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Ned at 20:04 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP writes: Your point #1 "resembles" what I have said, yet why do you have to reword my words when most of what I have said about this has not been deleted. (last time I looked :) I have found that when trying to understand someone else it often helps if I can try to rephrase their information/argument in my own words. The secondary reason is that a lot of people here don't seem to be getting your point, and I thought that perhaps by having someone else try to clarify it we might make some progress. RSVP continues: Along those lines, I have also asked (more than once) how much of the 2.9 W/m2 caused by GHG is actually assumed to be accumulating? All of it. That's what a "climate forcing" is. -
_Flin_ at 19:20 PM on 28 July 2010How you can support Skeptical Science
I just wanted to thank you for your effort and point out a tool that might help you finance your website. It is called flattr (at http://www.flattr.com ) and is a way to implement a donation system into your website. It is already quite popular in the blogging scene in Germany with blogs making up to 500.- € out of it a month (these are the top blogs, however). Users pay a monthly amount to flattr and they redistribute it to the sites the users "flattred". Maybe this is something to help you with some cash flow. -
RSVP at 18:49 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
For those of you new to the thread, a bit of an outline. 1) We know (more or less) for sure how much energy is being expended by humans through the burning of fossil fuels. For this discussion, we call this total amount "waste heat". 2) One side of the debate claims that this energy enters the environment in different ways (see 3 for an example) and that this makes a difference in terms of global warming. The other side discounts this claim, saying "watts is watts is watts", and since the amount of waste heat is known to represent only 1% of the purported value due to the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, it can be safely ignored. (somewhere above it has even been claimed that in a few hundred years waste heat wont exist at all as technology becomes more efficient. And perhaps (non nuclear) human waste heat will not exist, but it will likely be for other reasons...getting way off topic). 3) a) When a nuclear power plant is cooled by circulating sea water, the warmed water mixes below the surface of the sea. These "watts is watts" are carried with the current and may take years (or centuries) to finally radiate into the outer reaches of space. b) Convective heat exchange from the heating and cooling of buildings, or the cooling of internal combustion engines directly raises the temperature of non-GHGs (the bulk of what makes up the Earths atmosphere). Since non-GHG do not radiate, as with the warmed water from the nuclear power plant, this heat must find its way to the radiative launch pad, queuing up behind an already solar energized warm Earth. This cumulative back log is the real cause of global warming. 4) Watts is watts yes, but the problem is not about whether watts are watts. The problem is about global warming. -
John Russell at 18:47 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
dcwarrior: Further to my last comment to you, your response and adding to what others have said, there's an analogy that we've used before. I'll try to extend it. Imagine Earth as a bucket full of water. Energy from the sun is a tap that is pouring into this bucket from above and this flow is mixing with what's already in the bucket and the excess is spilling over the sides at the same rate. So the water level stays the same; the bucket/Earth is in equilibrium and humans at the bottom of the bucket live under a constant pressure (analogous to the Earth's global temperature). However since the industrial revolution humans have been putting more CO2 into the air, raising the concentration of GHGs, trapping energy; and therefore, in our analogy, we've been raising the sides of the bucket. This increases the pressure (temperature) at the bottom. So where does 'waste heat' fit in? Waste heat is as if humans at the bottom of the bucket had being indulging in activities -- don't ask me what; I've already stretched this analogy way too far -- which are producing a small amount of water as a by-product. That extra water is adding to the water from the big tap in the sky but is a tiny amount and is escaping over the sides with the rest of the water. What really matters though is the rising sides -- that's what's upping the pressure on life on Earth. -
JMurphy at 18:29 PM on 28 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
doug_bostrom, isn't it amazing how the so-called skeptics have to bring out the lone, off-field scientists (usually physicists, who reckon they are more cleverer (!) than everyone else), in response to scientists who actually work in the field of Climate studies. It may satisfy their need for examples they can cling to, but, to me, it just smacks of desperation. Did you see the latest similar attempt over at WUWT ? It is best filtered via Denial Depot but, basically, it's a list of 7 physicists who disagree with AGW (the usual suspects, including the founders of George C Marshall Institute). But...four of them (i.e. the majority) are dead ! Satire is dead...again.Response: Hey, don't diss physicists! -
Baa Humbug at 18:24 PM on 28 July 2010It's waste heat
michael sweet at 08:12 AM on 28 July, 2010 said.. "By chance, after a long path with many absorbtions and re-emmisions, the IR is emmited into space. Increasing CO2 causes the path the heat follows from the Earth into space to be longer and heats up the atmosphere". I have a question if you'll permit me. IR photons travel at close enough to the speed of light, (about 300,000km per second). With that in mind, do we know HOW LONG this delay you are talking about is? And how does it relate to the rate of cooling observed overnight? -
John Russell at 18:19 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Doug, When you have a discussion with someone and put them right on something, don't expect them, necessarily, to roll over and declare, "OK, Doug, I'm wrong -- you were right all along". People will often argue to the bitter end, then we all move on with the topic seemingly unresolved. However next time the topic comes up you might suddenly notice that their opinions have changed -- in fact they did listen and did take on-board what you said. The magnanimous amongst us don't make a big deal of this, we just let it go. Not being a scientist, I don't mind being wrong about science or misunderstanding things. One of the best ways to learn or to test one's understanding is, rather than ask a question, to make a statement and see what reaction it gets. Good teachers tell you you're right or, if you've misunderstood, will just explain the facts in simpler terms. What they will never do is belittle the person making the statement. I suppose what I'm saying is that, apart from the occasional small sign that the message is getting through, one will never know for certain how effective a site like this is in changing people's opinions. What one can say for certain though is that it's a lot more influential than any of us will ever know. -
Doug Bostrom at 17:45 PM on 28 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
More on Rancourt here. Long story short it's all about Marc Morano earning his keep as a public relations specialist, a job made easier by recycling material from when he worked for U.S. Senator Inhofe. Just for taxonomy purposes Pete, where did you get the Rancourt item? Straight from ClimateDepot or was it passed along somewhere else first? -
Pete Ridley at 17:35 PM on 28 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
That’s a very interesting response (from John?) to #134 which perhaps warrants a thread dedicated to defining what a “climate scientist” is. Professor Rancourt had this (and much more) to say (Note 1) about climate science “I also advance that there are strong societal, institutional, and psychological motivations for having constructed and for continuing to maintain the myth of a global warming dominant threat (global warming myth, for short). I describe these motivations in terms of the workings of the scientific profession and of the global corporate and finance network and its government shadows .. I argue that by far the most destructive force on the planet is power-driven financiers and profit-driven corporations and their cartels backed by military might; and that the global warming myth is a red herring that contributes to hiding this truth. In my opinion, activists who, using any justification, feed the global warming myth have effectively been co-opted, or at best neutralized”. There is another side to this interesting fellow (Note 2) – enjoy. If a physicist specialising in spectroscopy is considered not to have a place among “climate scientists” (whatever they may be) I wonder if biologist Professor Barry Brook (Note 3) would be allowed into the room. As far as I can ascertain Professor Brook has not published any more peer reviewed research on climate science than Professor Rancourt yet he not only has been accepted into the “climate scientist” ranks but even advises the Australian government on the subject. Of course, when talking about climate science I’m referring to the numerous scientific disciplines involved in trying to improve our poor understanding of those horrendously complicated processes and driver of global climates. Just over a year ago Professor Brook acknowledged that “ .. There are a lot of uncertainties in science, and it is indeed likely that the current consensus on some points of climate science is wrong, or at least sufficiently uncertain that we don’t know anything much useful about processes or drivers. .. ” (Note 4). Professor Brook went on to say “But EVERYTHING? Or even most things? Take 100 lines of evidence, discard 5 of them, and you’re still left with 95 and large risk management problem”. This appears to me to be implying that we are uncertain of only 5% of what needs to be known, but he provides no evidence to support such a figure. I tried to pursue this matter of uncertainty about those processes and drivers with him on his blog but he declined to engage in the debate. BTW, I understand that Professor Brook gets irritated when only parts of his statements are quoted so please read the article for a full picture of the context of that quote which some may argue was just cherry-picked by me. NOTES: 1) see http://activistteacher.blogspot.com/2010/06/some-big-lies-of-science.html 2) see http://bayblab.blogspot.com/2009/03/dr-denis-rancourt.html 3) see http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/barry.brook 4) see http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/23/ian-plimer-heaven-and-earth/ Best regards, Pete Ridley -
Paul D at 17:34 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
dcwarrior: "The Ville, I think you are factually correct, but I don't think someone who didn't already agree with you would be convinced by that argument." The Ville: Well if that were true and you are probably correct, then there is a lot of work to do. The basic science is not debatable so if it is doubted or questioned then there are serious problems in communication and education. Of course some people exploit that lack of knowledge. It may not be believed, as you say, but the science that the facts are based on isn't just isolated to climate science. The same science (basically quantum mechanics) is fundamental to medicine, engineering, electronics, IR spectroscopy etc. So maybe if someone has doubts, then you can correct them and point that out! -
nico at 15:09 PM on 28 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Thinga at 22 opines that climate scientists who don't believe in AGW would not bother to become climate scientists in the first place. (Perhaps they would favour phrenology?) Thinga seems unaware that climate science has been around as long as modern science: oceanography, cloud physics, long term weather; CSIRO Atmospheric Research has been studying climate for decades, mainly for the benefit of Australian farmers, and became interested in the possible effect of atmospheric CO2 in the 1970s, when John Garratt and Graeme Pearman started thinking about CO2 and crop growth. They asked QANTAS pilots to collect samples at different heights. This was so successful that it led to the global baseline monitoring station at Cape Grim, testing (supposedly) the cleanest air on the planet. -
KR at 12:37 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
MattJ - I was trying to take the long view; almost every building put up will eventually get torn down. Of course, anything that goes into a long term or permanent state change doesn't add to the AHF, making it even less of a problem! -
MattJ at 12:29 PM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
#57, KR: You are illustrating the very confusion I commented about: no, it does NOT "all end up as heat". Some of it is converted to work. 'Work' includes phase changes, i.e. heating water to boil it. Even the whole Earth, accepting radiative energy in low entropy form from the sun and radiating it out into space in higher entropy form, has done work on it, building up the ever more complicated ecosystem -- including us. So far, human civilization is winning the battle against entropy. That could change fast under the influence of climate change as war, famine and pestilence tear down what we built up over thousands of years. -
michael sweet at 10:57 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Doug, I think your contributions in particular are valuable here on SS. I read much more frequently than I post and your well referenced arguments have helped me to discuss these issues with my high school students. I am more informed because of the material I learn from you when I am silent. I think that there are a lot of people who silently read and begin to understand the science even when you cannot make headway with someone on a thread. Thank you for your help. -
EliRabett at 10:37 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Ray Pierrehumbert pretty well killed this one off in his letter to Levitt -
Doug Bostrom at 10:32 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
I'll add to the pot. "Due deference." -
Doug Bostrom at 10:25 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Thank you John, and the Stefan-Boltzmann example serves nicely to illustrate your point. Everybody came away happier, and calmer. Sorry for the interruption in normal programing! -
omnologos at 10:01 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
As far as I can see, there has been no progress on the issue of determining what "deference" actually means? -
Doug Bostrom at 09:14 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
OT but along the lines of what I was musing on in the other waste heat thread... Not to pick on RSVP in particular but if we don't see some acknowledgment here that it's possible to upload facts into another person's head regardless of predisposition I'm left to wonder whether there's any point to comments on a site like SkS other than entertainment. I'm not sure if John keeps stats on this but my intuition tells me genuine puzzlement is exceedingly rare here, at least of the sort that is not founded on diamond-hard obduracy due to matters not having to do with science. Come to think of it, a person popped up on anther thread very loudly proclaiming the Stefan-Boltzmann constant to be all wet and in fact calmed down and seemed to take on board some explanations by BP and Ned. So I guess it's possible to effect improvements, I just wonder how often.Moderator Response: I have anecdotal evidence that a persistent, calm presentation of the science and evidence does have a tangible effect. Not sure that it's a big effect but I have corresponded with a few people who have gone from being skeptical about man-made global warming to convinced that humans are causing global warming via the content on my site. Of course, they all still resist aggressive action on mitigation but hey, one step at a time. -
michael sweet at 09:00 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
KR, I am sure you noticed, but when I added 2.9W/m2 + .028 W/m2 and then round to significant figures I get 2.9 W/m2. The waste heat is so small it doesn't change the result! RSVP: There is NO DIFFERENCE in heat released by radiation and heat released by convection. Your argument is completely mistaken. Heat is heat. They are the same. Most of the commentors here are having trouble responding to you because this is such a basic issue that they don't understand your confusion. Good luck with this argument. I just read the whole thing (and participated in past discussions of this issue) and the deniers cannot accept basic, well understood, high school chemistry and physics. How can we move on to real issues that require an understanding of the science? -
Doug Bostrom at 08:45 AM on 28 July 2010It's waste heat
Michael Sweet: Increasing CO2 causes the path the heat follows from the Earth into space to be longer... Somehow I've not seen the process described quite that way before. Delayed by rerouting, balance only restored as emissions and collisions become sufficiently frequent as to overcome the delay, leaving the atmosphere more stuffed with activity or that is to say warmer. Thanks! Also thanks to RSVP for forcing Michael to produce that model. Others probably already had it in mind, me not in quite such a succinct way. -
michael sweet at 08:12 AM on 28 July 2010It's waste heat
I thought I would give RSVP a try. Essentially all of the IR from the surface is absorbed by CO2 in the atmosphere and is not radiated directly into space. (Your example of 5% absorbed is incorrect). You would not see lights in fog, you would see an evenly lit background. When CO2 absorbs IR energy, it transfers most of that energy as heat immediately to the surrounding N2 and O2 by collisions with those molecules. Waste heat is absorbed by the atmosphere (primarily O2 and N2) in various ways. Once the atmosphere absorbs heat, from any source, it is all treated the same. -->The N2 and O2 transfer their heat back and forth with the CO2. The heat is transferred around the atoms of the atmosphere (primarily by collisions) and eventually comes to another CO2 molecule. It is then re-radiated as IR. Some IR goes up and some goes down. By chance, after a long path with many absorbtions and re-emmisions, the IR is emmited into space. Increasing CO2 causes the path the heat follows from the Earth into space to be longer and heats up the atmosphere. Since the amount of waste heat is 100 times lower than heat from GHG, it is not significant. Do you have any questions about this explaination? -
KR at 08:08 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
For those of you new to the thread, a bit of an outline. There are various forcings changing the energy level at the surface of the Earth. - Solar input (slightly decreasing slope over the last 30 years) - GHG entrapment (+2.9 W/m^2 retaining solar energy right now) - Aerosols (est. -1.9 W/m^2 via reflecting sunlight, although it's influence is decreasing with pollution controls) - Anthropogenic heat flux (AHF), direct heat from our energy use (est 0.028 W/m^2, albeit highly concentrated at industrial centers, as per this thread) Tied to these direct forcings are feedbacks: water vapor levels, temperature dependent carbon uptake/release from the oceans, vegetation changes with temperature, albedo changes with ice melt, and so on. But the forcings that push temperatures away from current levels are the sum of the direct forcings such as listed above. And hence the discussion of the small influence AHF has with regards to greenhouse gasses. -
KR at 07:48 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP - the 2.9 W/m^2 GHG forcing + the 0.028 W/m^2 AHF (total of 2.928 W/m^2) is accumulating, hence increasing temperatures, ocean heat content, earlier seasons, etc. It's just that the 0.028 AHF is small change in that sum. It's all indistinguishable energy once it goes into the pot. I don't think matters can get clearer than that. If you can't follow that paragraph, well, it's end of discussion for me. -
RSVP at 07:38 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Ned 51 Your point #1 "resembles" what I have said, yet why do you have to reword my words when most of what I have said about this has not been deleted. (last time I looked :) Along those lines, I have also asked (more than once) how much of the 2.9 W/m2 caused by GHG is actually assumed to be accumulating? The notion that so much energy isnt raising daytime temperatures as we speak is baffling. What exactly does this number represent in terms of cumulative warming? As I said earlier, if it means no overall accumulation, then maybe even 0.028 W/m2 for waste heat is huge if that heat is accumulating, which gets back to the differnces between radiative and convective mechanisms. As this discussion has gone around circularly three or four times now, I am checking out. -
scaddenp at 07:36 AM on 28 July 2010Models are unreliable
" than quote Vincent Gray “they have failed to predict the temperature in the Lower Troposphere and any future climate event .. “ and “ .. climate models have never been validated in the manner I have stated ..”." I can only assume you mean the denialist canard about tropospheric hot spot because models predict lower tropospheric temperatures very well. For some real information, try tropospheric hot spot As to Gray's validation. Since you apparently understand what he means, can you enlighten the rest of us? And can you please read the Hansen 2006 paper that has been repeatedly pointed out to you. "a) can only be achieved through making adjustments to parameters until the desired result is achieved (as you acknowledge “The actual pattern of temperature rise that you get in the model depends on how the model is initialised.”)," No - you are completely misunderstanding what is meant by 'initialisation of models'. How can you be so critical of models when it appears you know so little about them? This is discussed in depth in IPCC WG1 and in the text of the Keelyside et al paper has more. This Keenlyside paper is criticized and the matter discussed further here You also seem to stubbornly refuse to accept that predictions, accurate to level within the prediction, have been made. Any prediction of any scientific value has error limits associated with it. Demanding a prediction be better than those internal limits is pointless. -
Pete Ridley at 07:27 AM on 28 July 2010What do you get when you put 100 climate scientists in a room?
Recently, Marc Morano, senior editor of CFACT's Climate Depot, sat down with Dr. Denis Rancourt to discuss his views on global warming. Dr. Rancourt is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa and a noted liberal environmentalist. However, when it comes to global warming, Dr. Rancourt disagrees with his fellow leftists. "They look to comfortable lies," said Rancourt of global warming believers. Watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWVXarkPOAo to hear more of what Dr. Rancourt has to say. I wonder what you‘d get if you put this scientist in amongst those 100 climate scientists. Best regards, Pete RidleyResponse: "I wonder what you‘d get if you put this scientist in amongst those 100 climate scientists"
He wouldn't get in the room, he's not a climate scientist. He's a physicist, specialising primarily in spectroscopy and hasn't published any peer-reviewed research on climate science. -
KR at 07:26 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP - I'm afraid that your last comment has left me scratching my head in puzzlement. What in the world are you talking about?!? No matter what the energy expenditure, it ends up as heat. It might be fast (car radiator), it might be really slow (decomposition of manufactured plastic), it might be IR or even latent heat (water vapor from power plant cooling tower) - but it all ends up as heat. As watts (or more properly joules - 1 watt is 1 joule/second). Direct expenditures (waste heat) end up in the atmosphere or waters within minutes (both IR or convection), energy used (electricity, for example) takes a bit longer. Joules are not stamped with ID tags, any more than photons are. Watts are Watts. If you can't explain your issue more clearly I'm just going to have to say I don't understand your objection. -
KR at 07:15 AM on 28 July 2010Models are unreliable
Pete Ridley - Regarding the model value as discussed here, I would have to disagree with your statements. The Hansen model (and others) map physical phenomena into the computer model (white box modeling) and attempt to replicate previous system behavior. Adjustments to match historic results are certainly made - and if the modelers are doing their job right, this is part of an investigation to understand critical parameters such as feedback levels, time constants, and the like (black box modeling). Both white box (all known, first principles) and black box (estimations of unknowns) are core techniques for modeling. The critical power of a model really lies in estimating future states, the "Given 'A', predict 'B'". The Hansen model did this quite well - Scenario B, which Hansen considered most likely, was actually close to the economic and industrial conditions that have prevailed over the last 22 years, and the predictions made by Hansen were correspondingly close to what has actually happened. When fed the actual industrial numbers (a matter of economics and political decisions, rather than purely physics interactions) it's accurate to well within the weather noise level. See this link for an overview, and quite frankly the Hansen 2006 document describes this most clearly. That's an excellent model - it makes useful predictions that have been shown to be accurate. It certainly doesn't capture every element of chaotic weather overlaid on climate, cannot predict the frequency of volcanic eruptions, and doesn't model down to the cubic millimeter - but the predictions and the interaction estimates certainly hold up. Demanding 100% accuracy means that you will never accept a model. That's certainly your choice, but I believe that will leave you with quite a few tools missing from the toolbox. If you feel that a model, one which given actual industrial activity levels closely predicts temperatures 22 years into the future, and which allows exploring different outcomes based upon our actions, is not worthwhile, well, then I'll have to continue to disagree. As an aside, I must note that I don't consider Luboš Motl a reliable source - he's obviously an expert in string theory, but has no climate background and seems unfamiliar with logarithmic responses to GHG's. He also posts from a clear ideological framework rather than a scientific one in the climate arena. I prefer numbers, myself... -
RSVP at 07:12 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
CBDunkerson #47 "The latter. No one comprehends it... because it is self-evidently false. 2 is 2, up is not down, and watts are watts." Yes watts are watts, but I am sure you comprehend when paying your energy bill if the watts refers to consumption over 1 month, 2 months or one year. -
Doug Bostrom at 07:05 AM on 28 July 2010Models are unreliable
That's a very tired list, Pete. Before various people here drag themselves through the effort of once again providing some corrections, have you by any chance already discussed this elsewhere? If so, could you quickly list what rebuttals you encountered? That would be most helpful in saving everybody some time and wasted effort. -
Pete Ridley at 06:46 AM on 28 July 2010Models are unreliable
I did post a longer comment prior to my #219 but it looks as though admin removed it. I’ll E-mail it to Phil instead, meanwhile this bit may be allowed. Phil, ref. #206, You ask “Where have the models failed?” and I can do no better than quote Vincent Gray “they have failed to predict the temperature in the Lower Troposphere and any future climate event .. “ and “ .. climate models have never been validated in the manner I have stated ..”. Jmurphy. in #217 you ask of my use of The (..) Hypothesis" “.. doesn't Anthropogenic Global Warming [AGW] do it for you ? .. ”. Like you, I and many other sceptics accept “ .. the scientific facts behind AGW ..” but what we don’t accept are the assumptions made about its significance or other assumptions made in the face of the enormous uncertainties about the processes and drivers of global climates. I use my alternative “ .. .. rather convoluted and bizarre term -.. “ to highlight the distinction between “DAGWers” and “Deniers” – that word “significant”. KR, ref. #203/205/218, using your criteria in #203: a) Ability to match previous observations (historic data) b) Ability to predict future observations c) Ability to estimate different future states based on different inputs (Given 'A', predict 'B') d) Match of model internal relationships to known physical phenomena e) Simplicity (no nested 'crystal spheres' for epicycles) my understanding is that because no independent validation has ever been undertaken there is no evidence to refute the argument that: a) can only be achieved through making adjustments to parameters until the desired result is achieved (as you acknowledge “The actual pattern of temperature rise that you get in the model depends on how the model is initialised.”), b) no dependable predictions have ever been made, c) estimates are not dependable predictions, d) it is the significant unknowns that make the models incapable of making dependable predictions, e) it is their simplicity which renders them little more reliable than crystal balls. If you have evidence to the contrary then it would help if you provided a link to it. Regarding the attempt to estimate mean global temperature, your “ .. argument really doesn't hold water .. ”. Reading “The Elusive Absolute Surface Air Temperature” (Note 7) and “NASA GISS Inaccurate Press Release On The Surface Temperature Trend Data” (Note 8) may be of assistance to you. NOTES: 1) see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html 2) see http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/nasa-giss-inaccurate-press-release-on-the-surface-temperature-trend-data/ Best regards, Pete Ridley -
DarkSkywise at 06:17 AM on 28 July 2010Rebutting skeptic arguments in a single line
reply from John Cook to my post @ 01:40 AM on 22 July, 2010: "I'm going to shortly restructure the whole rebuttal database so that will throw everything into disarray and we'll need to rethink the whole translation system too." I can see you're busy... I just noticed the new "tab blurbs" in Dutch. Muchmuchbetterthankyouyes!!! :D Another thing I was thinking of: comment sections for the translated arguments, so people from other countries who don't speak english very good (:P) could ask questions and post comments too? -
MattJ at 06:16 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
"Waste heat" has always been somewhat of a misleading term. Perhaps that is why it is used freely in engineering course on thermodynamics, but almost never in physics courses;) The reason it is misleading is because heat, qua heat, is always the same: 'waste' heat and 'useful' heat are physically indistinguishable. The distinction can only be made in a process: the waste heat is the heat you cannot use in the process to do work. It has to be dumped into the environment to dispose of entropy. But there is another kind of 'waste heat, much easier to define: the heat generated in this thread, which is certainly a waste;) -
Berényi Péter at 06:06 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
#157 Ned at 04:22 AM on 28 July, 2010 I'd be happier if you'd spatially weighted the data rather than using a simple average Here you go. At least now it is divided into broad regions. Of course the African stripe is centered on Sahel and also includes Southern Arabia. The numbers in parenthesis are the number of GHCN stations in that region.
It is only over the Pacific, where some decline can be observed, but I am not sure it is significant, because there are only 6 active GHCN stations there.
Otherwise it is pretty stable, except some initial decline then a slow rise south of the great desert region and a recent rather steep rise in the South-East Asian monsoon belt (that's what pulled up the global average in the previous graph).
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Doug Bostrom at 06:06 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
Nice job with the Stefan-Boltzmann matter, Ned and Peter, a lovely arc. Peter's train of examples from the sublime to the sweaty was sweetly expressed and as well included some hints about why GHG's work at all and meanwhile Ned seems to have reached AWoL with a combination of gentle pokes combined with patience as well as removing AWoL's notion of emissivity from the realm of suspicious "fudge." AWoL for his/her part turns out to be tractable and contrary to my Pavlovian training exits for the time being in grace, better informed. How refreshing. -
DarkSkywise at 05:26 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
dcwarrior at 04:00 AM on 28 July, 2010: "the CO2 greenhouse effect works by adding small amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere faster than the natural processes get rid of it" Almost. ;) The greenhouse effect is already present because there's already CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere. What happens is that the greenhouse effect is increased because we put more CO2 in the air than nature can handle. And it's a lot: "Currently, humans are emitting around 29 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per year. Around 43% remains in the atmosphere - this is called the 'airborne fraction'. The rest is absorbed by vegetation and the oceans." (Are CO2 levels increasing?) -
CBW at 05:24 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
CBDunkerson @52, you should add to the end of your statement that the energy in the Earth's climate must increase *until a new equilibrium is reached*, since the amount of energy that escapes is a function of the temperature. If CO2 (and everything else) was held constant, then we'd warm up asymptotically to some equilibrium (assuming we don't hit some non-linear feedback before we get there). But, of course, CO2 isn't being held constant, so the equilibrium point is moving away from us even as we chase it. -
AWoL at 05:22 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
Good and patient reply Ned. Thanks for that. You're getting me back on to the straight and narrow. Regarding "dummies" and books, Dunning-Kruger etc. Isn't there a real problem nowadays in that whilst expert in our own fields we are all "at sea" with respect to other areas, especially those distant to our own. So a high level of trust is required, for never in human history has there been such a high division of labour.When it comes to climate science we depend on very few people to get this right and recent events have done nothing to support or build that trust. That little polemic over, I'm off to Science of Doom for a second look(good explanation of the moon temp phenomenon) Darkskywise, I know what you are experiencing. Heaven only knows why(probably idle conversation), but I get asked about"this global warming stuff". With regard to the understanding of the general public, I can well see why ancient societies worked on the principle of"the few set aside to bless the many".Universal education for all is a very recent and unusual phenomenon in human history. There is a duty to explain,truthfully and clearly, for that which is not understood will be rejected. -
ptbrown31 at 05:08 AM on 28 July 2010It's Pacific Decadal Oscillation
Tom Dayton - "You have misunderstood the skeptic argument that blames the PDO for the "apparent" global warming long trend. That skeptic argument is not that the PDO has a long-term warming trend. Rather, the skeptic argument is that no long-term warming trend exists. At all." Perhaps I have misunderstood the skeptical argument that this post is directly addressing but nevertheless I have indeed heard it argued that the PDO has caused the long term upward warming trend. My problem with this post is that it seems to use the fact that there is no upward trend in the PDO as evidence that the PDO could not have caused an upward trend in temperature. My problem is that this PDO index is trendless for artificial reasons. Like you said, someone defined the PDO such that it would not have a long term trend. This does not seem to be good evidence to dismiss it as a contributor to warming. -
CBDunkerson at 04:40 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
dcwarrior, yep that's about the shape of it. The only thing which isn't clearly stated (though it may be what you meant) from your summation is that the increasing CO2 doesn't create additional heat directly... rather it slows down the rate at which heat escapes to space. Since more energy is always coming in from the Sun if the rate of energy escape decreases then the total energy in the Earth's climate must increase. -
Ned at 04:22 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
Hey, thanks, BP. That is ... interesting. Of course, I'd be happier if you'd spatially weighted the data rather than using a simple average. If you don't do that it's really important to understand the spatial structure of the data, so without seeing some maps or other information about the distribution of stations and autocorrelation within the data it's hard to know whether this is valid or ... not. But I do notice that the general pattern (declining up to the late 1980s, then increasing) seems to match what was described in the Huffman paper in the comment just before yours. So there's potentially some consistency here. -
Ned at 04:01 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
KR writes: There's no Maxwell's demon choosing joules of heat energy based on their origin Excellent reference, much better than my Heat Fairy above. RSVP, maybe it would help if I could try to summarize your argument? Tell me if I have this right: (1) Waste heat is efficiently shunted to the atmosphere, particularly to N2 and O2 molecules which, not being radiatively active, retain the heat, distribute it around the earth, and let it accumulate. (2) In contrast, the radiative forcing from CO2 is overstated because (a) Part of the radiation isn't captured, and escapes into space. (b) The rest of it is just captured by CO2 molecules, which re-emit it, eventually letting it escape to space, so it doesn't accumulate. Is that a good first approximation of your argument? What parts am I not quite getting? -
Doug Bostrom at 04:01 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
Ned, thanks! I'm trying the Chuck Yeager approach w/regard to being in a flat spin or similar baffling circumstance, paraphrased: "Keep on flying the airplane, keep on trying different things, don't assume you're going to augur-in just because the first thing you tried failed." I'm trying to push different buttons. I'm still not sure what the problem is here, but the whole matter reminds me of the "smart photons" we dealt with earlier, the photons that as it turns out don't know the temperature of objects impinging on their future path. I'm getting the sense here that energy from AHF is supposed to be different somehow, knows where it came from and thus must behave differently in the future. TOP implies that heat escaping from an iron engine block at a given temperature is different somehow from that which would escape from a similar store of heat derived from a source not supplied by liberation of chemical energy and stored in a rock. We know that's not the case. TOP must accept that or give a reasonably detailed, plausible explanation consistent with the real world of how it is otherwise. -
dcwarrior at 04:00 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
CBD and John Russell - thanks. Could you get even more succinct by saying (I am pretty sure my facts are wrong here, so maybe someone can tune it up), the CO2 greenhouse effect works by adding small amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere faster than the natural processes get rid of it, and thereby causes more heat to be retained in the atmosphere than would otherwise be the case. In theory, the waste heat works the same way, only, the amount of excess heat caused by humans is [100x?] less in relation to all heat produced in nature than man-made CO2 bears to the CO2 in the atmosphere. Humankind would have to create a lot more heat in order for that to be a problem. The Ville, I think you are factually correct, but I don't think someone who didn't already agree with you would be convinced by that argument. -
Berényi Péter at 03:55 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
#149 Ned at 00:21 AM on 28 July, 2010 Provided of course that illogical and unfriendly interpretations are preferred to simple and straightforward ones! OK, you have won. I went into the pains of calculating annual average precipitation for all recently available GHCN stations between the equator and 20 N. It looks like this:
There are 229 GHCN stations in this latitudal stripe with some data in 2009. Of these 229 stations 211 were already alive in 1960, 180 in 1950 and 99 in 1920. But the overall shape of the curve does not depend much on the choice of station set. It starts to decline indeed after about 1960, as you say New et al. (2001) claims.
But then, around 1990 it departs from their reconstruction sharply and starts to rise again to the same or slightly higher level by 2009 as it used to be before 1960.
[self-censorship]
-
KR at 03:38 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP - Therein lies the rub. Once in the atmosphere, watts (joules) and photons are just that, energy. Conduction/convection heat an area within about 2 meters (figuring a car engine in the open), IR heats an air mass over 10-100 meters of absorption, and once that's happened it's just energy in the air. Energy used gets dissipated as heat - whether it's electrical, mechanical, waste heat from power generation, whatever, it will eventually come out as heat. There's no Maxwell's demon choosing joules of heat energy based on their origin, no ID cards on the photons - you have warm air. There is no difference in what happens to those joules of energy once they have dissipated into the atmosphere. Watts is watts. No ifs, ands, or buts, no qualifiers. Once it gets into the system it's just indistinguishable watts. The frustration you may sense in some of the posts is due to an inability to understand how that simple fact could be denied. So - back to the orders of magnitude. The 1% of energy from AHF compared to the 99% of energy from GHG entrapment? As Ned put it in the related thread: If you eat a single saltine cracker AND a pint of ice cream a day (all of which go into calories once digested), which do you think makes you put on the pounds? -
CBDunkerson at 03:35 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
RSVP #46 wrote: "I explain above however how "watts is not watts", but this was ignored (or not comprehended)." The latter. No one comprehends it... because it is self-evidently false. 2 is 2, up is not down, and watts are watts. Energy going into the atmosphere from solar heating is exactly the same as energy going into the atmosphere from human industry. Every watt of either will interact with the climate in exactly the same way. Also, as I explained to you previously, if heat generated from combustion of fossil fuels WERE causing global warming the sustainable solution would be exactly the same as that here in reality... stop using fossil fuels. There is more than enough solar and/or wind power to replace fossil fuels, and since they use energy already present in the climate system (rather than 'locked away' in the ground) they wouldn't be introducing 'new' heat the way fossil fuels do. -
Ned at 03:33 AM on 28 July 2010The nature of authority
Hmmm. It looks like there is a gridded precipitation data set here. That might be worth checking out. The paper describing it (Huffman et al. 2009) does calculate trends (1979-present) for the tropics, although not separately for the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere tropics. For the whole 25N to 25S band, they show a slight increase in precip 1979-present over ocean. Over land, there's a slight decrease in precip, but it looks like it may be an artifact of the data sources, and it reverses after 1988. -
RSVP at 03:20 AM on 28 July 2010Waste heat vs greenhouse warming
I just want to say that I "have" captured the message from posters that AGW represents climate forcing two orders of magnitude greater than "anthropogenic waste heat". I explain above however how "watts is not watts", but this was ignored (or not comprehended). This point aside, it is interesting to note what happens to the label "deniers" in this context. The idea of waste heat being responsible for global warming would be a most "inconvenient truth" indeed, as most are likely to harbor that if this is the real problem, there is no (sustainable) solution. If so, this would be very ironic indeed. Ironic if one believes in AGW only because a magic wand supposedly exists (i.e., getting rid of fossil fuels).
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