General Circulation Models (GCM) used to forecast the future evolution of the atmosphere do not properly cover many of the important features of the last fifty years. This raises serious questions about their ability to predict future climate development with a precision that will be of use to policy makers.
The following are a simple and a sophisticated test of modelling the atmosphere.
First an analysis of regions with enhanced sensitivity to changes in CO2 concentration. These are found by comparing regions of varying concentrations of water vapour but constant CO2 concentration where changes in green house gases vary the amount of radiation directed downwards from the atmosphere to the surface. This should show changes in surface temperature as the global CO2 concentration increases with time.
This is followed by a test of the latest GCM models against measurements.
The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen substantially in the last fifty years but it has been difficult to isolate its contribution to the world temperature rise that has occurred in that time.
A continuous stream of high quality measurements show the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has risen from 316 ppmv in 1959 to 382 ppmv in 2006. This is an increase of 21% in some fifty years. At the same time the global temperature has increased by 0.5 to 1.0 0C.
There are large variations in water vapour in the atmosphere with a maximum at the equator and minima at the poles. In addition there are bands of latitude where the seasonal temperature variations are small as the ocean interacts with the atmosphere. These should be regions where the effects of global changes in CO2 concentration are more obvious in year on year variations as other climate variations are reduced.
The damping of seasonal temperature change can be seen from Figure 1 showing the maximum variations of temperature as a function of latitude averaged over the years 1948 to 2006.
Figure 1
Two latitude bands were selected for analysis, the band 4 to 9 N in the tropics and the band 51 to 56 S in the Southern Ocean.
The tropical band surface is 75% ocean while the Southern Ocean band is 99% ocean. As a comparison, the band 51 to 56 N is only 40% ocean and has substantial seasonal variations.
The mean monthly temperatures are shown below averaged over the years 1948 to 2006 in Figures 2 and 3
Figure 2:
Figure 3
The variations are 0.8 0C in the Tropics and 4.0 0C in the Southern Ocean
The variations in the mean annual humidity are shown below in Figure 4:
There is a 70% reduction in water vapour in moving from the Tropics to the Southern Ocean with a consequent enhancement of the contribution of CO2 to the downward directed radiation from the atmosphere.
The seasonal variations show that humidity remains relatively stable in the two latitude bands chosen for analysis. This is not the case for the equivalent Northern latitude band where there is a factor of five seasonal change in humidity.
Figure 4
The mean annual temperatures for the Tropical band are shown below in Figure 5.
Figure 5
A simple straight line has been fitted to the temperatures although there is clearly some detailed short term structure present such as ENSO. The Southern Ocean temperatures have also been treated in the same way.
The linear gradients from the least squares fits are given in the Table 1
Table 1
The Southern Ocean temperatures are better described by a temperature increase for 1948 to 1976 and then a constant temperature. However as with the Tropical temperatures, there is clearly some short term structure seen in Figure 6.
Figure 6
The analysis shows the tropical temperature increase is substantially larger than the Southern Ocean increase.
The MODTRAN computer programme has been used to give a simple indication of the changes in downward radiation from the atmosphere to the surface. Relative humidity is held constant and temperatures and the water vapour scale adjusted to the measured values.
The temperature increases have been calculated using MODTRAN and assuming a latent energy contribution at the surface. The latent energy term is a function of surface temperature and reduces the temperature rise by a factor of two.
The results are shown in Table.2
Table 2
The calculations show that for increased CO2 there is a larger increase in downward radiation in the Antarctic region compared to the Tropics. This is also the case for a doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. Feedback effects have been included in the final results shown below in Table 3.
Table 3
Thus a simple calculation gives a larger temperature increase in the Antarctic region over the Tropics. However the atmosphere has energy transfer processes that may explain the apparent contradiction.
General Circulation Models (GCM) take into account many energy transfer processes and are used to forecast climate temperature changes. Many of these models are calibrated against past measurements of a number of atmospheric variables. Two models that offer access to their results have been examined with data taken from the GISS and GFDL websites. Both are members of the IPCC group listed at the LLNL website.
GCM surface temperature profiles for the fifty years from 1950 to 2000 were downloaded and the map longitude-latitude grid point temperatures averaged around latitude circles.
Surface temperature measurements were taken from the NCAR website and for comparison 5 year means have been used with temperatures averaged in latitude bands.
The results of the comparisons are shown below in Figure 7 for the Goddard Institute for Space Studies GCM with a coupled atmosphere-ocean. Data was downloaded for all forcings combined for the 1880-2003 Climate Forcings.
Figure 7
A similar comparison has been made for the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (Princeton) CM2.X Coupled Climate Model. The results are also shown below in Figure 8 and an overall summary is given in Table 4.
Figure 8
Table 4 – Global Temperature Changes
While the global values are consistent with the measurements, in detail the calculations are not supported by measurements. There are different responses at the North and South Poles and a complicated response in the latitudes 60 S to 60 N.
The GCM’s are closer to the measurements than the simple MODTRAN calculation. This demonstrates the importance of many processes other than the CO2 forcing. However the comparisons show that these processes do not seem to have been adequately modelled to date.
The contribution of increasing CO2 concentrations is not detectable with this analysis. This is not to doubt that it has an effect but that there are other processes also at work in the atmosphere ocean system that tend to dominate.
However the confidence with which the future predictions are presented coupled with the obvious mismatches with the past are an echo of the Soviet era Polish saying: “The future is certain only the past is unpredictable”.
Tom Quirk
Melbourne
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
It’s a worry that surface air temperature is too noisy to be an accurate indicator of trends, much less isolate out GHG contributions to that trend.
“…the IPCC would more effectively depict changes over time in the climate system by using a heat balance perspective in order to diagnose the earth’s radiative imbalance. The application of such a perspective will require new priorities in global climate monitoring that are out- lined in the conclusions.”
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/publications/pdf/R-247.pdf
Wes; thanks for the Pielke Snr link; Fig 2 is interesting as the record of the annual planetary inbalance, as indicated by heat exchange from the oceans, seems to match the PDO/IPO fluctuation. The delay in heat sink release is at the heart of AGW, with the ipcc pinning its hopes on eventual release from the oceans of the ‘extra’ heat and the great delay in atmospheric flushing of CO2; they have also focused recently on ocean acidity as a proxy for this stored heat, which is probably important given the failure of Aqua data to indicate any heating in the oceans.
The AGW crowd have also been all over Stephen Schwarz’s paper which posits a “near eqilibrium” in the earth’s energy budget, with a time constant of 5 +- 1 year. Hansen criticises Scwartz on the basis Schwartz’s theory doesn’t work in Hansen’s models, which he says have otherwise been verified by actual data. I find that strange. But of course noone has repudiated Miskolczi’s work on climate equlibrium and he gets good support here:
http://landshape.org/enm/the-virial-theorem-miskolczi-part-2/
Another complexity is the notion of different climate equilibriums through PDO/IPO fluctuations; Joe D’Aleo looks at that here and references a previous paper by Thomas and John McLean on the Great Pacific Climate Shift:
http://climatepatrol.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/hatcrut3-global-land-ocean-temperature-index-1850-2008/
The imput of climate regionalism is obviously crucial to overall equilibrium, and Thomas’s above paper goes along way to dealing with this issue, which appeared to be the only criticism of Koutsoyannis’s paper on the failure of GCM’s to predict temperature. Motl does a nice take on regionalism in the context of overall global budget when he suggests that it should not be average temp as the basis of such calculations but average radiated energy; which brings us back to Miskolczi.
Schwartz’s reply to comments is here:
http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapCommentResponse.pdf
“which brings us back to Miskolczi.”
you might be interested in this review by David Stockwell which starts here:
http://landshape.org/enm/greenhouse-effect-in-semi-transparent-planetary-atmospheres-by-miskolczi-a-review/
We have had a couple of knowledgeable people try to bring this paper down on the blog and have not been able to do so yet, although there is still an issue raised by Pat Cassen outstanding. It will probably take another four posts to get through the semi-infinite radiative model, so don’t expect a quick resolution. However, a lot can be learned about atmospheric physics in the process.
The reason I am spending so much time on this paper is that it really is a stake in the heart of global warming. Empirical papers like Schwartz and Douglass and Koutsoyannis though necessary can only go so far. But a good alternative physical theory can bring the whole house of cards down relatively quickly.
Thanks Jan; Miskolczi is really interesting, and I have not read any more than a half-hearted aside about it at any of the pro-AGW sites.
Paul; I think Schwartz is still back-handing the models and IPCC; the differences between GISS and CRU is notable; 1750-1998 temp increase due, equivocally, to GHG forcing is 1.2+-.6K; much less than predicted. Schwartz refers to a 1998 Wigley paper which I’ll have to look up, but I note McIntyre has sourced a 1987 paper of Wigley’s on this issue of lagged equilibrium:
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2594
Wigley looks at oceanic lag, something which Schwartz dismisses or, rather decouples, because of a 3000 year turnaround, maybe (and by way of digression, noone seems to mention tectonic plate induced oceanic recycling into the mantle and out again; Craig O’Neill being an exception); he also looks at solar and albedo, especially cloud based, as possible causes for the failure of the GCM’s to get to grips with dealing with any heat generated by AGW, and energy and climate equilibrium generally.
David – “We have had a couple of knowledgeable people try to bring this paper down on the blog and have not been able to do so yet”
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=538#comment-83167
Any chance you can give us a hint as to (some of) the fundamental errors in the Miskolczi paper? My radiative transfer was in stellar atmospheres (35 years ago) with limited application to the planetary case. Start me off and I can probably work through the rest. And, I promise not to share with your graduate students. Thanks.
[Response: I’d start with his assumption (g) which I have never seen applied to the Earth’s atmosphere before and the logic in section 3.1 – there he equates E_u (the upward LW from the atmosphere, a flux) with the total internal energy of atmosphere. That would appear to be an fundamental error in units (or description). The erroneous conclusion in section 3.3 that the greenhouse effect does not depend on optical depth presumably arises from this (i.e. the total mass of the atmosphere determines the gravitational PE (assuming hydrostacy), which sets the internal energy (via assumption ‘g’) and therefore the outward LW). None of this makes any sense, but I haven’t worked through his algebra in any detail (so it’s possible I’ve read this wrong). If you (or someone else) wants to do so, we’ll post it up. – gavin]
Ender,
From the site to linked to.
“We could comment on it, but on the whole it’s more worthwhile to spend time commenting on things that have passed review in the more major journals”
A comment by Bill I think.
Too hard to prove it wrong then!?
“From the site to linked to,”
Should read:
From the site “you” linked to.
Sorry
Yessirree, it’s the Great Uncertainty in Optical Path Length T.
=====================================
“The erroneous conclusion in section 3.3 that the greenhouse effect does not depend on optical depth”
Now there’s a reasonant bit of rubbish; just imagine; those poor little CO2 molecules having to repeat their heat trapping work, layer after layer until they reach the upper atmosphere, where just at the point of freedom from their IR passengers, a thermal damming prevents them from reemitting into space until their surrounds warm sufficiently to create a thermal continum; well, such is the user friendly RC/IPCC atmospheric model signed off by Spencer Weart and humble Raypierre:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/06/a-saturated-gassy-argument
Motl and Larry have fun with this:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/lumidek/6529479513990054138/
All the time the manifest defects in the CO2 absorbing model are ignored; Beer’s Law; the negative exponential effect of increasing CO2, that logarithmic decline to an asymptopic state confirmed by John Koch in 1901. The notion that the differential between the rate of CO2 excitation due to thermal radiation being many orders of magnitude slower than the rate of collisional deexcitation can somehow maintain a constant pool of receptive CO2 molecules ignores the fact that CO2 does not have a permanent electric dipole; this transience is only converted to receptivity after the CO2 collides with nitrogen and oxygen which is dependent on, and mitigated by, temperature and pressure. Or, if you don’t like that explanation, how about the fact that CO2 has 4 vibrational modes, 3 of which are IR active, though 2 are at the same frequency, and even though their absorbtion is independent of collision, a combination of spectrum overlap with the more sensitive H2O, and Beer’s Law, means any absorption done by CO2 is short and increasing negligible with increasing concentration.
In short, nothing effectively impedes IR movement out of the atmosphere; just ask Gerlich.
Tscheuschner, too?
============
cohenite: The next part of Miskolczi’s paper to be dealt with is the correctness of the new radiative transfer solution in Appendix B and the result that Bo top of atmosphere IR is a unimodal function of path length. Pat Cassen claims errors, though the logic of Miskolczi’s proof is not direct, so one would have to understand his logic correctly.
This is probably the most important paper as it claims to be the ‘correct’ way to solve the classic radiative transfer equations with the correct boundary condition, and so can be related back to things things people know better.
As to the more exotic virial and Kirchhoff laws, these are interesting. The virial theorem does not have the central position as described by gavin above, and is just used to show that there is a limit to the IR the atmosphere can dump (Su/2) and so IR transmittance is a global average of about 1/6 of total IR. M uses the words, ‘relate’ not ‘equate’ so the units argument does not hold, though admittedly the section is a bit vague.
Kirchhoff’s law is probably the most interesting. The limits to greenhouse effect follow most directly from this, but as far as I can see the empirical data are in M’s favor there — there does seem to be a ‘photon gas’ effect in the far IR.
If by Kirchhoff’s laws one means:
e = (1 – a), where emissivity and absorptivity sum to unity, this relation does not hold for gases at low temperatures and pressures.
These dimensionless constants of proportion relate a plane solid at constant temperature to an ideal black-body and its emission curve of wave length over temperature.
See, Kittel & Kroemer, “Thermal Physics” chapter 4, as referred to by Gerlich and Tscheuschner (indubitably, I can rely on Kim’s spelling).
Gary, “If by Kirchhoff’s laws one means:
e = (1 – a), where emissivity and absorptivity sum to unity,”
Not exactly e/(1-a) = 1 because they “go in opposite directions” as it were, they sum to zero and only at thermal equilibrium.
cohenite – “In short, nothing effectively impedes IR movement out of the atmosphere; just ask Gerlich.”
So nothing in the atmosphere traps heat?
ender: “So nothing in the atmosphere traps heat?”
That’s not quite what he said. However there is a certain symmetry about these things. Whatever allows an object to warm faster (e.g. CO2 warming the atmosphere) also allows it to cool faster, so over the longer term there is nothing to impede IR movement out of the atmosphere.
Jan Pompe – “so over the longer term there is nothing to impede IR movement out of the atmosphere”
So the surface of the Earth facing the sun should approach the temperature that it would assume from radient heating like the Moon?
Ender,
The only thing that traps heat in the atmosphere is water vapour. CO2 does not. It might absorb IR radation but that is instantly converted to kinetic energy which is then passed onto the rest of the gases forming the atmosphere and pased out into space.
As I have stated many times, much confusion exists in the Greenies understanding of the term “absorption” in atomic spectra – it does not mean trapping heat, but merely a window of transition. Outside that window radiant energy does not affect the kinetic motion, hence temperature, of a molecule.
That is all it does. It it does trap heat, then Mars should be hotter than it is.
CO2, as does any gas, cannot trap heat.
ender; I wonder; earth is mostly ocean, which is ‘the’ heat sink; Venus is covered by its (gaseous) ocean and so is stinking hot; Mar’s ocean is ice and covered by dirt, so is damn cold with extreme diurnal temp fluctuations; I can’t get over the manifest defects of CO2 and other GHG’s, other than H2O, in terms of their ability to intercept IR; H2O in the atmosphere is really a mini-ocean (very simplified) and even its heating effect is mitigated by regionalism as noted by Miskolczi and Mlynczak:
http://landshape.org/enm/greenhouse-effect-in-semi-transparent-planetary-atmospheres-by-miskolczi-a-review/
Put it this way; if we didn’t have an ocean, I don’t think the atmosphere would be much help. But let me rephrase; nothing effectively impedes IR movement out of the atmosphere except H2O in the ocean and to a lessor extent in the atmosphere.
The significance of the Gerlich and Miskolczi papers, and to a lessor extent, Schwartz, is that they not only disprove the egregious Greenhouse analogy, but the lag factor that AGW is clinging to as a remnant to justify itself. The main criticism against Miskolczi, apart from some indepth formula stuff by Pat Cassen which I note David refers to above, is that his theory cannot explain an ice-age, snowball earth; but even his theory and the most robust correcting mechanisms could not cope with geological time-span volcanic eruptions, Milankovitch effects and tectonic repositioning of land-masses.
ender: “o the surface of the Earth facing the sun should approach the temperature that it would assume from radient heating like the Moon?”
Do try to wake up we are talking about atmosphere not surface. The bulk of the heat radiated from the surface radiates straight out unimpeded through a semi-transparent atmosphere. Some of the heat takes a detour and warms the atmosphere a process assisted by the presence of CO2 which accelerates the warming of the atmosphere. Now we have this heat in the atmosphere that eventually must also cool this cooling is assisted by – wait for it –
Radiation by CO2 molecules excited by collisions with N2 and O2 molecules. Like i said there is a certain symmetry operating here.
cohenite – “nothing effectively impedes IR movement out of the atmosphere except H2O in the ocean and to a lessor extent in the atmosphere.”
Jan Pompe = “Some of the heat takes a detour and warms the atmosphere a process assisted by the presence of CO2 which accelerates the warming of the atmosphere.”
Louis Hissink – “CO2, as does any gas, cannot trap heat.”
You guys need to get your stories straight. So why not one of you post for all three what CO2’s role in the atmosphere is.
“This raises serious questions about their ability to predict future climate development with a precision that will be of use to policy makers.”
Is this fellow some sort of comedian? Some sort of standup routine-artist whose main stock and trade is understatement?
Its the failure of its opponents to speak clearly about this being science-fraud and an unbelievable racket that is keeping this embarrassing stupidity going.
Afterall this is a movement totally bereft of actual evidence.
Louis: “You guys need to get your stories straight.”
The “stories” are in agreement just the angle of view is slightly different.
No-one needs to get their story straight Ender you fraud. What you need to do is to find some evidence or commit Hari-Kari to salvage some sort of honor after pushing a baseless racket for no reason at all.
So lets see that evidence.
Oops
“Louis: “You guys need to get your stories straight.”
S/B addressed to ender.
I don’t know what ‘trapping heat’ means. Everything is at equilibrium globally and over the spectrum but beyond that:
The picture that I have is the atmosphere as a photon gas trap — sufficently opaque to far-IR that the fully themalized photons of far-IR, that constitute the majority of greenhouse effect are in a Kirchhoff surface-atmosphere radiative equilibrium. The photons act much like a contained gas, with a pressure 1/3 of Su – the surface up IR. As the atmosphere thins, the photons escape more readily.
Because of the photon gas property, the far-IR has a globally constant intensity, and is not very much affected by local thermal state, but does set a maximum limit to thermal equilibrium temperatures.
This is pretty standard stellar atmosphere physics from what I see, but not applied to climate science until Miskolczi.
Jan Pompe – “The “stories” are in agreement just the angle of view is slightly different.”
True it is a different angle – 180deg opposed!!! So which of you is correct?
ender: “True it is a different angle – 180deg opposed!!!”
Only to your POV driven by your total lack of understanding.
Graeme Bird – “No-one needs to get their story straight Ender you fraud”
Right so one of you, who incidently expect to be taked seriously scientifically, says that CO2 does trap IR radiation while another says that this is impossible and one says that water vapour does it all.
Yes it would be good if you had at least the basics right.
So does CO2 intercept IR? If water vapour does it how does it do it when apparently CO2 can’t as they both use the same vibrational modes to transfer energy from the IR.
So instead of all the cryptic comments, half sentences and veiled notions, would someone care to explain how the classic greenhouse warming effect is supposed to work at a molecular level – dipoles, collisions, re-radiation etc.
Then proceed to explain why that is incorrect/not enough/whatever.
As for Bird – either contribute or rack off.
Ender:
Ignore the water for a moment its behaviour is just too different from CO2 so your last sentence is nonsense.
CO2 doesn’t trap IR it converts it to heat by collision with other species it only converts about 8% of the spectrum. “Trapping” implies it does not let it go and denies the fact that CO2 also emits the IR it absorbs better than other species (again leaving water out). The analogy is more like putting a pipe in to divert some of the flow from a water fall through a generator before returning slightly used and abused to the main flow.
Jan – “Only to your POV driven by your total lack of understanding.”
How much understanding does it take to resolve the difference between you saying that CO2 does trap IR and Louis who says that it doesn’t.
So which is correct? They cannot both be correct unless this is your form of climate doublespeak.
ender: “How much understanding does it take to resolve the difference between you saying that CO2 does trap IR and Louis who says that it doesn’t.”
More than you have. For a start where have I said CO2 traps IR?
Jan – “More than you have. For a start where have I said CO2 traps IR?”
Did you say this?
“Some of the heat takes a detour and warms the atmosphere a process assisted by the presence of CO2 which accelerates the warming of the atmosphere.”
Seems to indicate that CO2 traps heat.
“Ignore the water for a moment its behaviour is just too different from CO2 so your last sentence is nonsense.”
Really, so how does water vapour trap IR? Also if we are talking about the top of the atmosphere there is virtually no water there.
So are you attempting to say that water vapour traps IR in a different way to CO2?
ender: “Seems to indicate that CO2 traps heat.”
Nope. Just redirects. Haven’t you ever had to make a detour because of roadworks? Did it trap you? Of course not (unless the road works was outside your destination) you just had to take a different route to your destination.
The difference with Louis’s:
“I have stated many times, much confusion exists in the Greenies understanding of the term “absorption” in atomic spectra – it does not mean trapping heat, but merely a window of transition. Outside that window radiant energy does not affect the kinetic motion, hence temperature, of a molecule.”
is purely editorial.
Jan Pompe – “Nope. Just redirects.”
I see – so how does CO2 ‘redirect’ IR? I also cannot find any reference to redirection in relation the the kinetic theory of gases.
While this is a basic text,
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/globalwarmA5.html
where does this ‘redirection’ fit in with the established and experimentally verified methods that optically active molecues absorb and tranfer energy.
ender; “I see – so how does CO2 ‘redirect’ IR? I also cannot find any reference to redirection in relation the the kinetic theory of gases.”
That does not surprise me I’m not about to give you a course in basic physics. Both Louis and I have given you ample information and one or two analogies I should think it would be quite clear by now and if it isn’t I don’t think there is much help for it.
BTW I had a look at that blog that you sometimes link to in your URL. You have even got the distinction between intensive and extensive properties heroically wrong so I would even know where to begin with you.
Jan Pompe – “That does not surprise me I’m not about to give you a course in basic physics.”
Ahh now I see the debate stoppers. First the waffle. You have given me no information and you still have opposing views. I cannot find this redirection that you speak of and cannot reconcile it with the physics that most other people use.
“You have even got the distinction between intensive and extensive properties heroically wrong so I would even know where to begin with you.”
And the abuse – so point out my error instead of waffling and abusing. However I am quite sure you will continue with this as it is all you have.
ender: ” You have given me no information”
I have given you as much information as you are able to comprehend. There is no debate going on here. At least not one that you are capable of taking part in.
Jan Pompe – “There is no debate going on here. At least not one that you are capable of taking part in.”
And the arrogant dismissal. I guess this is to intimidate me into running away.
So from your lofty heights of understanding please explain in kindergarten terms for mere mortals such as myself this redirection of IR and why it is different from molecules absorbing the IR as per the basic text that I posted.
http://www.elmhurst.edu/~chm/vchembook/globalwarmA5.html
Funny thing is that I have no problems understanding what this page is talking about or this one:
http://www.habmigern2003.info/future_trends/infrared_analyser/ndir/IR-Absorption-GB.html
or even this one:
http://www.school-for-champions.com/science/infrared_greenhouse_effect.htm
all of which are basic texts that I have no problems with. What I do have a problem with is your brand of physics that you seem to understand so badly that you cannot even explain it to a physics tyro like myself.
ender: “I guess this is to intimidate me into running away.”
No ender it’s to encourage you to do some real learning of the basics so you actually understand what is being said.
Hi David,
“This is pretty standard stellar atmosphere physics from what I see, but not applied to climate science until Miskolczi.”
It’s (virial theorem) actually well established and derived from the rather simple relationship between the kinetic energy required to keep a body orbiting in a gravitational field and it’s gravitational potential energy. It’s one of those things that one wonders about why it took so long for someone to think of it. In hindsight of course.
Jan; he’s persistent isn’t he? I’m very part-time with this business and came into it because of my concern with the dubious motivations of a lot of the groups sheltering under the AGW umbrella and taking quite undeserved moral succour from that umbrella; but the more I look at the science the more I see that it is a fraud; IPCC offers no explanation as to how CO2 can heat; it just places a forcing value on it which is worthless in terms of science and what has actually happened to climate; as McIntyre has shown, IPCC even accepts the logarithmic effect of increasing amounts of CO2, so even if CO2 does heat (by some mystical process) it has an abrupt ceiling and a miniscule influence. What I have offered today are some of the pros and cons floating around about the CO2 mechanism. As to this debate, I find Ender’s demands bizarre; he is advocating a position; the onus is on him to prove it; that is basic legal and scientific procedure. So, Ender give us your take on how CO2 does the job demanded of it by AGW.
A basic explanation of Greenhouse effects is here http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Kondis-Greenhouse.html
I pointed Lord Creepo to this before but he regards it as all lies because it is on the Junkscience web site. This is the same physics that I, Jan and others here understand.
So I do wish some of you would look at the science instead of condemning the source.
Notice that it’s the physical scientists who are criticising AGW theory – chemists, physicists, geoscientists, engineers etc.
Oh, sorry Ender, I’ve just noticed your kindergarden links above.
“As for Bird – either contribute or rack off.”
I am contributing. I’m pointing out that you guys never come up with any evidence. Which is true you don’t. The hypothesis was that these effects relating to radiative physics so much greater than negligible that they would even be harmful in a world prone only to catastrophic cooling. They don’t. You guys lie and claim they will.
Now you and Ender appear to be ludicrously including the hypothesis in the conclusion. So you are circling back to the beginning idea of the radiative physics. We wanted to know if it has a powerful enough effect to be harmful.
But you refuse to contribute. You claim implicitly that this is the case. But since you won’t come up with any evidence you are point blank refusing to make a contribution.
Jan Pompe – “No ender it’s to encourage you to do some real learning of the basics so you actually understand what is being said.”
But still no explanation of redirection ……
coehnite – “IPCC offers no explanation as to how CO2 can heat”
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/218.htm
“As to this debate, I find Ender’s demands bizarre; he is advocating a position; the onus is on him to prove it; that is basic legal and scientific procedure.”
Actually no I am not advocating anything. The spectroscopic behavior of gases is very basic physics and is supported in depth by observational and experimental data. There is a whole professional field devoted to it as this spectoscopic behaviour is used to identify gases in some instruments. As your postion is contrary to the established position the onus is on you to provide evidence as to why the current postion is wrong which you have failed utterly to do.
I asked a simple question “does CO2 trap IR” to which I got two contradictory answers and one evasion.
Perhaps I should have phrased it better
Does CO2 absorb certain wavelengths of light and thereby transfer the kinetic energy of these photons to surrounding molecules that are not optically active?
How is that then?
Further to that question I also asked if water vapour does absorb IR radiation and CO2 does not please explain why that given that both the two molecules have a dipole moment, why one absorbs IR and the other doesn’t. It was then I encountered the ‘redirection of IR’ which is not in the physics text books that I can find and Jan has completely failed to explain it.
“So, Ender give us your take on how CO2 does the job demanded of it by AGW.”
The action of CO2 and other greenhouse gases is completely explained by the range of links I posted and Spencer’s article in Real Climate.
Hi cohenite, What I find bizarre about ender’s position is that the positions I and Louis take are diametrically opposed when what we are saying is essentially the same thing.
The only exception being that I add the fact that a good absorber of IR is also a good emitter therefore assists the cooling of the atmosphere.
“IPCC even accepts the logarithmic effect of increasing amounts of CO2”
as far as I can tell it just doesn’t accept it but offers the equations without proof – at least none that I can find.
Louis – “A basic explanation of Greenhouse effects is here http://junkscience.com/Greenhouse/Kondis-Greenhouse.html
I pointed Lord Creepo to this before but he regards it as all lies because it is on the Junkscience web site. This is the same physics that I, Jan and others here understand.”
If this is the physics you understand then I see where you are coming from however this brand of physics is completely different from the physics that the rest of the world seems to use.
Can you please supply the references to the scientific work that this article was based on?
ender: “Does CO2 absorb certain wavelengths of light and thereby transfer the kinetic energy of these photons to surrounding molecules that are not optically active?
How is that then?”
What took you so long? note that it’s not trapping the heat but redirecting it to the (so called) “IR inert” gases in the atmosphere. Now there is symmetry here some of the radiatively inert gases are of sufficient energy (i.e. in the tail of the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution) and even more so due to having been warmed to re-excite CO2 molecules which will then radiate that heat at the top of the atmosphere mostly unhindered to space thus cooling the assembly.
It’s not trapped just moved out by a different route temporarily warming the atmosphere a bit more than it otherwise would be it’s a relatively short term effect.
“The properties of a system may be distinguished as being either extensive or intensive. An extensive property is one that is dependent upon the amount(s) of substance(s) present in the system. If the quantity of material in the system is changed, the extensive property is changed in a proportional manner. Volume and mass are simple illustrations of extensive properties, and internal energy is another example of such a property. An intensive property, on the other hand, is a specific characteristic of the system and is independent of the amount of material concerned. Thus, temperature, density, surface tension, refractive index, viscosity, etc., are intensive properties”.
http://www.science.edu.sg/ssc/detailed.jsp?artid=2544&type=6&root=5&parent=5&cat=54
Jan Pompe – “The only exception being that I add the fact that a good absorber of IR is also a good emitter therefore assists the cooling of the atmosphere.”
So here is some progress – CO2 is a good absorber and radiator of IR – lets ignore Louis for a moment.
Looking at the Earth from the top of the atmosphere the outgoing radiation must match the incoming radiation to be in thermal equilibrium – with me so far?
So the good absorbers and radiators of IR, the greenhouse gases, cause a small fraction of the outgoing radiation not to make it to be radiated away so the Earth heats up in response to allow it to radiate more to bring it back to equilibrium – OK so far? This gives the Earth its nice balmy 33deg of heating over not having greenhouse gases.
We have measured one of these gases, CO2, to be rising, so slightly more of the outgoing radiation is trapped and here is where you can complete the sentence. In response to this increased absorption the Earth ……………….?
Please fill in and return for marking.
Ender,
The article is the scientific explanation of a chemist using basic physics to explain the greenhouse idea in lay terms. It is not based on any scientific work per se but on the broad corpus of scientific knowledge and thermodynamics developed over the last 100 years. It’s the stuff I was taught at highschool and university. It is physics of physical matter, not esoteric mathematical abstractions.
This is the physics our present civilisation is based – its behind all the modern day products you use, your cell phones, TV, etc. Things work because the science on which they are based is sound.
However AGW physics is the real novelty, but its not the physics we in the practical engineering side of science use.
Physics has lost its way into a mathematical world of abstractions – it has become disconnected from physical reality. This has happened in astrophysics and probably other sciences as well; These science dominate the mainstream thinking and thus the practice of science.
So you are right, the physics Jan, Cohenite and I use is real physics, not mathematical physics and thus not mainstream physics.
So if you understand that a gas cannot trap heat, then that is the observed physical reality and you should instead question those who insist that a gas can trap heat. Personal experience on a cloudness winter night should indicate to you that it gets perishingly cold at night, but add cloud cover and it remains warm. Remains warm because the heat is blocked by a physical layer of suspended water droplets, or the equivalent of a blanket. Take away the clouds (blanket) and it cools rapidly. So common sense should tell you that increasing CO2 should not make one iota of a difference to the temperature – it’s a gas, and once in air becomes part of the air, and its the thermal properties of air that is important, not CO2.
ender: “Looking at the Earth from the top of the atmosphere the outgoing radiation must match the incoming radiation to be in thermal equilibrium – with me so far?”
“In response to this increased absorption the Earth ……………….?”
You have increased emission because there are more emitting species available at the TOA keeping things nice and steady.
“If you understand that a gas cannot trap heat” ??
Let’s have some homework on superheated steam
Boys: Divorcing physics from maths won’t get you anywhere with the mainstream in science
Louis – “However AGW physics is the real novelty, but its not the physics we in the practical engineering side of science use.”
Absolute and complete bullshit. The physics of AGW is normal run of the mill physics that we all use and is in everyday use everywhere.
Your non acceptance of this is the reason that you are not taken seriously.
Gavin,
Divorcing maths from physics is the problem. This has happened in astrophysics when a naked singularity (purely a mathematical construct) was deemed to represent a physical object, a black hole. This happens when maths gets divorced from physics. Off thread, of course, but it’s a good example.
Superheated steam is not a gas trapping heat, but a gas who temperature has been forcibly increased.
Jan Pompe – “You have increased emission because there are more emitting species available at the TOA keeping things nice and steady.”
Sorry wrong answer – you are creating energy here – try again as there are also more absorbing species to balance.
Ender,
And using normal run of the mill physics they still cannot predict weather or climate. Usually a theory cannot predict something, there is something wrong with the theory, no? But not in mainstream climate science apparently, the physics is perfect but the facts that are inconvenient.
Louis – “And using normal run of the mill physics they still cannot predict weather or climate. Usually a theory cannot predict something, there is something wrong with the theory, no?”
Again you are only parading your total ignorance for all the world to see – please keep going.
Right for physics to be valid it has to be able to predict everything? Does that mean optics is not valid because we cannot decide if light is a particle or a wave or why are there 25 arbitary constants at the heart of the standard model.
Physics can predict some of the process working in the weather and climate as far as our understanding goes.
ender: “Sorry wrong answer – you are creating energy here – try again as there are also more absorbing species to balance.”
Rubbish, you remain clueless, faster in, faster out nothing is created or destroyed lest of all energy.
Jan – “Rubbish, you remain clueless, faster in, faster out nothing is created or destroyed lest of all energy.”
Sorry Jan to radiate more as you say there would have to be more energy in. So where is this energy coming from? Hint if you correctly answer the previous question then you will also answer this one.
ender: “Does that mean optics is not valid because we cannot decide if light is a particle or a wave”
First of all optics assumes only wave nature of light quantum effects are generally irrelevant.
Secondly it’s also empirical i.e. based on observation and we can quite accurately predict what light will do as it passes through different media.
climate science on the other hand ignores the empirical sticks with the mathematical and if it doesn’t agree with the empirical adjusts the data!!! We’ve seen that often enough.
Now we are seeing the claim that British steamships used canvas buckets to measure the sea surface temperature. I can just see the ships engineer reading the steam pressure from a gauge in the engine room and sending the apprentice up with a canvas bucket to measure the coolant temperature. What a joke.
“An extensive property is one that is dependent upon the amounts of substances present in the system. If the quantity of material in the system is changed the extensive property is changed in a proportional manner.”
Well, my first thought was, which system? The ocean, the biomass, the atmosphere? Then I thought, does this this apply to a system which has stochastic properties? Then I gave up and finished an affidavit. Half-way through I wrote, by mistake, Gerlich for the heading. The notion of the extensive property is only restating the greenhouse debate; it is a flawed analogy and unfortunately, for simplicity, accepted by both sides of the debate; or was until Miskolczi came along; the extensive property also only restates the issue of lag; Ender’s little quiz: “in response to this increased absorbtion the Earth…?” ignores, even if you accept CO2 absorbtion as described by his links, negative feedbacks and radiative and thermal eqilibrium mechanisms:
http://www.john-daly.com/forcing/forcing.htm
For a more complete analysis of Beer’s Law:
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/Conf2007/Hammer2007.pdf
Whatever happened to Peter Dietze and Mike Hammer?
Anyway, Ender, the info your link to tar/wg1 is compromised to non-existence; it is real worm ouroboros stuff; for example, the additional new lines in the Hitran database for CO2 give a less than 1.5% effect for a doubling of CO2; there is no uniformity in the studies between models for mixed and unmixed GHG simulations; there is good agreement (ie 10% error bars) between surface measurements and LBL calculations; but this is not a direct test of RF and if the surface measurements are GISS, then they opens a another can of worms.
Some finishing points; the diapole moment of H2O and CO2 is not the same; CO2 may require a prior collision before the CO2 molecule is sensitive to IR. The spectroscopy is not settled; AGW or you apparently do not accept Beer’s Law or that the spectrum sensitivity of CO2 is doubly degenerate; and Weart’s article is not acceptable; upper atmosphere damming a la Tyndall is ludicrous.
ender: “Sorry Jan to radiate more as you say there would have to be more energy in. ”
Precisely! more in more out extra CO2 is not going to change that balance.
“Superheated steam is not a gas trapping heat, but a gas who temperature has been forcibly increased”
Watts the difference Louis?
“British steamships used canvas buckets to measure the sea surface temperature”
How else could they get a sample Jan?
cohenite – “Whatever happened to Peter Dietze and Mike Hammer?”
Don’t know however they have commited the basic error of earlier researchers:
“The fraction of the atmosphere column above any given altitude (ie: n/N) is simply
given by the per unit pressure at that altitude (pressure = 1 per unit at the surface) and
if the greenhouse gas is a constant fraction of the atmosphere (probably true for
carbon dioxide but not for water vapour) the energy absorbed and thus also the energy
radiated upwards at the greenhouse absorbing wavelengths will be directly
proportional to this pressure.”
As Spencer points out it is not simple related to pressure as the air at very high altitudes is extremely dry so the so therefore the simple relation that is assumed in this ‘paper’ is not valid. They even say “it is probably not for water vapour” the main greenhouse gas. If this paper was peer reviewed I am sure the reviewer would have pointed this out. HITRAN is a database of the lessons learned about the real specrographic response of the atmosphere.
“CO2 may require a prior collision before the CO2 molecule is sensitive to IR. The spectroscopy is not settled; AGW or you apparently do not accept Beer’s Law or that the spectrum sensitivity of CO2 is doubly degenerate; and Weart’s article is not acceptable; upper atmosphere damming a la Tyndall is ludicrous.”
Again post the research that says this. As usual statements without reference mean nothing. Beers law would give nitrogen as a greenhouse gas as it does not take account of the absorbtion of IR by optically active molecules.
Gavin
Gases don’t trap heat – you are confusing raising something to a higher temperature by applying energy to it versus a passive gas warming up when the energy source (sun) is removed.
gavin: “How else could they get a sample Jan?”
How did you measure the temperature of the cooling water in the condenser at the power stations?
Did you like I did read it off a dial inserted in the pipe or did you run out to the cooling tower and dip a bucket (or beaker) into the cooling tower water?
I did collect a weekly sample but it wasn’t to measure the temperature but the tannin levels.
gavin: “Watts the difference Louis?”
:-))
The molecules are not lying around pretending to mind their own business only to pounce on an unsuspecting passing photon they are having the photons involuntarily rammed down their collective throats.
ender: “Beers law would give nitrogen as a greenhouse gas as it does not take account of the absorbtion of IR by optically active molecules.”
More rubbish!! Beer’s law is only for monochromatic light at the characteristic wavelength of the absorbing species. Otherwise it would be useless as a basis for spectrographic/spectrometric analysis for trace solutes or species mixed in gases.
Jan
heh heh heh
To the one with the empty link – anyone along with all the other bloggers refering to John Daly or Laviosier (see the club below) looses me every time because their scratching for climate credibility at any level in the science.
http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/articles/canadianPMletter06.html
Jan Pompe – “Precisely! more in more out extra CO2 is not going to change that balance.”
Ok the earth is in thermal equilibrium more or less?
More CO2 will lead to slightly more IR being trapped as it is a good absorber and emitter of radiation.
So with more CO2 absorbing and radiation more radiation there is less energy coming from the Earth. So the Earth has to …………. to preserve the thermal equilibrium.
Hint the answer starts with w__m u_.
If you can answer the question then the Earths temperature is being forced with an equivilent energy source of 2.63W/m^2 hence the derivation of the term forcing used as a convenient measure by climate scientists.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter2.pdf
“Increasing concentrations of the long-lived greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), halocarbons and sulphur hexafl uoride (SF6); hereinafter LLGHGs) have led to a combined RF of +2.63 [±0.26] W m–2. Their RF has a high level of scientific understanding.4 The 9% increase in this RF since the TAR is the result of concentration
changes since 1998.”
Again unless you would like to use the nu-physics of Louis this is what real physics is telling us.
(Notice all the references in the supporting documentation – compare that to the complete lack in documents from Louis)
Ender
The earth under no circumstance is in thermal equilibrium. If it were there would be no weather and no life.
Next you will try and tell me our clothes don’t trap heat
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is one of those heat-trapping (greenhouse)
gases that have increased significantly in atmospheric concentration since pre-industrial times and thus has raised the greatest concern. But several others contribute significantly to the warming of the lower part of the atmosphere, such as
methane (CH4)
nitrous oxide (N2O)
ozone (O3)
halocarbons
The combined warming effect (positive radiative forcing) from these other trace gases is approximately equal to that of CO2. In addition, there are small particles (aerosols) that can directly or indirectly help cool the atmosphere (negative radiative forcing). Examples include
sulphates (e.g., produced by burning coal)
volcanic dust.
some of these gases and aerosols are very effective in trapping heat or blocking incoming radiation, but are relatively quickly removed from the atmosphere. Others can trap less heat, but stay in the atmosphere longer. The combination of these factors determines what scientists call the direct Global Warming Potential of an emitted compound — a measure the IPCC has devised to show “the possible warming effect on the surface-troposphere system arising from the emission of each gas.”
To be able to compare the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of
different gases, a base unit of CO2 is said to have the GWP of 1.
The chart below shows, for example, that each ton of methane will have 12 times the global warming impact over a hundred-year period as a ton of carbon dioxide. Even though total emissions of chlorofluorocarbons are quite small compared with emissions of carbon dioxide, their impact is significant since their global warming potential is so large. And even bigger than that, scientists recently identified a rare and previously unreported gas — trifluoromethyl sulfur pentafluoride (SF5CF3) — that is long-lived (an atmospheric residence of several hundred to several thousand years) and may have a Global Warming Potential that could be as much as 18,000 times that of CO2. Nevertheless, carbon dioxide emissions still account for about half of the total Global Warming Potential of emissions from human sources.
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science/emissions-of-heattrapping-gases-and-aerosols.html
ENVIRONMENT
Apr, 24, 2008
Solar changes don’t explain global warming, scientists say
Local geologist’s theory rebutted
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/102/story/389825.html
“I pointed Lord Creepo to this before but he regards it as all lies because it is on the Junkscience web site. This is the same physics that I, Jan and others here understand.”
Funny thing is, Pat Michaels accepts that CO2 is a GHG, as does most of the more informed denier crowd.
Gavin
“Watts the difference Louis?”
Watts! indeed if you put it to work.
Actually, superheated steam, strictly speaking is not a “GAS”.
It only behaves like a gas above a certain temperature!
Gavin,
Thye Bellingham Herald article is simply a statement of scientific consensus.
There is no such thing as scientific consensus.
ender: “More CO2 will lead to slightly more IR being trapped as it is a good absorber and emitter of radiation.”
What that means is the pipeline is bigger AT BOTH ENDS!!
That means the time constant is reduced. Imagine if you will a capacitor and a resistor with a varying voltage across it once the capacitor is charged the voltage across it follows the input with a slight lag and reduced amplitude you decrease the value of the resistor (or widen the pipe or add more CO2) you reduce the time constant of the system and hence the lag and you increase the amplitude. What you do not change is the average unless you change the average of the voltage (or insolation).
Adherents of AGW are always quick to point out that it’s the average that counts with climate.
SJW,
So what? We agree to disagree. Gases do not trap heat.
Gawd it’s like proposing that CO2 is like an electrical capacitor that sucks up photons, increases its temperature (kinetic Energy) but does not transfer that energy to anything else?
If that is the case it can’t warm up anything either, just exhibiting enhance brownian motion in spendid physical isolation.
Spare me.
Louis: “If that is the case it can’t warm up anything either, just exhibiting enhance brownian motion in spendid physical isolation.”
This would also be a pretty severe violation of the second law having all those CO2 molecules at blistering temperature and N2 and O2 shivering with cold.
“Next you will try and tell me our clothes don’t trap heat”
They don’t they trap air the heat still exchanges with the outside world but because the air is trapped it happens more slowly.
The movement of polyatomic gases is not restricted in this way in the atmosphere. While they are directly warmed by some radiation they in turn warm other non absorbing atmospheric species who then being at a higher temperature have more energy to put back into the absorbing gases so they can radiate it out.
Jan,
violating the second law seems to be permissible in AGW theory, as in petroleum science too I have discovered, but then in a mathematical computer world, all this is possible, so it must therefore be true in physical reality as well.
Ender; your comments about Hammer’s paper are a bit slippery; he does discount H2O only in terms of it not being a constant fraction of the atmosphere; CO2 is because its % is so miniscule; H2O levels fluctuate both diurnally and regionally; in fact over every time and regional parameter; Hammer does go on to deal specifically with H2O at the end of the paper which of course you didn’t read; and Dietze makes his papers available for review; and they are, quite vigorously.
gavin; you appear to be in a high-priest mode; your comparisons of the relative multiplier effect of the various GHG’s of course ignores H2O; this site does a more comprehensive and fairer comparison; but I guess you’ll turn up your nose again; it does refer to Singer;
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/greenhouse_data.html
“Jan,
violating the second law seems to be permissible in AGW theory, as in petroleum science too I have discovered, but then in a mathematical computer world, all this is possible, so it must therefore be true in physical reality as well.
”
Do me a favour, give Pat Michaels a call, he believes in AGW theory, he just disagrees with the extent of the warming that will result.
SJT; don’t we all.
SJW,
So what?
If it is a matter of belief then it isn’t science.
Spare me.
Louis: “but then in a mathematical computer world, all this is possible,”
I know I watched “Matrix” too;)
Jan,
I am so jealous of the scientists working in virtual reality – I read somewhere, maybe here, that the climate models assume the earth to be a flat disk for computational purposes.
If that is correct who then are the flat earthers? (might have read it on CCnet or Greenie Watch too, not sure).
Louis
That would be a turn up for the books.
Ultimately it will be the empirical measures that trump that’s what physics is about it was that way with quantum theory and relativity too in those two cases experiment proved (to a high degree) the theory. Then both theories arose from the explanation for what was thought to be anomalous behaviours in experiment. The same can’t really be said for the greenhouse theory it arose from speculation that the ice ages were caused by lack of CO2.
SJT; just did some research on Pat Michaels; he must be a hell of a guy because wikipedia doesn’t like his views on AGW. It’s a bit of a stretch to say he believes in AGW; in a 1999 address to some US senate sub-committee on something or other he observed;
There is no overall statistically significant warming in the average temperature of the US, which is a record of 105 years.
and;
The billions of dollars that American taxpayers have invested in climate modeling has produced a completely worthless result.
Any warming, he goes onto say, has been entirely beneficial; holy Lomborg. The guy obviously doesn’t believe that mankind is a fallen creature, who, in punishment for soiling his own nest, is facing devine retribution from the gaia -god in the form of AGW.
Johnathan: If superheated steam is not a gas (dry H2O) then WATT IS IT?
Choenite: Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage!
Jan: I missed the bit where you dropped a bucket in the ocean
They don’t they trap air the heat still exchanges with the outside world but because the air is trapped it happens more slowly.
The movement of polyatomic gases is not restricted in this way in the atmosphere. While they are directly warmed by some radiation they in turn warm other non absorbing atmospheric species who then being at a higher temperature have more energy to put back into the absorbing gases so they can radiate it out
Jan: go back an have a good look at what you have just writen here in response
“Next you will try and tell me our clothes don’t trap heat”
Jan Pompe – “That means the time constant is reduced. Imagine if you will a capacitor and a resistor with a varying voltage across it once the capacitor is charged the voltage across it follows the input with a slight lag and reduced amplitude you decrease the value of the resistor (or widen the pipe or add more CO2)”
Not following you here at all. A cappy and resistor in a circuit will change in a different way depending on how you connect them. One way it is a diff circuit that will respond to changes in voltage slowly depending on the values and one that will give short sharp spikes.
A better analogy is an oscillator circuit using a 555 timer. The freq is dependant on the value of R and C. While the value of R is constant the freq will be more or less constant. If you change the R value the freq will shift to a new equilibrium point.
If the outgoing radiation is less that the incoming radiation the earth will heat up, thereby radiate more IR and bring the system back into thermal equilibrium.
Louis – “I am so jealous of the scientists working in virtual reality – I read somewhere, maybe here, that the climate models assume the earth to be a flat disk for computational purposes.”
Yep so am I. Pity that Miskolczi’s work is purely a computer study. Obviously since computer models are so inaccurate and parameter ridden then our friend Miskolczi must have just jiggered the parameters until he got the answer he wanted.
“SJT; just did some research on Pat Michaels; he must be a hell of a guy because wikipedia doesn’t like his views on AGW. It’s a bit of a stretch to say he believes in AGW; in a 1999 address to some US senate sub-committee on something or other he observed;
There is no overall statistically significant warming in the average temperature of the US, which is a record of 105 years.”
Yes, Michaels has changed his tune, he had to, due to the inevitable need acknowledge the laws of physics. He does not think CO2 will cause more than an unimportant change to global temperatures, he does acknowledge it is a greenhouse gas.
“The keynote speaker after the gala dinner was University of Virginia climatologist and Cato Institute Senior Environmental Fellow, Patrick Michaels. His talk was titled, “Global Warming’s Convenient Facts.” Michaels began by telling the audience, “Global warming is real and people have something to do with it.” He also noted that one should not care a wit about the fact that humans are causing temperatures to increase. Rather, one should care how much the increase is likely to be.
Michaels pointed out that the surface records show average global temperatures increasing at a steady rate of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade since 1977. He also hastened to put the kibosh on recent assertions that “global warming stopped in 1998.” While global average temperatures have been essentially flat since 1998, Michaels argued that natural variations in the climate mask any increases due to greenhouse gases. In particular, cooler waters in the Pacific (“La Nina”) and lower solar activity have conspired to drop average global temperatures. When these trends reverse, average global temperatures will rapidly rise to reveal the established long term man-made warming trend of +0.17 degrees centigrade per decade. Michaels warned against succumbing to the temptation to cite current flattened global temperatures as evidence against man-made global warming.”
From the 2008 climate deniers conference, attended by one Jennifer Marohasy.
Ender
I have not commented at all on Miskolczi’s work, just following Dave Stockwell’s research on it.
So I might have a look at his work and see whether what you write is in fact correct.
As I pointed out elsewhere, computer modelling when based on proven scientific principles works as intended.
You ever hold your hand over a lighted match to see how much pain you can take?
In Gavin’s world, you can burn yourself holding your hand under the match.
So you see it’s a humanitarian effort. He’s only thinking of yours and my welfare, when he lobbies to have government take away our matches.
ender: “Not following you here at all.”
Why am I not surprised. I didn’t expect that you’d recognise the behaviour of a low pass filter. The concept is a simple one. CO2 resistor in series with N2/O2 capacitior, who can neither absorb nor emit very much (little leakage excepted) acts as allow pass filter. You can always Thevenise the circuit it it’s too complex for you.
gavin: “Next you will try and tell me our clothes don’t trap heat”
I’m rather surprised that you persist with the same error that people, who think the atmosphere works like a glasshouse, make.
gavin: “Jan: I missed the bit where you dropped a bucket in the ocean”
Sorry but I did reply. I’ll give a shorter one.
When I was working in a power house I did not collect the cooling water to measure the temperature I read it off a dial that had a probe in the pipe. This water was recycled through cooling towers so it did have to monitored. Now those steamers did have thermometers on the condenser inlet pipes. Do you understand?
This is a short extract from an article in Quadrant Magazine just hitting the news stands:
“Arnold Zellner, one of the giants in the development of econometric analysis, relates this amusing story in a long interview published in the International Journal of Forecasting.”
“Steve Peck and I simulated the Federal Reserve-MIT-PENN econometric model of the US economy that had over 170 nonlinear equations. Our simulation experiments showed that the model had very strange properties that were unknown to the model builders. From these results we concluded that the model was not safe for use in analysing serious economic problems”.
Further he commented: “I do not know of a complicated model in any area of science that performs well in explanation and prediction, and have challenged many audiences to give me examples. So far, I have not heard about a single one. Certainly the large scale econometric models and complicated VARs (very awful regressions)have not been very successful in explanation and prediction.”
Econometric models form part of the IPCC process, I might add.
Jan: I think we are at cross purposes above
1) steam turbines are divided into condensing and non condensing, the later being high pressure the more powerful, the former larger, exhausting below atmospheric pressure and less powerful.
2) dunking a normal bucket at the end of a long rope from a ship at speed is all about trials and tribulations. A thick wooden container would likely float every time. I prefer the old practice of dunking a canvass bag with a cannon ball in it from the sailing days. After all who would want to stop the ship mid stream then hop over the gunwale and dip that longer finger?
http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/3334/Steam-Turbine-Power-Calculation
Interestingly enough for modellers of atmospheric radiation processes is the breaking news that:
Yale University scientists reported Sunday that they may have resolved a controversial glitch in models of global warming: A key part of the atmosphere didn’t seem to be warming as expected.
The findings were reported online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Computer models and basic principles predict atmospheric temperatures should rise slightly faster than, not lag, increases in surface temperatures. Also, the models predict the fastest warming should occur at the Tropics at an altitude between eight and 12 kilometers. However, temperature readings taken from weather balloons and satellites have, according to most analysts, shown little if any warming there compared to the surface.
By measuring changes in winds, rather than relying upon problematic temperature measurements, Robert J. Allen and Steven C. Sherwood of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale estimated the atmospheric temperatures near 10 km in the Tropics rose about 0.65 degrees Celsius per decade since 1970—probably the fastest warming rate anywhere in Earth’s atmosphere. The temperature increase is in line with predictions of global warming models.
“I think this puts to rest any lingering doubts that the atmosphere really has been warming up more or less as we expect, due mainly to the greenhouse effect of increasing gases like carbon dioxide,” Sherwood said.
Many scientists, including Allen and Sherwood, have long argued that temperature data were flawed for many reasons such as the change of instrument design over the years. “These systems were never designed for measuring climate change,” said Sherwood. However, some global warming skeptics had argued that weather balloon temperatures were accurate—and models that predicted global warming were wrong.
Allen and Sherwood predicted that measuring thermal winds, which are tied to fluctuations in temperatures, would be a more accurate gauge of true atmospheric warming than the thermometers. To measure the thermal winds, they studied data on the motion of weather balloons at different altitudes in the atmosphere. They then calculated temperatures that would account for the wind velocity recorded.
http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=5819
Warming maximum in the tropical upper
troposphere deduced from thermal winds
ROBERT J. ALLEN* AND STEVEN C. SHERWOOD
Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
*e-mail: robert.allen@yale.edu
Published online: 25 May 2008; doi:10.1038/ngeo208
Climate models and theoretical expectations have predicted that the upper troposphere should be warming faster than the surface.
Surprisingly, direct temperature observations fromradiosonde and satellite data have often not shown this expected trend. However,
non-climatic biases have been found in such measurements. Here we apply the thermal-wind equation to wind measurements from
radiosonde data, which seem to be more stable than the temperature data. We derive estimates of temperature trends for the upper
troposphere to the lower stratosphere since 1970.Over the period of observations,we find a maximumwarming trend of 0.65±0.47K
per decade near the 200 hPa pressure level, below the tropical tropopause. Warming patterns are consistent with model predictions
except for small discrepancies close to the tropopause. Our findings are inconsistent with the trends derived from radiosonde
temperature datasets and from NCEP reanalyses of temperature and wind fields. The agreement with models increases confidence
in current model-based predictions of future climate change.
Let’s not forget that early steam engines had pistons, wet steam!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_engine#Turbine_engines
Also anyone playing with superheated steam (professionals only) needs to be super careful as its a completely colourless gas at the leak source. Surrounding pipes give deep flesh “black” burns that take months to surface.
El Creepo
“By measuring changes in winds, rather than relying upon problematic temperature measurements, Robert J. Allen and Steven C. Sherwood of the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Yale estimated the atmospheric temperatures near 10 km in the Tropics rose about 0.65 degrees Celsius per decade since 1970—probably the fastest warming rate anywhere in Earth’s atmosphere. The temperature increase is in line with predictions of global warming models”
The key phrase is “estimated thet atmospheric temperatures near 10km in the tropics rose about 0.65 degrees Celsius”.
They did not MEASURE but estimated it from wind speeds.
And climate change is not a thing one can measure either, it’s a human abstraction of weather, and true no thermometer could measure that.
So inclusion we have found ad hoc ajustments to the theory to jiggle the measurements to fit the model.
Gee, Creep
How persuasive! I have totally changed my mind now. The Science is Settled. Time for all all to have lobotomies and join Luke in the AGW hit parade congo line of, well, you know…
ompa, ompa, omm, pa…ompa, ompa, omm pa…ompa, ompa, omm, pa…
Meantime we carry on burning fossils no matter watt
“Gee, Creep
How persuasive! I have totally changed my mind now. The Science is Settled. Time for all all to have lobotomies and join Luke in the AGW hit parade congo line of, well, you know…
ompa, ompa, omm, pa…ompa, ompa, omm pa…ompa, ompa, omm, pa…”
In other words, in the face of scientific evidence, you have nothing at all. I thought so.
No, no, Shjt,
You got me all wrong. I’ve converted, Hallelujah, hallelujah, ahem, brother. I’m ready to join the AGW holy roller Church of Latter Day Warming. With Rev. Creep and Deacon Shjt and Pope Gore.
Your riggedmortis Scientific Evidence as presented professionally in the pear (shaped) reviewed comment section of a blog is so overwhelmingly cogent that NO rational being could possibly resist rationalizing it.
I’m ready for my baptism. Time for the conga line of, well, you know….
ompa, ompa, om, pa…ompa, ompa, om pa…ompa, ompa, om, pa…
When do I get my AGW workers union card?
In other words, you have nothing.
“Burn them fossil fuels, brothers! Amen! Hallelujah!”
Oh, sorry I left Preacher Gavin out, he should really be at the head on the conga line of AGW… well, you know….
ompa, ompa, omm, pa…ompa, ompa, omm pa…ompa, ompa, omm, pa..
*nothing*
It’s getting a bit boring now, isn’t it?
“The key phrase is “estimated thet atmospheric temperatures near 10km in the tropics rose about 0.65 degrees Celsius”.
They did not MEASURE but estimated it from wind speeds.”
Neither do your much loved satellite ‘measurements’.
Good to see Louis and Wes reacting with predictable utter stupidity. What else would you expect from dingbats.
It’s impossible to have a scientific discussion you guys as you are always jumping between pseudoscience and politics.
If you are not interested in any serious discussion – why go on – you know you’re right – just go and listen to your banjo music and never read anything ever again. Go over to Tim Blair and have a little right wingy ranty tanty with the other morons.
*nothing*
–zen master Deacon Shjt
I do have a few theological inquiries for the holy men here, Rev. Creep, Deacon Shjt or the good preacher Gavin. Please answer with substantiating links attached. Rev. Creep, you’re exempt from complete sentences and proper grammar as per usual. Just cut and paste, mate. Best for us all that way.
When do the climate models project the AGW apocalypse, (heck even a little bit of bloody warming) will begin? Before or after the onset of the next Ice Age?
When will the oceans rise by 10 to 20 feet? I hope soon because I have invested heavily in future Western Sydney beach front properties. That was a good investment? Right?… Mates?… Right?
Should we consider investing in Antarctic farm and resort properties now before the big boom later on?
After the apocalypse will our carbon credit vouchers get us a discount fish and chips at the Pearly Gates?
And finally, of course, we have already begun hoarding food and petrol, of course. Which store better Home Brand regular potato chips or the crinkled chicken salt ones? I believe HadCRU did a study of that last year, but are refusing to release their data set to CA.
Any Cohenite if you’re still out there – how about an expose on the classical greenhouse theory then what’s wrong with it. Would be good to attempt a serious discussion on this important issue instead of just jumping around on snippets.
Wes – that would have to be one of the most stupid rants I have seen in a long while. Utterly moronic, random and off topic. Why are you bothering on this thread? Try finding the word apocalypse in the IPCC reports. As for warming – if you haven’t worked out you’ve already experienced some trying upping your Alzheimer meds.
gavin; I’m not sure what link you’re talking about; they seem fine to me.
wes; you’re a crack-up; doo-whacker doo.
El Creepo; I’m still here; I’m not dead yet (John Cleese in warm medieval gear staiks close; it is the Maunder minimum after all). Gerlich is all he can mutter as he slumps over the keyboard; it’s well past my bed-time.
“As for warming – if you haven’t worked out you’ve already experienced some trying upping your Alzheimer meds.”
Huh?
Creepo, stick to the cut and paste, mate.
“Utterly moronic, random and off topic”
You said it, mate.
“Why are you bothering on this thread?”
You answered your own question. In psychology that’s called projection.
Try finding the word apocalypse in the IPCC reports.
One word: Omerta.
Jan:
Thank you for removing the log from my eye. It would appear I was conflating Beer’s and Kirchoff’s, my intended accusation.
Jan: Off nights yet?
Mate: What we need is a discussion about how one would take the water temp at the bottom of a well with out a cannon ball. After that, let’s move on to the paddle wheel steamer hey
Do you have a link to the actual paper, El Creepo?
Thermal wind is the vertical wind shear caused by horizontal temperature gradients which as you ascend cause horizontal pressure gradients. I used to teach this stuff when I was a meteorologist.
Could we stay on topic or have a moderator edit posts please? This thread has become ridiculous.
Gary
Here is an interesting history of proof of Kirchoff’s law life was just as fiery in the world of science at the start of last century.
http://www.mzwtg.mwn.de/arbeitspapiere/Schirrmacher_2001_1.pdf
Posted for general interest.
>This thread has become ridiculous.
Can’t help but agree with you. It’s amusing that ‘El Creepo’, SJT and Ender are always accused of being abusive and stupid, but from wasting time reading this thread I’m not sure why they bother with such obnoxious twits. Wes George, stick to your wilderness posts please. Louis, if you could possibly make up your mind it might serve you better with getting some sort of point across. Jan, try answering questions asked of you and dropping the ad homs – it might support your argument better, make you appear like you actually know something, and also lift your image out of the sand pit. Sheeshk.
Travis: “Jan, try answering questions asked of you and dropping the ad homs”
No ad homs just statement of fact, ender’s basic understanding is lacking. I might as well be talking Greek to him.
Jan,
I haven’t found Ender’s lack of understanding lacking at all, but I have found you willingness to answer his questions (which might enlighten him for you)lacking.
>The contribution of increasing CO2 concentrations is not detectable with this analysis.
Tom I am stumped by this conclusion. Just to repeat your table 4.
The GISS-GCM predicts a warming of 0.51C which is very similar to the 0.65C which has been measured. The GFDL-GCM predicts a warming of 0.44C and the measurement is 0.5C, again very close to the observed number.
How can you possibly conclude that you haven’t detected a CO2 effect? The models produce this warming entirely because of CO2 increases.
As for your spatial analyses, you need to do a little less data trolling, factor uncertainty in the datasets (your error bars are missleading as they do not account for the range of uncertainty), and take into account multiplicity.
For an example of how to do analyses like this properly have a look at the long sequence of the papers authored by David Karoly (and co-authors) which are peer reviewed and yet to get a critical published response.
Regards,
David
Well Jan – if basic understanding is lacking – why don’t you do a guest post and lay it all out. A clear statement of your position on greenhouse physics would be most informative.
What the hell is that supposed to mean Creepo? The basic problem here is not that someone or other doesn’t have a fully worked out explanation as to WHY the alarmists are wrong. The problem is the alarmists are lying and have absolutely no evidence. And on this thread they are going so far as to include the HYPOTHESIS-AS-EVIDENCE.
The hypothesis was that certain factors in radiative physics would lead to disastrously strong global warming.
You ask them for evidence and the dumb liars say… radiative physics. But thats not evidence. Thats the original arm-chair one-step inductive leap. And we want the evidence for it.
“Well Jan – if basic understanding is lacking – why don’t you do a guest post and lay it all out. A clear statement of your position on greenhouse physics would be most informative.”
This is a fundamentally moronic attitude you are displaying here. Because you are an idiot who believes this stupid stuff with no evidence whatsoever.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Computer models and basic principles predict atmospheric temperatures should rise slightly faster than, not lag, increases in surface temperatures. Also, the models predict the fastest warming should occur at the Tropics at an altitude between eight and 12 kilometers. However, temperature readings taken from weather balloons and satellites have, according to most analysts, shown little if any warming there compared to the surface.”
Evidence that the warming was solar/water-vapour dominated.
Louis – “As I pointed out elsewhere, computer modelling when based on proven scientific principles works as intended.”
So climate models that work on proven scientific principles are now OK. Or are you trying to say that computer models that agree with what you think are OK and ones that disagree are not?
“They did not MEASURE but estimated it from wind speeds.”
As SJT pointed out this of course makes the MSU data equally suspect as they infer the temperature based on its microwave signature. If fact your favourite sons Spencer and Christie combine the output of two instruments to get their measurements making that an inference from an inference. Does the term ‘shooting yourself in the foot’ have any meaning to you? So are inferences OK or shall we throw out the deniers favourite measurement tool?
Travis: “I haven’t found Ender’s lack of understanding lacking at all”
You are right there is nothing lacking about ender’s lack of understanding it’s pretty thorough.
Jan Pompe – “Why am I not surprised. I didn’t expect that you’d recognise the behaviour of a low pass filter. The concept is a simple one. CO2 resistor in series with N2/O2 capacitior, who can neither absorb nor emit very much (little leakage excepted) acts as allow pass filter. You can always Thevenise the circuit it it’s too complex for you.”
Well now I am really confused. You said “a capacitor and a resistor with a varying voltage across it once the capacitor is charged the voltage across it follows the input with a slight lag” A resistor and capacitor can be connected in many ways. Also you did not mention a signal being applied to it – just a varying voltage that I took to a slowly varying voltage as the Earth does not have a high freq signal applied to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-pass_filter
plus the fact in a low pass filter, or diff circuit, the R and C are not in series. A cct that you are describing would simply block DC and not act as a filter in the way you think. It is in fact a current filter however you were talking voltage. In your cct also the cappy does ‘absorb’ all the voltage.
Try this:
http://www.phy.ntnu.edu.tw/ntnujava/index.php?topic=31
BTW why would I Thevenise the cct?
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5204/Webstu14.htm#W18
“Thevenin’s theorem is a procedure that helps us represent any resistive circuit by redrawing it into a standardized configuration.”
A cct with a capacitor in it is not resistive.
In short absolutely none of this makes any sense. I will add “allow pass filter” to “diversion” as new terms that you have invented in this thread in your and Louis’s nu-physics.
(BTW I may not be a physicist however I am an electronics technician so you can stop trying to sound all technical.)
Jan Pompe – “No ad homs just statement of fact, ender’s basic understanding is lacking. I might as well be talking Greek to him.”
The problem I am having is this nu-physics that you speak of. The problem is that 99.9999999999% of physicists on earth subscribe to the old physics, you know, the one that fits with observations and is taught at all those lefty universities – misguided fools that they are.
I would really like you to explain radiative nu-physics to me so we can all be enlightened. Louis has already had a go with his nu-physics plasma universe and wasn’t that a hoot? I still cannot quite grasp diversion.
Bird there is an abundance of good science and evidence. Enough at least to give a good but imperfect chance of plausibility. The issue with people like you is that you don’t read any of the literature or even attempt to understand the arguments. Try to disengage your Neanderthal processor, stop ranting like a two year old, and apply a modicum of intelligence. Contribute or get off the blog.
So I’m trying to understand the physics argument here but the signal to noise ratio is far too high. So I’m pleading with someone to do a position piece to start a rational debate from.
The absence of one makes me suspect that there is plenty of opinion and but no fullsome understanding. Is everyone simply bulldusting with how good they may have done at graduate physics?
Any good scientist is always willing to explain a position.
ender: “The problem I am having is this nu-physics that you speak of.”
Not new at all has been around since Einstein was a young man., to be verified time and again in such toys as gas lasers.
Jan Pompe – “Not new at all has been around since Einstein was a young man., to be verified time and again in such toys as gas lasers.”
So you will have no problem explaining it then – which BTW you have still failed to do.
>So I’m pleading with someone to do a position piece to start a rational debate from.
I vote Jan do it. He seems to know pretty much everything. Trouble is, he doesn’t like to share it, just his arrogance. How about you enlighten us all Jan?
David,
Geez mate, read the next paragraph after the Table 4.
He says that while the global values may be consistent with the GCM’s the detail is all wrong as the graph shows.
So much for GCMs and regional forecasts.
Travis: ” Trouble is, he doesn’t like to share it”
Actually I have tried even given some quite simple analogies it all appears too difficult for some people. Neither Louis nor cohenite seem to have difficulty with it so why does ender? Gavin who like the American climatologists thinks only American steam ships had temperature gauges on the condenser inlet, or thinks it perfectly rational for the engineer to send the boy up with a canvas bucket to measure the temperature when there is a gauge on the inlet, has avoided the issue.
Of course all this is put out a red herring to distract from the central issue in this post and that is that the GCMs aren’t modelling the real world particularly well.
A related issue of course the the fact that the “seminal” Keihl and Trenberth 1997 paper, which assumes there is a temperature discontinuity between surface and atmospheric boundary layer, is wrong as the Miskolczi paper, supported by empirical studies, points out.
Jan,
You have avoided a number of perfectly reasonable questions posters like Ender have asked, and created your own diversion by belittling them. People here are entitled to ask questions, even when it challenges your world view. It is ok to say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I think you may be right’, even on one of the world’s very best environmental weblogs on the planet.
With regards to Gavin’s support of the canvas bucket, I would like you to provide evidence that a condenser inlet gauge was used instead, otherwise I’m inclined to side with Gavin on this.
“Well now I am really confused. You said “a capacitor and a resistor with a varying voltage across it once the capacitor is charged the voltage across it follows the input with a slight lag” A resistor and capacitor can be connected in many ways. Also you did not mention a signal being applied to it – just a varying voltage that I took to a slowly varying voltage as the Earth does not have a high freq signal applied to it.”
Thanks, Ender, I have done some training in electronics, too, and I wondered what the heck he was on about.
“Also you did not mention a signal being applied to it – just a varying voltage…”
What the heck do you think a varying voltage is in this circuit!
It is the signal!
Creepo, that study is interesting but sounds strangely familiar.
http://climatesci.org/2008/06/02/use-of-winds-to-diagnose-long-term-temperature-trends-two-new-papers/
Not a good look is it.
>David,
>
>Geez mate, read the next paragraph after the Table 4.
But global warming is global and CO2 forcing is global. CO2 explains global warming – period.
What the paper says is that “CO2 doesn’t explain global warming because it can’t replicate precisely the fine scale structure (chosen through a data troll without consideration of multiplicity, statistical significant, or the robustness of the signal)”.
By the same logic I can disprove gravity, with the observation that birds can fly.
They are both nonsense arguments.
Louis – “What the heck do you think a varying voltage is in this circuit!”
However if you are talking electronics a signal is usually taken to be a rapidly varying periodic voltage, such as a 1kHz audio tone or 10Mhz RF signal.
If you say vary the input voltage then this is almost always taken to mean “you turned the voltage knob of the variable power supply to see what the circuit did”.
In his analogy he was comparing the Earth to an RC circuit so I naturally took the changing inout voltage to be analogous to turning the power supply knob rather than applying a 1k tone. There is no equivilent in climate science to an applied 1k tone however for the purposes of the analogy, as stretched and contrived as it is, the turning the knob could be analogous to radiation out of the system.
Ender: “However if you are talking electronics a signal is usually taken to be a rapidly varying periodic voltage, such as a 1kHz audio tone or 10Mhz RF signal.”
No it isn’t, necessarily. Signals may be non periodic and slowly varying DC voltages. In this case you are plain flat out wrong. I’ve been making a living out of a similar setup for the last 25 years.
David:”But global warming is global and CO2 forcing is global. CO2 explains global warming – period.
What the paper says is that “CO2 doesn’t explain global warming because it can’t replicate precisely the fine scale structure (chosen through a data troll without consideration of multiplicity, statistical significant, or the robustness of the signal)”.
By the same logic I can disprove gravity, with the observation that birds can fly. ”
——
With logic like that I wouldn’t throw stones in greenhouses.
The RF effects of CO2 were fed into GCM’s and got the warming in the wrong places. Sounds like the GCMs got the treatment wrong. That the temperature change on average was close to correct might well be chance or more likely some “tuning” of the model to better correspond with reality after the fact.
Proteus,
Regarding the link to Roger Pielke sr.
Ouch!
Ender: I picked up a badge like Aus flag thing at the op shop before lunch. Then I noticed it had a screw on chrome knobbly thing round the back so I turned it. Hey; two leds blazed away! Enough electronics for one day, I can hardly recall the circuit let alone the physics.
Back to ocean temperatures: I don’t know precisely which navies had what and when in regard to steam engines however it’s likely sailing ships were round much longer and that brings us back to using buckets of sea water and thermometers up on deck. All ocean temperature records would be contaminated by the time it took to read the difference ambient topside and the deep blue yonder.
Although I worked with several ex Royal Navy engineers in the 1950’s on industrial steam plants I don’t recall any of them referring to ST measurements on the run or steam turbine condensers. Also given the types of pre war instrumentation I worked on its likely condensers at sea had only dial thermometers. Any one seriously interested would need to look through the Kent group of companies for things like the mechanical driven chart Cambridge recorders that were common in boiler houses.
With nonlinear thermometers we could reckon on an accuracy of about 5% of full range as that would be good enough for condenser efficiency calculations. After all a vacuum is a vacuum when recovering latent heat at the duck’s arxe.
Eyrie: A lot of industrial transmitters replacing pneumatics in hazardous environments were 4-20ma.
Eyrie – “No it isn’t, necessarily. Signals may be non periodic and slowly varying DC voltages. In this case you are plain flat out wrong. I’ve been making a living out of a similar setup for the last 25 years.”
Well it is a matter of interpretation, rather than being right or wrong. Yes a signal can be slow and variable however when someone says “apply a signal to an RC circuit” most people would understand that to be a tone or something similar since RC circuits are primarily for filtering.
The point is that even if an RC circuit could be an analogy for the radiative heating, which it is not even close, and Jan could explain the RC circuit that he had in mind, which he didn’t, the closest thing to a modulating signal is a slowly varying voltage in this analogy, rather that what I would undestand as a signal in electronics.
There are many interpretations of a varying voltage however in most normal instances a signal would not be interpreted in most RF or audio work as a slowly random varying voltage.
However this is not the point as I do not accept that an RC circuit is anything like the radiative balance of the Earth nor do I think that Jan has any idea of what he is talking about.
If you wish to call me wrong on my interpretation of the word signal in this instance then I will accept your correction graciously however it does not change the fact that the analogy is false.
How is the AGW community going to deal with this problem?
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/uah_may_08.png
Watch NASA analysis very very carefully when its released May 20 or so….
REX – “How is the AGW community going to deal with this problem?”
Probably nothing at all because a 6 month temperature anomoly is not really indicative of the long term trend that we are most interested in. If you think that this disproves AGW then I can equally stupidly say that the period 218 to 235 proves global warming with a dT of +1 deg. But damn the period 235 to 245 disproves it again. Hang on 328 to JAN 07 proves it – bugger as you say Jan 07 to May 08 disproves it again – you win dismantle the IPCC and chuck out Kyoto.
Ocean temps; what’s happened to Argo?
Greenhouse; a dud concept; see Gerlich and Tscheuschner;
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v3.pdf
SOI; been positive since 8/07; just turned slightly negative; -4.3; doesn’t matter; the PDO is positive;
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/pdo_monthly.png
Back to Thomas Quirk; none has satisfactorily explained away the Great Pacific Climate Shift which stepped up world temperatures at the end of the 70’s and at the end of a +ve PDO; that alone explains away any temp trend upwards over the past 100 years; even Tamino inadvertently shows this; look at the step up in both the GISS and HadCrut at the end of the 70’s;
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/05/18/decadal-trends/#comments
CO2 doesn’t heat anything; if it did the latest NASA trip to Mars would have needed floaties.
Re; the electrical circuitry analogies; seems to suit you Ender; what about a distillation column analogy instead?
Gerlich and Tscheuschner refuted here http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf But who would know? I’m sure Jan could whip through it in 5 minutes.
If you think the PDO overwhelms all ENSO function – do the analysis – it doesn’t
What Great Pacific Climate Shit ? You mean a hopeful speculative sceptic’s artifact? Are there any serious publications on this ? (that doesn’t count the endless denialist literature).
El Creepo
“If you think the PDO overwhelms all ENSO function – do the analysis – it doesn’t”
So do this, show that it does not.
Ender’s Modus Operandi
“I can equally stupidly say..”
I just noticed, Ender made an excursion to Bolta’s domain, and I must say, he is treated with courtesy and respect here, in comparison to his reception over there.
What, Andrew Bolt ?
Johnathan Wilkes – “I just noticed, Ender made an excursion to Bolta’s domain”
I’m sorry I was not aware that I needed permission to visit other sites. Would you like an inventory of the other blogs I comment on?
“Ender’s Modus Operandi
“I can equally stupidly say..”
After 100 odd posts where you have abjectly failed to answer any questions or provide any references to any of your rantings this is the best that you can do? Maybe Boltys blog is the place for you.
Ender,
Sorry I spooke!
I only tried to point out that you are treated fairly on this blog.
As far as I’m concerned you can stop blogging, you have a one track mind.
You have nothing new to say!
Sheesh! some people have thin skin!
Johnathan – “I only tried to point out that you are treated fairly on this blog.”
Apologies – however I am treated fairly because I hope I treat others fairly.
Except moi
C’est ca
Touche Louis.
Back to the virtual windmill Ender
El Creepo; what’s with these names; is this a gothic/pagan dance-club? Anyway, thanks for the Gerlich rebuttal; more homework; as to the Great Climate shift; well argued! Our guest writer, Thomas Quirk, of course, is one of the proponents of that theory; which always induces a similar response to El Creepo’s.
Now, I off to Bolts’s, where people are more polite, to give Ender a serve.
Good point? It could be. So why are you a meteoric deposit.
ender: ” I’m sure Jan could whip through it in 5 minutes.”
I have already told Arthur what I though of the way he had a planetary absorptivity of < 1 (~.7) and an emissivity = 1 which does not really compute. Generally what reduces absorptivity also reduces emissivity in this case we were talking about clouds and water vapour.
Jan:
Thanks for the link to the paper, right up my alley!
Louis – “Except moi”
You have no idea ……
Rog,
It’s never endering, is it.
Ender,
let’s get to basics. If you remove the sun from the computer model, how long does it take for the atmosphere of the earth to approach 0 K.
Now, do the same for Venus. Due to the MASS and beginning temp, Venus takes longer but still falls quickly.
Now, what happened to the TRAP???
NOTHING IS TRAPPED. ENERGY IS DELAYED OR REDIRECTED FROM DIRECT OUTGOING RADIATION!!!
You can act like a petulant child all you want, but, the fact is we are arguing over how LARGE A DELAY there is!!!!!
ElCreepo,
did the “researchers” use the physics from the models to determine that the wind speeds correlated to higher temperatures?? 8>)
Also, have they done any physical experiments or observations to verify those wind speeds correlate to those temperatures?? What are the error bars on those??
Doesn’t speed correlate to temp DELTA?? To find the delta you need to know beginning and ending temp which is being called into question!!!
Finally, due to the many variables in wind, how can an absolute temp be determined within accuracy levels greater than the contaminated radiosonde data??
Have asked Biggsy to forward the paper to you and you can give us your full critique. So you will receive if you have a valid email supplied. It’s not the last word. But one shouldn’t think that satellites are the last word either. Just more in the progressive reveal …
If you remove the sun – the earth would cool rapidly – in days over land.
All greenhouse (natural and anthropogenic) is doing is recycling some of radiation and notching up the overall energy balance. Has anyone ever claimed otherwise?
El Creepo,
Ender spent quite a bit of time arguing incorrectly that energy is TRAPPED by GHG’s. This type of terminology is technically incorrect and contributes to the misunderstanding of those who do not look deeper into the FACTS.
Your statement that it is NOTCHING UP THE OVERALL ENERGY BALANCE is rather opaque also. Assuming you mean it is causing a slightly longer delay in the radiation of OLR, about how much is NOTCHING IT UP worth when apparently a slight normal reduction in TSI allows it to dissipate??
Of course, I am still trying to understand how the earth survived 4000ppm CO2, much higher humidity, and higher average temps than now without burning up!!
It is a good address. I appreciate the chance to read the paper. As far as a full critique, uhhh, well, that is, hmmm…..
My basic point is that GHG’s effect are rather weak. The ocean provides virtually all the energy store. As they haven’t been warming per AGW spec you have a hole in the theory and the models. You also have no reason to get on emergency status over a degree of warming or cooling even if it is over a short period.
What have we lost since January 2007, about .7c?? Maybe it comes back, maybe it doesn’t. Either way, GHG’s had little to do with it.
Oh you want a serious conversation. Well simply my understanding is that some longwave photons excite the greenhouse gases. Some surrounding air is warmed via more energetic collisions. Some is re-radiated – 50% up and 50% down. Many seem to suggest there is 1 degree C in that alone. Then there are water vapour feedbacks, cryosphere and other albedo changes, and circulation changes.
If you reduce the solar input you obviously reduce what radiation can be recycled. CO2 doesn’t do anything alone with radiative input. No sun – no effect. Less sun less effect.
However it’s not the only thing going on – cloud cover and aerosols can change. (may have). Ocean overturning can change (may have).
La Nina, El Nino, PDO, IPO, NAO, AMO, SAM all have effects.
Stratospheric ozone has an effect.
Droughts and land use change have albedo effects.
Everything made good sense until about 2001 – one shouldn’t forget that.
A loss of 0.7C in January is really irrelevant IMO. GHG forcing is a long haul thing.
How did the Earth survive 4000 ppm. Well the rocks are still here but most of the plants and animals of the era are not. Big changes in climate have seen major extinction events.
The Maya didn’t get through the MWP either.
Philipona’s work I have often mentioned here puts the extra longwave flux measured by radiometers pretty close to theory.
And I’m informed that lunar forcing may also have an impact.