“THE scientific method is a valuable way to advance objective knowledge. By testing a hypothesis against observation, it can either be falsified or supported. Not proved, of course, but nevertheless over time sufficient evidence can accumulate for a hypothesis to be generally accepted as the best available explanation. It is then known as a theory. Hence, although the vast majority of scientists and citizens (at least in Europe) accept Darwin’s description of evolution, this is still regarded as a theory rather than fact. This is important, because as our understanding develops, apparently satisfactory theories may be replaced by others.
For simple things such as the effect of the Earth’s gravity on objects we are familiar with, collecting the evidence is straightforward and no experiments have been done which contradict the theory of gravity. But over the last century, it has been accepted that classical Newtonian mechanics is actually only valid at a certain scale (which encompasses everything in our normal Earthbound existence). At the atomic scale, we enter the abstruse realm of quantum mechanics, and on a cosmic scale Einstein’s theory of relativity is currently the best description of what goes on across the observable universe.
Importantly, both of these deviations from the familiar everyday world as explained by Newton arose because observation did not fit with prediction: the theory broke down at very large and very small scales. The boundaries of knowledge have since been pushed back steadily, leading to a general acceptance of quantum mechanics and relativity as the best theories to date to explain observations.
On a cosmic level, there is still much we do not know. It is now generally accepted that the Big Bang theory describes the universe better than the previously-competing Steady State model. But current models require the universe to be composed largely of as-yet-undetected “dark matter” and “dark energy” if observations are to be consistent with theory. And on a broader scale, the search for a “theory of everything” which brings together quantum mechanics and relativity and explains gravity remains unresolved, with the large amount of work on the development of string theory potentially being a historical dead end…
This sort of work engenders fierce scientific rivalries, and the formation of a consensus view can take many years, but it is essentially an internal professional competition, of little direct relevance to the average citizen (apart from the fact that their taxes pay for it). However, when we come to issues which affect non-scientists more directly, other interest groups become more involved…
But when we turn to environmental issues, the situation becomes more complex still. To test a hypothesis, it is always best if only one independent variable can be changed at a time. In the laboratory, this is usually possible, but when hypotheses have to be tested purely by observation of highly complex systems, life gets much more difficult. And it is difficult to think of something much more complex than global climate.
It is well known that there were serious concerns raised about climate change in the 1970s, although at that time the worry was about cooling and descent into a new Ice Age. However, attention soon turned instead to global warming. A sudden jump in temperature in the mid-1970s was followed by an upward trend over the next two decades, and it was perfectly logical to hypothesise that this increase was caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
This quickly became the new paradigm, linking humankind’s burning of fossil fuels directly to environmental change on a global scale. Unfortunately for the cause of rational debate, this also quickly became the only acceptable hypothesis for large swathes of the scientific community, pretty much everyone who considered themselves an environmentalist and the liberal elites in Western democracies…
Read more here.
************************
Scientific Alliance newsletter 12th June 2009
Science, belief and rational debate by Andy Hooper
http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/article/default.aspx?objid=60280
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
“AGW is Just a Theory”
So what am I to make of the theory of evolution? It’s just a theory.
It is a sad fact that the mindless acceptance of this theory by the vast majority is not based on science but on the precautionary principle and our “sinful” consumerist lifestyle.
Sad because the honest people have the most sensitive conscience and they are suckers for the scoundrels.
One of the most basic facts of our consumer lifestyle is never brought out in this argument and that is the most advanced first world countries produce very little CO2 per dollar of GDP. Emerging economies are the reverse.
Japan produdes 0.24kg per USD of GDP, USA produces 0.4kg but China produces a whopping 2.4kg [10 times Japan] per USD of GDP.
The effect of Carbon Tax [ETS, Cap & Trade etc] will be to transfer this wealth generating activity to the emerging economies to produce world “wealth equity” but at the cost of ever increasing emissions.
AGW, a doubtful theory with a noxious solution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/11/business/energy-environment/11yen.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=global
”
Scientists often model systems to predict what effects might be expected if variables change in a certain way. In the absence of anything resembling evidence for the causative effect of global warming, computer modelling was enthusiastically embraced to project likely changes on the basis of the understanding of how climate worked. So far, so good, but the output from these models, rather than being seen as indications of what might happen if the hypothesis was right, have taken the place of experimental observation.
So, in a circular argument, the models which are based on a particular hypothesis (the greenhouse effect with positive feedback) are taken to “prove” the hypothesis because they reproduce the pattern of twentieth century temperature change. Similarly, the projections for future temperature rise (which, we should remember, cover a large range) are regularly quoted as what will happen if carbon dioxide emissions are not drastically cut back. ”
They need to read the IPCC report. You can’t criticse the case for something if you don’t understand what the case is. The report goes into a lot of detail, using much more than just computer models, to make it’s case.
SJT, The majority of scientists who support the AGW theory are not satisfied with merely quoting IPCC numbers [90% certainty of half a meter SLR etc] but go off and scream their own interpretation [100 meters, 8 storey buildings etc, ad nauseum] and the MSM laps this up. No one ever goes to the source of the solution such as, in the case of SLR, Holland which has been operating from below sea level for centuries and would be expected to be an authority on this subject, whose Wilco Hazeleger from the Netherlands Met Institute said the other day:
“In the past century the sea level has risen twenty centimeters. There is no evidence for accelerated sea-level rise. It is my opinion that there is no need for drastic measures. It is wise to adopt a flexible, step-by-step adaptation strategy. By all means, let us not respond precipitously.”
The real story has proved to be so much different to the claims and this is what so many genuinely sceptical people are trying to point out to the world.
IOW, not plan A, PLAN B!!!
This theory of the single variable co2 has a number of very well qualified critics from every country around the world.
Two critics at the cutting edge of environmental science Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer even state that the feedback from co2 is negative NOT POSITIVE, so as a layman this worries me greatly and I keep asking , what if they’re right?
Also why can’t they find the important hotspot, surely there must be a lot more work done before we commit ourselves to spending trillions of dollars worldwide with a probable zero return on the money spent.
Afterall the temp rise is hardly unusual if we take into account the recovery from the LIA ( this easily covers the 0.7C rise in the last 100years) the UHI effect, the warm PDO change in 1976, the much higher numbers of el ninos in the last quarter of a century etc.
Apart from this who honestly believes that the Copenhagen conference will bring about any resolution capable of reducing co2 emissions worldwide, afterall the signatories at Kyoto just about ignored their committments the moment they left the table.
“… it was perfectly logical to hypothesise that this increase was caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”.
No it wasn’t. It would only have been logical if the correlation was consistent historically, which it wasn’t, so it’s not. Unless we are now re-defining “logical”.
“This theory of the single variable co2 has a number of very well qualified critics from every country around the world.”
No one has ever claimed that. There are several important climate forcings, research has revealed that CO2 is the dominant one at present. No doubt, other forcings will dominate in the distant future.
This piece hits on an aspect of strong AGW theory that has always bothered me. If you agree with an AGW advocate, he wins. If you don’t, you have been duped if not bribed by Big Oil. Actually I never got a cent from them. But your opponent will again think, or feel, he has won. If there is drought, this is proof of AGW. If there is flood, this is climate change due to AGW. If AGW predicts warming at 10 km in the tropical atmosphere, and experiment does not seem to find it, the AGW advocate fiddles with statistics till theory and observation overlap statistically, however modestly. And if all else fails, the AGW advocate will argue that we must take precautionary measures. Well, yes, but how far and how fast should the precautions go, and what precautions are being taken against heavy job losses for a controversial theory?
The philosopher Popper criticised thought-systems like this because they were unfalsifiable, not susceptible to critical testing. They explained too much in too facile and protean a manner. He cited marxism and freudianism as examples of such ‘sciences’ which were not really sciences. If he were alive today, I think he would see the more zealous greens as a further example.
Kill the strawmen
SJT: “So what am I to make of the theory of evolution? It’s just a theory.”
That is correct SJT – I suggest you study the evidence- James P Hogan has done an excellent job summarising it in his book Kicking the Sacred Cows.
Oh I am so sorry – I just realised the book is on your index of banned texts and you are not allowed to read it – how remiss of me to suggest you commit the heinous crime of reading something sensible.
So I will summarise Hogan’s work = evolution is not supported by the facts as is AGW.
Of course the alarmists use the Scientific method here are the 8 steps according to Wikipedia
1. Why does the climate change?
2. Collect climate data and mathematical formulae that can be adapted. Thermodynamics is one very productive area.
3. Search for something that correlates with climate change over a human lifetime. Hypothesize that this is the cause. Note that it must seem to be controllable and be produced more by affluent humans. CO2 is ideal for this purpose.
4. Create a computer program with the formulae and run. Tweak parameters to make sure it correlates to the data you have collected. You can do anything here since you can block anyone else seeing what you did, see 7.
5. Does it correlate with data? If not, change parameters step 4.
6. Extend hypothesis into distant future. If no end of the world disasters change the parameters step 4 otherwise conclude that humans are causing it since we have chosen something humans produce. Demand more funding for research into this imminent danger.
7. Keep method and data secret, we don’t need criticism we are perfect.
8. Get others to create same computer program and see if they copied your program well enough. Here the opinions of politicians and economists will add to the correctness of your theory.
“So I will summarise Hogan’s work = evolution is not supported by the facts as is AGW.”
I’d be careful of anything a Holocaust Denier says, Louis, if I were you.
Strewth SJT, so co2 is just one of the pins to be knocked over then we’ll have some other anthropogenic variable to take its place?
Let’s just agree that drought , fire and flood happen naturally ( until real evidence proves otherwise) and in the meantime new technology will come online, e.g see Barry Brook above right –4th generation nuclear power. Then one day who knows perhaps nuclear fusion will prove to be a viable alternative.
“Strewth SJT, so co2 is just one of the pins to be knocked over then we’ll have some other anthropogenic variable to take its place?”
Only if you believe in conspiracy theories.
Oh, I quite agree eli; the strawmen are indeed zombies [which begs the question of killing them] and AGW should stand alone or not at all; speaking of which do you prefer global warming or climate change, bearing in mind the difference between a formal and informal fallacy?
spangled drongo,
China’s emissions per unit of real GDP are about three times greater than Japan’s, and this is due at least in part to the fact that construction and heavy industry make up a far larger share of China’s output than Japan’s.
Your “whopping” 10 times figure is a furphy, which is derived by converting the nominal GDPs of both countries into a common unit using exchange rates. This effectively assumes that the average price level in both countries is the same, which is clearly not the case.
Jennifer,
from the article,
“By testing a hypothesis against observation, it can either be falsified or supported. Not proved, of course, but nevertheless over time sufficient evidence can accumulate for a hypothesis to be generally accepted as the best available explanation. It is then known as a theory. Hence, although the vast majority of scientists and citizens (at least in Europe) accept Darwin’s description of evolution, this is still regarded as a theory rather than fact.”
I think that this is just a tad oversimplified. Darwin’s revolutionary (at the time) theory of Natural Selection is in a special category that’s overlooked by the popular cartoon version of THE Scientific Method. I wrote about this at a small social network site. Here’s a link. http://tinyurl.com/lar58r
If it passes muster with you, please email me. I’d like to rework it a bit before posting it under its own heading at your blog, since it opens a can of worms that would probably disrupt the natural flow of this thread.
Because of the ongoing email problem, I’d have to tentatively park the posting in the same place as the dog story. As you can probably tell, I’ve been influenced by Toulmin’s book.
Hello SJT; I always got the impression that you and I were on opposite sides of this debate, yet, reading your 12:15 pm post, I most pleasantly wonder. I have to say I agree with most of what you wrote in that post. Your entire first paragraph I completely agree with – especially the comment that computer model outputs have taken the place of experimental observation. Your second paragrpah I agree with after the addition of one word. Where you say they reproduce the 20th century warming pattern I would add the word “claimed” before 20th.
With regard to your third paragraph I am not sure what you mean by what you wrote but I do question its relevance. Nick Stokes has also made the point several times that the IPCC is not necessarily claiming what people think they are claiming. That may or may not be true but the trouble is that the AGW alarmists are driving this issue by making extravagant claims and these claims are being used as a call to action and to scare people into similarly demanding action.
If I can use a metaphor for a moment, many people claim the Moslem religion is a moderate caring religion just read the Koran and you will see. My answer is that a religion is not defined by what is written in a book but by what is done in the name of that religion. I don’t want to equate the AGW movement here with a religion but I think the parallel is relevant. What is driving this debate is not what is written by the IPCC it is driven by what the alarmists claim and do in public. I would add in passing that the IPCC summary for policy makers is written in an inflamatory way – and I have read much of this.
I admit I am fighting against the AGW hypothesis because I think that the claim that rising CO2 will cause dangerous or even significant future warming is simply wrong and I see it has potential to do incalculable harm to our society. Without trying to be too extreme I believe it has the potential to possibly destroy our society. My concern is not what is written in a report few people read, it is what is being claimed in public and being used as justification for extreme measures.
Your post leads me to seriously wonder whether your views are not in fact more moderate and maybe we are not as far apart as I thought.
“China’s emissions per unit of real GDP are about three times greater than Japan’s,”
Ian Castles, in 2006 China’s emissions were 6 times Japan’s with a smaller GDP than Japan. Japan is still the #2 economy and China’s emissions have increased considerably.
Are you rejecting my point that carbon taxes will force “dirty” industries to “dirty” countries thereby increasing emissions?
SJT
James P Hogan isn ‘t a holocaust denier but criticised the UK government on a matter of principle concerning another who is.
Equally there is nothing on Hogan’s site to indicate your smear.
Obviusly your source is the excreable Wikipedia that I also encountered when I checked your allegation but no evidence is provided, which is par for the course for Wikipedia.
Perhaps you should reconsider your feeble but contemptible effort at character assassination.
Larry; I must disagree with your conclusion that neither evolution or id can be falsified; id has been well and truly falsified;
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision.html
In respect of the tautology of SOTF and its usefulness as a descriptor of evolution IMO a more precise and technically correct term is differential rates of survival and reproduction; for instance, in a contest between fast breeding finches with small beaks and slow breeding finches with powerful beaks, both variations may survive but only one will have a superior adaptive fitness.
In addition, evolution is entirely testable as shown by studies of microevolution dealing with the process of speciation which have been undertaken many times with cells, plants and fruit flies.
As for Jay Gould; he definitely was circumspect and his appearance on the Simpsons typifies his approach; still, his comparison between evolution and Lamarckism and the lack of ubiquity of inherited utility is fascinating [male nipples and all that] and makes his position plain; his compendium of essays titled “Bully for Brontosaurus” takes pride of place in my bookcase.
Michael Hammer,surely a more accurate claim is that modelling has developed and diversified,and has augmented observation..for experimental observation has not stopped. Spectroscopy,for instance, is a very active field,with vast numbers of behaviors and combinations to be assayed,driven by basic physical and conceptual models. Modelling often drives and refines directions in observation,but it can never ‘take its place’. Please do not claim it has.
There is no doubt that a lot of projective ecosystem modelling is being stimulated by projective climate modelling, but it is equally and simultaneously being driven by observed changes in natural systems.
If you are concerned about a divergence between the actual and perceived content of IPCC work,or indeed any report,surely you do not want to continue the misperceptions.
Oh, Nick;
“Modelling often drives and refines directions in observation,but it can never ‘take its place’. Please do not claim it has.”
Mike doesn’t have to; Sherwood and Allen, Mann, Steig all do; in fact show me a prominent AGW supporting paper which doesn’t prioritise modeling over observation.
Actually Nick I was agreeing with SJT who made the claim. I do not claim that modelling can take the place of observation in fact I agree that it cannot. I do however claim that many very vocal AGW alarmists are trying to claim model outputs as evidence of global warming. Indeed exactly that was the theme of one of my earlier essays posted on Jennifer’s site.
“AGW is Just a Theory”
So are relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution, and every single framework within which we understand the natural world. Science is “just” a theory, and the statement is banal and meaningless. You may as well say “Everest is just a mountain” or “CO2 is just a molecule” for all the sense it makes.
RW; typical; where is it claimed “AGW is just a theory”? It is a hypothesis which has had no evidence raised in support of it; none at all; that makes it a falsified hypothesis which has not only not helped us understand the natural world but has reduced our understanding.
Larry,
apropo Darwin’s hypothesis – one needs to be careful about it – Darwin, along with Charles Lyell and other 19th century Whigs, were on a mission to oust the tories out of government – Darwin’s effort was to explain biodiversity based on the presumption of Lyellian geological theories.
In any case we are getting off thread and I would take issue with Jennifer’s title – AGW is an hypothesis and has not yet reached the status of a scientific theory.
One aspect of this issue intrigues me -that so many feel compelled to accept this hypothesis as proven fact while a smaller group reject it suggests we are not dealing with science per se, but with a belief system couched in scientific jargon.
Scientific hypotheses are either falsified and sent to the dustbin, or are accepted as correct and then become engineering issues – in the case of AGW the starting premise is that human emission of CO2 into the atmosphere causes that atmosphere to increased in median temperature, (ie both minima and maxima temps need to have increased in concert with increased atmospheric CO2.
This has not been observed, and thus the hypothesis is falsified.
So what do the AGW do then? Come up with various ad hoc excuses for their belief failing the test and trying to find novelties from other lines of reasoning to support their initial assertion.
Very few “scientists” understand the scientific method – most are highly skilled technicians and engineers, and the profession that is deeply involved in the scientific method is mineral and petroleum exploration geology – for these people are daily involved in testing scientifically, and often unscientifically, based hypotheses.
It is extremely significant that most mining industry geologists reject the AGW hypothesis – while their academic peers tend to support it. Mineral exploration geologists are really engineers using empirically verified theories to find new mineral deposits and testing those theories by drilling. Unsuccessful geologists generally don’t stay in the mining business for very long. (there are exceptions in the academic peer group as there is in the industry group, and these are rare and when pro-AGW, those geologists tend to also support progressive or socialist tendencies).
The dearth of geological input into the IPCC process is significant when looked at in this context. It reminds me of the culture clash at University when I was compelled to do a couple of geography courses for my undergraduate degree. Even then the lack of scientific rigour in the geography department was palpable; they more more aligned with the wishy-washy feel good mindset of the humanities schools at university. And those schools are dominated by the progressives, socialists, liberals (in the US sense).
So my take on the AGW issue is that it is the logical outcome of the progressive education system the West has developed over time.
It’s basically Lysenkoist in character, hence the sectarian division behind the pro-AGW and con-AGW camps.
Larry,
apropo Darwin’s hypothesis – one needs to be careful about it – Darwin, along with Charles Lyell and other 19th century Whigs, were on a mission to oust the tories out of government – Darwin’s effort was to explain biodiversity based on the presumption of Lyellian geological theories.
In any case we are getting off thread and I would take issue with Jennifer’s title – AGW is an hypothesis and has not yet reached the status of a scientific theory.
One aspect of this issue intrigues me -that so many feel compelled to accept this hypothesis as proven fact while a smaller group reject it suggests we are not dealing with science per se, but with a belief system couched in scientific jargon.
Scientific hypotheses are either falsified and sent to the dustbin, or are accepted as correct and then become engineering issues – in the case of AGW the starting premise is that human emission of CO2 into the atmosphere causes that atmosphere to increased in median temperature, (ie both minima and maxima temps need to have increased in concert with increased atmospheric CO2.
This has not been observed, and thus the hypothesis is falsified.
So what do the AGW do then? Come up with various ad hoc excuses for their belief failing the test and trying to find novelties from other lines of reasoning to support their initial assertion.
Very few “scientists” understand the scientific method – most are highly skilled technicians and engineers, and the profession that is deeply involved in the scientific method is mineral and petroleum exploration geology – for these people are daily involved in testing scientifically, and often unscientifically, based hypotheses.
It is extremely significant that most mining industry geologists reject the AGW hypothesis – while their academic peers tend to support it. Mineral exploration geologists are really engineers using empirically verified theories to find new mineral deposits and testing those theories by drilling. Unsuccessful geologists generally don’t stay in the mining business for very long. (there are exceptions in the academic peer group as there is in the industry group, and these are rare and when pro-AGW, those geologists tend to also support progressive or socialist tendencies).
The dearth of geological input into the IPCC process is significant when looked at in this context. It reminds me of the culture clash at University when I was compelled to do a couple of geography courses for my undergraduate degree. Even then the lack of scientific rigour in the geography department was palpable; they more more aligned with the wishy-washy feel good mindset of the humanities schools at university. And those schools are dominated by the progressives, socialists, liberals (in the US sense).
So my take on the AGW issue is that it is the logical outcome of the progressive education system the West has developed over time.
It’s basically Lysenkoist in character, hence the sectarian division behind the pro-AGW and con-AGW camps.
RW: “So are relativity, quantum mechanics, evolution, and every single framework within which we understand the natural world.”
1. Relativity was a mind game of Einstein, and has serious technical problems.
2. Quantum mechanics “appears” to explain things but as it is involved in the sub-atomic domain, we cannot do experiments to test it, since all our tests are built (intellectually) supra-quantum.
3. Evolution – no one has demonstrated with physical evidence how a Cambrian trilobite evolved into,say, a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
Science is about explaining physical reality, not imaginal reality that AGW resides in.
That’s the difference between the sceptics and global warmers.
RW: “Science is “just” a theory, and the statement is banal and meaningless.”
No, your statement, quoted, is.
Science is not a theory but a human interpretation of physical reality.
You should consider the fact that some very experienced scientists read, and occasionally, post comments here.
SJT,
So is AGW an explanation for evolution, now, as well?
Why do AGW true believers always fall back on evolution as a reason to believe AGW?
Or does evolution cause AGW now?
Hint: No.
Yep I reckon it’s curtains for evolution – what kind of bizarre selection pressure would favour the survival of a Sinkers? How utterly improbable that such a lifeform could evolve?
“You should consider the fact that some very experienced scientists read, and occasionally, post comments here.” – and you’re definitely not one of them ….. hahahahahahahaha
Louis,
Evolution has nothing to do with AGW.
And Hogan has nothing to do with denying the holocaust.
But AGW true believers are nothing if not dissembling.
Michael hammer,
right on.
spangled drongo,
The world’s #2 economy is China, not Japan. Please Google “East Asia Forum” + “Ian Castles” and read my articles contesting the contrary view of Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of “The Australian.”
Ian Castles: “he world’s #2 economy is China, not Japan. Please Google “East Asia Forum” + “Ian Castles” and read my articles contesting the contrary view of Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of “The Australian.”’
Quite.
Ian Castles,
Did you read the article describing the UK in the Australian, Treason etc, today? I never realised that Jack Jones was a Comunuist, Julia Gillard should therefore be considered equally.
I expect to be euthanised for these improprieties; SJT or Luke would be the Gauleiters.
And Hogan has nothing to do with denying the holocaust.
from his Wiki entry:
Hogan has also espoused the idea that the Holocaust didn’t happen in the manner described by mainstream historians, writing that he finds the work of Arthur Butz and Mark Weber to be “more scholarly, scientific, and convincing than what the history written by the victors says.”[6]
he also thinks that HIV does not cause aids… basically he endorses about every theory on the fringe and beyond…
It is well known that there were serious concerns raised about climate change in the 1970s, although at that time the worry was about cooling and descent into a new Ice Age. However, attention soon turned instead to global warming.
actually this is NOT well known. bringing up the (FALSE!!!) iceage claim is casting massive doubt on the rest of this entry.
there was NOT a scientific consensus on an imminent Ice age in the 70s. it was a couple of articles in POPULAR science mags and other media, NOT in peer reviewed scientific journals.
scientists had figured out global warming even back then. the majority was looking for a warming world, no ice age. fact.
sod,
Wiki’s site is *about* him, not *by* him. Wiki is not dependable on a wide range of topics. I read Hogan’s website, as well his bibliography. I think letting the person speak for themselves is god enough.
And dissembling into the Holocaust or evolution does not make AGW less or more credible.
As to the 1970’s ice age, you can deny it- I expect nothing more from AGW believers.
AGW depends on distraction.
“RW; typical; where is it claimed “AGW is just a theory”?”
Did you not notice the title of the post?
“It is a hypothesis which has had no evidence raised in support of it; none at all”
The bizarre tactic of denying that there is any evidence is a bit mentally ill, don’t you think? We can talk all day about why you might believe the evidence to be inadequate or the conclusions drawn from it to be erroneous, but to deny that the evidence exists is just weird. Do you really want me to tell you what the evidence is? Are you really so ignorant that you don’t think there is any?
I agree with Louis that elevating AGW to theory-status is unjustified. AGW is more a vague conjecture, lacking even the structure of a hypothesis. Arrhenius believed that glass enclosures trapped infrared radiation, thus raising the temperature inside. He misunderstood that this effect was merely due to reduced convection. But his belief that radiative build-up was the cause has stood, indeed has proliferated, although the premise for his ‘hypothesis’ was wrong from the start.
Alan Siddons – I thought cohenite’s denialism was bizarre enough, but what you’ve just made up may even be weirder. Either you’re spectacularly ignorant of the science, or you just thought you could get away with slipping in some grotesque falsehoods. Or, you’re Sokaling.
cohenite wrote:
“Larry; I must disagree with your conclusion that neither evolution or id can be falsified; id has been well and truly falsified;
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover_decision.html”
I agree with the Kitzmiller decision. But what was falsified was the idea that Intelligent Design is a scientific statement. ID itself was NOT falsified, because from a scientific perspective, it’s MEANINGLESS. Why? Because it fails to satisfy ANY of my three criteria for scientific meaningfulness.
It cannot be cast into a testable hypothesis.
It has zero heuristic value (unlike Natural Selection).
It is not the form of a regularity that summarizes observable facts in the real world in a useful way (unlike the inverse-square law, which applies to gravitational and electrostatic attraction, inter alia).
If ID had passed even ONE of the three tests, I’d accept it as a meaningful scientific claim. It is NOT possible to falsify a meaningless statement. Just for fun, try to falsify Lewis Carrol’s famous poem, Jabberwocky.
The science game and the religion game (in this case, thinly veiled religion) have completely different rules. The religion game is based upon faith. In the science game, experiments and observations of the natural world are the coin of the realm. If we had commingled the two games, we’d still be living in mud huts. Constitutional issues aside, religion should not be taught in science classes.
cohenite also wrote:
“In respect of the tautology of SOTF and its usefulness as a descriptor of evolution IMO a more precise and technically correct term is differential rates of survival and reproduction; for instance, in a contest between fast breeding finches with small beaks and slow breeding finches with powerful beaks, both variations may survive but only one will have a superior adaptive fitness.”
In addition, evolution is entirely testable as shown by studies of microevolution dealing with the process of speciation which have been undertaken many times with cells, plants and fruit flies.”
Evolution is a FACT. It’s a fact that different species surface in the fossil record at different geologic times, and that in some cases, Nature has kindly preserved intermediate forms, like the archaeopteryx.
On the other hand, Darwin’s proposed MECHANISM for the fact of evolution is not especially falsifiable outside the specialty of epidemiology. Natural Selection is a dominant paradigm within the biological sciences. However jumping to the conclusion of Natural Selection from any observation about finches or fruit flies involves is a huge leap of faith. It is extremely difficult to devise an experiment that could falsify Natural Selection for multicellular organisms. What would we observe in the context of a particular species, if the individuals least fit for genetic survival were the ones who actually lived long and prospered in a genetic sense? It’s an oxymoron.
In California, the Saber-tooth Cat was supplanted by the less-well-endowed cougar many thousands of years ago. The skeletons of the former are very well preserved in the La Brea Tar Pits, which is a must-see for natural history buffs visiting Los Angeles. Anyway, we generally accept that big, sharp teeth are a desirable characteristic in carnivores. Does the demise of this particular feline falsify Natural Selection? Not by a long shot.
The essence of Darwin’s famous book could have been written on the back of an envelope. So what was he up to? He wanted to beat the concept of Natural Selection to death for the benefit of his thick-skulled contemporaries. And the travel adventure aspect appealed to a more general audience. Darwin wanted more than 15 minutes of fame. And he earned it.
Natural Selection is the most successful theory in all of the biological sciences. Example. Suppose that you’re interested in predicting the spread of Swine Flu in different human populations (ignoring the contribution of birds). Let’s apply Natural Selection. This is where your expression, “differential rates of survival and reproduction” comes into play.
In a densely populated urban area, mutations in the viral genome that promote rapid reproduction–at the expense of the host–will outbreed the earlier, less virulent strains, because the host would become infectious earlier. We’d expect to see the opposite pattern in sparsely populated rural areas. Rapid viral replication could kill the off the host before he had a chance to infect other humans. From the perspective of the virus, that would be pissing in the soup.
That said, Natural Selection is essentially a starting point–like a postulate in plane geometry–rather than an end point. When studying plant and animal communities, we’re always interested in how our subjects adapt to their environments. The flowery descriptions and beautiful line drawings of newly discovered species–by themselves–aren’t as newsworthy as they were in the early 19th Century.
The Fundamentalist claim of tautology does have some validity. My response to the Fundamentalists: So what? Natural Selection is not a MERE tautology. The tautological aspect does not invalidate the tremendous scientific usefulness of the concept.
RW;
“Did you not notice the title of the post?”
Do you not know the meaning of irony?
“Do you really want me to tell you what the evidence is? Are you really so ignorant that you don’t think there is any?”
Well, yes, RW, I would like you to point to one bit of evidence of AGW which you think is sufficient to elevate AGW to a theory; not being able to find evidence is not proof of ignorance; for my part when I first started to look at this issue I can remember thinking when I saw the Mauna Loa CO2 record that it was all over, there was the smoking gun; of course it wasn’t a smoking gun; it wasn’t even a cap gun; it was just a measurement of a CO2 trend; a record not witout its own controversy but even if accurate actually works against AGW because for most of the 20thC and 21stC the correlation between CO2 movements and temperature trends is extremely poor with much better fits from natural factors especially PDO. That being the case I turned to the alleged transient climate responses; the THS, cooling stratosphere, increasing water vapor, etc, which AGW predicted; no luck there; so, yes, I would like you to point out some of this evidence to support AGW.
I suppose if we find a fossil primate housed in wandDevonian strata, we would have reason to question Darwin’s theory. I recall in geology class back in the dark ages, we were taught the continents did not wander about all over the globe. Then in the 1960s new data proved that theory false. My question to the proponents of AGW theory, what would it take to consider the theory falsified?
Oh, sure, Larry, I generally agree with what you say; but I think you can become bogged down with semantics as tends to happen when evitably any discussion about id turns to the anthropic principle or why the universe so well suited for humans; Douglas Adams summed up this tautology best when he spoke of the puddle which cannot fathom why the depression in which it finds itself is so mysteriously suited to its existence.
Wow, RW, you’re quite a vicious prick, aren’t you? Arrhenius believed that glass was IMPERMEABLE to infrared, thus that it got trapped inside a greenhouse and somehow made the temperature rise. He also believed that CO2 had the same property. But glass and CO2 ABSORB and EMIT infrared, they do not repel it. That was a fundamental mistake, the second of which was to misinterpret heated air inside a glass enclosure as a sign of trapped IR. In other words, he completely misconstrued how a greenhouse gets warm and did the same with the atmosphere. Hell, Arrhenius even believed that a cotton wad suppresses the exit of “dark rays,” making it good for keeping something warm. He confused convection with radiation every step of the way.
Sod,
Quoting Wikipedia when it involves character assassinations is not a useful thing to do, given that global warming entries are censored.
Luke,
Getting a bit vicious as well, well, well, keep it up – it shows the fence sitters here how utterly abject and tragic your position is becoming. I wonder what we could do to have you completely off the deep end.
Alan Siddons:
“I agree with Louis that elevating AGW to theory-status is unjustified. AGW is more a vague conjecture, lacking even the structure of a hypothesis. Arrhenius believed that glass enclosures trapped infrared radiation, thus raising the temperature inside. He misunderstood that this effect was merely due to reduced convection. But his belief that radiative build-up was the cause has stood, indeed has proliferated, although the premise for his ‘hypothesis’ was wrong from the start.”
FWIW, I also support that statement completely. The AGW hypothesis is an example of an extremely weak “science,” due to the lack of any real empirical evidence for it. It’s entire support comes from only 3 general factual statements that may or may not be related: (1) there has been an overall sporadic gradual warming since the LIA; (2) CO2 levels and population have increased since the late 19th century; (3) CO2 absorbs and emits IR. Because we don’t know what caused all the other past warming and cooling periods, we cannot be certain what is causing this one. The current strong cooling trend suggests that there is certainly some other variable that is more powerful than the effects of AGW.
If Einstein were around, he would undoubtedly cite Mark Twain and get a big chuckle about all the “conclusions” that have been made on the basis of these three simple facts.
Willimc: Unfortunately we now know the continents don’t move about as believed by the plate tectonists – there are too many inconsistencies in the theory, apart from the lack of a viable mechanism to move the plates in the first place. One of the problems is the poor representation of the ocean floors – surveying done by the US Navy over the years produces quite a different picture – see papers published by Smoot and Leybourne. I also suggest Tommy Gold’s article on science published in 1989 in the Journal of Scientific Exploration and reproduced as lead article of the AIG News which can be read at http://www.aig.org.au. Gold made one error in proposing the fiction of neutron stars, but his ideas on oil and hearing are well founded.
When viewed in that light AGW becomes a secular belief. What is interesting is how the political left have so completely embraced it – I suppose it’s their Platonist philosophical position that determines their obvious gullibility and susceptibility to facts determined by dialectics rather than by evidence. It’s the herd instinct at its worst.
Evolution has one interesting problem called the chicken and egg dilemma – which came first? There is also a species of wasp that lays it’s eggs in a poisonous spider – evolution cannot explain that either as Lyall Watson pointed out.
Alan Siddons – you’re quite a dopy twat, aren’t you? You can’t expect to make stuff up and get away with it. You’re making stuff up, it’s getting increasingly bizarre and probably even Louis isn’t fooled.
cohenite – nice try with the irony claim. Clearly you don’t understand the difference between disagreeing with the evidence, and there being no evidence. You are experiencing the former, and somehow imagining the latter. Eh well, it’s rather difficult to believe you really need this, but here’s the evidence for you…:
Exhibit A: Carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared radiation. Infrared absorption by gases in the atmosphere makes the surface of the earth warmer than it would be if there were no atmosphere.
Exhibit B: The concentration of CO2 has increased by 40% since 1800, due to fossil fuel burning
That’s it. That’s all you need. Any rational person with a basic science education could look at these two facts and see the spectacularly obvious. Apparently you can’t. Apparently you are so confused by these simple things that all you can do is pretend they don’t exist.
For your consideration, Jae, let me add three more points.
1. Since other air molecules do NOT absorb IR, the IR that CO2 emits can NOT heat them!
2. To the extent that an air mass consisting of CO2 molecules IS radiatively heated, that air mass will naturally rise, carrying heat away from the earth’s surface and displacing colder air earthward.
3. Since CO2 derives its radiative energy from the IR emitted by the earth’s surface, it is physically impossible for CO2’s IR to heat the surface. This would defy the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics, for thermal energy cannot by created by recycling it (no more than the output of a battery can be used as an input to recharge it) and a cooler body cannot transfer heat to a warmer body.
In short, the IR that CO2 emits can neither heat surrounding air molecules nor add heat to the heat-source, i.e., the earth’s surface. The greenhouse model is flat wrong.
RW, I agree with Alan Siddon’s point – and add one inconvenient fact – the hitherto role electricity plays the behaviour of the Earth’s surface and it’s connection to space. A good summary has been put on the latest TPOD http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm –
The Earth is cooling because the electrical energy reaching it from the galaxy has reduced in power – the variation in the Solar luminosity, obviously incapable of explain the observed weather and hence climate, is an effect as well – what science has not cottoned onto is the electrical nature of the solar system and universe. The Earth’s temperature has really nothing to do with the amount of CO2 in its atmosphere.
And if you increase the amount of CO2 into the atmosphere, the temperature loss has to be greater because CO2 loses energy by Brownian motion AND radiation. SO more CO2 should cause cooling. Strange that high levels of CO2 during the geological past have been associated with ice ages.
You don’t think we have the CO2 thing back to front do you ?
From Worlds in the Making: The Evolution of the Universe (1906), by Svante Arrhenius
“…The heat rays of the sun now are to a large extent of the visible, bright kind. They penetrate through the glass of the hot-house and heat the earth under the glass. The radiation from the earth, on the other hand, is dark and CANNOT PASS BACK THROUGH THE GLASS, which THUS stops any losses of heat, just as AN OVERCOAT PROTECTS THE BODY AGAINST TOO STRONG A LOSS OF HEAT BY RADIATION. Langley made an experiment with a box, which he PACKED WITH COTTON-WOOL TO REDUCE LOSS BY RADIATION…
“Fourier and Pouillet now thought that the atmosphere of our earth should be endowed with properties resembling those of glass, as regards PERMEABILITY OF HEAT. …we have been supplied with very careful observations on the PERMEABILITY TO HEAT OF CARBONIC ACID and of water vapor.”
As you see, Arrhenius consistently confused convective loss with radiative loss. A glass box, a coat, a wad of cotton, all reduce the cooling effect of moving air. They do not and cannot trap IR like wind in a bottle.
Oddly, the word opaque can mean one of two things: Impermeable (resistant, reflective, impenetrable) or its opposite, absorptive. In spectroscopy, opaque denotes the latter, which Arrhenius was apparently never aware of. And in spectroscopy, an absorptive sample is also an emissive sample. Thus CO2 doesn’t TRANSMIT IR; being opaque, it radiates IR instead. In other words, the same amount of radiant energy goes out as what goes in. It just takes a different route. But this kind of confusion has given birth to a monstrously irrational theory. Just look at its adherents.
Alan, you are a marvel – but remember we are not dealing with people who make conclusions from evidence, but from rhetoric. Now let’s wait for Luke to add some spleen to the repartee.
AS “As you see, Arrhenius consistently confused convective loss with radiative loss. A glass box, a coat, a wad of cotton, all reduce the cooling effect of moving air. They do not and cannot trap IR like wind in a bottle.”
Just goes to show that good chemists (I think Arrhenius was a good chemist) do not necessarily make good physicists. I would class an appeal to Arrhenius authority as a Nobel laureate and appeal to false authority :- a logical fallacy.
One great flaw in the approach of the ETS to solving the AGW problem is that it assumes that the global climate is a simple system.
The accelerator of a car is a good example of a simple system. As you press the pedal down, the car goes faster, as you lift the pedal up, the car goes slower.
And the proponents of the ETS, and all other CO2 reducing strategies are assuming that the global climate behaves like a simple system, that is, you put more CO2 in, the temperature goes up. You put less CO2 in, the temperature goes down. This is known as an intuitive approach.
But complex systems do not behave this way. A brief review of systems theory will show this.
There is no real evidence to show that reducing CO2 output will slow temperature rise. It may seem like that is logical, but it is actually an intuitive approach. And systems theory shows that in almost every case, the intuitive approach to solving a complex problem is acting in exactly the wrong direction.
I think that there needs to be a lot more work done on how to slow temperature rise before we rush into an intuitive solution that will probably do more harm than good.
RW, the fact that over the recent past, CO2 levels in the atmosphere have increased, and that average global atmospheric temperature has increased may show a high level of correlation. But correlation does not prove causation.
That is, the fact that CO2 has risen, and temperature has risen, does not prove that CO2 increase has caused temperature increase. It may just as well prove that temperature increase has caused CO2 increase. Or it may prove neither. Because this discussion involves only two variables, whereas there are actually thousands of variables affecting global climate and atmospheric temperature.
And similarly, it may be that examining only two variables at a time, for example solar activity and temperature, is also equally invalid.
Because each of these analyses treats the earth’s climate as a simple system. Which of course it is not.
To illustrate what I mean. We know that the great majority of people die in their sleep. Two variables, sleep and death. High correlation between the two variables.
Can we conclude that sleep causes death?
You decide for yourself, because this is the same intuitive logic that you have used to conclude that increasing CO2 causes increase in global atmospheric temperature.
Nice try, RW.
“Exhibit A: Carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared radiation. Infrared absorption by gases in the atmosphere makes the surface of the earth warmer than it would be if there were no atmosphere.
Exhibit B: The concentration of CO2 has increased by 40% since 1800, due to fossil fuel burning”
Problem with exhibit A is that there are other infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere. Notably water vapour in overwhelming quantity. So to make Exhibit A stand up you need to do the maths on the relative contributions. Also for oxides of nitrogen which are made in large quantities by lightning.
Exhibit B may also not be as certain as you think. If the oceans are warming as the AGW crowd say, then CO2 will come out of solution.
Next problem: Can you relate any temperature rise from say 1800 to 1850 to any warming that went on in the same period? Don’t forget when you derive this that you’re stuck with the relationship for the rest of the time until the present. The problem is you don’t have enough good data for the period in question. In fact there’s very little good data on the warming except historical anecdotes showing that in the period prior to 1800 the world was in or coming out of the little ice age which was preceded by a warmer period. So why did it get cold? Why was it warmer before that?
So instead of:
“That’s it. That’s all you need. Any rational person with a basic science education could look at these two facts and see the spectacularly obvious. Apparently you can’t. Apparently you are so confused by these simple things that all you can do is pretend they don’t exist.”
We should fix that statement for you to read: “Any naive person, operating clearly beyond their level of competence and educational attainment, by ignoring all other facts, can jump to the unjustified conclusion that these two facts are related.”
Pretty much describes the whole AGW business and its proponents.
Now run along.
RW; noone denies CO2 is photoluminescent, but it absorbs IR at primarily around 15mu; there is only a certain amount of IR at that wavelength so the amount of CO2 required to absorb most of the IR is about 20ppm with an asymptopic logarithmic decline for every additional ppm of CO2;
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0115707ce438970b-pi
Your first point therefore is superflous.
Noone is also denying that there is a greenhouse effect on Earth; the temperature of the Earth is more than it would be if there were no atmosphere; if there were no atmosphere the Tave would be ~255K; with an atmosphere it is ~288K, a difference of ~33K. But the CO2 contribution to this 33K cannot be anymore than 6-8K because of the above point; the rest of the 33K Teff must come from atmospheric pressure itself, unless of course you are prepared to argue that the pressure of the atmosphere cannot contribute to the temperature of the surface and its own gas molecules?
Your second point therefore is at best partial and inadequate.
Thirdly noone is denying there appears to have been an increase in CO2 levels since 1800; 2 issues flow from this which AGW has not satisfactorily proved; the first is how much of that CO2 increase is from anthropogenic sources; and secondly, is there any correlation between the increase in CO2 and temperature; and as a corrollary to that 2nd point and referring to my earlier comment about transient climate responses, has there been any predicted phenomenological effect from the increase in CO2?
Your 3rd point therefore is irrelevant.
RW; you gave two peices of evidence as proof of dangerous AGW – CO2 is a greenhouse gas and it is rising in concentration. Let me give a an analogy you will probably find extreme to illustrate the problem with what you stated
Exhibit A burning paper releases heat – beyond any possible dispute
Exhibit B releasing heat will warm a cold room – also beyond any possible dispute
conclusion – buring one sheet of paper in a cold room will warm it. Accurate? In a scientific sense yes but the significant question is – by how much. For a lay person the real answer is no it won’t warm the room SIGNIFICANTLY.
So what you say, I am just trying to be a smartalec. Not quite because this is a precursor to a very serious and sincere question. I know about the two points you mentioned earlier and I know about model predictions. I also know a bit about radiative processes in the atmosphere and about feedback systems (after all I wrote an article on exactly that back in march on Jennifers site). What I don’t know about is any proof or even strong evidence first that the rise in CO2 is due to man (the claim that we don’t know of any other credible cause is not evidence) and secondly that rising CO2 will cause SIGINIFICANT or dangerous global warming.
I would genuinely like to know of such evidence if it exists because I have at least three problems. My first problem is that when I do the quantitative calculations I find that rising CO2 does cause some warming but it is not significant. Secondly when I look at the temperature record be it at one location (eg: Victoria) or the raw global temperature data published by NOAA I find no underlying monotonic global warming at all. More specifically, I find that the claimed global warming is an artifact of the corrections applied to the data (I hope to publish this data very shortly on Jennifers site). If I then go the satellite data published by UAH it also shows no monotonic global warming trend. Of course this is only since 1979 but that is the period where the AGW proponents claim the AGW effect is strongest. Third, when I analyse the temperature projection claims made by the AGW proponents 0.6C since about 1950 and a further 3C by 2070 I find these are not consistent with the causation claimed by AGW proponents unless one assumes that positive feedback from water vapour is at a thermal runaway level – e: the climate runs away until the oceans boil even without any external forcing at all. A clearly absurd assumption (I have posted this analysis on Jennifer’s site).
I feel I have (and still am) put my evidence up for others to scrutinise and criticise and I am trying to be an open and honest contributor to the debate. Please put your evidence up so I can consider it.
So many naked apes talking on the line. Philosophising on the intertubes – so for something that doesn’t rate as a theory why are you all still here under the banyan tree.
The problem is that any single instantiation of a GCM run can have a periodic of stasis or cooling. But if you don’t talk to people you won’t find that out.
What’s remarkable is that MH is search of AGW can’t find it – yet agriculturalists have been tripping across it in their data for decades. I wonder why?
In the meantime Coho – chill out …
The Church are good but I get my kicks on channel six.
“Noone is also denying that there is a greenhouse effect on Earth; the temperature of the Earth is more than it would be if there were no atmosphere; if there were no atmosphere the Tave would be ~255K; with an atmosphere it is ~288K, a difference of ~33K. But the CO2 contribution to this 33K cannot be anymore than 6-8K because of the above point; the rest of the 33K Teff must come from atmospheric pressure itself, unless of course you are prepared to argue that the pressure of the atmosphere cannot contribute to the temperature of the surface and its own gas molecules?”
Will we tell Jennifer, no more G&T?
Well Luke we shall find out soon enough, if the doom&gloom predictions are right.
China and Japan said, they “WILL NOT” take part in any reduction of CO2.
I wonder, are the Chinese scientist under political pressure, or they are just inferior to Hansen and Co.?
“What I don’t know about is any proof or even strong evidence first that the rise in CO2 is due to man (the claim that we don’t know of any other credible cause is not evidence) and secondly that rising CO2 will cause SIGINIFICANT or dangerous global warming.
I would genuinely like to know of such evidence if it exists because I have at least three problems. ”
Have you read the IPCC report yet?
“China and Japan said, they “WILL NOT” take part in any reduction of CO2.
I wonder, are the Chinese scientist under political pressure, or they are just inferior to Hansen and Co.?”
False dichotomy.
Comment from: SJT June 13th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“Have you read the IPCC report yet?”
You sound like a worn out old vinyl record, stuck in one groove.
Have You read it in its entirety yourself sjt?
If so, why don’t just quote the relevant passage every time you ask this!?
One of the most glaring deficiencies of the IPCC reports is their insistence that clouds and water generally are a +ve feedback to CO2 heating [sic]; this has always been dubious if for no other reason then the IPCC reports themselves admit to a high degree of uncertainty in respect of the effect of clouds [see ES, AR4, p132]. There is now a growing body of evidence that clouds are a powerful temperature moderator, that is a persistent -ve feedback to any temperature trend; for the most recent analysis see;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/12/suggestions-of-strong-negative-cloud-feedbacks-in-a-warmer-climate/#more-8407
Really SJT – I have to disagree. If there were no atmosphere (lets assume by some miracle there were still oceans for the moment) there would be no clouds so the earth would not have an albedo of 0.3 and would not reflect 100 watts/sqM back out to space. In that case the insolation would be more like 340 watts/sqM not 240 watt/sqM and the resultant temperature would not be 255K but about 280K so the nett greenhouse effect is more like 8K. You have ignored feedback mechanisms because it suits the argument to do so. But feedback mechanisms and lack of understanding of them is at the heart of this issue.
Luke, you say I am searching for AGW evidence and cant find it yet agriculturalists have been tripping over it for years. Such talk is easy but means nothing. Show me the evidence. If you believe in AGW as you clearly do you must have some evidential basis for that belief. Tell me what you believe the evidence to be. Don’t point to half a dozen websites and say in effect “go read”. Tell me in your own words exactly what evidence you know of. If you can’t do that then ask yourself what are your views based on? Blind belief? I have read your posts now for a considerable time yet I have not once seen you state in your own words what evidence you base your views on, all I read is invective against others who do state the basis of their belief. Do you really think this is how science is advanced?
“China and Japan said, they “WILL NOT” take part in any reduction of CO2″
Who sez!?!
Why then is china ponying up to 30 billion on renewables (guardian front page report this week).
But back to the title of this thread.
If AGW is JUST a theory then what does that make denialism……?
Cohenite,
“The Church are good but I get my kicks on channel six”
Great comment but I have to confess I didn’t understand it at all (BTW C, what d’y think of the carpetbaggers at the Hunter Chamber of commerce forum the other day, out to destroy Newcastle or what).
Mike Hammer, re Luke
“I have read your posts now for a considerable time yet I have not once seen you state in your own words what evidence you base your views on, all I read is invective against others who do state the basis of their belief. ”
We should add SJT and a few others to this list of AGW proponents who can’t explain in their own words, the basis of their belief. It smacks much like arguing with door-knockers who know chapter and verse of their litany but at the same time not understanding one iota of the litany being quoted.
What is important to understand is the fact that AGW seems to depend on reasoned argument for its verity rather than by compulsion of empirical fact. That Luke and others seem not to understand this important distinction is the real worry.
jeremyc
keep up with the news!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6481997.ece
jeremyc,
Why then is china ponying up to 30 billion on renewables? (sic)
——-
because the Chinese are smart businessmen. Build and gain experience in building and producing the stuff, and export it to the gullible west at great profit!
Comment from: SJT June 12th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
“No one has ever claimed that. There are several important climate forcings, research has revealed that CO2 is the dominant one at present. No doubt, other forcings will dominate in the distant future.”
and
Comment from: SJT June 13th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
“Have you read the IPCC report yet?”
If you have read it yourself, you will have noticed the graph of radiative forcings: total anthropogenic forcings, about 2.4 W/m^2. Understanding, high. Now look at the aerosol component alone of cooling forcings: minus… well, go and look at the graph. Understanding of cooling — low.
Don’t just read it, old chap. Try to understand why those figures are important and why people wonder what the fuss is all about.
If you’d like to read more widely, have a look at the NASA albedo figures and work out how much they contribute to… oh, look, cooling. What level of scientific understanding would you put on the albedo graphs from NASA?
JF
Well MH given you ask:
For starters the evidence isn’t perfect – and why one think it would be – you’d have to detect a signal of departure emerging from a fog of interannual, decadal and quasi-decadal variation. So you’d expect the effect to be somewhat patchy and counterintuitive as regional climate systems and circulations will be moved around.
The simplest analysis I’ve seen in a PC analysis of the Hadley NMAT and SST data sets going back to the 1800s. So we leave out the problematic land surface record for a moment.
Both analyses reveal a very strong PC1 which is the upwards centennial signal – not the PDO – PC2 looks very like the AMO and PC3 resembles the PDO.
Of course there are lots of other data sets such as the land surface records, glaciers and very interestingly the Nature paper documenting a huge number of species behaviour, range and breeding cycle changes.
In the cropping zone noticed by wheat plant breeders a centennial trend in data of last frost and number of frosts in the northern Qld/NSW summer cropping zone.
For those using seasonal forecasts – a spoiler in a warming Indian Ocean. A bunching of El Ninos. But more concerning a trend in the Walker circulation.
Locally a rapidly warming Tasman Sea, and warming EAC and Western Australian currents affecting coral (Lough)
Reduced quasi-decadal variability of the 20th century vis a vis the 19th century.
A change in the sign of Indian Ocean Dipole events.
Change in the strength of the sub-tropical ridge.
An interaction with greenhouse and stratospheric ozone in the Southern Annular Mode.
GCM runs tying up some of these effects (some) on the reduction in SW WA and Victorian Murray droughts. (that’s not ALL the MDB!)
GCM runs putting some the SAM effects as shear forces limiting tropical cyclone formation in the Coral sea.
Global studies showing a possible spread of sub-tropical drought using the Palmer index.
Increasing hurricane/tropical cyclone/typhoon peak intensity and storm duration. With fewer storm numbers overall.
Reading Brian Fagan’s book, The Great Warming, about the last serious warming showing mega-droughts in Africa, Americas and China.
I think we have a reasonable theory of greenhouse to explain many of these changes (not withstanding the usual prime sceptic positions) but a weak explanation for a contemporary solar explanation.
Dire predictions, end of the world, etc – well probably not but we’re probably in uncharted territory.
ETS schemes etc – yep need to be very careful not to take our economies down in the process. So I’m no zealot. But why tie the climate science and an ETS closely together?
It comes down to risk management. For Australians involved in agriculture climate isn’t “optional” – it’s an ongoing challenge.
Indeed moving a situation with dryland cropping from 3 years make money, 4 years break even , 3 years lose to one more lose year – can be the threshold of viability.
And it’s hilarious to see the usual goons here philosophising so deeply about the “nature of the science process” and so forth when they have no knowledge of that science nor the motivations of the huge number of not-famous personalities that carry out the current climate science work (i.e. NOT Tim Flannery, Al Gore or James Hansen). It’s simply pretentious.
Sceptics need to find a better way. If they’re genuine and not just on some anti-green political aside.
You asked …
(BTW nuclear as an option – yep need to revisit (soon))
It pains me to say Sinkers that for a bloke who might know a few things about matters geological you’re a pretentious dopey old git when it comes to other sciences. I’ve never seen anything from you other than philosophical twaddle and semi-political sledging.
Marcus,
You’re right!
Bugger!
Luke – “It pains me to say Sinkers that for a bloke who might know a few things about matters geological you’re a pretentious dopey old git when it comes to other sciences. I’ve never seen anything from you other than philosophical twaddle and semi-political sledging.”
Ad Hom after ad hom. I haven’t opined on other sciences unless those impact on geology – which you now admit I might have some expertise in. But be warned – exploration geology requires a good understanding of chemistry and physics (in terms of “geophysics”), so as a professional geologist I might be considered as a more thoughtful scientist than those supporting your agenda.
In any case your resort to ad hominems is essentially an admission of defeat. The problem then is one of working out non violent ways of convincing the village idiots of this.
Luke,
All we have read are your lame plagiarisms.
Alan Siddons – looks like you misunderstood what Arrhenius wrote. Also looks like you somehow believe that somehow, all of atmospheric physics relies on what Arrhenius wrote in a popular book, and if Arrhenius made a poor analogy, then that means all of atmospheric physics is wrong. Your position is idiotic.
cohenite – if you think atmospheric pressure itself is causing 80% of the greenhouse effect, you seriously need to take some basic physics lessons.
Eyrie:
“Problem with exhibit A is that there are other infrared absorbing gases in the atmosphere. Notably water vapour in overwhelming quantity. So to make Exhibit A stand up you need to do the maths on the relative contributions”
Presumably, then, you had no idea that this has been done. Ever heard of MODTRAN, for example?
“Exhibit B may also not be as certain as you think. If the oceans are warming as the AGW crowd say, then CO2 will come out of solution.”
Do you know how much it would have to warm for outgassing to increase CO2 concentrations by 40%? Obviously not.
Michael Hammer:
“RW; you gave two peices of evidence as proof of dangerous AGW”
No, I gave two piece of evidence that humans could affect the climate. That was what was requested, and that’s what I gave. By suddenly dropping in the words ‘proof’ and ‘dangerous’, you are either straightforwardly attempting to misrepresent me, or you just didn’t read the comments properly.
“What I don’t know about is any proof or even strong evidence first that the rise in CO2 is due to man”
I can’t really believe this is a sincere question because the answer is so well known that it’s almost impossible not to be aware of it, if you have the slightest interest in climate issues. Well, again, it’s very simple, and here’s the evidence:
Exhibit A: Atmospheric CO2 contains more 13C than fossil fuel CO2.
Exhibit B: The 13C content of atmospheric CO2 began dropping sharply just when fossil fuel burning began to increase.
“and secondly that rising CO2 will cause SIGINIFICANT or dangerous global warming.”
Well it would be astonishing if you really, genuinely, were not aware of the evidence for this. Have you read the IPCC reports? I guess we have to presume not. Well, here’s a little toy calculation for you. Greenhouse effect = 33°C. CO2 contributes about 10% of that. So, double CO2 and the temperature rise will be about 3.3°C. If you do the calculations with actual physics, you get an answer more like 1.2°C. Global temperatures typically vary by up to 0.5°C between years, so yes, 1.2°C is significant.
“My first problem is that when I do the quantitative calculations I find that rising CO2 does cause some warming but it is not significant.”
First, this comment is meaningless if you don’t define what you mean by significant. Second, how are you doing the calculations, exactly?
“Secondly when I look at the temperature record be it at one location (eg: Victoria) or the raw global temperature data published by NOAA I find no underlying monotonic global warming at all.”
By definition, you can’t see global warming by looking at one location alone. As for NOAA, are you seriously telling me you can’t see global warming in this?
“If I then go the satellite data published by UAH it also shows no monotonic global warming trend”
Which data are you looking at? The UAH data that I look at reports a positive trend of 0.15°C per decade.
“Third, when I analyse the temperature projection claims made by the AGW proponents 0.6C since about 1950 and a further 3C by 2070 I find these are not consistent with the causation claimed by AGW proponents unless one assumes that positive feedback from water vapour is at a thermal runaway level”
This is not borne out by any published study that I am aware of. Have you published your study? If so, where? If not, why not?
JC; I don’t know anything about the Carbetbaggers’ event; usually I get invitations but it must have gone astray.
Channel six;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWuAc4pnYFc
luke; you’ve always disliked the PDO; a little piece soon to be published on the PDO might refurrow that botoxed brow.
Louis,
“the village idiots”
Is this what you mean by an Ad Hom??????
Luke the IOD had a positive or neutral phase from 1880 to 1905 according to the UNSW, or 25 years. The IOD has been in a positive or neutral phase from 1992 or 17 years with a forecast of a negative phase by the end of this year. (let’s hope)
The negative phases compare favourably from the mid 1940s as do the positive phases so you really have the IOD signal wrong.
“One of the most glaring deficiencies of the IPCC reports is their insistence that clouds and water generally are a +ve feedback to CO2 heating [sic]; this has always been dubious if for no other reason then the IPCC reports themselves admit to a high degree of uncertainty in respect of the effect of clouds [see ES, AR4, p132]. There is now a growing body of evidence that clouds are a powerful temperature moderator, that is a persistent -ve feedback to any temperature trend; for the most recent analysis see;”
It amazes me that you think they are so stupid that they don’t consider all these factors already. The best and brightest minds should be adding a blog to their course curriculums.
H20 is a powerful greenhouse gas, that’s how we get most of the greenhouse effect, and we get it already despite those clouds. How come they haven’t already held the temperature down below the current level? Clouds are already known to have a negative feedback effect.
Luke, it is so much nicer to have a discussion with someone who is not always screaming inanities. I will not refute your evidence point by point as it is an exercise in futility. It is relatively easy to find a countervailing peer reviewed paper for each point, but that is the scientific process at its best. No view is unsupported or at least studied.
My own observation of your views is that it is one that falls into the category of the “precautionary principle (PP).” But this principle is based upon accepting some validity in the alarmists projections/predictions. To compound the issues, many skeptics are driven also by the PP by similar alarmist predictions, but mostly in their economic and negative life style impacts .
I have observed another foundational concept to the AGW movement that is not reflected in your immediate statement. That concept can be phrased: “Man is a parasite on this planet, and we must eliminate its negative impact.” From this we can go many directions, none of which is good for mankind. I am sure there are other foundational pillars, some based upon science, but they are not as obvious to me at this point.
So my conclusion is that both sides of the AGW issues are driven by the PP, but in different areas. Unique to many in the pro-AGW argument is a seeming hatred of mankind.
My own views on the subject of this article is that AGW is a poorly written hypothesis that actually has been falsified many time over. Since it has not died it must have morphed into a belief structure, and then we’ve gone full circle into that hatred of mankind again.
Jeremy C: ““the village idiots”
Is this what you mean by an Ad Hom??????”
No, just one of the many dopey phrased comments, posted here by the VI’s
RW
what earthly significance can a 30 year or even a 100 year trend have in a system with 100,000 year cycles rather than those pictures you show you should be looking at this then perhaps you might understand what is meant by “significant”.
Louis,
“posted here by the VI’s”
Ohhhhh, so this is an Ad Hom…….
“I have observed another foundational concept to the AGW movement that is not reflected in your immediate statement. That concept can be phrased: “Man is a parasite on this planet, and we must eliminate its negative impact.” From this we can go many directions, none of which is good for mankind.”
Perhaps you can point me to the section of the IPCC report that makes that claim?
For some reason you assume that mankind can do nothing negative to mankind. An endless history of warfare suggests otherwise.
Jeremy C,
No, just a statement of fact.
CoRev,
“Unique to many in the pro-AGW argument is a seeming hatred of mankind.”
Evidence dear boy, evidence.
“My own views on the subject of this article is that AGW is a poorly written hypothesis that actually has been falsified many time over. Since it has not died it must have morphed into a belief structure, and then we’ve gone full circle into that hatred of mankind again.”
Amazing! You create your own little circular argument, an example of a belief system at work. No evidence needed, no arguing from logic, just prouncements, ex cathedra.
Now lookee Louis,
Do they live in villages and have they been certified?
SJT: “For some reason you assume that mankind can do nothing negative to mankind. An endless history of warfare suggests otherwise.”
The last wars were waged by the socialists – any comment?
SJT,
The IPCC takes clouds into account, and then punts:
http://mc-computing.com/qs/Global_Warming/IPCC.html
Look, AGW has been and is, about social power, not climate science.
Climate science is the tool.
Power is the point.
Fallacy is the engine.
Scientist are no more immune to getting caught up in bad ideas than are economists or politicians.
The idea that we are experiencing a crisis that is ‘worse than predicted’ is really bad.
Pierrehumberts climate book.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateVol1.pdf
Page 7. sections 1.2
“Greenhouse gases are largely invisible, but the atmosphere also holds a readily visible component that exerts a profound influence over our planet’s energy balance – the clouds. Clouds on Earth are composed of suspended droplets of condensed water, in the form of liquid or ice. Clouds, like water vapor, act as a short-lived greenhouse gas affecting the rate at which infrared can escape to space. The infrared opacity of clouds is used routinely in weather satellites, since this property makes cloud patterns visible from space even on the night side of the Earth. However, clouds affect the other side of the energy balance as well, because cloud particles quite effectively reflect sunlight back to space. The two competing effects of clouds are individually large, but partly offset each
other, so that small errors in one or the other term lead to large errors in the net effect of clouds
on climate. Moreover, the effect of clouds on the energy budget depends on all the intricacies”
Looks like Anthony Watts should be looking up what the actual state of climate knowledge is before making assumptions about what they do and don’t take into consideration. This is nothing new, it’s only new to Watts and others who believe him.
Neville – I think we’ve been over your selective misreading of the IOD definitions before. Definitions. Detail. Different papers.
Well Sinkers if you are skilled in chemistry and physics you certainly have never shown it. As for plagiarisms – no – that’s direct quotes and attributing the work to yourself. But then being the pretentious codger that you are – you wouldn’t have even perused any of the material in any case to know that. Neville on the other hand has managed a response on the issue which you never have.
“what earthly significance can a 30 year or even a 100 year trend have in a system with 100,000 year cycles rather than those pictures you show you should be looking at this then perhaps you might understand what is meant by “significant”.”
How about the earthly significance that my, and just about everyone’s, lifetime covers an 80 year period not a 100,000 year period.
RW; you have hit on the most interesting AGW marker, namely isotope parameters; the argument that the increase in CO2 is due to ACO2 is based on the declining ratio of C13 in the atmosphere; Fig 9 of the Ghosh and Brand paper sums this up;
http://www.bgc.mpg.de/service/iso_gas_lab/publications/PG_WB_IJMS.pdf
Please note the disclaimers in the paper; in addition, a major problem for the C13 thesis is as follows;
Fig 7.3, on p515 of AR4 lists the annual CO2 flux which show an upward movement of 218.2 Gt of which the ACO2 amount is 8Gt, or 3.67%; DOE , Table 3 shows a somewhat smaller amount of 2.91% for ACO2, but for argument’s sake let’s say the ACO2 is ~3.67% of the annual CO2 surface to atmosphere flux. DOE Table 3 also shows that 98.5% of the upward flux is reabsorbed, leaving ~1.5% of total upward CO2 to accumulate; if we momentarily ignore the isotopic issue then the amount of ACO2 present after one year would be 1.5/100 x 3.67/100 = 0.000552; which is to say a ACO2 molecule would have a 1 chance in 1811.594203 of remaining in the atmosphere after 1 year; after 2 years that ACO2 molecule would have 1 chance in 120772.9469 of still being in the atmosphere; and so on.
In respect of the C13 isotopic proof that ACO2 is responsible for the entirety of the increase section 10 of this is informative;
http://folk.uio.no/tomvs/esef/ESEF3VO2.htm
The C13 thesis is, therefore, problematic.
Another argument in favour of the ACO2 cause of the increase is in the difference between the CO2 residency time, which I have described above and the accumulating mass of CO2 in the atmosphere; basically ACO2 is 8Gt PA and every year slightly less than 1/2 of this 8Gt remains in the atmosphere; if we assume a constant natural flux cycle of emission and absorption then logically that ~4% increase must be due to the ACO2. But this is not correct; as we are told the oceans have been carrying increasing heat for the last 30 or so years [of the El Nino phase]; a warm ocean, compared with the atmosphere will have a pressure differential with the atmosphere so more CO2 is emitted than is absorbed; but if the ocean starts to cool, which is happening [according to every paper except Levitus] then the ocean will become a net absorber; that is, there will be an increased sink capacity. So, sans the isotope issue there is no clear evidence that the increase in atmospheric CO2 has not been due to natural factors; and those natural factors should now see a decline in, at least, the rate of increase in CO2, if not a decline altogether; so has there been any decline in upward trend or actual decline in atmospheric CO2?
Jeremy C
Wonders why there is a steel barrier between the LL’s and the rest of humanity. (Observes Jeremy C on the other side of the barrier).
bobn “How about the earthly significance that my, and just about everyone’s, lifetime covers an 80 year period not a 100,000 year period.”
You’ll just have to accept that your lifetime is not going to amount to much significance at all given the age of the planet and the length of time that we expect it to remain habitable.
SJT,
The problem of course is that the science is showing – AGW promoters are ignoring- that clouds are more complex and and more negative than AGW dogma would like.
Re-read the last sentence of the quote you refer to.
And Watts is simply publishing a report that points that out.
Watts is producing exactly the response he wanted from people like Cohenite, the belief that current science doesn’t know that. Read the textbook. It devotes a lot of space to the complexities of clouds.
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/ClimateBook/ClimateVol1.pdf
Pierrehumbert is an “AGW promoter”, and his textbook already deals with the complexities of clouds in a lot of detail.
CoRev – I suggest your reading on the issues I have discussed is utterly trivial. You only absorb what you want. It’s strange that the same log keeps washing up on the same beach though isn’t it? Pesky little issue. And it is one of risk management. Funny that you see the existing climate as benign.
Coho – as for the PDO – no problem. Very handy for tuning up those seasonal climate forecasts. And a part of the background wiggles and fuzz. Hadley are right into it. You should find out.
“AGW promoters are ignoring- that clouds are more complex and and more negative than AGW dogma would like”
what a stupid comment given the research investment. The assumptive ignorance of the denialist brain.
“Look, AGW has been and is, about social power, not climate science.
Climate science is the tool.
Power is the point.”
More crazy conspiracy theories. Jennifer seems to have a knack for attracting the lunatic fringe.
Trouble is Luke facts and the truth should count, afterall I can’t help it if the IOD phases don’t help your argument.
It’s a bit like the PDO and enso when checked and applied properly doesn’t help your argument either.
Go to the UNSW IOD site and do a count and show me where I’m wrong.
Comment from: Alan Siddons June 13th, 2009 at 10:32 am :
“In short, the IR that CO2 emits can neither heat surrounding air molecules nor add heat to the heat-source, i.e., the earth’s surface. The greenhouse model is flat wrong.”
You don’t need to convince me of this FACT. You explained why so well and simply, but it seems even famous skeptics cannot grasp it. LOL.
You got your answer last time and IOD and ran off – go back and read it.
Would one of the VIs here like to speculate upon the lack of any statisticlly significant warming for the past 12-15 years–and a strong cooling trend for the past 7-8 years? What is “offsetting” the effects of the increased OCO? (Hint: whatever it is, its effect has to be stronger than the putative effects of OCO).
Luke said: “And it is one of risk management. Funny that you see the existing climate as benign.” First sentence confirms my Precautionary Principle comment and the second verges on the mankind is evil comment. Dunno. Just sayin. Regardless, I do believe the climate is benign. I also believe the change is benign also. I also believe that there is little/no empirical evidence for the extremist/alarmist positions espoused.
JeremyC, you tried this game last week. I choose not to play. I did notice you never came back with your own response after my challenge.
Neville it was the statistical rarity of the pIOD and La Nina pairings – you slavishly refuted the 1967 La Nina definition – but there are many definitions – and the IOD classification systems have also had various reviews. Why – coz they’re based on EOF type statistical analyses subject to review. In any case the issue is merely a teaser in a long line of teasers. Just another one of those “unusual” things that seem to keep on happening. Might be chance – might not.
As for Jae’s “lack of any statistically significant warming for xxx years”
And strong cooling trend – hahahahahahaha – …
Well you have the sceptics – “it’s not AGW” -which leaves the previous warming trend unaccounted.
OR
Simply internal circulation variability which is represented in individual GCM runs and/or
PDO and/or
a quieter Sun (which would feedback on greenhouse) and/or
a La Nina of late and/or
some threshold with clouds and aerosols.
GMT is still within the DePreSys confidence bands so worries yet.
Problem is – if it does warm again – it will the death knell of every single sceptic argument EVER. Squeeze those little fingers tight and pray hard boys. Coz most of us will find out.
“No one is denying that there is a greenhouse effect on Earth; the temperature of the Earth is more than it would be if there were no atmosphere; if there were no atmosphere the Tave would be ~255K; with an atmosphere it is ~288K, a difference of ~33K.”
But I do deny it because it’s never been proved. Moreover, 255 K is the result of factoring in albedo to determine irradiance and then dividing by four to account for surface area. That is an illegitimate procedure because average temperature cannot be derived from average irradiance. Try dividing by two. That will give you the estimated irradiance on the sunlit hemisphere, which yields 303K according to the formula. But since the shadow side gets zero irradiance the temperature is theoretically 0K, for an average temperature of 152K. Yet the average irradiance is still 239 watts per square meter. The fact is, unless you know what a planet is composed of and how much heat it retains throughout its rotation, you cannot estimate its temperature. The earth being mainly a water planet is the FIRST thing to consider about it because water’s heat capacity is enormous.
Vincent Gray has spoken about this temperature estimate problem at length. See also Dr Nahle’s recent analysis: http://biocab.org/Induced_Emission.html
“Regardless, I do believe the climate is benign” – well I had to read it believe it ! Holey doley.
I guess that’s what you’d expect from an accountant sitting behind an air-conditioner in the first world. What a fucking amazing comment.
As for the precautionary mankind is evil stuff- what red herring nonsense. That’s just your justification of what you think motivates the science. Bollocks !
Yes Alan and that’s why GCMs don’t calculate in that way.
NEXT !
CoRev,
re last week, your memory is selective as I challenged you on the numbers you wouldn’t quote. And today’s effort is just showing consistency.
So my challenge remains, as above; evidence, dear boy, evidence.
Or do you believe your circular argument is enough?
Answers please, no blustering allowed as it only embarrasses (but it will enable me to win my bet).
Luke, what part of this statement makes the most sense to you? Climate is benign! Weather May be less so. Me thinks you got a little confused there. Climate is a long term description of weather. Weather effects.
JeremyC, which numbers in your discussion is it that I failed to define? As I remember the discussion the numbers were those that you had in your own head, (“I challenged you on the numbers you wouldn’t quote.”) and not any I referenced. Stop the game playing.
And you call my argument circular??? Tsk, tsk.
Luke and SJT,
It is the IPCC and the AGW promotion community that ignores clouds, not the authors.
It is the AGW promotion industry that is controlling the public square, not the authors.
Pointing out that AGW, like eugenics, is about social power is not conspiratorial at all.
It is your side that sees big bad bidness in conspiracy with KKKristian fundies who just want to kill the world, protect profits and bring Jesus back real soon. And your side is calling for the criminalization of climate dissent. They are your guys. Enjoy.
Stupidity and group think, as we see true believers and AGW promoters demonstrate daily, is far more credible and fully explains how something as stupid as AGW can exist.
Hunter, well said.
Thanks for the money CoRev.
JeremyC, you are quite welcome. What’s my share?
Very good reply.
Here are the faithful waiting for AGW to bring its calamity to humanity:
CoRev – stop playing word games – the climate system manifested in daily weather processes produces droughts (El Nino, NAO, AMO, SAM, IOD etc hardly being weather), floods (La Nina), seasons that favour hurricane development. Long term “climate” manifested in daily weather processes determines the distribution and behaviour of most species of flora and fauna. Stop being a totally disingenuous game player.
Hunter your comment about the IPCC “ignoring” clouds is patently stupid given the research effort. In any case the IPCC don’t research – they report the state of the science. Here’s a challenge for you Hunter – tell us specifically in the next few hours what cloud research is being done by the major institutions and why it’s inadequate. Come on – put up !
SJT – expect chirping crickets at this point. These guys are just wind bags – i.e. full of it.
And what would an AGW debate without a musical interlude?
Luke I’ll do the counting for you.
In the last 128 years there were 21 positive iods and thirteen negative. ( counting large + iod in 1944 as two because it falls on the midline)
From 1880 to 1944 there were 12 positive iods. From 1944 to 2008 there were 9 positive IODs. So your point is?
From 1880 to 1944 there were 6 negative iods. From 1944 to 2008 there were 7 negatives iods. So your point is?
From 1880 to 1910 there were 6 positive iods and 2 negative iods.
From 1978 to 2008 there were 5 positive iods and 4 negative iods and hopefully a negative to start in 2010. ( see JAMSTEC)
But my point is, the last 30 years compares very favourably with the first 30 years on the graph, so go and argue it out with the UNSW.
The 1967 so called la nina was below 5.5 ( Aust scale not US) so was technically a neutral phase , see Qld govt’s long paddock site.
Good one, hunter!
Never mind Luke, Same time termorrer!!
Luke,
It was posted and well said earlier, but your spittle filled capsule makes seeing difficult.
But, in the spirit of helpfullness which I I alwas hold for you and the other AGW fundies, here is a brief review:
http://www.usclivar.org/Newsletter/VariationsV4N1/BrethertonCPT.pdf
I like this part:
“(1) The world’s first superparameterization climate sensitivity results show strong negative cloud
feedbacks driven by enhancement of boundary layer clouds in a warmer climate.”
And of course this:
ftp://eos.atmos.washington.edu/pub/breth/papers/2006/SPGRL.pdf
This bit is nice:
“[2] The sensitivity of the earth’s climate to a warming
perturbation is a problem frequently studied using general
circulation models (GCMs). Unfortunately the responses of
different GCMs to identical climate perturbations vary
substantially, largely due to the differing response of modeled
clouds to climate change”
So it seems that the actual, uhhh, scientists working in climate science see issues and problems that you faithful many cannot bear to consider.
Odd that you would mention wind. Please tell us: Are the winds supposed to die down, or are they supposed to increase in AGW land? The AGW promoters cannot seem to make up their minds.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/climate-rorshach-test-as-news-5515
Luke,SJT, all you AGW fundies! This could be your moment shine! Perhaps they are just waiting on word from you as to which way the wind blows.
“Luke,SJT, all you AGW fundies! This could be your moment shine! Perhaps they are just waiting on word from you as to which way the wind blows.”
So is there an AGW conspiracy or not? You are just going around pounding out the exclamation marks while you destroy one of your own claims.
SJT,
I am not saying there is a conspiracy. But I pointed that out before.
Nice try at distraction, or can you not get past that issue?
Amazing, that in a long post with two quotes from linked peer review papers, you pretend the exclamation point is a real problem.
So the exclamation point, when I am obviously teasing you shreds my credibility?
But Hansen (not to compare myself to his lordship) calling for war crimes trials against skeptics
http://climaticidechronicles.org/2008/06/23/crimes-against-humanity-james-hansen-calls-for-trials-of-oil-coal-chief-executives/
makes him more credible?
I am not accusing AGW believers of being in a conspiracy. I am pointing out that you are ridiculous, pompous, blindly faithful, who have surrendered critical thinking skills in favor of a load of junk.
And part of your self-conversion is to get a humorectomy.
Too bad, because you are really, really funny.
Note SJT that he ducked it – hasn’t a clue what’s doing what on clouds. Sole source of information talk back radio and sceptic blogs. Hopeless isn’t it.
Neville; I’ve been following your debate with luke about the IOD but I’ve missed the JAMSTEC and UNSW links; could you post them; Your view on the IOD is also perhaps worthy of a seperate thread; why don’t you get one together?
Alan; thanks for the link to the Nahle paper; I must confess I find this aspect of the debate one of the most difficult; I’ve read the G&T paper, Smith’s reply, the Thieme paper and your paper on rethinking the greenhouse effect from the viewpoint of atmospheric pressure; I’ve also considered the log effect of CO2, the issue of back-radiation filtered throught the Miskolczi paper and Steve Short’s revision of Miskolczi and considered luke’s favourite, Philipona. I note that Lindzen considers that the greenhouse effect is ~=to 6-8C. It would be good if someone like you did an overview of this contentious issue because there is a clear divide between whether greenhouse gases, that is part of the makeup of the atmosphere, contributes to atmospheric and surface temperature, whether it is just the fact of the atmosphere that contributes to those temperatures regardless of its make-up or whether surface features like the ocean dominate as a cause for those temperatures.
I can’t get any sense out of Luke, so can I ask anyone who hasn’t watched the 1000 year drought from Catalyst abc 15/2/07 to have a look. ( also transcript)
Prof Patrick De Deckker has been taking core samples from the blue lake at Mt Gambier and the murray canyons, plus other sites across southern Aust for the last 20 years.
He has found that we have been suffering a 800 year downtrend and are now in the trough and hopefully we may come out of this in the decades to come.
But certainly southern Aust has been slowing drying out for AT LEAST 5,000 YEARS so I suppose those pesky Sumerians or Minoans must have started up their own Industrial Revolution without us knowing about it.
That is if you’re devotees and followers of the single variable.
Luke and SJT,
I predicted that you would simply ignore the points and pretend my unworthiness means the information posted is not worth dealing with.
SJT obsesses on a punctuation mark, and Luke cannot demean himself by actually refuting the points.
If I post my opinion, then I am a tool with no links.
If I post the links and provide nice quotes, then I have not a clue.
The one consistency, Luke, is that AGW believers such as you and SJT avoid dealing with issues they do not like.
And you actually think you are the ones with credibility.
Please, don’t change a thing.
Hunter, spot on , the trouble is luke, sjt etc don’t like facts or the truth.
But have a look at the 5000 year drought info above and please don’t let these followers of the single variable get away with even more BS.
The facts support us not them.
Sorry technically 5000 years should read 800 year drought , but we’ve been drying out in southern Aust for at least 5000 years.
Neville,
AGW is right up there with UFOology, alien abductions, 9/11 truthers, and eugenics.
Nothing they are going to say in defense of their faith is going to make AGW less untrue.
That song from the young Australian pegs it pretty well, and the Secret Police Ball skit could have been a modern global warming conference to a ‘t’.
Hmmm. The AGW folks have computer models, (bogus) physical mechanisms, and all kinds of “peer-reviewed literature” for explaining the increase in temperature during the 80’s and 90s, BUT they now seem very lost and depressed when it comes to explaining the LACK of an increase in global temperature during the past 12-15 years and the outright COOLING for the last 7-8 years. WTF? If we can figure out why it is cooling now, we would probably understand why it was warming 20 years ago, no? The silence on this issue is deafening!
Jeremy C
“Ohhhhh, so this is an Ad Hom…….”
Don’t you like being treated in a thoroughly egalitarian way?
Regarding the title of this article [“AGW Is Just a Theory”], there seems to be some misuse of the term ‘theory.’
In the ascending order of scientific certainty [recognizing that nothing in science is certain], from lowest to highest there is:
Conjecture
Hypothesis
Theory
Law
This link explains the scientific hierarchy: click
Words matter, especially in science. So…
AGW is not a ‘theory’. It is, in fact, more conjecture than hypothesis. The long accepted climate theory is that there is a gradual trend line of slowly rising temperatures from the LIA [and from the last great Ice Age preceding the LIA]. The planet is naturally warming.
No one has falsified the theory that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability. Therefore, AGW remains, at best, only a hypothesis.
In order to supplant the existing theory of natural climate variability with the relatively new hypothesis of anthropogenic global warming caused by human-produced CO2, the proponents of AGW must be able to falsify the existing theory, and make predictions based on their new conjecture/hypothesis. They have been unable to do so. Their sole evidence consists of computer models — all of which failed to predict the severity of the past N.H. winter. And as stated, no one has been able to falsify the current theory that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.
It should be noted that skeptics have absolutely nothing to prove; those putting forth a new hypothesis have the burden of providing strong — not flimsy — evidence that their hypothesis explains reality better than the current theory. They have failed. Outside of GCMs, there is no empirical, real world evidence supporting AGW.
[To be clear here: the entire crux of the CO2=AGW argument rests on the alarming conjecture that further increases in CO2 will cause runaway global warming and climate catastrophe. Because if the AGW hypothesis only predicted a minor change, there would be no reason to spend public money on it. But as we know, the whole AGW scare is designed to make taxpayers hand over enormous amounts of loot to “combat climate change.”]
The theory of natural climate variability predicts decadal length warming and cooling episodes fluctuating above and below the planet’s temperature trend line from the LIA. Until/unless the CO2=AGW conjecture is able to make verifiable — and more accurate predictions than the current theory, then it can not replace the current theory of natural climate variability.
Rather than argue that AGW explains the current climate, the CO2=AGW faction needs to falsify the long accepted theory of natural climate variability around a trend line. That is how the scientific method operates. But the AGW contingent has been unable to falsify the accepted theory — or to use its AGW hypothesis to correctly predict the climate.
The AGW hypothesis fails; it is in reality simply an incorrect conjecture from the start. Unfortunately for the AGW believers, the planet itself continues to falsify their conjecture: as CO2 steadily rises, the planet’s temperature continues to decline.
Hunter,
The spooky aspect is that in terms of the economic modeling used to forecast future economic states based on the CO2 variable is the same economic modeling used to predict the GFC and other economic parameters. IT’s basically Keynesian economics and despite continuing failures they keep using it and of course believing in it. Most of us would abandon a theory if it failed to live up to expectations but the despite everything, the AGW mob can’t understand it. Whether that is due to inherent stupidity or to a very successful brainwashing period during their youth remains moot.
I suspect they can’t reject their flawed theories, whether AGW or Keynesian economics because of their, sincerely, held belief that the theories are correct and that something else (usually an unknown) factor is affecting the outcomes. In other words it’s not our fault the theory is not predicting physical reality, but that something is influencing it, and if we can account for it, meaning more research dollars, we might be able to then show that AGW is true.
So we are fighting a belief system that seems impervious to the existence of contradictory fact, and one which has the funding of government driving it.
Martin Fergusson, Commonwealth minister for Resources, has told the Oil industry that either they start producing oil from the reserves they have warehoused, or they lose their rights to it so that other can pump the oil out. Strange approach given we have this looming problem from CO2 emitted from burning oil and coal. This tells me that the game is not about saving the planet but implementing a ET scheme in which the UN takes a commission from the trade of CO2 permits. The UN does have a funding problem , and I suspect the global ETS is one mechanism of solving it.
I suppose Luke and his Lukians will now accuse me of hatching a conspiracy.
Comment from: Smokey June 14th, 2009 at 12:15 pm ”
Smokey says: “Outside of GCMs, there is no empirical, real world evidence supporting AGW.”
AND, Smokey should add: the “information” generated by GCMs is not DATA, no matter how much the AGW proponents wish it were. All of the models have now been falsified by actual data. The modelers need to “go back to the Ouija board.” LOL.
OK Neville – had enough of your lip
1967 and La Nina !
http://www.oc.nps.edu/webmodules/ENSO/ensoyears.html
http://clima-dods.ictp.trieste.it/data/d3/lzamboni/UCLA/programs_ufficio/events_list.asv
http://iri.columbia.edu/climate/ENSO/background/pastevent.html
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/IOD/positive/
You will note Neville that the SOI is an atmospheric attempt to define El Nino, neutral and La Nina – i.e. a normalised index of Darwin and Tahiti atmospheric pressures. – Not an SST pattern. El Nino – La Nina is defined by SST patterns. the SO part of ENSO defined by SOI.
The important issue at least with 1967 is the late formation of a mild cold event !
Now – onto IOD !!!
As for Cai and Cowan – According to the Meyers et al. [2007] classification of pIODs, the only precedence in the instrumental record for a consecutive triple pIOD series occurred during 1944–1946, when the Pacific experienced neutral conditions, contributing to the most severe drought in Australia recorded to that date. Based on the Meyers et al. [2007] classification, the pIOD-La Niña pair in 2007 is unique, although according to Behera et al. [2008], a pIOD and La Niña pair occurred in 1967.
BUT Neville doesn’t want 1967 to be a La Nina. OK fine – backs the story of change even more than Neville.
The import of CAi and Cowan is the unusual nature of pIOD and La Nina evenst.
You will note according to UMMENHOFER ET AL.: SOUTHEAST AUSTRALIA’S DROUGHTS that use a re-classification of Meyers’ IODs not used in the almost simultaneous CSIRO study.
That’s right – a reclassification !!
To assess the relative importance of the IOD and ENSO for Southeast Australian drought, all years for the period 1889 to 2006 are classified as to the state of the Indian and Pacific Ocean, respectively (Figure 1a and Table S1 in the auxiliary material).1 The classification is based on work by Meyers et al. [2007], extended to recent years using HadISST data, but retaining the climate shifts defined in the original paper. Of the original 122 years classified, 14 have changed classification. This is not surprising in a method that is not local in time, and that relies on threshold criteria. Results were robust to variations in the thresholds used. The years of importance to this study are the negative IOD years during dry periods, and none of these changed classification.
Not that any of the above matters – simply to show you how utterly amateurish your insinuations of CSIRO being “wrong” are. Your level of research here dear Neville is piddly ! Your understanding of any technique to generate ENSO or IOD patterns is trite. And the you’re such a mug you thought you’d have a swing before even having a look around the literature.. What a chump !
This is the real IOD issue below in another paper which is the IOD changes I’m referring to. I assume you’ll get the drift…. Or do I have to explain it to you (OK you explain it to Louis – it will be beyond him).
Nature Geoscience 1, 849 – 853 (2008)
Recent intensification of tropical climate variability in the Indian Ocean
Nerilie J. Abram1,2, Michael K. Gagan1, Julia E. Cole3, Wahyoe S. Hantoro4 & Manfred Mudelsee5
The interplay of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, Asian monsoon and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)1, 2, 3 drives climatic extremes in and around the Indian Ocean. Historical4, 5 and proxy6, 7, 8, 9 records reveal changes in the behaviour of the El Niño Southern Oscillation and the Asian monsoon over recent decades10, 11, 12. However, reliable instrumental records of the IOD cover only the past 50 years1, 3, and there is no consensus on long-term variability of the IOD or its possible response to greenhouse gas forcing13. Here we use a suite of coral oxygen-isotope records to reconstruct a basin-wide index of IOD behaviour since AD 1846. Our record reveals an increase in the frequency and strength of IOD events during the twentieth century, which is associated with enhanced seasonal upwelling in the eastern Indian Ocean. Although the El Niño Southern Oscillation has historically influenced the variability of both the IOD and the Asian monsoon3, 8, 10, we find that the recent intensification of the IOD coincides with the development of direct, positive IOD–monsoon feedbacks. We suggest that projected greenhouse warming may lead to a redistribution of rainfall across the Indian Ocean and a growing interdependence between the IOD and Asian monsoon precipitation variability.
“Outside of GCMs, there is no empirical, real world evidence supporting AGW” – how fucking moronic – what a bunch of pig ignorant illiterate hillbillies.
So Neville if you believe de Dekker – which you do – well it’s curtains for the MDB then? Is that your position? Yes or no?
That kind of bluster is typical coming from the CO2=AGW contingent. But I prefer facts, like this: click
Warming may cause CO2. But CO2 doesn’t cause warming… as anyone can see: click
Planet Earth is laughing at the alarmists.
Well luke up to your old tricks again, what I will say is yes I think De Deckker is correct and we will experience better rainfall in the future, hopefully even back to the flood years of the 1950’s and 1970’s, but as to when exactly of course I don’t know.
Cohenite that Jamstec site is jamstec.go.jp/frgc/research/d1/iod/ and just google unsw iod and you should find it 3rd on list.
Thanks for the encouragement, cohenite. I’ll consider doing just that. I have the damnedest time getting across the thermal properties of a vacuum, though. As the final destination for the earth’s IR, it’s a big piece of the puzzle, yet delusions about this exotic milieu are deeply rooted. Received opinion has it that space is extremely cold. But this implies that a vacuum can possess a temperature in the first place. It can’t, because temperature refers only to physical bodies. Even a beam of sunlight has no temperature.
Believing that space is something like a super-frigid atmosphere, however, one can likewise be convinced that it vigorously draws heat away from the earth and that a layer of gas near the surface is able to insulate us. Such a belief is a weird example of double-think, in my view, because in any other context we’re quite aware that this isn’t the case at all.
Look at real-world insulation, for instance. Carbon dioxide is often injected between double-pane windows as a means of reducing a home’s heat losses. But why this works has nothing to do with the fictitious mechanism of CO2 absorbing the interior’s infrared and radiating it back inside. It’s just that CO2 is somewhat less conductive than regular air, so heat is less prone to migrate. Argon does about as well. Trouble is, the gas inside the cavity still circulates when heated, which transports heat to the outside. Some manufacturers resort to more-sluggish Krypton or Xenon, then, but this option is generally too expensive for consumers. It turns out that the best insulation for double-pane windows is no gas at all, however, just a vacuum. Even a few millimeters of vacuum between the panes insulates better than any gas.
The analogy is obvious. Earth is the heated house. Atmosphere is the window. Outside is space. A circulating gas of any kind removes heat — and an open atmosphere does that quite actively. The best insulator, then? Nothing, literally nothing.
But misconceptions about our vacuum environment seem insurmountable. Although we recognize empty space as a superior insulator for everyday purposes, we regard it as a threat to the earth’s warmth. So one false paradigm leads to another, and we too easily imagine that a greenhouse effect must be holding heat in.
Luke,
Thanks for demonstrating how AGW true believers intend to build on their credibility.
And I am out of line for an exclamation point.
Each and every time I run into someone who is able to communicate as Luke does here daily, they are wrong. And usually they are not only wrong, but know they are wrong and using their sturm and drang to intimidate people from looking too hard at them and their position.
If our Luke was rare in the ranks of AGW true believers, he would of course be of no significance at all. But he is actually rather typical of AGW true believers, so the implications of his incivility are more representative.
Please do continue, Luke & co.
You will only get even more frustrated as the climate continues to ignore you all.
Luke I see Bom says that 1967 was a weak la nina but was clearly neutral in the atmosphere.
They seem to include a lot more IODs in the negative phase since 1940’s than the Unsw.
Alan Siddons,
The space in which the Earth is suspended in, is not a vacuum but a tenuous plasma. Your bewilderment about how the Earth loses energy into space I can sympathize with but one fact which seems not be understood is that electric currents in the atmosphere also generate IR radiation – but no one believes that these currents exist despite the fact they have been routinely measured by satellites for quite a while now. The downwelling IR that is measured is assigned solely to CO2 and other radiative gases. If, however, its also produced by atmospheric electric currents, then the whole AGW intellectual superstructure has to collapse.
Climate science certainly does not incorporate any electrical theory in its model. Physics still treats the Earth as a solid ball in the vacuum of space.
I also point to the Earth’s quiescent electric field of 100 V/m – The Earth is surrounded by a plasma double layer or Langmuuire Sheaf, and these electrical structures occur in the presence of electrical current – so in a sense a greenhouse theory is used when electricity it totally ignored in the Earth system.
luke and Philipona; from the Nahle paper linked by Aland Siddons;
“Many have alluded to nighttime inversion of radiation, but it is an inappropriate idea taken from planets without oceans. At night, the oceans release photons forming a photon stream which leads to atmospheric induced emission.
There are many scientists who have found errors in the calculations of the proponents of the idea that carbon dioxide is causing planetary warming. The most serious of these errors resides in believing in a downwelling photon stream which, as AGW proponents say, overwhelms the surface emission of radiation and warms the surface during nighttime. However, when we analyze the issue of downwelling radiation emitted by the atmosphere, we find that such warming of the surface by greenhouse gases does not exist.
The problem with the AGW idea is that its proponents think that the Earth is isolated and that the heat engine only works on the surface of the ground. They fail to take into account that incoming heat from the Sun is transferred by conduction from surface to subsurface materials, which store heat until the incidence of direct solar radiation declines, explicitly during nighttime.
At nighttime, the heat stored by the subsurface materials is transferred by conduction towards the surface, which is colder than the unexposed materials below the surface. The heat transferred from the subsurface layers to the surface is then transported by the air by means of convection and warms up. The upwelling photon stream affects the directionality of the radiation emitted by the atmosphere driving it upwards, i.e. towards the upper atmospheric layers and, from there, towards deep space. This process is well described by the next formula:
FSH = -ρ (Cp) (CH) (v (z)) [T (z) – T (0)]
Where FSH is for Sensible Heat Flux, ρ is for density of air, Cp is specific heat capacity of air at constant pressure, CH is the heat transfer coefficient (≈ 0.0013), v (z) is the horizontal wind speed across z, T (z) is the temperature of air at 10 m of altitude, and T (0) is the temperature of the surface.
The “minus” sign means that heat is absorbed by the colder system. For example, the sensible heat flux for a region where the temperature of the surface is 300.15 K, the temperature of air is 293.15 K and the horizontal wind speed is 40 m/s, is 0.443 kJ s/m^2 and the change of temperature caused by this amount of heat stored is 0.3 K (Compare with the result above). A change of temperature of 0.3 K occurs in the air, although the difference of temperature between the surface and the air is relatively high (7 K or 7 °C). In one second, the temperature of the air changes from 293.15 K to 293.45 K.
I want to make clear that this formula applies to both ocean and land heat transfer, although on land it is more appropriate introducing CD instead of CH. However, CD ≈ CH ≈ 0.0013.
The sensible heat flux (day and night) is directed upwards, that is, from the surface to the atmosphere (Peixoto & Oort. 1992. Page 233).
Concluding, atmospheric gases do not cause any warming of the surface given that induced emission prevails over spontaneous emission. During daytime, solar irradiance induces air molecules to emit photons towards the surface; however, the load of Short Wave Radiation (SWR) absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere is exceptionally low, while the load of Long Wave Radiation (LWR) emitted from the surface and absorbed by the atmosphere is high and so leads to an upwelling induced emission of photons which follows the outgoing trajectory of the photon stream, from lower atmospheric layers to higher atmospheric layers, and finally towards outer space. The warming effect (misnamed “the greenhouse effect”) of Earth is due to the oceans, the ground surface and subsurface materials. Atmospheric gases act only as conveyors of heat.”
Louis,
Allow me doubts concerning the “vacuity” of outer space plasma, though! Nevertheless, I do agree that with sprites and jets and gigantic elves there’s gotta be more about the way our planet handles energy than we’ve been contemplating up to now. My focus is only on heat transfer, however, specifically radiative transfer. Trying to squeeze more energy out of light than what goes in is futile from the start. My point above is that a vacuum merely PERMITS radiative heat loss, making it far less of a thermal drain than convecting gases. Hell, Richard Lindzen considers the cooling effect of a circulating atmosphere as so pernicious that (in his view) the purely radiative impact of the greenhouse effect would otherwise raise the earth’s average temperature to 77° Celsius! Radiatively, that’s 851 watts per square meter over every square meter of the earth’s surface. This, from a 239 W/m² average input. Yet given a 239 W/m² output, there’s no sign of this extra radiation at all. It’s missing in action. This kind of crap stretches credulity beyond the limit, so yeah, I think that other theories about the earth’s temperature are certainly called for.
Alan,
Yes, granted 🙂 – and I can’t help but feel Hansen’s obsession with the CO2 runaway greenhouse effect that his teacher, Carl Sagan, used to explain the Venusian thermal state, was flawed from the beginning. Couple that with government science and we have the mess today.
Personally I am on record stating there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas – that there is something else going on in the atmosphere and I suspect its in the domain of Electromagnetism etc, the one area of physics that is totally ignored by the weatherists.
As I would summarize Nahle’s thesis…
Unlike a paper-thin blackbody, which immediately emits 100% of the energy it receives, the earth has depth and STORES energy. In effect, because the earth is cooler in response to radiant energy, it is also warmer in light’s absence, releasing heat by time delay. Falling short of an ideal radiator gives the earth unexpected thermal properties.
Alan,
Another perplexing source of heat (energy) is for volcanic eruptions. Radioactive decay can’t supply the energy since that is diminishing over time, but given that volcanic eruptions are often preceded by significant variations (localised) in the geomagnetic field, I wonder if the energy source are the known electric currents flowing into and out of the Earth via the recently discovered flux tubes. Anthony Watts has also posted up an observation that the highest temperature anomaly is over the northern geomagnetic pole and the coldest over the southern geomagnetic pole. Does this mean electrical power inputs at the north GM pole and to complete the circuit leaves the earth via the south GM pole? If so then it also gives us the power to cause earth rotation via the Faraday motor effect. The Earth’s rotation is affected by sunspot activity I’ve read somewhere.
And if electric currents are passing through the earth, then surges might, give the time lapse at this scale, result in volcanic eruptions.
This makes me wonder whether volcanic eruptions have an 11 or 22 year cycle.
Louis – why would you misrepresent Hansen suggesting a “runaway” greenhouse effect?
Why?
Since I’ve become embroiled in this debate over global warming it has heightened my awareness of problems in other fields. Last night, I was reading the original work done on the transistor by Shockley. The first thing I note about the older researchers, like Shockley or Planck, is their willingness to have a go at describing their theories subjectively. Nowadays, everything is presented in math and the understanding of theory is either overlooked or discouraged. Even Feynman, one of the sharpest minds in physics, would not present a lecture to students until he could describe the theory in words.
Shockley talked about ‘holes’. In semiconductor theory, as an electron moves out of a bond, it leaves behind a positively charged hole. Naturally, as the electron moves from hole to hole, the holes it left in the atom’s structure moves the other way. It’s not that there’s really a particle moving, it’s an illusion like one might see travelling in a train, as fence pickets appear to move backwards. Many scientists have tried to describe those holes as distinct particles, with mass. The theory of conventional current flow was based on that positive charge, with the belief that holes were positive charges flowing in a circuit, hence current moved in a circuit from positive to negative. Shockley was quick to point out, circa 1954, that one had to be extremely careful since holes are actually an illusion and merely a model for current flow in certain doped-semiconductors in which it is easier to describe current flow with the hole theory, since they are the majority current carrier in that type of semiconductor.
Today, electrical engineering is taught at most universities based on the positive charge, which essentially does not exist as described. Meantime, the entire electronic world is based on the flow of electrons in a circuit. Once a student leaves university, he is left with a confusing adaptation to current flowing from negative to positive, after he was taught for over 5 years that the opposite was true. Basically, it does not matter which way current flows in theoretical calculations, but it sure as heck does in the real world.
For example, in television and computer displays, the light on the screen is the result of a beam of electrons attracted to the 30,000 positive volts on the screen. The beam starts as electrons boiled off a tungsten filament which is heated red hot by a current passed through it. Then the space charge of electrons is attracted by the huge potential on the screen. On the way, the electrons are focused into a beam by magnetic fields that do the focusing and sweep the beam from side to side across the screen.
In that scenario there is no possibility of positive charges traveling backwards across the vacuum in the picture tube. Only electrons can move in that medium, evacuated of all matter except the electrons, since their is no atoms for them to move from, one to the other. There goes you’re entire theory underlying electrical engineering as taught in university. It is known today that conventional current movement is wrong, yet every engineering university still teaches that theory.
The point is that paradigms become coveted by certain educators, and once established, they wont let go. The German biologist, Stefan Lanka, has recently pointed out that the entire field of retrovirology is based on such a paradigm, and that it is wrong. That’s only one of his reasons for claiming that HIV has never been isolated, let alone seen. Any photos that exist of it are photos of the cell mass it is thought to reside in and the entire HIV/AIDS theory is based on a faulty science with faulty theories. Yet an entire paradigm is based on that faulty theory.
AGW is just one of many faulty theories perpetuated by stubborn, arrogant people who are lacking basic awareness. There is no scientific fact to back it up yet it is being thrust forward based purely on consensus, and the virtual science that underlies it. Many people insist that the AGW theory must be correct simply because the so-called vast majority of scientists agree. For one, that vast majority exists only in the minds of believers and the media. For another, the number of scientists invloved with the theory established the obvious, that stupidity knows no bounds.
Neville – 2 simple points:
ENSO, neutral and ANTI-ENSO have some definitional slop. As does IOD. SO my umbrage here is your insistence that CSIRO have got it “wrong”. There is simply some debate about classifications.
Second: the IOD changing issue which another small piece of evidence I would add on the pile was the Nature Geoscience paper not the 20th century IOD records
and on de Dekker – yep have looked at it long and hard. Many of the papers I have offered up on southern Australia are clear that “natural variation” is also at play. Their attribution to greenhouse is partial. But the calculations and methods are explicit. De Dekekr himslef asked the question “but what is the greenhouse addition in this” or something akin to that.
For me – it suggests there is something in it. From a risk point of view we need to think about it and encourage the researchers.
Whether that gets into ETS schemes is an entirely different matter. But the logic seems to run that (1) effects must be uniform over all the Earth (2) things happened in the past so you can never prove anything (3) if the policy response in unpalatable – then the climate science MUST be wrong – is this logical? (4) it’s either one or the other point of view – a mixture of natural variation and AGW seems unpalatable for the sceptics
RW I made the comment to Luke a little while ago that comments when sufficiently extreme simply rebound on the person making them. I direct the same sentiment to you. Consider;
8:50 pm Cohenite asked you the following question
Well, yes, RW, I would like you to point to one bit of evidence of AGW which you think is sufficient to elevate AGW to a theory;
You replied;
Eh well, it’s rather difficult to believe you really need this, but here’s the evidence for you…:
Exhibit A: Carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared radiation. Infrared absorption by gases in the atmosphere makes the surface of the earth warmer than it would be if there were no atmosphere.
Exhibit B: The concentration of CO2 has increased by 40% since 1800, due to fossil fuel burning
That’s it. That’s all you need. Any rational person with a basic science education could look at these two facts and see the spectacularly obvious.
At 10:24 in response to my point that you were giving evidence of dangerous AGW you commented;
No, I gave two piece of evidence that humans could affect the climate. That was what was requested, and that’s what I gave. By suddenly dropping in the words ‘proof’ and ‘dangerous’, you are either straightforwardly attempting to misrepresent me, or you just didn’t read the comments properly.
So should I take it from this that you do not consider AGW dangerous? Or do you mean that you do not consider your comment represent proof? Despite the fact that you said ‘thats all you need’ and that ‘one could look at these two facts and see the spectacularly obvious’. I leave it to others reading this post to interpret what you said and implied.
Moving on; I stated;
“My first problem is that when I do the quantitative calculations I find that rising CO2 does cause some warming but it is not significant.”
Your reply:
First, this comment is meaningless if you don’t define what you mean by significant. Second, how are you doing the calculations, exactly?
You have either a very short memory or a very selective memory. I did show how I was doing the calculations exactly and in great detail in my first article on Jennifers site back in early March. You made many comments in response to that article. Yet now you have apparently forgotten it – or is it just that it stands in the way of a dismissive comment.
Moving on again, I commented;
“Third, when I analyse the temperature projection claims made by the AGW proponents 0.6C since about 1950 and a further 3C by 2070 I find these are not consistent with the causation claimed by AGW proponents unless one assumes that positive feedback from water vapour is at a thermal runaway level”
Your reply;
This is not borne out by any published study that I am aware of. Have you published your study? If so, where? If not, why not?
The answer RW is that I have published it on Jennifer’s site a matter of a couple of weeks ago. You obviously read Jennifer’s site so you must have seen it. Do you really want to claim that you did not understand what it was all about! To be honest, I find such a suggestion absurd so why do you pretend the data was not published.
With regard to your comments about regional and global temperature trends. You say that fact that Victoria shows no warming trend is irrelevant. Yet many AGW supporters point to other regions which they claim do show warming and present this as strong evidence of AGW. Having a bit each way? As far as I am concerned, if a region the size of Victortia shows no warming that is indeed significant. Please explain why it is not significant given that the warming is supposed to be global ie: everywhere. Far worse, all the examples of AGW I have seen trotted out are northern hemisphere locations. Northern hemisphere warming is NOT global warming. In fact, if it turns out that the northern henisphere is warming and the southern hemisphere is not warming (which some of the data I have seen purports to show) then that is proof that the AGW hypothesis is wrong. Why? Because if CO2 rise causes warming in the northern hemisphere it must also do it in the south. If there is no warming in the south then warming in the north must be due to some other cause.
With regard to your disbelief about my comments that the temperature record I have seen shows no warming trend, I have written this up as an article and it is with Jennifer. Unfortunately, because it has lots of graphs it is going to be difficult to format for posting (sorry Jennifer). Non the less, it should be posted some time soon so you will be abvle to see my reasons first hand. Maybe with pre warning you will even read this one.
With regard to your comments about C13, I note that in the meantime someone else has already answered that so I will not comment further.
I can only repeat my opening sentiment. Comments sufficiently extreme cease to have any impact other than to rebound on the person making them.
Luke
“Louis – why would you misrepresent Hansen suggesting a “runaway” greenhouse effect?
Why?”
I haven’t – those are the historical facts.
luke; defending Jimmy ‘trains of death’ Hansen against claims of extreme alarmism/ runnawayism/Earth becoming like Venus etc is really, as our ocker PM would say, flogging a dead horse;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/21/jim-hansens-agu-presentation-hes-nailed-climate-forcing-for-2x-co2/#comments
Cohenite,
I would have thought the metaphor was flogging a fictional horse.
Yuk, yuk, yuk, as the actress said to the bishop.
“THE scientific method is a valuable way to advance objective knowledge. By testing a hypothesis against observation, it can either be falsified or supported. Not proved, of course, but nevertheless over time sufficient evidence can accumulate for a hypothesis to be generally accepted as the best available explanation.”
This has it back to front. Science is about explaining observations using previously determined scientific facts.
It is not about using the scientific method to explain some flight of fantasy.
I suppose it happens in our society as the result of tax payer funded scientists justifying their wages to government.
OK – cite a reference Louis. Don’t divert Coho – Louis has dug himself a hole. Watch him now do a runner or lay smoke.
Well M Hammer – you asked. I responded and nothing from yourself – so back to sledging I guess.
I would call AGW a hypothesis or conjecture, because it is based on GCMs that do not match with the measurements.
A climate model is mathematical formulation of the hypothesis and a simplification of the reality. If the approximations done while you formulate your model are relevant and right, then the model behaves very much like the reality. Even more, its predictions match future measurements.
Modeling is useful if it reveals the problems in your hypothesis and/or approximations. For example, something is badly wrong with current AGW hypothesis/ GCMs because e.g. the hot spot is missing and the global temperatures are not rising. If your model is so inaccurate that it predicts nothing, then you should reject your model as useless.
I like Dr Spencer’s and Mr Hammer’s simple climate models, because they can teach us how our climate is really behaving. I would really like to put more effort on finding out whether we have negative climate feedback due to clouds. Spencer’s measurements might not be enough for UN, EU and USA to stop cap and trade.
“BUT they now seem very lost and depressed when it comes to explaining the LACK of an increase in global temperature during the past 12-15 years and the outright COOLING for the last 7-8 years. WTF? If we can figure out why it is cooling now, we would probably understand why it was warming 20 years ago, no? The silence on this issue is deafening!”
Simple. Solar minimum and declining ENSO.
Your 12-15 year figure is also false. The best you can do is 11 years by cherrypicking 1998 as a start point, which you surely won’t do because it would be statistical fraud. Starting in 2003 is a similar cherrypick because again it featured a strong el nino.
2003 – 2009 saw ENSO decline significantly and unusually. You don’t get many 6 year periods that start with a strong el nino and end with a strong la nina. In addition we also start with a solar max at the start of that period and a solar minimum at the end.
ENSO + Solar cycle. A double whammy.
How much do you think 2009 was cooler than 2003 because of ENSO? 0.2C?
How much do you think 2009 was cooler than 2003 because of the descent into solar minimum? 0.1C? In fact going by deniers obsession with believing fairy-tales about a strong solar influence on temperature records I think 0.1C is a little under generous. So lets say 0.2C
Lets add it up – that’s 0.4C cooling at this time compared to 2003 being caused by ENSO and solar minimum. So take your favorite last few months of temperature data and add 0.4C to them to see where temperature would be at. That’ll get you thinking no doubt.
When global temperatures reach a new record in coming years, deniers will be scrambling like rats to get off the sinking ship of the “global cooling” meme they have entrenched themselves in. You’ll all be wanting to get back into the “it’s all natural” one again. Amusingly us AGWers will be able to remind people for years that “remember they were predicting an ice age a few years ago”.
Luke, a shot across the bow again? You said: “…a mixture of natural variation and AGW seems unpalatable for the sceptics” Where do you come up with silliness like this?
Sheesh!!!! It takes a special kind of mind I guess.
Luke,
For a know it all AGW fundamentalist, you do not seem to know your prophets very well:
Hansen on the runaway greenhouse of Earth:
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/hansen-calls-for-carbon-tax-to-drop-co2-below-todays-levels-5398/
“”If we burn all of the coal [on the planet], there is a good chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse effect,” he said. That runaway greenhouse effect could become unstoppable, eventually boiling the oceans and destroying all life on earth in what Hansen called the “Venus Syndrome,” after the conditions that exist on the planet next-closest to the sun.””
“You said: “…a mixture of natural variation and AGW seems unpalatable for the sceptics” Where do you come up with silliness like this?”
Why is this silly?
bobn: it is skeptics who are “amused” at your frantic attempts to explain why global cooling is actually caused by global warming.
And Luke explains, in very precise scientific terms, his belief in AGW:
“how fucking moronic – what a bunch of pig ignorant illiterate hillbillies.”
Well, I guess the science is settled. Thanx, Luke, who could argue with that?
Michael Hammer:
“So should I take it from this that you do not consider AGW dangerous? Or do you mean that you do not consider your comment represent proof?”
Such infantile questions would look stupid enough in a school playground. By this logic you could extrapolate from my comments any opinion under the sun about which I in fact said nothing.
Alan Siddons, it’s amusing to see people like cohenite trying to salvage the credibility of the denialist crowd by pretending you’re all scientifically literate enough to understand the greenhouse effect, only for you to come along, stick your hand in the air and say “I’m not!”
cohenite, despite your apparent acceptance of the greenhouse effect, you really epitomise the foolishness of the deniers when you say “the argument that the increase in CO2 is due to ACO2 is based on the declining ratio of C13 in the atmosphere”. Fossil fuel burning releases the equivalent of about 4ppm of CO2 per year. If that’s happening, you don’t need to be an intellectual powerhouse to understand that the concentration of CO2 is going to go up. CO2 concentrations started rising just when fossils fuels started being burnt in significant quantities.
Fossil fuels also have a lower 13C content than atmospheric CO2, and the 13C content of atmospheric CO2 started dropping just at exactly the time fossil fuels began to be burnt in significant quantities, having been virtually constant for millennia beforehand. The conclusion is obvious and inescapable but you can’t get it. Are you simply not intelligent enough, or have you consciously decided to be ignorant?
RW,
As much as you try, you cannot make cohenite’s perception (mis or otherwise) about the source of CO2 into proof of AGW.
AGW is about the claim that a given amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will trigger a climate catastrophe.
If the CO2 came from active volcanic eruptions it would take the same amount of CO2 to trigger the apocalypse.
AGW is not more true because skeptics make mistakes.
So how about telling us why the climate changed during the current interglacial before the industrial revolution, RW? To stand up, your theory requires this explanation.
Luke said: “You said: “…a mixture of natural variation and AGW seems unpalatable for the sceptics” Where do you come up with silliness like this?”
Why is this silly?”
Did I say silly? Should have used asinine, ignorant, disingenuous, and playful (as in mind games.)
I realize this has become just a game to you, but don’t you have better things to do? Go raise some kids or something. Sheesh! With a Pshaw thrown in to indicate how over the top you have become.
I notice that Professor David Karoly has reviewed “Heaven and Earth” in the most scathing terms.
Professor Karoly’s reputation is now in tatters:
1. He is on record as speaking to the ABC.
2. His review neglected to mention that Al Gore is fat.
3. He has admitted a history of using mathematical models.
In order to improve agricultural yields, we must start piling coal in heaps and burning it.
Hunter: could you please cite a page from the various IPCC’s reports that say that “… a given amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will trigger a climate catastrophe”?
Cheers,
Well CoRev – you’re here – not somewhere else – why is it “asinine, ignorant, disingenuous” – I’m calling you punk.
As for Thermotesticles – get closer to the fire mate.
Luke, why did you ignore the embedded answer?
“I realize this has become just a game to you, but don’t you have better things to do? Go raise some kids or something. Sheesh! With a Pshaw thrown in to indicate how over the top you have become.”
G’Day!
peter d,
Wow, so AGW believers *don’t* believe that CO2 is causing a climate catastrophe?
And now you have set a new standard that unless the IPCC says it, it hasn’t been said?
Well, well well. Let us see what a brief google shows us:
http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserver/objecthandlers/index.cfm?ID=6315&Method=Full
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/ten-years-left-to-avert-catastrophe-434718.html
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/science/nature/news/article_1374469.php/UN_warns_of_climate_catastrophe_urges_urgent_action
http://oceanacidification.wordpress.com/2008/10/14/the-krilling-fields-study-fears-catastrophe-in-antarctic-food-chain/
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19981
Keep moving the goal posts all you want. It does not make AGW more credible or less wrong.
Well gee Hunter – we can list a whole bunch of blogs that tell us sceptics are a bunch of pig ignorant redneck hillbilly morons too.
Gee on your standard that must be true too. Hey Mummy I red it on the internetz – it must be twue.
Clown.
Luke,
Well, that makes it definitive: Luke’s eloquence proves the case for AGW.
We can all go home now.
But since each and every link I posted is from sites supporting AGW, and quoting the IPCC, does that mean they are “pig ignorant redneck hillbilly morons”, or just in your line of fire?
Or are you now saying that the IPCC and the AGW community is not claiming that
there is a climate crisis at ahnd right now?
I am sure many people are, after reading you and your many similar AGW believers, becoming ever more confident in the claims you and other true believers make.
Thanks in advance for even more thoughtful clarifications.
Cheers,
You’re so dishonest Hunter. You love trying to corral the debate.
We know that the world is already subject to adverse climate events – droughts, floods, severe storms, hurricanes, heatwaves, cold outbreaks, storm surge, bushfire weather etc
AGW is likely to change the frequency and/or intensity and/or duration and/or geographical range of these phenomena over time. Some signs of this happening have occurred – some debateable.
At what point would YOU Hunter like to decide that it’s a “crisis”.
The IPCC is simply telling you what the science knows at this point.
The term “true believers” is also stupid. The evidence is imperfect. It’s a risk management decision. Your logic is truly fucked.
Luke,
It is a crisis when the manifestations of climate, weather, become significantly different in an adverse way.
They have not.
They are not even close.
I am not coralling anything. I am declining to allow a bunch of AGW fundies define the debate by way of arguments to authority and fallacious use of the precautionary principal.
The IPCC is telling us what an echo chamber of self reviewed insiders tell us they think.
They are selling ridiculous policies that will not even solve the problem they claim to identify.
Kyoto was an acknowledged complete failure. Copenhagen promises nothing more than failure, and that is with no one being allowed to even offer serious alternatives. So don’t pretend to be all sanctimonious about this AGW bilge. If you actually believe it, then you are walking around wiht “sucker” pinned on the back of your shirt.
If they were serious about CO2, they would demand nuclear power. Instead, the AGW promotion industry, like the profiteers they are, are pushing the wet dream of all financial scams, cap and trade.
But the AGW community is after power and money. Science is just a cheap veneer to make the grab seem altruistic. Which is how every other social movement claiming to save the world from self-proclaimed pending disasters behaves.
I am corralling nothing. I am calling the bloated, gluttonous, degenerate slob of an emperor out for strutting around naked.
And, as is true from every popular scam like it, the intelligentsia of the day take to cheering on the naked Emperor like ducks to water.
But you cannot even own your apocalypse. You have the nuts to call people here dishonest when you and your pals cannot even admit that it is the mongering of a massive fear about the future that has brought this preposterous idea about how climate works into credibility.
When confronted with direct quotes form pro-AGW sites that show just how fear-heavy AGW is, you deny it or decry the fact that it is presented.
So please, continue to berate and belittle and pretend there is nothing to discuss. Pretend it is settled.
Every time you do, fewer people are agreeing with you and your side.
Alan Siddons “Louis, Allow me doubts concerning the “vacuity” of outer space plasma…”
The idea sounds wacky but the astronomer Akasofu has studied the plasma most of his career. He describes the plasma as both electrons and protons ejected from the Sun and diverted around the Earth by the Earth’s magnetic field. In essence, the plasma is an electric current and its interaction with our magnetic field produces high voltages and circulating electrical currents in our atmosphere and through our planet. That plasma extends well out into the solar system from the Sun.
With respect to space as a vacuum and where the heat goes, that’s another question, and it vexes me to see the AGW mob treat heat transfer in such an amateurish manner. Heat is no different than light in that both are forms of electromagnetic energy of different frequencies. If light can be reflected from the Earth’s surface, as witnessed from spacecraft, why should heat not be reflected or emitted as well? After all, the Earth is behaving like a blackbody radiator and the IR portion representing heat is just one part of the Planck spectrum.
The criterion for heat flow is simply a temperature difference, which is a measure of differences in energy levels. Since space represents a huge cold sink, perhaps heat flows there just to enable the energy it contains to neutralize. After all, light travels billions of miles from stars for no apparent reason, and that’s only the part we see. In matter, heat is a measure of the vibration of atomic particles, but heat emitted as photons have literally nowhere to go but out to space.
I was reading an article by Shockley, the inventor of the transistor. He was talking about a semiconductor like germanium and how electrons not bound in covalent bonds just drift, almost aimlessly. They can’t be absorbed due to the Pauli principle and they travel between atoms in a mean free path. They will travel 1000 atomic radii in one spurt, a phenomenon that is not understood.
That boggles the mind but I think we take our understanding of science too literally. We don’t understand a fraction of what we think we know. Why do electrons even move in a solid piece of germanium with no external potential applied? Also, why does light shone on the germanium surface cause them to move? It is known the electrons in germanium absorb light energy but what the heck is it and how does it operate?
I may be misunderstanding you about the average input of 239 W/m.m, but isn’t that what’s left at the surface after the Sun’s energy is filtered by the atmosphere? At the outer edge of the atmosphere, it’s more like 1300 W/m.m. Without an atmosphere, that’s what the surface would experience.
Hi, Gordon. Yeah, this heat vs light issue is why I call it “thermal energy” whenever appropriate. Such a term might be vague, but so is the nature of the subject. Generally I regard heat as molecular vibration and light as the EM that this vibration produces — and also causes. One has a temperature and the other does not, but both are instances of thermal energy.
A vacuum per se has neither temperature nor electromagnetic energy, however, making it rather exotic from our point of view, although it’s the universe’s main “component.” Point is, because it isn’t strictly there, it has no way of absorbing thermal energy from a heat source. A heated body will thus stay warmer in a vacuum environment because it can ONLY lose heat by radiation. By contrast, air has substance and therefore temperature. Cold air vigorously draws heat away.
In space, a thermometer reading will really only tell you the temperature of the thermometer, which will vary according to the ambient radiation. But a nearly-vacuous plasma at a thousand degrees won’t register as hot at all because the interaction of the gas with the thermometer is so miniscule. By the same token, space at 3K will not feel cold either. Down here just as much as up there, empty space is neither hot nor cold but an insulator, a difficult concept to grasp.
In my view, one of the clearest explanations of thermal conditions in a vacuum is at the Clavius site. http://www.clavius.org/heatxfer.html
Oh. Meant to explain the 239. Of the 1365 watts per square meter available from the sun, the earth reflects about 30%. Effectively, then, only 956 is available. A flat blackbody facing that radiation directly would absorb 956, of course. But a sphere consists of angles that are oblique to the light. Geometrically, therefore, a hemisphere can only absorb half of the available intensity. So now we’re down to 478 W/m². But the other hemisphere receives no light at all. So the average irradiance for the whole sphere is 239 W/m². Climatologists take that 239 W/m² and simply plug it into the blackbody formula, which yields 255K.
It is an entirely stupid way of estimating a planet’s temperature, but that’s how it’s done.
Gordon
“He describes the plasma as both electrons and protons ejected from the Sun ”
Uhm, protons are positively charged nucleii and electrons negatively – the Sun cannot, in terms of what we understand now, do that.
What measurements support this observation?
Alan Siddons
Not going into the detail, but there are no vacuums out there in space – it’s plasma.
The only vacuums seem between the ears of the Newtonian adherents here.
Louis,
The plasma is so thin, and the rest of what is out there is so little, that claling space a vacuum is not an abuse of the concept.
Come on Louis, you’re embarrasing them now.
“Come on Louis, you’re embarrasing them now.”
Don’t be silly will we can tolerate a wide range of point of view, you should stop projecting.
“Don’t be silly will we can tolerate a wide range of point of view, you should stop projecting.”
Strange breed of scepticism here, it can tolerate any point of view except AGW.
“Strange breed of scepticism here, it can tolerate any point of view except AGW.”
consensus and scepticism are mutually exlcusive and AGW is the “consensus” view so out it goes.
“consensus and scepticism are mutually exlcusive ”
Scepticism is about evidence, it has nothing to do with consensus. I think there is a consensus that evolution is a much better explanation of biodiversity than creationism. That’s got nothing to do with consensus or not, but that the evidence for one is much better than the other.
Little Will: “Scepticism is about evidence, it has nothing to do with consensus.”
That’s what I said. “The consensus” about AGW has nothing to with evidence. The consensus is itself intolerant of other points of view a logical singularity if you like (you probably don’t) there by it excludes itself from tolerance. For example I might consider Louis’s interpretation of the evidence as eccentric but I can be tolerant of it while disagreeing. I can’t tolerate something like AGW that is itself intolerant because within it’s framework there is no room for it.
Louis “Uhm, protons are positively charged nucleii and electrons negatively – the Sun cannot, in terms of what we understand now, do that”.
Protons are only part of the nucleus in most atoms, being combined with neutrons. It’s true that protons have a positive charge.
I’ll go back and read it but I presume he’s refering to the proton left over from hydrogen when the electron disappears. I don’t remember my atomic theory too well at the moment, is their a neutron involved as well?
When I studied astronomy (for a whole year…I did two of geology, you’ll be glad to hear) we learned that the state of the gases in the Sun is not what you’d expect. Due to the tremendous heat and pressure, electrons are flying everywhere as are the remnants of hydrogen and helium atoms.
What the heck, I looked it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_atom
It says the hydrogen atom’s nucleus is a singly charged proton, so if the electron is boiled off it’s becomes a free proton, I presume. If the electrons are being fired out of the Sun, I presume also the protons are too. I’ll go back and find out what Akasofu actually said.
Here’s another reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
Alan Siddons “Meant to explain the 239. Of the 1365 watts per square meter available from the sun…”
I understand that part, I was wondering about Lindzen’s 70+ C at the surface. I’ll have to read what he said again but it seemed he was refering to a situation where there was no convection available to remove the heat that built up, much like in a greenhouse. Lindzen’s take on the greenhouse effect seems to be about the movement of air from the tropics, where it can’t escape, up to higher latitudes where it can escape. He does not subscribe to the GHE exactly as described by AGW.
Suppose your 260 watts does warm the surface to a certain temperature and suppose that heat is not removed by convection. That does not describe the conditions of Planck’s equation, does it? How hot would it get in a greenhouse at the equator? Could it reach 70 C?
Planck’s equation describes a ‘theoretical’ blackbody contained in a special container. He also insisted that his equation applies only to situations in which the radiated wavelength is much larger than the atomic structure on which it falls. In other words, according to G&T, Planck does not apply to radiation falling on atoms like CO2. It does not strike me as being correct to apply Planck to an atmosphere without making adjustments for the conditions. As G&T point out, the Boltzmann constant used in Planck is not a generalized constant, it depends on certain conditions being met, otherwise it has to be adjusted.
Comment from: SJT June 12th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
“AGW is Just a Theory”
So what am I to make of the theory of evolution? It’s just a theory.
Comment from: Eli Rabett June 12th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Kill the strawmen
Comment from: Luke June 14th, 2009 at 1:21 am
Yes Alan and that’s why GCMs don’t calculate in that way.
NEXT !
These are excellent examples of AGW believers who fail to articulate rationally and critically with a counter to what a skeptic writes.All too common a occurrence all over the internet.
Alan Siddons was far better,since he goes to the trouble of explaining simple physics even for you,if you bother to allow it to sink in.