A place for comments that would otherwise disrupt sensible conversations.
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2040 Responses to "The Bore Hole"
Titussays
@ 68 Chris O’Neill says: “you now say that temperature rise from the MWP to now”.
Actually I said ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) 1300-1850. MWP was 900-1250 where temps were higher than today so a rise from then is just a little wrong to say the least.
Hey, what’s a few centuries to climate change anyway.
Mr. Know It All 2says
WOW! So many misconceptions in the comments. Can’t hit ’em all, but I’ll try a few.
First, in the original article, about Christopher Monckton it said: “… zero acknowledgment of uncertainty in his position…”. My question is: do all climate scientists acknowledge some uncertainty in their position?
Much hand wringing is evident about why there are deniers. It may be useful to #10 to realize that one of the biggest reasons for denial is history. The earth temp has always gone up and down long before FF were burned. That is a VERY compelling argument to have doubts about AGW – nothing will change this fact – it may be wrong, but it is a powerful argument.
#12 – The economist in the video provides a complicated argument about why people deny. Problem is only 1% of the people in the whole world have ever heard of even 10% of what he is talking about; thus his argument is undeniably wrong. His argument may be correct concerning some economists, but that would be the extent of it.
#16 – No, non-FF is not “better” than FF. An electric car is inferior to an internal combustion car in that it costs a lot of money, will only go 1/2 way across many states, in many places the electrical charge is provided by burning FFs, the batteries have to be replaced at significant cost, they may be a fire hazard, etc. Most folks cannot afford a car for in-town plus one for longer trips.
#22 – Your comment is not only biased fake news, it is also overly political but it is not deleted by the moderators because it is a liberal comment. A similarly partisan comment by a conservative would not be allowed. I’ve had far less partisan comments deleted. This is typical of much of the debate between left and right, including on AGW and many other topics throughout the internet. The left does not allow dissent – this destroys all of their credibility. See the election results.
Probably another reason there are so many doubters is because throughout history there have been many predictions of gloom and doom on the horizon and most of them never happen. When I was a kid the prediction was a coming ice age. Then, later, some predicted mass starvation and other horrors due to the population bomb. And for years enviros have predicted “we’re running out of oil – it’ll be a huge problem by xxxx date” – and it hasn’t happened (but I do think it might). And of course there are constant predictions of economic collapse – few of them actually happen. Given this history it is not surprising that many do not believe AGW is a big problem if they believe it exists at all.
And it is true that many of those pushing AGW and some drastic solutions are from the left side of the political spectrum and many, quite genuinely, suspect that some of the solutions are a scheme to give government more control over the population – it’s not an unreasonable fear.
Dodgy Geezersays
The graphs are not ‘doctored’. They are the SAME graphs! Look at the time axis…
The only apparent difference (aside from the removal of the instrument data) is that the remainder data is an exact mirror image between the two charts along the Time Axis every other peak and valley is identical along both axis
Mark - Helsinkisays
Both graphs are the same just flipped, and thermometer data doesn’t belong spliced onto a paleo reconstruction as it is misleading, suggesting pre thermometer data is as reliable.
So?
Reading theses comments actually made my brain ache. Such nonsense. Weird scary echo chamber
Mr. Know It All 2says
Just out today. UN Official admits goal of AGW is to destroy capitalism:
Learn to read a chart, sir! The data in the graphs you present are IDENTICAL – they have simply had the temporal axes reversed. The ‘original’ represents the past to the right, the ‘doctored’ one represents the past to the left. A mirror image of either will overlay perfectly on the other – save for redacted instrument data.
Joesays
Did any one notice the two graphs are the same –
The Original Keigwin (1996) graph which is the valid graph published in the journal of science is the same as the “doctored graph” (the time axis is just flipped)
Victorsays
Re 110, 111, 112. Sorry guys, but this has nothing to do with anyone’s creds as a “scientist,” (and sometimes I wonder whether half the people posting here have any such creds at all), nor has it anything to do with my qualifications, personality, etc. It’s a matter of simple logic. Either the data corrections produced by Karl et al are significant or not significant. If not significant then I’m wondering why all the fuss and all the claims that now, finally, we can put an end to the “hiatus” based on those same “insignificant” corrections. And if significant, then, obviously, the old data that was in need of correction can no longer be regarded as valid. And all the old studies based on that data can also no longer be regarded as valid. And we must then ask why they all managed to succeed in eliminating the hiatus nevertheless.
All the bullying, clowning, derision and yes, denial, in the world won’t get you very far if you refuse to see what’s right there before your eyes. And no, Steve, your status as a “biomedical researcher” is totally beside the point. It’s an ANALOGY, get it?
Kip Hansensays
Marco ==> Refer to the images provided by Boslough — here is Boslough’s caption from the article above (perhaps he has confused himself and made an innocent error — if so, he can answer and explain):
Boslough’s caption:
“Doctored Version of Keigwin (1996) graph that appeared in Robinson et al (1998)”
No mention of a later paper, his claim is the image is “doctored” and appeared in Robinson et al. (1998).
Maybe someone has doctored Boslough’s caption?
Victorsays
#114 Thank you nigelj for an eminently reasonable response. Your point is well taken and your civility appreciated. Nevertheless, the problem I raised cannot so easily be put aside, imo. As I see it, it is naive to presume that a troubling factor such as the hiatus can be so easily dismissed by, presto chango, “correcting” the data in such a manner as to eliminate the problem as if by magic. In the studies to which I refer (and they are legion), the hiatus was consistently accepted as a puzzling fact of life, NOT a statistical aberration, and the task before the researcher(s) was to demonstrate the existence of compensating factors, as in my analogy, that enabled them to claim that, when these factors were accounted for, the hiatus disappeared (as in my analogy). The well known paper by Foster and Rahmstorf is a typical example. If we accept the corrections produced by Karl et al, then there is obviously a problem with the results of the calculations produced by Foster and Rahmstorf. It’s really that simple.
Danielsays
Amazing–the whole graph is debunked on WUWT–in spades, I might add–you should remove this article
benpalsays
I’m impressed. This article reads like a text from Orwell 1984.
“numerous emails from climate researchers from the preceding 14 years appeared on a server in the Russian city of Tomsk.” Fact is: they appeared first on the servers of the CRU and were the testimony of the communication of scientists. Climategate.
As far as I remember, Michael Mann had climate series on his server that he didn’t want to be seen by the world because it wouldn’t fit his narrative. Alternative Facts?
The silliest argument by far is the attribution of scepticism to any political classification. As if there was a difference in the brains of right-wing populists and left-wing populists. A bird with only one wing will never fly; science with only one (biased) point of view will never fly either. Liars are liars, honest people are honest people; that’s true for both sides of the political spectrum.
benpalsays
I’m not surprised to see that my reference to Climategate has not been published. Is that how you generate Alternative Facts, by denying diverging opinions?
97 Barton Paul Levenson
“BPL: It is dangerous for an amateur like you to accuse a climate scientist like me of not understanding basic radiation physics.”
Wow , what astounding arrogance !
From somebody who apparently can’t hack APL !
So you will agree that any isotropic gray ( defined as : flat spectrum ) ball comes to the temperature related via Stefan Boltzmann to the total radiant energy impinging on it ? And you agree that is about 278.6K +- ~ 2.3 from peri- to ap-helion in Earth’s orbit ?
According to some recent earth sensing satellite specs I saw , the design temperature for the instrument “box” was about 5c , ie : 278 . It should be trivial to find if that’s a typical engineering spec . Certainly if orbital temperature were the endlessly promulgated 255K , the Apollo 13 astronauts would have quickly frozen .
You immediately jump to the 255 meme leaving me very unsure whether you understand and agree with my generalization in the box at the top of http://cosy.com/Science/warm.htm to arbitrary spectra of the computation which produces that 255 value when fed the hypothetical ( .7 ; 1.0 ) step function spectrum . That is ,
ObjTemp = TgrayBody * ( A % E ) ^ % 4
where
A : dot[ Object_ae_Spectrum ; sourceSpectrum ]
and
E : dot[ aeSpectrum ; Planck objectTemp ]
Do you agree with that generalization to arbitrary spectra ? If not , please present your computation .
—
And to those several people who somehow claim that you can calculate anything meaningful about the complexity of a planet without demonstrating that you grok these fundamental “laws” , you demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the method of physics — and planetary temperature is an issue of applied physics .
See my comments at the bottom of http://cosy.com/Science/ColoredBalls.html .
BA 102 : That’s not my perception , but irrelevant in any case . I did thank you for the original courtesy of replying . And I repeat that . I actually don’t see my comment to which you are replying , but I have it archived if there is ever need for distribution Real Climate has been known to censor “uncomfortable” posts .
BA: According to some recent earth sensing satellite specs I saw , the design temperature for the instrument “box” was about 5c , ie : 278 . It should be trivial to find if that’s a typical engineering spec . Certainly if orbital temperature were the endlessly promulgated 255K , the Apollo 13 astronauts would have quickly frozen
BPL: That’s not “orbital temperature,” that’s the Earth’s emission temperature. An Apollo CSM does not have the same radiative properties as the Earth.
BA: So you do agree to my definition of “gray” as “flat spectrum” and do agree that the equilibrium temperature of a gray body is the same as a black . This is a most basic fact which needs to be part of any basic education related to these issues .
BPL: ” BA: you demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the method of physics — and planetary temperature is an issue of applied physics . ”
BA: you misquoted . Here is what I posted :
“–
And to those several people who somehow claim that you can calculate anything meaningful about the complexity of a planet without demonstrating that you grok these fundamental “laws” , you demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the method of physics — and planetary temperature is an issue of applied physics .”
I thought I made it clear that the comment was directed to “those several people who somehow claim … ” who have made other comments on this thread about the Earth not being a simple colored ball . Clearly they have no comprehension of the years of mathematical study of the simplest geometric abstractions one must grok ( I love Heinlein’s word ) before tackling more complex realities .
BPL: As it happens, I have a degree in physics. Do you?
BA: Which gets us back to agreeing on the general computation of equilibrium temperature for arbitrary spectra , ie : the generalization of the computation which produces the endlessly parroted 255K value .
Then we can take actual measured spectra for the Earth and the Sun and calculate an estimate as good as our measurements .
Do you agree with the computation I have expressed in terms of dot products both here and in the box at the top of http://cosy.com/Science/warm.htm ? Would you express it differently ?
Looks like my last post was censored so let’s leave out anything that could be considered disrespectful and just get down to the quantitative equations .
BA: Which gets us back to agreeing on the general computation of equilibrium temperature for arbitrary spectra , ie : the generalization of the computation which produces the endlessly parroted 255K value .
Then we can take actual measured spectra for the Earth and the Sun and calculate an estimate as good as our measurements .
Do you agree with the computation I have expressed in terms of dot products both here and in the box at the top of http://cosy.com/Science/warm.htm ?
How would you express it ?
My goal is to work thru the quantitative , experimentally verifiable physics step by step so any computer literate layman can explore and test the physics themselves .
Mike Flynnsays
To all the commenters recommending “experiments” demonstrating the fact that CO2 can be heated, might I suggest that all matter can be heated.
As John Tyndall showed, as the amount of CO2 (or any other gas) between the source of heat and a sensitive thermopile is reduced, the amount of heat reaching the thermopile increases (of course), and the temperature rises (of course).
Not for nothing did Einstein specify the speed of light of any frequency at all as occurring in a vacuum. No absorption, nothing to impede progress.
No one has ever managed to cause anything to increase its temperature by surrounding it with CO2. Or by placing CO2 between an object and a heat source, as Tyndall showed.
In spite of four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, and far higher CO2 levels in the past, the Earth’s surface has cooled from molten to solid. No CO2 heating at all.
Interestingly, the hottest places on Earth, (arid tropical deserts), are defined by a severe shortage of the most important supposed greenhous gas – H2O. Marco asked why it gets very, very, cold in some deserts at night. The answer is simple. Just as the lack of water vapour allows rapid daytime heating, rapid night time cooling is the other side of the coin. No magical one way insulation, just standard radiative transfer.
In relation to Benestad’s paper –
“The rate of heat loss . . . must equal the rate of energy received from the sun . . . for a planet (here a is its radius) to be in energetic equilibrium (Hulburt 1931). The planetary energy balance can then be described approximately by the simple equation.” Of course, the energy received from the Sun (and from all other sources), is demonstrably less than that lost by the Earth. After four and a half billion years, the Earth has obviously cooled. No balance there.
As to calculating a surface temperature, the calculation would have to calculate an average temperature above that of molten rock (before the first rock formed), an average temperature in excess of 100 C (before the first liquid water formed), and all other temperatures in between. Of course, they don’t.
As with all purported explanations of the greenhouse effect, the paper is pointless, being based on demonstrably false assumptions.
The greenhouse effect cannot be demonstrated, let alone quantified. Tyndall’s work on heat absorption by gases is well documented, replicable, and indicates precisely the opposite of what GHE supporters believe.
No GHE. None.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
There’s plenty of precedent –
“In one of the e-mails, East Anglia’s Phil Jones, long a power player in the production of these reports, said this about some scientific articles he did not like: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is.””
If you don’t like the article . . .
Unless your bully pulpit has fallen into disrepair due to lack of maintenance?
Here’s an idea – maybe you could raise a mighty army of glassy eyed cultists, and smite the unbelievers! Only joking, of course! I enjoy a good laugh! Have you tried being condescending or patronising? Just keep repeating “The science is settled!”
Cheers.
Martysays
Gav. You are supposed to show why it’s wrong, with science, not just post bits of green text disagreeing. lol
How long left at GISS? Not long not long, don’t let the door hit you on the way out
Global Warming, Ozone Holes, and Magnetic Poles
“An Investigation Reexamining Brewer-Dobson Ozone Theory to Uncover the Atmospheric Role of Paramagnetic Oxygen in Recent Extreme Weather Patterns and Global Climate Change” by Harry Todd
Carbon dioxide, CFCs, HFCs, and nitrogen compounds are the main focus of international attempts to lessen the chemical effects of anthropogenic global warming caused by greenhouse gas pollution. However, non-anthropogenic geophysical forcing factors also are active in climate change. This paper explores oxygen’s involvement in climate patterns associated with Earth’s wandering magnetic poles. Using ozone as a tracer, it develops a new rationale for climate modeling. The conclusions are a radical departure from currently accepted science. http://www.harrytodd.org
Michael Flynnsays
BPL,
Flux density from the Sun at night – zero.
Relevance – zero.
Back radiation – irrelevant misdirection.
A glacier can emit in excess of 300 W/m2. 10 m2, 3000 W. Absolutely true, but completely useless – you can’t even brew a cup of tea! Your wattages are sciency sounding nonsense concepts.
In relation to Tyndall, you may assume what you like. Tyndall was a brilliant experimenter, whose results can be be replicated. You don’t like the results, so you try to deny, divert and confuse.
CO2 heats nothing.
There is no GHE, so discussing a non existent mechanism is fairly pointless. I don’t believe in the necessity for a luminiferous ether, either. Like the GHE, it doesn’t exist.
As to a planet’s surface temperature, you obviously couldn’t be bothered reading my response – or maybe the concept of measurement eluded you.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
All,
And still, many of you believe that future climate states are predictable – in some useful sense, and more accurately than an average 12 year old child can do.
Rubbish. None of you can even predict next throw of a fair coin – or anything else of significance. If you could, you would no doubt be fabulously powerful and/or wealthy.
All the attempts to argue from authority are about as silly as Lord Kelvin espousing the caloric theory of heat, Newton’s belief in alchemy, or even the widespread belief in the luminiferous ether. Lord Kelvin went to his deathbed having revised his calculated age of the Earth to a more youthful 20 million years or so. Trofim Lysenko’s ideas on vernalisation were widely adopted by several governments, for many decades. Should I accept his discredited thoughts as authoritative, or not?
As to BPL’s faith in textbook writers, does he believe that all textbooks are factual? Textbooks on phrenology have been written. Is phrenology valid science?
No GHE. None. You may wrap as many blankets as you like around your coffe cup. Your coffee still cools.
As has the Earth. In spite of the lithospheric blanket surrounding the molten core, and the aquaspheric and atmospheric blankets on top of that. Even after supposedly absorbing four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight! No heat trapping to be seen. The hottest places on Earth – arid tropical deserts – have the thinnest blanket of so called GHG (H2O). The thinner the blanket, apparently, the hotter it gets. Even Tyndall recorded this (being a keen mountaineer) and explains the physics involved in some details.
So any GHE hypothesis involving blankets is just plain silly. And so it goes with back radiation and “energy budgets”. Sciency sounding, but ineffective in explaining observed cooling over four and a half billion years. Sorry to belabour an obvious fact, but the Earth has cooled – sunlight, blankets, CO2, H2O, back radiation and so on notwithstanding.
It seems that the odd decision maker might agree with me. I wonder how keen GHE enthusiasts will be, if they have to provide their own funding? Science will go on, no doubt. Professor John Tyndall depended on donations of things like lumps of rock salt to enable his rather wonderful experimental work.
Refusing to accept inconvenient facts does not make them go away. Nobody has ever managed to raise the temperature of a thermometer by surrounding it with CO2. GHE enthusiasts claim that GHGs actually heat thermometers – temperatures steadily increase – day by day, year by year, century by century. Numbers are even provided – so many degrees per year, decade, century etc.
What nonsense! Atmospheric physics resulting in weather are complex, and appear chaotic and unpredictable in any useful sense. Climate is the average of weather. Usefully predicting an average of weather events yet to occur seems more difficult than predicting the next toss of a coin. And nobody has ever demonstrated an ability to reliably peer into the future to see whether the next toss will result in a head or a tail.
I’ll leave you all to your marching, protesting, and seeking employment elsewhere, if such happens to be the case. Good luck – with all your expertise, predicting your optimal course of action should be a snap!
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
MARodger,
You may be confused. If you can actually point to a place where I denied that measurements of recorded maximum temperatures show increases over time in certain locations, I would be surprised. GHE supporters cannot actually face a discussion of the assertion that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the air surrounding a thermometer causes an increase in the temperature shown by such thermometer.
As to highest surface temperatures being recorded in places with the least overlying GHGs, I refer you to NASA –
” In their analysis, Running, Mildrexler, and Maosheng Zhao scrutinized global MODIS measurements of LST from 2003 to 2009, paying special attention to where the hottest satellite temperatures matched up with the ideal terrain. “To reveal the hottest spot on Earth,” Mildrexler notes, “we focused on barren areas and sparsely vegetated, open shrublands.””
In other words, the places with maximum sunlight, and an obvious comparative lack of H2O.
So, deny, divert, and confuse all you like. Less GHG, higher surface temperatures. Basic physics, verified by experiment going back to Professor John Tyndall, and satellite observations by NASA.
Why do you think the NASA scientists focussed on barren areas and sparsely vegetated open shrublands, rather than areas overlain by high GHG levels? I live 12 degrees from the Equator, close to the coast. The highest official maximum ever recorded is less than 39C. Too much GHG, you see. Move a handful of kilometres inland, and temperatures routinely exceed 40C.
CO2 does not make thermometers hotter. Heat makes thermometers hotter, CO2 provides no heat. No GHE. Just singularly amateurish “experiments ” showing that gases have differing specific heats. A container of 100% CO2 at 20 C is precisely the same temperature as a container of 100% O2 at 20 C.
Or, to put it in another context, all matter at absolute zero has no observable temperature at all. Even CO2.
People are perfectly free to believe in anything at all. Even a GHE. It seems that people that control the purse strings might agree with me, to a point. Calling them fools, trolls, or deniers by association, might not be a logical course of action.
I’ll leave you to your beliefs.
Cheers,
Mike Flynnsays
Here’s a simple question.
20 C has a peak emission wavelength of around 10 microns – 9.8899 microns if my calculation is correct. Firmly infrared.
Two containers, one filled with 100 % CO2, and the other filled with N2 (or any other gas for that matter) in a room at 20 C, will stabilise at 20 C. So will their contents.
Why is the CO2 not hotter than the nitrogen (or any other gas)?
It’s being subjected to infrared continuously. Change the temperature to give whatever wavelength you like, if you prefer. If my wavelength calculation is wrong, please feel free to correct me. The temperature of the two containers and their contents, will remain the same as their environment, the room, regardless.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
Ray Ladbury,
I have pointed out that I believe in the GHE with equal fervour to my belief in the existence of the luminiferous ether or the caloric theory of heat.
It doesn’t really matter. The current US administration seems to be saying that spending money trying to stop the climate changing is a waste of time.
Maybe you shoukd take up marching, or resisting, or threats. The climate will keep changing. The Earth will keep cooling, no doubt. My skull is indeed reasonably thick – as is my skin, as I simply decline to take offense at anything anyone may say.
Climate models are nonsense. If they produce 1000 different results, then at least 999 are wrong. Averaging 999 wrong results does not necessarily produce one correct result, does it?
Billions of dollars expended to produce what, exactly? Maybe you could name a single measurable benefit to humanity from all this arrant nonsense?
No GHE. CO2 heats nothing. All matter at 20 C has precisely the same temperature – unless you hew to the climatological view of the magical properties of GHGs, of course!
I’m not at all apologetic about kicking a man when he’s down – what better time to do it?
It looks like reality is prevailing – what’s your next silly attempt to deny, divert and confuse! Have you thought of writing to Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama? I’m sure they’ll support your point of view.
My care factor is precisely zero. Feel free to become as outraged or apoplectic as you like. Nature doesn’t care what you or I think. That’s my irrelevant opinion, at least. I’m sure your opinion is worth far more than mine in your eyes, and you might well consider that you are indeed a national treasure. I’ll leave you to your fantasy world where you apparently believe that anybody in the administration gives a fig what you think about global warming, climate change, or the ludicrous non existent GHE.
In the meantime, life goes on. I’m content.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
Rasmus wrote –
“Statistics is remarkably predictable.”
One definition of statistics –
“Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data”
The reader can decide whether Rasmus is correct.
He seems to be implying that the future can be determined from examination of the past. Maybe Rasmus might tell us whether parts of California will experience water surfeit, or drought, in the future, in any usable fashion. That is, timing, duration, and hopefully, intensity.
Of course, this is impossible. Neither Rasmus, nor anybody else, can even predict the next throw of a coin, even though it is very likely, statistically, that either a head or a tail will result from a throw.
Even the IPCC stated that that it is impossible to predict future climate.
The future is unknowable. Assumptions such as the Sun rising, the Oroville dam not failing, and so on, may or may not come to pass. The future is the future. Climate is the average of weather. You can’t average something that hasn’t happened yet. Your assumptions about the future may be no better than mine, but you want me to fund them.
Sorry. Apparently the present US administration is giving low priorities to fortune telling, and my assumption is that the rest of the G20, for example, will heave a collective sigh of relief. I might be right, I might be wrong. The future is unknowable, after all!
I know, I know – your response to dissenting opinion or inconvenient fact is to send it to the Bore Hole, or just delete it entirely, shielding the rest of the glassy eyed cultists from unpleasantness. Go your hardest – my care factor is precisely zero.
Cheers.
Dana Glasgowsays
Greenhouse Gas sounds like such a bad thing. Truth, plants love carbon dioxide it helps them grow. They like it so much that they give off oxygen. Last time I check we need oxygen to survive. We have only 340 ppm of CO2. It could be as hi as 1,300 ppm and plants would grow twice as fast and twice in size. Are we trying to kill humans?
Last month in Comment #77 I introduced the possibility that atmospheric paramagnetic oxygen could be a forcing factor for climate change. This website link was offered for those interested in the data: http://www.harrytodd.org
Nobody noticed my comment. It is an outrageous suggestion that nobody in the atmospheric sciences has noticed patterns in the NASA data which can form a surprising new explanation for climate change. Nobody replied to me. Not even the “Ridiculous!” that I got from an internet troll while I was developing the thesis online over the past 18 months.
The Paramagnetic Oxygen Transport Thesis explains the failure of Brewer-Dobson equatorial ozone formation, the Ozone Hole in 1983, continued Antarctic cold temps concurrent with Arctic warming, mid-latitude ozone formation which accelerates jet streams and elongates Rossby wave loops, and wandering magnetic poles which control extreme weather and climate change.
Would someone please reply to me?
Mike Flynnsays
Richard Simons,
I repeat, nobody has ever managed to make a thermometer by increasing the concentration of CO2 between the thermometer and a heat source.
A thermometer on the surface of the Earth, exposed to the Sun, will not get hotter just because you increase the concentration of CO2 between it and the Sun. It doesn’t matter what sort of insulation you use, the more you place between a thermometer and the Sun, the cooler the thermometer becomes.
I believe you are ascribing miraculous one way insulating properties to CO2. That is, an insulator which lets in more energy than it lets out. A container wrapped in such an insulator would presumably get hotter and hotter each day, each year, if exposed to a heat source such as the Sun. Unfortunately, even though such an insulator would be as desirable as the Philosophers Stone, its existence is just as mythical.
The Earth has managed to cool for four and a half billion years, apparently, CO2 concentrations notwithstanding.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
Kevin McKinney,
You are exactly correct.
And when he reduced the amount of CO2, the temperature of the thermometer rose.
Is this supposed to be the greenhouse effect? More CO2 -thermometer temperature drops, less CO2 – thermometer temperature rises. I thought the GHE was supposed to work the other way round.
Cheers.
oakwoodsays
You disagree with Judith Curry and present a case. Does her difference of science-based opinion make it right for anyone to call her a Climate Science Denier?
Mike Flynnsays
MA Rodger,
You think I am being unreasonable, asking for experimental support for the supposed GHE.
You may ignore the scientific method if you wish. It won’t change facts.
As to the GHE not seeming to work in the dark (or indoors for that matter), flood a darkened room with CO2, displacing the air. The temperature won’t rise. Two identical containers (gas cylinders, for example), one containing CO2, and the other containing nitrogen, say, are indistinguishable by virtue of temperature alone. The interiors are very dark.
Have I explained clearly enough for you? Are you also being unreasonable, expecting me to give concrete reproducible examples to support my statement? I don’t think so, of course.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
BPL,
My response seems to have been vanished, or lost, or even censored – gone in any case!
As to the Earth’s surface, I assumed you are aiming for a gotcha, rather than seeking knowledge.
It doesn’t matter. For example, one might use the SB law to calculate the average temperature of the Earth including the usual assumptions, and arrive at a figure of, say, 255 K. This cannot be correct, as the surface temperature has apparently varied between more 1000 C, when the surface was molten, more than 100 C, before the first liquid water, and more than 0 C, when the oceans remain composed of unfrozen water.
Nothing at all mysterious – the Earth has cooled, and judging by the fact that the interior is molten and well in excess of the theoretical SB law calculation, will continue to do so, as per the LOT.
I guess you’re asking the question to make me appear foolish. Am I correct?
Obviously, I have made the assumption that the Earth’s surface was once molten, and the interior remains so. If you claim otherwise, I cannot dispute your claim. If you say that the Universe was created as we perceive it, a femtosecond ago, how could I prove otherwise?
Do you assert the Earth was created at 0 K and has since heated due to the GHE? That seems a bit of a stretch.
Cheers.
Mike Flynnsays
Ray Ladbury,
I don’t need to consider the flow of energy. A thermometer gets hotter, or it doesn’t. Introducing more CO2 between a thermometer on the surface, and the Sun, does not increase the temperature of the thermometer. CO2 is not a magic gas, even less a magic one way insulator. You cannot even provide a testable GHE hypothesis. Maybe if you (or anyone else), could do so, you would discover that your hypothesis, like that of the necessity for a luminiferous aether, is erroneous.
Mal Adapted,
Speculations mean nothing. Many 19th century scientists believed in the luminiferous aether. Maybe you agree – or do you only believe the speculations that suit your opinion?
You may assume as you wish. No-one has yet managed to demonstrate in a reproducible fashion the existence of the GHE.
I prefer facts to faith. Experimental confirmation supports hypotheses – but you don’t even have a testable hypothesis.
Kevin McKinney,
The experiment was not support for the greenhouse effect. It is obvious that I know far more physics than you. The fact that the Team is censoring my responses shows that they are unable to produce any facts to rebut anything I have said. Maybe I know more about quantum physics than they do – what would cause you to believe otherwise?
It doesn’t really matter, I guess. People far more influential than myself have noted that the blog moderators tend to “vanish” inconvenient facts. They too have noticed a tendency for ad hominem comments to be preferred to factual rebuttal, giving the impression to an outside observer that no testable GHE hypothesis even exists.
Cheers.
Macksays
@BPL #210
Take notice of what Marco @213 says, BPL. ..Your math is relevant for a sun that goes round and round the earth at the TOA !!!
The sun never sets in space, Barton, and space is right there, just above the atmosphere. The TSI of about 1360w/sq.m. is measured right there by a satellite, 24/7, at the TOA. I can believe what this satellite says, Barton, or I can believe your maths calculation telling me that only 340w/sq.m of solar radiation is arriving at the top of the atmosphere. I prefer the real readings of an actual mechanical instrument..rather than what is going on in your head,
So to clarify the issue for you, BPL, the solar radiation arriving at the TOA (Top of the Atmosphere), is that yearly global average of 1360w/sq.m. and must remain as that…and it attenuates down to about 340 w/sq.m… the real and actual yearly global average arriving at the surface of the Earth.
Read that carefully again, BPL ….340 w/sq.m at the Surface of the Earth.
Btw, if you take that flux of 340w/sq.m ,and apply it to the Stephan-Boltzmann equation, along with an emissivity of 0.82…you will get a temperature of about 19deg C, which is near enough to the average global temperature.
No mythical -18deg C frozen earth, BPL…no mythical “greenhouse effect”.
Macksays
@ Astringent #216
There are craters ,and some surfaces,on the moon which never see the sun at all, getting to some of the coldest temperatures in the solar system. This drags the average temp on the moon down to your -77 degrees C.
Nothing to do with whether or not there is an atmosphere…it’s the sun stupid.
Mike Flynnsays
Susan Anderson,
It might convince non-believers if you could provide a testable GHE hypothesis, rather than ignoring the fact that the Earth is a large blob of molten rock, with a very, very thin coating of of solidified rock, a condensed aquasphere, and a thin coating of atmosphere. The whole system is still cooling. How could it be otherwise, with a core temperature of some 5000 K or more, sitting in the vacuum of outer space, with its nearest decent source of heat unable to maintain an average surface temperature of more than 255 K or so?
Maybe you live in an area where land is subsiding –
“Data from GPS measurements and carbon dating of marsh sediments indicate that regional land subsidence in response to glacial isostatic adjustment in the southern Chesapeake Bay region may have a current rate of about 1 mm/yr (Engelhart and others, 2009; Engelhart and Horton, 2012). This downward velocity rate is uncertain and probably not uniform across the region.”
Are you aware that marine fossils are found above 6000 m, and fossil fuels are found more than 3000 m below sea level?
You have been misled. Heat causes thermometers to get hotter. CO2 has precisely no heating effect. Believing people who are incapable of working out whether they were awarded a Nobel Prize or not, may not always be the wisest move.
A testable GHE hypothesis would be a good starting point, but alas, none such exists! Keep believing. If you are a follower of the somewhat eccentric James Hansen, maybe you should relocate away from the coast. You will be safe from the showers of giant boulders sucked from the sea bed, which will be rained down on the heads of the unbelievers – according to Hansen!
I assume you have adopted a stance of righteous imperviousness to facts. Good for you! Maybe you believe faith can move mountains, but I’ll pit myself, plus a humble teaspoon against all the faith you can assemble, as far as mountain moving goes.
Feel free to be as offended as you wish. My care factor is precisely zero.
Cheers.
BillHillsays
“As I’ve been asking for almost three years, it is way past time for Curry to shore up her claims in a quantitative way. I doubt that this is actually possible, but if one was to make the attempt these are the kind of things needed:
*blablabla*”
I think you are getting ahead of things. It is way past time that you shore up your claims first. These are the kind of things needed:
1. Evidence that dry ice can increase the intensity of the heat source heating it. This one is extremely important, because it is the base for the whole “dry ice heat death threat”. You seem to have a deep misunderstanding of what science says about co2 and absorption of infrared radiation. All experiments on co2 show how it absorbs infrared radiation, not how it raise the temperature of the heat source. They are two very different things.
2. Evidence that absorption increase the temperature of something else than what absorbs the heat. There is a serious misunderstanding in climate science of basic physical properties of mass and what effect they have. You people often refer to the atmosphere as a “blanket” or that it acts like insulation. Which is the opposite of what physics say. If you take a look here:
“Thermal insulation provides a region of insulation in which thermal conduction is reduced or thermal radiation is reflected rather than absorbed by the lower-temperature body.”
You only need to read a few lines on wikipedia to learn that the relationship between a body and its surroundings is the opposite of what you think. Absorption is what you want to avoid if you want to “retain heat”. If you know how insulation works, you know that the atmosphere does the opposite of what insulation does. The crust, if anything, is insulating the interior of the planet. The atmosphere does nothing like that. You need reflection of heat, or something that prevent absorption of the heat leaving the body.
3. Evidence that climate science know how to read absorption spectrums. The absorption spectrums you blanket-people often use to make claims about how dry ice burns the earth surface all show how the spectral intensity (the amount of heat in a part of the spectrum)is massively decreased by co2 absorption. The wavelengths of co2 absorption in absorption spectrums that are relevant, clearly show how the interaction between co2 and heat from the surface result in a large decrease in the amount of radiation. Take a look at emission spectra instead, there you clearly see how much energy co2 adds after absorption. Or, look at the spike at the bottom of the deep cut in the spectrum. That is what co2 emit after absorption. Much less.
4. Evidence that you know kirchoff´s law. You seem to think that kirchoff´s law means that if radiation of a certain intensity is absorbed, the same intensity has to be emitted. The emitted intensity is related to the temperature of the emitter and the absorption is determined by the temperature as well. This is why the stefan-boltzmann equation for net transfer by using the difference in temperature of two bodies work so well. What the net transfer equation show, is how kirchoff´s law works in practice in relation to temperature.
5. Evidence that we should use quantum theory to determine bulk properties of mass, like temperature. Spectral resolution and how molecules absorb at different wavelengths are quantum properties of radiation interacting with mass. Temperature is not determined by quantum properties of mass, quantum properties are determined by temperature. Just look at what they do in quantum experiments with temperature before conducting the experiments. The theory of heat came first, it established the exclusive relationships between temperature and emission from discoveries like the draper point: that all solids start to glow at the same temperature. It showed that temperature and emission is central. Blackbody radiation was an extension clarifying further details about heat, emission and temperature. But the earlier discoveries were still true. Quantum physics was a further extension, going into details about heat on the microscopic level. But the old discoveries of heat and blackbody spectrum still holds.
Temperature and emission is the base. The rest are details of their relationship to each other and mass.
6. Evidence that the emission of the earth surface(and of course its temperature) depends on the state of the atmosphere. Prevost stated that the emission of a body depends on the internal state only. The internal state is measured as temperature, because everything inside a volume is included in the measurement of the internal energy as temperature. Every single molecule has an effect on the temperature inside a volume of mass.
What Prevost said holds true still today, it has not changed. Is the atmosphere a part of the surface internal state? Of course not. Why then do you say that the emission of the surface depends on the external state of the atmosphere?
Absorption also depends on the internal state. The amount of energy absorbed depends on the temperature of the absorber, shown to be true by the stefan-boltzmann equation for net transfer of heat. There is a broad confusion about the relationship between emission, absorption and temperature. Absorption is not the cause of emission, the temperature of the emitter is. Absorption and emission are related through the internal state of the body, the bodys internal state is not dependant on one or the other. This is relativity, relations between mass, thermal energy, temperature. They relate to each other.
7. Evidence that earth doesn´t follow the laws of thermodynamics. You are very well aware of the problem here, and I have seen different ways to explain the problem away. There is no way to get around the fact that you claim that there is heat coming from the much colder atmosphere. Only heat can raise temperature, and you say that the atmosphere provides energy that raise the temperature. A clear violation of the second law.
“Photons in all directions” is not an argument helping you, because photons are quantum physics and we don´t use quantum physics for bulk properties of mass. It doesn´t matter what directions photons have, temperature is determined by the theory of heat transfer in thermal physics, thermodynamics. Actually, it is a violation of physics as science to even make a claim about photons to explain temperature.
Creation of energy, the first law. You don´t beat around the bush here. The whole theory of the greenhouse without windows and burning heat from dry ice, starts on a violation of the first law. You use a (flawed) calculation of emission from earth that gives a value of 240W/m^2. The you oddly enough use this as the absorbed amount of solar energy, which is what puts you in the following problematic situation:
You claim that earth absorb 240W/m^2, and the difference to what is observed surface emission of 390W/m^2 is explained by saying that the amount of energy increase from the presence of damp, cold air at -18C mean temperature. You seem to be totally unaware of, or deceptively aware of, that you are saying: 240W=390W. And the difference you say is created in the atmosphere. Shame on you!
Get off the stupid-train before you are banned from doing science, every single one of you.
I will now make a contribution toward saving the planet from the ravages of global warming. I present here, for the first time anywhere, one easy, practical step that may make a small contribution in reducing water vapor in the atmosphere. Please take a moment and review my proposal:
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Each person on the planet can reduce the amount of water vapor they put into the atmosphere by wiping down the shower stall after their shower is complete. Just take a sponge, wipe down the sides and floor of the shower and push the water toward the drain. A small squeegee would also work. In this way the water goes down the drain instead of being evaporated into the air. If a billion people do this per day, it might make a small contribution.
CO2 is a false boogeyman invented by left-wing politicians who know how to use a “crisis” to gain political power.
There is no science behind the claim of future runaway warming from positive water vapor feedback.
Absolutely none.
There is very little science behind the claim that a doubling of CO2 will cause one degree C. of warming — which even if true, adds up to a mere one degree C. of global warming in about 200 years, assuming CO2 levels increase 2 ppm per year, and the hypothesis is correct.
Please realize that a scientist, or many scientists, or even 90% of scientists making a claim … IS NOT REAL SCIENCE WITHOUT PROOF THE CLAIM IS CORRECT.
Studies of Earth’s climate history reveal no runaway warming, even though CO2 levels were higher than today most of the time.
Very rough real-time measurements / compilations of average temperatures in the 20th century reveal very little change in 150 years — a one degree C. average temperature range in 150 years is unusually stable.
Totally harmless when you consider that half the warming since 1880 is arbitrary data “adjustments” made after the year 2000 (by NASA – GISS).
Average temperature changes in the first half of the 20th century, with a small amount of man made CO2 emissions … were very similar to temperature changes in the second half of the 20th century, with a large amount man made CO2 emissions.
There is no evidence that anything unusual happened from the added CO2 in the second half of the 20th century … and the average temperature has barely changed so far in the 21st century, especially if you ignore the 2015 / 2016 El Nino peak, which has nothing to do with CO2.
The small amount of climate change in the past 150 years has been all good news:
(1) We’ve had mild warming at night, and
(2) We’ve had greening of our planet from more CO2 in the air.
Only a fool, or a person with ulterior motives, would not want MORE nighttime warming and MORE greening of our planet in the next 150 years!
There is no climate catastrophe in progress.
Our climate has been getting better for humans, animals, and the plants they eat, for at least 500 years.
The average temperature is already up at least + 2 degrees C. from the cold period / famines at the end of the 1600’s during the Maunder Minimum extremely low sunspot count period.
Did the +2 degrees C. since the late 1600s (perhaps even +3 degrees) cause a catastrophe?
No — people were thrilled that the cold periods in the Little Ice Age did not exist during the Modern Warming after 1850.
But let’s not let the reality of climate history get in the way of the climate change alarmism religion.
Climate reality is boring — climate alarmism is exciting!
How many decades of grossly inaccurate average temperature confuser model predictions are needed before sensible people finally have some doubt about the ability of humans to predict the future climate?
We’ve already had 30 years of inaccurate confuser model predictions by the government bureaucrat “scientists” — predictions that are triple actual warming.
To be a believer in “CO2 controls the climate”, which is a secular religion, in my opinion … you must believe that 4.5 billion years of climate change suddenly ended in 1975, and CO2 took over as the “climate controller”, with no explanation of why that would happen, or how.
Very hard to believe.
The claim that runaway global warming is coming is the biggest hoax in human history .
No human can predict the future climate.
There’s no evidence of runaway warming in the past 4.5 billion years, with CO2 levels higher than today most of the time — up to 10 times higher — yes, geologists are scientists too.
The left-wing focus on the fantasy of runaway global warming takes all their attention off the real pollution — air, water and land pollution in China, India and other parts of Asia, for one important example.
There is so much air pollution in China that winds bring some of it across the ocean to the Left Coast.
Why is that not important?
Why do you want to leave China alone for another 10-15 years?
FThe misguided focus on harmless, beneficial CO2 — increasing CO2 is greening the Earth — has an opportunity cost — ignoring REAL air, water and land pollution in China and India … and that’s exactly what the Paris Accord did.
The addition of CO2 to the air has been, inadvertently, the best thing humans have done to improve life on Earth — green plants are growing faster, and in places that had been brown.
If you want to criticize harmful chemicals that result from burning fossil fuels, that would be fine — but CO2 is not one of them.
Even if you blame ALL the warming since 1850 on CO2 — and even the IPCC doesn’t do that — the only logical wish for our planet is “give me more of that” — let’s add more CO2 in the air — and if we’re lucky we’ll get more nighttime warming, and more greening of our planet.
The only problem is it will take 200 years to gain + 1 degree C., (with CO2 rising 2ppm per year), so none of us will be alive to enjoy it.
Of course my calculation does not include the bogus positive feedback water vapor theory that would triple warming from CO2 alone — because that claim is not supported by ANY science or evidence.
Absolutely none.
Liberals may now proceed with the usual ridicule, character attacks and appeals to authority.
Just don’t claim the future climate can be predicted by anyone — because it can’t.
I have a climate change blog for non-scientists provided as a public service.
No ads. No money for me. And no comments allowed.
There have been over 10,000 page views so far.
Don’t believe everything politicians have told you.
Note: Liberals with high blood pressure should stay away. http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
(1) What proof do government bureaucrat “scientists” provide that they are right about predictions of runaway global warming?
Answer:
No scientific proof has ever been provided.
It’s shocking when you realize politicians and their government bureaucrat “scientists”simply ignore their track record of 30 years of wrong climate predictions, and their lack of scientific explanations for their climate claims:
(a) Why did natural climate changes suddenly stop?
Bureaucrats have no answer.
(b) How did CO2 suddenly become the “climate controller”?
Bureaucrats have no answer
(c) Why was there no warming from 1940 to 1975 as CO2 levels rose?
Bureaucrats had no answer, so they made one up. They claimed burning fossil fuels added soot to the air that blocked sunlight — cooling the planet more than CO2 warmed it.
(d) But if soot blocks sunlight, then why was there warming after 1975?
Bureaucrats have no answer, implying that all the soot suddenly disappeared in 1975 … but I remember our air was far from clean in 1975.
(e) How do we know man made CO2 has any warming effect?
Bureaucrats claim there was warming from 1975 to 2000, they claim CO2 causes warming, and then they jump to the conclusion that CO2 was the cause … because they say so.
(f) The warming from 1975 to 2000 was almost identical to the warming from 1910 to 1940 — why would they not have the same cause?
Bureaucrats blame the 1910 to 1940 warming on (unknown) natural causes, but claim nearly identical warming from 1975 to 2000 is caused by man made CO2.
When asked why two similar warming periods in the same century would have two completely different causes, bureaucrats have no answer.
They get flustered, and bellow: ‘We have science degrees’ … ‘the science is settled’ … ‘because we say so’.
(f) Do government bureaucrat “scientists” benefit from demonizing CO2?
Government bureaucrat “scientists” guarantee themselves lifetime employment by claiming CO2 is going to cause a climate catastrophe … that only they can see coming … and only they are qualified to study.
Gordon Shephardsays
Is this a computer aided translation from some non-english language? It needs a copy editor.
But, aside from that, who do they think they’re kidding? Does anyone really suppose the deny-o-sphere can be overcome with yet another layer of “expert analysis?” Particularly one full of AAC (Absurd Acronymical Contractions).
Victorsays
Thanks to an astute analysis by climate expert, Richard Alley, I’ve had a major epiphany. Cigarette smoking does NOT cause cancer. It’s the other way ’round: cancer causes cigarette smoking. The key to this radically new understanding of cause and effect can be found in the following lecture, as recorded on youtube: https://youtu.be/RffPSrRpq_g?t=34m49s
Sure, just as with the interaction between CO2 and temperature, as recorded in the ice core readings, the rise in temperature precedes the rise in CO2, wrongly suggesting that a rising temperature will produce a rise in CO2. But as Alley so wisely points out, this relationship is misleading. It is actually the other way round: the increased warmth produces an increase in CO2, which in turn feeds back into the climate system and thus serves to amplify the initial warming, just as interest, after the initial prodding of a loan, feeds back into one’s finances to amplify one’s debt. It’s all there in the lecture. Interest fuels debt, CO2 fuels global warming.
Similarly, the clinical data misleadingly shows a rise in the incidence of smoking preceding a rise in the incidence of cancer. What the medical “experts” have missed is the fact that someone receiving a diagnosis of cancer will tend to smoke even more in an effort to calm himself down, setting up a feedback similar to what we see in the ice core data. The more cancer, the more smoking and the more smoking the more cancer, the two feed back on one another just as CO2 and temperatures feed back on one another. The rise in smoking is equivalent to that initial loan, but the rise in cancer is the interest that continues to accumulate, producing more smoking, which of course produces more cancer. Ultimately it is cancer, not smoking, that functions as the “biggest control knob” regulating human health.
Hey! I hear the recent heat wave in Europe and the Pacific Northwest has been given the name Lucifer. Yup. So, I think RC should have a contest to come up with names for the even hotter heat waves that are sure to come in the near future. How about, “Hotter Than The Blue Blazers of Hell”. Top that if you can! :)
A new theory on the eclipse. This is real science here:
125, 128: I should have guessed the online prats who can only throw insults on the basis of feeling and emotion rather than having a civiilised discussion would turn up at some point. Very disappointing for a scientific blog, but I guess the crapness of humanity is everywhere. Whatever, my statements are based on analysis of the data, hence why I am questioning some of the statements made. Despite the insults thrown at me no-one has actually logically countered what I ahve said. That usually means the individual has the characteristics of emotionally fueled extremism, I’ve seen the sort of thing lots of times, where certain people don’t like to be challenged and resort to trying to bully what they see as their opponents into silence. Well it isn’t going to work with me.
For the others who are capable of civilised discussion and are willing to engage with me, I am willing to put forward my reasoning based on the data. I would actually like too because if there is something I have missed I want to know, I can’t see it at the moment, and there are plenty in the tropical cyclone community who align with the views I have posted on here.
Titus says
@ 68 Chris O’Neill says: “you now say that temperature rise from the MWP to now”.
Actually I said ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA) 1300-1850. MWP was 900-1250 where temps were higher than today so a rise from then is just a little wrong to say the least.
Hey, what’s a few centuries to climate change anyway.
Mr. Know It All 2 says
WOW! So many misconceptions in the comments. Can’t hit ’em all, but I’ll try a few.
First, in the original article, about Christopher Monckton it said: “… zero acknowledgment of uncertainty in his position…”. My question is: do all climate scientists acknowledge some uncertainty in their position?
Much hand wringing is evident about why there are deniers. It may be useful to #10 to realize that one of the biggest reasons for denial is history. The earth temp has always gone up and down long before FF were burned. That is a VERY compelling argument to have doubts about AGW – nothing will change this fact – it may be wrong, but it is a powerful argument.
#12 – The economist in the video provides a complicated argument about why people deny. Problem is only 1% of the people in the whole world have ever heard of even 10% of what he is talking about; thus his argument is undeniably wrong. His argument may be correct concerning some economists, but that would be the extent of it.
#16 – No, non-FF is not “better” than FF. An electric car is inferior to an internal combustion car in that it costs a lot of money, will only go 1/2 way across many states, in many places the electrical charge is provided by burning FFs, the batteries have to be replaced at significant cost, they may be a fire hazard, etc. Most folks cannot afford a car for in-town plus one for longer trips.
#22 – Your comment is not only biased fake news, it is also overly political but it is not deleted by the moderators because it is a liberal comment. A similarly partisan comment by a conservative would not be allowed. I’ve had far less partisan comments deleted. This is typical of much of the debate between left and right, including on AGW and many other topics throughout the internet. The left does not allow dissent – this destroys all of their credibility. See the election results.
Probably another reason there are so many doubters is because throughout history there have been many predictions of gloom and doom on the horizon and most of them never happen. When I was a kid the prediction was a coming ice age. Then, later, some predicted mass starvation and other horrors due to the population bomb. And for years enviros have predicted “we’re running out of oil – it’ll be a huge problem by xxxx date” – and it hasn’t happened (but I do think it might). And of course there are constant predictions of economic collapse – few of them actually happen. Given this history it is not surprising that many do not believe AGW is a big problem if they believe it exists at all.
And it is true that many of those pushing AGW and some drastic solutions are from the left side of the political spectrum and many, quite genuinely, suspect that some of the solutions are a scheme to give government more control over the population – it’s not an unreasonable fear.
Dodgy Geezer says
The graphs are not ‘doctored’. They are the SAME graphs! Look at the time axis…
TW says
Can none of you commenting here see that the two graphs are identical?
It is just the time axis that flows one way in one graph, the opposite way in the other graph? Read the axis labels.
Here is a link to a fuller explanation:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/02/03/friday-funny-realclimate-gets-shipwrecked-in-the-sargasso-sea/
Bryan A says
A very interesting post to say the least.
I did notice something interesting though regarding the temperature graphs
https://www.realclimate.org/images//KeigwinOriginal-e1484622116816.jpg
Original Keigwin (1996) graph as it appeared in the journal Science.
https://www.realclimate.org/images//Misrepresentation-e1484622491387.jpg
Doctored Version of Keigwin (1996) graph that appeared in Robinson et al (1998)
The only apparent difference (aside from the removal of the instrument data) is that the remainder data is an exact mirror image between the two charts along the Time Axis every other peak and valley is identical along both axis
Mark - Helsinki says
Both graphs are the same just flipped, and thermometer data doesn’t belong spliced onto a paleo reconstruction as it is misleading, suggesting pre thermometer data is as reliable.
So?
Reading theses comments actually made my brain ache. Such nonsense. Weird scary echo chamber
Mr. Know It All 2 says
Just out today. UN Official admits goal of AGW is to destroy capitalism:
http://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/
Tom Davidson says
Learn to read a chart, sir! The data in the graphs you present are IDENTICAL – they have simply had the temporal axes reversed. The ‘original’ represents the past to the right, the ‘doctored’ one represents the past to the left. A mirror image of either will overlay perfectly on the other – save for redacted instrument data.
Joe says
Did any one notice the two graphs are the same –
The Original Keigwin (1996) graph which is the valid graph published in the journal of science is the same as the “doctored graph” (the time axis is just flipped)
Victor says
Re 110, 111, 112. Sorry guys, but this has nothing to do with anyone’s creds as a “scientist,” (and sometimes I wonder whether half the people posting here have any such creds at all), nor has it anything to do with my qualifications, personality, etc. It’s a matter of simple logic. Either the data corrections produced by Karl et al are significant or not significant. If not significant then I’m wondering why all the fuss and all the claims that now, finally, we can put an end to the “hiatus” based on those same “insignificant” corrections. And if significant, then, obviously, the old data that was in need of correction can no longer be regarded as valid. And all the old studies based on that data can also no longer be regarded as valid. And we must then ask why they all managed to succeed in eliminating the hiatus nevertheless.
All the bullying, clowning, derision and yes, denial, in the world won’t get you very far if you refuse to see what’s right there before your eyes. And no, Steve, your status as a “biomedical researcher” is totally beside the point. It’s an ANALOGY, get it?
Kip Hansen says
Marco ==> Refer to the images provided by Boslough — here is Boslough’s caption from the article above (perhaps he has confused himself and made an innocent error — if so, he can answer and explain):
Boslough’s caption:
“Doctored Version of Keigwin (1996) graph that appeared in Robinson et al (1998)”
No mention of a later paper, his claim is the image is “doctored” and appeared in Robinson et al. (1998).
Maybe someone has doctored Boslough’s caption?
Victor says
#114 Thank you nigelj for an eminently reasonable response. Your point is well taken and your civility appreciated. Nevertheless, the problem I raised cannot so easily be put aside, imo. As I see it, it is naive to presume that a troubling factor such as the hiatus can be so easily dismissed by, presto chango, “correcting” the data in such a manner as to eliminate the problem as if by magic. In the studies to which I refer (and they are legion), the hiatus was consistently accepted as a puzzling fact of life, NOT a statistical aberration, and the task before the researcher(s) was to demonstrate the existence of compensating factors, as in my analogy, that enabled them to claim that, when these factors were accounted for, the hiatus disappeared (as in my analogy). The well known paper by Foster and Rahmstorf is a typical example. If we accept the corrections produced by Karl et al, then there is obviously a problem with the results of the calculations produced by Foster and Rahmstorf. It’s really that simple.
Daniel says
Amazing–the whole graph is debunked on WUWT–in spades, I might add–you should remove this article
benpal says
I’m impressed. This article reads like a text from Orwell 1984.
“numerous emails from climate researchers from the preceding 14 years appeared on a server in the Russian city of Tomsk.” Fact is: they appeared first on the servers of the CRU and were the testimony of the communication of scientists. Climategate.
As far as I remember, Michael Mann had climate series on his server that he didn’t want to be seen by the world because it wouldn’t fit his narrative. Alternative Facts?
The silliest argument by far is the attribution of scepticism to any political classification. As if there was a difference in the brains of right-wing populists and left-wing populists. A bird with only one wing will never fly; science with only one (biased) point of view will never fly either. Liars are liars, honest people are honest people; that’s true for both sides of the political spectrum.
benpal says
I’m not surprised to see that my reference to Climategate has not been published. Is that how you generate Alternative Facts, by denying diverging opinions?
Bob Armstrong says
97 Barton Paul Levenson
“BPL: It is dangerous for an amateur like you to accuse a climate scientist like me of not understanding basic radiation physics.”
Wow , what astounding arrogance !
From somebody who apparently can’t hack APL !
So you will agree that any isotropic gray ( defined as : flat spectrum ) ball comes to the temperature related via Stefan Boltzmann to the total radiant energy impinging on it ? And you agree that is about 278.6K +- ~ 2.3 from peri- to ap-helion in Earth’s orbit ?
According to some recent earth sensing satellite specs I saw , the design temperature for the instrument “box” was about 5c , ie : 278 . It should be trivial to find if that’s a typical engineering spec . Certainly if orbital temperature were the endlessly promulgated 255K , the Apollo 13 astronauts would have quickly frozen .
You immediately jump to the 255 meme leaving me very unsure whether you understand and agree with my generalization in the box at the top of http://cosy.com/Science/warm.htm to arbitrary spectra of the computation which produces that 255 value when fed the hypothetical ( .7 ; 1.0 ) step function spectrum . That is ,
ObjTemp = TgrayBody * ( A % E ) ^ % 4
where
A : dot[ Object_ae_Spectrum ; sourceSpectrum ]
and
E : dot[ aeSpectrum ; Planck objectTemp ]
Do you agree with that generalization to arbitrary spectra ? If not , please present your computation .
—
And to those several people who somehow claim that you can calculate anything meaningful about the complexity of a planet without demonstrating that you grok these fundamental “laws” , you demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the method of physics — and planetary temperature is an issue of applied physics .
See my comments at the bottom of http://cosy.com/Science/ColoredBalls.html .
Bob Armstrong says
BA 102: Wow , what astounding arrogance !
BPL: You were rude first, pal.
BA 102 : That’s not my perception , but irrelevant in any case . I did thank you for the original courtesy of replying . And I repeat that . I actually don’t see my comment to which you are replying , but I have it archived if there is ever need for distribution Real Climate has been known to censor “uncomfortable” posts .
BA: According to some recent earth sensing satellite specs I saw , the design temperature for the instrument “box” was about 5c , ie : 278 . It should be trivial to find if that’s a typical engineering spec . Certainly if orbital temperature were the endlessly promulgated 255K , the Apollo 13 astronauts would have quickly frozen
BPL: That’s not “orbital temperature,” that’s the Earth’s emission temperature. An Apollo CSM does not have the same radiative properties as the Earth.
BA: So you do agree to my definition of “gray” as “flat spectrum” and do agree that the equilibrium temperature of a gray body is the same as a black . This is a most basic fact which needs to be part of any basic education related to these issues .
BPL: ” BA: you demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the method of physics — and planetary temperature is an issue of applied physics . ”
BA: you misquoted . Here is what I posted :
“–
And to those several people who somehow claim that you can calculate anything meaningful about the complexity of a planet without demonstrating that you grok these fundamental “laws” , you demonstrate an astounding ignorance of the method of physics — and planetary temperature is an issue of applied physics .”
I thought I made it clear that the comment was directed to “those several people who somehow claim … ” who have made other comments on this thread about the Earth not being a simple colored ball . Clearly they have no comprehension of the years of mathematical study of the simplest geometric abstractions one must grok ( I love Heinlein’s word ) before tackling more complex realities .
BPL: As it happens, I have a degree in physics. Do you?
BA: Here’s my vita : http://www.cosy.com/BobA/vita.htm .
BA: Which gets us back to agreeing on the general computation of equilibrium temperature for arbitrary spectra , ie : the generalization of the computation which produces the endlessly parroted 255K value .
Then we can take actual measured spectra for the Earth and the Sun and calculate an estimate as good as our measurements .
Do you agree with the computation I have expressed in terms of dot products both here and in the box at the top of http://cosy.com/Science/warm.htm ? Would you express it differently ?
Bob Armstrong says
Looks like my last post was censored so let’s leave out anything that could be considered disrespectful and just get down to the quantitative equations .
BPL: As it happens, I have a degree in physics. Do you?
BA: Here’s my vita : http://www.cosy.com/BobA/vita.htm .
BA: Which gets us back to agreeing on the general computation of equilibrium temperature for arbitrary spectra , ie : the generalization of the computation which produces the endlessly parroted 255K value .
Then we can take actual measured spectra for the Earth and the Sun and calculate an estimate as good as our measurements .
Do you agree with the computation I have expressed in terms of dot products both here and in the box at the top of http://cosy.com/Science/warm.htm ?
How would you express it ?
My goal is to work thru the quantitative , experimentally verifiable physics step by step so any computer literate layman can explore and test the physics themselves .
Mike Flynn says
To all the commenters recommending “experiments” demonstrating the fact that CO2 can be heated, might I suggest that all matter can be heated.
As John Tyndall showed, as the amount of CO2 (or any other gas) between the source of heat and a sensitive thermopile is reduced, the amount of heat reaching the thermopile increases (of course), and the temperature rises (of course).
Not for nothing did Einstein specify the speed of light of any frequency at all as occurring in a vacuum. No absorption, nothing to impede progress.
No one has ever managed to cause anything to increase its temperature by surrounding it with CO2. Or by placing CO2 between an object and a heat source, as Tyndall showed.
In spite of four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, and far higher CO2 levels in the past, the Earth’s surface has cooled from molten to solid. No CO2 heating at all.
Interestingly, the hottest places on Earth, (arid tropical deserts), are defined by a severe shortage of the most important supposed greenhous gas – H2O. Marco asked why it gets very, very, cold in some deserts at night. The answer is simple. Just as the lack of water vapour allows rapid daytime heating, rapid night time cooling is the other side of the coin. No magical one way insulation, just standard radiative transfer.
In relation to Benestad’s paper –
“The rate of heat loss . . . must equal the rate of energy received from the sun . . . for a planet (here a is its radius) to be in energetic equilibrium (Hulburt 1931). The planetary energy balance can then be described approximately by the simple equation.” Of course, the energy received from the Sun (and from all other sources), is demonstrably less than that lost by the Earth. After four and a half billion years, the Earth has obviously cooled. No balance there.
As to calculating a surface temperature, the calculation would have to calculate an average temperature above that of molten rock (before the first rock formed), an average temperature in excess of 100 C (before the first liquid water formed), and all other temperatures in between. Of course, they don’t.
As with all purported explanations of the greenhouse effect, the paper is pointless, being based on demonstrably false assumptions.
The greenhouse effect cannot be demonstrated, let alone quantified. Tyndall’s work on heat absorption by gases is well documented, replicable, and indicates precisely the opposite of what GHE supporters believe.
No GHE. None.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
There’s plenty of precedent –
“In one of the e-mails, East Anglia’s Phil Jones, long a power player in the production of these reports, said this about some scientific articles he did not like: “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is.””
If you don’t like the article . . .
Unless your bully pulpit has fallen into disrepair due to lack of maintenance?
Here’s an idea – maybe you could raise a mighty army of glassy eyed cultists, and smite the unbelievers! Only joking, of course! I enjoy a good laugh! Have you tried being condescending or patronising? Just keep repeating “The science is settled!”
Cheers.
Marty says
Gav. You are supposed to show why it’s wrong, with science, not just post bits of green text disagreeing. lol
How long left at GISS? Not long not long, don’t let the door hit you on the way out
Harry Todd says
Global Warming, Ozone Holes, and Magnetic Poles
“An Investigation Reexamining Brewer-Dobson Ozone Theory to Uncover the Atmospheric Role of Paramagnetic Oxygen in Recent Extreme Weather Patterns and Global Climate Change” by Harry Todd
Carbon dioxide, CFCs, HFCs, and nitrogen compounds are the main focus of international attempts to lessen the chemical effects of anthropogenic global warming caused by greenhouse gas pollution. However, non-anthropogenic geophysical forcing factors also are active in climate change. This paper explores oxygen’s involvement in climate patterns associated with Earth’s wandering magnetic poles. Using ozone as a tracer, it develops a new rationale for climate modeling. The conclusions are a radical departure from currently accepted science.
http://www.harrytodd.org
Michael Flynn says
BPL,
Flux density from the Sun at night – zero.
Relevance – zero.
Back radiation – irrelevant misdirection.
A glacier can emit in excess of 300 W/m2. 10 m2, 3000 W. Absolutely true, but completely useless – you can’t even brew a cup of tea! Your wattages are sciency sounding nonsense concepts.
In relation to Tyndall, you may assume what you like. Tyndall was a brilliant experimenter, whose results can be be replicated. You don’t like the results, so you try to deny, divert and confuse.
CO2 heats nothing.
There is no GHE, so discussing a non existent mechanism is fairly pointless. I don’t believe in the necessity for a luminiferous ether, either. Like the GHE, it doesn’t exist.
As to a planet’s surface temperature, you obviously couldn’t be bothered reading my response – or maybe the concept of measurement eluded you.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
All,
And still, many of you believe that future climate states are predictable – in some useful sense, and more accurately than an average 12 year old child can do.
Rubbish. None of you can even predict next throw of a fair coin – or anything else of significance. If you could, you would no doubt be fabulously powerful and/or wealthy.
All the attempts to argue from authority are about as silly as Lord Kelvin espousing the caloric theory of heat, Newton’s belief in alchemy, or even the widespread belief in the luminiferous ether. Lord Kelvin went to his deathbed having revised his calculated age of the Earth to a more youthful 20 million years or so. Trofim Lysenko’s ideas on vernalisation were widely adopted by several governments, for many decades. Should I accept his discredited thoughts as authoritative, or not?
As to BPL’s faith in textbook writers, does he believe that all textbooks are factual? Textbooks on phrenology have been written. Is phrenology valid science?
No GHE. None. You may wrap as many blankets as you like around your coffe cup. Your coffee still cools.
As has the Earth. In spite of the lithospheric blanket surrounding the molten core, and the aquaspheric and atmospheric blankets on top of that. Even after supposedly absorbing four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight! No heat trapping to be seen. The hottest places on Earth – arid tropical deserts – have the thinnest blanket of so called GHG (H2O). The thinner the blanket, apparently, the hotter it gets. Even Tyndall recorded this (being a keen mountaineer) and explains the physics involved in some details.
So any GHE hypothesis involving blankets is just plain silly. And so it goes with back radiation and “energy budgets”. Sciency sounding, but ineffective in explaining observed cooling over four and a half billion years. Sorry to belabour an obvious fact, but the Earth has cooled – sunlight, blankets, CO2, H2O, back radiation and so on notwithstanding.
It seems that the odd decision maker might agree with me. I wonder how keen GHE enthusiasts will be, if they have to provide their own funding? Science will go on, no doubt. Professor John Tyndall depended on donations of things like lumps of rock salt to enable his rather wonderful experimental work.
Refusing to accept inconvenient facts does not make them go away. Nobody has ever managed to raise the temperature of a thermometer by surrounding it with CO2. GHE enthusiasts claim that GHGs actually heat thermometers – temperatures steadily increase – day by day, year by year, century by century. Numbers are even provided – so many degrees per year, decade, century etc.
What nonsense! Atmospheric physics resulting in weather are complex, and appear chaotic and unpredictable in any useful sense. Climate is the average of weather. Usefully predicting an average of weather events yet to occur seems more difficult than predicting the next toss of a coin. And nobody has ever demonstrated an ability to reliably peer into the future to see whether the next toss will result in a head or a tail.
I’ll leave you all to your marching, protesting, and seeking employment elsewhere, if such happens to be the case. Good luck – with all your expertise, predicting your optimal course of action should be a snap!
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
MARodger,
You may be confused. If you can actually point to a place where I denied that measurements of recorded maximum temperatures show increases over time in certain locations, I would be surprised. GHE supporters cannot actually face a discussion of the assertion that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the air surrounding a thermometer causes an increase in the temperature shown by such thermometer.
As to highest surface temperatures being recorded in places with the least overlying GHGs, I refer you to NASA –
” In their analysis, Running, Mildrexler, and Maosheng Zhao scrutinized global MODIS measurements of LST from 2003 to 2009, paying special attention to where the hottest satellite temperatures matched up with the ideal terrain. “To reveal the hottest spot on Earth,” Mildrexler notes, “we focused on barren areas and sparsely vegetated, open shrublands.””
In other words, the places with maximum sunlight, and an obvious comparative lack of H2O.
So, deny, divert, and confuse all you like. Less GHG, higher surface temperatures. Basic physics, verified by experiment going back to Professor John Tyndall, and satellite observations by NASA.
Why do you think the NASA scientists focussed on barren areas and sparsely vegetated open shrublands, rather than areas overlain by high GHG levels? I live 12 degrees from the Equator, close to the coast. The highest official maximum ever recorded is less than 39C. Too much GHG, you see. Move a handful of kilometres inland, and temperatures routinely exceed 40C.
CO2 does not make thermometers hotter. Heat makes thermometers hotter, CO2 provides no heat. No GHE. Just singularly amateurish “experiments ” showing that gases have differing specific heats. A container of 100% CO2 at 20 C is precisely the same temperature as a container of 100% O2 at 20 C.
Or, to put it in another context, all matter at absolute zero has no observable temperature at all. Even CO2.
People are perfectly free to believe in anything at all. Even a GHE. It seems that people that control the purse strings might agree with me, to a point. Calling them fools, trolls, or deniers by association, might not be a logical course of action.
I’ll leave you to your beliefs.
Cheers,
Mike Flynn says
Here’s a simple question.
20 C has a peak emission wavelength of around 10 microns – 9.8899 microns if my calculation is correct. Firmly infrared.
Two containers, one filled with 100 % CO2, and the other filled with N2 (or any other gas for that matter) in a room at 20 C, will stabilise at 20 C. So will their contents.
Why is the CO2 not hotter than the nitrogen (or any other gas)?
It’s being subjected to infrared continuously. Change the temperature to give whatever wavelength you like, if you prefer. If my wavelength calculation is wrong, please feel free to correct me. The temperature of the two containers and their contents, will remain the same as their environment, the room, regardless.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
Ray Ladbury,
I have pointed out that I believe in the GHE with equal fervour to my belief in the existence of the luminiferous ether or the caloric theory of heat.
It doesn’t really matter. The current US administration seems to be saying that spending money trying to stop the climate changing is a waste of time.
Maybe you shoukd take up marching, or resisting, or threats. The climate will keep changing. The Earth will keep cooling, no doubt. My skull is indeed reasonably thick – as is my skin, as I simply decline to take offense at anything anyone may say.
Climate models are nonsense. If they produce 1000 different results, then at least 999 are wrong. Averaging 999 wrong results does not necessarily produce one correct result, does it?
Billions of dollars expended to produce what, exactly? Maybe you could name a single measurable benefit to humanity from all this arrant nonsense?
No GHE. CO2 heats nothing. All matter at 20 C has precisely the same temperature – unless you hew to the climatological view of the magical properties of GHGs, of course!
I’m not at all apologetic about kicking a man when he’s down – what better time to do it?
It looks like reality is prevailing – what’s your next silly attempt to deny, divert and confuse! Have you thought of writing to Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama? I’m sure they’ll support your point of view.
My care factor is precisely zero. Feel free to become as outraged or apoplectic as you like. Nature doesn’t care what you or I think. That’s my irrelevant opinion, at least. I’m sure your opinion is worth far more than mine in your eyes, and you might well consider that you are indeed a national treasure. I’ll leave you to your fantasy world where you apparently believe that anybody in the administration gives a fig what you think about global warming, climate change, or the ludicrous non existent GHE.
In the meantime, life goes on. I’m content.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
Rasmus wrote –
“Statistics is remarkably predictable.”
One definition of statistics –
“Statistics is a branch of mathematics dealing with the collection, analysis, interpretation, presentation, and organization of data”
The reader can decide whether Rasmus is correct.
He seems to be implying that the future can be determined from examination of the past. Maybe Rasmus might tell us whether parts of California will experience water surfeit, or drought, in the future, in any usable fashion. That is, timing, duration, and hopefully, intensity.
Of course, this is impossible. Neither Rasmus, nor anybody else, can even predict the next throw of a coin, even though it is very likely, statistically, that either a head or a tail will result from a throw.
Even the IPCC stated that that it is impossible to predict future climate.
The future is unknowable. Assumptions such as the Sun rising, the Oroville dam not failing, and so on, may or may not come to pass. The future is the future. Climate is the average of weather. You can’t average something that hasn’t happened yet. Your assumptions about the future may be no better than mine, but you want me to fund them.
Sorry. Apparently the present US administration is giving low priorities to fortune telling, and my assumption is that the rest of the G20, for example, will heave a collective sigh of relief. I might be right, I might be wrong. The future is unknowable, after all!
I know, I know – your response to dissenting opinion or inconvenient fact is to send it to the Bore Hole, or just delete it entirely, shielding the rest of the glassy eyed cultists from unpleasantness. Go your hardest – my care factor is precisely zero.
Cheers.
Dana Glasgow says
Greenhouse Gas sounds like such a bad thing. Truth, plants love carbon dioxide it helps them grow. They like it so much that they give off oxygen. Last time I check we need oxygen to survive. We have only 340 ppm of CO2. It could be as hi as 1,300 ppm and plants would grow twice as fast and twice in size. Are we trying to kill humans?
Harry Todd says
Last month in Comment #77 I introduced the possibility that atmospheric paramagnetic oxygen could be a forcing factor for climate change. This website link was offered for those interested in the data: http://www.harrytodd.org
Nobody noticed my comment. It is an outrageous suggestion that nobody in the atmospheric sciences has noticed patterns in the NASA data which can form a surprising new explanation for climate change. Nobody replied to me. Not even the “Ridiculous!” that I got from an internet troll while I was developing the thesis online over the past 18 months.
The Paramagnetic Oxygen Transport Thesis explains the failure of Brewer-Dobson equatorial ozone formation, the Ozone Hole in 1983, continued Antarctic cold temps concurrent with Arctic warming, mid-latitude ozone formation which accelerates jet streams and elongates Rossby wave loops, and wandering magnetic poles which control extreme weather and climate change.
Would someone please reply to me?
Mike Flynn says
Richard Simons,
I repeat, nobody has ever managed to make a thermometer by increasing the concentration of CO2 between the thermometer and a heat source.
A thermometer on the surface of the Earth, exposed to the Sun, will not get hotter just because you increase the concentration of CO2 between it and the Sun. It doesn’t matter what sort of insulation you use, the more you place between a thermometer and the Sun, the cooler the thermometer becomes.
I believe you are ascribing miraculous one way insulating properties to CO2. That is, an insulator which lets in more energy than it lets out. A container wrapped in such an insulator would presumably get hotter and hotter each day, each year, if exposed to a heat source such as the Sun. Unfortunately, even though such an insulator would be as desirable as the Philosophers Stone, its existence is just as mythical.
The Earth has managed to cool for four and a half billion years, apparently, CO2 concentrations notwithstanding.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
Kevin McKinney,
You are exactly correct.
And when he reduced the amount of CO2, the temperature of the thermometer rose.
Is this supposed to be the greenhouse effect? More CO2 -thermometer temperature drops, less CO2 – thermometer temperature rises. I thought the GHE was supposed to work the other way round.
Cheers.
oakwood says
You disagree with Judith Curry and present a case. Does her difference of science-based opinion make it right for anyone to call her a Climate Science Denier?
Mike Flynn says
MA Rodger,
You think I am being unreasonable, asking for experimental support for the supposed GHE.
You may ignore the scientific method if you wish. It won’t change facts.
As to the GHE not seeming to work in the dark (or indoors for that matter), flood a darkened room with CO2, displacing the air. The temperature won’t rise. Two identical containers (gas cylinders, for example), one containing CO2, and the other containing nitrogen, say, are indistinguishable by virtue of temperature alone. The interiors are very dark.
Have I explained clearly enough for you? Are you also being unreasonable, expecting me to give concrete reproducible examples to support my statement? I don’t think so, of course.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
BPL,
My response seems to have been vanished, or lost, or even censored – gone in any case!
As to the Earth’s surface, I assumed you are aiming for a gotcha, rather than seeking knowledge.
It doesn’t matter. For example, one might use the SB law to calculate the average temperature of the Earth including the usual assumptions, and arrive at a figure of, say, 255 K. This cannot be correct, as the surface temperature has apparently varied between more 1000 C, when the surface was molten, more than 100 C, before the first liquid water, and more than 0 C, when the oceans remain composed of unfrozen water.
Nothing at all mysterious – the Earth has cooled, and judging by the fact that the interior is molten and well in excess of the theoretical SB law calculation, will continue to do so, as per the LOT.
I guess you’re asking the question to make me appear foolish. Am I correct?
Obviously, I have made the assumption that the Earth’s surface was once molten, and the interior remains so. If you claim otherwise, I cannot dispute your claim. If you say that the Universe was created as we perceive it, a femtosecond ago, how could I prove otherwise?
Do you assert the Earth was created at 0 K and has since heated due to the GHE? That seems a bit of a stretch.
Cheers.
Mike Flynn says
Ray Ladbury,
I don’t need to consider the flow of energy. A thermometer gets hotter, or it doesn’t. Introducing more CO2 between a thermometer on the surface, and the Sun, does not increase the temperature of the thermometer. CO2 is not a magic gas, even less a magic one way insulator. You cannot even provide a testable GHE hypothesis. Maybe if you (or anyone else), could do so, you would discover that your hypothesis, like that of the necessity for a luminiferous aether, is erroneous.
Mal Adapted,
Speculations mean nothing. Many 19th century scientists believed in the luminiferous aether. Maybe you agree – or do you only believe the speculations that suit your opinion?
You may assume as you wish. No-one has yet managed to demonstrate in a reproducible fashion the existence of the GHE.
I prefer facts to faith. Experimental confirmation supports hypotheses – but you don’t even have a testable hypothesis.
Kevin McKinney,
The experiment was not support for the greenhouse effect. It is obvious that I know far more physics than you. The fact that the Team is censoring my responses shows that they are unable to produce any facts to rebut anything I have said. Maybe I know more about quantum physics than they do – what would cause you to believe otherwise?
It doesn’t really matter, I guess. People far more influential than myself have noted that the blog moderators tend to “vanish” inconvenient facts. They too have noticed a tendency for ad hominem comments to be preferred to factual rebuttal, giving the impression to an outside observer that no testable GHE hypothesis even exists.
Cheers.
Mack says
@BPL #210
Take notice of what Marco @213 says, BPL. ..Your math is relevant for a sun that goes round and round the earth at the TOA !!!
The sun never sets in space, Barton, and space is right there, just above the atmosphere. The TSI of about 1360w/sq.m. is measured right there by a satellite, 24/7, at the TOA. I can believe what this satellite says, Barton, or I can believe your maths calculation telling me that only 340w/sq.m of solar radiation is arriving at the top of the atmosphere. I prefer the real readings of an actual mechanical instrument..rather than what is going on in your head,
So to clarify the issue for you, BPL, the solar radiation arriving at the TOA (Top of the Atmosphere), is that yearly global average of 1360w/sq.m. and must remain as that…and it attenuates down to about 340 w/sq.m… the real and actual yearly global average arriving at the surface of the Earth.
Read that carefully again, BPL ….340 w/sq.m at the Surface of the Earth.
Btw, if you take that flux of 340w/sq.m ,and apply it to the Stephan-Boltzmann equation, along with an emissivity of 0.82…you will get a temperature of about 19deg C, which is near enough to the average global temperature.
No mythical -18deg C frozen earth, BPL…no mythical “greenhouse effect”.
Mack says
@ Astringent #216
There are craters ,and some surfaces,on the moon which never see the sun at all, getting to some of the coldest temperatures in the solar system. This drags the average temp on the moon down to your -77 degrees C.
Nothing to do with whether or not there is an atmosphere…it’s the sun stupid.
Mike Flynn says
Susan Anderson,
It might convince non-believers if you could provide a testable GHE hypothesis, rather than ignoring the fact that the Earth is a large blob of molten rock, with a very, very thin coating of of solidified rock, a condensed aquasphere, and a thin coating of atmosphere. The whole system is still cooling. How could it be otherwise, with a core temperature of some 5000 K or more, sitting in the vacuum of outer space, with its nearest decent source of heat unable to maintain an average surface temperature of more than 255 K or so?
Maybe you live in an area where land is subsiding –
“Data from GPS measurements and carbon dating of marsh sediments indicate that regional land subsidence in response to glacial isostatic adjustment in the southern Chesapeake Bay region may have a current rate of about 1 mm/yr (Engelhart and others, 2009; Engelhart and Horton, 2012). This downward velocity rate is uncertain and probably not uniform across the region.”
Are you aware that marine fossils are found above 6000 m, and fossil fuels are found more than 3000 m below sea level?
You have been misled. Heat causes thermometers to get hotter. CO2 has precisely no heating effect. Believing people who are incapable of working out whether they were awarded a Nobel Prize or not, may not always be the wisest move.
A testable GHE hypothesis would be a good starting point, but alas, none such exists! Keep believing. If you are a follower of the somewhat eccentric James Hansen, maybe you should relocate away from the coast. You will be safe from the showers of giant boulders sucked from the sea bed, which will be rained down on the heads of the unbelievers – according to Hansen!
I assume you have adopted a stance of righteous imperviousness to facts. Good for you! Maybe you believe faith can move mountains, but I’ll pit myself, plus a humble teaspoon against all the faith you can assemble, as far as mountain moving goes.
Feel free to be as offended as you wish. My care factor is precisely zero.
Cheers.
BillHill says
“As I’ve been asking for almost three years, it is way past time for Curry to shore up her claims in a quantitative way. I doubt that this is actually possible, but if one was to make the attempt these are the kind of things needed:
*blablabla*”
I think you are getting ahead of things. It is way past time that you shore up your claims first. These are the kind of things needed:
1. Evidence that dry ice can increase the intensity of the heat source heating it. This one is extremely important, because it is the base for the whole “dry ice heat death threat”. You seem to have a deep misunderstanding of what science says about co2 and absorption of infrared radiation. All experiments on co2 show how it absorbs infrared radiation, not how it raise the temperature of the heat source. They are two very different things.
2. Evidence that absorption increase the temperature of something else than what absorbs the heat. There is a serious misunderstanding in climate science of basic physical properties of mass and what effect they have. You people often refer to the atmosphere as a “blanket” or that it acts like insulation. Which is the opposite of what physics say. If you take a look here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_insulation
“Thermal insulation provides a region of insulation in which thermal conduction is reduced or thermal radiation is reflected rather than absorbed by the lower-temperature body.”
You only need to read a few lines on wikipedia to learn that the relationship between a body and its surroundings is the opposite of what you think. Absorption is what you want to avoid if you want to “retain heat”. If you know how insulation works, you know that the atmosphere does the opposite of what insulation does. The crust, if anything, is insulating the interior of the planet. The atmosphere does nothing like that. You need reflection of heat, or something that prevent absorption of the heat leaving the body.
3. Evidence that climate science know how to read absorption spectrums. The absorption spectrums you blanket-people often use to make claims about how dry ice burns the earth surface all show how the spectral intensity (the amount of heat in a part of the spectrum)is massively decreased by co2 absorption. The wavelengths of co2 absorption in absorption spectrums that are relevant, clearly show how the interaction between co2 and heat from the surface result in a large decrease in the amount of radiation. Take a look at emission spectra instead, there you clearly see how much energy co2 adds after absorption. Or, look at the spike at the bottom of the deep cut in the spectrum. That is what co2 emit after absorption. Much less.
4. Evidence that you know kirchoff´s law. You seem to think that kirchoff´s law means that if radiation of a certain intensity is absorbed, the same intensity has to be emitted. The emitted intensity is related to the temperature of the emitter and the absorption is determined by the temperature as well. This is why the stefan-boltzmann equation for net transfer by using the difference in temperature of two bodies work so well. What the net transfer equation show, is how kirchoff´s law works in practice in relation to temperature.
5. Evidence that we should use quantum theory to determine bulk properties of mass, like temperature. Spectral resolution and how molecules absorb at different wavelengths are quantum properties of radiation interacting with mass. Temperature is not determined by quantum properties of mass, quantum properties are determined by temperature. Just look at what they do in quantum experiments with temperature before conducting the experiments. The theory of heat came first, it established the exclusive relationships between temperature and emission from discoveries like the draper point: that all solids start to glow at the same temperature. It showed that temperature and emission is central. Blackbody radiation was an extension clarifying further details about heat, emission and temperature. But the earlier discoveries were still true. Quantum physics was a further extension, going into details about heat on the microscopic level. But the old discoveries of heat and blackbody spectrum still holds.
Temperature and emission is the base. The rest are details of their relationship to each other and mass.
6. Evidence that the emission of the earth surface(and of course its temperature) depends on the state of the atmosphere. Prevost stated that the emission of a body depends on the internal state only. The internal state is measured as temperature, because everything inside a volume is included in the measurement of the internal energy as temperature. Every single molecule has an effect on the temperature inside a volume of mass.
What Prevost said holds true still today, it has not changed. Is the atmosphere a part of the surface internal state? Of course not. Why then do you say that the emission of the surface depends on the external state of the atmosphere?
Absorption also depends on the internal state. The amount of energy absorbed depends on the temperature of the absorber, shown to be true by the stefan-boltzmann equation for net transfer of heat. There is a broad confusion about the relationship between emission, absorption and temperature. Absorption is not the cause of emission, the temperature of the emitter is. Absorption and emission are related through the internal state of the body, the bodys internal state is not dependant on one or the other. This is relativity, relations between mass, thermal energy, temperature. They relate to each other.
7. Evidence that earth doesn´t follow the laws of thermodynamics. You are very well aware of the problem here, and I have seen different ways to explain the problem away. There is no way to get around the fact that you claim that there is heat coming from the much colder atmosphere. Only heat can raise temperature, and you say that the atmosphere provides energy that raise the temperature. A clear violation of the second law.
“Photons in all directions” is not an argument helping you, because photons are quantum physics and we don´t use quantum physics for bulk properties of mass. It doesn´t matter what directions photons have, temperature is determined by the theory of heat transfer in thermal physics, thermodynamics. Actually, it is a violation of physics as science to even make a claim about photons to explain temperature.
Creation of energy, the first law. You don´t beat around the bush here. The whole theory of the greenhouse without windows and burning heat from dry ice, starts on a violation of the first law. You use a (flawed) calculation of emission from earth that gives a value of 240W/m^2. The you oddly enough use this as the absorbed amount of solar energy, which is what puts you in the following problematic situation:
You claim that earth absorb 240W/m^2, and the difference to what is observed surface emission of 390W/m^2 is explained by saying that the amount of energy increase from the presence of damp, cold air at -18C mean temperature. You seem to be totally unaware of, or deceptively aware of, that you are saying: 240W=390W. And the difference you say is created in the atmosphere. Shame on you!
Get off the stupid-train before you are banned from doing science, every single one of you.
/hillbillyphysics
Harry Todd says
This paper explains why the Northern Hemisphere is melting and the Southern Hemisphere retains its glacier in the Ozone Hole.
https://www.harrytodd.org
Mr. Know It All says
I will now make a contribution toward saving the planet from the ravages of global warming. I present here, for the first time anywhere, one easy, practical step that may make a small contribution in reducing water vapor in the atmosphere. Please take a moment and review my proposal:
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. Each person on the planet can reduce the amount of water vapor they put into the atmosphere by wiping down the shower stall after their shower is complete. Just take a sponge, wipe down the sides and floor of the shower and push the water toward the drain. A small squeegee would also work. In this way the water goes down the drain instead of being evaporated into the air. If a billion people do this per day, it might make a small contribution.
:)
Richard Greene says
This article is one wild guess after another.
CO2 is a false boogeyman invented by left-wing politicians who know how to use a “crisis” to gain political power.
There is no science behind the claim of future runaway warming from positive water vapor feedback.
Absolutely none.
There is very little science behind the claim that a doubling of CO2 will cause one degree C. of warming — which even if true, adds up to a mere one degree C. of global warming in about 200 years, assuming CO2 levels increase 2 ppm per year, and the hypothesis is correct.
Please realize that a scientist, or many scientists, or even 90% of scientists making a claim … IS NOT REAL SCIENCE WITHOUT PROOF THE CLAIM IS CORRECT.
Studies of Earth’s climate history reveal no runaway warming, even though CO2 levels were higher than today most of the time.
Very rough real-time measurements / compilations of average temperatures in the 20th century reveal very little change in 150 years — a one degree C. average temperature range in 150 years is unusually stable.
Totally harmless when you consider that half the warming since 1880 is arbitrary data “adjustments” made after the year 2000 (by NASA – GISS).
Average temperature changes in the first half of the 20th century, with a small amount of man made CO2 emissions … were very similar to temperature changes in the second half of the 20th century, with a large amount man made CO2 emissions.
There is no evidence that anything unusual happened from the added CO2 in the second half of the 20th century … and the average temperature has barely changed so far in the 21st century, especially if you ignore the 2015 / 2016 El Nino peak, which has nothing to do with CO2.
The small amount of climate change in the past 150 years has been all good news:
(1) We’ve had mild warming at night, and
(2) We’ve had greening of our planet from more CO2 in the air.
Only a fool, or a person with ulterior motives, would not want MORE nighttime warming and MORE greening of our planet in the next 150 years!
There is no climate catastrophe in progress.
Our climate has been getting better for humans, animals, and the plants they eat, for at least 500 years.
The average temperature is already up at least + 2 degrees C. from the cold period / famines at the end of the 1600’s during the Maunder Minimum extremely low sunspot count period.
Did the +2 degrees C. since the late 1600s (perhaps even +3 degrees) cause a catastrophe?
No — people were thrilled that the cold periods in the Little Ice Age did not exist during the Modern Warming after 1850.
But let’s not let the reality of climate history get in the way of the climate change alarmism religion.
Climate reality is boring — climate alarmism is exciting!
How many decades of grossly inaccurate average temperature confuser model predictions are needed before sensible people finally have some doubt about the ability of humans to predict the future climate?
We’ve already had 30 years of inaccurate confuser model predictions by the government bureaucrat “scientists” — predictions that are triple actual warming.
To be a believer in “CO2 controls the climate”, which is a secular religion, in my opinion … you must believe that 4.5 billion years of climate change suddenly ended in 1975, and CO2 took over as the “climate controller”, with no explanation of why that would happen, or how.
Very hard to believe.
The claim that runaway global warming is coming is the biggest hoax in human history .
No human can predict the future climate.
There’s no evidence of runaway warming in the past 4.5 billion years, with CO2 levels higher than today most of the time — up to 10 times higher — yes, geologists are scientists too.
The left-wing focus on the fantasy of runaway global warming takes all their attention off the real pollution — air, water and land pollution in China, India and other parts of Asia, for one important example.
There is so much air pollution in China that winds bring some of it across the ocean to the Left Coast.
Why is that not important?
Why do you want to leave China alone for another 10-15 years?
FThe misguided focus on harmless, beneficial CO2 — increasing CO2 is greening the Earth — has an opportunity cost — ignoring REAL air, water and land pollution in China and India … and that’s exactly what the Paris Accord did.
The addition of CO2 to the air has been, inadvertently, the best thing humans have done to improve life on Earth — green plants are growing faster, and in places that had been brown.
If you want to criticize harmful chemicals that result from burning fossil fuels, that would be fine — but CO2 is not one of them.
Even if you blame ALL the warming since 1850 on CO2 — and even the IPCC doesn’t do that — the only logical wish for our planet is “give me more of that” — let’s add more CO2 in the air — and if we’re lucky we’ll get more nighttime warming, and more greening of our planet.
The only problem is it will take 200 years to gain + 1 degree C., (with CO2 rising 2ppm per year), so none of us will be alive to enjoy it.
Of course my calculation does not include the bogus positive feedback water vapor theory that would triple warming from CO2 alone — because that claim is not supported by ANY science or evidence.
Absolutely none.
Liberals may now proceed with the usual ridicule, character attacks and appeals to authority.
Just don’t claim the future climate can be predicted by anyone — because it can’t.
I have a climate change blog for non-scientists provided as a public service.
No ads. No money for me. And no comments allowed.
There have been over 10,000 page views so far.
Don’t believe everything politicians have told you.
Note: Liberals with high blood pressure should stay away.
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Richard Greene says
(1) What proof do government bureaucrat “scientists” provide that they are right about predictions of runaway global warming?
Answer:
No scientific proof has ever been provided.
It’s shocking when you realize politicians and their government bureaucrat “scientists”simply ignore their track record of 30 years of wrong climate predictions, and their lack of scientific explanations for their climate claims:
(a) Why did natural climate changes suddenly stop?
Bureaucrats have no answer.
(b) How did CO2 suddenly become the “climate controller”?
Bureaucrats have no answer
(c) Why was there no warming from 1940 to 1975 as CO2 levels rose?
Bureaucrats had no answer, so they made one up. They claimed burning fossil fuels added soot to the air that blocked sunlight — cooling the planet more than CO2 warmed it.
(d) But if soot blocks sunlight, then why was there warming after 1975?
Bureaucrats have no answer, implying that all the soot suddenly disappeared in 1975 … but I remember our air was far from clean in 1975.
(e) How do we know man made CO2 has any warming effect?
Bureaucrats claim there was warming from 1975 to 2000, they claim CO2 causes warming, and then they jump to the conclusion that CO2 was the cause … because they say so.
(f) The warming from 1975 to 2000 was almost identical to the warming from 1910 to 1940 — why would they not have the same cause?
Bureaucrats blame the 1910 to 1940 warming on (unknown) natural causes, but claim nearly identical warming from 1975 to 2000 is caused by man made CO2.
When asked why two similar warming periods in the same century would have two completely different causes, bureaucrats have no answer.
They get flustered, and bellow: ‘We have science degrees’ … ‘the science is settled’ … ‘because we say so’.
(f) Do government bureaucrat “scientists” benefit from demonizing CO2?
Government bureaucrat “scientists” guarantee themselves lifetime employment by claiming CO2 is going to cause a climate catastrophe … that only they can see coming … and only they are qualified to study.
Gordon Shephard says
Is this a computer aided translation from some non-english language? It needs a copy editor.
But, aside from that, who do they think they’re kidding? Does anyone really suppose the deny-o-sphere can be overcome with yet another layer of “expert analysis?” Particularly one full of AAC (Absurd Acronymical Contractions).
Victor says
Thanks to an astute analysis by climate expert, Richard Alley, I’ve had a major epiphany. Cigarette smoking does NOT cause cancer. It’s the other way ’round: cancer causes cigarette smoking. The key to this radically new understanding of cause and effect can be found in the following lecture, as recorded on youtube: https://youtu.be/RffPSrRpq_g?t=34m49s
Sure, just as with the interaction between CO2 and temperature, as recorded in the ice core readings, the rise in temperature precedes the rise in CO2, wrongly suggesting that a rising temperature will produce a rise in CO2. But as Alley so wisely points out, this relationship is misleading. It is actually the other way round: the increased warmth produces an increase in CO2, which in turn feeds back into the climate system and thus serves to amplify the initial warming, just as interest, after the initial prodding of a loan, feeds back into one’s finances to amplify one’s debt. It’s all there in the lecture. Interest fuels debt, CO2 fuels global warming.
Similarly, the clinical data misleadingly shows a rise in the incidence of smoking preceding a rise in the incidence of cancer. What the medical “experts” have missed is the fact that someone receiving a diagnosis of cancer will tend to smoke even more in an effort to calm himself down, setting up a feedback similar to what we see in the ice core data. The more cancer, the more smoking and the more smoking the more cancer, the two feed back on one another just as CO2 and temperatures feed back on one another. The rise in smoking is equivalent to that initial loan, but the rise in cancer is the interest that continues to accumulate, producing more smoking, which of course produces more cancer. Ultimately it is cancer, not smoking, that functions as the “biggest control knob” regulating human health.
Thank you, Richard, for that insight.
Mr. Know It All says
Dadgummit! The Aussies have been caught fudging temperature data again:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/01/delingpole-australia-bureau-of-meteorology-caught-erasing-record-low-temperatures/
Comments are great!
Mr. Know It All says
Hey! I hear the recent heat wave in Europe and the Pacific Northwest has been given the name Lucifer. Yup. So, I think RC should have a contest to come up with names for the even hotter heat waves that are sure to come in the near future. How about, “Hotter Than The Blue Blazers of Hell”. Top that if you can! :)
A new theory on the eclipse. This is real science here:
http://pamelageller.com/2017/08/atlantic-great-american-solar-eclipse-racist.html/
:)
Mr. Know It All says
Green Arctic sailing expedition stopped by unexpected frozen white substance. Also, Greenland ice sheet growing at near record rates:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/01/delingpole-ship-of-fools-iv-another-green-arctic-expedition-scuppered-by-ice/
:)
Adam Lea says
125, 128: I should have guessed the online prats who can only throw insults on the basis of feeling and emotion rather than having a civiilised discussion would turn up at some point. Very disappointing for a scientific blog, but I guess the crapness of humanity is everywhere. Whatever, my statements are based on analysis of the data, hence why I am questioning some of the statements made. Despite the insults thrown at me no-one has actually logically countered what I ahve said. That usually means the individual has the characteristics of emotionally fueled extremism, I’ve seen the sort of thing lots of times, where certain people don’t like to be challenged and resort to trying to bully what they see as their opponents into silence. Well it isn’t going to work with me.
For the others who are capable of civilised discussion and are willing to engage with me, I am willing to put forward my reasoning based on the data. I would actually like too because if there is something I have missed I want to know, I can’t see it at the moment, and there are plenty in the tropical cyclone community who align with the views I have posted on here.