A place for comments that would otherwise disrupt sensible conversations.
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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
Victorsays
“This dependency to physical conditions . . .”
My apologies for this totally off-topic post, but I am so disturbed by your use of the word “to” in this phrase that I can’t resist. I’ve noticed for some time that the word “to” is, in some quarters, becoming a kind of all purpose preposition, which strikes me as in many cases not only ungrammatical, but also rather lazy. This seems to have become standard practice by British writers, even the most highly educated, and I can’t help but wonder why. Unless it’s become sort of a fad, like beginning a sentence with the word “so” (which also annoys me no end).
The correct usage is “dependency ON physical conditions.” “Dependency to physical conditions” is not only incorrect but also illogical. In this case I see no ambiguity, but in other cases lazy usage of this kind could lead to serious misunderstandings.
I’m not directing this at you personally, Rasmus, because I see this sort of thing all the time and from very respectable sources. “This color is different to that” is an example of another unfortunate, but all too common, usage. (And just in case any British readers may have forgotten, the correct usage here is “this color is different FROM that.”)
I realize, of course, that language is continually evolving and that usages that were once considered ungrammatical have now been universally accepted. Which seems to be what is now happening. But I don’t have to like it. For me, language is a precision instrument and this sort of lazy usage dulls the edge.
Victorsays
Paul donahue #155: “Now please explain to me why, over a couple decades, stations are increasingly recording daily, monthly and even annual record high temperatures at a rate that now averages three times the rate that record low temperatures are set.”
All the fuss over broken records is one of the many reasons I’ve become a skeptic on this issue. Because it is simply dishonest. No one on either side of the fence, aside from a few crackpots, denies that the world is now warmer than it’s been for a very long time — at least since the Medieval Warm Period and possibly earlier. There was a significant period of warming during the last 20 years of the 20th century, followed by a significant slowdown in warming during the 21st. Once such a peak is reached, then any increase in temperatures, however slight, will set a record. The real question is: what has caused the elevated temps we are now seeing?
What’s more important than any records being set is the pattern of warming and cooling we’ve seen over the last 100 years or so, and that pattern is NOT consistent with a correlation between warming and CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions have been steadily rising, with the greatest rise beginning in the 1950’s, yet we see a significant period from the 1940’s through the late 1970’s where temperatures became mostly cooler. Preceding that period, we see a long period of significantly rising temps (1910 to 1940) while CO2 levels were only a fraction of what they are today. The ONLY period where we see what looks like a clear correlation is ca. 1979-1998. Other than that we’ve seen a significant increase in temps over the last couple years, most likely due to the recent El Nino, which was indeed extreme.
As I see it, the claim that there has been a long term correlation between warming and CO2 despite the very clear evidence to the contrary is yet another reason why I became a skeptic. Because that too strikes me as dishonest.
So yes, it is now warmer than it’s been for some time. And that enhanced warming might be possible for some of the disturbing weather events we’ve been witnessing. But I see no reason to associate these events with the burning of fossil fuels, as has been alleged.
Sorry to be repeating myself, but that’s the only way I could honestly respond to your post.
Mr. Know It Allsays
Speaking of the jet, did most of the participants ride one to get there? Those things put out a pile of CO2 you know. Just ask Al Gore – I think he OWNS his own jet.
Victorsays
My oh my, all this heated verbiage wasted on an ignorant, stupid troll. I’ve been to many scientific meetings and never witnessed anything close to such a first magnitude set of hissy fits. If I were the only target of this sort of invective I’d take it more seriously. However, I’ve seen similar attacks directed at well-known scientists with impeccable credentials, such as Judith Curry, Roger Pielke, Freeman Dyson, Bjorn Lomborg, Nobel prize winner Ivar Giaever, Richard Lindzen, the list goes on and on. For some reason, these hopeless cretins also insist that there is something wrong with the “consensus” view of climate change. Many dismiss it as a cult. The indignant and unreasonable responses I’ve been getting here are, indeed, more consistent with the defensive rantings of a cult than with a seriously scientific gathering, either online or off.
Regardless. As I’ve reminded Mr. Roger, this discussion is not about me, but about the actual science of climate change. And all anyone here need do to refute me is explain how air conditioners that have been turned off can heat up a room (or if you prefer, cause the temperature of the room to rise). To make the challenge crystal clear, let’s add the qualification that the room in question has previously cooled due to a cooling of the external environment. Now. Do you REALLY want to insist that those turned-off air conditioners could possibly function as a source of heat (or temperature rise) under such conditions and actually warm up that cold room? Similarly, do you really want to insist that, under analogous conditions, where for some reason solar radiance has gone down and as a result the atmosphere is cooling, that somehow an absence of significant volcanic activity could possibly produce a rise in temperature?
Of course not. So, by all means, attack me personally, change the subject, blow smoke, shift the goalposts, nitpick, do anything to divert from the obvious fact that the widespread claim regarding the warming effect of a lack of volcanic activity is simply wrong. And if you want to argue that we’re not talking about a lack but a diminishment of volcanic activity, then you are doubly wrong — because aerosols from any degree of volcanic activity will have a cooling, NOT a warming effect, as you very well know.
Mr. Know It Allsays
42, 51 – m
“Digby asks at 42: What sort of people have so little regard for humanity as a whole that they have no scruples about exploiting the planet to ruinous ends, simply to advantage themselves in the present day?”
The sort of people who will exploit the planet to “advantage” themselves are the types who like to eat food, have a roof over their heads, heat in the winter, medical care when needed, a steady paycheck so they know where the next meal will come from, money to help their kids get a start in the world and possibly to help out aging parents, money they can save to get them thru old age when they can no longer work, money to give to charity or church, etc.
Imagine a man or woman being so arrogant, and selfish, that they’d take a job driving a CO2 belching truck, or dig for coal in a mine, or fish for salmon in the ocean, or fly a CO2 belching airliner, or flip beef patties that came from CH4 exhausting cows, or teaching a classroom of students all of whom belch CO2 and exhaust CH4 and whom will have offspring that produces even more of those evil gases, or working as a climate scientist in an office heated by CO2 belching FFs and occasionally traveling around the world by CO2 belching airliner – all the while using computers made from FFs and powered by CO2 belching FF power plants, or working as a Senator from Tennessee who was President of the USA for a few hours and who travels all over the world in CO2 belching airliners, or one of the millions of people who mine, process, manufacture and transport every product you have ever seen in your life and all the ones you haven’t seen as well. Imagine the selfishness of such people. And then imagine the selfishness of those who might belittle them for going out and being productive people. The HORROR of it all………it’s unspeakable.
Mr. Know It Allsays
49 – KM
“Well, now, that’s fantastic news, given the policy of the current federal government. So–what do we do to ‘solve this as individuals’? I’m all ears.”
It’s simple. Walk your talk. Put your money where your mouth is. Stop using FFs in every act you take. How hard can that be? Sell your belongings, cash in your investments and property, and buy a small farm with fertile soil in the bottomlands of the SE USA – preferably one with a reliable stream, a good well with hand pump, and a few acres of woods. Then what? Get to work. Don’t ever leave that land unless you’re going by foot, bike, horse, skis, skateboard, wing-suit, etc. Fabricate a cabin from the trees on your land, plant a garden using the tools and seeds you purchased after selling out your stuff from your old evil life which was based on FFs that belch CO2. After that, eat, drink and be merry. You have arrived in the paradise world of the future – no more CO2 belching machines for you! You are an environmentalist and YOU are going to show the world how to live! It’s a revolution! BERNIE! BERNIE! BERNIE! :)
Mr. Know It Allsays
56 – scott nudds
Yes, I’d vote for Trump again with no hesitation. One of the greatest presidents ever! NOONE gives him any crap:
If the world agrees that AGW is a serious problem, they should get to work walking their talk. AND the 1/2 of the people in the US who believe in AGW can get busy and walk their talk also. They should stop whining about Trump and start taking actions that actually provide the benefits they claim to want. They should stop telling others to change their lives and just change their lives. Why not? Is that hard? Wouldn’t we be a lot better off with 1/2 of Americans walking their talk than the miniscule number that are doing it today? Am I wrong? Stop using FFs. Show us the way. We’re waiting. Environmentalists have been preaching about the evils of FFs before AGW was on the public radar – at least since the 70s that I am aware of when the debate was about drilling in ANWR. Here we are 40 years later and all those preachers are still using FFs. Stop it. If US enviros walk their talk and the rest of the world that which we are constantly told are so much better than the USA on AGW will walk their talk then it will make no difference what those who support Trump do – they’re an insignificant number of people in the CO2 game. So ignore them. Do what you know is right.
Mr. Know It Allsays
NEWS-FLASH!!!!!
Apparently there is no 97% consensus on AGW. The number was arrived at dishonestly. This fact is apparently not disputed. From this website we find that of ~12K peer-reviewed papers on AGW, 66% of the abstracts expressed no opinion on AGW. Yet, everyone parades around like clucking chickens claiming that the consensus is 97%. Mind boggling.
Quote:
“We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”
There’s somewhat more traffic on that post at WUWT. This site seems fairly lonely. Well, Merry Christmas to all at this site anyway!
Mr. Know It Allsays
211 – nigelj
“I have not heard KM, or Killian, or anyone else oppose smaller population, so why do you keep on repeatedly suggesting we do?”
Perhaps you have not been watching the news from the USA. We currently have ballpark 400,000,000 people. Official numbers closer to 330,000,000 – those here illegally don’t readily admit it – imagine that!
In light of the role population plays in environmental degradation, a good question might be: What population would we like to have in the USA? 500,000,000? 1,000,000,000? 5,000,000,000? Unhinged leftists and their unhinged leftist political representatives have invited all in the world who want to immigrate, to do so. What is their goal? I mean, besides votes? I thought they were environmentalists? Apparently not. I think the best advocate for the environment in the USA, from a population standpoint, is the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Alastair B. McDonaldsays
Ray in 161 you wrote:
“This isn’t controversial. It isn’t in question. It isn’t cutting edge. It is established science. Period.”
I agree, but it is wrong!
According to the lapse rate feedback, the stratosphere should warm. Where did they predict that it would cool?
Moreover, there is a little matter of “The Holocene Temperature Conundrum”. Just one of many ugly little facts which destroy your beautiful theory.
Anderson is right that most climate scientists are not being forthright about the current predicament we are in, but they are not lying. They genuinely believe that we can keep temperatures below 2C, and like you that their models are correct.
I read it. It’s all true. Comments are good too. Over 600 as of right now.
2/18/2018 8:13 pm Pacific
Mr. Know It Allsays
I’ve discovered the ultimate CC mitigation. Oh yes, I have! Kill the climate deniers! You can’t make this stuff up – supported by our friends down under:
Nothing personal about it. I am certainly not alone in this assessment.
CC: Your assessment is still wrong. And I’d like to know who in particular of any credibility agrees with your assessment.
V: As I’m sure you are aware, there is a long list of scientists who seriously doubt the mainstream view of climate change.
CC: The physics behind climate change is well understood. You make all kinds of claims that it is too complex, but that does not make your claims true. Physics is physics. And you can spout your nonsense ad infinitum and it will still not be true. The climate must conform to the known laws of physics.
V: Yes, but the MANNER in which the climate conforms to those laws is what we are considering. The climate is not a simple mechanism like a set of billiard balls, whose actions can be predicted by simple rules of cause and effect.
V: We’re not talking about the greenhouse effect, which is widely accepted. We’re talking about climate change on planet Earth over the last several hundred years, a topic of enormous complexity. Just the problem of measuring the temperature of the entire Earth at any given time is already fraught with tremendous difficulties. Same goes for measuring sea level, not to mention sea ice extent, glacial melt, etc.
CC: NO, we are talking about how the anthropogenic addition of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will effect global temperatures and hence climate. No matter how complex *climate* is, it is the energy balance of the earth system that determines temperatures and those temperatures in turn determine climate. The physics and factors behind what drives the energy balance of the earth are well understood. . . .
The laws of physics are the laws of physics. The climate system must conform to the laws of physics regardless of our ability to assess and observe their application in the real world. Changing the energy imbalance of the planetary system by inhibiting the escape of radiant heat to space WILL result in warming, no matter whether or not you can observe it accurately.
V: Yes, but it is the nature and scope of that imbalance that is the real issue. No one questions that CO2 is a greenhouse gas; the real question concerns the DEGREE to which CO2 levels affect the climate system.
CC: . . . The serious questions raised by you are due to your ignorance of the science. There is significant evidence ignored by you. Some of the evidence may be difficult to collect and to interpret, but much isn’t. Probably most of what you call difficult isn’t, it is just part of your bias. The complexity of the climate system does not mean we cannot understand what drives the temperatures of the planetary system because we do. It is based on physical laws.
V: While preparing my book, I found “A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change,” presented under the aegis of The American Physical Society. I think the best way to respond to all the objections of those insisting that the physics behind the science of climate change is both “well understood” and “incontrovertible” is to encourage you all to study this document. Here is the link: https://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/hafemeister.cfm
I included some fairly long excerpts in my book, chosen more or less at random, followed by this statement:
“Nota bene: I won’t be disputing any of the physics presented in this document for the simple reason that I’m not a physicist and am thus not qualified to dispute it. The point of this little exercise is not to challenge the physics, but to give a sense of how complicated it is. What I’ve quoted here represents only a fraction of the entire argument, which is itself truncated, as its authors acknowledge. What this illustrates is not necessarily any weakness in any of the physics per se, or the math supporting it, but the extraordinarily complex and convoluted nature of the overall argument.”
“Explanations” of this sort, intended no doubt to provide the uninitiated with a simplified version of the science behind climate science, are far more likely to make their heads spin as they try to follow all the ins and outs of an argument so dependent on so many variables as to make one wonder how anyone was ever able to puzzle it all out. If any one of the many claims, analyses, observations, equations, etc. is erroneous or misinterpreted then the whole thing threatens to come tumbling down. It’s enough to make Occam slit his throat with that famous razor.
Is this an example of what you mean by “well understood,” CC?
Scientific arguments in physics, chemistry and cell biology are typically based on controlled laboratory experiments, where explanation and prediction can be based on a few variables. There are elements of climate science that can be addressed using these methods, notably in atmospheric chemistry and the physics and chemistry of aerosol and cloud particles. However, scientific investigations of the dynamics of the entire climate system have more in common with systems biology and economics than with laboratory physics and chemistry, owing to the complexity of the systems under investigation and the inability to conduct controlled experiments. Complexity of the
climate system arises from chaotic behavior and the nonlinearity of the equations for motions in the atmosphere and ocean, high dimensionality of the system (many different variables, varying in three dimensions and with time), and the linking of multiple subsystems (e.g. atmosphere, oceans, land surface, glacier ice).
The aggregate properties and changes of complex systems cannot be determined from sum of the individual components, owing to interactions among the components and the different scales of organization within the system. Complex systems are studied using information theory and computer simulation models (e.g. global climate models.) While some of the equations in climate models are based on the laws of physics, many key processes in the model are only approximated and are not directly related to physical laws.
Integrity is the qualification of being honest and having strong moral principles, or moral uprightness. It is generally a personal choice to hold oneself to consistent moral and ethical standards.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.
Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy, in that judging with the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs. [see Cognitive Dissonance]
The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete.
In this context, integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character.
As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.
Really Simple Stuff Gavin!
#116 Thomas … aka Gavin’s chutzpah:
Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts’, presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to”.
And in case you cannot take the hint Gavin, this is not up for discussion!
Why aren’t gun manufacturers jailed for their part in school shootings?
Why aren’t bullet manufacturers jailed for their part in school shootings?
Why aren’t knife manufacturers jailed for their part in knife attacks?
Why aren’t car manufacturers jailed for their part in global warming? They could have developed electric cars sooner.
Why aren’t car tyre manufacturers jailed for their part in global warming? Without their help, cars would not be such a problem.
Why aren’t car stereo manufacturers jailed for their part in global warming? Without music, people wouldn’t want to drive their cars as much.
Finally, why aren’t YOU jailed for your part in global warming? How long have you known about global warming, but still kept driving your car?
Victorsays
301 CC Holley: “Victor has been told countless times that the heat content of the earth system is dependent on the net effect of all of the radiative forcings, i.e. energy in versus energy out. The war period and rapid economic growth that followed resulted in very high levels of heat blocking aerosols in the atmosphere. Significant enough to block enough solar energy to offset the CO2 signal. This is not disputed. The clean air act of 1970 followed by similar measures in Europe greatly reduced these aerosols allowing the CO2 forcing to re-imerge.”
Yes, this is the standard excuse. I find it laughable. What you fail to recognize is the fact, well known in all branches of science, that it is always possible to come up with some explanation for the failure of an hypothesis to stand up under evidence-based testing by introducing some additional factor or factors that serve to complicate/obfuscate the issue. Also known as blowing smoke (pun intended).
Occam expressed it with admirable concision: “pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate”; literally: “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” More generally: “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” (see for example https://www.britannica.com/topic/Occams-razor) This is sometimes interpreted to mean that the simplest explanation is always to be preferred, but that’s not at all the case. It’s the simplest explanation capable of accounting for all the evidence that is to be preferred. In this case, what accounts for all the evidence is the very simple and logical conclusion that the cooling was caused by the same sort of natural variation that’s cooled the planet on countless other occasions, prior to the industrial revolution.
The only “necessity” prompting the introduction of the aerosol pollution hypothesis is the necessity of rescuing a failing theory from falsification. Such attempts are usually referred to as “saving hypotheses.” In the words of climate skeptic Eric Worral, “. . . if we reject the principle of Occam’s Razor, we open the door to accepting theories of arbitrary, ultimately infinite complexity. A theory created by researchers who do not accept the principle of Occam’s Razor cannot be falsified, because the theory can always be tweaked in arbitrary ways to avoid falsification.” (http://www.ockhams-scheermes.be/349104238)
Maybe if y’all didn’t waste all that time and energy arguing with deniers and going in circles for a decade or more?
Oh well. Live and learn. Mmmmm, maybe not.
Dr. Systemic Causationsays
MA Rodger is wrong again. Please allow me to prove that with evidence.
29 MA Rodger misinforms Hank Roberts @25 and the Group, when he falsely states: It is bizarre that when I google “Systemic Causation” the first reference is to a post by Judy ‘air-head’ Curry who in turn refers to an essay by a George Lakoff who had coined the term in an article a few weeks earkier (sic)
1) Nothing bizarre about that at all. It’s how Google works. It’s Math:101 being applied via an Algorithm. Calling it bizarre is what is bizarre.
2) I note the ‘air-head’ as more evidence of the ongoing pattern of AdHom, ridicule and insult that encompasses Dr. MA Rodger’s style of communication and attitude to life here and on other Fora. (Supporting Refs are available on request)
3)The term “Systemic causation” was not in fact “coined” by Lakoff at all. Anyone who had a well-grounded competent background in Systemic Thinking and/or employed in a ‘Systems’ Management role and/or was a Business & Management (Operations Management) PhD Graduate like Dr. MA Rodger, and/or a Lecturer in that Field like Dr. MA Rodger and/or a high performer in a Scientific Field would have or should have known that assertion was patently false. I know I did.
3.1) Another credible possible alternative could be their Memory is failing them. I don’t know. The least they could have done is to cross check their own facts first before spreading Disinformation on this Science based group.
Based on these facts I strongly advise readers of this Group to be fully aware of the limitations of Commenters here who are not qualified nor as Authoritative as they Believe they are and so often assert they by the manner which they Talk Down to others here.
As Per An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam is a form of defeasible argument in which a claimed authority’s support is used as evidence for an argument’s conclusionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority and Your Logical Fallacy is Appeal to Authority You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true.https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority
Readers here would be best advised to: Choose your Friends carefully. Do not let your Friends Choose you!
There’s also the ongoing pattern in people’s individual issues relating to Cognitive Dissonance and Bias, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect (non-experts in fields and those Pseudo-Experts those with no real life experience in real world applications) that are very much at play among a very small but vocal contingent of participants on RC.
I believe it has been like this for around a decade now and it’s a right pain that could be easily fixed. It’s a classic example of the workings of Systemic Causation right here on this very forum!
Now that’s Bizarre!
Dr. Systemic Causationsays
Let me save the retired aging Doctor Rodger a bit of precious time and effort – my last post was 295 words.
Some bed time reading to suit:
Reality is Not Optional: Thomas Sowell’s Vision of Man and Society
by Dr. Edward Younkins – Professor of Accountancy and Business Administration at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia and author of Capitalism and Commerce.
Quoting: Specialization is highly desirable. There is a superiority of experts within a narrow slice of understanding. Practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique talents, resources, and information.
What is denied is that expertise confers a general superiority which should supersede more widely dispersed types of knowledge.
A useful Truism: Those that can Do. Those that cannot Teach. And any exceptions prove the Rule. But they need to able prove they are exceptional!
Quercusilvamsays
We will keep this out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
Victorsays
101 CCHolley et al.
You can blow as much smoke as you like, folks, but that won’t change the fundamental facts and logic of my critique. It’s really very simple. The rise in CO2 emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels from 1880 through the 1940’s was not sufficient to have played a major role in the considerable global temperature rise that took place during that period — so if we want to presume that sea level rise is prompted by global temperature rise (along with concomitant melting of glaciers, etc.) then we can’t really attribute very much of the rise in sea levels during that period to CO2. Whether you prefer to attribute the temperature rise mostly to solar activity or a lack of volcanic activity is beside the point.
Moreover, as is widely recognized, global temperatures from ca. 1940 to ca. 1979 either dropped or remained level during a period when CO2 levels were beginning to soar. And once again attributing that temperature drop to industrial aerosols or any other “forcing” is beside the point. Despite roughly 40 years during which there was no significant rise in global temperature, sea levels nevertheless continued to rise at roughly the same rate as before. And yes, the association between temperature and sea level is well established, but once again this relationship is beside the point as far as the influence of CO2 emissions is concerned. If you want to insist on the relation between temperature and sea level then it’s necessary to question the accuracy of our measurements of one or the other — or both.
No amount of “research,” statistical legerdemain or modelling can change the basic logic of the above analysis. If you see a flaw in that logic, please enlighten me.
26 Ray Ladbury
My argument was that exaggeration will undermine a position over time. If using Al Gore makes it impossible to follow then you probably do not wish to follow.
People here at RealClimate seem sensitive to any reference to Al Gore, is the consensus to disown him? We in the denial community still love his movies. Also, I stopped calling him fat now that I have put on a few pounds. Besides carbon storage is a good thing.
JRClarkesays
336 , please excuse me for commenting twice but I could not resist this little missive. If possible keep in mind how interconnected everything is. Though believe whatever you wish.
some quotes
Fifteen years ago this week, George W. Bush invaded Iraq. It was an awesome drama, made more thrilling by the seemingly obvious craziness of it all.
Far from being an error, the war was a perfect expression of everything we stood for then, and still stand for now.
Al-Qaeda provided the perfect replacement for the domino theory. Here was an enemy that was at once everywhere and nowhere, that could be in the minds of any person here or abroad, that any country could be accused of sponsoring
Secret prisons? Sure. Torture? Sure. Warrantless surveillance? Sure. Need to read our library records, toss out habeas corpus? Sure and sure
If we could successfully prevent our own voters from seeing or thinking about the moral costs of our policies, then we could continue down the pure-force path indefinitely, without protest, without debate even.
a Justice Department memorandum that apparently existed to provide a legal context for killing even American citizens by fiat.
Later rulings would describe the drone program using the Orwellian term “nonjusticiable,” i.e., simply not subject to review.
an entirely separate, secret set of rules giving them the right to kill, imprison, torture, or spy on anyone.
We flatter ourselves that Trump is an aberration. He isn’t. He’s a depraved, cowardly, above-the-law bully, just like the country we’ve allowed ourselves to become in the last fifteen years.
Osama bin Laden has to be laughing. He had to know all along that only Americans were capable of destroying America. But he couldn’t have dreamed we’d do it so fast.
end quote
Along came Barack Obama the King of the Drones and it all became even worse. I am at a loss why so many idealize US war criminals and liars. Abe Lincoln slaughtered and maimed far more rebels and civilians than Assad ever could, yet they built a statue of him. I think people have lost their senses completely. Brainwashed by the lies deceptions and the non-stop propaganda over decades. What democracy? What rule of Law? What Constitution?
Victorsays
It’s always fun engaging with scientist manqué CC Holley, as he just refuses to give up. C’mon, CC, save yourself more pain and just cry “UNCLE,” you’ll feel much better after you’ve come clean. :-)
305 CCHolley says:
CC: Victor @302
“Apparently not. Or else climate scientists would have a better explanation for the temp. runup from 1910-1940 than lack of volcanic activity and a better explanation for the 1940-1979 hiatus than industrial aerosol cooling.”
But Victor refuses to read the multiple links to peer reviewed papers covering these periods. He just knows so much better that he does not have to. He is soooo smart!
V: I’ll admit it. I’m smart. MS, Ph.D, numerous scholarships, fellowships (including one from Harvard), awards, grants, publications (yes, many have indeed been peer reviewed), collaborations with noted authorities (whose names I won’t mention out of false modesty), etc.
Of course, in this exalted company I come across as an “idiot.” Fine with me. Takes one to know one, I suppose.
As far as those “peer reviewed” papers, I’ve studied a great many, thank you. As would be evident if you took the trouble to read my book.
CC: Victor proclaims the possible explanations for these periods to be poor. In his opinion, a better explanation is needed. Why? Just because.
V: How dishonest can you get, CC? You know very well it’s not “just because.” You’re the one “just becausing” here, not me. Even if you refuse to buy my arguments at least have the honesty to acknowledge that every claim I’ve ever made on this blog has been backed up by evidence.
CC: Victor proclaims himself smarter than thousands of climate scientists even though he has no formal training in the hard sciences.
V: No, I never claimed to be smarter than anyone else. In fact I’m stupid, no? Duh!
CC: Victor refuses to acknowledge that the drivers of climate ARE well understood. Apparently the physics are beyond his comprehension.
“Scientific knowledge is built on empirical data, and the details of the data . . . can vary quite a lot in different scientific disciplines, and in different areas of research within those disciplines. However, there are commonalities in the basic patterns of reasoning that scientists in all fields use to compare their theories with their data. . .
In other words, even if I can’t evaluate someone else’s raw data to tell you directly what it means, I can evaluate the way that data is used to support or refute claims. I can recognize logical fallacies and distinguish them from instances of valid reasoning. Moreover, this is the kind of thing that a non-scientist who is good at critical thinking (whether a journalist or a member of the public consuming a news story) could evaluate as well.”
CC: Still waiting for Victor’s alternative simpler alternative theory. A theory based on physics and supported by evidence. One that is consistent with nights warming faster than days and the arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet. An explanation with it’s added complexity to deal with off-setting the increasing greenhouse effect. One that explains why the measured radiative imbalance attributed to increased greenhouse gasses is doing nothing.
V: I don’t need to provide an alternative. All I need to do is demonstrate that the thinking behind AGW is seriously flawed. Which I believe I’ve done. If you want to insist that “the science” is right after all, then by all means read what I’ve written both here and on my blog and, using your considerable scientific expertise, attempt to refute it. Not as easy as tossing out insults, I must admit, but you can at least give it a try, no?
Victorsays
Just dropping in to announce that I’ve recently completed two more posts on my Mole in the Ground blog. The first is an extension of what I’ve already written about sea level rise, the second is a continuation of my investigation into the common practice among climate scientists of producing all manner of “saving hypotheses,” (aka lame excuses) whenever inconvenient evidence presents itself.
Some highlights:
A critical examination of Fasulo’s odd paper on sea level rise, where he decides to explain away some awkward results by blaming an innocent volcano.
Critique of the once widely held notion (we don’t hear much about it any more) that the hiatus is due to global warming having dived (doved?) into the deep blue sea.
A critique of the “record breaking temperature” meme.
A skeptical discussion of certain statistically based trend lines.
A skeptical look at the “corrected” temperature data produced by Karl et al.
A debunking of the widely held notion that the stratosphere has been cooling as the troposhphere warmed.
And much much more.
Supporting data and references are provided on the blog. Here are the links:
I do not know the blog that you mention, and yes, personally, I think and look at things by myself. As mentioned above, the answer to the question about if GHG are cooling or warming the earth is that they are cooling the earth, because their cooling effects overwhelms greatly the negligible heat caused by an absorption of a negligible part of the IR energy, which itself is negligble compared to visible light, as experimentally demontrated more than a century ago by John Tyndall.
absays
Carrie @47, @48, Scientists are 100% responsible, yes, but not for the solution. They are responsible for the problem. And the only transparency problem is the one rised by Tyndall in his first experiment about the transmission of radiant heat by gases, proving that air is transparent to IR, and thus that there is no radiative forcing caused by GHG into the atmosphere. For life to exist on earth, there also has to be radiative imbalance, because life developped and sustains itself by transforming solar energy into chemical energy. Wanting to reach radiative balance on Earth is like wanting life to end on earth, it is criminal. So it is not anymore a question of model uncertainty, but a question of sustaining or not a theory that has been proved to be erroneous more than one century ago. This old theory has been modified and refined into something even more complex, modernizing its name from “greenhouse” to “radiative forcing”, and using big data and big computers, but the whole basis and assumptions behind it has been experimentally refuted more than one century ago.
absays
Hank Roberts @ 52,
Your thinking is much like the line of reasoning that led a conservative group into serious misunderstandings of atmospheric physics a few years ago.
The IPCC ?
…first an atmosphere cools Earth, then an atmosphere moderates the Moon’s temperature by redistributing warmth …. throwing in a new notion each round isn’t a helpful approach to scientific thought.
Ah, it is that climate science is not simple. One has to understand multiple phenomena and how those phenomena are articulating with each other. So one begins with one phenomena, then one looks at another, and then one sees if those different phenomena are understandable together in a coherent wholistic manner. In this case, it is exactly what the atmosphere does on Earth: it cools the Earth by regulating the incoming energy and, at the same time, it distributes the energy all around the Earth.
Kevin McKinney @56,
Well, my personal opinion is that you are not writing well. But maybe there’s a chance here that I can learn something.
Kindly forgive my english, it is not my native language, and glad that you are open to look at facts.
where is a description of this work to be found?
Tyndall’s 1861 paper is really hardcore stuff for beginning, I just looked at it, and he seems to go into all the nitty gritty technical details and description of many experiments. For beginners, like me, I would recommend a paper that is much more concise, of only 4 pages: “On the Transmission of Heat of different qualities through Gases of different kinds.“(Weekly Evening Meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Friday 10, June, 1859)
So we can dispense with the idea, mentioned along the way somewhere, that the effects were somehow due to the tube, not the gases he experimented with.
Hum, in that particular case, if he interposed some puffs of gas outside of the tube between the Leslie cube and the galvanometer, then the effect observed is due to the gas outside the tube, not to the tube.
the energy not transmitted through the test sample would have heated the gas and re-radiated to the tube
I’m not aware of a cooling system in Tyndall’s experience. I didn’t read the 1861 paper yet. But what I can say about dispersion is this: the energy not transmitted does not necessarily heat the gas. That is a key point in the misunderstanding of many people, who think that because energy is not transmitted, then it is necessarily trapped by gas under the form of heat.
Where it gets strange is in your next comment: you say that “Here, the IR that has been dispersed is shown to be negligible compated [sic] to the visible source: IR dispersion is not measured.” That’s strange because there’s no IR in this experimental setup; only the ‘dispersal’ of SW is being measured.
That is exactly what I pointed out above. Most people believe that because energy is not transmitted then it is directly transformed into heat. But they didn’t really look at what happens when the energy is not transmitted…
What remains unclear to me is why you think that in any way answers Steve Emmerson’s comment at #18, to which you were responding, or for that matter zebra’s more complete summary at #41: be the IR spectrum of a ‘powerful lime light’ whatever it may, the ‘IR composant’ of radiation outgoing from Earth to space most assuredly is not ‘negligible’.
I do not quite understand what you are saying here… Can you rephrase it ?
Steven Emmerson @58,
1) the thermocouple pile used could have been too insensitive to detect the absorption that occurred by the CO2 in the air (it was; modern instruments are far more sensitive);
Tyndall described this issue in his papers, and was fairly well aware of the limitations of galvanometers, and that’s why 1) he perfected his own galvanometers so that they are very well calibrated and “highly sensitive”, and 2) he went a step further by creating a differential galvanometer with two thermopiles. My guess is that such very sensitive differential galvanometer is at least as sensitive or even more than modern electronic single point infrared thermometer, because both devices use thermopiles and the physics behind it (seebeck effect) is the same, the only difference being that modern devices are way more miniaturized and practical.
2) The amount of CO2 in the air in Tyndall’s tube was negligible compared to the amount of CO2 in the the atmosphere (consider the length of Tyndall’s tube compared to the depth of the atmosphere);
Ah, but we are not talking of measuring the whole column of the real atmosphere. We are talking of measuring a short column within that atmosphere, and that is perfectly sufficient. The air into the tube, is the same as the one in the atmosphere, as it is assumed that CO2 is uniformly distributed throughout all the atmosphere. So the tube is a fairly good representation of the atmosphere on a short column.
3) replacing the air in the tube with CO2 showed significant absorption — indicating that a greenhouse effect couldn’t be ruled out based on points 1 and 2.
Yes, CO2 in high concentration shows significant and measurable results. But CO2 in the real atmosphere is not in high concentration: it is a so-called “trace gas”, which makes up less than 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere, by volume.
I’m afraid that if you submitted a scientific paper for peer-review with your conclusion based on that evidence — it would be rejected.
Oh, I do have plenty more of evidences… That is a good idea the one to submit a scientific paper. I already thought about it, and looked at the journal Nature, but then I looked at the publication fees and said to myself: “Whaaat ??? Several thousands of dollars for publishing just one article …??” Bearing in mind that a correct explanation might require more than one article… So I never submitted any article as I can not afford any publication fee, personally. Most of journals seem made for organisations and industries, and not for individual researchers. Do you know any anglophone scientific journal with free publication fees ?
nigelj @ 44, 60,
The study is irrelevant to recent global warming. The study is old and finds a convincing correlation between solar cycles and sea surface temperatures between about 1950 and 1990.
The study is perfectly fine for historical records, and shows convincingly that the variation of solar irradiance is linked to sea surface temperatures, I do not ask anything more or anything less from it. I’m not interested into solar cycles per se, but into solar irradiance, because after all, in the problematic which we are concerned with, the variations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere is what modifies the solar irradiance, more than the solar cycles, which are of secondary importance.
These are baseless and incorrect assertions, and miss the point anyway.Its about what is ‘changing’, and concentrations of greenhouse gases are changing.
Oh yes, concentrations of trace gases are changing, I do not deny that.
This makes no sense to me. The IPCC has reviewed all the studies and found the dominant effect of removing forests is removal of a carbon sink, so it causes warming for that reason.
The carbon what ? Warming has nothing to do with carbon… Again, this recurrent belief that carbon traps heat… Where did you get that idea if one may ask ? Can you explain how it traps heat ?
Yes heat content would increase as water volume increases, however changes in ocean heat content is measured for 700M and 700 – 2000M so fixed volumes!
That is strange: how can an ocean warm at fixed volume ? It seems to one that as ocean heat increases, its volume increases, and thus sea-levels rise… It is basic physics, is it not ?
absays
galvin @68,
[edit – enough. This nonsense is too silly for words. It’s off topic, and tedious]
Some people wanted to learn, and were asking questions, and you just prevented them from reading my answers. So, to me, it is akin to censorship, like what is happening on the website skepticalscience.com: a new inquisition similar to the one of churches of the Middle-Age. Obscurantism appears to be the way of climate science nowadays: one doesn’t allow argumentation nor discussion to take place, in order to promote one unique paradigm and one unique point of view as the truth. It is like the unfair publication-fee system of most scientific journals, which gives visibility to studies not because of their pertinence, but because organisations can pay for an open access of their results. But science is not so-called “democraty” and should not be biased by the monetary or ideological visibility of points of view. Scientific truth is not the opinion of the majority, or of the wealthier. Science lies in the validity and simplicity of explanations, in concordance with facts. It is not about confusing correlations with causations, like the main climate science paradigm based on reductionism is doing.
MPassey @61,
Just hoping that someone with core expertise will address David Young @10
Parameters should be clearly defined in all model studies and considered in isolation of all other parameters. Each parameter, one by one, should be evaluated independently of any relationship with other parameters. When each parameter has been considered in isolation, then only one can examine the more relevant parameters, but without discarding the parameters which seem not relevant at first. Why ? Because some parameters are implicitely linked to other parameters. And some parameters are chronologically dependent of some other parameters. So establishing the right relationships between the parameters is what is the most important, because it allows a meaningful physical description of reality and may prevent what I call the “loupe effect” in models: the fact that models often overlook the understanding of the whole by starting with incorrect approximations which may result, at the end, in important distortions, through a process similar to the one of a magnifying glass. Thus those models just extrapolate results from parameters that are disconnected and fragmented, but without participating of any global and meaningful understanding.
absays
The climate science industry wants the public confuse about climatology. That’s why they invented the IPCC, and why Al Gore, a politician and activist tied with the biofuel industry, got a Nobel Prize for that.
absays
Ray Ladbury @86,
Science is about theoretically guided observation of phenomena and controlling errors associated with those observations.
Nope. Science is about experimentally guided theories controlled by observation of phenomena. The theory consisting in saying that infrared radiation absorbed by trace gases within the air is able to warm the air is not supported by any experimental evidence in laboratory. It has never been demonstrated experimentally. Therefore, it is more a belief than a scientific fact. Because in observational field, countless confounding factors may induce the observer in error. Therefore, it has to be proven experimentally, not by field observation. Until then, it is not a fact, just a theory, and as it is a theory, it can be totally wrong.
absays
Kevin McKinney @112, 113,
As you can see in the spectrum of solar radiation, most of the radiation from the sun is infrared radiation, and an important part also comes under the form of visible light and UV light, which go through the atmosphere and reach the ground more easily than infrared, before creating themselves secondary IR radiation.
So one can see now how misleading is the Kiehl-Trenberth’s Earth’s Energy Budget…
Indeed, this budget gives the false impression that all infrared radiation comes from Earth’s surface, and that all this secondary IR radiation is transformed into “backradiation” by trace gases, while:
1) there are a lot more infrared coming from the outer space as infrared solar radiation than secondary IR from the ground,
2) only a tiny portion of the infrared bands from the ground will be radiated back by GHG,
3) the back radiation from GHG gases are in tiny quantities because trace gases are also in tiny quantities in the atmosphere (by volume, it is inferior to 0,1%)
However H20 being also present under the form of liquids and solids in the atmosphere can backradiate a lot more than other GHG, but it has also a powerful cooling effect, because it can disperse a lot more of solar IR radiation AND visible light. So H2O has an overall cooling effect on the atmosphere.
So, what does it mean ? It means that trace gases actually disperse both solar infrared radiation AND secondary IR from the ground in two opposite directions, so they have both a cooling AND a warming effects which compensate each other.
Thus, considering the solar radiation spectrum arriving on Earth, H20 is a cooling radiative factor and CO2 is a null radiative factor because it can disperse in outer space as much as it can backradiate IR radiation onto the ground. The warming effect of CO2 are compensated by its cooling effects, and other cooling feedbacks linked to the vegetation.
CO2 could be warming the earth if there was no IR coming from the sun with CO2 absorption bands, and if it was in large concentration like on Mars, but the fact is that on Earth it is a trace gase, and there is no proof whatsoever that there is a lot more IR with CO2 absorption bands coming from the ground than coming from the sun, so the warming effect of CO2 is not at all proven, and one can reasonnably think that there is a more IR CO2 compatible coming from the sun, thus CO2 has a cooling effect on Earth.
absays
Robin Johnson @118,
The hard part is knowing the physics and having the data sets for the various physical components.
That is the issue: climate modelers are not understanding the physics, and beyond the physics too, how the whole environment is participating to climate changes, or only fragmentarily and approximatively, and often with false and naïve assumptions, leading to totally incorrect results and wrong suggestions to decision-makers…
absays
Kevin McKinney @ 112,
Let’s look at a more recent paper on the Earth’s Energy Budget by Trenberth and al., with data comparable to the one you mentioned.
You can see at the very first sight that there is something wrong with their energy budget…
There is more ground surface radiation (390 W m−2) than there is incoming solar radiation (346 W m−2)…
That is, according to them, Earth’s surface emits more energy than it receives from the Sun ! And all that energy is suggested by the authors to be under the form of IR energy…
That is, according to them, there is more IR energy coming from Earth’s ground than all UV, visible light and IR energy coming from the sun…!
It doesn’t seem to one that it is that hot on Earth’s surface…right ?
So, how do they come to such obviously wrong result ?
First they erroneously suppose that Earth’s should be in radiative balance, whereas life sustains and develops itself because of a radiative imbalance: photosynthesis transforms solar energy into chemical energy, so there has to be radiative imbalance on Earth not radiative balance.
And then they look at what arrive on Earth (390 W m−2), and they estimate that ∼235 W m−2 is going into the system.
So they conclude that ∼235 W m−2 should also leave the system, because of their incorrect assumption about radiative balance, and therefore, they artificially invent a huge IR radiation from the ground in order to satisfy their greenhouse theory and budget.
And finally they arrive to the erroneous conclusion that all emitted IR radiation leaving Earth originates from the ground…
Whereas the solar spectrum shows clearly that more of half of solar input is on the form of IR radiation. So statistically, there is at least as much IR radiation backradiated to space than IR radiation backradiated to Earth.
Therefore their energy budget is obviously totally wrong.
absays
This whole blog is a bore hole :)
absays
Kevin McKinney @166,
Additionally, and (I think) more importantly, absorption and emission are essentially mirror images of each other (as Tyndall already realized).
Continue to dig in, you’re about to find something…
As a little hint, have a look at the Fresnel Equations…
Barton Paul Levenson @167,
The back-radiation is because is the parts of the atmosphere which radiate back down to ground are at an average temperature of about 277 K on average. From the Stefan-Boltzmann law (F = ε σ T^4), you get about 333 W/m2.
You seem to forget all the other radiations of the diagram… what temperature is there with the Stefan-Boltzmann law when you add together all the radiations on the surface ?
Steven Emmerson @170,
Do you think that the amount of back-radiation from the atmosphere should only equal the amount of solar energy it directly absorbs? If so, why?
No, I say that the mean temperature on the surface should be a radiative constraint for the diagram. A mean temperature of 15°C should give a radiative constraint of 390,9 W m-² on the surface for all the radiations being there.
absays
GHG are to infrared radiation what water is to visible light: when the infrared radiation encounters GHG, there is a change of optical medium, comparable to what happens when visible light changes of medium (like from air to water, or from air to glass).
absays
Kevin McKinney,
I can only repeat to you what I already pointed out to Trenberth:”The Earth’s Energy Budget that you have suggested doesn’t seem to fit with observed temperature: a mean temperature of 15°C on Earth gives a total radiative flux of 390,9 W m-² according to Stefan-Boltzmann law. But on the Earth’s Energy Budget, the total radiative flux on the surface is > 890 W m-² for the three primary fluxes, which is equivalent to a mean temperature of 80,8°C… The constraint on the Earth’s surface should be of 390,9 W m-² for the total radiative flux.”
absays
nigelj @261,
Whether you think that “ab” is a “cranck” or a “crack” scientist has nothing to do with the issue: they are just images popping within your brain that you project according to your own psychological conditioning.
As a matter of fact, scientific litterature, two centuries ago, was much more cordial, even amongst scientists being in total disagreement with each other.
1) Science is not just about calculations and big data: it is first and foremost about understanding natural processes in a logical way. There are tons of peer-review papers with lots of calculations backed with erroneous logics and not supported by experimental evidences. This is the case with many model-based researches, and particularly in climate science.
2) Experimental and observational researches are superior to any model-based research, because you can make a model-based research says any fanciful theory that you want with any result that you want, but most often it is not real science supported by observation and experimentation and confronted with other observations and experimentations in order to eliminate confounding factors, which is the most important thing in science, and particularly in climate science.
3) That you do not understand the implications and significance of a scientific paper (CLOUD’s project) doesn’t make you entitled to say another one is confused. A bit of research and you would have found that CERN’s cloud project explicitly states that the significance of the related papers is that trees are responsible for natural cloud formation via the release of biogenic compounds within the atmosphere, so deforestation diminishes the production of natural clouds.
“CLOUD experiment has shown that biogenic vapours emitted by trees and oxidised in the atmosphere have a significant impact on the formation of clouds, thus helping to cool the planet.”
Changes in extremes of daily temperatures caused by deforestation are not the same as a warming effect over time, and such diurnal changes alone can’t drive global warming and changes in atmospheric circulation.
We are not talking only of diurnal changes but of daily change (both day and night time) associated with deforestation, such as large increase of daily thermal amplitude, which affects greatly atmospheric circulation. At day time, the immediate effects of deforestation are a net powerful warming of many degrees of the surface (from 2°C in temperature regions up to 10°C in tropical regions)…
The more or less 1°C supposed warming in one century associated with anthropic COE are nothing compared to the huge geophysical effects of deforestation on surface warming.
Forests cause both warming and cooling effects due to transpiration and reflectivity, depending on the type of forest so it tends to cancel out.
What you say is totally erroneous: just look at the mean observationnal data comparing forest covers and open lands showing a powerful mean cooling effect of forests, and thus a powerful mean warming effect of historical global deforestation on Earth:
No GHG warming effect, even the most optimistic, can rivalize with the warming geophysical effect of deforestation.
absays
Victor @19,
Unfortunately, you know how research funding works… If nowadays, your paper is not going to explicitely blame GHG and particularly CO2 for any climate effect that you study, then you are not going to have any fund for your research, and if, by chance, you can fund your research, your paper anyway will not make it into the journals if it doesn’t blame CO2 emission somewhere in the text.
This leads to factual discrepancies as you carefully noticed.
This is an effect that I call “selective paradigm enhancement” in scientific journals: only a subset of theories, the one comforting the dominant paradigm, gets funded and makes their way into the most important journals.
absays
Kevin McKinney @267,
No, they think that because they understand the physics involved in great breadth and depth, and because there is voluminous evidence supporting that understanding.
I am open to see the facts with you. Kindly show me the evidences: what physical mechanism or process associated with fossil fuels combustion is able to warm Earth’s surface ? And on what experimental or observational evidence ? Do you have any paper reference ? Even just one that you find really convincing and bullet-proof to share with me?
And obviously, this is one of the very few times in Earth’s history that fossil fuel burning has been a cause of global warming
Don’t you rather mean: “this is one of the very few times in Earth’s history that there has been combustion of fossil fuels” ? So, because it is new, we attribute “global warming” to it, though global warming is not a new phenomenon on Earth ?
any sort of sentient combustion
Is not biological respiration the main process of combustion on Earth ?
absays
References to deforestation in IPCC reports and most of the associated scientific litterature concern only the GHG effects of deforestation, in terms of carbon emission, which lead to totally incorrect conclusions in some studies like “deforestation has no impact on global warming“, based on the narrow idea of carbon emissions alone.
It does not treat at all the geophysical warming effects of historical global deforestation nor the associated water feedback that I talked about with the studies mentioned in my previous comments.
The warming of Earth’s surface is totally explainable without involving radiative forcing: global deforestation is a much higher factor of surface warming, as the study previously mentioned documents: from 1-2°C warming in temperate regions up to 10°C warming in tropical regions.
Most of climate papers are about carbon emissions, like if climate scientists all wear a CO2 glass distorting their world view and making them see everything through the CO2 emission spectrum.
This inevitably lead to erroneous conclusions and incorrect suggestions to decision makers.
PS: I put the source again for the expense of more than one billion of dollars per day based on the greenhouse paradigm:
I’m not contributing anymore to this parody of scientific blog which goes against freedom of expression by practicing authoritative moderation of comments according to subjective prejudices.
Good luck
absays
May one suggest to examine the physical facts about the warming of approximatively one degree in the last century (NASA/GISS), which is supposedly caused by anthropic CO2.
1) The climatic role of the Heat Capacity of Air
The heat capacity of Air, C(Air) in Joules per Kelvin, represents the amount of energy that Air accumulates for a one-degree increase in temperature.
That means that if the heat capacity of Air increases, Air has to store more energy for each supplementary degree, and if it decreases, Air has to store less energy for each supplementary degree.
Considering that the energy received by the sun is more or less constant, it means that a decrease in heat capacity of Air will cause a warming, whereas an increase in heat capacity will cause a cooling of Air.
So, if anthropic CO2 is the cause of global warming, it has to significantly decrease the heat capacity of Air, so that, for a constant radiative source (the sun), there is an observation of a warming anomaly as a result.
2) The consequence of anthropic CO2 on the heat capacity of Air
Since the highest historical and natural known CO2 level (300 ppm), fossil fuels combustion has increased CO2 concentration by 110ppm (410 ppm, soon to be reached according to NASA/NOAA)
Moreover, we know that the combustion of fossil fuels implies that for each CO2 molecule that is produced, one molecule of O2 is being taken from the atmosphere.
So what does that mean in terms of heat capacity of the atmosphere ?
The heat capacity for dioxygen is 21.1 J/K , and 28,2 J/K for carbon dioxide (molar heat capacity table).
That means that for 0,011% of the total volume of the atmosphere (110 ppm), there has been an increase of 7,1 J/K of the molar heat capacity (28,2 -21,1).
Therefore, the combustion of fossil fuels, by increasing the CO2 concentration into Air, results in a marginal increase (by volume) of the heat capacity of Air, and thus in a marginal cooling of the atmosphere.
Victorsays
Sorry to interrupt this all so spiritual discourse with some practical ideas. but I’m excited because I’ve come up with the perfect solution to the climate change crisis.
1. Empower an international police force. Just for fun, let’s call it the “Gestapo.” (Hey, why not?)
2. Disseminate the Gestapo throughout the world with the aim of shutting down all gas stations, fossil fueled power plants, and all factories utilizing fossil fuel power, either directly or indirectly. Since those factories produce unnecessary consumer goods with the sole purpose of feeding the capitalist system, they will not be missed.
3. Provide solar panels and little windmills to each and every home to make it energy-independent. Provide each home with an exercise bike hooked up to an electric generator (as in the film “Soylent Green”) to keep the lights on when the sun don’t shine. Family members could take turns on the bike to keep themselves warm. Provide old fashioned foot operated sewing machines to each family so they can make their own clothing.
4. Provide bicycles free of charge to anyone who can’t afford them. Electrically powered motor bikes should be provided to the infirm and elderly. Three wheelers might be needed in some cases.
5. Redesign all electronic devices so they can be powered with little hand cranks.
6. Award all climate scientists with a collective Nobel Prize for making us aware of the need for all the above.
7. Get down on your knees and pray that there will no longer be any hurricanes, floods, droughts, forest fires, rain-bombs, etc., not to mention sea-level rise.
jay whitesays
Those who wish to divert the conversation to theory do so in order to avoid examining the historical record, where there is no instance in the last 500 million years of CO2 change ever preceding a temperature reversal. None. Ever. We came out of the Last Glacial Maximum 14,500 years ago without a preceding CO2 change from 220ppm, and the mile-thick slabs of ice over London and NYC retreated. We then plunged into the Younger Dryas without preceding CO2 change, and rapidly rebounded to the Holocene Optimum – perhaps 2C warmer than now, with CO2 280 ppm. The slow decline in temperatures since then has been interrupted by interval warmings – the Minoan, the Roman, the Medieval, and the current, none of them instituted by preceding CO2 change. During the Depression years of 1929-1931, human CO2 production declined by 30% and temperatures kept rising to 1940. So if CO2 doesn’t control climate – and it doesn’t – how can we?
CO2 has zero chance of altering the future that Gaia has planned for us.
absays
nigelj @285,
1) its too small to explain global climate change
Any fact or evidence to support your assertion, or is it just a belief ?
2) as I pointed out MOST of the deforestation globally occurred around 1960 – 1990
No, not most… there has been a maximum at this period for tropical deforestation but if you look at the excellent graph that you have mentioned, there has been more tropical deforestation between 1980 and 2010 than between 1960-1990, for the same period of time.
3) its hugely isolated from hurricane formation at sea.
If you look at a NASA map of hurricane formation, you can see that american hurricanes start not that far from amazon tropical forests.
But the point is that tropical deforestation increases the intensity of convective heat fluxes by rising the daily thermal amplitude. So it feeds storm formation, then as the storms pass above warm waters, then they initiate hurricane formation.
Kevin McKinney @287,
You’ll note that there’s a significant energy flow from the surface labeled “evapotranspiration”.
1) I note that though the global warming theory is a radiative theory based on the hypothesis of radiative balance of Earth’s system, the energy budget mixes radiative fluxes and heat fluxes, evapotranspiration being a heat flux, not a radiative flux. So there is a first discrepancy here: the diagram talks of global energy by mixing together heat and radiation, while the theory only talks of radiative fluxes.
2) As I noted previously, in the diagram, there is a second discrepancy between the total radiative flux at the surface of Earth (approximatively 900 W m-²) and the mean observed temperature (15°C equivalent to approximatively 400 W m-²).
3) In the diagram, there is also a third discrepancy: the ground radiation secondary to sun radiation is more important than the incoming solar radiation in the given period of time, as if infrared radiation was accumulating, but it is basic physics that infrared radiation are governed by the inverse-square law, and thus their intensity diminishes with distance and thus time, until their complete extinction, so they can not accumulate radiatively.
Similarly, researchers have repeatedly investigated the albedo effects of various vegetative surfaces
If vegetation has a low albedo, it is due to a long biological evolution favoring that low albedo for the following reason: a low albedo allows the vegetation to “harvest” a maximum of solar energy in order to convert it into biochemical energy. So the low albedo of vegetation is a cooling effect not a warming effect as would be the low albedo of concrete or roads.
“This dependency to physical conditions . . .”
My apologies for this totally off-topic post, but I am so disturbed by your use of the word “to” in this phrase that I can’t resist. I’ve noticed for some time that the word “to” is, in some quarters, becoming a kind of all purpose preposition, which strikes me as in many cases not only ungrammatical, but also rather lazy. This seems to have become standard practice by British writers, even the most highly educated, and I can’t help but wonder why. Unless it’s become sort of a fad, like beginning a sentence with the word “so” (which also annoys me no end).
The correct usage is “dependency ON physical conditions.” “Dependency to physical conditions” is not only incorrect but also illogical. In this case I see no ambiguity, but in other cases lazy usage of this kind could lead to serious misunderstandings.
I’m not directing this at you personally, Rasmus, because I see this sort of thing all the time and from very respectable sources. “This color is different to that” is an example of another unfortunate, but all too common, usage. (And just in case any British readers may have forgotten, the correct usage here is “this color is different FROM that.”)
I realize, of course, that language is continually evolving and that usages that were once considered ungrammatical have now been universally accepted. Which seems to be what is now happening. But I don’t have to like it. For me, language is a precision instrument and this sort of lazy usage dulls the edge.
Paul donahue #155: “Now please explain to me why, over a couple decades, stations are increasingly recording daily, monthly and even annual record high temperatures at a rate that now averages three times the rate that record low temperatures are set.”
All the fuss over broken records is one of the many reasons I’ve become a skeptic on this issue. Because it is simply dishonest. No one on either side of the fence, aside from a few crackpots, denies that the world is now warmer than it’s been for a very long time — at least since the Medieval Warm Period and possibly earlier. There was a significant period of warming during the last 20 years of the 20th century, followed by a significant slowdown in warming during the 21st. Once such a peak is reached, then any increase in temperatures, however slight, will set a record. The real question is: what has caused the elevated temps we are now seeing?
What’s more important than any records being set is the pattern of warming and cooling we’ve seen over the last 100 years or so, and that pattern is NOT consistent with a correlation between warming and CO2 emissions. CO2 emissions have been steadily rising, with the greatest rise beginning in the 1950’s, yet we see a significant period from the 1940’s through the late 1970’s where temperatures became mostly cooler. Preceding that period, we see a long period of significantly rising temps (1910 to 1940) while CO2 levels were only a fraction of what they are today. The ONLY period where we see what looks like a clear correlation is ca. 1979-1998. Other than that we’ve seen a significant increase in temps over the last couple years, most likely due to the recent El Nino, which was indeed extreme.
As I see it, the claim that there has been a long term correlation between warming and CO2 despite the very clear evidence to the contrary is yet another reason why I became a skeptic. Because that too strikes me as dishonest.
So yes, it is now warmer than it’s been for some time. And that enhanced warming might be possible for some of the disturbing weather events we’ve been witnessing. But I see no reason to associate these events with the burning of fossil fuels, as has been alleged.
Sorry to be repeating myself, but that’s the only way I could honestly respond to your post.
Speaking of the jet, did most of the participants ride one to get there? Those things put out a pile of CO2 you know. Just ask Al Gore – I think he OWNS his own jet.
My oh my, all this heated verbiage wasted on an ignorant, stupid troll. I’ve been to many scientific meetings and never witnessed anything close to such a first magnitude set of hissy fits. If I were the only target of this sort of invective I’d take it more seriously. However, I’ve seen similar attacks directed at well-known scientists with impeccable credentials, such as Judith Curry, Roger Pielke, Freeman Dyson, Bjorn Lomborg, Nobel prize winner Ivar Giaever, Richard Lindzen, the list goes on and on. For some reason, these hopeless cretins also insist that there is something wrong with the “consensus” view of climate change. Many dismiss it as a cult. The indignant and unreasonable responses I’ve been getting here are, indeed, more consistent with the defensive rantings of a cult than with a seriously scientific gathering, either online or off.
Regardless. As I’ve reminded Mr. Roger, this discussion is not about me, but about the actual science of climate change. And all anyone here need do to refute me is explain how air conditioners that have been turned off can heat up a room (or if you prefer, cause the temperature of the room to rise). To make the challenge crystal clear, let’s add the qualification that the room in question has previously cooled due to a cooling of the external environment. Now. Do you REALLY want to insist that those turned-off air conditioners could possibly function as a source of heat (or temperature rise) under such conditions and actually warm up that cold room? Similarly, do you really want to insist that, under analogous conditions, where for some reason solar radiance has gone down and as a result the atmosphere is cooling, that somehow an absence of significant volcanic activity could possibly produce a rise in temperature?
Of course not. So, by all means, attack me personally, change the subject, blow smoke, shift the goalposts, nitpick, do anything to divert from the obvious fact that the widespread claim regarding the warming effect of a lack of volcanic activity is simply wrong. And if you want to argue that we’re not talking about a lack but a diminishment of volcanic activity, then you are doubly wrong — because aerosols from any degree of volcanic activity will have a cooling, NOT a warming effect, as you very well know.
42, 51 – m
“Digby asks at 42: What sort of people have so little regard for humanity as a whole that they have no scruples about exploiting the planet to ruinous ends, simply to advantage themselves in the present day?”
The sort of people who will exploit the planet to “advantage” themselves are the types who like to eat food, have a roof over their heads, heat in the winter, medical care when needed, a steady paycheck so they know where the next meal will come from, money to help their kids get a start in the world and possibly to help out aging parents, money they can save to get them thru old age when they can no longer work, money to give to charity or church, etc.
Imagine a man or woman being so arrogant, and selfish, that they’d take a job driving a CO2 belching truck, or dig for coal in a mine, or fish for salmon in the ocean, or fly a CO2 belching airliner, or flip beef patties that came from CH4 exhausting cows, or teaching a classroom of students all of whom belch CO2 and exhaust CH4 and whom will have offspring that produces even more of those evil gases, or working as a climate scientist in an office heated by CO2 belching FFs and occasionally traveling around the world by CO2 belching airliner – all the while using computers made from FFs and powered by CO2 belching FF power plants, or working as a Senator from Tennessee who was President of the USA for a few hours and who travels all over the world in CO2 belching airliners, or one of the millions of people who mine, process, manufacture and transport every product you have ever seen in your life and all the ones you haven’t seen as well. Imagine the selfishness of such people. And then imagine the selfishness of those who might belittle them for going out and being productive people. The HORROR of it all………it’s unspeakable.
49 – KM
“Well, now, that’s fantastic news, given the policy of the current federal government. So–what do we do to ‘solve this as individuals’? I’m all ears.”
It’s simple. Walk your talk. Put your money where your mouth is. Stop using FFs in every act you take. How hard can that be? Sell your belongings, cash in your investments and property, and buy a small farm with fertile soil in the bottomlands of the SE USA – preferably one with a reliable stream, a good well with hand pump, and a few acres of woods. Then what? Get to work. Don’t ever leave that land unless you’re going by foot, bike, horse, skis, skateboard, wing-suit, etc. Fabricate a cabin from the trees on your land, plant a garden using the tools and seeds you purchased after selling out your stuff from your old evil life which was based on FFs that belch CO2. After that, eat, drink and be merry. You have arrived in the paradise world of the future – no more CO2 belching machines for you! You are an environmentalist and YOU are going to show the world how to live! It’s a revolution! BERNIE! BERNIE! BERNIE! :)
56 – scott nudds
Yes, I’d vote for Trump again with no hesitation. One of the greatest presidents ever! NOONE gives him any crap:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-n3AMxdgsY
Hilarious reaction from the audience at 0:25. :)
If the world agrees that AGW is a serious problem, they should get to work walking their talk. AND the 1/2 of the people in the US who believe in AGW can get busy and walk their talk also. They should stop whining about Trump and start taking actions that actually provide the benefits they claim to want. They should stop telling others to change their lives and just change their lives. Why not? Is that hard? Wouldn’t we be a lot better off with 1/2 of Americans walking their talk than the miniscule number that are doing it today? Am I wrong? Stop using FFs. Show us the way. We’re waiting. Environmentalists have been preaching about the evils of FFs before AGW was on the public radar – at least since the 70s that I am aware of when the debate was about drilling in ANWR. Here we are 40 years later and all those preachers are still using FFs. Stop it. If US enviros walk their talk and the rest of the world that which we are constantly told are so much better than the USA on AGW will walk their talk then it will make no difference what those who support Trump do – they’re an insignificant number of people in the CO2 game. So ignore them. Do what you know is right.
NEWS-FLASH!!!!!
Apparently there is no 97% consensus on AGW. The number was arrived at dishonestly. This fact is apparently not disputed. From this website we find that of ~12K peer-reviewed papers on AGW, 66% of the abstracts expressed no opinion on AGW. Yet, everyone parades around like clucking chickens claiming that the consensus is 97%. Mind boggling.
Link:
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024
Quote:
“We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming.”
What timing, I’ve just authored a guest post on ozone at WUWT. One could pose the same question to NASA as your title about my findings which negatively correlate humidity to ozone no matter how the atmosphere is sliced.
Here is a link:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/12/23/the-profound-and-dominant-impact-of-atmospheric-water-vapor-upon-ozone-destruction/
There’s somewhat more traffic on that post at WUWT. This site seems fairly lonely. Well, Merry Christmas to all at this site anyway!
211 – nigelj
“I have not heard KM, or Killian, or anyone else oppose smaller population, so why do you keep on repeatedly suggesting we do?”
Perhaps you have not been watching the news from the USA. We currently have ballpark 400,000,000 people. Official numbers closer to 330,000,000 – those here illegally don’t readily admit it – imagine that!
In light of the role population plays in environmental degradation, a good question might be: What population would we like to have in the USA? 500,000,000? 1,000,000,000? 5,000,000,000? Unhinged leftists and their unhinged leftist political representatives have invited all in the world who want to immigrate, to do so. What is their goal? I mean, besides votes? I thought they were environmentalists? Apparently not. I think the best advocate for the environment in the USA, from a population standpoint, is the current occupant of the Oval Office.
Ray in 161 you wrote:
“This isn’t controversial. It isn’t in question. It isn’t cutting edge. It is established science. Period.”
I agree, but it is wrong!
According to the lapse rate feedback, the stratosphere should warm. Where did they predict that it would cool?
Moreover, there is a little matter of “The Holocene Temperature Conundrum”. Just one of many ugly little facts which destroy your beautiful theory.
Anderson is right that most climate scientists are not being forthright about the current predicament we are in, but they are not lying. They genuinely believe that we can keep temperatures below 2C, and like you that their models are correct.
Gavin I hope you can find time to comment on the methods and forecasts in comment #46 above. A blog version of the complete 2017 paper is on my blog at
https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-coming-cooling-usefully-accurate_17.html
You might find this exchange with Happer of interest
https://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2018/02/exchange-with-professor-happer-princeton.html
131 & 132 Killian:
Here’s the link to the article you referenced:
https://thefederalist.com/2018/02/17/worlds-largest-science-organization-gives-top-honor-conspiracy-monger-michael-mann/
I read it. It’s all true. Comments are good too. Over 600 as of right now.
2/18/2018 8:13 pm Pacific
I’ve discovered the ultimate CC mitigation. Oh yes, I have! Kill the climate deniers! You can’t make this stuff up – supported by our friends down under:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/27812/crazy-play-titled-kill-climate-deniers-launches-joseph-curl
227 CCHolley says:
Victor @206
Nothing personal about it. I am certainly not alone in this assessment.
CC: Your assessment is still wrong. And I’d like to know who in particular of any credibility agrees with your assessment.
V: As I’m sure you are aware, there is a long list of scientists who seriously doubt the mainstream view of climate change.
CC: The physics behind climate change is well understood. You make all kinds of claims that it is too complex, but that does not make your claims true. Physics is physics. And you can spout your nonsense ad infinitum and it will still not be true. The climate must conform to the known laws of physics.
V: Yes, but the MANNER in which the climate conforms to those laws is what we are considering. The climate is not a simple mechanism like a set of billiard balls, whose actions can be predicted by simple rules of cause and effect.
V: We’re not talking about the greenhouse effect, which is widely accepted. We’re talking about climate change on planet Earth over the last several hundred years, a topic of enormous complexity. Just the problem of measuring the temperature of the entire Earth at any given time is already fraught with tremendous difficulties. Same goes for measuring sea level, not to mention sea ice extent, glacial melt, etc.
CC: NO, we are talking about how the anthropogenic addition of CO2 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will effect global temperatures and hence climate. No matter how complex *climate* is, it is the energy balance of the earth system that determines temperatures and those temperatures in turn determine climate. The physics and factors behind what drives the energy balance of the earth are well understood. . . .
The laws of physics are the laws of physics. The climate system must conform to the laws of physics regardless of our ability to assess and observe their application in the real world. Changing the energy imbalance of the planetary system by inhibiting the escape of radiant heat to space WILL result in warming, no matter whether or not you can observe it accurately.
V: Yes, but it is the nature and scope of that imbalance that is the real issue. No one questions that CO2 is a greenhouse gas; the real question concerns the DEGREE to which CO2 levels affect the climate system.
CC: . . . The serious questions raised by you are due to your ignorance of the science. There is significant evidence ignored by you. Some of the evidence may be difficult to collect and to interpret, but much isn’t. Probably most of what you call difficult isn’t, it is just part of your bias. The complexity of the climate system does not mean we cannot understand what drives the temperatures of the planetary system because we do. It is based on physical laws.
V: While preparing my book, I found “A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change,” presented under the aegis of The American Physical Society. I think the best way to respond to all the objections of those insisting that the physics behind the science of climate change is both “well understood” and “incontrovertible” is to encourage you all to study this document. Here is the link: https://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/hafemeister.cfm
I included some fairly long excerpts in my book, chosen more or less at random, followed by this statement:
“Nota bene: I won’t be disputing any of the physics presented in this document for the simple reason that I’m not a physicist and am thus not qualified to dispute it. The point of this little exercise is not to challenge the physics, but to give a sense of how complicated it is. What I’ve quoted here represents only a fraction of the entire argument, which is itself truncated, as its authors acknowledge. What this illustrates is not necessarily any weakness in any of the physics per se, or the math supporting it, but the extraordinarily complex and convoluted nature of the overall argument.”
“Explanations” of this sort, intended no doubt to provide the uninitiated with a simplified version of the science behind climate science, are far more likely to make their heads spin as they try to follow all the ins and outs of an argument so dependent on so many variables as to make one wonder how anyone was ever able to puzzle it all out. If any one of the many claims, analyses, observations, equations, etc. is erroneous or misinterpreted then the whole thing threatens to come tumbling down. It’s enough to make Occam slit his throat with that famous razor.
Is this an example of what you mean by “well understood,” CC?
I’ll leave you with the following excerpt from a document that’s much easier to understand, STATEMENT TO THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, presented by one Judith Curry on March 29, 2017 (https://science.house.gov/sites/republicans.science.house.gov/files/documents/HHRG-115-SY-WState-JCurry-20170329.pdf):
Scientific arguments in physics, chemistry and cell biology are typically based on controlled laboratory experiments, where explanation and prediction can be based on a few variables. There are elements of climate science that can be addressed using these methods, notably in atmospheric chemistry and the physics and chemistry of aerosol and cloud particles. However, scientific investigations of the dynamics of the entire climate system have more in common with systems biology and economics than with laboratory physics and chemistry, owing to the complexity of the systems under investigation and the inability to conduct controlled experiments. Complexity of the
climate system arises from chaotic behavior and the nonlinearity of the equations for motions in the atmosphere and ocean, high dimensionality of the system (many different variables, varying in three dimensions and with time), and the linking of multiple subsystems (e.g. atmosphere, oceans, land surface, glacier ice).
The aggregate properties and changes of complex systems cannot be determined from sum of the individual components, owing to interactions among the components and the different scales of organization within the system. Complex systems are studied using information theory and computer simulation models (e.g. global climate models.) While some of the equations in climate models are based on the laws of physics, many key processes in the model are only approximated and are not directly related to physical laws.
I signed up to John Cook’s Website, published some photos about snow in the Sahara at Ain El Sarif, Algeria and stated that it had snowed here 3 times in 37 years once this year, once last year and 37 years ago. I am now banned from Skeptical Science.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-09/snowstorm-blankets-sahara-desert-in-white/9315848
133 Jim Baird, thank you. I was miles off and so will have another look. and take it slowly.
132 re the sun is the major climate driver.
always has been, always will be.
130 Digby Scorgie – What the goldilocks number is would probably be difficult to pin down, however.
Not for Zebra. He’s an expert in Fairy Tales.
Hey did anyone see this comment?
“It invalidates 3 of my core principles, so I do not think I share Values with these people.” https://youtu.be/T3pee17wOzk?t=15m35s
Integrity is the qualification of being honest and having strong moral principles, or moral uprightness. It is generally a personal choice to hold oneself to consistent moral and ethical standards.
In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.
Integrity can stand in opposition to hypocrisy, in that judging with the standards of integrity involves regarding internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding within themselves apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs. [see Cognitive Dissonance]
The word integrity evolved from the Latin adjective integer, meaning whole or complete.
In this context, integrity is the inner sense of “wholeness” deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character.
As such, one may judge that others “have integrity” to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.
Really Simple Stuff Gavin!
#116 Thomas … aka Gavin’s chutzpah:
Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as “gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts’, presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to”.
And in case you cannot take the hint Gavin, this is not up for discussion!
(with a really big empathetic smile)
Why aren’t gun manufacturers jailed for their part in school shootings?
Why aren’t bullet manufacturers jailed for their part in school shootings?
Why aren’t knife manufacturers jailed for their part in knife attacks?
Why aren’t car manufacturers jailed for their part in global warming? They could have developed electric cars sooner.
Why aren’t car tyre manufacturers jailed for their part in global warming? Without their help, cars would not be such a problem.
Why aren’t car stereo manufacturers jailed for their part in global warming? Without music, people wouldn’t want to drive their cars as much.
Finally, why aren’t YOU jailed for your part in global warming? How long have you known about global warming, but still kept driving your car?
301 CC Holley: “Victor has been told countless times that the heat content of the earth system is dependent on the net effect of all of the radiative forcings, i.e. energy in versus energy out. The war period and rapid economic growth that followed resulted in very high levels of heat blocking aerosols in the atmosphere. Significant enough to block enough solar energy to offset the CO2 signal. This is not disputed. The clean air act of 1970 followed by similar measures in Europe greatly reduced these aerosols allowing the CO2 forcing to re-imerge.”
Yes, this is the standard excuse. I find it laughable. What you fail to recognize is the fact, well known in all branches of science, that it is always possible to come up with some explanation for the failure of an hypothesis to stand up under evidence-based testing by introducing some additional factor or factors that serve to complicate/obfuscate the issue. Also known as blowing smoke (pun intended).
Occam expressed it with admirable concision: “pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate”; literally: “plurality should not be posited without necessity.” More generally: “Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.” (see for example https://www.britannica.com/topic/Occams-razor) This is sometimes interpreted to mean that the simplest explanation is always to be preferred, but that’s not at all the case. It’s the simplest explanation capable of accounting for all the evidence that is to be preferred. In this case, what accounts for all the evidence is the very simple and logical conclusion that the cooling was caused by the same sort of natural variation that’s cooled the planet on countless other occasions, prior to the industrial revolution.
The only “necessity” prompting the introduction of the aerosol pollution hypothesis is the necessity of rescuing a failing theory from falsification. Such attempts are usually referred to as “saving hypotheses.” In the words of climate skeptic Eric Worral, “. . . if we reject the principle of Occam’s Razor, we open the door to accepting theories of arbitrary, ultimately infinite complexity. A theory created by researchers who do not accept the principle of Occam’s Razor cannot be falsified, because the theory can always be tweaked in arbitrary ways to avoid falsification.” (http://www.ockhams-scheermes.be/349104238)
Additionally, the aerosol pollutant hypothesis ignores the fact that, despite the US Clean Air Act, the countries with the largest populations, such as India and China, did not adopt pollution controls until well into the 21st century. The high levels of aerosol pollution to be found in many regions of Asia up to and including the present day are well documented: see https://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2018/01/economist-explains-19 and also https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/11/22/16666808/india-air-pollution-new-delhi
Maybe if y’all didn’t waste all that time and energy arguing with deniers and going in circles for a decade or more?
Oh well. Live and learn. Mmmmm, maybe not.
MA Rodger is wrong again. Please allow me to prove that with evidence.
29 MA Rodger misinforms Hank Roberts @25 and the Group, when he falsely states:
It is bizarre that when I google “Systemic Causation” the first reference is to a post by Judy ‘air-head’ Curry who in turn refers to an essay by a George Lakoff who had coined the term in an article a few weeks earkier (sic)
1) Nothing bizarre about that at all. It’s how Google works. It’s Math:101 being applied via an Algorithm. Calling it bizarre is what is bizarre.
2) I note the ‘air-head’ as more evidence of the ongoing pattern of AdHom, ridicule and insult that encompasses Dr. MA Rodger’s style of communication and attitude to life here and on other Fora. (Supporting Refs are available on request)
3)The term “Systemic causation” was not in fact “coined” by Lakoff at all. Anyone who had a well-grounded competent background in Systemic Thinking and/or employed in a ‘Systems’ Management role and/or was a Business & Management (Operations Management) PhD Graduate like Dr. MA Rodger, and/or a Lecturer in that Field like Dr. MA Rodger and/or a high performer in a Scientific Field would have or should have known that assertion was patently false. I know I did.
3.1) Another credible possible alternative could be their Memory is failing them. I don’t know. The least they could have done is to cross check their own facts first before spreading Disinformation on this Science based group.
3.2) One supporting evidence Ref from 1978 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0039368178900018
Based on these facts I strongly advise readers of this Group to be fully aware of the limitations of Commenters here who are not qualified nor as Authoritative as they Believe they are and so often assert they by the manner which they Talk Down to others here.
As Per An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam is a form of defeasible argument in which a claimed authority’s support is used as evidence for an argument’s conclusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority and Your Logical Fallacy is Appeal to Authority
You said that because an authority thinks something, it must therefore be true. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority
Readers here would be best advised to: Choose your Friends carefully. Do not let your Friends Choose you!
There’s also the ongoing pattern in people’s individual issues relating to Cognitive Dissonance and Bias, and the Dunning-Kruger Effect (non-experts in fields and those Pseudo-Experts those with no real life experience in real world applications) that are very much at play among a very small but vocal contingent of participants on RC.
I believe it has been like this for around a decade now and it’s a right pain that could be easily fixed. It’s a classic example of the workings of Systemic Causation right here on this very forum!
Now that’s Bizarre!
Let me save the retired aging Doctor Rodger a bit of precious time and effort – my last post was 295 words.
Some bed time reading to suit:
Reality is Not Optional: Thomas Sowell’s Vision of Man and Society
by Dr. Edward Younkins – Professor of Accountancy and Business Administration at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia and author of Capitalism and Commerce.
Quoting: Specialization is highly desirable. There is a superiority of experts within a narrow slice of understanding. Practically every individual has some advantage over all others because he possesses unique talents, resources, and information.
What is denied is that expertise confers a general superiority which should supersede more widely dispersed types of knowledge.
http://www.quebecoislibre.org/younkins6.html
A useful Truism: Those that can Do. Those that cannot Teach. And any exceptions prove the Rule. But they need to able prove they are exceptional!
We will keep this out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!
101 CCHolley et al.
You can blow as much smoke as you like, folks, but that won’t change the fundamental facts and logic of my critique. It’s really very simple. The rise in CO2 emissions due to the burning of fossil fuels from 1880 through the 1940’s was not sufficient to have played a major role in the considerable global temperature rise that took place during that period — so if we want to presume that sea level rise is prompted by global temperature rise (along with concomitant melting of glaciers, etc.) then we can’t really attribute very much of the rise in sea levels during that period to CO2. Whether you prefer to attribute the temperature rise mostly to solar activity or a lack of volcanic activity is beside the point.
Moreover, as is widely recognized, global temperatures from ca. 1940 to ca. 1979 either dropped or remained level during a period when CO2 levels were beginning to soar. And once again attributing that temperature drop to industrial aerosols or any other “forcing” is beside the point. Despite roughly 40 years during which there was no significant rise in global temperature, sea levels nevertheless continued to rise at roughly the same rate as before. And yes, the association between temperature and sea level is well established, but once again this relationship is beside the point as far as the influence of CO2 emissions is concerned. If you want to insist on the relation between temperature and sea level then it’s necessary to question the accuracy of our measurements of one or the other — or both.
No amount of “research,” statistical legerdemain or modelling can change the basic logic of the above analysis. If you see a flaw in that logic, please enlighten me.
Oh and by the way, CC, I’m still waiting for your response to my blog posts, parts 1 (http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/03/thoughts-on-climate-change.html) and 2 (http://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/03/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-2.html)
26 Ray Ladbury
My argument was that exaggeration will undermine a position over time. If using Al Gore makes it impossible to follow then you probably do not wish to follow.
People here at RealClimate seem sensitive to any reference to Al Gore, is the consensus to disown him? We in the denial community still love his movies. Also, I stopped calling him fat now that I have put on a few pounds. Besides carbon storage is a good thing.
336 , please excuse me for commenting twice but I could not resist this little missive. If possible keep in mind how interconnected everything is. Though believe whatever you wish.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/taibbi-the-legacy-of-the-iraq-war-w518193
some quotes
Fifteen years ago this week, George W. Bush invaded Iraq. It was an awesome drama, made more thrilling by the seemingly obvious craziness of it all.
Far from being an error, the war was a perfect expression of everything we stood for then, and still stand for now.
Al-Qaeda provided the perfect replacement for the domino theory. Here was an enemy that was at once everywhere and nowhere, that could be in the minds of any person here or abroad, that any country could be accused of sponsoring
Secret prisons? Sure. Torture? Sure. Warrantless surveillance? Sure. Need to read our library records, toss out habeas corpus? Sure and sure
If we could successfully prevent our own voters from seeing or thinking about the moral costs of our policies, then we could continue down the pure-force path indefinitely, without protest, without debate even.
a Justice Department memorandum that apparently existed to provide a legal context for killing even American citizens by fiat.
Later rulings would describe the drone program using the Orwellian term “nonjusticiable,” i.e., simply not subject to review.
an entirely separate, secret set of rules giving them the right to kill, imprison, torture, or spy on anyone.
We flatter ourselves that Trump is an aberration. He isn’t. He’s a depraved, cowardly, above-the-law bully, just like the country we’ve allowed ourselves to become in the last fifteen years.
Osama bin Laden has to be laughing. He had to know all along that only Americans were capable of destroying America. But he couldn’t have dreamed we’d do it so fast.
end quote
Along came Barack Obama the King of the Drones and it all became even worse. I am at a loss why so many idealize US war criminals and liars. Abe Lincoln slaughtered and maimed far more rebels and civilians than Assad ever could, yet they built a statue of him. I think people have lost their senses completely. Brainwashed by the lies deceptions and the non-stop propaganda over decades. What democracy? What rule of Law? What Constitution?
It’s always fun engaging with scientist manqué CC Holley, as he just refuses to give up. C’mon, CC, save yourself more pain and just cry “UNCLE,” you’ll feel much better after you’ve come clean. :-)
305 CCHolley says:
CC: Victor @302
“Apparently not. Or else climate scientists would have a better explanation for the temp. runup from 1910-1940 than lack of volcanic activity and a better explanation for the 1940-1979 hiatus than industrial aerosol cooling.”
But Victor refuses to read the multiple links to peer reviewed papers covering these periods. He just knows so much better that he does not have to. He is soooo smart!
V: I’ll admit it. I’m smart. MS, Ph.D, numerous scholarships, fellowships (including one from Harvard), awards, grants, publications (yes, many have indeed been peer reviewed), collaborations with noted authorities (whose names I won’t mention out of false modesty), etc.
Of course, in this exalted company I come across as an “idiot.” Fine with me. Takes one to know one, I suppose.
As far as those “peer reviewed” papers, I’ve studied a great many, thank you. As would be evident if you took the trouble to read my book.
CC: Victor proclaims the possible explanations for these periods to be poor. In his opinion, a better explanation is needed. Why? Just because.
V: How dishonest can you get, CC? You know very well it’s not “just because.” You’re the one “just becausing” here, not me. Even if you refuse to buy my arguments at least have the honesty to acknowledge that every claim I’ve ever made on this blog has been backed up by evidence.
CC: Victor proclaims himself smarter than thousands of climate scientists even though he has no formal training in the hard sciences.
V: No, I never claimed to be smarter than anyone else. In fact I’m stupid, no? Duh!
CC: Victor refuses to acknowledge that the drivers of climate ARE well understood. Apparently the physics are beyond his comprehension.
From a relevant article on the Scientific American blog (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/doing-good-science/evaluating-scientific-claims-or-do-we-have-to-take-the-scientists-word-for-it/):
“Scientific knowledge is built on empirical data, and the details of the data . . . can vary quite a lot in different scientific disciplines, and in different areas of research within those disciplines. However, there are commonalities in the basic patterns of reasoning that scientists in all fields use to compare their theories with their data. . .
In other words, even if I can’t evaluate someone else’s raw data to tell you directly what it means, I can evaluate the way that data is used to support or refute claims. I can recognize logical fallacies and distinguish them from instances of valid reasoning. Moreover, this is the kind of thing that a non-scientist who is good at critical thinking (whether a journalist or a member of the public consuming a news story) could evaluate as well.”
CC: Still waiting for Victor’s alternative simpler alternative theory. A theory based on physics and supported by evidence. One that is consistent with nights warming faster than days and the arctic warming faster than the rest of the planet. An explanation with it’s added complexity to deal with off-setting the increasing greenhouse effect. One that explains why the measured radiative imbalance attributed to increased greenhouse gasses is doing nothing.
V: I don’t need to provide an alternative. All I need to do is demonstrate that the thinking behind AGW is seriously flawed. Which I believe I’ve done. If you want to insist that “the science” is right after all, then by all means read what I’ve written both here and on my blog and, using your considerable scientific expertise, attempt to refute it. Not as easy as tossing out insults, I must admit, but you can at least give it a try, no?
Just dropping in to announce that I’ve recently completed two more posts on my Mole in the Ground blog. The first is an extension of what I’ve already written about sea level rise, the second is a continuation of my investigation into the common practice among climate scientists of producing all manner of “saving hypotheses,” (aka lame excuses) whenever inconvenient evidence presents itself.
Some highlights:
A critical examination of Fasulo’s odd paper on sea level rise, where he decides to explain away some awkward results by blaming an innocent volcano.
Critique of the once widely held notion (we don’t hear much about it any more) that the hiatus is due to global warming having dived (doved?) into the deep blue sea.
A critique of the “record breaking temperature” meme.
A skeptical discussion of certain statistically based trend lines.
A skeptical look at the “corrected” temperature data produced by Karl et al.
A debunking of the widely held notion that the stratosphere has been cooling as the troposhphere warmed.
And much much more.
Supporting data and references are provided on the blog. Here are the links:
https://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/05/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-4yet.html
https://amoleintheground.blogspot.com/2018/05/thoughts-on-climate-change-part-5still.html
Hank Roberts @ 26, 27
I do not know the blog that you mention, and yes, personally, I think and look at things by myself. As mentioned above, the answer to the question about if GHG are cooling or warming the earth is that they are cooling the earth, because their cooling effects overwhelms greatly the negligible heat caused by an absorption of a negligible part of the IR energy, which itself is negligble compared to visible light, as experimentally demontrated more than a century ago by John Tyndall.
Carrie @47, @48, Scientists are 100% responsible, yes, but not for the solution. They are responsible for the problem. And the only transparency problem is the one rised by Tyndall in his first experiment about the transmission of radiant heat by gases, proving that air is transparent to IR, and thus that there is no radiative forcing caused by GHG into the atmosphere. For life to exist on earth, there also has to be radiative imbalance, because life developped and sustains itself by transforming solar energy into chemical energy. Wanting to reach radiative balance on Earth is like wanting life to end on earth, it is criminal. So it is not anymore a question of model uncertainty, but a question of sustaining or not a theory that has been proved to be erroneous more than one century ago. This old theory has been modified and refined into something even more complex, modernizing its name from “greenhouse” to “radiative forcing”, and using big data and big computers, but the whole basis and assumptions behind it has been experimentally refuted more than one century ago.
Hank Roberts @ 52,
The IPCC ?
Ah, it is that climate science is not simple. One has to understand multiple phenomena and how those phenomena are articulating with each other. So one begins with one phenomena, then one looks at another, and then one sees if those different phenomena are understandable together in a coherent wholistic manner. In this case, it is exactly what the atmosphere does on Earth: it cools the Earth by regulating the incoming energy and, at the same time, it distributes the energy all around the Earth.
Kevin McKinney @56,
Kindly forgive my english, it is not my native language, and glad that you are open to look at facts.
Tyndall’s 1861 paper is really hardcore stuff for beginning, I just looked at it, and he seems to go into all the nitty gritty technical details and description of many experiments. For beginners, like me, I would recommend a paper that is much more concise, of only 4 pages: “On the Transmission of Heat of different qualities through Gases of different kinds.“(Weekly Evening Meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Friday 10, June, 1859)
Hum, in that particular case, if he interposed some puffs of gas outside of the tube between the Leslie cube and the galvanometer, then the effect observed is due to the gas outside the tube, not to the tube.
I’m not aware of a cooling system in Tyndall’s experience. I didn’t read the 1861 paper yet. But what I can say about dispersion is this: the energy not transmitted does not necessarily heat the gas. That is a key point in the misunderstanding of many people, who think that because energy is not transmitted, then it is necessarily trapped by gas under the form of heat.
That is exactly what I pointed out above. Most people believe that because energy is not transmitted then it is directly transformed into heat. But they didn’t really look at what happens when the energy is not transmitted…
I do not quite understand what you are saying here… Can you rephrase it ?
Steven Emmerson @58,
Tyndall described this issue in his papers, and was fairly well aware of the limitations of galvanometers, and that’s why 1) he perfected his own galvanometers so that they are very well calibrated and “highly sensitive”, and 2) he went a step further by creating a differential galvanometer with two thermopiles. My guess is that such very sensitive differential galvanometer is at least as sensitive or even more than modern electronic single point infrared thermometer, because both devices use thermopiles and the physics behind it (seebeck effect) is the same, the only difference being that modern devices are way more miniaturized and practical.
Ah, but we are not talking of measuring the whole column of the real atmosphere. We are talking of measuring a short column within that atmosphere, and that is perfectly sufficient. The air into the tube, is the same as the one in the atmosphere, as it is assumed that CO2 is uniformly distributed throughout all the atmosphere. So the tube is a fairly good representation of the atmosphere on a short column.
Yes, CO2 in high concentration shows significant and measurable results. But CO2 in the real atmosphere is not in high concentration: it is a so-called “trace gas”, which makes up less than 1% of the Earth’s atmosphere, by volume.
Oh, I do have plenty more of evidences… That is a good idea the one to submit a scientific paper. I already thought about it, and looked at the journal Nature, but then I looked at the publication fees and said to myself: “Whaaat ??? Several thousands of dollars for publishing just one article …??” Bearing in mind that a correct explanation might require more than one article… So I never submitted any article as I can not afford any publication fee, personally. Most of journals seem made for organisations and industries, and not for individual researchers. Do you know any anglophone scientific journal with free publication fees ?
nigelj @ 44, 60,
The study is perfectly fine for historical records, and shows convincingly that the variation of solar irradiance is linked to sea surface temperatures, I do not ask anything more or anything less from it. I’m not interested into solar cycles per se, but into solar irradiance, because after all, in the problematic which we are concerned with, the variations in the chemical composition of the atmosphere is what modifies the solar irradiance, more than the solar cycles, which are of secondary importance.
Oh yes, concentrations of trace gases are changing, I do not deny that.
The carbon what ? Warming has nothing to do with carbon… Again, this recurrent belief that carbon traps heat… Where did you get that idea if one may ask ? Can you explain how it traps heat ?
That is strange: how can an ocean warm at fixed volume ? It seems to one that as ocean heat increases, its volume increases, and thus sea-levels rise… It is basic physics, is it not ?
galvin @68,
Some people wanted to learn, and were asking questions, and you just prevented them from reading my answers. So, to me, it is akin to censorship, like what is happening on the website skepticalscience.com: a new inquisition similar to the one of churches of the Middle-Age. Obscurantism appears to be the way of climate science nowadays: one doesn’t allow argumentation nor discussion to take place, in order to promote one unique paradigm and one unique point of view as the truth. It is like the unfair publication-fee system of most scientific journals, which gives visibility to studies not because of their pertinence, but because organisations can pay for an open access of their results. But science is not so-called “democraty” and should not be biased by the monetary or ideological visibility of points of view. Scientific truth is not the opinion of the majority, or of the wealthier. Science lies in the validity and simplicity of explanations, in concordance with facts. It is not about confusing correlations with causations, like the main climate science paradigm based on reductionism is doing.
MPassey @61,
Parameters should be clearly defined in all model studies and considered in isolation of all other parameters. Each parameter, one by one, should be evaluated independently of any relationship with other parameters. When each parameter has been considered in isolation, then only one can examine the more relevant parameters, but without discarding the parameters which seem not relevant at first. Why ? Because some parameters are implicitely linked to other parameters. And some parameters are chronologically dependent of some other parameters. So establishing the right relationships between the parameters is what is the most important, because it allows a meaningful physical description of reality and may prevent what I call the “loupe effect” in models: the fact that models often overlook the understanding of the whole by starting with incorrect approximations which may result, at the end, in important distortions, through a process similar to the one of a magnifying glass. Thus those models just extrapolate results from parameters that are disconnected and fragmented, but without participating of any global and meaningful understanding.
The climate science industry wants the public confuse about climatology. That’s why they invented the IPCC, and why Al Gore, a politician and activist tied with the biofuel industry, got a Nobel Prize for that.
Nope. Science is about experimentally guided theories controlled by observation of phenomena. The theory consisting in saying that infrared radiation absorbed by trace gases within the air is able to warm the air is not supported by any experimental evidence in laboratory. It has never been demonstrated experimentally. Therefore, it is more a belief than a scientific fact. Because in observational field, countless confounding factors may induce the observer in error. Therefore, it has to be proven experimentally, not by field observation. Until then, it is not a fact, just a theory, and as it is a theory, it can be totally wrong.
Kevin McKinney @112, 113,
As you can see in the spectrum of solar radiation, most of the radiation from the sun is infrared radiation, and an important part also comes under the form of visible light and UV light, which go through the atmosphere and reach the ground more easily than infrared, before creating themselves secondary IR radiation.
So one can see now how misleading is the Kiehl-Trenberth’s Earth’s Energy Budget…
Indeed, this budget gives the false impression that all infrared radiation comes from Earth’s surface, and that all this secondary IR radiation is transformed into “backradiation” by trace gases, while:
1) there are a lot more infrared coming from the outer space as infrared solar radiation than secondary IR from the ground,
2) only a tiny portion of the infrared bands from the ground will be radiated back by GHG,
3) the back radiation from GHG gases are in tiny quantities because trace gases are also in tiny quantities in the atmosphere (by volume, it is inferior to 0,1%)
However H20 being also present under the form of liquids and solids in the atmosphere can backradiate a lot more than other GHG, but it has also a powerful cooling effect, because it can disperse a lot more of solar IR radiation AND visible light. So H2O has an overall cooling effect on the atmosphere.
So, what does it mean ? It means that trace gases actually disperse both solar infrared radiation AND secondary IR from the ground in two opposite directions, so they have both a cooling AND a warming effects which compensate each other.
Thus, considering the solar radiation spectrum arriving on Earth, H20 is a cooling radiative factor and CO2 is a null radiative factor because it can disperse in outer space as much as it can backradiate IR radiation onto the ground. The warming effect of CO2 are compensated by its cooling effects, and other cooling feedbacks linked to the vegetation.
CO2 could be warming the earth if there was no IR coming from the sun with CO2 absorption bands, and if it was in large concentration like on Mars, but the fact is that on Earth it is a trace gase, and there is no proof whatsoever that there is a lot more IR with CO2 absorption bands coming from the ground than coming from the sun, so the warming effect of CO2 is not at all proven, and one can reasonnably think that there is a more IR CO2 compatible coming from the sun, thus CO2 has a cooling effect on Earth.
That is the issue: climate modelers are not understanding the physics, and beyond the physics too, how the whole environment is participating to climate changes, or only fragmentarily and approximatively, and often with false and naïve assumptions, leading to totally incorrect results and wrong suggestions to decision-makers…
Kevin McKinney @ 112,
Let’s look at a more recent paper on the Earth’s Energy Budget by Trenberth and al., with data comparable to the one you mentioned.
You can see at the very first sight that there is something wrong with their energy budget…
There is more ground surface radiation (390 W m−2) than there is incoming solar radiation (346 W m−2)…
That is, according to them, Earth’s surface emits more energy than it receives from the Sun ! And all that energy is suggested by the authors to be under the form of IR energy…
That is, according to them, there is more IR energy coming from Earth’s ground than all UV, visible light and IR energy coming from the sun…!
It doesn’t seem to one that it is that hot on Earth’s surface…right ?
So, how do they come to such obviously wrong result ?
First they erroneously suppose that Earth’s should be in radiative balance, whereas life sustains and develops itself because of a radiative imbalance: photosynthesis transforms solar energy into chemical energy, so there has to be radiative imbalance on Earth not radiative balance.
And then they look at what arrive on Earth (390 W m−2), and they estimate that ∼235 W m−2 is going into the system.
So they conclude that ∼235 W m−2 should also leave the system, because of their incorrect assumption about radiative balance, and therefore, they artificially invent a huge IR radiation from the ground in order to satisfy their greenhouse theory and budget.
And finally they arrive to the erroneous conclusion that all emitted IR radiation leaving Earth originates from the ground…
Whereas the solar spectrum shows clearly that more of half of solar input is on the form of IR radiation. So statistically, there is at least as much IR radiation backradiated to space than IR radiation backradiated to Earth.
Therefore their energy budget is obviously totally wrong.
This whole blog is a bore hole :)
Continue to dig in, you’re about to find something…
As a little hint, have a look at the Fresnel Equations…
You seem to forget all the other radiations of the diagram… what temperature is there with the Stefan-Boltzmann law when you add together all the radiations on the surface ?
No, I say that the mean temperature on the surface should be a radiative constraint for the diagram. A mean temperature of 15°C should give a radiative constraint of 390,9 W m-² on the surface for all the radiations being there.
GHG are to infrared radiation what water is to visible light: when the infrared radiation encounters GHG, there is a change of optical medium, comparable to what happens when visible light changes of medium (like from air to water, or from air to glass).
Kevin McKinney,
I can only repeat to you what I already pointed out to Trenberth:”The Earth’s Energy Budget that you have suggested doesn’t seem to fit with observed temperature: a mean temperature of 15°C on Earth gives a total radiative flux of 390,9 W m-² according to Stefan-Boltzmann law. But on the Earth’s Energy Budget, the total radiative flux on the surface is > 890 W m-² for the three primary fluxes, which is equivalent to a mean temperature of 80,8°C… The constraint on the Earth’s surface should be of 390,9 W m-² for the total radiative flux.”
nigelj @261,
Whether you think that “ab” is a “cranck” or a “crack” scientist has nothing to do with the issue: they are just images popping within your brain that you project according to your own psychological conditioning.
As a matter of fact, scientific litterature, two centuries ago, was much more cordial, even amongst scientists being in total disagreement with each other.
1) Science is not just about calculations and big data: it is first and foremost about understanding natural processes in a logical way. There are tons of peer-review papers with lots of calculations backed with erroneous logics and not supported by experimental evidences. This is the case with many model-based researches, and particularly in climate science.
2) Experimental and observational researches are superior to any model-based research, because you can make a model-based research says any fanciful theory that you want with any result that you want, but most often it is not real science supported by observation and experimentation and confronted with other observations and experimentations in order to eliminate confounding factors, which is the most important thing in science, and particularly in climate science.
3) That you do not understand the implications and significance of a scientific paper (CLOUD’s project) doesn’t make you entitled to say another one is confused. A bit of research and you would have found that CERN’s cloud project explicitly states that the significance of the related papers is that trees are responsible for natural cloud formation via the release of biogenic compounds within the atmosphere, so deforestation diminishes the production of natural clouds.
“CLOUD experiment has shown that biogenic vapours emitted by trees and oxidised in the atmosphere have a significant impact on the formation of clouds, thus helping to cool the planet.”
CERN experiment sheds new light on cloud formation
We are not talking only of diurnal changes but of daily change (both day and night time) associated with deforestation, such as large increase of daily thermal amplitude, which affects greatly atmospheric circulation. At day time, the immediate effects of deforestation are a net powerful warming of many degrees of the surface (from 2°C in temperature regions up to 10°C in tropical regions)…
The more or less 1°C supposed warming in one century associated with anthropic COE are nothing compared to the huge geophysical effects of deforestation on surface warming.
What you say is totally erroneous: just look at the mean observationnal data comparing forest covers and open lands showing a powerful mean cooling effect of forests, and thus a powerful mean warming effect of historical global deforestation on Earth:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7603/figures/2
No GHG warming effect, even the most optimistic, can rivalize with the warming geophysical effect of deforestation.
Victor @19,
Unfortunately, you know how research funding works… If nowadays, your paper is not going to explicitely blame GHG and particularly CO2 for any climate effect that you study, then you are not going to have any fund for your research, and if, by chance, you can fund your research, your paper anyway will not make it into the journals if it doesn’t blame CO2 emission somewhere in the text.
This leads to factual discrepancies as you carefully noticed.
This is an effect that I call “selective paradigm enhancement” in scientific journals: only a subset of theories, the one comforting the dominant paradigm, gets funded and makes their way into the most important journals.
I am open to see the facts with you. Kindly show me the evidences: what physical mechanism or process associated with fossil fuels combustion is able to warm Earth’s surface ? And on what experimental or observational evidence ? Do you have any paper reference ? Even just one that you find really convincing and bullet-proof to share with me?
Don’t you rather mean: “this is one of the very few times in Earth’s history that there has been combustion of fossil fuels” ? So, because it is new, we attribute “global warming” to it, though global warming is not a new phenomenon on Earth ?
Is not biological respiration the main process of combustion on Earth ?
References to deforestation in IPCC reports and most of the associated scientific litterature concern only the GHG effects of deforestation, in terms of carbon emission, which lead to totally incorrect conclusions in some studies like “deforestation has no impact on global warming“, based on the narrow idea of carbon emissions alone.
It does not treat at all the geophysical warming effects of historical global deforestation nor the associated water feedback that I talked about with the studies mentioned in my previous comments.
The warming of Earth’s surface is totally explainable without involving radiative forcing: global deforestation is a much higher factor of surface warming, as the study previously mentioned documents: from 1-2°C warming in temperate regions up to 10°C warming in tropical regions.
Most of climate papers are about carbon emissions, like if climate scientists all wear a CO2 glass distorting their world view and making them see everything through the CO2 emission spectrum.
This inevitably lead to erroneous conclusions and incorrect suggestions to decision makers.
PS: I put the source again for the expense of more than one billion of dollars per day based on the greenhouse paradigm:
Global investment to address climate change increases to $410 billion annual average
I’m not contributing anymore to this parody of scientific blog which goes against freedom of expression by practicing authoritative moderation of comments according to subjective prejudices.
Good luck
May one suggest to examine the physical facts about the warming of approximatively one degree in the last century (NASA/GISS), which is supposedly caused by anthropic CO2.
1) The climatic role of the Heat Capacity of Air
The heat capacity of Air, C(Air) in Joules per Kelvin, represents the amount of energy that Air accumulates for a one-degree increase in temperature.
That means that if the heat capacity of Air increases, Air has to store more energy for each supplementary degree, and if it decreases, Air has to store less energy for each supplementary degree.
Considering that the energy received by the sun is more or less constant, it means that a decrease in heat capacity of Air will cause a warming, whereas an increase in heat capacity will cause a cooling of Air.
So, if anthropic CO2 is the cause of global warming, it has to significantly decrease the heat capacity of Air, so that, for a constant radiative source (the sun), there is an observation of a warming anomaly as a result.
2) The consequence of anthropic CO2 on the heat capacity of Air
Since the highest historical and natural known CO2 level (300 ppm), fossil fuels combustion has increased CO2 concentration by 110ppm (410 ppm, soon to be reached according to NASA/NOAA)
Moreover, we know that the combustion of fossil fuels implies that for each CO2 molecule that is produced, one molecule of O2 is being taken from the atmosphere.
So what does that mean in terms of heat capacity of the atmosphere ?
The heat capacity for dioxygen is 21.1 J/K , and 28,2 J/K for carbon dioxide (molar heat capacity table).
That means that for 0,011% of the total volume of the atmosphere (110 ppm), there has been an increase of 7,1 J/K of the molar heat capacity (28,2 -21,1).
Therefore, the combustion of fossil fuels, by increasing the CO2 concentration into Air, results in a marginal increase (by volume) of the heat capacity of Air, and thus in a marginal cooling of the atmosphere.
Sorry to interrupt this all so spiritual discourse with some practical ideas. but I’m excited because I’ve come up with the perfect solution to the climate change crisis.
1. Empower an international police force. Just for fun, let’s call it the “Gestapo.” (Hey, why not?)
2. Disseminate the Gestapo throughout the world with the aim of shutting down all gas stations, fossil fueled power plants, and all factories utilizing fossil fuel power, either directly or indirectly. Since those factories produce unnecessary consumer goods with the sole purpose of feeding the capitalist system, they will not be missed.
3. Provide solar panels and little windmills to each and every home to make it energy-independent. Provide each home with an exercise bike hooked up to an electric generator (as in the film “Soylent Green”) to keep the lights on when the sun don’t shine. Family members could take turns on the bike to keep themselves warm. Provide old fashioned foot operated sewing machines to each family so they can make their own clothing.
4. Provide bicycles free of charge to anyone who can’t afford them. Electrically powered motor bikes should be provided to the infirm and elderly. Three wheelers might be needed in some cases.
5. Redesign all electronic devices so they can be powered with little hand cranks.
6. Award all climate scientists with a collective Nobel Prize for making us aware of the need for all the above.
7. Get down on your knees and pray that there will no longer be any hurricanes, floods, droughts, forest fires, rain-bombs, etc., not to mention sea-level rise.
Those who wish to divert the conversation to theory do so in order to avoid examining the historical record, where there is no instance in the last 500 million years of CO2 change ever preceding a temperature reversal. None. Ever. We came out of the Last Glacial Maximum 14,500 years ago without a preceding CO2 change from 220ppm, and the mile-thick slabs of ice over London and NYC retreated. We then plunged into the Younger Dryas without preceding CO2 change, and rapidly rebounded to the Holocene Optimum – perhaps 2C warmer than now, with CO2 280 ppm. The slow decline in temperatures since then has been interrupted by interval warmings – the Minoan, the Roman, the Medieval, and the current, none of them instituted by preceding CO2 change. During the Depression years of 1929-1931, human CO2 production declined by 30% and temperatures kept rising to 1940. So if CO2 doesn’t control climate – and it doesn’t – how can we?
CO2 has zero chance of altering the future that Gaia has planned for us.
Any fact or evidence to support your assertion, or is it just a belief ?
No, not most… there has been a maximum at this period for tropical deforestation but if you look at the excellent graph that you have mentioned, there has been more tropical deforestation between 1980 and 2010 than between 1960-1990, for the same period of time.
If you look at a NASA map of hurricane formation, you can see that american hurricanes start not that far from amazon tropical forests.
But the point is that tropical deforestation increases the intensity of convective heat fluxes by rising the daily thermal amplitude. So it feeds storm formation, then as the storms pass above warm waters, then they initiate hurricane formation.
1) I note that though the global warming theory is a radiative theory based on the hypothesis of radiative balance of Earth’s system, the energy budget mixes radiative fluxes and heat fluxes, evapotranspiration being a heat flux, not a radiative flux. So there is a first discrepancy here: the diagram talks of global energy by mixing together heat and radiation, while the theory only talks of radiative fluxes.
2) As I noted previously, in the diagram, there is a second discrepancy between the total radiative flux at the surface of Earth (approximatively 900 W m-²) and the mean observed temperature (15°C equivalent to approximatively 400 W m-²).
3) In the diagram, there is also a third discrepancy: the ground radiation secondary to sun radiation is more important than the incoming solar radiation in the given period of time, as if infrared radiation was accumulating, but it is basic physics that infrared radiation are governed by the inverse-square law, and thus their intensity diminishes with distance and thus time, until their complete extinction, so they can not accumulate radiatively.
If vegetation has a low albedo, it is due to a long biological evolution favoring that low albedo for the following reason: a low albedo allows the vegetation to “harvest” a maximum of solar energy in order to convert it into biochemical energy. So the low albedo of vegetation is a cooling effect not a warming effect as would be the low albedo of concrete or roads.