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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Comments 94951 to 95000:

  1. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    I posted google scholar links I read each article on the first page of each scholar link Scheinder was more fair minded but he is gone now. He also failed to make his case about cloud cover as a positive feedback. In general, the IPCC report contains 18 significant flaws I can see that directly affects trend analysis and.the probability ranges, and level of confidence. NOAA data shows paleoclimate data where the global mean temps were higher and life flourished. The IPCC greatly neglects analysis of such data. Is the report 100% useless? NO. It does need considerable redesign.
  2. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Chemist, Why are you resorting to Gish gallop @39? I said nothing about the IPCC. You say, "there are papers published by Lindzen that describe the power of aerosols" Why then if they are so powerful as you claim and as you allege Lindzen claims, does Lindzen ignore them in his calculations as noted above? I stated that it has been established in the literature that aerosols (depending on their size and type) can affect cloud properties by changing their albedo, as well as other properties-- so on that we agree.
  3. Meet The Denominator
    Poptech "Can a scientifically valid paper not be cited? (Yes or No)" - Maybe. Papers that are irrelevant, repetitious, or poorly written can be valid, yet not worth citing. It used to be (>25 years ago) that valid and useful papers could slip through, as nobody reads all of the journals, but with today's search engines that's become quite the rarity. "So all papers that have had comments on them are incorrect? (Yes or No) " - Again, Maybe. It means that someone in the field objected to that particular paper enough to submit a comment. It definitely means that at least some of that paper is contentious - whether poorly argued, poorly evidenced, or contradictory to other work. Usually the comments are clear enough - they will either break the paper or the comment itself. The thing is, Poptech, citations are the 'vote' of people in the field, indicating what is relevant, meaningful, and worth consideration. It's like a jury - trial by a body of your peers. And as I stated earlier, in the post you really didn't respond to - a lack of citations indicates a lack of worth to the field, and some of the worst papers out there are simply ignored. They don't need or get peer-reviewed comments pointing out problems unless somebody is using them as an arguing point - they'll vanish on their own.
  4. Follow-Up Case Study in Skepticism
    #73 I've had a chance to review the Dai, Trenbreth, Qian (2004) paper. From PCA, we have observational evidence of surface warming since the 1980's (temperature + precipitation) and drying in regions prone to droughts during El Nino events. The PC1 temporal patterns seem enhanced by the surface temperature data. And we've had more El Nino's than La Nina's in the '80's and '90's. But to connect these results directly to anthropogenic global warming takes a leap of faith. This looks like another case of circular reasoning, assuming the conclusions in the premises. Here's an AMS article that presents possible alternative hypotheses that also should be considered. I conclude that the CO2-induced AGW signal from the observational drought evidence is inconclusive.
  5. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Chemist1 - I dont find suggestions for scholar searches remotely helpful. Please post proper link to specific papers that you think show that current understanding (as stated in IPCC assessment) is flawed. Pointing to well known science doesnt mean much to me. That's all acknowledged. Where is support for specific iris effect in wake of Lin, Rapp, Chambers, and other papers? With even Lindzen backing away, I am curious to know what you mean. I am also very curious as to how you explain the current temperature trends if sensitivity is lower than 2.5 (not to mention the empirical determinations for climate sensitivity).
  6. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Chemist1 said: "Also I am adding data from other studies showing how aerosols and cirrus clouds interact to form a potent negative feedback." Such as the NIPCC report ;-) ?
  7. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    #37 Chemist1: That is my issue with the IPCC. They only do meta analysis, and surveying of other's work, and at times do it well, but very often do it poorly. They also censor other's work that is not on line with a so called consensus. That's their job, to review, analyze and report on what the greater scientific community is publishing in climate science. Their Job is not to do original research as a body. Why condemn them for something that they are not given the task to do? As for censoring others work please give a citation to back that assertion.
  8. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Yes Daniel I read the papers and comments from NASA prior to posting I even understand their interpretations, claims and main arguments.
    Moderator Response: [DB] I have never specifically asked, nor was I intending to ask, that you do so (re: NASA). That one of Great Karnak's bits?
  9. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    pbjamm, Yes, I think that's right. The way to get out of the explanation as e.g. given by Dana (#7) is indeed to climate that a) an hitherto undefined/unknown climate forcing was at work besides the known ones or b) the responsde to a known climate forcing is enhanced (e.g. the response to solar variations being enhanced by cosmic rays). I think both arguments (a and b) are rather weak and unsubstantiated though, esp when taking into account multiple periods from the earth's past.
  10. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Chemist: "nothing points to a rapidly warming planet" Taking the Moberg et al graph at face value, it took nearly 800 years to change from MWP peak to LIA low, a deltaT of approx 0.8 degrees C. That's 0.01 degrees per decade. The prior warming was ~0.5 degrees in 400 years or 0.013 degrees per decade. Now we are on a global trend of 0.15 degrees per decade, more than 10x the rate of these so-called natural variations - with trends of 0.3 deg/decade in the northern hemisphere extra-tropics. What part of that doesn't point to rapid warming? If you take issue with this temperature reconstruction, we have several prior threads on the MWP/LIA and other use of proxies; I suggest you review all sources of data prior to dismissing this out-of-hand.
  11. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Higher temps in the topics: more then less high altitude cirrus clouds. Large ice absorbs heat, smaller ice reflects and low altitude water clouds also tend to reflect.
  12. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Albatross, I know. That is my issue with the IPCC. They only do meta analysis, and surveying of other's work, and at times do it well, but very often do it poorly. They also censor other's work that is not on line with a so called consensus. No, Albatross, there are papers published by Lindzen that describe the power of aerosols, as well as, those by Christy and Spencer. Also I am adding data from other studies showing how aerosols and cirrus clouds interact to form a potent negative feedback. Decadal time scales are not always the proper procedures when we consider how cloud response times are on the order of 24 hours or so and negative feedbacks are a year or so in length. Rob: please see Spencer and Christy's work confirming an iris effect with more spatial resolution and temporal analysis.
  13. Meet The Denominator
    PT - Got a IPCC WG1 reference to E&E? (ie - suggestion that physical scientists might read it?). Anyway, to you rebuttals are just "another opinion" (and everyone is entitled to one, right?). I would not have been surprised to Loehle referenced but this goes to the nub of the problem. It appears that you struggle to make a critical assessment yourself of science, not a problem that everyone has. Papers and counter-papers are the normal scientific discourse but assume that the readers can make critical judgement. Rubbish like that doesnt need rebuttal since it obviously contributes nothing whatsoever to the scientific discourse. It is so clearly flawed that only hardened denialists would mistake it for having something to say. Why waste time? Since you do not admit to any data, now or future, that is able to change your mind, I dont think further debate is warranted.
  14. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    chemist @33, "Aerosols and ice nucleation influence the iris effect" That is a statement of fact, the suggested link between GCRs and CCN is anything but an accepted fact. You are grasping at straws. Also, as shown in the main post, Lindzen downplays the role of aerosols and neglects their importance, yet here we have you claiming that they influence the "iris effect". Yes, aerosols can affect the albedo and precipitation efficiency of clouds, but the purported "iris effect" does not require the impacts of aerosols, at least not in the context in which they are being discussed here. Where does Lindzen claim that aerosol forcing affects the "iris effect"? And if he did, that would run counter to his claim that aerosols are not a significant player-- in other words he would be contradicting himself. This is yet another demonstration of the incoherence of arguments made by skeptics.
  15. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Chemist1 (31, ad infinitum) (Nice Yoda imitation, BTW. Props!) An Evaluation of the Proposed Mechanism of the Adaptive Infrared Iris Hypothesis Using TRMM VIRS and PR Measurements Anita D. Rapp, Christian Kummerow, Wesley Berg, and Brian Griffith Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado "In doing so, this study addresses some of the criticisms of the Lindzen et al. study by eliminating their more controversial method of relating bulk changes of cloud amount and SST across a large domain in the Tropics. The current analysis does not show any significant SST dependence of the ratio of cloud area to surface rainfall for deep convection in the tropical western and central Pacific." Examination of the Decadal Tropical Mean ERBS Nonscanner Radiation Data for the Iris Hypothesis Bing Lin, Takmeng Wong, Bruce A. Wielicki, and Yongxiang Hu Atmospheric Sciences Research, NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, Virginia "On the decadal time scale, the predicted tropical mean radiative flux anomalies are generally significantly different from those of the ERBS measurements, suggesting that the decadal ERBS nonscanner radiative energy budget measurements do not support the strong negative feedback of the Iris effect." So the first two studies that came up using your linked search parameters do not support your contentions about Lindzen's semimythical "Iris Effect". I lost interest in flogging a dead horse at that point. "Pirates cause global warming" retains equal viability to the "Iris Effect." Pot=Kettle Yo-ho, yo-ho... The Yooper
  16. Hockey stick is broken
    A recent reconstruction of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool reported by Woods Hole Institute found that for the most important body of water in the Pacific the MWP sea surface temperatures were comparable to today's. http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=7545&tid=282&cid=59106&ct=162 Woods Hole Institute's report on the MWP in the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool
  17. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Chemist1... But once again, all of Lindzen's work still is merely one data point suggesting low sensitivity. When we have many many other lines of evidence that point to higher sensitivity. Lindzen focusses exclusively on this one aspect of climate while ignoring everything else. He absolutely could be correct but the problem then becomes how to explain the vast amount of empirical data that suggests higher climate sensitivity. What is the magical unknown mechanism? Again, if I were here pounding the table about the research showing 10C for climate sensitivity, logically I would be on equal footing with the case you're presenting.
  18. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Chemist - as Bart suggested, please do some research on forcing efficacies. I discussed the subject previously here. pbjamm - you understand the argument correctly. If the MWP were hotter, it would mean the climate is more sensitive to a given radiative forcing, which would mean that it's also more sensitive to CO2. If sensitivity is low, either the MWP, LIA, Roman Warm Period, etc. must all have some additional unknown cause, or they must not have been very warm/cold. RickG - not only did Chemist use the term "alleged" but he also said "which I doubt", despite the data presented in the article. One has to wonder what more it would take to erase Chemist's "doubt".
  19. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    #3 Chemist1, If you look at the graph in figure 1, it clearly shows that the highest point, which is the Moberg et al (2005) reconstruction is a full 0.5 deg. below current instrumental records. I don't understand why you would say "alleged if true". Its factual data right in front of your eyes.
  20. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Aerosols and ice nucleation influence the iris effect. Lindzen is the main progenitor of the iris effect. Lindzen also examines aerosol effects as negative feedbacks, therefore, my post is relevant for this thread.
  21. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    I meant to comment on this earlier but got side-tracked until now. rhjames said: "The IPCC has admitted that cloud formation and influence is poorly understood." To me that statement seems to imply that the IPCC was hiding something and finally admitted to it. Would it not have been more accurate to say the IPCC "stated" or "commented" instead of "admitted"? Or am I just misinterpreting the statement?
  22. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Bart Verheggen@4 I want to make sure I understand the argument correctly so bear with me. If climate sensitivity were low (skeptic view) then based on what we know of the forcings at the time the temp would have been lower. Either sensitivity is higher than they claim or some other undefined/unknown force was at work in the MWP. I feel as though I am still missing something.
  23. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Chemist1, Climate sensitivity gives the temperature to any climate forcing, whether man-made (e.g. CO2) or natural (e.g. the sun). It differs relatively little for different forcings, as exemplified by a factor called "efficacy" (http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2005/2005_Hansen_etal_2.pdf) And don't forget that CO2 also has natural sources and is strongly implicated in climate changes in the history of the earth (see e.g. Richard Alley's AGU 2008 talk).
  24. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Daniel you are. Misinformed,gravely so. Please look at the data and the links to journals I posted
  25. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Actually a warmer MWP would mean a climate sensitive to something other than CO2 and other greenhouse gases. The alleged 0.5 degrees cooler MWP even if true, +which I doubt) nothing points to a rapidly warming planet leading to forseeable dangers from CO2 emissions.
  26. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    rhjames said: "The IPCC has admitted that cloud formation and influence is poorly understood." As have I (starting with the very first sentence). But the funny thing is that e.g. in the case discussed in this post, it is the contrarians who implicitly build their argument on pseudo-certainty about a particular magnitude of aerosol forcing. I.e. they are guilty of what they routinely accuse mainstream science of. rhjames: "The CERN CLOUD experiment will hopefully contribute some useful data." See some preliminary results from CLOUD here. As you'll see, even the strongest link in the alleged chain of causality (ion induced nucleation) is hardly detectable, and even then in a few experiments only (I was there during one of the semi-succesful runs, and remember the comment "completely underwhelming" from someone who strongly believes in the cosmic ray-climate link). The weaker part of the link, whether those cosmic ray generated particles actually make it to big enough sizes to matter for cloud formation is much more questionable still. The second part (on cosmic rays) is not really part of this post though. Thanks for your feedback, Albatross.
    Moderator Response: [muoncounter] See the ever-popular It's cosmic rays thread. Bart, that's interesting news about the experiment producing 'completely underwhelming' results.
  27. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Rob, "evidence potentially supporting the hypothesis.[5][6]" Look at the discussion page. Someone (unsigned) added "I am not aware of a specific consensus view on the Iris effect" within the last 24 hours. This is why it is wise to be skeptical of Wikipedia, especially when statements are made without substantiation. Recall someone named damor*el was an editor.
  28. citizenschallenge at 05:43 AM on 23 February 2011
    Empirical evidence for positive feedback
    I just had a chance to review this entire thread, being inspired by chat mat who's mantra is: "there's no proof for CO2 driving global warming." I agree with John @60, Philippe is pretty near a saint for his repeated patient and info laden replies. I just wanted Philippe know that folks do read that stuff and his efforts are appreciated and helpful. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ #61 Philippe Chantreau at 12:18 PM on 10 February, 2008 ". . . . (although I'm glad the fiat lux comment was kept, it is kinda funny)" ~ ~ ~ Yes it was! [thumbs up smilie] ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ #63 GMB at 14:36 PM on 10 February, 2008 "So where is the evidence that goes contrary to all this? No-ones got it and they are all bullshitting about it." ~ ~ ~ The problem with evidence is that until you decide to study it in good-faith it doesn't do you any good. The evidence is out there you just need to be willing to read it.
  29. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    I know this is going off topic but I'd like to point out one statement by Chemist1. "These works are by authors who tend to believe the essence of the IPCC report but this work is of far higher quality than anything the IPCC has ever attempted." Can you please tell me what work the IPCC does? You do realize that the IPCC produces a report on climate change research. It does not actually do research, other than to research the published literature. The IPCC produces an "Assessment Report."
  30. Meet The Denominator
    And... "A one-time author, Roger Pielke Jr, said '…had we known then how that outlet would evolve beyond 1999 we certainly wouldn’t have published there.'"
  31. Meet The Denominator
    Hmmm... Just read this on RealClimate: "...Hence E&E’s exclusion from the ISI Journal Master list, and why many (including Scopus) do not consider E&E a peer reviewed journal at all." Interesting that many do not consider E&E to be a peer reviewed journal.
  32. Meet The Denominator
    688 pbjamm Denier-bots live! Why are online comments’ sections over-run by the anti-science, pro-pollution crowd? I told ya so...
  33. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Might I humbly suggest that arguments about the fantastical "iris effect" be moved to another thread? This thread is primarily about aerosols, and how "skeptics" like Lindzen and Singer have also mangled the science of aerosols and aerosol forcing.
  34. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Thanis Albatross. Ljungqvist extended his proxy reconstruction through the decade of 1990-1999. Half of his proxies (15) extend through 1989, and one-third (10) through 1999. But he also plots the instrumental temperature record, unlike the Idsos. Which, considering the relatively low number of proxies extending to the late 20th Century, is a smart thing to do.
  35. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Addendum: I will also show why the Iris effect is alive and well even if under the radar for the moment.
  36. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Oh but I did look at those links. I see overestimation of the Earth's climate sensitivity and treating high unknowns and uncertainties as known and certain when they are not. Are you familiar guys and gals with the work in Darwin with the aircraft Proteus and the like? There are a bunch of papers I have looked at published in world renowned journals that discuss the effects of aerosols on precipitation, ice nucleation, and resulting cloud formation/ice size. Larger ice in cirrus clouds tend to absorb heat and smaller ones tend to reflect it back to space. Interesting reads. Some of the papers focus on the decrease, others the regional increase, in precipitation alone while others are more ambitious and look at both and why they might occur. Even when assuming climate change, AGW, specifically and the like, there are huge uncertainties discussed. Here are a few papers I have read and I think you should to below. Keep in mind these are not so called "skeptic"papers or papers that attempt to rule out global warming, but peer reviewed papers produced with the work of the top pilots, meteorologists and climate scientists in the world. They, themselves believe in global warming, but the amount of conclusions they state they cannot make, the level if uncertainty, the complexity of the system and variability analyzed is worth the read. They clearly discuss mechanisms and propose potential mechanisms of warming and cooling of aerosols, and discuss ice nucleation in a manner that one can easily extrapolate and infer the take home message: some GCM's are getting better, but there is a lot of work to do. These works are by authors who tend to believe the essence of the IPCC report but this work is of far higher quality than anything the IPCC has ever attempted. When non-skeptics point to such unknowns and level of uncertainty, the IPCC assigned probabilities dwindles. Nature laughs at mathematics and we need far more data. You really have to look at these papers and analyze them. Again they are not skeptics but their work provides evidence for a skeptical perspective, based upon real science. Here: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=aeosol+effects+on+cirrus+clouds+iris+effect&as_sdt=0%2C8&as_ylo=2010&as_vis=0 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=Darwin+project+cirrus+clouds&as_sdt=0%2C8&as_ylo=2010&as_vis=0 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=effects+of+aerosols+on+cirrus+clouds&as_sdt=0%2C8&as_ylo=2010&as_vis=0 Next post I will show why more scientists have become increasingly skeptical, even in climate science. Also even those who are not skeptical are realizing we cannot make accurate projections about global mean temperature based on the work above and other works I will post when I can open my file folder. I have specific papers in mind, but the above are a good start.
    Moderator Response: [Daniel Bailey] You are hardly presenting an evidenciary chain of logic here. Statements and phrases such as "world renowned journals", "top pilots, meteorologists and climate scientists", "more scientists have become increasingly skeptical, even in climate science" and "Also even those who are not skeptical are realizing we cannot make accurate projections about global mean temperature based on the work above" are the logical equivalent of unsupported hearsay and amount basically to appeals to authority. In a court of logic you have done the equivalent of testifying against yourself.
  37. Meet The Denominator
    While this was fun for a while I think it has been amply demonstrated that Poptech is unwilling to give any ground. No matter what evidence is presented it will never be good enough. No flaw in his list is too big to be explained away. No discrepancy in AWG theory is too small to create doubt. No typo is too pedantic to argue. No time is too wasted.
  38. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Very interesting update on the Iris effect on wikipedia. The last line reads: "However, there has been some relatively recent evidence potentially supporting the hypothesis.[5][6]" The references are Lindzen 2009 and Spencer 2007. But no reference to Trenberth's response. Interesting.
  39. Hockey Stick Own Goal
    Dana, good work. I was dumbfounded when I looked at page 10 of the Prudent path document-- they did not include the temperature data from the observational record-- that is totally misleading, because the end date for the Ljungqvist reconstruction was around 1990. Is that end date correct?
  40. Dikran Marsupial at 04:10 AM on 23 February 2011
    Meet The Denominator
    Poptech@686 The implication that other climatology journals does artbitrarily reject skeptics papers is also an unsubstantiated statement, but that doesn't seem to worry you. "By the way, E&E is not a science journal and has published IPCC critiques to give a platform critical voices and ‘paradigms’ because of the enormous implications for energy policy, the energy industries and their employees and investors, and for research. " Sonja A Boehmer-Christiansen 3 September, 2009 emphasis mine.
  41. Meet The Denominator
    For those interested, Gavin Schmidt has been threatened with a libel suit (UK) by E&E.
  42. Dikran Marsupial at 03:50 AM on 23 February 2011
    Meet The Denominator
    Poptech@679 The skeptic side do not get their papers arbitrarly rejected from any journal. They get rejected because they have (in some cases blatantly) obvious errors in them. They don't get rejected from E&E though. Just because she didn't state that she didn't favour one side over another, neither did she say she was not biased. There is no acceptable "political agenda" for the editor of a science journal, full stop, end of story.
  43. Meet The Denominator
    Just a question (anyone). Does E&E allow rebuttals to be published in their journal or on their site?
    Moderator Response: Yes, they do, they published refutations of Beck's paper for example.
  44. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Mike @21 makes some excellent points, especially number #2.
  45. Radiative forcing by aerosol used as a wild card: NIPCC vs Lindzen
    Again the contrarians' arguments are found to be inconsistent, at odds with observations, and relying on a whole lot of 'what ifs'. It is sad that people who want to wish AGW away will uncritically accept such seriously flawed science and logic. This is a pretty damming refutation of Singer, Idso and Lindzen by Dr. Verheggen. More where that came form please.
  46. Dikran Marsupial at 03:30 AM on 23 February 2011
    Meet The Denominator
    Poptech@676 You may think you addressed that point at the beginning of the thread, but what you apparently don't realise is that what you wrote in that post is at least as great an indictment as the original quote. Having an explicit editorial policy to preferentially favour one side of an issue is deeply unscientific.
  47. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Fred Staples - "Higher is colder" is certainly part of the greenhouse effect. So is band broadening as greenhouse gases increase. Both effects (dropping the emissive power of GHG bands in the upper atmosphere and widening those bands) reduce overall thermal emissivity of the Earth to space. Reducing emissivity, as per the Stefan–Boltzmann law, reduces the power emitted to space at any particular temperature. This causes an imbalance, energy accumulates, temperatures rise, emitted power returns to match incoming power - and we're a bit warmer. Now - if you think the radiative greenhouse effect is contradicted by the second law of thermodynamics (as per the various canards of the G&T paper), I suggest you go discuss that on Science of Doom. SoD has written far more (and far better) than I on that subject.
  48. Meet The Denominator
    Poptech - KR, "If a paper is viewed as correct, and especially if considered seminal, original work, it will get cited." "So all papers that are cited are correct?" Please refrain from strawman arguments, Poptech - I clearly did not say that. If a paper is viewed as correct, judged as a worthwhile contribution by others in the field, it will get cited. If it is not, it won't, and will vanish away. And if it is viewed as incorrect, but still cited by some, it may get a peer-reviewed comment. Most often not - usually it's not worth the considerable effort to publish about what is being ignored. Sometimes (quite rarely, actually) a paper will be controversial yet correct, will attempt to overturn large parts of the consensus but be rejected. Early plate tectonics papers did not receive acceptance - not until a mechanism (liquid mantle movement) was proposed in a testable fashion. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - when the evidence was forthcoming the consensus changed. Like it or not (and your list seems to indicate that you do not), consensus views and the incorporation of worthwhile work into further research built on it is a key part of science. Scientists stand on the shoulders of giants - and on the shoulders of midgets, too - everyone who adds a piece to the puzzle contributes. Junk gets ignored.
  49. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    I am sorry to have delayed a reply to the comments on my post. I quite literally lost the thread. The explanation you offer, Very Tall Guy, is the only plausible explanation of the AGW effect. It is the preferred explanation of the founding fathers over at RC, and you can find it in the Rabbet rebuttal of the G and T paper, (immediately following their absurd multi-layer, back-radiation explanation). It begins with the lapse rate, a function of gravity and specific heat, which has nothing to do with radiative effects. Without this lapse rate there would be no AGW. Increasing CO2 in the cold, dry, upper atmosphere, impedes outgoing radiation, and moves the effective radiation point to higher (and therefore) colder temperatures. Radiation is reduced, incoming radiation remains the same, and the whole atmosphere and surface warms up to compensate. As your drawing demonstrates, the lapse rate moves to the right. In the trade this is the “higher is colder” explanation. It is plausible, but is it true? There was no sign of unusual global warming until the mid-seventies, when satellites began to measure temperatures across all levels and latitudes of the atmosphere. The UAH charts at Global Warming at a Glance show the temperature movements in the lower and upper troposphere, every month. At the very least these temperatures movements should be the same. In fact, the upper atmosphere temperature has hardly changed, while the lower temperature increase is 1.4 degrees C per century. Several years ago RC claimed that this contrary effect was the result of cooling in the stratosphere, which distorted the readings. (If the facts don’t agree with the theories, so much the worse for the facts). Sadly, from 1995 to date (15 years), lower stratosphere temperatures have been constant. Before that, minor falls appear as step changes associated with violent volcanic eruptions. (HadAT radio-sonde results). So there we are, Ned et al. The only plausible AGW theory is doubtful, at best. The others, (back-radiation, heat trapping, blanket-style insulation etc) are either absurd or directly contradicted by experiments (Woods and Angstrom’s) or the second law. Incidentally, the point of the second law is that energy is not capable of doing anything (work or heat) without an increase in entropy. One final point. It is always entertaining to see my fellow physicists at RC patiently explaining that everything with a temperature above absolute zero will radiate energy. They then go on to exclude Nitrogen and Oxygen in the atmosphere, leaving it to the greenhouse gasses (in the thin upper atmosphere) to radiate most of earth’s surface energy to space.
  50. CO2 is not a pollutant
    I'm so bored of this nonsense, have you actually ever grown anything BP or are you an armchair horticulturalist? Extra CO2 works in e.g. grow houses, green houses, and sealed tunnels because the plants are in a protected environment with little Fred from the potting shed cuddling them 24/7 Put them outside of that environment where they are no longer isolated from other environmental influences, such as rainfall, sunlight and insects and all hell breaks loose. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080324173612.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/04/060412204831.htm Personally I'm an amateur who knows jack poop about horticulture after 10+ years of trying, I might even get the hang of it in another 30+ years if I lucky and assuming we have a functional environment... One thing I have learned from all this is that if you mess around with the balance of these systems they can and they will kick back very, very hard and in ways you never ever thought about... But the monkey just has to play with the switch...

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