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L.J. Ryan at 10:19 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Philippe Chantreau 797 "I am talking about a spherical blackbody receiving solar radiation at a constant rate in w/sq m, in the solar spectrum. If, by any means, that blackbody's ability to radiate energy out is impaired, what will happen to its temperature?" As long as the emissivity remains constant, i.e. remains a blackbody, the temperature remains unchanged. Got it Philippe. The spherical blackbody temperature will remain the same. -
scaddenp at 10:10 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
e, damorbel is consistently and repeatedly avoiding the question as to whether he will even philosophically accept the idea of an experiment as the way to settle a question. (asked here. This to me implies someone only interested in arguing with no intent to resolve anything, perhaps even a paid troll; or someone who prefers a faith-based position. I suggest there is no point discussing with him at all. -
adelady at 09:43 AM on 24 March 2011CO2 has been higher in the past
Don@49, you're pretty right. But ..... The devastating consequences we foresee relate to our experience of the world. Our grandchildren''s grandchildren will have a different - horrifying to us - experience of the world. They will have more knowledge than we do and, unfortunately, direct evidence of the wrongs that must be righted. They won't be able to recreate our congenial world. Certainly not in their own lifetimes. But they will be able to gain satisfaction from doing things that they know will benefit their own grandchildren's grandchildren. Staring into this abyss can make us weep. It can also galvanise us into determination that we should, must, will do whatever we can to speed our own societies onto a better path. Fatalism and depression are not good options. Geo engineering is, in fact, the thing that must be done some time or other to extract, absorb, sequester the accumulated geological release of carbon. Tree planting and similar bio-engineering of the carbon cycle in the surface and atmosphere won't be enough - but they must also be done thoroughly, extensively, permanently. Me? I'm pretty sure that the greedy will find a way to make some cash out of both bio and geo-engineering once they realise societies want it done and are willing to pay for it. The greedy, like the poor, are always with us. But their activities don't =always= have to be damaging. -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
damorbel Please clarify the point you made here: "If a photon is absorbed by a surface, the surface gains the energy that was contained in the photon (by conservation of energy)". - This would only be true if the surface were at 0K i.e. it is not itself radiating." The question does not ask whether the energy absorption is balanced out by emissions, just whether an absorbed photon leads to an energy gain. Are you saying that it does not for an object above 0K? If not, what happens to the energy of the photon? Where did it go? As for how the energy is emitted, keep in mind the Stefan-Boltzman Law. The amount of energy radiated is dependent on the temperature of the material, not whether it has absorbed an extra photon recently. That means if the surface is constantly emitting and absorbing photons, and we increase the number of photons being absorbed, the only way for the surface to emit that extra energy is to get warmer. Do you agree with this? If not, what happens to the energy? How can the extra energy be emitted without the object getting warmer (again keeping in mind Stefan-Boltzmann)? If it isn't emitted, and it doesn't raise the temperature, what happens to this energy? -
2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
L.J. Ryan - "Do you agree?" No. The theoretic black body work (including Kirchoff) is based upon a "white light" excitation, equal across all frequencies, absorption and emission by the black body based upon the absorption/emission spectra. The climate, on the other hand, is driven by a band-limited solar input which does not match the thermal emissive spectra, is not greatly affected by greenhouse gases, and hence represents a fixed input, not a match to the thermal spectra at all. And, as I stated earlier, given a fixed input power, and a need to radiate that (or change internal energy and hence temperature), emissivity and temperature have an inverse relationship. As effective emissivity of the planet goes down, temperature goes up. Asserting that the Earth follows "white light" illumination with interdependent absorption/emission is a complete mistake. It's a fixed input power outside the GHG affected thermal spectra, which is sufficient to radiate the incoming 240 W/m^2. And the black body temperature required to radiate that power is a lower limit on the temperature of a gray body of lesser emissivity. -
adelady at 09:15 AM on 24 March 2011Those who contribute the least greenhouse gases will be most impacted by climate change
"They"? 'They' seem to consist of China and India if I read the rest of your #88 correctly. I didn't have either of them in mind when I based my comment on Grameen Bank driven activities in Bangladesh. I was thinking more along the lines of Bangladesh and a dozen or more other countries in Africa and Asia with very large proportions of their population still at or near subsistence farming levels. "Capacities are the same..." The gradualism arises because of the lack of capital, including that required for grid infrastructure. The mere fact that the Bangladeshi example is financed by the Grameen Bank is a pretty good indicator that we're talking very, very small amounts of capital. It's not possible to buy or use a tiny fractional part of a centralised FF or hydro power plant and build it up piece by piece to a larger, wider power supply network. The much vaunted centralised power plants can't do that, they're all or nothing propositions. And the associated grid is built from large power stations outward whereas this Bangladeshi arrangement is about independence and freedom from reliance on such a centralised arrangement. Interconnectedness can follow rather than precede or prevent access to power supplies. Many countries are too poor to build enough centralised power stations, and certainly to instal the extensive grid needed to reach everyone in the further reaches of the countryside. Why should development of such communities, villages and towns passively wait for delivery of power they can't currently afford to buy anyway? Far better to build from the bottom up. Building local wealth and education from surplus income earned through judicious use of a small power supply, thereby allowing quicker eventual participation in the larger economy, looks like a winner to me. -
actually thoughtful at 08:59 AM on 24 March 2011The Libertarian Climate Conundrum
RSVP: "So it looks like this whole focus on CO2 is pointless." Come again? CO2 is one of the main culprits of climate change. It is a stand in for the other gases, as they are minor, or in the case of methane, break down to CO2 anyways. Not sure where you are going there. Also, a cap and dividend is actually a tax cut for the poor because everyone spends the same at the pump, but it is a much higher percentage of a poor person's income. If it is kept completely neutral (ie dollar for dollar) - it has no impact whatsoever, other than providing the missing price information in a painless way. Twas a smart Republican who thought that up. -
Don Gisselbeck at 08:59 AM on 24 March 2011CO2 has been higher in the past
Yes, "technology will save us" is a slightly higher level of speculation than "God will save us". There is still no evidence that geo engineering will save us even if it is implemented. The implementation will require funding mostly from people who have demonstrated that they would rather see civilization destroyed than suffer the slightest diminution of their wealth and power. -
damorbel at 08:48 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Re 786 Tom Curtis,point by point 1/ Yes 2/Not relevant. - The spectrum of samples plays no part in heat balsnce (Gustav Kirchhoff 1862 'Ueber das Verhälteniß zwischen dem Emissionensvermögen der Körper für Wärme und Licht'. 3/"If a photon is absorbed by a surface, the surface gains the energy that was contained in the photon (by conservation of energy)". - This would only be true if the surface were at 0K i.e. it is not itself radiating. 4/"If energy is absorbed by a surface, all else being equal, the temperature of the surface will rise, and the surface is warmed. - See 3 above. 5/"However, the surface of the Earth is typically warmer than the atmosphere, so it itself is radiating energy to the atmosphere, and is radiating more energy than it receives from the atmosphere." - Very far from clear. Two surfaces close to each other can both be radiating very strongly but without energy transfer. Energy is only transferred if there is some difference in temperature. 6/"Therefore, absent any other energy sources, the net effect of the interchange of photons between atmosphere and surface is that the surface cools and the atmosphere warms." - Yes. (But see 5/) 7/" However, if the atmosphere was not there, or did not radiate IR radiation: (a) the total energy emitted by the surface would still be the same, because that energy is solely a function of its temperature and emissivity; but (b) the surface would receive less energy because it would not be absorbing photons emitted by the atmosphere." - Regards (a)'Energy' is not emitted (see the answer at 5/) - Regards (b)The surface does not get energy from the atmosphere.(see 5/.) 8/"Therefore, over a given period of time, and ignoring all other energy sources, the Earth will cool quicker without an atmosphere containing GHG than it will with one." - This is very different. Now you are talking about 'The Rate of Cooling (Heating). The question of cooling (heating) rate is entirely a function of the albedo (if you take the 'rate' as a % of the temperature). The rate of temperature change (by radiation only) of any body is strongly dependent on its reflectivity, whether it has an atmosphere or not. If a body has a highly reflective surface it means there is very little material to either emit or absorb radiation, so heat transfer is minimal. 9/ -----> end. - No comment. -
dana1981 at 08:45 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
johnd - that still doesn't support RSVP's statements. For example, if the amount of cloudcover never changed, it would cause zero change in global temperatures, even though it plays a large role in the Earth's albedo. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:40 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
e @ 62... Careful using the word "denominator" around me. Last time that happened we ended up with a train wreck of a 750+ comment thread. ;-) -
Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Rob, Yeah the Anderegg results are discussed in the no consensus thread. It is telling that virtually the same result was obtained with a very different method and larger sample size (in the high expertise category). I have yet to see anything from the skeptic side with a robust denominator, much less two independent studies coming to the same result. -
johnd at 08:20 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
dana1981 at 06:54 AM, the RSVP statement is possibly based on daily observations where apart from the day night cycle, clouds are the next biggest factor in controlling the amount of solar radiation reaching the ground. Also perhaps as far as the energy budget goes, 23% of the average 340 watts per square metre total incoming solar radiation being reflected or absorbed by clouds. -
Gilles at 08:16 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
MuC : was kind of ironical. I'm not doing science with polls.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] The irony is that nobody is doing science with polls. Anybody who thinks otherwise has misunderstood the point, the consensus is an indirect indication of the strength of the scientific argument (useful for those not in a position to assess the strength of the argument directly), but it isn't the scientific argument itself, or even a small part of it. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:16 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Ah, that would be Anderegg 2010. -
Rob Honeycutt at 08:11 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
You can compare the results of Doran 2009 with almost any poll results and get a sense of the statistical significance of the numbers. A poll response of 1000 is very significant, especially out of such a small population. I would also venture to guess that the results are probably skewed high because a skeptical scientist is probably more likely to respond to such a questionaire. On top of that, didn't Andregg 2010 come up with very similar results using different methods? That would also suggest a robustness within the methods. -
dana1981 at 08:02 AM on 24 March 2011Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
Good point, Albatross. Really we're quibbling over hundredths of a degree in these comments. The main points are that there was a significant anthropogenic contribution to the early century warming, which wasn't as rapid or large as the current warming, which is almost entirely anthropogenic. -
Albatross at 08:00 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Thanks NewYorkJ @56, Lawrence Solomon is part of the group which is being sued by Dr Andrew Weaver (an eminent Canadian climate scientist) for libel. The National Post and Financial Post have a very long and sordid history of libelling climate scientists, misinforming, distorting and cherry-picking -- they simply cannot be trusted when reporting on climate science and have zero credibility. DeepClimate has more on their antics. Sad to see that Harry @51 has fallen for their misinformation. -
les at 07:58 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
So post 51 is plagiarism? Not the firstclimate [--snip--] to do that, eh? -
NewYorkJ at 07:38 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Looks like Harry's piece comes from Solomon. Lawrence Solomon's rant -
Albatross at 07:35 AM on 24 March 2011How Suffolk County Community College students contributed to the Guide to Skepticism
Hi all, No worries John C., I was just being facetious :) -
Albatross at 07:33 AM on 24 March 2011Pre-1940 Warming Causes and Logic
Dana et al., Something else to keep in mind is that the peak in the early 1940s was/is probably too high-- that would reduce the amount of warming observed during the early part of the 20th century. I cannot recall the source, but the peak in global temperature anomalies in the early 40s is in part attributable to changes in the way sea-surface temperatures were measured during WWII. Specifically, British ships were not reporting SSTs (using the bucket method) during the war, while the US ships were, and they used temperatures derived from engine intake water which would have a slight warm bias. There is a citation for this, but I cannot track it down right now--looking after the Albie chicks.Moderator Response: [DB] Try here (keep the chicks happy!). -
NewYorkJ at 07:19 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
#51: "The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth — out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, astronomers and meteorologists." That's strange. One of the study's conclusion involves specifically meteorologists, and with researchers at NASA part of the survey, one would expect that would include physicists, astronomers, etc.. Where is the evidence they were excluded? http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf "Neither was academic qualification a factor — about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma." I like this part. Where's the denominator? Those without a PhD made up 10% of the participants. Those without a PhD or Master's made up 3%. And speaking of qualifications, one would think published climate scientists would be more qualified than general Earth scientists.Moderator Response: [DB] Hot-linked URL. -
DSL at 07:10 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Oh come on, muon. It's worth talking about, even though Harrybot will probably not be willing to discuss the finer details. ------- Interesting, Harry. And here I was basing my understanding on the science. Were you? The bandwagon is notorious for breaking down in the middle of the highway. Both the original study and your analysis are based on the assumption that all scientists--or those with degrees in science--understand the physics and dynamic context. This is not nearly true. A number of scientists have been dragged before Congress to give their "expert" testimony, and some of these scientists--perhaps surprisingly--have been shown to be talking out of their depth. If 1000 out of 1000 geologists or meteorologists told me the planet was warming outside of any known cycle, I'd still ask "how." It's important to understand how statistics and consensus affect the general democratic population, but it has little bearing on the actual science--except in that funding allows greater exploration (and climatologists have, given the importance of their area, been relatively not so good at getting funded). If we come to the conclusion that the Zimmerman study is as you describe (including your "if by whiskey" bits), what does it ultimately mean, other than the general populace simply doesn't have the time, means, motivation, ability, or training to become responsible voters where this issue is concerned? The bottom line for me is that no scientist has come close to presenting any comprehensive alternative theory that is supported by the evidence and physical model as thoroughly as the theory that human-sourced atmospheric CO2 and CH4 are warming the planet. There are no competing theories. There is only positionless pot-shooting. HS1:"The researchers thus decided to tout responses by those Earth scientists who not only published mainly on climate but also identified themselves as climate scientists." (No! Not publishing climate scientists! What do those fiends know?!) HS2: "Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualification were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy." (but I thought you just said . . .) -
dana1981 at 06:54 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
RSVP #52 -"This would mean that the effect of white cloud tops reflecting sunlight has less effect on temperature than CO2, but of course this is not true"
Would you care to provide some evidence to support your claim besides "of course"? I've found that when somebody prefaces a statement by saying something like "obviously" or "of course", the statement which follows is based on little more than their "common sense", and is thus usually wrong. These terms are also used to dissuade people from questioning their factually incorrect assertion. "I don't have to prove it, because it's obvious!". Cadbury #53 - in the future, please take the time to understand what a person is saying before describing them as "preposterous" or "embarassing" [sic]. First off, floods do not happen in every geographic location every year. Secondly, floods have different magnitudes. Maybe that particular area of Tennessee floods once every 10 years, but the flood might only be as large as the 2010 flood once every 1,000 years. In which case it is a 1 in 1,000 year event. This is a really basic concept. It's not Dr. Cullen who should be embarrassed right now. -
CBDunkerson at 06:52 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Jay, I think you might benefit by slowing down and reading through some of the 'Most Used Skeptic Arguments'. As it is you seem to be flitting from one wild accusation to the next without stopping to breath. There is a ridiculous amount of information on the site and alot of these issues have been addressed previously. Why not read up and then find the proper threads to lay out in detail the strongest objections you can think of? Rather than some random person at a single hearing said something about a 'thousand year flood'... which obviously has about zero bearing on the overall question of whether AGW is a significant issue or not. -
CBDunkerson at 06:47 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Jay, are there floods of that magnitude in that location every year? I hope you'll agree the answer must be no. At which point we might ask, 'well how often on average does a flood of that magnitude happen in that location'... and apparently the answer to that based on available data is about every thousand years. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:47 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Well if you want to say that Tennesse had not had a flood that bad in 1000 years, that is different. However, we also know that there have been far, far more powerful storms in the past. In fact, I would say if you start at 1970, I could offer a counter example to any weather event that was stronger in the past.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] (correction) That isn't the claim either. The claim is not that a flood that bad had not occurred in the last 1000 years, but that a flood that bad is expected on average every 1000 years. There is nothing to prevent two "one in a thousand" floods happening in consecutive years, it is just very unlikely (one in a million assuming independence). Thus your challenge is also misguided as it misrepresents the statistical nature of a statistical statement. -
Preventing Misinformation
Dr. Cadbury >There are floods every year. I think it is fairly self-evident that when someone refers to a 1 in a 1000 year flood event, they are talking about a flood in a specific location with a specific severity, not the idea of flooding in general. I find it fairly disingenuous that you are attempting to spin this rather straightforward concept into a point of contention. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:40 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Dana I'm sorry but that's really just an embarassing, false claim. Yeah, here's my evidence that it's wrong. There are floods every year.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] Apparently you are unaware that the term '100 year flood' has specific meaning; it does not occur every year (it would then be called the 'annual flood'). [Dikran Marsupial] Not all floods are of equal severity, the claim was that you should expect to see a flood of that severity or greater once in a thousand years. It doesn't mean that there will be a flood once in a thousand years. It is generally consideredna good idea to make sure you properly understand a claim before trying to refute it. -
RSVP at 06:40 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
"...carbon dioxide therefore qualifies as the principal control knob that governs the temperature of Earth." This would mean that the effect of white cloud tops reflecting sunlight has less effect on temperature than CO2, but of course this is not true, just as the nonsense herein quoted. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:33 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Okay through my digging I found some equally stupid. It turns out that you can use climate models as an “instant replay” to recreate a specific weather event. Think of it like doing an autopsy, except it’s being performed on a specific extreme weather event. The European heat wave of 2003, an extreme weather event that killed over 35,000 people, offers the best example of how climate models can help us see the global warming embedded within our weather.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] See the thread on extreme weather; nothing 'stupid' about it. At least make an attempt to find out how things work here.
[not muoncounter] ...and comment further on that thread, not this one. -
Gilles at 06:33 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Harry, thank you for this good piece of science ...Moderator Response: [muoncounter] And thus we see the last of Gilles' credibility. -
Gilles at 06:30 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
DM : I'm just examining the formal logics of the argumentation , and I found loopholes in it. Of course it is easy to find cases where "everything wasn't held constant" : for instance just after a strong El Niño event, in 1999 or in 2011, temperatures were decreasing although forcings are supposed to increase steadily, precisely because "everything else" wasn't constant (major rearrangement in oceanic temperature distribution). So now you can argue that on a sufficient longer timescale, things are constant on average,but that's no more "pure logics" - you have to justify it technically - and they're technical issues, for instance the multidecadal PDO or AMO - so again you can argue that they aren't that important, but what about the explanation of the break of the temperature curve around 1940, etc, etc... and don't say that it is just for a "general audience", that is precisely the kind of issues that must be discussed carefully.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] Pointing out a theoretical loophole doesn't falsify the argument or the logic; for that you need to show that the loophole has actually ocurred, otherwise it is mere pedantry/rhetoric. As for the El-Nino event, I did mention the expected correllation is in the trend after excluding natural climate variability, so again you are demosntrating that you are not paying attention to the responses to your posts. There is a difference between careful explanation and pedantry; there is a good reason why the arguments are presented at SkS in different articles - so that each argument can be discussed carefully at an appropriate level of abstraction. They are discussed carefully, just not on this particular page, and quite rightly so. -
dana1981 at 06:27 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Cadbury #48:"Heidi Cullen at one point claimed that some flood was a 1 in a 1000 year event or something, I would hope we can all agree it was a preposterous claim."
It's entirely common to label a particular weather event as 1 in 100 year, 1 in 500 year, etc. The 2010 Tennessee floods were 1 in 1,000 year event, for example. So unless you provide evidence that Cullen's statement was wrong, no, I don't agree it was a preposterous claim. Especially if she was referring to the floods in Tennessee, in which case not only would her statement not be preposterous, it would be entirely correct. -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:26 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
Well because its in a 3hr video and it would be hard to go through the whole thing to find the exact spot. I shall attempt though. -
Harry Seaward at 06:24 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
The 97% number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. However, in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout. The two researchers started by altogether excluding from their survey the thousands of scientists most likely to think that the Sun, or planetary movements, might have something to do with climate on Earth — out were the solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, astronomers and meteorologists. That left the 10,257 scientists in such disciplines as geology, geography, oceanography, engineering, paleontology and geochemistry who were somehow deemed more worthy of being included in the consensus. The two researchers also decided scientific accomplishment should not be a factor in who could answer — those surveyed were determined by their place of employment (an academic or a governmental institution). Neither was academic qualification a factor — about 1,000 of those surveyed did not have a PhD, some didn’t even have a master’s diploma. To encourage a high participation among these remaining disciplines, the two researchers decided on a quickie survey that would take less than two minutes to complete, and would be done online, saving the respondents the hassle of mailing a reply. Nevertheless, most didn’t consider the quickie survey worthy of response — just 3,146, or 30.7%, answered the two key questions on the survey: 1 When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? 2 Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures? The questions posed to the Earth scientists were actually non-questions. From my discussions with literally hundreds of skeptical scientists over the past few years, I know of none who claims the planet hasn’t warmed since the 1700s, and almost none who think humans haven’t contributed in some way to the recent warming — quite apart from carbon dioxide emissions, few would doubt that the creation of cities and the clearing of forests for agricultural lands have affected the climate. When pressed for a figure, global warming skeptics might say humans are responsible for 10% or 15% of the warming; some skeptics place the upper bound of man’s contribution at 35%. The skeptics only deny that humans played a dominant role in Earth’s warming. Surprisingly, just 90% of the Earth scientists who responded to the first question believed that temperatures had risen — I would have expected a figure closer to 100%, since Earth was in the Little Ice Age in the centuries immediately preceding 1800. But perhaps some of the responders interpreted the question to include the past 1,000 years, when Earth was in the Medieval Warm Period, generally thought to be warmer than today. As for the second question, 82% of the Earth scientists replied that human activity had significantly contributed to the warming. Here the vagueness of the question comes into play. Since skeptics believe human activity has been a contributing factor, their answer would have turned on whether they consider a increase of 10% or 15% or 35% to be a significant contributing factor. Some would, some wouldn’t. In any case, the two researchers must have feared that an 82% figure would fall short of a convincing consensus — almost one in five wasn’t blaming humans for global warming — so they looked for a subset that would yield a higher percentage. They found it — almost — by excluding all the Earth scientists whose recently published peer-reviewed research wasn’t mostly in the field of climate change. This subset reduced the number of remaining scientists from over 3,000 to under 300. But the percentage that now resulted still fell short of the researchers’ ideal, because the subset included such disciplines as meteorology, which Doran considers ill-informed on the subject. “Most members of the public think meteorologists know climate, but most of them actually study very short-term phenomenon,” he explained, in justifying why he decided to exclude them, among others. The researchers thus decided to tout responses by those Earth scientists who not only published mainly on climate but also identified themselves as climate scientists. “They’re the ones who study and publish on climate science,” Doran explained. “So I guess the take-home message is, the more you know about the field of climate science, the more you’re likely to believe in global warming and humankind’s contribution to it.” Once all these cuts were made, 75 out of 77 scientists of unknown qualifications were left endorsing the global warming orthodoxy. The two researchers were then satisfied with the findings of her master’s thesis. Are you?Moderator Response: [muoncounter] It appears this piece is cribbed verbatim without any citation from denial blogs; a violation of Comments Policy here. -
CBDunkerson at 06:24 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJR #793: So now you are disavowing your own prior arguments? Or wasn't it you who wrote; #715: "Low temperature, (lower energy) atmosphere adding radiative heat to the warmer surface is a violation of the 2nd law." #758: "See this process (unlike the magic box) abides the 2nd law, Hot to Cold." #765: "So regardless of re-radiation and reflection, the atmosphere can NOT warm the warmer Earth...Period." You have said all these things. Right there in the thread history. Yet now you deny it to avoid answering my challenge; "LJ Ryan, I note that you continue to make nonsense claims about greenhouse gases being unable to redirect energy from a colder area to a warmer one while refusing to answer how a parabolic mirror does so." How does the observed reality that EM radiation travels from the surface of a parabolic mirror to the hotter object at the mirror's focal point not disprove your various statements quoted above? -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:20 AM on 24 March 2011Preventing Misinformation
There was a hearing several months ago in congress, the first group consisted of Lindzen, Cicerone, Cullen and several others I cannot recall. Heidi Cullen at one point claimed that some flood was a 1 in a 1000 year event or something, I would hope we can all agree it was a preposterous claim. She also gave the highest IPCC estimate for warming that they predict, which I thought was misleading.Moderator Response: [Dikran Marsupial] There is nothing preposterous about the claim at all per se; there is a well established field of statistics called "extreme value theory" that is the basis for statements of exactly that form. There is an excellent book on the subject by Stuart Coles, see page 49 in particular, the one in 1000 year figure is what is known as the "return period". -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:14 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
In the meantime, I asked him about co2 saturation and here is what he had to say. As for CO2 saturation, yes, it is saturated in the sense the warming due to more CO2 is proportional to the logarithm of the CO2 concentration, not to the concentration itself. I am attaching some graphics to illustrate this "saturation." You will have to know a fair amout of physics to follow the remaining discussion. The first slide shows the "logarithmic" response of temperature to increasing CO2 levels. As you know, log (0) = - infinity, so what is meant by logarithmic is that the response function fits a logarithm pretty well for CO2 concentrations above 100 ppm or so. The reason for the "logarithmic" response is shown in the subsequent slides, the first of which has some blackbody curves superimposed on the MODTRAN model spectrum. For CO2 concentrations above a few 100 ppm the CO2 absorption band at 666 cm^{-1} (about 16 microns) is nearly "saturated," and the earth emits at about the ~ 220 K temperature of the tropopause over most of the band. More or less CO2 makes almost no difference in the central part of the band, as you can see from the figures. The exceptions are: 1) the sides of the band, where the CO2 emission is from altitudes below the tropopause, where the atmosphere is warmer and therefore a better emitter of radiation; 2) from the extremely narrow spike in the center of the band. This is the intense "Q branch" (as opposed to the much broader "P and R branches" that make up most of the band. The very strong Q branch is radiating from altitudes in the stratosphere, where it is warmer than the tropopause. The radiation efficiency from the sides of the bands does diminish as you add more CO2. Almost all of the direct greenhouse warming due to increasing CO2 comes from line broadening. You can see from the figures that it is not a very big effect. Qualitatively, satellite measurements of the earth's spectra look almost exactly like the MODTRAN model calculations attached here. The details are different for different locations, for example, the Sahara desert, or the tropical Pacific Ocean. And the calculations are for clear air. The picture changes dramatically when there are clouds -- which is another story. The bottom line is that the logarithmic response (other things being equal) is very solid physics if you ignore any changes in cloud cover or water vapor. From what data I have seen, it seems that clouds and water vapor do not cause much amplification and may in fact attenuate the direct warming from added CO2.Moderator Response: [muoncounter] See the existing thread on CO2 saturation. Try to put comments on the appropriate thread; use Search. [not muon] Or peruse the List of Skeptic Arguments -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:12 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
@Rob Do you much about the Bern model? Is it important to the IPCC assessment? -
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. at 06:10 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
@Rob I asked Dr. Happer about the surface station versus satellite record and will post the response once I have it.Moderator Response: Not on this thread, because I will promptly delete your comment. Post it on the correct thread I pointed you to. -
Philippe Chantreau at 05:53 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
To moderator: OK, the trolling has indeed gone on long enough. Sorry for adding to it. -
DSL at 05:51 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Me: "In other words, why doesn't the solar cooker cool to near absolute zero when pointed at the open night sky?" LJ Ryan: It fact, it's temp. drops well below ambient. However the atmosphere, as you know, is not absolute zero. Thus potential drop is limited by atmos. temp. and the rate of drop is determined by delta T between cooker contents and the sky. If the atmosphere is same temp as the cooker no cooling occurs. If the atmosphere is warmer then the cooker, the contents warm. Or, rather, if the cooker is radiating energy at the same rate that the atmosphere is radiating at it (removing conducted energy from the equation), then the cooker will remain at the same temperature. If the atmosphere is not adding radiated energy to the cooker, the cooker--if unable to shed via conduction (e.g., in a vacuum box)--will cool to near absolute zero when pointed at the night sky. But, of course, all atmospheric layers do radiate, and some of this radiation is absorbed by warmer surfaces and warmer atmospheric layers. Here's the key, though: the current temperature of any atmospheric layer or material within the system is that specific temperature because the atmosphere is already adding its radiated energy. The system is dynamic. if we take away the atmosphere, the surface eventually (quickly) reaches a lower equilibrium temperature. That the atmosphere doesn't heat the surface or warmer atmospheric layers is false. The heating is already taking place, and the result is the equilibrium temp. It's a mistake to think that this equilibrium temp is a baseline temp to which atmospheric energy is added. If we increase the radiative density of the atmosphere, the radiation has a greater chance of being redirected (in all directions). The maze is more complex, the pachinko machine has more pins, the dam is higher, etc. etc. The amount of available, usable energy in the lower layers increases because it's around longer in those layers. Do I have this right? -
muoncounter at 05:50 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJR: "neither he nor I believe earth is a blackbody." Now that's a radical change of heart, as you specifically described earth's blackbody temperature here. And you've totally ignored the complete defenestration of your argument by KR (#773-775) and CBD (#785). As far as 'fundamental flaws' (#797), you haven't proven them; a reference to someone else's blog and 'google solar cooker' do not cut it as scientific source material. -
Gilles at 05:39 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
Well DB actually you seem to have charged yourself with a burden : convince skeptical people that you're right. For if your only goal is to convince those who are already convinced, all the work you're doing is not very worthwhile. So you seem to have chosen some way of convincing people : sticking on scientific facts and argue scientifically. I'm curious to know if you have good arguments to be convincing. So far, what I've seen is only reassessed things that everybody who is interested in this issues has already seen thousands of time. I try to present the issues I see with your arguments. Now if your answer is "you're not a good guy, you haven't made your homework", well, technically, you have missed your goal. For if you think that the goal is to convince a vast majority of people of giving up all FF, to avoid a catastrophe for the whole mankind, (obviously not an easy one), it's not a good idea to insult these people who make some efforts to come here - but try to present their own argument and explain why they don't believe a priori in everything you're saying. That's not "my" choice, that's "your" burden. So let's make some comments on the "logics" presented in your thread "1. Increasing the level of a greenhouse gas in a planet’s atmosphere, all else being equal, will raise that planet’s surface temperature." True " 2. CO2 is a greenhouse gas." True "3. CO2 is rising." True " 4. Therefore (given 1-3 above) the Earth should be warming." Wrong - you forgot "all else being equal". It just disappeared. Nothing insures that "all else " stay equal " 5. From multiple converging lines of evidence, we know the Earth is warming." time scale missing, but ok, let's assume it's at decadal time scale "6. The warming is moving in close correlation with the carbon dioxide." wrong. It has some correlation, but not very close - CO2 is exponentially rising whereas temperature has a much funnier behaviour. " 7. The new CO2 (as shown by its isotopic signature) is mainly from burning fossil fuels." Probably true. " 8. Therefore the global warming currently occurring is anthropogenic (caused by mankind)." Obviously simplistic - which part ? how much? who said that "everything else was equal"? so rather poor logics -not a very good teacher in my sense.Moderator Response:[Dikran Marsupial] Stating that all things not being equal does not make it true. If you want to show that point was wrong, you need to specify what conditions are not equal and why they invalidate the hypothesis. Also while CO2 is rising exponentially, the forcing is logarithmic in CO2, and hence the expected warming trend is linear (once internal climate variability is considered). That is the expected correllation and it is pretty much what is observed, so that point is at best pedantry over the exact meaning of "correlation". Lastly, of course it is simplistic, this is a blog for discussion of the science for the general public, of course it is going to be simplistic. Also being simplistic doesn't make it wrong. For a less simplistic explanation, quantification, see the IPCC WG1 scientific basis report. DBs logic is fine.
[DB] In case anyone's curious about the correlation of warming and carbon dioxide, r = 0.874 for ln CO2 and dT 1880-2008.
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2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LJ, Please clarify your statements where you say "Adding more radiation of the same magnitude does NOT change output". What precisely do you mean by "more" radiation of the same "magnitude"? By magnitude are you referring to the frequency of the radiation? Let's say we have an object in a vacuum absorbing one photon per second with a wavelength of 1um for all photons. If we increase the rate of incident energy to two photons per second, but they all remain at a wavelength of 1um, are you saying the amount of radiation emitted by the object does not change? -
Philippe Chantreau at 05:37 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
You can't formulate anything in a coherent fashion. You're the one evading my question with irrelevant gibberish. I am not talking about adding radiation of any magnitude, whatever that means. I am talking about a spherical blackbody receiving solar radiation at a constant rate in w/sq m, in the solar spectrum. If, by any means, that blackbody's ability to radiate energy out is impaired, what will happen to its temperature? About this: "it's temp. drops well below ambient" How does it square with this? "If the atmosphere is same temp as the cooker no cooling occurs." It drops below "ambient" but then if the temp is the same as the ambient atmosphere, no cooling occurs? More incoherence and more nonsense.Moderator Response: Let's end the sniping here, there is nothing constructive coming from it. -
NewYorkJ at 05:31 AM on 24 March 2011Why we have a scientific consensus on climate change
"The answer is, 97 out of 100 agree that the climate is changing and that we are causing it. From my own experience, such a high proportion is quite unusual. As scientists we are trained to be professional sceptics, who doubt everything and who moreover love a good debate. Therefore putting 3 scientists together in a room sometimes results in an argument with 5 different opinions." Actually, the reason I think it's unusual is that it's an issue that has political/economic implications, and such issues tend to bring out a lot of industry shills, ideologues, and contrarians seeking fame. -
L.J. Ryan at 05:28 AM on 24 March 20112nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
DB "You have yet to demonstrate the physical-ness of your position, as other participants have pointed out to you several times." Physical-ness of MY argument. Yet you proponents contradict one another when TRYING to explain the lack of "physical-ness" of my contentions. You press for answer on behalf of whom you agree. Yet chastise skeptics for re-posting question which remain unanswered.
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