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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 103351 to 103400:

  1. Renewable Baseload Energy
    What Dana has not talked about is the smart grid to control loads, HVDC lines for more efficient transmission of power. North Dakota has plans to sell wind power to Chicago over HVDC lines. Today we have the equivalent of the dumb grid. There is very little control over peak loads. Being able to shut down loads intermittently would be able to reduce power by about 20%. Also tieing the grids together in a national grid would bring the cost of power due to the ability to have more competition. With a cap and trade program or some funding source, we would be able to modernize our power lines to handle our energy needs more intelligently.
  2. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Camburn, The emails were not leaked. Police have revealed that at around the same time as the CRU emails were hacked, several other climate centres (e.g., CCCMA) survived attempted hacks into their systems. The thieves also hacked into the RealClimate server and uploaded the stolen emails together with a message.
  3. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    kdkd@37, Like most "skeptics", Camburn, is clearly partisan beyond the pale. While several posters here, including me, and the Sir Russell Inquiry have acknowledged that UEA/CRU may have not dealt with the vexatious FoIA issue appropriately-- Camburn, like most "skeptics", will never concede any wrong doing by the likes of McIntyre (Wegman maybe?) and company. More importantly, last time I looked CRU/UEA did not break any FoIA laws, despite what some on the internet are claiming. Camburn et al. need to please read this, in which they state: "A subsequent letter to UEA from the ICO (29 January 2010) indicated that no breach of the law has been established; that the evidence the ICO had in mind about whether there was a breach was no more than prima facie; and that the FOI request at issue did not concern raw data but private email exchanges". The double standard of the skeptics only acts to make the credibility that they so dearly crave even further out of reach. They are fooling no-one except themselves. In fact this whole series of James has been a delightful illustration that "skeptics" have no interest in objectivity, facts or truth. They seem much happier to entertain conspiracy theories, malign scientists and perpetuate myths and misinformation to distract themselves and others from the fact that the planet is continuing to accumulate energy, mostly because of anthropogenic GHGs. To be honest, I find such behavior by the "skeptics" rather sickening.
  4. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Daniel Bailey (#67), Thank you for quoting Christidis et al. They are comparing a change of 85 deaths per million due to cold [CRM] from 1976-2005 to a change of less than 1 death per million due to heat [HRM]. I hope we can agree that 1976-2005 was a period of warming so they are saying that the increase in mortality due to rising temperatures is orders of magnitude smaller the decrease in cold related mortality (at least in England). Anyone who has lived in England for any length of time (as I have) will agree that a contrary conclusion would be risible. When it comes to adaptation, very few households in the UK have air conditioning whereas most have excellent heating systems. That should tell you something about the dangers of heat vs. cold in that country. I am puzzled by your comments about apples, breadfruit and Na'vi. This is about heat vs. cold.
  5. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Kooiti Masuda@5: I agree. We should be building thorium reactors. Known tech, deff baseload power, low co2 footprint. I live in a state that has tremendous wind resources. The problem is, when the wind stops, it stops over a very wide area. And it does stop, and stops at times for over 48 hrs. During that lull, there still has to be energy delivered from a base facility.
  6. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    kdkd: Of course I am opposed to the leak of the e-mails. That also is a non-issue as far as climate. The issues that deal with climate is the mis information on both sides. The models do not project the certainty that some would have you believe. The temp data gets pulled in both directions. The sensativity of climate to co2 is a very much loaded question. There are holes in the AGW hypothosis. These are known. The sad thing is that they are not being addressed as quickly as I would like them to be. The trend in temp since 1850 has been up. The long term trend since 8000 BP is still down. These are known facts. There have been climate shifts that dwarf what is occuring now with no good explanation. They are called DO events. Does co2 affect climate? Most certainly to a degree. With the above being said, CRU still did not follow the law.
    Moderator Response: Nobody claims that climate models are certain. Everybody knows there are still large uncertainties to do with aerosols, cloud feedbacks, etc. However, the climate sensitivity predicted by the models is confirmed by independent paleoclimate evidence. D-O events are a red herring; they were characterized by opposite temperature trends in the two hemispheres, and that is not the case with the current warming. - James
  7. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Camburn #36: So you're also vigorously opposed to the theft of the emails from the CRU?
  8. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    archiesteel: @34. CRU did not follow the law. It is that plain and simple...and yes it is. Phil Jones said they didn't. The law is the law. Why should I support breaking of a law?
  9. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Marcus: Renewable costs in Minn: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/11/23/wind-power-electricity-rates/
  10. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    muoncounter #27 My analysis is pretty crude, and does not confirm to climate science conventions. However if you're interested you can see it starting here.
  11. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Unavailability of wind and solar power cannot cancel together even at the national scale. If we want to hedge it at a national grid, it requires huge energy storage capacity. I think there must be local implementation of energy storage. Actually I am not optimistic about fulfilling energy demands of modern societies by renewable sources. I think we should try to redesign local energy demands to match local energy availability in space and time.
  12. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    The crowd often called climate change skeptics consists of a broad spectrum from curious amateurs to outright demagogues. They are not coordinated as a single body. A member may be angry when he is misrepresented as another part of the spectrum. Apparently people at CRU suspected that McIntyre was an agent of fossil fuel interests (based on circumstantial evidence), but it was contrary to McIntyre's self-identification. Even McIntyre's organized campaign to flood CRU with FOIA requests now seems to have been planned by himself with a few friends. But one can suspect that it was planned by capitalist think tanks. I think that this mismatching of perception amplified mutual disbelief both before and after the exposure of e-mail messages.
  13. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    #26: "observation of increasing oscillation of longer term cycles is nicely consistent" Except that wdwk pins his story on Landscheidt's solar cycles (see #25). In this scheme, its the sun and only the sun. Note that in these 'papers', the references are mainly to other papers by the same author; isn't that an odd feature for scientific research? "results from my regression analysis suggest that the most likely causal agent for this increase is CO2" Excellent -- did you post this?
  14. Renewable Baseload Energy
    In order for renewable sources to provide baseload power, the system has to have extra capacity to collect and store energy, over and above it's rated output, and just how much extra energy it can capture on any given day is likely to be highly variable subject to prevailing weather conditions. I am wondering if there are any advantages to be had by running output below capacity in order to store energy, especially when there will be no advanced knowledge whether the system will accumulate energy for one hours output or six hours output on any given day, over putting all the output into the grid as it is being generated. I can understand that storage would be necessary for a stand alone unit, but isn't it just unnecessarily increasing costs and lowering efficiencies if such systems were made part of a national grid?
  15. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    @Camburn: if this has nothing to do with the science, why do deniers keep using Climategate as a "watershed moment" in their efforts to prove AGW is a hoax? The fact is, there was an organized campaign to harass honest, hard-working scientists, and you seem okay with that. It doesn't cost much to condemn this, just a few words, and yet you won't...why?
  16. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    @damobel: the graph simplifies how the heat exchange mechanisms work. You can't look at such a graph and claim it is supposed to accurately represent the path of each photon. Others have explained this clearly. If you still can't understand it at this point, then one of two things must be true: a) this is beyond your intellectual capacity, or b) you're not debating in good faith. There are a lot of trolls and astroturfers here, please don't join their ranks and make a serious effort to read the material on this site before repeating the debunked junk peddled by professional climate deniers...
  17. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    So Eric, you're believing the claims of ClimateAudit (the people behind the FoI requests) instead of the claims of multiple, independent sources who say otherwise? That doesn't sound very genuinely skeptical to me!
  18. It's the ocean
    h-j-m. "The logical consequence of this claim is that rising atmospheric temperatures (due to anthropogenic global warming) causes rising ocean temperatures." But this is NOT what is happening. It is not warm air that is warming the sea - it is increased radiation (sun + backradiation) that is warming the sea. Ie radiative heating not conductive heating. And in that setting, it is warm ocean that is warming the air, not the other way round.
  19. It's the ocean
    Yes, there is a net flow of heat from hotter objects to cooler objects. That flow results in the cooler object becoming hotter and the hotter object becoming cooler. Hence, if the oceans were warming the atmosphere they would be cooling.
  20. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    I agree that it isn't relevant to the scientific basis. Why do so many self-described skeptics make it out to be a "final nail in the coffin of AGW"? As several here have explained to you, there is nothing plain & simple about this. Do you think CA was wrong for organizing the intensive campaign of vexatious requests?
  21. It's the ocean
    If the ocean was feeding atmospheric warming, the oceans would be cooling. Boy, I don't follow this statement. If the oceans were feeding global warming they would have to be warmer than the atmosphere for heat transfer to occur. Heat flows from hotter to colder always whether it is conduction, convection or radiation. Since the oceans radiate very little it has to be conduction and convection. This is kind of like the beer illustration in reverse. Problems in assessment of the ultraviolet penetration into natural waters from space-based measurements interestingly seems to disregard or at least down play the role of the atmosphere (CO2 and air) in the absorption of UV in the oceans. The ozone hole, aerosols, clouds and the nature of the ocean with it's life seem to be bigger drivers of the absorption of UV. UV is of course a big player in warming the oceans.
  22. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    #25, dhogaza "McI and the CA crew knew that CRU could not release the small amount of data deemed to be proprietary by a few countries which owned it. McI and the CA crew peppered CRU with FOIs demanding this data anyway" The bulk of the FOI's demanded either data that was not proprietary or to see the agreements that stated that the data was proprietary. See http://climateaudit.org/2009/12/29/the-foi-myth-2/ for more info.
  23. Skeptical Science now an Android app
    Oh, I forgot to mention: the first time I downloaded the app, some of the topics appeared twice and some appeared to be missing. I think this was due to an interrupted download. I uninstalled and downloaded again, and that fixed the problem.
  24. Skeptical Science now an Android app
    I love this app almost as much as I love the website, thank you. @NewYorkJ (#10), I find the app useful for more than face-to-face battle with contrarians. I dip into it when I have downtime, to brush up on some of the arguments. The arguments are in brief form, but there is still enough detail for study.
  25. Renewable Baseload Energy
    BTW, Dana, you forgot to mention Vanadium Flow Batteries. There is strong evidence to suggest that this could be an ideal way to store wind power for release when wind is not available. King Island Wind Farm-for example-is able to provide 50% of the communities power needs from Wind alone because of the batteries. It would probably only be 1/3rd that amount if they relied on the wind power *only* when the wind was available.
  26. Renewable Baseload Energy
    Camburn, when coal power was new, the power cost about US$3.00/kw-h (in 1990, inflation adjusted terms) & its only been in the last 60 years that electricity from coal-fired power fell below the US$0.20/kw-h (again, in 1990 inflation adjusted terms)-& that required much more tax-payer assistance than solar or wind has ever received. So as a new technology, I'd say that solar thermal is off to a very good start. Obviously as economies of scale are achieved, the price will fall below then $0.10c/kw-h range. Also, your claims about Minnesota don't really stack up too well either. According to the EIA, electricity prices in Minnesota have only risen by 0.1c/kw-h (barely a 1% rise), & are still below the average US rate of 11.53c/kw-h. So it seems that, on all counts, your claims just aren't backed up by the facts!
  27. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    bibliovermis: how is it relevant to the scientific basis? It isn't. It is a legal issue, nothing else. Do you think it is relevant?
  28. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    I find it interesting that WDWK after challenging me to analyse data before drawing conclusions then went silent when it transpired that I had already done so. The indication from my data analysis is that ENSO is a redistributor of heat, and is not a driver of global warming. WDWK's observation of increasing oscillation of longer term cycles (#13) is nicely consistent with this paper from Nature on Early-warning signals for critical transitions. The results from my regression analysis suggest that the most likely causal agent for this increase is CO2, as it overtook solar variability as the most important driver of temperature anomaly some time in the mid-20th century.
  29. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Re: gallopingcamel (67)
    "At the risk of shooting my own arguments in the foot, it would be very strange if Christidis et al. had failed to conclude that CRM [Cold Related Mortality] is much greater than HRM [Heta Related Mortality] in England."
     I must respectfully point out that Christidis et al. concluded no such thing. From the Abstract:
    "Cold related mortality among people aged over 50 in England and Wales has decreased at a rate of 85 deaths per million population per year over the period 1976–2005. This trend is two orders of magnitude higher than the increase in heat-related mortality observed after 1976. Long term changes in temperature-related mortality may be linked to human activity, natural climatic forcings, or to adaptation of the population to a wider range of temperatures. Here we employ optimal detection, a formal statistical methodology, to carry out an end to end attribution analysis. We find that adaptation is a major influence on changing mortality rates. We also find that adaptation has prevented a significant increase in heat-related mortality and considerably enhanced a significant decrease in cold-related mortality. Our analysis suggests that in the absence of adaptation, the human influence on climate would have been the main contributor to increases in heat-related mortality and decreases in cold-related mortality."
     CG, the point of Christidis et al. was to: 1. Measure the trends of the changes (if any) in CRM and HRM 2. To see what portion could be explained by human adaption (if any) and what could be attributed to climate change (if any). At no point do the authors conclude that CRM is higher than HRM. Apples and oranges. Comparing widely diverse areas by latitude is a bit of a strawman as well. The climatic variables impacting the United Kingdom and those impacting Australia as they relate to CRM and HRM are completely different. Apples and breadfruit. In the absence of every variable except for latitude, then yes, I would support your conclusion about the study. If they had made that conclusion (CRM > HRM). Which they didn't do. Apples and Na'vi. The Yooper
  30. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Camburn, Confessions obtained under duress are dismissable. I still want to know why this issue is relevant to a discussion of the scientific basis since you admit that it has nothing to do with climate science.
  31. Renewable Baseload Energy
    That 14 cents a kw sounds a bit pricey for Arizona. It will cost the consumer much more than 14 cents. Right now the consumer pays approx 11 cents per kw at the retail level. I hope it doesn't end up like Minnesota. Rates are going through the roof because of the contracts for purchase of wind power.
  32. Climategate: Tampering with Temperatures?
    Yep #12 seconded
  33. Twice as much Canada, same warming climate
    Daniel Bailey, At the risk of shooting my own arguments in the foot, it would be very strange if Christidis et al. had failed to conclude that CRM [Cold Related Mortality] is much greater than HRM [Heta Related Mortality] in England. The country is situated at high latitudes (50N to 55N), so dangerously high temperatures are rare. A similar study done in Australia (26S to 41S) might show quite different results.
  34. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Re: Camburn (22)
    "A wrong is a wrong."
     Except when it's not wrong. 1. Should CRU, the UEA and the ICO have done a better job of making a better effort to comply with the FOIA requests in a more timely fashion? Yeah, probably. 2. Should CRU, the UEA and the ICO have complied with every FOIA request? Evidence shows that all specific, non-vexacious FOIAs not involving the intellectual property of another country were responded to. 3. Should those submitting FOIAs for intellectual property not belonging to CRU and not subject to fulfillment by an FOIA have then taken up their case with those foreign bodies? Absolutely. 4. Was it possible to get the needed data from the requisite foreign bodies in a timely fashion, write the needed codes and then replicate CRUs work? Tamino did it. Ron Broberg did it. Nick Barnes did it. Clear Climate Code did it. The Muir Russell Commission did it in 2 days and further said that any competent researcher could have easily done the same. 5. So where is the analysis, where is the replication, where is the published work of the "skeptics", now that precedent has shown that it tweren't all that hard to do? ( - insert sound of crickets chirping here - ) The real travesty of all this is the inability of "skeptics" to move on. Now that's wrong. The Yooper
  35. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Phil Jones said he was wrong. That is good enough for me.
  36. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    "Winters warming faster than summers". What exactly is the mechanism by which an enhanced greenhouse effect causes winters to warm faster than summers? Is it because a cooler stratosphere strengthens the circumpolar vortex and westerly winds in mid-latitudes?
  37. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    You are aware that backradiation etc is MEASURED? (Look for DLR stations). If your understanding mismatches experimental observations, then your understanding is wrong. As to balance - Planck radiation is the "balancing mechanism". First Law of thermodynamics - that you cant destroy energy - is why you have balance. If a body absorbs energy its temperature rises - temperature is expression of average molecular kinetic and potential energy in the body. It emits radiation in proportion to its temperature. When radiation outgoing matches incoming energy temperature stays constant. Its simple physical law, readily demonstrated a lab. A body "knows" what do in accordance Stefan-Boltzmann, derivable from QM theory - a moving charged particle must irradiate. Incoming and outgoing radiation are measured at TOA by atmosphere. There is problem with the measurements in they have good precision but poor accuracy.
  38. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    "A wrong is a wrong." But as people are pointing out to you, refusing to honor an FOI is not always wrong. In fact, the law specifically makes this clear. McI and the CA crew knew that CRU could not release the small amount of data deemed to be proprietary by a few countries which owned it. McI and the CA crew peppered CRU with FOIs demanding this data anyway. That's about as vexatious as one can get.
  39. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    damorbel - "... there is no substantial downward radiation because the photons emitted by GHGs are largely absorbed locally and certainly never get to the ground at a level comparable to the Sun's input." Nuh. Any molecule that can absorb radiation must, by definition, emit radiation. The fact that radiation is absorbed, emitted, absorbed again, emitted again multiple times within the atmosphere before striking the surface (again) or eventually escaping at TOA is what the "greenhouse effect" consists of. All this bouncing around is the evidence of energy staying in the system. When there are more GHGs in the atmosphere, more energy stays in the system longer.
  40. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    From the document that The Ville linked to @15 Section 14(1) states that public authorities do not have to comply with vexatious requests. There is no public interest test. • To decide whether a request is vexatious, you need to look at its context and history. The key question is whether the request is likely to cause unjustified distress, disruption or irritation. • In particular, you should consider the following: Can the request fairly be seen as obsessive? Is the request harassing the authority or causing distress to staff? Would complying with the request impose a significant burden in terms of expense and distraction? Is the request designed to cause disruption or annoyance? Does the request lack any serious purpose or value? Given the description in the main post, it would seem that many of the FOI's received by CRU meet criteria 1,3,4 and 5.
  41. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Damorbel @ 153 - The problem is both the back radiation and the ground radiation. First they are both greater than the input from the Sun Well, yes both surface and back radiation occur night and day, whereas incoming solar radiation doesn't.
  42. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    A wrong is a wrong. Where is your hue and cry for inquiries into the orchestrated harassment that incited this? You're also right in that this has nothing to do with climate science. Why then is it used to invalidate climate science?
  43. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Composer99, the wikipedia diagram as well as a similar diagram (unfortunately only black and white) on the mentioned Science of Doom page show clearly that incoming radiation gets absorbed (by water vapour mostly). The Trenberth et al. diagram I have included in my post #50 shows ~ 20% of incoming energy absorbed by atmosphere. I doubt you could justify neglecting it. Nevertheless I completely failed to find any credible further information on that subject. The rest of your post urges me to some provocative questions. How does the earth measure the incoming radiation? How does the earth measure the outgoing radiation? How can it tell the difference? But if it can do this. Who told the earth that there should be a balance? How can he force the earth to respond? Consider these questions answered. How can the earth know what to do? Does the earth have the means to do what needs to be done? Sorry, somehow that sounds rather non scientific, but I could not help writing it anyway.
  44. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Once again, the issue is did CRU perform for the FOI requests. They did not. A wrong is a wrong. This has nothing to do with climate science as to whether the science has merits. A completely seperate issue.
    Moderator Response: My point exactly in my closing two paragraphs. - James
  45. Climategate: Impeding Information Requests?
    Regarding CRU scientists not trusting the motives of McIntyre and McKitrick: I would say they had good reason to not trust their motives. A good example is the ISPM (Independent Summary for Policymakers) published by the Fraser Institute. It was issued days after the release of the Summary for Policy Makers by the IPCC, in Febuary 2007. At this time, Ross McKitrick was head of the Fraser Institute, a well know industry front group. ( Interesting that they had their Independent Summary ready just days after the IPCC's Summary for Policy Makers. ) Anyway, here are some examples of Fraser Institutes distortions of science then. According to the Fraser Institute: "An independent review of the latest United Nations report on climate change shows that the scientific evidence about global warming remains uncertain and provides no basis for alarmism." Just the use of the word "alarmism" should ring a bell that this is not an unbiased paper. It's a derisive term used by the denier crowd, and you wouldn't find such terms in any real scientific study. The ISPM claimed that the report from the IPCC "is neither written by nor reviewed by the scientific community." This was not true. Here's what Desmogblog says about it. "In fact, the IPCC summary was written and reviewed by some of the most senior climate scientists in the world, without political or bureaucratic input . And the Fraser Institute’s 'scientific' staff - which is led by an economist - includes a group of junior or retired scientists, most of whom have direct connections to energy industry lobby groups." Fraser Institute said: "There is no compelling evidence that dangerous or unprecedented changes are underway." Compare that claim with what Dr Andrew Weaver, lead IPCC author and chairman of the Canada Research in Climate Modelling and Analysis says. "The IPCC report presents 1,600 pages of compelling evidence, that’s the whole point." Sourcewatch says that Fraser Institute's ISPM errors include: "Several incorrect statements concerning tropospheric temperature trends derived from satellite data." "Misdentification of peak temperature year in GISS and NCDC global surface temperature data sets (1998 given instead of 2005)." "Mistaken citation of projected sea level rise to 2100 of only 10-30 cm, instead of 21-48 cm given by IPCC" "Several examples of "cherrypicking", inexplicable omissions and misrepresentations." Frazer Institute's ISPM states: "There would also appear to be an unstated implication that temperature may have reached a plateau or even decreased since 1998." Sourcewatch: "the ISPM fails to mention that the smoothed temperature statistic for the combined data sets continued to show an upward trend through 2005." "The ISPM conveniently omitted the following information from the IPCC report." "2002 to 2004 are the 3rd, 4th and 5th warmest years in the series since 1850 Eleven of the last 12 years (1995 to 2006) ... rank among the 12 warmest years on record since 1850." "Surface temperatures in 1998 were enhanced by the major 1997–1998 El Niño but no such strong anomaly was present in 2005." http://sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=ISPM#Errors_and_discrepancies More on Fraser Institute's twisting of science at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/02/fraser-institute-fires-off-a-damp-squib/
  46. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Re #144 archiesteel You write: "To say they do is either to misunderstand the science, or to disingenuously misrepresent what climatologists believe." Lets look at Trenberth's diagram:- You write:- "The point is not that all of the absorbed photons will go back down. The photon re-emission by GHG molecules happens in a random direction." Trenberth's diagram shows 165Wm^2 going out from the atmosphere, 30Wm^2 from clouds 360Wm^2 going up from the ground and 324Wm^2 back radiation going down. The problem is both the back radiation and the ground radiation. First they are both greater than the input from the Sun, second they are not reflected by the ground or the clouds whereas the Sun's input is reflected by both the clouds and the ground. Third the Suns input is absorbed (67Wm^2) by the atmosphere, why isn't the '324Wm^2 back radiation' similarly absorbed? Since 'back radiation' is emitted by GHGs it does not have a short wave component like sunlight, so a bigger % of the 324Wm^2 is going to be reabsorbed by GHGs. All I was doing in my post #143 was drawing attention to Eli Rabbet's recognition that this IPCC diagram does not represent anything real. Using Eli's explanation there is no substantial downward radiation because the photons emitted by GHGs are largely absorbed locally and certainly never get to the ground at a level comparable to the Sun's input. Likewise Earth's 390Wm^2 surface emission cannot be well over double the 168Wm^2 arriving there from the Sun. The IPCC claims that the GHGs warm the surface by about 33C but there are no numbers on this diagram showing how this happens, even though the various places are shown emitting and absorbing radiation, there are no temperatures showing the basis for explaining the greenhouse effect. Is this the way we plan to change the World fuel economy?
  47. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    Ah, h-j-m's point (I think) could be stated as follows Since GHG's absorb in the visible (as well as the infra-red), doesn't increasing the concentration mean that the earth receives less energy because the subsequent emission of that radiation scatters some of it into space - back radiation on incoming EM which thus goes into space. Assuming I've understood h-j-m's issue correctly let me offer the following rebutals 1. Absorption of EM radiation, either visible incoming or IR outgoing does not result in all the radiation being emitted, some will be converted into vibrational, rotational and translational energy. Thus increasing absorption of visible incoming EM will, in certain extent warm the upper atmosphere as well as decrease slightly the EM hitting the surface. 2. The areas of the incoming EM spectrum in which H2O (primarily) absorb are not near the peak of frequencies and are at the longer wavelength(lower energy) end. Thus they do not absorb proportional as much as the outgoing earth-light. 3. The Greenhouse effect is measured empirically by comparing the temperature at the top of atmosphere with the ground. The commonly quoted 33deg is therefore the nett effect of IR absorption of Earthlight coming out - Visible absorption of Sunlight coming in. I seem to remember seeing 50deg as a figure for the 1st, but I'll be damned if I can remember where ... Thats quite a long response to a point that I may have misunderstood, and is getting increasingly off-topic for this particular thread... :-(
  48. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    That spectral chart is a visual example of what I said - incoming solar energy is primarily in the form of visible & UV light. For your other question, about what makes greenhouse gases so special, you could read the 150 year old research report by Tyndall that I linked to earlier. I apologize for not relinking as this is being tapped out from my phone.
  49. 2nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
    h-j-m: You mean the Wikipedia graph? That appears to be taken into account by the graph provided by others (from Science of Doom) several comments down: DSL/Ned (comments #26/27). I'm not sure I follow. Surely, if greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere can alter the flow of radiation coming in from the Sun, if that radiation is at the correct wavelenghts, then they can affect radiation coming up from the surface of the Earth, particularly since a very large part of that radiation occurs in the wavelengths most vulnerable to greenhouse gas effects. Leaving out the constant heating from the Sun, the net flow of heat energy, per the Second Law of Thermodynamics, should be from the Earth, through the atmosphere, into space. That is what we see. Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere delay this flow of heat energy and (bringing incoming Solar radiation back into the picture) force the Earth to increase its surface temperature to bring it back into radiative equilibrium. Again, we see this in empirical observations.
  50. It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
    JMuprphy #19. In my initial post I showed Dr Landsheidt's relationship between PDO and the solar torque cycle: a 178.8-year cycle that began in 1899.9 and will last till 2078. Within this cycle is the 35.8 year cycle most often revered to when comparing PDO and solar cycles. From that it is obvious that the PDO just doesn't simply oscillate randomly around 0, and that it has long-term trends at different times scales. (Nothing in nature at [such large scales] happens randomly). That said, within a cycle are upward and downward trends; Just look at a simple sinus wave with say a wave length of one 1 yr. Between 0-3 months the sinus wave has an upward trend, between 3-6 months it has a downward trend, 6-9 downward and finally 9-12 upward again. Hence; within cycles are up and downward trends. However, on average (doing linear regression for example) over one period a sinus wave with a period of 1 shows a slope of 0... So, one has to look at the appropriate periods to compare trends within cycles. That said, take a look at the temperature record from 1900 to YTD again: apply the same trend line as what the PDO exhibits (based on the available observations) to the temperature record (yielding an r2 of 0.75... ). That temperature trend line then shows decreasing temperatures from 1900 to ~1910, increasing from ~1910 to ~1945, slightly decreasing from ~1945 to ~1968, increasing ~1968 to current. And yes an r2 <1 means not all variation is explained, thus there are other variables involved. But, again I never said the PDO explains everything. But a lot. Also, I still haven't heard any argument or discussion that can explain or dismiss other than the PDO and solar cycle why el ninos and la ninas have increased and decreased in max strength, respectively, with the exact same rate with an r-square of almost 1 (see post #13) and why the increase of max el nino strength has the exact same rate as the increase of the max temperatures (see post #18) also with an r-square of almost 1 over the last 20yrs? In addition, there is nothing wrong looking at peaks, as it essentially takes away all the noise and as long as you compare rates.

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