lips of the Thermageddonites, as they furtively and profitably cement in place the last of the thousand interlinked supranational bureaucracies that are the silent sinews of what – if they get their way in Paris in December next year – will be an all-powerful world government founded upon the greatest lie ever told, the lie of certainty in a cloud of unknowing, elected by none, loved by few, feared by all, and answerable only to itself.

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kadaka (KD Knoebel)
August 6, 2014 1:15 pm

Monckton of Brenchley on August 6, 2014 at 12:18 am:
Heh. You protect you fanciful little drawing like Mann protects his Hockey Stick, Mann using flipped-over sediments and you with flipped-over triangles. You two also share a tendency to threaten legal action against those who question you.

Let him go into a real library and read some proper books.

There are good university libraries within driving distance. Who then shall watch my elderly mother? As with my father before but not as bad this time, it is quite worrying to leave the house for errands. While she will not suddenly wander off on the way outdoors without warning, an annoying occurrence with him that has trained me to never undress when daring to pause for sleep, she might collapse or otherwise fall down. If I repeatedly cannot reach her on her cellphone that she should be carrying, I quickly head for the checkout and home unless she finally calls back.
I accept it is difficult in your privileged life to imagine the horror of having discovered your mother laid dying because you dared to travel to a real library to counter some internet yahoo who copped a “Do your own research, you ignorant stupid moron!” attitude like seen from a (C)AGW-pushing Team member. You lack equivalent reference points. Compared to that, being continually looked down upon in such places for my permanent sensible uniform of work pants, work shoes, and durable shirt over an obviously not new T-shirt, is nothing.

His quibble about the fact that my simple diagram exhibits symmetry about one of the diagonal axes…

My “quibble” was you took a simple diagram and exerted “artistic license” to make it less simple and more confusing. When I questioned the appearance of your banged-up unannotated mess by viewing it skeptically, you choose to misrepresent that as my not understanding Pythagoras’ proof, which you continue to misattribute to Aryabhata without any evidence by essentially stating “I said it’s true, find the evidence yourself it is true!”
Monckton, among climate skeptics you have truly become your own Mann.
Very well then. Note I had Googled for “aryabhata pythagoras proof” but it came up as “Showing results for aryabhatta pythagoras proof”.
First result has your spelling, at an abandoned blog:
http://akshayunleashed.blogspot.com/2009/05/easiest-proof-to-pythagoras-theorem.html

Now wasnt that as simple as 1,2,3…?I ‘m not sure who gave this proof ,Pythagoras himself,Bhaskaracharya or Aryabhatta .It was Patrick who told me about it and I am grateful…

http://faculty.oxy.edu/ron/math/395/10/ws/15.pdf

Brahmagupta and Bhaskara are two of the most famous Indian mathematicians. They both flourished in the 7th century CE. There was a second mathematician with the name Bhaskara later
Bhaskara I’s Proofs of Pythagoras’ Theorem
Bhaskara gave a pictoral “proof” of the Pythagorean theorem (which had clearly already been known for hundreds of years in India at the time because it appeared in older Indian writings called the Sulbasutras. He gave the following pictures and simply wrote “Behold!” (Eves, 1990).

Not exactly what you presented, this is clear and easy to follow. It’s “square centered in box, not touching outer sides”. The result is the pile of the center square with the two rectangles made from the four triangles, do the simple algebra from adding up the areas.
Aryabhata is mentioned, as having shown he could apply the quadratic formula.
From Drexel University:
http://mathforum.org/isaac/problems/pythagthm.html

Nonetheless, a rigorous, general proof of the theorem requires the development of deductive geometry, and thus it is thought that Pythagoras probably supplied the first proof. Most math historians credit him with a proof by dissection, which relies on the use of two squares, one inscribed inside the other. The Indian astronomer Bhaskara (1114-1185) developed this proof:

It then shows similar to your first pane as the starting point, except simple and clear, “square centered in box, touching outer sides”. No mention of Aryabhata or Aryabhatta.
Another blog, this one decidedly Indian, this post showing how ancient Indian mathematicians knew about Pythagoras’ Theorem long before Pythagoras lived.
http://factsfootprint.blogspot.com/2012/09/baudhayana-pythagoras-theorem-indian.html

Also, another ancient Indian mathematician called Bhaskara later provided a unique geometrical proof as well as numerical which is known for the fact that it’s truly generalized and works for all sorts of triangles and is not incongruent (not just isosceles as in some older proofs).

And there’s that simple drawing again, “not touching”.
No mention of Aryabhata or Aryabhatta here. However the blog does have another post using your spelling:
http://factsfootprint.blogspot.com/2012/09/aryabhattathe-indian-mathematician.html
The author mentions Arybhatta as “the earliest known author on Algebra”, but mostly comments on the astronomy work. He also notes an alternative spelling thusly:

The chief doctrines which Aryabhatta (Aarya-Bhatt) professed were the following:

On August 5, 2014 at 3:30 pm you gave the alternative spelling as “Arya-Bhata”, in variance to this native speaker. Of course, as this author has some curious posts up on crystals and 9/11 and doesn’t know some other common info about Aryabhata, I doubt his spelling is authoritative.
Next up:
http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMT668/emt668.student.folders/HeadAngela/essay1/Pythagorean.html
Quick summary, the simple and clear original version of your drawing is attributed to Pythagoras, “touching” with the other pane drawn without a flipped set. Bhaskara is “not touching” with pile. No mention of Aryabhata or Aryabhatta.
http://pbraun.de/cgi-data/weblog_basic/uploads/2006/09/HoM2.pdf
Aryabhata on algebra, specifically for the formula for the sum of triangular numbers.
http://www.ms.uky.edu/~sohum/aak/pdf%20files/aryabhatta.pdf
An 11Mb download. While the file name has your spelling, the document uses the correct one. This is actually a photocopy of “The Mathematics of Aryabhata” by A. A. Krishnaswami Ayyangar, an old paper. I was able to track down the link source, an informative page about his work by his son, which also lists other authoritative works by AAK, 1896-1953, a tenured mathematics professor.
http://www.ms.uky.edu/~sohum/aak/prelude.htm
The paper appeared in Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society, Vol. 16, 1926. Aryabhata is noted for his extensive algebraic and astronomical contributions. It is mentioned Aryabhata used the “Pythagorean rule” for a sundial problem. Aryabhata is not noted for a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem, which includes no graphical proof.
An Indian tech blog post:
http://www.tharunpkarun.com/press/edu/famous-indian-mathematicians-profile-and-contributions/
A somewhat confused presentation, “Aryabhatta” appears three times, the correct spelling five times. He is credited with algebra and trigonometry contributions, but not for a proof of Pythagoras’ Theorem.
http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Projects/Pearce/Chapters/Ch8_2.html
Aryabhata credited with algebra, trigonometry, and some geometry contributions. No Pythagoras.
So in summary, by the sources available to me without needlessly endangering my mother, the artistically-interpreted “touching” two-pane version you are showing is attributed to Pythagoras although a one-pane “touching” was attributed to an Indian mathematician, while “not touching” with or without pile is attributed to an Indian mathematician, but the attributed Indian mathematician is Bhaskara.
All this time, since at least the 2010 interview, and you didn’t even have the right mathematician.
And two blogs use your spelling with one blog using both. All academic-related sources used “Aryabhata”.
I realize you are having quite an enjoyable time continually spurning this insolent impoverished peasant with your jackboot, but as it is admirably clear you are wrong about even the actual name of the Indian mathematician, and refuse to provide even a single shred of evidence otherwise which appears quite deceptive, I shall now abandon you to being yourself while I scrounge up a nutritious dinner for my mother and me.

August 6, 2014 1:40 pm

Trick says, August 6, 2014 at 9:20 am:
“Kristian 8:14pm: ”Science of Doom is a guy who thinks ‘heat’ flows both ways in a thermal radiative exchange…”
It does! It is proven. In this case what you write has absolute proof even though it was very hard to come by & took some time – a lot of effort by many pioneers was required as top post says: ”In the physical sciences, absolute proof – which mathematicians call demonstration – is very seldom available. In mathematics, the art that is the language and the queen of the sciences..”
Think I’ve pointed out before you just remain behind in your reading of the absolute proof of your statement by lab test & math written down in several languages & accents. SOD was preceded in that discussion by a Scottish farm boy who developed lab tests & then provided the theory in support of an English book binder apprentice’s more extensive prior lab experiments (incentivized by a couple Frenchmen) showing the clip herein that you wrote to be true. A German then provided the lab experiment proving the Scot’s theory and an Austrian showed why. True multi-national collaboration story. Text books today still follow these guys. Catching up on your reading will enlighten you. Fill in their names for me; prove you did the research work.”

Trick,
It’s been well-established for a long time that you haven’t got the slightest clue what HEAT is and represents in physics. This comment of yours simply acts to underline this recognition.
‘Heat’, trick. Not electromagnetic energy. ‘Heat.’

August 6, 2014 3:33 pm

Mr Knoebel seems to suggest that I have threatened him with legal action. I have not done so. I quietly pursue one or two cases a year against those who persist in libels, and do not usually lose the cases. He appears not to understand that my disposition of the triangles in Aryabhatta’s diagram does not alter the validity or rigor of the proof in any way. If he does understand that, then he has been picking nits pointlessly. He has no doubt by now discovered that Aryabhatta may be spelled as I have spelled it, and is frequently spelled that way in India. And his impolite attempt to divert this thread into inconsequentialities was fortunately too late to disrupt what has been (except for his pompous contributions) an uncommonly interesting thread. I should be grateful if he would refrain from attempting to disrupt these threads in future unless he has serious points to make about the principal subject-matter of the head posting. Even then, he must make his points politely, and abandon his habitual sneering tone. He is out of his depth here.

Konrad
August 6, 2014 4:07 pm

Ulric Lyons says:
August 6, 2014 at 9:40 am
———————————-
Ulric,
I have run across that paper before. The idea that in some circumstances DWLWIR could actually cause slight surface cooling is not impossible. However the paper does not cover methodology and the measurements suffer from being environmental rather than lab, the same problem as the Minnett study* Trick tried to counter with.
My own simple experiments –
http://i47.tinypic.com/694203.jpg
http://i42.tinypic.com/2h6rsoz.jpg
– are sufficient to demonstrate that DWLWIR cannot be raising ocean temperatures anywhere close to the 33C claims of climastrologists. However they do not have the resolution to determine very slight cooling or warming. Theoretically, depending on air temperature, humidity, wind speed and water temperature, DWLWIR should be able to induce slight warming or cooling, but the experiment to quantify this would be complex.
*The Minnett “study” was a series of noisy environmental measurements. The idea was to measure sea surface temperature response to varying DWLWIR from passing cloud. This seems reasonable at first blush, until you realise they never tried a simple clean lab experiment first. The study was confounded by sea following thermometer not measuring skin temperature, IR measurement off vertical, no windspeed measurement within millimetres of the surface following thermometer and almost all measurements taken during the day when SW scattering at low angles of incidence was occurring. In short it was garbage. Worse the temperature response they claimed to have found was an order of magnitude lower than what would be required for the “basic physics” of the “settled science” to be correct. Little wonder it was never submitted for peer review. further, to have conducted such an experiment with out a simple lab check speaks to motive.
It also speaks volumes to me that when challenged, no AGW believer can ever provide a simple , repeatable lab experiment comparable to mine demonstrating incident LWIR heating or slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. Not a single credible challenge in three years.

Trick
August 6, 2014 4:20 pm

Kristian 1:40pm: “Trick, It’s been well-established for a long time that you haven’t got the slightest clue what HEAT is and represents in physics.”
Concur. I frequently hear that “heat rises”. I have only slight clue what that really means. Energy rises? Nonsense. I also hear about “heat radiation”. Huh? Energy radiation? No. I hear hot bodies radiate heat, the implication being cold bodies do not. What? This misuse of heat term is called word jazz using the words of an eminent meteorologist (ret.). “Heat” term is found lacking in the literature even in the early ‘50s; it is not just me.
I also hear the oceans contain “heat”. For example, Christopher in top post:
“We cannot predict the behavior of the oceans – indeed, we cannot even measure changes in their heat content with sufficient resolution to give a meaningful result.”
I was able to understand Christopher because I parsed his word “heat” into “energy” and it was used correctly; there is plenty of energy content in the oceans but zero “heat”.
Caloric theory of heat and slide rules had their uses and should have some respect. They had their day, did what was asked of them, but have been superseded. They were buried with ceremony & should remain below ground to reduce imprecise confusion in narrative. Calculators and “energy” term are much more precise now, no need to slip back Kristian. Move the scientific method ever forward as in top post.
Work is defined as force thru distance; heat has no such tidy definition. You are forced to resort to paranormal arguments that are sometimes incorrect, a sure road to befuddlement.
Specific heat?? Parse it into specific enthalpy. So on. You got me going (again) and is on topic of top post to move science method forward using history.

kadaka (KD Knoebel)
August 6, 2014 4:33 pm

Re Monckton of Brenchley on August 6, 2014 at 3:33 pm:
And once again Monckton has demonstrated it is beneath his standing to listen carefully enough to the words of the lowly peons to know what was actually said.
Just as well. He has become his punishment in this life, and perhaps the reason for it in the next.

August 6, 2014 6:44 pm

Konrad is a Dragon Slayer like Doug Cotton and hopeless liar. I did not replicate your experiment because it is flawed. But your limited intelligence cannot comprehend that. I did a different experiment which of course you rejected because it contradicted your false claim.

August 6, 2014 7:01 pm

Konrad your experiment is flawed. I did not replicate your experiment as you claim. I did a different experiment. Submit your paper to peer-review physics journals stating your conclusion that LWIR cannot heat water. If the reviewers are kind enough, they will not just reject your paper, they will also explain to you why your experiment and conclusion are wrong. No harm trying if you’re really interested to learn.

August 6, 2014 7:43 pm

Kristian
“We are NOT ‘measuring’ DLR unless it comes in as HEAT, an actual, detectable transfer of energy.”
This is funny because by the same logic we are NOT ‘measuring’ HEAT in a mercury thermometer unless it comes in as VOLUME EXPANSION of the mercury, an actual, detectable movement of fluid in the glass tube. Medieval philosophers will agree with you but scientists and engineers will have a good laugh.
“‘Back radiation’ in a heat transfer situation is NOT detectable.”
This is just hand waving in the face of hundreds of actual measurements of ‘back radiation.’
“It cannot be extracted (isolated) from the radiation field as a whole.”
Of course LWIR can be isolated from the radiation field. The device is called spectrometer. It splits the radiation into different wavelengths. You can see some waves are long, some are short. The long ones are called LWIR. (I suspect the medieval philosophers will again insist it’s not radiation but tiny electric current)

milodonharlani
August 6, 2014 8:02 pm

Samuel C Cogar says:
August 6, 2014 at 11:55 am
Not to mention that there is significant overlap in the absorption spectra of H2O & CO2. Regardless of which GHG is more potent molecule for molecule, the huge preponderance of water vapor over carbon dioxide across the vast majority of the globe, in the latitudes with the most energetic insolation, shows H2O to be on the order of two orders of magnitude more important.
I would hope that most readers here understand the difference between water vapor, which is invisible, & the much larger condensed water droplets, which can be seen in clouds & fog. Or dew, for that matter.

Trick
August 6, 2014 8:05 pm

Konrad 4:07pm: “It also speaks volumes to me that when challenged, no AGW believer can ever provide a simple , repeatable lab experiment comparable to mine demonstrating incident LWIR heating or slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool. Not a single credible challenge in three years.”
Konrad was recently provided the household equipment list, experimental set-up, results and citations on how to demonstrate “incident LWIR…slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool”. Apparently he chooses not to replicate and learn from the simple test, speaks volumes.
To reduce fallacy & turn the unknown to known, interested readers can find it and some interesting mod.s described in “Clouds in a Glass of Beer – Simple Experiments in Atmospheric Physics” C. Bohren 2001, sec. 8, p. 53. Originally published in mid-1980s, Konrad has had ample time to research. And in Bohren’s updated “What Light Thru Yonder Window Breaks – More Experiments in Atmospheric Physics” Sec. 7, 2006. Both paperback or Kindle, going for under $11 new. Or at your library.

stas peterson
August 7, 2014 12:23 am

It is well known that inbred royalty results in the likely production of dimwitted imbeciles.
The mental midget and serial abuser of Affirmative Action, used the fear of his professors being labeled ‘racist’, to skate through college. He did this while seldom attending class, and when occasionally visiting to likely be stoned out of his gourd, as he freely admits. He used it all the way to a Law degree from Harvard.
He never practiced and committed himself to rabble rouser, and political extortionist, until selected by the malevolent, marxist, media, manipulators to carry a banner into office. He hid his grades. He out racist the Clintons, guilt tripped the electorate, and now finds himself totally in over his head. The consequences are clear.
What ever made you think he is not another moron, or a near imbecile, as well? What else would you expect from such a pair?

August 7, 2014 12:31 am

Here’s a simple experiment you can do at home to determine once and for all if longwave IR can heat water. (Of course we already know the answer but for the sake of those who refuse to believe)
Get a thermos with top opening 5 cm diameter. Put 100 ml of cold water at 5 C. With cap open, leave the thermos in a dark room with ambient temperature of 25 C. Close the door and windows so no moving air inside the room. Turn off light and cover windows with thick curtain so no light radiation inside the room. After 3 hours, measure the temperature of water with a thermometer.
Hypothesis: There is only convective heat transfer to the water. Longwave IR does not heat water. Therefore no radiative heat transfer to the water.
CALCULATION
Convective heat transfer equation
Q/t = hc A (Ta – Tw)
Q = heat; t = time; hc = convective heat transfer coefficient of air; A = area exposed to air (thermos top opening); Ta = air temperature; Tw = water temperature
Q/t = 5 W/m^2-C (pi/4 x 0.05^2 m^2) (25C – 5C) = 0.196 W
At t = 3 hrs. = 10,800 sec.
Q = 0.196 W (10,800 s) = 2120 J
Specific heat equation
Q = Cp m (T2 – T1)
Cp = specific heat of water; m = mass of water; T1 = intial water temperature; T2 = final water temperature
Q = 4.18 J/g-C (100 g) (T2 – 5C)
Solving for T2, we get
T2 = 10 C
TEST THE HYPOTHESIS
If after 3 hours, the measured temperature of water is less than or equal to 10 C, the hypothesis is true. No radiative heat transfer.
If the measured temperature of water is greater than 10 C, the hypothesis is false. The water was heated by convection plus IR radiation.
Publish your result at WUWT.

Konrad
August 7, 2014 3:12 am

Dr. Strangelove says:
August 6, 2014 at 6:44 pm
Konrad is a Dragon Slayer like Doug Cotton and hopeless liar. I did not replicate your experiment because it is flawed. But your limited intelligence cannot comprehend that. I did a different experiment which of course you rejected because it contradicted your false claim.
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I have no association with any “slayers” or “sky dragons”, so again you have just lied. But that is your usual form.
As to Doug Cotton, the permanent record of the internet shows me debating his false claims on numerous occasions. Again you fail epically.
“my limited intelligence”? Get over yourself. Has any of your work, like mine, passed rigorous engineering peer review, won engineering awards and been exhibited in technology museums? No, you just did Al Gore’s “how to be a climate warrior from your mums basement” course. You are a sad joke.
You now claim that you did a “different” experiment, superior to the the three variants I published. You were challenged to provide photos and build diagrams as I always do so others could replicate and check. At Dr. Spencer’s site you fled the challenge. Squealing.
Please provide photos so we may all sneer and laugh at the worst “sleeper” to ever pretend to be a sceptic 😉

Konrad
August 7, 2014 3:33 am

Trick says:
August 6, 2014 at 8:05 pm
“Konrad was recently provided the household equipment list, experimental set-up, results and citations on how to demonstrate “incident LWIR…slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool”.”
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Is that all you have left, lying?
I provide repeatable experiments for others to replicate that show incident LWIR DOES NOT slow the cooling rate of water that is free to evaporatively cool.
You have to mis-quote me? What level of squealing bitchosisty have you descended to?
Then you try citing Bohren. Oh please Trick, not again….
If you want to keep playing could we at least see some new tricks? For entertainments sake..;-)

August 7, 2014 4:14 am

Dr. Strangelove says, August 7, 2014 at 12:31 am:
Another person all confused. ‘Heat transfer’ by IR and ‘radiant emittance’ of IR is not the same thing.
If the air is warmer than the water, heat will be transferred from the air to the water. Also by IR.
If the air is not warmer than the water, heat will not be transferred from the air to the water, via convection/conduction or via IR.
In both cases, though, the bulk air will thermally emit electromagnetic radiation in all directions.
We’ll see if he gets the difference this time …

Trick
August 7, 2014 7:58 am

Konrad 3:33am:
More arm waving, extreme frantic mode, fails to provide counter cites, no reasoned analysis science debate. Comment content 100% bluff and bombast as per Christopher 6:27am: “There is plenty of that in the climate science debate, but I am not impressed by it, and nor should anyone else be.”
If you want me to explain, again, the reasoned science demonstrated by Bohren’s Fourier law of cooling water experiment that shows LWIR slowing the cooling rate of liquid water free to evaporatively cool you requested 9:40am, just ask politely as you demonstrate misunderstanding of it the 1st time. Reducing your unknowns to knowns is on topic.
******
Kristian 4:14am: Correct after parsing: If the air is warmer than the water, energy will be transferred from the air to the water. Also by IR.
Incorrect after parsing since energy transfer is two way, this demonstrates your confusion again:
If the air is not warmer than the water, energy will not be transferred from the air to the water, via convection/conduction or via IR.
Corrected for macro laws:
If the air is not warmer than the water, net energy will not be transferred from the air to the water, via convection/conduction or via IR.
Because as you correctly write incident terrestrial radiation on the water skin from the air will be absorbed, reflected and transmitted by the water skin: In both cases, though, the bulk air will thermally emit electromagnetic radiation in all directions.

August 7, 2014 8:53 am

Monckton of Brenchley Aug 6 ,7:43 says:
You conjecture that increased CO2 acted as a positive feedback and further increased warming. The climate record of the last 70 years or so show no such effect. So by empirical data, there is no basis for such conjecture. The “climate sensitivity” remains a theoretical construct which is contradicted by observation.

Samuel C Cogar
August 7, 2014 11:58 am

milodonharlani says:
August 6, 2014 at 8:02 pm
I would hope that most readers here understand the difference between water vapor, which is invisible, & the much larger condensed water droplets, which can be seen in clouds & fog. Or dew, for that matter”.
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Most all people do understand the difference if they are asked directly …. but they don’t always consider that difference when they are thinking about “greenhouse” gasses and thermal energy absorption and emissions.
Ana a quick Google search provided a PRIME example of what I am speaking of and one can find thousands of other commentaries that are almost identical in context. So, read the following and note my boldfaced text, to wit:
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Water vapour: feedback or forcing?
Any mainstream scientist present will trot out the standard response that water vapour is indeed an important greenhouse gas, it is included in all climate models, but it is a feedback and not a forcing.
The overlaps complicate things, but it’s clear that water vapour is the single most important absorber (between 36% and 66% of the greenhouse effect), and together with clouds makes up between 66% and 85%. CO2 alone makes up between 9 and 26%,
While water vapour is indeed the most important greenhouse gas, the issue that makes it a feedback (rather than a forcing) is the relatively short residence time for water in the atmosphere (around 10 days)
”.
Ref: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142
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People are actually convinced that the H2O vapor (humidity) is the “forcing” feedbacker of thermal energy to the CO2 …… and the CO2 is the “feedback” forcer of thermal energy that is driving the INCREASE in average near-surface temperatures. They literally believe that to be “true”, a fact of science.
And all because they believe that the 30,000 to 40,000 ppm of H2O vapor (humidity) only remains resident in the atmosphere for a maximum of 10 days. One seldom, if ever, hears or reads a local or regional “weather report” that doesn’t mention the RESIDENT “humidity”.
HA, H2O vapor (droplets) in the form of clouds, fogs and mist might only hang around for a maximum of 10 days ….. but that RESIDENT H2O vapor (humidity) from the tropics thru most all the temperate zones ….. hangs around Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall …. and does almost twice (2X) the forcing that the CO2 does ….. and “quantity wise” ….. nigh onto 100 times that of the total atmospheric CO2.
And if you note in the above the author only made mention of the H2O vapor (droplets) that form clouds. And nowhere have I read where a climate scientist and/or a proponent of CAGW has made mention of the H2O vapor (droplets) that form fogs.
And “DUH”, it is of my learned opinion that iffen the …. total annual fog coverage of the earth’s surface was accounted for each year …. then it would probably be far GREATER THAN the total annual cloud coverage.
River fogs, lake fogs, seacoast fogs, ocean fogs, valley fogs, after rain fogs, lowland fogs, city fogs, mountain fogs, etc. Ya know, The Great Smokey Mountains did not get their name because of forest fires. Thus, fogs and clouds are “two peas in a pod”.
Cheers

Konrad
August 7, 2014 3:43 pm

Trick says:
August 7, 2014 at 7:58 am
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Trick, I owe you an apology. I mis-read your previous post and thought you were mis-quoting me and I accused you of lying by omission. I was wrong.
You were actually claiming to have provided a simple repeatable experiment that showed incident LWIR at the surface of a water sample free to evaporatively cool slowing its cooling rate. You were actually lying by commission.
Shall I link to the Talkshop post where you claimed wrapping al-foil around IR opaque glass flasks of water demonstrated the effects of LWIR on the surface of water? Some may find it entertaining 😉
Or perhaps I should link to the time you tried to dismiss the role of radiative subsidence in atmospheric circulation and argued black and blue that I couldn’t drive convective circulation in a fluid column by removing energy from the top of the column?
Or perhaps the time, when faced with the truth that without atmospheric cooling our oceans would become an evaporation constrained solar pond with temperatures far above 255K, you panicked and tried to claim that the 255k figure was for the rock under the oceans? That was a Trick classic!
Or perhaps I should ask you for the 50th (?) time to provide a simple repeatable empirical experiment others can try showing LWIR slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool with air flow across the surface comparable to Beaufort scale 4. No hand waving, texts or “cites”. Build diagrams and photos of your work is all you need. It shouldn’t be too hard should it? It would be a bit sad if something so fundamental to the “basic physics” of the “settled science” couldn’t be demonstrated with a simple lab experiment….

August 7, 2014 4:39 pm

Mr Painter is confused. He says the climate record of the last 70 years or so shows no warming that might be attributable to the CO2 feedback. Well, the record shows warming. The record also shows CO2 increasing. One could make an estimate of what part of the CO2 increase is attributable to outgassing if we were able to measure ocean heat content accurately, but we are not able to do so. One could estimate what part of the temperature increase was caused by CO2 forcing, what part by CO2 feedback, and what part by natural causes, if the available information were sufficient.
But the information is insufficient. It is also insufficient to rule out warming as a result of CO2 forcing or feedback. Mr Painter should learn that there is a large element of uncertainty in climatology, Though he did not quote me correctly, I said there was a statable case (not a certainty) that the CO2 feedback had amplified naturally-caused temperature changes in the paleoclimate (and not in the past 70 years).

Trick
August 7, 2014 5:19 pm

Konrad 3:43pm – Go ahead, make my day, link away. Turn the unknown to known. Like Willis writes: “quote my words.”
“Build diagrams and photos of your work is all you need.”
Concur but need the data & reasoned analysis thereof too. I have already provided these in the source material 8:05pm, no hand waving, none, nada, zilch just experiments & data plotted w/cooling lines with reasoned analysis – you know: the scientific method. Black & white pix of the experimental apparatus (basically a lab glass flask of tap water, thermometer held in center of water by paper clips, and aluminum foil) will have to do but this is not a lesson in color.
Or you can use Dr. Strangelove’s 12:31am experiment & being the ace experimentalist, be the 1st to publish results right here on WUWT to double check “demonstrating incident LWIR….slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool.” You now have TWO recent credible experimental answers to your original challenge! Impressive site.
Now you offer a modified challenge 3:43pm & the answers to this one are also in the bag:
“…provide a simple repeatable empirical experiment others can try showing LWIR slowing the cooling rate of liquid water that is free to evaporatively cool with air flow across the surface comparable to Beaufort scale 4.”
Nature’s answer for global climate windiness is beyond calm kitchen table lab test & and your data taking equipment is not precise enough to capture the effects of ocean waves radiating to themselves and spray and clouds so there is lotsa’ scatter but a signal. Have to go out on the ocean in situ on a research vessel with modern properly calibrated precision equipment for that. I posted the reported reduced results 1:02pm above from data taken day & night over about a month in all natural wind conditions near New Zealand. You will simply have to contact the researchers for “Build diagrams and photos” of their work. I linked their contact info. Descriptions & photos of the equipment Marine-Atmospheric Emitted Radiance Interferometer (M-AERI) are published for you.

August 7, 2014 7:36 pm

Konrad
Sorry I do not wish to engage in ad hominem though you started it. I withdrew my insulting comment but it still got posted. No more insults from you and me. You can chose to do the experiment to prove or disprove your claim. You are the one making an extraordinary claim: LWIR cannot heat water. The burden of proof is on your side.

August 7, 2014 7:58 pm

Kristian
“Another person all confused. ‘Heat transfer’ by IR and ‘radiant emittance’ of IR is not the same thing.”
You’re the one confused because I never said radiant emittance is heat transfer by IR. Where did you get that?
“If the air is warmer than the water, heat will be transferred from the air to the water. Also by IR.”
Good, you understood that one.
“If the air is not warmer than the water, heat will not be transferred from the air to the water, via convection/conduction or via IR.”
I’m sure you’re not talking about my proposed experiment where air is at 25 C and water at 5 C. See 25 > 5
“In both cases, though, the bulk air will thermally emit electromagnetic radiation in all directions.”
Yes of course. I hope you see ‘all directions’ include downward to the water surface.
“We’ll see if he gets the difference this time …”
Did you get it now?

August 7, 2014 8:31 pm

No, I am not confused. The late warming trend circa 1977-97 has been shown to be due to increased in insolation, not any enhanced greenhouse effect (CO2). The great failing of climate science is the persistence of theory which has been falsified by observations. Thank you for replying.