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Comments 68401 to 68450:

  1. We're heading into an ice age
    Randy, setting aside the fact that we have absolutely NO idea what technology will be like in 50,000 years... the CO2 we have already released into the atmosphere is sufficient to prevent the next glaciation cycle. Basically, instead of the next Milankovitch swing taking us into a global glaciation it is now more likely to see a return to the sort of climate we had two hundred years ago. If we continue increasing atmospheric CO2 levels we may actually skip the next several glaciation events. However, again, we are talking about time-frames so large that circumstances could change completely due to things we cannot predict.
  2. We're heading into an ice age
    Randy, You do not need to worry. The entire next glaciation cycle has already been averted so we are good for 100,000 years. If they needed to keep off the glaciers a single, small flourocarbon plant can manufacture enough greenhouse gas to prevent an ice age. We need to worry about problems for the next 50 years, not 500,000 years in the future.
  3. We're heading into an ice age
    Randy Subers#248: "by the time we hit 50K years from now we will be set up for a very nasty ice age" Don't you think there are more immediate problems on the table than what may or may not happen in 50000 years? Like what will most likely be happening in 50 years? That shutdown idea has kicked around for several years; there doesn't seem to be any evidence of it yet (that was in March 2010).
  4. (Fahrenheit) 451 ppm
    Glenn T#73: Exactly why skept.fr's assertion and subsequent euphemisms of 'winners and losers' is not just total nonsense - it is very dangerous nonsense.
  5. Newcomers, Start Here
    would like to pour over what I have to make sense of it all. I am presently stuck in the mindset that CO2 and w.v. act as one greenhouse gas with the highest concentration of about 20-30k ppm in the thick lower atmosphere diminishing to near 500 ppm in the thin upper atmosphere. CO2 alone stays at a nearly constant concentration around 380 ppm thoughout. I do not know what the avaerage ppm of w.v. is in the lower atmosphere and how quickly that concentration drops with altitude.
  6. Ocean Acidification: Corrosive waters arrive in the Bering Sea
    Rob Painting: Kudos on an excellent article. It could be made even better if you were to add an introductory paragraph that captures the essence of this article and explicitly let's the reader know that it is Part I of a three part series. While your initial paragraph covers this ground, it does so in a rather oblique manner.
  7. We're heading into an ice age
    Is seems to me that there is a good chance that the arctic melting will stop the Atlantic conveyer by dumpling lots of fresh (therefore lighter) water into the North Atlantic. While studies I have seen indicate that this will be swamped by global warming and thus not have a huge short term effect, it seems to me that if we adopt a policy of minimizing coal use(for which there are certainly lots of good arguments from a pollution standpoint as well as C02 emissions) that by the time we hit 50K years from now we will be set up for a very nasty ice age as the Milankovitch cycle kicks in. This would mean the people at that time (assuming we do not destroy civilization first) will have to do some serious efforts to prevent it or live through it. Or am I missing something somewhere? This is not an argument for the current C02 emissions since the current threat is warming, but might be one for large amounts 50K years from now.
  8. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Riccardo, please understand I was not misquoting or intentionally "badly" quoting. All I did was quote the full summary of the 2011 from his web site. There is nothing more and nothing less on that paper than what I quoted.
  9. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Erik you really badly quoted from Ben Laken site, hope it's unintentional. Dr. Laken whas reviewing the litterature and found that FD events "not necessarily isolate the effects of GCR variations effectively". Their new paper address exactly this and found that "However, the analysis presented in this work shows that following careful isolation of TSI and GCR variations, neither is found to be significantly associated with changes in cloud cover." Hopefully next time you'll carefully read before questioning the understanding (no less!) of reputable scientists.
  10. Arkadiusz Semczyszak at 01:51 AM on 15 December 2011
    (Fahrenheit) 451 ppm
    As for communication. Both Republicans and Democrats are more and more believe the theory of AGW - as reported by this report. We skeptics are (not only in the U.S.) "in retreat". I am skeptic, "a specific". I think that 9? % of the planned action - "fight" with AGW - are useful for us and the Earth. Why then the world has not accepted the "road map" postulated by the IPCC? Just lack of money. Extreme events. It is precisely analyze the latest IPCC document: part Climate extremes and impacts: “Global-scale trends in a specific extreme may be either more reliable (e.g., for temperature extremes) or less reliable (e.g., for droughts) than some regional-scale trends, depending on the geographical uniformity of the trends in the specific extreme.” “There is medium confidence that some regions of the world have experienced more intense and longer droughts, in particular in southern Europe and West Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter e.g., in central North America and northwestern Australia.” Amazonia. In former times warm - indeed savanna occupied much of the current tropical forests. Savannah in their biomass and soil contain only (on average) half of the carbon contained in tropical forests. It is, however still many more than analogy to deserts. In former times in the Holocene warm, savannah occupied areas of tropical and subtropical deserts the current in Africa and Asia. Savannah moved - as a result of climate change - hundreds of miles to the north and south of the equator. We do not need to use only models here. More and more is a paleo-studies and the results of scientific experiments. Eg. Françoise Gasse Sr. , CNRS-France, writes: “All data indicate an intensification of the monsoon and a northward migration of 500-600 km of the tropical rainfall belt.” „Between ca. 11.5-11 and 6-5 ka BP (early-mid Holocene), the Sahara was wet and green, with numerous lakes and rivers.” “Many records document, however, a short-term but marked arid event around 8.5-8 ka BP possibly linked to a minor cooling recorded in Greenland ice cores.” When we reach 451 ppmv of CO2 in the atmosphere? Unfortunately, we do not know - I recommend the text with extensive analysis of Nature: „Many lines of evidence show that the variations in the CO2 growth rate are mainly caused by terrestrial effects, in particular the impacts of heat and drought on the vegetation of western Amazonia and southeastern Asia, leading to ecosystem carbon losses through decreased vegetation productivity and/or increased respiration.” “On the other hand, the biological processes underlying respiration are assumed to respond to temperature in an exponential way but are not affected by the CO2 concentration ...” “The fundamental simplifying assumption behind this reasoning is that above-ground assimilatory processes (plant photosynthesis) and below-ground heterotrophic respiratory processes (for example, decomposition by fungi and respiration by animal and bacterial life in the soil) can be conceptually isolated and analysed separately. Although this conceptual model has provided valuable guidance for experimental and model design, evidence has accumulated in recent years that above- and below-ground processes are intimately linked, constituting a complex and dynamic system with non-negligible interactions. Hence, the situation is much more complicated than previously thought and might result in unexpected dynamics through interactions between physical, chemical and biological processes within the ecosystem — particularly in the soil.” “Unfortunately, empirical evidence for global carbon-cycle–climate interactions on the timescale pertinent to current global climate change, that is, decades to centuries, is much scarcer.”( dedicates this sentence critics M. Salby) “As long as there is no fundamental understanding of the processes involved, simulations of coupled carbon-cycle–climate models can only illustrate the importance of, but do not show, a conclusive picture of the multitude of possible carbon-cycle–climate system feedbacks.” - and < a href =http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v451/n7176/fig_tab/nature06591_F2.html> this figure of the cited analysis. Uncertainty range is huge - about the same. As for methane. At present also its content in the atmosphere has risen before CO2. To explain the increase of methane in the atmosphere are not needed (since at least 55 million years) clathrates. I recommend this paper : “The methane isotope change accompanying the jump in concentration confirmed that the emission was not from clathrates, but from ecological sources such as wetlands.” Stocks of C in permafrost according to current estimates (up to 4-5 times higher than estimated for the 2009) completely enough ( 1, 2, 3, 4 , 5 ).
  11. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    91, Eric, I'm not sure what the purpose of that Mecurio "cite" is. The author is presenting a simple overview of modern climate in that section, and basically says "there's this thing called PDO" and "these people all proposed different mechanisms for its cause" (one of them being Mecurio). As such, it makes no actual use of content of the paper, and puts no weight whatsoever on the conclusion. I suspect that if I'd written an e-mail to the author saying that Eurasian Leprechaun Farts cause the PDO, he might have cited my e-mail as well. He was just looking for a list of different proposed causes to demonstrate that no one actually knows. It's a "throwaway" cite with no bearing on climate change and giving no veracity to an un-peer reviewed, un-published and otherwise ignored paper. You can't discuss that Mecurio paper and claim to be discussing science. It's like discussing any number of self-published crackpot theories out there. They aren't worth anyone's time. Stick to meaningful and robust (or at least published!) papers. Don't assume that because a paper has a published format and some letters after the author's name that that means it's (a) good science and (b) true.
  12. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Reading through benlaken.com, there's a bit more about the paper: "In Laken et al. (2011) the use of FD events as a basis for testing is evaluated, and it is found that this method does not necessarily isolate the effects of GCR variations effectively, as associated changes in total solar irradiance (TSI) emissions and an often protracted difference between the onset of FD events and the date of maximum reduction can potentially hamper analysis." Dr. Laken obviously knows his field and I should not imply otherwise.
  13. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    So don't presume they do not understand, assume that much more likely it's you.
  14. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    the paper is password protected.
  15. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Do you really think that professionals publishing in GRL do not know what they do at this very trivial level? Read the paper and try harder.
  16. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Riccardo, from their abstract "...focusing on the largest TSI increases and decreases (the latter occurring in both the presence and absence of appreciable GCR reductions)..."

    Do the authors understand that TSI decreases coincide with GCR increases (not reductions)?

  17. Arctic sea ice has recovered
    Actually, if you want a simple explanation your best bet is the last graph at the bottom of the first link in my note above. This shows a comparison of the PIOMAS model volume estimates to a regression analysis of US Navy submarine readings of Arctic sea ice and the ICESat satellite's Arctic ice volume readings. The solid black line shows the PIOMAS model results and the dashed black line the resulting trend. The red line with '+' signs is the submarine regression analysis... basically, this means that they took spotty submarine records of ice thickness/area and used mathematical analysis to fit them together into a trend. The large pink shaded area above and below this line shows the uncertainty range around these values. The red line with triangles on it shows readings from the short-lived ICESat satellite, which measured the surface area of sea ice and calculated thickness based on the measured height of the ice above the water line (which, due to the relative densities of sea water and ice, represents about 20% of the total ice thickness). The red dashed line shows the trend of the submarine and satellite results. Note how closely the ICESat "actual measurements" agree with the PIOMAS 'estimates'. Likewise, note the similarity of the two trend lines. In both cases, they actually show MORE ice loss than the PIOMAS model. PIOMAS itself is also based on direct measurements BTW... they take satellite ice area measurements and estimate the ice thickness based on drilled sample readings, temperatures, past thickness data, et cetera. We thus have three different methods of calculating Arctic ice volume estimates... all of which show close agreement with each other. The detailed paper in the second link covers these issues in more detail and also determines uncertainty ranges by comparing PIOMAS ice thickness calculations to actual measurements of ice thickness in the same areas. Their analysis shows (again) that PIOMAS is actually under-estimating the rate of ice loss. They also found that the volume decline in 2010 was so great that it represented a new record minimum to a degree of certainty outside the uncertainty bounds... that is, even if we assume the prior record minimum year was the lowest possible value in the uncertainty range and 2010 the highest possible value, 2010 would still be a record low. Since then the September 2011 value actually came in lower than 2010, but not outside the uncertainty range.
  18. (Fahrenheit) 451 ppm
    #72 Spaherica : apologies accepted… but in fact probably undue, as you mention, my English is confusing and so was probably the expression of my priorities for carbon mitigation. I agree that a sustainable future is still to be invented, for carbon cycle, water cycle, nitrogen cycle and more broadly the ecosystem services that we’re disrupting too fastly and too profoundly. The same is true for inequality between the North and the South, or the 10% and the 90%, but it would be OT to continue on that matter. #73 Glenn Tamblyn : there are many motives of conflict between nuclear armed countries. And don’t forget that in the worst recent genocide (Rwanda 1994), sophisticated weapons were not required, the ‘primitive’ machete killed hundred of thousands. Your point is true for climate (example of risks associated with monsoon and glaciers melting in overcrowded countries) but notice it is also true for all abrupt changes in human societies : that’s why the precautionary principle must not be adressed to one problem in particular (climate), but to all known problems simultaneously. Food and water disruptions have probably always been the main threat for human societies (with disease), and this will remain true for the predictable future. Climate change will make the problem more difficult. See Godfray 2010 and Foley 2011 for recent analysis of the ‘9 billion feeding problem’ in a sustainable view. The good new is that solutions exist, the bad that they will be tough to implement. On that question, see also the interesting paper of Hsiang et al 2011 on ENSO-related civil conflict casualties (another example of climate change externality).
  19. Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
    ranyl @75, interesting about Hansen and Sato. With regard to albedo, yes we currently have a stronger albedo related feedback than periods with no polar glaciation. But we have significantly weaker albedo feedback than during glacials. That is both because a melt back of 1 degree latitude removes far less area of ice now than it did during a glacial, and because the ice, being at a lower latitude, reflected more sunlight in the glacial.
  20. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Paper in press in GRL titled "Solar irradiance, cosmic rays and cloudiness over daily timescales". From the conclusions: "we found no widespread detectable changes in cloud cover at any tropospheric level within a 20 day period of the solar forcing clearly associated with solar activity changes." For solar activity they mean TSI, F10.7 flux and GCR.
    Moderator Response: [muon] Fixed link. Noted that paper here.
  21. It's not bad
    Article on China's program to modify weather http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-12/09/content_14236576.htm

    "As extreme weather events such as drought and flooding become more common, protecting the nation's main wheat producing areas grows in urgency - thus the first regional program chose the northeastern parts of the country,..."

  22. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Scaddenp, here is that single cite of Mercurio http://earthscience.ucr.edu/docs/chapter2.pdf This author explains that there are various possible explanations for PDO: small variations in TSI influencing SST and winds, cloud cover and GCR. But the author appears to favor an internal mechanism: 'spin rate of the gyre". I don't know how such an influence on PDO would translate into a tendency towards interglacial states.
  23. Plimer vs Plimer: a one man contradiction
    Stevo John Howard has never been someone who grasps science. Or anything else but basic legal matters and a relatively narrow political perspective on reality. Sad really. An extremely capable man who has such a narrow lens on the world. Plimer is speaking his idealogical language so he backs him. And unlike Paul Keating, Howard has never been able to articulate his views with passion and erudition. Rather he is a master of passion without erudition. How to put forward a strong story by appealing to the unspoken rather than the spoken. Never an orator, Howard was/is a master of finding the back-door, fumbling way into many peoples deepest senses of things. Not the great uneducated. Rather the great inarticulate. Which is not the same thing at all. And one of his great protege's is Tony Abbott. Lacking Howards rapier skill with the craft, rather a blunt instrument. Howards strength was appealing to the huge number of people who aren't stupid or uneducated, but for whom clarity of language expression is an alien world. Where everything is expressed through vague sub-text and what they seek is a sense of others who share the accepted sub-texts. For whom erudition is not just something they distrust. It is an alien mode of thinking. Never underestimate how many people can go through 12 years of education, learn their 3R's but still walk away from that with a sense that that was just 'book' learning, useful for some limited subset of life but not really relevent to 'what is important'. In fact seen as antithetical to 'what is important'. Many people, even some quite educated people, simply don't trust learning. Its not 'real' knowledge.
  24. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    skywatcher sorry I mixed up the two charts together in #38. The top chart is Mercurio and the bottom is Shaviv. I agree the Shaviv chart (500 million years) is probably flawed. It is about the spiral arms of the galaxy and there are subsequent papers demonstrating that Shaviv had the wrong timing (I linked to one in #40). I am only using Mercuirio for my conjecturing. The biggest weakness of the correlation in Mercuirio is that low GCR coincides with higher TSI.
  25. Schmittner et al. (2011) on Climate Sensitivity - the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
    Sorry I don't have a link to a free copy. By SCS I mean Charney, the ESS of the early Pliocene (before Greenland Ice Sheet), is very high, taking 350ppm as the mean, that is 3-5C for only 1/4 of a doubling of CO2 for ESS. Tom, Hansen and Sato also make the early Pliocene only 2C warmer due to their taking deep tropical ocean values and estimating global temperature from that. So in terms of ice and cliamtic shift effects, although the CS is only 3oC in their terms, is akin to one of 6oC if their Pliocene had matched the most commonly reported values of 3-5C hotter. Laslty far from the present being a time of low albedo amplification surely it is a time of high albedo amplification and rapid amplification as the sea ice turns to black ocean, and as I'm sure your aware losing the summer ice (as all the arctic sun is in the summer) tends to accelerate N Polar warming by 3 to 4x, so we do reside at time were things are on a knife edge, or on the point of of saddle transformation to an ice free Northern Hemisphere. Also hasn't Hansen jsut announced that he thinks the CS is actually higher than his recent estimates in the AGU meeting? We are in a bit of pickle and need a total transformation of everything ot get out of it smiling.
  26. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    TOP @1172: I retain the numbering of topics from my post 1167: Point 1) I refer you to the global energy balance by Trenberth et al, 2009: Upward IR radiation from the surface is 390 W/m^2. Upward IR radiation from the surface at the TOA is 40 W/m^2. Ergo, approximately 90% of all IR radiation from the surface is absorbed by the atmosphere. If you had a block of quartz which only let through 10% of the light shone into it, I am sure you would say it was "largely opaque". Why you are so determined to apply a different standard to atmospheres is beyond me. Point 2) The incoming solar energy is an irrelevant point. There is clearly less energy being radiated at some bands than at others in the IR spectrum. It follows that in those other bands, they must radiate at a higher intensity than they otherwise would have, and ergo the source of the radiation must be warmer. However, as noted in the diagram above, incoming, unreflected solar radiation is 239 W/m^2. Point 4) I am not going to try an reform the linguistic conventions of an entire language just because fake skeptics attempt to use those conventions to deceive people. Furthermore, I have seen how fake skeptics treat those who do try to reform the language. They take claims saying "greenhouse effect" is an inaccurate term and misquote them as claims that there is no greenhouse effect, ie, that the surface is not warmed by the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere. Everybody can understand that rubber ducks and tin cans are no longer made out of rubber or tin (respectively) but that the name persists. Everybody (almost) can understand that the ancient Greek theory of the four humours is false, and are not confused by people saying they are in "good humour", or that somebody has a phlegmatic personality. Likewise, everybody willing to think can understand that the warming of the surface by CO2 in the atmosphere is called the "greenhouse effects" due to a historical misunderstanding, but that that is consequently its name. They further understand that people trying to argue against a scientifically demonstrated physical effect based on coincidences of linguistic accident are intent on deceiving. Are you in that latter category? And if not, why are you making this an issue?
  27. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    TOP - I am perfectly capable of reading what G&T said. Are you capable of seeing what is wrong with that statement?
  28. Ocean Acidification: Corrosive waters arrive in the Bering Sea
    Doug, I figured you'd arrive out of left-field, like you'd seen some kind of bat-signal (shrimp signal?) and pull me up on that simplification. I'll tweak it slightly. "I mean, really, since aragonite is more soluble why is it used at all?" I figured it's like humans building houses, why build it to last when you can build it cheap? Look forward to your future posts on ocean chemistry, by the way.
  29. (Fahrenheit) 451 ppm
    Going back to Sphaerica's list # 23 of countries that may win/loose from warming consider the following mix: Pakistan is vulnerable to changes in Monsoon patterns and glacial melt reducing river flows - OK, not by 2035. And they have Nuclear Weapons. India is just as vulnerable as Pakistan and they are on track to be the Earth's most populace country. And they are churning through their groundwater resources at an impossible rate - pumping water from 1 kiolmeter underground while some farmers stop growing food and just sell water because the government subsidises pumps and electricity. And they are Nuclear Armed. China basically subsists on Rice from its south & wheat from its north. The Yiangtse produces 1/2 China's rice crop. And you guessed it. Its sources are Himalayan Glaciers and Monsoonal rains. In Norther China rivers have a bad habit of not reaching the sea. And they are fed by Glaciers. And much of the wheat grown across the plains of Northern China is irrigated by ground water that is also declining. Unlike India where if they just stopped using groundwater for a few decades (and stopped eating for the same period) their aquifers would recharge, the aquifers of Northern China take centuries to recharge. And China has Nuclear Weapons too. Then to the North there is Russia, and all the expanses of Siberia. Currently Birch Forest, Tundra and Permafrost. But with warming, it starts to bloom (if you can ignore the fact that much of the soils are acid). And Russia is Nuclear Armed. And the population of Siberia is definitely not Asian, and has a long history of being provincial and quite parochial (Fiddler on the Roof is actually a story about the marginalised in rural Russia). So lets let AGW start to mess things around and play geo-politics. Is India stealing Pakistans water as Pakistanis starve? What will the people of Eastern India think about the idea of moving into the fertile areas of China like Szechuan? Maybe starving Northern Chinese will start to wonder what a few 100 million good chinese peasant farmers could do with all that birch forest and tundra - we can grow rice anywhere if we try. Imagins your average Siberian russian welcoming columns of Han Chinese 'immigrants' onto their land. And all these people will expect their governments to support them. If those governments aren't leading the push. Who pushes the red button first. Or maybe it is just the old fashioned method - when America was going through the agony of its civil war, thinking that 500,000 dead was a horror, at the same time in China, the Taiping Rebellion saw 20,000,000 dead. The old fashioned ways always work. But if someone does push the button - old books about Nuclear Winters with titles like 'The Cold & The Dark' may suddenly gain currency. Global Warming would immediately be on hold. Till the smoke and dust settles. Then it comes back with a vengeance, thanks to all those burning Birch Forests and Peat pumping out CO2. And in such a world, how is everyones mental health doing? No matter what the climate/environmental consequences may be, the Social/Political/Military/Psychological consequences will likely magnify all of this.
  30. Philippe Chantreau at 19:00 PM on 14 December 2011
    2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    "You can argue whether it is opaque or just largely opaque. But the Box experiment proves it is not totally opaque to IR." Just exactly what is the difference between "not totally" and "largely"? Sorry but that is just poor rethoric,especially from soneone accusing others to put words in his mouth. About this: "From Table 8 on page 22 G&T come up with 45.2% of the energy arriving from the Sun as infrared. 44.8% is visible light and 10% is UV." No, that's what not what the table says at all. It says that 45.2% of "Sunlight" (from the table's caption) received is within a certain range of wave length, 44.8% in another range and 10% in yet another. Not all wave lengths carry the same amount of energy, so the total amount of energy depends on how much of the spectrum is at what frequency and how much energy that frequency carries. Higher frequency photons are more energetic. If we were receiving 50% IR and 50% UV, guess which 50% would carry the most energy? Another indication of your lack of comprehension in these matters. By the way, is that repartition in table 8 at the top of atmoshere or at the surface? Do you understand why that matters? Do you know what the repartition is at the surface? If any difference exists, what does the difference tell us? I find it suprising that you could interpret G&T's table 8 as a distribution of energy. They don't suggest that themselves, despite their remark that the frequency (wave length) repartition is often overlooked. That remark itself is misleading; what matters in consideration of an atmospheric GH effect is the amount of solar radiation that reaches the surface, of which only a small portion is IR, precisely because of the fact that the atmosphere is largely opaque to IR, so most of the solar IR does not reach the surface. Which begs the question: why is there so much IR to be measured by instruments at the surface? Surely there has to be some work done by scientists to study this, don't you think? Have you looked for it? What is out there? On another note, the instrument to measure IR radiation is a pyrgeometer, different from an IR thermometer. The only thing you are demonstrating with your measurements is that there is indeed no violation of the 2nd law in the atmosphere. Quite a different thing than measuring how much downwelling IR radiation reaches the surface and what the overall energy balance is across the entire spectrum. The question is, when you use your instrument in the way you described, what exactly are you measuring? What physical quantity is represented by these numbers? How does that measurement contradict the existence of downwelling IR radiation from the atmosphere to the surface (as measured by a pyrgeometer)? Your way of approaching science is very much reminiscent of the people on WUWT who could not understand the phase diagram of CO2 and had to partially recreate the diagram before they could finally grasp that carbonic snow was not going to happen on Earth. The fact that you find in yourself the authority to attempt to pontificate on these subjects is truly srange. Nonsense on top of confusion, endless play on words, mangled semantics used as a basis for rethorical argument, it does not get better as time goes by. The more this thread goes on, the more it reveals about D-K effect, rather than atmospheric radiative physics. G&T knew exactly what the public out there is like, so they knew what they were doing and they should be ashamed for doing so much harm. To prove what? That they could play with words? that atmospheric scientists should be more careful with their language?Sheesh.
  31. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Oh dear. Sorry DB. Bit of brain fade today.
  32. Ocean Acidification: Corrosive waters arrive in the Bering Sea
    I am afraid it is not quite true to say
    In extreme cases, once the saturation state of calcium carbonate in seawater falls below a value of 1 (undersaturation), seawater becomes corrosive to shells or skeletons made of that particular material
    In a strictly thermodynamic sense it is true. However, life is tricksy; omega <1 is a precondition but does not automatically cause CaCO3 dissolution. The calculation of omega is itself non-trivial under some ocean conditions but it has been known for nearly 40 years that aragonite sediments (pteropods) can persist in significantly undersaturated water. In these cases the dissolution is controlled by kinetic effects like surface area and also varies by organism. I mean, really, since aragonite is more soluble why is it used at all? For the answers stay tuned. We have a few other irons in the fire that are keeping us busy at present but we will return with more later.
  33. Infrared Iris Never Bloomed
    Just a general observation about deniers such as Lindzen et al and their psychology. (in Kiwi English) If you investigate the philosophical ancestry of the Corporate Right in America, from which of course the bulk of New Right thinking elsewhere has migrated, one finds it comes from the Austrian conservatives who exported themselves to Chicago. (a point I think that Norman Mailer missed in his "Siege of Chicago"). Anyway it fell on fertile soil as the Mid-West beef industry is about as brutal and conservative as it gets, not to mention truck loads of manure!. Mailer got that bit right! It gave the red-necked conservatism of the beef barons some philosophical respectability. This transplant became the Chicago school which produced Friedman and co. and it exported its economic proselytisers to universities around the world. The formative influence from Austria was Ludwig Von Mises who adapted and reformulated the principle of praxeology which rejects empiricism (i.e. evidence) in favour of a priori thinking with deductive conclusions. This approach in turn has an interesting ancestry deriving as it does from the doctrine of ideas (or philosophical representationalism) which claims mental ideas are the proximal objects of perception. From here we have classical skepticism about external reality. Their conclusion? The Cartesion claim that only the perception of your own ideas and their deductive derivatives are irrefutable. From this point Weber, Hayek and Popper formulated the doctrine of methodological individualism, the claim that all valid reasoning and rational action must be reducible to the thoughts and intentions of rational individuals. Microeconomics is sacrosanct, macroeconomics and societies are collectivist fictions! Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan and Alan Greenspan were also disciples. What has this got to do with the infrared iris hypothesis I hear you chorus? This hypothesis and many others wheeled out by the denial camp are quintessentially a priori claims that either ignore or dispute all empirical evidence. One is tempted to see parallels with religion and in fact many in the denial camp are men of faith. In my experience, walking about with your nose in the Good Book is likely to result in you walking off a cliff or under a bus! This little historical tiki tour (Kiwi neologism) is worth bearing in mind if you are tempted to think the denial camp can be persuaded by scientific arguments.
  34. Plimer vs Plimer: a one man contradiction
    Bernard J.@3: I read the article you linked and all I can do is cringe! As a non-scientist, the rabid Right must be treating me as if I were also a non-thinker. It is the blatancy of the misinformation from allegedly intelligent people like Rinehart, Plimer and Monckton which makes me despair of our civilisation. I'm not saying they are top of the class, but they are clearly smart enough in their own ways. At least John Howard has the excuse of only being a politician and thus susceptible to whatever little birdie last whispered in his ear, but a depressingly large number of parents might give Plimer's new book credence because Johnny helped launch it. As a species, we are showing nothing which fits us, or entitles us, to survival, present company excepted. Sad, really: I quite enjoy being alive and assume my descendants would have felt the same, given half a chance.
  35. Philippe Chantreau at 16:43 PM on 14 December 2011
    2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    "Generally that only happens in summer and spring when hail forms. Clouds form when convection lifts warm air from the surface and the lapse rate then lowers the temperature of the moisture in the air to below the dew point." No. Wrong, and wrong again. Lowering the temperature of the moisture? And you comment about "GH effect" being a misnomer? How do you lower the temperature of a characteristic of the air? Please. Hail happens when turbulence carries large droplets above the freezing level in cumulonimbus clouds. Above the freezing level, it becomes ice, goes back down where it gathers another layer of liquid water, and up again, where that new layer freezes and so on. In very violent clouds, this cycle can be repeated so many times as to create hailstones the size of a grapefruit, which I personally witnessed in Fort-Worth in 1995. It can also be violent enough to make these stones "pop out" of the cloud and land many miles away, over an area where the storm seems distant enough that you'd be safe, sometimes even on an area overlaid by clear skies. If one finds an intact hailstone and slices it, the layers can sometimes be visible. Clouds do not happen only when air is lifted up and cools down, they form when air temperature is brought to the dew point, whatever the mechanism, and there are many. Contrails are caused by addition of moisture, saturating air that would otherwise not see the formation of clouds because it is too dry. Over the past few nights, where I live there were clear skies and the formation of low altitude clouds, sometimes going all the way to the ground (that's called fog), caused by radiation cooling. These clouds persisted through the rest of the night, and well into the morning; they were composed of water droplets, even though temperature fell below freezing. Cloud formation by addition of moisture is also common over large bodies of water in the fall, when the water remains warm enough to evaporate in cold, dry air. The possible combinations for cloud formations are in fact endless and can be very localized. I am not keeping my instrument rating current around here because the MEAs (google it) are high enough to be above freezing during most of the months when IFR conditions prevail. As a result, I would encounter icing (most likely rime ice, you can google that too) throughout all this time and would need an aircraft approved for flight into known icing conditions, and these are usually too expensive for amateur type of operations. These icing conditions happen precisely because clouds formed of liquid water droplets exist at temperatures below freezing. Then there is also supercooled water, you can google that too. Quite an interesting phenomenon. Although it is unusual, it does happen and will give you an instant coating totalling several hundred pounds to upward of a ton, depending what you're flying. "the fact that it sees clouds suggests that the water band is included in it's range." Isn't the water band for water vapor? Can you share your source for the specific range of IR emission for amospheric liquid water? Isn't it rather that these liquid water clouds only relfect radiation, a totally different process that your instrument can not discriminate? Methinks, you're talking about things that you have no true expertise about and that G&T have you fooled with their wordplay, because that's all their paper really is. Whatever.
  36. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    @1171 muoncounter Fluke is a little rich for my budget. But my instrument reads lower than 30C. Is it accurate at that temperature? I don't know, never sent it out. Maybe all I can say is that my instrument reads at the bottom of it's scale. Still mighty cold. If you want to know what your IR thermometer sees fabricate a tube that gives a D-S ratio appropriate for your instrument. Then look through it. I will reiterate, an IR thermometer doesn't care where the photons come from or how far they travel. If you point it at the clear sky it will see the clear sky. Then it is a matter of it integrating the radiant energy in it's window. If my instrument sees a preponderance of gas at -55F or your Fluke sees a preponderance of gas at -30C it is still far colder than the air in the troposphere intervening. And it is very likely that a simple instrument like this sees a fairly narrow radiation band avoiding the CO2 and H2O absorption bands although the fact that it sees clouds suggests that the water band is included in it's range.
  37. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    TOP, First, the purpose of the Wood experiment is not to "determine whether radiation or convection controls the temperature of the air inside the box." The purpose is to determine whether or not in a system where convection is not present radiation alone will have the capacity to control temperature in the boxes. [This is a common — the most common — design for most experiments, by pinning down all variables except the one to be tested.] The experiment fails because it does not accomplish that goal. It does not remove convection from the system to allow only radiation to be a factor. The end result is that one cannot draw any conclusions from the experiment. Fortunately, numerous other, valid experiments have been performed, and this is why all educated scientists today understand GHG theory and dismiss things like Wood's experiment and the people who cling to it. But I asked you a question that you did not answer (or tried to answer snidely, while in the process failing completely to explain your logic): How can an IR-opaque atmosphere possibly lead to global cooling? What exactly do you think is going to happen?
  38. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    @1165 Scandenp From Table 8 on page 22 G&T come up with 45.2% of the energy arriving from the Sun as infrared. 44.8% is visible light and 10% is UV. It is just a standard calculation shown in equation 30. It is based on the sun radiating as a black body at T=5780K. G&T comment that the fact of this distribution is often overlooked in textbooks. He arrives at this by asserting that the Kirchhoff-Planck law is a more appropriate for evaluating sunlight. The Stefan-Boltzmann law is a special case of Kirchoff-Planck. So are you taking exception to his calculation of the portion of radiation received by the earth? Is there some alternative to considering the sun a black body radiator that is more correct? Now he is not saying that this is the spectrum you will see at the earth's surface. He also discusses and accounts for absorption at various wavelengths by the atmosphere. As far as books by Gerlich: (-snip-)
    Response:

    [DB] Off-topic snipped.

  39. (Fahrenheit) 451 ppm
    71, skept.fr, Apologies. I read "and before all to price carbon externalities" as meaning do R&D before any carbon pricing schemes, when I think you are saying you meant to do the carbon pricing first. It would have been more clear (more common phrasing) if you had said "but before that to price carbon externalities." Still, my apologies for misunderstanding. On everything else... this is really all OT concerning the original post, but you are painting two extremes as the only options, either get off fossil fuels instantly, or stay addicted in an effort to turn the second and third worlds into carbon copies of the first. Both paths are paths to ruin. My position is that 451 ppm is far more dangerous than people admit. We cannot go cold turkey off of fossil fuels, but we don't have to, and we're currently not trying in the slightest to do anything at all. We will never live in a world where 7 billion people live like American citizens do today, and any attempt to do so guarantees that we will massively exceed 451 ppm, with an end result that is to horrible to contemplate. Fast, immediate but moderate and considered action is the only viable course, with the necessary goal being sustainable economies and cultures globally, whatever sacrifices that may ultimately entail. Our current track — ignoring the problem — is destined to end badly.
  40. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    @1165 Scandenp From Table 8 on page 22.
    BandRangePortion
    [nm][%]
    ultraviolet0 − 38010.0
    visible380 − 76044,8
    infrared 760 − ∞45,2
  41. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    @DrTsk I didn't say the atmosphere was opaque, Connelly did in a reference pointed to by muoncounter. (-snip-)
    ...the troposphere is largely opaque to infra-red radiation...[http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html]
    You can argue whether it is opaque or just largely opaque. But the Box experiment proves it is not totally opaque to IR. And G&T went into a lengthy discussion of the various (-snip-). Did you miss the question mark in my sentence? The correct answer was (d). It would certainly make sense that at some altitude H2O doesn't show up. I didn't do any experiments that invalidated anything. I'll leave that to G&T. @1167 Tom Curtis Tom, I have to deal with #4 first. If the term "green house effect" doesn't refer to the process by which green houses, cars and atrium skylights heat their interiors when the sun is shining, but instead refers to the supposed means by which the atmosphere keeps the planet warm, what name do you propose for the means by which green houses are kept warm in sunlight? T&G and the others they quote are absolutely right that this term has no business being used to describe what is going on in the atmosphere. (-snip-) I have seen all those curves before and that discussion on heat seeking missiles. The curves certainly don't support Connelly's largely adjective either. While I didn't include the adjective at some point, I did reference the source so it should have been clear what was being discussed. I'll have to apologize for that. I didn't see a curve for the incoming radiation from the sun or a computed specific intensity over the UV, visible and IR spectra at the ground. You would need to show that to make some headway with G&T. @1166 Chantreau A small point, but in a previous post I had stepped out and pointed my IR thermometer at the bottom of rain clouds which I think I mentioned then. I am aware that certain types of clouds like cirrus are comprised of ice crystals, but I was really referring to the clouds that usually pass over my location in which, yes, the temperature is below the dew point, but no, the temperature is not below the freezing point at whatever altitude they are at. Generally that only happens in summer and spring when hail forms. Clouds form when convection lifts warm air from the surface and the lapse rate then lowers the temperature of the moisture in the air to below the dew point.
    Response:

    [DB] Specious, argumentative statements detracting from the dialogue snipped.

  42. Debunking Climate Myths from Politicians
    I nominate John Howard for saying during his launch of Ian Plimer's latest book that teachers should offer the view in schools that climate change is not man-made. Also the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell, who says that climate change “extremism” is the work of “pagans"
  43. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    TOP#1168: Thanks for tech summary on IR thermometry. I refer you to the specs for the Fluke 62, a top-of-the-line handheld: It reads as low as -30 C, a tad above the -48 C (225K) that you report for the temperature of the stratosphere. Also note "this rugged, compact thermometer takes accurate readings from up to six feet away." The D to S ratio is given as 10:1, so at 72 inches, you're reading a circular area 7.2 inches across. Beyond that, who knows what you're seeing? As for frost forming on the ground, surface air temps are standardized about 1.5 m above ground in screened enclosures - so that surface stations aren't contaminated by false readings. Cold air sinks. But you knew that already. You might read the text below the words 'Good Response by John Farley' in the Notes below, which gives specific examples of GT errors.
    Response:

    [DB] Please note that the NOTES section described by muoncounter is not viewable to the lay reader, so the relevant section is reproduced below:

    Good response by John Farley: Cockburn is impressed by a scientific argument, claiming that the greenhouse effect violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics.  He relies on a publication by Gerlich and Tscheuschner (GT), "Falsification of the Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects within the Frame of Physics."5  However, the greenhouse effect can be easily demonstrated in the laboratory.  The BBC broadcast a tabletop demonstration of the greenhouse effect, which can be found at the BBC website (at <news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8394168.stm>).  The video, a little over 2 minutes long, is well worth watching.  Physics is an experimental science, and if theory disagrees with experiment, the theory must be flawed.

    But beyond noting that the GT theory is refuted by experiment, it is worthwhile examining where GT went wrong.  They claim that greenhouse gases in cold upper atmosphere cannot possibly transfer heat to the warmer earth, without violating the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

    Let's be clear about what Second Law of Thermodynamics does and does not say.  Suppose that you have two objects at two different temperatures, and suppose that light (visible or infrared) from either object can reach the other object.  There will be a flow of heat from the hot object to the cold object and a smaller flow of heat from the cold object to the hot object.  There are thus heat flows in both directions: from hot to cold and from cold to hot.

    The Second Law says that the flow of heat from hot to cold is greater than the flow of heat from cold to hot.  Hence the net flow of heat is from the hot object to the cold object.  Note that the existence of a smaller flow of heat from the cold object to the hot object does not refute the Second Law.

    At this point, we return to Cockburn's argument (from GT).  Heat flows from the warm earth to the cold atmosphere and also from the cold atmosphere to the warm earth.  (Heat also flows from the cold atmosphere to outer space, which is even colder.)  The flow of heat from the earth to the atmosphere is greater than the flow of heat from the atmosphere to the earth, so the net flow of heat is from the earth to the atmosphere.

    But there is also a (smaller) flow from the atmosphere to the earth.  This smaller flow keeps the earth warmer than it would be if there were no greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  This is what the greenhouse effect is all about.  On this point, Cockburn has been misled by GT, who have advanced degrees in physics but have made a serious mistake in thermodynamics.

    Readers with a background in physics and calculus can read a comprehensive refutation of the GT paper by Arthur P. Smith, "Proof of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect."  Smith's article begins: "The results presented here are not new."  Indeed, they are over a century old and found in standard textbooks.  Smith has presented the subject in great detail in order to answer objections raised by GT to the treatment found in standard textbooks.

    The greenhouse effect has been known for over a century.  The greenhouse effect is quite a big effect: the Earth's surface is about 59 F warmer than it would be in the absence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  The greenhouse effect was entirely natural until the industrial revolution.  In the last two centuries, the burning of fossil fuels has added a manmade contribution to the greenhouse effect.  It is surprising that the GT paper survived peer review, which is a quality-control policy that makes it harder to publish erroneous papers.  Harder, but evidently not impossible.

  44. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Eric, Mercurio's discussion of cosmic rays and the glacial-interglacial cycle is unsupported speculation on his part. That is is un-peer reviewed, and ignored speaks to the wildly speculative nature of the content. Muoncounter at #41 has other valid criticisms. On your conjecture - you appear to be using a high;y-criticised graph from #38 which has lags/errors of tens of millions of years in order to support a conjecture about oceanic circulation and glacial cycles. Do you think it's plausible for the oceans to work on a timescale as slow as millions of years? Even a few tens of thousands of years is stretching credulity a bit. Nonetheless, a graph covering 500 million years can't hope to support your argument for the glacial-interglacial cycle. So again, what's the mechanism?
  45. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Muoncounter, yes the two effects are parsimonious and TSI is a clear cut forcing while GCR was not a detectable forcing in the historic and paleo events where it can be singled out. My personal theory of climate is that equilibrium is impossible due to factors like the rotation of the earth. Therefore climate is determined mostly by the balance of forcing and energy flows but partly by the feedbacks. GCR is a potential modulator of the fast feedback. Scaddenp, There is evidence for the weather link (in 35 cases in 41 years as muoncounter pointed out), but not evidence for a climate link other than the top graph in #39 and similar which all coincide with and can be explained by TSI.
  46. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    TOP. Have you read the notes at the bottom of this page - and followed the links? Could save you a bit of grief.
    Response:

    [DB] The NOTES sections are not accessible to the lay reader.

  47. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Not to mention the unproven link between clouds/weather and GCR... I notice mercurio 2002 has single cite and no followup by mercurio either. Guess we are not the only ones unconvinced.
  48. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Eric, You've given yourself a difficult task. If 'the lack of events causes warming,' you'll need a signal to trace. Unfortunately for that, low GCR flux rates correspond to the highs of the solar cycle (see the graphs here, specifically figs 1 and 4 for the years 2000-2004 - peak of cycle 23). So if solar activity peaks -> TSI in any way, wouldn't any GCR-induced warming be swamped by the coincident uptick in solar forcing? If so, you'll have a hard time pinning any warming directly to the lack of GCRs. I always find it difficult to prove anything by demonstrating a lack of evidence, but I know others in the community who don't hesitate to do so. There certainly isn't any basis for saying that you shouldn't give it a try.
  49. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    Be10 is complicated because climate affects deposition rates. With C14, you have a calibrated production curve going back 4000+ years thanks to tree ring data but then issues after that. Be10 is also used to date how long rock exposed (Be10 production from cosmic ray hitting O2 in SiO2). As I understand, you are nowhere near being able to infer flux from this because of timescale issues but this doesnt have deposition rate issue so could be used to supplement ice core data in future.
  50. Galactic cosmic rays: Backing the wrong horse
    muoncounter, I agree, 35 events is meaningless for modern climate analysis. The other problem is that they are going in the other direction from what I am, they are showing events to cooling. I am postulating that the lack of events causes warming over the very long run (100 to 1000 years or more as shown in the top graphic in #39).

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