by Judith Curry
We are starting to see blog discourse making it into academic papers, being the subject of presentations and conference sessions, and the development of blogs specifically to analyze the dynamics of other blogs. So, lets address the question raised in the recent presentation by Franziska Hollender:
What are blogs good for anyways?
WUWT reports on a seminar given by Franziska Hollender based on her MS thesis, entitled The contrarian discourse in the blogosphere – what are blogs good for anyways? The premise behind this study was an interesting one, although the study (focused on the comments for a few posts at WUWT) was rather limited. The key conclusion of the presentation is that “Finally, it is concluded that the climate change discourse has been stifled by the obsession of discussing the science basis and that in order to advance the discourse, there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.“
The ‘obsession with discussing the science basis’ deserves comment. I wish the IPCC were more obsessed with the science basis. But I agree that fatigue is justified regarding skydragon type arguments about the greenhouse effect and second law of thermodynamics. But that kind of discussion seems to have pretty much disappeared from the main stream skeptical blogs? In the recent thread Skeptics: make your best case. Part II , I don’t recall seeing any greenhouse effect refutations, mainly there were discussions about solar, ocean oscillations, sea level rise and other impacts. Is it possible that the blogospheric discussions on the greenhouse effect ( at Climate Etc, Science of Doom, etc) have actually slain the skydragons? And John O’Sullivan’s threats of legal action that resulted in my removing the skydragon threads from Climate Etc. — has this resulted in the burial of the skydragons and arguments that there is no warming of the earth and atmosphere from CO2? If so, this is a major victory for the blogosphere.
Another victory for blog climate science is the land surface temperature data. Owing to the FOIA requests, surfacestations.org, and the Climategate motivated Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, we have much higher confidence in the land surface data set, and better analysis techniques are being developed.
And the overall accountability of climate science is starting to increase, with the growing trend of auditing. Steve McIntyre is the master, with strong contributions from Jeff Id, Lucia, and others.
The staunchest political opponents of curtailing fossil fuel use no longer deny that humans contribute to climate change; the issues are how much relative to natural climate variability, whether warming is ‘bad’ or ‘good’, and whether we can afford to do anything about it in any event.
The public science debate seems to have shifted to extreme weather events, since these are the most ‘visceral’ impacts of a climate change. On this topic, there is plenty of room for genuine scientific debate, which occurs abundantly on the climate blogs. Given the immediacy of the impacts of an extreme event, interviews with scientists and blog discussions arguably have a greater overall impact on the public debate than journal publications and assessment reports.
Seems to me that the climate debate is becoming more sophisticated, as the public science debate focuses on the actual uncertainties and policy makers on both sides of the political spectrum grapple with both economic realities and risks associated with climate variability/change.
JC comment: A few additional comments addressing what I think blogs are good for. Blogs allow for much more rapid discussion of breaking science than the conventional method of conference presentation, journal publication, and subsequent comments in the journal. Not only do blogs engage a wider range of scientists than the say a specialty conference, but they also engage the public on current research. There is also an increasing tendency to use climate blogs for propaganda. Propaganda is pretty much the mission for ClimateDepot, but stealth propaganda is becoming increasingly apparent on the ‘science’ blogs, as revealed by the recent SkS hack of their Forum. NOTE: I use the Wikipedia definition of propaganda here; I realize this term has a range of connotations.
What do I get out of the climate blogs? They keep me up do date on the current literature and issues of interest to the broader public. Because of my blogging, I’ve developed a network with some fantastic people from around the world, with whom I would never have otherwise engaged. I’ve learned alot and broadened my intellectual horizons. And finally, blogging sharpens your written communication skills. To the extent that you engage in the dialogue (I did this more at ClimateAudit and Collide-a-Scape, prior to Climate Etc., than I do now), it sharpens your critical thinking and rhetorical skills.
And finally, its an opportunity to engage in discussing and understanding issues related to the social dynamics of science in the 21st century with social media, extended peer communities, etc. The internet is changing the sociology of science in ways that are rapidly evolving and poorly understood. Engaging in the blogosphere is a way to be part of that.
Simply put, blogs are places where information deliberately ignored by traditional media about a topic can be shared.
Blogs just moved into the void left when traditional media decided to be sources of unhelpful information.
Andrew
Bad Andrew, you mean like this?
We may soon get to see what blogs and other distributed social media are good for.
============
I agree with Pat Caddell, “. . . we’re at the most dangerous time in our political history in terms of the balance of power in the role that the media plays in whether or not we maintain a free democracy or not.”
Is there any hope, Kim, to “see what blogs” can do when votes are counted in the next election?
The step o’erweened, meshuganemeses.
=================
Leo G.
This is exactly what I mean. Thanks for the vid.
Andrew
Leo G, I also thank you for the clip. The 26 minute version is well worth the time. It is important to keep in mind that Pat Caddell is a Democrat who worked as a pollster for several Democratic presidents and campaigns so his criticism of the media carries significant gravitas.
Leo G,
Sadly, yes.
Indeed blogs can be a godsend when the traditional media deliberately ignore a topic. Topics such as,
Did the US government orchestrate 9/11?
Does Obama’s Birth Certificate contain evidence of fabrication?
Did NASA really land men on the Moon in the 60s?
And so on.
While the media does indeed have too much of a monopoly on the choice of topic, the upside has always been that (generally) the media has a better track record of fact checking than the internet.
“the upside has always been that (generally) the media has a better track record of fact checking than the internet.”
_______
You can say that again.
Blogs are like restroom walls. Anyone can write anything.
You can say that again. The media has some acco
untability.
Facts on Japan’s A-bombs are even now leaking out on blogs:
http://tinyurl.com/8rgrbnl
http://personalliberty.com/2012/09/24/propagandizing-the-masses/
Sharing information and debating on most blogs (except the very consensus ones?), ie if you are a psychologist(or his colleagues) it seems, ie one who wrote about Lewandowsky’s work, deleted my comments from a publically funded blog.
And the same psychologist outed my real name in the guardian comments of his own article (I only use an anon user name at the Guardian, less the locals follow me around the internet) . ( I had let the author and other Guardain journalists know my name privately)
The Guardian moderators did remove his comment (but only when I had noticed it and complained.)
Blogs are excellent conduits for generating and propagating conspiracy theories.
Your theory oddly resembles a conspiracy theory!
Always a few nuts around. This is true. But, you must admit that one side believes that the other side is funded by big oil, despite evidence to the contrary.
So this argument cuts both ways.
I agree with this and have noticed in the year or two that I have been commenting here that the skeptical side has completely transitioned to either (1) climate skeptics pushing their own pet hypothesis or theory or (2) a politically-driven agenda. And these aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive views.
Concentrating just on (1), these alternative hypotheses are almost all delusional or
conspiratorial. There are some 40+ of these theories constantly being volunteered, ranging from CO2 is non-anthropogenic, to scientists ignoring the rotation of the earth, to chaos theory overriding any forcing function, to any other convenient rhetorical argument available.
The blog is arguably not useful for anything because no one is trying to sort any of these 40-some theories out. It’s like going to a 9-11 truther site and having to wade through 40 theories of why the WTC buildings collapsed. Or going to a birther site, and finding 40 distinct people each believing that Obama was born in a different country. And then you have all these sockpuppets running around trying to create artificial consensus, or at least raise the level of FUD.
Does anybody besides lolwot, myself and a few others see how absurd that the commenting circus here has become?
Iron Sun, Sky Dragons, Uncertainty Monsters, Hockey Stick-wielders, “fisics” witchcraft, booo! Scary kids! The comments section has really turned into a low-grade crackpot and conspiracy site. For entertainment value, mainly.
Thankful that a meta-post like this has surfaced, as that is also traditional for blogs.
@web hub telescope
Problem I have with your ‘politically driven agenda’, is that I don’t understand why those with such an agenda don’t just argue the politics.
You seem to believe that you have divining powers so that you can winkle out such an agenda at 100 paces.
But if, for example, somebody were to believe that the only way forward after Peak Oil was to ban all petrol-driven vehicles overnight, invade China to shut down all their coal burning power stations (using solar powered night fighters in the process) and throw all Deniers – or even possibly suspected Sceptics – into Guantanamo Mark 2 (organic processes throughout), then why would they spend their time arguing about ‘fake consensus sockpuppets’ or the influence of Uranus on bleaching in coral reefs? Why would they not just go all out and argue their corner?
Latie, You confuse me with someone else. If you can find anyplace on my blog or in my academic writings that I have shown any doomer tendencies, I will like to know about it. A “doomer” is defined as someone that has a negative view of an outcome. I am more of a realist, working at it from a data analytical angle, trying to make sense of numbers with mathematical and modeling approaches that I have picked up over the years.
Unfortunately, I also suffer from the guilty pleasure of being entertained by the assorted contrarians that inhabit the blogosphere.
Listen, you brought up peak oil in this discussion, and the term contrarian is well known in those circles. That along with the term cornucopian is common. In reality, the one blanket alternative climate science theory that seems pervasive is that human technology may figure everything out and that any further discussion is moot. That is an optimistic viewpoint and despite its laziness, does have some benefits in keeping everyone upbeat while striving to reach some murky goal.
But then you see all these same skeptics pooh-poohing every last renewable energy strategy. This really does make you wonder, not about suggesting that the environment will doom us, but that the downer Debbie contrarians are the ones that we have to be concerned about. What exactly is their motivation?
webbie
My example was entirely hypothetical – indeed deliberately nonsensical. i hoped that the reference to ‘solar powered night fighters’ would have been enough to tell you that.
Then you ask
‘ This really does make you wonder, not about suggesting that the environment will doom us, but that the downer Debbie contrarians are the ones that we have to be concerned about. What exactly is their motivation?’
Afraid that so far you haven’t passed the ‘so what’ test. Why should I care about their ‘motivation’? I;m far more worried about the actions of those who actually have the power to do things than about the ‘motivations’ of a bunch of bloggers who don’t.
You however, seem to take the opposite view.
In haste – party time!
I don’t think you have any ‘academic writings – webhubcolonoscope. We know who you are and where you live. So why don’t you prove me wrong and cite some references. We would all like to see something other than what is on your loser blog.
You really can fall for the bait. How supremely gullible of you.
Nicely veiled threat. What a soft touch you have.
Bait? Someone mentioned your name. Seems to fit the profile.
‘Paul Pukite has co-authored 30 refereed papers in various basic and applied research topics dealing with advanced electronics system design and software engineering. His projects have included developing new yield analysis techniques for semiconductor manufacturing, using digital signal processors (DSP) to perform a wide range of computationally intensive statistical analysis tasks that have normally been relegated to supercomputers, and building the Ada expert system and support software that formed the basis of the Redundancy and Reconfiguration Manager (RRM) developed for the Air Force Pave Pillar Integrated Test Bed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. ‘
xxxxxxxxx St NE
Minneapolis, MN
http://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=TgqlMYcAAAAJ&view_op=list_works
As has been said – some technical background but no knowledge of modern physics or anything much else at all. `
With the web it is not difficult. But if you think I would fly from sunny Queensland to Minnesota to see you – you have yet more rocks in your head.
Chief,
We know who you are and where you live.
There are only two R.I. Ellison’ s in the Australian white pages so maybe we could work out where you live too :-)
Clowns snicker at ten year joke;
Finally, some research respect.
=======================
I cannot think why anyone would be the slightest bit interested, but I am Jim Cripwell, I live at 121 Mountbatten Ave Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1H 5V6 telephone 613-733-9601 email address bf906@ncf.ca. My major hobby is doing counted cross stitch embroidery. If anyone wants any other details, all you have to do is ask.
@web hub telescope
Surely you realise that Chiefie is just quoting from the Classics.
‘Who from?’ I hear you cry ‘Whence and whither?’
Why – it’s that cuddly and tolerant organisation of vicious zealots called Greenpeace!
Here’s the original
‘ The proper channels have failed. It’s time for mass civil disobedience to cut off the financial oxygen from denial and skepticism … Let’s talk about what that mass civil disobedience is going to look like.
If you’re one of those who have spent their lives undermining progressive climate legislation, bankrolling junk science, fueling spurious debates around false solutions, and cattle-prodding democratically-elected governments into submission, then hear this:
We know who you are. We know where you live. We know where you work. And we be many, but you be few’
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/03/climate-craziness-of-the-week-greenpeace-posts-threats/
As you no doubt agree…a ‘nicely veiled threat’.
‘We know who you are, we know where you live and we could come after you in ways too horrible to tell. But being the extraordinarily nice chaps we are, we’ve figured a better way to get our own back: We’ve launched our own Monty Python channel on YouTube.’
http://www.youtube.com/user/MontyPython
I will leave the sick fantasies to the humourless drones form greenpeace. greenhouse being many and we few is a typical delusion – and the thought of those dweebs coming to get is laughable. How can they say that seriously? And as you don’t have any science or culture – are humour deprived and therefore ignorant of the classics such as monty python – I will explain. It is a joke at the expense of ganster and criminal regimes who would deny human rights through fear and intimidation.
Did they say that seriously? Just goes to show what sort of an organisation greenpeace is and what a small mind webby has.
Entirely transitioned? Really?? You don’t see any rational skeptics who are lukewarmers who are not entirely convinced of the catastrophic nature of future climate change? Judith is just a nut with an uncertainty monster agenda and Mosher has a political axe to grind?
That says something about the way you look at the world and at anyone who disagrees with you.
Yeah, I’m a lukewarming cooler. I believe CO2 warms the earth and I don’t think we can find enough of it to stave off an ice age. Nothing irrational about that.
I hope microwave transmission of extraterrestrial solar energy will work, but oh, the challenge.
==============
Maybe irises will widen at gorgeous tulip blooms.
=================================
Ok, what does it say about me? That I am observant?
The monster theme started with McKitrick and Essex, who called the estimation of global temperature T-REX.
It was supposed to be some out-of-control beast that no one could get a handle on. It has further devolved since then.
Web, would you mind sharing your thoughts on, as you say, ” Hockey Stick-wielders”.
Maybe the wielder of the hockey-stick was a delinquent teenager. They are without peer when it comes to using imagery to increase FUD.
it’s been an interesting transition. In the begining my perception, much like Muller’s, was that there were some legit questions about certain matters.
let’s just take the temperature record. looking at the issues and then actually reading the science it seemed clear that the job was not done well. I’ll take one simple issue. Methods testing. in both CRU and GISS there was no paper showing that the methods actually worked on synthetic data ( where truth is known) and no papers showing how the methods compared to STANDARD PROVEN geostatistical methods.
It gets even worse. CRU, for example, uses one method (proven) for one dataset (TS 2) and another homegrown unproven untested method for the global average ( HADCRUT and CRUTEMP). So, it looked like it was worthwhile to investigate. to at least suspend judgement ( the correct skeptical response ). As long as skeptics stayed on those grounds I had some patience with them and praise for them. But something has changed in the past few years. More and more I see this form of skepticism replaced with crackpottery. I see them spouting theories and speculation. If they practiced the same critical minds against their own ideas that they (we) employed against mann or Jones, they’d see how silly they look. On hand arguing that the climate is too complex to understand and on the other hand arguing that the alignment of venus explains it all.. or land change explains it, or AMO, or gremlins.
They look at a climate science that gets the answers 80% right and call it a failure. And Then they produce questionable charts that “explain” the global temperature and pretend that they have explained the ‘climate”.
They say its the sun stupid, but can’t even begin to explain how the LIA happened or the MWP. The sun explains everything. ya. and how does it explain a shrinking arctic ice cover and a growing antarctic amount of ice.
oh ya.. that’s explained by natural variation.. another utterly EMPTY explanation. Doctor: ‘ you have cancer!” patient: “how’d i get cancer?”
Doctor: what’s to explain, many people get cancer, its totally normal.!
Grade: A+
Yes, very reasonable. This, for those who don’t know the history, from a former skeptic, mosher, who was at the center of the FOIA request bombardment of CRU organized at Climate Audit prior to Climategate. I don’t know why JC has not made a similar transition after seeing what goes on at this blog in terms of skeptical arguments.
Hi Steven
What, no ‘go figure’?
That is a transformation, whole essay.
So here is one to ‘go figure ‘
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
I started with Dr Jan P Perlwitz of NASA on the WUWT’s towards the end of Svalgaard-on-the-new-scientist-solar-max-story thread
Steve, the issue is ignorance. Not having a better explanation for A does not mean that A isn’t wrong.
“More and more I see this form of skepticism replaced with crackpottery. I see them spouting theories and speculation. If they practiced the same critical minds against their own ideas that they (we) employed against mann or Jones, they’d see how silly they look.”
Yup. I made a transition last year based on this observation. This blog and others have helped me focus on what the state of the science is and isn’t. You, Steve, have been particularly helpful. Thanks for your input.
gets the answers 80% right
I can say the earth is flat and I can get very good answers over long distances. I’m a lot better than 80% even at continental scales.
A flat earth can be used to model most civil engineering problems. Even at the scale of the Verrazano Bridge, the distance between the towers is 1.4 inches further apart at the top due to the curvature of the earth than if it was flat. So a flat earth assumption would be correct to 0.1 feet in 4260 feet, or about 99.998%. A flat earth model can be useful, and even allow for highly accurate calculations, but it’s accuracy doesn’t prove the model.
The test of a model is in it’s inaccuracies.
For inference a Bayesian type approach is needed. By that I don’t mean any specific method but rather a generic way of looking at evidence and at the lack of evidence. By that I mean that it’s very important to figure out why we lack evidence.
In particular we must think whether we would lack evidence in all alternative cases. The previous thread on solar influence provides an example of that. The present conclusion was stated as lack for evidence on important solar influence. My question is: Would we still lack evidence, if the solar influence were strong? My personal view is that we would not. Thus I do think that lack of evidence is actually evidence on the lack of major influence in this case.
Drawing conclusions in that way is prone to erring, but dismissing this kind of reasoning is also often wrong. The first error is towards too much confidence the second supports excessive skepticism. Honesty requires equal effort to avoid both errors.
Yes, A +
> The issue is ignorance. Not having a better explanation for A does not mean that A isn’t wrong.
The last sentence appeals to ignorance.
So the first sentence is at best trivial.
” … can’t even begin to explain how the LIA happened or the MWP”
So what’s your explanation for these ? NO irrelevant links or cryptically ungrammatic replies, please
” ” … can’t even begin to explain how the LIA happened or the MWP”
So what’s your explanation for these ? NO irrelevant links or cryptically ungrammatic replies, please”
Well, MWP is around average temperature [or cooler] for Holocene.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene
Graph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
There has been some cooler periods such as LIA. The graph indicates that during this interglacial, LIA has been coolest period.
We know CO2 had nothing to do with LIA. There were some very large volcanic eruption in this period and there was long periods low solar activity- both these seemed to some effect upon cooling, and there may be other reasons.
The difference is that these crackpot skeptics are offering their personal opinions. Warmists are reaching for our wallets. Your’e diminishing your own personal brand by expressing your frustration and disdain. If you believe you can express the official establishment warmist line more clearly to the public, then do so. If the numbers are there then it will happen. But beware. The one skill warmists are most lacking in is the ability to communicate. You are a brilliant polymath and a treasure but you also miss this ability. So far.
Steven, you know the whole story. So how did Jones ‘dump’ the records UEA/CRU logged in-what was there? In this mystery where did they bury the ‘body’? It would make a great story too. Why has this question never been addressed? Why didn’t Jones give it to some Prince of a guy to put in his library? Everything is collectable these days, ask the Queen.
Simple question, really. Who really thinks we understand the sun well enough to rule it out as a cause of millenial scale climate variation?
Line up on either side of that, please, and be orderly about it.
==================
Rasey said:
That is what is referred to as first-order physics. The idea is that first-order physics can be used to explain the overall climate response. Energy is conserved, so to estimate the amount of heat that is added to the earth based on a GHG forcing function does not necessarily require perfect GCM-style climate models.
First-order physics can also be used to discredit lots of alternative models. The vast majority of the crackpot models posted here can be easily refuted by a few first-order principles.
So, what exactly is your point?
That’s a huge distinction. “Personal opinions” have no place in pure scientific discourse, which should be totally objective. For the majority of the crackpot theories, each can be dismissed via objective criteria.
Judith
“curryja | September 29, 2012 at 5:56 pm |
Steve, the issue is ignorance. Not having a better explanation for A does not mean that A isn’t wrong.
#######################
yes the issue is ignorance. My position is this: A is wrong. A will always be wrong. But one needs to understand the concept of relative wrongness.
Our best explanation will always be wrong in some regard, but that doesnt mean its not the best explanation! and the mere logical possibility that gremlins might be the prime mover does not raise gremlinology to the status of an explanation.
So, I would argue that the current explanation is the best explanation.
where I differ from other AGW folks is here.
I think more resources need to be put on alternative explanations. The easiest person to fool is yourself. This means you have to have a dedicated red team. This means people inside AGW need to be asking themselves the nasty questions some skeptics raise. Back in the day we used to hire guys to specifically be the team ‘skeptic.’ Of course since he reported to the same boss if he was a dick there was always a remedy.
Ideally, this function would have an independent reporting structure. but science isnt exactly a corporation. It might function better in some regards if it were
willard.
Rather than simply pointing out the “appeal to ignorance” see how you get a better argument by embracing the ignorance. We reason to the best explanation. that said, glad to see you and MT on board for holism.
Holism is winning. Of course when I made these arguments years ago on RC, I was somehow labelled a skeptic. go figure.
We know CO2 had nothing to do with LIA. … – gbaikie
I read a paper by somebody who thinks widespread death due to diseases brought by early explorers from Europe resulted in massive reforestation in North America, which dropped atmospheric CO2 and contributed to the LIA.
In my viewpoint, had modern science been around at the time there would be no mystery to it and regardless of the cause it would have no bearing on the current problem. It’s a major distraction.
Ya, moshe, if a red team did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.
=============
> Rather than simply pointing out the “appeal to ignorance” see how you get a better argument by embracing the ignorance.
Indeed, there are lots of people who sells ignorance, for instance:
http://confusionofideas.blogspot.ca/2005/08/salting-mine.html
The expression “salting the mine” has been brought to my attention by Eli.
Let’s all embrace ignorance. It leads to a lukewarm bliss, after all.
” JCH | September 30, 2012 at 1:35 pm |
We know CO2 had nothing to do with LIA. … – gbaikie
I read a paper by somebody who thinks widespread death due to diseases brought by early explorers from Europe resulted in massive reforestation in North America, which dropped atmospheric CO2 and contributed to the LIA.”
Ok, my “we know” was little over the top.
I don’t think we know enough about global CO2 levels, particularly just prior and during LIA.
And if it was up to me, I think understanding what caused the LIA would the top priority of understanding “global climate”.
What causes cooling seems far more important than what causes warming.
LIA seems unique and near in terms history of global climate, and the record in ice cores in temperate zone is disappearing- so now seems a lot better than later.
Webby, the climate jester, completely ignores sciences. All responses to skeptics were empty hot air and shown to be unable to understand sciences. Webby can only do some BS writing.
Oh yeah, the contrarian impulse is very deep on this commenting site. Even the most well-accepted tenets of climate science are disputed, such as the origins of excess CO2 in our atmosphere.
Watch now as all the contrarians come out of the woodwork to deny this very obvious fact.
You are not a global warming contrarian so you don’t dispute that it’s the Sun, stupid. Good to know.
I didn’t see you on Web’s list of climate clowns. If he’s excluded you, I think that’s unfair. You should protest.
About Wagathon. He is not on the Climate Clown list because he has no alternate theory for us to dismiss. I would position him as an ordinary skeptic, with some politically-motivated viewpoints. It’s hard to refute politics or policy as that is subjective, and the use of rhetorical arguments turns it into a quagmire. It’s so much easier to refute bad science.
BTW, there is nothing wrong with asserting that one is concerned about uncertainty quantification. Guess who is representative of that position? I thought that was the original orientation of this blog. Perhaps referring to it as an uncertainty monster attracts all sorts of crackpots. They seem to find monsters hiding under everything.
“I would position him as an ordinary skeptic, with some politically-motivated viewpoints.”
______
I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a pretend skeptic trying to make political motivation into comedy.
“well-accepted tenets”
A scientific-minded person is actually more interested in evidence and method than unthinking acceptance of tenets.
Andrew
Au contrarian, that is how it starts.
As a case in point, every comment should eventually devolve into a question of the origin of gravity, as its foundation is not truly understood. See Springer yap away for an example. Or Manuel for a crackpot version of this. I will pass.
Webby, why choose The Gravity Analogy? Why not go with something more appropriate like maybe a Primordial Soup and Lightning Analogy? How about The Face On Mars?
Andrew
One of the favored Climate Etc skeptics, the one that other skeptics never seem to want to debunk, is a guy named Harry Dale Huffman. Huffman has other theories, one of which involves aliens and why the shape of the Australian continent looks like an upside-down sheepdog (his wacko Erich von Däniken-like idea here. There is your “Face on Mars” guy, you deal with him.
This is he crowd that you have immersed yourself into, and if you want to dissociate yourself from these clowns, you have to make the effort.
Of course you can call these guys trolls, but apparently the Skeptic Go!Team has reserved the word troll to describe the mainstream science people that comment here.
Or you could go with The Multiverse Theory Analogy which means everything everywhere is true, just to cover your bases.
Andrew
Every day, in every way, the globe is getting warmer and warmer.
===============
Yes, the analogy is the “stick your fingers in your ears” theory or to hum really loudly when someone tells you something that you prefer to avoid addressing.
There are so many elephants in this room as to be embarrassing.
Skeptics have no practical alternate theory and simply maintain a contrarian viewpoint. That is essentially all you have and why you will never make any traction.
Or you could do the “Found The Missing Link Again” Analogy.
Andrew
WebHubTelescope | September 29, 2012 at 12:56 pm | Reply
“I will pass.”
I wish.
WebHubTelescope | September 29, 2012 at 1:35 pm |
“One of the favored Climate Etc skeptics, the one that other skeptics never seem to want to debunk, is a guy named Harry Dale Huffman.”
Untrue. I’ve called him out (and other less flattering names) on enough occasions to make my opinion clear. Probably easiest to find where I did that on Roy Spencer’s blog. So’ve a number of other skeptics. I don’t play favorites. If it sounds like bs I call it bs.
I also decided to ask Oliver Manuel some pointed questions about the iron sun like what percent type G main sequence stars (which are 8% of all stars in our galaxy) are pulsar core since supernovae that produce the cores are only twice per century events in our galaxy, and how a fast spinning neutron star (seconds or even milliseconds rotational speed) wouldn’t produce some detectable artifact at that frequency in magnetic or electromagnetic fields we would have seen, or how a neutron star could be at the core of the sun when the Chandresekar Limit prohibits neutron stars of less than 1.38 solar masses.
The Chandresekar Limit explanation I believe is some major revision to standard model to explain it. Strength of gravity, neutron repulsion, and mass of the sun are pretty well established by theory and/or repeated experiment.
Springer,
You would yell at passing clouds. Big whoop.
Old man + Clouds
” Even the most well-accepted tenets of climate science are disputed….”
“Noun: A principle or belief, esp. one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy.”
A gaffe is when a CAGW progressive drone accidentally speaks the truth.
Newton called his document “Principia Mathematica”.
I don’t know much Latin, but does that not translate to Principles of Math?
Could he have called it Tenets of Math?
Do I have a Doctor of Philosophy degree?.
Did I not develop some principles based on a scientific philosophy? Why I believe I did, thank you very much.
Left with nothing, they argue over crumbs.
Weeb,
“Even the most well-accepted tenets of climate science are disputed..”
Gee, isn’t that a defining criteria of science? Isn’t that the motto of the Royal Society?
As for ‘excess’ plant food in the atmosphere, I think most here would agree that mans contribution as compared to say, ocean out-gassing, natural decomposition etc., our contribution would be hard to distinguish in the seasonal variations at Mauna Loa. Alarmist constantly talk about the tonnage we put into the air but never ever talk about the tonnage that nature continues to put up there and takes back, let alone the weight of the entire atmosphere.
What part of Holocene OPTIMUM due you fail to understand? And why the hell would you want to saddle your progeny with trillions in debt to end this interglacial?
John another wacko,
That is not a scientific question, that is a policy question.
That is easy to show. Atmospheric CO2 variations will breathe with the seasons as that is the long-term steady-state response to a sinusoidal forcing.. On the other hand, an excess forcing as described by a ramp function, emanating from long buried carbon deposits, will show an asymptotic response function which will also resemble a ramp. (technically a convolution of the ramp with a response function)
If you have further questions, I have the conventional science of this behavior described on my BLOG:
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2012/03/co2-outgassing-model.html
Scroll to the end where I describe the seasonal variations in the Mauna Loa curve.
This is what BLOGs are good for.
John A.
Yr: “And why in the hell would you want to saddle your progeny with trillions of debt to end this interglacial?”
I believe, John, in seeking the answer to your question, it might be of value to consider the whole of the troll-bot, hive-bozo infestation that regularly descends on this blog.
In particular, we now know from the Skeptical Science hack that our hive-worthies refer to themselves as the “crusher crew” (astonishingly, these momma’s-boy geek-balls favor bad-ass, hombre-dude, tough-guy palaver, like “crusher crew”, utterly at odds with the weenie-dork, wanker reality of their existence–not that they aren’t a nasty bunch if they can get off a no-risk, drive-by cheap-shot).
And, through the above hack, we have also learned that the “crusher crew” networks internationally so that they can play tag-team with the time-zones as they pursue their berets-at-a-rakish-angle-clinched-fists-AK-47s-that-have-never-seen-a-bore-brush-or-cleaning-patch-held-high-thank-you-for-not-smoking-no-cigar-Che-wannabe, blogospheric “guerilla wars”.
And those wearing the “crusher” colors appear to be typical, lefty useful-fools and witting-tools:
-Web–A mono-maniac, crazy ol’ coot with way too much time on his hands (my counterpart on the left). Primarily an ideological addition to the “crew”, though, undoubtedly, his recruitment was lubricated with generous, well-oiled, unctuous, oh-thank-you!-thank-you! ego-strokes of the “gee-Web!-you-are-an-unrecognized-genius-and-if-you-make-yourself-useful-to-our-little-CAGW-scam-we’ll-pretend-to-take-your-doofus-weirdo-obsessions-seriously variety.
-tempterrain–a social-climbing bounder whose nose for the main-chance led him to throw in his lot with the “crushers” thinking it his best shot at gaining the favorable notice of his considerable betters. And remember, at the time temp made his big-move he had the inspiring example, immediately before him, of some totally improbable, riff-raff nobodies scoring, for their work on behalf of the CAGW scam, any number of jackpot prizes like, oh say, a noble “title” and a seat in the House of Lords and all. Unfortunately, for ol’ temp, though, his timing was a bit off and he failed to get in on the “ground floor” of the CAGW con and missed out on all the really good deals–which leaves him, lately, pretty much going through the motions and marking time until he can opportunistically latch onto (belatedly, we can be sure–temp is, unfortunately for his megalomania, a hive-hack follower and not a forward-thinking leader or entrepreneur) another of his betters’, scare-mongering hustles.
lolwot–A brazen gofer, only too pleased to be a low-rent, servile errand-boy for his masters as long as the job is a low-stress one, entails no accountability, and provides his isn’t-lolwot-just-a-too-precious-laid-back-feckless-sloth!, “goof-off” needs with continuous, immediate gratification. And that lolwot’s current employment also allows him a regular sucking, snorting, slurping dip of his useless-eater snout into the high-carbon swill that fills one or another of the hive’s pay-off troughs, reserved for those eco-hypocrite sell-outs who labor to impose, top-down-Philosopher-King-style, a low-carbon lifestyle on us despised, expendable serfs while doing demon-carbon proud in their own, CO2 spew, party-time-blow-out version of the daily grind, is just gravy for lolwot’s already super good deal–gravy-train gravy. .
-Michael, fan, Robert, et al.–standard-issue, hive-has-beens employed on a throw-a-bone-to-the-guts-hanging-over-their-belts-super-annuated-hive-geezers basis, as ants-at-a-picnic or mosquito-like, annoying pests. Not real members of the “crushers” but aging hive-duffers who, in their prime, fit the vulnerable-Delinquent-Teenager, whiny-little-snot, suck-up-teacher’s-pet, tattle-tale, obnoxious-class-clown, spastic-dork profile so coveted by the hive’s youth-master talent-scouts, but who have since out-lived their usefulness as kid-extras in the hive’s street-theater extravaganzas.
Which gets us, John, to the whole point of the greenshirts’ troll-centric, freak-show, razzle-dazzle plots, intrigues, and tactical maneuverings for advantage. In particular, a multi-generational, multi-trillion-dollar debt burden on your and my progeny is an “asset” to the debt-holders and a tool by which us “little guys” and our descendants can be ground-down to a material penury and a brave-new-helotry for the make-a-buck, power-and-control enrichment of our betters. I mean, like, CO2-gluttony and carbon-pig piggery only achieves its sweetest “high” when there is a groaning, destitute mass of contemptible have-nots as an audience to one’s Philosopher-King conspicuous consumption.
And realizing our betters’ plans for a neo-feudal, top-down scientific-socialism provides a choice employment for those quisling, watermelonish lumpen-enablers who can stomach the whole dirty business.
I think that’s the answer to your question, John.
Thanks Mike for the insight into the emotionally incontinent creatures that ride the moral high unicorns into imaginary battle with the very people who would help them keep the highest of ideals, Science; its requirement of accountability, I have long labored under the belief that Science was intended to be the the system of thought that demanded accountability.
P.S. The alarmist gotta be really POd that neither Obama or Biden trotted out the Unicorn that feeds on plant food in their debates.
Sometimes, it is when something is not allowed to be said that is the most revealing of underlying truth.
Then let’s let scientists bear the cost next time.
http://news.yahoo.com/asteroid-dust-could-fight-climate-change-earth-132248031.html
Thank you Web, I feel better too.
Only some of us are paying the price of global warming pseudo science and if skeptics are disregarded everyone will bear the cost.
I can only speak for myself on this question. People often ask why I don’t write more for the journals. One big reason is that I want to affect the ongoing scientific dialog. In climate science, that dialog has mostly shifted from the traditional platform of journals and letters to the blogs. I want to discuss things while the topic is hot, not six months later in some journal.
For me, another reason I write for the blogs is that I get immediate feedback on and identification of my errors and sins of omission and commission. This is hugely valuable for me, as it allows me to avoid blind alleys and prevents me from wasting months on incorrect ideas.
w.
If you are on the team, it’s often not six months, it’s six days (at least for rebuttals of articles you don’t like).
> I can only speak for myself on this question.
As opposed to which question?
Willis
Your endeavors are much appreciated, giving new insights. Especially your thermostat hypothesis, and your identification of rainfall trends vs warming changing with latitude. And mistakes are to be made and identified. e.g., “To Engineer is Human”. Thomas Edison observed: “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety nine percent perspiration.”
Keep up your efforts.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
@Judith Curry
” … can we afford to do anything about it in any event.”
This omits the most important part of “mitigation vs adaptation”:
What to do ? WITHOUT arm-waving, use practical numbers. I’m aware that quite recently SMc (McIntyre) suggested that no-one knew what to do … probably true
Each reply I have seen so far (in over 20 years) has a cost, both in $$$ and/or reduced living standards. These costs are generally fudged, avoided or ignored. The actual state-of-play for alternative sources of energy is generally fudged, avoided or ignored
Apart from that very real issue, I agree with your summary of the effect of blogs on the course of public argument – quite positive
Yes, the main issues for me, a non-scientist, are: if there is further warming, will it be “catastrophic”? I’ve never seen that demonstrated. So are there actually grounds for reducing emissions? If so, would emissions-reductions actually bring about a significant change in outcomes? What are the cost and benefits of various actions, including no action or measures which enhance our capacity to adapt?
Again as a non-scientist, I haven’t been convinced by what I’ve read over the last 20-odd years that there is a serious problem in train, and that focusing efforts on reducing GHG emissions is the best use of human resources.
Re the value of blogs, I have a much better basis for taking a position on the “catastrophic”, uncertainty and CBA issues than I had. And, for the record, before I was ill for umpteen years, I did look at the scientific literature, much of which I could follow although there are areas where I don’t have the expertise to understand or evaluate. And I have been exposed to many of the surrounding issues. Hollender says: “there needs to be a change in how science as an ideology is communicated and enacted.“ Some issues there – is science an ideology? How do you enact an ideology? We’ve certainly seen in the climate science area many who feel that their understanding of the science empowers them to drive policies with huge ramifications, of which they know little and have no authority to impose. The blogosphere has played a great role in throwing light on the broader ramifications arising from climate issues. And it’s led me to broaden my general reading, e.g. with Kuhn and Taleb.
It’s also a bit of fun if you’re a bit housebound.
Faustino,
Your questions are excellent:
The fact these questions are not being answered by the CAGW Alarmists – in fact they don’t want to address them – is a clear demonstration to me that the evidence to support their cries of catastrophe is weak.
I agree. That is my position too.
I agree.
ianl8888
I agree. I’ve also been in this for well over 20 years, and have had the sem experience. I’ve had researchers like Mark Diesendorf (wind), Stephen Kaneff (solar thermal dish), David Mills (solar thermal trough), and many others telling those who manage the government funding program managers for energy research “wind/solar is baseload capable now and cost competitive with fossil fuels/nuclear now, if the stupid government and stupid bureaucrats would just give us more money so we can make it happen“.
Yes indeed. Diesendorf in particular writes in such a manner as to defy any meaning
And you can see the responses here to this issue: Kim tries an utterly dense and silly joke (arm waving) and the few remaining replies studiously avoid the issue
SMc is right – nobody knows what to do
Ianl8888,
I agree with all that. BTW, here is Mark Diesendorf’s response to my critique of the paper h co authored “100 renewable electricity for Australia“:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/27/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-response-to-lang/#comment-152532
Here is my critique that the is responding to:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2012/02/09/100-renewable-electricity-for-australia-the-cost/
If it weren’t for blogs, the globe would have warmed catastrophically in the last decade and it would be YOUR fault.
================================
So true. All that hot air goes into the void of the world wide web, an alternate universe actually, in full accord with the 3rd law of thermodynamics. Naturally this heat “is missing” from our little corner of our universe. I think you have solved it, Kim!! I see a Nobel in your future.
Yah, yah, but lissen up. This is the HOTTEST decade EVAH!, and if you don’t sacrifice your virgin now, well, it’s already too late, anyway, and it’s because you married her off yesterday for the dowry, you greedy despicable thing, you.
=======
Storms be upon you until you sacrifice.
=============
> Propaganda is pretty much the mission for ClimateDepot, but stealth propaganda is becoming increasingly apparent on the ‘science’ blogs, as revealed by the recent SkS hack of their Forum.
The auditing sciences might very well be optimal strategy for stealth advocacy.
Crickets.
The Medium is the Message. First comes the epiphany that global warming is a hoax. Then, comes the blog.
Wagathon | September 29, 2012 at 11:45 am |
In strict McLuhanism, you’ve just pronounced that blogs are a hoax.
Which bears thinking about.
Although, the irony that you choose to make false statements on blogs itself tends to confirm your unintentional pronouncement just a bit more.
Have you ever read McLuhan?
It is not possible for a blog to be a hoax. Unless of course this is just a dream and none of us exist.
If blogs can’t be hoaxes, media can’t be messages.
It is never about identity. At it’s root an explanation based on an intuitive observation of behavior. For example, the rails came before the locomotive. But there was no need for rails without a locomotive so the idea of a locomotive came first. But, the idea of a locomotive did not result in the building of rails. Not even the idea of transporting people and things. The rail system is the Medium. What is the Message? Manifest Destiny.
Thank you for your significant contribution.
…toward what?
Hay, this is science today!
…as opposed to what… voodoo?
> Toward what?
The more you write, Wagathon, the more you’re discovering that Mc Luhan’s slogan was pushing the limits of disingeniousness by conflating material and formal modes.
If you can make “media” a thing then you can turn a thing into media. Ask any Leftist that wears the flag on his arse if that ain’t protected speech. Google “Wikipedia Piss Christ” and ask yourself if artist Andres Serrano would do the same with a Quran. In that example, it’s not a religious artifact that is the Medium. It is what the artist feels free to do with one object but fears to do with the other object that is the Medium. And, the Message? The Message is that when the Left undermines the principles of Americanism in undermines individual liberty.
Material reality as a leftist conspiracy.
Thank you for your contribution, Wagathon.
Do you believe in reality outside the physical world?
Doth thee slip ingenious for ingenuous?
==================
I think he may be opposed to disestablishmentglobalwarmingism.
Clearly, an antidisestablishmentalarmysticist.
========================
Why would I be against anything?
Please, continue.
Fascinating.
Don’t laugh now, but then again, don’t let me stop you.
================
Do you ever wonder why banging your head against the wall of denial doesn’t stop the pain? Speaking of wonder, now that’s a real pain.
==================
It has never been anything more than Meta-World Global Warming Gadflies vs. Antidisestablishmentcapitalism Movement…
As the schoolteachers are trying to save the world from America skeptics are trying to save the country from the secular, socialist Government-Education Complex?
The truth is out there, Wagathon.
Go get it.
***
A parlor, kim, is a dance
It’s not about the win,
so keep your spit
and move your cold feet:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/4003586377
Bang, bang, all fall down,
Rise on up and bang agown.
==================
“The climate that we experience results both from ordered forcing [nominally, it’s the Sun, stupid] and chaotic behaviour [shit happens—e.g., if Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull blows its top or when the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators as described by Nikola Scafetta drops Maxwell’s Silver Hammer down on our collective heads], the result of a system with characteristics of each [Bang! Bang!]. In forecasting prospective climate changes for the next century, the focus has been on the ordered system’s responses to anthropogenic forcing. The chaotic component may be much harder to predict, but at this point it is not known how important it will be.” (Rind, D. 1999 “Complexity and Climate”. Science, 284, 105-107)
What if the blogs substituted for journals where the executive summary and some key analyses were presented in draft and ‘final’ online, and later the whole thing was in produced print. The reputation of the author(s) would be controlling.
Pressure makes diamonds.
Nothing false can hide long when exposed to the withering light of truth.
Blogs are where truths are exposed to the withering dim of fallacy.
I do not agree with what you blog, but I will mildly defend if it takes no effort on my part your right to blog it, if it isn’t too obscenely harmful.
And so, to my testimonial. (Note all testimonial is a form of propaganda.)
I tried WUWT. I’m assured by its fans that since the long ago days I shook the dust of that virulent den of hypocrisy and ignorance that it’s become much better than it was. I still won’t give it my slender web traffic, and so far as I can tell it never improves, is unhealthy, and makes you unhappy.
I’ve learned a lot from Climate Etc. I purposely try to limit myself to just one blog, as let’s face it reading blogs too much is painful, poisonous and a waste of time that could better be used otherwise.
Climate Etc. has hosted topics that have led me to research to confirm or disconfirm (by a ratio of about 1:99) what has been posted here about climate science and policy, or physics, or mathematics. It’s led me to review and discover what has been posted here about meta-topics (or because of the form of what has been posted) much about rhetoric, fallacy, propaganda, salesmanship, marketing, cults and the psychology of conspiracy theorists, pronoia and paranoia. I’m thankful to our host for providing such fertile grounds to promote learning and literacy on these subjects.
Climate Etc. led me back to my academic roots in Economics, and by debate over topics in climate’s economic impacts, to the policy options I’d recommend were it in my power. This blog led me also back to older roots, to Newton & Halley’s Principia, clarifying the questions of how to settle Science.
Not all readers of this blog appear to move forward from their starting point at quite the same learning rate, and some appear to only rivet themselves more and more securely to their errors of logic and abuses of reason.
Blogs can develop community, which is often a good thing; were it not for cliques and cults, peer pressure, mob mentality and groupthink, it would be invariably a great thing.
Blogs can be the place where individual effort, where the voice of one single free soul, can best find a place, a fulcrum, and a lever from whence to move the world.
Compared to the dross of the mass media’s own rhetoric, fallacy, propaganda, salesmanship, marketing, cults, conspiracy theorists, pronoia and paranoia, blogs come off no worse than the commercial or government sponsored (how difficult it is to tell the difference, with the veil drawn back on the incestuous relationships of campaign funders and candidates) television or press.
And for academics, failing to be aware of the discourse in blogs is very nearly an attitude that courts failure. All academic papers are part of the aabaan of discovery, energized by ideas in the current state of knowledge. Still, they can’t be considered very significant, for all that, even in the narrow question of must an author search blogs for relevant content while researching their work.
Wow, next time i get discouraged about the blog, i will come back and read your comment!
Yes, that is quite a sophisticated analysis by Bart R.
Personally I would rather contribute to a blog like the Azimuth Project, but like everything else, quality does not come with a response time of less than a minute.
This is more like a Twitter feed, w/o the char limit.
It’s comments like this makes you part of my fantasy draft, BartR:
http://neverendingaudit.tumblr.com/post/32570224262
As I’ve noted before I am, at times, regretful that I invented the internet.
“I wish the IPCC were more obsessed with the science basis.”
Brutal!
I don’t care what everyone else says about you, you’re a gem.
@JC: I wish the IPCC were more obsessed with the science basis.
To paraphrase Rumsfeld, the IPCC goes to press with the science it has—not the science it wants or wishes to have at a later time.
The IPCC’s task should be to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. (Telling the whole truth would be like that Russian mystic in Indy 4 wanting to “know everything.”) It is not the IPCC’s job to develop the science beyond the contributors’ understanding of it.
Although this was understood in the TAR.
‘The climate system is a coupled non-linear chaotic system, and therefore the long-term prediction of future climate states is not possible. Rather the focus must be upon the prediction of the probability distribution of the system’s future possible states by the generation of ensembles of model solutions. Addressing adequately the statistical nature of climate is computationally intensive and requires the application of new methods of model diagnosis, but such statistical information is essential.’ http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/501.htm
I have to conclude that it is a mixed message and therefore the IPCC is a mixed up media.
BTW – the bit you missed in the NASA PDO/ENSO page is that ENSO is non-stationary and non-Gaussian – so not just a simple 2 to 7 year oscillation.
‘This study uses proxy climate records derived from paleoclimate data to investigate the long-term behaviour of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). During the past 400 years, climate shifts associated with changes in the PDO are shown to have occurred with a similar frequency to those documented in the 20th Century. Importantly, phase changes in the PDO have a propensity to coincide with changes in the relative frequency of ENSO events, where the positive phase of the PDO is associated with an enhanced frequency of El Niño events, while the negative phase is shown to be more favourable for the development of La Niña events.’ http://www.agu.org/journals/abs/2006/2005GL025052.shtml
Focusing all of IPCC’s efforts on WG1 (rather than WG2 and WG3) was the intent of my original remark. The IPCC assesses confidence of our understanding of our science. And their failure to admit that there are unknown unknowns and gloss lightly over the known unknowns is where the problem lies. The recent SREX report was a step in the right direction.
You’ve put your finger on something, Vaughn, just what I’m not sure. The IPlCC goes to war with the science it wishes it had.
======================================
Well, you and Judy both. It took both your comments for me to understand that the IPCC engages in wishful thinking.
My, how luxurious.
==================
If wishes were forces, clouds wouldn’t form,
To shadow the daydreams of painted strong horses.
======================
J.C:
What do I get out of the climate blogs?
Less and less as time goes by.
Not that you need my advice but this is what I said few hours ago in the previous thread
This was an excellent opportunity to ascertain the extent of the ‘skeptics’ knowledge, or at least of those frequenting this blog.
She may feel let down, but there is always a hope.
Time for a new thread ?
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/27/effects-of-solar-variability-on-climate/#comment-246241
And hey presto, not only we get a new bog, but the relevant reflection.
I deny any responsibility.
Blogs such as this one, WUWT, Lucia’s, and others have taken control from the climate science community. They can no longer pick and choose what information gets out, other than to refuse FOIA requests, and more importantly, they can’t, like the Pope, feed people only their interpretation of climate science.
As far as “no Greenhouse atmosphere refutations” appeared, I have yet to see a definition of a “greenhouse atmosphere” that does not involve an inherent contradiction.
This small difficulty seems to be of no concern to anyone; Gerhard Gerlich and Gerhard Kramm might be possible exceptions, they seem to have given up worrying about it, maybe I should too
Our hostess writes “has this resulted in the burial of the skydragons and arguments that there is no (significant -my insert-) warming of the earth and atmosphere from CO2? If so, this is a major victory for the blogosphere.”
I sincerely hope not; if I can just add the word “significant” before “warming”. I have always argued that there is insufficient empirical data to support the idea that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has a significant effect on global temperatures. The case for CAGW. so far as I can see, is based on highly dubious physics, and the output of non-validated models. I suppose that until I see convincing empirical data that proves conclusively that adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes global temperatures to rise, I will proudly remain a skydragon. And I will contimue to believe that changes in the magnetic effects of the sun are the principle driver of the earth’s climate.
On the issue of what are blogs good for, speaking for myself, I have learned a very great deal from reading and contributing to blogs. I have made many mistakes in my comments, and I have learned from these mistakes. That is what life is all about.
The skydragons are a specific subspecies of skeptic that don’t believe infrared photons can be absorbed by the surface, contrary to a century of physics, Einstein and all that.
“The skydragons are a specific subspecies of skeptic that don’t believe infrared photons can be absorbed by the surface, contrary to a century of physics, Einstein and all that.”
The point is does it cause heat and how much.
Greenhouse effects are mostly about the reduction of convective cooling.
A warm surface doesn’t lose much heat to warm air, as compared to cooler air.
The warm air of greenhouse is becoming closer to the temperature of the surface warmed by sunlight, and warmed surface loses less energy
to the warmed air. There is limit to how warm a surface can be warmed by sunlight which dependent upon the solar flux intensity [watts per square meter] and CO2 or any greenhouse gas does not increase the temperature beyond this point. If CO2 did, we would have new source of energy. Or in other words, sunlight will heat surface to about 80 C, if greenhouse gas to could add 20 C, so a heated surface could be 100 C- that enough difference to change our global energy production.
So the question is how much does 400 or 1000 ppm of CO2 increase the surface temperature? If you think it adds 1 C, how much does 1,000,000 ppm of CO2 add? Or 5 atm of pure CO2 add?
The control knob of global temperature is the skin surface temperature- if you decrease or increase this temperature it changes the air temperature.
Now, it’s possible CO2 prevents heat from leaving during the nite and increasing night time temperatures- but it seems to me at best to be a rather minor effect.
Removing all the CO2 from the atmosphere would plunge the world into a deep ice age. It’s that important.
“lolwot | September 29, 2012 at 2:39 pm |
Removing all the CO2 from the atmosphere would plunge the world into a deep ice age. It’s that important.”
It’s seems nature has done a great job at removing CO2 from Earth’s atmosphere; it’s 99.96% free of CO2.
Any planet in this universe which has atmosphere lacking so little CO2, should cause one to suspect it has life.
Assuming the planet isn’t so hot or cold to allow CO2 gas.
Second we are in a great ice age, and recently we had as little as it being 99.98% free of CO2. And life on land would cease to exist if it was more 99.99% free of CO2 in our atmosphere. It seems with human around, we never get beyond 99.99% free of CO2- as humans are very dangerous predator and will resist something attempting to kill it.
But as far as thought experiment, we can’t get 99.9999999999% free of CO2 or have all CO2 removed from the environment unless we were to do some pretty extraordinary measures. First we have to do something about the massive quantities of CO2 in the ocean. That could possible be done by freezing the ocean. Next we have stop the small quantities of CO2 falling into the Earth from space- it’s only somewhere around a few tons per year, but it adds up over time. But guess the hard part is stopping volcanoes from emitting CO2. And as Biosphere II discovered microbial life makes a lot of CO2.
It’s a lot trouble, but freezing the ocean, was the right direction, I think the easiest way to get rid of CO2 from the Atmosphere, would to freeze the entire planet, so block the sun, so Earth’s average was about 100 K
most CO2 freeze out and the nitrogen atmosphere can remain a gas at 100 K.
But we back to CO2 following temperature.
And with earth at 100 K and the you stopped blocking the sun, one would once again get rising CO2 levels. Though such an exercise, might get rid of the cockroaches.
The problem is the no CO2. The Moon gets to near absolute freezing in it’s ever dark craters, has no atmosphere, yet still has some CO2 in what one could call the Moon atmosphere- there are some gas molecules bouncing around on it’s surface. I think it’s mostly Hydrogen and Oxygen, but if we could measure it, I wouldn’t be surprised if there more than 400 ppm of CO2.
The skydragons painted themselves into the logical corner of not accepting standard physics. They realized that accepting that the ground can absorb infrared photons leads in a few steps to acceptance of the basics of AGW. It is a slippery slope, so they stepped off it completely, and invented their own physics.
“And John O’Sullivan’s threats of legal action that resulted in my removing the skydragon threads from Climate Etc. — has this resulted in the burial of the skydragons and arguments that there is no warming of the earth and atmosphere from CO2? If so, this is a major victory for the blogosphere.”
The blogosphere giveth and the blogosphere taketh away. John O’Sullivan would have born and died in obscurity if it weren’t for self-publishing and viral reproduction rate of same that the internet enables. It’s why I sometimes regret inventing it.
I’m not completely convinced they’re wrong, by the way. Loschmidt’s Gravito-Thermal Effect has not been disproven and in the only experimental test of it (Graeff) it appears to be real. Loschmidt was no piker. He was a peer of Maxwell and Boltzmann in the golden age of classical physics. Maxwell and Boltzmann simply outnumbered him in effect waving their hands saying it violates 2LoT. I can find no violation of 2LoT in the Gravito-Thermal effect because it doesn’t persist. Drawing energy out of a gravitatinoally confined column of air causes its volume to reduce so your hypothetical cold & hot sides meet in an incompressible puddle of cold gas at the bottom of the well. You might just was well put the cold side of your heat engine above the column in outer space behind a sun-shield and use the 3K cosmic background for your heat sink as it’ll work better and doesn’t rely on the G-T effect. Aside from not being able to find a way to use the G-T effect to construct a perpetuum mobile of the second kind, a PM2K is not prohibited by physics which is why everyone keeps looking for one. Maxwell’s Demon may very well manifest himself in the weirdness of gravity. The G-T effect isn’t half as passing strange as time and mass dilation/contraction in gravity fields fercrisakes and those latter two are very well confirmed and used in everyday technology such as the GPS receiver in your cell phone. And speaking of cell phones don’t even get me started on quantuum weirdness. The flash memory in that same cell phone relies on matter being able to disappear in one location and magically appear in another which is essentially what quantum tunnelling is all about.
There’s more in heaven and earth, Curry, than is dreamed of in your philosophy. The Skydragons IMO were bullied out of relevance by popular blog owners banning them more than anything else. If you can’t refute them then silence them. An age old tradition that is still in wide use today. If you don’t like the guy on the public corner on his soapbox then buy the soapbox and evict him. Nice. In all fairness though I think you’ve exercised more restraint in the bully department than most blog owners. Good for you.
David Springer
Graef’s work on the 2nd law gravity and temperature was a delightful discovery. Graeff’s Second Law Lecture
A key to his experiment and results was damping convection by porous media.
It was shown by H Weyl (and probably others) that if there was some substance that responded to gravity differently than everything else, then that difference, no matter how small, could be used as the basis for the construction of a perpetual motion machine of the second kind.
I think a basis for the “Gravito-Thermal Effect” could be constructed out of abstract non equilibrium thermodynamics (generalized forces and fluxes), and then probably rejected by the same based on entropy considerations
A perpetuum mobile of the second kind already exists if black holes and Hawking Radiation exist. A black hole, via Hawking Radiation, completely converts matter to energy. Just set a Crook’s Radiometer in the photonic breeze coming from the black hole and you have your PM2K. It’ll keep spinning until the hole stops radiating which is to say when the hole disappears. Interestingly gravity is the great enabler in this scenario too.
There’s no law of physics that prohibits complete conversion of mass to energy. The first law, conservation, is the inviolable one. If the device produces more work out than energy goes in then it’s a perpetuum mobile of the first kind.
I believe this proves in principle, at least as far as black holes and Hawking Radiation are proven in principle, that gravity will enable complete conversion of matter to energy. The Gravito-Thermo driven PM2K will have the same constraint. We could continue removing energy from our column, reducing its temperature while gravity continues to supply a gradient, until the column reaches absolute zero in temperature and disappears from the universe just as the black hole does.
Maxwell and Boltzmann didn’t know about black holes and Hawking radiation. Perhaps if they had they may have been more open to Locschmidt’s argument.
If this happens in finite time I would have to convince myself that the second law still holds. Right now I’m doubtful.
Off to a birthday party for my neighbor, good night.
Maybe ‘taken control’ is going a bit too far (yet??). But the climatologists no longer have everything their own way. The awful spectacle of Gergis et al (and now Lewandowsky and his acolytes) should have been a truly sobering moment for them all.
For here was a paper, announced with great fanfare in the press, that had spent at least a year making its way through the traditional peer/pal review process until it was in a fit state to publish. The authors even had the ‘confidence’ – which was hard to distinguish from arrogance – to give a sharp and dismissive reply to a polite query from Steve McIntyre. They were pretty convinced that this would be the paper that cemented their careers.
But – like the Ford Edsel – it bombed. It lasted (from memory) four days in the blogosphere until it had to be humiliatingly ‘put on hold’, then ‘withdrawn’. Despite promises that it would be back in July, then September it has not yet resurfaced…and one would not have to be too imaginative to suspect that we may never see it again.
The true significance lies not in the welcome puncturing of the egos of some ‘scientists’ who should have known better, but in the fact that those wielding the needle are outside of traditional climate science. If the blogosphere had not existed, another myth – of an Austaralsian hockey stick – would have been added unchallenged to the climate narrative.
So climatologists everywhere who have traded on the myth ‘Trust Us – We’re Climate Scientists’ must surely know that they and their ork are under intense external scrutiny as never before. My guess is that many – particularly the older, well-published practitioners – will simply fade away, unable to bring their work up to the standard now needed.
And in the future? We are surely not far away from the state where publication in the blogosphere, rather than in traditional journals starts to become part of the scientfic mainstream. There wil, of ocurse, be Deniers…well-funded by Big Journals and deploying tactics of FUD learnt in the tobacco wars of the 1960s. But they too will be powerless in the face of the immense distributed power of the bloggers. The barrier to entry of the blogosphere is almost nil.
“In the recent thread Skeptics: make your best case. Part II , I don’t recall seeing any greenhouse effect refutations, mainly there were discussions about solar, ocean oscillations, sea level rise and other impacts. Is it possible that the blogospheric discussions on the greenhouse effect ( at Climate Etc, Science of Doom, etc) have actually slain the skydragons? And John O’Sullivan’s threats of legal action that resulted in my removing the skydragon threads from Climate Etc. — has this resulted in the burial of the skydragons and arguments that there is no warming of the earth and atmosphere from CO2? If so, this is a major victory for the blogosphere.”
It seems to me that what keeps the Earth warm is mostly matter of heat capacity. And the Earth atmosphere including CO2 doesn’t warm to surface skin temperature. And that earth’s skin temperature largely warms the atmosphere. And that CO2 levels are not a knob that controls Earth’s average temperature- that CO2 doesn’t explain the interglacial and glacier periods in last 10 million years or so.
And the general idea that we could approach Venus like conditions, due to CO2 levels is delusional. Or that high CO2 levels would protect us entering cooling periods is plan without any hope.
It seems quite obvious that in the past, rising CO2 levels follow warming.
And that [as is accepted] the greenhouse effect is largely about water.
It seems without question that clouds [water] can prevent nights from becoming cooler. And that the “warming” from the greenhouse effect is largely about preventing nights from becoming cooler, rather than causing days become warmer.
It seems understood that if you put a greenhouse on the Moon, one could have problem with the greenhouse becoming hotter than any greenhouse on Earth. [This btw, is easily manageable depending upon a greenhouse design, so one have any temperature desired.]
This due there being more solar energy per square meter on the Moon than on Earth. Or if put a slab of steel or concrete on the lunar surface the sunlight will warm it around 120 C. On Earth if you heat slab or steel or concrete [using heaters] to 120 C, then stop heating it, leave it in direct sunlight, it will cool down to somewhere around 80 C.
So due to Earth’s atmosphere inhibiting sunlight from heating the surface, Earth can never get as hot as the Moon. Though obviously the Moon’s average night and day temperature is colder than Earth.
If you wanted to increase the Moon’s average temperature, one add something that stores heat [increase it’s heat capacity]. Water could do this. If on the Moon you were to make a large swimming pool with glass roof, the temperature of the water would cooler than daytime surface temperature and warmer than nighttime surface temperature- it would have a higher average temperature than the rest of lunar surface. Or it would have a “greenhouse effect” which has nothing to do with any kind of gases.
The consensus, peer reviewed, clique gets to officially decide what is proof. When the data goes along with their theory, that is when they decide it is proof. When the data goes against their theory, that is when they decide it is not proof. Lack of warming since 1998 is plenty of proof that is ignored by the consensus, peer reviewed, clique and the media.
Yes, CO2 is not driving temperature. It is the water in all its states.
I expect that thee are many readers like me. Not contributing much. Just learning. –and most often using it as a starting point.
I agree with the thought that we have gained much understanding. However, what we have come to understand most is that there are more variables and we are less sure of anything.
Dr. Curry’s monster keeps growing.
It’s a long way from those halcyon/depressing days of
‘There is no debate. The Science is Settled’.
I see blogs having been a major cause of educating the public on the fallacies and weaknesses in the climate alarmists scientific evidence and arguments. Consequently there has been a major decline in public enthusiasm for draconian action to mitigate fossil fuel use and burying our resources in the largest economic black hole ever conceived.
See: Gallup poll
Recent alarmism on weather extremes probably contributed to this recent small rise. I expect that will damp down when the reality of larger natural variations is publicized. (i.e., climate persistence or Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics.)
Examine evidence and Debate Policies
Providing a forum for public debate on climate science and policy is a major boon to free societies. Exposing the harsh consequences of climate policies helps. e.g. Greek Electricity System Faces Collapse
Germany’s politicians took a knee jerk reaction to shut down nuclear power. Consequently:
Note the contrast: Media ignore German coal plants, tout propaganda film ‘Fuel’
Applying level headed engineering analyses and publicly debating the consequences of climate policies BEFORE needing such drastic corrective action to avoid catastrophic grid failure would be far better.
For real life consequences of NOT addressing engineering concerns over power capacity, see India having to double spending on its grid the world’s largest grid collapse, and Pakistan’s endemic energy crisis.
Greater understanding of complex systems is especially needed. “Small” problems can cause catastrophic consequences such as the 2003 power grid collapses. e.g. failure to trim trees caused branches to contact transmission lines, causing shorts, power surges and regional blackout. http://fglongatt.org.ve/Archivos/Archivos/SP_II/pwrs_05_blackout.pdf
The well meaning “green” “Renewable Fuel Standard” is now amplifying corn prices, which will likely increase farm bankruptcies this year. Worse, it is increasing poverty, and hunger among children among the billion people going hungry in developing countries – all with NO greenhouse benefit.
David,
I noticed a post over at think progress http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/09/29/929441/what-america-can-learn-from-australias-new-clean-energy-future-package/
that had a couple of interesting comments:
1) “Australia has also paid close attention to the issue of fairness across the economy. In particular, the government thought about how to ensure that poorer households were protected from potentially higher energy costs. The country also put in a program to shield energy-intensive industries from the carbon price….”
2) “Fairness” is a vital component of any policy deal. Australia had a long discussion nationally about how to create a fair approach. The country utilized various tools such as carbon policy and tax policy to protect households from any higher energy costs and shield energy-intensive industries from competitiveness concerns. Like Australia, the United States has a wide divergence of economic circumstances, both in households and on the industry side. The Australian plan shows that with political leadership and time, effective solutions can be found.”
Out here in mostly sunny CA we too have been concerned about how to “ensure poorer households were protected from potentially higher energy costs”. In our case the word “potentially” is no longer used as we are aware that to provide the politically preferred energy sources the costs have gone up. We are experienced in removing the relationship between the costs of providing electrical service from what one pays for the service for certain populations in the state. Unfortunately, the investors in the RE plants still want to be paid for their investments that are leading to the higher cost energy, so the differential in what the protected group pays vs what the unprotected group pays for service is growing. This is leading to a reevaluation of how to determine Fairness.
Exactly, Latimer!! The cracks in the CAGW theory are getting wider. I feel this is due to blogs run by Dr. Curry, Anthony Watts, Steve M. and others( Jo Nova, Lucia, TAV et al). Where else does contrary info come ?
Like DarrlyB, I too have learned a lot here, and on the other blogs. I was driven to read the blogs by the almost daily pattern of science news reporting. A study or report is announced, on Arctic warming, or climate refugees, or whatever. I look on Google News for various perspectives on the item. What I usually find are 50 or 100 sources repeating the same information, with the only difference being a competition to see who can attach the most alarming headline to the piece. Often, it’s only by reading on several blogs that I can discover critical thinking applied to the subject at issue.
Lets remember that it’s blogs that convinced skeptics that arctic sea ice was growing after 2007. They were wrong.
Less reliance on blogs and more listening to the experts would have helped there.
This is crank, and evidence of how far the charade has traveled
Also of course it was blogs that convinced skeptics the surface temperature records were all bogus. Then along came Muller to confirm what Hansen, Phil Jones, etc had already published.
Again, less reliance on blog hearsay and conspiracies and more listening and learning from the experts would have helped there.
Muller’s portrait belongs on a $3-bill, Al Gore’s, on a $4
The surface temperature record before satellites came along is woefully incomplete for the task of a establishing a global average temperature for the lower troposphere. As as result it’s a pencil-whipped nightmare of attempts to massage the data into something that can detect hundreths of a degree per decade change in restricted regions like ConUS and Europe. The farther back in time you go the sketchier it gets. No honest informed broker in this debate is going to contest that.
This is what blogs are good for. Someone can collect data on an interesting climate record, say ice-out dates on a set of geographically dispersed lakes. Then one can plot this ice-out date as a function of time going back at least a hundred years and perhaps more.
http://theoilconundrum.blogspot.com/2012/09/lake-ice-out-dates-earlier-and-earlier.html
This proxy metric doesn’t get sketchier the further back you go.
Data like this then gets added to the knowledge base.
I don’t know who thought “temperature records were all bogus.” What I thought was “temperature records were all subject to undisclosed sources of error.” I’ve never doubted there has been warming, but I have greatly doubted our ability to describe that warming. And BEST has done nothing to assuage those doubts.
By it’s very nature, BEST’s work cannot hope to answer some of the fundamental questions of the surface temperature record. It only looks at temperature over land, meaning it misses 70% of the world. Attempting to compare it to records that (purport to) measure the entire globe is fraught with difficulties.
Nevermind that BEST’s work in no way disproves anything about UHI, as it’s analysis of UHI was borked. Nevermind it appears not to have disproved anything about station citing, as further analysis of that topic has suggested the standards used for it were woefully imprecise. And finally, nevermind that BEST’s work fails a basic validation check proposed by its own proponents. The spatial correlations for temperatures in BEST’s work are inconsistent over time, directly disputing a fundamental assumption they make. This means either an underlying assumption they make is completely wrong, or their approach fails to appropriately correct for spatial distribution issues.
Does BEST’s work “prove warming has happened”? Sure. But a lot of us never doubted that. What we doubted is how much warming has happened and how well we can describe that warming (especially as using a single temperature value for the entire globe is incredibly imprecise). BEST does little to address that.
For the people who said the planet hadn’t warmed at all, BEST discredits them. For the people who said there are systematic problems creating uncertainties that could be upwards of 20% at any given point, it does very little.
As a follow-up to my comment, I should point out a 20% uncertainty means a lot more than it might seem. The reason for is the uncertainty I describe is not necessarily random. There are some reasons to think it’s distribution varies over time, and thus it’s effect is non-uniform. Taken to its extreme, this could mean the “true temperature” was 20% or more higher in the past but 20%+ lower in more recent times. That means half the warming trend we’ve seen could be due to methodological problems.
Do I expect to find that large an error? No. But I can’t rule it out. And more importantly, as long as the possibility of such an error exists, the record is incredibly imprecise. Imprecision in it means any attempt to explain warming via correlations/modeling is subject to a large uncertainty that pretty much never gets discussed. Saying certain climate models hindcast well means a lot less if what they hindcast the wrong answer!
I don’t think I ought to need to do this, but to head off possible issues, I want to clarify something. I support BEST’s work. I would support them expanding their work to cover ocean records. I just want them to also expand their work by addressing issues they haven’t yet addressed. I don’t believe their work is “good enough” to stop working on things.
Well, that and I’d like them to quit doing PR things they cannot possibly support. Some of the PR nonsense they’ve pulled is completely unjustifiable, and it’s been bad enough that I’ve found myself not defending their scientific work at times simply because I cannot defend their PR. That’s a terrible sign for any scientific group.
wow. where does one start.
1. the land temperature uncertainty has been reduced greatly by BEST.
This was done the old fashioned way: using proven BLUE methods.
2. Adding the ocean data is pretty simple. What you will see is that the uncertainty is dominated by the ocean component.
3. Changing corelations over time? Hmm, somebody doesnt understand the math.
4. UHI. I love how people argue the result is wrong without actually showing that. There’s more to come on that so stand by. Bottom line:
UHI is always going to be hard to find because on average its pretty
small. However, if you only look at mega cities then it can be large.
5. Station quality. Sorry but I’ve been looking at that data since 2007.
a) there is no study that actually shows a measured difference
between CRN1 and CRN5.
b) of course everytime people find no difference the definitions
change.
c) nobody who has published on this has actually supplied the
the raw data and methods used to make evaluations.
In the end I think people would do well to start top down.
how much cooler do you think the LIA was?
how important is precision in this record?
Steven Mosher, your responses are as useless as you ever are. Your points 1 and 2 are irrelevant as they contradict nothing I’ve said. Your point 3 is wrong, and even Zeke has acknowledge the issue I raise holds merit (he said he would get back to me, but I suspect he got distracted and forgot). Even if he didn’t agree, anyone who examined what you and I have said on the matter would see you are wrong. As for your point 4, I’ve never given an estimate for UHI, and I honestly don’t know what it’d be. However, I am extremely confident BEST’s claims on the matter are quite wrong.
As for a dialogue with you, I’ve tried several times before. You were an ass, and you refused to provide any useful information. I’m not overly inclined to subject myself to abuse simply because you feel you know what questions are and are not allowed to be asked. I’m certainly not inclined to do so when you tell people to check sources then ignore them when they point out the sources don’t say what you claim they say.
I’ve made my primary issue with BEST’s results clear. You can dismiss it out-of-hand saying I don’t “understand the math,” or you can do something to address it. If all you can offer is insults and haughtiness in response to valid concerns, you’re too pathetic to waste time on.
Here’s a simple measure of a man. I asked questions. Do you answer them? I raised issues. Do you address them? If you say no to both, which you have (repeatedly), you’re a useless wretch who should just shut up.
Brandon, You are asking questions of one of the few people that understands how to deal with massive amounts of data.
Though your question is not entirely clear, you are apparently asking for some “useful information” from Mosh and company. My suggestion is: why don’t you do the analysis yourself?
WehHubTelescope, I consider you more of a waste of time than Steve Mosher, but you raise a (somewhat) valid question, so I’ll answer it.
As it happens, I live in an area where internet is not readily available. In fact, the only internet connections I can get involve rather severe bandwidth limits. I basically have to pay for everything I do on the internet. That means downloading a bunch of data and code just to do something members of the BEST team ought to have already done costs me money. I’d have to pay money to do what they’ve gotten funding to do!
If I lived in a different area, or if I could somehow get as much data as I wanted for free, I’d be happy to do more work. I just don’t intend to spend money on doing things simply because other people have been too apathetic to do the work they were paid to do!
That makes sense, Brandon. You spend your money (and not doubt, many hours of your time) to complain about the work of others, make accusations about how poorly they did their work, and point out flaws in their work that you feel are obvious. But you don’t want to spend money to actually prove your claims and justify your complaints by actually doing the work – and in so doing, make a very valuable contribution to the science (with the notoriety that would follow) and to the debate about how to protect the climate from irrevocable change.
Makes total sense.
As a follow-up to my response to WebHubTelescope, I should point out a user on this site, Rattus Norvegicus, once offered to send me a copy of all the BEST data. I don’t know him, and I think I disagree with him about many things, but he was willing to spend money to send me data. i didn’t take him up on his offer as I found what I needed (at the time) in a small file, but I do greatly appreciate the offer. Quite frankly, I was shocked to find someone who disagreed with me was willing to spend (a little) money in order to convince me, a random stranger, of his view.
I think Rattus Norvgeicus is wrong in many ways, but he convinced me there are people who disagree with me that deserve my undying respect. I can’t appropriately express my gratitude for such people, but I hope they know I do appreciate them.
I think Mosh volunteers much of his time and effort.
Ploink. Next poseur punk in line, please.
Joshua, I assume you are being sarcastic. If I’m wrong, I apologize.
The truth is I have spent a fair amount of time examining the BEST results. I talked to Zeke Hausfather about my concerns, and he (seemed to) acknowledge they were valid. In fact, he said one of the main members of the BEST team looked at the matters I was worried about and did some analysis of them. He then said he would get back to me on that very issue.
I never heard back from Zeke. My assumption has been he got distracted/forgot about my concerns. I understand that. I don’t hold it against him. I just accept that until someone addresses my concerns, they are left unaddressed. That means they are an unquantified source of uncertainty.
You claim “notoriety would follow” from me proving my concerns are apt. I don’t agree. I don’t think there is any reason to believe raising my concerns would get me attention of any sort. Even if they did, I don’t care for “notoriety.” All I care is for BEST to do the work they were paid to do. I’d be happy to help, but quite frankly, I think they’re better qualified to do the work.
I’ve done enough work to prove my concerns are legitimate. Zeke offered to address them. He failed to. That’s all there is to it. There is a legitimate source of uncertainty in the BEST results that BESt has failed to address.
Whether or not I have the time, money or skill to figure out the impact of that issue in no way changes the fact it is an issue.
Blogs can result in an exchange of ideas and perhaps find some answers more quickly. It also allows the expose of some really bad work and perhaps by embarrassing the proponents retract it. But that is wishful thinking as many of these seem to be of the pachyderm class. I refer to the likes of Lewandowsky and Mann.
@ Mosher.
You claim there is no study showing a difference between CRN1 and CRN5 and that there is no published data.
You will be pleased to learn that Anthony Watts has indeed carried out that study for the USA. There are significant differences with classes 1 and 2 , which are the best sites being totally different to the remaining classes. This is particularly so when airports are excluded. The data is available to you.
This covers both your points 4 and 5.
The BEST study combined class 1,2, and 3 T sites contrary to the latest suggested protocols.
@ Brandon Shollenberger
I am totally with you. Climatology claims to be a science but after 100 years it still has no clear falsifiable hypothesis or empirical evidence to support it. As soon as it was politicised by the likes of Hansen at al, who have admitted to exaggeration in the interests of humanity, then orthodox science takes a back seat if not being shunted right out the door.
Extracting an hypothesis from Hansen’s 1988 paper or the IPCC model forecasts and adjusting for actual CO2 all of them have proved to be wrong and thus falsify the hypothesis.
Using Hansen’s own papers, the post war T increase just does not match his formula. An increase of CO2 from about 310 to 392 ppm would cause an increase 0.9 deg C. According to IPCC the total increase over the last 250 years is only 0.7 deg.
Even this is being generous as it assumes there has been no underlying T increase from the mid 17th century little ice age minimum.
The energy model itself seems absurd. I wonder why no one has been able to harness the 333 w/m2 back-radiation (that is apart from the Spaniards who found a way to pump electricity “from solar panels” into their power grid at night!!!! )
If one actually tries to see the effect of such back radiation it just is not there – Casper steals it. Try it with a 60 watts incandescent lamp as a comparison (test 12cm from the filament). The difference is quite noticeable- whether one uses a thermometer, water or back of your wrist. Unmistakeable difference!
Perhaps a bit off topic but it seems to fit this spot.
@Brandon Shollenberger: I have greatly doubted our ability to describe that warming.
I don’t understand what you mean by this. What exactly would constitute a “description” of that warming that would satisfy you?
Vaughan Pratt, I’d want to know how much of that warming happened over what periods, as well as how much total warming there was. Ideally, I’d also want to know how much warming happened in what regions, but that’d require more than a single temperature value.
It doesn’t mean much to say the “planet has warmed.” Unless you can describe where and how much it warmed, it’s basically useless.
Thanks, Brandon. If I’ve understood you correctly, that’s very clear.
One thing I don’t see how to obtain from the global land-sea temperature record is how much of the heating should be attributed to water vapor increasing with rising temperature.
However if climate sensitivity is defined to include that as a positive feedback, then presumably it shouldn’t matter, since presumably we only care about the resulting temperature and not the no-feedback sensitivity, which is not something anyone expects to be able to confirm by measurement.
Does it reeally matter Pratt – the temperature is derived from the surface water temperature or from satellites.
We’d expect to measure at least some portion of the feedback from climate sensitivities in our temperature readings. After all, feedbacks begin affecting things immediately. There’s just no way to tell how much of what we see is from feedbacks as opposed to direct forcings. There’s no way to tell if 95% of the warming we see is is from direct forcings, or if it’s just 60% (or some other value).
As it stands, the only thing that can give us a measure of (total) climate sensitivity is climate modeling, and the state of climate models is terrible. And unless we can get a better surface temperature record, climate models are pretty much guaranteed to be terrible as when they hindcast, they’ll be hindcasting things we don’t even know to be true.
As for the no-feedback sensitivity, it is basically a myth. We know it could never be measured, but we’re expected to believe it is a minimum limit. The problem with that idea is there are negative feedbacks, so it is (theoretically) possible for the total feedback to be less than it. If we have no measure of feedbacks, the no-feedback sensitivity is practically useless.
In the end, matters are far more complicated than usually portrayed, and if people don’t address the complexity, their answers are without value.
@BS: the only thing that can give us a measure of (total) climate sensitivity is climate modeling,
The only way?
Isn’t this a bit like saying that the only way we can determine the universal gravitational constant G is by modeling? AFAIK the only way to determine G is empirically. Are you saying that you would not be satisfied with our current understanding of gravity until physics had developed a model which would give us a measure of G independently of its empirical determination?
@CH: Does it really matter?
Evidently you and I don’t think so, but I wanted to be sure we’re all on the same page there, including Brandon.
Vaughan Pratt, we don’t have any empirical measurements of climate sensitivity. The reason is such measurements are impossible to achieve. We cannot measure equilibrium climate sensitivity because we’ll never reach equilibrium. We cannot measure transient climate sensitivity because it will, necessarily, always be inconsistent, and thus not provide a single value. This means we cannot hope to measure an actual climate sensitivity. That’s why I say climate modeling is the only answer.
If there was a better option, I’d go for it. I think climate modeling sucks, and I don’t expect much of an answer to come from it, but as far as I can tell, it’s the only thing that can give us any sort of actual estimate for climate sensitivity.
No other measurement I’ve seen could possibly hope to work.
@BS: We cannot measure equilibrium climate sensitivity because we’ll never reach equilibrium.
Agreed. Certainly not in our lifetime, and probably not even if CO2 stabilizes over the next millennium since there appear to be other influences on temperature besides CO2. HADCRUT for 1850-1950 for example can’t be explained by our understanding of CO2.
I would go even further: since the coming century is likely to be even further out of equilibrium than the last, what can equilibrium sensitivity tell us about temperature in 2100?
@BS: We cannot measure transient climate sensitivity because it will, necessarily, always be inconsistent, and thus not provide a single value.
Certainly not with AR4’s notion of transient climate response (TCR) which makes the unphysical and unrealistic assumption that CO2 is increasing at 1% a year when the reality is that it has been departing from its natural or preindustrial level at 2.5±0.3 % a year for over a century. Half a century ago the increase was on the high side, lately it’s been on the low side, reflecting a similar decrease in the CAGR of CO2 emissions. For simplicity I treat the rise as a uniform 2.5%.
With this physically more realistic assumption the increase in atmospheric CO2 has consistently tracked CO2 emissions since 1958. Furthermore hindcasting the former back to 1800 gives only 1 ppmv more than the preindustrial level, making this assumption not unreasonable for the period in between.
Radiative forcing does not directly raise the surface temperature, but rather raises the temperature of the surface layer of the ocean, which after a while raises the global surface temperature. Hence in order to correlate surface temperature accurately with increasing radiative forcing one must make allowance for some delay.
@BS: This means we cannot hope to measure an actual climate sensitivity. That’s why I say climate modeling is the only answer.
I’m actually more pessimistic about the prospects for climate modeling than for empirical measurement of climate sensitivity when suitably understood. The latter possibility depends on the exponential manner in which anthropogenic CO2 has been rising over the past century or two. Had it followed some other law it would be harder to attach a meaning to empirically observed climate sensitivity in such a disequilibrium situation.
@BS: I think climate modeling sucks, and I don’t expect much of an answer to come from it, but as far as I can tell, it’s the only thing that can give us any sort of actual estimate for climate sensitivity.
I agree with the first half.
The only problem was the experts were not talking. the experts were not asking themselves the tough nasty questions.
1. Are we using the best categorization scheme for rural/urban? No
2. are we using a method of computing a spatial average that gives
the Best Unbiased Estimate? No.
3. Have we tested our methods on synthetic data to show the strengths and weaknesses? No.
4. Are we using all the data? no.
Its so weird that people fought so long against employing standard methods. I can’t explain it. I just note it
examples of modes of communication:
* one-way, top-down, teacher–>student, authority, propaganda, parent–>child, king–> subjects.
* two-way, give and take, learning, adjusting, coffee-room and water-cooler talk, general conversation, “democratic” politician subjects.
These are not clear distinctions. Group-think is an unfortunate hybrid. In cases of genuine consensus, the first way is usually preferred over the second because the second just adds incorrect noise. But if there is not a consensus, the second way is required, in order to hear all of the opinions, to collect the cases and their implications for further study. This is not an endorsement of majority rule; voting is not the way to decide what is true. Before that decision comes brainstorming, so we at least know what the options are.
So where do scientific journals and blogs fit in? The speed of communication has left the journal tradition behind; it seems like something from the carved in stone era. The problem with blogs is that they are not carved in anything. Here today; tomorrow? who knows, probably gone. Journals are good for the record. Blog discussions will probably go the way of coffee-room discussions. Maybe someone somewhere will have learned something and the world will be better off. Even if the texts are still available, good luck finding the great points within them at some later time. Also, journals have a pretty pathetic peer review compared to blogs. Blog review is wider although usually shallower. Blogs which censure opposing views do not contribute to scientific progress. Journals have a restricted readership; science may be elitist, but it should not be restricted to the elite. The problems with too much openness: trolls, spam, off topic comments, and ignorant and boorish commenters, even from those who live under rocks and those who you wish stayed under their rock.
What I see on skeptic blogs is equivalent to a dude at a water cooler trying to play the teacher–>student role. While mmv it’s typical to find me facepalming something they report, and I am no expert.
In terms of disruption, it’s a bit like a school where every free period the kids gather round the water fountain to be lectured by some other kid who tells them the teachers are all liars and the textbooks are wrong.
Not all water coolers are the same. In an R&D lab in the high tech big leagues you have to be at the top of your game to get a badge to open the doors to let you get near the water cooler where the other smart kids hang out.
The true punch line and give-away in Hollender`s presentation is this: “there needs to be a change in the way science as an ideology is communicated and enacted“.
“ science as an ideology……“. “.. science as an ideology is …. enacted.“ Ideologically activist science, in other words.
Our host is too kind. Blogs – like this one – are also full of the Usual Suspects obsessively repeating the same content in every thread, regardless of the subject topic of the blog host. And did I mention the constant ad hominem and pissing contests? I come for Dr Curry’s discussions. I’m not going to read through 200 comments to find three carefully considered, relevant points made.
there’s a cool feature in the browser if you are running windows. if you press ALT-F and type LOLWOT you can find all the best comments.
It found all the worst ones on my computer. What version of Windows are you using?
The blacked-out windows of my war-time infancy, perhaps.
Really? When I hold Alt and press F, I get the file menu of my browser. I have to use Ctrl instead of Alt if I want to find things.
What version of Windows are either of you using?
“It found all the worst ones on my computer. What version of Windows are you using?”
I rarely burst out in uncontrollable laughter when reading this blog, but this comment had me in stitches. :-)
You mean you didn’t come for the troll antics of LOLWOT? I hope his performance has SOME audience
Yeah, I hear ya. A person has to work pretty hard to rise above the noise in the commentary on unmoderated blogs. Nature of the beast. This is nothing new. Moderated and unmoderated electronic forums have been around for decades. Controversial subjects and no moderation produce more heat than light. I’ve been using public and private electronics forums for over 30 years now beginning with CompuServe. Techonology has changed. People haven’t.
Weblogs encourage skeptics to calculate for themselves that the earth’s present energy imbalance is completely, utterly, totally, physically, unsustainable …
This focuses public debate on the entirely legitimate question, whether in the interest of maximizing short-term profits, it is morally OK for present generation of carbon-burners, to economically discount future harms, sufficiently to place at-risk the health, security, and prosperity of future generations of humanity, who will (perforce) live in non-carbon energy economies.
Shall we maximize short-term profits, at the cost of incurring obligatory risk to future generations?
It is not clear that short-term market valuations, *or* short-sighted political leaders, *or* factionalized groups of ideology-driven citizens, are particularly good at foresighted moral reasoning, eh?
Yikes. :shock: :shock: :shock:
A fan of *MORE* discourse | September 29, 2012 at 4:27 pm | Shall we maximize short-term profits, at the cost of incurring obligatory risk to future generations?
Yes. That’s what humans do. It’s called progress and common sense. No sane man fixes problems that don’t yet exist, nor do free market men spend all their time preparing for fat tails. The pessimistic complaining conspiracy fear lovers are the tea-bagging Art Bell listeners and the greenling metro-sexual pseudo-intellectual regurgitators: otherwise known as marks.
My generation got to clean up the industrial messes from the “greatest generation” and their parents. My kids generation will have to figure out no carbon energy, medicare and social security. That’s why we have kids and make them smarter. With the better technology of the future and an actual view of the real problems, they can handle it.
Don’t worry, go fishing.
Howard,
Excellent comment. Such common sense. I wonder why it isn’t obvious to all.
No, it is called short-sightedness, and blindly bumbling and stumbling along. We saw it with acid rain and we saw it with ozone. Nothing is done until after it gets painful in some way, and even then there is squabbling.
“Don’t worry, go fishing.”
It’s funny you should say that. This is the kind of thing your strategy leads to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery
It is not the case – if we continue with current modes of thought about regulating common resources we will fail. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (h.t Albert Einstein)
I wonder if FOMBS is mad? :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
Captain Kangaroo …
… have you though this through? ;) ;) ;)
The new world order that Elinor Ostrom’s acolytes have in-mind, for preserving the global atomospheric commons, makes Reagan/Romney/Hansen-style “cap-and-trade” look mighty sensible! :) :grin: :lol: :!:
Nice to see the cod recovering. However, I meant it: go fishing. Do you greenies ever interact with nature, or is it a nice sterile relationship that you prefer?
The following outstanding organizations hunting-and-fishing organizations all appreciate that “Nature cannot be fooled“, eh Howard? :) :) :)
• Ducks Unlimited
• Trout Unlimited
• BASS/ESPN Outdoors
• Izaak Walton League of America
• Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
• Coastal Conservation Association
• American Sportfishing Association
• Pheasants Forever
• Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
• Wildlife Management Institute
• Delta Waterfowl
• Boone and Crockett Club
Howard, please let me hope that fear-of-science does not keep you from joining any of these fine hunting-and-fishing organizations! :!: :!: :!:
Howard,
Yes, they do. They watch Discovery channel and study nature on their computer screen.
Please see this video from the International Association for the Study of the Commons. The commons movement has profound implications for local control and effective managment of ecosystems. Ecosystems can oly be managed one act at a time by informed co-operation, voluntary consent and bottom up control. Nothing less will work – in my experience governments cannot regulate for environmental conservation. The reality of this is obvious with a plethora of regulation but continued declines in natural systems.
You will find that the principles outlined by Nobel Prize winner Elinor Ostrom over a lifetime have much in common with the Iriai of Kitafugi and are based of a depth of love of people and the natural world and a profound intelligence. With your facile grasp from wikipedia – you do in spirit a great disservice to humanity.
Some greens have the true wanderlust, eh Peter Lang? :) ;) :grin: :lol:
I have added some links to your claims, Howard. ;) ;) ;)
As faith, your assertions are bullet-proof.
As rational skepticism, not so much.
Let us know when “progress” reinvents the Baiji, eh Howard? :shock: :( :cry: :?:
I never said we wouldn’t get our hair mussed! Linking to Diamonds over-reach does not excite.
Thanks for pointing out the very real problems with real toxic pollution and habitat destruction we have before us today. Lets deal with that, not your mystery date with a boogieman in 2075.
Be in the now rather than mentally masturbate over an expectation prophesied by the high priests of GCMs. Now requires no faith, only action. Be with me and cleanse our world of toxins now.
And John O’Sullivan’s threats of legal action that resulted in my removing the skydragon threads from Climate Etc.
Is attempting to suppress the views and opinions of others what blogs are for ?
And now that really makes me interested in going to read what the skydragons have to say.
Who is John O’sullivan anyway.
John O’Sullivan is ringleader of the skydragons. you can find out about this ridiculous saga here http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/2012/05/professor-judith-curry-threatened-with.html
Nazi Germany probably had little use for blogs.
(Somebody had to vindicate Godwin around here … )
Reductio ad Hitlerum right as rain. Thanks for getting it over with early!
State…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
care.
lolwot writes with his usual breathtaking lack of self-awareness: “Also of course it was blogs that convinced skeptics the surface temperature records were all bogus. Then along came Muller to confirm what Hansen, Phil Jones, etc had already published.
Again, less reliance on blog hearsay and conspiracies and more listening and learning from the experts would have helped there.”
I’m embarrassed for you. And who, pray tell, is in charge of deciding who the “experts” are?
the experts of course
Too many aspiring (climate) scientists seem to make the whole of the study of climate, and any changes, regardless of the cause, about them and winning an argument. We should know their heart is not in the right place if they find joy in dire predictions whether anthropogenic or not.
The important thing to remember is what changes, if any, are most beneficial. Presently, Roger Pielke presents, IMO, the best choice which is do not do anything radical. Sequestering CO2 would be a huge and wasteful investment with little return.(IMO none)
However, IMHO, I do not think we should lose sight of the fact that the world population has increased from 2B in the 1920’s to 7B. Many reasons for this, but all were made available because of available energy.
One might argue all day about about how much solar energy has been stored. But, the amount is finite. So, for the most part we are using solar energy stored over a long,long time period or we are using current solar energy. We can use geothermal and maybe a little more.
However, even us non climate scientists can figure the total irradiance striking the earth’s surface, methods and efficiencies to use it available, and know we are going to have some major challenges. (As a note, by happen stance I have made money using a food source to make ethanol, but I profoundly disagree with using a food source.) There is an interesting movement in using algae to make ethanol.
The bottom line is, at present, I cannot see how we can we avoid using the energy in the nucleus of the atom as out primary energy source.
I would like to see an increase in quantitative energy studies.
“One might argue all day about about how much solar energy has been stored. But, the amount is finite. So, for the most part we are using solar energy stored over a long,long time period or we are using current solar energy. We can use geothermal and maybe a little more.
However, even us non climate scientists can figure the total irradiance striking the earth’s surface, methods and efficiencies to use it available, and know we are going to have some major challenges. (As a note, by happen stance I have made money using a food source to make ethanol, but I profoundly disagree with using a food source.) There is an interesting movement in using algae to make ethanol.
The bottom line is, at present, I cannot see how we can we avoid using the energy in the nucleus of the atom as out primary energy source.
I would like to see an increase in quantitative energy studies.”
Using nuclear energy is the simplest solution- it’s finite but it’s thousands of years of supply at least.
I think the ultimate answer is leaving earth- opening the space frontier.
The space environment offers at least 4 times the energy density of solar energy available on Earth. And more abundant supplies of fissionable material and any other resource which could be needed.
We are eventually going to leave earth, and now seems as good of time as any. I only better time, would been a couple of decades ago.
The reason we not already opened the space frontier is the high cost involved with leaving Earth. And government has no track record of lowering costs- lowering costs has been something the private sector does, and has done this to some extent already in regards to launch costs. The private sector involvement in space is related related launching satellites for the most commercial satellite market.
NASA’s forward policy of having commercial providers transport cargo and crew to ISS in competition with Russia [which currently does this] is a small step in the right direction. As compared to NASA’s SLS program which again in wrong direction and is leading to NASA’s delaying manned exploration of the Moon.
Anyhow, expanding the use nuclear energy, using fracking technology to get an abundant supply of natural gas, and exploring possible mining technology related ocean methane hydrates seems to a path for next couple centuries [and hopefully it won’t take a couple centuries to open space frontier, which then give us access to cheap energy and abundant resources].
As a geologist I have a reasonable knowledge of a few topics relating to climate change as discussed on the internet. Many others, not so much.
What I find quite disturbing is when a reasonable critical review of a scientific paper appears, it is completely and utterly dismissed by the consensus community. This, even when a paper is withdrawn by the author(s), rejected by peer review, what ever. It doesn’t matter. No matter how outrageous the comments by a scientist in an interview, no one within the consensus scientific community speaks up. Very, very rarely, in fact practically never does a blogger who supports the consensus view come out and say, “Yup, I agree,that paper is crap”. This, and this alone is sufficient to justify looking at the `peer reviewed literature’, and public comments of scientists with a critical eye.
If something is crap and not supported by the literature, then I believe that failure to speak up is also a professional no-no. Believe me, spending two weeks responding to critical review of a report, where the only real issue identified is that “Your wrong, it isn’t the consensus view”, is both a waste of time and frustrating.
Philip Finck | September 29, 2012 at 5:04 pm | Reply
“This, and this alone is sufficient to justify looking at the `peer reviewed literature’, and public comments of scientists with a critical eye.”
I’ll see your critical eye and raise you a jaundiced eye.
All puns intended.
B. Valentine.—just an incidental note.
It was some of the German scientists working during the reign of Hitler that brought the model of the atom to our present understanding of quantum mechanics. It is within the realm of QM, that climate scientists have a significant amount of debate regarding feedback of IR frequencies leading to changes in H2O at certain altitudes.
I would differ with you quite a bit about the “history” of present QM; at one time I believed that the influence of CO2 asymmetric stretches in the IR on water could be experimentally observed given a long enough period of time in a large enough controlled environment, I have since concluded that the possible errors are too large to draw a meaningful conclusion
Brian, I do not disagree with you, In fact I agree most with the fact that, based on observations, I just do not see how conclusions can be drawn.
If I did not say it correctly, I meant that this is the area in which there is much debate, and I think rightly so, because conclusions are being drawn where there is hardly evidence to support the conclusion.
1% of the blogs contain useful information. 25% is pure entertainment and 74% are boring long-winded posts/comments by self-adsorbed sophisticates that no one should ever read.
Sometimes, that 1% changes the subject for the good.
Judith,
I am surprised to see you mention Lucia mentioned as an example of an auditor. He has recently written an article on renewable energy which shows clearly he hasn’t the slightest understanding of the subject. It is a disgrace. In my opinion it discredits him and anything he does and says. His article is here http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/sep/26/myth-wind-turbines-carbon-emissions and some criticisms of it are here:
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2012/9/26/missing-the-point.html
Mine criticisms are on the page 3.
??? I referred to Lucia Liljegren of the Blackboard
Sorry Judith and all. I am still learning to read. My apologies.
Lucia is not Mark Lynas
Victory fer blog climate science auditing:
Hockey Team Haku.
So ruby red so
Smooth and sweet, cherry picking,
So hard ter resist.
H/t Steve McIntyre, Jeff Id et al.
” I wish the IPCC were more obsessed with the science basis.”
That comment, attributed to Franziska, I heartily agree with. Undoubtedly the UN occasionally does useful things and on those occasions we would be the poorer without it. But its haughty child, the IPCC, tends to settle for lowest common denominator decisions, which must be mortifying for the great scientists who have served in its ranks. This is no more evident than its treatment of the climate science at about 1940: they never thought the complete reversal of climate change was worthy of comment !
The PR of the IPCC was so poor that while they wrote papers on what ‘decision or policy makers’ were supposed to think, they could not explain their own decision making in any convincing way to other scientists: they relied on numbers.
They assumed that because CO2 molucules usually acted in concert as if their state changes were continuous, they were indeed so. They could ignore quantum thermodynamics. Of course, ‘state’ includes vibrational excited states, because it is those states that enable gases to absorb much more energy, like high Q resonances.
No, Alexander, that is Judith’s very own direct comment, not Franziska’s.
Foustino
Thanks for pointing out my error. My apologies, Judith, I misread where the quotes ended. Because I know that many respected scientists have served on the IPCC, I try to confine criticism to its management, like who decided to draw the zero anomoly line through the 1940 global temperature? I think most scientists would agree that the anomolies began in 1910, or no later than 1920. See my website above where the disputed line appears at figure 1 in my paper on climate change.
’ Although it has failed to produce its intended impact nevertheless the Kyoto Protocol has performed an important role. That role has been allegorical. Kyoto has permitted different groups to tell different stories about themselves to themselves and to others, often in superficially scientific language. But, as we are increasingly coming to understand, it is often not questions about science that are at stake in these discussions. The culturally potent idiom of the dispassionate scientific narrative is being employed to fight culture wars over competing social and ethical values. Nor is that to be seen as a defect. Of course choices between competing values are not made by relying upon scientific knowledge alone. What is wrong is to pretend that they are.’ The Wrong Trousers: Radically Rethinking Climate Policy
The blogoshere is the field of battle for the Climate Wars. Does it advance understanding of science? Perhaps only as the arms race spurred the development of weapons of warfare in the real world. The weapon of choice is the objective idiom of science – as unsophisticated and as motivated as that narrative mostly is. The simple narratives are unreflective – they are the outcomes of tribal dynamics and so can’t be questioned except at great risk to personal identity.
For me the science evolved from a simple observation that Australian streams had changed form in the late 1970’s. This led to hydrological regime theory – which in turn led to variability in upwelling in the eastern Pacific. These are chaotic in nature and part of a global system of multiple negative and positive feedbacks to changes in control variables. This is the global climate forcing function and in principle the feedbacks and couplings are deterministic but in practice are uncomputable. They lead to changes in the trajectory of global temperature – from warming to cooling and back again – at decadal scales in the instrumental record and without a doubt over much longer periods in the proxy records. Both of these ideas are mainstream science – and it leads to a paradox. The physical science suggests a lack of warming over a decade or three and that climate sensitivity is regional and variable but large at points of chaotic bifurcation. So the question I keep asking is what happens to the policy context – the impetus for decarbonisation – if the world stubbornly refuses to warm? It seems a question that – unlike Mojib Latif – is not to be asked on pain of vilification. The groupthink demands astonishing intellectual contortions. Unlike the sceptics – the noisiest of which are merely arguing from ignorance. A confidence in their ability to predict the future without much doubt at all seems ill conceived at best in a post-Newtonian universe.
So are there ways forward on which a political accommodation can be reached?
‘The crash of 2009 presents an immense opportunity to set climate policy free to fly at last. The principal motivation and purpose of this Paper is to explain and to advance this opportunity. To do so involves understanding and accepting a startling proposition. It is now plain that it is not possible to have a ‘climate policy’ that has emissions reductions as the all encompassing goal. However, there are many other reasons why the decarbonisation of the global economy is highly desirable.
Therefore, the Paper advocates a radical reframing – an inverting – of approach: accepting that decarbonisation will only be achieved successfully as a benefit contingent upon other goals which are politically attractive and relentlessly pragmatic.
The Paper therefore proposes that the organising principle of our effort should be the raising up of human dignity via three overarching objectives: ensuring energy access for all; ensuring that we develop in a manner that does not undermine the essential functioning of the Earth system; ensuring that our societies are adequately equipped to withstand the risks and dangers that come from all the vagaries of climate, whatever their cause may be.
It explains radical and practical ways to reduce non-CO2 human forcing of climate. It argues that improved climate risk management is a valid policy goal, and is not simply congruent with carbon policy. It explains the political prerequisite of energy efficiency strategies as a first step and documents how this can achieve real emissions reductions. But, above all, it emphasises the primacy of accelerating decarbonisation of energy supply. This calls for very substantially increased investment in innovation in noncarbon energy sources in order to diversify energy supply technologies. The ultimate goal of doing this is to develop non-carbon energy supplies at unsubsidised costs less than those using fossil fuels. The Hartwell Paper advocates funding this work by low hypothecated (dedicated) carbon taxes. It opens discussion on how to channel such money productively.
To reframe the climate issue around matters of human dignity is not just noble or necessary. It is also likely to be more effective than the approach of framing around human sinfulness –which has failed and will continue to fail.
Politics is not about maximising rationality. It is about finding compromises that enough people can tolerate to allow society to take steps in the right direction. So, contrary to all our modern instincts, political progress on climate change simply cannot be solved by injecting more scientific information into politics. More information does not automatically reduce uncertainty and increase public confidence, which is the common politicians’ assumption. But, in consequence of that assumption being present and potent in this (or any) politically hot field,
there is a constant temptation for experts to overstate and to oversimplify:
something that is plainly revealed in the recent history of climate issues.
Hartwell 2010 paper
So I am happy to discuss policy or science but to conflate the two is profoundly unproductive. Science is simplified and distorted in the blogosphere to suit entrenched positions on either climate warrior science or green/neosocialist economics. From my perspective – the carbon cycle is not an example of a rivalrous good – it is unlimited and has multiple points in the cycle where interventions can be effective. Not simply and exclusively at the end of pipeline point for carbon emissions and not simply for carbon emissions either. Both of the papers cited give examples. But the other big, swinging thingimebob in the mix is conservation farming – we can sequester 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in agricultural soil with increased food production, decreased input costs, water conservation, soil conservation and improved ecosystem function.
Captain Kangaroo is a nom de geurre for a climate warrior, a cowboy on a blue horse called Shibboleth,poet, insufferably intransigent, manning the barricades on the front line of the battle of the blogosphere. I am a legend in my own lunchtime. Fight and you will lose scumbag warminista. Surrender and we may allow you crumbs of consolation. Ces’t la geurre.
In the climate war – there is a Maginot Line or a Rubicon – neither of which can be crossed. These involve our enlightenment heritage. Free peoples, free markets, democracy and the rule of law. Agree or not there are limits to what we will agree to – emergency or not. The most thoughtful look for effective ways forward – and this is the critical consensus that should be reached. Unfortunately – there is little mood for compromise and politics and stalemate seems the perpetual state of the climate wars.
Are Wallace and Gromit now on the faculty of my alma mater? No wonder people say it’s going to the dogs. From Shavian Fabian socialism to claymation in 120 years, that’s progress.
Well, we all know how effective the Maginot Line was. I think that our defences need to be more flexible. As in 1940, the attacks are wide-ranging and fast-moving, innovative and adaptive responses are called for.
Well the Maginot Line was bypassed and the Rubicon was crossed. I would go on the attack with a positive vision for the future.
Yes. This one is interesting. http://www.carboncapturereport.org/
Select Climate Change from the category list at the top. Click on the Activity chart. Notice that the total activity for Climate Change rose rapidly leading up to the Copenhagen conference, then fell off a cliff and has never recovered. It collapsed again in July 2011 and again did not recover. It is in a downhill decline.
Now deselect all except blogs, and notice that the blog activity rose to a peak in March 2011 and has been in decline since. It fell off a cliff in October 2011.
Interest in climate change is declining. It is in a downhill decline.
Now select Carbon Credits from the list at the top of the screen. Deselect all except ‘Blogs”. Notice: peak blog activity in July 2011 and overall declining interest since 2009. declining interest since.
I don’t recall seeing any greenhouse effect refutations, mainly there were discussions about solar, ocean oscillations, sea level rise and other impacts.
There’s this: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/27/effects-of-solar-variability-on-climate/#comment-246255
I haven’t read all the on the link to the JO’S saga, but Tim Ball’s “What many don’t know is that I attended three different meetings at the last Heartland in Washington outside of the official forums and each was discussing whether or not CO2 was a greenhouse gas. At one meeting there were eight people, all engineers and physicists who had only recently looked at climate science and said they could not believe how bad the science was especially with regard to CO2. The discussion among all three groups (independently) was that CO2 was not a greenhouse gas and may be a cooling agent.”, caught my eye.
“who had only recently looked at climate science” is, I think, the crux of the matter in the discussions on the ‘science’ of AGW. Most engineers and physicists don’t know what claims are being made by those pushing AGW fisics. For example to those who have had no reason to question such memes as “carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere for hundreds and thousands of years”, anything contrary will seem ‘novel’. But, carbon dioxide is subject to gravity. It can’t physically do this.
It’s in exploring such AGW memes that I found how real physics is systematically corrupted to produce a ‘fisics’ unknown to engineers and physicists with working knowledge of the different subjects. AGW is supported by a fictitious fisics, impossible in the real world.
The clearest example of this tweaking of real physics is in the claim that thermal infrared can’t get through the atmosphere and plays no part in heating the Earth’s land and oceans, and instead, this property and effect is given to visible light which in the real world cannot physically do this.
There can be no argument about it. One version is science fact and the other science fiction. You decide which is which. But you must be able to show how visible light from the Sun can raise the temperature of land and water at the equator to intensely heat it to give us the great wind and dramatic weather systems we have, because traditionally, this is by the role of the Sun’s thermal energy, beam heat, not of the Sun’s light (reflective) energy.
In the real world water is a transparent medium for visible light, it does not absorb it at all, not even on the electronic transition level, but transmits it, for another example of impossible claims.
It’s clear just from this that the AGW fisics is designed to create the illusion that there is this ‘backradiation heating’, any downwelling thermal infrared can be attributed to it once the real beam heat from the Sun is said to be ‘blocked by some (unexplained) invisible barrier’.
In the real world we know that the heat we feel from the Sun, the Sun’s thermal energy on the move transferred by radiation (one of the three methods of heat transfer) and which physically warms us up is the invisible thermal infrared. We’ve known that since Herschel’s dark light.. How has AGW managed to excise all knowledge of the difference between heat and light in ‘climate science’? And worse, swapped them around. Those brought up on this fisics wouldn’t be able to build photovoltaic cells and thermal panels because they no longer have the concepts of the differences of properties and processes.
That’s why I’m interested in these discussions, this is having the effect of dumbing down basic science for the general population. And I don’t think this is a good thing.
What are blogs good for anyways?
– The easiest and fastest way to exchange latest ideas in the area of your interest
– The largest open peer review
– Direct link to the largest library (the web) on earth
by Judith Curry: “In the recent thread Skeptics: make your best case. Part II , I don’t recall seeing any greenhouse effect refutations, ”
========================================
Judith, but you hopefully still remember our small discussion about whether the “CO2 warming effect” was proven by a real physical scientific experiment or not, don’t you? I remember your referring to a “model”, but not to any real experiment.
So, why there should be a need for a special refutation, if the core assertion of the AGW concept seems very much to be no more, than simply a scientifically unsupported tale? It should go like that: “No real proof submitted – CO2 (mankind) acquitted, the case is closed”. The same goes for calculations of the “global warming”, just look at Hansen&Lebedeff1987, for example.
It is not that I am making my “best case”, it is like the AGW case has no basis in real science. It is not hard to see, if you look directly at the basics instead of chasing gazillions of errors and exaggerations in gazillions of AGW papers.
You can study hurricanes, this is science, no problem with that, but those “global” things, you know…
It is easy to imagine a physics lab experiment to demonstrate this effect. Imagine a cold plate and an infrared camera, that measures IR flux in the band of thermal wavelengths (e.g., 4-20 microns), pointing at it separated by a gas at room temperature. With pure oxygen or nitrogen, you would see only the IR temperature of the cold plate. With pure CO2 or even with a trace of CO2 and water vapor, you would see it warmer than the cold plate. Physics would predict how much warmer and how it varies with wavelength. too.
If you want to do a scale experiment, I figure that a path of 4 meters of pure CO2 represents as much as there is in the whole atmospheric column, and you could make the cold plate about 3 K, to represent the temperature of space at night. If you want water vapor, use 40 meters of that to represent the average amount in a column.
Laboratory experiments show CO2 is a heat trapping gas as shown =>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge0jhYDcazY
There cannot be an argument about that.
The main question is when directly applying that relationship to the earth’s climate.
First, there is not “too much” CO2 in the atmosphere. It is only about 0.04% of the atmosphere.
There is arsenic in potatoes does not directly mean that eating potatoes kills, because the observation does not support that claim. It is the observation that finally counts.
Similarly, CO2 is a greenhouse gas does not directly mean that it causes global warming. For the last 8 years, as CO2 concentration increased, there was decrease in the global mean temperature trend as shown =>
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2004/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2004/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:2004/normalise/trend/plot/esrl-co2/from:2004/normalise
Like I said above, it is equivalent to 4 meters of pure CO2 at atmospheric pressure. This would have a significant and easily measurable emission of IR against a cold background.
Another experiment=>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=pPRd5GT0v0I
But it is wrong to extrapolate it to the earth’s climate
How does it show that carbon dioxide traps heat?
Jim 2 +1 29/09 @12.26pm: ‘the climate science community… can no longer pick and choose what information gets out…’
Its still about Plato, up on the hill, philosopher king, shaman really, of the reality – behind – appearance – perceived – through – the – intuition – of – the – chosen – few, saying:’Listen, you serfs, do not try ter think fer yrselves, WE will tell yer what yer need ter know.’
And Socrates, down in the agora, apostle of individualism and open society, criicizing sophistry shibboliths and unconsidered positions ) and arguing how little we know, and yet, everyone can learn, even serfs!
Thank you, Judith Curry, fer providing a forum where science, policy and political/ethical values of authority and the individual can be thrashed out: )
Beth, that’s gorgeous. :-)
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 8:42 pm:
“It is easy to imagine a physics lab experiment to demonstrate this effect. Imagine a cold plate…”
=============================================
IMAGINE??? (shock)
I am questioning the existence of a scientific proof and you suggest I imagine there is one. (shock)
I gave you what you can do to prove it for yourself, and you can choose to do it or not, or just take a physics course. Maybe they have evening classes or online courses and DVDs. I can’t do these things for you.
Girma | September 29, 2012 at 9:03 pm:
“Laboratory experiments show CO2 is a heat trapping gas as shown =>[…]
There cannot be an argument about that.”
==========================================
No argument, really? There is a simple explanation of what you have seen on the video. I did not verify it, but let us see, how warmists would comment on that.
That experiment demonstrates that the CO2’s thermal conductivity is different from the thermal conductivity of the normally mixed air. So, if another gas with the same thermal conductivity but without any IR absorbing and emitting properties would have been used, the result would have been the same.
From this point of view, the CO2 effect would be like between 1/1,000 and 1/10,000 C.
CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume making it harder to heat, so that is not going to explain its higher temperature. It therefore seems that IR absorption is demonstrated neatly here.
CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume making it harder to heat, so that is not going to explain its higher temperature. It therefore seems that IR absorption is demonstrated neatly here.
Nope, carbon dioxide has a lower heat capacity than oxygen and nitrogen and these two have a much, much lower heat capacity than water.
Which means, that carbon dioxide will heat up more quickly and lose heat more quickly, it can’t trap heat. It releases heat practically instantly.
Water has an exceptionally high heat capacity, it takes longer to heat up and so longer to cool down. It takes a lot of heat energy to raise the temperature of water.
Neatly demonstrated in our inshore/offshore winds, because the land heats up more quickly than water and loses it more quickly.
But it’s too difficult to explain to people who have no winds and weather in their world because their atmosphere is empty space.
So, what is the experiment demonstrating?
Typical AGWSF fisics ‘experiment’, saying these prove something but not actually describing what is happening.
Myrrh, per unit volume heat capacity depends on what vibration modes are available. Triatomic molecules are harder to heat because they have these modes that diatomic molecules do not. Therefore CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume (or per molecule) than O2 or N2.
Aggh, sorry, misposted my reply, it’s here:
Myrrh | September 30, 2012 at 9:40 pm |
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/29/what-are-blogs-good-for-anyways/#comment-247038
“Myrrh, per unit volume heat capacity depends on what vibration modes are available. Triatomic molecules are harder to heat because they have these modes that diatomic molecules do not. Therefore CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume (or per molecule) than O2 or N2.”
Hydrogen gas [H2] has high heat capacity:
300K: 14.31 kJ/kg.K
Methane CH4 300 K: 2.226 kJ/kg.K
CO2: 300K: 0.846 kJ/kg.K
Water: 15 C: 4.186 kJ/kg.K
Graphite [a lattice of carbon atoms]: 0.71 kJ/kg.K
Diamond [compressed Graphite]: 0.63 kJ/kg.K
I’m answering these posts together not just because the nesting lends itself to it but because I’ve discovered something relevant to both.
Jim D | September 30, 2012 at 1:24 pm | Myrrh, per unit volume heat capacity depends on what vibration modes are available. Triatomic molecules are harder to heat because they have these modes that diatomic molecules do not. Therefore CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume (or per molecule) than O2 or N2.
gbaikie | October 1, 2012 at 1:04 am | “Myrrh, per unit volume heat capacity depends on what vibration modes are available. Triatomic molecules are harder to heat because they have these modes that diatomic molecules do not. Therefore CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume (or per molecule) than O2 or N2.”
Hydrogen gas [H2] has high heat capacity:
300K: 14.31 kJ/kg.K
Methane CH4 300 K: 2.226 kJ/kg.K
CO2: 300K: 0.846 kJ/kg.K
Water: 15 C: 4.186 kJ/kg.K
Graphite [a lattice of carbon atoms]: 0.71 kJ/kg.K
Diamond [compressed Graphite]: 0.63 kJ/kg.K
======
JimD
All these are just explanations of why they have different heat capacities, these are already intrinsic to standard comparison table which is as I’ve said, the individual gas’s ability to store heat comparable to the others, and Carbon Dioxide can’t, and Nitrogen and Oxygen don’t do much better.
Here’s why for water:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_does_water_have_a_high_and_specific_heat_capacity
Carbon Dioxide has a lower heat capacity.
gbaikie – So why no actual figures for Oxygen and Nitrogen?
You simply say that Carbon Dioxide is higher and then give this:
CO2: 300K: 0.846 kJ/kg.K
But the comparable figure for
Nitrogen: 1.040
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/nitrogen-d_977.html
Oxygen: 0.918
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/oxygen-d_978.html
Which are the figures I’ve been using, showing that Carbon Dioxide has a lower heat capacity than either.
You’re fibbing…
But, I think I have worked out what you’re doing here – it appears, I have no reason to doubt that you both are genuine here, that you are victims another sleight of hand from the the meme producing department of AGWScienceFiction inc.
If you look at those two links I gave for Nitrogen and Oxygen and compare it with the table for Carbon Dioxide, you’ll see it by temperature,
the 300K is the comparable norm, which is 26.85°C, at this temperature Nitrogen and Oxygen both have a higher heat capacity than Carbon Dioxide – at low temperatures Carbon dioxide is easier to heat and so has a lower specific heat number.
At higher temperatures Carbon Dioxide eventually becomes harder to heat – at 400K it is still easier to heat than Oxygen, at 450K it is harder.
400K
Carbon Dioxide 0.939
Oxygen O.941
Nitrogen 1.044
450K
Carbon Dioxide 0.978
Oxygen 0.956
Nitrogen 1.049
But still below Nitrogen, which it overtakes later at even higher temperatures.
But, let’s get a sense of perspective here.. 400K may not appear to be that much different to 300 except to those very, very familiar with Kelvin, but 400K is 126.85°C.
And note, that you’ve given the figure for water at 15°C, which is 288.15K. Though why you’ve given the other examples is unclear.., is this how it was presented to you, or did you pull these together yourself?
So investigating further it does appear to be a definite meme from AGWSF which has got itself for the most part mindlessly repeated on ‘climate science’ pages, but for those who require actual knowledge this becomes a problem, for example, http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=237366
This is why I despise those knowingly promoting this fake fisics and introducing their blasted memes into text books, it’s screwing up the basic science understanding of the population interested in real physics, wanting to explore the real properties and processes of the world around us.
I’ve said this before, it takes very good knowledge of real physics to be able to tweak this in creating the AGW fictional with clever sleights of hand such as we see above, people take the memes for granted because they’re ubiquitous now.
It’s only when pushing for an explanation that the one can then see the plays on words, like “absorbed”, and the swapping of properties and processes and laws taken out of context, and the complete excising of whole phenomena…
Anyway, I shall add this to my collection so far. I do hope you become interested in exploring how they do this.
“And note, that you’ve given the figure for water at 15°C, which is 288.15K. Though why you’ve given the other examples is unclear.., is this how it was presented to you, or did you pull these together yourself?”
No reason, I should have given 25 C number, so keep them all near 300K.
I was curious why CO2 had such low heat capacity. So wanted look at carbon in comparison. The similarity of heat capacity of diamond to graphite I thought slightly odd [diamond is very good [unique] at conducting heat] so included diamond as interesting trivia :)
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-solids-d_154.html
And water one was here:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-thermal-properties-d_162.html
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 10:15 pm:
“CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume making it harder to heat, so that is not going to explain its higher temperature. It therefore seems that IR absorption is demonstrated neatly here.”
============================================
The core warmists’ assertion is that CO2 absorbs some IR and radiates 1/2 of it back to the surface thus warming the surface. There is however another conflicting narrative about CO2 simply getting relatively hotter than O2 and N because it absorbs some IR, thus warming the air additionally.
So if you chose the second narrative and apply simple logic, you will come to my conclusion, that CO2 would have effect like between 1/1,000 and 1/10,000 degrees C, given it’s usual concentrations. If you chose the first narrative, then that experiment does not demonstrate any effect of “back radiation”, because difference in temperatures can be explained by other reasons and can also be reached with other gases without any IR properties.
Hence that experiment is in effect a peace of warmists’ propaganda and serves the purpose of fooling the general public.
It demonstrates that CO2 absorbs IR which is a necessary and sufficient condition for it to emit IR in the same wavelengths. If you had an IR camera tuned to those wavelengths you would see it doing just that.
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 9:36 pm:
“I gave you what you can do to prove it for yourself,”
============================================
No, Jim D, you only presented a product of your or someone else’s imagination, in the best case. We are talking about science here, however, and not about science fiction.
How do you propose answering your own question for yourself then? Is there a lab you can go to, or an undergrad physics student you can ask, or maybe you can find a textbook. If you were really motivated to learn, you would have done this by now rather than just believing what you see on the internet.
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 10:03 pm:
“How do you propose answering your own question for yourself then?”
=====================================
I did not ask any question. I said the key warmists’ assertion about “CO2 warming” looked very much like a a scientifically unsupported tale, because there is apparently no scientific experimental proof for that, and you “helped” by giving the product of your imagination, that is by presenting another tale. Thank you for your contribution.
Well people have answered this experimentally for a few centuries now, starting with Tyndall, so there is no mystery there.
Kindred spirits, Pokerguy, lol. Say, have yer read Ishiguro’s ‘The Remains of the Day’ yet? Serious theme on individual responsibility but a wittty quest ‘dissertation’ on banter that I bet you’d enjoy. )
I agree that blogs are great places for a more immediate and widespread discussion and critique of research, and they also can be tools for the spread of “propaganda”, but they have the additional more insidious downside of becoming self-reinforcing echo chambers or even incubators of memes where ideas that represent the unscientific, the illogical, the highly prejudiced and the highly opinionated can grow to proportions that are far in excess of what they deserve (assuming they deserve any attention at all). Blogs that represent both sides of important issues and everything in between can all have this echo chamber effect, such that those who frequent them can oftentimes not understand why the MSM doesn’t share the same level of interest in issues to match the rather hyper-exaggerated echo chamber perspective on issues that blog addicts might share.
R. Gates
We can both say with complete honesty that we would not favor blogs, which have become “self-reinforcing echo chambers or even incubators of memes where ideas that represent the unscientific, the illogical, the highly prejudiced and the highly opinionated can grow to proportions that are far in excess of what they deserve” (as you put it).
I would add that this danger is far greater for blogs, which censor out conflicting viewpoints or see it as their brief to indoctrinate their denizens along some preconceived party line.
In this regard I prefer the more open and unbiased approach of ClimateEtc., which encourages it denizens to openly debate the many unresolved scientific and policy issues related to climate change instead.
Hats off to our hostess for keeping this site going with interesting and timely topics of discussion related to the ongoing scientific and policy debate surrounding climate change.
Max
What blogs are best for is to act as a conduit to speech. Published papers, citizen scientist posts, audits, political debate (which is, after all, the core of the matter), all are found on skeptic blogs. Which is why they are so vilified by those who would control the message.
30 years ago, there was CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times, Washington Post, Time and Newsweek, all pushing the same agenda. They filtered the “news” then as they do now, just not to as huge an extent. Conservative and other contrarian views were ignored, except on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and National Review under William F. Buckley.
There is a reason there has only been one genuine conservative president in my lifetime – group think has gone virtually unchallenged in the mass media. But now, alternative voices can at least be heard.
The internet, talk radio and (to a diminishing degree) Fox News, have all broken the monopoly political progressives had on information. The “mainstream” media still have much greater exposure, but competing information is at least available through the alternative media. Blogs, like WUWT, Climate Etc., The Air Vent and Climate Audit are all now outlets for views that dissent from the accepted wisdom of the ruling elite. Blogs matter because the best antidote to misleading speech is more speech.
The next election will tell whether the MSM, with its Mannian polls and constant filtering of potentially damaging (to progressivism) information, can still determine the outcome of elections. It didn’t work in 2010. whWch is why we are seeing an all out, undisguised push of the MSM as the PR wing of the Democrat Party.
My bet is on the truth, and that bodes ill for the CAGW left.
Faux News is a joke as a “news” source. Those who don’t understand the political agenda of Rupert Murdoch are simply (and perhaps blissfully) unaware of major financial considerations affecting every aspect of Faux News non-news coverage.
Nice regurgitation of standard progressive propaganda.
Truth does not vary. Faux News is the furthest thing from, but simply provides a psychic salve to sooth rather skewed and patently inaccurate world views. Enjoy!
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 10:16 pm:
“Well people have answered this experimentally for a few centuries now, starting with Tyndall, so there is no mystery there.”
==============================================
Tyndall did not prove any CO2 warming, he only proved its ability to absorb and re-emit some IR radiation, which is not equal to warming or reducing of cooling of the surface. Tyndall, however, did engage in speculations about that, but this assertion was neither scientifically proven back then nor is it now.
I understand that some people might uncritically accept the notion about radiation “warming” in both directions, that is from a colder body to a warmer body too, but, as I said, this is apparently a scientifically unsupported tale. And we know that the air is mostly colder than the surface, so the notion about CO2 (back)radiation warming the surface is based on a tale and is apparently itself just another tale.
“I understand that some people might uncritically accept the notion about radiation “warming” in both directions, that is from a colder body to a warmer body too, but, as I said, this is apparently a scientifically unsupported tale. And we know that the air is mostly colder than the surface, so the notion about CO2 (back)radiation warming the surface is based on a tale and is apparently itself just another tale.”
The temperature of any gas is it’s kinetic energy- the velocity of the gas molecules.
The velocity of the gas molecules of CO2 has little to do with the energy of photons it absorbs or radiates.
Though a CO2 gas molecule does not reflect photons, it would sort of similar to reflecting the photons. The energy CO2 absorbs as photon, is the same energy it emits as photon.
If continue the analogy that a CO2 molecule acts as mirror which reflect IR photons, if it’s a mirror that spinning *fast enough* to redirect the emitted photon in any direction. And like a mirror, it doesn’t matter what temperature the mirror is.
So CO2 molecule absorbs the photon from any direction and emits that photon in any direction.
Just as it doesn’t matter what the kinetic energy of the CO2 gas molecule,
the IR photon doesn’t warm [increase the kinetic energy of gas molecules- it doesn’t warm the air].
A photon is of course traveling the speed of light.
So say you have a warm rock, the rock will radiate a broad spectrum of IR, part of this spectrum can absorbed by a CO2 molecule. To be called absorbed means the energy has to held by that molecule for some period of time [which is perhaps less than nanosecond or for a longer period].
The photon could also instead fly directly into space, or hit few molecules and then go directly into space [in less the one second].
Another possibility is photon is absorbed by CO2 molecule and then hits the surface. Hitting the surface could cause photon to reflected back towards space. If a photon is absorbed by surface, the surface may emit the same photon or same wavelength of proton. Or heat up the object and it emits a full spectrum of it’s blackbody temperature- the energy photon could leave surface at broad spectrum wavelength then is absorb by CO2.
It is only if the proton adds to heat content of the surface [and therefore emit in broad spectrum] that any work or warming is occurring due CO2 greenhouse gas. And if this is possible it’s essentially delay cooling by seconds adding to the time needed for surface to cool
Basically in best case the effect seems fairly insignificant.
Blog amateurs are certainly less restrained by the facts than journalists and scientists who have a reputation to keep. So beware what you read here, and if it is not from a professional, take it with a pinch of salt or a healthy dose of skepticism. If you the want unvarnished truth, you have to go to trustworthy sources, and some here just don’t, as we see all to often.
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 10:45 pm:
“Blog amateurs are certainly less restrained by the facts than journalists and scientists who have a reputation to keep. So beware what you read here,…”
===========================================
Well, I would say, too many climate journalists and climate scientists have such a reputation that they’d better not keep it.
Your own recent behaviour in this particular debate, as you tried to sale a product of your imagination as science, is a good example.
Would you call yourself a member of the skydragons club? What or who convinced you that downward IR radiation cannot affect the surface temperature?
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 11:03 pm:
“What or who convinced you that downward IR radiation cannot affect the surface temperature?”
============================================
Jim D, what you just said is not significantly different from lying and I am not surprised.
I did not say that “downward IR radiation cannot affect the surface temperature”.
Good, so you understand why it cools less quickly under a cloudy sky than under a clear sky at night. If so, I am not sure where your difference lies, because that is the greenhouse effect. Perhaps you just needed it defined for you.
Jim D
Are you speaking of yourself when you write “beware”, or are you hiding behind the mantle of “professional”?
Max
PS Madoff was a “professional”, too…
As someone who is anonymous, I am by definition not giving any professional opinions, so you can take it or leave it as much as I do of other anonymous or non-professional opinions. If someone says something that I need to verify from scientific sources I trust, I would do that, and I have learned a lot here by doing this type of background research, and I advise others to do so also. However, when people like Lacis and Gavin show up as professionals, I usually understand and concur with what they say in science, but I would not necessarily feel I have to take their other statements as a truth. Others scientists come across as biased and deserve the criticisms they get from the scientific community. I mentioned journalists too, because they lose their reputation when they publish poorly researched articles so they have an incentive to get it right too. As with scientists, they have a range of credibility based on past performance.
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 11:20 pm:
“Good, so you understand why it cools less quickly under a cloudy sky than under a clear sky at night.”
=========================================
Look, it would be nice, if you refrained from attributing to me assertions I did not make.
First of all, as I said, it is practically equal to lying, and second, you have been essentially obfuscating the discussion this way.
Just make your point and do not put your words in my mouth. Many thanks in advance.
OK, let’s try it this way. Do you understand why it cools less quickly under cloudy skies than under clear skies at night, or do you dispute that it does?
Jim D | September 29, 2012 at 11:38 pm:
“OK, let’s try it this way. Do you understand why it cools less quickly under cloudy skies than under clear skies at night, or do you dispute that it does?”
========================================
I clearly said earlier on this thread at least 2 times what I dispute, and you addressed it by a suggestion I imagine something. That was your “scientific” contribution to the debate. Now you are asking me if I understand that that very unproven thing works. This is the most ridiculous argumentation I have ever observed. This way to argue contradicts the most elementary logic.
So, you and warmists in general may, of course, make any assertion they like, but in the real science they are expected to prove that their assertions are indeed correct. Just asking “you understand?” instead is, you know, as I said, simply ridiculous.
I was trying to establish what you understand already, but it is proving very difficult.
Judith –
Here is a good example of what takes place in the “skeptosphere.”
Here are just a few comments I collected from maybe the first 1/5 of the “make your best case” thread that you mentioned in your post. Now while they are not specifically “Sky Dragon” arguments – they are are flat out rejection of the fundamental science that supports the view that more than 50% of recent warming is likely 90% due to ACO2. These aren’t arguments that “Yes, there is no doubt that the Earth is warming, and ACO2 is driving that warming to some extent, and yes it could be dangerous at the high end of sensitivity, but we just don’t know how much ACO2 is warming the planet.”
No. These are all arguments that also imply that there is no valid evidence to believe that ACO2 could potentially be dangerous. These aren’t arguments of “it’s happening but we don’t know how much.” These are arguments of “We have no evidence that it might be bad,”
Mr. Uncertain. T. Monster has left the room, Judith.
You’re going to need a lot of space under buses, Judith. I suggest you order another fleet.
Joshua,
Do you think you might be a bit biased? Do you think you could have come up with just as many “end of the earth” comments from CAGW advocacy web sites?
In other words, Peter – “Mommy, mommy, they do it tooouuu?”
First, I have told you in the past that I never claimed to be unbiased. It is interesting that you still seem to operate from the assumption that I do make such a claim. I think such a claim is absurd coming from anyone. Ironically, those who make such statements are perhaps the most biased. What’s fascinating is that it seems that you fail to even be able to comprehend that someone could say what I say (that bias is a necessary product of the fundamentals of our psychology and how we reason). It seems that’s why what I actually say keeps just passing over your head. I think that pattern suggests that you have trouble conceptualizing the very idea of acknowledging one’s own biases.
Second, the list I just provided was to highlight just a portion of what Judith fails to acknowledge in her unqualified speculations about the nature of the “skeptosphere.”
I would never argue that there is some vast asymmetry in the “true believers” on the different sides of the debate. I take that as a given – based on what we know about humans reason.
And BTW – Peter, while culling that thread, I noticed this comment – directed at me.
What have you ever read from me that leads you to the conclusion that I am a “CAGW alarmist?” Please be as specific as possible.
Sorry – I was unclear. I take it as a given (based on human nature) that bias exists roughly in balance on each side of the debate.
Joshua,
Nothing of substance here. Just drivel. You are forever calling others biased and lacking objectivity – such as Roger Pielke Jr. a day or so ago. But you don’t deal with the substantive content of the posts. You continually squeal and post ideological drivel. You are an ideologue and that sums it up. Some refer to such people as oxygen thieves.
Joshua,
Below are some bits you extracted and quoted. Can you provide a persuasive response to them? If you cannot, or you avoid answering, you demonstrate you are simply a believer without evidence – i.e. exactly what you are accusing those who do not accept your belief of doing.
If these [damage function and decarbonisation rate function) had had as much attention as climate sensitivity, we may have discovered – as many already expect – that warming is no big deal and we will solve the issue with economically rational solutions.
The second is my comment. I am arguing that there is no persuasive case that AGW is dangerous or catastrophic and, furthermore, we will address the issue without imposing economy damaging mitigation policies. Please show why this statement is wrong. I’ve provided extensive substantiation from authorities like William Nordhaus, Australian Treasury and others to support my arguments. So far they have not been seriously challenged, let alone refuted. Therefore, I’d argue you are on pretty weak ground trying to use it as an example to suggest you are objective and those who do not accept your beliefs are not. Your comments suggest you are a believer in CAGW for ideological reasons, not scientific reasons. I bring that up because I saw some of your comments on Roger Pielke Jr’s web site today. Your comments are clearly advocating a Left/Progressive ideological belief. You criticised Roger Pielke Jr. and suggested he should consider whether it is him that is biased. It is clear what motivates your reasoning. Your comments here http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/is-us-economic-growth-over.html?showComment=1348800969678 said:
and:
What a pile of Left/Progressive ideological drivel
I am convinced economically irrational policies (like carbon pricing and mandating renewable energy) will not work. I’ve explained why in many comments. They have not be seriously challenged, let alone refuted. In most cases they haven’t been challenged at all.
Reposted with format correction:
Joshua,
Below are some bits you extracted and quoted. Can you provide a persuasive response to them? If you cannot, or you avoid answering, you demonstrate you are simply a believer without evidence – i.e. exactly what you are accusing those who do not accept your belief of doing.
and
The second is my comment. I am arguing that there is no persuasive case that AGW is dangerous or catastrophic and, furthermore, we will address the issue without imposing economy damaging mitigation policies. Please show why this statement is wrong. I’ve provided extensive substantiation from authorities like William Nordhaus, Australian Treasury and others to support my arguments. So far they have not been seriously challenged, let alone refuted. Therefore, I’d argue you are on pretty weak ground trying to use it as an example to suggest you are objective and those who do not accept your beliefs are not. Your comments suggest you are a believer in CAGW for ideological reasons, not scientific reasons. I bring that up because I saw some of your comments on Roger Pielke Jr’s web site today. Your comments are clearly advocating a Left/Progressive ideological belief. You criticised Roger Pielke Jr. and suggested he should consider whether it is him that is biased. It is clear what motivates your reasoning. Your comments here http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/is-us-economic-growth-over.html?showComment=1348800969678 said:
and:
What a pile of Left/Progressive ideological drivel
I am convinced economically irrational policies (like carbon pricing and mandating renewable energy) will not work. I’ve explained why in many comments. They have not be seriously challenged, let alone refuted. In most cases they haven’t been challenged at all.
Before I became aware of blogs only a few years ago, it was much harder to examine contrarian positions about pretty much anything. Not that I want always to adopt contrarian positions, but I do always want to see something from all sides before making up my mind, be that for, against, or don’t know.
What I found out was that orthodox media sources lie and are biased to a greater extent than I had previously realised. Once you realise something like that, things can never be the same; I don’t think I’m alone in this. I no longer read newspapers or watch/listen to broadcast news. Unless they pull their finger out, they’re doomed. Hell, they may even be doomed if they do–the Web is taking over everything and evolving so quickly.
Increasingly, it’s not so much what use blogs and other social media are, but what use they aren’t. It’s getting harder and harder to think of things that they can’t be used for. Never has anything been such a subversive force, and I thank the stars for that, for never has there been such a need for subversion.
The genie is out of the bottle; the Web can’t be censored short of dismantling it. I don’t think any of the governments of the developed nations would have the nerve to do that unless they first managed to dismantle democracy. Some people do seem to be trying quite hard to do that, as that fellow in the video was so worried about. But I’m an optimist–the Wild West Web is here to stay, and it still has a long way to go.
Michael, I worked as a journalist (UK national and regional newspapers, Canadian commercial radio) in the early-mid ’60s. I found it very dishonest – the story was the thing, never mind the facts, and decided to pursue a career in economics (which I’d studied at LSE) instead. Of course, I’ve known journalists, politicians and public servants with honesty, integrity and a concern for the public interest, but they don’t always hold sway – perceived short term interest tends to prevail. The net is something of a corrective, although I don’t know how many people use it as a means of getting different perspectives and information on pressing issues.
As seemingly “enlightened” as they appear to be, nobody could convince me that the real, live, self-described “Authentic Climate Scientist” wouldn’t incinerate all “denialst” blogs in a microsecond if they could
There is no evidence that anthropogenic CO2 caused any warming at all. There is a period of warming between 1976 and 1998. About half the warming was in ENSO dragon-kings in 1976/77 and 1998. The International Satellite Cloud Cloud Climatology Project – one of 2 NASA projects over the period – satellite record shows a net warming of 1.6W/m^2 between 1984 and the late 1990’s. That’s 0.5W/m^2 cooling in the infrared and 2.1W/m^2 warming in the short wave. As far as ‘the science’ goes – this is not all that difficult. Please feel free to rationalise or ignore. There is no evidence for AGW if clouds and ENSO were changing in the ways that they seemed to be from observation.
It doesn’t leave much for 50% of recent warming was 90% certain to be anthropogenic in origin. This claim seems to be so lacking in justification that it is redolent of groupthink. It more than brings up the question of bias – it beats us about the head with it. If one side is questioning – albeit with many exceptions – and the other side reaches conclusions with no evidence whatsoever. If one side is open to review and correction and the other seems to have a limited ability to cope with conceptual anomalies. Then there is no equivalence between the groups. Then there are the usual human frailties on one hand and the psychopathology of groupthink on the other.
Please feel free to put your best case forward – but I expect that there is only appeals to groupthink gatekeepers, stark assertions of science and
vilification.
It’s a situation I can’t identify a reasonable parallel to, for sure.
– Endless money spent
– Endless discourse
– Unfathomable emotional upheaval
All over something there is no evidence for – excepting ephemeral anecdotal “observations” that have a habit of vanishing before there is adequate time to analyze them
I keep wondering this: if the trendline of insignificant warming since 1998 continues for ohh say another 20 years, what will the likes of Joshua etc be saying. At some point, the hard truth of observational data has to kick in.
No. it wont. You cannot get through to zealots. Unless, of course, you can offer them an alternative argument that allows them to preach catastrophic consequences evil humans are causing and will bring the end of life on Earth unless we commit to:
– World government
– Agenda21
– UN taxation
– UN court
– UN police force
– UN army, navy and air force
– International carbon tax or ETS
– Mandated and heavily subsidised renewable energy
And agree to accept their faith.
We will be sequestering 500 billion tonnes of CO2 in agricultural soils and using low cost carbon free energy. They will claim to have saved the world.
Chief,
I’m worried that one of our billionaire nutbars may one day generate some technology that may actually cause damage in the name of “saving our planet”.
gbaikie | September 30, 2012 at 1:38 am:
“Though a CO2 gas molecule does not reflect photons, it would sort of similar to reflecting the photons…If continue the analogy that a CO2 molecule acts as mirror which reflect IR photons, …It is only if the proton adds to heat content of the surface [and therefore emit in broad spectrum] that any work or warming is occurring due CO2 greenhouse gas. And if this is possible it’s essentially delay cooling by seconds adding to the time needed for surface to cool Basically in best case the effect seems fairly insignificant.”
================================================
First of all, your “It is only if the proton adds to heat content of the surface [and therefore emit in broad spectrum] that any work or warming is occurring” contains a tautology, which is equal to does not make sense. It like saying “if it is white, it is white”. Congratulations on this rare scientific achievement.
Second, the difference between real science and science fiction is that in real science you need to prove your assertions. What you have presented reflects possibly what you think for whatever reason about how things work, but… right, you have to prove it. Like experimentally, you know. Have you done that? No, you have not. Anyone? No? I thought so.
“First of all, your “It is only if the proton adds to heat content of the surface [and therefore emit in broad spectrum] that any work or warming is occurring” contains a tautology, which is equal to does not make sense. It like saying “if it is white, it is white”. Congratulations on this rare scientific achievement.”
It may seem redundant, but it isn’t tautology. I saying there few paths a photon can take once it radiate from earth surface. One possible path is could possible warm the surface, and if it does then it will emitted in broad spectrum of wavelength [portion of which can be absorbed by CO2 molecule].
In other words smaller and smaller portions of heat are “trapped”.
First any warm body’s radiation of much larger spectrum then CO2 can absorb/emit. Step A: Most heat goes at lightspeed directly into space. Next in the spectrum that CO2 can absorb, some photon are not absorbed or go through a few CO2 molecule before exiting into space, Etc, then finally it gets back to warming the surface, which again radiates in broad spectrum [returning to step A. And this *process* is occurring in less than second- as in any photon is traveling at light speed].
“Second, the difference between real science and science fiction is that in real science you need to prove your assertions.”
Don’t what assertion you want me to prove. But main point is that makes any gas warm or cold is the molecule speed- the kinetic velocity of molecules. That not my assertion, it’s known.
http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/temptr.html
temperature of gas is about motion of molecules.
Radiation such as IR is about photons traveling at speed of light.
gbaikie
Re: “Step A: Most heat goes at lightspeed directly into space.”
Any evidence for your assertion?
Studies I have seen show the opposite.
Heat = infra red. Only 10% direct, 90% absorbed and reradiated.
Seethe presentation
See slide 24 Trenberth 2009 – 40 w/m2 direct, 356 w/m2 via absorption and reradiation.
Similarly Miskolczi’s line by line on upward vs downward ration as a function of altitude. Absorbed Aa = Ed downward.
http://nige.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/the-saturated-greenhouse-effect-theory-of-ferenc-miskolczi.pdf
“baikie
Re: “Step A: Most heat goes at lightspeed directly into space.”
Any evidence for your assertion?
Studies I have seen show the opposite.
Heat = infra red. Only 10% direct, 90% absorbed and reradiated.”
The topic was concerning CO2 and effects this trace gas.
Water droplets and water gas would another topic.
Globally H2O is widely recognized as the most significant greenhouse gas. Most would agree that the tropics is a very significant part of the world in terms of climate and this region one has somewhere around 3% of the atmosphere being water vapor. In terms ppm, 3% is 30,000 ppm and as greenhouse gas or terms of it’s radiant properties, water adsorbs/emits a significantly broader spectrum than CO2.
The offered arguments in regard to CO2 is not that it is abundant, nor that it’s a strong greenhouse gas, but it’s persistence and uniformity, whereas water vapor is dynamic [though most of tropics has fairly constant warm and wet air].
Though no matter how dry the air is, on most places on earth, compared to CO2 abundance there always a fairly significant amount water vapor. The exceptions being cold dry desert regions and higher elevations- there one may find lower amounts in the air than compared to CO2 levels.
So, generally a person shouldn’t ignore water vapor, but this case I was ignoring water vapor. Not purposely, but rather I was focused on CO2.
As for the models, I think there are pretty crappy. And I am not fan of globally averaging solar flux. And I think if one had such model for the Tropical Zone and separate one for the Temperate Zone, it would be more useful.
Th Skeptial Warmist, 29/09 @10.24pm says ‘that blogs can also be tools for the spread of propoganda [and] self reinforcing echo chambers.. of memes…’
Yes, blogs have their light side and dark side, but so do science consenus cliques and media cliques – ref ‘Climategate.’ So overall the light side probably prevails. …think I’ll jest add an echo-chamber-repeat, meself:
O … we are creatures of the light, of enlightenment
Drawn to the light flickering on the river,
The riffling silver threads disturbing its opacity,
Drawn to the litter of stars that spark
In the dark abyss of night, to the harvest moon,
Palpable as globed fruit, forgetting
It’s light is reflected from the sun.
Shine on, o shine, harvest moon.
Seeking through poetry and science, to probe
The secrets of the heavens and deep abyss,
We yearn for honey from the golden hive,
Enlightenment … O.
Judith,
Others have said something similar, but if it weren’t for the blogs, we in Australia would all be attending service in the Church of Gaia. When every major news source, every government, and every scientific academy is singing from the same hymn sheet it is virtually impossible to get airtime for any other tune.
Your blog, and the others that have been mentioned, have been the means through which a semblance of debate has occurred – oh, and Nature’s inconvenient refusal to go on warming in the way it had done in the 1980s and 1990s, which required some explanation.
I agree that the mainstream media are in crisis, and the blogs are part of the reason.
Judith,
Not having a better explanation for A does not mean that A isn’t wrong.
That’s true in the sense that we should always be open to the possibility in science that what has been generally accepted as true may be wrong. However the number of examples of that happening is very small. Nearly always new information, which might lead to new theories, doesn’t then mean that what was previously accepted as correct was wrong, rather it is shown to be incomplete.
In any case, no-one is saying that science is infallible. Science is the result of rational thought and so it must be the best guide we have. If we have the best explanation possible for A, then it doesn’t make any sense to go with any other explanation until we have a better one.
donaitkin,
Ain’t that true!
Many of Australia’s blog sites ban people who do not support the Left/Progressive agenda. Some don’t ban you but frequently delete comments that do not support their agenda. “ClimateSpectator” is one of the worst at this.
Ain’t that true too!
The government owned ABC TV Broadcaster and radio stations have far more coverage across Australia than any of the commercial channels. They are staffed by far Left/Progressives. The culture of the whole organisation is far Left. They are nothing more than a propaganda agent for the Left/Progressive Green-Labor government. Australia’s ‘Pravda’.
The Australian Academy of Sciences is controlled by the CAGW Alarmists. It is corrupt. Just ask me and we’ll fill in the details.
The government is spending an enormous amount of money on advertising to promote their carbon tax. They are paying out an enormous amount in bribes to people. The total commitments (bribes) far exceed the expected revenue, through to at least 2020. The first payment was paid before the carbon tax even started. It says:
[they mean tax but don’t dare say the word ‘tax’].
Then there is the Australian Treasury. This should be the most honest government department we have. But it is corrupted too. Instead of telling the truth about what the carbon tax and ETS will cost us they spin it their economic analysis with the title “Strong Growth, Low Pollution Future” http://archive.treasury.gov.au/carbonpricemodelling/content/overview/page4.asp . They bury the fact that it will cost us $10 for every projected $1 of savings bu the projected savings will never be achieved because the assumptions on which their modelling is based are impracticable in the real world and will never be achieved.
And of course the Australian Department of Climate Change is a propaganda agency. Lots to tell about what goes on here, but this flashing front page will give you an idea of the BS beneath: http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/
Peter Lang,
It’s a pity that you are banned or that your comments are deleted. I’d be happy for all blogs to give you free rein to your ranting about Leftist conspiracies and climate scams.
I would imagine that most readers would find your humourless climate science denialism and political ratbaggery so objectionable that it would be very counter product for your cause. My only worry is that you may be exposed as someone from our side of the argument who has decided to indulge in some black propaganda.
You are a typical, totalitarian-style lefty, tempterrain. Quash free speech so the serfs can’t plot against you, put the heel of your jack boot on their neck.
Jim2,
Typical? You think that being a democratic socialist, in the way George Orwell was, is typical?
You’ve probably never heard this one. Its not a quote that Oliver Manuel would choose, which just goes to show that he doesn’t really have a clue.
““When I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask myself which side I am on.”
― George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia
Judith,
Statical Analysis of temperatures is NOT looking at the cause and effect factor.
Our planet is 100 times more complex due to the presence of water.This aided in evolution of complexity.
Did many minerals and metals exist back 4.5 billion years ago?
No, they too evolved…
I had better clarify as demons may jump on this all encompassing statement…
We have an iron planet but many of the minor minerals did not exist. Nor did oil, coal, uranium, diamonds, gold, silver, platinum, salt mines, etc.
Complexity is an evolutionary change over time…
Judith,
“….. has this resulted in the burial of the skydragons and arguments that there is no warming of the earth and atmosphere from CO2? ”
No, it hasn’t. Definitely not. If you had more time to read all the comments on your blog you’d know that. It’s good that you did your best to debunk that argument though.
Neither has it resulted in burial of arguments that AGW is all a leftist conspiracy, or part of a UN New world order plot to subvert the US constitution and bring in one world government, or something dreamed up by climate scientists to justify increased funding for their profession !
There are plenty of silly arguments besides the one put forward by the skydragons. But I’m just wondering why you have been less enthusiastic in tackling these?
temp,
We all have our interested areas…
Judith enjoys the uncertainty aspect but is NOT looking for answers.
No I don’t think she is either. It’s very disappointing to have to think that about a scientist.
Temp,
Not a single scientist wants to be looked at as making a mistake but not a single one will fix a mistake found. They would sooner then evolve and generate even more to cover the original mistake.
Sort of like a politician…:-)
That’s not true. All scientists would like to overturn consensus thinking. It puts them in the running for a Nobel prize. Of course, they hav eto be careful, they can end up looking silly if they are shown to be wrong.
That’s not true. Most scietists are mediocre time servers with not an original thought in their pointy heads – subject to groupthink and peer pressure. Could almost be you but you lack the sophistication.
It is not that climate is too complex too understand – but that dynamical complexity is the beginning of understanding.
Chief,
Complexity is usually generated over time.
Slap a hunk of ice with a piece of iron and a piece of our sun and wait 4.5 billion years and this is the result today. Many of our resources and minerals evolved over time and did not exist back then.
Joe – I am usually patient with those who aren’t actually rude first. I think I will continue that way. Dynamical complexity is a theory of the behaviour of complex systems and not really anything to do with the complex in the dictionary sense.
Chief,
Chaos is usually the lack of understanding and ignorance making an excuse of “chaos” for it.
Following the simple road of theory can find many bad conclusions. Following the highly complex evidence road leads to ONLY one answer.
That is total nonsense Joe. You can see in the video above that chaos leads to many answers – but I doubt that you have had enough time to review the video let alone give the subject the serious consideration it deserves.
Chief,
I do have to apologize to you.
That first photo was enough to know that the theory was pure bull crap due to the velocity mapping I have done and the water direction changes at the 48 degree latitude. This in the past was at a higher latitude due to the velocity speed of our planet was faster.
We measure pressure by the density effect it has on water BUT not the actual levels of air pressure in the atmosphere.
Our planet and atmosphere both work totally differently along with water vapor that is mostly governed by the planets rotational velocity and shape. This is why water vapor(clouds) NEVER cross the equator.
Now I will watch the video. Thanks.
Thanks Chief!
The problem I have is that a mathematical calculation CANNOT singularly look at the many variables such as land height, water mass, pressure, cold, hot, velocity, latitudes, precipitation, planetary tilting, gulf stream, etc, etc. Hurricanes are suppose to be created from the energy from the oceans yet tornadoes are on land and come from the sky…..The shape is pressure related. The similar effect of an atomic blast effects pressure and is less effective in higher altitudes with less pressure.
Pressure layering is due to the circumference differences and weight differences.
The simple maths of the Lorenz strange attractors is an example – the maths don’t apply to the complex, dissipative, nonequilibrium, nonlinear planet.
http://www.unige.ch/climate/Publications/Beniston/CC2004.pdf
This patently blatant example of political mind set posted on Climate Audit illustrates why blogs are important fer showing another side to consensus politicking.
http://climateaudit.org/2012/09/18/lewandowskys-fake-correlation/#comments
Can’t get the Lewandoski video up but go to Clomate Audit and view it, it – is- un – believ- able!
It would be interesting to dig into Lewandoski’s background to see if he had anything going for him before he jumped aboard the climate train. He may just be riding shirt tails for the freely flowing gov’ment money.
Pleez fergive typos, it’s been a l-o-n-g day (
Maybe there is is on other things, but there is no need to ask for our forgiveness on typos. One advantage of your idiosyncratic prose style is that we just can’t know for sure anyway.
I believe that there are many lurkers visiting all the better blogs such as Climate Etc and that their main purpose is to learn but have been afraid to ask questions or make comments for fear of being flamed or simply ignored.
I agree with WHT that the sceptics have too many alternate theories, many without any support from the literature, and this tends to make it hard for newbies to sort the wheat out from the chaff.
There are a number of contributors with some scientific background who provide much valuable information unselfishly and with a view to educate, and it is from these kind people that I have personally benefited from blog participation.
I agree with WHT that the sceptics have too many alternate theories,
Well yes they do, but even so, they seem quite tolerant of each other. It’s quite rare for them to publicly disagree or quarrel.
They don’t like the idea of collectivism but they are all good comrades when it comes to opposing the one theory they all dislike intensely. They don’t seem to care which one of their pet theories is right providing that the one that matters most can be shown to be wrong.
@TT “Well yes they do, but even so, they seem quite tolerant of each other. It’s quite rare for them to publicly disagree or quarrel.”
The alternative theories abound purely because to criticise AGW without offering an alternative would seem to be wimpish and narrow-minded in the eyes of many commenters?
There is only one theory that matters – the world is not warming for a decade or three more. We should remember that the difficult questions were asked and answered.
Make a note of how conveniently Chief starts a.quarrel with Joe. As if he is rather suddenly trying to make up for this omission.
………..would seem to be wimpish and narrow-minded in the eyes of many commenters?
Is that a statement or a question?
It was a rhetorical question in reply to your (TT) comment that it was rare for sceptics to quarrel among themselves.
Would you hold the view that sceptics should be offering their alternative theories in the context of their criticism of AGW science and policy? There seems that many pro AGW’s hold this view.
If so, then it would seem reasonable for sceptics to offer these theories as individuals and for them not to be treated as a block of opinion to be defended by all sceptics.
Peter –
Just to point out – many “skeptics” often refer to themselves as a mostly unified entity (they don’t doubt the Earth is warming, they don’t doubt that AGW is a GHG, etc.).
Also, not to say that “realists” should treat “skeptics” as monolithic, but many “skeptics” often lump together and denigrate anyone that is less skeptical than they. I have been called a “true believer,” “cultist,” “CAGW scare-mongerer,” etc. – all with no basis in fact and simply because I have a hobby of pointing out facile thinking among “skeptics.”
Chief –
I agree that sceptics should not be considered as monolithic, either by themselves or by pro AGW’s. You have raised the spectre of motivated reasoning (again) which pervades so much of this blog and indeed, of human discourse generally where facts are confused with fiction.
tempterrain
You have apparently failed to realize that all individuals, who are rationally skeptical of the IPCC CAGW premise, do NOT need to be skeptical of the SAME shortcoming in the science supporting this premise in order to be skeptical of the entire premise.
In addition there are those individuals who are rationally skeptical of the proposed “solutions” to the posited CAGW “problem”, for one reason or another.
As became quite clear in the recent “skeptics’ best case” thread, these rational skeptics may unite in their skepticism of the overall CAGW position, although their individual REASONS for skepticism may well be different.
Max
….You have apparently failed to realize…
I think what I do fail to realise, or fail to understand, is why those lukewarmers who think climate sensitivity may be 1.5 degC tend to spend all their time arguing with those who think it may be more like 3 deg C, and virtually none with those who think it is 0 degC.
Call it ‘cloud skepticizing’.
==================
tempterraine, you write “I think what I do fail to realise, or fail to understand, is why those lukewarmers who think climate sensitivity may be 1.5 degC tend to spend all their time arguing with those who think it may be more like 3 deg C, and virtually none with those who think it is 0 degC.”
Maybe the reason is that those of us who know that the total climate sensitivity is indistinguishable from zero base our ideas on empirical data, which cannot be argued against. It is what it is. The values quoted by the proponents of CAGW are based on highly dubious physics, and the output of non-validated models. These numbers are, therefore, those which need to be challenged.
Oh, but we can imagine catastrophe, and since we aren’t certain in our imaginings, it could be even worse. Precautious, precocious, expialidocious.
===================
Peter,
I only follow evidence…many areas of science of stuffed full of suppositions without evidence which has been taught for many years. From the composition of our core to the creation of our planet is pure theory without looking at evidence that is there but is ignored for the current course of keeping everyone ignorant due to the many areas that would be negatively effected.
AGW is a leftist conspiracy. It is about global governance, economic degrowth, suspension of democracy, the funding gravy train and groupthink. Summed it up pretty well there tanktop.
Say I am a little bored with the simpe radiative physics waffle – you need to move on to solutions if you want peoples attention not to waver. That’s right – you really don’t have any but the destructionn of global capital. Funny about that. Why are warministas such underperformers?
Who is tanktop?
Chief,
Really? AGW is a leftist “conspiracy”? I had thought you were a bit more educated and beyond such drivel.
AGW is shy enough to hide its face, CAGW is the masked creation of a coterie, whose directional wingedry is ambiguous.
===============
R Gates:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI_SqqJIU14
Andrew
The meme is that small l liberals – as we say in Australia – are sceptics. The thgt must mean that pissant progressives are warminista. The drivel is in denying it.
“I had thought you were a bit more educated and beyond such drivel. ”
I hadn’t !
The blogs play the role of the child in Andersen’s fable who shouted “The Emperor is naked”.
They also offer the climate scientists an opportunity to escape the “tunnel vision”, groupthink, social dynamic and bias, and see things from fresh perspectives.
Not everything written on blogs is correct, but then, neither is everything in the IPCC reports or in peer/pal reviewed journals.
The blogs have achieved, at least, a much greater participation in the climate debates, and this surely cannot be a bad thing.
Jacob,
Yes we do hear shouts of nakedness. The problem for you guys is that the Emperor is impeccably dressed. The only pr*cks on display are the ones making the accusations.
It is really just that the emperer is an idiot.
You have your opinion, we know it, you’re surely entitled to it.
My main point was that the blogs have opened the debate for a wide range of people. Submitting the official reports (like the IPCC) to more scrutiny cannot be a bad thing.
Jacob,
Do you want to know what is really sad?
It is that our current scientists have no room for any new discoveries as the laws and theories have filled the void of evidence and good honest deductive reasoning and simple common sense.
Can someone help me on the relationship between increase in ocean temperature and the corresponding release of CO2?
Thanks in advance.
(That is one example of the purpose of blogs: to ask questions)
Girma
You will find the answer in my article here and in the comments and links.
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/historic-variations-in-co2-measurements/
There are esp[ecially interesting ones concerning the apparent counter cyclical nature of the arctic and antarctic
tonyb
That is the most pathetic piece of drivel that I have read in a while.
Look, we have no way of figuring out how many incompetent methods were employed in measuring trace amounts of gas in the past. Not only can we not likely reproduce any of these methods, but we can’t travel back in time and recalibrate the actual values. Not many people care about scientific antiquities except for historians who want to give someone credit where credit is due.
Do you not understand this?
You are making Girma look sympathetic, which is quite a feat.
Girma is simply asking whether there is a relation between ocean temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels. Yes, it exists and it follows the typical vapor pressure curves with an activation energy of about 0.3 eV. This is referred to as CO2 outgassing.
This is a Wolfram Alpha calculation for estimating partial pressure increase.
Change the value of d, which is the delta temperature change from a quiescent value of 300K, and the new PPM of CO2 from a baseline of 280 will be shown. For d=1 the amount of change is 10 PPM. What this says is that the current levels of excess CO2 can’t be explained by outgassing alone. There is a slight positive feedback as temperature increases, so the amount of CO2 outgassed will accelerate as the ocean warms due to the GHG effect. But right now, the impact is at the <10% level.
Webster, you don’t find it interesting that the satellite data shows that NH CO2 variability is much greater than SH, the paleo data shows the same thing and that the only long term paleo CO2 record is from a region of the world thermally isolated from the rest of the habitable world?
Thanks WebHubTelescope
Web,
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-hDXtNnyRT3M/UGhtyDL3CYI/AAAAAAAAEAA/r0J9dd16l4Q/s949/CO2%2520deep%2520water%2520connection.png
Notice how CO2 varies with the ocean temperatures? Isn’t that bottom water temperature correlation kinda interesting? Doesn’t the solubility of CO2 increase with decreasing temperature? Where does that absorbed CO2 go? When does it come back or is it stored permanently in the deep oceans?
Web
Do you mean 0.2 ppm per year increase in atmospheric CO2 due to the warming of the oceans?
cap’n, you notice that the “current” value on your graph is about 110 ppm less than it is today. Do you think the temperature also increased by 10 degrees since then, or could it be something else that caused the CO2 to increase that 110 ppm, perhaps?
JimD, there are quite a few things that would cause CO2 to be higher by 100ppm today. Burning fuels, releasing soil carbon, reducing soil carbon uptake, changing biological activity and changing rates of ocean uptake/outgassing to name a few. Web is using 300K as his baseline for a log relationship where 271 to 273K the likely uptake temperature minimum and 295K is the likely “average” outgassing temperature. The ocean “breathes” CO2 seasonally and changing that respiration rate would have an impact.
From chemical equilibrium considerations there is not a specific value of CO2 for a specific temperature, it is a ratio of the amount in the water versus the air. Hence raising CO2 in the air also acidifies the water to maintain this ratio. The ratio changes slowly with temperature, but from Henry’s Law it would reduce by half for a 25 C increase. This amounts to 10-15 ppm outgassed for each degree increase at current CO2 amounts.
JimD, yep, so the CO2 concentration in the deep oceans would depend on the concentration in the air and the water at the time of uptake plus the relative temperatures. In the oceans, chemistry at the depth of the transported carbonic acid would determine whether the carbonic acid reacted or not. A longer than “normal” inter-glacial period would impact the rate of CO2 uptake and sequestration in the deep oceans plus have a different impact on land based biological CO2 respiration.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-NBE-HYfcrvA/UF9sllREtuI/AAAAAAAAD1A/g8jnEpBbgdI/s912/1.5%2520million%2520years%2520of%2520not%2520quite%2520matching.png
cap’n, first you are talking about outgassing, now you are talking about uptaking. Which is it, and how fast does the ocean circulation have to get before this is important? Currently the oceans uptake half the manmade CO2. A small part of this may be from upwelling cold, low carbon, water that last saw the atmosphere at lower CO2 concentrations.
JimD, I was talking about CO2 variability. When Web started this months ago I showed him the satellite data and the not so well mixed gas response between the hemispheres, what he called “interesting circumstantial evidence”. The carbon cycle is a tad complex, so I would never talk about outgassing without considering uptake and other forms of CO2 impacts. An “average” CO2 concentration based on an “average” SST is meaningless.
Jim D
You have no empirirical data to support that claim, Jim.
Let’s correct it by modifying it slightly:
Currently it appears that the oceans plus the biosphere uptake half the manmade CO2, although a year-by-year material balance shows great variation.
Max
There’s Turbulence in that there carbon cycle, and I ask, why turbulence?
==============
manacker, are you saying a significant amount of it goes elsewhere (biosphere, rocks)? I haven’t heard that theory.
webbie
i chronicle history not creae it. From 1820 to 1955 thousands of scientists-many of them household names- routinely measured co2 in increasingly sophsticaed ways until maua loa.
Surely the lesson to be learnt is that if today you ridicule what was the leading edge of science, who is to say that in 50 years time people wont be equally scathing about todays levels of knowledge of climate science?
tonyb
Girma
Yes.
As WHT has pointed out, there is a well defined theoretical relationship between atmospheric CO2 (absorption/degassing) and ocean temperature.
But there are other factors at play, as you know.
Plants remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
For most plant types there is also a direct theoretical relationship between atmospheric CO2 concentration and the rate of plant growth (i.e. the rate of plant uptake of CO2).
This should also theoretically increase slightly with the slight increase of average global temperature we have seen over the past 150 years or so.
Phytoplankton, etc. remove CO2 from the ocean. I am not aware of any established theoretical relationship between CO2 concentration in (slightly alkaline) sea water and the rate of phytoplankton growth at various globally averaged ocean temperatures, but I can only assume that slightly higher CO2 levels plus very slightly higher temperatures would enhance this process.
But I believe that you were asking about an empirical relationship, i.e. one that is based on actual physical observations.
This would be a bit more difficult to demonstrate.
The amount of CO2 ending up in the atmosphere has been around one-half of the amount emitted by humans.
This relationship has bounced all over the place on a year-by-year basis, but has averaged around 50% over the years.
Interestingly this percentage has come down very slowly over the past 50+ years (since Mauna Loa measurements exist), even though recorded globally averaged ocean temperature has increased ever so slightly over this period (less than 1C), admittedly based on very dicey measurements.
If the ONLY place the “missing CO2” was going were the oceans, one would intuitively think that the %-age NOT absorbed by the oceans should INCREASE with warmer temperature, rather than the other way around, as observed.
So the %-age going to plants instead must be increasing while the %-age going to the oceans is decreasing..
But this is all speculation.
Your question remains unanswered, Girma.
Max
Jim D
See my post to Girma.
Max
I should be happy that Max thinks theory the way he does. He will never be a threat to do any successful environmental modeling with that viewpoont. Or scientific for that matter.
Biological processes happen to have approximately the same activation energy.
manacker, the CO2 increase is higher in warmer years which indicates consistency with the idea that a warmer ocean absorbs less of the manmade input, though some suspect the biosphere also plays a role that is harder to quantify.
Jim D
You say that the ratio of CO2 increase in the atmosphere : CO2 emitted by humans is higher in warm years than in cooler years.
I looked at this (had a long exchange with Webby on it).
What you write is not exactly right, but close.
The ratio is actually higher in years which had a warming trend as compared to the previous year, and is lower in years which had a cooling trend as compared to the previous year, with the ratio varying from 15% to 85% on a year-by-year basis.
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6080/6125478512_1eb60e073e_b.jpg
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6088/6125488794_8ef0233067_b.jpg
What is also interesting is that this longer-term averaged ratio is smaller today than it was 50 years ago (the average ratio for 1959-1990 is around four %-age points – out of around 50% – higher than the average ratio from 1991 to today).
CO2 emitted (GtCO2 cumul)
1959-1990: 518
1991-2010: 526
CO2 increase (ppmv CO2)
1959-1990: 38.3
1991-2010: 35.8
% CO2 “remaining” in atmosphere (4,900,000 Gt total effective mass assumed)
1959-1990 ~55%
1991-2010 ~51%
Data source:
Emissions: CDIAC
ppmv: Mauna Loa
And this despite the fact that average ocean temperature has increased slightly according to the SST record, which would intuitively tell us that less CO2 should be going into the ocean and, therefore, a larger %-age should be going into the atmosphere on average.
This tells me that something else, besides just the ocean, is playing a role here.
Is it increased absorption by plants (quicker growing at higher CO2 concentrations as demonstrated by experimentation)? More absorption by soils? Are there accelerated biological processes going on in the oceans? Is the CO2 disappearing into the lower ocean, where there is no temperature change? We think the lithosphere reacts too slowly to have an influence, but is this correct? Is the “missing CO2” being dissipated into space at some decay rate that is related to the concentration? Human emissions are such a small percentage of the entire carbon sink that it is hard to tell where the “missing CO2” is going.
I do not believe that we (even Webby!) know the answer to these questions or can explain why a smaller %-age of the emitted CO2 “remains” in the atmosphere on average today than it did 50 years ago.
Do you?
Max
PS A first knee-jerk reaction by many to something they are unable to “explain” is denial that it exists. Don’t fall into that trap.
That second figure by Manaker is complete garbage. It contains an egregious error that puts Manaker in a position of having to defend it. He knows what it is and will have to come clean on it.
Web Hub Telescope
Sorry, Webby, but you are flat-out lying.
You know damn well that the data point error (one point) in my curve was corrected (but this one point did not change the overall conclusion any more than one annual temperature error in HadCRUT3 would change the conclusion that there has been a long-term warming trend).
Why do you bring up such stupid garbage?
Are you just an obnoxious troll posing as a scientist?
Max
manacker, I don’t know the error bars, but recent individual years are also consistent with 50%, and if its changing at all it is very slow. I wouldn’t rely on a significant departure from 50% any time soon.
Hey meathead Manacker,
A real scientist would correct the information, instead of parading around his laziness.
As it stands, that table hasn’t been corrected since I first brought it to attention over a year ago.
I know it is probably the only scientific artifact you have ever produced in your life, but when something is wrong, you ought to correct it.
Jim D
“Recent individual years” bounce all over the place (as my graph shows).
Point is the long-term period 1959-1990 had roughly the same CO2 emissions (cumul. GtCO2) and atmospheric increase (change in ppmv) as the shorter period 1991-2010.
Yet the long-term average %-age CO2 “remaining” in the atmosphere was higher by four percentage points out of 50.
This is not a short-term “blip”.
So why is it happening? (Despite the slightly warmer ocean over the latter period.)
You do not have an answer – nor do I. (Nor does Webby.)
Max
No, as a matter of fact, I have the CO2 response model documented in the book “The Oil Conundrum”, which you can get to via the link on my handle.
Web
Thanks for link.
What is missing is
a – an acknowledgement that the amount of “human” CO2 “remaining” in the atmosphere has decreased since measurements were started at Mauna Loa (by around 4 percentage points out of 50%)
b – an explanation of why this is so
Jim D has fallen into the logic trap of simply ignoring “a” above (“I can’t explain it, ergo it doesn’t exist”), and I had hoped you could shed some light on it.
Max
PS Here is my (admittedly uneducated) guess: the biosphere (plants, etc.) is absorbing a slightly higher %-age as atmospheric concentration increases, sort of in a half-life relation The ocean may also be absorbing a tiny amount more due to this same effect. The very slightly warmer globally and annually averaged temperature could possibly accelerate the absorption by the biosphere, but would most likely reduce that of the ocean.
Your thoughts?
Girma, I have waited with this reply, because I thought there would be a response which is more specific to your question. Please except this from a humble retired high school teacher. And if any one would like to correct something, please do so. I have omitted the various equations and math because I think that if you are asking the question, you would not have the background to follow it.
First, of course, generally all gases become less soluble with warmer water temps. That is why there are fish kills on warmer days when the oxygen is driven out, Keeping fish in cold water is often a good idea.
The calculation of how much gas is driven off is not so easy.
First CO2 dissociates and goes into an equilibrium state with carbonic acid and bicarbonate and carbonate. Those three states must be considered separately and added. Also, warming causes more dissociation (more bicarbonate and carbonate) I used an average accepted ocean temp change from 16.4 deg C to 17.0 deg C over the last 100 yrs. I used Henry’s law of partial pressures and a form of the Van Hoff equation to estimate Henry’s constant at various temperatures.
Doing all this I got an increase from about 288 to 292 ppmv which is about 5% of the 80ppmv increase of current measurements.
In doing this I did not consider any other sinks. I also did not consider any increase in additional CO2 being dissolved in the ocean. Although an increase in any gas in the atmosphere would tend to shift the equilibrium to more being dissolved in the water.
Incidently, the ocean is slightly basic not basic.
Try that last statement again.
Slightly basic, not acidic
Darryl B
That’s a good answer to the CO2 absorption/degassing portion of the question asked by Girma.
IOW around 5% of the measured increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration since Mauna Loa started can theoretically be attributed to the lower solubility of CO2 in sea water at the slightly higher globally and annually averaged ocean temperature, excluding the slight opposite impact of a slightly higher partial pressure of CO2 from 1959 to today.
Max
.
Max,
Thanks, it took a while to put it together
Steven Mosher complains about gobbledygook and waffle coming from skeptics, but at least
skeptics are not responsible for us paying considerable amount of money in green taxes.
On the other hand
the AGW promoters are responsible for us paying considerable amount of money in green taxes.
so it is incumbent upon them to provide all proofs for the hypothesis of high uncertainty on which these taxes are based.
The above is beyond dispute, so is this:
AGW hypothesis is not compatible with the world longest and the most accurate temperature record.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
Central England Summer-Winter Temperatures apparent ‘paradox’ .
AGW hypothesis needs to explain it by argument of applicable science, but the prominent climate theorists Schmidt and Perlwitz (both NASA-GISS) have failed, and ‘light-weight’ bloging propagandists Grant Foster and Daniel Bailey are in the ‘science of abuse’.
Note: the AGW theorists and propagandists are responsible for us paying considerable amount of money in green taxes.
You missed the biased materials published and protected while many other good material is trashed.
As all other world religions did and do
Joe, a fair number of your CE posts get trashed, particularly when they are off topic on a particular thread. Or when they are repetitive without any useful detail to describe what the heck you are talking about. And then when I get a glimmer of what you are talking about, my eyes roll. If you have a coherent argument to make, email a document to me, and if it meets some minimal standards for science, I will post it.
That seems incredibly generous.
I keep expecting life to emerge from the primordial soup.
====================
Dr. Curry while you are there, perhaps sometime in future when appropriate, would it be possible to highlight question of :
‘The AGW hypothesis compatibility with the Central England Summer-Winter Temperatures apparent ‘paradox’ ‘as shown here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/MidSummer-MidWinter.htm
this was subject of a bit of ‘rumpus’ on the RC some time ago, without being resolved, I raised it again at WUWT with Dr. Perlwitz NASA-GISS) again without any definitive answer.
May be your denizens can do better.
Ps. I can confirm that Dr. Curry is opened to new ideas, as she has offered, at least on occasion or possibly two, to do a post on some of my work. However currently I do prefer to retain freedom of ‘exploring’ and updating.
Judith,
It would have to be quite lengthy due to the inherent mistakes generated over 300 years.
Litterly, I would have to destroy current science and show EVERY mistake as clinging on to theories is quite prevalent. The single mathematical equation is an impossibility with the vast parameters in even a single area that is different from each other.
Current science is trying to find patterns in a system that was designed strictly to evolve and change until the planet is dry…then you have repetition like Mars…
ok, well until then your little snippets aren’t useful here
Parent Trigger Laws…
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49226485/ns/us_news-education_nation/
Hosea 4:6
vukcevic, you write “May be your denizens can do better.”
No, I cannot do any better. I merely point out that this is some of the empirical data that gives a strong indication to my contention that the total climate sensitivity of CO2 is indistinguishable from zero.
It’s good to know that crackpot comments regularly get weeded out here. Yet, even with that weeding — which is a lot of work, BTW — the view is one of commentary that is heavily tilted toward people with bizarre models of the basic physics.
There are two approaches one can take:
1. Don’t feed the trolls. Totally ignore them and they will go away. This is standard operating procedure on newsgroups and mailing lists that make progress to some goal. Trolls don’t contribute so get ignored.
2. Challenge the trolls. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, as this works best when a real difference of opinion exists.
One-on-one challenges don’t work as the back-and-forth will go on forever (see the Sky-Dragon thread for an example). However, if there is a majority response, it is more likely that the troll will get marginalized and go away.
My suspicion is that this site attracts the most wackos because it acts as a sink and fly-trap. They come here and don’t get discouraged to go away as they would on a “normal” site. Take the example of Oliver Manuel, who eventually gave up posting comments to the http://phys.org/ physics site, as just about every one of his comments was met with ridicule. This does not happen here, so he continues on.
Well I don’t mind paying taxes for good things, Holland has almost the highest in the world. My problem is with starving people in 3d world countries because we are using food as bio-fuels. It isn’t about the hoax but the murder of the poorest people on the planet. We throw away vast sums of money on irrational energy schemes while millions have barely any energy to sustain their lives. There is a direct relation between energy use longevity and health, no one can deny that. The problem with these safe the planet people is that the don’t give a damn, may be they are thinking that they are exterminating vermin and that Gaia loves them for it. When all is done and over with this madness we will hear familiar excuses made some 65 years ago in Germany: Wir haben es nicht gewusst.
Concerning the Godwin: my mother in law was the only survivor out a family of ten, all killed by allied bombs. War is madness but has the side effect of driving technology forward and ultimately left a better world. The radical environmentalist, people like Gore and the Hollywood gang hate humanity and you can tell by looking at the consequences of their behavior. Their ideology doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s the consequences stupid.
Vukcevic,
You say: the AGW promoters are responsible for us paying considerable amount of money in green taxes.
Are you also saying that AGW promoters are also responsible for Governments being more fiscally responsible than they otherwise might be? Its hard to see how your claim can mean anything other than the gap between spending and revenue would be even greater than it is without these “green taxes”, unless of course other more conventional sources of government revenue like income taxes had been raised.
I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer carbon taxes to ever higher income taxes. But I can understand that the ‘Dad’s Army’ of retiree climate skeptic/deniers may take a different view. They probably don’t pay any income taxes.
Hey, just take it all. Pretty soon, no national debt. Why hasn’t someone thought of this yet?
====================
Is it possible that the blogospheric discussions on the greenhouse effect ( at Climate Etc, Science of Doom, etc) have actually slain the skydragons? And John O’Sullivan’s threats of legal action that resulted in my removing the skydragon threads from Climate Etc. — has this resulted in the burial of the skydragons and arguments that there is no warming of the earth and atmosphere from CO2? If so, this is a major victory for the blogosphere.
I suppose it would be pedantic to point out that “sky dragon” represents the concept of human-caused global warming fueled by CO2 emissions–and folks like me are more accurately described as “sky dragon slayers”. I spend a lot of my time hammering at the last few redundant nails in the “sky dragon” coffin. So, these harsh, clueless comments by Madame Curry make no literal sense. But, that’s the point, isn’t it? The themes and concepts we argue over are wrapped in scientific terms, but the actual reality and literal logic of the words are irrelevant, right? This is what offends me most about academia. The most fanciful things can be said and as long as there is a useful storyline and computer model and complex formula, then no link to physical reality is required. That’s the heart and soul of post-modern science.
As a hard-headed old engineer with years of experience in heat transfer and thermodynamics, it seems eminently clear to me that adding anything between point A and point B (for example, a CO2 molecule) will increase coupling between point A and point B. It seems eminently clear to me that if you want to make a heating machine capable of increasing the Earth’s surface temperature by an average of 33C, you need something more than cold, thin air. Which GHE model do you endorse and how exactly does it work? Well, never mind. Cling to your Kiehl-Trenberth energy balance diagrams and don’t worry about whether they are remotely physical.
Can I say this? Any thoughts that the sky dragon slayers are slain are incorrect. Like Crichton/Linszen/Stott in the historic Intelligence Squared debate, we won this argument…except in the minds of the irrelevant–the clueless, the inept, the unconscious and the hopeless progressive enemies of freedom. We are thriving. Not that we’ll ever get any credit, but it’s enough to be on the right side of history as it unfolds.
Carry on.
Sorry, that should be Lindzen…
You should be in my place…I’ve mapped the velocity of our planet and found where the latitude to speed effects water and many other variables and yet get ignore to the strict support of the single calculation being followed for modeling. This is actually an impossibility on an orb with many, many variables.
Temperature data ONLY follows temperatures and NOT what create them!
Apparently this is what blogs are good for – to give cranks an outlet to a larger audience than they could otherwise access.
If you can’t separate the wheat from the chaff in a particular subject you should probably avoid blog comments as a source of information unless of course the information you seek is easily verifiable. Blogs are uber useful in many professions such as computer programming where codes and solutions to specific problems can be quickly verified. The problem with climate science is all the scary bits are either untested or failed hypotheses and the untested bits are not amenable to quick verification.
Unfortunately Michael, your cranks have not produced anything of real value.
Chief,
DO WE NOT ADJUST BAROMETERS for land height above sea level?
So we are NOT actually measuring pressure pockets?
If you go down a hill does your ears not “pop” indicating a different pressure?
Do you not feel that on your ears?
WebHubTelescope | September 30, 2012 at 12:44 am | Reply
“I don’t know much Latin”
Really?
Doesn’t everyone interested in science take two years of Latin?
It was de rigueur in my high school for those anticipating a career in science which was probably like 3-5% of the graduating class. About twice as many first year latin students as second year. I took two years of Spanish too. Those destined for liberal arts took French. I bet that did them a fat lot of good. I’d still say two years of Spanish and two of Latin are still the right mix for high school. Latin is notoriously difficult though.
At least 25% of my second year Latin class in high school went on to become MD’s. It could be more but I’m sure it wasn’t less.
At my UK grammar school we had to choose at age 13 between Latin and Chemistry. I chose Chemistry and went on to gain a Masters.
And my strongest foreign language is German which has very limited Latinate roots. But a very strong chemical tradition.
At my grammar school, fortunately, though I went into the science stream, I was able to complete Latin to ‘O’ level at 16 yrs of age (those were the days when ‘O’ levels were actually challenging). I’ve never regretted it. Latin has been immensely valuable for me–it enhances my understanding of my own language, enables me to get the gist of different romance languages, and taught me precision in expressing myself.
I also did ‘O’ level French, which is a doddle compared to Latin, and learnt a bit of German at University. Interestingly, though German isn’t a romance language, structurally, I found it has more in common with Latin than either English or French. I think that may help account for why both the Romans did, and the Germans do, excel in engineering.
Why blogs, and other alternative media, are essential, especially now:
Don’t take my word for it that the MSM is filtering the news all you “moderates,” “independents.” and progressive drones are seeing. Take the word of a progressive pollster and political operative:
“It is one thing to bias the news, or have a biased view. It is another thing to specifically decide that you will not tell the American people information they have a right to know….
…
The press’s job is to stand in the ramparts and protect the liberty and freedom of all of us from a government and from organized governmental power. When they desert those ramparts and decide that they will now become active participants, that their job is not simply to tell you who you may vote for, and who you may not, but, worse—and this is the danger of the last two weeks—what truth that you may know, as an American, and what truth you are not allowed to know, they have, then, made themselves a fundamental threat to the democracy, and, in my opinion, made themselves the enemy of the American people.”
Pat Caddell, pollster for Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter, and Gary Hart.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/29/mainstream-media-threatening-our-country-future/
Strange. You complain about the mainstream media then link to the mainstream media.
Riiiiiight. Fox is part of the “mainstream” media.
Here is what your fellow CAGW progressive drone wrote about Fox above:
The Skeptical Warmist (aka R. Gates) | September 29, 2012 at 10:59 pm | Reply
Faux News is a joke as a “news” source. Those who don’t understand the political agenda of Rupert Murdoch are simply (and perhaps blissfully) unaware of major financial considerations affecting every aspect of Faux News non-news coverage.
GaryM –
Given that you believe that there is a conspiracy among pollsters to rig the election – I thought you might like to see this:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/poll-averages-have-no-history-of-consistent-partisan-bias/
Do you think there’s any cross-over between political conspiracy theories and climate change conspiracy theories, Gary?
Joshua,
The voter identification polls you linked to show a 10% advantage in Democrats over Republicans.
I’ll make you a bet. If Obama wins the national popular vote by more than 5% on November 6, I won’t post a comment here for 90 days. If he doesn’t, you don’t comment here for 90 days. That gives you a 5 point cushion.
Put your mouth where your mouth is.
Oh, and you lied again. I never said, and do not believe, that there is a “conspiracy” among pollsters.
You like to quibble about terminology so much, look up the word conspiracy.
Faux News would like to be part of the mainstream in the sense that they would wish the majority would somehow actually believe the highly right-leaning drivel they pump out and accept it as actual news.
I’m sorry, Gary.
I thought that you said that the pollsters were over-sampling Dems in the polls for the purpose of making it look like Obama is further ahead than he is.
My bad. I guess you aren’t arguing some myth about a conspiracy to rig the polls after all. Don’t know how I could have made that error, but I’m deeply embarrassed.
Many pollsters are doing just that. But I would have thought an erudite wordsmith like yourself would have looked up the word “conspiracy” as I suggested before doubling down on your dishonest remark again.
So what about my proposed wager? Or are you not dumb enough to believe what you write?
Gary,
First off, if you look at 538, you’ll see that Silver has Obama ahead by less than 5%.
Secondly, your bet would be completely irrelevant to our discussion. I doubt that Obama will stay ahead as far as he is now. Most pollsters agree. The fact that he’s even ahead at all with this economy is very surprising to me. Thanks to Republicans for picking such a poor candidate! Whether Obama will or won’t win by 5% says nothing about your conspiratorial belief that the pollsters are rigging their polls to sway the election. The final margin would prove nothing about the accuracy of the current state of the polls.
BTW – did you look at PollyVote? Would you care to explain why a prominent “skeptic” (and extremist libertarian) would be rigging his analysis to favor Obama?
Ah, so you were declining my wager at the same time I was asking you again.
At least we now know you are not dumb enough to believe what you write. Now if we can just get you to give up your penchant for lying,
Interestingly enough, Gary, Armstrong actually has Obama as somewhat more of a favorite than Silver. Guess you’ll need to go back to the conspiracy drawing board, eh?
kencoffman (@kencoffman) | September 30, 2012 at 7:10 am | Reply
“It seems eminently clear to me that if you want to make a heating machine capable of increasing the Earth’s surface temperature by an average of 33C, you need something more than cold, thin air.”
Agreed. What do you think of the following for an attack ad on CO2-driven greenhouse effect?
It’s the ocean, stupid.
There’s plenty enough energy arriving in the tropics and sub-tropics to warm the ocean way over 255K. Gravity (your favorite actor) and density changes due to salt and temperature cause stratification of ocean layers such that the warm top layer spreads poleward. Water vapor insulates the ocean surface from most radiative loss and channels it through evaporation instead then a balance is reached between cloud albedo and sunlight reaching the surface to evaporate more water to make more clouds.
There’s your greenhouse effect. It’s the ocean and it has a self-limiting maximum temperature due to negative shortwave feedback from clouds that form over it. We see that maximum temperature in the tropics today. Ocean surface temperature has a hard ceiling of 30-31C by observation but models, which you’ve probably heard suck at modeling clouds, have no such SST limit. Clouds have a negative feedback which limits maximum SST by throttling shortwave.
David, I think you have demonstrated yourself to be a fair-minded, honest and intelligent person. I truly wish I could say that more often about more people. So, I sit here thinking about a global heat engine and and I notice the average surface temperature of the tropical oceans is greater than 20C. Wow, I say. That represents a lot of energy and a lot of thermal mass. Golly, that could work great for fueling massive transports of convected air and act as a very nice surface temperature integrator. Why am I reaching into my toolbox for a wimpy, man-generated CO2 machine when I have this mind-bogglingly massive energy source and liquid/gas transport system?
OK, this is the way a scientist would think of water in the atmosphere.
At low concentrations of water vapor, it clearly acts as a greenhouse gas. That is the premise.
As concentrations slowly increase, the potency of the GHE increases. That follows from the initial premise.
At some point, as the vapor concentration increases, it will start to condense as cloud droplets. This has reflectivity properties which can counteract the GHE.
Hypothetically, if the vapor condensed out as thin layer of water forming a suspended transparent sheet, the incoming radiation would pass right through, and on the way out that sheet would act as a greenhouse layer. This glass-like layer would trap the heat just as a conventional greenhouse would.
I mention this as a hypothetical because what we are faced with — the fact that the night-time greenhouse effect will increase as a result of more cloudiness as well. It will increase in either case, clouds or no clouds. I think Tyndall postulated this effect way back when.
So it is really an accounting of the various effects and figuring out how they add up. It is entirely possible that a cloudy atmosphere may tend to help spatially equalize the heat below the cloud layer. Remember that greenhouses are great for creating a more uniform heat distribution. In other words, there may be a delicate balance in place that helps keep the polar areas frozen and the equator hot. What happens when this balance gets upset and the poles, particularly the Arctic (as we may be seeing), starts to be the beneficiary of both excess heat and a redistribution of heat, while the equator loses a bit?
The results are intuitive. The areas that are permanently below the freezing point will start to increase in average temperature. This will melt more ice on average. That’s part of the reason that climate scientists prefer to call it climate change in preference to global warming.
Springer says there is a hard limit on the ocean’s temperature. What I did was provide a scenario that doesn’t increase that temperature much but still shows repercussions in the earth as a whole, simply by a redistribution mechanism.
The SkyDragons crackpots like Ken Coffman want to create a whole new physics to explain everything.
Please, Webby, could you call me a Sky-Dragon-Slayer crackpot? Is the distinction really so hard for you to grasp? I don’t want to be mixed in with the Sky Dragon crackpots who believe humans, running around on the 14.5% of the Earth’s surface that is useful to us, have a measurable influence on the Earth’s average temperature.
Why would I call you an [ImaginaryEntity]-Slayer when I don’t even think that the [ImaginaryEntity] exists?
You get the nickname that brought you here. So you are a SkyDragon guy.
I really appreciate your response, Webby, because it emphasizes a point I often make about activists like you…about how reasonable you are. Even when you are clearly 100% wrong, you won’t give a millimeter. Good for you. Cling to it.
Jim D | September 30, 2012 at 1:24 pm | Myrrh, per unit volume heat capacity depends on what vibration modes are available. Triatomic molecules are harder to heat because they have these modes that diatomic molecules do not. Therefore CO2 has a higher heat capacity per unit volume (or per molecule) than O2 or N2.
Don’t understand what you’re getting at. The heat capacity tables comparisons show carbon dioxide easier to heat than nitrogen and oxygen:
http://chemed.chem.wisc.edu/chempaths/UW-Madison-Chem-109H/Heat-Capacities-1453.html
Fuller comparison table here: http://catalog.conveyorspneumatic.com/Asset/FLS%20Specific%20Heat%20Capacities%20of%20Gases.pdf
Basic heat capacity is the measure of the ability to store heat, carbon dioxide releases heat practically instantly, and, oxygen and nitrogen aren’t that far behind, while, water vapour has around double the heat capacity and liquid water double that.
The BBC showed a typical AGWSF mangling experiment to ‘prove’ that carbon dioxide stored heat, while doing nothing of the kind. It heated a jar of carbon dioxide and a jar of air and measured their temps as this was being done. Supposedly to a room of sceptics and believers.
It showed that carbon dioxide was heating up much quicker than the jar of air and they stopped the experiment when the jar of carbon dioxide was showing a rise in temp of 4 or so degrees something, don’t recall exactly it was a while ago. It looked quite dramatic.., ‘look how much heat it’s taken in’. They then asked the skeptics if they were now convinced that carbon dioxide could store heat – and the sceptics all said, yes, we’re converts now..
But what was it actually showing? The usual heat capacity of carbon dioxide which is that it heats up quicker. That’s all they were actually showing, if they had made an attempt to show its heat capacity they would then have timed the experiment and measured how long it took to cool down. It would have cooled down as quickly.
Do you see the sleight of hand?
They were simply telling the audience what it was they were seeing, without actually demonstrating it. This is an experiment that can only have been devised by someone knowing full well real physics and creating an experiment to deliberately con an audience.
There’s also that the “air” in the jar of air was not actually specified, ‘air of the room they were in’. That it lagged behind the carbon dioxide jar ‘considerably’ before it began to show a temperature increase led me to deduce that it contained a high proportion of water. Another sleight of hand, which gave a visual drama to the experiment, but again, not actually showing the difference in heat capacity. Obviously, it would likewise have taken longer to cool down as it did to heat up.
Does that really impress you?
If carbon dioxide could really store heat they would not have had to fake the experiment.
That’s the bottom line, and you’d be wise to examine the other so called ‘experiments’ they give to prove their claims..
It is the heat capacity per unit volume that matters because they are displacing air with CO2 at the same volume. To get that you need to multiply J/kg/K by the density which is proportional to the molecular weight (CO2=44, N2=28, O2=32). Therefore it is harder to heat a given volume of CO2 than the same volume of air.
Jim D | September 30, 2012 at 11:08 pm | It is the heat capacity per unit volume that matters because they are displacing air with CO2 at the same volume. To get that you need to multiply J/kg/K by the density which is proportional to the molecular weight (CO2=44, N2=28, O2=32). Therefore it is harder to heat a given volume of CO2 than the same volume of air.
Heat capacity is not about displacing volume of air, but the about the capacity of a gas to store heat, in and of itself. How one gas does comparatively with another is what the tables are all about – carbon dioxide has a lower capacity to store heat than oxygen or nitrogen, though there is little difference between them here, unlike water vapour which has double the capacity.
Carbon dioxide gives up its heat instantly, it cannot store heat. Carbon dioxide cannot store heat. Carbon dioxide cannot store heat.
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com. All units are in thousand Joules/kilogram; Liquid water (4.187); ice (2.108); water vapor (1.996).
As you can see, water has 2-4 times the capacity to store heat than dry air: dry air (1.006); which is dominantly molecular Nitrogen (1.040); Oxygen (0.915); and Carbon Dioxide (0.819).
Carbon dioxide cannot store heat. It emits heat instantly.
That’s why it’s obvious that the ‘experiment’ to show ‘carbon dioxide stores heat’ was obviously faked, if it had been jar of carbon dioxide v jar of dry air there would have been little difference between them, it was the addition of water which made it look dramatic as the carbon dioxide quickly heated up and the jar of ‘air’ lagged behind considerably.
Though again, this was not showing the heat capacity anyway, to do that they would have to time how long each took to heat up and then time how long each took to cool down.
The lower the heat capacity the quicker it is heated up and as quickly cools down, the higher the heat capacity the longer it takes to heat up and cool down, which is why water has such a high heat capacity.
And which is why it is the prime mover of heat energy away from the Surface of the Earth, cooling it, in the Water Cycle. Which AGWSF has excised from its comic cartoon energy budget..
Your response is so typical of those pushing the AGWScienceFiction fisics, bringing in totally irrelevant information to distract from the fact your claim that carbon dioxide stores heat in the atmosphere is simply idiotic in real physics.
AGWSF has systematically changed all real physics basics to impossible in this world, the sooner you grasp this the sooner you’ll get out of the their trap. Or, you can continue to believe that the real world around you is empty space with no gravity because populated with the imaginary propertyless ideal gas molecules bouncing off each other and carbon dioxide able to accumulate and not being able to separate out..
Good grief, maybe these points are too esoteric for the general non-science public, but the con is very easy to see in the AGWSF claim that heat from the Sun doesn’t reach us and plays no part in heating us up and this replaced by shortwave light heating land and oceans, which in the real world is impossible. We’ve known since Herschel that the beam heat we get from the Sun is the invisible thermal infrared and we’ve got even more accurate since then, we know visible light is not a thermal energy at all. Shortwave from the Sun cannot heat the Earth’s land and oceans, cannot raise the temperature of matter, we can’t even feel it. It does not raise our temperature, it does not heat us up.
And you claim it does. Prove it. This is you basic fisics which you claim is real world, but in the real world it is impossible.
Here, take the science challenge: http://joannenova.com.au/wp/2012/09/do-greenhouse-gases-warm-the-planet-by-33c-jinan-cao-checks-the-numbers/#comment-1129897
Show how visible light from the Sun actually physically heats land and water at the equator to get us the immense wind and weather systems we have.
Or, wake up to the fact you’ve been had.
As I sink, the light fades.
What’s become of it, myrrh maid?
==================
Jim D,
“It is the heat capacity per unit volume that matters because they are displacing air with CO2 at the same volume. To get that you need to multiply J/kg/K by the density which is proportional to the molecular weight (CO2=44, N2=28, O2=32). Therefore it is harder to heat a given volume of CO2 than the same volume of air.”
Please try to understand the following specific heat capacities of gases:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/carbon-dioxide-d_974.html
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/nitrogen-d_977.html
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/oxygen-d_978.html
http://www.ohio.edu/mechanical/thermo/property_tables/air/air_Cp_Cv.html
You should read those Cp values. Then your conclusion should arrive at how wrong your concept was about the air and the CO2 in the atmosphere.
Jim D,
Here is the water vapor:
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-vapor-d_979.html
Well, WHT I cannot say that I agree with all of your transition. However, for now I have one question because of your introduction of “This is the way a scientist would think of water in the atmosphere” (A statement which says much directly and indirectly.)
Correct me if I am wrong, but I do not know of any models made by climate scientists which show any effects on incident irradiance, I have wondered why, if there are feedbacks changing H2O in the atmosphere, only reflected IR frequencies are considered. Or perhaps I am mistaken.
Please direct me if I am wrong.
And if you added something useful to the discourse ever – you would be something other than a nut case.
Higher temps increase cloud cover? Do tell webnutcolonoscope.
I haven’t seen a proper analysis of the geothermal heat engine in the centre of the earth. Climate scientists say it doesn’t have enough W/m2, but heat and mass means a lot of energy 24hours a day as opposed to the sun which only shines on the light side. So we all agree I think that an earth without any ability to radiate would be isothermal and therefore warm at the surface. Radiation permits surface cooling.
A question for the curious who are interested in the 3.7-4m thickness 100% CO2 experiment. If we put a hot mass at the bottom of a well insulated internally reflective pipe say 100mm diameter 4m long and closed at the top with an IR transparent membrane pointed at the cloudless sky at night. One pipe contains 100% CO2 and the other any mixture of non-GHGs. Will there be any difference between the heat loss of the masses over time? Which will cool faster the one with CO2 or the one with non-GHGs?
The atmospheric CO2 is responsible for about 10% of the downward IR, or 30 W/m2, so the cooling would respond to that kind of difference. This difference would cool 1 inch of water by one degree per hour, so it would be measurable.
How convenient that you fail to mention the contribution of all the other greenhouse gases– especially as they are nocondensing at standard atmospheric pressures and tempertures found in Earth’s atmopshere.
Al Gore likes to say that mankind puts 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every day. What he probably doesn’t know is that Mother Nature puts 24,000 times that amount of our main greenhouse gas — water vapor — into the atmosphere every day, and removes about the same amount every day. While this does not ‘prove’ that global warming is not manmade, it shows that weather systems have by far the greatest control over the Earth’s greenhouse effect, which is dominated by water vapor and clouds. (Roy Spencer)
Methinks Roy Spencer needs to take a maths 101. 70 * (24000 – 24000) is greater than 70?
“The amount we emit is said to be up from 1 percent a decade ago. Despite the increase in emissions, the rate of change of atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa remains the same as the long term average (plus 0.45 percent per year), and that, [w]e are responsible for just 0.001 percent of this atmosphere. If the atmosphere was a 100-story building, our anthropogenic CO2 contribution today would be equivalent to the linoleum on the first floor.” (Reid Bryson)
Methinks Reid Bryson needs to take physics 101. A sheet of linoleum will completely block the passage of light.
A new source of government revenue–taxing linoleum.
Reid Bryson understands all now, as lolwot does not.
=========================
lolwot
Methinks you are nutty if you think climate science pioneer, Reid Bryson needs to take a physics class.
He died a few years ago.
Max
You do not need an Al Gore fearmonger construction kit to create your own parallax view of the world.
Simply start with your favorite global warming memes. Then, just replace AGW alarmists’ hypothesized effects on the climate of too many humans producing too much CO2 with the real effects on the socio-economic condition caused by of governments spending too many dollars that do not belong to them.
For example, how about runaway inflation caused by too many monopoly dollars that is being pumped in by government? Picture workers poking the days’ earnings through chain link fences so their spouses can quick buy staples before runaway inflation drives the value of their dollars down. Picture a shiftless society grown surly—convinced it is impossible to earn an honest living in America.
“It’s the ocean, stupid.”
Quite so:
http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=1487&linkbox=true&position=7
“The Hot Water Bottle Effect”.
It is a fitting way to end the hoax for those in the AGW bubble to understand CO2 is wholly irrelevant given its inability to affect atmospheric denisty because it is present in such a miniscule amount.
LOL one purpose of the blogoshphere is to prove that common-sense intuitions are WRONG! :) :; :grin: :lol:
• Adding an element can DECREASE coupling Adding thin sheets of aluminized mylar makes NASA’s cryogenic super-insulation work BETTER (and adding CO2 to the atmosphere works much the same way!).
• Removing an element can INCREASE coupling Cutting a string under tension increases the spring-to-mass coupling via Braess’ Spring Paradox
And that is how, KenCoffman, science commonly teaches us this:
The facts that you “know” …
… ain’t necessarily so!
:) :; :grin: :lol: :!:
That turbulent dynamical systems are unpredictable is yet another “fact” which many denialists “know” … that ain’t necessarily so!
:) :; :grin: :lol: :!:
Ah, I’ve been patiently waiting for someone to suggest CO2 contributes to the atmospheric GHE by reflecting OLR. Well done, Fan of More Discourse. Of course, a reflective layer in our atmosphere might reduce the cooling rate, but will not contribute anything to increasing the Earth’s average temperature. Lucky for me, my boss prefers my studied, hard-won, time-tested thermodynamic intuition over yours. So we have absorption, thermalization and re-emission (back-radiation) and reflection. Who’s up next? Surely someone will offer some kind of exothermic chemical reaction in our cold, thin atmosphere. That’s a real method of heating. Or, if you don’t like that, how about some form of stimulated emission. Usually, somewhere along the way, someone will suggest I don’t know how a microwave oven works and obliquely suggest this mechanism is at work in our atmosphere. Personally, I like my theory of Little Carbon Dioxide Suns as a method for low concentrations of an IR-resonant gas to influence the temperature of the overwhelming mass of the rest of the atmosphere.
Come on, who’s next?
It is the mystical properties of CO2 that of greatest interest. That is why AGW True Believers call it The One.
Discourse, are you suggesting CO2 acts as a radiation shield? I guess, in the same way, you’d consider a sponge to be a water shield. Groovy. I think of all the ways a CO2 molecule can interact with IR radiation and all the different things a CO2 molecule can do in response, then try to figure out how dispersive, refractive, absorptive, dissipative, diffusive processes can increase the average temperature of a cyclic system. Well, good luck with that.
Kencoffman, er Climate Etc posts are spoutin’ thermodynamical nonsense! :) ;) :grin: :lol: :!:
Every engineer appreciates that “Multiple radiation shields that break the temperature into smaller steps significantly lower radiative heat transfer.”
And when we add more CO2, we’re adding more radiation shields, eh? :shock: :shock: :shock:
Hmmm … maybe yah need some refresher courses, KC? :) ;) :grin: :lol: :!:
`Cuz intuition is no substitute for mathematics, eh? :) ;) :grin: :lol: :!:
Experimental methods for low temperature measurement? You are wasting everyone’s time FOMBS. I am afraid this is not going to work out between us. It’s not me it’s you.
Fan, the multiple radiant layers reduce conduction through the SOLID radiant barrier. Don’t get the same impact with gases due to that pesky convection.
You know, there is a real world outside of the ivy covered halls. Not many jobs in it right now, but it is still there.
The springs go from being in series to being in parallel. It is perhaps not a true physical representation of the Breass’s Paradox. The latter relies on an additional path with low cost being added. All rational actors will then choose to take the low cost path to the detriment of everyone. It is a version of the tragedy of the commons. But we have already seen that advanced forms of social organisation can inform actors and choices made not to take the illusionary low cost path. :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
And although turbulence can be can ‘solved’ by numerical approximations (to any arbitrary degree of accuracy) of the Navier-Stokes partial differential equations over a finite element grid – this is not the same thing at all as dynamical complexity. This is where you and practically everyone else come unstuck. Dynamical complexity is one of the three great ideas of 20th century physics – along with relativity and quantum mechanics. Do you understand relativity FOMBS? Quantum mechanics? But understaining climate without this idea is like the drunk looking for his keys under the lamp post. What say FOMBS – shall we find a lamp post?
:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:
“What are blogs good for anyways?”
This site is an excellent example.
For one, for debating and discussing the many uncertainties related to the science supporting the IPCC CAGW premise.
This is quite simply because “the science is NOT settled” (despite the rather naive statement attributed to John Houghton at the time)
Judith writes:
I agree, but would modify that slightly to
However, I fear that this is a futile wish: IPCC has been obsessed, since its inception, with addressing only the anthropogenic aspects of the science basis, in order the further its parent’s (UNEP) agenda of “taking action”, i.e. controlling and curtailing global human CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, we have seen that many “mainstream climatologists” have become influenced along the way by IPCC’s “consensus process”; some even see a “moral” issue or actually feel they are helping to “save the planet” from humanity
So one thing “blogs are good for” is “keeping them honest” – by ensuring that all sides of the story are discussed and debated openly between all interested parties, not only by a few specialists, who only parrot a “consensus” position.
Max
That consensus ain’t dead, it’s just resting, and pinin’ for the moral heights.
====================
Isn’t it enough to say that until global warming alarmists stop pointing to a political institution like the UN-IPCC for support they will be accorded no more seriousness than the Nobel that was given to Al Gore (after that award the Nobel is either the mark of the devil or about equal to an Academy Award) or… predicting earthquakes withe divining rods and voodoo.
The IPCC lied about the “consensus of scientists” – the actual consensus of scientists was the bolded words below – and it still is the consensus.
Santer admitted he had doctored the report to take out the real consensus of the scientists. He had replaced the real consensus of scientists with his own discredited paper which was typical cherry-picking gobbledegook we’ve come to expect from ‘climate scientists’ pushing the AGW agenda.
That the IPCC lied is fact, it deliberately substituted the real conclusion by the range of scientists contributing to the report and signing off on their conclusion, by its own opposite conclusion created by the science fraud of cherrypicking data points by the coterie of Santer et al in the discredited “A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere”.
http://www.john-daly.com/sonde.htm
“It was 5 months before `Nature’ published two rebuttals from other climate scientists, exposing the faulty science employed by Santer et al. (Vol.384, 12 Dec 1996).”
Long enough to give the fraudulent conclusion the publicity required of it, for the IPCC agenda.
This is obviously a deliberate science fraud by Santer et al, and Bolin who brought in Santer to do this. And if any here would argue that it was a genuine mistake on their part, then those justifying such basic incompetence show themselves to be as incompetent in science.
What the heck are we doing taking any data seriously from these kind of people?
The real conclusion of the consensus of scientists stands, there is no discernable human effect on global temperature
Blog’s are magic places to theorize, debate and complain about taxes and other trivial inconvenience’s.
Well I don’t mind paying taxes for good things, Holland has almost the highest in the world. My problem is with starving people in 3d world countries because we are using food as bio-fuels. It isn’t about the hoax but the murder of the poorest people on the planet. We throw away vast sums of money on irrational energy schemes while millions have barely any energy to sustain their lives. There is a direct relation between energy use longevity and health, no one can deny that. The problem with these safe the planet people is that the don’t give a damn, may be they are thinking that they are exterminating vermin and that Gaia loves them for it. When all is done and over with this madness we will hear familiar excuses made some 65 years ago in Germany: Wir haben es nicht gewusst.
Concerning the Godwin: my mother in law was the only survivor out a family of ten, all killed by allied bombs. War is madness but has the side effect of driving technology forward and ultimately left a better world. The radical environmentalist, people like Gore and the Hollywood gang hate humanity and you can tell by looking at the consequences of their behavior. Their ideology doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s the consequences stupid.
Well said. I am sure that most of them don’t eat babies for breakfast – but there is an odd blind spot. They seem to all have a common idea of limit’s that leads to apocalytic visions poisoning the well of creativity. The only future is bleak. We need to politically marginalise these people – and provide an alternative and positive narrative for the future of humanity.
@JC “In the recent thread Skeptics: make your best case. Part II , I don’t recall seeing any greenhouse effect refutations”
Greenhouse skeptics are alive and well. You must have missed my post and Max’s summary. It will take empirical laboratory evidence to make me change my mind. But will empirical laboratory evidence make climate scientists change theirs.
No doubt blogs are good for discussion. Only from the blog did I discover the flaw in the radiative transfer data – that it is all measured in IR reflective chambers and therefore is unable to quantify thermodynamic effects. Great for remote sensing. Useless for thermodynamics.
I see JimD now talking about experiments in 4m 100% CO2. My calculations came up with 3.7m of 100% CO2. So why hasn’t anybody done that experiment?
I saw Blouis’ refutation and it was so astonishing that I had to add it to the Climate Clowns report. He essentially disagrees with every major principle of consensus climate science. It is not so much as his own theory but rather a whole cloth contrarian viewpoint. Can’t make this stuff up.
@WebHubTelescope, it seems to me that climate scientists of today could be where flat earthers of yesteryear were. Lots of faith. Lots of argument. Lots of derision. Little evidence.
Simple facts. People make mistakes. New textbooks perpetuate mistakes made by consensus by older textbooks. Thank goodness there is a scientific method that we all agree with. The truth will be clarified with time.
Ante up with a real experiment and the argument can easily be settled.
BLouis, what a strange world-view that you have. You think that everyone is wrong but you.
So BLouis is a commenter who thinks thermalization has been misinterpreted since Tyndall, (2) the Stefan-Boltzmann laws have been integrated incorrectly, (3) radiative physics shouldn’t be applied to thermodynamics, (4) no empirical verification as the second law of thermodynamics is likely violated, (5) statistical demonstration has been selective, and (6) any warming may be due to thermal pollution. If I didn’t do this cat justice, please read his comment paragraph in the above link, as it doesn’t go into much more detail. They never do, do they?
@WebHubTelescope | October 3, 2012 at 2:15 am |
None of those ideas are mine.
1. Misinterpretation of tyndall, et al – see Timothy Casey
http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
http://geologist-1011.mobi/
2a. Casey also argues “the temperature of a body in constant incident radiation cannot be raised by compositional changes, and solely depends on the intensity of the radiation. This confirms the duplication of energy and to some degree, the perpetuum mobile inherent in the “Greenhouse Effect.” http://greenhouse.geologist-1011.net/
2b. Joseph Postma also argues the problem of Stefan-Boltzmann/Kirchoff being applied to earth surface vs earth+atmosphere as radiative body in thermal equilibrium as measured from space.
http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/The_Model_Atmosphere.pdf
3a. I didn’t say radiative physics shouldn’t be applied to thermodynamics. I said the radiative transfer data has all been measured within IR reflective chambers (unable to quantify thermalization vs emission.scattering) and therefore is improperly generalised to thermodynamics.
3b. There are others who argue the thermodynamics of the atmosphere is dominated by convective effects. See Claes Johnson for example, who quotes others:
http://claesjohnson.blogspot.com.au/2010/05/thermodynamics-of-global-climate.html
4. I think all the readers are familiar with Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s falsification of the greenhouse effect.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4
5. There are numerous commentators who think the statistical analysis has been selective. Anyone looking on a longer geological time scale can see that earth’s temperature have been higher in the past.
6. Nordell has written about thermal pollution and warming. There is no doubt that thermal pollution adds heat to the earth’s surface 24 hours a day 365.25 days a year. There may be a dispute as to how much. Nordell does understand the relationship between mass, energy, and temperature.
http://tinyurl.com/3calxm2
Bottom line. Where opinions vary, scientific truth can be settled by hypothesis and experiment.
Now we *know* that climate-change skepticism is destined to collapse … the LaRouchites have joined forces with the climate-change skeptics :!: :) :grin: :lol: :!:
Can skepticism get any nuttier than this? :!: :) :grin: :lol: :!:
They were reporting on a televised interview in which Santer admitted science fraud and Monckton’s personal knowledge of this as he had seen the original report and knew what was taken out by Santer and Bolin. The facts of this history don’t change because of the beliefs of those passing on the information..
..they only do that in your imaginary science world.
Have you nothing to say about the facts reported? I’d given, I thought, enough to show that this was deliberate science fraud originating with the IPCC.
And I’ll add, I’ve given before Bolin’s involvement in setting up the AGW claim during the 50’s – and this was said to be by a couple of papers where he didn’t actually give any empirical science to prove it.
So, I haven’t actually checked, but since every time I ask you lot to fetch empirical proof of the claim and you never ever come back with his papers, or any others that show empirical proof..
Do you have the papers? Surely this must be part of your, generic, claimed, ‘well known science from Arrhenius, Tyndall, Fourier and tons of experiments in the last century proving AGW’.
None of whom actually showed any such thing, so all the ad homs and distractions instead.
How long are you going to defend your claims without providing actual empirical real world science detail? Doesn’t it bother you at all that you can’t even show proof for yourself?
Too busy dancing the Ad Homineminem,
Popping his mouth full of chocolate M&Ms.
=======================
I quote: “In the recent thread Skeptics: make your best case. Part II , I don’t recall seeing any greenhouse effect refutations…”
Perhaps it is time for that now even though the person who should do it does not blog. I mean Ferenc Miskolzi, the Hungarian scientist who resigned from NASA when they started to censor his work. He studied the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere and came to the conclusion that for a stable climate to exist the optical thickness of the atmosphere must be 1.867…. A stable climate is one where a runaway greenhouse effect is impossible. There is no sign of a runaway greenhouse effect in the geologic history of the earth but James Hansen keeps harping about a supposed runaway greenhouse on Venus and warning that this could happen to us if we keep burning fossil fuels. He is of course dead wrong because despite his former position as astronomer on the Pioneer Venus project he is ignorant of what is really happening on Venus. It so happens that Venus does not have plate tectonics like the earth does. And this makes a huge difference. Radioactive heat generated in the interior of the earth is constantly vented by plate-boundary volcanism, but Venus has no way of getting rid of it. Instead there are hundreds of infra-plate volcanoes that so weaken the crust that it breaks up into giant slabs. This happens periodically, the slabs sink into the interior, and a complete new crust is formed. Judging by impact crater density the resurfacing interval may be from three hundred to six hundred million years long. With this kind of geology there never was a chance for oceans to form. The atmosphere is made up of gases regurgitated during these resurfacing events and not from evaporation of an imaginary ocean that Hansen says could happen to us too. If Venus is the same age as the earth it could well have recycled its crust ten times during its existence. Coming back to earth, an optical thickness of 1.867… corresponds to a transmittance of 30 percent. Miskolczi worked this out in 2005. But how can this be held steady in the real world? According to him it is maintained as a result of mutual adjustment through feedbacks among greenhouse gases. In practice, this boils down to carbon dioxide and water vapor. Carbon dioxide can not be adjusted once it is in the air but water vapor has an essentially infinite source/sink in the oceans and can easily change. When the amount of carbon dioxide is increased the atmosphere will start to absorb more infrared radiation and its IR transmittance should be reduced below 30 percent, but this does not happen. According to Miskolczi theory it is compensated for by reduction of the amount of water vapor in the air. This means that for greenhouse purposes water vapor feedback is negative, not positive as IPCC assumes. There have been a few papers asserting a negative water vapor feedback but they have been shouted down by the IPCC and its followers. IPCC assumes positive feedback in its greenhouse calculations and that requires water vapor to be saturated at all times. If this is true then we should observe that the amount of water vapor in the air goes up in tandem with Mauna Loa observations of CO2. But satellites tell us that this does nor happen. The sensitivity of carbon dioxide alone is about one degree Celsius. The existence of a positive water vapor feedback is an absolute necessity for them if they want to get higher predictions of warming. But this positive feedback is exactly what is questioned by the Miskolczi theory. A further very serious problem is existence of global temperature standstills. The models simply cannot explain them. Global temperature record shows that there was no warming in the fifties, sixties and most of the seventies while people worried about a coming ice age. There was no warming in the eighties and nineties either as shown by satellite observations. I have been able to verify that both GISTEMP and NCDC global temperature curves agree with satellites on that point. But most global temperature curves do not show this temperature standstill at all but feature an imaginary “late twentieth century warming” instead. That is supposed to have been the warming Hansen reported in 1988. Checking satellite records shows that 1988 was warm, the peak year of an El Nino warming. But there were four other El Nino peaks in this time interval, all equally as warm, all separated from one another by cool La Nina periods. Apparently Hansen mistook that particular El Nino warming for global warming he was expecting any time then. After the eighties and nineties, next up on no-warming zones is the entire twenty-first century. Yet IPCC AR4 predicted that warming in the twenty-first century should proceed at the rate of 0.2 degrees per decade. Today we are in the second decade of this century and there is no sign whatsoever of this predicted warming. In science, if a theory makes a prediction that is false that theory itself is also considered false and should be abandoned. It follows that IPCC greenhouse theory is false and should be abandoned. But I don’t see that it is being abandoned from the number of papers trying to explain away that lack of warming. I give them zero chance for being right but they are trying hard to explain the unexplainable. We are now faced with the fact that all IPCC predictions of dangerous warming that have been used as justification for emission control laws are false. Hence, these laws have been passed under false pretenses. Finally, the most direct negation of the enhanced greenhouse effect comes from Miskolczi in 2010. Using NOAA weather balloon database that goes back to 1948 he was able to show that the infrared transmittance of the atmosphere was constant for 61 years. His theory requires the existence of a constant IR optical thickness and here was proof that it does exist. Not only that but its value was 1.87 as he had predicted in 2005. He measured it in seven subsets of the NOAA database and they all gave the same value as was reported to the EGU meeting in 2011. At the same time the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increased by 21.6 percent. This means that the addition of all this carbon dioxide to air had no effect whatsoever on the absorption of IR by the atmosphere. And no absorption means no greenhouse effect, case closed. This is a purely empirical observation of nature, not derived from any theory. It overrides any predictions from theory that do not agree with it. Specifically, it invalidates all predictions of warming based on the use of the enhanced greenhouse effect. It also means that global warming by the greenhouse effect, now or in the past, does not exist. It follows from this that no warming recorded in the past can be attributed to the greenhouse effect. This could also be deduced from the simpler observation that global temperature increase and global carbon dioxide increase have never proceeded in lockstep with one another. And careful checking of publicly available global temperature curves does show that no warming within the last 100 years can qualify as greenhouse warming. This includes Arctic warming which has been used as a kind of a poster child to prove that anthropogenic warming exists. I showed in 2011 that the cause of Arctic warming is warm water carried north by Atlantic Ocean currents and not any greenhouse effect. This leaves us with no actual observations that can be used to prove that the greenhouse effect even exists. It is time to give up the fairy tale of anthropogenic global warming and start repairing the damage that this belief has wrought.
+1
The reality of the ‘deniers’ still leaves this really big problem for the Democrat party. They must raise revenues to buy the votes of of the poloyglot of 47%’rs that comprise their constituency. Taxing evil business who are destroying the world is some kind of code the increased revenue will not be squeezed from their skinsof everyone, just non-Democrats. The 47%’rs don’t seem to care much about lost opportunities and the fact that businesses that are able to survive Leftist Stonkernomics simply pass along increased costs in the continually rising prices of the goods and services that the 47%’rs enjoy.
Jim D | October 1, 2012 at 12:17 am:
“It demonstrates that CO2 absorbs IR which is a necessary and sufficient condition for it to emit IR in the same wavelengths. If you had an IR camera tuned to those wavelengths you would see it doing just that.”
===========================================
Again, for the third time: The same difference in temperature can be reached with gases WITHOUT IR absorption, therefore the difference in temperature does nor prove IR absorption. Make an effort to understand that.
And again, The IR properties of CO2 are well known for 150 years. However, the alleged warming effect on the surface, which is a core AGW assertion, has apparently never been proven. Here you need to make an effort again. Do not confuse these 2 things.
Hence the AGW concept is based on science fiction, on an unproven assertion.
It is not a warming effect. It is a blanketing effect, like insulation.
The warming still comes from the sun.
No blanketing effect in the Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere cannot stop IR radiation to the space. Atmospheric CO2 blanketing effect only exists in CO2 dreamland.
Jim D | October 1, 2012 at 12:58 am:
“It is not a warming effect. It is a blanketing effect, like insulation. … The warming still comes from the sun.”
===========================================
Again, in the real science you need to prove “a blanketing effect”, “an insulation effect” or whatever. Scientifically. Your “effects” have not been proven. You can name them whatever you want, but it it remains science fiction without any scientific proof. Get it?
One proof is that the earth’s surface averages nearer 288 K than 255 K, but I am sure you don’t like that. Anyway the concept of insulation helps you to have the correct model of what is going on even if you don’t understand why the GHGs behave that way.
JimD, the concept of insulation is very useful.
http://www.radiantbarrier.com/physics-of-foil.htm
Adding a radiant barrier does wonders reducing radiant heat loss. There is a reduction in the cost effectiveness of adding more radiant barriers since convection and conduction become more significant after the radiant barrier is installed.
It is easily demonstrated that any “insulative” or “blanket” effect in the presence of cyclic heating and cooling can only damp oscillations and not manipulate the mean.
Blouis is completely ignorant of how the photonic spectrum fits into the solution.
All Webby has to do is provide a link to the lab test which demonstrates a contrary effect. Slowing the rate of heating and slowing the rate of cooling in an oscillating system does not change the mean…just so, blouis79. The conditions for positive feedback are very clear…the feedback must return in-phase with the input. For the Earth’s average surface temperature, a few milliseconds of median delay does not do it, it’s not even close.
kencoffman
Webby doesn’t supply links.
He just tosses out ad homs and throws in some fancy words to give the illusion he knows what he is talking about.
Is he a fraud? Simply an ill-mannered, aggressive troll, with no education at all?
Who knows?
(Maybe he just acts that way, and there’s really a fine, educated person hiding behind the veneer?)
Max
CO2 doesn’t slow the rate of heating. Just the rate of cooling.
The atmosphere is heated from the inside out. If it were heated from the outside in you’d have a valid point. Shortwave solar energy passes through CO2 unimpeded. It then warms the surface which in turn warms the air. CO2 impedes the passage of longwave radiation leaving the warmed surface. The result of impeding that passage (given that evaporation isn’t free to increase) is a higher surface temperature. This is very basic physics and used in inumerable applications not the least of which is detection and measurement of the many different gases that have this selective response to different electromagnetic frequencies.
Manacker, you are simply an impediment.
An impediment to progress in science. An effin impediment.
You, Manacker, are so lazy that you can’t click on the link in my handle, and thus discover link heaven.
Absent blogs, people with nothing worth saying would have nowhere on Earth to go.
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Interest post, Judith…sure drew a lot of comment. I’ve added mine on Living on the Real World: http://www.livingontherealworld.org/?p=732
keep on blogging!
Hi J Martin,
Ref. your comment yesterday at 4:41 pm.
Before you go to read what the “Slayers” have to say for themselves have a read of “SpotlightON – Principia Scientific INTERNATIONAL” (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/spotlighton-principia-scientific.html) and the related threads.
Each of PSI’s founding members has his own fascinating story to tell.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
Pete Ridley
Thanks for info on PSI.
Where do I send my donation?
Max
Hi Max,
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
What are blogs good for?
Well, I never would have met such delightful, intelligent and thoughtful (if somewhat frightened about the future) people such as Web HubTelescope without this blog.
(I met tempterrain on an earlier blog, and have been very pleased to be able to exchange thoughts with him there as well as here – he also appears to suffer from climate anxiety mixed with a strange visceral dislike of conservative politicians.)
I also had the opportunity to become acquainted with tony b (ClimateReason) on another blog and to benefit from his historical insight into the current AGW hysteria.
All good fun.
Max
Dr Curry,
I believe you are mistaken on two counts: first, I have read a good many comments on this blog that reference and demonstrate the lack of any significant greenhouse effect of CO2 on Earth. In the laboratory, maybe, but on Earth it ain’t happenin.’ Second, the fossil fuel industry is not about to surrender to the AGW hysteria. If anything, they are preparing to fight it to the end – and in several states, even the state regulators are likewise vigorously fighting back against the EPA’s craziness with regard to coal-fired generation. At least one state is taking every possible measure it can to limit the EPA’s interference and stop them from their wholesale violations of rights, and physically prevent them from trespassing and searching without warrants.
It is truly regrettable that you can’t bring yourself to get off the fence and do the right thing, which is to campaign vigorously AGAINST the scaremongers.
As I’ve said here before, there is and can be no “balance” here, any more than there can be “balance” in controverting Adolf Hitler’s racial theories – and for exactly the same reasons.
Demonstrating Poe’s Law by using Godwin’s Law. Very clever.
David Springer | October 2, 2012 at 9:23 am:
“CO2 doesn’t slow the rate of heating. Just the rate of cooling.
The atmosphere is heated from the inside out. If it were heated from the outside in you’d have a valid point. Shortwave solar energy passes through CO2 unimpeded. It then warms the surface which in turn warms the air. CO2 impedes the passage of longwave radiation leaving the warmed surface.”
========================================
Then CO2 must impede the passage of longwave radiation coming from the Sun, too, thus contributing to COOLING. What would be the net effect then? This is the dirty little secret of the AGW proponents.
I know, the warmists usually say “but the most of solar radiation is shortwave”, however this is irrelevant.
Not irrelevant. Shortwave is not a thermal energy, it is not capable of raising the temperaure of land and oceans, or us. This is the real dirty little secret about AGW fisics it’s all fiction. It is physically impossible in this real world around us.
What don’t people understand here?
It is the biggest hoax and science fraud so far, and probably will not be surpassed – a whole generation taught and teaching at university level that the real heat from the Sun doesn’t get through the atmosphere because blocked by some unexplained invisible glass like barrier and shortwave from the Sun incapable of moving molecules of matter into vibrational states, which is what it takes to heat matter, is claimed to take the place of beam thermal infrared heat from the Sun heating land and oceans.
It is utterly stupid in real world physics.
Add to that all the other fictional fisics specially created to promote AGW like the gravity defying supermolecule carbon dioxide capable of storing heat and never coming down in rain, but zipping at great speeds around an earth without any atmosphere at all, etc., etc., etc.
What does it take to get the teachers to face the reality that they are spreading a deliberate con and dumbing down their students?
Why won’t anyone here take the science challenge I’ve set?
Show how visible light from the Sun actually physically heats land and water at the equator to get us the immense wind and weather systems we have.
And wake up to the fact you’ve been had.
Before, I state anything else I should state that I am about 98% a skeptic, That is, I think there may be a small amount of AW but not enough to warrant any foolish decision. I believe there are too many variables and possible contributors to make any attribution.
However, Myrrh I am not sure what you mean or are trying to show by ‘show me how solar visible light heats land (with lots of water) and water. Visible light has a very narrow spectrum in the middle of the EM spectrum,
and light frequencies are among many that are not absorbed.
(Or maybe that is why I have had a burning sensation in my eyes.)
It is well known (with no disagreement among scientists) that H20, CO2, CH4, and O3 have absorption spectra, and therefore are referred to as greenhouse gases, really a misnomer. (Thank goodness for them or this would be a cold planet.) The various internal vibrational frequencies of those molecules are sympathetic to certain IR frequencies. This was determined 100 years ago.
The thing is back then, it was concluded, by experiment that CO2 is saturated with respect to the frequencies it absorbed. it still is thought to be the case and Chad W. , maybe this is what you mean, that additional CO2 cannot absorb any more IR.
Among scientists the debate hinges around this: Although the CO2 remains saturated, an increased amount of IR is being absorbed and radially released in all directions. (A weak analogy may be a tall glass with whole in it. The faster you fill it, the faster it runs out, with the level remaining the same—like I said a WEAK analogy.) Then this feedback, it is hypothesized, with observations contradicting the hypothesis, that there will be an increase in H2O vapor at certain latitudes and latitudes. I have no evidence to support it, but have found evidence to contradict it.
Also, above, I asked WebHubTelescope, why then if this is the AW Hypothesis, no model considers or accounts for changes in H2O effecting incident irradiance. If I am incorrect in this fact, please direct me to where any model does account for effects on incidence.
However, Myrrh I am not sure what you mean or are trying to show by ‘show me how solar visible light heats land (with lots of water) and water. Visible light has a very narrow spectrum in the middle of the EM spectrum,
and light frequencies are among many that are not absorbed.
(Or maybe that is why I have had a burning sensation in my eyes.)
Exactly, but AGW fictional fisics teaches that all energy from the Sun converts to heat, so visible is heating land and oceans and your eyes are burning. They think the albedo from clouds reflecting away visible light is reflecting away heat, but, it’s also heating the ocean, because it’s “absorbed”. In the real world water is a transparent medium for visible light, it can’t heat the ocean. It’s a play on word meaning sleight of hand, created deliberately to confuse them. Try asking how much their visible light from the Sun heats the atmosphere because it’s not transparent to visible light as they claim but is absorbed by the electrons of the nitrogen and oxygen on the electronic transition level which results in reflection/scattering, and our blue sky..
What I’m doing is trying to show the fictional fisics base of the AGW claim for their The Greenhouse Effect, the standard model as presented in the cartoon KT97 and kin and taught even at university level now as it was introduced into the education system.
Their claim is “that the Earth is not heated by beam thermal infrared, that this is blocked from entering the atmosphere by an invisible, [and not explained], barrier as “glass in a greenhouse”, therefore plays no part at all in heating the Earth’s land and oceans, and that shortwave, mainly visible light from the Sun, is the electromagnetic energy which reaches the surface because the atmosphere is transparent to it and it is this which heats land and ocean, which, thus heated radiates out thermal infrared from which ‘backradiation’ from that upwelling, etc”.
I am saying that this describes an imaginary world, not the real world around us, that AGWScienceFiction has tweaked real world physics and created a fictional fisics for this fictional world – I’ve been trying to show how they’ve achieved this by sleights of hand in the changes which I’ve spotted so far.
I’ve found another one in this discussion through an exchange of views here: Myrrh | October 1, 2012 at 10:42 am http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/29/what-are-blogs-good-for-anyways/#comment-247251
AGWSF spreads these fictional fisics memes as soundbites which are repeated because they are taken to be real physics, only someone with relevant real physics knowledge will question them because they don’t make sense, but it’s not until investigating them that the sleight of hand, the magicians trick, can be spotted.
Here it was Jim D’s claim that carbon dioxide had a higher heat capacity than nitrogen and oxygen, but it wasn’t until gbaikie joined in that I got some figures given and not given from which I worked out the magic trick – AGWSF has gone to extreme high temperatures where carbon dioxide first changes from lower than oxygen heat capacity to higher and still greater temperatures to get higher heat capacity than nitrogen.
This was a new meme for me, I think it was introduced to distract from sceptic arguments about the ‘experiment’ where carbon dioxide and air are heated – I’ve given a description of one here: http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/29/what-are-blogs-good-for-anyways/#comment-247038
The AGW fake fisics takes in a variety of science disciplines which makes them difficult to spot and I’ve often found that applied scientists in one discipline will have seen the fake fisics in their own field, but will still take for granted as if real physics a fake fisics memes outside of their interest.
Most of the arguments I found when I began exploring AGW claims were about backradiation and the second law, but I got interested in the AGW claims about carbon dioxide’s gravity defying powers and couldn’t find any discussions on it, so questioned someone, a PhD physics, who taught that CO2 accumulated in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and found from that discussion that AGWSF had created an imaginary atmosphere of empty space populated by the imaginary ideal gas in a container.
Anyway, I then found the basic teaching on the Greenhouse Effect “backradiation” was premised on this fake fisics that shortwave heated the Earth and thermal infrared, the Sun’s heat, had been taken out completely. This sleight of hand was to create the illusion that any actual measured downwelling heat from the atmosphere would be that from the “greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide backradiating from the upwelling heat from the Earth heated by the shortwave”. I was told by another PhD to go outside and sit in the Sun because the heat I would be feeling was the visible light..
So, my science challenge. This is their AGW fisics claim, they keep arguing that it’s correct and real physics and that it’s well proven and there are tons of experiments to show it, but they won’t ever provide me with the empirical science evidence. Of course they can’t, because it doesn’t exist.
I used to just hope they would actually look and discover this for themselves, during which process they would then get a grasp of the real physics. I’ve given plenty of explanations and examples from the real world to help them. I have now turned this into a direct science challenge worded to concentrate on the problem they have to solve to support their AGWSF claim, here:
“Show how visible light from the Sun actually physically intensely heats land and water at the equator to get us the immense wind and weather systems we have.”
In the real world this is physical nonsense, beyond the capability of shortwave from the Sun, and, since they’ve excised the Sun’s real beam thermal energy which does this in the real world they don’t have the winds and weather systems which are created by this intense heating at the equator.
Which of course fits in with their convectionless fictional world’s empty space ideal gas atmosphere, there’s nothing to convect to get the wind and weather. Their empty space not subject to gravity so their magic molecules without volume, weight, attraction can zip around by their own molecular momentum thoroughly mixing by bouncing off each other in elastic collisions and their magic carbon dioxide can spontaneously diffuse into their empty space accumulating, well, for thousands of years even, because it can’t separate out and they don’t have rain. They are oblivious to the fact that they have no sound in their world, perhaps why they have such difficulty hearing this..
So, the science challenge, unless all those promoting the AGW Greenhouse Effect fisics can show that their basic fisics are real in this world they have no science right to claim there is a Greenhouse Effect which is based on this fictional fisics, because all their models are of an imaginary fictional world, impossible in the real world.
The Science Challenge to those teaching the AGW basic Greenhouse Effect fisics –
Show how visible light from the Sun actually physically intensely heats land and water at the equator to get us the immense wind and weather systems we have.
Myrrh hits the nail on the head perfectly – academics spreading disinformation and dumbing down their students. Whatever happened to critical thinking? AGW wouldn’t last two seconds if there were any.
I hate to be the first one to tell you that there is worse out there
http://news.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981421867
Nothing nearly as bad as say Nature or the IPCC though.
And of course the MSM and academics in general.
Myrrh–with apologies-I had not read all that you had previously written.
Also, rereading my own, one line should be latitudes and altitudes.
Tomcat- Yeah, sad that Nature has lost its objectivity. I wonder if someday they will have the integrity to admit it. The IPCC began with political overtones with financial incentives. Show us that CO2 is effecting climate and we will give you more money to show it some more. Any other conclusion, no money no job. And, of course richer countries will pay for their carbon sins to poorer countries.
Finally, has anyone familiar with any Models found any that consider effects upon incident radiation from a projected change in atmospheric conditions?
And although turbulence can be can ‘solved’ by numerical approximations (to any arbitrary degree of accuracy) of the Navier-Stokes partial differential equations over a finite element grid – this is not the same thing at all as dynamical complexity
Chief if I may make a short comment, this is not correct and it is part of the reasons why Navier Stokes is a problem.
First when you halve the grid step, your computing power scales like 2^3. So you must roughly increase the computing power by an order of magnitude every time you just halve the grid step. This finishes fast by costing some real money before hitting the technological limit.
Doing DNS is really costly and can be done only on small volumes following the simple idea that if I increase the resolution, I must decrease the volume I look at. There are other tricks like variable grid steps which try to scale the power by less than 8 but they can’t go very far either.
Second if one neglected computing power limitations, simulation at molecular scales (when the fluid can no more be considered continuous) show that the behaviour is no more correctly described by Navier Stokes.
In that sense Navier Stokes like any non linear dynamical equation with high sensibility on initial conditions (positive Lyapounov coefficients) pose VERY difficult problems for numerical treatments. Dan Hughes posted several papers on this issue – for instance how to prove that the numerical orbit is converging to the true solution of the considered equations for time tending to INFINITY ?.
Etc.
So no, in the general case we cannot “solve” Navier Stokes numerically to arbitrary accuracy and often it is not even clear whether the numbers produced are near and/or converging to a solution.
As you are familiar with the Lorenz attractor, you can make the (numerical) experiment yourself.
Take 2 steps (0.01 and 0.001 LTU) start at the same initial condition and compare the values after exactly 100 LTU.
And now ask yourself the 2 following questions “How could I find out which one of both values is closer to the “true” solution ? If I find a method, will it work for any arbitrarily large time ?”.
The advantage with the Lorenz system is that we at least know that such a smooth solution uniquely exists what is not the case for Navier Stokes.
The dynamical complexity is a child of these “numerical” difficulties.
Tomas,
In my world of rivers and oceans and the grid can be made arbitrarily but practically small enough. If the solution is unstable we decrease the time step. We then calibrate to the real world. So in my world – if it is not well behaved – we slap it about a bit.
In the world of atmospheric and oceanic simulations (AOS) one soon runs into computer power limitations – hence the push for $5 billion and 2000 times more computing power by the modelling community. I hardly think it sufficient.
I am as well extremely unclear as to the virtues of sub-molecular modelling of fluid flows. But even so reduction of the grid to the micron scale for cloud nucleation poses formidable problems.
Atmospheric and oceanic forcings are strongest at global equilibrium scales of 10^7 m and seasons to millennia. Fluid mixing and dissipation occur at microscales of 10^−3 m and 10^−3 s, and cloud particulate transformations happen at 10^−6 m or smaller. Observed intrinsic variability is spectrally broad band across all intermediate scales. A full representation for all dynamical degrees of freedom in different quantities and scales is uncomputable even with optimistically foreseeable computer technology. No fundamentally reliable reduction of the size of the AOS dynamical system (i.e., a statistical mechanics analogous to the transition between molecular kinetics and fluid dynamics) is yet envisioned.
This reality in nature and computers has given rise to two pervasive AOS practices: (i) AOS solution fields are nonsmooth near the space–time discretization scales (i.e., the “resolution” of the model) imposed on the known governing principles expressed mostly as partial differential equations. (ii) AOS models contain essential parameterizations for unresolved or highly simplified processes whose specifications are not at a fundamental level of known governing principles. http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.full
The need for paremetization of certain critical processes introduces great attendant uncertainties – not least to the plausibility of the model in reproducing processes and couplings. There is uncertainty as well in data on sulphides and other gases and particulates and on radiative fluxes at toa – for example. These uncertainties in both initial and boundary conditions introduce great and unknown instability into the solutions.
AOS models are therefore to be judged by their degree of plausibility, not whether they are correct or best. This perspective extends to the component discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling breadth: There are better or worse choices (some seemingly satisfactory for their purpose or others needing repair) but not correct or best ones. The bases for judging are a priori formulation, representing the relevant natural processes and choosing the discrete algorithms, and a posteriori solution behavior. Plausibility criteria are qualitative and loosely quantitative, because there are many relevant measures of plausibility that cannot all be specified or fit precisely.
The emphasis is mine. Because there are a feasible range of inputs and many combinations of feasible inputs – the range of the solutions possible is unknown but possibly very large – including those solutions that are inordinately ‘unstable’. This is very different to the idea that AOS neccessarily converge on a solution in the longer term. The reality is that feasible solutions diverge unpredictably with time. Despite that – a solution that lies within an anticipated range of values is arbitrariliy selected and emailed off to the IPCC where it is graphed along with 20 other arbitrary selections in an opportunistic ensemble.
I didn’t mean to give the impression that I thought that AOS could be made arbitrarily accurate – this only works with small and tractable problems. In reality AOS solutions are selected post hoc based on arbitrary and qualitative ‘a posteriori’ plausibility criteria. That’s right – they pull it out of their arses.
Chief
My comment was merely a technical (yet important) point about the necessity to have a converged numerical solution for some PED system in order to be able to talk about “solutions” at all.
Like you wrote, the standard technique is to decrease the space and/or time step.
This works at least in principle for some systems.
This fails even in principle for the (temporally) chaotic systems because it is quite easily proven that making the time step as small as you want, the numerical “solution” will always be as far from the true solution as you want after a finite time (of course subject to the boundedness of the attractor).
Statistical methods (“ensemble means”) and parametrizations are other also important issues but they were not object of my comment.
I am as well extremely unclear as to the virtues of sub-molecular modelling of fluid flows. But even so reduction of the grid to the micron scale for cloud nucleation poses formidable problems.
To the former it is just to solve for a small collection of molecules by using a realistic inter molecular potential. Asks also for huge computing power but gives a rather accurate (also chaotic) description of the molecular movements that allow for instance to better understand mixing viscous processes. A byproduct is that it allows to compare to Navier Stokes at these sub micronic scales.
To the latter, at micron scales N-S still works. So it is not so hard to solve (numerically) N-S at these scales. At least not harder than at any other scale.
The real problems begin when you try to connect and to make interact trillions of trillions of cubic microns :)
P.S
It could interest you Chief that I have proven and posted a short proof that NO numerical solution of the Lorenz system can converge to the true solution regardless how small the time step is.
The idea of the proof is to show that any numerical solution is necessarily periodic what violates the non intersection theorem of chaotic orbits. Therefore any numerical “solution” is arbitrarily far from the true solution of the Lorenz system for some (large) time.
That’s pretty much what you mean by chaos, part of it anyway.
Turbulence by the way is not projected by the N-S equations by themselves. That is, for a fluid starting starting out from rest, there are no inherent critical values at which the flow becomes turbulent, and no inherent scaling of the distances or momenta in the (numerical) solutions (as there must be for turbulence). Turbulence is a modeled phenomenon, not an inherent property arising from non linearity of the momentum equations.
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