Well, no
On April 7 (as you can read in my previous post) I wrote to Dr Julie Maxton, Executive Director of the Royal Society, London, asking a simple question:
I’ve been hunting for evidence for several years without success and now I’m thinking that the Royal Society will surely not let me down. I do hope you can provide a succinct answer. By what mechanism do our emissions cause dangerous global warming?
Shortly afterwards a reply arrived from her Executive Assistant:
In case it may be helpful to you, please see Climate change: evidence and causes published by the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences in February 2014, and Climate updates: progress since the fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the IPCC published by the Royal Society in November 2017.
I’ve examined these references, on the Royal Society website, and downloaded two sizeable pdf files. This begins my report.
Climate change: evidence and causes
This page starts with a short video, An introduction to climate change in 60 seconds. It explains:
As the sun’s rays reach the earth’s surface, some are absorbed and re-emitted as heat. Greenhouse gases, such as water vapour and carbon dioxide, absorb and re-radiate some of this heat. Increased amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere mean more heat is trapped, warming the earth.
Human emissions, plus some land use changes, have increased the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide by 40%, mainly since 1900. Global average surface temperature has increased by 0.8°C over that time. Other changes to the climate in recent decades can be seen in the warming of the oceans, a rise in sea level, decreasing snow and ice cover in the Northern Hemisphere, and a decline in sea ice in the Arctic.
If emissions continue unchecked, then further warming of 2.6 to 4.8°C would be expected by the end of this century. Even at the low end, this would have serious implications for human societies and the natural world.
The first paragraph’s summary is roughly correct and reminds us that every bit of the global warming we’re talking about originates in the sun.
Hitting the unwary like a bombshell
Saying that atmospheric carbon dioxide increased by about 40% is probably accurate enough, but then the Royal Society seriously misrepresents the science. Mentioning the temperature increase under the heading “Evidence & Causes of Climate Change” implies human responsibility, yet it doesn’t say that the IPCC itself guesses that we’re responsible for only about half the warming.
Then comes the part that intends to bring all the hype from the last thirty years to bear in a single statement, hitting the unwary like a bombshell:
Other changes to the climate in recent decades can be seen in the warming of the oceans
What? But the oceans are enormous. You mean our emissions are heating them up? Yes, that’s what the Royal Society (egged on by the IPCC) are telling us. However, when you look closely at this claim there’s no evidence for it. Let me explain.
How to heat the ocean (on a blackboard)
Our emissions go into the atmosphere (naturally). The Royal Society want us to believe the air heats the ocean. But scientists know that under normal circumstances the ocean controls the air temperature, not the other way around. Occasionally very cold air blowing across the water takes heat away, cooling the water, but because heat rises, it cannot go down into the water. Heat always rises, so the atmosphere never warms the water.
There’s some speculation from 2004, following an experiment aboard the New Zealand research vessel R/V Tangaroa, that a little radiative atmospheric heating of the “thin skin” surface layer could slow the escape of thermal energy into the atmosphere, thereby slowing the cooling of the ocean and causing it to warm. But the experiment showed negative forcing, thus failing to support the speculation, and (this is crucial) no experiments have ever been done to quantify the hypothesised warming of the thin skin.
Until this is done the hypothesis remains unconfirmed and yet many dire predictions from the warmsters utterly rely on it being true. Dr Minnett also explained in 2006 that it wasn’t carbon dioxide they measured in the experiment, but infrared radiation from the clear and cloudy sky, saying that the difference mimicked increasing radiation from rising CO2. So not much in the experiment was connected with the hypothesis—nor did it prove the hypothesis.
Is nobody interested in the truth?
Why has nobody in the world confirmed that the minuscule portion of the atmospheric trace gas carbon dioxide contributed over about 70 years by human emissions can in fact warm ocean water from above? Why has nobody established the magnitude of that warming? Why, in other words, is nobody interested?
This is a crucial element of the dangerous anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, so it is highly surprising that it has never drawn scientific scrutiny. No investigative reporter anywhere in the world has questioned a single IPCC scientist about this discrepancy. In the absence of proof of airborne warming of the ocean by our emissions, it would be difficult or impossible to hold humanity responsible for dangerous sea level rise, for the thermosteric component is the largest of several causal factors. Surely scientists want to understand it and to measure it—yet they never have. Perhaps it’s impossible?
All the various perils threatened by the rising sea, from damaged seaside properties to lost buildings and infrastructure and millions of predicted climate refugees, are not only most unlikely but are also unpreventable except by the age-old and time-honoured engineering practice of looking to the past to make sensible provision for the future.
I’ll report on the remaining references very soon.
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Some quotes from ‘ On the Shoulders of Heretics ‘.
Page 79. It is written that in January 2017, Dr. Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute of Technology resigned from her teaching position in utter frustration. Explaining why, “A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science “. Further.., page 81…” and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide”.
“Following her resignation, she was attacked, insulted and vilified …”, and so on.
The book, by Joseph Leonard Fone, is a real eye opener.
Richard Treadgold. Tens of thousands of scientists publishing work related to the climate and millions of other research scientists don’t have the problem you have understanding science.
I guess it’s something to do with training, knowledge and expertise.
Maybe Richard could explain how ENSO works using his theory. Why are El Niño years warmer than La Niña?
Simon,
What theory? Does anyone know how ENSO works? Is it like the sun, which some think could contain a neutron star that rattles around and changes things periodically.
But hang on, please; I’m still working my way through the four substantial references you produced under the Green Utopia post. By the way, the first paper, Verheggen et al., used a sample of only 1868 scientists. I haven’t finished reading it and I’ve only glimpsed the others. And I’m busy on other things too. It’s great to be alive, right?
We know how ENSO works. The differential in temperature is due to atmospheric heat exchange with the ocean. Claiming that the ocean can not be warmed is crank nonsense.
Page 83: Corruption and vested interests;”By the fifties, the orthodox establishment was in the shackles of political control”. The scientific establishment had lost its autonomy and become compromised by political interests-On the Shoulders of Heretics by Joseph Leonard Fone. What a fascinating read.
The Royal Society claims that greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere, but is this true. Carbon dioxide is a good absorber of energy and therefore it is also a good emitter of energy. A good insulator (which “traps” heat) is something that slows the loss of energy, ie a poor emitter, eg wood, asbestos, wool, krypton etc. Also, unlike most other gases carbon dioxide is also a good conductor. Other good conductors such as most metals, do not perform well as insulators.
An increase in energy does not necessarily cause a rise in temperature. For example, imagine a room at a temperature of 20C which is radiating energy from the walls, ceiling and floor. Place a large item which has a temperature of 10C in the room. This item will be radiating energy in all directions yet the temperature of the room will decrease to something less than 20C.
Heat flows only when there is a temperature gradient and only from warm to cool. As the temperature of the atmosphere is normally cooler than the surface heat will normally flow from the surface to the atmosphere. If the density of the downward radiation from the atmosphere is less than the density of the radiation leaving the surface, there will be no additional warming at the surface.
Simon,
Yes, it certainly is nonsense, and I have never said it. The sun does an admirable job of heating the ocean. You outrageously distort what I say, yet I’m always careful to say it correctly. Let me say it again. What evidence exists that the minuscule fraction of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by human emissions is significantly heating the ocean? Or, alternatively, by what mechanism is this done? Or, indeed, how does that small fraction dangerously heat the atmosphere? Though I consider the ocean heating impossible, whereas the notion of allegedly dangerous atmospheric heating is merely absurd.
You are aware that water evaporates and precipitates aren’t you? And that those processes are a mechanism of heat transfer?
Simon
“you are aware that water evaporates and precipitates aren’t? And that those processes are a mechanism of heat transfer?”
Exactly. Animals, vegetation and the surface all evaporate water to cool and that latent heat is transferred to the atmosphere where it condenses and precipitates as rain, sleet, hail, snow etc. Each form of precipitation when it reaches the surface will have a cooling, not warming effect. The presence of water vapour in the atmosphere is evidence the surface has cooled.
Water vapour is said to be the dominant greenhouse gas and that the greenhouse effect makes the surface warmer during the day and at night. Yet, the warmest places on Earth during the day are hot deserts where there is very little water vapour (humidity) in the atmosphere and consequently, less back radiation (down-welling) from the atmosphere. Conversely, Singapore, which is nearly on the Equator, has high nearby ocean temperatures, and is calm, has extremely high humidity levels but a record peak temperature of only 36C! On the other hand, Port Hedland Western Australia, although near the coast has relatively low humidity levels but averages 137 days each year over 35C!
Australian climate scientist, David Karoly, observed that during the heat-wave in South-Eastern Australia in 2009 when there were record/near record maximum temperatures, humidity levels were low! If it is the back radiation from the atmosphere which raises surface temperatures shouldn’t day temperatures be lower when humidity levels are low?
Humid places tend to be more cloudy. Clouds are temperature moderators, they can both reflect and trap heat.
Simon,
Of course. Please avoid sniping and just say what you mean.
Ross,
(And what follows.) Lucid and succinct. You put your finger on something I’ve not much considered, thanks.
I’ve concluded that the warmsters’ claim that atmospheric water vapour is a feedback, not a forcing, is easily falsified, since incoming solar radiation readily heats it. This heating generates no further water vapour but directly contributes to atmospheric heating. So it’s a natural forcing that seems to be overlooked in the energy budget and falls by default into the anthropogenic basket.
Considering the global average concentration might be around 4%, it represents a not inconsiderable amount of heating.
A forcing pushes the climate into a new state, and the feedback is the response. A feedback can’t occur on its own in a stable climate. The primary radiative feedbacks are water vapor, lapse rate, surface albedo, and cloud formation.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/04/the-alsup-aftermath/
Tutorial based on evidence to San Francisco court concerning fossil fuel companies and sea level rise. Professor Myles Allen explains global warming and climate change; how and why scientists know the present warming is human-induced.
I learnt a lot from the first section on the basic science. It clears up some misconceptions that I had; hopefully it will do the same for others. Please watch and hopefully we can then have a more intelligent dialogue.
Stephanie and Simon
In the tutorial Myles Allen mentioned Fourier as one of the first scientists to recognise infrared radiation, but overlooked Fourier’s observation that the gases in the atmosphere would have to be solid for it to act as a greenhouse. Allen also suggested an enhanced “greenhouse” effect was like adding more insulation to your house. Adding more insulation moderates convection not radiation.
He also used graphs which showed outward long-wave radiation in the bands absorbed by carbon dioxide and water vapour. However, NCDC/NOAA graphs over the past 10 years show numerous periods where there has been an increase in the total amount of OLR leaving the top of the atmosphere!
” “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period!” remarked one climate researcher to another”. From ‘ On the Shoulders of Heretics ‘, page 331. There’s a link to a US Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works Hearing Statements, quoting Dr. David Deming, University of Oklahoma, Collage of Earth and Energy, Climate Change and the Media, regarding a senate hearing, but a security warning comes up. Maybe classified now.
Simon,
Yes, good, so we agree!
I must agree that a feedback needs what you call a forcing, it needs a cause. But a stable climate does not exist. The IPCC tells us what observation confirms: weather is chaos.
Strange. The sun’s radiation strikes the ocean, evaporating lots of water, and you call that and all that follows feedback? So you say that insolation is a forcing that pushes the climate into a new state? So the sun forces the climate from some natural state into a new state every day? But you say a feedback can’t occur on its own in a “stable climate”. Solar radiation striking the sea is a natural part of the weather, part of what you call a stable climate, so feedback cannot occur. What’s happened to your reasoning?
My comment that insulation moderates convection, not radiation was incorrect. It should have referred to how a greenhouse works.
Regarding radiative feedbacks, Simon included the lapse rate. The lapse rate above the surface also continues below the surface. It is relevant in the mining industry where ventilation shafts are used. The temperature increases with depth in the shafts at exactly the same rate as it cools with altitude above the surface. It is called auto-compression. Radiation from the Sun does not reach to the bottom of the shafts.
Stephanie sends us off to Real Climate for tutorials from Myles Allen….who is trying to peddle his quack “Greenhouse gas” theory onto an unsuspecting Californian lawyer (Judge), and the rest of us.
This Myles Allen comes up with incorrect bullshit…right from the very start, Stephanie…
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2018/04/the-alsup-aftermath/#comment-702822
If you actually had listened to the tutorial Mack, you would have heard that temperate and density of absorbing CO2 molecules decrease with height in the atmosphere. I extol that you and others actually listen and learn so that our conversations can be less facile.
@ Simon
It would help if you learnt the meaning of words and used them precisely.
Well Simon, if you don’t think that the THERMOSPHERE is not part if the Earth’s ATMOSPHERE, then you really are a loon with 1/2 a brain…or more scientifically….only a hemisphere.
Arrehnius, Tyndall and all the rest, can be forgiven for not realising anything about the existance of the thermosphere when they conjured up the quack, unreal “greenhouse” theory….but here you are… in 2018….with satellite images visually proving, and every textbook saying….there is a THERMOSPHERE as part of the Earth’s atmosphere. They even throw in an EXOSPHERE between it and space for good measure.
If I come to a tutorial, and the very first heading I read is unreal bullshit about this Earth’s atmosphere, you can hardly expect me to read any further, Simon. …besides, what follows is just a load of artificially concocted crap….all based entirely on the one false algorithm (assumption) that CO2 warms…the atmosphere,the ocean..or anything.
Further up this tread you blerted out, to Richard.. “Claiming that the ocean can not be warmed is crank nonsense”.
See… there it is again, Simon, that little “greenhouse” disease of your brain, which keeps on saying there must be something else other than the SUN which warms the ocean. Wow, and calling everybody else who doesn’t think that the ATMOSPHERE warms the OCEANS !!!?….cranks !!? ..you’ve got both feet jammed in each cheek of the mouth, Simon.
As I said to Stephanie a while ago….The atmosphere COOLS the ocean.
What part of the word COOLS do you not understand?
Btw Simon,
Here’s a little experiment for you ….Take off your shoes and socks and roll up your trousers above the knees. Now stand inside a cardboard box with the sides coming up to your knees. Get somebody to introduce CO2 into the box….it’s a heavy gas so it will hang over your feet quite nicely.
Do you feel your tootsies now getting all warm and cosy , Simon ? Your feet are emitting heaps of infra-red radiation and you’ve got all that “heat trapping” gas, in very high concentration, completely surrounding them. Stand there as long as you like…..let me know how you get on ..
Cheers,
Mack.
btw also Simon,
If you feel that your tootsies are not sufficiently warming up, I suggest closing your eyes and quietly chanting to yourself…..”blanket..blanket…blanket….the “greenhouse” gas surrounds my feet like a “blanket”…blanket..blanket etc….” . It may help….but it’s my bet, frozen tootsies will over-ride your “greenhouse” dogma.
The greenhouse effect is within the troposphere. Professor Myles Allen assumed a certain level of scientific understanding, evident from Judge Alsup’s questions.
The outer layer of a vacuum flask (Thermos) cools any warmer contents within the inner layer (chamber) yet keeps them warmer by its presence (than they otherwise would have been).
You people really need to let go of your crank views and give real science a hug.
Incidentally, here is a graph showing how far Britain has come in reducing emissions:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/679334/2016_Final_Emissions_Statistics_one_page_summary.pdf
Globull warming hits the USA
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/meteorologists-expect-coldest-april-on-record/
Canada a bit chilly, too
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/articles/coldest-april-temperatures-on-record-2018-yyz-pearson-ontario-ottawa-toronto-spring-statistics/100006
https://static.skepticalscience.com/images/co2_temp_1900_2008.gif
CO2 and temperature over the 20th century
https://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf
Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from outgoing long wave radiation
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Berkeley Lab researchers link rising CO2 levels from fossil fuels to an upward trend in radiative forcing at two locations
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26122017/climate-change-science-2017-year-review-evidence-impact-faster-more-extreme
New research suggests human-caused emissions will lead to bigger impacts on heat and extreme weather, and sooner than the IPCC warned just three years ago.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2167127-why-the-hockey-stick-graph-will-always-be-climate-sciences-icon/
“The greenhouse effect is within the troposphere” says Stephanie.
Sure Steph, it’s abundantly clear that your pseudoscientific “greenhouse effect” is only “within the troposphere.” So all of a sudden, below this randomly chosen spot in the Earth’s atmosphere ie the tropopause, all these CO2 molecules start behaving totally differently from the CO2 molecules just above them. At this certain point, they take it upon themselves to transform into a molecule possessing a totally different property wrt the absorption of the incoming solar radiation. Wow, this is real magical stuff….they’ve suddenly become a “greenhouse gas’ molecule.
Yeah..nah, Stephanie…these intellectual loons with their “greenhouse effect” live in some fantasy land. A fantasy land, where you can just ARTIFICIALLY cut off the Earth’s atmosphere to suit a quack “greenhouse” hypothesis. It’s called the “RADIATIVE greenhouse effect”, don’t forget, Stephanie….so it goes beyond just climatology in the troposphere. It’s physics, where these intellectuals then start rabbiting on about the total amounts of energy radiating here and there, and more particularly, from the atmosphere to space.
Space, Stephanie….you know…that place just past the THERMOSPHERE.
THERMOSPHERE, Stephanie…that part of the Earth’s ATMOSPHERE…..you got it?
All this is on top of the fact that this Myles Allen, will have totally effed up his numbers for his radiative energy transfers.
Have you got any numbers, Stephanie? ..or are you just going to sit here, endlessly posting links to AGW tripe.
I have explained how the greenhouse effect works using an analogy: a Thermos flask.
I have explained the greenhouse effect is in the troposphere; that is where the atmospheric gases are.
The atmosphere is not described as different layers for arbitrary reasons; the layers are different, ie have different properties.
Without an atmosphere the mean global surface temperature would be -18C; it is +15C. Due to the greenhouse effect.
We are increasing the greenhouse effect by increasing the greenhouse gas levels in the troposphere. Earth is warming; the tropopause is rising.
If you can show Myles Allen wrong, write a paper and sent it to Nature or Science.
If you don’t like Myles Allen perhaps try Stephen Belcher. Or will you claim he doesn’t understand science; the atmosphere… 🙂
https://www.carbonbrief.org/the-carbon-brief-interview-prof-stephen-belcher?
Prof Stephen Belcher was appointed the chief scientist at the Met Office in December 2016. In 2012, he joined the Met Office as director of the Met Office Hadley Centre. Previously, he was the head of the School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Reading. He has published more than 100 papers on the fluid dynamics of atmospheric and oceanic turbulence.
“I have explained how the greenhouse effect works using an analogy: a Thermos flask” . says Stephanie.
Yes, heaps of analogies….thermos-flasks, steel balls, metal plates, insulated houses, baths, black-bodies…all hypothetical analogies…but not the reality of this Sun, Earth, Atmosphere and Space, Stephanie.
“I have explained the greenhouse effect is in the troposphere; that is where the atmospheric gases are”
See my comment immediately above yours.
“The atmosphere is not descibed as different layers for arbitrary reasons; the layers are different, ie have different properties”
If you think that the property of the gas, CO2, changes anywhere in this Earth’s atmosphere, Stephanie…you had better rush to publication with that new scientific discovery.
“Without an atmosphere the mean global surface temperature would be -18C: it is +15C. Due to the greenhouse effect.”
Oh Dear, oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…Stephanie…. haven’t you read anything ahead of you on this blog?
Lookey here….I think you’re an intelligent person …so no doubt you will be able to follow this bit of science explained by Confused Jane. …but take note of my following comment….
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2016/09/13040/#comment-582433.
A good idea would be to read the whole of that thread,also, Stephanie.
Just as a matter of thought about your comment again…
“WITHOUT AN ATMOSPHERE the mean global surface TEMPERATURE……”
This is the key, unreal, wacko, speculative, hypothetical thought process of the believers of this looney “greenhouse” nonsense . If you take away the atmosphere..you have to take away the oceans as well, because the temperature of the sea determines the temperature of the atmosphere. The oceans are, in fact, part of he atmosphere, when determining any global average TEMPERATURE. It’s the blue planet..it’s ALL the blue stuff, determining the Earth’s temperature.
Actually, it all starts off when the teacher says..this is the ocean, this is the land, this is the atmosphere. You just can’t compartmentalise things out when talking about the Global average temperature. (just as you can’t compartmentalise out the atmosphere..above and below the tropopause… when talking about the properties of the “well mixed”, “non condensable”, CO2 gas)
You should have been at the back of the lecture theatre with the boys chewing gum and throwing darts, Stephanie.
Stephanie Hawking on April 29, 2018 at 7:16 am said:
SH, Prof Belcher’s expertise fields in fluid dynamics allow for zero effect from CO2, as does the Standard Atmosphere. A thinking person would wonder about this. But the Met Service has lost it since the great works of HH Lamb.
Mixed gases act with some similarity to alloys rather than bimetal strips in the solid phase. Hence the superiority of the Gas Laws. The physics or nature (two words, same meaning} of the gas phase allows so many degrees of freedom that individual specie characteristics are obliterated. Seek the reasons we do not use CO2 as insulation. As opposed to air or maybe argon. Reflectivity and/or vacuum are best where appropriate. Radiation – a weak fporce compared to kinetic energy. This needs to be understood too. One has to dig into things like quantum statistics and oscillators.
When thermalised by ground contact, visible and the near-infrared light frequencies etc., gas expands instantly to enter thermal uplift. Water, vapourised, even more so. Violently even. The resultant mass flow dominates hugely to past the height where radiation can dominate the exit to space of ex-solar input.
That is how it does happen, though CO2 could do it if water phase change was not present. But the atmosphere might have to expand, even boil off, and be lost by now. No life ever, of course.
Please elucidate on the evidence for the troposphere rising, that is interesting. Cheers, Brett
As recent as the year 2000 The Vatican is alleged to have defended the execution of Giordano Bruno.
Neither religion nor science are defenders of truth. The truth is what you believe, apparently. Politics is the art of lying. Philosophy has become love of perversion. Money is the measure of everything. The end is nigh!
Simon,
Would you kindly justify these seriously inaccurate statements.
The climate is never stable, it is chaotic.
Water vapour exists naturally as part of the hydrologic cycle. Without it, weather wouldn’t work. so why do you call it a feedback?
1. By definition, a feedback denotes the reaction of the (climate) system to a forcing which, in return, leads to a change in the forcings. Monckton seems to struggle with this definition as well.
2. Weather is chaotic. Climate is the average of weather patterns over some meaningful time period.
3. See 1.
Mack
on April 27, 2018 at 7:30 pm said:
“Here’s a little experiment for you ….Take off your shoes and socks and roll up your trousers above the knees. Now stand inside a cardboard box with the sides coming up to your knees. Get somebody to introduce CO2 into the box….it’s a heavy gas so it will hang over your feet quite nicely.
Do you feel your tootsies now getting all warm and cosy , Simon ? Your feet are emitting heaps of infra-red radiation and you’ve got all that “heat trapping” gas, in very high concentration, completely surrounding them. Stand there as long as you like…..let me know how you get on ..”
Actually I’d love to see this experiment done. I predict that nothing will happen, and that there will be only a very minute temperature rise probably due to blocking of convection at the sides of the box. In fact, after asking around at two major climate websites and one minor one, I’ve found that no one has done any sort of experiment to prove that CO2 heats an atmosphere– such as the one surrounding your feet in the box– to confirm the theory. Lousy, uncontrolled experiments on YouTube don’t count. So please, do the experiment and report back, or let me know how you want the experiment done and maybe I’ll do it myself