Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Former NASA Chief Scientist Ellen Stofan is worried some media outlets do not provide sufficiently apocalyptic climate views.
Americans ‘under siege’ from climate disinformation – former Nasa chief scientist
Fake news spread by those with a profit motive is leaving many people oblivious to the threat of climate change, says former head of US space agency.
Hannah Devlin Science correspondent
Friday 9 June 2017 00.15 AEST
Americans are “under siege” from disinformation designed to confuse the public about the threat of climate change, Nasa’s former chief scientist has said.
Speaking to the Guardian, Ellen Stofan, who left the US space agency in December, said that a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.
“We are under siege by fake information that’s being put forward by people who have a profit motive,” she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits. “Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.”
During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.
“The harder part is this active disinformation campaign,” she said before her appearance at Cheltenham Science Festival this week. “I’m always wondering if these people honestly believe the nonsense they put forward. When they say ‘It could be volcanoes’ or ‘the climate always changes’… to obfuscate and to confuse people, it frankly makes me angry.”
Stofan added that while “fake news” is frequently characterised as a problem in the right-leaning media, she saw evidence of an “erosion of people’s ability to scrutinise information” across the political spectrum. “All of us have a responsibility,” she said. “There’s this attitude of ‘I read it on the internet therefore it must be true’.”
…
Even using IPCC estimates, there is a real possibility we do not face a climate emergency. From IPCC AR5 Chapter 10 page 871;
… Estimates of the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) based on multiple and partly independent lines of evidence from observed climate change indicate that there is high con dence that ECS is extremely unlikely to be less than 1°C and medium con dence that the ECS is likely to be between 1.5°C and 4.5°C and very unlikely greater than 6°C. These assessments are consistent with the overall assessment in Chapter 12, where the inclusion of additional lines of evidence increases con dence in the assessed likely range for ECS. …
Read more: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf
The lower IPCC estimate for a plausible equilibrium climate sensitivity is an unexciting 1.5C per doubling of CO2. Even 1C per doubling is considered possible.
CO2 is currently growing at around 3ppm / year, according to observations from Mauna Loa.
Starting from 2016 / 404ppm, project the CO2 level by 2100;
404ppm + 3ppm * (2100 – 2016) = 656ppm
Calibrating for 1.5C / doubling (CO2 forcing is logarithmic) – determine the value of k;
1.5C = k log10(2)
k = 1.5C / log10(2) = 4.98
Determine the equilibrium temperature anomaly for 656ppm;
T = k log10(656ppm / 280ppm) = 1.8C temperature rise above pre-industrial temperatures.
Note this is the equilibrium sensitivity calculation – the transient climate sensitivity is likely to be even less.
Since we have already experienced around 1C of temperature rise without any noticeable ill effects, an additional 0.8C by the year 2100 is a big nothing burger.
Obviously everyone can debate the likelihood of various climate sensitivity estimates, or the possibility that the rise in atmospheric CO2 level will accelerate as China complies with their Paris agreement commitments, by building hundreds of new coal plants, but my point stands;
The science is NOT unequivocal that we face a climate emergency. Using the IPCC’s own climate figures, there is a real possibility anthropogenic CO2 is not a big deal.
Calling people who point this out purveyors of “fake news” is pure climate alarmism.
As for what happens after the year 2100, frankly that is their problem. By the year 2100 humanity will know whether CO2 is causing climate problems – and will have the energy supply options and advanced engineering capabilities to deal with any eventuality.
“Fake news spread by those with a profit motive …… ”
Are all renewables sellers registered charities?
The renewables industry in the UK is full of serial liars and people who spread fake news. The profit in the renewables industry is massive due to the huge subsidies they receive. They are prepared to say anything to keep the gravy train going.
The renewables industry is just making money with the tax breaks and incentives put in place for that purpose. They are NOT to blame. So who is standing to make money … ?
$100bn / year EVERY YEAR? That is not the oil or coal industries it is the UN Green slush fund. So it is the UN and World Bank who are going to be gaining massive donations of free money with which they will buy influence and dictate policy.
She is right. and who stands to make the most from the alarmist disinformaiton : follow the money.
Frankly she makes me angry by pretending that anyone who does not jump on the AGW alarmist bandwagon is on the payroll of oil and coal industries and by lying about the science being “unequivocal” .
But it is interesting that she picked up on my article about the possible warming effect of major volcanoes. It proves that climate sceptic blogs are getting the message across.
https://climategrog.wordpress.com/uah_tls_365d/
Looking forward to a scientific rebuttal, not some no-brainer geologist calling it “nonsense”.
The group with the greatest profit motive in fake news is wealthy green charitable NGOs like the Sierra club, etc. Continuing tales of climate alarmism has greatly boosted the donations and paid memberships they receive. “You Can Save The World”—that is a powerful recruiting message.
The Guardian will print anything–literally ANYTHING that furthers the leftist agenda. They’d say the sky was purple and the grass black with equal conviction. Just like the NYT these days, you have to consider the source. And sounds like Ms. NASA is pissed that her snout will soon be out of the trough! One of the biggest ongoing howlers of course is that skeptics are all profit-motivated, but alarmists operate out of pure, unalloyed altruism. NOTHING could be further from the truth!
Isn’t it amazing how so many “real” scientists and their followers are sooo concerned about the people who will be inhabiting the planet 100 years from now, but won’t lift a finger to ease the plight of thousands of innocent refugees fleeing the war torn Middle East. There the same hypocrites to fly by the thousands to endless climate change conferences, leaving a trail of CO2 behind them when they could just as easily use teleconferencing. It’s all so pathetic. I just hope a few “real” scientists, especially Ms. Stofan read this.
Trebla, it’s like nobody has heard of “video conferencing” or “webcasting”, right? I mean why would a true alarmist believer do that, when they could leave a carbon footprint a mile long instead? Oh…wait…
Just remember that a prophet who needs others to validate his prophecy is not not really sure of it himself.
The scientific answer Greg, Is that this poor wretch of a woman is suffering from a severe mental disorder caused by massive cognitive dissonance, which causes her to attribute to others the exact set of behaviors and attitude and misapprehensions that she herself is deep in the sway of.
Every single sentence and word she speaks on the subject. is in fact what she and her fellow warmistas are doing, thinking, and saying.
To the letter.
It is very strange if she is unaware of this…because the people she works with are the ones actively corrupting data sets, selectively editing and censoring both historical information and new research, baffling the public with BS doublespeak on any and every issue with any relation to the weather or climate of the Earth whatsoever, and on and on. In fact, she may very well be one of the data corrupters and/ or fake news editors and/or professional bullshit artists herself.
Nothing unusual or unprecedented has happened or is happening, everything which has ever been written or known about the climate history of our civilization and the Earth has been rewritten, erased, disappeared, or covered up…including the very graphs, maps, arguments and findings of the first IPCC reports which showed no net warming had occurred as of the late 1990s, and the 1930s was the hottest decade by far and several decades of sharp cooling had occurred since then.
To ignore all that has been altered, lied about, obfuscated and just plain gotten wrong must take either a massive brain tumor, or a mental state that causes bewildering hallucinations to form spontaneously inside one’s psyche and be transferred into the conscious self, in order to avoid the ego-crushing realities that one’s entire life is based on telling ridiculous untruths, and she is truly as clueless as a box of rocks about the very subjects that give her ego any sense of self-worth at all.
Either that or she is a deliberate and willful purveyor of a confabulation of junk science, scare mongering, and money-grubbing, self-enriching speculations…no more than a shameless head-bobber to the whims of her political paymasters.
To go into the specifics in any sort of comprehensive manner is now a compendium of wrongness that would fill a very thick book if described in detail. Global ice cyclicality, the lie of sea level rise acceleration, conflating weather events with climate change, the utter failure of GCMs, sweeping the benefits of higher CO2 under the rug, made up nonsense about the non-thing dubbed ocean acidification, concealing and/or ignoring the true aims of the UN and the IPCC, the international wealth transference schemes that masquerade as an environmental cause, the whole notion that humans can adjust the future temperature of the planet like one adjusts a wall thermostat, ignoring the scientific method entirely on any subject tangentially related to climate or even weather…
Maybe instead of naming hurricanes after the President and his family, we could name methods of reviving the unconscious, or slapping a person out of a stupor, after people such as Ellen Stofan and Jeffrey Sachs, and all the rest of the lickspittle climate sycophants and jackbooted panic whores.
But what will actually happen is that for all of history, the names of the worst of the climate liars will be synonymous with fraud and deceit and calumnies of every description.
I have always found this line of reasoning to be hilarious. Big oil with their greed will be replaced by what exactly?
“Big Oil” are energy companies, if/when the oil dries up or legislation mandates, do environmentalist think these multi-billion dollar companies are just going to shrug their shoulders, say “we had a good innings” and close the doors.
Exxon has said it stopped funding climate-skeptic think tanks a decade ago. Probably most other Big Oil companies are now non-funders too. As for lobbying, it and other oil companies are on board with the carbon tax idea and have protested Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Accord.
On some level ALL leftists’ ultimate “problem” is with capitalism. My own theory is that their kindergarten teachers told them the world is supposed to be “fair” and “even-steven,” and they still believe it subconsciously. My answer is, if you don’t like capitalism, turn all your interest, dividends, and capital gains over to the government; now you can feel like a righteous Socialist.
One better hope not. These big energy companies are massive tax payers and without those tax revenues, everyone will be far poorer, particularly those on modest to low income who rely upon government/welfare handouts.
The socialists always want to spend other people’s money, but when this dries up and the tax dollars are no longer received from the big energy corporations, the socialist will be the first squeal at the ensuing austerity that they will be forced to endue..
I thought it was classic when the head of Goldman Sachs game out denouncing Trump’s Paris exit.
Hmmm.. first thought, GS had a lot of money bet on the implications. If you don’t think GS is motivated by profit (aka “greed”), you aren’t thinking it through. The fact they came out against Trump tell us all we need to know – Paris is all about selecting winners to make money, not about saving the world from climate change.
Doesn’t an academic whose career, promotions, and tenure rely on bringing in grants have a profit motive when he applies for grants only available to CAGW doomsayers?
More psychological project from the hypocritical left.
She should move to France. They will roll out a red carpet and pay her up to 1.5M Euro. They already are getting rid of meteorologists who spread fake news.
They are the new plantation owners and oil barrons. Billions of dollars profit and little benefit to anyone other than themselves.
Good one, Joe Public!
She’s a blind idiot who can’t see the glaringly obvious.
The people have awakened to the fact that experts aren’t credible. That’s why they have tuned out on climate alarmism.
It isn’t necessary to have some evil covert well funded propaganda campaign to prejudice the people against CAGW religion. It’s actually an own goal.
Folks are noticing that science is in trouble. In some fields, Eroom’s Law has set in. New breakthroughs aren’t coming, science is stagnant in those fields. “Sloppy science creates worthless cures, crushes hope, and wastes billions.” link
The constant parade of contradictory studies has become a joke. Any scientist who still thinks science still has any of its former credibility is living in cloud cuckoo land.
commieBob
I do not think she is an idiot,. She is probably not blind. She is however obliged to support the status quo. ANSA has dug itself in so deep they have no way out. They have claimed, without evidence, that Svensmark is wrong, cannot be right, and it is all about CO2. Yet Svensmark is so right, there is nearly no room left for human effects.
How embarrassing for a Nationals Space Administration! Of all the organisations that should be leading the enquiry into the effects of extra-terrestrial phenomena on the climate, NASA should be leading. Instead, we get this silly droning about how it is almost all due to man’s evil ways, and that the Garden Of Pre-Industrial Eden is being wrought into wasteland.
‘Science’ is not in trouble, climate science is. Science is a tool box. NASA climate science is the misapplication of those tools. It is not even complicated. As the tree line inches north to where it was a few centuries ago, we should be rejoicing as the forest regrows and the tundra is transformed. What do we get instead? Howling about ‘methane’ from old biomass stored in the permafrost! Excuse me….biomass?? And how it is get there? Did the Flying Spaghetti Monster put it there to confuse the skeptics?
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. CAGW is not science as anyone normal person understands it.
[ANSA ? But, perhaps an NSA may, somewhen and somehow, be able to recover NASA’s original files and purpose. .mod]
The evidence is approaching a thunderous din. Here’s exhibit A: Why Most Published Research Findings are False John P. A. Ioannidis
Lots of people cite Ionnadis and I haven’t seen a single attempt to refute his work. Things are actually quite bad IMHO.
Crispen,
“Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. CAGW is not science as anyone normal person understands it.”
If so (and it seems so to me), why do you think the general “scientific community” is not screaming bloody murder, so to speak, regarding what is going on in the “climate science” realm?
JohnKnight
Good question: why the silence. I believe (having seen the inside a bit for a decade) that the main reason is the unique way that the university system (thus professoriat) works. Universities are not like corporations, however many assertions there are about them working like greedy businesses blah blah. They are much more like a collection of little kingdoms with a host of little vassal kings working under the protection of a Bog Brother that functions somewhat like an Athenian ruling council. Lots of rules to be exploited.
A professor has a great deal of latitude to teach what he wants and to protect his narrow topic (usually) and there is a social contract between them – if you challenge the core of my being (his PhD) I will resist to the death. They have invented ‘tenure’ as a way to protect their space to allow them to say what they want and take a whole lifetime to work out the details.
This, when connected to the funding available from private corporations, is a recipe for disasters, a series of them. It is very similar, structurally, to the organisation of Islam, where there is no official priesthood, but a series of mullah each of which has convinced a group or followers that he sees the divine light in just the right manner. They receive money for this, from the followers in the case of Islam. In the case of universities, it is collected by the ‘collective’ and shared according to rules.
The term ‘climate mullah’ is quite appropriate – probably more appropriate than most realise as few know how mullahs actually become influential. For an American or Nigerian parallel, a TV preacher would perhaps be the parallel. If you stick to certain formulae, you can pretty much say what you want.
The greater science community, if it is professional, knows what they know and knows what they do not know, and they keep quiet about things in which they have little expertise. Climate science is filled with people working far their specialities and understanding. Climate science’s ridiculous and unsupportable claims rarely come from people who are experts at the narrow topic encompassed by the blame-point.
So there is a built-in resistance to alarmist claims made by other scientists where the work in question is not the area of speciality of the listener. And that is long before we get to the points about ridiculous connections of cause and effect which are too numerous to mention. A real prof knows that making idiotic and, in the end, disproven claims, will be career suicide. I know many who are just watching the alarmists throw themselves onto the pickets, hurling themselves over the ramparts, with no chance of surviving the inevitable undoing that will surely follow. Climate madness is an industry suffused with ego. It is the leaven that holds it together. People have dug themselves in so deep there is not way back, having chained their careers to the mast of a sinking ship.
The greatest risk is from Svensmark. He and his team really do deserve the Nobel Prize. His theory and proofs are excruciatingly detailed and predictive. The excursion of the jet stream that is bringing snow to California right now can be traced to large scale atmospheric effects of solar influence. A piece of the puzzle is provided by Prof Lu of the Univ of Waterloo with his work on ozone and GRC’s.
As the crops start to fail in China and Pakistan, Argentina and Canada in the coming cold, the mullahs of warming will be trampled by the mobs rushing to acclaim the mullahs of cold. Humanity just loves a good horror story.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Crispin.
Let’s not forget the hundreds of billions of dollars in grant money I mean confiscated tax dollars. Yeah, no profit motive there for alarmists.
Me thinks the pot calls the kettle black from Ms. Former NASA Chief.
Isn’t she guilty of what she claims the other side is dong?!
Yes, it’s called projection in psychology.
Who is paying this woman? I’m sure she is not silly so I bet whatever she is getting paid is an impressive amount!
Are all NASA leaders competent and unbiased in determining if CO2 increase temperatures or if increasing temperatures cause increased CO2 concentrations?
If only those who support catastrophic increases in temperature from increases in CO2 concentration receive support from the Green Blob, then who has the profit motive, who is responsible for fake news?
We are on track for 0 (F or C, take your pick) over the first 20 years of the 21st century. Somebody send her a calculator with zero X already entered and a note telling her to try any extension of the trend she likes.
Since when is CO2 “carbon”?
The carbon cycle is enumerated in tons or gigatons of carbon. CO2 is the dominant carbon compound exchanged between the atmosphere and the land, water and biosphere.
At least she is a “former” Chief Scientist. NASA must get out of the climate scam, and get busy on advancing space exploration. We practically lost eight years under the feckless Obama.
Guess she start to feel Trump might slash her funding and I really hope he will.
Well if she didn’t get the memo before resigning in December, I don’t know what rock she was hiding under.
Maybe this is just a way of letting the reader know she has got her fingers crossed behind her back, and not to believe a word of what she says.
If she doesn’t know about the election results for a month or more, who left her in charge of ANYTHING?
She lived a month on the moon, whose climate she studied at that time. On the opposite side of the earth.
Technically that quote is correct. The election was held on Nov 8th, but the Electoral college met an cast their votes on Dec 19th and those votes were certified by the House of Rep on January 6 2017. So the election was not official until Jan 6th.
There were millions “hoping” to turn aside the election (by lies and news media pressure) in the Electoral College on Dec 19-20.
We were fortunate that they (Both the American voters and the Electoral College representatives those voters selected) actually voted as the law required. Not as the mass media desired.
Outside the Left’s marshmallow cloud and unicorn ranch filled fantasies, there was no chance the electoral college would vote for anything other than the Nov. 8 results or that the Reps would certify anything other than the electoral college results. That’s a tool of fake news purveyors…technically it COULD happen, but in reality there’s not a chance in hell.
Very senior people, like chief scientists, don’t put in their resignations just prior to leaving. She had probably tendered her resignation in September or October, to allow her boss to find a replacement before she left.
Out curiosity, just wondering well educated person would freely make such absurd remarks.
I could have been looking in the wrong areas, but Brown University shows one Ellen Stofan presenting a dissertation:
From: https://library.brown.edu/theses/browse.php?type=author&letter=S
Though a general search for “Geology of coronae and domal structures on Venus and models of their origin” does locate a references to the Brown University Doctorate awarded to Ellen Stofan.
Neither thesis or dissertation are resounding atmospheric science markers, which aligns with Dr. Stofan’s public outrage.
Venus models and Venus maps are such solid Earth knowledge education.
I was amused to find Brown University selling AGU T-shirts and advertising AGU meetings. Identifying sources for the CAGW Kool-Aid.
Again, from Brown University:
And there is another mystery!
A graduate student leaps from doctorate thesis success to s deputy position at NASA.
Nepotism, from what an earlier commenter was pointing out.
It does not get much worse than this.
‘Stofan resigned from her post at the top of Nasa in December, before the US election results. “It wasn’t anything to do with it, but I’m glad I’m not there now,” she said.’
“…wasn’t anything to do with it…” – my ass.
Maybe the swamp is beginning to drain itself.
Nah, just wishful thinking.
If the science was truly unequivocal, I would also be an alarmist. But it isn’t. Therefore, I’m not.
Same here–I’d be the first to jump on board if someone, anyone, could disprove the null hypothesis.
Dang, everything evolution ever did was ‘natural’ until we came along.
We are the unluckyest species ever.
I was an alarmist until it became clear that the science was anything but unequivocal. That was many years ago. We all make mistakes when young.
I am alarmed at what they call science!
Everyone who calls themselves “Scientist” must follow the scientific method defined by Dr. Richard Feynman.
If the science was “unequivocal”, why still spending billions dollars per year in “climate research”???
To silence any other viewpoints and ensure it remains “unequivocal” 😉
ohhh good one, Greg.
So you correctly describe the nefarious objective the Alarmists are undertaking–to brainwash the masses using their own tax dollars.
How very introspective, Greg.
Real climate research indicates how wrong the Alarmists actually are.
“why still spending billions dollars per year…?”
“To silence any other viewpoints and ensure it remains “unequivocal” ;)”
Even simpler and slimier…to get paid.
Fat stacks.
A classic case of projection , there indeed a lot of fake news on ‘climate doom’ and to much pushed by NASA itself in the name of ‘the cause ‘ by people like Stofan .
Bottom line it is another call for ‘deniers’ to be silenced something never needed when the science is really ‘settled ‘ .
Right? You don’t see tons of debate about gravity, or the speed of sound.
Nasa’s former chief scientist Ellen Stofan. On the contrary, misanthropogenic misinformer siege is in process of being lifted. You are a proof of it.
According to Wiki she is a geologist – her Dad was a NASA rocket scientist – anybody get a whiff of nepotism here? IF CO2 is guilty of the massive thermal effect attributed to it competent physicists could demonstrate it in the lab. She frankly is not qualified to speak since as a geologist she seems oblivious to the geological record which shows no correlation between CO2 and temperature. She certainly has no physics to form her OPINIONS.
According to Wiki she is a geologist
According to Sheldon Cooper:
The geology department kicked his @$$!
😎
She is like Al Gore in this regard – regarding the climate she knows all the wrong stuff with great certainty. She is self-baffled and can’t get beyond it.
“Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.”
We know that!!
Be very careful what you put in that head of yours for you will never, ever get it back out. — Cardinal Wolsey
Climate alarmists have counted on that for decades.
Former NASA Chief
Scientistactivist Ellen Stofan is worried some media outlets do not provide sufficiently apocalyptic climate views.It needed correcting.
5 ancient civilizations that were destroyed by climate change | MNN …
Vs
World population to hit 11bn in 2100 – with 70% chance of continuous rise
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/sep/18/world-population-new-study-11bn-2100
hmmm,
So here we are faced with a real ‘Scientist’ who actually studied Venus as a planetary system (see her wiki) who buys into the ‘Venus had Beaches’ argument without noting that,, , if so the Earth, due to relative solar proximity, would have been a frozen ball of ice at the same time. Perhaps she buys into the rcp8.5 sensitivity?
Since I can’t actually do the math, just visualize it, I have no answer. Except to note that not all scientists, along with doctors and lawyers, are actually competent in their fields. Some are good test takers.
To further illustrate, look how long it took science AFTER the invention of the microscope, to understand the concept of sperm/ovum reproduction when they had the example of chicken eggs there all along.
http://nypost.com/2017/06/10/scientists-learned-how-babies-are-made-by-dressing-frogs-in-pants/
Fascinating read.
Yeah. Totally agree.
I think she should retire to a beach on Venus–really good place for her!
She should take Stephen Hawking along and fulfill his prediction that we must find another planet “within 100 years”.
I worked outside all yesterday on the yard, the pasture, and our orchard and between the gentle breeze, spectacular sunsets, and amazing plethora of biological activity and balance, Mr. Hawking can have Venus.
I’m very satisfied with Earth and convinced a better planet can’t be found.
MAGA will Make the Earth Great Again!
I often make a similar point with respect to Mars and the problem with the so called weak sun parody. Whilst no one knows when Mars lost its atmosphere; it is thought that most of it had been lost about 3.5 billion years ago, so this gives very little time for running water on the planet. The window of opportunity for running water lies say sometime between the period 3 to 4 billion years ago. IF in the early period of the solar system, there was a weak sun as proposed, then Mars would not have had an opportunity to have had running water over much of its surface. Either our time lines are wrong, or the sun was not as weak as people suggest.
I have no hope for Mars being a viable planet for more than a scientific presence with the people being rotated back to Earth on a regular basis. There is a zero chance of having another viable planet in the next hundred years. Without Star Trek technology we are stuck here forever.
Planets are not the only place to live, got the entire Solar System with its VAST amounts of resources. Free your mind, your ass will surely follow.
If you study the political history of the Scablands in Washington State you will see everything that is wrong with scientific consensus and how easily butt-hurt published but wrong scientists are. It was the invention of the epiphany that gave scientists the necessary tool to come through the wall of righteous ignorance with their careers intact.
The beauty of the word “former”. The Trump Effect – making America smile again.
Thanks for pointing that out. Brilliant. I do like to smile again.
Speaking to the Guardian…
Says it all, really.
By the year 2100 humanity …. will have the energy supply options and advanced engineering capabilities to deal with any eventuality.
That sounds like a foregone conclusion, but it at present it remains an article of faith or a piece of wishful thinking.
We pretty much already have the capability to decarbonise the economy, using nuclear power. France decarbonised their electricity system in the 1970s. The rest of the developed world could do the same.
2100 might bring other options such as viable, inexpensive nuclear fusion – but viable fusion power isn’t necessary for what I say to be true. One thing for sure is our engineering capabilities will be far more advanced by 2100.
But, but by then the oceans will likely be 3 inches higher.
You are apparently not up to snuff on nuclear technology. The clear emerging revolution is all about molten salt reactors (China, India, Moltex Energy, Transatomic Power, Terrestrial Energy, etc) – producing power cheaper than any other technology, constructed in factories and ready to roll in months, not years. Totally safe. Or the likely further sharp reduction in lithium battery prices due to mass production/cheaper(and superior) cathodes and anodes. Prices are already sub-$200 per KWhr. When they go below $100 , the gasoline powered personal vehicle era is over.
David A: You’re a prognosticator, are you?
arthur4563
You are right about the molten salt reactor — though it still needs a lot of work. It is not yet a sure thing.
As for batteries — Electric cars, just like their little brother golf carts, will find a limited useful niche.in society. The muscle is just not there for sustained service.
And electric cars, dependent on electric power provided largely by the oil and gas industry, are not sustainable — until molten salt reactors come on line to provide electricity .– if they ever do.
So going into the future which will be cheaper — powering your car by electricity created by burning oil and gas — or — filling up your tank with gasoline?
Eugene WR Gallun
.
NASA has no intention in their report on climate?
Starting Arctic’s report on 1979-the year with the most ice coverage.
Showing water levels from two different measures where one, gouges show less, and one shows more and cuts the linear trends and propose there is a change!
I would be shamed if I where employee.
You wouldn’t last a year as an employee. Honest people find it difficult to work for such institutions. I lasted just over a year working for government, and walked out on Friday without giving notice and never came back. I could not watch the incompetence, the waste of money, etc anymore. No one cared about doing things right, only who had the most seniority and who was greasing whose palm. It was intolerable. That’s why such agencies are a mess—good people just can’t work there.
bravo, sheri.
Many large corporations are the same way, which give new corporations a chance to replace them, thankfully.
Sheri, one of the major problems with government bureaucracies is that once Congress starts screwing with their budgets the competent people move elsewhere. That leaves the mediocre to take the promotions and eventually run the place. From a book that came out in the ’60s or early ’70s (i.e., The Entrepreneur’s Handbook if I remember correctly): “First rate managers hire first rate people. Second rate managers hire third rate people.” I’m afraid that holds equally for both government and business. Sounds like you got out just in time to protect your sanity.
I bet “Mankind causes apocalypse due to non-compliance with the left-leaning seance civil servants preferences”TM-message is even tougher to peddle from outside. Perhaps Grauniad can offer some carbonless tissue to wipe the sweat off.
The consensus is scattering even in the left-leaning spectrum? Roger that. Count me in. Time kick in a new gear.
You highlighted my favourite part`
“a constant barrage of half-truths had left many Americans oblivious to the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.”
Skeptics use a constant barrage of half truths……
Alarmists use unequivocal science that predict potentially dire consequences.
What alarmist don’t use is the unequivocal science that predicts potentially no dire consequences…… because that is what the skeptics use.
Noble cause corruption IMO. Don’t let on that it might not be a big deal, because you are letting the side down.
So sayith the: Reasonable Skeptic June 11, 2017 at 3:45 am
“WOW”, …… just “WOW”.
The Reasonable Skeptic is bragging about his/her constant barrage of half truths
Sam,
You have a very ‘reasonable’ observation there!
Samuel:
You may have mistaken “Reasonable” with the “Really”, but actually trollop.
Reasonable asks why the alarmists fail to reach non-dire conclusions.
ATheoK:
Please clue me in, …… is the person with the “screenname” of Reasonable Skeptic ….. a reasonable thinking person who is a self-proclaimed Skeptic about the claims of AGW or CAGW, ……. or is that person a self-proclaimed Skeptic about the claims of AGW or CAGW who considers himself/herself a reasonable thinking person?
So I guess my next question is, …….. which half part of his/her “screenname” is the “truth” part ……. and which is the fictitious, lying or “half-truth” part?
Iffen you never tell a lie ….. then you will never have to unlie it.
Cheers
@Samuel, to make this easy
Both side are promoting the science that supports their position. Only one side denies that the other has a position based in science.
No, the religion of Human Caused Globall Warmining is a lie. Defending it diminishes you.
“What alarmist don’t use is the unequivocal science that predicts potentially no dire consequences…… because that is what the skeptics use.”
Correct.
Because after 40 years of AGW crap the only observable effect of increased atmospheric CO2 on the planet is that it’s greening.
Also, we’re ‘glass half full’ kind of people.
So Trump DRAIN(S) THE SWAMP of this drip and it runs off to a friendly legacy media outlet to carp.
Eschew dumb mass media infotainment pushed, in favor of pulling agreeable information streams. Science is not politics and there is no commitment to balance.
“Americans ‘under siege’ from climate disinformation”
She was totally correct.
Americans HAVE been under siege from climate disinformation… under the guise of alarmist AGW non-science.
Donald Trump has started to lift that siege.
“Those with a profit view” ??! Please, no, not those words coming from a climate scientist… I stopped reading there. Because this all alone is enough to consider her whole hate speech as completely unfounded.
“Fake news is so harmful because once people take on a concept it’s very hard to dislodge it.” Yes mam it sure is! Was she an Obama appointee?
She is absolutely right! The Human Caused Globall Warmining religionists are disinforming Americans. And more and more Americans understand they are lying.
Indeed–look how the world suddenly came to an end the minute President Trump pulled the plug.
(Although it probably ended for the grifters that were brainwashed into supporting it and were counting on it financially.)
“The science is NOT unequivocal that we face a climate emergency.” Amusingly, Ellen agrees with you, “… potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions.”
If the science is irrefutable, why are the “dire consequences” only “potential”?
Exactly.
Great point. And it made me laugh, which makes it even greater. 🙂
Looking at the text under the image. Close encounter with a planetary mind like Stofan’s may have resolved one of the greatest puzzles ever since the Council of Nicea or even before: the firmament is neither solid nor liquid. It’s amorphous like in a greenhouse.
Is it just my browser, or is some computer gremlin converting “fi” to ” ” in your block quote above?
I must not be very smart. I couldn’t figure out what “con dence” meant.
The sheer short sightedness of the climate alarmists is astounding. Does this woman really believe that 50 years from now (or even 20 years from now) we will still be driving gas powerd cars? Or using anything other than molten salt nuclear reactors to make power, cheaper than any other energy technology? Ms Steffan is obviously out of touch with emerging technologies We are well aware of the large number of folks who make a living spreading climate catastrophic scenarios, but who exactly is “profitting” by denying the notion of a climate armegeddon? It is embarrassing to think that this simple-minded purveyor of future catastrophic climate events ever held such a high position in our govt. Exactly which credentials does she have to buttress her opinions about future climates? A degree in astronomy?
arthur4563 June 11, 2017 at 5:14 am
Iffen I were to venture a guess, …… then I would hafta say, ….. first and foremost, she is a good looking, attractive, well proportioned “blonde” …… and secondly, her daddy was/is a high ranking NASA employee with apparently a lot of friends in “important” positions of NASA management.
Sorry, but she’s not a “good-looking” blonde. She’s average.
Samuel Cogar, her credential is the revolving door. She left NASA for employment at a job for a tiny research firm that appeared to exist only through government contracts. Then that revolving door butted her right back into government employment during the second reign of Obama the Maggotificent.
“Sorry, but she’s not a “good-looking” blonde. She’s average”
But, but, but, …… RockyRoad, ….. the preferred job qualification of grey-headed and/or aging managers and supervisors in their hiring of female employees tend to be more preferenced toward “well proportioned” physical attributes.
“A degree in astronomy?”
Nope.
A degree in Astrology.
She is desperately trying to get a new job.
Well, Obama need someone to clean up the guest houses in the anthropogenic weather hick-up zones.
Unfortunately, she has no marketable skills outside of government and academia… And government isn’t an option over the next 4-8 years.
I thought NASA scientists relied on DATA. Has she looked at it??? I am very puzzled by this.
She doesn’t agree with these 20 or so ex-NASA scientists. Why?:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/23/team-of-ex-nasa-scientists-concludes-no-imminent-threat-from-man-made-co2/
Here’s another WUWT reference with an even longer list of NASA skeptics:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/10/hansen-and-schmidt-of-nasa-giss-under-fire-engineers-scientists-astronauts-ask-nasa-administration-to-look-at-emprical-evidence-rather-than-climate-models/
“half-truths”…………….”despite the science being unequivocal”
Does that mean she and others are telling half-lies?
Whether out of ignorance or deceit, it’s always a turn off for me when a scientists uses the term “carbon emissions” when in actuality what they are talking about is carbon dioxide. Sure, we can speak of the carbon cycle and the interchange of carbon between the various sources and sinks, but carbon dioxide, not “carbon” is the combustion emission being discussed.
Didn’t the IPCC have a paragraph in one of their earlier presentations that stated that the warming noted could be broken down between natural and man made in the following portions: .25 degree C was natural warming prior to 1945, .25 degree natural warming after 1945 and the remaining .3 degree C was man made. Use that warming (.3 degree C) in your calculation and you really get a nothing burger out to the year 2100..
Also, I think your equation should use natural logs, not base 10 logs. Still doesn’t change the answer much.
SMS June 11, 2017 at 5:42 am
It matters not a twit …… iffen one uses natural logs, ….. unnatural logs, ….. artificial logs ….. or just any ole timber log, …….. simply because, ….. whenever one is touting the “junk science” claim stating that ….. the rate of increase in near-surface air temperatures will begin decreasing as a result of an increase in atmospheric CO2 because the “CO2 (temperature increase) forcing is logarithmic” …… is little more than a “blue sky dream” that was concocted up by the partisan “warminists”.
Me thinks the above claim is akin to claiming that …….. “The more sugar you put in your cup of coffee …… the more sour your coffee will taste“.
I agree that CAGW is a climate hustle. But don’t you think it would be better to use the correct formula so that when the trolls come through they don’t hijack the discussion?
I thought Samuel Cogar was going to make the point that it doesn’t matter what log base you use because mathematically the results would be the same. The “K” factor using log base 10 vs natural log would be different, but would be exactly balanced out by the ratio of ln2/(log base 10 of 2). All log scales are equivalent. The “natural” log comes up because the Natural log of 1 + x approaches x as x gets smaller and smaller, approaching zero. For instance, the natural log of 1.001 is 0.0009995, pretty close to 0.001., only off by 0.05%.
The based 10 log of 1 + x approaches x/(2.20358+), which is a lot messier than just “x”.
You all should be using this “Log Scale” (see below) for calculating the warming effect of increasing atmospheric CO2 because I am positive your measured calculations will be just as accurate as they will be iffen you use “base 10 logs” or whatever.
http://www.shopcomstocklogging.com/assets/images/DOYLE-2.jpg
doesn’t change the answer at all
1)Moreover, fossil fuels will be peaking before mid century and becoming more expensive, more of it will be going into petrochemicals and fertilizers and we WILL be getting more power from the atom. This is a no brainer.
2) CO2 emissions will accordingly flatten with increased use of natural gas for power and transportation.
3)We are on a downslope overall to the next glacial period, so if warming has more strength than it has shown so far, it will be bucking orbital forcing.
4) We’ll be testing the sun’s influence, too. Perhaps we should keep an eye on Mars Ice cap going forward. No one, even sceptics, mention the Nasa and Pulkovo Observatory (Russia) observation that both planet’s ice caps shrunk at the same time. WUWT?
5) The next 10yrs following this past El Nino will pretty well give even the IPCC a much lower upper bound on ECS. The temperature crunchers are likely to be constrained in their fiddling with Trump in the WH and if a cooldown persists, that will be the end of it.
6) If the greening/plankton expansion and crop yields continue to advance, the net cost benefit will be pushed evermore into the expanding benefit side of the ledger – enhanced land and ocean habitat will be good for mankind and beast, beasties, and the plant kingdom.
Using a “reasonable” estimate of remaining fossil fuel resources, it’s hard to see CO2 rising above 630 ppm. This of course assumes fossil fuel prices increase and new technologies are developed to replace them over the next 100 years.
The “Intermittent Renewable ” as savior got that way via science by press release, Trump should reply in kind immediately.
“…the potentially dire consequences of continued carbon emissions, despite the science being unequivocal.”
The is no evidence. Period. These people actually believe that model outputs and consensus are scientific evidence. I actually read on a website that the consensus of 97% of scientists is evidence that CAGW is real.
The biggest consequence of “continued carbon emissions” is the greening of the planet (particularly the boost in world-wide foodstuff production.)
Those that ignore that huge benefit have a nefarious objective, and none other.
Record low temperature for London, Ontario. on this date …0.06 C….1972
Record High temperature for London, Ontario. on this date 31.1 C….1949
And the alarmists are worried about 0.8 C of warming by 2100 ???
Sheesh !
That should be….
“Record low temperature for London, Ontario. on this date …0.6 C….1972”
Wow, a person afflicted with conspiratorial ideation and clearly diminished critical thinking skills actually held a position of high authority at NASA. We are facing real challenges.
As an option, the climate scientists could start to put out all the data themselves.
Then us skeptics wouldn’t feel the need to inform the rest of the public about all the contradictory data that is not shown to them.
Climate science is a propaganda-based movement. That is why there are skeptics and why people are slowly turning against it.
If there really were Big Money behind climate skepticism there’d be one professionally produced skeptical video per year, and it would be free (on YouTube) or obtainable at very low cost (if a DVD or film). IOW, there’d be 30 of them by now, and some of them would focus in detail on specific aspects of the issue, particularly the weakest points in the warmists’ case. Instead, skeptical productions have mostly been sporadic, amateurish, and unfocused. Maybe five exist that cost something substantial to create.
And who can remember seeing a contrarian billboard, or a TV or radio spot, or a print ad? Those have been nearly nonexistent. If Big Money were backing skepticism, there’d be a ton of such missives.
For a list of 20-plus things (including those above) that would be happening (but aren’t) if climate contrarians were actually well-organized and well-funded, see my WUWT guest-thread, “Notes from Skull Island” at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/16/notes-from-skull-island-why-skeptics-arent-well-funded-and-well-organized/
There is a real advantage, however, to not being well-funded and organized: It’s tougher to target the skepticism. I have noticed as certain bloggers become more well-known, they are the targets of warmists blogs. Meanswhile, the “lesser” bloggers have smaller audiences, but blog away without any opposition. Small groups and individuals are actually more difficult to counter. This does not mean that your writings about skeptics not being well-funded are not accurate, I’m just saying there advantages to being not-well-funded.
@Sheri: As one of the self funded tiny accidental bloggers on this niche, mixed with other of life’s interesting stuff, I agree with you. Looking at my site’s Google Analytics over time, it’s pretty apparent that the MSM are losing their grip on the “we’re all gonna die” story. The redistribution of the mistrust is spreading world wide. The Social Media revolution has initially produced the Lowest Common Denominator of IQ stampeding across the planet, but it is also capable of cutting both ways. Just not yet. Patience.
https://notonmywatch.com
– the old man
I have yet to benefit in any way from not buying into the CAGW scam. However, hundreds of thousands of people are documented as having received grants to “study” CAGW, being hired to lobby about CAGW, using public funds to “study”, lobby, or promote CAGW, etc., and attending lavish conferences in destination-vacation hotspots. Publicly questioning any aspect of CAGW has the potential to destroy one’s career, but making patently absurd claims about CAGW’s “potential effects” does not seem to have any negative effect. Algore has made millions because he tells lies about climate, weather, and the environment. Find the most prominent skeptic in the world, compare their income to Algore. Look at the ten best-known academics who are publicly skeptical of CAGW. Look at the ten best-known academics whose careers are based on promoting CAGW as true. Compare their finances and professional standing over time. Which stance has been more beneficial over time?
If I was looking to make some money, I picked the wrong side. If there really is funding for skepticism, please direct me to the source.
The protests have mainly against Trump’s mostly unjustified budget cuts (which even Pruitt opposes), not against climate-related “fake news.”
Budgets are necessary, not “unjustified”.
I said “budget cuts.”
I meant budget cuts……..
Budget cuts don’t have to be justified. The massive and out of control SPENDING is what has to be continually justified, and that is precisely what leftist MSM does. Slashing spending, followed by slashing fraud and unaccountable foreign aid, then a thorough investigation and prosecution of the guilty parties in USG. These are the actions Americans have to force on government.
So the government continuing to spend more than it takes in, resulting in a “stealth” tax on liquid assests held by everyone is “justified”?
My response when this comes up: “OBVIOUSLY, THE SCIENCE IS NOT CONVINCING”. Come on, no one has a disinformation campaign and is winning on convincing science. It only works if the science is flawed. You can’t exploit hard and fast facts. It’s in the realm of “How to lie with statistics” we see this happen. Her statement is an bold admission that the science is flawed.
No one has launched a successful campaign to prove aliens have landed or any other such idea. That stays in the “off the wall” catagory. Yet global warming is questioned by even the best and brightest in the field. It’s the FLAWED SCIENCE, not the money, not the oil companies (who all profit from global warming through renewable subsidies they use for oil exploration, building back up plants, etc), just really flawed science.
Lastly, women are sooooooo annoying. Mostly I vote to keep women out of STEM—especially whiney ones that emote instead of think. Actually, the same thing goes for whiney males. (Thinking women are not under this umbrella—— There are just so few ever seen in news stories, etc.)
Few? Judith Curry, Susan Crockford, Marie Curie, Mileva Marić, Emilie du Chatelet, Caroline Herschel, Mary Anning, Mary Somerville, Maria Mitchell, Lise Meitner, Irène Curie-Joliot, Barbara McClintock, Dorothy Hodgkin, Maria Agnesi, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Virginia Apgar and many more.
I only recognized two names in your list.
Don’t forget the beauty and brainy
Ada Lovelace – mathematician and first computer programmer
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FtWVV1q8mAs/UElS40B-pvI/AAAAAAAAA1w/P8iN6hKrcTc/s1600/1+Ada+Byron+en+su+juventud.jpg
Hedy Lamarr – Hollywood actress and inventor of frequency hopping radio system
http://hedylamarr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Lamarr_Tortillaflatb_promo.jpg
Lisa Randall – Professor of Physics at Harvard
Amy Mainzer – astrophysicist at NASA JPL
http://www.cms.awaitnews.com/Resources/Images/356495780.jpg
“Already experienced around 1 degree C temperature rise” means you are assigning all of that rise to permanent climate effect and none to cycles like AMO that are either poorly understood or ignored or averaged now.
Resourceguy June 11, 2017 at 6:20 am
Actually, me absolutely positive that it means that the avid proponents of CAGW have highjacked all of the Interglacial Warming from 1880 to present ….. and have been blaming it on anthropogenic warming.
Assuming that the IPCC is correct in that wattage is proportional to the logarithm of the amount of CO2 in the air
ln (400/280) = 0.3567. The ln of (560/280) is 0.6931 so we’re already .3567/.6931 so we’re already at 51.5% of a doubling of CO2 with no harmful effects.
If I had used base 10 instead of ln, I would have gotten
log (400/280) = 0.1549 log 2 = 0.30103 giving the same 51.5% there already.
I wish you wouldn’t use or quote the word “experienced”. In those terms the only thing I’ve experienced over the past decade is cooling. Of course it could be that the area I’m in has detached itself from the world climate system, but somehow I doubt that.
NASA “Adjusted” Temperature Charts Prove CO2 Driven Warming is a Hoax
Unless the laws of physics cease to exist in the labs of NASA, NASA’s own research and publications debunk the CAGW theory.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/nasa-adjusted-temperature-charts-prove-co2-driven-warming-is-a-hoax/
She’s referring to the claim of a few contrarians that undersea volcanoes release a lot of CO2. But that’s a rare claim (mostly promoted by Monckton, IIRC). It might be something that the mainstream hasn’t accounted for. She’s cherry-picking by suggesting that this is a common contrarian claim.
Her omission of “undersea” qualifies as a half-truth, perhaps a deliberate one. I.e., she may be counting on her audience reacting thusly: “Those ignorant skeptics! Don’t they know that volcanoes cool the atmosphere?!”
Roger Knights June 11, 2017 at 6:23 am
Oh, wow, ….. so that is why the tropical temperatures of the Hawaiian Islands have been drastically “cooling” during the past 34 years, to wit:
Land-based volcanoes that erupt explosively enough to shoot SO2 into the stratosphere, unlike those whose eruptions merely ooze like the basalt-types in Hawaii, are the only ones that cool the global atmosphere. This is so well-known here that I didn’t think I needed to mention it.
Roger, I was NOT belittling you or your comment, …… but on the contrary, ….. I was criticizing the author of your quoted comment …. wherein you claimed she stated ….. “Those ignorant skeptics! Don’t they know that volcanoes cool the atmosphere?!”
Well “DUH”, …… Roger, …… just how much thermal (heat) energy has been emitted into the atmosphere as a result of ….. 34 continuous years of 24/7 “oozing” of 700 to 1,200 °C (1,292 to 2,192 °F) volcanic lava, …. which as of December 2012, the eruption had produced 4 km3 (1 cu mi) of lava, covered 125 km2 (48 sq mi) of land, added 202 ha (499 acres) of land to the island, destroyed 214 structures, and buried 14.3 km (9 mi) of highway under lava as thick as 35 m (115 ft).
And has the CO2 emissions outgassed by Kilauea during said 34 years caused more “cooling of the atmosphere” ……. than the 34 years of outflow of “hot” lava has caused “heating of the atmosphere”?
So, was that a “brainer” or a ”no-brainer” question?
She is a Geologist:
Stofan holds master and doctorate degrees in geological sciences from Brown University in Providence, R.I., and a bachelor’s degree from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ocs/stofan_bio.html
This NASA “scientist” must be completely ignorant of the geological record of the earth. This “scientist” denies 600 million years of history.
http://www.paulmacrae.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/co2-levels-over-time1.jpg
Ugh. It is like Virginia’s colleges are TRYING to produce and promote idiocy. UVA, GMU, W&M…
At least the worst offenders have not been natives. The (relatively) recent influx of morons will likely change that.
The bigger problem for her is that NASA (or the Goddard institute) has fed the public with fake news for decades making it very easy to raise doubt on what NASA is putting out.
I am afraid k = 1.5C / log10(2) is not 4,96 but k =2,16
Nevertheless it is true
T = k log10(656ppm / 280ppm) = 1.8C temperature rise above pre-industrial temperatures
using equations linking CO2 as any sort of driver of temperature , in a convective atmosphere, is rather silly.
CO2 started rising during the Holocene during neoglaciation when temperatures were falling.
If she was speaking as a scientist, perhaps she should have provided some science and not just her opinion. The quotes in this post don’t suggest she did anything but repeat the CAGW mantra without any evidence to support the theory.
Question:
Does “Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS)” mean only atmospheric CO2’s effect or is it more inclusive?
What then is CO2’s overall effect, either warming or cooling, which often is expressed ” “X” degrees C increase per doubling of atmospheric CO2 level”?
Hasn’t each successive IPCC report progressively lowered the “may/might” effect of CO2?
ECS is defined as the new eventual equilibrium from a doubling of atmospheric CO2. Essay Sensitive Uncertainty goes into details and provides a number of ways to estimate it without using climate models. Likely 1.6-1.7.
Isn’t there a more recent paper that shows it at about 0.54 C per doubling?
‘During the past six months, the US science community has woken up to this threat, according to Stofan, and responded by ratcheting up efforts to communicate with the public at the grassroots level as well as in the mainstream press.’
Where the heck was she up to six months ago? The ‘US science community’ has been fighting skeptics for over a generation.
‘she said, citing oil and coal companies as culprits.’
Jeeeze, not this again. We’ve been waiting for over a decade for our checks!
Further proof of tribal groupthink: if you are a skeptical scientist, you are not part of the “science community”. Isn’t Buzz Aldrin a skeptic? She’s kicking HIM out?
I wonder how they come at these positive effects to temp with increased CO2?
CO2 is a wonderful fire extinguisher but that has all to do with its inflammability and its high energy consumption to go from solid/liquid to gas phase, both IRRELEVANT to warming.
A gas cannot contain much heat you need bigger oscillating artefacts for that mixed in the atmosphere: Water forms droplets and ice crystals, these are huge artefacts allowing to store heat.
CO2 molecule just excites, then releases all its energy again. it can hold up a photon but only for an infinitesimal time duration, and eventually the photon leaves with its energy , just like when there would be no CO2 molecule aroound..hmmmm??
The computation of radiative equilibrium for any arbitrary source and object spectra is rather simple if one even knows what a dot product is . But that leaves out the great majority of the “climate science” community who apparently never had a competent course in heat transfer .
Gravity is left out of the computations but is the only explanation for why the bottoms of atmosphere are hotter than their tops . Even light blue shifts , ie : heats , as it descends into a gravitational well . From there it is only a matter of working out the equations to calculate the temperature profile for any matter in a gravitational field including atmospheres . Venus’s surface is hot because of the weight of its atmosphere , not its spectrum .
But NASA has pages full of disinformation based on the GHG nonscience .
Really funny misprint. She (or more likely the guardian which is notorious for its illiteracy)
Uses the words Con and dence(dense?) three times in the blurb above.
Just about par for the course.
waterside4,
I assumed that “con dence” was supposed to be “confidence”. It may be a typo’ committed by Eric. If not, then there should be a “[sic] placed behind the occurrences of the word pairs to put the onus on the Guardian.
Naturally Clyde. I was just bemused b y the term Con which just about sums up the whole issue.
*A very dence con at that.*
They really screwed up . The word they were looking for is covfefe .
Having done her part to destroy NASA’s public image, this former “civil servant” now seeks another trough to feast at.
More evidence of that new ethical standard,crippling civilization, “Good Enough For Government”.
GEFG the UN and civil service highest standard.
Has anyone on the “Concerned” side off things , told these fools how revealing their projection is?
..and all the whining, pissing, and moaning can’t get past the fact that in over 100 years…
…they have yet to prove anything
At least her drivel is now coming via the Guardian instead of an official NASA release. Elections do matter.
I wonder if she really believes her own barrage of nonsense, misinformation and half-truths. It frankly makes me angry.
BC,
I don’t doubt that she believes what she is saying. That is one of the problems. She and those like her are so convinced that they are right that the only thing that explains (to her) the actions of those of us here is that we are being paid big bucks to confuse the public. She has made a mental model of the world where she is in possession of the Ultimate Truth and those working against her do so out of simple greed. The bottom line is that she is ‘reality challenged,’ and isn’t even aware of it. These are people who have closed minds and don’t really understand how the Scientific Method works.
I agree. I think this is the problem. As far as I can tell, this is the result of developments over the past 40-50 years.
As I like to say, only the completely insane are completely convinced of their own sanity.
Hear, hear! I have never claimed to be sane, just stable.
It just fries me how many of these useless “Dr. Bureaucrat” types are employed by the US federal gov’t either as full-time employees or as highly paid “consultants”. You could cut the budgets of many federal agencies such as the EPA and NOAA by 75% and you wouldn’t see any change in their deliverable. It’s that bad: literal armies of people that don’t do anything of value unless of course you count their virtue signalling.
Dr. Bureaucrat
Good one
Piled high .
She didn’t mention a single item of fake news that she says is being used to to mislead the public.
This sounds like fake news.
And Ellen Stofan will be publicly debating …?
Yeah, exactly, Tim. She won’t be publicly debating her quack, fake, utterly ridiculous clams of CO2 warming air because she knows there’s no defending it except through using hordes of ignoratti class diptards who are sure that ”if the laws of physics wanted their side stated, they should have had a lawyer of their own.”
“Runaway greenhouse effect”
This is a copy and paste from Tips and Notes:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/tips-and-notes/#comment-2523700
I was wondering about this also. Stofan says Venus is hot (500C) because the atmosphere has a high content of CO2. But there’s no mention of Mars, where the mean surface temperature is -63C.
Venus atmosphere 96.5% CO2.
Mars atmosphere 95.8% CO2.
What conclusion can one draw from these observations?
You can’t conclude anything because you’ve neglected orbital distance from the Sun.
Also atmopsheric pressure. On Venus, atmospheric pressure is about 90 times that of earth. Since surface gravity on Venus is about 0.9 times that of earh, Venus’s atmosphere is 100 times as thick as ours,
Venus also has sulfur dioxide clouds, which also have some effect on surface temperature.
Mars’ atmosphere is only 0.6% that of earth, and its gravity is about 35% that of earth. Mars has about 0.006/0.35 0r 1.7% as thick an atmosphere as earth.
Earth mean surface temperature is 15C
Earth atmosphere 0.04% CO2
BINGO!
Climate Nazis don’t want to talk about that.
It’s more complex than that. Mars atmosphere is a fraction of Earth’s in density. Partial pressure of CO2 is much lower. You can’t really draw anything from the comparison because of that difference.
Usually I agree with you Anthony…. but here I disagree. From those % numbers you CAN conclude that it is NOT the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere that is important. There is NO correlation at all with percentage and even you agree with that. It is other differences that account for the temperature differences between the worlds. On earth, one always hears from the CAGW types… that we MUST keep earth atmosphere below “X” percentage or the earth will become uninhabitable by any intelligent life forms.
” below “X” percentage or the earth will become uninhabitable by any intelligent life forms”
Heck we are only just managing to keep the atmospheric CO2 level ABOVE “X = .02%” when MOST sorts of life on Earth becomes unsustainable because most plant life stops growing.
Well, Ellen Stofan has been paraphased to say something like this
Her misanthropogenic accusations and fears are absurd in astonishingly many ways. For Earth to turn into Venus, mankind would need to multiply Earth’s atmospheric pressure. How exactly would mankind cause it here? No need to even mention the Venusian atmosphere is dry according to NASA. And what other planets is she talking about?
As far as I know the worst storms rage in one of the coldest planets in the solar system, Neptune, with an atmosphere made of the worst greenhouse gas there is, methane. WUWT?
Let me correct the message above myself. Haven’t worked in NASA unlike Stofan: Neptune’s atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium. It contains only traces of methane.
https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/neptunefact.html
I can’t help myself. What we need here are some “dumb blonde” jokes.
Eugene WR Gallun
My daughter made her German Master in Medical Technology with the highest possible score. She is blonde. According to her opinion dumb blondes are fake blondes….
As in “peroxide blondes?” Perhaps some of the peroxide is absorbed and does some brain damage.
The whole CO2 climate sensitivity is fake; the real sensitivity is 0 (no effect).
I like, PV = nRT. So, n(moles CO2) = PV/RT. Constant PV would force a decrease in T to maintain balance.
Jajajajajajaja 😉
I tried playing with that equation and could come to no conclusion one way or the other. Add additional gas and you get additional Pressure. Does Volume also go up, does atmosphere expand? Who knows?
The n should exactly balance the P increae, R stays constant, if V also goes up, T goes up, If Volume goes down with extra pressure, T also goes down.
You’re making a mistake to assume that P or V are constant. Expansion is a cooling process. Assuming that the temperature is rising, then the upper boundary of the atmosphere should expand. This will reduce the temperature increase to a new (higher) equilibrium.
Of course, melting and evaporation are also both cooling processes. There does not need to be a temperature change to absorb increased energy.
Remember Skylab? It crashed from orbital decay before NASA could rescue it due to (as NASA claimed at the time) drag from an expanded atmosphere from unusually hot weather in the early 70’s. Seems to me that by now both NASA and the Air Force (and the Russians) should have reams of data on the density of the ionosphere at LEO altitudes going back to at least the late 60’s and that might be a reasonable proxy for global atmospheric T. Don’t see how it could be worse than the current infilled, adjusted, UHI contaminated mess we have now.
She stated– “There’s this attitude of ‘I read it on the internet therefore it must be true’.” Could it be true that despite the efforts of many instructors, educators gave into the internet as education too long ago? It did start before this, however.
The True Face of Science Denialism: NASA Geologist “Scientist” Denies 600 Million Years of Geologic History
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2017/06/11/nasa-geologist-scientist-denies-600-million-years-of-geologic-history/
600 million years of geologic history? The graphic in your blog display’s Berner’s GEOCARB model output. When did the output of a model become geologic history?
Model output is all that supports the field of climate “science.” What evidence do they have of temperatures 100 years in the future to support the 95% certainty claimed in this field.
1) We’re talking about geologic history, not climate
2) We’re talking about the past, not the future.
3) Thank you for acknowledging your blog post is no better than climate science, due to using models.
If you have better estimates of the geological CO2 record, please post it.
“Estimates” are not geologic history. Besides, there’s no point in playing the game of “my estimates are better than your estimates.”
The “best” that can be done today is going back to the limit of ice core trapped bubbles.
Every historical reconstruction is an “estimate,” just what do you think the global temperature graphs are. The fact that you don’t like the Geological Record for CO2, and are silent about the “Hockeystick” pretty much proves your selective moral outrage is nothing more that phony politics. Climate “science” is totally based on models, reconstructions, and forecasts. These is no science at all supporting it if you can’t use models.
1) The output of the GEOCARB model is not the “Geological Record for CO2.”
2) Measuring the amount of CO2 in a trapped bubble in ice is not an “estimate”
3) “moral outrage” has nothing to do with geologic history
4) You divert to “climate science,” which is not the subject of our discussion.
5) There is a lot of science at all supporting it. Take for instance the physics of radiative heat transfer.
5.5) The physics of radiative transfer is not a theory of climate. No one knows how the climate responds to that extra kinetic energy.
Pat Frank, you are correct, “The physics of radiative transfer is not a theory of climate.” However I suggest your re-read the comment posted by “co2islife” where he/she says: ” is totally based on models.” Do you understand the meaning of the English word “BASED?” Or do you not understand the word “SUPPORTING?”
…
PS, I also suggest you consult a physicist and see if they would agree that all kinetic energy on our planet eventually ends up as heat.
Luis Anastasia, the claim of AGW *is* totally based on models; a claim-base that includes your implicit assertion that radiation physics is a model of the climate.
The climate has a number of fast response modes, other than to just heat up. I suggest you follow your own advice and ask a physicist whether it’s clever to insist in ignorance on only one of a number of possible modes.
I long ago gave up expecting educated people to be any more rational than the rest. Decades ago, there was an ongoing exchange in the Letters to the Editor in Geotimes where a micropaleontologist, who earned his living identifying micro-fossils in well cuttings, thereby dating the rock being drilled, denied evolution. Similarly, the only difference between an average person and a Mensan is that the Mensan is better at articulating their rationalizations for their irrational behavior.
No blonde joke. Limerick?
There once was a lady fair
Whose job was to promote a scare
But the electorate changed the boss
And everything she had was loss
Except for the seventies hair.
She’s an a-hole.
I am from California and went to college in California in the 70’s. I learned many years ago in a college physical geography course that was taught by a former Oil Company scientist about the oil off California coasts, the ocean movements, and man’s affects on the environment. What I found is that in many cases the environmentalists were causing issues that impeded corporations for having work that would save areas from environmental damage, An example is most the the coast of California has much oil naturally leaking from sea bed and the environmentalist by stopping the oil drilling has caused this to continue and stopped the oil companies from harvesting the oil without damage to the coast, and this is never reported. This is the same way with Climate Change (as it was originally Climate Warming until it did not warm), these different groups want control and money.
The “former” in the header is the give-away.
With any luck, she will be part of the climate brain trust heading to France.
“constant barrage of half-truths”
This is the bread and butter of the alarmist camp and inferring that this applies to the skeptical side of climate science is yet another example of psychological projection. For example, the relevance of natural variability and the many benefits of warming to man and the benefits of increased CO2 to agriculture are completely absent from the alarmist narrative. Another example is cherry picking starting and ending point to establish a ‘perpetual’ trend. Many more of these half truths can easily be identified in nearly article written by the MSM addressing climate change and in nearly every paper written about the topic.
It’s unfathomably absurd how ostensibly intelligent scientists can be so absolutely wrong about something with trillion dollar negative implications while the physics is pretty clear that they’re undeniably wrong about their unjustifiably high sensitivity. Climate science and even the scientific method has been irreparably harmed by a far left political ideology designed to support a massive redistribution of wealth under the guise of climate reparations. Even more absurd is that so many on the alarmist side are blind to the underlying motivation and succumb to the fear, especially considering that the motivation driving the UNFCCC and the IPCC is very transparent, even as it’s obfuscated with fake science.
When the history books are written centuries from now, people will look back at the foolishness and wonder how their ancestors allowed such insanity to persist for so long. Will we learn? Probably not since we didn’t learn from the political/religious interference that drove science to accept an Earth Centric Universe which draws many parallels to the flawed concepts of man centric climate change.
I don’t know why anyone would question her or the science when they trot out the “venus” scenario. Or that every hurricane will be as strong or stronger than Katrina and happen once a month. Or that the Westside Hiway in NYC should be on its way to being submerged by now. Or that there will be 10’s millions of climate refugees. Or there’s a tropospheric hotspot. Or polar bears are going extinct. etc…………
From the Guardian article”
“…….Throughout her career, Stofan has highlighted the role of planetary science in understanding the Earth’s environment and said it provided some of the most inarguable proof that atmospheric carbon dioxide leads to a warmer climate. She draws parallels between carbon emissions on Earth and the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus, a planet which once had oceans but is now a toxic inferno with surface temperatures approaching 500C.
The Earth is not destined for such an extreme scenario – even if all the CO2 were burned its oceans would not boil off completely – but Venus demonstrates the dramatic changes that can unfold when the fine balance of planet’s atmosphere is tipped…….”.
I’m not a scientist, but I thought that Venus’ atmospheric pressure was some 90 times greater than Earth’s. Doesn’t that atmospheric pressure play an important role in the intense heat of Venus? Higher atmospheric pressure = higher temps, correct?
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/NangMiu.shtml.
Isn’t blaming Venus’ intense heat on CO2 engaging in misdirection to some degree?
Higher pressure yields broader absorption lines. Pauli exclusion principal and all you know. If the line is twice as wide, it will absorb twice as much energy and reradiate it all things being equal. So yes, the CO2 in the atmosphere of Venus is not the “same” CO2 in our atmosphere as to its absorption effects. Of course, there is the small matter of the distance from the sun and all. At 67MM miles from the sun, Venus gets about 1.9 times the energy from the sun that the earth does. Granted that the T^4 aspect of the blackbody equation means that the temperature only increases by about 18% when you measure in Kelvin, but outside of a sauna for a short period I have not found 60 degrees C very comfortable either.
It’s temperature is solved identically to any other gas. There’s no difference, it’s why Hansen and everyone else associated with the scam don’t want to talk about Venus except in passing, because if you check, all their lies about Venus being anything but COOLER watt for watt and molecule for molecule.
Venus’ temperature is a few degrees cooler than the earth’s atmosphere would be at that pressure and light level.
There’s no proof whatsoever that Venus ever had an ocean, unless the ocean you’re talking about is the supercritical fluid CO2 ocean that’s still present. The solid surface of Venus is hot because it’s not the surface of the planet that’s in direct equilibrium with the Sun. This surface is the top of its clouds at the top of its atmosphere. Once the temperature of this surface is established, the PVT profile of the atmosphere below dictates the required surface temperature. For both Venus and Earth, the lapse rate starts at the surface in equilibrium with the Sun. On Earth this is negative from the bottom of the atmosphere up while on Venus it’s positive from the top of the atmosphere down.
Note that the mass of the Venusian atmosphere is the same order of magnitude as the mass of Earth’s oceans and the Venusian atmosphere acts more like an Earth ocean, than like the Earth’s atmosphere.
Note too that the solid surface of Earth is also not in direct equilibrium with the Sun. This surface is the top of the oceans and the bits of land that poke through. Like the solid surface of Venus, the solid surface of Earth beneath the oceans has no diurnal or seasonal variability and its temperature is dictated by the density/temperature profile of the ocean above.
What should we expect from a political appointee who just lost her job?
Another attempt to grab media outlet attention, and spew falsehood about it being possible for Carbon Dioxide to warm atmospheric air, after she and her politics orientated friends installed a generational dark-age regarding atmospheric physics for years?
She’s angry and she’s filled with the kind of venom that comes from an exposed, debunked, cancer on scientific credibility. The people of N.A.S.A. who knew the original men responsible for all this, said repeatedly that their work would become just that, and destroy peoples’ faith in science.
Unfortunately her “mandatory” blame oil and other rhetoric leaves on to believe she was not a working scientist but another political appointee that does not practice science but the agenda of the far left. This was a political comment without any substance to judge her blame game.
Meanwhile the International Energy Agency has just admitted that Obama’s program for clean renewable fuels to replace Fossil Fuels has been a total failure:
” Nearly every country in the world has committed to take action under the Paris Agreement to slow global warming. But only 3 out of 26 technology categories tracked by the IEA are on pace to help do that, the agency concluded in this year’s Energy Technology Perspectives report.”
Although the CNBC reports is blaming Trump for reducing the funding for this effort. and still pretends that throwing more money at the problem will work, but Science does not work that way and there are uncomfortable laws of Thermodynamics, Physics, and Chemistry that prove otherwise.
Any honest individual knowledgeable of energy knows that the Obama program had no clue on funding viable projects, just push the $$$ out the door and fund “friends” .
In reality there is currently no promising energy source to replace fossil fuels in the horizon that can come on in decades, especially if we rule out Nuclear. Replacement of transportation fuels has been particularly elusive.
Green energy plans like those planned for California cannot be implemented without major disruption to the economy and the good life we currently enjoy. Unfortunately many politicians and the MSM is ignorant of these facts and I am disappointed that the Engineering and Science communities fail to speak up..National Academies are a joke.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/09/energy-technology-is-not-advancing-fast-enough-to-meet-climate-goals.html
I will never understand articles like this. Just about every day, you can find newspaper articles which include quotes by “climate scientists” that are obvious distortions of the science. This is why they lack credibility.
You can agree all day long that Carbon Dioxide increases the temperature, but that doesn’t make the increase harmful. Every time I read the phrase “as much as … ” or “some scientists believe…”, it activates my BS meter. The scientists are their own worst enemy when it comes to exaggerated quotes in the press.
Nobody but people profiting politically or monetarily claim carbon dioxide causes warming, a warming in violation of thermodynamic law from several directions.
Its suspension in air causes cooling. That’s why whenever you speak with someone claiming it does cause warming, they act insane and declare they are above debating it. They are cowards to the core.
Site admin: While reading the above article I recurved a pop-up ad that appeared to be from Google. It looks really suspicious, and your site is possibly compromised.
Here’s the URL (don’t open or download anything if prompted): http://www.kudesa20.website/lp/lp3?trkdat=YGpnPjIwOjolcHZhamc-NjowZzs7MDY1Zjo2NjEzOjIwNzI2NjNmJXNid2tqZz4wMTo0JXB0YnNqZz42NzUJCQ==
“Fake news is so harmful.” Easy. Stop reading the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
And the Seattle Times
Based on the paleoclimate record and modeling results one can only conclude that the climate change we are experiencing today is caused by the sun and the oceans over which mankind has no control..It is all a matter of science.
There is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate. There is no such evidence in the paleoclimate record. There is plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensivity of CO2 is zero. If CO2 really affected climate then the increase in CO2 over the past 30 years should have cuased at least a measureable increase in the dry lapse rate in the troposphere but such has not happened. It is all a matter of science.
The AGW conjecture cannot be defended because the conjecture is just too full of holes. The largest is that the radiant greenhouse effect upon which the AGW conjecture depends, has not been observed anywhere in the solar system including the Earth. The radiant greenhouse effect is scidnce fiction as must be the AGW conjecture. It is all a matter of science. What the former chief scientists really needs to do is to study the associated science and not just the partial science upon which the AGW conjecture is based.
“There’s this attitude of ‘I read it on the internet therefore it must be true’.”
OK, NASA, here’s some things I read on the internet, from your website. I think they are true, not because they were accessed so easily by clicking, but that they are readily confirmed by honest observation and sound reasoning. These quotations are taken from the web article “Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget” by Rebecca Lindsey, January 14, 2009.
“The climate’s heat engine must not only redistribute solar heat from the equator toward the poles, but also from the Earth’s surface and lower atmosphere back to space.”
Right. A good example of a localized heat engine is a thunderstorm. It turns heat energy into motion, at impressive power per unit area.
“At an altitude of roughly 5-6 kilometers, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the overlying atmosphere is so small that heat can radiate freely to space.”
Right. The absorption of outgoing longwave radiation by the overlying atmosphere diminishes with altitude. Pretty obvious when you think about it.
“The atmosphere radiates heat equivalent to 59 percent of incoming sunlight; the surface radiates only 12 percent. In other words, most solar heating happens at the surface, while most radiative cooling happens in the atmosphere.”
Right. Therefore the working fluid of the heat engine absorbs heat more readily down low with the help of CO2. The heat engine works just fine to deliver heat upward, perhaps to a slightly higher altitude, or perhaps by an increased number rather than increased severity of strong convective events.
I keep going back to this article in my comments from time to time here at WUWT, because it is so clear to me that the basic operation of the atmosphere is described much more accurately as a heat engine than as a radiative insulating blanket. When one grasps that concept, and pulls on the loose threads of the catastrophic global warming talking points, the entire narrative unravels. I realize that the full article mentions the warming trend, “greenhouse gases” and all that, but I find it interesting that in the 8 years of the administration that took office a week after this article was posted, no one took this article down. It is still there on the internet. I don’t think they understood that these gems of accurate science were so available to anyone who wished to know.
NASA, as an institution, knows (or knew) perfectly well how the atmosphere works. I expect it is on a better track politically now.
It’s the same old lame excuses and allegations from someone on the losing side of a debate. They had everything on their side: the money, support and encouragement of government, the media, the scientific establishment, the advantage of striking their blows first… everything….and still couldn’t make their case stick, because their alarmist argument is not actually supported by the less than alarming facts.
So the fall-back is the same old vague allegations about persons unnamed using money unnamed influencing other persons unnamed with vague plots and devices. Not even any detailed allegations to be rebutted, just the same old ‘big oil’ type argument.
I am never sure whether to be as angry as she claims to be, or just bored by political activism that cannot even be bothered to invent new excuses as to why the world isn’t buying their tired story any more.
I suspect Ellen Stofan hasn’t watched (what used to be) “The Weather Channel” lately.
(Or maybe she has?)
What a load of suite you trolls spout.
So Ellen – everyone who disagrees with you is spreading disinformation with a profit motive? How blissful it must be to live in such a simple world!
Ellen Stofan is yet one more Ph.D.-level scientist who does not understand the distinction between accuracy and precision.
Climate model validation is all about precision, not about accuracy. Their projections have no physical meaning.
Americans are indeed “‘under siege’ from climate disinformation,” but the disinformation is purveyed by incompetent scientists whose number apparently includes Ellen Stofan, who can’t tell accuracy from precision.
Earth to Ellen: the annual average greenhouse perturbation is 0.035 W/m^2/year. The lower limit of model resolution for the tropospheric thermal energy flux is ±4 W/m^2/year; 114x larger.
Ellen’s science can resolve a perturbation 114x smaller than the lower limit of model resolution. How about it, Ellen: is it equivocal, or not, to claim certainty about something you can’t detect?
“The science being unequivocal,” is that there is unequivocally no scientific case at all for CO2-induced warming.
Let Ellen Stofan debate Sallie Baliunas. We’ll see where the unequivocal falls.