From the department of “I told you so and I have an experiment that precedes this to prove it” comes a paper that proves Bill Nye’s faked ‘greenhouse effect’ experiment is also based on the wrong ‘basic physics’. Remember when I ripped Bill and Al a new one, exposing not only their video fakery, but the fact that experiment fails and could never work? Well, somebody wrote a paper on it and took these two clowns to task.
The Hockey Schtick writes:
Oh dear, the incompetent & faked attempt by Bill Nye to demonstrate the greenhouse effect for Al Gore’s Climate “Reality” Project has also been shown by a peer-reviewed paper to be based upon the wrong “basic physics” as well. According to the authors, Nye’s experiment and other similar classroom demonstrations allegedly of the greenhouse effect:
“All involve comparing the temperature rise in a container filled with air with that of the same or a similar container filled with carbon dioxide when exposed to radiation from the Sun or a heat lamp. Typically, a larger temperature rise is observed with carbon dioxide and the difference is attributed, explicitly or implicitly, to the physical phenomena responsible for the climate change. We argue here that great care is required in interpreting these demonstrations and, in particular, that for the case of the demonstration described by Lueddecke et al., the results arise primarily from processes related to convective heat transport that plays no role in climate change.”
Bill Nye the propaganda guy experiment for the Climate Un-Reality Project
According to the paper, Nye’s experiment
“demonstrates an entirely different phenomenon: The greater density of carbon dioxide compared to air reduces heat transfer by suppressing convective mixing with the ambient air. Other related experiments are subject to similar concerns. Argon, which has a density close to that of carbon dioxide but no infrared absorption, provides a valuable experimental control for separating radiative from convective effects.“
Not only did the authors find that addition of the non-greenhouse gas Argon had similar heating effects to CO2, the Argon control actually heated up slightly more than in the greenhouse gas CO2 experiment, definitively proving that such experiments assume the wrong “basic physics” of radiation were responsible for the heating observed, instead of the limitation of convection due to CO2 having a greater density compared to air.
Nye’s experiment not only limits convection by addition of denser CO2, it completely eliminates convection by enclosing the CO2 in a bottle with the top on.
According to the authors,
“It has been known for more than a century that the warming of air in a real greenhouse results primarily from entirely different physics—mainly that the glass prevents mixing between the warm air inside and the cooler air outside, and therefore suppresses convective heat transfer between the interior and the exterior; the infrared absorption of the glass plays a much smaller role. We show here, via experimental data and a simple theoretical model, that the effects observed in the demonstration described in Ref. 1 arise from a similar restriction of convection rather than from radiative effects. In this case, it is the density difference between carbon dioxide and air, rather than the presence of a solid barrier, that suppresses mixing of the gases. Although the details differ, similar considerations apply to other demonstrations that have been reported.”[including Nye’s ‘greenhouse effect’ enclosed in a glass bottle]
Thus, Nye’s experiment, in addition to the video fakery and incompetence, is not even wrong on the “basic physics” of the greenhouse effect.
As the authors point out in the conclusion,
“Although not an accurate demonstration of the physics of climate change, the experiment we have considered and related ones are valuable examples of the dangers of unintentional bias in science, the value of at least a rough quantitative prediction of the expected effect, the importance of considering alternative explanations, and the need for carefully designed experimental controls.”
The paper in the American Journal of Physics:
Climate change in a shoebox: Right result, wrong physics
Paul Wagoner , Chunhua Liu and R. G. Tobin
Classroom experiments that purport to demonstrate the role of carbon dioxide’s far-infrared absorption in global climate change are more subtle than is commonly appreciated. We show, using both experimental results and theoretical analysis, that one such experiment demonstrates an entirely different phenomenon: The greater density of carbon dioxide compared to air reduces heat transfer by suppressing convective mixing with the ambient air. Other related experiments are subject to similar concerns. Argon, which has a density close to that of carbon dioxide but no infrared absorption, provides a valuable experimental control for separating radiative from convective effects. A simple analytical model for estimating the magnitude of the radiative greenhouse effect is presented, and the effect is shown to be very small for most tabletop experiments.
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Yes. This is 4 year old news, right?
“But whatever the faults of the Gore/Nye demo, this Wagoner paper isn’t telling us anything new about them. ”
Agreed, the video was a frawd [moderation} and that was clearly demonstrated. This paper does not add to that.
mikeishere, no the temperature difference would not be large enough to measure, with even the most accurate temperature sensors, because the error range is much larger than what is being measured.
Of course. But isn’t it a good analogy? The satellite images in the 15 micron band look foggy, don’t they?
Nick Stokes writes “And they don’t show what happens in the atmosphere, where there is a multi-km scale and a vital interaction with the lapse rate. You can’t show that in a bottle.”
Most criticisers of skeptics, usually the ones who user the derogatory term “denier”, think that the sceptics dont believe the physics and feel the need to demonstrate it. My observations are that they also feel smug in “knowing” this scientifically trivial knowledge and have no idea of the real issues.
“With a little thought you could have noticed that the paper predating the “faked experiment” of Gore and Nye makes their “experiment” even more egregious.”, Richard
Bill Nye is a TV clown who dresses like “mad scientist” to entertain children. He probably even imagined it would work. When he couldn’t get the “right” result, Gore paid someone to do some post production editing and fix the problem.
The way it was constructed anyone who knows basic physics could have told them it would not work. They could have known it would not work, but that was not of interest. It was a PR game.
Egregious or not that does not counter the point of my comment that you chose not to quote.
Greg, in case you are curious the surface temp is 30.8˚C this morning, we got a light breeze that cooled it off. The sky is still mixed clear and cloudy.
Bottom line to all of this is that I have never observed the surface skin temperature rising due to increased cloud coverage, and it should rise pretty dramatically with an extra 130 watts hitting it.
Greg:
At August 11, 2014 at 3:30 am you quote Nick Stokes having said
and support that obfuscation by saying
Such misdirection is usually only practiced by illusionists. But you and Nick Stokes are trying to present it here.
There were several fake demonstrations of ‘global warming in a bottle’.
One was the Gore/Nye demonstration and our host provided an assessment of their demonstration.
Our host wrote above
So, the paper adds to our hosts exposure of “Bill and Al” having provided “video fakery”.
The addition is to show that the “video fakery” was used to ‘demonstrate’ “the wrong “basic physics” “.
Also, the paper takes everyone – including Nye and Gore – to task if they provide such “wrong “basic physics” “. And Nye and Gore did provide it after the paper had been published.
Richard
Greg:
I see that at August 11, 2014 at 3:46 am you attempt more obfuscation of the thread by writing to me
I did quote your post and I commented on your point I quoted.
Richard
“-I also wonder if Svante Arrhenius’ experiment had better controls. — John M Reynolds”
Didn’t that one fail already by Arrhenius’s (and sciens at that time) insuffient knowledge of the infrared opasity capasities of the saltstoneprism used in his experiments?? His calculations went wrong assuming the prism was fully transparent to the IR wavelengts he measured… it was NOT!!!
Reblogged this on Maley's Energy Blog and commented:
Another instance of “fake but accurate”: a case study in confirmation bias. Bill Nye and AlGore foist a “proof” of Global Warming’s key mechanism on the rubes, but the underlying physics of the experimental setup is shown to be flawed.
But, but, but Gore is the only person protecting us from the dangerous heat of the Earth’s fiery million degree interior! And Bill Nye is America’s science future. And people like him! He can’t be wrong.
To the moderators:
Could I request that you get rid of the ‘likes’, which have appeared recently. They are pointless, silly, and should have no place on a serious science blog. This is not Facebook, thank goodness.
Surely, the only reasonable way to rate a post is to write a suitable reply.
Chris
@Nick Stokes:
Just out of interest, what do you think was the purpose of the Gore / Nye experiment?
Thanks,
JB
There shoud be done a new peer review of this paper in the light of todays knowledge about the physical assumptions and methods it is based on..his 5 degre/doubling of co2 is even printed in updated and reformed(2007/2008) schoolboks here in Norway. He is even hailed as the one discovering “global warming/greenhouseeffect) in those books… http://globalwarmingart.com/images/1/18/Arrhenius.pdf
The whole thing was absurd. First of all, the atmospheric increase in co2 in the past 100 years has been 1 molecule out of 10000 molecules, from 3 to 4 in a constantly changing uncontrolled environment. The closed container and pumping in what is a much much much greater amount had no chance of replicating the real world and was as usual a propaganda piece. The fact still remains that the effect of co2 is so small that the whole argument is like theologians arguing over how many angels they can stick on the head of the needle.
when there comes a day where the people pushing this missive actually do something that means they are paid by the result of the idea, not the idea, then perhaps they have a reason to be taken seriously. Until then, they should go back to the choom gang world they live in and leave people that actually have to work in the real world alone
Reblogged this on Centinel2012 and commented:
Good Analysis
The CO2 gets hotter because CO2 is a good adsorber of IR radiation. But just letting it get hot is only half the experiment. The CO2 will cool faster because it is a good emitter of IR. To act as a GHG you need a poor emitter, like Oxygen or Nitrogen.
“Aphan says:
August 10, 2014 at 10:41 pm
Anthony, you said “not even wrong” instead of “not even right” on basic physics in your conclusion. ”
Theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli,is supposed to have originally uttered the phrase. A friend showed Pauli the paper of a young physicist which he suspected was not of great value but on which he wanted Pauli’s views. Pauli remarked sadly, ‘It is not even wrong’. “This is also often quoted as “It is not only not right, it is not even wrong,” or “Das ist nicht nur nicht richtig, es ist nicht einmal falsch!” in Pauli’s native German. Peierls remarks that quite a few apocryphal stories of this kind have been circulated and mentions that he listed only the ones personally vouched by him. He also quotes another example when Pauli replied to Lev Landau, “What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not.”
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Comments from the readers are worth reading too.
This guy Nick Stokes seems to think that because the paper was written in 2010, that Bill Nye and Al Gore get a free pass. In my book, it makes them even more culpable. Because they didn’t bother to research their “experiment” ahead of time. The video fakery is proof positive that not only are they clowns, but evil ones too.
Stokes can’t even bring himself to criticize them. That right there is what is wrong with science today.
Aphan says: @ur momisugly August 10, 2014 at 10:41 pm
Anthony, you said “not even wrong” instead of “not even right” on basic physics in your conclusion.
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There is a phrase in physics, “not even wrong”, attributed to Wolfgang Pauli (quantum exclusion principle), that is a shortened form of a criticism he had for an especially bad paper … “It is not only not right, is is not even wrong!”, meaning that the paper is so far off the mark that it is clear that the authors do not even understand the nature of the problem at hand, or have set out to demonstrate a logical fallacy, or to gain a “correct” conclusion by arguing from premises we know to be wrong.
I would tend to lump most of what passes for Climate Science into the “not even wrong” category because it is based on premises we know to be wrong, are not supported by any experimental evidence outside the margin of error, or what little evidence does exist outright contradicts the theory.
And you have to be careful when you read contributed comments, as they are sometimes “not even wrong”. Take for instance the above comment by Nick Stokes … ‘I’m not a fan of these experiments. They don’t tell us anything new about the radiative properties of CO2, which have been known since Tyndall. And they don’t show what happens in the atmosphere, where there is a multi-km scale and a vital interaction with the lapse rate. You can’t show that in a bottle.” …. which on it’s surface sounds like he is arguing from well established green house gas theory and complaining that you cannot stuff that effect into an experiment that fits inside a bottle. The trouble is, when experimentalist go looking for his “vital interaction with the lapse rate”, they find no evidence of a hot spot in the upper atmosphere as theory demands. Where is the evidence? If there is no evidence, then the theory must be wrong.
Wolfgang Pauli would have trashed all such arguments of factually unsupported theory as “not even wrong”, perhaps with a giant sign and a double face-palm for recognizing how far the “science” has fallen.
I would hesitate to call your desire for a correction of “not even wrong” to “not even right” an example of “not even wrong”; rather a lack of context to understand the irony. (^_^) But now you understand; and this is what I like so much about WUWT … we get to learn about things that we might otherwise never get exposed to.
Anthony was using a phrase attributed to Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli also said: “What you said was so confused that one could not tell whether it was nonsense or not.” Which ever way you put it, the phrase means “so completely clueless and off topic that you can’t even argue with it.”
You use it to refer to someone who just doesn’t get it.
Here’s a link.
Moderators
I agree with Chris Wright says: August 11, 2014 at 4:38 am.
I recall this experiment about 2 years ago, and I recall that the majority of regular commentators who passed comment on the like function considered it to be a bad idea. Because of that feedback, Anthony got rid of it.
Genghis says:
August 11, 2014 at 3:58 am
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A drop of about half a degree is quite typical. The diurnal range is very small due to the huge heat capacity of the ocean, and subject to wind, the rate of evaporation is not so different day or night. .