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Comments 124001 to 124050:

124001. carrot eater at 02:56 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        suibhne Your thought experiment is ill-posed, and I can't discern any meaning from it. It isn't a matter of a tracing around a single photon and studying its "time delay", suibhne. It's a question of energy flows. Take this diagram as a simple illustration. windows.ucar.edu/.../earth_rad_budget_kiehl_trenberth_1997_big.gif Without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, that back-radiation term would not be there. If you increase the concentration of greenhouse gases, the outgoing longwave radiation term would decrease, and the system would have to warm up over time until the two terms going out to space again balanced the incoming term (here, 342 W/m^2).
124002. CBDunkerson at 02:39 AM on 19 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        RSVP & guinganbresil, 'infrared radiation' covers a huge range of EM wavelengths. Your statements above about whether IR radiation is increasing or decreasing are faulty due to overgeneralizing; Wavelengths of infrared absorbed by GHGs have shown decreased amounts escaping the atmosphere and increased amounts radiating down to the surface. Other wavelengths of infrared have increased both in amounts escaping and warming the surface.
124003. Cliff Oates at 02:29 AM on 19 February 2010
        It's the sun
        In answer to response. There is nothing to show that greenhouse gasses caused global warming except that co2 has increased concurrently with the warming. The increase in sunspot numbers during the same period could have been totally responsible. Greenhouse gasses are an over simplified solution to a complex climate phenomenon and again seems to ignore the effects of the oceans interaction.
        Response: There is nothing to show that greenhouse gasses caused global warming
        
        I suggest you read through the empirical evidence for an enhanced greenhouse effect. Satellites find less infrared radiation escaping at CO2 wavelengths. Surface measurements find more infrared radiation returning back to Earth at CO2 wavelengths. This is experimental evidence for a direct causal link between increased CO2 and a build-up of heat in our climate.
        
        I also suggest you read the article above. Sunspot numbers have shown a long term declining trend during the last few decades of global warming.
124004. CBDunkerson at 02:24 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        Suibhne, you seem to be forgetting the existence of all matter OTHER than GHGs. As in... some of that IR radiation which is absorbed and re-emitted by GHGs then goes back down to the lands and oceans of the planet. Making them warmer. Ditto non greenhouse gases. Poof... away goes the 'speed of light' objection. We are literally talking about the difference between 'up' and 'down' here. Solar radiation passes through the atmosphere and heats the planet. The planet gives off infrared radiation... which travels UP and escapes into space... UNLESS it is absorbed by GHGs and emitted back DOWN towards the planet. Carrot eater correctly noted that this infrared energy can also interact with non greenhouse gases in the atmosphere... but that's true regardless of which direction the radiation is traveling. The central point is that some of the energy which was going up and away into space gets re-directed back down and remains here on Earth. The more energy that happens to the warmer the planet gets.
124005. SNRatio at 02:24 AM on 19 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        TOP, 87: "I already had a grasp of the basic principles that those folks were using and haven't seen a compelling argument for the kinds of actions being proposed to combat it. Sorry, I still stick to my principles. " Then prove that you have understood it. For example by refuting the estimated 3 degC increase per CO2 doubling. Otherwise, you just provide strong indications that you haven't - that may be another example of the effect discussed in the post. The basic action, reduction of CO2 emissions, may be too simple for your taste. NOT doing that, will give some, by now, fairly well predictable effects. The biggest uncertainty is the exact time scale.
124006. suibhne at 02:21 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        CBDunkerson Riccardo Lets follow both your points with a thought experiment 1,000,000 IR PHOTONS leave the surface of the Earth and lets follow CBs postulate that 500,000 return back to the surface in less than 1microsecond. These 500,000 now join the upward stream and 1microsecond 250,000 return to the surface and join the upward stream etc,etc The flow of heat is always from hot to cold as G&T say but the delay caused by the co2 is negligible and in no way explains the insulating effect of the atmosphere. I think that Carrot Eater gave the more physically realistic explanation The IR energy is stored within the co2 molecule as vibrational KE. That is it is thermalized. the CO2 is much more likely to interact with N2(80%) then O2(19%) so the thermal energy will be shared between all the atmospheric molecules and so will delay the cooling of the Earth much longer. Of course sometimes a CO2 molecule will re-radiate but the IR photon will quickly be absorbed and thermalized or it may escape completely.
124007. carrot eater at 02:10 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        suibhne "It can only radiate in one of two possible IR bands and it has just lost one !" The 15 micron band is what's relevant here. CO2 is quite happy to radiate there. I don't see what the issue is. "However Eli uses in his refutation ....guess what....Stepthan Boltzman equation for atmosphere re-radiating back to Earths surface." I have already told you the context for such illustrations; they are merely illustrations for some educational purpose. In this example, he's merely showing that there is no violation of the Second Law when a cool body radiates in the direction of a warmer body, so long as the warmer body radiates more in return. This shows one of the fundamental errors of G&T (their claim that the Second Law is violated), and I wish you would address it. Please do not misrepresent things. Eli well knows about the details of the quantum mechanics and the need to keep track of wavelength-specific bands; just look at Fig 7 or read in the introduction, "In the first case quantum theory provides the theoretical background (for example, see spectroscopy textbooks such as Hollas and Bernath) and spectroscopic data base such as HITRAN provide line positions and cross sections."
124008. Dikran Marsupial at 01:43 AM on 19 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        RSVP @ 90 The reason there is so much focus on CO2 is that it is a factor that is actually under our full control and because it is a long-lasting greenhouse gas. If we were to stop fossil fuel use tomorrow the effects of any associated water vapour would only last a matter of a few days, whereas the (elevated levels of) CO2 would be around for at least 50-250 years. The climatologists do know water vapour is a GHG, their knowledge of its interaction with other forcings and feedbacks is still rather uncertain, hence the variation in elements of climate sensitivity. But the projections made by the modellers do include such factors (even if they are only a work in progress). Ultimately the fact that so much of the discussion revolves around CO2 is not because it is the only forcing worth talking about and the others can be ignored. It is because it is the forcing of the greatest practical importance.
124009. theendisfar at 01:38 AM on 19 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        RSVP, It must be understood that Convection and Evaporation move far more energy from the surface of the planet to the Tropopause than does Radiation. If you actually attempt to describe the GHE as a picture, it would have a net as a roof ~10,000 meters high and no walls. There is only 1 CO2 molecule for every 2600 O2 and N2 molecules, so the atmosphere is also very transparent to IR. The GHE is a misnomer and has been grossly overestimated as to its ability to 'trap' heat, especially when taking into account the massive cooling effects of Convection and Evaporation.
124010. Riccardo at 01:35 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        CBDunkerson, when G&T paper has been published on arxiv back in 2007, the very first thing i noticed was the 40 or so pages devoted to clarify that the atmospheric greenhouse gas effect does not work like a glass greenhouse! I have seen this explained in a high school textbook, the right place for it. But then came the good old 19th century physics and i got stuck. How can you force a colder object not to emit it's thermal radiation toward a warmer object? Does it have knowledge of the thermal distribution of the universe? In the end the net flux is still in the right direction and i couldn't see violation of any known (at least by me) law. Maybe i was missing something and G&T are reputable physicists after all. But how come we can routinely measure IR and even radio frequencies with detectors at room temperature? I might not be a reputable physicist like G&T but i'm quite sure that the IR radiation reaches my f**king warmer detector :D Here they lost me.
124011. guinganbresil at 01:26 AM on 19 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        RSVP, GHG's absorb specific bands of IR emissions. In the case of CO2 it is around 15 um (650-750 cm^-1). GHG's also EMIT IR radiation at the brightness temperature of the gas over the same band. Greenhouse warming theory is that IR that OTHERWISE would have gone straight out will be absorbed and re-emitted, with some large fraction going back down rather than up and out. So, if the Earth is warming due to less IR emissions to space (which is the theory as far as I understand it), then you would expect less IR measured by satellites. In fact, satellites have measured MORE IR emissions to space, particularly in the 800-1000 cm^-1 band (not CO2). You will find a graph (Fig 2C, Harries 2001) on this site that would give you the impression less IR is escaping to space. That is NOT THE CASE. Figure 2B shows the spectrum prior to removing the non-GHG effects. There are also many other measurements of TOTAL outgoing IR done by satellites showing INCREASING IR loss to space. Note that CO2 Greenhouse effect warming the Earth, causing more IR emissions from the surface, resulting in more loss to space does not follow the fundamental law of conservation of energy. From what I can see, CO2 CAUSING the warming is not consistent with these observations. I would happily concede that CO2 could exacerbate SOME OTHER CAUSE.
        Response: Harries 2001 does not find more IR escaping out to space. This is because it doesn't cover the whole spectrum - the missing part is at lower wavelengths, where there is much absorption due to CO2 and water vapour feedback. What it does find is the change in outgoing spectrum matches very closely with how we expect greenhouse gases to absorb outgoing energy which is confirmation of theory and an enhanced greenhouse effect.
124012. SNRatio at 01:00 AM on 19 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        RSVP, 89: "What about all the water vapor that comes from combustion? When burning methane for instance, you get twice as much water vapor as CO2. Even if you assume a shorter lifetime of water vapor as compared to CO2, the immediate presence of the extra water vapor must be factoring into the current temperature readings, in which case, CO2 is having less impact than is assumed. " Perhaps you should look at and compare the long-time effects on atmospheric concentrations of water vapor and CO2 released at the surface. You might learn why treating water vapor so differently from CO2, though they have overlapping effects, is not such a hopeless idea after all. But if you had objected to the way water vapor is treated in climate modeling today, I might tend to agree with you.
124013. suibhne at 00:58 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        CBDunkerson Do you still stand by your posting ...........As to your convection hypothesis... it fails because, amongst other things, greenhouse gases do not retain heat within themselves. They absorb and then immediately re-emit the infrared radiation..... Then imagine that a CO2 immediately re-radiated an IR photon and this photon underwent 100 similar interactions with "Greenhouse Gases" before escaping to space. How long would the process take at the speed of light? I would guess less than a microsecond. I prefer Carrot Eaters explanation of the IR energy being thermalized into the form of vibrational KE.
124014. Riccardo at 00:51 AM on 19 February 2010
        There's no empirical evidence
        Argus, you do not need any computer model. Pick up the hypothetical forcing of you choice, take the available recent or paleo data and see if they match. You really need to do it before assuming it could be something else and stand there forever.
124015. suibhne at 00:47 AM on 19 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        Riccardo I really do think that you are following A P Smith and getting yourself into the most amazing muddle. To you apparently Gravity and the conservation of energy are passe. I am starting to think that if I gave you a very simple problem to do you might fail to answer it-will I?
124016. Argus at 00:36 AM on 19 February 2010
        There's no empirical evidence
        The beauty of climate science is that it will take at least 50 years to prove or disprove any claim that is made today, and by then most of us will be dead anyway. You cannot test a climate theory in real life, on the real globe itself, unless you allow for a time scale that is too long for a human scientist. Sure, I can build a computer model to 'test' my theory, but a computer model only yields the results I want - the results that I have built into the model, and using the parameters that I have chosen to feed it with.
124017. RSVP at 00:18 AM on 19 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        I have been told that greenhouse gases do not stop IR emissions, but rather only slow them down. So if the Earth is warming, shouldnt satellites in any case be detecting more IR rather than less? Since more surface heat would imply more IR energy. From what I have been told however, satellites are detecting lower IR emmisions, and thus proving CO2 is the main cause of AGW.
124018. Alexandre at 23:56 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        For some reason, none of the videos played in my Firefox, with the exception of the third, 'revolutionary' one.
124019. RSVP at 23:48 PM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        Marcus "the amount of energy which is received by Earth-from the Sun-every year is 3.8 million *exajoules*." Please see this article... http://www.skepticalscience.com/CO2-is-not-the-only-driver-of-climate.html There is no vector that takes into account the absolute amount of solar radiation. Not sure why you are making this comparison. From my understanding, AGW is only due to imbalances set up by humans.
124020. Alexandre at 23:45 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        The IPCC report mentions the SIO and the NOAA/GMD networks as the most comprehensive ones. Mauna Loa is not even included in those ones, and it does not have anything to do with the volcanic emissions, but with its altitude: “In 2005, the global mean average CO2 mixing ratio for the SIO network of 9 sites was 378.75 ± 0.13 ppm and for the NOAA/GMD network of 40 sites was 378.76 ± 0.05 ppm, yielding a global average of almost 379 ppm. For both networks, only sites in the remote marine boundary layer are used and high-altitude locations are not included. For example, the Mauna Loa site is excluded due to an ‘altitude effect’ of about 0.5 ppm.” (from the page linked)
124021. Ari Jokimäki at 23:43 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        Here are animations of carbon dioxide and methane from Sciamachy (2003-2005).
124022. RSVP at 23:43 PM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        Ian Forrester at 10:14 AM on 18 February, 2010 "What you have just posted is absolute nonsense and shows that you know next to nothing about AGW." Why are you so selective about what is causing global warming? Are you saying that an asphalt parking lot laid on a green pasture is helping cool the earth? What about all the water vapor that comes from combustion? When burning methane for instance, you get twice as much water vapor as CO2. Even if you assume a shorter lifetime of water vapor as compared to CO2, the immediate presence of the extra water vapor must be factoring into the current temperature readings, in which case, CO2 is having less impact than is assumed.
124023. CBDunkerson at 23:39 PM on 18 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        Riccardo, try this... if G&T AREN'T morons then their postulate that EM radiation can't move from a colder area to a warmer one would prevent solar radiation from space (which is very cold) from entering the Earth's atmosphere (which is warmer). Not only have they disproved global warming... they've disproved sunlight.
124024. Riccardo at 23:23 PM on 18 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        suibhne, i'm sorry, i thought we were talking at a more advanced level. If we can just stick to newtonian physics extrapolated at the single molecule level and even ignoring statistical thermodynamics it's hard to come up with something useful. There's no way i'm aware of to explain the difference between thermal emission and absorption bands without using quantum mechanics or the relation between particle velocity and temperature not using statistical thermodynamics.
124025. Riccardo at 23:15 PM on 18 February 2010
        There's no empirical evidence
        Argus, you can make all the hypothesis you wish but science teach us to test them. You cannot not simply say there could be other unspecified causes; name them, test them. "obviously also exist other explanations of, and reasons for, global warming." I agree and this is exactly what has been done for decades by scientists. So please start from here, give other possible explanations and test them. Unless you prefer the kind of nihilist state of mind that becasue we can not know the "Truth" we know nothing.
124026. Peter Hogarth at 22:46 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        Philippe, if I remember correctly the plumes are indeed attributed to the usual suspects, "natural" and man made fires, as well as plant respiration and fossil fuel burning. Elsewhere on the AIRS sites plumes over South Africa are attributed to their intensive coal liquidation industry and in Eastern Australia are attributed to coal fired power generation. The surprising thing is that the AIRS data is from around 8km up, and yet concentrations are still localised. There is information (and even some animations) on vertical transport on the ENVISAT site, which helps clarify what is happening.
124027. Marcus at 22:39 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        You're almost certainly correct, Phillipe, as we know how much people are destroying the rain-forests of Africa & South America. This isn't just putting CO2 into the atmosphere, it is also leading to reductions in regional rainfall, the loss of valuable soil nutrients, increased risk of exposure to disease vectors (like Ebola) & the endangerment of thousands of species of animals & plants. I don't like to sound pessimistic, but I suspect that Homo Sapien Sapien will be one of the shortest lived species on the planet to date!
124028. Argus at 21:55 PM on 18 February 2010
        There's no empirical evidence
        Riccardo, Yes, I know there ''there's not just CO2 around''. That is exactly my point. Alarmists are currently blaming everything on just some added ppm:s of CO2, where there obviously also exist other explanations of, and reasons for, global warming. And no, I did not use 'wrong logic'. I did not claim that current warming 'can not' be due to CO2. I just said that there could be other reasons as well. Riccardo uses 'wrong logic' when he blames me of something I did not claim. Apparently Riccardo is not familiar with the language of logic (A implies B, and so on), or he would have seen my point, instead of jumping onto something I did not write. I was simply pointing out (as has others before me, se comments 2, 7, 10, 12) that you cannot prove backward implication, from the knowledge of existing forward implication. I will expand upon my own smoke example: We know that tyres burning cause black smoke. Suppose we know beforehand that burning of tyres is taking place in a suburb. Suppose we see enormous amounts of smoke from a distance. The alarmist would then say: 'Oh my, what a lot of tyres they must be burning!'. Yes, some smoke did come from the tyres, but what we did not know was that 98% of the smoke came from a chemical factory that was on fire.
124029. suibhne at 21:16 PM on 18 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        The site Sceptical science should offer a way out of the mud slinging that gets nowhere and is unfortunately all to common with this topic. So what have I picked up from the discussion! CBDunkerso ...........As to your convection hypothesis... it fails because, amongst other things, greenhouse gases do not retain heat within themselves. They absorb and then immediately re-emit the infrared radiation..... However this is contradicted by Carrot Eater ....By the way, CO2 doesn't always instantly radiate a photon as soon as it absorbs one. It can collide with neighboring molecules and thus warm up that pocket of air...... I would tend to side with carrot eater- but now the energy in the form of vibrational KE can be picked up by nearby molecules(most likely to be N2) Carrot Eater goes on to say But that's still fine; the CO2 will still emit at some rate set by the local temperature..... It can only radiate in one of two possible IR bands and it has just lost one ! Carrot Eater has reassured me by saying of the use of Stephan Boltzmann equation is not used in realistic calculations. .....Those are extremely simplified cartoon illustrations, to help show people the basic concepts of the energy balance without having to write thousands of equations. However thanks must go to Philippe Chantreau 151 who has given a link to Eli Rabbits final draft of his attempt to refute the G&T paper. However Eli uses in his refutation ....guess what....Stepthan Boltzman equation for atmosphere re-radiating back to Earths surface. Eli has been keeping quiet about this recent effort and I think I can guess why. I am disappointed with Ricardo when he tries to defend what must be a silly mistake. ...A molecule moving vertically up in a gravitational field for say 10Km in the absence of any other interactions would keep the same speed...-this is nonsense Not only does it contradict the conservation of energy it contradicts the force of gravity. From the Kinetic Theory of Gases The KE of a molecule is directly proportional to its absolute temperature In my post 101 ... I gave a typical question from any high school physics book in the planet I have also given answers-try it for yourselves-if you cannot cope then I think you will find it very difficult to understand this topic
124030. Dikran Marsupial at 21:08 PM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        One last comment on statistical significance, a more frequentist colleague kindly let me borrow his copy of "Statistical Inference" by Garthwaite, Joliffe and Jones (ISBN 0-13-847260-2), which says on page 72: "A related point is that rejection of H0 [the null hypothesis] implies a degree of disbelief in H0, but 'acceptance' of H0 simply means that there is little evidence against H0 and does not rule out other hypotheses. 'Failure to reject' is a better term than 'acceptance'" Of course if you cherry pick the start date then the hypothesis test is invalid in the first place as you have already looked at the data to select a period where the data don't supply sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis. Most of the "global cooling since X" or "lack of warming since X" are based on such cherry picking, for instance X is often 1998 or 2002, but not 2000. The reason why is fairly obvious. I suspect that 1995 was chosen as it is the earliest start date for which there is insufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis; in which case it is in the same category. Phil Jones should be applauded for giving a straight scientific answer to the question without a trace of spin; that was left to the journalists to supply ;o)
124031. gpwayne at 19:49 PM on 18 February 2010
        Skeptical Science now an iPhone app
        Great app John. I followed the Guardian thread yesterday and was pleased to see how many people had visited your site after reading the article. The best counter we have to propaganda are facts, and this is a superb channel through which to deliver rational arguments based on science.
124032. Riccardo at 19:32 PM on 18 February 2010
        There's no empirical evidence
        guinganbresil, the increased absorption at 600 cm-1 due to CO2 together with the increase of the thermal radiation from the surface are indeed compatible. The former is a measure the extra heat trapped, the latter of the increased surface temperature. The overall OLR increases/decreases if the planet is out of equilibrium and is warming/cooling.
124033. Philippe Chantreau at 18:52 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        Wow! Nice. I wonder what are the causes of plumes over equatorial Africa and South America in the NOAA vid. I'm leaning toward fires.
124034. Jeff Freymueller at 18:44 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        The videos work now in Firefox. Fabulous.
124035. Craig Allen at 18:15 PM on 18 February 2010
        Visual depictions of CO2 levels and CO2 emissions
        John, I'm not seeing the videos in Firefox. The blocks of space where they should be are there, the object code is there behind the scenes, and I can copy the Youtube links into a new window and watch the videos directly, but nothing in this page.
        Response: Thanks for the heads-up, it's a glitch in my admin system that changes the YouTube code enough to break it in Firefox but not in Internet Explorer, hence I didn't notice the error.
        
        Yes, it's true, I use Internet Explorer :-(
        
124036. David Horton at 17:59 PM on 18 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        "if you sort it you are predisposing yourself to an expected outcome. Just pick pieces at random without any thought to what the outcome should be and see what you get" - I sense a fundamental failure of a science education here. We usually complain abut students graduating without learning some fundamental scientific facts and theories. But this comment (as is the case with so much of the denialism we see growing in volume) shows that a student has not been taught, or failed to learn, the scientific PROCESS. Still, you can always pick it up, effortlessly, from American crime shows on television.
124037. Cliff Oates at 17:06 PM on 18 February 2010
        It's the sun
        It is arbitrary. I looked a little at other averaging methods. The general shape of the sunspot averaging results are similar. All show that an increase in global temperatures would be expected after 1920. I believe that the overall time period is of the order of 40 or more years. Other weighting factors may be more appropriate, but I don't know how to determine them. This approach is only for long term temperature studies. Short term temperature responses will neccessarily scatter around the longer trends. Since the Little Ice Age was likly the result of the lack of sunspot activity this shows that solar activity should not be ignored even though direct quantification cannot be derived. Is there any real reason to believe that greenhouse gasses are any more responsible for global temperatures than solar activity?
        Response: Is there any real reason to believe that greenhouse gasses are any more responsible for global temperatures than solar activity?
        
        This question is answered in The empirical evidence for an enhanced greenhouse effect. Just to clarify, greenhouse gases aren't the sole driver of climate but over the last few decades, the forcing from CO2 have been greater than any other climate forcing (as well as the fastest rising).
124038. guinganbresil at 16:37 PM on 18 February 2010
        There's no empirical evidence
        Figure 2C from Harries 2001 is being used to show that outgoing long wave radiation is decreasing as a result of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Figure 2B (not shown) indicates an increase the range 750-1000 cm^-1. The net effect is an actual increase in OLR over time. This increase is shown spectrally in the other papers mentioned as well (Griggs 2004, Chen 2007). Although Harries 2001 writes it off as contaminated data - it is a real measurement and not an artifact (Griggs 2004). The increase has been measured in other satellite measurements of total OLR. The total OLR is increasing over time, not decreasing. The Earth's radiation balance is a function of the TOTAL OLR, not just the OLR in the CO2 band. It is a fallacy of composition to conclude that a reduction in the 15 um OLR is CAUSING Earth's warming when the TOTAL OLR is increasing. At most you could assert that the decrease in 15 um OLR would exacerbate warming caused by ANOTHER SOURCE.
124039. Doug Bostrom at 15:12 PM on 18 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        TOP at 13:31 PM on 18 February, 2010 That's most unfortunate. Having a grasp of the basic principles and at the same time a reluctance to accept the outcomes predicted by those principles is of course something only you can address. You might want to think of it all in the same way you do fastening your seat belt, or brushing your teeth. Failing those, Good Luck to you, I can't offer better!
124040. Tom Dayton at 13:51 PM on 18 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        TOP, Spencer Weart's The Discovery of Global Warming is intended to be an overview--an introduction. If you want more detail, including the specific evidence backing up the experts' opinions, you are supposed to follow up elsewhere. One excellent place is here at Skeptical Science. But that addresses your objection only if you actually read the references that John (and others) provide. It sounds like you might benefit from, and appreciate, the overview by cce, The Global Warming Debate. But on that site, too, your objection to reliance on experts will be overcome only if you click on the links that cce provides to the sources of his info.
124041. TOP at 13:31 PM on 18 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        doug_bostrom "You might want to get up to speed on this entire topic by reading Dr. Spencer Weart's excellent summary, here: The Discovery of Global Warming" I read through it. Thanks. But I still don't agree or better, I don't see what the point is. Doctor Weart frequently appeals to experts, in fact I see more appeal to experts than hard numbers and the equations and math models to go with them. I don't often go to popular TV series for wisdom, but a character on one of those crime scene investigation shows had a zinger when a colleague asked whether they should sort the pile of evidence first. She said, "No, because if you sort it you are predisposing yourself to an expected outcome. Just pick pieces at random without any thought to what the outcome should be and see what you get." I see Doctor Weart doing a lot of sorting based on an anachronistic disposition toward the outcome. I already had a grasp of the basic principles that those folks were using and haven't seen a compelling argument for the kinds of actions being proposed to combat it. Sorry, I still stick to my principles.
124042. MattJ at 13:20 PM on 18 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        In response to the emailed version of this article, and its reference to peer-reviewed papers even available by iPhone: peer-reviewed papers are great, the science MUST rely on them, but they are nearly useless for public policy debates. Why? Because they are too hard to read for people outside the field. But the whole point of the public policy debate IS to make the basic facts of the case accessible to the public, so that they can understand the truth of the matter: AGW is real, it is a real threat, we must deal with it by cutting GHG emissions NOW.
124043. Marcus at 11:46 AM on 18 February 2010
        The Dunning-Kruger effect and the climate debate
        TOP, as has been stated elsewhere, the ratio of carbon isotopes in natural CO2 is significantly different from that in CO2 from fossil fuels (due to the longer time carbon in fossil fuels has had to decay). Secondly, there probably is a saturation point above which increased CO2 will not lead to further increases in temperature, but are you prepared to bet your *life* on where that saturation point might be? The average temperature of the Carboniferous Era was 22 degrees C, compared to 14 degrees C today, so that suggests the threshold is very high indeed!
124044. Marcus at 11:39 AM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        Another point, RSVP, is that though base temperatures of cities might be warmer than their surrounding rural environments (by anywhere up to 1 degree C), there is absolutely *no sign* that cities are warming any faster-above that base-than the surrounding rural area. Indeed, if urban heat were the primary source of global warming, then the inversion layer/urban heat island should ensure that urban areas warm significantly faster than their surrounds. Yet this is clearly *not* the case. Many remote, rural areas are warming significantly faster than the nearest cities, which suggests a much less localized source of warming.
124045. GFW at 11:35 AM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        Wow, #82 by RSVP really does show a complete lack of background knowledge. It's like when you enter 'chat' in some online video game and then suddenly realize the other person must be 13 or so. For the record RSVP, laying asphalt and emitting CO2 have the following similarity - both trap more of the incoming energy from the sun, increasing surface temperature. But the asphalt only does so over the area it is laid. The CO2 does it over the whole planet, and is the greater total effect by far. Your phrase "manmade solar energy being trapped that would otherwise not exist" is completely mixed up. (Is English your main language?) The correct thing to say about asphalt is "natural solar energy being trapped that would otherwise have been reflected back into space" Read the wikipedia article on urban heat islands. It's very clear that albedo, both in terms of the dark surfaces, and the geometry of the surface "urban caynon effect" is the main driver of UHI. Direct heating from human use of energy is less important. In other words, if you did an experiment where all the inhabitants of New York left the city for a year, it would still be an urban heat island while they were gone. As impressive as the UHI effect can be, not enough of the planet's surface is affected for UHI to make any noticeable contribution to global warming. Only truly global changes (like CO2) can cause that.
124046. Marcus at 11:32 AM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        RSVP, the amount of energy which is received by Earth-from the Sun-every year is 3.8 million *exajoules*. The total amount of energy generated from *all* human sources in a year is about 600 exajoules. So you see that your claim that our piddling thermal contribution is significant enough to warm the entire planet is like me saying that-if I pee in the ocean, it will turn yellow. No, where humans are impacting on global temperatures is on how quickly & easily *all* the planet's outgoing radiation can be re-emitted back out to space. In that regard, our contribution is *very significant*.
124047. Ian Forrester at 10:14 AM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        RSVP said:

        What you just referred to as lower albedo due to asphalt is precisely manmade solar energy being trapped that would otherwise not exist. Conbustion (sic) energy is also man-made. For these reasons cities are warmer.

        Please go and read the Dunning Kruger thread. What you have just posted is absolute nonsense and shows that you know next to nothing about AGW.
124048. RSVP at 08:44 AM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        CBDunkerson "the energy generated by a city is absolutely minuscule in comparison to the energy of the solar radiation hitting that city... and the entire rest of the planet. Further, cities are not 'warmer regions' of the planet. They often (not always) tend to be slightly warmer than their immediate local surroundings due to lower albedo of asphalt and other factors, but this is nothing compared to places like Death Valley or the Gobi Desert. " The only source of global warming of concern (I thought) is that which precisely comes from humans. That of Death Valley or Gobi Desert have been around for ever and are not considered incremental. What you just referred to as lower albedo due to asphalt is precisely manmade solar energy being trapped that would otherwise not exist. Conbustion energy is also man-made. For these reasons cities are warmer.
124049. SNRatio at 08:16 AM on 18 February 2010
        Did Phil Jones really say global warming ended in 1995?
        75, RSVP "SNRatio "Of course that is not the way we work in science, and I don't really understand where you have got these notions from." Answer. Maybe engineering. People who build the equipment you guy use. " So then, when there is a 94% chance a part is faulty, you say "no fault" because the null hypothesis of "ok" can not be rejected? That may actually explain a lot, but most engineers know better, and work mostly with confidence intervals when presented with estimation problems of the type we discuss here. And when they do tests, they care about the power. You are insisting on methods that cannot detect a 0.12 degC/decade warming trend. In a climatic context, that's insisting on blindness. But it is a strategy used to conceal facts: Running tests with too low power to detect effects, and with experiment repetitions that, like short time temperature series, tend to go both ways. "There is no effect."
124050. Philippe Chantreau at 08:11 AM on 18 February 2010
        Is CO2 a pollutant?
        The complete G&T09 comment sent to the journal that published it can be found here on top of the list: http://groups.google.com/group/rabett-run-labs?hl=en How G&T made it through peer-review is unclear. Perhaps something similar to the Soon-Baliunas piece.

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