Jennifer Marohasy

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Explaining the Physics of Carbon Dioxide – Will Happer’s Tour Down Under

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When the Sun comes up on a cloudless day, everything is so clearly illuminated. I know this to be a consequence of incoming solar radiation. And when I sit in this sunlight, I know that it will warm me.

Physicists who study heat transfer can explain how the incoming radiation in the visible spectrum becomes long wave radiation in the infrared spectrum, and how increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide can potentially trap this energy increasing the average temperature of the Earth.

There are two issues that technocrats, convinced of a climate catastrophe, obsess over:

1. Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity – how much temperatures will increase assuming a doubling of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, and

2. Net Zero – how reducing emissions can keep climate change to within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

As an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton University and an expert on radiative transfer that concerns, amongst other things, the absorption of infrared radiation by carbon dioxide, Will Happer has the competency to calculate Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity from first principles.

Indeed, Professor Happer is perhaps more qualified, better credentialed, than anyone I have ever meet, and ever likely to meet, when it comes to calculating the likely effect of a doubling of atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide on the Earth’s temperature.

Not that we have a doubling yet, but that this is something the technocrats obsess over.

In a submission he made last year with Richard Lindzen concerning proposed changes to legislation enabling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to force companies to disclose information on their supposed climate-related business risks he wrote:

‘Our informed scientific opinion is that doubling CO2 concentrations will cause about 1 C or less of warming.’

Last night in Perth, the professor explained the physics that results in the more precise value of a 0.75 C increase, should there be a doubling of carbon dioxide and that after that, the effect of a doubling again would be miniscule because of saturation.

According to Professor Happer there will be NO climate catastrophe from increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide because of the structure of the atmosphere and laws of physics.

If you would like to attend one of his Australian lectures, Prof. Happer will be speaking in:

Melbourne at the Ritz-Carlton on 15 September,
Sydney at the Four Seasons on 18 September, and in
Brisbane at the Sofitel, on 20 September.

Each event will start at 5:30 pm and there will be a Q&A session following.

Tickets to any of the IPA lectures may be purchased from www.ipa.org.au/events.

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The photograph featured at the top of this blog post was taken in King’s park Perth, just yesterday when I had the privilege of discussing the work Professor Happer did on spectroscopy for the US military going back many years now and how it informed his more practical approach to measuring the contribution of carbon dioxide to equilibrium climate sensitivity.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. David Johnson says

    How frustrating! I won’t be able to attend. I do hope one of these lectures will be recorded and published?

  5. Glen M says

    Would enjoy the talk but up in Bowen. Happer is well known in the field of physics but unfortunately a pariah for the advocates of CO2 alarmism.

  7. Frits Buningh says

    I had great hope, when Dr. Happer joined the Previous Administration here in the US. Too bad he did not really get all the support he needed to make a substantial dent in the Climate Crisis argument/debate. I have read his stance on CO2 before, and it makes total sense to me. One time he gave the example of painting a black barn over with Red Paint. After the first Coat of the Red Paint, the now Red Barn will still appear a little darker as the black still shines through, but with each successive layer of the Red Paint, the final Red color becomes more dominant. After 3 or 4 more layers of new Red Paint, you will not be able to see the difference anymore of each new layer. The Saturation level has been reached. He has such a down to Earth way of explaining this Scientific principle. Great!

    I emailed you some information about supposed “Warming” on the Labor Day Weekend in Antarctica and the Climate Change Institute, did you get those emails?

    Thanks for sharing this article about Dr Happer.

    Frits Buningh
    Columbia, MD USA

  9. Patrick says

    The publicly available official data from the bureau’s ‘climate data shows that a 1.5 degree deviation in either direction is nothing new and that Australia saw much hotter and drier conditions over 100 years ago with carbon dioxide levels at least 30% lower. Now old mate says that anything above 0.75 degrees can’t be blamed on CO2 at even double the current levels. The question is how much longer are we going to continue to destroy our environment and economy because an obviously bogus hypothesis with nothing but 40 years of failed predictions and despite all of the evidence piling up against.

  10. Richard Bennett says

    You can guarantee that the establishment vested interests who stand to make $billions from net-zero schemes and the green political narrative, will be working all out to try and discredit anybody who presents correct irrefutable scientific evidence about the real impact of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere. Such action by the establishment Luddites must be thoroughly condemned by proper scientists.

  11. hunterson7 says

    The climate imperialists don’t need no science. They need sciencey words.
    Thank you for this and all of the many excellent essays.