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Comments 1901 to 1950:
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peppers at 01:01 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Hi gentlemen,
I see a quarum gathering!
I see science as not a conclusive process. History has proven it can only be a progressive form. Einstein overtook Newton, the solar system replaced the center theme, the flat earth, etc. We do not seem to end up too foolish until we stop and say, we know. Then it begins to prove we do not.
I am really working right off the label on the package. The searching of science never has an arrival.
For instance. in 1900 the world population was 1.6B. Now it is above 8B. This is the result of science. Global warming is the result of science discovering germs and influencing hygiene, housing and food supply within the industrial revolution. Infant mortality dropped from 50% to 30% by 1950. Today it is below 1% USA after antibiotics were discovered. An historic era for mankind! But do we celebrate this alleviant of human suffering and pain, or do we chastize it for bringing on global warming.
To me this is so important a question I am hesitant to continue without knowing quite a bit more. I would endure a lot of weather and sea rising in exchange for the boon science has brought.
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past
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Philippe Chantreau at 00:48 AM on 17 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers' production @ 9 has numerous characteristics of what I would indentify as older AI generated language. Rich vocabulary without comprehension or meaning. Correct sentence structure conveying incoherent thoughts. Related concepts mashed together in nonsensical ways.
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Eclectic at 23:41 PM on 16 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers @9 ~ I raise my hand to "second" Philippe's point. Please help!
I must be a Cranky Uncle of low I.Q. , for I am failing to grasp the points which you are (or may be) making.
Why are you mentioning "concluding" and "science" as (possibly) excluding each other? And why undertake a scientific process, if not to reach a conclusion? Is confirmatory scientific investigation somehow invalid? (And please do not bring Sartre into your explanation!)
Chaos and the Butterfly Effect ~ how connected with Milgram's 6 degrees? If this is a Mixed Metaphor of some sort, then it is too subtle for me . . . so please explain !
[ Unlike the changes of weather, the changes of climate are not chaotic. Cloud cover & albedo changes are not chaotic, even though difficult to compute precisely. ]
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Philippe Chantreau at 23:10 PM on 16 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
Peppers at 9:
What in the world are you trying to say?
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peppers at 21:19 PM on 16 June 2023Cranky Uncle: a game building resilience against climate misinformation
I have an ex wife who a year or so later, was 'fond' of me. I have an adversion to the word now!
How do we reconcile these 2 premises:
1. Characterizing another who does not conclude at this juncture, as; someone who is fond of misunderstanding climate science matters.
2. Oxford Dictionary; The systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained (the definition of Science bearing no mention of conclusion, and also applies the inference that a conclusion would be an impediment to the process of science).
I dont think you mean to have a conflict with others still observing and testing theories.Milgram's Six Degrees of Separation famously said that a butterfly can flap its wings in Peking, and in Central Park, you get rain instead of sunshine. As opposed to being settled, you cannot operate a scientific understanding without first not knowing. If you are steering to a conclusion, thats not science nor even close.
To add a bit more meat to the above poetic insertion, I'd like to add 2 observations. On November 22nd 2022 the world hit 8 billion, having increased exactly at the pace and curve of the famous hockey stick graph from 1 billion in the same time span. For a discussion about the planets ability to handle such a change, the clouds and atmosphere contain all the energy and ability to moderate that. However it is impossible to model any of it.
I say we need to observe, experiment and add theories to our incomplete knowledge of our world and of the solar system. More warmth, more moisture, more clouds, more albedo, etc.
Theories do not require immediate citations or proofing, however that would be the next thing sought. For the sake of theory ( not a belief nor desiring antagonizing), if we stay to any natural progression of things, the increase of our species having caused changes, if the natural offset were more warmth, moisture, cloud cover and albedo to offset this, are we interferring with natures response just because we would not want a warmer world, more weather, higher coastlines, etc.?
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Eclectic at 14:06 PM on 16 June 2023CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Log @34 , my apology for not replying more promptly. I was hoping that someone more knowledgeable than me would respond to you.
My understanding is that the Suess Effect's major relevance is with radiocarbon dating, rather than with climate matters.
It would be helpful if you could clarify your question, by discussing it in more detail how you believe there are difficulties of comprehension of the planetary total carbon cycle. Perhaps you are seeking more precision than is required for verification of the mainstream scientific understanding of modern climate change.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:35 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Manabe's Nobel Prize was very well deserved, that's for sure.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:01 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
I also disagree with part of what Charlie Brown has said in comment 386. Although it is reasonable to say that the IR radiation emitted to space looks like it is being emitted from a single layer at temperature X, the losses to space are an integration of IR radiation emitted at many layers of differing temperatures.
A lot of IR loss to space comes from the stratosphere. In the Beer's Law thread I linked to, in comment #15, I give the modelling results from Manabe and Wetherald, 1967, which shows a cooling of the stratosphere with increased CO2. That is because adding CO2 also increases the ability to emit radiation, as well as to absorb it. In the stratosphere, that means that the temperature change is dominated by the fact that the same IR radiation can be emitted a a lower temperature. That would not make any sense if IR loss to space only came from a single height. Here is the figure I included in that oher comment:
IR radiation transfer in the atmosphere cannot really be dealt with as a single-layer item , except as a useful approximation to illustrate certain characteristics. It is a continuous system of many layers, with absorption/emission sequences that depend on all of the following: temperatures, atmospheric composition, and the wavelength of radiation (since greenhouse gasses absorb and emit at specific wavelengths).
It is correct that water vapour is concentrated in lower layers of the troposphere, where the temperatures are warmer - whereas CO2 is relatively uniformly mixed through the troposphere and stratosphere. But both exist in a continuum. The symbols in the figure I give above represent the different layers that were used in the Manabe and Wetherald model. Still a set of discrete altitudes (heck it was 1967, so the computer they used was far less complex that your current cell phone) - but a lot more layers than just "this one for water vapour, that one for CO2".
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Eclectic at 08:54 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Charlie_Brown @386 ,
No. Please remember the old adage about "not seeing the forest for the trees". ;-)
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Charlie_Brown at 07:47 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Actually, I think that Vidar2032 @383 is correct. When he/she says GHGs emit at a fixed temperature, I believe he/she means at the temperature of the atmosphere as fixed by the atmospheric temperature profile. The 1976 U.S. Std Atmosphere for the tropopause, where CO2 emits to space, is close to 220K, while the emitting layer of H2O vapor in the troposphere is about 240-270 K. When he/she says that the effect of increased concentration is to broaden the band, that also is correct when considering that increasing concentration strengthens weak absorption lines. Look at the Figure in Bob Loblaw @7 in his linked thread to Beer’s Law above, which Bob kindly produced for me at that time. The weak absorption lines on the wings get stronger as concentration increases. There is sufficient path length in the tropopause to bring most of the absorption lines for the CO2 band between 14-16 microns close to 1.0, which means that the emittance is close to 1.0. Stacking the strong absorption lines in the middle of the band, which means increasing the path length and bringing an emittance of close to 1.0 even closer to 1.0, is not how increasing CO2 increases the emittance. Note that increasing emittance means more energy is emitted from a colder temperature which has less intensity than the energy emitted from a lower altitude at a warmer temperature. This is in accordance with the Planck black body distribution curves that Bob presents. The difference between a black body and a gas is that a black body absorbs/emits at all wavelengths while gases absorb/emit only at wavelengths specific to their molecular structure. What would be interesting, if only I could post my own Figure, would be the HITRAN absorption lines for CO2 at conditions of the tropopause and H2O for the troposphere.
Meanwhile, Vidar’s question is an excellent opportunity to use the Univ of Chicago link to MODTRAN Infrared Light in the Atmosphere. Choose the 1976 U.S. Std Atmosphere. All one has to do is increase the water vapor scalar to 1.07 to show a 7% increase, then adjust the temperature offset until the original value is matched. It turns out to be about 0.25 C. Better, to see if 7 % is about right, set CO2 to 280, CH4 to 0.7, and Freon to 0 to get pre-industrial conditions. Save the run to background. Then change CO2 to 415, CH4 to 1.8, and Freon to 1.0 to get current conditions, adjust the temperature offset to match the starting value, and choose holding fixed relative humidity. The raw model output shows that it changes the water vapor by about 6%, and the temperature offset is about 1.0 C. It's a very good approximation, but be careful not to place too high of an expectation on the accuracy and precision of this model. Realize that it is designed to be an educational tool with high computational speed and limited flexibility that provides good results, but better models exist for professional use.
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Eclectic at 04:39 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Vidar2032 @ post#383 ,
No. What you propose about infrared emissions is bizarrely wrong.
To educate yourself, please go back to Physics 101. From what you have said, you have a great deal of reading to do, to get up to understanding the very basics about radiation and molecules. You have a lot of work ahead of you !
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Bob Loblaw at 04:38 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Vidar2032:
I think you have some fundamental misunderstandings of the emission and absorption of radiation.
First, gases do not emit radiation "at a fixed temperature". Temperature is not a characteristic of radiation. Temperature is a measure of thermal energy, and that thermal energy is available to be converted to radiation (i.e., emitted). Gases will emit radiation at selected individual wavelengths, related to the structure of the gas. But they will emit radiation at those wavelengths at any temperature.
The way that temperature links to emission is by the quantity of energy available. Higher temperature? More frequent emissions of photons, which carry more energy. (But each individual photon at a specific wavelength will contain the same amount of energy.) For a blackbody (not a gas) the higher temperature also tends to increase the amount of radiation more at shorter wavelengths, so you see a shift in the wavelength with the peak emissions:
Increased concentration of gases means more molecules to absorb radiation, which means that individual photons will travel shorter distances before being absorbed. This is simply due to the number of extra CO2 molecules, not their concentration in ppm relative to the remaining gases. You can read about the proper way to use measurements of gas concentrations for radiation absorption calculations in this blog post:
https://skepticalscience.com/from-email-bag-beer-lambert.html
The comments in that blog post are also useful in explaining some of the related effects.
Once the proper calculations of the effects of adding CO2 and water vapour are done - yes, the seemingly small increase in water vapour will have that 1C warming effect.
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Vidar2032 at 00:08 AM on 16 June 2023Water vapor is the most powerful greenhouse gas
Isn't i so that greenhouse gases emits radiation into space at a more or less fixed temperature? Say, CO2 emits radiation to space at 220 kelvin, while water vaport emits radiation to space at 260 kelvin.
As far as my understanding goes, the only increased greenhouse effect is that higher concentration of these gases makes the absorption spectra broader so that more radiation to space happens at those lower temperatures. Since water vapor is the dominant greenhouse gas, accounting for approx 50% of the greenhouse effect, and its content in the atmosphere has increased by 'only' 7% due to the 1°C increase in atmospheric temperatures, how much additional greenhouse effect can this actually have? I would believe that 1°C additional warming from 7% more water vapor is an overstatement. What do you think?
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Log at 21:19 PM on 15 June 2023CO2 increase is natural, not human-caused
Hello,
I have a question about the Suess effect. I read that with an airborne fraction of 55% and the isotopic signature of anthropic emissions of about -28‰, the calculated delta 13C is too low compared to observations. I am trying to find precise explanations about it.
Could you explain, or provide some sources where I could find information ?
Thank you !
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One Planet Only Forever at 12:56 PM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1574 (and earlier),
I note and agree with your concern regarding harmful unsustainable activity related to renewable energy systems. But I share that concern in a more holistic way. It is undeniable that nasty ways of doing things also happened and continue to happen in the developed fossil fuelled system (but you seem to be unaware of that).
My concern is based on increasing awareness and understanding that the developed socioeconomic political systems have promoted, and will excuse and prolong, harmful developments. The more popular and profitable something becomes, especially with misleading marketing promotion, the more damaging it is and the harder it is to stop.
The lack of ethical governing of the socioeconomic political systems to limit harm done explains why the awful things you mention happen and are not rapidly ended. The desire for 'more benefit - cheaper and easier' can lead to all types of nasty unsustainable belief and interests that conflict with increased awareness of what is harmful and the need to limit the harm done.
I share the concern that those nastier ways of doing things can indeed be the ways that renewable energy systems get developed. But it has to be admitted that those nastier ways of doing things include 'prolonging fossil fuel use with the excuse that cheaper is better'.
Cheaper is only better if it is not more harmful. And it is understandable that more expensive ways of doing things that are less harmful should displace less expensive but more damaging ways. But that requires more people to be more aware of all the harmful realities of what has developed. And that awareness would lead to understanding that reducing the harmfulness of what has developed is not 'ruining the developed economy'. It is correcting the developed unsustainable perceptions by ending understandably damaging developments to create a more sustainable economy.
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Philippe Chantreau at 12:20 PM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
- Correct Rob. Oil refining cobalt represents about half of total consumption. However it should be said that a lot of it is recoverable, since it is used as a catalyst. Furthermore, it is worth pointing also that the largest lithium producer in the world is Australia, followed closely by Chile and together they represent 77% of world production.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:35 AM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1574....
Most of the cobalt that's mined is used for refining oil into gasoline. And with battery technology, there are alternatives to cobalt coming to market. For refining oil, there is no alternative.
Similarly, lithium mining is already less a problem than fossil fuels. And, lithium is found in sea water. Extraction technologies are currently in development.
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Charlie_Brown at 10:03 AM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1568
I am happy to help answer questions, as long as I am being taken seriously and not just being taken for a ride. @1533 and @1534, you asked for a simple answer. I provided answers in @1535 and @1536. Perhaps you didn’t understand them, but since you repeated the same question in @1544 by saying that you “just could not believe a trace gas of .04% of the atmosphere could have such an effect, especially with the history of CO2 volumes and estimated historic atmospheric temperatures not jiving with each other.” Without saying what it was about my answer that you didn’t understand, but conclude that you don’t believe CO2 can have such an effect and then jump to an incorrect distraction that CO2 and temperature do not jive, you rejected my answer. I find that to be disingenuous.If you are sincere, we could try again at this simple answer. Even at 0.04%, there are sufficient CO2 molecules in the cold upper atmosphere between 11 and 20 kilometers to create an emitting layer. Because it is cold, radiant energy emission to space is reduced. By the global energy balance, reduced energy lost to space means increased energy captured in the global system. There is no math for you to do, but you do have to trust that scientists do understand Beer’s Law and are capable of doing the math for you. Phillipe Chantreau @1572 made an excellent post regarding just some of the background hard science of radiant energy transfer. There are many more posts of excellent research throughout this site, although it does take some digging to find them. Please do as you suggest and do some homework, including on the topic of economics of costs for damage and abatement. It’s all there.
Trust in good science should have been earned by years of research and detailed calculations. There are a few so-called scientists out there who have published bad information, like the Gerlich & Tscheuschner paper that started this whole thread on the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This site is all about rebutting the bad information. See my post @1528 about this myth started by G&T. Or maybe you did that before posting @1529. So go back and read @1535 and @1536 again. Then, if you are still confused, maybe I can help clarify a specific concept before you jump to conclusions.
By the way, consider conservation of energy, not conservation of photons. A CO2 molecule absorbs a photon. Its energy state increases. Since it was in thermal equilibrium with adjacent molecules of any gas, it may lose the extra energy by collision. But then the adjacent molecules are at an increased energy state, so they may give the energy back by collision. Or the CO2 molecule may emit a photon to shed the extra energy. By Kirchoff’s law, absorptance = emittance at thermal equilibrium. Any disturbance in the energy balance upsets thermal equilibrium. Finally, note that it is the energy lost to space that can be determined by the global energy balance. It is problematic and not productive to worry about all of the collisions, absorptions, and reemissions as energy works its way through the atmosphere. That will only get you lost. Similarly, that is why it is not production to worry about convection and the water cycle. All of that just moves energy around in the atmosphere and sets of the atmosphere’s temperature profile. It is the atmospheric temperature profile that sets up radiant energy transfer.
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Likeitwarm at 07:42 AM on 15 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
sysop 1568
Very good points. You obviously are much more thorough than myself. My reference to an external energy source was just to point out that the imaginary object did not have one. I know I could have expanded on it to give everyone a more complete picture of my idea and realize that now. I'm not a good scientist.
Rob Honeycutt 1571
I was thinking of the dirty production of Lithium in China and cobalt by children in africa.
scaddenp 1573
It has been said, I think on Rabbet's site, that CO2 rarely loses gained energy by emitting a photon. Usually by collisions with N2 or O2 lower in the atmosphere. Just read that today.
I am convince that "some day" in the future, we will not be burning as much fossil fuel,but that day is much farther off than the politicians say it is. I think a slow phase out will work and not destroy the economy. My reasoning is that the cost of fuel is in everything we use every day, so when fossil fuel production was reduced 2 1/2 years ago prices of everthing started to rise. Not smart. We can transition to electric everything but at a slower pace. I think someday we will discover the equivalent of the Star Trek dilithium crystals.
I have been interested in electric vehicles for 50 years. I bought Nikola stock because that market is huge and I will make money on electric trucks. Everything we use come to us on a truck, today.
All that aside, I have learned a lot from all of the more educated that post here. I think I'll quit posting because I really think I cause everyone on this site undue consternation. I'll just read for a while and post a question now and then after due dilligence on my own research. I still have questions but I'll see if I can find the answer myself on your site.
Moderator Response:[BL] I wasn't born a "good scientist" either. It takes time to learn things, and if you want to see what path I took to get where I am, you can see it by clicking on the About menu option and choosing "Team".
If you look at the Comments Policy, in the first paragraph it says "we welcome genuine discussion as both an aid to understanding and a means of correcting our inadvertent errors." Asking questions is reasonable, but it is generally expected that people will read the material in the blog post before asking a lot of questions.
When you first arrived here, you were following a pattern of questioning that we often see from people who are not here to learn. Often, they are not interested in the answers, because they are already convinced that "science" has it wrong. They think that there is no answer to their question, and they are just here with an attitude that they can "show the scientists up". That provokes an "oh, no, not again" kind of reaction that can be tough on someone who really does want to learn.
It is clear that you have read a number of web sites that, frankly, are poor sources of information. Without a background in the subject, identifying those sites for what they are can be very difficult.
Do continue to read, do continue to learn, and do ask questions when you encounter information that is difficult to understand. But do make an effort to provide focused questions - starting with an explanation of how you got to where you are and why the question is in your mind. The best answers follow good questions.
...and I think you would benefit from the on-line course (free!) that BaerbelW pointed to in this comment.
...free online course (MOOC) "Denial101x - Making sense of climate science denial"?
As you look through the different pages here, you will often see that we have included video segments from that course. That can give you a sampling of what to expect.
Closing on your comment about CO2 losing energy by collision: you were probably reading this blog post. A key point in that article is that CO2 will also gain energy by collisions. Most of the energy transfer is from molecule to molecule (all gases), and that is what leads to all gases having the same average temperature - but CO2 and other greenhouse gases do emit IR radiation. And how much they emit depends on the atmospheric temperature - because it is collisions with the other molecules that gives the CO2 molecule the energy it gets rid of by emitting radiation. Absorbed radiation by the smaller number of greenhouse gases leads to heating of all gases, and when all gases get hot, greenhouse gases get more energy from them so they can emit more radiation. We're back to needing to follow all the steps involved - not just one or two in isolation.
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ubrew12 at 04:42 AM on 15 June 20232023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #23
There's an interesting aspect to this list. Al Gore exaggerated a few points in his film 'An Inconvenient Truth' (but it's an exaggeration itself to call those 'errors'). In many cases, Gore reported aspects of the science of attribution that science itself wasn't ready to report. Yet, the very next item in this list helps explain why Gore might have felt the need to do that. By the time Gore's film came out, climate action had been advocated by Science all the way to the White House, for over 40 years with little to show for it! You can excuse LBJ for taking a pass at action, consumed as he was at the time with Civil Rights legislation and the prospect of a ground war in Southeast Asia. But 40 years later? Perhaps what Gore felt was needed was a bracing slap in the face, to wake the subject up.
No such action is needed today, of course. 20 years on from Gore's film it is clear: from here on out, Nature will do the slapping.
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scaddenp at 11:32 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm - thanks for those answers, though if you realize that IR leaving the surface is captured by GHG (CO2, water) without having traveled very far; and then re-radiated, I am surprized that you were not understanding that GHG gases result in a warming surface. ok, file that away.
I leave others to discuss sources of your beliefs about renewables and chinese efforts, but I would have to ask this: If you became convinced that conversion to renewables was not going destroy world economies would that reduce your skeptics about global warming do you think? If it had been obvious to you when you first heard about global warming that getting off fossil fuels was both possible and economical, then would you have been so skeptical of science?
Do you feel differently about CO2"Science" now that you have seen them play with strawman arguments or would like other examples of their game before you wrote them off?
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Philippe Chantreau at 10:05 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Liikeitwarm,
I think you have a lot of misconceptions about what is known and understood about IR behavior in the atmosphere and what is not. This is an extensively researched subject, it has produced results used in many engineering fields that require precision and reliability. You need to peruse through Iacono and Clough (1995) and take a long studious look at the famous graph that is in that paper. Then look at the work that has been done since. IR absorption and re-emission is thoroughly modeled by the MODTRAN line by line model and to an even finer degree by HITRAN. The full IR atmospheric profile is known. Accumulating GHGs raises the effective emission altitude. Do some reading about that too. MODTRAN is a major component of IR weapon guidance systems. The US Air Force holds patents on MODTRAN. They don't care about anyone's opinion or what is on this or that website.
This is one of these areas of knowledge where your opinions and beliefs (or anyone else's, for that matter) are of no importance whatsoever. All the heavy lifting has already been done, and there is a right answer: the physics-based theoretical calculations, painstakingly accumulated to form the line by line models, have been validated by measurements at all applicable altitudes. This is not an area of uncertainty that is the subject of significant scientific debate.
No matter what you think happens to IR radiation leaving the ground, what actually happens has been very well studied, very well quantified, and is based on physics. It is possible that a major discovery could revolutionize our understanding, but the practical consequences of it on this particular subject would be similar to that of general relativity on the workings of an internal combustion engine, i.e. negligible.
Moderator Response:[BL] Likeitwarm is responding to this question from scaddenp, which included the following phrase:
Please dont look it up or attempt to calculate it- I am really interested in your intuition on this, not your knowledge.
Let scaddenp respond to likeitwarm's intuition. I'm sure he will ask more questions.
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:06 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
And on this comment you are also wrong: "Solar and wind energy have been shown that they are anything but cheap and dirtier to build, at this time."
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Rob Honeycutt at 09:02 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm... This conversation is becoming a classic Gish gallop.
Regarding your HBR article, please read down to the bottom of the article.
None of this should raise serious doubts about the future or necessity of renewables. The science is indisputable: Continuing to rely on fossil fuels to the extent we currently do will bequeath a damaged if not dying planet to future generations. Compared with all we stand to gain or lose, the four decades or so it will likely take for the economics of solar to stabilize to the point that consumers won’t feel compelled to cut short the life cycle of their panels seems decidedly small. But that lofty purpose doesn’t make the shift to renewable energy any easier in reality. Of all sectors, sustainable technology can least afford to be shortsighted about the waste it creates. A strategy for entering the circular economy is absolutely essential — and the sooner, the better.
This article clearly isn't making the claim that you seem to think it does. They're not saying renewables are dirtier. They're merely discussing the challenges we're going to face with waste from renewables. No one denies that, but the alternative of continued use of oil for energy is vastly worse. -
Likeitwarm at 07:07 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Sysop,
I posted and could not find it. Got a page expired message. Could not see that a new page was added(63). It still said 62.
So could you please delete 1569 as it is a second incarnation of the same post.
My apologies.
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Likeitwarm at 07:00 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
scaddenp 1549 and sysop
"how far a photon of appropriate wavelength would travel up through the atmosphere on average before encountering a CO2 molecule"
Depending on the humidity it might get caught first by H2O. It could travel 3 inches or 300 inches. I haven't calculated the odds. I guess it would be like shooting into a flock of birds to see if you hit one.
I read somewhere that the maximum amount of earths radiation that is of an appropriate wavelength to react with CO2 is about 16% of the total. I think that is attributed to John Tyndall.
"what did likeitwarm think would happen to that energy?"
If the object was inert and isolated from the rest of the universe and emitted to a perfect reflector/re-emitter and absorbed this redirected energy, Its temperature would not change. In order to emit it must lose energy and it would just regain that energy back at absorption. I think it would need an external input to rise in temperature.
"I do not believe we should be destroying the world economies..."
I think is has been shown in the development of all economies to-date that cheap energy is key. Solar and wind energy have been shown that they are anything but cheap and dirtier to build, at this time. I do acknowledge that we need incentive to work on new technologies but I think we are turning off fossil and nuclear energy too soon. China certainly doesn't give a hoot about global warming.
I really feel this thread could get way off topic fast and needs to go to some general discussion. These things are not the science, but affect the science or are affected by the science.
These articles are not science but the problems noted in them will be solved by it, eventually. I just wonder how soon?
https://hbr.org/2021/06/the-dark-side-of-solar-power
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2021/06/21/why-everything-they-said-about-solar---including-that-its-clean-and-cheap---was-wrong/?sh=3c94bf1c5fe5
https://daily.jstor.org/the-downside-to-renewable-energy/Moderator Response:[B} I will only respond to the part of this comment that is answering my question ""what did likeitwarm think would happen to that energy?".
First of all, you need to think about just what you mean by "inert and isolated from the rest of the universe". What you then describe is a system where an object is emitting, and then another object is sending all that energy back. And that leads to a constant temperature. You then say an external input is needed to raise the temperature.
In this system, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is the original object isolated, or are both objects part of one system that is isolated?
- It can’t be just the first object, as it is exchanging energy with the other object. So your isolated system has two objects, plus the space between them.
- What are the edges of the space around them that leads to isolation?
- What other energy exchanges are happening within that system? Are there any other objects?
- What would that temperature be?
- With your description, it could be any temperature. As long as the reflector/re-emitter sends all the energy back, there is no change in energy in that object.
- How did that object get to the temperature it is currently at? There must have been energy added from somewhere.
- You talk about external energy sources (at which point the system is no longer isolated).
- What about internal energy sources of heat, such as combustion or radioactive decay? That can still happen in an isolated system, and leads to additional energy flows (heat and otherwise).
- What happens in your system if you remove the reflector/re-emitter?
- At this point the energy is not being returned to the first object, so will it cool?
- If it is cooling, then would you conclude that the reflector/re-emitter was indeed keeping the first object warm?
- If it is cooling, then what is happening in the rest of the system? There is energy leaving the first object, and not returning, but the system is still isolated so the energy has to go somewhere.
All-in-all, what this demonstrates is that to really understand the behaviour of "the system", you need to define all objects, all energy fluxes, etc. If you only have a vision of a partial system, then you will make errors in drawing conclusions about its behaviour.
...and on the topic of the blog post and the 2nd law, the serious part that is left out of the "system" by people that believe the myth is that our earth/atmosphere system has a huge external source of energy in the sun. We do not live on an isolated (energy-wise) system, and the real behaviour is not what the myth-believers think it is.
...but from your earlier comment (after reading The Green Plate post at Eli's) tells me that you already realize that not including the energy source of the sun was part of your misunderstanding.
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One Planet Only Forever at 06:23 AM on 14 June 2023The little-known, massive advantage that renewables hold over coal
Leonard Bachman @12,
I agree in general with your points. But I have concerns about part of what you presented.
I am a civil engineer with an MBA. My initial interest in climate change was how it would impact items I design. I quickly learned that a rapid ending of the climate change impacts, a strict limit on impacts to levels to only slightly higher than 1.0 C of warming, was required to establish reasonable certainty regarding the design requirements that would adequately limit the probability of future harmful outcomes. How severe will a severe rain or wind event be? That depends on how severe the peak level of climate change impact is. How easy is it to be certain about regional climate change design requirements? The less total impact when human impacts are ended the easier it is to understand the likely design impacts.
However, my interest has expanded to become the larger scope of development of sustainable improvements (the Sustainable Development Goals and improvements of them). Climate change impacts challenge the development of sustainable improvements. Certainty regarding the limit of harm done by damaging developed activities is required to develop adaptations that will be sustainable.
From that perspective, admittedly not the developed norm, I agree in general with your points. However the statement that “Comparing technology based generation to fuel based generation on that basis is a logical fallacy. All that matters is $/kWh and grams CO2/kWh. The SYSTEM handles spatial distance and temporal load matching issues.” is itself a narrow and potentially flawed presentation.
Grams of CO2/kWh do matter. But things like grams of CH4/kWh also matter. And other unsustainable impacts of developed popular and profitable activity also matter. Most important is understanding that the amount of accumulating impact of CO2, or other harmful human impacts, need to be based on the full cycle of the system ‘From obtaining the materials used - to the end of use impacts’.
Stating $/kWh first is a more problematic part of the presentation. That could be interpreted to mean that more CO2/kWh, or other unsustainable impact, is justified if it is cheaper. That only applies if the marketplace effectively fully costs all harmful unsustainable impacts. And that price must be certain to be the cost of effectively neutralizing the impact. The marketplace marketing also needs to effectively reduce the popularity of less sustainable alternatives. And any required collective action to neutralize the impacts, because the people benefiting are not required to pay up front for the complete neutralization of impacts, should be certain to be publicly funded by the extra fees and taxes collected from those who personally benefited from the permitted damaging activities (activities that are permitted to not completely neutralize negative impacts).
Leadership (in business or politics) is understandably unethical if it permits or encourages accumulating damage to be done because of expectations of ‘temporary perceptions of benefit for their portion of humanity and it is perceived to be more beneficial if the harms done do not have to be neutralized by those who are benefiting’ (from a sustainable development perspective total humanity includes all future humans).
Without the full cost to neutralize the impact being priced by the system games get played to claim that benefits obtained excuse the harm done. Those games include trying to claim that a lower price is applicable to the harm being done (economist game playing regarding ‘Carbon Pricing’ is an example). And those games discount the consideration of damage done to others who are not considered to be important people (higher discount rates lead to a lower ‘Carbon Price’). Those games also try to attract popular support for misunderstandings that appear to justify or excuse the harmful actions. And making $/kWh a governing consideration can fuel popular support for harmful misunderstandings.
The responsible ethical order of evaluation is like the evaluations of alternative ways to engineer something. The cost comparison only applies to the alternatives that meet stringent limits on potential for harmful results. Any cheaper option that is more harmful or more likely to be harmful is excluded from consideration.
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Rob Honeycutt at 01:15 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
A couple more tidbits on this Davis paper, and then I think that one is sufficiently put to rest.
The paper lists his primary association as the Environmental Studies Institute, which on close inspection appears to be a one-person operation where the website hasn't been updated since 2015 (implied by the copyright).
The ESI has Davis' CV listed and it clearly demonstrates he doesn't even have a background in physics. He has a PhD in biology and apparently works in sports medicine, according to his certification in 2002.
This all seems par for the course in climate denial world.
Moderator Response:[BL] Yes let's please let this one rest. The 2017 paper also gives an affiliation of University of California at Santa Cruz, although the linked CV indicates that he ceased to be employed there in 2004.
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Eclectic at 00:12 AM on 14 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Rob Honeycutt @1564 , regarding the Davis paper [Davis W.J., 2017], he does indeed go on at length about the GHG forcing from CO2 . . . and yet overall he appears to have little understanding of the physics of terrestrial GHGs.
"... large variations in CO2 exert little or negligible effects on temperature" [unquote]
"The generally weak or absent correlations between the atmospheric concentration of CO2 and T [Temperature] ... imply that other unidentifiable variables caused most (>95%) of the variance in T across the Phanerozoic climate record." [note the "unidentifiable variables"]
A one-line mention of water vapor.
No mention of Faint Young Sun.
Extensive mention of statistical analysis of CO2 / Temperature . . . from which Davis seems only to have identified "a prominent 15 million-year CO2 cycle" ~ but he makes no attempt to link this alleged cycle to any physical processes or occurrences on planet Earth.
"anthropogenic emissions of CO2 accelerated at the start of the Industrial Age in the mid-18th century" [did he mean to say mid-19th ?? ]
I could go on.
Rob ~ as you stated earlier, this Davis paper is ridiculous.
[ Moderator ~ I would prefer to say that Motivated Reasoning is a consequence of Cognitive Dissonance . . . but as you rightly indicate, this is not really the thread for such discussions. ]
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blatz at 23:48 PM on 13 June 2023Which EVs qualify for new federal tax credits?
I bought a Kia EV6 last month. It was manufactured in Korea so it didn't qualify for any tax credits. FYI. I believe they will be manufacturing them in the US in a the future. Love the car FWIW.
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scaddenp at 15:06 PM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
RH - it is an MDPI journal - open access, aim to publish within 7 weeks of submission!! I'd say just lazy review.
Moderator Response:[BL] Beall's List is a good resource to check out the reliability of various journals and publishers. The list mentions MDPI at the bottom, under "Excluded - decide after reading", and links to this Wikipedia page for further details.
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Rob Honeycutt at 14:24 PM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Bob... There's also a very weird part of the Davis paper where he goes on at length explaining the non-linear aspect of GHG forcing, as if anyone reviewing or reading the paper wouldn't already understand that. In a paper on paleoclimate that aspect should get one sentence and maybe a reference and be done with it.
I'm not conviced this is an actual peer reviewed paper.
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Eclectic at 13:01 PM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1550 commented: "These things are put out there by people I don't think are dummies. I wonder if they would put them out there if they knew they were wrong?" [answer: Yes, because of Cognitive Dissonance]
Thanks for the chuckle !
Yessir indeed. Even some very intelligent Denialists repeatedly put stuff out there when they know it's wrong. Over and over again, they put out there some favorite pieces of wrongness, despite repeatedly being shown wrong by scientific literature or repeatedly being shown wrong in science-based blogs such as SkS= SkepticalScience / ATTP= And Then There's Physics / etcetera.
Why do Denialists keep posting wrongness? ~ because they are angry and have huge cognitive dissonance and they indulge in Motivated Reasoning. And a small percentage are paid for such propaganda [looking at you, Heartland Institute and GWPF= Global Warming Policy Foundation ] of using half-truths & other misleading stuff.
Likeitwarm ~ there certainly is some value in reading denialist blogs such as WUWT= WattsUpWithThat , and ClimateEtc [blog by Dr Judith Curry]. You won't learn much genuine climate science there, but you will learn something of the flaws & follies of Human Nature. ~Which can be entertaining . . . as you see the persistent wrongheadedness of 90% of the commenters there.
The big question, the interesting question, is why do those people (both the intelligent ones and the moronic ones) keep on persistently misunderstanding and/or misrepresenting stuff**
** An amusing example from just a few days ago on ClimateEtc ~ a certain regular commenter stated: "many studies on sea level [show] rising for centuries at approximately the current rate" and he cited a scientific paper. When I myself accessed that paper: it showed the complete opposite picture in its very first diagram [which showed centuries of flatness followed by a spectacular "Hockey Stick" upwards trend in the past 200 years]. The original commenter's egregious error was pointed out by another commenter . . . whose post mysteriously disappeared a day later.
Moderator Response:Large amounts of speculation about the motives of various people can be counterproductive.
Without reference to motive, the aspects of Cognitive Dissonance (one flavour of Motivated Reasoning) can indicate how a person can genuinely develop and maintain non-logical conclusions.
Morton's demon also provides an interesting look at this phenomenon, and is worth a read.
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scaddenp at 12:12 PM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm, your link to temperature.global does point to what interests me most. There are numerous global temperature records (eg HadCrut, GISS) which have peer-reviewed methodologies, public source code and validation by hostile review (eg Muller's BEST project). Instead you are giving credence to a site with short time frame, no review and refusing to reveal their methodology.
That to my mind means you have very different priors to me, different biases, and that is what interests me most. Different priors is normal and we all have different biases. What I am asking is whether you can remember what switched you into looking for sites like CO2Science or temperature.global? Was it just disbelief about trace gases or were there other considerations?Moderator Response:[BL] In order to try to limit the range of the off-topicness of this discussion, I am going to ask likeitwarm to focus on this branch of the thread.
I gave scaddenp limited permission to go off-topic in comment 1549, and in the current comment, scaddenp is trying to dig further back in time to see how likeitwarm came to the positions that he arrived here with.
likeitwarm: as this discussion continues, please try to give additional detail on how your thought process developed. When you link to a specific source, please try to tell us in your own words what it is you read into that, what it is about that source that you found convincing, what it is about that source that confirmed or contradicted previous ideas that you had, etc.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:52 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Rob Honeycutt @ 1557 and 1558:
Yes, I see that Davis paper mentioned at the top of the page - I had grabbed the reference listed at the bottom of the page.
Even the Davis paper says, at the end of its abstract (emphasis added):
This study demonstrates that changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration did not cause temperature change in the ancient climate.
Over 425 million years, many factors affect climate. Solar output, orbital variations, continental drift, mountain building. A quick glance at the paper suggests that they have not really made any attempt to consider confounding variables. They mention them, but do not quantify them.
Moderator Response:[BL] Considering that this discussion has rapidly progressed into a number of side-issues, I am going to recuse myself from further participation as a regular commenter, and switch into a moderator role again. I cannot do both.
Note that one part of the Comments Policy says:
No dogpiling. In the interests of civility and to enable people to properly express their opinions, we discourage 'piling on'. If a comment already has a response, consider carefully whether you are adding anything interesting before also responding. If a participant appears to be being 'dog piled', the moderator may designate one or two people from each side of the debate as the primary disputants and require that no other people respond until further notified. On topic comments on other matters not being discussed by the primary disputants will still be welcome.
In order to give likeitwarm a chance to keep up with and respond, I ask all participants to try to limit their somewhat-off-topic responses.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:40 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
...and continuing with likeitwarm's third link on comment 1550:
The web site, temperature.global, has been discussed previously here. Read this comment.
I agree with what Eclectic says in that comment, and with what Rob says in comment 1554. With no idea what their methodology is, there is no way of knowing how many basic errors they are making.
To properly process weather station temperature data, you need to account for station location density and coverage. You can't take 10 stations in one small area that all record 15C, and one station in another small area some distance away that records 25C, and say that the average temperature across all the area is 15.9C. It is probably closer to 20C.
Trend analysis also requires accounting for changes in station locations, and measurement methods.
You also linked to that site in a comment last August. Attempts were made to correct your errors at that time, including pointing you to The Escalator. Please re-read the responses you got on that thread.
You can read additional details on how to properly assess global temperatures in a four part series of posts here at SkS that starts with this one.
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scaddenp at 11:28 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
RH - well CO2"Science" have long history in misrepresenting what science papers actually say, secure in the knowledge that their intended audience won't read them to check. LikeitWarm, I agree that the Idso's are intelligent and smart - just not in a good way.
Likeitwarm - I appreciate that it is very difficult to evaluate material that you dont know very well. However, a common strategy for the deniers is the"strawman fallacy". Ie they claim that "science says X", which means that it follows that Y should be observed. If Y is not observed, then clearly X is wrong. (eg Idso is effectively claiming "Science says CO2 is only thing that effects temperature, therefore past temperatures must reflect CO2 concentration" ). If you discover that science says no such thing (eg check with what the IPCC reports claim instead) and that your source would likely be aware of that, (eg quoting or misquoting IPCC) then you have reasonable grounds for assuming that the source is bad actor, and not to be compared with what peer-reviewed science is saying (no matter how appealing their presentation is).
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:24 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
But you're also right, they're referencing Came et al at the bottom for some inexplicable reason.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:21 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Actually, Bob, I think this is the paper CO2 Science is discussing.
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Bob Loblaw at 11:19 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Continuing to look at likeitwarm's links.
As Rob Honeycutt points out, looking at peaks is not good practice. The second link provided in comment 1550 actually provides linear trends for all three datasets they display, and all are within agreement of climate model predictions. The temperature series with the greatest amount of short-term variation is the UAH one - which is not surface temperature. It is satellite-derived tropospheric temperature.
Looking at the peaks and seeing "flat spots" is a classic error. So classic that Skeptical Science produced a graph call The Escalator. It has recently been updated. You can read about that update on this blog post.
For convenience, here is the graphic in that post (and you can always see it in the right margin of each web page here.)
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Bob Loblaw at 11:11 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @ 1550:
Your first link claims to be presenting the results of a Nature paper from 2007, as indicated under the figure. A link to the paper itself is this. Although paywalled, Google Scholar finds free copies, such as this one.
The last sentence in the opening paragraph (visible at Nature) says "Our results are consistent with the proposal that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations drive or amplify increased global temperatures."
What does it tell you when the CO2science web site tells you the exact opposite of what the authors of the paper they reference are saying?
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:06 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Third link: These guys I tried to contact at one point to ask them why their data looked so different than everyone else's. The guy wouldn't identify himself nor would he identify anyone who was working on their supposed team. He wouldn't explain how they processed their data. After a few polite questions he blocked me.
My suspicion is he's not gridding his global data, which means his data is going to be more a representation of temperature in the most densely measured regions. And that makes his representations of global temperature, well, not global. It also makes it worthless.
This one is just comically bad.
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Rob Honeycutt at 11:02 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Second link and comment: You don't define trends by peaks and troughs, but by long term trends.
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Rob Honeycutt at 10:58 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
The first paper (which I had to track down since there's no link at CO2 Science) reads as fairly ridiculous. There are a ton of graphs in the paper that clearly demonstrate correlation but he (a single researcher) says there is none. Better to stick with Dana Royer and his collegues who've done extensive research on this topic over the years.
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Philippe Chantreau at 08:35 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
I see. So when you wrote 1998, you actually meant 2016. Makes sense. How much scrutiny have you applied to that CO2 science website, exactly?
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Likeitwarm at 06:56 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Rob Honeycutt 1547
http://www.co2science.org/articles/V21/sep/a13.php Unrelatedness of co2 and temp does look like CO2 did not affect temperatures much at all.
https://co2coalition.org/publications/satellite-and-surface-temperatures/ looks like 1998 was a peak high temp and now it's back up to that peak 25 years later.
http://www.temperature.global/ shows that averaged raw temperatures have been fairly flat since 2015. The 2 groups of warm in 2015 & 2016 are summer months. I know that's only 8 years, fairly short, but I would have expected temps to reflect the increase in CO2 of about 2.5 ppm per year.
These things are put out there by people I don't think are dummies. I wonder if they would put them out there if they knew they were wrong?
Moderator Response:[RH] Activated links
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scaddenp at 06:41 AM on 13 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
LikeitWarm. Thanks very much for your response and I hope the moderators wills tolerate me continuing thediscussion. So you think what sounds like a very small amount of gas triggered your skeptcism? You also state "I do not believe we should be destroying the world economies..." That is also an interesting statement. What do you think informs your opinion that transitions from fossil fuels would destroy the world's economies? If you can think back to when that idea first formed, it would be good.
Also, since you are without a physics background, can ask you what your intuition would be about how far a photon of appropriate wavelength would travel up through the atmosphere on average before encountering a CO2 molecule. Please dont look it up or attempt to calculate it- I am really interested in your intuition on this, not your knowledge.
Moderator Response:[BL] Although we try to keep discussions on topic, we will allow some latitude here.
In order to maintain a bit of on-topic discussion, I would suggest that likeitwarm also provide a bit more of an indication of how his intuition (or materials he read elsewhere) led to his initial statement "I didn't know an object could be made hotter by reflecting its own radiation back on it. "
In particular, since the process of reflecting radiation (or absorbing it and re-emitting it back towards the original object) requires that energy be directed back to the object, what did likeitwarm think would happen to that energy?
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Leonard Bachman at 23:01 PM on 12 June 2023The little-known, massive advantage that renewables hold over coal
All critique of specific energy generation sources taken in isolation are myoptic and flawed. The SYSTEM of solar/wind/existing-hydropower as firmed with battery, pumped hydro, demand response control DRC, and distributed energy resources DER, is far superior to the SYSTEM of fossil/nuclear as firmed by natural gas peakers and substation burn-off of overcapacity all night.
It is equally flawed to ignore the SYSTEM of blending/sharing/pooling/shifting/shaving/smoothing functions of grid interconnection, especially as HVDC and transactive smart grid features continue to incorporate DRC and DER. Grids are going transcontinental now.
Finally, the efficiency ratio of output energy from input energy sources that are perpetual, ubiquitous, and essentially infinite is a meaningless number. Comparing technology based generation to fuel based generation on that basis is a logical fallacy. All that matters is $/kWh and grams CO2/kWh. The SYSTEM handles spatial distance and temporal load matching issues.
Much of this is evident in the prior comments here (thanks all) and the specific mention of Mark Z. Jacobson's work.
For those of you following the old PNAS Jacobson/Clack debate... Clack has long since come over to the 100% renewables side.... just follow Clack's publications to confirm. -
BaerbelW at 15:08 PM on 12 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm @1544
How about signing-up for our free online course (MOOC) "Denial101x - Making sense of climate science denial"? The course - created in collaboration with the University of Queensland - explains the basics of climate science and which techniques are at play to sow doubt about human-caused global warming. The MOOC is offered in self-paced mode and is open until end of February 2024.
Another helpful MOOC is "Climate Change: The Science and Global Impact" also offered on the edX platform in self-paced mode. I wrote a blog post about it when I "binge-watched" all the lectures in January 2021 and can really recommend it if you want to dig deeper.
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Rob Honeycutt at 13:56 PM on 12 June 20232nd law of thermodynamics contradicts greenhouse theory
Likeitwarm... Not sure what you mean by "especially with the history of CO2 volumes and estimated historic atmospheric temperatures not jiving with each other."
CO2 volumes and global temperature actually corrolate very well. It's one of the key reasons why we know our human emissions of CO2 are responsible for modern warming.
