Guest essay by Andy May
Sometimes people ask climate skeptics if they believe in evolution or gravity. They want to ridicule our skepticism by equating man-made climate change to evolution or gravity. Evolution and gravity are facts and man-made climate change is a hypothesis. Equating “climate change” to gravity or evolution is valid, as all three are facts. Climate changes, gravity holds us to the Earth’s surface and species evolve. Gravity and evolution have generally accepted theories of how they work. Einstein developed our current scientific theory of gravity. Newton provided us with his descriptive “Law of Gravitation.” Newton’s law tells us what gravity does and it is very useful, but it tells us nothing about how it works. For that we need Einstein’s theory of relativity. Theories and laws are not necessarily related in science. A law simply describes what happens without describing why. A scientific theory attempts to explain why a relationship holds true.
In the scientific community, for both a law and a theory, a single conflicting experiment or observation invalidates them. Einstein once said:
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
So, let’s examine our topics in that light. Newton’s descriptive law of gravity, based on mass and distance, are there any exceptions? Not to my knowledge, except possibly on galactic sized scales, black holes and probably on very, very small sub-atomic scales. In everyday life, Newton’s law works fine. How about Einstein’s theory of gravity (Relativity), any exceptions? None that I know of at any scale.
How about evolution? Species evolve, we can see that in the geological record. We can also watch it happen in some quickly reproducing species. Thus we could describe evolution as a fact. It happens, but we cannot describe how without more work. Early theories of the evolutionary process include Darwin’s theory of natural selection andLamarck’s theory of heritable species adaptation due to external stresses. Due to epigenetic research we now know that Darwin and Lamarck were both right and that evolution involves both processes. For a summary of recent research into the epigenetic component of evolution see this Oxford Journal article. Thus well-established facts and scientific laws rarely change but theories do evolve. I might add that while facts and laws don’t often change, they are easily dismissed when contradictory data are gathered. The modern theory of evolution is a good example of where competing theories can merge into one.
Most scientific theories begin as hypotheses. A hypothesis is best described as an idea of what might be causing a specific event to occur. A proper scientific hypothesis, like a theory, must be falsifiable. That is, we must be able to design an experiment or foresee an observation that will make the hypothesis false. “Climate change” is not falsifiable, it is not a scientific hypothesis or a theory. “Man-made climate change” is a scientific hypothesis since it is falsifiable. Hypotheses and theories are evolving things, new facts and observations cause them to change. In this way we build the body of science. Science is mostly skepticism. We look for what does not fit, we poke at established facts and laws, at theories and hypotheses. We try and find flaws, we check the numbers. Worse, science done properly means we spend more time proving ourselves wrong than we do proving we are right. Life is tough sometimes.
So how does this fit with the great climate change debate. I’ve made a table of phrases and identified each common phrase as a fact, theory, law, hypothesis, or simply an idea. These are my classifications and certainly open for debate.
Table 1
In Table 1 we can see that the comparison of man-made climate change and the possibility of a man-made climate catastrophe are not really comparable to the theories of gravity and evolution. Man-made climate change is more than an idea, it is based on some observations and reasonable models of the process have been developed and can be tested. But, none of the models have successfully predicted any climatic events. Thus, they are still a work-in-progress and not admissible as evidence supporting a scientific theory.
The idea of man-made climate change causing a catastrophe at the scale of Islamic terrorism is pure speculation. The models used to compute man’s influence don’t match any observations, this is easily seen in Figure 1 which is Dr. John Christy’s graph of the computer model’s predictions versus satellite and weather balloon observations. I should mention that satellite and weather balloon measurements are independent of one another and they are independent of the various surface temperature datasets, like HADCRUT and GHCN-M. All of the curves on the plot have been smoothed with five year averages.
Figure 1
The purple line going through the observations is the Russian model “INM-CM4.” It is the only model that comes close to reality. INM-CM4, over longer periods, does very well at hindcasting observed temperatures. This model uses a CO2 forcing response that is 37% lower than the other models, a much higher deep ocean heat capacity (climate system inertia) and it exactly matches lower tropospheric water content and is biased low above that. The other models are biased high. The model predicts future temperature increases at a rate of about 1K/century, not at all alarming and much lower than the predictions of the other models.
One can consider each model to be a digital experiment. It is clear that the range of values from these digital experiments exceeds the predicted average temperature increase. This does not give us much confidence in the accuracy of the models. Yet, the IPCC uses the difference between the mean model temperature anomalies and observed surface temperatures since 1950 to compute man’s influence on climate. In Figure 2 we see the model runs in light blue and yellow and the model averages in blue and red. Overlain on the plot are surface temperature measurements in black. In graph (a) the models use a scenario that the IPCC believes represents both natural and anthropogenic climate forcings. In graph (b) they use a scenario that they believe represents only natural climate forcings.
Figure 2 (click on the figure to see Chapter 10 of the most recent IPCC report, “Detection and Attribution of Climate Change,” these graphs are on page 879)
The graphs are quite small and cover over 150 years, but even so, significant departures of the observed temperatures from the model mean are quite apparent around 1910, 1940 and in recent years. Further the range of model results is annoyingly large making it difficult to accept the mean value of the runs in a computation of man’s influence. But, in any case graph Figure 2(b) shows a flat natural climate trend and all of the observed temperature increase from 1950 to today is ascribed to man. This result has generated a lot of criticism from Soon, Connolly and Connolly, ProfessorJudith Curry and others. In particular Soon, Connolly and Connolly (SCC15) believe that the IPCC chose an inappropriate model of the variation in the sun’s output (TSI or total solar irradiance). There are many models of solar variation in the peer reviewed literature and it is a topic of vigorous debate. Eight recent models are presented in Figure 8 of SCC15 (see Figure 3). Only low solar variability models (those on the right of Figure 3) are used by the IPCC to compute man’s influence on climate although just as much evidence exists for the higher variability models on the left. The scales used in the graphs are all the same, but the top and bottom values vary. At minimum, the IPCC should have run two cases, one for high variability and one for low. SCC15 clearly shows that the model used makes a big difference.
Figure 3
Wyatt and Curry (WC13) believe that natural temperature variation due to long term natural cycles is not represented correctly in Figure 2(b). Their “Stadium Wave” suggests that considerable natural warming was taking place in the 1980’s and 1990’s. If the long term (30 years or so) cycles described in WC13 were incorporated into Figure 2(b) the amount of warming attributed to man would be much less. Wyatt does consider variation in total solar irradiance to be a possible cause.
Any computer Earth model must establish a track record before it is used in calculations. The Earth is simply too complex and natural climate cycles are poorly understood. If natural cycles cannot be predicted they cannot be subtracted from observations to give us man’s influence on climate. The debate is not whether man influences climate, the debate is over how much man contributes and whether or not the additional warming dangerous. This observer, familiar with the science, would say the jury is still out. Certainly, the case for an impending catastrophe has not been made as this requires two speculative jumps. First, we need to assume that man is the dominant driver of climate, second we need to assume this will lead to a catastrophe. One can predict a possible catastrophe if the most extreme climate models are correct, but the record shows they are not. Only INM-CM4 matches observations reasonably well and INM-CM4 does not predict anything remotely close to a catastrophe.
In the study of the process of evolution the problem is the same. Some believe that the dominant process is natural selection and epigenetic change is minor. Some believe the opposite. Everyone believes that both play a role. As in climate science, figuring out which process is dominant is tough.
Recent climate history (the “pause” in warming) suggests that we have plenty of time to get our arms around this problem before doing anything drastic like destroying the fossil fuel industry and sending billions of people into poverty due to a lack of affordable energy. We owe a lot to cheap fossil fuels today. As Matt Ridley computed in “The Rational Optimist” a Kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity cost an hour of work in 1900 and only five minutes of work today. The average house (in the US) uses 911 KWh of electricity a month. This cost an impossible 114 eight hour days of work in 1900 and a more reasonable nine days today. If the projections in WC13 are correct, the “pause” may go on for quite a while, giving us much more time. We don’t have to jump off an economic cliff today.
Andy May has been a petrophysicist since 1974. He has worked on oil, gas and CO2 fields in the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand, China, UK North Sea, Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Russia. He specializes in fractured reservoirs, wireline and core image interpretation and capillary pressure analysis, besides conventional log analysis. He is proficient in Terrastation, Geolog and Powerlog software. His full resume can be found on linkedin or here:AndyMay
Rudd wrote;
“KevinK, simply not true. The labs use long glass tubes with various concentrations of CO2, and measure the attentuation through scattering of infrared frequency lasers. Easy to google, if you would just try. Blanket den!*l of basic physics is not the way forward.
Your backradiation argument shows a lack of understanding of the actual GHE physics. Which has little to do with optics. It has to do with quantum absorption of infrared frequency photons by certain molecules, and the consequences of that. Only incoming solar radiation warms. Backscattered infrared is a manifestation of the GHE scattering of infrared by CO2 and H2O. It hinders cooling outbound LWR. GHE is not about direct heating. It is about hindered indirect cooling. Disproving a false conception of GHE is possible, but not useful.”
Rudd, with all due respect, I am quite aware of how spectroscopy works. Long tubes, attenuation, scattering. lasers, got it. I do not “deny” any of that. And frankly “google” is not a technical reference work I would rely on in my profession.
“hindering” cooling is not a precise technical term. Conductive thermal insulators (the pink “batts” in your ceiling) function by slowing the rate at which thermal energy flows through a system. Look up thermal diffusivity for a better understanding.
The backscattered IR (something we can model) DOES NOT hinder cooling. The returning photons have no interaction with the outgoing photons.
The “Radiative Greenhouse Effect” delays the continuous flow of photons through the atmosphere by causing some of them to make “another trip” through the atmosphere and hitting the surface another time (or multiple times). Given the dimensions of the atmosphere (say 5 miles) and the speed of light (670,616,629 mph, on a good day) this delay is not long enough to “hinder” the flow of energy through the system and has no effect on the average temperature. This is clearly shown in the total lack of correlation between temperature and CO2 concentration over any timeframe measured (decades, millions of years, higher CO2 lower temperatures, lower CO2 higher temperature, no correlation).
The CO2 concentration changes the “response time”, ie the time it takes for the gases in the atmosphere to warm up/cool down after sunrise/sunset.
Ironically the climate paleontologists have been looking at the wrong end of the time scale, they should be studying what happens over milliseconds, but there is no temperature database to support that,
Cheers, KevinK.
K&, I tried, gently. You are exactly the sort of ‘skeptic’ that Obummer uses to ridicule the entire CAGW opposition. Please stop or at least tone it down. Why hand ‘illiteracy’ ammo to warmunists? You cannot win your argument no matter how vehemently repeated, cause it just aint so. You are like Hansen raging about meters of SLR by 2060. Educate yourself more. Try essay Sensitive Sensitivity and its footnotes. Don’t present such an obviously discreditable target.
Rudd, there is no correlation between average temperature and CO2 concentration, none. Folks that have been very well funded to find it have come up lacking (limp hockey sticks and all that).
Rather that lecture me about “sensitivity” perhaps you could point out SPECIFIC errors in my analysis ? Perhaps my quoted value for the speed of light is too low by say 6 orders of magnitude, that might just make the “GHE” something to worry about.
WHY is it exactly that agricultural greenhouses made of IR transparent plastic and IR opaque plastic show essentially the same temperature inside ???? This should not be if the “GHE” is real ???
So next I suggest you look at different time scales, milliseconds not millions of years.
And I don’t give a darn about being a “target”, foolishness will always be shown in the end.
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.” From an influential guy.
And for the record my predictions; “temperature and SLR are going to do what ever the heck they want to do, and we have no way to predict them”, are much closer than any of Dr. Hansen’s predictions.
Strongly suggest you get some “Applied Radiation Physics” education, you are sorely lacking. Again strongly suggest you “study up” about the optical integrating sphere, it is the best analogy for the gaseous atmosphere of the Earth.
Cheers, KevinK (a “target”)
There is a “correlation” in the sense that the correlation coefficient is non-nil.However, the maxim that “correlation is not causation” is well founded.
KevinK,
Foolish Warmists will never accept standard physics. They don’t understand that silly terms involving the word greenhouse might just as well use the word banana, for all the real world relevance it has.
CO2 heats nothing.
Cheers.
Mike, yes I know, but I do enjoy “pushing” their buttons.
Never a specific criticism, just the usual; “you should read more”, “you just can’t understand our really complicated explanation”, yada yada yada.
Just once I would like a specific criticism like; your value for the speed of light is wrong.
It is truly a belief, not science.
Cheers, KevinK
MF, that is true. Agreed. But misconstrues the GHE. It is about reduced cooling, not about heating. Your ilk just keep handing stupid stuff to the other side. Please stop. Please. Or at least go elsewhere, as to not further pollute AW’s excellent and otherwise credible blog
ristvan,
Might I respectfully suggest that if you really think that CO2 in the atmosphere elevates temperatures to above those which would apply in the absence of any atmosphere, you might at least supply a falsifiable hypothesis.
Repeatedly claiming the existence of a “GHE” (about as relevant as claiming a “CO2 heating effect”) without a falsifiable hypothesis is purely unscientific.
As I wrote, you might as well say that CO2 heats the planet due to the “banana effect”. It also has nothing to do with greenhouses, insulation with miraculous heating power, or anything similar.
Nonsense all the way down. CO2 heats nothing, and cannot stop temperatures falling under clouds, at night, in the winter, or in the shade. Neither the greenhouse effect or the banana effect have any effect.
Cheers,
I believe the mechanism is that the average time it takes for before an exited CO2 molecule radiates a photon having the same energy it absorbs is much slower than the average time it takes before an exited CO2 molecule transfer energy to molecules it collides with.
Now just try and define your “greenhouse gas” using scientific language. One might just as well say “magic gas”. Equally undefinable. Not a fact at all.
Give it a try. Bear in mind that filling a room with CO2 (for example) results in no increase in temperature at all. There isn’t even any scientific definition of the “greenhouse effect”.
It’s about as silly as a “greenhouse gas”. It just goes to show that educational qualifications don’t prevent the holder from being delusionally psychotic, fra*dulent, gullible, or just plain silly.
CO2 heats nothing. Not even planets.
Cheers.
“Bear in mind that filling a room with CO2 (for example) results in no increase in temperature at all.”
You were proven wrong by an early experiment Mike, apparently you haven’t done the research. That experimentalist filled his room with CO2 and found +5F increase in temperature by thermometer. Read up on gas extinction coefficients.
So I’ll quibble with the table. According to your definitions, if ‘evolution’ is a fact (things change, stuff happens …) then so is relativity. Light bends in a gravitational field. Observable fact. The GPS system is designed with relativity. Indeed, when you look at it, relativity is more of a ‘fact’ than evolution.
Which leads to another point. I’m not sure using evolution as the headliner example here is the best approach. Climate changes. Evolution happens. Both of these are facts but they are not really scientific facts until accompanied by an explanation for how the climate changes and how (and on what time scale) evolution happens. “The sun appears to go around the earth” was an observation, but not really a scientific one. “The earth is at the center of the universe” is a little more of a scientific statement and was, obviously, testable and found wrong. Galileo insisted to his dying day that the planets had to go in circular orbits because … well because they simply had to go in circular orbits. That idiot Kepler who was postulating elliptical orbits was suggesting something that, in Galileo’s opinion was simply wrong on basic metaphysical principles. And so it goes. Scientific argument, explanation, mathematical theories, experimental observation, laced with lots of argument and plenty of human failings.
We know much of AGW-driven climate science is already failing. We see it in the CO2 fertilization effect, the refusal of the atmosphere to obey the models, the remaining mysteries of cloud feedback, ocean heat, aerosol physics, and so much more. So much interesting science to investigate — what a tragedy that it has somehow been reduced to the phrase ‘settled science’.
That “light bends in a gravitational field” is a generalization from specific instances in which it was observed that light bent in a gravitational field. Is this generalization true? No, in the next event an instance could be observed in which it was not true that light bent in a gravitational field. Thus, the proposition that “light bends in a gravitational field” is a theory rather than being a fact.
I think a better wording of the statement would be “light bends in a curved gravitational field(such as one near a suitably massive object)”. Unimpeded by mass a gravitational field is flat and light flies straight.
philohippous:
Despite the rewording your proposition is a generalization that is not a fact.
Several issues.
Some ‘facts’ are only ‘true’ in certain contexts.
Newtons laws don’t hold up at large scales, this doesn’t mean they are untrue, but that they are only true in certain contexts, or perhaps only at certain scales. They don’t seem to hold up at the subatomic level either, within quantum thermodynamics. One idea is that different ‘laws’ apply at different scales within the universe, both at the very large and the very small, what ‘laws’ we know seem to break down. This is certainly debated.
Numbers are a human invention. They don’t exist in nature. So to say 6+6=12 is only true in terms of logic, but there is no such thing as a ‘6’ or a ’12’, these are only representations of reality, they are not reality itself. This might be pedantic, but you would be surprised how many get in a muddle over it.
If you think mathematics is the universal god, at the quantum level numerical scale doesn’t seem to apply. The quantum level seems to exist without any scale, which is why you get things like instantaneous effects (proven in the lab), and ‘spooky action at a distance’, as termed by Einstein. An electron seems ‘connected’ with another electron over distances to the scale of the universe itself.
‘Numbers’ is also what also got the Pythagoreans all in a muddle when they didn’t like the idea the square root of 2 was ‘irrational’ (i.e. can’t be expressed as the ratio of two whole numbers) and where we get the word irrational meaning ‘illogical’. They actually believed numbers were ‘real’ things, like apples or people, and to believe otherwise was illogical. But actually there is nothing illogical or irrational about the square root of two, it is simply a magnitude that exists on a spectrum; what might be called ‘irrational’ is ascribing some kind of absolute reality to invented arbitrary divisions like integers.
Even Hawking stumbles down the Pythagorean numerical cult path, with his book ‘God created the integers’; actually man did, and many depictions of ‘god’ are also only created by man. (‘If an ox could draw a God, he would draw it in the shape of an ox’. Or, if a physicist who studies atomic bangs could come up with an origin to the universe, would he come up with a Big Bang (?)).
Numbers are still worshipped as some kind of ‘god’ to mathematicians. If reality is a spectrum, as suggested by Einstein’s space-time, then numbers (which are essentially arbitrary divisions) have limited value in representing and describing reality.
Another example one could also describe is how ‘infinity’ is a convenient invention of mathematicians, there is good evidence that infinity does not actually exist in this universe, which is itself, not infinite (which is also why it can’t be infinitely old). (This does not imply that ‘infinity’ can’t exist outside this universe, just that there is solid empirical evidence it doesn’t exist within it. And furthermore, if the universe can’t be infinitely old, and you can’t get something coming from nothing, it actually implies that there must be an ‘infinity’/or ‘ultimate cause’ outside of space-time-the ontological argument). For example, people often say there is ‘an infinite amount of numbers, or magnitudes, between 1 and 2’. This is untrue, if quantum thermodynamics holds. For example, it seems you can’t get below a certain physical value for things like quanta (packets of light), and measurements seem to indicate that space itself has an absolute limit to being divided. In other words, physical measurements seem to indicate that there is not an ‘infinite amount of values’ between two points in space, this is an invention. The concept of ‘infinity’ itself as a legitimate part of an equation and a symbol was debated for some time by mathematicians, and should probably be withdrawn.
I would also say that natural selection, man-made climate change to some degree, the fact that some dinosaur species are already extinct, and relativity, are all facts, as ‘facts’ are defined. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they apply in all scales at all times and in all contexts, or that they automatically over-ride all other variables. The human mind does this, because the mind is pre-disposed to drawing gods in our own depiction and then applying them in all contexts (the will to power), like an ox drawing an ox god.
Very good! Thanks for commenting. This sort of comment is what I was looking for when I built the table.
Ok. By the way i also tried to get into oil, but ended up in metals, because they only gave oil jobs to those who pandered to their British oil overseers (the high marks I got were irrelevant), who are now running things like coral reef science. Australia is still just a colony, after all.
Re: Your Figure 1 and the variety of failed climate models.
There is a thin purple line that seems a better match with observations. It seems like a fairly obvious question: How do the assumptions/calculations of that model differ from all of the others?
That is the INM-CN4 model, the differences are in the text.
The problem is not a scientific one, it is a problem of rhetoric.
Clearly change happens. The climate changed before the advent of mankind — most notably from a anoxic composition before biological photosynthesis thru the “Great Oxygenation Event” about 2 billion years ago. Change happens. But that is not what the alarmists are saying.
So, we talk about human caused changes. And clearly human activity has changed climates here and there, from time to time, as when the Sinai Peninsula can be seen from space to turn from yellow to green to yellow again whenever the political control shifts from Egypt, to a neighboring nation, and back. Over grazing is so frequent a problem with such severe climatic (and economic) changes associated with the issue that we give it a name — “the tragedy of the commons”. And yet here again to agree with the alarmist that human activity can cause such changes does not mean we agree with the entire proposition. It’s not what they mean.
And so we come to carbon dioxide, and clearly the excavation and combustion of fossil fuels removes carbon from the ground and puts it into the air. This is a change. Clearly any action has some sort of reaction, so there is a change resulting in changing the composition of air. But it is not at all clear when and where and how much and how costly, or beneficial, that change may be. It is CERTAIN however that the change, of whatever size and direction and speed, is NOT GLOBAL. And it is not, solely, WARMING. The Arctic warm while the Antarctic cools. Some areas are wetter and some dryer. Some places the night time is cloudier, and other places clouds are thinner. Some places see the range of temperatures from day to night narrowing, while others see wider swings. Stipulating that changes to the atmosphere result in consequential changes, even the alarmists have surrendered the argument when they abandoned the term “global warming” — because we can’t actually see one similar common effect across the entire globe. “Change” — okay, but NOT “warming”.
And as soon as we admit that we’re discussing changes here and there, beneficial and detrimental, drastic and mild, sooner or later, reversible and irrevocable, some foreseeable and some wholly beyond our ability to predict — the basis for international action by super-governments collapses. We are NOT all in the same boat. We are not all suffering from the same risks. Some of us may be at some risk in some places, and others may in fact want more rain, or warmth, or ice-free channels thru the polar regions, or other changes. Various factions who have various problems, or opportunities, do not resolve their different viewpoints peacefully via government actions. Governments tend to be very blunt instruments on big problems. Governments go to war. Sometimes they form treaties and alliances, first, in order to make the sides clearer and the wars bigger. But governments go to war as surely as water runs downhill. “Business as usual”, in James Hansen’s terminology, goes into conflicts at a vastly reduced scale. Competitors may go bankrupt, but few are devastated. Winners and losers tend to survive to contest again in other markets. Changes in the actual environment are quickly met with changes in the economic and business environments. And on the whole things tend to improve — not everywhere, not all at once, and not for all. But there’s no reason to suppose that business as usual can’t exploit changes in climate any less effectively than business exploits, and profits from, resource depletion, waste disposal, and technological change generally.
The problem reduces to the “problem of induction”: given specific instances of it how can a general rule of global warming be derived?
Sorry, but General Relativity is still a theory and it is currently patched up with dark matter and dark energy. If these predicted mechanisms aren’t eventually found, then it has problems. Evolution is a theory too, albeit extremely successful and productive, it has changed too often to be a fact. Successful explanations and predictions don’t turn theories into facts.
Martin,
“Evolution is a theory too, albeit extremely successful and productive”
What has it produced? . . I mean other than the idea that it’s productive ?
Eugenics seems about as “useful” as it gets ; )
I meant scientifically productive, hypothesis generation, making sense of the order and behavior we see, etc. Even making contributions outside the field, such as genetic algorithms, etc.
Evolution is both a theory and a fact, as with gravity. Both evolution and gravitational attraction have been observed. Both facts have a body of theory explaining them.
Evolution has been productive in many practical ways. It has led to great scientific, mathematical (statistical) and medical advances.
“Predicts” is inaccurate. “Projects” is accurate. Modern climate models do not “predict” but rather “project.” Projections differ from predictions in providing no information about the outcomes of events.
Ferd..
I always read your posts and find them informative. As an Engineer, I am knowledgeable about radiation, but my question will expose how limited my detailed knowledge of the greenhouse theory is. Several questions come to mind. Assuming the theory is correct, it seems as though the greenhouse gas theory is presented as a one cycle process. The CO 2 captures a portion of the energy radiated from earth which is subsequently radiated back to earth and that is the end. In my mind it would seem that the process continues as the energy would be radiated back and forth multiple times with only a portion captured each cycle until the remaining “heat” becomes small. While the sun is adding heat during the daylight hours, this stops when the sun sets which is evident since the earth temperature rises in the summer when the day is longer and the shorter night hours reduce the net energy radiation to space.
What is wrong with this scenario?
@ur momisugly catcracking
Yes, your idea (I hesitate to call it a theory as I would not wish to be pulled to shreds over the use of that word!) makes sense to me too. I think the example of the warming or no warming effect in a greenhouse, by adding large amounts of CO2, could be somewhat spurious?
My reason for saying that is that in a greenhouse situation, one is not dealing with the radiative effect of heat, such as it is from the Earth into the atmosphere – because there is no ‘implied’ heat inside a greenhouse. Therefore, I do go along with the idea that CO2 (on its own) would not cause warming – which as others have said above, confirms.
Whether CO2 in the atmosphere has any effect on warming I have yet to see any solid proof. If it does have any effect, from what I have read, it is barely measurable.
I found the discussion on this subject (CO2) quite exhilarating and wish it had not come to an end. But generally I come to these threads after everyone has gone to bed so, for me, none of the questions I might think of to ask, get answered.
catcracking July 26, 2016 at 9:14 pm
“… the energy would be radiated back and forth multiple times …”
—
An average, the energy represented by a photon coming in from the Sun, spends time in about 8 billion different molecules before it is re-radiated to space. That is a lot of back and forth. How many of those molecules are CO2? Climate science acts as if it is 7.999 billion while in reality, it is probably just 50% of 0.03% of the 8 billion.
with respect the author should go and read a little philosophy of science and rewrite the article removing the word ‘fact’ from it.
The cause is not helped here.
Governments are actually better at starting wars unnecessarily than they are at fighting them.
Sorry Andy but I must disagree and add to the chaos
Your definition of Fact…an idea or truth [?] that has been proven to be unequivocally true……..doesn’t hold up
A fact is only a “fact” within the limited range in which we can test it.
It is generally the case that when we decapitate someone they die…but there may be circumstances where they survive. It’s happened with chickens _____https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken
Similarly it is a “fact” that the gravitational constant is 6.674×10−11 N⋅m2/kg2 but it may have been different in the past, may be different in the future, may be different elsewhere in the universe or may be totally different in some other universe.
Or it may depend on how stuff is distributed…https://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0202058.pdf
Similarly the speed of light is a “fact”…or is it ?
http://www.livescience.com/29111-speed-of-light-not-constant.html
Perhaps it’s a fact that light at least has a speed…or does it ?
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/us/scientists-bring-light-to-full-stop-hold-it-then-send-it-on-its-way.html
All is flux saith the preacher..
Facts and Laws are temporary things to be sure. From my essay: “I might add that while facts and laws don’t often change, they are easily dismissed when contradictory data are gathered.”
Facts are not temporary. Facts are the way things are. They are entirely independent of our theorizing (except, of course, when they are facts about our theorizing). “Contradictory data” can show that what we thought was a fact is not a fact after all. The fact was a fact all along.
Sorry but 6 + 6 = 14. It is not an unequivocal fact that it equals 12. You have made an invalid assumption of a decimal system in your statement of what is unequivocal fact so it is not a fact except in a specific context.
Overall, I agree with this article, but I must confess a bit of dissapointment over the table. The extinction of the dinosaurs (non-avian dinosaurs, that is) is a fact. HOW the dinosaurs went extinct is a theory – a theory with much supporting evidence. As is the Big Bang.
However, this article seems to fall for the common misconception that layman’s theory = scientific theory. Am I just misinterpreting something here or did this article truly mix up the two?
There is much evidence that the Big Bang theory is BS.
Besides, “scientists” are as often misguided by their egos and/or corrupt as “laymen.”
Today, it is much more probable that an independent layman would have a more balanced, informed, and rational opinion than a Mann-like government bureaucrat who went through the loops and hoops of the Academic maze to get a piece of paper that allows him a sinecure of washing bottles and sorting buttons at real people’s expense.
A theory is a conjecture that has _so far_ resisted all attempts to disprove it. No theory is ever proven. All theories are always provisional.
Could it be said that rocket science (theory) has been proven?
That was my overall point, thank you. In a way it is also true of facts and laws. It is just that, IMHO, facts and laws are replaced and theories are modified. Fine distinction to be sure. Thanks for the comment, this whole hypothesis, theory, law, fact distinction is semantic. That is why I wanted this sort of debate.
Q: What proves that Leif Svalgaard is marching in the 5th column?
A: “Only low solar variability models (those on the right of Figure 3) are used by the IPCC to compute man’s influence on climate although just as much evidence exists for the higher variability models on the left.”
“In the scientific community, for both a law and a theory, a single conflicting experiment or observation invalidates them”
No, this is really not true. The problem is that observations are often theory laden. It is quite rational when confronted with one contrary observation to question whether it is what you think, and whether it really means what you think it means.
If we find that its not warming as predicted, its quite reasonable to ask whether there is something wrong with our measurements.
The thing that has gone wrong with climate science is not this, which is quite normal in all science. Its rather that the quality of the analysis and the quality of experiment and quality of the theories is defective.
If you like, there is nothing in principle wrong with making adjustments to past temps. Its just that the ones they have made are lacking in justification.
Need to read some more philosophy of science.
Good point, thanks.
Andy May
Thanks for trying to address fact, hypothesis, theory and law.
Within the scientific method, “facts” should be equated to “objective observation” not law.
“Climate change” is commonly used as an equivocation by climate alarmists to imply “catastrophic majority anthropogenic global warming.” rather than the scientific definition of long term change (> 30 years average).
Your use of “evolution” is another ambiguity or equivocation mixing degenerative microevoution, creative macroevolution, and abiogenesis.
Microevolution: The facts of mutations are observed to degrade function and explained as the hypothesis/theory of “microevolution” and a degeneration of existing function. e.g, sickle cell anemia.
Secondly the term “evolution” has multiple meanings in common usage. Your usage is at least confusing.
is an hypothesis that advocates claim to be a law by equivocation over multiple meanings. Micro evolution
Mutations are widely observed and often cause degeneration or degradation of existing functions such as numerous cancers as documented in the database OMIM – Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man
That has more than 21565 documented mutations. Similar change and degradation of function causes development of resistance to drugs. Such mutations are best termed “micro-evolution”.
Micro-mutation with differences in geological fossils is commonly extrapolated to the hypothesis of creative macro evolution of new function.
The mathematical probability of such is astronomically small. In reality, macro-evolution is unable to explain the Cambrian explosion of genomes etc.
See Doug Axe Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed.
review.
Michael Behe Limits of Evolution
Yet advocates claim that macroevolution is not just a “hypothesis”, or even a “theory” but a “law” fact” because we see complex organisms – by presuming materialism and excluding the alternative hypothesis of intelligent design. By blurring of terms “evolution” is then used as an equivocation by leveraging the facts of mutations to assert the incredibly improbable creative generation of new forms.
For quantitative math on why creative macro evolution doesn’t work see Publications at Evolutionary Informatics Lab
Thirdly, there is no credible theory for the abiogenic origin of life of a self reproducing cell forming by stochastic processes from inert chemicals. That is even more remote than macro evolution.
As such, “evolution” is the polar opposite from gravity on a quantitative scientific basis.
Please avoid using evolution in your examples.
Your terms “relativity” as a “theory” but Newton’s gravitation as a “law” are confusing. The distinction between law and theory used to be taught but language is changing. See:
Why is Einstein’s theory of relativity still a theory?Physicist Mark Barton opines:
Please add Post Newtonian gravity as a theory along with Special Relativity and General Relativity.
See: Gravity: Newtonian, post-Newtonian and General Relativistic
Thanks, you make some valid points and the definitions of these terms have changed a lot over time. But, commonly a “law” is something like Ohm’s Law and is descriptive. Theories and hypothesis (which can be considered the same thing) are attempts at explaining why something happens, trial ideas meant to be modified at some point. I’ve read about the finer points of evolutionary theory that you mention, but that is getting too far in the weeds. I chose evolution as an example because it is a well known case of two opposing theories that merged. I suspect that at some point in the future something similar will happen in climate science.
“I chose evolution as an example because it is a well known case of two opposing theories that merged. ”
… what? What 2 opposing theories?
1) abiogenesis and 2) God?
I’m pretty sure there are various other theories out there. I’m pretty sure both can not be proven scientifically and am more sure that both are polar opposites and are opposed to any attempt at merging.
captainfish
The scientific hypothesis alternative to abiogenesis is intelligent design where observed evidence has the appearance of being caused by intelligent agents not stochastic chaos per the 4 laws of nature.
See IntelligentDesignNetwork.org
David,
Intelligent Design is not a scientific hypothesis. It does not and cannot make falsifiable hypotheses. It is not just an unscientific, religious faith, but indeed anti-scientific, since it trows up its hands and says, “That’s irreducibly complex!”, so there is no reason to find out how such a structure or process arose.
Behe for instance considers microbial flagella “irreducibly complex”, but since he gave up on the problem, the evolution of these structures, which vary widely among bacteria, has been explained. They are anything but irreducibly complex. Many of their parts have functions on their own.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13663-evolution-myths-the-bacterial-flagellum-is-irreducibly-complex/
Under oath in the Dover case, Behe was forced to admit that evolution is a fact.
That case also showed, hilariously, that so-called “ID” texts were simply packs of creationist lies reworded.
Completely and totally wrong. Sorry.
Mutations can be beneficial, deleterious or neutral. In an changed environment, formerly lethal mutations can become beneficial.
One example is nylon-eating bacteria. From time immemorial, sugar-eating bacteria which suffered a simple point mutation were doomed to die out. But after nylon entered their environment, the same mutation became hugely beneficial.
YOU bear burden of proof to show beneficial mutations sufficient to overcome harmful mutations. OLIM shows mutations harmful – cancers etc. Where are the “beneficial” ones? Sickle cell anemia is still harmful to health though better survival of malaria. Rhetoric and hand waving do not make science. Your lack of evidence does not prove “totally wrong” assertion. I gave two books & publications documenting the issues I raised. You gave assertions! Start studying Aristotle and logical fallacies. Then try the scientific method summed up by Richard Feynmann.
Evidence so far >> 20,000 to 0 for Harmful to beneficial mutations.
For quantitative forward calculating population dynamics see Mendel’s Accountant by John C. Sanford et al. You bear the burden of finding positive mutations are able to dominate over harmful ones. Current evidence is harmful ones progressively accumulate dragging down a species. OLIM & cancer rates support that. Good luck on your Sisyphean task..
I have all the evidence in the world.
The proof is everywhere around you. All living things carry mutations. Most are neutral, some harmful and perhaps fewer beneficial.
Beneficial mutations get preferentially passed to the next generation. The most harmful mutations don’t accumulate because they’re lethal.
Nylon-eating bacteria are able to exploit a whole new food source. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria proliferate in the hospital environment without competition from those strains still susceptible to drugs.
Some 30 to 80% of plant species result from whole genome duplication, or polyploidy, an extreme mutation event. Many animals, including humans, also have evolved partially through polyploidy.
Gabro “Most are neutral, some harmful and perhaps fewer beneficial” is highly wishful thinking. Look at reality and you will find most mutations are harmful to some degree. “Beneficial are vanishingly small and extremely difficult to benefit over mutation degradation. Check out Mendel’s Accountant for yourself with the best experimental published data you can find. Listen to Doug Axe, the scientist quantifying capabilities of mutations to form enzymes – After he and others diligently tried to form enzymes by darwinian mechanism – only to find that they could NOT be formed in the lab as neoDarwinism predicted. A huge disappointment. Nylon is a pure synthetic introduction. Nylon-eating bacteria is again a degradation of natural function.
David,
You are spewing creationist garbage to a real, practicing life scientist whose evolutionary research has saved untold numbers of lives.
Sorry, but come back after you’ve actually taken college biology courses, let alone PhD and med school.
Your creationist pack of lies is beyond laughable.
“The idea of man-made climate change causing a catastrophe at the scale of Islamic terrorism is pure speculation.”
Nevertheless there is a a convergence Islamic terrorism with environmentalists -and that’s about all political fractionisms:
Islamic terrorism as environmentalists want to reestablish feudalism, the base of their economy shall be feudalism, the wealth of their economy shall be counted in domestic livestock including their slaves.
Whereas the base of developed economy is capitalism, whether chinese capitalism, russian or US.
The base of developed economy, it’s agent and wealth are science, technology and as virtual as real money.
about all political fractionisms: ->
above all political fractionisms:
i see a lot of nitpicking on the terms in just that little scheme of facts laws and theory
some forget here that you don’t build a bridge using quantumphysics, but using Newtonian laws of gravity to calculate forces and loads.
it is also a fact that species evolve. the why they evolve question is another matter that is still in full debate and is a theory, but species evolve by adapting, that’s a fact that has been observed everywhere. like this birds in cities do sing differently then the same species of birds in rural area’s.
why this happens is a theory: the theory is that the city birds use the best audible frequencies for their kind to be sure to be heard above the noise of the city. That’s not proven yet so that’s the “why question, that is a theory”.
to be really correct you should have said “6+6=12 in a decimal system” however it is safe to assume we all know this applies to a decimal system when using it as a simple descriptive example. i did read it as being in that context.
air with increased CO2 is a bigger insulator gas then the air we breathe now it heats up more slowly but releases the heat more slowly which is what greenhouse gasses do. so CO2 is a greenhouse gas. it’s a fact. that of course decoupled from the CO2 induced warming meme.
what i question is why there is not so much info to find about the INM-CM4 model? It seems indeed to be the most correct hindcast. It’s a pity to find apart from the abstract nowhere some in depth articles about it.
it would be interesting to see an article about how it scores with reality, and how it achieves this, and where it is underestimating/overestimating the actual data….
that’s actually the big question i am asking
Unfortunately, the best articles on INM-CM4 are paywalled.
I note that there is much discussion on how CO2 operates within the atmosphere versus the lab.
As noted in the text book below, we do acknowledge CO2 to be radiantly active gas, which absorbs and emits radiation of a limited number of frequencies. The text book goes into detail how CO2 does this from page 563 onward. Its a good read.
Water vapour (H20) operates in a similar manner to CO2, but over a wider range of overlapping frequencies.
As shown on pages 571/572 show me that H2O gram per gram is twice as active as CO2 at transmitting radiant energy.
Taking into account that H2O is much more prevalent in the atmosphere informs me we should ignore CO2 and consider H2O instead.
The concept that CO2 does not transmit ‘heat’ energy through the atmosphere out to space concerns me because:
The only way that the suns energy, having done its work warming the surface slightly, can leave into outer space is via radiation.
Don’t get me wrong, all gases take part in the ‘heat’ energy transfer by conduction and convection, but eventually we reach the genuine top of the atmosphere. How does the heat energy make the last jump into free space?
For example, we use hydrogen to cool grid scale electrical generators: http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/pool/hq/power-generation/generators/SGen-3000W.pdf as an example.
Here Hydrogen is conducting the heat from the alternator to a heat exchanger.
So all gases in the atmosphere move ‘heat’ around but only radiant active gases can dump it out into space.
The radiant gases listed in the book below are: CO2, H2O, CH4, O3, NH3, N2O, and SO2.
The list is in the book author order, note he has CO2 listed first, I suspect H2O should be listed first in the list.
N2 and O2 are not radiantly active.
If I have it wrong please let me know, I like to learn.
A heat transfer textbook third edition by Lienhard & Leinhard – the file I have is ahttv131.pdf
Freely downloadable. You may find a slightly later edition, they do update it from time to time.
So basically, CO2 should be treated a a ‘Coolant’ gas, not a ‘greenhouse or heat-trapping gas.
Of course, no GHG gases to eject the heat at TOA then we are in trouble.
+1
The key is too note that the atmosphere is layered.
These layer are dynamic in volume and level from the surface. (NASA has noted this variation appears to be linked to solar activity.)
Most of CO2 IR action appears to happen in the thermosphere, this leaves a ‘hole’ in the IR frequencies radiated to the lower ground level where CO2 could have been active.
Thanks for guiding me to the heat transfer textbook.
The difference between gravity and climate change is a bit confusing. If all the reports of the latter hits you on the head and you die, will the cause be the former or the latter?
Wow …. the level of nit picking is astounding. I personally like the article, and unlike some here, I get the meaning of what the author intended.
This is my favorite …. “6+6=12 in the decimal system”. …. um … how bout this …
I have this many rocks in one pile, and the same many rocks in another pile, when I put them all into one pile, I will have the sum of the two piles. There is no alternative outcome … unless you are talking about animals … for which case. …….
I have have one male cat, and put it with one female cat … miraculously, now i have 10 cats [mom, dad, and 8 kittens]. …. so in that case, 1+1 = 10! …. btw .. anyone interested in a kitten??
..You forgot to mention the “Time Delay” …LOL
Well, it depends. 6 gallons of water + 6 gallons of alcohol do not equal 12 gallons of water/alcohol mixture.
…and be careful when you put those rocks into one pile, lest one be broken and your total how many goes up ; )
I think in the table, an entry needs to be added.
Is the atmosphere a greenhouse: Idea.
..No, A “Green House” has no convection, THAT is why it gets hot, not because of CO2 !