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

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Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 10:49 AM on 17 December, 2025

@10 Bob, we completely agree until the very last sentence. The exact analogy that I'm driving at is that we're NOT saying "He was on steroids." The analogy, if carried to its simplified analog to "steroids" is "fossil fuels" or "carbon emissions" or "greenhouse gases" and the like, not "climate change." There is a real psychological underpinning behind the need to simplify a complex topic: just make sure you simplify it in a way that points out what needs to change if you want the changing climate to stabilize!

As you have pointed out, the complexity of the climate includes all of the other factors as a system, including solar irradiation, volcanic activity, long term orbital dynamics, and on and on, which we know goes "whoosh" over the average person's head, which the fossil fuel companies have taken advantage of, by the way. But the systemic changes we're seeing in the climate is from the change in carbon emissions that are overwhelming the system's ability to absorb it, causing a change in the composition of the atmosphere and ocean that supports increasingly frequent severe weather events. So we need to really hone in on that single fact: rising greenhouse gas percentages in the atmosphere and oceans is changing the climate, not "climate change." It is easier for everyone to understand the source of the changes occurring in a very complicated system in the same way as "he was on steroids" cuts to the chase. And #11, Nigelj, I'm completely fine with the term "anthropogenic climate change" and for everyone, I don't honestly expect us to just immediately stop using "climate change" as an important phrase in our vocabulary and discussions about the topic. What I do sincerely hope is that this phrase be modified to include the human driven nature of the changes in the climate, so in addition to "anthropogenic climate change" I'm hoping folks will always use such phrases as "human activity induced climate change," "fossil fuel driven climate change," "greenhouse gas induced climate change," "carbon emission driven climate change," etc. if you need to use the phrase at all. These phrases include true causality, while "climate change" by itself does not pinpoint the causal problem as finely as it needs to be made if we have any chance of changing our future.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

Bob Loblaw at 04:52 AM on 17 December, 2025

Wild:

The most common (and probably the most familiar) example of a descriptive approach to climate is the Koppen Climate Classification system. It uses seasonal observations of temperature and precipitation to classify a regions using qualitative terms. This system aligns with our common concepts of tropical, arid, temperate, polar, continental, coastal climates, etc.

Attribution studies need some sort of model that allows an estimate of the likelihood of events (e.g. severe weather) under two different regimes (with greenhouse gases, and without). The Koppen system is a model - but largely a descriptive model. It uses numerical results, but those are descriptive statistical models.

Attribution requires a much more quantitative model - a physical model. The model simulates climate under one set of controlling conditions, and then it is run under a different set (greenhouse gases, in this case). It can be a bit hard to see the physics behind that, though, as physical model outputs are often interpreted using a descriptive model. The statistics with and without greenhouse gases help determine the probability of an event of a particular intensity, with or without climate change. But keep in mind that those descriptive statistics of the physical model output are just as complex as doing descriptive statistics of actual weather observations.

In the case of the "juiced athlete", the attribution to performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) is difficult, for very similar reasons. You can't claim "this home run was caused by PEDs" for the same reason you can't claim "this severe weather event was caused by climate change". Arguing that a particular drug is a PED needs to be based on detailed physiological studies, as you suggest.

...but that level of detail isn't going to get a message across to the general public very well - it will go "whoosh" over their heads. "He was on steroids" is the short form. Just as "the climate has changed" is the short form for all the things that have happened due to our release of greenhouse gases and other human activities that have altered the climate.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 01:42 AM on 17 December, 2025

Thank you, @8 Bob, for sharing your perspective on this issue and the climate as a causal factor. I guess I'm not sure whether its descriptive or physical when you are doing attribution of a hurricane's intensity as being caused by climate change as it seems that it has elements of both.

That aside, what I'm saying, once again to use the analogy of the juiced athlete, is that if there is a change in the constellation of factors that make them a professional athlete including years of strength and endurance training, strategic coaching, genetic predisposition, etc., along with the performance enhancing drugs, as contributing to the increased frequency of home runs, does it make sense to to talk about the athlete in general terms that includes the entire cluster of factors (physical), or the performance statistics (descriptive); OR rather does it make sense to focus on the relevant causal factor of the practice of using performance enhancing drugs as causing the changes in the athlete's performance? For clarification's sake, the changing performance of athletes in general could not really be addressed until the key causal factor, performance enhancing drugs, was identified, after which people "got it" and took actions that penalized their use.

In a similar way, yes, physical climatology has causality in a general, collective way that clusters the real causal factors "under the hood". Since there is an identifiable subset of those "under the hood" factors called "greenhouse gases," "human activity emissions," "carbon emissions from human activities, primarily fossil fuel use" or what have you, it's time to start focusing on those "performance enhancing chemicals" we're emitting as the cause of the observed changes, so that people "get it." Otherwise vested interests will just continue to spread misinformation about the other factors, such as the sunspot cycle, cosmic rays, the end of the ice age and other things they can point to also under that hood. They are not incorrect in pointing to other factors that contribute to the climate; it's just that the science is clearly pointing to the changes in the climate as being linked to the changes in the atmospheric and oceanic chemistry caused by carbon emissions.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

Bob Loblaw at 11:21 AM on 16 December, 2025

Wilddouglascountry @ 2, 4, 6.

I would tend to disagree with your characterization of the term "climate change". You appear to be exclusively thinking of climate in terms of what is called "descriptive climatology". In that context, "climate" is just a description of what is going on.

"Descriptive climatology" gave way to "physical climatology" at least as far back as the 1950s, when the science began looking at "climate" as the physical processes that link together to produce the observations that made up "descriptive climatology".

[Note: the textbook I used when taking my undergraduate climate course was "'Sellers, W.D. 1965: Physical climatology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 272 pp.]

As such "climate change" is a causal factor: through the physical processes of climate, changes in one part of the system (greenhouse gases and radiative transfer) lead to changes in other parts of the system (severe weather).

I don't think your change in nomenclature is justified.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 09:03 AM on 16 December, 2025

Bottom line: attribution studies should point to the real cause of increased frequency and severity of weather events: human activity, fossil fuel emissions and greenhouse gases, NOT climate change. Climate change does not cause anything: it's the result of the changes caused by the changed chemistries.

Emergence vs Detection & Attribution

wilddouglascounty at 06:59 AM on 16 December, 2025

I think one of the main reasons we seem to be stalling out on the climate change topic is that we've been burying the lead. Climate change is NOT a causal factor for increasingly frequent severe weather, IT'S THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Climate is a summary abstraction of individual weather events, so the way the climate changes is by increasing the frequency of extreme weather events. Saying climate change is causing more severe weather is like saying Sammy Sosa's improved batting average is causing him to hit more homeruns--ignoring the REAL cause, which is performance enhancing drugs, right?

In exactly the same way, fossil fuel emissions and other greenhouse emitting human activities have changed the atmospheric and oceanic chemistry, enabling more frequent, severe weather events, in exactly the same way Sammy Sosa's performance enhancing drugs enabled him to hit more frequent homeruns. People can understand that a juiced atmosphere is the problem here, in the same way we understand the effect of juiced athletes.

Even the attribution studies don't point back to the real causes: they point back to the "increased probability" that "climate change" has made it 300 times more likely that a hurricane grew that fast and so on, when in reality the attribution studies need to be saying that the increased carbon in the atmosphere and oceans, caused by human activities, has made it 300 times more likely that a hurricane grew that fast and so on.

We need to stop hiding behind the phrase "climate change" and start putting our human greenhouse gas emissions as causing all of this. The science is settled on this, right? Then why not start putting that front and center every time we talk about these increasingly frequent severe weather events: human activities with fossil fuel emissions being at the top of the list, is CAUSING the floods, hurricanes, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather events to get worse. To say "climate change" is causing these things is reifying the phrase and giving it causality when none exists!

We don't have time to pass this issue onto younger folk. It's time to call a spade a spade.

Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

MA Rodger at 02:32 AM on 13 December, 2025

michael sweet @31,

A few thoughts about this +8°C ESS finding (actually it's AESS, taking the increasing solar energy into account).

(1) Hansen has indeed proposed a lower value, famously the graphic below from Hansen & Sato (2012) which even pre-dates the term ESS.
H&S12 Fig7

(2) Judd et al (2025) does say its constant ESS=+8°C finding is at odds with other work, but doesn't properly set all this out. For instance, they don't [ro[er;y review CenCO2PIP (2024) who find ESS "generally within the range of 5° to 8°C—patterns consistent with most prior work." I think all would agree that we haven't found a difinitive value for ESS although it will be higher than ECS.

(3) The Earth System equilibrium is very slow to arrive so the opportunity to keep AGW below +1.5°C in the long terms is surely far less of an issue than the shorter-term century-scale AGW.
That is, if CO2 will be three-quarters sucked from the atmosphere over a millenium, the CO2 forcing from modern CO2 emissions (with Af = ~50%) will be halved during the next 1,000 years, the sort of timescale that ESS arrives in. So if ESS ≤ 2 x ECS, it is the shorter timescales we need to worry about regarding temperature. SLR would likely be a good reason for giving natural CO2 draw-down a healthy hepling hand. And the technology to effortlessly do that will not be that long in coming.

(4) But on that point of a future 'effortless' techno-fix for excess CO2, I am always surprised that the post-2100 parts of the IPCC scenatios are not better known. The graphic below is Fig 2 from Meinshausen et al (2020) 'The shared socio-economic pathway (SSP) greenhouse gas concentrations and their extensions to AD2500'. The thumbnail bottom left-hand graph shows net CO2 emissions for scenario-various and if you scale SSP1-1.9 (a scenario which we should be trying to follow), the negative net emissions post-2050 equal all the FF & LUC emissions 2007-2050. That is something I find scary.
Meinshausen et al (2020) Fig2

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

scaddenp at 05:39 AM on 8 December, 2025

For direct measurement of greenhouse effect, try here:
https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/

and here for the Nature paper.

Five ways Joe Rogan misleads listeners about climate change

Bob Loblaw at 05:35 AM on 12 November, 2025

I think the question "relevant qualifications" is critical.

For Lindzen, his educational background is physics (undergrad) and mathematics (grad). Both give an excellent background to lead into what I consider to be the primary focus of his academic career - meteorology. His early work, from what I know, seemed to focus on various aspects of atmospheric dynamics. Weather is strongly dependent on the discipline of geophysical fluid dynamics, due to the need to track short-term variations in atmospheric circulation.

You would think that this is also a good place to take "transferable skills" into climate science, but Lindzen seems to have botched this. In my experience, meteorologists that reject the science of climate change often do so on the basis of a couple of ingrained viewpoints.

The first is that knowledge of the highly variable short-term atmospheric motions related to weather seem to make them think that long-term prediction of "weather" is impossible, and they just see "climate" as "long-term weather".

The second is that short-term weather prediction does not require a particularly detailed understanding of radiation transfer. Other energy flows, yes, but not necessarily radiation transfer. Unfortunately, radiation transfer is an essential aspect of climate change (especially for greenhouse gas and aerosol effects). It's hard to get your head around how small changes in radiation transfer can have a big effect on climate, when so much is going on in atmospheric motions.

I don't know if Lindzen followed either of those paths, but he certainly has brought failed thinking into his climate-related work.

Happer is a somewhat different case. Again, he's a physicist. He worked on atomic physics, optics, and spectroscopy, and did work in atmospheric radiation transfer. Again, you'd expect this to be an excellent set of transferable skills to deal with climate, but no such luck. His Wikipedia page indicates that he was dismissed from his position with the US department of energy in 1993, due to his views on the ozone layer. This suggests a strong predilection to reject environmental issues - one that existed long before taking on the climate change fight.

So I would see both of these fellows as people that had good backgrounds and transferable skills that should have enabled them to move into climate science. But neither of them did it well. Lindzen has at least published in the climate literature, even if much of his work has not survived detailed examination. Happer just seems out of his depth.

Unreliable, poor quality "experts" for sure. How poor and unreliable you need to be to meet the "fake experts" category is probably subjective. Easy to call "fake" when someone has no evidence of transferable skills that would help them understand climate science. ("I'm a Nobel laureate!" is a pretty weak argument when your Nobel is for literature.) A lot harder to call "fake" when someone has a background that would suggest they have suitable transferable skills - but simply did a crap job transferring them.

Debunking Joe Rogan, Dick Lindzen, and Will Happer

Nick Palmer at 06:49 AM on 7 November, 2025

Does anyone have a reference for the claim that Lindzen has used the 'God wouldn't let us wreck our climate' argument. I knew both John Christie and Roy Spencer have very strong religious beliefs which makes them kind of believe that God wouldn't let us do it, which colours their views, but I've never heard anything similar about Lindzen.

In any event, I think it's unfair to characterise Lindzen as a denialist because his basic position is that he "accepts the elementary tenets of climate science. He agrees that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, calling people who dispute that point 'nutty.' He agrees that the level of it is rising because of human activity and that this should warm the climate. He also believes that decreasing tropical cirrus clouds in a warmer world will allow more longwave radiation to escape the atmosphere, counteracting the warming."

This is his hypothesised 'Iris effect'. This is why he believes that climate sensitivity is about 1/3 that of the figures 'IPPC science' works with. If he's right, then global warming genuinely will not be a problem. He often phrases his rhetoric to assert that 'science shows' that the sensitivity is a lot less than the IPCC's, but he's usually referring to his own papers and sort of implies that science generally supports him - but it's just his own views about clouds in the tropics.

Debunking Joe Rogan, Dick Lindzen, and Will Happer

Nick Palmer at 21:26 PM on 6 November, 2025

KR#2

"ideological (against government control/pro libertarian), or just consistency with past assertions"

I don't think such pathological scepticism is motivated by money, at least, not directly. I find most nowadays is strongly ideologically based and caused by what Katharine Hayhoe calls being "solutions averse". This is that they don't like the solutions offered up, such as distributed wind and solar and 'Big Goverment'/Internationalist type restrictions, so intensely that they choose denialism as a strategy to head off restrictions on 'freedom' etc.

I've had some success arguing with the most extreme by pointing out how virtually unanimous the science is about the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and then asking them why, instead of embracing denialist propaganda as a political strategy, they didn't come up with alternative 'free market' type solutions. Most actually shut up...

CO2 is just a trace gas

Cedders at 09:53 AM on 5 November, 2025

I'm surprised that this argument is so low on the popularity list, 77 out of 200. Possibly it’s more common offline: meeting some contrarians at real-life events (stalls etc), it’s practically what opens the conversation when you are pegged as one of the climate-concerned. ‘I bet you can’t tell me the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.’

If you express an answer in parts per million, or perhaps as two million million tonnes, then they will want it converted to a percentage (even though most of the atmosphere is transparent to infra-red, and it’s the amount rather than proportion of greenhouse gases that determines the greenhouse effect). 0.043% sounds negligible somehow, perhaps because of common uses of percentages in polling or economics or pay rises. Without empirical knowledge of effects of a substance in a small proportion, people can fall back on what seems like a reasonable guess.

An underlying assumption by people stressing concentrations seems to be that if people knew CO₂ was ‘a trace gas’, they wouldn’t be concerned about climate change, and so the way most people can’t answer in percentage terms means that they are ignorant about the subject matter, or have been manipulated. (The conversation may then proceed to ‘life flourished in the Jurassic because of higher CO₂’ myth, about as accurate as One Million Years BC with Raquel Welch, or combine several misunderstandings into one sentence or question.)

So, supporting the large effects of trace substances argument, and as some people reject the ‘poison’ or ‘alcohol’ analogy as too indirect, I’d like to post this table. If comparisons across the electromagnetic spectrum are somehow valid, then 0.043% turns out to be a lot.

New Book - Climate Obstruction: A global Assessment

nigelj at 05:14 AM on 23 October, 2025

The commentary says:

The key method for cultivating these disbeliefs is by FLICCing off scientific integrity—using the five techniques of science denial:

Fake experts
Logical fallacies
Impossible expectations
Cherry picking
Conspiracy theories

All good, but does it need a category of "pseudoscience", where flawed but superficially convincing scientific reasoning is used to attempt to debunk the greenhouse effect, or climate models, etc,etc.

Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops

prove we are smart at 08:47 AM on 17 October, 2025

Good news for the world is bad news for the worst polluting of the shipping companies, that also means anything the climate change denying and corrupt Trump administration gets upset about means it is good for humanity.

So this is about the International Maritime Organization which operates under the United Nations umbrella as part of its net zero framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. It has spent the last two years negotiating a legally binding framework to levy charges on vessels that underperform on efficiency.

Here Mallen Baker,an English commentator on corporate social responsibility and a former politician explains the situation www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvBCnCh28UU

Fact-checking a Trump administration claim about climate change and crops

prove we are smart at 09:40 AM on 16 October, 2025

I must give a well done to this blog site to calling out the outright lies this current Trump administration is broadcasting-and certainly not only climate "facts". When I wondered why this admin is so anti-science and anti-change, these facts helped me. Where do the richest billionaires live? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires

And which countries are the biggest GHG pollutors? worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-country

And guess what- four of the top five worlds biggest emitters are home to the most billionaires worldwide. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_billionaires

I think the heat being added by the equivalent to 40 Hiroshimas atomic bombs every 10 seconds is beyond tragic.4hiroshimas.info/

You know a million seconds is over 11days-a billion is over 35years!.

Fact brief - Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?

michael sweet at 23:55 PM on 16 September, 2025

Evan,

It seems to me that there is a stark difference between ideas people had 200 years ago that have not been supported for 150 years and ideas that have stood the rest of time for 200 years. The greenhouse effect has been validated innumerable times over the past 200 years. It is not a theory that is accepted based on 200 year old data.

Fact brief - Has the greenhouse effect been falsified?

Evan at 21:10 PM on 16 September, 2025

When I conveyed this information to my brother, he instantly retorted that 200 years ago they were bleeding people as routing medical art, so that he was not impressed by the "science" that existed 200 years ago.

The difference, of course, is that the names of the great "bleeders" of 200 years ago are likely no longer taught in modern medical schools. But the name of Joseph Fourier routinely appears in modern science text books, not just in connection with his discovery of the greenhouse effect, but for his contributions to math (Fourier analysis) and to heat-transfer science.

Fourier was one of those great scientists who contributed greatly to our scientific knowledge and to our understanding of how our world works.

2025 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #29

One Planet Only Forever at 23:58 PM on 24 July, 2025

This new NPR story: Trump's EPA now says greenhouse gases don't endanger people, appears to be an attempt to mislead people about the reality of the climate change harm done by using fossil fuels. It contains the following:

Already, environmentalists, climate advocates and others are bracing for what could be a fundamental shift away from trying to address the problem of a hotter climate. And the Trump administration is celebrating the proposal as a potential economic win.

"Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen," EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in announcing the proposal in March. "We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more."

The economic wins cause others to pay the price. It taxes those who are harmed. The International court ruling pointed to in my comment @5 exposes this as just another example of how harmfully misleading the likes of Trump are.

That is the harmful belief that vicious competition for superiority - reduced taxes and more personal benefits - is the only option. That is the current rage on the right. They believe that - Things would be Greater if people wanting to benefit from being more harmful and vicious are freer to do as they please and are excused for any harm they cause because of the perceptions of benefits obtained.

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

tder2012 at 06:02 AM on 2 July, 2025

Keep in mind the following:

nuclear 1GW x80% capacity factor x80 years = 560,640GWh lifetime
solar 1GW x25% capacity factor x30 years = 67,500GWh lifetime
wind 1GW x45% capacity factor x35 years = 137,970 lifetime

A recent SKS article identified a report released in June 2025 "Beyond LCOE" "This report explains why LCOE fails to reflect the full complexity of electricity systems and can lead to decisions that jeopardize reliability, affordability, and clean generation."

Keep in mind that Lazard's LCOE reports have many factors that they don't examine, which Lazard themselves clearly acknowledge.See the bottom of page 7 in the 2025 report (it was page 8 in 2024) "Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein, but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional factors, among others, may include: implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted; and costs of complying with various environmental regulations (e.g., carbon emissions offsets or emissions control systems). This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting tool and should not be used as such, given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not address potential social and environmental externalities, including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation solutions, as well as the long-term residual and societal consequences of various conventional generation technologies that are difficult to measure (e.g., airborne pollutants, greenhouse gases, etc.)"

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Philippe Chantreau at 00:42 AM on 30 June, 2025

I always get a little suspicious of the sincerity of contributors asking others to provide them with information that they could easily find themselves. Quebec's population was counted at 8.5 million in the 2021 census.

This is from the Canada Energy Regulator site: "The greenhouse gas intensity of Quebec’s electricity grid, measured as the GHGs emitted in the generation of the province’s electric power, was 1.2 grams of CO2e per kilowatt-hour (g CO2e/kWh) in 2022. This is a 68% reduction from the province’s 2005 level of 3.8 g CO2e/kWh. The national average in 2022 was 100 g CO2e/kWh."

Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?

Bob Loblaw at 01:36 AM on 5 June, 2025

Greenhouse effect, global warming, and climate change do indeed have different technical meanings, but common simplified usage does tend to add obfuscation - er, sorry, make things more confusing.

The Greenhouse Effect, as lynnvinc mentions, exists as a natural phenomenon. It relates to the atmospheric influence, as discussed by Charlie Brown, that leads to warmer surface temperatures than we would observe if there was no atmosphere.

It is a somewhat unfortunate term, as "the label "greenhouse" implies a similarity with actual greenhouses - and that was based on a misunderstanding of what keeps greenhouses warm. (Trapping air is more important than trapping IR radiation.)

At times, people have suggested using "the atmospheric effect" instead, but that has never caught on. At times, the human-cause changes in greenhouse gases have been referred to as "the enhanced greenhouse effect", but that is rather cumbersome and the "enhanced" part gets dropped.

As for "global warming" - that is the key easily-observed result of an enhanced greenhouse effect, but also can be caused by other factors. (CO2 dominates the current trends). On a global mean basis, surface temperatures will rise. It is not the only effect of an enhanced greenhouse effect, though. Precipitation changes are also critical. And many other weather phenomena. Seasonal changes and timing. Extreme weather events. Etc. Hence "climate change" is a much broader, more encompassing term. In the Venn diagram of climate, "Global warming " is a subset of "climate change", and "global warming" overlaps both the greenhouse effect and other causes of climate change.

On the myth of "they changed the name...", I took undergraduate climate science in the 1970s. The textbook we used was Sellers, W.D., 1965, Physical Climatology, U Chicago Press. Changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide are discussed in that book, along with other factors, under the chapter titled "Paleoclimatology and Theories of Climatic Change". My copy of the book is the one that I bought in 1978, so if "they changed the name..." then someone must have taken my copy off my bookshelf, altered the printing, and replaced it without me noticing.

Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?

Charlie_Brown at 06:57 AM on 2 June, 2025

There are, or at least there should be, technical differences between the terms. The greenhouse effect results from the presence of greenhouse gases and natural concentrations keep the Earth from being an ice rock planet. Global warming results from increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases. It upsets the global energy balance and results in accumulated energy. Climate change results from an uneven distribution of accumulated energy around the globe. Major atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns are changed. There have been large climate changes in history from natural causes, but this time the cause is emissions from anthropogenic use of fossil fuels and fossil rock. Severe weather results from localized and sudden changes in the uneven distribution of energy.

Depending on the message, the terms global warming and climate change might be used interchangably, but I prefer being clear with the technical distinction. Sometimes it seems appropriate to use them together, as in increasing GHG concentrations cause global warming and climate change.

Fact brief - Was 'global warming' changed to 'climate change' because Earth stopped warming?

lynnvinc at 01:28 AM on 2 June, 2025

It was also called "The Greenhouse Effect" earlier, but I think that was replaced with global warming because it might be confused with the natural greenhouse effect. But I sort of thought climate change was preferred by Bush and those skittish about global warming because it detracted from the warming aspect, made it easier for deniers to claim the climate has always changed, as if "no problem."

I still use the terms somewhat interchangeably, but opt for global warming when I want to stress the warming aspect, climate change when I want to bring in enhanced storms, hurricanes, wildfires, floods, droughts, etc.

Electric vehicles have a net harmful effect on climate change

Charlie_Brown at 02:36 AM on 29 May, 2025

Unfortunately, a key phrase was dropped from the source reference footnote [4] which makes the sentence in the green box for “What the Science Says” misleading. The reference says “EVs convert over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid (underline added) to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12%–30% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels.” The source of power for EVs is not included in Eisenson, et al. “Electric vehicles have lower lifecycle emissions than traditional gasoline-powered cars because they are between 2.5 to 5.8 times more efficient.” Larson, et al., Final Report, p. 40, also compares units of electricity to units of gasoline. Furthermore, the articles do not define efficiency, whether it is g CO2/mile, g CO2(eq)/mile, or BTU/mi. Where coal is the power source for the grid, CO2 g/mi is about the same for EV and ICE. Where natural gas is the source, CO2(eq)/mi is close to the same after accounting for methane leakage from production and transport. Most simplified analyses use the source power mix from the regional grid. When the incremental power source to meet added demand for EVs (and other demands such as AI and growth), the situation is much more complex.

I am a strong supporter of EVs and I love my new car. To meet greenhouse gas emission reduction goals, transition to EVs is needed. The electric power grid also needs to reduce fossil fuel generation.

At a glance - What is causing the increase in atmospheric CO2?

StanRH at 02:27 AM on 13 May, 2025

all this fuss about co 2 is comic farce;

every educated person knows co 2 can't affect climate

the reason is as follows;

"greenhouse" gases don't trap heat as they can't impede the circulation of warm air rising to subzero temps at altitude

if co 2 prevents radiant heat from leaving the atmosphere ,then it must also prevent the radiant heat from entering, by the same magical heat blocking process

it is the magnetosphere ,not co 2 that prevents the atmosphere from evaporating into the void of space

heat rises by convection regardless of mixture

by the time gases rise by convection to 25,000 ft the temp is down to - 40

besides which;

as a heat sink co 2 has nothing to do with atmospheric temperature regulation

only con artists still pretend co 2 can affect climate

Weight of atmospheric gases by volume at standard pressure and temperature

co 2 = 1.96 kg per stere x .04 percent =.000784 kg

o 2 =1.43 kg per stere x 21 percent = .303 kg

n =1.25 kg per stere x 78 percent= .975 kg

argon = 1.78 kg per stere x 1 percent = .0178 kg

Climate alarmists claim that the mass of .000784 kg of co2 governs the temp of the mass of 1.2958 kg of the other atmospheric gases

1652.806 times it's weight [mass]

visualize co 2 as 1 cup of water compared to other atmospheric gases as a 100 gallon [1600 cups] tank

that 1 cup at any temp u wish to chose dumped in the tank has negligible affect on the 100 gallons in the tank

couldn't be more evident ,could it?

Sabin 33 #13 - Is solar energy unreliable?

tder2012 at 02:13 AM on 8 May, 2025

Feel free to address one claim at a time. My point in showing the 2016 post is simply this is at least how long I am familiar with Jacobson's work. Address only this point them from Lazard's 2024 LCOE+ report. Page 8 from https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf

"Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein, but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional
factors, among others, may include: implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other
transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted; and costs of complying with
various environmental regulations (e.g., carbon emissions offsets or emissions control systems). This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but
not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting
tool and should not be used as such, given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not
consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not
address potential social and environmental externalities, including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation
solutions, as well as the long-term residual and societal consequences of various conventional generation technologies that are difficult to measure (e.g., airborne pollutants,
greenhouse gases, etc."

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #18 2025

tder2012 at 14:01 PM on 7 May, 2025

I asked the following of Dr. Romm when he posted this on his LinkedIn, he never responded to me, perhaps you could? He quotes WoodMac's LCOE

"Hi Dr. Romm. I asked the following question on Woodmac' LinkedIn page from 5 months ago https://www.linkedin.com/posts/wood-mackenzie_our-five-regional-levelised-cost-of-electricity-activity-7258040109122338816-hJN0/

Do you publish your LCOE assumptions, if any? I ask because I see Lazard's, but I am unable to locate Woodmac's LCOE assumptions. Lazard's assumptions are outlined at the bottom of page 8 here https://www.lazard.com/media/xemfey0k/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024-_vf.pdf

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated, Dr. Romm"

Here are the limitations of Lazard's LCOE, which they openly acknowledge:

"Other factors would also have a potentially significant effect on the results contained herein, but have not been examined in the scope of this current analysis. These additional factors, among others, may include: implementation and interpretation of the full scope of the IRA; economic policy, transmission queue reform, network upgrades and other transmission matters, congestion, curtailment or other integration-related costs; permitting or other development costs, unless otherwise noted; and costs of complying with various environmental regulations (e.g., carbon emissions offsets or emissions control systems). This analysis is intended to represent a snapshot in time and utilizes a wide, but not exhaustive, sample set of Industry data. As such, we recognize and acknowledge the likelihood of results outside of our ranges. Therefore, this analysis is not a forecasting tool and should not be used as such, given the complexities of our evolving Industry, grid and resource needs. Except as illustratively sensitized herein, this analysis does not consider the intermittent nature of selected renewables energy technologies or the related grid impacts of incremental renewable energy deployment. This analysis also does not address potential social and environmental externalities, including, for example, the social costs and rate consequences for those who cannot afford distributed generation solutions, as well as the long-term residual and societal consequences of various conventional generation technologies that are difficult to measure (e.g., airborne pollutants, greenhouse gases, etc."

Instead of using LCOE, we should be using Dr. Robert Idel's work at Rice University, Levelized Full System Cost of Electricity Move over, LCOE. LFSCOE is the new metric in town

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

One Planet Only Forever at 02:46 AM on 8 April, 2025

Reed Coray,

In your response @213 to my ‘new questions’ @211 you state

My thermos bottle experiment didn't compare the cavity's being filled with 'CO2 vs Air (a Nitrogen Oxygen blend), or (Air with 280 ppm CO2) vs (Air with 560 ppm CO2)' because when discussing global warming those gases are seldom mentioned.

Are you seriously trying to 'use such a lame claim' to argue that in the context of the effect of greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere it is more valid to compare CO2 to a vacuum than to compare ‘a greenhouse gas’ to ‘non-greenhouse gases’ (or to compare different amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere)?

You established the context for all the discussion that has followed your comment @180 where you made the following questionable declaration:

...(“the Earth's surface is warmed by-heat-trapping greenhouse gases”) is invalid because heat cannot be trapped—i.e., an adiabatic wall does not exist in nature. If heat can’t be trapped, any and all claims that rely on the existence of heat-trapping material or trapped heat constitute misinformation.

I believe the phrases "trapped heat" and "heat trapping" are used to incorrectly explain a physical process in a way that will resonate with the general public.

The discussion that has developed is in the context of whether it is ‘misleading’ to say ‘greenhouse gases trap heat’ in a public ‘plain language’ presentation of the scientific understanding of greenhouse gases.

In your response to my question @181 you conclude with the following:

If your theoretical estimate of Earth surface warming requires the existence of 'trapped heat' (i.e., your theoretical argument is that Earth surface warming will occur because some gases 'trap heat' within the lower troposphere), then your theoretical argument is nonsense because heat can't be trapped.

As I said, I'm not sure an 'easily understood term' exists for Earth surface temperature change.

In spite of being provided with a diversity of reasoned justifications for the validity of saying that “the Earth's surface is warmed by heat-trapping greenhouse gases” you persist in the belief that “...the phrases "trapped heat" and "heat trapping" are used to incorrectly explain a physical process...”

Responding to my new questions @211 the way you did @213 is just another tragic result of ‘desperately trying to maintain an invalid belief’ about the validity of saying that “the Earth's surface is warmed by heat-trapping greenhouse gases”.

In closing I will note that by comparing CO2 to a vacuum in the thermos bottle experiment you are implying that the global average surface temperature of the Earth would be warmer (more of the incoming energy would be trapped at the surface) without an atmosphere containing greenhouse gases. Claiming that a vacuum would keep more energy at the surface would appear to be a clear case of ‘incorrectly explaining an understood physical process’ (in the context that you established for this discussion).

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Bob Loblaw at 23:51 PM on 7 April, 2025

Reed @ 216:

It is obvious that you are not even bothering to read much of what people say in response to your comments here.

To give you one hint: some of the comments include links to relevant information. Your browser will probably highlight those links by underlining the the text and/or changing the display colour where the link is buried. The displayed text will not be the link itself, but clicking on the displayed text will take you to the link. Your browser will probably pop up the details of the link when you hover over the text - most likely in the bottom left corner of your browser window. This is basic Web Browsing 101.

For example, here is a link to your most recent comment. Here is another one, but I have chosen to display the actual link as text, instead of displaying "here is a link to your most recent comment" : https://skepticalscience.com/argument.php?a=98&p=9#143775

"I struggle putting comments on this blog in the right spot."

You were previously given instructions on navigating the comments on this web site in the green Moderator's box below this post of yours. Please follow that link, and read those instructions again.

You complain:

Could you send me the URL where the Cambridge dictionary uses greenhouse as an example usage of "trap?"

As Dikran has already pointed out, in comment 218 (note how I have created a link pointing directly to that comment), I already gave you that link in comment 205. I also quoted the definition in plain text, which Dikran has repeated. I also gave you a link to the Collins Dictionary definition in that comment, and a link to the Britannica dictionary definition in comment 206.

Instead of spending time trying to justify your preconceived notions or chasing a new squirrel, why don't you try to spend time actually reading what others are saying and spend time trying to understand it?

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Dikran Marsupial at 21:17 PM on 7 April, 2025

Reed Coray What you are doing is known as a "Gish Gallop" which is a rhetorical device used to prevent in depth discussion of any partiular point by constantly raising new ones while the previous points have not yet been settled. So I'll answer the first point or two and we can go badk to the other isse when those are settled.

You replied to my question about whether it is O.K. to talk of a blanket or a thermos flask trapping heat:

My response: Yes, it is reasonable when interacting at an educational level. But It is not reasonable when presenting a scientific argument for the purpose of persuading someone to change his way of life.

The explanation of the greenhouse effect trapping heat is only being used in an "educational" level here, so that people who don't understand the greenhouse effect might start to understand the very basics.

for the purpose of persuading someone to change his way of life.

I think this is what is called "motivated reasoning". It appears that you are making a special case here because you don't like the consequences of someone understanding the greenhouse effect. It is a political objection masquerading as a scientific one.

Personally, I am not asking anybody to change their way of life - I just want the public debate to be well informed. That includes the science.

My question to you: Forget global warming for a minute, if as part of an effort to get a lay person to appreciably change his way of life, is it okay to use scientifically invalid arguments?

As I have pointed out to you repeatedly, saying the greenhouse effect "traps" heat is not a scientifically invalid one. It isn't the best explanation, but as a starting point it is completely reasonable. You have already conceded that by admitting it is O.K. to talk of a blanket or a thermos flask as "trapping heat".

My response: Could you send me the URL where the Cambridge dictionary uses greenhouse as an example usage of "trap?"

You have already been given it (by Bob Loblaw), here it is again

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trap

It says:

to keep something such as heat [emphasis mine] or water in one place, especially because it is useful:

A greenhouse stays warm because the glass traps the heat of the sun.

You give the explanation of the greenhouse effect:

My response: My understanding of the ‘basic mechanisms of the greenhouse effect” is as follows. (a) the absorption of IR emitted from the Earth's surface prevents some of that IR from reaching space (i.e., leaving the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system), (b) the energy in the IR that doesn’t reach space is absorbed by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, and (c) a portion of that absorbed energy is radiated back to the Earth's surface thereby increasing the rate the Earth's surface absorbs IR, which in turn acts to increase the Earth’s surface temperature.

As I thought, there is quite a lot missing there. Firstly the outbound IR that is absorbed by GHG is distributed to the bulk atmosphere by collisions. Sometimes collisions cause the bulk atmosphere to give a molecule of a GHG enough energy to reradiate. That is quite important as it is a common source of misunderstanding. Next most of the outbound IR is absorbed by GHGs and re-rediated and some of that is absorbed further up. The key thing is not that IR is absorbed near the surface, but the properties of the layer in the atmosphere from which it *can* escape to space. Due to the lapse rate, this layer is *cold* and hence GHGs there radiate less (including into space). It is also missing the key point (and why it is called the "greenhouse effect") which is that the atmosphere is largely transparent visible and some UV light, so the surface is mostly warmed by the incoming UV & visible light from the Sun. The atmosphere is warmed from beneath. So good start, but the lapse rate is crucial.

"a) the absorption of IR emitted from the Earth's surface prevents some of that IR from reaching space (i.e., leaving the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system),"

"prevented from leaving" - you mean like it is trapped or something? ;o)

Now guess what, that is only an approximation to what actually happens, leaving out lots of important detail (just a first year undergrad explanation). Science is full of that sort of thing and there is no clean distinction between "science" and "not science" when it comes to levels of explanation - it depends on the audience. As an example, I just read Katie Mack's book on the ways the universe might end, and it turns out the explanation of Hawking radiation (virtual particles forming at the evnt horizon, one escapes and the other doesn't) isn't actually what happens, it is just the closest you will get for an audience that hasn't spent three years studying maths as undergraduate level.

You are being inconsistent here, apparently because you don't like the idea of someone making a well-informed decision to change their lifestyle.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Eclectic at 14:35 PM on 7 April, 2025

@216 :

Very entertaining, Reed Coray.

It is amusing how you keep moving your goalposts. I am interested to see when you do eventually come full circle.

Regarding mechanisms, per your 14th paragraph (or 13th ~ depending on counting odd line usage) . . . you list mechanisms (a) and (b) and (c) . . . and you have gotten all three wrong substantially.

Perhaps you were meaning a joke ~ but otherwise, it demonstrates that you need to go away for many hours, and educate yourself scientifically on the physics of Earth's atmosphere. Then, when you do get to understand "Greenhouse Effect" you may (or may not) choose to split hairs about the semantic meanings of English words.

But first, please educate yourself ~ rather than flounder about as now.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 12:54 PM on 7 April, 2025

This response is to Dikran Marsupial at 02:14 AM on 7 April 2025. I struggle putting comments on this blog in the right spot.

Your statement: “My question was whether it was reasonable in a discussion with a lay-person to say that a blanket keeps you warm by ‘trapping heat’ or whether a thermos flask keeps tea warm by ‘trapping heat’”.

My response: Yes, it is reasonable when interacting at an educational level. But It is not reasonable when presenting a scientific argument for the purpose of persuading someone to change his way of life.

My question to you: Forget global warming for a minute, if as part of an effort to get a lay person to appreciably change his way of life, is it okay to use scientifically invalid arguments?

Your comments: (a) "How about a greenhouse (is the Cambridge dictionary that uses it as an example usage of "trap" incorrect?)." and (b) "The most popular dictionary and thesaurus for learners of English. Find meanings and definitions of words with pronunciations and translations in various languages."

My response: Could you send me the URL where the Cambridge dictionary uses greenhouse as an example usage of "trap?" When I Googled "Cabridge Dictionary Online" the URL that appeared was "https://www.bing.com/search?q=cambridge+dictionary+online&qs=HS&pq=cambrid&sc=10-7&cvid=69BDBA17495D45A3B8FE6E7E187CDE83&FORM=CHRDEF&sp=1&lq=0" The first entry that appeared on the screen was: "Cambridge Dictionary | English Dictionary, Translations & Thesaurus..." When I clicked on that the URL what appeared was: "https://dictionary.cambridge.org/"

When I entered "greenhouse" as the word to be defined, the word "trap" appeared nowhere on the screen. A link did appear for the phrase 'greenhouse effect." When I clicked on that link, three definitions of greenhouse effect appeared. (1) "an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere (= mixture of gases around the earth), that is believed to be the cause of a gradual warming of the surface of the earth," (2) “A reference to the American Dictionary which defined the greenhouse effect to be: ‘the gradual warming of the earth because of heat trapped by carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere’." (3) “A reference to the BUSINESS ENGLISH dictionary which defined the greenhouse effect to be: ‘an increase in the amount of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere (= mix of gases which surround the earth), which is believed to cause the surface of the earth to become gradually warmer and to be a threat to its future’.”
At that point I quit my online search. The "American Dictionary" definition did include a reference to "trapped heat, but the Cambridge dictionary did so only as a reference to the American Dictionary. In any event, all of those dictionaries are targeted at the general public. As such, “every-day” dictionaries omit detailed scientific arguments and replace it with phraseology that is familiar to the common man. If there is a valid complex scientific explanation that shows an error in the common-man definition, that explanation will be omitted from the dictionary. Thus, when you argue that it’s okay to use terminology from an every-day dictionary to discuss a scientific matter with a lay person, you are correct.

However, that doesn’t establish the scientific validity of the discussion, it only means that the same terminology is used both in both the “definition” and the “discussion.” So, when an every-day dictionary uses the phrase “trap heat,” it establishes that using the phrase in discussions with lay people is a common practice and therefore acceptable, but it does not establish the scientific validity of the phrase “trap heat.”

Your comment: "I have seen this time and time again in discussions with "contrarians", which is that I am happy to give very straight answers to direct questions, but they are not. The reason is that they know that their argument collapses if they give a straight answer."

Question to you: Are my above answers "straight answers to your direct questions?”

Your comment: "You appear not to understand the basic mechanism of the greenhouse effect if that thought experiment was intended to be relevant to that question."

My response: My understanding of the ‘basic mechanisms of the greenhouse effect” is as follows. (a) the absorption of IR emitted from the Earth's surface prevents some of that IR from reaching space (i.e., leaving the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system), (b) the energy in the IR that doesn’t reach space is absorbed by gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, and (c) a portion of that absorbed energy is radiated back to the Earth's surface thereby increasing the rate the Earth's surface absorbs IR, which in turn acts to increase the Earth’s surface temperature.

If my understanding of the mechanism is wrong or incomplete, please explain why.

Responding in kind to your statement that “I (i.e., you) have seen this time and time again in discussions with "contrarians", which is that I am happy to give very straight answers to direct questions, but they are not. The reason is that they know that their argument collapses if they give a straight answer.”

I make a similar comment. "I have seen time and time again in discussions with "global warming advocates," that the use of precise scientific terminology is seldom employed. The reason being that most global warming advocates are at best minimally knowledgeable of the science, and if asked to explain the details of the underlying physics, can’t.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

scaddenp at 06:44 AM on 7 April, 2025

I am struggling to see what it is gained by these sematic arguments. The real language of the GHE is the hard cold language of physics and maths, especially the Radiative Transfer Equations. No matter how these are interpretated in layman's language, increasing CO2 in the atmosphere warms the earth surface. The equations predict things like the amount of radiation received at the surface or at the top of the atmosphere and the spectrum of that radiation with exquisite accuracy. Also, see this paper for direct observation of CO2 increasing the greenhouse effect at the earth surface. Suggesting this is not real based on misunderstanding greenhouse theory is futile. You are fooling only yourself.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Dikran Marsupial at 02:14 AM on 7 April, 2025

Reed Coray, you have not addressed my question, just evaded it with a thought experiment of your own. My question was whether it was reasonable in a discussion with a lay-person to say that a blanket keeps you warm by "trapping heat" or whether a thermos flask keeps tea warm by "trapping heat". How about a greenhouse (is the Cambridge dictionary that uses it as an example usage of "trap" incorrect?).

I have seen this time and time again in discussions with "contrarians", which is that I am happy to give very straight answers to direct questions, but they are not. The reason is that they know that their argument collapses if they give a straight answer.

So are you going to give a straight answer to my question, or are you going to continue with the evasion.

"In the vacuum thermos bottle, a vacuum surrounds the thermos bottle's chamber. In the CO2 thermos bottle, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas (CO2) surrounds the thermos bottle's chamber."

You appear not to understand the basic mechanism of the greenhouse effect if that thought experiment was intended to be relevant to that question.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 15:15 PM on 6 April, 2025

Dikran Marsupial at 19:53 PM on 3 April 2025 wrote: "I am open to rational argument, such as a good answer to my question about blankets and thermos flasks 'trapping heat', and willing to change my mind."

Okay try this. Take two vacuum thermos bottles as nearly identical as possible. The vacuum region of each thermos bottle surrounds its chamber. Punch a small hole in one of the thermos bottles (letting gas into the vacuum region of that thermos bottle), and choose for that gas CO2 (a heat-trapping, greenhouse gas). Reseal the hole so that the CO2 gas can't leave the insulation region." Call the thermos bottle without CO2 gas the vacuum thermos bottle. Call the thermos bottle with CO2 gas the CO2 thermos bottle.

In the vacuum thermos bottle, a vacuum surrounds the thermos bottle's chamber. In the CO2 thermos bottle, a heat-trapping greenhouse gas (CO2) surrounds the thermos bottle's chamber.

Place equal amounts of coffee heated to the same temperature in each thermos bottle chamber. Place both thermos bottles side-by-side in an external envirornment whose temperature is lower than the temperature of the heated coffee. Eventually the temperature of the coffee in both thermos will reach and stablize at the temperature of the external environment; but the CO2 thermos bottle will reach that temperature much more rapidly than the vacuum thermos bottle. If CO2 gas traps heat, how is this possible?

When describing to a lay person what is happening, wouldn't it be more appropriate to say "a greenhouse gas (CO2) is freeing heat" to say "a greenhouse gas (CO2) is trapping heat?"

The above experiment is a comparison of "rates of heat loss," not a comparison of temperatures. But the experiment can easily to modified to be a comparison of temperatures. Simply place equal or nearly equal constant-rate heat sources in the chambers along with the coffee. As long as the heat source is outputing heat at a constant rate, the temperatures of the coffee in both thermos bottles will reach a stable temperature higher than the environment's temperature, but the stable temperature of the vacuum thermos bottle will be higher than the stable temperature of the CO2 thermos bottle. As with the "rate of heat loss" comparison, for the temperature comparison it is more correct to say the CO2 gas "frees heat" than it is to say the CO2 gas "traps heat."

hus, in thermos bottles CO2 gas doesn't "trap heat" it "frees heat."

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Bob Loblaw at 00:26 AM on 4 April, 2025

Here is another one, from the Britannica dictionary:

to stop (something) from escaping or being lost

Greenhouse gases trap heat inside the Earth's atmosphere.

Face it, Reed. Your argument is a dog that won't hunt.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Bob Loblaw at 00:18 AM on 4 April, 2025

Reed Coray @ 202:

Well, at least you admit that you can't change your mind.

"I think we've come to an impass. Regarding the meaning of "trapping heat," nothing I say will change your mind, and nothing you say will change mine. Stalemate. "

You have confirmed my statement, repeated in comment 199: " as I pointed out in #188, "...you create such a strict literal meaning to the words 'trap heat' that is unjustified."

FYI, we haven't changed our minds because you have not provided a convincing argument, and you keep avoiding questions that are asked.

You have presented one, and only one, definition of "trap", without citing a source. Most dictionaries provide several variations/definitions of "trap" suitable for different circumstances. Once again, you are cherry picking to suit your position.

FLICC

Let's try another source for a definition of "trap": the Cambridge dictionary. It provides several definitions for "trap", one of which is:

to keep something such as heat or water in one place, especially because it is useful:

A greenhouse stays warm because the glass traps the heat of the sun.

Let's try the Collins Dictionary. One part of their definition says:

When something traps gas, water, or energy, it prevents it from escaping.
Wool traps your body heat, keeping the chill at bay.
The volume of gas trapped on these surfaces can be considerable.

Of course, you will not find that convincing, because you probably believe that the Cambridge and Collins dictionaries are part of the Grand Plot to "manipulate truth and facts" in regard to human influences on climate.

...or maybe they just understand the colloquial use of "trap" better than you do.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Dikran Marsupial at 19:53 PM on 3 April, 2025

"So if you enter into a discussion of the geenhouse effect with the average person, he won't be aware of the subtle difference you imply. "

Specifically what "subtle difference" are you talking about? In talking about "adiabatic walls", it is you that is introducing the issue of permanence and completeness, not me, and not those explaining the greenhouse effect as "trapping heat".

I note you have not addressed the examples I gave. Is it reasonable in a discussion with a lay-person to talk of a blanket "trapping heat" or of a thermos flask "trapping heat"? Yes or no.

I have taken the time to directly answer your questions (although you have done nothing so far with those answers), so please give direct answers to mine.

"Regarding the meaning of "trapping heat," nothing I say will change your mind, and nothing you say will change mine. "

Speak for yourself. I am open to rational argument, such as a good answer to my question about blankets and thermos flasks "trapping heat", and willing to change my mind.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 08:29 AM on 3 April, 2025

What's the difference between "atmosphere permanently and completely traps" and "atmosphere traps?" The definition of "trap" used as a verb is

1. Catch (an animal) in a trap. Synonyms: confine, cut off, corner, shut in, pen in, hem in, imprison, hold captive "a rat trapped in a barn“

a) Prevent (someone) from escaping from a place. “Twenty workers were trapped by flames” Synonyms: snare, entrap, ensnare, lay a trap for

b) Have (something, typically a part of the body) held tightly by something so that it cannot move or be freed. “He had trapped his finger in a spring-loaded hinge”

None of the above implies "permanently and completely" can't leave, they simply imply "can't leave." Good luck finding a non-technical dictionary that has a word that whose definition contains the words "permenantly and completely traps."

Ask a random person on the street if there is difference between "can't leave" and "permanently and completely can't leave." I think you're going to get a puzzled look.

In discussions of the greenhouse effect, most people do use "trap" in the sense you mean. But the average person rarely enters into a greenhouse effect discussion. So if you enter into a discussion of the geenhouse effect with the average person, he won't be aware of the subtle difference you imply. For example, if you pulled a coin out of your pocket and told the average person you have encased the coin in a substance that traps heat, I believe he's going to believe that heat can't leave the coin. He's not going to ask you "Do you mean permanently and completely not leave the coin" or simply "not leave the coin?"

When discussing something with the average person, assigning a meaning to a word that is deviates from the meanings commonly found in a generic dictionary is to confuse the person. If you told some one you've wrapped a coin in a substance that "permanently and completely traps the heat in the coin," what would you say if his response was: Do you mean "permanently and completely trap" or "really permanently and really completely trap?"

In technical discussions with people knowledgeable in the field it may be okay to use words that have a subtle meaning, but to use those words in the sense of the subtle meaning in conversations with lay people is to muddle the discussion. If you're trying to convince the average person that atmospheric greenhouse gases can trap heat and you don't qualify what you mean by trap with the caveat that "I don't mean "permenantly and completely", you're not communicating, you're obfuscating.

I think we've come to an impass. Regarding the meaning of "trapping heat," nothing I say will change your mind, and nothing you say will change mine. Stalemate. I'll leave the decision as to who is right to the public, but know that every time I hear someone make the claim that greenhouse gases trap heat, I'm going add: "he/she doesn't mean the heat is permenantly and completely trapped, he/she means the heat is temporarily trapped."

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Dikran Marsupial at 16:55 PM on 2 April, 2025

Thank you for posting the source for "adiabatic wall"

"This almost ubiquitously used claim (“the Earth's surface is warmed by-heat-trapping greenhouse gases”) is invalid because heat cannot be trapped—i.e., an adiabatic wall does not exist in nature. "

Thermodynamic Black bodies don't exist in nature either, nor Gaussian distributions, both are useful theoretical models that are often applied to natural phenomena though (knowing that they do not exactly represent the objects they model). The analogy under discussion does not say that the atmosphere permanently and completely traps *all* heat, so trapping heat in the sense that an insulator "traps" some heat (or equivalently impedes it's escape) seems reasonable to me. I think your objection is unreasonable pedantry.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Dikran Marsupial at 16:45 PM on 2 April, 2025

Reed Coray "In my opinion, most people who responded to my comments are missing the point I am trying to make. ... My point is that the claim: “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by trapping heat within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” is a denial of science."

Several people, including myself have directly addressed that point.

"(1) Does science preclude the existence of “trapped heat?” Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer."

No, as I pointed out, blankets can be reasonably said to "trap" heat; thermos flasks can reasonably said to trap heat.

"(2) Does the fact that “trapped heat” can’t exist, prohibit “trapping heat?” Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer."

No, because the premise that '“trapped heat” can’t exist, prohibit' is false, see the answer to (1).

(3) If “trapping heat” can’t exist, does the use of “trapping heat” in an argument mean the argument contains a logical fallacy? Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.

Again, "no" because the premise is false, see (1).

(4) Does the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by ‘trapping heat’ within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” use the phrase “trapping heat?” Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No”answer.

Yes, but this is an unhelpful rhetorical question rather a truth seeking one. I am answering it mostly to point out the rhetoric. It isn't unreasonable as a very basic analogy. The enhanced greenhouse effect does cause more energy to be returned to the surface rather than being radiated out to space, so it could be viewed as being (temorarily) "trapped".

(5) Does the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by ‘trapping heat’ within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” contain a logical fallacy? Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.

No - see answer to the previous question. It is a reasonable analogy - the actual physical mechansism is a bit more complex than that, but it is a O.K. as a starting point for the layperson.

(6) Does the fact that the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by ‘trapping heat’ within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” contains a logical fallacy imply a denial of science? Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.

No, see answers to previous questions. (a) it is based on an incorrect premise (that heat cannot be trapped) and (b) it is a reasonable, but extremely basic, analogy that is a reasonable starting point for the layperson.

There I have given direct answers to your questions. The ball is now in your court to respond to them constructively (I would start with explaining how a thermos flask cannot be viewed as trapping heat - of course I had already made that point in an earlier comment).

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 11:07 AM on 2 April, 2025

Bob, I haven't gone away. I apologize for the delay. I've just struggled with the process of bringing up a window into which I can enter a comment. It's only chance I have brought up some windows. I think I've figured out how to do that, so I'll get to the questions as soon as I can.

Let's see if this comment gets inposted.

In my opinion, most people who responded to my comments are missing the point I am trying to make. My point is NOT that the greenhouse effect isn’t real. [I believe the greenhouse effect is real in the sense that gases in the Earth’s atmosphere (called greenhouse gases) will absorb the energy in the infrared radiation (IR) emitted from the Earth’s surface and radiate a portion of that absorbed energy back to the Earth’s surface.] My point is that the claim: “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by trapping heat within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” is a denial of science.
[Note: Any misunderstanding regarding the point I’m trying to make is my fault. I did, after all, post my original comment under the thread “falsifying the greenhouse effect.” I accept responsibility and apologize for any misunderstanding my choice of thread has caused.]
Bob Loblaw wrote (01:05 AM on 31 March, 2025) “Reed Coray's argument is a pig in a poke. He's making a mountain out of a molehill. He's making a federal case out of a trivial issue. He's sweating the small stuff. He's blowing things out of proportion. It's a tempest in a teapot. It's much ado about nothing. He's giving us a song and dance. He's laying it on thick. [Aren't dictionaries fun?]”
[In the spirit of Bob’s question “Aren’t dictionaries fun?” I mention that Bob left out the phrase “his arguments are mouse nuts.” Because of this oversight, I recommend someone buy Bob a new dictionary.]
If atmospheric greenhouse gases can trap heat, then not only is it likely that all of Bob’s characterizations of my argument are appropriate, it’s worse than that--my arguments are flat wrong and can be dismissed out of hand.
If, however as I believe is the case, science says that heat can’t be trapped,
(1) Then the process of “trapping heat” doesn’t and can’t exist.
(2) If the process of “trapping heat” can’t exist, then claiming that something can or will occur as a result of “trapping heat” is a logical fallacy.
(3) Since the claim says that the Earth’s surface is warmed “by trapping heat in the Earrth/Earth-atmosphere system,” the claim contains a logical fallacy.
If the above three-step logic is valid, then any global warming argument that uses the words “trapping heat” to represent a real-world phenomenon is an argument that contains a logical fallacy. No matter how closely the real-world phenomenon agrees with the meaning of “trapping heat,” the use of the phrase “trapping heat” is a logical fallacy The magnitude of the logical fallacy may play a minor role in determining the amount of temperature change the real-world process that is called “trapping heat” can cause, but no matter how small a logical fallacy is, it is still a logical fallacy.
The SkS blog (a) implies that when discussing AGW, “denying science” is bad, and (b) claims that one technique used to “deny science” is to employ arguments that contain one or more logical fallacies. Thus, anyone who employs a logical fallacy is denying science.
If the AGW community encourages people to point out skeptic arguments that deny science, shouldn’t the skeptic community encourage people to point out AGW arguments that deny science--no matter how insignificant that denial is (e.g., pig in a poke, making a mountain out of a molehill, making a federal case out of a trivial issue, sweating the small stuff, blowing things out of proportion, tempest in a teapot, much ado about nothing, giving a song and dance, and worrying about mouse nut)?. The phrase I think that applies to the above is: “What’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.” Bob, would you check to see if see if that phrase is in your dictionary?
To end this comment, I pose six questions to all who are interested in this topic.
(1) Does science preclude the existence of “trapped heat?” Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.
(2) Does the fact that “trapped heat” can’t exist, prohibit “trapping heat?” Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.
(3) If “trapping heat” can’t exist, does the use of “trapping heat” in an argument mean the argument contains a logical fallacy? Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.
(4) Does the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by ‘trapping heat’ within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” use the phrase “trapping heat?” Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.
(5) Does the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by ‘trapping heat’ within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” contain a logical fallacy? Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.
(6) Does the fact that the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by ‘trapping heat’ within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” contains a logical fallacy imply a denial of science? Yes or No. If “No,” I’m interested in knowing the rationale behind your “No” answer.
If you reach this point in this comment with all “Yes” answers, then we are in agreement—the claim “The presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases the temperature of the Earth’s surface by trapping heat within the Earth/Earth-atmosphere system” is a denial of science.
If you reach this point with one or more “No” answers, then we have identified the issue (or issues) that are worthy of further discussion.
Thank you for your time.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

MA Rodger at 19:39 PM on 1 April, 2025

Dikran Marsupial @191,
Despite all the words employed @180/182, the commenter Reed Coray does manage to avoid making clear if he/she agrees that adding GHGs will cause warming. Substantial doubt is also presented by saying "when gases are added ... Earth's surface temperature ... may go up or down" and that "your theoretical argument is nonsense ... if your theoretical estimate of Earth surface warming requires the existence of trapped heat."

In my understanding, the pedantic objection to use of the term "heat" and the term "trapped heat" is entirely wrong. "Heat" is not a word which physics uses 'quantitavely' but it simply describes “the quality of being ho, of having htigh temperature.” And the greenhouse gas process does thus evidently "trap heat" in that the escape of energy (which would prevent the elevation of surface temperature) is a physical mechanism. Surface IR which would otherwise shoot off into space is "trapped" by the GHGs which itself shoots-off IR. And that GHG-emitted IR will itself be "trapped" by GHG, a "trapping" process which will exist until the emitted IR is clear of enough GHG to have a clear shot out to space.

I noted the term "adiabatic wall" used @180 (not one I recall ever being used during any thermodynamics lecture I ever attended). Pedanticly the term is misused as it would not cause a planet to "heat" as it prevents all energy flows in both directions.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Dikran Marsupial at 22:32 PM on 31 March, 2025

Reed Coray You write "heat cannot be trapped". Would you complain if you heard someone claiming that "blankets trap heat, so you feel warmer under a blanket"? How about someone that says a thermos flask traps heat and keeps my tea warm for longer?

Most would regard such a complaint to be unhelpful pedantry. It is not an unreasonable way of looking at it. The air under the blanket absorbs some of the heat from your body and returns it via condiction and radiation. The blanket prevents convection - it "traps" the air, and hence "traps" the heat with it.

Note that even in physics terminology is used "incorrectly". For instance in thermodynamics, heat does not actually "flow" - that is just a metaphor (a remenant from caloric theory?). Does that cause problems for physicists? No, because they know that bidirectional transfers of energy appear to us as a "flow" of heat because we generally only observe the overall outcome.

Pedantry is rarely useful - better to look for the value in analogies and metaphors, and gradually work towards understanding the physics directly as your frame of reference exapnds.

Direct question for Reed Coray: Do you agree with the physics of the enhanced greenhouse effect, that have been well understood by physicists for over a century? "Yes" or "No" - if "no" then demonstrate excatly where the theory is incorrect.

Climate skeptics have new favorite graph; it shows the opposite of what they claim

Evan at 04:33 AM on 31 March, 2025

Eric@10, yes, the ice cores give temperatures at just a single location. However, because CO2 is a long-lived greenhouse gas, we can use the CO2 record from a single ice core to reasonably represent the global CO2 concentration at any given time. Link the measured CO2 concentration to the science that relates atmospheric CO2 concentration to atmospheric temperature (i.e., the climate sensitivity), and we can use a single ice core to infer global temperatures. Because we have multiple ice cores dating back 400,000 years or so, we know with reasonably high confidence the temperature profile quite a ways back.

But the real point is that at a current rate of warming of 0.2C/decade, we are warming so much faster than any of the ice-core data sets record, that we are clearly warming at an unprecendented rate compared to the warming over the last 400,000 years or so. And unprecendented does not mean a factor of 2 or 3, but more like a factor of 100 or so. In short, we are warming so much faster than Earth has in the recent past, that it really is not productive to argue about semantics.

We are in deep trouble, and we have plenty of data sets with which to compare to support that claim. No, I have not provided links, but you seem very well informed about the history and science of ice cores (that is meant as a compliment), so that I assume you understand what I mean by CO2 being a long-lived greenhouse gas that distributes itself uniformly over the Earth.

If you contest the science that links CO2 to warming, then I will rest, because it is science that provides the critical link between what we can measure very well (i.e., CO2 concentrations from ice cores) and global temperatures.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Bob Loblaw at 01:05 AM on 31 March, 2025

Charlie_Brown @ 189:

That's a useful addition to the discussion. Humpty Dumpty may hold the point of view that "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less”, but in communications it is desirable that people agree on meanings. And when you start to run into technical jargon, there can be a barrier to understanding if the audience is not familiar with the jargon. You then need to explain that jargon in words that the audience does understand. That explanation can vary widely, depending on the background of the audience.

Even an object as familiar as a dictionary needs to follow this rule: you can't explain the meaning of words by using the same words. When trying to explain what a frobnitz gleabinator is, you can't just tell someone "that's a device that will gleabinate your frobnitz". If they don't know what a frobnitz is, or what gleabinating does, they are still lost.

(Homework: try grabbing your favourite dictionary and looking up the word "dictionary", to see how it manages to avoid a circular reference.)

(Homework 2: if you don't know what a "circular reference" is, try looking it up under "reference, circular".)

Reed Coray has utterly failed to explain the distinction between his undesirable "trap heat" and his preferred "warm the Earth's surface". To a lay person, these look pretty much the same. Well, to pretty much anyone, I expect they mean pretty much the same thing. Unless Reed Coray can provide a reasonable explanation of the difference, he is (as I said before) just playing word games.

The OP even goes into the inaccuracies of the term "greenhouse". (You need to read the Intermediate tab to see it.) It mentions the role of blocking convection rather than radiation in the glass greenhouse. It does not mention that plastic greenhouses can do this just as well - even though they are transparent to IR. It also doesn't point out that glass (or plastic) greenhouses also only work because they let sunlight in - just as the atmosphere does. A "greenhouse" that does not have a clear roof is just a house - and doesn't heat up the same way a greenhouse does (even though a house does block convection).

In spite of the differences between a glass greenhouse and the atmospheric "greenhouse" effect, both require the use of the physics of radiation transfer and the physics of convection in explaining how they cause warming. The analogy (look that up in your dictionary!) is useful, although the two situations are not identical.

Reed Coray's argument is a pig in a poke. He's making a mountain out of a molehill. He's making a federal case out of a trivial issue. He's sweating the small stuff. He's blowing things out of proportion. It's a tempest in a teapot. It's much ado about nothing. He's giving us a song and dance. He's laying it on thick. [Aren't dictionaries fun?]

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Charlie_Brown at 11:56 AM on 30 March, 2025

Reed Coray @ 180 writes: “This almost ubiquitously used claim (“the Earth's surface is warmed by-heat-trapping greenhouse gases”) is invalid because heat cannot be trapped—i.e., an adiabatic wall does not exist in nature. If heat can’t be trapped, any and all claims that rely on the existence of heat-trapping material or trapped heat constitute misinformation.” In my opinion, those two sentences are misinformation. It sets up a hurdle for GHG theory to be described with technical accuracy with a few words, or else it is “invalid.” I believe my comments are consistent with others. I intend to be reinforcing and apologize if they are repetitive.

It not possible to convey the concept of how increasing GHG concentration “traps heat” with technical accuracy to those who do not understand fundamental principles of an energy balance, the atmospheric profile, and radiant energy transfer. For the lay person, “traps heat” is sufficiently descriptive. Technically it is not inaccurate, so it is not “untrue.” A “trap” does not have to be an adiabatic wall. Maybe one could say partial trap. It can be accurately described as a partial radiant energy trap. Let’s not get lost in the semantics of dictionary definition. I prefer to add a few words: “Increasing GHG behaves as a cold trap for certain wavelengths of infrared energy that reduces energy loss to space and upsetting the steady state energy balance.” It could be shortened to “It is a cold trap that reduces energy loss to space.”

Reed Coray’s short description @182 “Surface Warming Occurs To Establish Energy Rate Equilibrium (ERE) Within The Earth/Earth-atmosphere System” also is incomplete. It leaves out the role of increasing GHG as well as the cold layer at the top of the radiant atmosphere.

Another short description I use is that it is a 3-step process: 1) Increasing GHG reduces energy loss to space. 2) Energy accumulates in the global system. 3) Surface temperature increases until radiant energy balance is restored.

Global warming theory should be described at the appropriate level for the audience to understand the overarching concept. It bothers me when someone says they believe in global warming, because it is not a belief, it is based on fundamental physics. If someone wants more information to better understand the concepts without understanding the physics, it should be provided. The audience does not need to know all the technical details to know that global warming theory is solid science. I find the technical details to be fascinating, so I am happy to dig into them and share the knowledge at whatever level the listener would like to engage.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 03:37 AM on 29 March, 2025

Bob Loblaw at 00:12 AM on 29 March 2025

You wrote: " Every simple explanation leaves something out, and therefore may be subject to misunderstanding (especially if someone is determined to misunderstand or misrepresent it)"

It is true that simple explanations "leave things out," and are therefore susceptible to misintrepretation. But why include in a simple explanation something that isn't true? Doing that makes it more likely that the simple explanation will be misintrepreted.

For example, why not shorten your Earth surface warming simple explanation to: "atmospheric greenhouse gases act to warm the Earth's surface?" That's an even simpler explanation and doesn't contain a statement that isn't true. What does the caveat "trapping heat" add to the simple explanation other than make it more likely to be misintrepreted?

If your answer is that it makes it more likely that a reader will accept the greenhouse effect theory because he is familiar with connotations of the word "trap," then not only is your simple explanation misinformation, it is disinformation--i.e., information that is designed to mislead others and is spread with the intent to manipulate truth and facts.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

One Planet Only Forever at 03:00 AM on 29 March, 2025

Reed Coray @182,

As Bob Loblaw suspects, you have not answered my question.

In addition to the responses by Bob Loblaw and Eclectic, I observe that even the detailed explanation you provided is incomplete. It should address the source of energy input to the earth-atmosphere system and what happens to that energy within the system.

A significant percentage of incoming (entering – and there is a reason I bold this term) solar energy passes through the ‘greenhouse gases’ in the atmosphere and is absorbed or reflected by the features of the ‘surface of the planet’. The reflected solar radiation exits out to space through the atmosphere as easily as it entered. However, absorbed energy gets re-emitted in a form that is different from the solar radiation that enters the system. And the greenhouse gases make it harder for the energy emitted by the surface features to exit the system (leave out to space). Simply, and fairly accurately, greenhouse gases allow entry of the solar energy down to the surface but block the exit of heat emitted by the warmed surface back out to space.

The current on-line Oxford definition of the verb ‘trap’ is: catch (an animal) in a trap.

The related noun ‘trap’ is defined as: a device or enclosure designed to catch and retain animals, typically by allowing entry but not exit ...

Try to be more helpful and careful. “The Earth's surface is warmed by heat-trapping greenhouse gases” seems to be an accurate ‘easily understood’ description of the result of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Trying to claim that the statement is a form of misinformation does not help improve efforts to increase public awareness and understanding of the problem. And that type of ‘poorly justified claim-making’ could be understood to be a form of misinformation (something that Bob Loblaw also noted in a different way).

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Bob Loblaw at 00:32 AM on 29 March, 2025

It's also worth noting that the word "trap" is barely used at all in the OP that we are commenting on. In the Basic tab, it appears twice. Once in relation to comparing the earth (with an atmosphere) to the moon (no atmosphere), and once in relation to the atmosphere trapping radiation. In the Intermediate tab, the word "trap" does not appear in the OP at all.

Reed Coray's complaint about overly-simplified explanations of "trapping heat" seem rather oddly placed under a blog post that gives a lengthy discussion of the greenhouse effect (which is of itself a poor term, as is explained in the OP!). Complaining that something should not be done when it does not occur in the OP starts to look like someone is complaining just for the sake of complaining.

The comments section here is intended to discuss the science presented in the original posts. This is explained at the top of the Comments Policy. As a new user, it behooves Reed Coray to actually read the posts he wants to comment on.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Eclectic at 13:23 PM on 28 March, 2025

@ 180 / 182 :

Whoa ! Whoa there, Reed Corey.

Please remember the KISS principle.

You say: "to explain ... warming to the general public ..." . But explaining to the general public ~ is not going to happen if a reference to the topic of climate change goes on to a multi-paragraph declaration of complex atmospheric physics. That would be tiresome and insulting to the general public.

"We the people" deserve a simple one-liner description (wherever that is appropriate). A "greenhouse effect trapping heat" is a fair enough and accurate enough description for those of us who use colloquial English. It is a reasonable analogy, for practical purposes.

Sure, in a scientific discussion by experts and would-be experts, you can bring in topics like lapse rates; thermalizations; entropy; heat balance; infra-red radiation; etcetera. But in common sense parlance, "trapping" heat by means of a pane of glass or a wool blanket ~ is not a misleading or dishonest analogy.

Those who choose to go deeper into the semantics and the physics . . . are free to do so, at their leisure. However, for public discussion of the practical politics of countering the modern rapid global warming ~ simplicity is a courtesy and a duty.

Greenhouse effect has been falsified

Reed Coray at 04:11 AM on 28 March, 2025

An argument used to explain Earth-surface/Earth-lower-troposphere warming to the general public is that some gases (called greenhouse gases) in the Earth's atmosphere "trap heat" thereby increasing temperature. In the public's mind, "trapping heat" goes hand-in-hand with increasing temperature and so the phrase serves its intended purpose: make it believable to the public that atmospheric greenhouse gases will warm the Earth's surface.

This almost ubiquitously used claim (“the Earth's surface is warmed by-heat-trapping greenhouse gases”) is invalid because heat cannot be trapped—i.e., an adiabatic wall does not exist in nature. If heat can’t be trapped, any and all claims that rely on the existence of heat-trapping material or trapped heat constitute misinformation.

I believe the phrases "trapped heat" and "heat trapping" are used to incorrectly explain a physical process in a way that will resonate with the general public. Imagine the effect on the general public if in all articles that mention "heat trapping," after every appearance of the phrase ("heat trapping" or "trapped heat") a parenthetical qualifier followed that said "heat cannot be trapped, but we use 'trapped heat' because it 'kind of' describes what is going on." Do you think such a qualifying caveat would have any effect on the public's acceptance of the greenhouse gas theory of warming?

Is CO2 plant food? Why are we still talking about this?

Evan at 22:19 PM on 27 February, 2025

People have many roles. A person may be a father, a brother, a son, an employee, a hunter, the list goes on and on. Nobody has just a single role.

It is likely that your boss cares more about your role as an employee than your role as a brother. The role that matters is situational.

CO2 is plant food, carbonator of drinks, key component of CO2 lasers, dry ice, greenhouse gas, the list goes on. The role we care about is situational. CO2 does not have a single role.

Electric vehicle adoption is stumbling, but still growing amid geopolitical clashes

Jim Hunt at 06:06 AM on 26 February, 2025

Nigel @4,

"There's been a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there about EVs in our media over the last couple of years"

Here's one example from here in the UK, egregious enough to warrant action from the largely toothless "Independent Press Standards Organisation":

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/

"In yet another instance of British newspapers promoting misinformation about climate change policies, the Daily Mail has been forced to correct an inaccurate and misleading article that falsely claimed a report on the condition of Britain’s roads said potholes were mainly caused by electric vehicles.

The article, originally titled ‘Heavier electric cars blamed for the £16bn cost of pothole plague’, was published on page 2 of its print edition and on its website on 19 March. It was written by the newspaper’s chief political correspondent, David Churchill, as part of the Daily Mail’s ongoing campaign to mislead its readers about electric vehicles and other technologies to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

The article misrepresented a report by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) by suggesting it singled out electric vehicles as being responsible for the current pothole ‘crisis’ in Britain...

However, the AIA’s ‘Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey Report 2024’ makes no such claims. In fact, it does not discuss or refer to electric vehicles in any way."

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Bob Loblaw at 03:05 AM on 1 February, 2025

sychodefender @ 34:

For feedbacks, they start as soon as any system change occurs. When CO2 rises, it take a bit of time for temperature to rise, and then once temperature rises, atmospheric water vapour will rise, which will have a greenhouse gas heating effect (after a bit of time...), etc.

...but I have left "a bit of time" undefined for the moment. There are many different factors that take varying amounts of time to respond to changes. MA Rodger's response @ 35 touches on several of these factors.

Obviously, day-to-day weather causes changes in temperature, which will cause day-to-day feedback effects, etc. When we talk in terms of climate, though, we are more interested in the persistent changes, and how factors relate over longer periods of time. We also often talk about averages over large areas, not local effects such as your back yard.

Taking MA Rodgers statement about "increased evaporation adds 7% H2O capacity for every +1ºC", we are talking about longer term effects - e.g. decades. You won't see this simple a relationship when discussing day-to-day local weather. This relationship is looking at global trends over decades.

We can't instantaneously double atmospheric CO2 in the real world (thankfully!), but we can in a climate model. Back in 1981, Hansen et al published a well-known paper on CO2 and climate that included an interesting diagram.

Hansen, J., Johnson, D., Lacis, A., Lebedeff, S., Lee, P., Rind, D., & Russell, G. (1981). Climate impact of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Science, 213(4511), 957-966

They ran a computer model where they instantaneously doubled atmospheric CO2, and their figure 4 shows how energy fluxes changed over time.

Hansen et al (1981) fig 4

This is a somewhat complex diagram, so bear with me a bit.

The first panel shows the immediate response. We see a very slight increase in atmospheric absorption of solar radiation, a larger reduction of IR loss to space, and some changes in the radiation, thermal, and evaporation fluxes between the surface and atmosphere.

A lot of things are now "out of balance", so changes will occur.

Notice that the change in IR loss to space (ΔF) is -2.4 W/m². Combined with the change in solar (ΔS = 0.1), we get a net change of +2.5. This is the "climate forcing" that MA Rodger refers to. This is what drives the overall warming of the earth-atmosphere system.

The atmosphere is the fastest to respond to these energy changes, because it does not require a lot of heat to warm up air. Land will heat up more slowly, and oceans even slower than land.

In the middle panel, we see what is happening "a few months later". The atmosphere has restored its local balance, but the surface has not - so the whole system is still out of balance. Surface temperature (T_s) is still the same as it was at the start.

The net climate forcing is now +3.9 (similar to the 3.7 number MA Rodger states in comment 35. Different models will vary slightly on what this number should be.)

The atmosphere has now had a chance to warm - and get more humid. So now, we see the effects that include the feedback.

With water vapour feedback now active, the net global imbalance has increased from +2.5 to +3.9. Roughly 50% larger than if there was no feedback.

The last panel is "many years later". The entire system has balanced again.

The atmosphere has a net balance of zero.

The surface has a net balance of zero.

The whole system has a net balance of zero.

...but note that many of the internal energy fluxes are different from what they were before CO2 was doubled.

Absorbed solar has change for both the atmosphere and surface. Total net solar (ΔS) has only increased by 0.1, but where it is absorbed is different - more in the atmosphere and less at the surface.

IR loss rates to space have changed. Net change (ΔF) is only 0.1 (to balance the change in ΔS), but again we see that contributions from the surface and atmosphere have changed.

IR exchanges between the surface and atmosphere have changed. The climate is warmer, so IR fluxes have increased in both directions.

Convective fluxes (thermal and evaporation) between the surface and atmosphere have changed slightly.

...and surface temperature is now 2.8C warmer... (Global warming!)

...so we are living in a different climate, with many changes. A new equilibrium, but one that looks quite different from what we are used to.

Hopefully this is not too hard to follow. As stated before, climate is a complex system. It gets quite difficult to to isolate changes in one part from another. Looking at one part can help understanding - but you do need to be careful about over-emphasizing what you see in that one part (and missing another important part). Much of what you can call "contrarian" positions involves over-simplifying the system, to the peril of leaving out parts that do matter. You're doing the right thing by asking questions.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

MA Rodger at 19:47 PM on 31 January, 2025

sychodefender @34,
So if there were a doubling of CO2, this would imposed a climate forcing of +3.7Wm^-2 on the planet. And this would begin to warm the planet with some +1.25ºC warming arriving in a decade (and the remainder taking far longer having to warm up deep oceans and melt ice caps).
This warming will act to restore the planet's temperature equilibrium but the warming is being amplified due to the water content of the atmosphere. Physics tells us that increased evaporation adds 7% H2O capacity for every +1ºC and measurement shows this is happening.
Being itself a greenhouse gas and with the altitude of cloud formation in a warmer atmosphere, this extra H2O adds to the required warming to reach equilibrium. It's roughly three steps forward, two steps back.
So after that decade, assuming constant CO2 since the doubling, the remaining imbalance would be about +2.3Wm^-2. The warming so far will have seen the imbalance drop, +1.4Wm-2 due to CO2 and +2.8Wm^-2 from the H2O.
Note that the H2O feedback works very quickly. As soon as there is a temperature rise, the water will be evapourating from the oceans with the march towards equilibrium being thus that three steps forward, two back.
Thats the basic version. It gets much more complicated in the detail.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

MA Rodger at 02:42 AM on 29 January, 2025

sychodefender @30,

Another take on answering you questioning....

As you say, the climate forcing from mankind's CO2 emissions does cause feedbacks, these most evident in the water cycle, humidity, cloud cover, cloud height (this last the least understood). But there is no "self-sustaining loop" or even any significant CO2 emissions consequent from mankind's emissions as a feedback. There is thus no need for a natural mechanism to prevent run-away global warming.

You mention CO2 in this "natural mechanism" and CO2 has operated naturally as the major control knob for the climate through the eons. (Calling CO2 the 'control knob' should not be in any way controiversial.) The ancient Earth's climate is a bit of a mystery as the sun was less energetic in the early solar system (and from its weak beginning will continue to strengthen) and with no means of knowing the ancient atmospheric composition the 'faint sun paradox' remains unexplained. More recently, over the last 500 million years the temperature record is reasonably well known. (Through that time the sun has brightened by about 5% which is a climate forcing equivalent to roughly a quadrupling of CO2.) 500My Earth temperature

There are a few very-long-term mechanisms at work altering the carbon available for the carbon cycle (in the atmosphere, bliosphere and ocean waters, these being in equilibrium for multi-millenial periods).
Taking CO2 from the atmosphere into rocks as coal was a major process in warm climates for early parts of this 500My period as back then fungi were not well developed enough to decompose plants which could thus be buried and turned to coal. Modern fungi prevents such significant coal formation.
A second mechanism is the water-weathering of mountain rocks which allows the formation of carboniferous rock in sea water. When the 700Gt(C) humanity has emitted so far has reachen equilibrium between biosphere, ocean and atmosphere (which takes abut a millenium), the remaining 25% of our emissions in the atmosphere (assuming only natural processes) will require rock-weathering to be extracted, this taking tens of millenia to complete. At a similar rate of action, the formation of the Himalayas and associated increase in rock-weathering has seen the atmospheric CO2 content drop over the last 50 million years and with it the cooling of the planet.
Once this deposit of carbon into the geology occurs, it is volcanism that works to return it to the carbon cycle. Thus when the planet is so cold that there is no rain to weather rocks and no significant biosphere at work, the volcanic activity will slowly pump CO2 back into the atmosphere restoring the level of greenhouse effect. The emissions are very small relative to mankind's emissions (perhaps about 1%).

You mention Milankovitch cycles which have been waggling the planet's temperature for the past 3 million years (initially as a 40ky cycle, then 100ky).
The Milankovitch cycles are not so strong in themselves but are amplified by positive feedbacks. Within these cycles, CO2 is part of that positive feedback (increasing the size of the wobbles) with carbon being locked away under frozen land and in cooling oceans under increased sea ice. However the big driver of recent ice ages is albedo not CO2.

You mention the logarithmic relationship between CO2 levels and climate forcing. This is an empirical relationship for concentrations in the range 150ppm to 1300ppm. As Zhong & Haig (2013) fig 6 shows, beyond 1300ppm the forcings increase faster than logarithmic. By then, of course, an increase in the CO2 consentrations would need to be four-times an increase to add the same extra forcing. But we don't want to be creating a world with 1300ppm. It would have already been under a forcing of 8.4Wm^-2 from the extra CO2, perhaps global warming of +7ºC.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Bob Loblaw at 01:39 AM on 29 January, 2025

sychodefender @ 30:

The ultimate limiting factor for warming induced by greenhouse gas increases is the infrared radiation emitted to space from the upper part of the atmosphere. As the earth-atmosphere system heats up (primary a surface effect in the case of greenhouse gases) more IR is emitted to space, and (hopefully) eventually balances again. Think of it in stages:

Earth is in a stable climate, with a stable (over years or decades) temperature. Energy absorbed from the sun is balanced by IR losses to space.

Something causes that equilibrium to go out of balance. In the case of greenhouse gases, the direct factor is a reduction in the IR loss to space.

Now, absorbed solar exceeds IR losses, so we are adding energy to the earth-atmosphere system.

The net energy increases causes some part of the system to warm up. That energy cascades through the system in a variety of forms (radiation, thermal energy, evaporation/condensation).

After a while (many years), the system evolves to a point where IR losses to space increase enough so that we reach a new balance with absorbed solar.

Once a new balance is achieved, we have a (new) stable climate again. In the case of doubling CO2, this new stable climate will be a surface temperature that is a few degrees warmer than it was before.

So, ultimately, the ability to regain equilibrium requires that the system respond to a point where IR loss to space - from the upper part of the atmosphere (you'll often see "TOA" to indicate "Top of Atmosphere") can rebalance the energy absorbed from the sun. In a stable climate, you can have short-term shifts away from equilibrium, but this "energy balance with space" will keep pulling the climate back to its stable position - kind of like a marble rolling around in the bottom of a round bowl.

So, next let's think about feedbacks, such as the "CO2 warming increases water vapour, increases warming, increases water vapour" go-on-forever loop. SkS does have a lengthy discussion of that topic, on this thread here, but let's take a quick look at it now.

In climate science terms, the water vapour effect you describe is called a positive feedback. A system change in one factor causes a change in another factor that adds to the initial change.

If the initial change is an increase, a positive feedback will cause more increase.

...but if the initial change is a decrease, a positive feeback will cause more decrease.

Positive feedbacks do not necessarily lead to values that increase forever. As long as the feedback multiplier is small enough, a new equilibrium will still be reached.

"Small enough" is anything less than 1.

If the initial change is 1, and the feedback adds another 0.5, then the next time through the sycle we'll only add 0.5*0.5 = 0.25, and the next time will only add 0.25*0.5 = 0.125, etc.

This will stop increasing once it reaches a total change of 2.

Let's look at this graphically. The following image shows 10 time steps with eight different feedback multipliers.

For all curves the initial change from time 0 to time 1 is a system change of 1 (you can think of it as temperature, but the math doesn't care what it represents.)

For time 1 to time 2, we add another change of 1*feedback multiplier.

an increase of 0.1 for a multiplier of 0.1.

an increase of 0.2 for a multiplier of 0.2.

etc.

The figure shows feedback multipliers ranging from -0.5 to 2.

Feedback ratios

Note some key features in the figure:

For a multiplier of 0, there are no further changes after time step 1. The system change has already reached a new equilibrium and remains constant forever.

For a multiplier of 1, we see a continuous linear increase. We add another 1 at each time step.

For a multiplier of 2, we see an accelerating, exponential increase over time. Not a good place to live.

For all multipliers between 0 and 1, we can see that the rate of increase tapers off and a new equilibrium is reached after 10 time steps.

...but that new equilibrium is higher for higher feedback multipliers.

For multiplier 0.5, note that the final result is an increase of 2.

This one is closest to our known climate system feedbacks - the direct effect of CO2 is roughly doubled by feedbacks such as water vapour and snow/ice.

Note that I threw in a multiplier of -0.5, too. This is a negative feedback, opposing the initial change. The final change is 0.67, not 1.0.

In a real world, the negative feedback would not wait until the initial change of 1.0 happens - all feedbacks kick in as soon as any change occurs. You'd see smooth curves, not the jumps we see in the figure. The -0.5 curve would just gradually increase from 0 to 0.67 in the first few time steps.

Also, note that you can find out more about these issues by using the search box on the SkS web page (upper left), or by looking at the Most Used Myths list (linked below the search box and social media emblems).

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

sychodefender at 15:16 PM on 28 January, 2025

Thanks Bob I'm learning a lot, here's one more question.

We know that increased temperature evaporates more H2O from seas and lakes, this water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas being responsible for over 50% of warming. Co2 is also emitted, both impede rising infrared and the surface gets warmer, causing even more evaporation in a self sustaining loop.

Thankfully the earth possesses a natural mechanism to stop this run away heating so we don't burn up.

This process has been in operation for millennia, keeping the planets energy equilibrium whenever temperature began to rise. The reasons for it rising might be volcanic emissions including co2, tectonic, milankovitch cycles, higher sun radiance etc all raising temperature in a completely natural way and as a consequence more co2 was emitted, loop begins.

My question is if the planet could adjust and regain it equilibrium in the past, why can't it do it now?

The seas and land sinks will not reach co2 saturation for another century.

Is it possible that the limited remaining and slowly diminishing ability of co2 to absorb infrared acts as a natural safety valve preventing excessive warming?

All these enquiries originate from my daughter who is working on a project for school.

Thanks again for your patience.????

Moving away from high-end emissions scenarios

RickyO at 23:14 PM on 21 January, 2025

Evan,

Because declared CO2 emissions are not the same as CO2 released into the atmosphere.

For example:

www.chathamhouse.org/2021/10/greenhouse-gas-emissions-burning-us-sourced-woody-biomass-eu-and-uk/annex-emissions-wood

and CO2 comes from other sources.

For example:

www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-emissions-from-massive-canadian-fires/

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Bob Loblaw at 06:54 AM on 18 January, 2025

Now for the question posed in #22, about the logarithmic effect of CO2.

There is more than one place in the CO2/climate system where we see logarithmic relationships.

The first place is in the fundamental aspect of the absorption of IR radiation by CO2 (or other greenhouse gases, such as methane). This is described mathematically by Beer's Law, which you can read about on Wikipedia, or by reading this post I made here at SkS about three years ago.

In non-mathematical terms, the absorption of radiation by a given thickness of air occurs as a proportion of the radiation. If that thickness of air absorbs 10% of the radiation, it will absorb 100W/m² out of 1000W/m², but only 10W/m² out of 100W/m².

So, if you start out with 1000W/m², and absorb 100W/m², you're left with 900 W/m².

But when that 900W/m² passes through the next identical layer, only 90W/m² is absorbed, and 810W/m² is passed on.

...and in the next layer, 81W/m² is absorbed, and 729 W/m² is passed on.

...and so on.

And this sequence is a logarithmic relationship.

Although you never get to 0W/m², after enough layers you do get to the point where it is essentially 0 for all practical purposes. At this point, you can say "with all those layers, absorption has reached a saturation point".

Those "skeptical" of the CO2 effect on climate focus on this "many layers already absorb all the IR" case and then argue "adding more CO2 will not absorb any more". They are wrong.

The catch is that this "saturation" idea only applies when you look at IR radiation that started in the beginning and passed through all those layers. There are two issues with this:

Even if all the radiation is absorbed by many layers, adding CO2 will change how much was absorbed in layer 1, or layer 2, etc. Thus we are still changing where in the atmosphere the radiation is absorbed.

This will alter the energy flows in the diagram I posted in the previous comment.

This diagram shows how changing the absorption rate changes the amount absorbed in the earlier layers. (The diagram comes from this post, which I mentioned earlier.)

beers law multilayer

The second issue related to what other commenters have said, that "skeptics" seem to ignore: that the atmosphere itself is emitting more IR radiation.

Even though less and less of the original radiation entering layer 1 (closest to the surface, if we are thinking of our earth-atmosphere system) reaches the upper layers, constant emission of IR radiation locally (i.e., at that height) is replacing at least some of the IR radiation that was absorbed.

The local emission depends on local temperature (the kinetic energy source)

The local emission will be half upwards, and half-downwards, which means that it is now harder for that energy to reach a point where it can be lost to space (greenhouse effect discussion in previous comment).

There is another important place where a logarithmic relationship is seen. In Beer's Law, we talked about a layer containing something that absorbs IR radiation. What happens to the absorption ratio if we double the amount of CO2?

We might think it doubles the amount of absorption, but this is only the case for low concentrations.

At higher concentrations, the amount of absorption will not quite double

...and at yet higher concentrations, the absorption will not quite not quite double, etc.

...so we see a "law of diminishing returns".

Eventually, at very high concentrations, there will be very little additional absorption. Again, we can call this "saturation".

...but current atmospheric CO2 concentrations are a loooong way from reaching this "saturation" point. We're a little over 400ppm now, and we'd need to get to concentrations several times higher before "saturation" is reached.

From our starting point at 300ppm, we'll see 2-5C rise when we double to 600ppm, and then another 2-5C rise if we double again to 1200ppm, so we can see the logarithmic relationship.

...but a climate with 1200ppm of CO2 will not be a pleasant place compared to what we have now. The logarithmic decreasing effect will not save us from a very different world.

Whenever you see a "saturation" or "logarithmic" argument, you need to try to understand which version someone is claiming. The key error in all of them is that they are isolating one small part of a complex system and ignoring other parts that are affected by increasing CO2. Only by including the complex relationships among all the parts of the system can you determine the warming effects of CO2.

At a glance - Is the CO2 effect saturated?

Bob Loblaw at 06:08 AM on 18 January, 2025

sychodefender:

Thanks for providing follow-up questions. It helps us determine just what it is you are trying to understand, and what information we can pass on to help. It is often difficult to know what a person already knows, and what level of explanation is needed.

First, for your question in #21 about where the energy comes from for re-emission of IR radiation.

All objects (gas, liquid, solid) that have a temperature about 0 Kelvin (-273.15 Celsius) contain kinetic energy that will lead to emission of radiation. Colder object emits primarily at long wavelengths, while hot ones emit at shorter wavelengths. The sun emits primarily in the visible spectrum, while the earth-atmosphere system primary emits in the infrared range.

Objects will not continually emit radiation unless they have another source of energy. If there was no energy input, the objects would eventually cool to 0K.

The main source of energy input to the earth-atmosphere system is the sun.

In a stable climate, the energy absorbed from the sun is exactly offset by the emission of IR radiation to space (averaged over the globe and over a suitable length of time).

Most of the sun's energy is absorbed at the surface (land, ocean). The warm surface then sends energy back up by three main mechanisms:

IR radiation

Thermal transfer of energy from the surface to the air.

Evaporating water at the surface, moving the water vapour up into the atmosphere, and then condensing the water vapour in the atmosphere. We call this "latent heat transfer" because it involved the latent heat of vaporization of water.

So the gases (CO2 or others) that emit IR radiation at various points in the atmosphere get the required energy from the sun, after it gets moved around the earth-atmosphere system via the three mechanisms mentioned above.

A key aspect of this is that to understand how CO2 affects climate, a model has to look at all energy flows - not just radiation transfer. Adding CO2 alters the radiation part of the equation, but you can't just isolate the radiation terms. You need to watch that energy play out in the system as the thermal energy and latent heat terms respond.

The really short version of the greenhouse effect is that the presence of the atmosphere makes it a lot harder for the solar energy absorbed at the surface to get emitted back to space as IR radiation. The surface ends up stabilizing at a much warmer temperature (about 33C warmer) than it would with no atmosphere at all.

The really short version of adding more CO2 is that it makes it even harder, resulting in an even warmer surface.

Here is a diagram that shows those energy transfers (global averages) pictorially. Note that there are additional fluxes of energy within the atmosphere and back from the atmosphere to the surface. In a full climate model, you also need to consider how these vary globally, and over time (daily, seasonally, etc.)

Trenberth energy diagram

I'll answer your other question in another comment.

CO2 effect is saturated

MA Rodger at 20:28 PM on 4 January, 2025

Eclectic @870/871,
Thomas Shula is a retired broker who did physics back in his university days.
As for the video, your "Youtube video in 2024, on the Tom Nelson channel" seems to be to a different to the one HERE (it stretches to almost 2 hours) which is basically a presentationt of a 26-page thesis posted HERE July 2024 and entitled 'The “Missing Link” in the Greenhouse Effect'.
The work is only co-authored by Shula along with one Dr Markus Ott, a german chemist who previously authored a whole book on the subject entitled 'Dismantling The CO2-Hoax'.

I've only skimmed through this Shula/Ott stuff (so far) but note two rather odd-but-fundamental lapses of logic by these two gentlemen.

Their first lapse (which is very badly misrepresented by Shula in the video @0:3:23 when he boldly goes off script and states that emitting IR "is a property of condensed matter. Gases do not emit thermal radiation."): this first lapse is to agree that almost all IR absorbed by CO2 is 'thermalised' (because the average relaxation time required to emit IR is measured in tenths of a second while the disrupting impacts of fellow air molecules occur on average in microseconds) but then they entirely ignore the effect of these far-more-numerous molecular collisions causing the vast majority of CO2 population which is in the excited state and thus can (and so many of them that it does) emit the IR.
And the existence of such radiation is readily measured as the back-radiation at grond level. So it is a pretty silly error.

The second lapse is to fail to grasp that their magic "missing link" would still work to give us AGW.
Their "missing link" is to suggest that, with the absorbed IR at 15-microns entirely 'thermalised' in the thick air at low altitude and in their version not re-emitted as IR, the energy in this 15-micron waveband is transmitted up to an altitude by means of convection, up to thinner air where (acording to them) 'thermalisation' is weakened enough to allow emitted IR. And at such altitudes the IR is emitted out into space. In my quick skim-through I've not spotted any reason why their replacing the 15-micron IR flux up through the atmosphere with their "missing" convection flux would mpact the level of TOA emissions and how, with an increasing altitude for such emissions with increasing CO2, why the flux wouldn't result in AGW (as it does).

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 07:58 AM on 4 January, 2025

[BL] @870 ~ thanks for the Addendum. My impression is likewise, that Tom Shula is unlikely to be poster CallItAsItIs et al., despite both having similar delusions.

The "CO2 is Saturated" argument depends on the concept of non-radiation of photons by GreenHouse gasses in the lowermost 10 meters of the troposphere . . . and yet Tom Shula admits that the same gasseous molecules can radiate at the uppermost level of troposphere. Go figure!

Digging shows that Shula did make an OP at WUWT in 2023, but his Youtube presentations have scored no more than 19,000 views to date (earliest was 4 years ago). #They are lengthy and complex, and largely correct apart from a few blatant misrepresentations.

His most egregious misrepresentation was the assertion that, once a molecule is in a gas, it is unable to emit photons. A truly remarkable assertion ~ considering that after sunrise every day, Tom Shula's own eyes can see the photons radiated by the gasseous molecules of the Sun.

CO2 effect is saturated

LinusLucy at 03:58 AM on 1 January, 2025

Now I'm just an amateur at this, but I believe I can quickly resolve this CO₂ band saturation issue without getting into real complicated discussions. First, we note that for an unsaturated atmosphere, we expect the upward 15 micron radiation to monotonically decrease with altitude until approaching the TOA. This is because the CO₂ molecules continue to tap energy from this upward IR radiation for as long as they are there to do so, thereby depleting energy from the 15 micron band and causing a drop in band intensity.

So, is this what is happening in the case of the 15 micron CO₂ absorption band? Well, let's see! The MODTRAN plots supplied by Bob Loblaw@731 will be most helpful. Here, he has plotted spectral intensity vs wavelength of upward terrestrial IR radiation at the altitudes of 10km, 20km, 30km, 50km, and 70km. Examining the values of the spectral intensity at 15 microns I₁₅(z) in each of these plots, we see that while there was a drop in I₁₅ in going from z=10km to z=20km, there was a definite increase in going from 20-30km, and again in going from 30-50km. There was not much of a change in I₁₅, however, in going from 50-70km. Therefore, it appears that in Bob Loblaw's example, the upward-bound 15 micron radiation intensity approaches a constant value well below the TOA while in an unsaturated atmosphere, this upward-bound radiation intensity monotonically decreases as altitude increases until it approaches the TOA.

So, is the CO2 greenhouse effect saturated of unsaturated? You tell me!

CO2 effect is saturated

ReadItAndWeep at 11:09 AM on 29 December, 2024

Greetings SkS folks,

I am an associate of CallItAsItIs and would like to inform you of the completion of his paper titled Sensitivity Assessment of the C ₂ Greenhouse Effect which specifically addresses MA Rodger@864 who states

Whatever the derivation of Schwarzschild's equation, we expect you to use it to demonstrate your proposed IR extinction phenomenon mathematically. I do not see where Kirchoff's Law would be required for such a mathematiacl [mathematical] exercise.

Regarding Kirchhoff's Law, since it was used in developing the Schwartzschild equation, it is "automatically" used when solving this equation. It is not somehow implemented in another step. So, it seems that moderator Response needs to update the statement that

... Your tireless, empty assertions of having an alternate explanation for radiative transfer equations will only be believed if you actually present such an explanation, in full. (Emphasis original)

The only conclusion that we can draw at this point is that you actually cannot provide such an explanation. (Emphasis added)

Not only that, but this moderator knew full well that "such an explanation, in full" was not possible for CallItAsItIs due to the fact that equations were essential to his arguments, and this website does not support posting equations on the Post-a-Comment pages. Instead of getting help in this matter, however, he got comments such as "more excuses to not do your own work", and his logins were disabled over a few days. Can we say just plain childish!? But perhaps on a more interesting note is the comment

... Your tireless, empty assertions of having an alternate explanation for radiative transfer equations ... (emphasis added)

Just wait until this moderator learns that the Beer-Lambert and Schwartzschild equations are radiative transfer equations (LOL!), but I suppose that's typical of the understanding this individual has about the actual science. It seems that he/she can "snip", but that's about it!

Anyway, in addition to solving the Schwartzchild equation, CallItAsItIs shows mistakes and mis-understandings on both sides of this issue, and resolves some seeming conflicts between the two. It turns out that the greenhouse forcings (ie. the heat energy per unit area per unit time) obtained from the Schwartzschild solutions were identical to those he predicted from the Beer-Lambert equation with no thermal emissions and no regard for thermal equilibrium. Actually, this should not be too surprising since absorption depends directly only the the current intensity, absorption cross-section, and CO₂ density — and not thermal equilibrium status. While the absorption cross-section and CO₂ density may in turn depend on temperature and pressure, it is assumed here that these profiles are known and part of the "given" for this exercise.

Now, the original solution with the Beer-Lambert equation does have the limitation of not being able to predict the 15 micron thermal emissions emanating from the TOA, but these can be calculated separately using the Planck thermal distribution and subtracted from the total band intensity recorded by the detectors. It is important to realize that these thermal emissions consist only of photons escaping from the atmosphere and therefore cause no warming within the atmosphere. Hence, the only difference between these solutions is that in one case, the greenhouse effect forcing is determined in one calculation and the atmospheric thermal emissions flux is obtained in a separate step; and in the other case, both of these values are obtained from the solution of one somewhat more complicated equation. In either case, both bottom-line values are identical.

So, if you would like a copy of this paper please send me an email to answers@sciencefortruth.com and I will be glad to send you a copy in the .pdf format. Rob Loblaw does have a valid point when he says "do the actual math", and CallItAsItIs has done just that. In posting this message, I am hoping (against hope!) that your moderator would see this as a possible breakthrough in our understanding of theories that are in fact generally accepted in the scientific community, including climate scientists. But I'm not counting on it. So if you are interested, I would suggest that you act quickly in getting your email message out to me.

Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Evan at 22:34 PM on 24 December, 2024

rkolph@8

I repeatedly hear from top climate scientists that the scope and severity of climate change is proceeding faster than climate scientists thought it would X years ago. One of the top climate researchers, Prof. Richard Alley of Penn State, is on record saying that sea level rise could be 15 ft of more by 2100. That statement alone is sufficient to counter the positive outlook presented in the Daily Breeze.

If you watch videos of Prof. Alley's talks, you will quickly learn that he is a very measured and disciplined scientist who carefully chooses his words. He is not an alarmist. For him to say that you can not rule out sea level rise of 15 to 20 ft is alarming.

Prof. Alley has also researched past climatic changes and notes that if we push the system hard enough it can switch states in a matter of years through Abrupt Climate Change. The previous link is to a paper that is behind a paywall, but if just read the abstract visible on the website, you get the idea. Abrupt climate changes are hard to predict, but have happened before, and could likely happen again, given just how hard we're pushing the system.

How hard are we pushing the system?

Typical ice-age cycles see the predominant greenhouse gas, CO2, change by about 100 ppm over 100,000 years, causing a fluctuation of sea level by 400 ft! We are currently increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations by 2.5 ppm/yr, year after year after year. In just 40 years, we increase CO2 by the same amount that natural processes require 1000's of year to do.

The idea that the human effect on the climate will be mild and managable are wishful thinking. We are actively damaging our life-support systems, but making precise predictions about how this will play out is difficult.

My recommendation is that you google "Richard Alley Climate Change" and start watching vidoes of his talks. You will learn a lot with which to counter the myth that the effects of climate change will be mild and managable.

Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

prove we are smart at 10:55 AM on 20 December, 2024

Since my opinion is in agreement with Evan, I too hope we are both wrong.

"When humans stop emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the climate will stop warming." Not just keep co2 emissions from increasing but stop any GHG pollution entering our air.

Here is part of why I think "committed warming" is the real world norm.

Take for example the USA,www.wri.org/insights/interactive-chart-shows-changes-worlds-top-10-emitters while its per capita co2 emissions has peaked, historically this one country has put 25% of the co2 in our atmosphere! It is number 2 in the current yearly co2 emitters and to get some perspective-this is the equivalent to the mass of 6,300+ small cars x a million in this year alone!

The worst top three add 46% of climate change pollutants with the worst 10 making this amount to over 66%.

I'm tired of the hopium of scaled co2 "scrubbers", of a wake-up of humanity and forcing our leaders to think decades ahead and to get the transition moving more quickly.

The map for 2017 ourworldindata.org/contributed-most-global-co2 shows the large inequalities of contribution across the world that the first treemap visualization has shown. The USA has emitted the most to date: more than a quarter of all historical CO2 — twice that of China, which is the second largest contributor.

In contrast, most countries across Africa have been responsible for less than 0.01% of all emissions over the last 266 years.

What becomes clear when we look at emissions across the world today is that the countries with the highest emissions over history are not always the biggest emitters today. The UK, for example, was responsible for only 1% of global emissions in 2017. Reductions here will have a relatively small impact on emissions at the global level – or at least fall far short of the scale of change we need. This creates tension with the argument that the largest contributors in the past should be those doing the most to reduce emissions today. This is because a large fraction of CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years once emitted.3

This inequality is one of the main reasons why it’s so challenging to find international agreement on who should take action.

I think future warming is inevitable because of our flawed human nature..

Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check

Evan at 22:29 PM on 18 December, 2024

The message that I prefer to give people is this.

"The current CO2 concentration is 420 ppm. That concentration is sufficient to warm the planet to 1.7C if we don't bring it down. Every time we emit CO2 we are actively destroying Earth's life-support systems. We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as fast as possible and to support local, national, and global initiatives that do that."

This is a message that is consistent with climate science and refers people back to the Keeling Curve to monitor how we're doing. If 420 ppm is enough to take us to 1.7C, then anything higher will take us to a higher temperature. The message is also that any level of emissions is bad, and that we need to do all that we can to reduce GHG emissions.

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 23:13 PM on 15 December, 2024

CallItAsItIs :-

Allow me to add a naive summation of thermal equilibrium and the many thousands of meter-deep (or centimeter-deep, if your calculation prefers) layers of air that compose the troposphere.

During each 24 hours, in all parts of the planetary troposphere, there are local temperature variations of many degrees Celsius (owing to convectional, advectional, and diurnal changes ).

And yet (A) the vertical transmissions of IR radiation between top & bottom of each tropospheric column are effectuated over the order of 1 second . . . and yet (B) the climatic warming rate for the past half-century is approximately 0.5 degreesC per 30 years.

It follows therefore, that your IR radiation calculations are ~ in practical terms ~ dealing with a thermal equilibrium situation, owing to the brevity of the time window involved (i.e. of 1 second) for neighbouring layers of air.

Your calculation is therefore simple ~ and without the need to get confused or agonize over the presence or absence of "equilibrium".

And yet, over 30 years [ 10 to the 9th power of seconds ] climatic changes are produced by alterations in levels of GreenHouse gasses ~ exactly as has been observed by the scientific studies.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 22:18 PM on 14 December, 2024

Response @855

CallitAsItIs seems quite happy to reject Kirchhoff's Law "because thermal equilibrium", but he does not reject Schwarzschild's equation for the same reason. Even though both of them require an assumption of "local thermodynamic equilibrium".

No! What I am rejecting is the climate science version of Kirchhoff's Law which says that for every photon absorbed, an identical one is emitted and vice versa, which is blatantly false! Also, a (false) implication of this "law" is absolutely rigid thermal equilibrium. Therefore, in using the climate science version of Kirchhoff's Law, we are assuming total equilibrium and not just local equilibrium. Additionally, it seems that this "law" is applied regardless of whether or not we have such equilibrium.

So, why is it that climate scientists are using this false version of Kirchhoff's Law? Well, you will have to ask them of course, but here is what I sense is happening. They need the extra photons predicted by this "law" in their model in order to predict CO₂ greenhouse warming above what would otherwise be the extinction altitude. Also, it is the basis upon which they make arguments that it is energy exchanges in the higher altitudes rather than near the suface that are important for explaining climate change.

Now, I have explained these things already in previous posts, but you removed them! And it's not fair to delete my explanations and then accuse me of misunderstandings and inconsistencies when in fact I had already addressed them. So please — let's use some discretion about what's deleted so that I don't have to waste time re-posting stuff to answer peoples questions.

Response @855

So, if CallItAsItIs wants to convince anyone, he needs to put all his thoughts on this into one full, coherent, consistent explanation. Once he has written that to his own satisfaction, I hope he will re-read this entire comment thread and reflect on how each criticism he has already received applies to his explanation.

Actually, I've done this already. At this point, I have my arguments and equations pulled together but not yet quite ready for presentation. Over the last few days, I have searched for ways on how I might present this material, but haven't had any luck. BTW, what did you mean in 845 when you stated

Until such time as CallItAsItIS provides a numerical calculation of the purported effects he claims exist, and shows that it agrees with measurements, expect any and all comments from CallItAsItIs or reacting to him to be deleted.

Exactly how am I supposed to provide the material you requested? It would be impossible to post it directly onto this familiar Post-a-Comment page since my equations would have to be handled as images, and I would need at least 1200 pixels of resolution for my equations to render legibly. Post-a-Comment, however, only allows up to 450 pixels. Perhaps it would possible to submit a .pdf file to some hosting company from which SkS could access it, but I simply don't want the hassle of opening and maintaining such an account for a document that probably would not be up for long anyway. What I am willing to do, however, is to write up my results as a .pdf document and email or ftp this .pdf file to an address you provide. You can use the email address associated with my SkS account if you would like to contact me regarding this possibility.

Finally, I should add that I doubt that you or anyone else at SkS will like my results. Basically, I show rigorously from the Schwarzschild equation that I have been correct all along in my claims about CO₂ absorption band saturation. Also, I resolved comments made by MA Rodger @849 about some "extra source of excited CO₂". So, if you believe I am a crackpot, please send me the appropriate contact info and I will send you a .pdf file of my work so that your "scientific" staff can take some more "pot shots" at it. If, however, you don't want to risk the possibility of bad news about me being right, then don't send the contact info.

[snip]

As renewables rise, the world may be nearing a climate turning point

Riduna at 11:16 AM on 14 December, 2024

Nice Analysis which points to three things:

1. The need for China to more rapidly curb its emissions.

2. The need to transfer the latest renewable technology to developing economies so as to reverse their growing greenhouse ermissions.

3. The need for the efficency of that technology to be improved, particuarly in the all important area of battery storage.

CO2 effect is saturated

michael sweet at 23:11 PM on 13 December, 2024

Callitasit is:

YOur comment at 800 does not mention Kirchhoff's law so you have not "showed in comment 800 that it does not apply in the case of greenhouse warming." You need to show that now if you want to claim it is the case.

Think about it. You say that you did not understand that Kirchhoffs law did not apply to the atmosphere until you engaged in this discusssion. Since this is an important law to consider (even if it did not apply) in the transission of IR energy it is clear that you do not understand a lot about how energy is transmitted through the atmosphere. Do you really think you can show that thousands of atmospheric scientists are wrong when you do not undersatnd the basics of atmospheric energy?

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 05:56 AM on 11 December, 2024

Just to let you all know that I now have some equations on scratch paper. My solution uses Schwartzschild's equation along with the solution from the Wikipedia article previously mentioned. Also, I do not use Kirchhoff's Law since I showed in comment 800 that it does not apply in the case of greenhouse warming.

Now, at this point, the only way I can typeset equations is with LaTex, and after writing the .tex files, I can print them to .pdf files. What would be easiest for me is to simply submit the .pdf file in a manner you specify, and let you decide how to handle it.

Finally, please realize that this is not a trivial effort on my part. Therefore, please speakup now if you object to any aspect of the model I am setting up. Understand that it is one thing to review my work and find errors. Claiming that I am "re-inventing physics", however, is quite another matter and I will be in no mood for hearing it.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 08:37 AM on 10 December, 2024

MA Rodger @849

I re-examined the arguments behind Kirchhoff's Law, and determined that it is not applicable to my study of greenhouse warming for the simple reason (which I have stated before but no one seems to take seriously) that a warming system is not in thermal equilibrium. In the case of greenhouse warming, each atmospheric slice contains GHG molecules which absorb IR energy originating from outside the slice, and therefore they are not isolated. Hence, Kirchhoff's Law does not apply in my study, neither the correct version nor what I have called the "climate science" version, and therefore claims of my "ignoring Kirchhoff's Law" are invalid.

Also, in regard to me being or not being a "numbers sort-of-guy", I certainly was at one time, but have not kept up very well with new developments and software tools since my career fizzled. I believe I still have excellent mathematical and analytical skills, but I do tend to "cut corners" or look to others when it comes to actual number crunching.

Note to moderator:

Please do not remove this comment at least until MA Rodger has had a chance to review it.

CO2 effect is saturated

Charlie_Brown at 11:05 AM on 7 December, 2024

CallItAsItIs @ 835

Unfortunately, I am completely lost by this explanation. We are talking about the Energy Budget diagram @753 and @827, aren’t we? Thermal is convection from the surface, 17 W/m^2. Evapotranspiration is 80 W/m^2, and Latent heat for condensation is 80 W/m^2. Those energy streams redistribute energy in the lower atmosphere and affect the atmospheric temperature profile, along with the lapse rate. The Response @827 already explained it correctly. Note that an energy budget describes the energy flows within the overall global system. If you are talking about the overall global system energy balance, then the boundary is at the TOA. The intermediate streams in the lower atmosphere are not needed. The energy balance becomes:

Solar In (341 W/m^2) = Solar Reflected (102 W/m^2) + IR Out (239 W/m^2)

IR Out is the full IR spectrum because it includes IR emitted by the surface that is not absorbed and re-emitted by greenhouse gases.
Conservation of energy does not apply to each and every frequency individually. Kirchhoff’s Law explained @756 and elsewhere allows for collisions between molecules and energy exchange by conduction. For a small, localized packet of isothermal atmosphere, absorptance will equal emittance. But since there is a temperature change with altitude, it is conservation of energy, not conservation of photons.

It is clear that you did not understand my description of AWG because you say that we are only interested in 14-16 microns. But AWG also includes strengthening of weak CO2 emittance lines between 13-14 microns and 16-17 microns, as illustrated @788. And warming of the surface increases caused by increasing CO2 increases IR from all of the transparent lines also. The atmospheric spectrum was shown in @819 and for different altitudes @731.

My perspective now is that you have no business critiquing AGW because we are not even close to talking about the same thing. We seem to be hopelessly talking past each other.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 09:27 AM on 7 December, 2024

Response @827

Well, you will be pleased to know that every energy flow shown in your diagram is EMR — just different frequencies. And since our topic is the CO₂ greenhouse effect, we are only interested in the absorption band from 14-16 microns. Finally, since we are not in the realm of nonlinear optics, the law of conservation of energy applies to each and every frequency individually as well as collectively. I hope clears up your understanding and perspective on this issue.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 21:32 PM on 5 December, 2024

Philippe Chantreau @818

I understand your concerns

[snip]

and I have had them too. We must realize, however, that in setting up a model, there are typically a bunch of unknown that must be pinned-down somehow. Normally, they are tweaked for best agreement with observation, and if good agreement is obtain over a wide range of data, then we say we have a good model. There is nothing "wrong" with that but we must realize its limitations. What works well now may not give such good results in a few years. This is why a "good" model must be "maintained" or "updated" every so often and may not be meaningful for long-term predictions.

In my work, however, I am not building a model for comparison with observations. I am only trying to assess the effect of increased atmospheric CO₂ content on the total greenhouse forcing in order to establish whether this effect is saturated. Therefore, I only determine the CO₂ greenhouse forcing assuming that all essential inputs are given. The idea then is to keep this problem as simple as possible, solve it on a first-principles level, and then test the solution over a realistic range of input parameters. I did not include convection in my analysis since it does not affect the amount of new heat entering the system, but only where it goes. Also, since convection depends on fluid velocity, the model would need frequent updates and be more of a complication than what it is worth. Therefore, a comparison of my results with observations and/or the Feldman et al (2015) paper isn't even possible. I attempted to point this out to the "moderator" in comment 815, but look back to this comment and see what happened! Their incompetence in understanding this has resulted in grossly unfair "snipping" of my comments.

Now, just over the past few days, I had a breakthrough in my understanding of the alleged "rebuttal" to the CO₂ band saturation effect. It turns out that most everyone working on this CO₂ band saturation issue has religiously applied Kirchoff's Law of Thermal Radiation even though this law applies only to systems in thermal equilibrium, and a warming atmosphere is not in thermal equilibrium. Well, this week I showed that this application of Kirchoff's law implied that there could be no CO₂ greenhouse warming without violating energy conservation, and as you can see from the postings, this did not settle very well with several people on this page, especially the moderators. Despite the denials and ridicule, however, no one has disproved me.

Finally, I should point out that I have reached out in 813 for individuals willing to help me trouble-shoot my approach and identify any misconceptions I may have that renders my methods invalid. To initiate this effort, I posted two questions that I believe should be easily answered, but thus far I got no response. Now, with the arrogance and hostility toward me that they have shown, I believe they would have torn me to pieces if they could. Well, perhaps they can't!

[snip]

Sabin 33 #5 - Is solar energy worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels?

walschuler at 05:06 AM on 5 December, 2024

This is a very important summary of information and extremely useful, but I think certain points need more emphasis or examination: First I think it ought to be emphasized that the co2 advantage of solar pvs and the other renewable tech is based on current average use of fossil energy to make them, a part of their current embodied footprint. If these energy sources become renewable, say PVs, then the advantage grows. In fact, all renewable equipment makers should be using their own or others' renewable equipment to make more of them- a zero carbon bootstrap. To make this bootstrap complete the renewables makers need to iron out fossil fuel use down their whole supply chain.

Second, the statement below from the last reference posted above needs examination: "in addition to having smaller greenhouse gas emissions, solar power likewise outperforms fossil fuels in minimizing direct heat emissions. A 2019 Stanford publication notes that, for solar PV and CSP, net heat emissions are in fact negative, because these technologies “reduce sunlight to the surface by converting it to electricity,” ultimately cooling “the ground or a building below the PV panels.”4 The study found that rooftop and utility-scale solar PV have heat emissions equivalent to negative 2.2 g-CO2e/kWh-electricity, compared to the positive heat emissions associated with natural gas, nuclear, coal, and biomass."

This statement is true in certain circumstances and not in others. In the case of PVs in the desert in Arizona, the blackness of the collectors absorbs more sunlight than the desert would absorb. It isn't as reflective as snow, but the difference is significant. Of the absorbed sunlight today's PVs convert about 20% to electricity. The other 80% heats the PVs and is either radiated to the sky and ground or convected to the air. This could lead to a net addition to solar input to the climate energy balance at such a site. If the PVs replace grass or trees, the reflectivity issue more or less goes away but so does the latter's co2 trapping. This is however still in favor of PVs with respect to carbon balance, as another of your posts makes clear. In the case of PVs on buildings, the provided shade lowers air conditioning loads which is a clear advantage along with generating carbon free energy, and the reflectivity for most roofs is low. If the roof is highly reflective before PVs are installed, a part of the advantage is lost.

I think the last of your linked references is wrong in part. There we find:

"Use solar panels with reflective coatings. These coatings can help to reflect sunlight away from the panels, reducing
heat absorption.
Plant vegetation around solar panels. Vegetation can help to shade the panels and keep them cool." The first point, unless it means use selective surface coatings that reflect IR solar wavelengths the the PV can't convert to electricity, makes no sense. The second makes no sense. If the vegetation shades the panels the panels lose access to sunlight. For maximum benefit the panels need unrestricted access to sunlight.

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 22:02 PM on 3 December, 2024

CallItAsItIs @809 :-

Wikipedia is far from perfect, but it is a usefully concise starting point in reviewing or broadening one's education. For instance, education regarding 3 important effects ~ (A) the Motivated Reasoning Effect ; (B) the Dunning-Kruger Effect ; (C) the GreenHouse Effect.

After giving deep consideration of these 3 matters, one is then justified in asking the question : Having proven to myself that I am right and all other scientists are wrong ~ why is it that the reputable scientific journals reject my scholarly paper demonstrating my findings?

Persecution cannot be the explanation ~ for the most eminent journals are actually keen to publish novel groundbreaking concepts (e.g. Relativity ; Quantum Mechanics ; DNA Structure ).

Each major journal welcomes iconoclastic breakthroughs : as does the Nobel Committee.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 18:06 PM on 2 December, 2024

PS @805

Before making any rash decisions about ceasing further commentary with me, you might be interested in learning how the SkS claims about CO₂ greenhouse warming violates the first law of thermodynamics. First, Kirchoff's Law is used to claim that for every photon absorbed by a CO₂ molecule, a similar photon is emitted, and vice-versa. Now Kirchoff's Law applies only if the system is in thermal equilibrium, and a warming atmosphere is not in thermal equilibrium. Nevertheless, two SkS climate "experts" insist on applying it, and the result is that the number of 15 micron photons and the number of energized CO₂ molecules never changes. This means that if there is any CO₂ greenhouse warming, each such molecule would have to absorb a photon, deliver thermal energy to the surrounding N₂ and O₂ molecules, and still have enough energy to emit a similar photon. That, I'm afraid, is a violation of energy conservation!

Now, I know I have overstayed my welcome here, but you might want me around a little bit longer in case the "experts" have questions. Meanwhile, I will deliver my Fear No Carbon lectures if invited to do so, and they will include the issue I just raised.

CO2 effect is saturated

Eclectic at 22:33 PM on 1 December, 2024

CallItAsItIs @802 :

Just to pick out one of your many errors :-

In your penultimate paragraph you say: "Namely we start with a CO2 molecule and a photon ... and in the end ... all in thermal equilibrium. So how is it that we get any warming?"

That comment of yours demonstrates your gross failure to understand the warming result from the so-called GreenHouse Effect. And your failure to educate yourself at the many sources available on-line.

You have looked at a single "tree", a single cubic meter of air ~ and you turn a blind eye to the fact that the atmosphere becomes progressively thinner with altitude and progressively cooler with altitude (the temperature Lapse Rate of the troposphere, which provides the bulk of the GHE ).

The question for your own introspection is: Why would anyone [such as yourself] choose to ignore the many facts (including densities and lapse rate) that show the mechanism of GHE by CO2 , H2O etcetera? Why would that person [such as yourself] choose to be so un-scientific? ~ is the answer Motivated Reasoning, and/or some other embarrassing condition of the human brain?

Look inwards, CallItAsItIs.

As the sage said: "Know Thyself".

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 19:02 PM on 1 December, 2024

Charlie_Brown @799

1) He keeps referring to a single 15-micron band.

Yes — It is common practice to approximate the entire absorption band from 14-16 microns as a band at wavelength 15 microns for the purpose of analyzing the CO2 greenhouse effect, and until now, no one has objected. So, why is it suddenly and issue when I do likewise?

2) Once absorbed, near the surface or anywhere in the atmosphere, Kirchhoff’s Law applies, absorptance = emittance, ...

It seems that you forgot something that you yourself included in comment 756, namely the at equilibrium part, and an atmosphere that is warming is not at equilibrium.

There is more to CallItAsItIs’ misunderstandings, e.g., “Beer's Law is a linear equation.” No, it is exponential.

I will acknowledge some confusion on my part when I made this statement. At that time, I was thinking that Beer's Law was the first order linear differential equation that we solve to get exponential dependence of the spectral intensity on altitude. Anyway, that statement did not affect any of my future arguments.

Finally, lets consider your statement from comment 756

It works like this: photon is absorbed by CO2. CO2 molecules collide with N2 and O2 to come to thermal equilibrium (i.e., same temperature). CO2 molecule emits photon. The net effect at equilibrium is a pass-through of energy unless there is a change that upsets equilibrium.

From what you describe here, it seems to me that we end up with exactly the same system from which we started. Namely, we started with a CO₂ molecule and a photon in thermal equilibrium, and in the end, we got the same CO₂ molecule in the same state with a similar photon, all in thermal equilibrium. So how is it that we get any warming?

That's all for now, but I may have some more feedback when I have a chance to review your final paragraph some more.

CO2 effect is saturated

Charlie_Brown at 11:22 AM on 1 December, 2024

CallItAsItIs has three fundamental blind spots that he does not understand, despite our addressing them several times. 1) He keeps referring to a single 15-micron band. Actually, as shown @788, there are thousands of absorptance/emittance lines for CO2 in the spectrum. Some are weak and some are strong, and Beer’s Law applies to each of them individually. 2) Once absorbed, near the surface or anywhere in the atmosphere, Kirchhoff’s Law applies, absorptance = emittance, and an equal number of photons are absorbed and emitted, although they are not the same identical photons. They do have the same intensity and wavelength. 3) Therefore, energy loss to space is determined by the uppermost radiating layer that “sees” space. The maximum value of emittance is 1.0. If a line reaches a value of 1.0, there will be more molecules above that altitude. If a line is less than 1.0 at the top of the troposphere, there will be more molecules at a lower altitude that is thicker and warmer. If the altitude reaches 0 km before the emittance reaches 1.0, then the remaining emitted energy will come from the surface.

There is more to CallItAsItIs’ misunderstandings, e.g., “Beer's Law is a linear equation.” No, it is exponential. And “their arguments against C02 band saturation violate the laws of thermodynamics.” No, they do not. But let’s get those first three blind spots resolved first. Continued repetition of misunderstandings without taking the time to study our explanations is not a sign of respect.

CallItAsItIs needs to do some self-study before he posts again, and certainly before he tries to teach this stuff. MA Roger @792 provides Dr. Sabine Hossennfelder’s summary Figure. Sabine also has a great entertaining video. My only quibble with her material is that she does not emphasize the strong and weak absorptance/emittance lines but refers to an average or effective altitude for all lines. I recommend again that CallItAsItIs studies the spectrum using the link that has already been provided twice for instruction and guidance. He needs to resolve the changing spectra with the step-by-step exercises. If he cannot resolve the results with his thinking, then he needs to think again before making more repetitive posting. Meanwhile, I have submitted another guest post that is in the review process. It describes the mechanism of warming that is similar to Sabine’s material, but it emphasizes the absorptance/emittance lines with upsetting and restoring the overall global energy balance.

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 00:01 AM on 1 December, 2024

Oh, my. CallitAsitIs is doubling (tripling? quadrupling?) down on his misunderstandings of physics.

@ 789:

Let's keep it straight as to what problem I am working and what problems I am not. And balanced terrestrial energy flows is one that I am not working on. Therefore, your chart is irrelevant.

Now there's your problem. Balanced terrestrial energy flows are completely relevant to the greenhouse effect, the role of CO2 warming, global climate, etc.

Continuing in comment 790, in response to my pointing out that he continues to ignore 15um radiation in the upper atmosphere:

I never said those 15 micron photons didn't exist.

Let's see. In your very first post, On Nov. 24 (#722) (emphasis added):

Above this altitude, there is no more upward-bound IR energy that CO2 molecules can absorb. Essentially, the entire 15 micron band has been absorbed...

Your second post, the same day (#723):

As I understand it, the greenhouse effect is saturated for a particular GHG if there is an altitude at which the absorption bands for that GHG have all been depleted (from the upwelling IR radiation) through absorption at lower altitudes.

Your third post (Nov 25, # 726):

Above the extinction altitude of the 15 micron band, CO2 can still emit IR radiation (at any wavelength) but can no longer absorb within this band. The fact that CO2 can no longer absorb within this band means that it has zero greenhouse forcing at this altitude and above for the simple reason that there is no more 15 micron radiation that can be absorbed.

Your fourth post (Nov 25, #730) says it three times:

The extinction altitude of an absorption band of a GHG is the altitude at which the upwelling radiation with the band becomes negligible according to the Beer-Lambert law and the absorption coefficient of the band. For CO2, the absorption band is 14-16 microns and the extinction altitude is about 10 meters. This means the upwelling IR radiation absorbed by CO2 at the top of the credible atmosphere is pretty miniscule. Above that, of course, it is zero.

Regarding the CO2 molecule at 50000m, it most certainly can absorb the 15 micron IR photons — if you bring an IR source up there. The reason there is no absorption at that altitude is because all 15 micron IR has already been absorbed at lower altitudes.

Your fifth post (Nov 25, # 740):

This, in turn, corresponds to an altitude of about 70 km, above which there isn't much of an atmosphere. Therefore, for the 15 micron band, the detectors are only picking up some thermal radiation from the TOA. Any upwelling radiation from this band has already been completely absorbed at lower altitudes.

You then managed to make a few comments without repeating your error, but then it returns on Nov 26 in comment 751:

It should be noted that convection is important for the CO2 greenhouse effect to work since the 15 micron absorption band of CO2 is strong enough to pack the thermal radiation from the entire band into a layer at the surface just a few tens of meters thick.

...and then on Nov 27, in comment 765:

And, as indicated in previous posts, intensity contributions within the 15 micron band become pretty miniscule at altitudes well below the TOA.

On Nov 28:

Now that we know that Beer's Law applies to the 15 micron absorption band, we see that this band is attenuated to insignificant values well below the TOA,

Finally, on Nov 29, CallItAsItIs took a day off, but on Nov 30, he is back saying:

The problem I am working on is in determining how much of the 15 micron absorption band of CO2 is extinguished on its way from the surface to the TOA. And from what I have found, that figure is darn close to 100% regardless of the numbers on your diagram.

So, your claim that you "never said that those 15um photons didn't exist", is refuted by your daily claims that it either didn't exist ("there is no more", "have all been depleted"), or is insignificant/negligible/minuscule.

I particularly like the last part of that last statement I quoted: "...regardless of the numbers on your diagram." CallItAsItIs thinks that his fantasy fizziks trumps observations.

In short, CallItAsItIs dismisses huge amounts of relevant, critical, significant, and important theory and observations related to radiation transfer, global energy balances, and CO2-induced greenhouse warming by a wave of his hands, calling it "irrelevant".

If the facts disagree with CallItAsItIs's "theory", they must be disposed of.

CO2 effect is saturated

MA Rodger at 16:51 PM on 30 November, 2024

CallItAsItIs @789,

There are three CO2 absorption/emission bands for IR (although it can get more complicated with massive rising CO2). At the temeratures found ion Earth, the 2.7 micron and 4.3 micron bands is too energetic to be anything more than an absorption band. And the 4.3 micron band is so weak from the sun that it is ignorable while the 2.7 micron band is strong enough to have a measurable dip in the incoming solar IR, but it is tiny.

More of a cooling influence from increasing CO2 is the central 15 micron wavelengths as these are not emitted into space until up in the stratosphere where temperature rises with altitude. But such central-15 micron cooling is far outweighed by the edges of the band's warming.

I noticed a chart from the science blogger Sabine Hossenfelder which you may find useful in describing the greenhouse effect (something which is not usually done well). The one word I would change is to substitute "impeded" for "trapped" in the 'grand description' line.

sabine hossenfelder chart

CO2 effect is saturated

MA Rodger at 00:26 AM on 29 November, 2024

Through the last 50-odd comments it is evident that the commenter CallItAsItIs is unable to accept that poly-atomic molecules in a gas will pick up vibrations from collision, this often enough that some of them will relax and emit a photon before further molecular collision. He seems to still believe that ideal gases exist. SO that's quite a pile of learning he would need to grasp to understand the greenhouse effect in terms of the molecular processes.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 20:33 PM on 27 November, 2024

Eclectic @767

Why must conservation of energy "hold for each frequency independently of the others" ?

Because when we break down the EMR into the sum of contributions from the different frequencies it contain, we find that each such contribution is incoherent relative to the others. This means that the energy flux of the entire distribution is simply the sum of the energy fluxes from each contribution. Now, if this is unclear to you, please understand that I cannot pack an entire radiometry textbook into this comment space.

And your Demonic suggestion that seems to imply that atmospheric molecules cannot (in bulk) gain energy from neighbouring molecules . . . is another novel idea that requires your explanation.

No, that idea is not so novel since the occurrence you describe would violate the second law of thermodynamics.

And all this time, you have avoided the IR role (and other roles) of H2O molecules.

That's right since I am only addressing the issue of CO₂ band saturation and not H₂O greenhouse warming which is completely different.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 16:37 PM on 27 November, 2024

Bob Loblaw @764

Come on, Bob! Learn some physics!

What we call sources of energy depends on our system and what we are trying to determine. In the case of the greenhouse effect, we are trying to determine the warming of the atmosphere due to GHGs tapping energy from the terrestrial IR radiation rising from the surface. This means that the upwelling terrestrial IR radiation is the source. The GHGs catch energy in the form of photons from this source, and convert it to kinetic energy of the atmospheric gases (including the GHGs). These GHGs, however, are not sources since they contribute no energy of their own.

The sun also is a source of energy since it puts out IR radiation which is absorbed by the GHGs and converted into thermal energy in the same manner as the terrestrial IR radiation. The atmosphere's primary source of thermal energy, however, is the upwelling terrestrial radiation since IR radiation is more at the "tail-end" of the solar spectrum.

If we are interested in determining the temperature of the "solid" subterranean earth, then the sun becomes our primary source. In this case, the earth absorbs the EMR from the sun which is mostly in the visible spectrum since that is where the peak solar emissions occur. Also, the atmosphere is transparent to visible EMR (ie. light). The down-welling terrestrail radiation from the atmosphere is another a source, but a much weaker one.

Now that we have (hopefully) gotten it straight as to what is meant by sources of energy, let's get back to the problem-at-hand of assessing saturation of the 15 micron absorption band of CO₂. In this case, our source of energy is the upwelling terrestrial radiation within this absorption band. Since the contributions to the total upwelling EMR at different frequencies involve different photons, conservation of energy must hold for each frequency independently of the others. This enables us to use the Beer Lambert law to evaluate the attenuation of each frequency component of the upward-bound IR. And, as indicated in previous posts, intensity contributions within the 15 micron band become pretty miniscule at altitudes well below the TOA.

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 23:43 PM on 26 November, 2024

...and to respond to CallItAsItIs @ 751, where he says:

The primary mechanism for the sun warming the earth is the absorption of visible light (from the sun) into the solid portion of the earth which then acts as a near blackbody. This blackbody radiator then warms the atmosphere by conduction and convection.

This, and the rest of your comment at 751, is essentially correct. Yet for some strange reason, you completely ignore all this atmospheric heating by conduction and convection when you claim that there is no possible source of energy to drive emission of 15um radiation within the atmosphere. In comment 741 (responding to my comment 732, where I said the atmosphere is a source of IR radiation), you stated:

Are you saying that the atmosphere heats itself!? Wrong! This would violate energy conservation. In order to to heat the atmosphere, we must bring in IR from outside the atmosphere. In the case of greenhouse warming, this is the 288 K IR eminating from the surface of the earth.

So, which is it? Does conduction and convection add energy to the atmosphere? Energy that is then available to be emitted as IR radiation? Or is it solely the input of IR radiation that can provide a source of energy for the emission of IR radiation?

The inconsistency of your arguments is astounding.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 19:24 PM on 26 November, 2024

Eclectic @750

Well, it is ultimately the sun that drives warming of the entire earth, both the solid part and the atmosphere. The primary mechanism for the sun warming the earth is the absorption of visible light (from the sun) into the solid portion of the earth which then acts as a near blackbody. This blackbody radiator then warms the atmosphere by conduction and convection.

It should be noted that convection is important for the CO₂ greenhouse effect to work since the 15 micron absorption band of CO₂ is strong enough to pack the thermal radiation from the entire band into a layer at the surface just a few tens of meters thick. Without convection, this would give us a very hot surface. Also, however, there would be a steep temperature gradient near the surface which would result in a strong pressure gradient. This pressure gradient would then drive updrafts that would carry excess heat away from the surface. In this manner, convection stops excessive heating of the bottom layer of the atmosphere.

Finally, I am not familiar with Trenberth's summary. Could you give me a link or a reference?

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 15:11 PM on 25 November, 2024

Bob Loblaw @732

Regarding your comment

Please buy a clue, CallItAsItIs. We do not need to "bring an IR source up there" - there already is one. It's called "the upper atmosphere", it contains CO2, and it is warmer than 0K. Climate scientists actually know about this obscure "upper atmosphere" as a source of IR radiation, they know how to calculate its effect, and they know it plays a role in atmospheric greenhouse warming.

Are you saying that the atmosphere heats itself!? Wrong! This would violate energy conservation. In order to to heat the atmosphere, we must bring in IR from outside the atmosphere. In the case of greenhouse warming, this is the 288 K IR eminating from the surface of the earth.

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 12:08 PM on 25 November, 2024

Electic:

The issue with Beer's Law is not that it is incorrect - it's that it is incomplete. It only deals with the absorption side of the radiative transfer process. It says nothing at all about the emission side. To properly describe and understand the greenhouse effect and IR radiative fluxes (upwards and downwards), you need both. Beer's Law only gets you half way there.

It's kind of like trying to balance your bank book by adding up all the deposits and ignoring the withdrawals (or vice versa).

There is useful discussion of Beer's Law on this "From the email bag" post (now almost three years old). In particular, read the first few comments where Charlie Brown and I start to discuss the "extras" needed to complete the picture.

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 07:02 AM on 25 November, 2024

CallItAsItIs @ 730 once again completely ignores the known and measured fact that upwelling IR radiation at 15um, as measured at high altitudes, does not need to come from the surface.

He even has the answer in his comment (emphasis added):

Regarding the CO2 molecule at 50000m, it most certainly can absorb the 15 micron IR photons — if you bring an IR source up there.

Please buy a clue, CallItAsItIs. We do not need to "bring an IR source up there" - there already is one. It's called "the upper atmosphere", it contains CO2, and it is warmer than 0K. Climate scientists actually know about this obscure "upper atmosphere" as a source of IR radiation, they know how to calculate its effect, and they know it plays a role in atmospheric greenhouse warming.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 04:56 AM on 25 November, 2024

Bob Loblaw@724

Above the extinction altitude of the 15 micron band, CO₂ can still emit IR radiation (at any wavelength) but can no longer absorb within this band. The fact that CO₂ can no longer absorb within this band means that it has zero greenhouse forcing at this altitude and above for the simple reason that there is no more 15 micron radiation that can be absorbed. The small amount of 15 micron energy that reaches orbital sensors comes from blackbody emissions from the top of the credible atmosphere. This radiation cannot, however, be absorbed since there is no more atmosphere.

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 00:14 AM on 25 November, 2024

CallItAsitis @ 722 and 723:

Unfortunately, your understanding is incomplete and makes a common error by many that have tried to argue that the CO2 effect is saturated.

Your error is most easily seen in your statement "Above this altitude, there is no more upward-bound IR energy that CO2 molecules can absorb." This simply is incorrect, because your statements completely ignore the fact that CO2 also emits IR radiation. As long as CO2 is emitting IR radiation (at 15um and any other wavelength where CO2 is active), there will continue to be an upward-directed flux of IR radiation at those wavelengths. Since CO2 is present throughout the atmosphere, you will never, ever, see an altitude at which there is no upward flux of 15um radiation.

As long as you ignore the emission of IR radiation by CO2, you will fail to understand the greenhouse effect, and fool yourself with respect to "saturation". Your definition of "saturation" looks only at surface-emitted IR radiation and whether it can pass through the entire atmosphere in one go. It is your view of "saturation" that makes no sense.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 21:00 PM on 24 November, 2024

I have a question about the video posted in the Intermediate rebuttal. At about 2:38 into this video, Mr. Richardson states "in the upper layers of the atmosphere, the greenhouse effect isn't saturated". I need clarification on this since band saturation is not an altitude dependent quantity. As I understand it, the greenhouse effect is saturated for a particular GHG if there is an altitude at which the absorption bands for that GHG have all been depleted (from the upwelling IR radiation) through absorption at lower altitudes. Therefore, a GHG is saturated for a particular atmospheric profile of the GHG, or it isn't. It's not saturated at one altitude but not another. Such statements don't make sense.

CO2 effect is saturated

CallItAsItIs at 20:18 PM on 24 November, 2024

I would like to make a few comments concerning the following paragraph in the Further details section.

Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as CO₂ molecules, absorb some of this IR radiation, then re-emit it in all directions - including back to Earth's surface. The CO₂ molecule does not fill up with IR photons, running out of space for any more. Instead, the CO₂ molecule absorbs the energy from the IR photon and the photon ceases to be. The CO₂ molecule now contains more energy, but that is transient since the molecule emits its own IR photons. Not only that: it's constantly colliding with other molecules such as N₂ and O₂ in the surrounding air. In those collisions, that excess energy is shared with them. This energy-sharing causes the nearby air to heat up (fig. 2).

This is correct but it should also be noted that the absorption spectrum of CO₂ is quite different than that for H₂0 vapor. In the case of CO2, strong absorption occurs but primarily in the (narrow) 15 micron band. Absorption or emission of IR by CO₂ outside this band is generally considered to be small. For H₂0, however, we find weaker absorption but it is much more evenly spread out over the entire IR spectrum. Therefore, the CO₂ greenhouse effect is determined primarily by what happens in the 15 micron band.

In the case of CO₂ and the 15 micron absorption band, the N₂ and O₂ molecules in the surrounding air collide with energized CO₂ molecules which causes the extra energy (from absorbed photons) to be converted into thermal energy, thereby raising the air temperature. Once this warming occurs, however, the upwelling 15 micron IR energy is reduced by the amount of thermal energy that was released in the collisions involving CO₂ molecules. Otherwise, energy would not be conserved. Band saturation occurs if the upwelling 15 micron radiation is reduced to negligible values at some altitude below the TOA. Above this altitude, there is no more upward-bound IR energy that CO₂ molecules can absorb. Essentially, the entire 15 micron band has been absorbed and additional CO2 would not cause further greenhouse warming.

Climate Risk

MA Rodger at 19:36 PM on 4 November, 2024

Paul Pukite @5,
I don't see Judy Curry having flipped.

While seeing her apparently agreeing with David Walliace-Wells is remarkable, the agreement is perhaps best seen as another instance of Judy re-defining the words of others. Over the last decade, since the WUWT failed to "change the way you think about natural internal variability" (WUWT=Wyatt's Unified Wave Theory which Judy calls the Stadium Wave), Judy has taken up ambiguity as a means of manufacturing what she calls "a wicked problem" to cloud the climate debate and give room for denialists to flaunt their nonsense.

Her book 'Climate Uncertainty and Risk : Rethinking Our Response' was published last year (a 40-odd page preview HERE) and a few months back she set out the same message at the denialist GWPF's AGM.
The book runs to fifteen chapters and 340 pages. Well hidden within it, Judy sets out her same old message, this from a book review.

The need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is much less pressing than the IPCC and the UN contend because of the implausibility of extreme emissions scenarios such as RCP 8.5 and of high values for the climate sensitivity of carbon dioxide (the warming caused by a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). Natural variability is likely to slow down the rate of warming over the next few decades, and further time can be bought by targeting greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide, which account for up to 45% of human-caused warming.

(Note that the 45% number is wrong. The non-CO2 forcing is no more than 35% and over tha last decade it is down to 26%.) The hidden message from Curry is that her imagined natural climate wobbles have masked the weak nature of human-caused climate change and fooled us all. So we can sit back and enjoy ourselves while we make plans for when all the oil runs out.

CO2 lags temperature

One Planet Only Forever at 09:28 AM on 26 October, 2024

Eclectic @677,

In 1901 Nils Gustaf Ekholm used the term ‘greenhouse’ regarding the warming impact of gases like CO2 in the atmosphere. And it is now used globally to the point of ghg being a commonly understood acronym.

I doubt that you really agree with JBomb’s way of thinking about the greenhouse effect. The 'greenhouse' concept works for most people ... but not for those who choose to be ‘deliberately hard of learning’. The ‘learning resistant’ way of thinking leads them to claim nonsense like “If one fills a greenhouse with higher concentrations of CO2, it doesn't get any hotter.” as if that is a relevant point to try to make.

I offered an alternative ‘greenhouse understanding’ and a related experiment that is more aligned with the correct understanding of why the term ‘Greenhouse gas effect’ is so common and is unlikely to be replaced by some new term.

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