How quickly the climate debate changes
From the Office of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee comes an announcement with the heading:
Release of an important report on the relationship between evidence and policy formation
It begins:
One of the key challenges for all governments is how to make the best use of evidence in both policy formation and policy evaluation.
It’s reassuring to hear that the PM’s science advisor is prepared to look for evidence. At least in relation to global warming, it’s not an instinct he’s been noted for. He tells us he’s released a report, Towards better use of evidence in policy formation, and I’d like to read it.
Until I do, I would remind Sir Peter that evidence is required to establish the following key factors in the global warming debate — evidence that has not surfaced so far. We have been looking for evidence to show:
1. The existence of a current unprecedented global warming trend.
2. That the greenhouse effect is powerful enough to endanger the environment.
3. A causal link between human activities and dangerously high global temperatures.
4. That climate models have a high level of skill in predicting the climate.
5. A causal link between atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and global temperatures.
6. A causal link between global warming and the gentle rise in sea level.
That will do for now; there is more.
Since a lot of policies have already been chosen in the absence of this evidence, we look forward to hearing Gluckman’s recommendation to the Prime Minister to cancel, halt or suspend the relevant policies until the relevant evidence is discovered.
Now, since that’s perfectly scientific, just as Gluckman says, it can’t be too much to hope for, right?
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what about also a causal link between global warming and the disappeared 50 million climate refugees to which your previous post refers Richard
Yep, I like that, Val.
Expect some “evidence” from NIWA’s supercomputer any day now.
Perhaps Sir Peter Gluckman would be interested in this evidence:-
Greenhouse Gas Theory Discredited by ‘Coolant’ Carbon Dioxide
Apr 14, 2011 John O’Sullivan
Professor Nasif Nahle found something deeply troubling about the man-made global warming theory (AGW). He explains, “I started out wanting to debunk those deniers of science.”
Nahle had originally believed that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) were warming the atmosphere until he found an incorrect assumption within the greenhouse effect hypothesis.
Invited to attend a televised debate on the Indonesian Tsunami that addressed whether global warming was a factor in that catastrophe, Nahle checked the validity of calculations relating to the combined reactions of certain atmospheric gases to solar radiation in the so-called greenhouse effect. “That was when I saw it was junk science.”
n his new paper, ‘Determination of the Total Emissivity of a Mixture of Gases Containing 5% of Water Vapor and 0.039% of Carbon Dioxide at Overlapping Absorption Bands’ the Mexican biologist turned climate researcher proves that in nature, CO2 and water vapor mix together to decrease infrared radiation emissions/absorptions in the air. This is the opposite of what conventional climatology has been saying for years.
Read more at Suite101: Greenhouse Gas Theory Discredited by ‘Coolant’ Carbon Dioxide http://www.suite101.com/content/greenhouse-gas-theory-discredited-by-coolant-carbon-dioxide-a365870#ixzz1Jl7P8NSn
Wow! I haven’t got time to check it out now, but I’ll get to it later. Wow!
There was an extensive, often acrimonious discussion on Judith Curry’s blog in a 3 parter about “Slaying the Sky Dragon”, with numerous posts by Nasif Nahle in Part 1.
Following the usual dismissive and sneering insults from commenters claiming the academic high ground, he seems to have dropped out of the subsequent parts (though does get a mention in dispatches)
http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/31/slaying-a-greenhouse-dragon/
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/04/slaying-a-greenhouse-dragon-part-ii/
http://judithcurry.com/2011/02/04/slaying-a-greenhouse-dragon-part-iii-discussion
Ron, I had a quick look at the Part 1 thread, Nasif Nahle sure is fiesty but I don’t think it’s the right approach given JC’s forum.
It is fascinating how Nasif being Mexican is so much more in tune with heat than some of the others from his experience in 40 C daytime and 30 C nighttime that can last for days. One of the others (possibly a warmist) was unable to conceive that the human body could even adapt to those temperatures.
It would appear that a certain Mr Renowden wishes to play “whack-a-mole” with you Richard, convenor of the “climate clueless” to use his turn of phrase.
Personally, I am more interested in locating those 50 million climate refugees. After returning to a cold and depressing Christchurch from a week in Aussie, that story has got me rolling in the aisles.
Thanks Andy, I’ll check him out later, too. Maybe on Wednesday. I don’t suppose he offers any evidence, does he? Nor would he know about the 50 mill refugees? Nah, didn’t think so. Funny how asking for facts gets the climate deniers’ blood going. Not their brain, just their blood.
It’s curious how quickly he turns to insults, yet I don’t remember insulting him. Not ever.
Yes he does supply some “evidence”. CO2 levels are increasing, and because it is “obvious” that CO2 causes warming, it is “obvious” that we are warming the atmosphere due to fossil fuel burning.
QED.
50 million climate refugees can’t be wrong.
Renowden: “More CO2 means more heat retained in the system”
Really? Where is it? Trenberth can’t find it, the “causal link” has been broken for the last decade and besides, Ferenc Miskolczi and now Nasif Nahle pour cold water (or should that be water vapour) on the notion.
Cook (scepticalscience): “More heat returning to earth”. [Huh?]
I think he means LWIR although that just removes the “human fingerprint on climate change” because there’s no heating ability in that except maybe in the early hours of the morning when some earth materials might have cooled to a level where the LWIR can slow further cooling before the sun takes over again and even that is land only – not oceans, lakes or rivers.. But it’s about rate of heat loss – there’s no heat gain from GHG’s.
What a gold mine that post is. I wish I had more time right now to give it the attention it deserves but it’s saved to my local drive for future reference (and in case it goes missing – like the heat – and the refugees).
Just one question each on both of Gareth’s “indicators” at this stage.
1) If rising ocean heat content is one of the “indicators of a warming world”, what does the trend since 2004 indicate?
Or is Cook’s scepticalscience graphic just in need of an update?
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
2) If in the Eemian 114,000 – 130,000 years ago (and CO2 lagging temperature in the Vostok series – an early glitch in the “causal link”), “CO2 at 300ppm delivered sea levels 6 m higher than today and global temperatures 1ºC higher than present”, why isn’t the current 392.40ppm delivering even greater levels than those at present?
There seems to be a “causal link” malfunction.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
http://joannenova.com.au/global-warming/ice-core-graph/ ( Eemian 6th graph down)
Damn good, Richard! I’ll get to replying to Renowden myself shortly. I’m chafing at the bit.
I’d mention Gluckman’s frequent references to Pielke Jr’s “The Honest Broker” in the pdf.
To the committed warmista, Pielke’s name is mud (he ;proposes amongst other things that most countries energy and climate policies are pure fantasy)
I haven’t read The Honest Broker, but I have read his more recent book The Climate Fix.
Prof Gluckman is asking for feedback, so I might have to write to him on this latter topic.
I personally feel that everyone involved in climate policy should read Pielke’s books.
I found this old comment from Gareth re. Pielke Jnr.
Given that their new found friend Peter Gluckman is so fond of RP Jnr, this is telling.
Pielke Snr and Jnr would like to think they have credibility, but in reality they’re a long way from the mainstream. Jr’s piece reads like an attempt to be deliberately controversial, to garner some media attention for himself as an “honest broker”.
I think he’s a long way off the mark, because he confuses the WattsUp and anti-green noise with serious science. He is right in one sense — that the debate should be about targets for emissions reductions, but he dives deep into his policy collapse schtick before making any cogent argument about why 450ppm is unrealistic.
In the context of US politics, it also seems directed at undermining whatever policy consensus Obama is trying to pull together. By saying it’s too hard, he prepares the ground for all those who want to do as little as possible. He has been positively Lomborgian in the past in his attempts to downplay the real message coming from climate scientists.
http://hot-topic.co.nz/censoring-science/#comment-4563
Gareth’s Plan B for sea level rise now that thermal rise (Plan A) is not working out so well is that the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are melting faster than estimated and have been releasing 475 gigatonnes of melted ice into the sea each year and the rate has been accelearting since 2005. All this extra water “could” push global average sea level 6 inches higher by 2050, apparently.
http://www.ess.uci.edu/news/washpost201103
Problem being that the accelerating melt has produced a decelerating sea level rise – I hope Gareth has a Plan C. Data here for anyone wanting to plot it.
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.txt
If anyone can school me on how to copy this file to 2 columns in Excel, I could do with a pointer. Do I have to laboriously type in comma separators then somehow set the input as comma delimited then paste special? I only have students version so I may be missing some functionality because I remember doing this trick quick and easy using the Excel version at my then place of work but that’s a while ago and I’ve forgotten what I did.
First save the file as a .txt to your hard drive. Then from Excel, choose a blank sheet and Choose Data | From Text (Excel 2010). If you’re not using Office 2010, you may have to use Help to find out how to import data, I’ve forgotten the exact menu commands to use.
Anyway, once you click From Text, you choose the .txt file you saved earlier, and follow the Text Import Wizard dialog. It’s quite useful, you can specifiy Delimited or Fixed Width, etc., and it shows you the effect of your choices on the data in the file.
Bob, this method fills column A the same as using copy and paste. What I need to do is separate the data into 2 fields, year in column A and sea level in column B.
I might be able to use a macro or script, years ago I could have whipped up a few lines of BASIC. There’s a simple way but I’ve got a very tired brain right now.
When the Text Import Wizard dialog appears, click on the “Fixed Width” radio button, then Next >.
On the next screen it should show a vertical line seperating the two fields. Click Finish and you should have the data neatly in two columns.
Bob, fixed width is the answer (didn’t occur to me to try that). Thank’s for the “Dummies” tutorial.
I often miss the simple way just because I don’t make time to work it through – then I take the obtuse option. Until now my best method was to run the file through my EMD program (strange but true).
This is so handy because all the other US data is in the same format too e.g. ice core, GCM initialization parameters.
I placed a 3rd order polynomial trend on the Global Mean Sea Level and it shows a pronounced deceleration after about 2004. 2004 is when OHC turned from rising to falling. The (by one account at least) accelerating Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet melt since 2005 is supposed to be adding to sea level rise (catastrophically).
Would it be correct to say that steric fall is over-riding eustatic rise (if there is any)?
I have to concede though, that starting the plot at 2005 does return an accelerating rise using the same polynomial but the data from mid 2009 onwards bucks that trend.
Here is a quick & simple method to split the data into two colmns if you haven’t already done so. Open a new Excel spreadsheet. Copy the data & paste into cell A1 in Excel. Select cells A2:A612. Open the DATA toolbar & select Text To Columns. when the Wizard opens select Delimited as file type & click next. Select Space as Delimiter type. Select “Treat consecutive delimiters as one” box if not already ticked. Press Next. Select General as Column Data Format. Click Finish. Voila. The data is now in two columns. Once the data is in the two columns you can format the cells as you would normally if you need to.
Peter P, thank’s for this tip too.
ChiefIO has some useful stuff today.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/
Jim “Death Trains of Coal” Hansen is touring NZ in May (at the invitation of various Green organisations) to help lobby against the Southland Lignite mining.
Maybe we can ask him for evidence. I don’t see Jimbo’s tour extending to the West Coast. It would nice to show him some of the original Death Trains that powered the early Coast economy., maybe meet some of the local Death Train operators.
This post and a few others but starting with a Mike Palin comment at HT got me thinking about an easy way to differentiate the solar SW heating effect from GHG LWIR’s comparative inability.
I would appreciate some feedback on this because I have not thought it through properly yet and I might be wrong.
The basic misconception I see in backradiation discussion is that GHG’s “heat the earth”. This misunderstanding is evident in Gareth’s HT post in reply to the above post here although Gareth tends to stick with “more energy (or heat) in the system” but he has used a scepticalscience graphic that shows “more heat returning to earth” in his post.
The difference could be communicated using the question:
What burns the skin on a sunny day, the sun or CO2?
No-one is slip, slop n slapping to protect themselves from GHG LWIIR because it is solar UV that does the damage. So if LWIR does not penetrate water more than a few nanometers and it does not burn skin, the possibly that it could add heat to rock, sand, earth, concrete, roofing etc already containing heat (Q) from the much more effective solar SW is remote. This seems to me to make sense intuitively without the need for physics formula’s and spectroscopy.
That deals with the heating effect (or lack of) of GHG LWIR. The next step is to demonstrate how insignificant at the earth’s surface, CO2 is as a heating agent. Average GHG LWIR flux between NZ and the equator can be expected to lie between 300 – 400 W.m2. The 2xCO2 scenario produces an extra 1.7 W.m2,. Clearly this insignificant will not be measurable, even more insignificant impossible would be the measurement of the fraction of that 1.7 that is of anthropogenic origin.
Any GHG warming discussion should snuff out the GHG’s “heating the earth” with the argument above IMO and return to the core of AGW which is the role of GHG’s in the atmosphere.
Gareth Renowden asserts that “heat is retained” in reference to the atmosphere (I think) and that energy is accumulating in “the system” with reference to atmosphere, earth and ocean (I think). What we don’t see is the detailed mechanism at a molecular level of how this happens, just “The “causal link” is basic physics, understood for 150 years (Fourier, Tyndall). More CO2 means more heat retained in the system”. If it’s so “basic” and “understood”, why doesn’t he lay it all out for critique?
Then all he has to do is provide the appropriate empirical metrics that support it – simple..
Anyone who has read Gerlich and Tscheuschner’s epic “Falsi fication Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse E ffects Within The Frame Of Physics” (I very much doubt that Gareth has) will know that Fourier, Arrhenius and Tyndall are definitely not the last words on the issue (they weren’t even the first – see M. de Saussure) and neither was their work reliable. Their work focussed on carbonic acid (H2CO3) – not carbon dioxide.
G&T: “Callendar [47{53] and Keeling [54{60], the founders of the modern greenhouse hypothesis, recycled Arrhenius’ \discussion of yesterday and the day before yesterday”19 by perpetuating the errors of the past and adding lots of new ones.”
G&T : “It is an interesting point that there is an inversion of the burden of proof in Arrhenius’ paper, which is typeset in boldface here, because it winds its way as a red thread through almost all contemporary papers on the influence of CO2 of the so-called global climate.”
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.1161v4.pdf
G&T greenhouse effect rebuttals (typos are weird pdf copying sorry)
3.3 Di erent versions of the atmospheric greenhouse conjecture . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3.1 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Moller (1973) . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3.2 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Meyer’s encyclopedia (1974) . . . . 38
3.3.3 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Schonwiese (1987) . . . . . . . . . 38
3.3.4 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Stichel (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.3.5 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Anonymous 1 (1995) . . . . . . . . 39
3.3.6 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Anonymous 2 (1995) . . . . . . . . 40
3.3.7 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Anonymous 3 (1995) . . . . . . . . 40
3.3.8 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after German Meteorological Society (1995) 40
3.3.9 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Gral (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3.10 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Ahrens (2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
3.3.11 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Dictionary of Geophysics, Astrophysics,
and Astronomy (2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3.12 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Encyclopaedia of Astronomy and
Astrophysics (2001) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.3.13 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
(2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3.14 Atmospheric greenhouse e ect after Rahmstorf (2007) . . . . . . . . . . 43
I’ve got my wires crossed, 1.7 W.m2 is as this quote from Dr Roy Clark’s “A Null Hypothesis for CO2” not 2xCO2 (sorry folks)
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/EPA_Submission_RClark.pdf
Doug Proctor says:
April 21, 2011 at 9:24 am
CO2 “warming” means that all heat in the oceans and non-oceanic surface comes from a downward heating of a warmed atmosphere. The speed with which heat penetrates 750 m into the oceans from a contact (and wind/wave turbulence) seems unlikely. After all, the air over the sea has warmed only 0.23C or so since 1979. If it were the sun’s rays, as they penetrate >60m and are powerful, seems more reasonable.
A 50 ppmv increase in pCO2 at 3.75 W/m2 is 0.51 W/m2, meaning that at the end of the rise there is a 0.51 W/m2 increase in power, while an AVERAGE increase of 0.25 W/m2. This is on top of a current atmospheric absorption (clear skies) of 68 W/m2 and a land/sea absorption of 236 W/m2. Those of us who have swum in Northern lakes during 35*C summers know how thin the warm water is all through summer. Heat doesn’t want to go down. But apparently 0.25 W/m2 of warming by CO2 over the last 30 years flows through and is obvious beyond a 68 W/m2 clear air absorption and 236 W/m2 substrate absorption BACKGROUND.
Pretty amazing how we can say that we know the energy in and out of 304 W/m2 with a confidence that during the year and between years there is no local or longterm change within 0.1 W/m2 (assuming that “real” has to be at least 2X SD). Yep, we are confident to 0.033% accuracy 95% of the time. Ignoring the albedo variation from a background 100 W/m2.
340.5 W/m2 +/- 0.1 W/m2, day to day, year to year, place to place consistency. No long-term deviation at a planetary level from that, no sir. Or local, either. Frankly, this is the first part of the IPCC meme I can’t be comfortable with. And without strong feedback mechanisms to keep our planet the near-stable temperatures it experiences, not acceptable to the IPCC meme. And there is the second part I’m not comfortable with.
Doug, I’ve made a comprehensive reply to your points but it got lost in the spam filter or maybe just vanished. I’ve emailed Richard Treadgold with a copy but I see he’s out of town so it wont be posted until next week. Please keep an eye out for it.
Rich.
Doug, here’s the “Lite” version of the reply I tried to post. I’ve broken it up and a continuation is posted at the Easter thread (link at bottom) where I have posted a series of Nasif Nahle articles that deal with the deficient physics of AGW and some concepts relevant to your points and my reply here.
The increase in “power” is not what it seems. To use an electrical analogy, LWIR downwelling radiation is “apparent” power – not “real” power. Equal fluxes of solar SW radiation and LWIR backradiation will not yield the same heating effect on a specific material (say water) due to the different wavelengths (i.e what part of the spectrum the respective radiation is propagated). If it were the same, the LWIR energy could be harnessed at night for electricity generation purposes in the same manner that solar rays are harnessed during the day.
Being Northern, the angle of incidence that the solar rays strike the lake surface becomes more acute the further North the lake is situated. This decreases the heating effect (less efficient) due to reduced penetration and absoption, increased reflection, scattering and probably lower initial temperature of the water (was probably frozen over during winter) and less transmission.
Yes it is correct that heat will ascend because the temperature gradient is from warm earth to cold space (see the Nasif Nahle articles for better physics explaations) but the flux from CO2 is radiation – not heat. These are two different forms of energy, heat has temperature, radiation does not (even the thermal energy that we are dealing with. Radiation travels at the speed of light and heat travels so slow in air that it can be seen rising from hot surfaces on a hot day at the whim of the wind.
I see a phenomenon all over the blogosphere where this topic is discussed (no disrespect to you Doug). People have a good handle on the numerics but not on the thermodynamic concepts. I really think that people that work with heat on a day-to-day basis e.g. smelters, furnaces, boilers HVAC etc have a far better “feel” for the physics and are better equipped academically having studied work. power, energy, heat transfer and the various characteristics of materials relevant to it in addition to measurement and numerics involved than do climate scientists. I think this is where climate science has come unstuck but now we see the likes of physicists and Mech/Chem/Elec Engineers getting involved in climate science because they have discovered that so much of it is unsound physically.
See the Nasif Nahle articles and additional information and links I have provided at the Easter thread linked below.
If we are to really debate AGW at a molecular and thermodynamic level, these are the concepts and principles that we must be conversant with and condense into readily communicable soundbites but I don’t think that extensive use of numerics is the best medium because numbers and maths are not a mainstream mode of discourse. You will lose the attention of an interested person once their eyes glaze over if they are not numerically inclined.
The next step (and the key I think) is to explore the characteristics of CO2 and what happens to just one molecule of CO2 when intercepted by re-emitted radiation (LW) and then the vibration and collision events (heating and heat dissipation) and what are the time frames?. The central question is: does a CO2 molecule “retain” heat (as Renowden asserts) or does it simply absorb and re-emit an equal amount of energy so that that retention is a very short time, maybe milliseconds or less?
i.e. Does CO2 retain heat or not and if so how and for how long?
The question could be couched in a number of ways that get to the nub of the issue more concisely and accurately but I’ll settle for that now because this is explored in detail in the Easter thread here:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/04/happy-easter-break/#comment-49970
You wont find this level of detail at Hot Topic BTW (it’s studiously avoided there).
Thank you for your time and thoughts. It is distressing but not all that surprising that W/m2 equivalent has not the same effect as W/m2 real and so forth. This is the reason that the warmists and others say we should listen to authority, not determine things ourselves, that they are experts and know, and we are amateurs and know not.
I and others look, primarily, for internal inconsistencies. I agree that numerics cause the readers to glaze over, but words and thought arguments by themselves have too much slop to be definitive. It is only when we find that A + B does not equal C as posited that the error in others’ thinking is proven. I’ve tried to stay within conventional argument, as in the OHC, to see if the numbers cross-check. I find or I feel a disconnect.
The IPCC and others use power equivalents for CO2, specifically 3.75 W/m2 for a doubling of CO2. If true, then the increase in recent CO2 has this “power” since 1980 of about 0.25W/m2, average. Given that, with the AGW meme, we are transferring energy from the atmosphere into the ocean (and land masses), then we can ask ourselves if the thermal gradient and the infra-red re-radiance that is actually going on can, reasonably, penetrate that far and that deep that fast. The comment about northern swimming is really not about specific latitude gains but about how fast surface temperatures penetrate a different medium, i.e. thermal conductivity, even when assisted by direct high insolation. It is a human observation that, while possibly incorrect. goes to the side of the issue that says, “show me, as this doesn’t make sense as I see it”.
I am not distressed or irritated, in case my reply comes across that way. Climate change, like entering wars or supporting flurordation of our city’s waters, requires each of us to determine, at a minimum, if what we hear makes sense. Democracy and freedom demand it of us. My experience in the oil and gas business has, at 30 years and more, demonstrated consistently that if something seems odd, or that what involved and self-interested groups wants to do seems strange, there is something going on, an agenda we are not told about. Climate change AGW meme rings bells all over the place for me. Even the assertion that the temperature record is accurate to within 0.1C strikes me as ludicrous (though the long-term trend may be fine within its boundaries), but Hansen et al argue vehemently that it is. And if you can question so elementary a stat by knowing how thermometers are made and read, what are you to make of the other positions taken? That all need to be questioned and inspected severely for coherence in their principal components and “reasonableness” in their assumptions.
Doug, this following quote from your comment illustrates perfectly what I was getting at (I’m not disagreeing, just coming from a different angle). The concepts, principles, laws, rationales, assumptions, etc have to be valid for the application and communicable and consistent (as you say) in words or diagrams BEFORE the numerics are applied. It’s pointless moving on to numerics if the rationale is flawed in the first instance (the qualification) but if the reasoning is OK, THEN apply the numerics (the quantification). If the concept is faultless, those who are not numeric will be won over by the qualification but there will always be those that require the quantification also. From your comment:-
This AGW reasoning is flawed on so many levels that I despair every time I see it (its wrong intuitively if nothing else).
This article by Dr Roy Clark shows energy transfer at the air-ocean interface (Fig 4) and at the air-land interface (Fig 10). At the air-ocean interface, only solar SW can penetrate to 100m approx depth, GHG LWIR penetrates less than 100 micron.
http://venturaphotonics.com/GlobalWarming.html
In the case of radiation at the air-land interface, for GHG LWIR to be effective as a heating agent: 1) the material receiving the radiation must be at a lower energy level AND 2) be able to absorb at that frequency. If neither then no heating and if at all, probably late at night i.e the LWIR power is only effective to heat in limited conditions (as is solar SW but solar is more effective for more materials, water in particular).
In the case of heat at the air-ocean interface: it takes 4x more heat to raise the temperature of water than to heat air due to the respective specific heat capacities. Water is one of the hardest elements to heat (Lithium requires more energy for example).
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/specific-heat-capacity-d_391.html
And due to thermal conductivity (water better than air)
http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html
From these values we see air is ineffective as a heating agent of water by conduction (air can’t get the heat to the water and when it does it doesn’t have enough of it to do the job). Heat will also seek colder space (rise upwards) or be moved by wind (advection) rather than seek a relatively warmer earth or ocean (the gradient is from earth to space).
Bottom line, only solar SW radiation heats oceans lakes and rivers, GHG LWIR has next to no water heating ability.
There was an interview with Prof Gluckman on TVNZ Q&A by Paul Holmes, last weekend
There is a fair bit of mention of climate change, (Barry Brill gets a mention).
Transcript and video here
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/sir-peter-gluckman-interviewed-paul-holmes-3470802
This is the key part of the interview with respect to this post:
PAUL How can we be so sure, tell the people at home again, how can we be so sure that climate change, or current climate change is human induced?
SIR PETERI think that there is no other explanation possible for the rate of change in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, there’s absolute lots of evidence that humans are degrading the planet in many ways, and the modelling and the analyses make it very clear that human activity is responsible for the way of the change in the planet.
OK, we seem to be in circular reasoning mode again. CO2 causes global warming, CO2 is increasing, therefore CO2 must be causing global warming. What’s more, our models, that are hard-wired to CO2 forcing, back this up (with a bit of tweaking). Furthermore, the “environment is being degraded”.
Is it any wonder that we get sceptical?
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/sir-peter-gluckman-interviewed-paul-holmes-3470802
Another blow to warmist theory: Decreasing radiation from greenhouse gases
Saturday, April 16, 2011
The anthropogenic global warming theory is based upon the notion that increasing ‘greenhouse gases’ will increase infrared ‘back-radiation’ to the earth to [supposedly] warm the planet. The theory also claims that increases in the minor ‘greenhouse gas’ carbon dioxide will cause increases in the major ‘greenhouse gas’ water vapor to amplify the infrared ‘back-radiation’ and global warming. A study published online yesterday in The Journal of Climate, however, finds that contrary to the global warming theory, infrared ‘back-radiation’ from greenhouse gases has declined over the past 14 years in the US Southern Great Plains in winter, summer, and autumn. If the anthropogenic global warming theory was correct, the infrared ‘back-radiation’ should have instead increased year-round over the past 14 years along with the steady rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
Journal of Climate 2011 ; e-View
doi: 10.1175/2011JCLI4210.1
Long-Term Trends in Downwelling Spectral Infrared Radiance over the U.S. Southern Great Plains
P. Jonathan Gero, Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
David D. Turner, NOAA / National Severe Storms Laboratory, Norman, Oklahoma and Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, Wisconsin
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/04/another-blow-to-warmist-theory.html
Debunking the Greenhouse Gas Theory in Three Simple Steps
Part One: Coolant Carbon Dioxide
Step Two: How the IPCC Picked Wrong Numbers from the Get-go
Step Three: Exposing the Idiocy
http://johnosullivan.livejournal.com/35681.html
Sir Peter Gluckman’s attitude to climate science is a bit of a worry. For a ‘top scientist’ ( the term has become somewhat suspect since some person or persons unknown relased that batch of emails from the UEA’s electronic files) to only now begin looking for evidence to support his prior statements and beliefs about global warming seems somewhat ass-backward to me. Merely reading the list of failed doomsday prognostications from the CAGW believers and promoters should be enough to raise some doubts. A quick glance at some of the 900-odd peer-reviewed papers that demonstrate that the sceptical arguments have merit should be compulsory reading for advisors such as Gluckman. I suspect his advice to be thinly-disguised advocacy for a fashionable perspective rather a scientific one.
Peter Gluckman is a medical researcher. He’s a good one, so he hasn’t been splitting his time reading up other people’s disciplines, or running a climate model in his spare time.
He knows no more about atmospheric physics, solar activity, coupled models, paleo-climatology, forecasting, oceanography, glaciology, etc than your average medical practitioner.
When he lectures the NZ public on climate predictions he speaks with zero authority. He can say no more than ” a guy told me that a girl wrote an article about another guy whose computer said this might be true.”
And this is equally true of speeches made by all those faculty deans, colleges, institutes, Royal Societies, and other science trade unions. And green activists and politicians. It’s all just hearsay ramped up by rhetoric and a little imagination.
But, BUT, the Hot Topic faithful don’t see it that way.
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CTG April 19, 2011 at 1:27 am
Gluckman is turning out to be extremely good value for money. There’s probably a lesson for National in there, if they were minded to listen. (I asked Wayne Mapp how he could square away the govt’s supposed commitment to science and technology with sacking 17 NIWA scientists, and got the usual empty platitudes in reply)
It is nice to see Gluckman using his extended network here – one of the people he consulted on this report is my hero, Bob May (ex-UK CSA). If you don’t know who Bob May is, I strongly advise you do some googling. A New South Welshman of the small, nuggety type, he is one of the most brilliant minds of our generation; one of very few physicists who made a successful transition into biology, and virtually single-handedly invented the field of mathematical epidemiology (my speciality). For me, Bob May encapsulates everything that science stands for; particularly the way he handled the divide between science and policy. Gluckman, I feel, deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Bob May, and is our best hope of countering the anti-science vomit of Treadgold and his ilk.
On a completely off-topic note, you can currently view a “DNA portait” of Gluckman at the marvellous Art of Science exhibition in Shed 11, Wellington. Fantastic exhibition, featuring excellent lunchtime seminars every Wednesday. (Okay, I admit it, my wife works for the RSNZ).
http://hot-topic.co.nz/return-of-the-climate-clueless%E2%84%A2-theres-none-so-blind/#comment-25588
Keith Hunter has chimed in.
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Keith Hunter April 21, 2011 at 9:45 pm
People should remember that it is a very long shot to expect Peter to be an expert on most topics of science, despite that fact that he can call on lots of expertise. This is not an issue. Most good scientists like him can interpret the information they receive. If he couldn’t do this he wouldn’t have the respect he has from mainstrem scientists. For my part, I am happy with what he has to say. Saying that, I mean I am also happy with the opportunities he gives me to have my say on important issues.
With regard to Treadgold and his ilk, I have to say that there is nothing they say that I can relate to, as an active scientist who works in the climate change arena and who speaks on behalf of many others down here at Otago in that arena. I have told Richard this. For better or worse, my view is that they (RT and co) do not speak for the genuinely skeptic community.
The time for their brand of skepticism is past, I am afraid.
Sincerely. Keith
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Each of the “genuinely skeptic community” (the basis of science Kieth – remember?) speaks for themselves Keith, we don’t have a Priest – doctrine – faithful belief structure that the non-sceptic AGW community have.
Contrary to your opinion Keith, healthy scientific scepticism is alive and well but I don’t expect you to “relate to” that because it involves a continuous quest for knowledge and scientific discovery 1.e. we are not bound by the 2007 IPCC AR4 report as you are.
Peter Gluckman is a medical researcher: true. But he is also the government chief scientist. Isn’t climate change “the biggest environmental challenge of our time”?
I would have thought a few basic facts would be helpful, rather than the political statements and appeals to authority that we saw on the Q&A interview with Paul Holmes
Professor Nahle has numerous posts at Dr Marohasy’s blog which might interest you:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/index.php?s=nahle
Yes Val, very interested and extremely useful, thanks for the sleuthing (I guess it helps being a voracious blogger).
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From: “A Profitable Discharge of the Second Law of Thermodynamics: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle”, this explanation of radiative heating by REFLECTION (not to be confused with re-emission) and the condition by which the temperature of an emitting material can be raised by incoming radiation (Mike Palin, Gareth Renowden, take note).
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From “Effects of Gravity on the IR Quantum/Waves Frequency: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle, an explanation of radiative energy dissipation, reduced density (intensity), also the POWER of RE-EMITTED radiative thewrmal energy. Again, Mike Palin, Gareth Renowden take note,
Consequently, the power of an IR quantum/wave emitted from the ground towards the atmosphere is lower at a height of 7.7 km than at the boundary layer surface-atmosphere. In other words, the energy density of the quantum/wave is lower at higher altitudes than at the surface level in the finite moment that the quantum/wave is emitted [5] (U = a *T^4). Therefore, the air immediately above the surface is warmed further than the air at higher heights.
The same observable fact occurs to quantum/waves that are emitted by the air. Considering the frequency of IR quantum/waves emitted towards the space by the air layer immediately above the surface, we obtain a change of frequency of 4.61 Hz.
And
And
Therefore, the energy density of a quantum/wave decreases as its wavelength is lengthened. The longer the wavelength is, the lower the energy density is.
And
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“Recycling of Heat in the Atmosphere is Impossible: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle” duplicated verbatim here:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/04/happy-easter-break/#comment-49952
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“Temperatures of Void Space and Microstates: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle” duplicated verbatim here:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/04/happy-easter-break/#comment-49955
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Total Emissivity of the Earth and Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle duplicated verbatim here:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/04/happy-easter-break/#comment-49959
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From: “Calling for Essays in Defence of Back Radiation”
Posted by jennifer, March 30th, 2011 – under News, Opinion.
Tags: Climate & Climate Change, People, Physics
This morning I noted the following comment from Bob Ashworth with reference to Dr Nahle’s work:
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Determining the Total Emissivity of a Mixture of Gases Containing Overlapping Absorption Bands: A Note from Nasif S. Nahle duplicated verbatim here:-
https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2011/04/happy-easter-break/#comment-49963
It Is Impossible For A 100 ppm Increase In Atmospheric CO2 Concentration To Cause Global Warming
Dr Roy Clark
Overview
Anyone who tries to understand how a 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration causes climate change will soon find out that the entire global warming argument is nothing more than empirical speculation. No cause and effect linking CO2 and global warming has ever been demonstrated because none exists. In order to understand how the Earth’s climate works it is necessary to go back to first principles and look carefully at the surface energy transfer. The air-ocean and the air-land interfaces behave very differently, so they have to be considered separately. This article summarizes the work performed by Dr. Roy Clark, the founder of Ventura Photonics, on the underlying energy transfer physics that sets the Earth’s surface temperature. However, first we must define the energy transfer question that we seek to answer.
Ask the Right Question
Over the last 50 years or so, the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by about ~70 ppm and over the last 200 years this increases further to ~100 ppm. Under ideal ‘clear sky’ conditions, these increases in CO2 concentration have produced an increase in the downward atmospheric LWIR flux at the surface of 1.2 and 1.7 Watts per square meter. At the same time, over the last six solar cycles, the sunspot index has been running about 70% above normal compared to the index average from 1650. This has produced an average increase in the solar constant at the top of the atmosphere of ~0.3 Watts per square meter in a flux of 1365 Watts per square meter. The changes in the downward LWIR flux may be determined from radiative transfer calculations using the HITRAN database [Rothmann et al, 2004]. The calculated changes in the Kirchoff Exchange Energies are identical to the empirical ‘Radiative Forcing Constants’ used by Hansen et al [2005]. The change in solar flux is derived from the SOHO Satellite VIRGO Radiometer data and the sunspot record from 1650. These data are shown in Figures 1 to 3.
The question that needs to be answered is the following:
Starting from the basic Laws of Physics including the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics, the Kirchoff Exchange Law and Beer’s Law, determine the changes in surface temperature caused by both a 100 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration over 200 years and by the changes in the solar constant due to variations in the sunspot index. Treat the air-ocean and the air-land interfaces separately. Explain how the changes in surface temperature are then coupled into the meteorological surface temperature record.
http://venturaphotonics.com/GlobalWarming.html
Now read on….. (as they say at Hot Topic)
Why dont you guys team up and draft up a precis and send it to him? Include references etc. I have always liked what Jo Nova did here. Helped me convert a few people.
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/10/is-the-western-climate-establishment-corrupt-part-9-the-heart-of-the-matter-and-the-coloring-in-trick/
A very constructive challenge (not so) Silent. This could be in the form of a competition similar to one that was run here a while ago to come up with a parliamentary question. I will email Richard Treadgold with this proposal, maybe he will conduct it via a post.
To get the ball rolling, my approach would be to keep it simple and to distill the issue to the one defining factor that either supports or disproves the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming e.g.
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To Sir Peter Gluckman,
The theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming relies entirely on the notion that increases in the minor greenhouse gas CO2 result in increases of the major greenhouse gas water vapor, thereby supposedly increasing global warming to alarming levels of 2-5C per doubling of CO2 levels. Without this assumed and unproven positive feedback from water vapor, there is no basis for alarm.
The IPCC states in their 2007 report:-
“The average atmospheric water vapour content has increased since at least the 1980s over land and ocean as well as in the upper troposphere. The increase is broadly consistent with the extra water vapour that warmer air can hold.”
The 2005 paper “Water vapor trends and variability from the global NVAP dataset” by Thomas. H. Vonder Haar, John M. Forsythe, Johnny Luo, David L. Randel and Shannon Woo based on the NASA water vapor data set [called NVAP] showed that water vapor levels had instead declined (with 95% confidence) between 1988-1999. The paper states,
“By examining the 12 year record [1988-1999], a decrease of TPW [total precipitable water vapor] at a rate of -0.29 mm / decade is observed. This relationship is significant at the 95 % but not at the 99 % level [since when do climate scientists insist on a 99% confidence level?]. A downward trend would be intriguing since there should be a positive slope if a global warming signal was present.”
While most NASA data is made available on the internet within a few months of collection and analysis, for some reason NASA NVAP water vapor data -which could either support or undermine the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming- is not going to be officially released for up to 12 years since collection. Dr Roger A. Pielke Sr.(Senior Research Scientist, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), University of Colorado in Boulder Professor Emeritus of the Department of Atmospheric Science, Colorado State University, Fort Collins) asks:-
“Since this is such a fundamental climate metric to compare with the IPCC multi-decadal global model predictions (which project a continued increase in tropospheric water vapor), the achievement of an updated (through 2010) accurate analysis of the NVAP data should be of the highest climate science priority.”
Should not also, the NZ government via the Office of Climate Change be pursuing this data as the most important (and only) action that the office undertakes because it is the one metric that either supports or disproves the CAGW hypothesis?
If a downward trend in total precipitable water vapour (TPW) has continued since 1999, no further action needs to be taken in respect to man-made climate change as a result of fossil fuel emissions and the ETS can be repealed.
Richard Cumming
Received this feedback from JoNova
Author: cohenite
Comment:
Richard C@99; I would add in respect of water vapor decline the Soloman paper:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract
The Paltridge paper:
http://www.theclimatescam.se/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/paltridgearkingpook.pdf
The Pierce paper:
http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/papers/Pierce_et_al_AIRS_vs_models_2006GL027060.pdf
Of possibly more interest is the fact that in the overlapping spectrum CO2 reduces the emissivity of H2O:
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-4505-1.pdf
http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/2809/1/Lapp_m_1960.pdf
This is well shown in a graph of H2O and CO2 in the overlapping spectrums:
http://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/spectra-h2o-co2-15um.png
This decline in the emissivity of H2O in the presence of CO2 means the dependency of AGW on climate sensivity from positive feedback from H2O is severely restrained and must be problematic.
NASA keeps mum on data that could disprove anthropogenic global warming theory
Saturday, April 23, 2011
The theory of anthropogenic global warming is based upon the notion that increases in the minor greenhouse gas CO2 result in increases of the major greenhouse gas water vapor, thereby supposedly increasing global warming to alarming levels of 2-5C per doubling of CO2 levels. Without this assumed and unproven positive feedback from water vapor, there is no basis for alarm. While the IPCC confidently stated in their 2007 report,
a 2005 paper based on the NASA water vapor data set [called NVAP] showed that water vapor levels had instead declined (with 95% confidence) between 1988-1999. The paper states,
While most NASA data is made available on the internet within a few months of collection and analysis, for some reason NASA NVAP water vapor data -which could either support or undermine the theory of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming- is not going to be officially released for up to 12 years since collection. Is it too much to ask that NASA finishes its analysis and releases this data before the world spends trillions on a potentially non-existent problem?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/04/nasa-keeps-mum-on-data-that-could.html
Speaking of Chief Scientists, Jo Nova has some interesting observations on the apparent neutrality of the Australian CS Ian Chubb
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/04/is-it-possible-our-new-chief-scientist-has-doubts-about-climate-science/
At least, he (wisely) appears to be keeping out of the politics
From Tim Ball:-
Let’s counter the claim that CO2 has overridden all natural causes for the last 50 years. Only a couple of simple examples are necessary.
Figure 1 shows the change in Earth albedo produced by the Earthshine Project.
Figure 2 shows the plot of decreasing number of weather stations and global temperature.
http://climatechangedispatch.com/home/8923-ipcc-false-philosophical-footings-a-massive-deception
Gareth Renowden plays whack-a-mole with a moth-eaten feather duster, Tim Ball uses a wrecking ball.
Ten Physics Facts – Setting the Record Straight
Written by Hans Schreuder, guest post | April 26 2011
This is a rebuttal based on Physics Trumps Right-Wing Ideology written by Mr. Puckerclust. Puckerclust begins his post thusly:
Before we set the record straight about those ten supposed physics facts, let’s also set the record straight on some preliminary information that Mr Puckerclust would like us to believe.
(a) The APS statement on climate change was not drafted or confirmed by “47,000 physicists” of the APS, but by the APS council.
(b) Many members of the APS have criticized the statement, incl. Harold Lewis who resigned in protest. Lewis’ analysis of the motivations behind the APS council position on climate change is better than anything we could come up with.
(c) Even APS editor Jeffrey Marque had to make the public admission ”There is a considerable presence within the scientific community of people who do not agree with the IPCC conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are very probably likely to be primarily responsible for global warming that has occurred since the Industrial Revolution.”
(d) Furthermore, even if there was “consensus” on AGW by APS or any other institution this wouldn’t make the theory valid -unless Puckerclust is also willing to accept that the Sun had revolved around the Earth prior to 1543.
(e) The snide title of Puckerclust’s essay implies that those on the political left could not possibly dispute his opinions. That alone is far from the truth.
(f) By the way, nobody is denying that global warming occurred during the last decade of the last century, it’s just that the emissions of carbon dioxide have nothing to do with it.
Now for our point by point response, not just one, but all ten………..
http://climatechangedispatch.com/home/8931-ten-physics-facts-setting-the-record-straight
Quite entertaining Puckerclust’s original essay ( I can’t help feeling there’s an awful ClusterF**k somewhere in that moniker)
A good deal of the “usual suspects” from the Denialsphere(tm) wade in with their tuppence. Mr PuckerClust does his best to bat them away but in the end he needs to implement a “moderation policy”.
Quite an entertaining read.
On the subject of “denial”, I see that John Cook’s new book is on Amazon
(Of “Skeptical Science” fame)
Climate Change Denial: Heads in the Sand
http://www.amazon.com/Climate-Change-Denial-Heads-Sand/dp/1849713367
Product Description;
Humans have always used denial.
When we are afraid, guilty, confused, or when something interferes with our self-image, we tend to deny it. Yet denial is a delusion. When it impacts on the health of oneself, or society, or the world it becomes a pathology.
Climate change denial is such a case. Paradoxically, as the climate science has become more certain, denial about the issue has increased. The paradox lies in the denial There is a denial industry funded by the fossil fuel companies that literally denies the science, and seeks to confuse the public. There is denial within governments, where spin-doctors use “weasel words” to pretend they are taking action. However there is also denial within most of us, the citizenry. We let denial prosper and we resist the science.
The CSIRO also provide a similar review
This book shows how we can break through denial, accept reality, and thus solve the climate crisis. The authors examine the nature of climate change denial, its history, how we let denial prosper, and how we can roll back denial. It summarises the climate science and explains uncertainty and probability. It also explains the social science behind denial.
http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/6811.htm
I can’t top that (must be a new D-word record surely), but I did stumble upon:-
Scepticism is bastardry, says head of ACF
THE president of the Australian Conservation Foundation has attacked the “scientific bastardry” of climate change sceptics amid weakening public consensus that humans are to blame.
And
He said the evidence for human-induced climate change was backed by virtually all scientists. He described the views of climate change sceptics as “illegitimate arguments that you could call scientific bastardry”.
Ian Lowe, who is also professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University, lamented the narrowing of the carbon tax debate.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/scepticism-is-bastardry-says-head-of-acf/story-fn59niix-1226046544056
Lowe profers this wisdom in the Cook book editorial reviews:-
‘Climate Change denial is the biggest single obstacle to achieving a sustainable future. This book provides all the evidence and arguments you need to counter the campaign of misinformation. Read it, study it and spread its message widely.’
I wonder what the D-word count is for the entire Cook book?
US$23.84 seems excessive for pulp fiction.
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