Out in the webiverse someone asked me “Willis… do you consider yourself a denialist?”
Mmmm … an excellent question, with an answer which likely won’t go the direction that they think.
First, the term “climate denier”, or in this incarnation “denialist”, was specifically chosen for its overtones of “Holocaust denier”. It is used as a pejorative term for anyone who disagrees with any aspect of climate science, usually without any attempt to say what the person is “denying”.
Now, I know for a fact that the Holocaust was real, because immediately after the war my grandmother, the Captain’s daughter, was in charge of several camps for “displaced persons”, most of whom were Jews who had been in the slave labor camps and the extermination camps. She saw all of that almost while the crematoria were still warm … she talked with the people who’d suffered intolerably. Her testimony, along with a mountain of other testimonial, documentary, and photographic evidence, establishes the truth of the existence of the Holocaust far, far beyond reasonable doubt.
Here’s the sneaky part. The link between “climate denial” and Holocaust denial lies in what is said to be denied. The clear implication in both cases is the claim that the person is denying THE TRUTH. They’re not not saying people are denying some mere supposition. They’re not claiming that “climate deniers” are denying some half-baked theory.
The clear claim is that both “climate deniers” and Holocaust deniers are denying THE TRUTH.
Now, this is mondo sneaky because this framing entirely pre-empts the discussion of what might or might not be true about the climate. It does this by subtly but strongly implying that THE TRUTH about the climate is already established.
Riiiight …
Not only are they saying that THE TRUTH about climate is established, but the further claim in calling someone a “climate denier” is that the person using the term 1) knows THE TRUTH, and 2) knows that the person is “denying”, not just scientifically disputing but “denying”, some specific part of THE TRUTH.
And the final hidden claim is that THE TRUTH is not just established, but it is as solidly established as the undeniable truth that the Holocaust occurred.
So when a person calls someone a “climate denier” or a “denialist”, they are implicitly asserting that the following are true and valid statements:
• THE TRUTH about the climate has been established.
• THE TRUTH about the climate is as solid and fact-based as THE TRUTH about the existence of the Holocaust, i.e. it is 100% undeniably and inalterably true and backed by a mountain of evidence.
• They know THE TRUTH about the climate.
• They know that the person they are calling a “denier” doesn’t simply disagree about a specific scientific idea, but instead they “deny” something that is obviously and demonstrably THE TRUTH.
All of that makes the use of “denier” an underhanded attempt to get people to believe that climate science is settled … and that is absolutely not THE TRUTH …
It is also a term with very ugly overtones. As a result, I and others have repeatedly asked decent people to cut it out, because it is both untrue and insulting.
The response has clearly revealed that I greatly overestimated the number of decent people among the climate alarmists …
The proper term for folks that disagree with various aspects of the mainstream climate scientists’ claims about the climate is “skeptic”. They are properly skeptical of the unproven idea that the temperature of the earth is greatly affected by the CO2 going from three-hundredths of one percent to four-hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere.
That might indeed be true, although I don’t think so … but at present it is assuredly unproven.
Now, it has been shown that when CO2 increases, it increases the atmospheric absorption of outgoing radiation, and thus increases the amount of thermal radiation from the atmosphere, about half of which heads downwards towards the surface.
But it has NOT been shown that this increase in radiation is perforce accompanied by an increase in the surface temperature.
However, me, I don’t consider myself a skeptic. Instead, I consider myself a heretic, meaning that I do not agree with the current underlying fundamental assumption of how the climate works.
That underlying assumption involves what is called “downwelling radiation” or “radiative forcing”, meaning the radiation headed down towards the surface. This is the sum of solar radiation plus thermal radiation from the atmosphere and clouds.
The assumption is that if the downwelling radiation increases, the surface temperature perforce has to rise. Not only that, but the temperature rise varies perfectly linearly with the increase in radiation. If you double the change in radiation, it will supposedly give you double the change in temperature.
Now, intuitively you’d think that would be true, that the more radiation that hits some surface, the warmer it would get. We’re told that it’s just “simple physics”. And indeed, for a simple physical system like a block of iron that’s basically true.
However, the climate is an immensely complex system, with important phenomena occurring on a time scale from nanoseconds to millennia and physical scales from nanometres to planet-wide.
Not only that, but according to the Constructal Law as well as Le Chatelier’s Principle, the climate actively responds to the changing conditions by moving towards the status quo ante. We see this in the endless twists and windings of lowland rivers. They are always changing, jumping out of their beds and cutting new channels … but the overall length of the river hardly changes at all. Constructal law at work.
So as an example of the thermal response of another complex system to increased radiation, consider how much your core body temperature rises when you walk from the shade into the sun. Thermal input, aka “downwelling radiation” has gone up by hundreds of watts per square metre and the core body temperature has … done nothing …
The reality is that complex systems cannot be analyzed using just “simple physics”.
So no, I do NOT believe what almost everyone in the field believes, which is that global temperature is a linear function of the amount of incoming radiation. I say that the climate responds to changing radiation input just as the body responds to changing radiation input, by shifting and evolving in such a fashion as to negate the effect of the increase in radiation.
The climate is best modeled as a heat engine. Why? Because at the most basic level, that’s what it is. Like all heat engines, it has energy coming in at the hot end (the tropics) and is rejecting energy at the cold end (the poles). Like all heat engines, it turns energy into mechanical motion. The climate heat engine turns solar energy into the mechanical motion of the various circulations of the atmosphere and the oceans. The frictional resistance to these mechanical motions of ocean and air is equivalent to a brake on a heat engine.
And here’s the interesting part.
Over the last century, the average temperature of the planet-sized heat engine that we call the “climate” varied up and down from its century-long average by about one-tenth of one percent … and as a man who has been involved with a number of heat engines, I can say that that is shockingly stable.
This is particularly true when you consider a couple of things. First, the existence of the poorly-named “greenhouse effect” means that the global surface temperature is well above what it would be if there were no atmosphere. (For an explanation of how the greenhouse effect actually works, which has absolutely nothing to do with greenhouses, see The Steel Greenhouse, People Living In Glass Planets, and The R. W. Wood Experiment.)
Second, the clouds reflect about forty percent of the available sunlight back into space. This is a huge amount of energy, about a hundred watts per square metre.
So our temperature is balanced well above what it would be without an atmosphere. And even with that, clouds are shedding some 30% of the available energy back into space, so it could be much, much hotter … but it’s not. Thus, the temperature is controlled by nothing more solid than clouds, winds and waves … clouds and winds and waves that come and go … and despite that, the global temperature only varied by ±0.1% over the 20th century.
So I don’t study what almost all climate scientists study, which is why the global average temperature varies so much.
I study why it varies so little … which is why I describe myself as a heretic rather than a sceptic.
Here, life in the lockdown continues … if being free to work in my shop and wander through acres of protected forest out past my back yard can be fairly described as being “locked down”. I truly cannot conceive of, and I have great compassion for, what lockdown means for a family of four in some city apartment building, with both parents out of work and rent coming due …
As I’ve said since it started, end the American lockdown now. It is injuring and killing far more than the virus is, particularly at this late point in the game.
I do think, however, that we are coming to the end of both the coronavirus and the BLM riots. So I leave you all in hopes of a much brighter future for my granddaughter above, and for you and all of your family,
w.
As Usual: I ask that when you comment, you quote the exact words that you are discussing. This avoids most of the misunderstands that are so rife on the intarwebs.
The Math: For those interested in the faulty math behind the fundamental equation falsely claiming that temperature is a linear function of downwelling radiation, see my post The Cold Equations.
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You’re a good man Willis.
A person of fortitude.
Peace.
Back atcha, dawg …
w.
“average temperature of the planet-sized heat engine that we call the ‘climate’ varied up and down from its century-long average by about one-tenth of one percent”
Presumably referring to degrees Kelvin?
It’s the nature of heat engine analysis, Ralph. All of the formulas are in Kelvin. If you use anything but Kelvin you get wrong answers. Same with the Stefan-Boltzmann equation relating temperature and radiation, which is used all through climate science—it only works in Kelvin.
w.
The kelvin is not referred to as a degree. The degree Celsius has the same magnitude as a kelvin.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the common meaning of ‘climate’ and ‘denier’. And I prefer to use these words as defined in any English language dictionary. Would anybody deny the existence of water? Would anybody deny that ice ages existed? Who denies that climate doesn’t exist? For all intents and purposes, there is no such person as a ‘climate denier’. You can parse and de-construct all you wish. Anybody who uses the term ‘climate denier’ is in the same catagory as using the word ‘carbon’ while referring to CO2: Deliberately ignorant…
“It is used as a pejorative term for anyone who disagrees with any aspect of climate science”
With all due respect no it is not. It is used to slander anyone who even questions the narrative promoted by the Climate Establishment.
Their claims are not science in any accepted sense of the word. Propaganda is the word.
First, toward the end you mention your own situation versus that of a family of four in an apartment.
We live in a rural area, retired with no lack of funds, house paid for, cars paid for, and food on the shelves and in the freezer. We know people not so blessed. Some as you describe, some having lost, or are now about to lose their businesses, and the well being (wealth) they have worked hard and long to achieve. [We are in Washington State]
Yet, the officials that instituted Panic2020 have not suffered a bit from their panic directives. When they have been stripped of their wealth and income my anger will stop increasing.
Second, and not that it really matters:
You: ” . . . by the CO2 going from three-hundredths of one percent to four-hundredths of one percent of the atmosphere. ”
This past week, I was looking at RCP8.5 and discovered their supposed CO2 concentration in 2100 is 936ppm. Many papers report using RCP8.5 because it is (falsely) said to be the business as usual scenario. Your choice of “four-hundredths” is the current situation. I realize Dooms Day had to be moved to now because not much traction was achieved with 2100. So, psychologically you are correct because people do think Earth is dying now [“we have XX days to save the planet”].
A certain periodical may run an article tomorrow attacking this article. It would claim that the picture at the top of this one is “conclusive proof” that the implications of “climate denier” label are valid and justified.
A perfect example is that “you are a racist,” and if you won’t admit you are a racist, it is further proof of your racism. If you agree in part, and refuse to accept the entire proposition, then you are part of the colossus and cannot be redeemed.
Constructal Law: The law’s author: Adrian Bejan’s daughter Cristina, is a poet, playwright, and historian, Buy her books:
Green Horses on the Walls
https://www.amazon.com/Green-Horses-Walls-Cristina-Bejan/dp/1646622154/
“Green Horses on the Walls” is a collection of poems that Cristina A. Bejan has written over the past ten years. … Bejan writes about her Romanian heritage, the inherited trauma of communism, love, mental health and sexual assault. The poems capture Bejan’s tortured love affair with the country her father escaped in 1969: Romania. Like so many exiles and migrants around the world, there is a compulsion to return and to leave the homeland … And finally this is a book about love: family love, love of ancestors, mindless youthful mistakes, the realities of American dating, forbidden love, and finally true equal miraculous love.
Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania
https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Fascism-Interwar-Romania-Association-dp-3030201643/dp/3030201643/
Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania
https://www.amazon.com/Intellectuals-Fascism-Interwar-Romania-Association-dp-3030201643/dp/3030201643/
In 1930s Bucharest, some of the country’s most brilliant young intellectuals converged to form the Criterion Association … members included historian Mircea Eliade, critic Petru Comarnescu, Jewish playwright Mihail Sebastian and a host of other philosophers and artists … Bejan asks how the far-right Iron Guard came to eclipse the appeal of liberalism for so many of Romania’s intellectual elite …
My problem with the climate zealots is that they demand I accept their whole “package” or be labeled as a “denier”
By “package”, I mean the tacked-on assertion that wind & solar power generation, backed by batteries for energy storage, will be the solution to curbing CO2 emissions and therefore “fixing” the climate.
Now, I wouldn’t mind if the “CO2 as control knob for the climate” debate went on as an academic exercise for as long as it takes to resolve the issue. That’s not going to affect anyone’s hard-won standard of living.
But at the same time, the climate zealots are demanding that while research into CO2 effects continues, our tried & proven energy systems (coal, oil, nuclear) must be discarded immediately and replaced with patently inadequate alternatives (wind, solar, batteries). At enormous cost and impact on environments and standards of living.
So, zealots, don’t label me as a “denier” – call me a “realist”
“I do think, however, that we are coming to the end of … the BLM [and Antifa] riots.”
I do hope you’re right, Willis.
Our Republic is under existential attack. The leadership of the Democratic Party has clearly colluded in violent sedition.
Their push for open borders and non-citizen voting repudiates the Constitution and every notion of citizenship. Antifa and BLM do the same; their seditious violence is unfettered in overwhelmingly cities under a Democratic mayor. The connivance is apparent to all.
In that view, they are unfit to govern.
As Lincoln said, ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’
So, I do hope your inference holds, Willis, that the division becomes civil, the turmoil ends, and that our Constitutional Republic, our America, stands and remains with us.
We’ve got to vote them out of office and take away their keys to power.
But if this continues and the Bolshevik-Democrats consolidate more political power over us, we’ll eventually be faced with having to shoot our way out of their tyrannical hold because People today are too asleep at what is happening.
It is no coincidence that Demo-Bolsheviks like Senator Sanders and NY Mayor DeBlasio are admirers Castro’s work in Cuba and the Chavez-Maduro tyranny in Venezuela. That is what they want to bring to this country. Both men are prominent members of the Democratic Party and have a substantial core follwoing that inspires the ANTIFA thugs doing what they are doing in some many Democrat-run cities while they continue to drive that party further to the Marxism they admire.
Well put Pat.
The US system is again on a tipping point. I was sure we were done for in the LAST presidential election. Hillary is as much of a Marxist as was Obama. If the election had gone their way, the Supreme Court would be a full blown activist court and our rights would be no more.
This will be the SECOND most important presidential election of MY lifetime. The actions of the Democrat controlled states and cities and the radicals they support have clearly defined the future of this country if Joe wins. The choice can not be more clear.
If Joe wins the american people will have made the choice. When the Democrat party holds the House and the Senate, Schumer will, as leader, eliminate the 60 vote cloture rule and he and Pelosi will pass whatever they want.
If TRUMP! wins and the Republican party retakes the house, it will be time for McConnell to remove cloture and change the entire federal funding apparatus, returning to the states welfare, medicaid, etc. and returning to a minimalist federal government. Block grant the funds to each state, reducing the amount by 20% each year so that the states will actually be different in their social programs. At that point people could truly vote with their feet, moving from high tax overly generous states to a state that expects citizens to work for a living and remove non-citizens from the welfare rolls. This is how the federal system was supposed to work.
I know it is but a dream, but a beautiful one.
Drake
“Not only that, but the temperature rise varies perfectly linearly with the increase in radiation. If you double the change in radiation, it will supposedly give you double the change in temperature”
If I understand what you have written, it is wrong. Radiation FROM a body is not linear with temperature but a function of the 4th power of the increase. It is perhaps the most perfect thermostat in the universe. ANY warming of the earth’s surface causes the surface to respond immediately with a massive increase in radiation toward space, immediately removing that heating. It is virtually instantaneous.
Having designed and commercially sold infrared thermometers, I can testify that the thermal laws work.
The greenhouse ‘hypothesis’ is a hundred plus year old mistake. You cannot heat the earth with atmospheric radiation captured FROM the earth itself. It CAN’T happen, because the earth won’t warm – it will radiate at a higher rate until equilibrium is again reached.
John, over the short global average surface temperature range in question, present temperature plus a couple degrees either way, it is close enough to linear that the linear approximation is valid.
13°C = 380.15 W/m2
17°C = 401.86 W/m2
Average W/m2 = 391.01
Convert back to celsius = 15.02°C
As you can see, the error in that range is only two hundredths of a degree C, lost in the noise. That’s why the linear approximation is used. My main objection isn’t the linear assumption, it’s that the underlying idea that radiation roolz temperature that is wrong.
As to the “greenhouse effect”, please read the three posts I linked to above. The greenhouse effect does NOT violate any thermodynamic laws.
w.
“The greenhouse ‘hypothesis’ is a hundred plus year old mistake. You cannot heat the earth with atmospheric radiation captured FROM the earth itself. It CAN’T happen, because the earth won’t warm – it will radiate at a higher rate until equilibrium is again reached.”
Don’t worry John, it’s just more BS back radiation nonsense from Willis.
leitmotif August 9, 2020 at 6:00 pm
Science by assertion. Yeah, that’s totally legit.
w.
“Science by assertion.”
I thought that was your forte, Willis.
I’m still waiting for some experimental evidence for the existence of back radiation. Let’s see what you’ve got.
leitmotif August 10, 2020 at 2:54 am
Seriously? Is your google-fu that pathetic? A quick search for “downwelling radiation measurement” yields HUNDREDS of scientific studies like the following:
ATMOSPHERIC DOWNWELLING LONGWAVE RADIATION AT THE SURFACE DURING CLOUDLESS AND OVERCAST CONDITIONS. MEASUREMENTS AND MODELING
All-Sky Downwelling Longwave Radiation and Atmospheric-Column Water Vapour and Temperature over the Western Maritime Arctic
Downwelling Longwave Irradiance at the Ocean Surface
Note that these are not models or guesses. They are reports of actual measurements of downwelling longwave radiation.
OR you could by a cheap stand-off IR thermometer and point it at the sky …
A method to measure total atmospheric long-wave down-welling radiation using a low cost infrared thermometer tilted to the vertical
What you can’t do, leitmotif, is claim that something measured daily around the planet by both scientists and automated instruments from buoys etc. doesn’t actually exist … well, actually, you can and you have claimed it doesn’t exist, but that just makes people wonder which rock you’ve been living under that you don’t know about the existence of downwelling longwave radiation.
w.
Willis,
Why can’t you undetstand that just because “scientists” label something “downwelling” doesn’t make it so?
Where’s their measurement of radiation from the instrument to the sky? Why is it the same?
Just because a blanket THEORETICALLY sends you 522 W/m^2, doesn’t mean you’re hot because of the blanket. YOU sent it 522 in the first place.
Read again:
http://phzoe.com/2019/11/11/why-up-is-not-down/
Zoe Phin August 10, 2020 at 10:54 am Edit
Thanks, Zoe, been there, read that. Twice. To make sure it really said what it said.
The US Department of Energy has a research facility called the “Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Research Facility”, commonly known as the ARM Research Facility. What they do, as the name states, is measure radiation coming down from the atmosphere. It’s an interesting site, take a look.
Here’s their description of their main instrument:
Now, of course, Zoe says that these scientists are all stupid fools who are actually measuring radiation from the ground and mistaking it for atmospheric radiation …
… although Zoe never gets to the question of how measuring ground radiation allows these same stupid scientists to verifiably do things like measure trace gases, aerosols, water droplets, ice crystals and the like.
There is an entire industry out there figuring out new and more accurate and wider spectral-width and increased spectral resolution instruments to measure downwelling radiation from the atmosphere. Millions of dollars are being spent on the entire enterprise end to end.
But noooo … Zoe says that not one of the hundreds and hundreds of people involved in inventing, manufacturing, testing, and use of these various measuring instruments, and no one involved in the analysis of the results of measuring atmospheric radiation, knows what she knows, the secret truth, which according to Zoe is:
NOT ONE OF THOSE INSTRUMENTS, NOT ONE OF THOSE SCIENTISTS, IS ACTUALLY MEASURING ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION. THEY ARE MEASURING GROUND RADIATION, AND MISTAKING IT FOR ATMOSPHERIC RADIATION
Here is her very scientific illustration showing how this works:
I leave you to consider how, IF Zoe were right, ground radiation could be successfully used to measure ice crystals, GHGs, and water droplets as is routinely done by the ARM facility.
w.
Willis,
“who are actually measuring radiation from the ground”
Never said that. Learn to read.
“THEY ARE MEASURING GROUND RADIATION”
Never said that. Learn to read.
‘The US Department of Energy has a research facility called the “Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Research Facility”’
If you actually examined their method you would see that their “downwelling” IR is just IR from the instrument to the sky.
An infrared camera can also detect objects colder than it, because the camera sensor is what is transferring heat. There is a negative voltage registered.
Why can’t you think?
sig(Thot^4-Tcold^4)
You think Tcold is some sort of energy source in the sky that is sent down to an instrument. It’s not. Tcold is a product of Thot, from the surface (not including direct solar absorption of the atmo).
It’s amazing you never questioned why ARM project never reports upwelling-from-the-instrument IR. Surely the instrument has a temperature. They don’t report it because IT is the same (and the actual) “downwelling” IR.
Learn to think.
Does Willis also think Antifa is anti-fascist?
It’s in the name, right? So it must be true. The fact that they engage in same street tactics as the fascists can be ignored. The real fascists are those protesting lockdown orders.
Just as antifa is fascist, “downwelling” IR, is just a measurement of heat transfer from the measurement instrument to objects in the sky, that is: upwelling-from-the-instrument IR, not to be confused with upwelling-from-the-ground IR.
My diagram is very straight forward. If Willis can’t communicate my ideas correctly, what does that say about him?
Willis:
What cracks me up about Zoe’s arguments here is that the FLIR (forward-looking infrared) camera she uses to support her claims work on the same fundamental principle as the pyrgeometers she claims are being used completely incorrectly by the science establishment.
Each pixel in the FLIR attains a temperature that is a function of the difference between the incoming infrared intensity and the outgoing intensity. The electrical resistance changes with temperature, and this can easily be measured. These results are compared to a reference sensor not exposed to the external radiation. This is the same process that the pyrgeometers use.
(Zoe also makes the mistake of not realizing that to derive temperature values from the radiation measurements, you need to know the emissivity of the object. But that is another subject for another day…)
“Each pixel in the FLIR attains a temperature that is a function of the difference between the incoming infrared intensity and the outgoing intensity. The electrical resistance changes with temperature, and this can easily be measured. ”
Yes! You can measure heat flowing from hot to cold.
Cover the whole surface of the Earth with pyrgeometers. Can the atmosphere get infrared without passing THROUGH the pyrgeometers? Ignore direct absorption of solar energy by atmo for this.
You will quickly learn the importance of upwelling-from-instrument IR.
The problem is people like you think the cold atmosphere is some sort of energy source twice as strong as surface insolation resulting from that weaker insolation not being able to escape.
You use “downwelling” IR to make your case. But this “downwelling” IR just theoretical backradiation actually caused by REAL front radiation.
Zoe:
Every time you post, you make another egregious error that shows you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about in any facet of the discussion.
You say: “Cover the whole surface of the Earth with pyrgeometers. Can the atmosphere get infrared without passing THROUGH the pyrgeometers?”
You just demonstrated that you have no experience at all in making experimental measurements. One of the key things one learns early on is that you have to evaluate (and minimize) the impact of the measuring device on the system being measured.
A single pyrgeometer will have no detectable effect on the earth-atmosphere system it is measuring, because the overwhelming majority of radiation in all directions goes around the device. In your thought experiment about covering the whole surface of the earth with these devices, you are completely altering the system you would be trying to measure!
This is Lab Science 101, and you are obviously completely ignorant of it!
Ed,
“the overwhelming majority of radiation in all directions goes around the device.”
Including the original forward radiation needed for your “downwelling” IR.
You don’t think a globe covered in pyrgeometers can still conduct and then radiate?
lol. Wise people know that these measurement instruments only REALLY measure upwelling IR and net IR. “Downwelling” IR is a derived quantity with a philosophic bent.
Zoe:
Are you seriously taking your own schematic diagram of upwelling and downwelling radiation literally — that it’s only straight up and straight down? Have you never heard of the Lambertian distribution of radiation?
You ask: “You don’t think a globe covered in pyrgeometers can still conduct and then radiate?”
As usual, you miss the point completely. The point is not whether they could conduct and then radiate, but that they would completely change the properties of the system they are supposedly trying to measure.
To repeat, a single pyrgeometer has no detectable effect on the system, but your idea of a complete blanket of these sensors changes the system completely. Not a difficult concept.
You say: “Wise people know that these measurement instruments only REALLY measure upwelling IR and net IR. “Downwelling” IR is a derived quantity with a philosophic bent.”
Do you feel the same about a tire pressure gauge or a vacuum gauge? Both measure the net pressure — the difference between ambient atmospheric pressure and the pressure of the vessel. Is the absolute pressure in the vessel simply “a derived quantity with a philosophic bent”? Seriously?
Ed,
I believe greater pressure will drive lesser pressure.
You believe lesser pressure is the key to understanding why greater pressure is so great. I think that’s dumb.
My diagrams are simple to understand. If you want to believe in two thermal dead ends, it’s up to you. Personally, I think it’s stupid.
Zoe:
Let’s take the case where you are drawing a vacuum and trying to measure with a gauge the extent of the vacuum you have drawn. You say: “I believe greater pressure will drive lesser pressure.”
So atmospheric pressure on the sensing diaphragm will push it more than the partial vacuum you are drawing. OK. But by your logic, the extent of the vacuum — the reduced but non-zero pressure in the vessel — does not affect the measurement at all.
Similarly with the pyrgeometer, does the reduced but non-zero downwelling radiation from colder altitudes affect the sensor temperature and hence resistance at all? It’s the same principle of a differential measurement.
Ed,
Just because a blanket THEORETICALLY sends you 522 W/m^2, doesn’t mean you’re hot because of the blanket. YOU sent it 522 in the first place!
The 522 W/m^2 of “downwelling” IR from a blanket covering you is not what you should be focused on.
Zoe:
If you make a purchase and get $15 change back from the $20 you hand the cashier, are you wealthier than if you got no change back?
Is it possible to know the TRUTH about climate, and to have no clue about weather at the same time?
I explain it simply to simple people and children this way:
The Earth adjusts itself to remain the best temperature for life.
Water evaporates from the ocean to make clouds. The more heat you have, the more clouds are made.
Sunlight produces the most heat on Earth. So blocking the sun’s light lowers the temperature of the Earth.
The more clouds, the more sunlight is blocked, cancelling out the heat that created more clouds in the first place.
We choose truth over facts!
Dementia Joe didn’t even realize after he said it how stupid and absurd that was coming out of his mouth. He is that far gone. And the marxist-media let him get away with it. We’re totally flucked if Dementia Joe wins in November. Dementia Joe would just be the Bolsheviks puppet President until they can replace him with his Marxist VP.
I just watched the movie version of ‘1984’ the other day. After seeing it again, I realized that Dementia Joe’s comment about choosing truth over facts actually makes sense in that dystopian world. The party could not control all the facts, but they definitely had a very tight control on the ‘truth’. Joe Biden is suffering from dementia or he he is Big Brother in disguise.
It was Winston Smith ‘s job to correct the historical data.
I am re-reading it atm… For a laugh.
Natural climate change deniers.
The whole concept of ‘climate denial’ is preposterous, not merely because it’s a concocted slur against those who question the science of the whole concept, but because there are people making shed loads of money from terryfying the uncritical and weak willed.
Unfortunately far to many sceptics fall sucker to using the terms adopted and distorted by the cult of climate hysterics which embolden the nonsense peddlers.
The term ‘climate’ was coined to teach schoolchildren about varying weather conditions unique to particular areas of the globe. There is no such thing as a uniform global climate.
The best one might nail it down to is an average global temperature, which, as Willis points out, is akin to meaningless.
I mean, what is a global average temperature useful for unless described into actual effects on humanity?
We may observe a 3 degree C rise in surface temperature across the Antarctic over a year, but as the average temperature there is, perhaps -20C, that 3C isn’t going to cause snow and ice to melt. Nor are Argo buoys, ships, or satellites prolific or accurate enough to detect meaningful ocean temperature rises, or falls, to a meaningful degree, simultaneously, at a moment in time, across every metre of ocean on the planet.
Nor does anyone live on the Antarctic (other than a handful of scientists) so what effect does it have on any of the rest of the world.
Oh yea, I almost forgot, that rising sea levels will affect all of us. Like were dumb enough to stand in the same spot for a few thousand years waiting for meaningful evidence of the Antarctic melting and flooding our homes.
Oh, but what about the children?
Well, iftheyre dumb enough to stand on the shore for a few thousand years, and not move inland, they deserve to still be standing on the shore until the seas rise above their heads. We might consider them as Darwin Award candidates.
I had an interesting discussion with chap who was a member of Extinction Rebellion, as they protested outside the offices of an investment manager here in Edinburgh a while ago. He was all too eager to apply the term ‘climate denier’ to me. I argued that the term ‘denier’ was a slur, based on the association with Holocaust denial. I tried to persuade him that my perspective was that I simply disagreed with the hypothesis what very limited change we see, when compared with the historical records and slightly-further-back proxy data, can be attributed to anthropogenic CO2. He simply couldn’t get his head round the concept of glacial/inter-glacial cycles, and the magnitude of change involved. Even as I left their little protest, he still tried to use the term ‘denier’. I’ll give him some credit, he did try to have a discussion, but it was an uphill struggle for me against a clear catastrophist mind-set.
He’s not alone. I have had ‘educated’ middle-class ladies refer to me as a ‘climate denier’, and was told once curtly “that’s just not up for discussion”. So, people who think of themselves as smart, are so hooked on their ideas that they can’t respond with, perhaps, “Oh, why do you think that?”. I’m always interested in why people think what they do, I find it disappointing when they don’t return the favour.
“I do think, however, that we are coming to the end of both the coronavirus and the BLM riots.”
I envy your optimism, Willis.
When I compare the reactions of most governments in the industrialised world to the original SARS and the H1N1 flu with the unfolding disaster of covid19, it makes me very concerned about the next new flu virus that we can reasonably expect (presumably from China) in a few years. Politicians have learned to choose the “experts” with the most extreme predictions of doom and the most extremely authoritarian proposals to avoid said doom. Because they fear doing the wrong thing and because they feel the need to show “strong, decisive leadership, blah blah blah….” to ensure “public safety”. And they use fear to get people to accept draconian restrictions on their lives, for a time. Which they mostly do, for a time. It worked fairly well, for a time. The next one will be worse (not the virus; the response), and it will be accepted even more readily than the 2020 lockdowns. That’s my worry.
BLM riots are probably in the waning phase of the current cycle, that’s true. Last year we had extinction rebellion riots in a few major cities, where the organisers learned that they could get away with a lot of public nuisance, without fear of retaliation from police. This year, they exploited this new-found freedom when they hijacked a genuine protest about police who egregiously brutalised an unfortunate petty criminal to death. And they pushed the limits of public disturbance into previously unimaginable territory, where they could destroy property, even destroy lives, without the slightest worry about being arrested or charged by the police. Meanwhile, police have harassed, arrested and charged what most of us would call normal people, who were just trying to protect themselves and their property from what the mainstream media call “peaceful protesters”.
The next antifa cycle will be worse again. That’s my worry. Call me Cassandra.
I could go on at length, but you get the idea. What we call “civil society” and “democracy” are being slowly demolished before our very eyes. It’s a multi-pronged attack: the climate movement is part of it, Antifa-Occupy-ER-BLM movement is part of it, and the absurd but multi-faceted “woke” movement is part of it. They (the forces of darkness) are winning, “we” are caving in without much of a fight, and the future won’t be pretty.
Smart Rock, if “an unfortunate petty criminal” is a reference to George Floyd, be clear that he was no “petty criminal”
His last stint in jail (his 9th criminal conviction & jail sentence) was a 5-year stretch for this –
“He “forced his way” into a woman’s home after lying about being “with the water department,” then “placed a pistol against… [her] abdomen,” according to the complaint. Floyd and his 5 companions “demanded to know where the drugs and money were,” but were told that there were neither in the house. They proceeded to take jewelry and the victim’s cell phone. In 2009, Floyd was sentenced to 5 years in jail.”
The coroners report found that Mr Floyd died due the drugs in his system. Once again, they are rioting based on nothing but lies.
The problem here is not “simple physics”, but the violation of logic and physics, and the lack of intelligence within the audience. Otherwise everyone would long have known what I am to tell..
Earth receives some 240W/m2 of solar radiation, post albedo. A large share of those 240W/m2 are getting absorbed by the atmosphere (not by the surface), yet they get indiscrimately added to Earths energy budget. Cause.. why not? Obviously it would be a mistake to measure the amount of solar radiation warming Earth alone at the surface (some 161W/m2 ..right?).
With “back radiation” however, we only consider what we measure at the surface. But most “back radiation” is getting (re-)absorbed within the atmosphere already. If we took all this “back radiation” into account, we would find there is a thousands of Watt/m2 “heating” the planet, which leads to an obvious problem – and facilitates understanding.
If “back radiation” heated anything, we would all get fried! Thank god “back radiation” is just part of ubiquitous ambient radiation, which heats nothing! And of course ambient radiation is a function of temperature, not the opposite way. Btw. this does not deny the “GHE”, which just has nothing to do with “back radiation”.
Willis won’t like you using quotes when mentioning back radiation, Leitwolf.
leitmotif:
Why don’t you say something useful or just go away? You are not even a fun troll.
“eitmotif:
Why don’t you say something useful or just go away? You are not even a fun troll.”
Oh, Fraizer, you’re no fun.
I take it you agree with Leitwolf then since you made no comment?
A few years ago I spent considerable time searching for the answers to two questions regarding climate change theory.
1. Does warming result in more or less clouds?
2. Do clouds during the day reduce warming by more than clouds during the night reduce cooling (or vice versa)? In my view the effects are very unlikely to be equal.
The conclusion I reached was nobody knows. This conclusion was reinforced recently by Dr. Pat Frank’s paper on climate model uncertainty related to the +/- 4 w/m^2 energy balance uncertainty related to cloud cover effects.
Our ignorance of the net effect of clouds on global climate makes the whole discussion regarding CO2 and fossil fuels moot since we cannot rule out the possibility that all observed global temperature variability is caused by variability in cloud cover. I do agree with Willis that the most remarkable thing about the earth’s climate is its stability.
Rick C PE August 9, 2020 at 2:38 pm
Good questions. In order, the TL;DR answers are:
1. Depends
2. Yes.
The longer answers are:
1. In some areas of the planet, clouds go up with increasing temperature (red areas below). In other areas, they go down with increasing temperature (blue areas below). Overall, they pretty much cancel each other out.
2. The CERES dataset agrees with earlier estimates that the average net effect of clouds is a cooling of about 18 watts per square metre.
w.
Hi Rick
This is exactly what I have been researching and the answers are there. First of all clouds are warming all over, the CRE (cloud radiative effect) is indeed positive. It is not just a question of day/night cycle, but also about season. For instance, a way simplified, clouds are cooling in spring and warming in autumn. Second the CRE is positive for low altitude clouds, but even more so for high altitude cirrus clouds, which has huge implications on contrails.
The “data” Willis is quoting below are a “false friend” if you will. ERBE and CERES are NOT(!) satellite data, but models with highly speculative outputs. The are likely the most prominent example for fake science.
hi Willis,
1) Like you, i am a skeptic, not a denier
2) you persuaded me years ago (here, at wuwt) that analysts should consider the possibility that there is a Control system at work. I have seen no reason in the ensuing years to rule this out. The prime candidate for control mechanisms involve H2O, which can:
– trap energy (when a vapour) or
– reflect energy (when condensed as a cloud or frozen as ice) or
– provide damping (when in liquid form as an ocean)(sorry about the unavoidable “damping” pun).
3) To address this, may I begin by quoting you from above:
“a) Now, it has been shown that when CO2 increases, it increases the atmospheric absorption of outgoing radiation, and thus increases the amount of thermal radiation from the atmosphere, about half of which heads downwards towards the surface.
b) But it has NOT been shown that this increase in radiation is perforce accompanied by an increase in the surface temperature.
4) I have (for many months) looked at CO2 impact, using MODTRAN and Sobolev’s equations.
The only small spectral area where CO2 influences energy release from Earth to space is around 13 to 17 microns. Water vapour influences energy release in exactly the same way as CO2, but across wider spectral regions, so it provides useful intuitive understanding. Clear summer nights in the Florida Keys are warmer than clear summer nights in Colorado, even if the daytime temperature was exactly the same, because the Keys are humid and Colorado is dry. You can look up in the sky in Florida and feel the warmth on your face. Perhaps this shows why 3(b) is true?
Water vapour and CO2 transmit and reflect/re-radiate energy something like a Space Blanket with holes punched in it. The holes get smaller as the amounts of H2O or CO2 get larger, causing more heat to be reflected and causing the Earth to warm up.
There are two ways to increase the amount of energy radiated to space:
– reduce the humidity or the CO2 (thus making the space blanket holes bigger), or
– make the Earth hotter (thus making the thermal radiance brighter, and pushing more energy through the existing holes)
My opinion is: given that Water Vapour has so much more leverage than CO2, on the Earth’s temperature, we need to understand water vapour day-to-day dynamics before we can claim any understanding of the impact of CO2.
The left has reached critical mass.
There’s no turning back, only delay.
Most senior politicians are ex lawyers.
They’re flanked by wealthy donors.
Every year the average American suffers a loss in real monetary worth.
Trump won’t help you he’s one of them in all but a few key areas.
So what do you think is going to happen?
You know what’s going to happen; you just can’t admit it.
The Denialist are the ones who burn books and censor science. There is your denialist
Willis
CAGW or climate alarmism involves lots of components.
For the purpose of this comment, I will break down to three components.
A. Climate change science.
B. Climate changes damages.
C. Climate change actions.
Your article only discusses A above.
If someone only disagrees with a sub component of either B or C they are also labeled a denier.
Example statement from B. PLants will benefit from extra CO 2 – a true statement
Example statement from C. The poor will be impacted by increased electricity prices – true statement
Willis,
IR radiation upwelling from Earth’s surface is absorbed by greenhouse gases and then re-emitted, some of it as downwelling IR toward the surface. Mostly this is an energy loop, which neither cools nor warms the Earth.
Greenhouse warming occurs when IR escaping to space is reduced in flux – for that IR escaping Earth is the only way Earth cools. By the Stefan-Boltzman relation, the RATE at which a greenhouse molecule emits IR depends on its temperature. IR emitted from the surface and not absorbed by atmospheric gases is emitted at a rate equivalent to Earth’s surface temperature. IR emitted to space by greenhouse gases however, is emitted at a lower rate determined by the colder temperature of its emission height, which typically is high in the atmosphere.
That is the process that produces warming, not the upwelling and downwelling IR.
People seem to think I post links for fun. Don, READ THE STEEL GREENHOUSE!!! It explains how the greenhouse effect doesn’t require an atmosphere to work … so obviously, your explanation which requires an atmosphere must be wrong.
w.
Willis,
Ideological mathematics is not physics.
Conservation of heat flow is not physics.
Math can be used to model the unreal.
Math doesn’t care that your unphysical equations need to balance so you end up with one side hotter to do it. It doesn’t happen in real life.
“Ideological mathematics is not physics.”
That thar is funny.
Willis,
Your “model” is interesting and worth some comment.
First, I assume that your steel shell has an emissivity of 1.0, and not its true value of about 0.8 (oxidized, not polished). Otherwise the shell would have to be heated even hotter in order to emit IR at 235 watts.
Of course, the steel shell heated on the inside transfers its energy to the shell outside mostly via conduction. In that regard it is analogous to the Earth’s crust, where internal radioactive heat conducted to the surface establishes a temperature gradient because heat emission at the surface is faster than the heat can be transferred through the crust.
IR transfer in Earth’s atmosphere is quite different, and your steel shell is an imperfect model for Earth’s atmosphere.
So, let’s assume that the steel shell is very thin, say only a few molecules thick. Heat would be conducted through it very quickly.
Now when a molecular electron bond (say H-O in water, C-O in CO2 or Fe-Fe in steel — metals don’t have typical bonds but partly share their electrons) absorbs an IR, two things can occur. That energy in the bond can be rapidly transferred into other bonds, or the bond can itself emit an IR. In e.g., CO2 such an IR emission requires about one second. However, in an atmospheric gas near STP, molecular collisions occur much faster (by orders of magnitude), and as a consequence most IR absorbed by a gas molecule is transferred into kinetic energy of the surrounding gas. Given the nature of metal (Fe) bonding, IR energy absorbed could be expected to very, very quickly equilibrate.
What would transpire when that Fe shell was uniformly maintained at some uniform temperature by the 235 w/m2 it received from Earth?
It would radiate IR from both inside and outside, both to space and back to Earth. To cool Earth, it would have to radiate 235w to space and it would radiate 235w down. So you are correct. The shell would have to be maintained hotter than Earth in order to sustain 235w loss both outward and inward.
Thus, as you say, the shell would act to warm a planet much as would a greenhouse gas. And just as I comment above about greenhouse Earth, that IR going to the Fe shell and coming back down is an energy loop. That energy is NOT what would warm the Fe shell planet, but rather the fact that the Fe shell and the planet surface would have to be maintained at a higher temperature in order to lose the energy the surface receives. So half of the extra IR emission from the now warmer surface would transfer to the shell and then to space, balancing the energy received, AND the other half of that extra surface IR emission (resulting from the higher temperature of the surface, NOT any extra heat from below) would transmit to the shell, back to the surface, back to the shell, etc. – an energy loop.
Your model makes my point above about energy loops, although the mechanisms are different.
Without that Fe shell, the planet’s surface temperature would not be elevated.
And without those greenhouse gases releasing IR to space at a slower rate because of their cold location, Earth’s temperature would not be elevated.
Energy loops do not warm the surface.
“where internal radioactive heat conducted to the surface establishes a temperature gradient because heat emission at the surface is faster than the heat can be transferred through the crust.”
Just a little emphasis: a T gradient is established because of a density gradient.
ZP
Density variations in Earth’s crust has little to do with heat flow through the crust. Rock composition has some effect. When the Earth’s surface temperature is maintained at an average of ~15C and the deep crust at say a few hundred C, a temperature gradient naturally develops. IF that surface energy were not lost from the surface, the surface would eventually warm to the deep crust temperature. But then, without means of losing heat, the Earth’s interior would also continue to warm.
15C is not in some sort of “maintenance” mode. It’s a product of geothermal and solar. As a product it is maintained, but only as a result of a gradient, not its cause.
Cold doesn’t tell hot what to give it to create a gradient.
Q = m*Cp*dT
The m is mass. The mass in a fixed sections of volume can create a gradient.
Stready state heat flow through a density gradient will create a T gradient. This happens from yhe core to the surface, and from the surface to the atmosphere.
Willis,
I am not aware of any planets with an Fe shell, much less ones that are warmed further by one. Absent that knowledge, I will continue to assume that Earth is warmed by gases.