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Comments 62601 to 62650:

62601. scaddenp at 06:10 AM on 28 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       My ones - "A few things ill considered", for the news/papers round up; Realclimate; Science of Doom; and Tamino. I also look at Blackboard and Roy Spenser as the more honest of the "skeptic" world so I dont get tunnel vision.
62602. Rob Painting at 05:59 AM on 28 February 2012
       The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
       Muon - of course I'm jumping the gun, the length of the record, as discussed in that post, isn't long enough to to say definitively. But the error bars will reduce as the length of observations grows, that much is a gimme.
62603. KR at 05:58 AM on 28 February 2012
       Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
       Nonsense, Dikran - your posts contain (ahem) significantly more content :)
62604. Dikran Marsupial at 05:54 AM on 28 February 2012
       Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
       KR, nice explanation; the difference in clarity between your answer and mine is why I tend to keep to statistical issues! ;o)
62605. KR at 05:53 AM on 28 February 2012
       Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
       The "gravitational heating" meme is one I've seen over and over. I would suggest it as a topic for a SkS thread, except that it's so ridiculous I feel it a waste of time. Gravitational collapse can release energy - once per collapse. Once that happens, the energy is free to radiate away as per the Stefan-Boltzmann law, and it's quite clear that over the 4.5 billion years of Earth's existence all of the excess energy from the atmospheric collapse would be long gone. But such collapse cannot provide a continuing flow of energy.
62606. Matthew L at 05:53 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       Muoncounter: "But I take issue with the prior comparison to warming a test tube, resulting in all vertical expansion. Continental shelves do not have vertical sides; the areal inundation of just a few meters of sea level rise is very large." Point taken, but we are talking about a rise of just a few millimetres not metres. I doubt the reduction in the rising trend has anything to do with "inundation" of river deltas at these tiny levels. It is much more likely to do with the temperature of the oceans not rising as fast.
62607. Matthew L at 05:46 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       Sphaerica: I'm not at all certain of myself here, but my initial point was that if you add enough energy to a bucket of water to raise it by 1 degree, will that expand as much as if you added that same amount of energy to a pool of water? Hmmm... not sure if that is the right question! In the case of the ocean the bucket (upper levels) and pool (lower levels) have the same surface area. So the better question might be "if you add enough energy to a bucket of water to raise it by 1 degree, will that expand as much as if you added that same amount of energy to a bucket of water that is deeper?" To which my answer would be "Yes" (as far as I understand it) even though the temperature of the water in the bucket rises less. "The question was, given that level of pressure, would an increase in temperature result in an equivalent or lesser increase in volume compared to a liquid at a lower pressure." Water at a higher temperature (up to 45c) is even less compressible so the effect of high pressures really has no significant effect on what happens when water is warmed slightly in the deep oceans. All of this may be moot, however... your graph of decreasing sea level trend does not seem to take into account other "noise" factors, such as the effects of ENSO events. Are you certain that the decreasing trend you see is real? This data set has the intra-annual seasonal effects removed and my 12m moving average removes monthly noise. However it does include the effect of any ENSO events. Because the analysis is done over 5 years any ENSO "spikes" or "dips" are somewhat delayed. For instance the El-Nino in 1998 is reflected in an up-tick in the graph in 2003 (this was confirmed to me by the University of Colorado). I am certain the downward trend is real but uncertain as to its cause. The most likely explanation would appear to be a reduction in the rate of rise in heat content of the oceans. This seems to verify the graphs of ocean heat content that show a levelling off in the most recent period.
62608. Dikran Marsupial at 05:34 AM on 28 February 2012
       Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
       Cheers Sphaerica. I noticed that Postmas paper lapsed into all the lapse rate nonsense. The idea that there is gravitational heating seems like nonsense to me. If gravitational heating were true, then it should be heating the surface even if the sun were to stop shining. My intuition here would be that it wouldn't, the Earth would cool and the atmosphere with it, until it eventually condensed out as ice on the surface and we would have no atmosphere at all. It is only the heat we recieve from the sun that holds the atmopshere up by providing the thermal energy that causes it to have pressure due to the movement of the molecules. It seems to me that Postma has got it completely the wrong way round.
62609. muoncounter at 05:28 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       Sphaerica#49: Thermal expansion varies with temperature, not with quantity of heat added. So you are correct, a fixed quantity of heat added to a bucket will result in a higher percentage of volumetric expansion than in a pool. Unless I am reading this table incorrectly, the coefficient of volumetric expansion for sea water increases with pressure, but decreases with temperature. Result: not much difference between warm surface water and cold depths. Compare coefficients of 244x10^-6/K at 0C and 1000 atm pressure (deep water) vs 250x10^-6/K at 20C and 1 atm pressure (surface). But I take issue with the prior comparison to warming a test tube, resulting in all vertical expansion. Continental shelves do not have vertical sides; the areal inundation of just a few meters of sea level rise is very large.
62610. Bob Lacatena at 05:20 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       1387, Dikran, I posted a response to you on the proper thread on Postma.
62611. Bob Lacatena at 05:19 AM on 28 February 2012
       Postma disproved the greenhouse effect
       Dikran, Postma's paper, in the end, waters down to two things. First, he misuses the term "thermodynamics" repeated, treating it more as an incantation to ward off evil spirits than as an actual, applicable argument. He doesn't reference real thermodynamic "laws." He just throws the word around whenever and however he pleases. So after throwing around the word thermodynamics as many times as he can, then acting as if he has proven something and so can dismiss radiative effects, he gets to the real heart of his argument, which is that lapse rate is entirely defined by gravity, and explains the temperature of the surface of the earth. But here is the real gem of his smoke and mirrors act. What he does now is to do a basic, wikipedia derivation of lapse rate proportional to gravity, which of course gives the wrong answer. He then instead substitutes in the environmental lapse rate, which is the observed lapse rate. He picks a point in the atmosphere which is really arbitrary (he justifies it by saying it's the point where the atmosphere radiates at 255˚K, but that's the nifty legerdemain, because it doesn't actually matter where he started, he'll still get the same answer). Then he works down, and lo and behold, the surface temperature of the earth comes out correct! So... he dismisses radiative theory by using the word "thermodynamics" as many times as he can, couched in a lot of gibberish which is nothing more than a (poor) restatement of basic atmospheric physics, and then he goes on to introduce a superior theory, which he proves by getting the right answer... except he constructed his equation from observations, so he had to get the right answer! What he actually proves is that temperatures computed from lapse rate observations match observed temperatures. Interestingly, he does not address the elephant in the room. What happens to the energy that is radiated from the surface of the earth at 288˚K? Where does it go? Why does it not escape into space, to be seen by passing alien spaceships that can then remark "wow, that place is nice and toasty, we should visit some day, don't you think?" Postma establishes that the surface of the earth is 288˚K because of gravity and pressure, and everyone knows that PV=nRT. But he stops there and fails to explain how the atmosphere avoids then cooling from that point on, because it must be radiating at 288˚K!
62612. Camburn at 05:07 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       A change in pressure, such as increaseing pressure in hydralics, will generate heat. My send was too quick. A change in pressure, such as increaseing pressure in hydralics, will generate heat. The heat generated is a result of an external force tho, and work is being done, hence the generation of heat.
62613. Camburn at 05:06 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       Sphaerica @49: ENSO has no effect on the volume of water in the ocean. The THC of the ocean does not change with an ENSO event, it is distributed differently. AS Matthew L. pointed out, the volume of a liquid changes very little under pressure. The basis of working hydralic usage depends on this fact. A change in pressure, such as increaseing pressure in hydralics, will generate heat. The ocean bottom pressure has to be stable, as the actual volume of water does not change significantly. The top thermal layer may expand and contract, but the volume by density would stay the same unless one adds volume. The little percentage change of water on land on a long term basis as a percentage of volume of the ocean is insignificant.
62614. YOGI at 05:05 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       scaddenp#1362 That`s just a 30kW oven. The radiative transfer is all outwards, there is no energy within the middle PVC wall returning to make the inner surface hotter. Its not much different to say the maximum surface temperature that the Moon or any object in near Earth space can get to, which is 121°C. If you get closer to the Sun it gets hotter, which would be the analogy of a thicker wall on the PVC oven.
62615. Dikran Marsupial at 05:00 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Cheers Riccardo, thought experiments are always very handy in testing out ones intuition about these things, and that one is very neat. As I mentioned earlier, Postma's example violates Kirchoffs laws, but he then goes on to use Kirchoff's laws later in the paper, so it isn't as if he didn't know them. This seems to me to be the sort of lack of self-skepticism that leads to Dunning-Kruger syndrome; presumably once he had an example that he thought he could use to argue the GHE violated the second law of thermodynamics, he didn't stop to consider whether it [his example] violated the first law of thermodynamics!
62616. Camburn at 04:59 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       All very good expanations etc above, but I think YOGI has to accept that all matter is trying to achieve a temperature of absolute zero. It is continuously cooling, and it doesn't care what direction it sheds its emissions. IF he can't accept that basic fact, then he will never understand.
62617. Bob Lacatena at 04:55 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       48, Matthew L, I'm not at all certain of myself here, but my initial point was that if you add enough energy to a bucket of water to raise it by 1 degree, will that expand as much as if you added that same amount of energy to a pool of water? We're not increasing the temperature by the same amount... we're adding the same amount of energy, which because one body is larger (pool vs. bucket, ocean depths versus surface) will not increase by the same amount in temperature. As to your formula for the volume of a liquid, I was hoping to see something with both pressure and temperature terms. The question was, given that level of pressure, would an increase in temperature result in an equivalent or lesser increase in volume compared to a liquid at a lower pressure. Stated more clearly, if you apply X joules of energy to a small volume of water at a low pressure, how will the difference in volume compare to adding that same amount of energy to a larger volume of water under high pressure. All of this may be moot, however... your graph of decreasing sea level trend does not seem to take into account other "noise" factors, such as the effects of ENSO events. Are you certain that the decreasing trend you see is real?
62618. Riccardo at 04:50 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Dikran immagine to have a box made of ideally absorbing material (emissivity=1). An object (a black body itself) inside the box and in thermal equilibrium with it receives from the walls as much energy as it radiates. Now, take a piece of the wall (or the whole of it) away and replace it with a mirror (ideally emissivity=0). In thermal equilibrium the mirror will reflect back to the object as much energy as the absorbing wall was emitting. So, the object will receive exactly the same energy as before.(*) Maybe Postma thinks his example describes a similar situation. Though, in his example the black body is not inside a cavity. He apparently does not note the (foundamental) difference. In doing so, he breaks the First Law of Thermodynamics. Definitely the object will warm more, as you say. Like turning the central heating on while the fireplace is running. (*) The way I described the thought experiment is not strictly correct but (hopefully) gives the idea. This reasoning is not mine, the correct description is part of the work published by Kirchhoff himself when demonstrating his well known law. Good old physics, I'd say. Rerference: Philosophical Magazine, v. XX, n. CXXX, p. 1, 1860, "On the relation between Radiating and Absorbing Powers of different Bodies for Light and Heat"
62619. David Kirtley at 04:23 AM on 28 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       Thanks JMurphy, for the extra info. I looked through Lindzen's presentation and it looks like the same old stuff, hardly the "devastating testimony overturning the global warming hoax" promised by the American "Thinker" headline. Sorry, moderators, if this is hijacking the post.
62620. Matthew L at 04:20 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       ”First, the volume of water involved in this in the deep ocean is huge, so you are distributing that heat over a very, very large volume of water. As such, the per-mole addition of heat, and hence any expansion, is very, very small.” I don’t think that is the case. The sea is constrained on all sides by the crust of the earth, except at its top where it meets the atmosphere. Therefore any expansion or contraction can only happen in a vertical dimension (if you ignore the minor effect of flood plains and deltas). This negates the effect of an expansion in a larger volume being less than that of a smaller volume. For instance if you increase the heat content of water in a test tube by a fixed amount it will rise the same distance whether the test tube is 1m long or 10m long. Think about it! In that situation, as I understand it (happy to be corrected) if you increase the heat content of the top 10% of the ocean by 20 gigajoules (totally made up number!) it will expand vertically just as much as if you use that same energy to increase the heat content of the bottom 90% of the ocean. Sure, the temperature will rise much less, but there is much more of the sea being heated. ”Second, the water in question is under intense pressure, so I think the percentage increase in volume will be greatly reduced. I know very little about the behaviour of liquids, however, so this last is an assumption on my part, not a fact.” Actually the volume of water changes very little, even under very high pressures. That is the whole basis of hydraulic control systems. The exact formula is 5.1×10−10 Pa−1 . This is the formula at 0c, it changes even less at higher temperatures. At the average ocean depth of 3790m the pressure is 38.2 million Pascal so the water is compressed by very roughly 2%. Therefore a rise of water at sea level of 3mm translates to roughly 2.94mm at the average sea depth. Overall I think we can discount the effect of pressure on the expansion of water at deep ocean levels. So, if my assumptions are correct, and taking the reduction in the rate of sea level rise at face value, either a falling amount of water is entering the seas or the heat content is rising less quickly. Or, as has been hypothesised elsewhere, there is more water on the land. My scepticism of that final hypothesis remains, as does my final question.
62621. Dikran Marsupial at 04:13 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Postma makes an excellent point at the top of page 12 that the blackbody equivalent temperature of 255k (-18C) is not the temperature of the surface, "but because most of the Earth's thermally emitted radiation comes from high up in the atmopshere and therefore this is the temperature you find up there" Well quite, that is exactly as AGW theory would suggest!
62622. Dikran Marsupial at 04:00 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Thanks Tom, reassuring that my intuition was in the ball park. It is rather telling that an error in Postmas paper can be spotted by someone whose only qualification in Physics is an A-level obtained in the mid 1980s! It is interesting that my intuition "To remain at the same temperature, it would have to be radiating energy at the same rate that it is absorbed." appears to be something called Kirchoff's law, which Postma actually uses later in the paper! ;o)
62623. Tom Curtis at 03:54 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Dikran Marsupial @ 1377, your intuition is correct. In setting up his description, Postma says:

       "When a blackbody absorbs the energy from light and there are no other heat or light sources around to warm it, then it will warm up to whatever temperature is possible given the amount of energy coming in from the light being absorbed. If the source of light is constant, meaning it shines with the same unchanging brightness all the time, then the blackbody absorbing that light will warm up to some maximum temperature corresponding to the energy in the light, and then warm up no further. When this state is reached it is called “radiative thermal equilibrium”, which means that the object has reached a stable and constant temperature quilibrated with the amount of radiation it is absorbing from the source of light."

       (My emphasis) He has defined radiative equilibrium relative to a specific light source on the assumption that there are no other heat or light sources available. He then, as a thought experiment introduces another source of light (the mirror) and assumes the radiative equilibrium remains constant even though the presupposition of his definition is now false. To see that he has made an error, imagine that the mirror is angled to reflect the rays of an IR lamp glowing with the same intensity as the black body. Clearly in this instance the black body would warm up further. As the IR photons do not come with labels indicating their origin, it makes no difference in the thought experiment whether we use an actual IR lamp, or save on our budget by using the black body as the IR lamp because, according to the hypothesis, the IR lamp and black body shine with the same intensity.
62624. Dikran Marsupial at 03:49 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Tom Curtis Nitpick completely accepted. The first seven pages of the paper give the impression of having been written by a student that doesn't really understand the material, and hence is full of clunky explanation that if not actually wrong, are at least misleading or confusing. muoncounter Nevermind socks, which blackbody universe keeps absorbing my car keys? I'll lookup the Azomov book, haven't read any for years.
62625. Dikran Marsupial at 03:44 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Regarding my previous post, I suspect postma is neglecting the fact that the blackbody will have an equilibrium temperature less than that of the lighsource, which means that its temperature can still rise due to the reflected IR. It couldn't become warmer than the light source though. Readling the rest of page six and the first half of seven, I think that Postma is making the same error than YOGI was. The GHE doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics because the NET flow of heat is always from warmer to cooler, and as a result never makes the warmer object warmer, but it does mean that its equilibrium temperature can be higher if the surface is warmed by something hotter than the atmosphere (which it is).
62626. Tom Curtis at 03:43 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Dikran Marsupial @ 1372, a minor nit pick. Postma does not say that the black body stops absorbing light, only that the light it absorbs stops contributing towards heating the body. However, he appears to be making a bizarre claim, ie, that there is some temperature which constitutes thermal equilibrium such that, if a black body reaches that temperature it will automatically emit all light that it absorbs, where that temperature can be determined without calculating the energy balance. In fact, radiative thermal equilibrium is achieved when energy radiated equals energy absorbed, simpliciter, so he has the explanation backwards. He makes his error in the preceding paragraph where he writes:

       "If the source of light is constant, meaning it shines with the same unchanging brightness all the time, then the blackbody absorbing that light will warm up to some maximum temperature corresponding to the energy in the light, and then warm up no further."

       Here "some maximum temperature corresponding to the energy of the light" is ambiguous. Does he mean the brightness temperature of the light? In that case his claim is false. Or does he mean that it will warm up until energy emitted equals energy absorbed? Well, then what he says is true, but he has taken several paragraphs to say in a very confused way what he could have said clearly with one sentence. Of course, his " bizarre claim" of paragraph 2 of page 5 is not bizarre at all, but merely obscure if we give the second meaning to the quoted ambiguous passage.
62627. muoncounter at 03:38 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       DM#1374: Presumably there is some other black body universe out there, radiating energy for our universe to absorb. Its the same place all your missing socks go. Your question (where does it come from?) is thus itself a black body, as it answers itself. Reminds me of the first part of Asimov's 'The Gods Themselves,' in which matter is exchanged between universes with disastrous consequences. The title itself is an interesting lesson.
62628. Dikran Marsupial at 03:33 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       O.K., we have reached page 6 and there is a point that seems wrong to me, but it may be something I don't understand. "No here's the clincher@ imagine that you take a mirror which reflects infrared light, and you reflect some of the infrared light the blackbody is emitting back onto itself. What happens to the temperature of the blackbody? One might think that because the blackbody is now absorbing more light, even if it is its own infrared light, it should warm up. But in fact it does not warm up; its temperature remains exactly the same [because it is in radiative thermal equilibrium with the light source]" Now my intuition would indeed be that it would warm up. To remain at the same temperature, it would have to be radiating energy at the same rate that it is absorbed. If you increase the amount absorbed using the mirror, the amount emitted must increase as well. However the Stefan-Boltzman law says that the rate at which a blackbody radiates energy is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature, so it can't increase emissions without an increase in temperature. If my intuition is wrong, I would be very happy to have my error explained! Note to YOGI. There are three examples here of how scientific discussion should proceed. Firstly I am happy to admit whan I am not sure I understand something, this is vital in avoiding Dunning-Kruger syndrome. Secondly, rather than just provide minimally informative comments/answers, I have explained as fully as possible what my understanding of the issue actually is. Lastly I am actively happy to have my intuition challenged and corrected.
62629. Dikran Marsupial at 03:19 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Camburn indeed you can't throw the laws of physics out of the window, and indeed the GHE effect does not.
62630. Camburn at 03:15 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Dikran Marsupial: YOGI also needs to understand that what you a describing is basic physics, and has nothing to do with the GHE. Matter behaves in predictable ways. How one wants to apply it to the GHE is up to each individual, but in that application......you just CANNOT throw basic physics out the window and expect conclusions that have any merit.
62631. Dikran Marsupial at 03:13 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       top of page 6 "As amazing as this sounds, the only thing that really does seem to perfectly resemble a black body is the entire universe itself" So this light that the entire universe is absorbing. Were is it coming from exactly?
62632. JMurphy at 03:12 AM on 28 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       David Kirtley, fortunately, your American Thinker link has it wrong when it claims : "British Parliament heard devastating testimony overturning the global warming hoax". It was actually a seminar in a Committee Room and I doubt whether many MPs (apart from Sammy Wilson, who arranged it) were there. I believe Monckton may have been - enough said ! However, the list of those associated with it makes it even clearer what its agenda was : It was chaired by Philip Stott (another Emeritus Professor). Included Reverend Philip Foster. Repeal the Climate Change Act (which includes such luminaries as David Bellamy, Johnny Ball and Bob Carter) The Association of British Drivers (who claim on their website to "reveal the scientific truth behind the scare stories about climate change, and the impact cars have on health and the environment"). The Country Guardian. The Campaign Against Wind Farms. (Both connected to the same issue) And the recommended reading on climate and energy policy from the organisers included the letter from the 'concerned' 16 'scientists' to the Wall Street Journal, and references to Ross McKitrick, James Delingpole and Tim Ball. Hmmm. As for what transpired, there is this transcript from Lindzen, which begins : I wish to thank the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act for the opportunity to present my views on the issue of climate change – or as it was once referred to: global warming. Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about. It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is. It is not about whether CO2 is increasing: it clearly is. It is not about whether the increase in CO2, by itself, will lead to some warming: it should. The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO2 can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO2 will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest. (And just look at some of the dates on those graphs he uses)
       Moderator Response: [JH] You've written the core of an SkS article on this matter. Go for it!
62633. Dikran Marsupial at 03:11 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Bottom of page 5 "For example if the object absorbs visible light, then it will reemit infrared light, which we can't see, and therefore it still appears black" Postma half-corrects his initial definition of a blackbody here (would have been better just to get it right in the first place), but this statement is obviously incorrect. As an example, consider solar power plants which can be used to make objects glow white hot (and thus be producing visible light) Virtually every scientific statement Postma has made by the end of page 5 is wrong.
62634. Dikran Marsupial at 03:05 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Catastrophic error - second paragraph of page 5 When a blackbody has reached thermal equilibrium, it can no longer absorb more light for heating and therefore has to reemit just as much energy as it is absorbing" This is factually incorrect; the blackbody never stops absorbing light - it is a blackbody, that is what they do. Likewise if it is above absolute zero it also never stops emitting radiation. It reaches radiative equilibrium when its emissions (which depend on temperature) rise suffuciently high that emission matches absorption. If Postma can't even explain radiative equilibrium or what a blackbody does correctly, I think we can safely say that YOGI needs to pick his/her has up off the floor.
62635. Dikran Marsupial at 03:00 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Next problem, first paragraph of page 5 tries to explain "radiative thermal equilibrium" without mentioning that the blackbody is constantly radiating heat. Not strictly speaking an error, but again it doesn't inspire confidence.
62636. Dikran Marsupial at 02:56 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Next error, page 4 "A blackbody is simply exactly what it sounds like: an object that is completely black. The reason why it is black is because it absorbs 100% of the light that strikes it, and doesn't reflect any of it back. Therefore it appears black" The sun is a blackbody, doesn't appear very black to me. The middle sentence is sort of true, a blackbody does absorb all the light that falls on it, but that doesn't mean that it appears to be black. I know that is only a fairly trivial point, but it doesn't encourage confidence when it comes to less trivial issues. Note this is the second scientific point in the paper so far and Postma has made errors in both of them.
62637. Dikran Marsupial at 02:50 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       Well I got as far as page 3 before spotting the first scientific error (mainly becuase the first two and a half pages are rhetorical posturing and essentially free of any scientific content). Postma writes "Does back-scattered infrared radiative transfer act like a blanket upon, and explain the temperature of, the surface of the Earth, analogeous to the way a greenhouse building works..." Immediate fail. Greenhouses work principally by preventing convection. Nobody claims that the Greenhouse effect works in the same way an actual greenhouse, even Fourier knew this.
62638. Camburn at 02:20 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       I think YOGI has to understand that all mass exibits energy, and that all mass is continuously cooling by emitting energy. What slows that cooling is the absorbtion of energy. The mass doesn't care if the energy came from a colder object or a warmer object. When mass absorbs a photon from a colder object, all that happens is the RATE of cooling slows a bit. The whole crux is that the Sun adds energy, which will result in warmth, but matter is still doing its thing by trying to cool.
62639. Bob Lacatena at 02:18 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       45, Matthew L,

       My problem with the missing heat being at the bottom of the ocean is that heat will expand the sea wherever it is hidden.

       I think the problem with this premise is two-fold. First, the volume of water involved in this in the deep ocean is huge, so you are distributing that heat over a very, very large volume of water. As such, the per-mole addition of heat, and hence any expansion, is very, very small. Second, the water in question is under intense pressure, so I think the percentage increase in volume will be greatly reduced. I know very little about the behavior of liquids, however, so this last is an assumption on my part, not a fact.
62640. Utahn at 01:58 AM on 28 February 2012
       The Year After McLean - A Review of 2011 Global Temperatures
       "I have recently been in contact with McLean, who has promised to write a post about his prediction and results, which he claimed might somehow surprise me..." I just looked at the link but couldn't see anything, is it on the front page or have we heard anything?
62641. Matthew L at 01:52 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       Apologies for a couple of issues with that last post (new here!). I could not get the image to embed properly from Photobucket despite resizing it to a width of 450. Just click on the link below the broken image to see it. Also the final question should be: Is it possible to calculate how much extra water must be located on land to explain the slow-down in sea level rise?
       Response:

       [DB] Photobucket is notoriously difficult to link to from this Forum, with images sometimes appearing for a time and then disappearing.  Proper linking syntax is here.

       Fixed image, for now.

62642. Matthew L at 01:46 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       I recently had an e-mail exchange with Dallas Masters at the CU Sea Level Research Group at the University of Colorado. I was interested in creating a graph of the trend in sea level rise over the period of the satellite record. I calculated a 12 month moving average and then applied a 5 year linear regression analysis to arrive at the following chart. He confirmed that it was a reasonable representation of the trend. Global mean sea level reducing trend My problem with the missing heat being at the bottom of the ocean is that heat will expand the sea wherever it is hidden. Surely the sea would be expanding more quickly rather than less if both the temperature of the deep oceans was rising and the glaciers melting? I have seen the explanation of recent flooding due to La-Nina but am sceptical that this could account for such a large and sustained decline in the rate of sea level rise. Is it possible to calculate how extra water must be located on the Earth to explain the slow-down in sea levels?
62643. David Kirtley at 01:33 AM on 28 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       I'm from the U.S. In no particular order here are my top 5 climate science sites: Climate Progress Open Mind Climate Denial Crock of the Week RealClimate DeSmogBlog I see that Richard Lindzen gave a talk to the British House of Commons. It appears to be the same old stuff. But is there any chance you'll do a debunking post on it?
62644. CBDunkerson at 01:30 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       DB, actually the PDF specified by YOGI appears to be a different screed by Postma wherein he insists that the "Greenhouse Theory" contradicts the laws of thermodynamics. Including alot of the usual 'energy cannot flow from a colder area to a hotter one' idiocy. So, complete nonsense... but on topic nonsense.
       Response:

       [DB] Noted.  But as Dikran points out, Postma commits a great number of grievous errors in this new piece.  Perhaps a continuing series on Postma, with this one comprising "Joseph Postma is Wrong About _________, Pt. 4"?

62645. muoncounter at 01:12 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       mspelto#42: That's what I was afraid of. As with Arctic ice melt, this is another one of those 'its worse than we think' moments. Would it be possible to do a 'ground truth' calibration, bringing the GRACE-derived ice loss computations into better agreement with what you actually see? (I'm old enough to remember the world before satellites, when you actually had to use measurements made by folks in the field).
62646. muoncounter at 01:06 AM on 28 February 2012
       The Deep Ocean Warms When Global Surface Temperatures Stall
       RobP#67: "the warming rate abruptly shrinks after 2003, when the more precise ARGO data makes up the majority of ocean temperature measurements." If you are suggesting that the change in rate is due to the changeover in data acquisition systems, wouldn't it be better to say 'the warming rate apparently shrinks'? But even that case in not well-supported by the error bars in your figure b: On the more recent data, uncertainty appears to be ~3x that of the older data. Are we able to show a statistically significant difference between, for example, the central NODC bar of 0.5+/-0.2 (early) and 0.1+/-0.6 (later)? This combination of 'surface temperatures stall' and 'ocean heating slows' seems to be the message we hear from the opposition. A better message could be phrased: Thermal cycles in the oceans are as yet not completely measured; we do know they have the capacity to mask and delay what we see on the surface by storing large quantities of energy. Despite that, as FR2011 show, there's been no change in the underlying atmospheric warming rate. And thus we really should be worried what will happen when that heat comes back to see us, especially since even the la Nina years keep getting warmer.
62647. Matthew L at 01:05 AM on 28 February 2012
       Satellites find over 500 billion tons of land ice melting worldwide every year, headlines focus on Himalayas
       Numbers aside, am I the only person here troubled by the choice of map projection used in Figure 1 for the GRACE trend? I thought we had long ago abandoned using projections that showed Greenland as almost the same area as Africa! They were first used to make Europe and the USA seem bigger and more important than they really are. In this instance it makes the "blue" areas of ice loss closer to the poles much larger and more important than they warrant, and the "pink" areas of ice gain closer to the equator smaller and less important. Also, can somebody explain where the ice is that appears to have accumulated in the Amazon basin, Zambia and Singapore? I think the problem for this map is that it is mapping ALL changes in gravity, not just ice loss. I was under the impression that India was still slowly crashing into Asia and pushing up the Himalayas. If that is the case could the growth in mass there be down to accumulated build up of crust material rather than ice in glaciers?
62648. YOGI at 01:03 AM on 28 February 2012
       2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
       [DB] I`ll hang my hat on this: http://www.tech-know.eu/uploads/Understanding_the_Atmosphere_Effect.pdf
       Response:

       [DB] You are thus relatively off-topic on this thread.  The more appropriate thread for your discursion is Postma disproved the greenhouse effect.  Everyone please respond there.

       Yogi:  Please read the above thread and the following threads in their entirety

       • Joseph E. Postma and the Greenhouse Effect
       • Joseph E. Postma and the Greenhouse Effect Part 2
62649. Tom Curtis at 00:42 AM on 28 February 2012
       2012 SkS Weekly Digest #8
       Like Adelady (who is from Adelaide, Australia for the non-Aussies for whom it may not be so obvious) I am from Australia, but from further East and North a bit at Brisbane. My favourite climate science sites (excluding SkS) are: Open Mind for detailed dissection of so-called skeptical arguments; Science of Doom for detailed analysis of the science a very readable undergraduate level; Deltoid for detailed discussion of Australian Media coverage of climate science, and some other gems; Rabbett Run for a quirky look at climate science, climate politics and just about anything that takes his fancy (I did mention quirky, didn't I); and because you've got to laugh if your not going to cry - Throbgoblin, which unfortunately has been inactive for three months but well worth reading back posts if you haven't already. Cutting the list down to five does a great disservice to a number of other excellent blogs, but that is the way the question was framed. I'll cheat a bit and direct you to my largely inactive blog for the full list of blogs I watch.
       Moderator Response: [JH] Asking readers to name their top five sites seemed to be a resonable request. Asking for readers to list more than that would discourage responses.
62650. Dennis at 00:40 AM on 28 February 2012
       DenialGate - Highlighting Bob Carter's Selective Science
       Two things stand out from this. First, it should be a relatively straight-forward exercise for skilled scientists to publish peer-reviewed articles which highlight and correct the errors in articles like McLean et al. (2009). I don't want to overburden the excellent work SkS does, but it seems we need a database on those flawed articles that points directly to the published rebuttals (and, in some cases, articles waiting for publication). Second, you mention how Carter has published science in non-science journals. I think it's time for the established organizations in social sciences and other fields, like economics and political science, to step up and start publicly chastising journals for publishing "findings" outside their area of expertise. There's a lot of this out there (think E&E) that gets mentioned in the public policy arena, but they are not peer reviewed by qualified scholars. Economists, political scientists, sociologists, etc. know nothing about about physics, chemistry and biology, so they should stop writing that they do, and be called out when they try.

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