by Vijay Jayaraj
The repeated claim that climate science is “settled” overlooks myriad uncertainties, competing mechanisms and computer models that miss the mark when tested against reality. Declaring finality in such a field reflects political confidence – even arrogance – not scientific maturity.
The model-reality divergence
Computer models – based on faulty premises – are the bible for the modern climate movement. This despite the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describing climate as a “coupled, non-linear, chaotic system” where long-term prediction is effectively impossible.
Policies costing trillions of dollars rely entirely on outputs of these digital simulations. But a model is only as good as its assumptions. When those assumptions fail to match the physical world, an honest scientist discards the model. The climate establishment, instead, discards the data.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) July 2025 report, “Critical Review of Impacts of GHG Emissions on the US Climate,” exposed a hard truth: Fabricated scenarios supposedly representing future warming of the climate are exaggerations having little relationship to observed reality.
Dr Roy Spencer’s latest analysis in January 2026 looked at decadal temperature trends from 39 climate models compared to observations gathered from weather balloons, satellites and analyses of meteorological information. He confirmed that “all 39 climate models exhibit larger warming trends” than “observational data.”
Further, theories regarding the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of so-called greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) ignore the reality of atmospheric saturation, says Dr. William Happer. At the current concentration of atmospheric CO2, there is only so much infrared radiation left to be influenced by additional amounts of the gas. In other words, CO2’s warming effect is limited, and increasingly so as more is added. Yet the models assume a higher warming potential than nature exhibits.
Not your father’s volcanic eruption
The effect of the January 2022 Hunga Tonga underwater eruption exemplifies the climate system’s complexity. The volcano’s net outcome was not the cooling typically expected from such an event, but rather a complex interplay of competing factors that largely offset one another, with the effect on surface temperatures being nearly zero.
This outcome stands in sharp contrast to historical volcanic eruptions. Mount Tambora in 1815 cooled the globe by as much as nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit, producing the “Year Without a Summer.” High-latitude eruptions in the 540s, 1450s, and 1600s generated major global coolings through their injection of sulfates into the stratosphere.
The climate system has feedback loops and other interactions so intricate that even a single volcanic event exposes the limits of our predictive capacity. Yet climate policies and so-called solutions are advanced with a certainty enjoyed only be the foolhardy and feigned by the dishonest.
What extreme weather?
Perhaps the least honest aspect of the climate crusade is the weaponization of weather. Natural disasters are blamed on climate change and, by extension, on the industries that emit the carbon dioxide purported to be the ultimate bogeyman.
But the 2025 DOE report confirmed other findings that most extreme weather events in the United States show no long-term trend. Claims that hurricanes, tornadoes and floods are increasing in frequency or intensity collapse upon observation of the historical record.
Hurricane landfalls exhibit no significant upward trend. Despite predictions of coastal flooding, global sea level has risen only about 8 inches since 1900. Acceleration in the rate of rise beyond historical averages is not apparent in U.S. tide gauge measurements.
Even more telling is the measure that matters most: human survival. Data show that death rates from nature’s catastrophes have plummeted over the last century. We are safer from assaults of the elements than at any point in human history.
The irony is that global greening of the past four decades – an expansion of vegetative cover by 11 million square miles – has been driven substantially by rising atmospheric CO₂. The villain in the climate alarmists’ narrative has proven partly responsible for measurable improvements in ecosystems.
There is no question that the climate changes over time or that CO2 influences temperatures, although, as noted, to a diminishing degree as its atmospheric concentration increases. However, the overwhelming evidence is that carbon dioxide is an immensely beneficial molecule – and, as a trace gas in the atmosphere feeding plants and ultimately all life, the more the better.
Highly questionable is whether computer models can dissect climatic complexities – like feedback mechanisms – to justify the wholesale restructuring of the global energy infrastructure.
Viewing the climate issue as unsettled is not to deny science, but rather to respect it. Empirical inquiry thrives on skepticism, on a willingness to question assumptions, on the refusal to treat model outputs as conclusive. To dismiss this centuries-old process is to put at risk the lifestyles and lives of billions.
Originally published in Real Clear Markets on February 6, 2026.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada.
Great article! One small point of clarification…
“Saturation” is often misunderstood. People commonly mean any of three different things when they refer to saturation—and most of those people seem to assume that everyone else means whatever they mean.
1. Prof. Happer cleared up my own confusion about this by explaining what astrophysicists and scientists doing radiative transfer calculations mean by “saturated.” He directed me to this short paper:
https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1967Obs….87..233G (Gussmann, 1967)
Excerpt:
“Saturation in a Fraunhofer line means that with increasing absorption the depression in the line (line depth) is no longer proportional to the optical thickness of the absorbing layer, as in the case of weak absorption.”
(Greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere create “Fraunhoffer lines,” which are the dark lines in an emitting body’s observed emission spectrum caused by absorption by radiatively active gases between source and observer.)
By that definition, the CO2 level is already far past the point of saturation.
2. A second definition is that CO2’s absorption of LW IR is “saturated” if you cannot “see” emissions from the surface of the Earth, when looking down from outer space at 15 µm (where CO2 absorbs and emits most strongly). Even by that definition CO2 is already saturated.
3. But some people think that saying CO2’s effect is “saturated” means that adding more CO2 does not affect temperatures at all. By that definition CO2 is not quite saturated.
Shown in Fig. 7 is the infrared absorption spectrum of Philadelphia inner city air from 400 to 4000 wavenumbers (wns). The gas cell was a 7 cm aluminum cylinder with KBr windows. There are some additional peaks for H2O down to 200 wns. The active greenhouse effect range is from 400 to ca. 700 wns. The concentration of CO2 in the inner city air was not measured. In 1999 at the Mauna Loa Obs. in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 was 368 ppmv (0.72 g CO2/cu. m. of air).
The absorbance of the CO2 peak at 667 wns is 0.025. If the gas cell was 700 cm (23 ft) in length, the absorbance would be 2.5 and 99+% of the IR light would be absorbed, i.e., the absorption of the IR light is saturated. The CO2 is very narrow and is absorbing very little IR light energy which would cause only a very small heating air if at all. In winter greenhouse gases H2O and CO2 hibernate. We really do not have to worry about CO2 causing any global warming.
Fig. 7 was taken from the essay: “Climate Change Reexamined” by chemist Joel M. Kauffman. The essay is 26 pages and can be downloaded for free.
NB: If click on Fig. 7 it will expanded and become clear. Click on the “X” in the circle to contact Fig 7. and return to Comments.
For info and a discussion of the “CO2 saturation effect” see:
“The Saturation of the Infrared Absorption by Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere” by Dieter Schilkneckt: available at:
https://arixv.org/pdf/2004.00708v1
https://arixv.org/labs/2004.00708
He reports that the threshold for the CO2 saturation effect in air is
300 ppmv (0.59 g CO2/cu. m. of air). Any concentration of CO2 above 300 ppmv will not result in any additional heating of the atmosphere.
RE: CO2 Does Not Cause Warming Of Air.
Shown in the chart (See below) are plots of the average annual seasonal temperatures and a plot average annual temperatures at the Furnace Creek weather station in Death Valley from 1922 to 2001. I922 the concentration of CO2 was ca. 303 ppmv (0.59 g CO2/cu. m. of air) and by 2001 it had increased to ca. 371 ppmv (0.73 g CO2/cu. m. of air), but there was no corresponding increase in air temperature at this remote desert. In 2001 Tave was 25.1° C.
The reason there was no increase in air temperature at this arid desert is that absorption of out-going long wavelength IR is saturated. The threshold for the saturation effect for CO2 is 300 ppmv which occurred in 1920.
The chart was taken from the late John L. Daly’s website: “Still Waiting For Greenhouse” available at: http://www.john-daly.com. From the home page, page down to the end and click on “Station Temperature Data”. On the “World Map”, click on “North America” and then page down to:
“U.S.A-Pacific. Finally, scroll down and click on “Death Valley”. To return to the list of weather stations click on the back arrow. Click on the back arrow again to return to the “World Map”. Be sure to check the charts for Oz. Adelaide shows no warming since 1857.
NB: If you click on the chart, it will expand and become clear. Click on the “X” in circle to contract the chart and return to Comments.
Or we could give serious consideration to door #4, which is that thermal radiation absorbed by GHGs is effectively thermalized by collisions within 10m of the Earth’s surface, hence heat transport through the troposphere largely occurs via convection and not in accordance with the phenomenological physics of radiant transfer theory (RTT).
Arguing on the basis of ‘saturation’ effectively means yielding the entire AGW argument to the alarmists.
https://andymaypetrophysicist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Shula_Ott_Collaboration_Rev_5_Multipart_For_Wuwt_16jul2024.pdf
CO2, water vapor and other GHGs are “colorants.” They tint the atmosphere, though in the far infrared, rather than visible part of the spectrum. They absorb radiation which otherwise would’ve escaped to space.
CO2 in the air absorbs IR radiation around 15 µm, which is near the peak of the Planck curve for typical surface temperatures. CO2 in the atmosphere causes the big notch in Earth’s emission spectrum, which I’ve marked in green, here:
Absorbing radiation makes whatever absorbed it (the air, in this case) warmer than it otherwise would have been.
In the case of CO2, there’s already so much of it in the air that additional CO2 does not much change the fraction of radiation from the ground which manages to pass through the atmosphere without being absorbed. It’s basically zero. So adding more CO2 is like adding more dye to a liquid which is already strongly colored by that same dye; the addition has little effect on the color. There’s already so much CO2 in the air that within CO2’s absorption/emission band nearly all of the emissions which escape to space originate from within the atmosphere, not from the Earth’s surface.
Nevertheless, additional CO2 does still have a modest warming effect, due to the tropospheric “lapse rate.”
Adding CO2 to the atmosphere raises the average “emission heights” for those wavelengths that CO2 absorbs and emits. In other words, for wavelengths within that “big green notch,” if you look down at the Earth from orbit, in clear sky conditions, the radiation you “see” coming up originated from GHGs within the atmosphere, not from the surface. The less CO2 there is in the atmosphere, the farther down you can “see” from orbit at those wavelengths. So the more CO2 there is in the air, the higher the average “emission heights” are for those wavelengths.
At the wavelengths near the middle of CO2’s 15µm absorption band, where CO2 absorbs and emits most strongly, raising the emission height has little effect on the intensity (and thus the cooling effect) of those emissions, because the emission height is near the tropopause (where air temperature does not change with altitude).
But at “fringe” wavelengths, where CO2 absorbs only weakly, the “emission heights” are down in the troposphere. So at those wavelengths, raising the emission heights (by adding more CO2) lowers the air temperatures at the emission heights. That, in turn, reduces the amount of radiation emitted. Since emitting radiation to space cools the air which emits it, reducing the emitted radiation reduces the cooling, which raises the average temperature of the air. That’s why the warming effect of added CO2 is mostly due to the fringe wavelengths, where CO2 absorbs and emits only weakly.
That warming effect is modest and benign, but it isn’t zero.
In this diagram from van Wijingaarden and Happer I’ve added blinking purple ovals to draw your attention the the tiny (roughly 3 W/m²) calculated effect on Earth’s radiative balance from doubling the CO2 level in the atmosphere:
‘Adding CO2 to the atmosphere raises the average “emission heights” for those wavelengths that CO2 absorbs and emits. Etc.’
With all due respect, Dave, you’re simply parroting the alarmist narrative, based on the phenomenological physics of radiant transfer theory, which in a nutshell conflates ‘radiance’ with energy transport. They’re different, but don’t take my (or Shula’s) word for it:
“Whether spelled out explicitly or not, the key premise of phenomenological photometry as well as of the phenomenological RTT is that matter interacts with the energy of the electromagnetic field rather than with the electromagnetic field itself. This profoundly false assumption explains the deceitful simplicity of the phenomenological concepts as well as their ultimate failure. Indeed, the very outset of both phenomenological disciplines is the postulation of the existence of the radiance as the primordial physical quantity describing the “instantaneous directional distribution of the radiant energy flow” at a point in space. This is followed by a “derivation” of the scalar RTE on the basis of “simple energy conservation considerations” and the postulation that it is the electromagnetic energy rather than the electromagnetic field that gets scattered by particles and surfaces.”
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012672/downloads/20140012672.pdf
The weather in the UK has been extremely dull. That’s quite normal.
Just like our politicians
and most climate scientists
“The repeated claim that climate science is “settled” overlooks myriad uncertainties, competing mechanisms and computer models that miss the mark when tested against reality.“
The models miss the mark not because the outputs later turned out to differ from observation. They were never capable, from the very start, of diagnosis or prognosis of a climate system response to incremental CO2. These pre-stabilized, large-grid, discrete-layer, step-iterated, parameter-tuned-to-hindcast models were employed in an inherently circular exercise all along as pre-specified “forcing” scenarios are generated. This misuse of the models perhaps SEEMED valid, consistent with the “forcing” + “feedback” FRAMING of the question. But it was a major error to have neglected the rapid buildup of uncertainty as the iteration proceeds.
More here in a comment from last year on that DOE Critical Review report.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/08/24/10328448/#comment-4110125
Thank you for listening.
>> The models miss the mark not because the outputs later turned out to differ from observation.
Actually, for CMIP6 models with a high CO2-sensitivity this is exactly the case! I just had a fun chat with Gemini where I convinced the bot that this means not only the latest high-sensitivity models are wrong (because they fail to match reality), but there are also massive problems with publications using older high-CO2 sensitive models, because they show significantly different trends than the latest and best models. In particular these newer results are outside the confidence intervals of older models, which hints that the uncertainty accessment is flawed (for old and new models of any sensitivity!)
In short: Any publication with model temperature trends needs to be reevaluated!
I think it was Roy Clark that explained that anything using trends from climate models…
… needs to be deposited immediately in the circular file next to the desk
Thank you for taking the time to reply.
“In particular these newer results are outside the confidence intervals of older models, which hints that the uncertainty accessment [sic] is flawed (for old and new models of any sensitivity!)”
Were those “confidence intervals of older models” ever properly considered? No. Pat Frank’s work on this stands the test of time and reason. The resolution of “old and new models of any sensitivity” is far too coarse to be of any value in the investigation. And the successful emulation of model outputs by simplified computation from the scheduled “forcings” demonstrates the circular nature of the entire modeling exercise.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/earth-science/articles/10.3389/feart.2019.00223/full
Absolutely! I am a big fan of Frank’s work!
See also https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370835650_What_I_Learned_about_What_Exxon_Knew
While there is some valid criticism to his work, much of the critique was completely blown out of the water.. as far as I can tell the basic idea of both of his papers is still perfectly valid, even so some numbers might need minor revisions.
Circular is the operative word here. You can’t start with the prediction that CO2 controls temperature, program the model to follow that prediction, then claim that the model is correct. It is only as correct as the original prediction!
Acceleration in the rate of rise beyond historical averages is not
apparent in U.S. tide gauge measurements.
World-wide, acceleration of sea level rise is a minimal 0.01 mm/yr°
the overwhelming evidence is that carbon dioxide is an immensely
beneficial molecule – and, as a trace gas in the atmosphere feeding
plants and ultimately all life, the more the better.
More to the point, carbon dioxide is just as important to life on Earth
as water as demonstrated by its role in photosynthesis producing
simple sugar and oxygen:
6CO₂ + 6H₂O => C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂
Well, if CO2 heats the atmosphere, it’s not enough to measure.
Dr. Happer estimates an ECS of 1.0C, *before* feedbacks are figured in.
ECS
Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity.
How can one establish a sensitivity for an energy system that never achieves equilibrium.
Start with the planet rotates.
Add in the sun is not constant.
The models are simply CO2 is input, IR is transfer function, temperature is output.
That is not an energy model, but that is what they put in place when they altered from studying the climate and engaged in demonstrating how CO2 affects the “global average temperature.”
We all know averaging temperature is bogus, especially given T^4 emissions.
ECS is zero. Scroll up and check out the temperature chart for Death Valley. Presently a cubic meter of air contains a mere 0.84 g of CO2. This small amount of can not cause any warming of air.
Not only that, but the Earth has experienced a glaciation with ten times as much atmospheric CO2.
Which would essentially be impossible if the “climate driving power” of atmospheric CO2 was real as opposed to purely hypothetical.
That is incorrect, Harold. The reason that additional CO2 has only a small warming effect is not because there is so little of it, but rather because there is already so much. CO2 is a colorant, which dyes the atmosphere, making it absorb some of the radiation emitted by the Earth which, in the absence of that CO2, would have escaped to space. It is the cause of the big “notch” in Earth’s measured LW IR emissions around 15 µm (which, since CO2 is greening the Earth, I’ve appropriately indicated in green):
(Also, a nit: 427 ppmv CO2 means that CO2 constitutes 0.0427% of the dry atmosphere by volume, which is 0.06488% by mass. At 1 atm of pressure and 15°C, one cubic meter of dry air masses 1225 grams. 0.06488% of that is 0.795 grams, not 0.84.)
“making it absorb some of the radiation emitted by the Earth which, in the absence of that CO2, would have escaped to space.”
You make it sound as if that CO2 retains absorbed heat forever. Why does CO2 not re-emit absorbed heat so it can eventually escape to space? How does it manage to retain that heat forever?
Pretty much agrees with Dr. James Hansen:
In the idealised situation that the climate response to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 consisted of a uniform temperature change only, with no feedbacks operating (but allowing for the enhanced radiative cooling resulting from the temperature increase), the global warming from GCMs would be around 1.2°C (Hansen et al., 1984; Bony et al., 2006).
IPCC AR4 Chapter 8 Page 631 pdf 43
Thank you for that useful citation, Steve!
Note that their 1.2°C estimate is from an estimated TOA radiative forcing of 3.7 ±0.4 W/m² per doubling of CO2 (from Myhre 1998), which is reduced from the 4.4 W/m² per doubling estimate used in the FAR & SAR reports.
But van Wijingaarden and Happer have identified errors in the calculation of that radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2, the correction of which reduces it even further, to about 3.0 W/m² per doubling of CO2.
(3.0/3.7) × 1.2°C = 0.973°C, which is essentially identical to Happer’s 1.0°C from 3.0 W/m².
That means Hansen and Happer agree that the direct warming effect of a change in TOA radiative forcing is 0.325°C per 1 W/m². I.e., it takes about 3 W/m² to yield warming of 1°C, absent the effects of feedbacks other than Planck feedback.
So, the arguments over the amount of warming to be expected from an increase in atmospheric CO2 level are mostly due to disagreements about feedbacks.
The problem is that many of those feedbacks are very poorly understood. That’s why the CMIP6 models differ from one another by more than a factor of three (!!!) in their baked-in estimates of ECS climate sensitivity. If the modelers knew what they were doing, that’d obviously be impossible.
“…it takes about 3 W/m² to yield warming of 1°C…“
My eyes glaze over when I’m presented with W/m² and I’m sure I’m not alone. So thanks for making the clarification.
It would be great if people posting here and elsewhere about how much warming this or that does or doesn’t cause warming would tell us in degrees or Kelvins how much warming they’re talking about, because W/m² isn’t an expression of temperature.
I have this mental image of an old fashioned pen light shining on the forest floor at midnight.
The “climate issue” isn’t unsettled, it’s fake. It’s as if someone in a crowded theater spotted someone smoking a cigarette and screamed FIRE!
How can a “science” that is wrong all the time be settled ?
Even in fields far removed from academic standards nothing with such a bad track record would be ever called settled.
There are several tests like the one million dollar paranormal challenge.
And while, from time to time people have appeared who have beaten the odds to a significant degree, way outperforming the bold settled climate predictions,
noone ever passed such a test(let alone got a settled status) – for a good reason.
Even the psi- science has higher standards than the settled climate science.
Still a long way to go I am afraid.
My local paper has today just printed a letter praising Michael Mann’ book “Science Under Siege” and saying: “We must prioritise scientific consensus over misinformation when making lifestyle and political choices.”
This is the website, but doesn’t seem to have the letters online:
https://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/
This is the address of the local office of the company which runs about 50 local papers in the UK. Perhaps Vijay Jayaraj could approach them with a rebuttal.
Main Details
Address:
Midweek Herald, Local IQ, Brook House, Winslade Park, Manor Drive, Clyst St Mary, EX5 1FY
Telephone: (01392) 888400
Editor: Tim Lethaby timothy.lethaby@newsquest.co.uk (01823) 365102
News desk: dan.wilkins@newsquest.co.uk
Group HQ: Headquarters Office4th Floor, Queens House
55/56 Lincoln’s Inn Fields
London
WC2A 3LJ
====
The press of course prefers dramatic news and scare stories to boring reality.
“We must prioritise
scientific consensusgroupthink overmisinformationproper scientific method when making lifestyle and political choices.” There – fixed it!“We must prioritise scientific consensus over misinformation when making lifestyle and political choices.”
“We must prioritise emotionalism and hyperbolic misinformation when imposing political control.”
Better.
In science the best available explanation is accepted only until a better one comes along. Nothing is ever “settled” in science. “Settled” implies something is resolve conclusively, not to be questioned. That is the territory of religion, not science.
Hear, hear!
The only time something is settled in science is when the null hypothesis test disproves the hypothesis and the results are repeatable by multiple tests conducted by many different people/organizations.
You can disprove with one test, of course (ref. Einstein quote), but to get consensus you must have multiple tests giving the same results disproving the hypothesis.
Religion isn’t settled either, not by a long shot- of course the faithful of every religion have a right to believe their religion is settled, but doing so isn’t as dangerous as claiming climate science is settled.
No, the problem is far more exlicit. They consider WV feedback to be positive, while it is clearly and definitely negative. That in itself required many mistakes, but for instance in both the regional and seasonal proxy they managed to confuse a positive(!) lapse rate component as evidence for strong positive WV feedback, like in the illustration below..
A Falsification – the incredibly stupid case of water vapor feedback
Water vapor feedback is positive, because warmer temperatures increase absolute humidity and water vapor is a GHG. Lapse rate feedback is negative, because increased temperature & humidity reduces the lapse rate, so the radiative emissions at high altitudes which cool the air there result in greater cooling at the surface.
A big problem is that we cannot quantify those two effects precisely enough to predict their net effect very well.
An even bigger problem is that these calculations necessarily assume clear sky conditions, but about 2/3 of the Earth is covered in clouds at any given time, and cloud feedbacks are very poorly understood.
It’s just as settled as the science of predicting lottery winners….
RGHE science claims that without it Earth would become a 33 C cooler, -19 C, ball of ice. More albedo and the Earth cools, less albedo and the Earth warms. Observable fact. No RGHE means no water vapor, no clouds, no snow, no ice, no oceans and no albedo Earth becoming much like the Moon, a barren rock 400 K lit side, 100 K dark. Geoengineering might demonstrate this as an unintended consequence.
RGHE science requires 100’s of W/m^2 upwelling from the surface radiating as a black body. System temperature is a function of the kinetic heat transfer processes, radiation is a function of that temperature. A BB requires that all energy entering and leaving do so by radiation. That is not the case for the Earth. The greater the participation of the kinetic processes the less radiation per Conduction + Convection + Advection + Latent + Radiation = 100% as demonstrated by experiment, gold standard of classical science.
No BB = No RGHE
So, unsettle me.
Changing the subject to your favorite esoteric handwavium does not count.
Nicholas, what does your statement “No BB = No RGHE” really MEAN to you ? The Earth’s surface emits IR according to the Stephan Boltzmann equation. At 15 C there is a net IR between ground and sky of about 63 Watts.
The balance at ground level in the cartoon is an input of 160 watts of solar heating against the loss of 80 by evaporation and 17 by convection 80+17+63=160, where 63 is the net IR.
I fail to see what is so difficult about this. You seem to be an intelligent person. Yet, you have put your silly yellow comments in WUWT comments a multitude of times. Maybe take as much time to read a few examples of radiative heat transfer calcs using SB…just suggestin’…
DMac, you have no idea what a “Watt” is. There is no such thing as “net IR [in Watts]”. Why not study some actual physics before accusing others of “silly comments”?
“The Earth’s surface emits IR according to the Stephan Boltzmann equation”
No it doesn’t. Why don’t you show us the 400 W/m^2 or so that this claim would predict? With an actual measurement?
“You seem to be an intelligent person”
You, on the other hand, are an undereducated person. Sit down and stay in your lane.
Hmmm….FYI such measurements are made very often…technically an IR thermometer makes such calculations whenever you use one….at least moreso than a mercury thermometer calculates the expansion of mercury….
An IR thermometer is calibrated to deliver a referenced temperature. Flux is inferred by assuming the target is a black body w emissivity, i.e. 1.0. Operators are advised to apply black tape or paint or insert known value.
TFK_bams09 emissivity is 0.16. = 63/396 (16 C BB)
396 is a calculation & is not real neither are the 333 “back” radiation or duplicate 63.
No BB = No RGHE
“such measurements are made very often”
No they aren’t.
“technically an IR thermometer”
You have no idea how that works either.
The 396 is a theoretical BB calculation for the denominator of the emissivity ratio, it is not real.
63/396=0.16.
The 396/333/63 GHE loop is imaginary.
Without this loop there is no GHE.
Ad hominem.
BSME CU Boulder ’78 followed by 35 lucrative years of application in power generation where thermo & heat transfer examples are 24/7.
Nicholas, as a courtesy to your readers, please make it a habit to define your acronyms at first use.
For the convenience of other readers:
You wrote:
The Earth is not a blackbody (so what?), but all energy entering and leaving the Earth is by radiation.
Did you mean “the surface of the Earth,” rather than “the Earth”? If so, that’s true. But all the energy leaving the Earth’s surface by means other than radiation to space is just moved from the surface into the atmosphere, cooling the surface but warming the air.
You wrote:
That’s wrong. The so-called (albeit poorly named) “greenhouse effect” (GHE) has nothing to do with whether the Earth is a blackbody (it isn’t). The GHE is an atmospheric process involving radiatively active gases that are nothing like blackbodies.
Your diagram is wrong, too. You’ve circled “surface radiation” and written, “Entire RGHE… sits on this one number.” But that is incorrect. The GHE is due to absorption and emission of radiation in the atmosphere, not at the surface. You can learn about it here:
https://sealevel.info/learnmore.html?0=physics#brief
As a courtesy to the authors, do the homework.
396 is a BB at 16 C upwelling from the surface. It is the source of both the 333 “back” downwelling radiation and a duplicate 63 upwelling from the surface. Without this theoretical, imaginary, duplicate 396/333/63 power flux loop there is no RGHE.
RGHE theory claims that without it Earth would become 33 C cooler, a -18 C ball of ice.
That is just flat wrong.
RGHE theory requires the surface to radiate “extra” energy as a black body, 396 on TFK_bams09 and similar on scores of clones, e.g. IPCC.
That is just flat wrong.
When the word “settled” is used in the context of climate change it is usually in reference to the fundamental concepts. Humans release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, carbon based molecules absorb IR radiation and impede the transmission of energy, as a result human influence is directly tied to the trapping of energy (ΔEout < 0 resulting in ΔE > 0) in the climate system thus causing it to warm (ΔT = ΔE/(m*c)). Those fundamental concepts are as “settled” as anything else is in physics. What obviously isn’t settled is exactly how much warming will occur and exactly what effects it will have and other minutia of details.
Not true. Willis already showed you increases in CO2 are not causing any warming. The warming is coming from increases in solar energy.
http://nov79.com/gbwm/ntyg.html
Gary Novak
Wow, that is spectacularly wrong!
Mr. Novak wrote, “Heat cannot be trapped in the atmosphere, because it radiates away in femto seconds.”
If that were true, the atmosphere would stay barely above absolute zero.
Actually the average time until emission of a 15 µm photon from a CO2 molecule which has been vibrationally excited with 82.7 meV of energy is about 1 second.
So Mr. Novak is off by between 14 and 15 orders of magnitude. That’s kind of impressive (though not in a good way).
In contrast, at 1 atm, the average time for that same energy to, instead, be collisionally transferred away to another air molecule is only a a couple of nanoseconds. So, whenever a CO2 molecule is vibrationally excited with 82.7 meV of energy, either by absorption of a 15 µm IR photon, or by collision with another air molecule, there’s only about a two-in-a-billion chance that it will emit a 15 µm IR photon as a result.
But that does NOT mean those emissions are minor or inconsequential, because CO2 molecules don’t just lose energy by collisions, they also gain energy by collisions.
A CO2 molecule is about as likely to gain energy by collision with another air molecule as it is to lose it. So the very frequent exchanges of energy between air molecules just mean that the various constituent gases in the atmosphere remain at almost exactly the same temperature, even if some constituent gases are absorbing or emitting radiation, and others are not.
That’s why we can simply refer to “air temperature” rather than having to separately consider N2 temperature, O2 temperature, Ar temperature, CO2 temperature, etc.
It’s that air temperature (and the amount of CO2) which determines the rate at which CO2 in the atmosphere emits 15 µm infrared radiation.
Learn about it here:
https://sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/
“…carbon based molecules absorb IR radiation and impede the transmission of energy…”
Prove this – without hocus pocus.
Impeding the transmission of energy would mean that the CO2 molecule would have to retain the absorbed energy forever. Otherwise that energy *will* get transmitted sooner or later. Heat loss is a TIME function. Radiative flux is a time function also, W/m^2 is actually joules/sec-m^2. Y0u have to integrate over time to find total heat loss. You can’t just look at the in/out radiative flux at time t0 and determine total heat loss but that is what radiative balances in climate science try to do. It’s endemic in using values with a W/m^2 dimensional value. Ask a climate scientist why they don’t calculate total joules in vs total joules out over a time interval, e..g 30 years.
“Radiative flux”
Sit down, Tim. We have established that you have no clue what this phrase means, or what units we should measure it in. Remember?
“Radiation is a FLUX” you said
“Radiation is NOT radiant flux” you ALSO said
Which is it? And is EM “flux” to be measured in Newtons, or Watts? The textbook you sent me says both. Remember?
Give it a rest troll. If you can’t tell me how many joules are in a 100 watt EM wave then it”s *YOU* that have established that you don’t know what you are talkikng about.
“troll”
Violating Anthony’s site policy again?
“100 watt EM wave”
Is that the one you measured with a VOLTmeter? Or a different one?
molecular groups selectively absorb different frequencies….the basis of several types of spectroscopy…on the other hand ”hocus pocus” is not a scientific process.
“and impede the transmission of energy”
That is mantra, not science.
CO2 is part of the atmosphere, and aids in the transmission of energy., just like every other molecule does.
Specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity are kinetic properties of all stuff.
Both are irrelevant to the mechanism through which so-called “greenhouse gases” help warm the Earth’s atmosphere.
‘Those fundamental concepts are as “settled” as anything else is in physics.’
I hope not. If, by ‘fundamental concepts’, you’re referring to the phenomenological physics of radiative transfer theory (RTT), you’re barking up the wrong tree. Real physicists acknowledge that RTT became a physics back-water / island about a century ago.
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20140012672/downloads/20140012672.pdf
All true, bdgwx. But the problem is that climate industry marketers equate the consensus about that basic true fact (that atmospheric CO2 and CH4 have a warming effect) to a fictional consensus that it’s harmful. That’s very dishonest.
In fact, the scientific evidence is compelling that the net effect of CO2 emissions is beneficial.
The “97% consensus” talking point is a shamefully dishonest marketing ploy. Climate industry propagandists who survey scientists never ask whether there’s a “climate crisis” or “emergency,” because they know that if they asked a question like that they’d find nothing resembling a consensus for such a position. So, instead, they ask “gimme” questions, that even most scientists skeptical of climate alarmism will agree with:
More than a century ago, pioneer climatologist and Nobel laurate Svante Arrhenius predicted most of the consequential effects of CO2 emissions. He wrote: “By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
History has proven him right. Rising CO2 levels have been very beneficial, just as he anticipated.
Rising CO2 levels also significantly mitigate drought impacts, which reduces the risk of catastrophic, drought-triggered famines. That’s one of the reasons that, for the first time in human history, catastrophic famines are fading from living memory.
The elimination of catastrophic famines (usually caused by drought) is a very, Very Big Deal. If you doubt it, then consider:
● COVID-19 killed about 0.1% of the world’s population.
● The catastrophic 1918 flu pandemic killed about 2% of the world’s population.
● WWII (the most devastating war in history) killed 2.7% of the world’s population.
● But the near-global drought and famine of 1876-78 (when Arrhenius was 16-18yo) is estimated to have killed about 3.7% of the world’s population.
That doesn’t happen anymore. We still get droughts (though their frequency is down slightly), but they don’t cause such catastrophic famines, even though the world’s farmers now have six times as many mouths to feed.
One of the reasons is that elevated CO2 levels greatly reduce drought impacts, through reduced transpiration and improved water use efficiency by crops, thanks to reduced stomatal conductance.
This is why climate science will never define what the desired climate should be. It’s always just “change is bad”, very similar to Teyve in “Fiddler on the Roof”. Freeman Dyson’s main criticism of climate models was that they were not holistic at all.
Sir thanks much for your input. The truth is that scientists do not state that science is settled. Pseudoscientists, rent seekers and promoters do. And they are those whom the UN deliberately selects to develop “scientific assessments”.
The repeated claim that climate science is “settled” tells you that what is being passed off as “climate science” is not science at all, since real science is NEVER “settled.”
By its very nature, real science is always subject to revision, correction, modification, or even being discarded completely.
The only thing that’s “settled” is their grant money.
The fact that the so -called “climate scientists” have been dismissive of any skepticism for decades tells you they are activists, not scientists, and that their so-called “science” is little more than a political construct.