Home/BlogWe now have the official NOAA-NASA report that 2015 was the warmest year by far in the surface thermometer record. John and I predicted this would be the case fully 7 months ago, when we called 2015 as the winner.
In contrast, our satellite analysis has 2015 only third warmest which has also been widely reported for weeks now. I understand that the RSS satellite analysis has it 4th warmest.
And yet I have had many e-mail requests to address the new reports of warmest year on record. I’ve been reluctant to because, well, this is all old news. (Also, my blog has been under almost constant “brute force login attacks” for the last month, from a variety of IP addresses, making posting nearly impossible most days).
There are many things I could say, but I would be repeating myself:
– Land measurements …that thermometers over land appear to have serious spurious warming issues from urbanization effects. Anthony Watts is to be credited for spearheading the effort to demonstrate this over the U.S. where recent warming has been exaggerated by about 60%, and I suspect the problem in other regions of the global will be at least as bad. Apparently, the NOAA homogenization procedure forces good data to match bad data. That the raw data has serious spurious warming effects is easy to demonstrate…and has been for the last 50 years in the peer-reviewed literature….why is it not yet explicitly estimated and removed?
– Ocean Measurements …that even some NOAA scientists don’t like the new Karlized ocean surface temperature dataset that made the global warming pause disappear; many feel it also forces good data to agree with bad data. (I see a common theme here.)
– El Nino …that a goodly portion of the record warmth in 2015 was naturally induced, just as it was in previous record warm years.
– Thermometers Still Disagree with Models …that even if 2015 is the warmest on record, and NOAA has exactly the right answer, it is still well below the average forecast of the IPCC’s climate models, and something very close to that average forms the basis for global warming policy. In other words, even if every successive year is a new record, it matters quite a lot just how much warming we are talking about.
Then we have scientists out there claiming silly things, like the satellites measure temperatures at atmospheric altitudes where people don’t live anyway, so we should ignore them.
Oh, really? Would those same scientists also claim we should ignore the ocean heat content measurements — also where nobody lives — even though that is supposedly the most important piece of evidence that heat is accumulating in the climate system?
Hmmm?
Finally, I don’t see why any of this matters anyway. Didn’t the Paris agreement in December signify that world governments are going to fix the global warming problem?
Or was that message oversold, too?
I’m not claiming our satellite dataset is necessarily the best global temperature dataset in terms of trends, even though I currently suspect it is closer to being accurate than the surface record — that will be for history to decide. The divergence in surface and satellite trends remains a mystery, and cannot (in my opinion) continue indefinitely if both happen to be largely correct.
But since the satellites generally agree with (1) radiosondes and (2) most global reanalysis datasets (which use all observations radiosondes, surface temperatures, commercial aircraft, satellites, etc. everything except the kitchen sink), I think the fact that NOAA-NASA essentially ignores it reveals an institutional bias that the public who pays the bills is becoming increasingly aware of.
And this brings up the elephant in the room that I have a difficult time ignoring
By now it has become a truism that government agencies will prefer whichever dataset supports the governments desired policies. You might think that government agencies are only out to report the truth, but if that’s the case, why are these agencies run by political appointees?
I can say this as a former government employee who used to help NASA sell its programs to congress: We weren’t funded to investigate non-problems, and if global warming were ever to become a non-problem, funding would go away. I was told what I could and couldn’t say to Congress…Jim Hansen got to say whatever he wanted. I grew tired of it, and resigned.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying climate change is a non-problem; only that government programs that fund almost 100% of the research into climate change cannot be viewed as unbiased. Agencies can only maintain (or, preferable, grow) their budgets if the problem they want to study persists. Since at least the 1980s, an institutional bias exists which has encouraged the climate research community to view virtually all climate change as human-caused.
There indeed is a climate change problem to study…but I don’t think we know with any certainty how much is natural versus manmade. There is no way to know, because there is (contrary to the IPCC’s claims) no fingerprint of human versus natural warming. Even natural warming originating over the ocean will cause faster warming over land than over ocean, just as we already observe.
But since the government has framed virtually all of the research programs in terms of human-caused climate change, that’s what the funded scientists will dutifully report it to be, in terms of supposed causation.
And until the culture in the government funding agencies changes, I don’t see a new way of doing business materializing. It might require congress to direct the funding agencies to spend at least a small portion of their budgets to look for evidence of natural causes of climate change.
Because scientists, I have learned, will tend to find whatever they are paid to find in terms of causation…which is sometimes very difficult to pin down in science.
Dear Roy,
Is their any reason why my server gives error the site is not trusted in Firefox (latest version) for the last temperature graph
Sorry, I should have added the error message: You don’t have permission to access /wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2015_v6-1.png
The rest of your blog etc is fully accessible???
Regards
Boris
It’s because we just changed web hosting companies today…I’ll bet the paths have changed….let me see if we can regain access to these files.
I posted from a network that was protected by a Sonicwall NSA with no problems
Dr Spencer: You might look into the services at cloudflare.com to stop attacks. Services for one website is free and you keep your current host.
The link to the graph is still not working as of today Jan 29th @ 12:30 Am PST.
Same error as noted above by Boris Winterhalter.
Won’t we eventually be able to get a good long term trend line by using the ARGO buoy data? And if so, how long a baseline will we need to reduce the noise affects on the trend line to a level where we can make a good estimate of how much energy the earth is gaining over time?
It seems this approach ought to be pretty much foolproof, as long as the percentage of the planet’s heat stored in the ocean is relatively constant…
when ARGO went online the Atlantic Ocean was experiencing an unusually strong hurricane season which resulted in some ocean cooling that was misinterpreted as a calibration error. It will take decades to recsilidate.
JDAM, can you provide some references to the Argo data?
I was able to find plenty of papers that show the hurricane/cyclone cooling …
Please provide some references to the Argo “calibration error”
Roy Spencer says
“I was told what I could and couldnt say to CongressJim Hansen got to say whatever he wanted. I grew tired of it, and resigned.”
###
And there is the whole problem in a nutshell: The public sector campaigns against the private sector.
mmpainter,
Actually that is slightly incorrect. The public sector (an oxymoron – it is actually the government sector) campaigns for itself. If it happens to be in opposition to the private sector – well, too bad. Taxpayers and citizens be damned – tax them, lie to them, arrest them, take their property, etc.
“I was told what I could and couldn’t say to Congress.. Jim Hansen got to say whatever he wanted. I grew tired of it, and resigned.”
Well there you have it..Roy potentially sacrificing his career to follow a path he felt was right. He wanted to say stuff but was stifled by his bosses.He maintained his integrity in the pursuit of the science he felt was right.
I’ll venture to hazard a guess that he feels all the better now, for this decision.
Hansen claimed he was being stifled by the Bush administration as he was awarded $1.6 million from several environmental causes. Apparently hanging out with Daryl Hannah has its benefits.
Good honest post Dr. Spencer, maybe it’s time to do as the late Micheal Crichton suggested and do the data analysis with a double blind study. So we can once and for all get rid of bias, both intentional and unintentional. Some how or another we nee to get the politics out of this issue, I’ve watched a few of the hearings in D.C. and I don’t know how you, Dr. Christy and others handle the stress.(stress: the mind overriding the bodies desire to choke the begesus out of someone who desperately deserves it) Fight the good fight, and thanks for being a counterpoint to “Gavin and the Government Gang”
P.S. How long before the our Climate Commander in Chief blames this storm in D.C. on man made Climate Change?
The storm will be blamed on climate change and then will be blamed on GOP “Climate Deniers:”
GOP doesn’t believe in climate change, Climate change caused blizzard. Therefore GOP responsible for blizzard. Q.E.D.
Excellent post Dr Spencer.
I enjoy reading your blog very much.
Dr. Roy, this is certainly one of your best posts “evah”!
Thanks for sharing your “inside” information and your thoughts. The more public awareness of the AGW nonsense, the better.
I think we should direct tax payers funds towards finding all those elephant bones at the bottom of the oceans. It should be easy, I believe there are mega-tons down there.
Smokey The Bear says Only You Can Prevent Wildfires!
So why do you intend on starting them?
Smokey Bear does not have “the” in his name.
I checked with his mother.
Let me be clear: I’m not saying climate change is a non-problem … There indeed is a climate change problem to study…
I need to be convinced of that.
Ditto. I see a post LIA warming trend that might be slightly augmented by increased CO2 but if so, absolutely unquantifiable. As for a problem, well, what problem?
For you I would recommend this paper (http://www.phys.huji.ac.il/~shaviv/articles/20thCentury.pdf) by Nir Shaviv and one co-author. According to it, 60% of the 20th century warming is anthropogenic, and 40% solar.
JAP, no thanks. There is never a bigger waste of time than a work that claims to identify all components of warming and uses a climate model product as support for their conclusions. I regard any claim that an AGW component of a warming trend has been quantified as b.s.
Your referenced link assumes that the late warming of the globe was beyond natural means. BS button on that: ice cores show warming rates ten times those of the twentieth century.
You should know better than to give such a study serious regard.
mpainter,
Your dismissal of this study is alarming and premature, to say the least. I don’t believe this study claims to identify “all components of warming” and climate models, though in some regards they may be inadequate, are very useful to climate scientists. So you, a skeptic, want to regard a fellow skeptic’s (Nir Shaviv) work b.s.? Where does it assume that the late 20th century warming was beyond natural means? And anyway, ice cores do not necessarily give a representative sample of the entire globe. But I don’t think it is “beyond natural means” like some alarmists may, don’t get me wrong on that. But you should look at this study more carefully, see the arguments it presents differently.
Anyway, I thought that you would like a study that claims, among other things:
“The sun has a much more significant role on Earths cli-
mate than is commonly thought. Its estimated 20th cen-
tury forcing on the climate is 0.8 0.4 W m
2.
Earths climate sensitivity is very close to that of a
black body.
Thus, the various feedbacks cancel each
other out.”
This study also makes a point to say that 40% can be accounted for the sun ALONE, not counting other forcings.
–mpainter,
Your dismissal of this study is alarming and premature, to say the least. —
What mpainter said was:
“I see a post LIA warming trend that might be slightly augmented by increased CO2 but if so, absolutely unquantifiable. As for a problem, well, what problem?”
It’s unclear to me what warming has been caused by CO2 in the last 200 years. Much of the current pseudo science claims that recent increases in global CO2 levels has caused warming in the last 50 years, but in comparison to last 200 years there has not been any acceleration in warming in last 50 years [there is no there, there].
So it might be possible that increases in CO2 have caused say .2 C increase and that changes in solar activity say has cause .2 C increase over last 200 years but we have not had such increase by both or either over the last 50 years.
What is apparent is we are recovering from a cooler period and there is no evidence that human activity has caused the cooler period, nor does it seem there is evidence that human activity has added to the typical recovery from a cooler period.
And were we to somehow get a better temperature record for last 1000 years, then one might be able to assign some increase in global temperature over last 200 years and
it might be discernible that CO2 increases caused .2 C
[+/- .15 C] and also possibly the solar activity that we have measured could be seen to cause some similar amount of warming.
But it seems that there is yet to be understood factors causing the cooling and warming. And that when it warms it is better than when it cools.
gbalkie,
I agree with some of what you said, and you make some good points. Perhaps my saying that he dismissed the study was premature!
Regarding your comment, I do not know if most of this rise in temperatures can be attributed to LIA recovery, but Syun-Ichi Akasofu probably thinks something along those lines.
And when Dr. Shaviv and the co-author say “anthropogenic”, they didn’t say GHGs. They said “anthropogenic”. That could be land use, sea changes (there was an interesting article over at Ron Klutz’s place about that), UHI, etc. They unfortunately don’t quantify what percentage of the whole they think GHGs caused, but it is probably at least a bit lower than 60%.
80-90% of any “anthropogenic” changes are likely to be data fiddling as indicated by Dr Spencer eg spreading UHI to rural area, homogenizing data over 1000’s of square Kms, cooling the past to match UHI instead of correcting temperatures in cities and at airports downwards to takeaway UHI, removing measurements stations from rural & remote areas so most measurements are now from airports etc (around Australia there used to be 100’s of manned remotely located lighthouses which recorded weather information, now none are manned, many have been scraped and most of those left have no weather recording only an automatic light)
cementafriend has theories about the land measurements being wrong.
Funny thing is: They started to be wrong after 2000:
http://i.imgur.com/ZuQwe76.png
Hilburn, from the RSS website:
“Our mission is trouble provide research-quality geophysical data to the global scientific community”.
The slogan of RSS (gotta have a slogan):”Providing the data you can depend on”
Now you and Mears both seem to be saying RSS data does not reliably represent the present atmospheric temperature trend. Hmmm.
Now, isn’t that something?
Cementafriend,
do you have a peer-reviewed reference to back up your assertions?
Normally I would agree with you and mpainter here.
But maybe we should be looking at it in a different way. We should approach the climate change problem from an adaptability standpoint. How can we use this change to our advantage? How can we be prepared for what’s next?
Ideally we don’t want to learn the hard way on how to deal with outstanding weather events like we did with Katrina.
Food for thought.
Mathius
Might I suggest there is a bias in the opinion you just posted. “maybe WE should be looking…”
Who is this we? Surely the only meaningful answer is everyone on the planet. Then later you talk about ‘WE’ adapting to Katrina. Katrina only impacted one part of one single country. That is a very different ‘we’.
The ‘G’ in AGW is Global. Not just local.
And your suggestion that we just adapt. OK, of course we (I mean this in the global sense) will adapt as best we can. But what if we can’t adapt well enough? What if, on balance, there is no net advantage that we (global) can gain?
I merely used Katrina as an example. Understandably that was not a global event, but neither is any particular weather event.
The notion that humans can somehow prevent climate change from occurring is completely ridiculous, so the sensible thing to do is understand what the risk is and adapt to it. A simple improvement in preparedness in New Orleans for Katrina would have prevented the major disaster from happening.
Adding to that last comment, the idea that every place will somehow see diminishing conditions and there is no advantage is silly. Let’s say the globe warms up, this will increase the growing season in many locations and allow crops to be grown in places they could not exist in before. Obviously deteriorating conditions will exist elsewhere. Some places will see improvements, some will see detriments.
I can only think a warmer planet will probably give more favorable conditions than detrimental given the rate of warmth isn’t extreme. And looking at the rate of warmth in the past Century, certainly none of it has been extreme. So there is no reason to believe it will become extreme.
–Lets say the globe warms up, this will increase the growing season in many locations and allow crops to be grown in places they could not exist in before. Obviously deteriorating conditions will exist elsewhere. Some places will see improvements, some will see detriments. —
I don’t see any “deteriorating conditions will exist elsewhere”. There might be, but my point is I don’t see
anything in specific. This does not mean I have not heard the endless alarmism and numerous ideas that warming means the doom of the world.
A warming world does mean rising sea levels, but I don’t count a rise of 1 foot or less over century of time as a deteriorating condition, or over last 10,000 years or so
sea levels have risen somewhere around 1 foot per century.
I don’t think 1 foot +/- 6 inches per century as a problem- or land areas can rise or sink more than this. And in terms of shorelines one can greater changes from factors related to
erosion.
If you living on most coastal region one can have sudden increases “from normal sea level” from weather and these can exceed a 1 meter rise. Or if buildings can’t survive and 10 feet rise above highest high tide, you are building the buildings, wrong. Though one doesn’t have to build a building to last more than 500 years, though lasting 100 year or more might be desirable. Also tropical atolls have survived during a period of a sea level rise of more the 100 meters [they were not 100 meter or more higher prior to start of our current interglacial period, instead they have risen as sea levels have risen- and will sink when sea level lower- due, broadly speaking, to erosion. And if nature can do it, humans likewise do it [in some circumstances]. So rising sea levels is only a problem if people are dumb- solution, get smarter, become an intelligent native of coastal regions, if you want you live on the coast. Personally I think we should work towards living off shore on the continental shelves- or have houses and commerce in regions where water is about 50 to 100 meter deep. To do this we need laws changed and to develop the technology to do this cheaply. This doesn’t have much to do with sea level rise, but the “threat” of sea level rise, would become a more of laugh.
And generally speaking one should realize the warming has little to do with making an area hotter. Or region which are hot don’t become hotter. And places like the tropics area changed much in terms of becoming warmer, though in areas in tropics where night time might get near freezing this would become less likely or warmer- but bigger changes are less cold nights in temperate zones.
Or what make any place hot is surface [the ground] becoming hotter, and that is about direct sunlight- and is unrelated to “global warming” or global cooling.
For some unelected unrepresentative elite to try to force one quarter of the world to give up the living standard advances of the past two centuries and at the same time try to force the other three quarters of the world to forgo those advances, for whatever reason, I think is asking for trouble.
— January 22, 2016 at 4:03 PM
Let me be clear: I’m not saying climate change is a non-problem … There indeed is a climate change problem to study…
I need to be convinced of that.–
global and regional climate does change, but CO2 levels are not significant factor involved with any past climate changes
and is not going to related to future climate change.
climate change over very long periods does effect global CO2 levels and long terms changes related to global plate tectonics also effect climate and CO2 levels, for instance over last few tens of millions of years Earth has had increase in mountain building globally and this has resulted in lower levels of global CO2 [more than 180 ppm and less than 500 ppm] and glacial periods having less CO2 and interglacial period having more CO2.
And in terms shorter time periods and hence more relevant to human civilization/existence. one has for example, climate pattern such decades to centuries of higher rainfall and drought conditions over last 1000 years in Southwestern US. And these are related ocean circulation patterns which we have yet to understand enough to predict future climate events. And the lack of enough understanding is connected a effect to focus on effect of CO2 rather than understanding natural variability. And it the sole focus on CO2 that is the pseudo science of climate studies and is largely funded by governments.
Your problem seems to be the meaning of the word problem, and I think that’s a problem.
I’d like to know what caused the LIA, and why it ended. I can’t explain either, so I guess that’s my problem.
I don’t think the Dust Bowl was solely caused by human activity nor was stopped by human activity.
But I believe it’s possible such climate changes could be better mitigated by rational human action in the future.
[[ And btw, I don’t think they have “already been mitigated” [or that no addition actions are needed] so as to address a future similar event, adequately- and/or some other possible climate event.]]
–Id like to know what caused the LIA, and why it ended. I cant explain either, so I guess thats my problem.–
It’s a problem that climate science should be focused on-
and the lack of this effort indicates a prolonged political, intellectual, and moral bankruptcy.
Quite predictably, I remain unconvinced.
Of all the scaremongering that has gone on since Dr. Hansen testified before the United States Congress in 1988, sea level is the biggest scare, and that was not covered in all the replies.
Oh, thank you for all the ink in the above replies.
Is warmer weather a problem? Not in my book.
Are the benefits bestowed on agriculture courtesy of increased CO2 a problem? Again, not in my book.
And is the relentless rise in sea level going to be stopped by abandoning the benefits of fossil fuels? I don’t think so.
Is that rise in sea level caused by CO2 emissions? I continue to be unconvinced of that.
–Is that rise in sea level caused by CO2 emissions? I continue to be unconvinced of that.–
It appears that sea level rise of 1 foot or more per century
began around 19,000 year ago and continued to rise at this rate for more than 11,000 years, or to around 8000 years ago, it began to rise at 1 foot per century [or less] for about 2000 years, and 6000 years to present it’s been less than 1 foot per century:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise#/media/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png.
Or from about 19,000 years until about 15,000 sea level rise
by about 35 meters [115 feet] or 40 centuries at less than 1 meter per century, and then there was a period of about 1000 years in which it increase by a total of about 30 meter [3 meters per century] which was related mostly to large ice cap in North America melting. And from 13000 to 8000 it rise a total of about 70+ meters [+165 feet]] within period of 5000
years, 50 centuries at more than 1 meter per century.
So over last 20,000 years the average sea level rise has been over 1 foot per century and first 1000 and last 5000 years it’s been less than 1 foot per century with 20th century being about 8 inches.
And during Holocene climatic optimum- “a warm period during roughly the interval 9,000 to 5,000 years” before the present:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_climatic_optimum
Sea levels were rising much faster than the present though
the ending period began the current period in which sea level rise was less than 1 foot per century on average.
Now during cooler periods lasting centuries, as with last cooling period call the Little Ice age, the sea level stopped rising and/or lost a several inches over several decades.
Roughly during the many cooling periods of last 5000 years the rise in sea levels has been slowed or reversed, and during the many warming periods during last 5000 year one gets return to rising sea levels and rate of about less than 1 foot per century.
And as we continue to recover from LIA, it seems reasonable that the 21 century will have rise of sea level of 1 foot or less.
Though it’s thought it’s possible that solar activity may lower over next several decades, and perhaps the 21 century will have about same or less rise in sea level as the 20th century and in which case one “could say” that recover from LIA has ended- though that wouldn’t necessarily mean we returning to period like the Little Ice Age, rather it could a dip in longer trend of warming which may require another couple centuries of warming before returning to a cooler period and it’s possible this coming cooling period is less severe than LIA [which was one of coldest/longest cooler periods in last 5000 years].
You’ll need to define which definition of several for ‘climate change’ you prefer Dr Spence.
‘Climate change’ (variably defined by the UN) can only become a ‘non-problem’ when anthropogenic influence is removed from atmospheric composition and land usage.
The juxtaposed English words as written remain impossible to falsify or reject, a design feature courtesy of the UN Ministry of Truth that also came up with the risible term ‘civil society’ for the 4000 NGO’s and other institutional hangers-on.
In practical terms present day temperature observations do not depart significantly from natural variation.
Great post Dr Spencer,
However there is a clear fingerprint for natural warming driven by short wave forcing.
OLR must increase with increasing shortwave, which it has done.
OLR should clearly not be increasing if CO2 is the driver.
It would also be cool if you can keep us up to date with global cloud cover, as I am interested to see if there is a spike due to the el nino which would almost certainly result in a La Nina. You previously posted about the cloud spike preceeding the 2011 Nina so I assume you have a cloud data source. The ISCCP has not been updated since 09.
Yes Rob JM: Records show that the difference between outward and inward radiation at TOA is rarely more than 0.5% – and that can be either way. That of course is because there is absolutely no valid physics supporting the conjecture that back radiation can be added to solar radiation and the total used in Stefan Boltzmann calculations for the surface temperature. But that’s what they do and it’s there for all to see in those energy diagrams which show a net of 390W/m^2 into the surface with twice as much back radiation as solar radiation.
Do remember to take an umbrella when you go for a walk at night. On second thoughts, don’t bother because nobody has done an experiment with 16 radiators creating Venus-like temperatures, so there’s no evidence for the greenhouse conjecture anyway.
In contrast, what correct physics tells us has been supported by data throughout the Solar system, hundreds of experiments and a study showing water vapor cools.
Discover what I discovered here.
Doug the GHG warming and gravitational pressure warming(sorry im not sure of the term) are not mutually exclusive. Obviously the CAGW supporters are committing a logical fallacy by attributing unknown everything to CO2, not to mention claiming that water vapour positive feedback would wait around for 4 billion years for humans to burn stuff when chemistry/thermodynamics quite clearly states that any reaction that can happen must happen. Ie if water vapour causes warming it must warm if evaporation occurs.
Personally I woulds state that water vapour both warms (in a diminishing log way with concentration as per beer lambert) and Cools( in a exponentially convective way with temp) thus resulting in an Inverted U type buffering situation. Ie H20 is the reason we see confined variability in our climate.
Nether the less we do know that OLR will not increase if CO2 is warming the planet.
We do know that Increased Short Wave from reduced cloud cover must increase OLR at the top of the atmosphere.
By testing we can not only correctly attribute the warming to its true cause thus further diminishing the role of CO2, but more importantly create an easily understandably meme that even a politician can understand.
“IT CANT BE CO2 BECAUSE THE EARTH IS LOOSING MORE HEAT RATHER THAN TRAPPING IT”
Yes Rob JM they are mutually exclusive: either the gravito-thermal effect exists or it doesn’t.
Real world data (as in my published study) indicates water vapor cools on a global mean basis, as does my hypothesis. The GH conjecture claims it warms and no evidence is provided by them.
I’m not interested in discussing radiation balance as it has no relevance to surface temperatures.
The “true cause” is related to planetary orbits, solar variation and variation in Earth’s albedo.
Yes Roy “Thermometers Still Disagree with Models “ but Models Disagree with Physics” – that being the main reason.
Think on this: if one bar radiator is positioned so as to raise an object to 350K, would 16 such radiators at the same distance raise it to 700K? Can radiation be compounded like this? Can back radiation be added to solar radiation?
If you say no, Roy it follows directly that the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture is, as I have said many times, fictitious fiddled fissics.
Why not escape the snow and enjoy the warmth of Sydney for at least a short holiday? While you’re here I’ll give another talk to the “Climate Realists of Five Dock” group and you could discuss it face to face with me there, Roy. Be warned: the first such talk lasted three hours without anyone leaving.
2 points in response:
(1) “There indeed is a climate change problem to study…but I don’t think we know with any certainty how much is natural versus manmade. There is no way to know, because there is (contrary to the IPCC’s claims) no fingerprint of human versus natural warming. ”
If “there is no way to know”, why would you throw money at a non-solvable problem?
(2) “Because scientists, I have learned, will tend to find whatever they are paid to find in terms of causation.”
Maybe, in the case of second-rate scientists, public servants and charlatans. However, the majority of scientists I know are
(a) knowledgable and ethical (more so than the average person)
(b) sceptical (in the true sense)
(c) would love to disprove conventional thinking because of the kudos they would achieve (we all desire kudos to some extent).
Therefore, the argument that the majority climate scientists are corrupt, mindless slaves to the world-wide conspiracy is plain wrong. Sceptics should desist from making this claim since it undermines arguments based on the facts.
“We don’t think we know with any certainty how much is natural versus manmade. “
Well you can not think as long as you like, DEC. It’s all 100% natural because carbon dioxide cannot warm Earth’s surface: there’s no valid physics that can be used to prove it would.
Produce such physics or forever hold your peace. DJC
So why do you believe in 60-year cycles ?
Are these natural and why?
I believe because they exist and you can look up the work of Dr Nicola Scafetta for yourself. Reason: Saturn-Jupiter resonance cycle 59 yrs 8 months.
What does that mean?
It really defies common sense more than your other theories.
Did geran or JohnKl tell you about this?
Why spout such gobbledygook?
Or are you trying to show off again?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/tag/nicola-scafetta/
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/scafetta_jstides.pdf
DEC,
While (a) and (b) may be true of some fields of science, the climategate emails point to the poisonous culture in climate science. Indeed, item (c) is simply risible in light of the persecutions faced by scientists skeptical of the “consensus”. A politically correct climate change view is mandatory for any young scientist looking to advance in their field. That is why the majority of skeptical scientists are retired or approaching retirement to the extent that they less threatened by ostracism by their peers.I witnessed the “kudos” our blog host received from Gavin Schmidt when Schmidt refused to be on the same set as Roy during an interview of the two. The examples of such behavior are legion in the world of climate science.
Robert Austin,
“That is why the majority of skeptical scientists are retired or approaching retirement to the extent that they less threatened by ostracism by their peers.”
I think that should read:”the majority of skeptics are:
non-scientists (Christopher Monckton)
geologists (Ian Plimer)
engineers (David Evans)
dis-credited (Murry Salby)
retired elderly white middle-class conservative males (most of the bloggers here on this site)
Less than 3% of climate scientists regard themselves as sceptics and, yes, while it could be described as politically correct, that does not mean it is wrong.
no,i think robert austin was correct. your comment regarding murray salby demonstrates what he is saying perfectly. from my own point there is far too much civility among the academic set. i would prefer to have shown gavin exactly what he thought of him outside the studio in the parking lot ,but hey ho, we are all different.
great post roy, really enjoyed reading it.
(I understand that the RSS satellite analysis has it 4th warmest.)
Here are my numbers:
1 1998 0.550
2 2010 0.468
3 2015 0.358
4 2005 0.331
5 2003 0.320
6 2002 0.315
7 2014 0.254
8 2007 0.252
9 2001 0.247
10 2006 0.232
11 2009 0.218
12 2013 0.215
13 2004 0.202
14 2012 0.183
So Roy was incorrect 2015 was the 3rd warmest in Satellite data
Werner,
If the purpose of all the ‘A’s
is to provide your desired
format, check on the html “pre” tag.
Also called a “pre” element.
HTML pre Tag
I’ve just posted an example on the WUWT test page.
If, with the ‘A’s, you were trying for something else, please ignore me.
Well, the As don’t show in MS-Edge, but do in Chrome.
When I posted it, there were no A’s. As for pre, it worked on WUWT but I did not know if it would have worked here. This is a test:
Last year:
1 2014 68
2 2010 66
3 2005 65
4 2007 62
5 1998 61
6 2002 60
7 2013 60
8 2003 59
9 2009 59
10 2006 59
This year
1 2015 87
2 2014 74
3 2010 72
4 2005 69
5 2007 66
6 2013 65
7 2009 64
8 1998 63
9 2006 63
10 2012 63
Not exactly what I wanted! The above is for GISS by the way.
Where it all went wrong
The brilliant 19th century physicist who was first to
realistically determine the size of air molecules, Josef Loschmidt (who taught Maxwell) knew how those molecules would respond to a gravitational field and form a temperature gradient.
Now, in the 21st experiment, close on a thousands experiments of varying kinds have proven Loschmidt was correct. Furthermore, the laws of physics can also be used to prove that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium (maximum entropy) does indeed have a temperature gradient in a planet’s troposphere – planets everywhere exhibit a gradient that is close to the quotient of the acceleration due to gravity and the weighted mean specific heat of the gases.
Because Loschmidt was right, a fact ignored by climatologists, there is no room for additional warming of the surfaces of Earth or Venus by carbon dioxide. The IR-active gases can only lead to cooler surface temperatures, and thank goodness water vapor does just that, or we would sizzle with mean temperatures over 300K. The reason is here.
Doug,
Get your own blog PLEASE.
Thanking you in advance.
Lewis
Visit it at https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com along with about 1,000 others each month, none of whom has proved anything wrong. Get yours!
I’m told that a particular CO2 isotope produced by fossil fuels is a smoking agw gun. Please comment Dr. Spencer.
The isotope “smoking gun” has about the same scientific validity as tree rings. Or tea leaves. Or Piltdown Man. Or flat Earth. Or Martians.
Get the point?
A “smoking gun” for atmospheric CO2 is not the same as a “smoking gun” for warming.
-Scott
The C13:C12 ratio studies indicates there is a terrestrial source of increasing C12. This is consistent with burning fossil fuels as the sources of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere, but it also consistent with land clearing and increased C4 plant usage over C3.(grasses, corn, sugarcane). We know that a proportion of the CO2 increase is from humans, but we dont know how much. is it 95% or is it 25%. The past levels of CO2 are clearly underestimated as has been shown by stomatal proxie studies and the AIRS satellite data of CO2 distribution.
It should also be noted that we are in an ice age and the dinosaurs survived just fine at 17deg C warmer than now. The C3 plants however struggle below 800ppm CO2 which has been the minimum amount in the earths atmosphere for 99.5% of the earths lifespan.
We all know humans have pumped a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere – whether through land-clearing or crop choices or burning fossil fuels. If we believe in the greenhouse effect we believe that some warming should be attributed to humans. But does fossil fuel – sourced CO2 tend to have an enhanced greenhouse effect, other than the fact that it’s additional CO2?
Further, CO2 is a miniscule percentage of atmospheric gasses – now about .o5 percent. It’s increased from about .028 percent preindustrial. Does this fact underly the claim that the effect on temperature from increased CO2 is very small?
>>>”If we believe in the greenhouse effect we believe that some warming should be attributed to humans.”
You’re correct spalding, it is all about “beliefs”. The science just ain’t there.
Roy Spenser “believes” in the greenhouse effect. His quarrel is with sensitivity/feedback claims. Do you actually challenge the science of the greenhouse effect, regardless of it’s ultimate effect? Can you cite support for this in peer-reviewed science?
Beliefs are not proof of science. Beliefs are the basis for pseudoscience. Believers in the GHE must also believe it caused the recent record-setting snow storm system.
That would be a lot to swallow.
having read a fair amount of “peer” reviewed climate “science” i think i would personally avoid reading anymore. particularly when it comes to modeling .
when they start actually building pure climate models with the degree of resolution required i may then begin reading again.
as long as they are using bastardized versions of models designed for completely different disciplines and ignoring the people that designed them when they tell them what they are attempting is way outside the remit of the model,i will continue to pass.
I fear that the public’s relationship with science will be damaged by this entire situation. Imagine if the world starts to cool after this el nino passes and eventually history does determine the science was abused and data was manipulated, then an entire generation of kids will grow into adults that potentially do not trust data driven assesments in medicine or technology. After looking at HadCrut last night, i dont know what to think or trust myself- it is very confusing. The satellite and thermometer temperature data show entirely different patterns. Pick the one that matches your desires. Maybe Richard Muller or some similar group who seems capable, motivated, and willing to change conclusion based on data can redo the thermometers (maybe nobel prize winners in physics could form a committee). As is who can i trust? Raw data is useless and there is clearly a motivation for scientists to create a need for their job or scientific niche (even as a skeptic like me based on my job in oil and gas). Its to easy to bias any model or method.
What the satellite and the surface temps both clearly demonstrate is that the models are clearly wrong. Thats the point that matters.
Science was the first victim, but it didn’t have any money. Now, it is being held hostage while the climate criminals help the UN extort money from the poor. There demand letter states “Give us the money, or the Earth gets it”.
Wait til the UN trots out a bunch of kids (aka North Korea) singing for Carbon Trading.
When losing, go Gish gallop.
Spencer just did.
Re these awfully wrong land measurements. They must be wrong.
After 2000 that is.
http://i.imgur.com/ZuQwe76.png
Good match before 2000. Not after. Thousands of land thermometers wrong after that.
Imagine how that is possible. There might be other explanations. How about satellite calibration?
http://i.imgur.com/RB12NFS.png
http://i.imgur.com/fRrFYQT.png
Ps: RSS 2015 is third warmest. Spencer did not know. Imagine that.
Indeed ehak:
“Good match before 2000. Not after. Thousands of land thermometers wrong after that. Imagine how that is possible. There might be other explanations. How about satellite calibration?”
Also: Spencer’s assertion that “But since the satellites generally agree with (1) radiosondes ….”
…. Does not sit with analysis with RATPAC data since circa 2000.
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/compare_all.jpeg
https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/diff.jpeg
Again smacks of calibration problems (with the new AMSU on noaa15)?
Toneb,
though not all of these radiosondes and reanalysis datasets agree very well with Spencer and Christy’s, or Mears and Wentz’s, they sure don’t agree with the suface data sets either.
Here are some satelllite, radiosonde, and reanalysis datasets (some of which you linked to, and I am grateful for that):
http://i.imgur.com/fRrFYQT.png, http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2015_v6-1.png, https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/compare_all.jpeg,
1/3
http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cfsr_t2m_2005.png. Now, compare that with the surface temps: http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/2015-Hottest-Year-BE-Press-Release-v1.0.pdf, http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/global/2015/dec/enso-bars.198001.201512.png, http://woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:12
2/3
https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT4.pdf.
They don’t really match up, do they?
These claims of which data sets are correct with regard to records are, month by month, becoming increasingly amusing.
The satellite (RSS and both UAH6 and UAH5.6) the radiosonde data (RATPAC) and land based temperatures (HadCrut, Giss, NOAA) are in full agreement that December and November 2015 were the warmest on record. For October 2015 the only disagreement with the other 6 temperature data sets was RSS which had 1998 (0.46) just pipping 2015 (0.45).
If you average over the last 5 months of each year there is total agreement between the satellite and surface based data sets that August to December 2015 was the warmest on record for these months.
Now let’s see what happens for the warmer second year of the current El-Nino event. For the second year of the 1982/83, 1997/98 and 2010/11 El-Nino events,for all 7 data sets, the temperatures for the second year was significantly higher than for the first year, so I wouldn’t be holding my breath hoping this pattern does not continue.
A high impact volcanic event, a collision with an asteroid or the sudden onset of a mini ice age may be required to save the day for the denial community.
>>>”A high impact volcanic event, a collision with an asteroid or the sudden onset of a mini ice age may be required to save the day for the denial community.”
Record snow storms don’t count, huh mike?
No not really. Record snow storms in parts of the US and Asia are regional weather events. Despite these transient and local events, January 2016 will most likely be warmer globally than any previous January.
In contrast, a volcano on the scale of Mount Pinatubo, an asteroid collision or a sudden onset ice age will all be climactic events.These maybe the only events that could save the day for the hard core denialists.
So, by your definition, no amount of record snow could disprove AGW. In fact, many alarmists believe that record snow is “proof” of AGW. Since AGW cannot be disproved to the believers, that is their “proof”.
Amazing.
Geran re 6:23pm comment.
Record snows at one or more locations for some limited period doesn’t prove anything. Some people may use it as evidence (note:not proof) for AGW or anti-AGW purposes. Doesn’t really matter- it is the temperature data that is relevant and that’s what the above blog is all about.
So no more snow man arguments, the straw man variety are bad enough.
For reliable data on global temperature trends see UAH January update a few posts back. Then you won’t feel so alarmed, miker. As for myself, milder winters are the welcome part of AGW.
So where are they? No warming this century.
that assumes you believe the el nino was a 2015/16 event. if it was a 2014/15 event as i believe ,then all the atmospheric heat we are getting from it we have already had.
Ocean measurements. Spencer do not like ERSST4.
Some time ago he did not like ERSST3b either. They were fishy.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2009/08/somethings-fishy-with-global-ocean-temperature-measurements/
You were right Spencer. ERSST3b was fishy. Biased because of more buoyos deployed
Luckily the ERSST4 fixed that.
And of course water vapor matches the bias adjusted SST better. Spencer has showed that too.
I guess he has not forgotten.
” Thermometers Still Disagree with Models that even if 2015 is the warmest on record, and NOAA has exactly the right answer, it is still well below the average forecast of the IPCCs climate models”
Well. That might of course be. If you consider inside the middle of the model spread “well below”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZLSm-RWAAAltk8.jpg
ehak, those models were in such disagreements even in the past, when they were just backcasting. I suppose it is not possible to predict the future without better knowledge of the natural processes that occur in the nature. However, it is still possible that they have the GHG part right… Who knows, There is a lot of uncertainity with aerosols, black carbon, and most importantly, the lapse rate feedback. So it is still possible, that their parameters will have close to zero predictive value, just as newtonian equations would have in high velocities.
One El Nino spike, likely to fade fairly rapidly, does not redeem nearly two decades of markedly lower temps as well as their rate of change, even with these massively adjusted data.
This El Nino shows surface temperatures of about 0.4 C higher than the 1997 El Nino, and 0.8 C higher than the 1982 El Nino, both of which were of similar magnitude.
There’s your anthropogenic warming.
See MSU/AMSU temperature datasets for more reliable information concerning global temperature.
How does mpainter know MSU/AMSU gives the most reliable information concerning global temperatures?
Radiosondes perhaps…
Crickets again.
Mears does not agree with you mpainter. Perhaps not even Spencer:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/12/2015-will-be-the-3rd-warmest-year-in-the-satellite-record/#comment-203356
.. and this from above in this post:
“Im not claiming our satellite dataset is necessarily the best global temperature dataset in terms of trends, even though I currently suspect it is closer to being accurate than the surface record that will be for history to decide. The divergence in surface and satellite trends remains a mystery, and cannot (in my opinion) continue indefinitely if both happen to be largely correct.”
And perhaps we could get mpainter’s choice of which MSU/AMSU? STAR? Po-Chedley?
The data fiddling of the surface datasets is well documented. One of the worst examples being Karl, 2015. Note the divergence between satellite and surface data does not begin until a few years ago. I consider this divergence to be “anthropogenic”. Others will agree.
It is note worthy that Mears & Co. And RSS depend 100% on government grants: NOAA, NSF, but mostly NASA. I suspect a bit of the political wind has rustled the curtains in Santa Rosa, California.
Hilburn, I see you find Dr. Spencer quoteworthy, quoting from his post above.
Here is another Spencer quote from above:
“But since the government has framed virtually all of the research programs in terms of human-caused climate change, thats what the funded scientists will dutifully report it to be, in terms of supposed causation.”
###
Do you know any “funded scientists” in your town of Santa Rosa, California?
Problem for mpainter: The fiddled surface data (much less changed than UAH though…) agrees better with other satellite data. Like ATSR SST, AMSRE SST, water vapor. RSS TLT and UAH v6 are the outliers in this.
Your problem with RSS’s grants must also mean that you don’t have faith in their MSU/AMSU products either. Only UAH left then. Who pays them btw?
Thanks, Roy. Great post.
Cheers
This one is really interesting:
“But since the satellites generally agree with (1) radiosondes and (2) most global reanalysis datasets (which use all observations radiosondes, surface temperatures, commercial aircraft, satellites, etc. everything except the kitchen sink), I think the fact that NOAA-NASA essentially ignores it reveals an institutional bias that the public who pays the bills is becoming increasingly aware of.”
Show it Spencer. You cannot. It is just not true.
Consider this:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/10/do-satellite-temperature-trends-have-a-spurious-cooling-from-clouds/#comment-155414
“John Christy just showed me trends since 1997 from 5 datasets, including radiosondes and reanalyses, and RSS is the only one with a cooling trend.”
That was before version 6betasomething. In October 2014. So how can these radiosondes and reanalyses suddenly agree with RSS and the new v6? Did they change at the same time as v6 was introduced?
Ehak = Kyle A. Hilburn disgruntled ex-employee of RSS. Now we can understand why he is a disgruntled ex-employee. No science, all snark. He was replaced by a fresh graduate, MS, meteorology, Texas A&M,2015, according to Carl Mears.
Oh – and said ‘fresh graduate’ doesn’t ask unwelcome questions, I presume…
Seriously – an all-out ad hominem with no word about the substance of the question. That’s all you’ve got?!
I have facts. And you?
painter:
Stating an untruth does not make it true.
I don’t see any “facts” that you may have posted to counter ehak’s posts, nor mine as I’ve added further “facts” that “question” Spencer’s assertions that all is well with the RSS/UAH record.
Would you care to address this failing of your’s?
Err, without your default nastiness.
Ross, Toneb, ehak, and other alarmists, what you are missing is the fact that you are arguing over suspiciously “adjusted” temperature data. You try to discredit UAH data because it shows no warming. And, in doing so, you must disregard all of the evidence of warmist tampering starting from Climategate and continuing to the present.
And, as I always challenge alarmists, where is the science that proves CO2 can warm the planet? Your revered Arrhenius equation has no mathematical derivation or supporting empirical evidence. It is a bogus equation, which your pseudoscience reveres with the utmost religious fervor.
All you have is spin, distortion, misrepresentation, and pseudoscience. This recent snow storm has apparently provoked your current rash of zealous attacks. You probably know you are losing the debate. You have trapped yourselves in your false cause and are now thrashing wildly to get out of the web of your own making.
For skeptics, its popcorn time.
Toneb, I inspected your links above, and Oh, happy occasion for the one who calls himself Stoat, to have found himself a Rat Pack! I rejoice for his sake.
This Stoat character, aka Tamino (and a third name which I can’t recall), if he is interested in radiosonde data, should consult the work of Dr. John Christy, foremost authority on this and who has been requested on several occasions to give testimony on this and related climate matters before Congress.
You should too, if you are interested in radiosonde data.
Geran:
“You try to discredit UAH data because it shows no warming. And, in doing so, you must disregard all of the evidence of warmist tampering starting from Climategate and continuing to the present.”
There’s no discrediting about it – it’s called peer-reviewed science (something the UAH has NOT done in regard to V6.0) – or at least “reviewed science” here.
What I and a (few others on here) are legitimately asking is that “you” apply the some level of critical scepticism to the RSS/UAH TLT data as you very obviously do to the surface thermometer record.
It’s a VERY important question I pose in that regard.
WHY does the TLT deviate from the RATPAC RS data post 2000?
BTW: diversion to “climategate”, and use “logic defying” rhetoric will not work – that is obviously your justification for suspending critical analysis of the Sat data (amongst others) but not mine on the part of UAH/RSS.
It’s quite simple re TLT measurement – as it is NOT a measure of surface temps but of a layer of the Trop that only RS’s measure with thermometers and we can therefor check against – then RSS/UAH NEED to be calibrated against them – since ~2000 it would “appear” they are not.
Question to Christy, Spencer, Mears. Why is that?
Oh, and if you resort to more goal-post moving “down the rabbit-hole” tactics I’m NOT your man, my friend.
That won’t win any argument, event in your GOP dominated Senate.
Has it ever occurred to you and painter that being nasty and accusatory is not “big or clever” and one instantly loses the argument on doing so.
Oh. You’ve got facts?! You’re doing a heck of a job hiding them…
Or maybe I missed the. I’d gladly accept a link to your facts that explain why RSS (and now UAH) started to deviate from RATPAC. I mean – it’s the same atmosphere, isn’t it?!
geran draws the adjustment card. Which temperature series is most adjusted?
Clear winner is UAH:
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/12/uahadj.png
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/12/uahadj1.png
Adjustments for land data seems to have started after 2000
https://i.imgur.com/ZuQwe76.png
Guess that makes sense.
mpainter;
Thank you for that.
“if he is interested in radiosonde data, should consult the work of Dr. John Christy, foremost authority on this and who has been requested on several occasions to give testimony on this and related climate matters before Congress.
You should too, if you are interested in radiosonde data.”
That is what I am asking – nothing more than for UAH (spencer seems most appropriate as this is his blog) to address my legitimate concerns over said deviation of both the Sat TLT datasets from there calibration RS data.
Do they use some other sub-set of RS data. Again this is why a full peer-reviewed paper is vital for the the scince community data to understand what RSS and UAH algorithms are doing.
Until then, what Curry said in Congress …. “We need to look at the satellite data. I mean, this is the best data that we have.” – that statement is very far from the truth.
Oh, and BTW: I’m a retired Meteorologist of 32 years experience – so Mr Spencer can contact me if he wishes.
Toneb says Oh, and if you resort to more goal-post moving ‘down the rabbit-hole’ tactics Im NOT your man, my friend.
Yes, I did mention some actual science. Thats probably why you are opting out.
ehak asks: Which temperature series is most adjusted?
The series that indicates the most warming.
I’m going to need a lot more popcorn….
geran says:
“ehak asks: Which temperature series is most adjusted?
The series that indicates the most warming.”
geran’s ability to understand graphs tells him UAH indicates the most warming.
geran:
“Yes, I did mention some actual science. Thats probably why you are opting out”
Oh, must have missed that – would you care to repaste the link to that paper please?
“ehak asks: Which temperature series is most adjusted?
The series that indicates the most warming.”
Would you care to examine (I’ve done so) the science on how RSS/UAH “adjust” their “algorithm”.
And then we’ll have a discussion about which temp data is most “adjusted”.
Mmmm I think UAH (FI) is on V6.0. That right?
And does UAH explain why (they do) and do you follow?
Is it easier than understanding why US data (No the US is not a planet) has had a cooling trend since the TOB changed from evening to morning. Clue: The old way on occasion measured a day’s max twice if next day was cooler.
Oh, and buoy data being more abundant/accurate than engine intake. Is it hard to understand that we need to compare apples and apples? and whichever you use the trend remains the same. but the record is squeued with the predominance of buoys now?
Plus: not to mention of course that TLT is a broad thickness of the Trop and not the surface. Apples v apples.
TLT v RATPAC is better: but they are askew since ~2000.
Science please to counter?
“Im going to need a lot more popcorn”
Seems like you are my friend.
Toneb, you didn’t consult the work of Dr. John A. Christy, did you?
Toneb and ehak, here’s the science you avoided:
“And, as I always challenge alarmists, where is the science that proves CO2 can warm the planet? Your revered Arrhenius equation has no mathematical derivation or supporting empirical evidence. It is a bogus equation, which your pseudoscience reveres with the utmost religious fervor.”
Of course you avoided it because the equation is invalid, bogus. Yet, it forms the very basis of the AGW pseudoscience. The IPCC starts their technical discussion with reference to the equation. Consequently, you are convinced CO2 warms the planet. If the temperature data don’t show warming, then in your belief, the data are wrong. That’s NOT the way science works. That’s how pseudoscience works.
And, because you do not have science on your side, you rely on endless, agenda-driven, “peer-reviewed” papers. Heck, by the end of next week, you could probably produce 5 new “science” papers, all “peer-reviewed”, that claim this East Coast snow storm is caused by AGW!
mpainter:
“Toneb, you didnt consult the work of Dr. John A. Christy, did you?”
Why, does he address the drift/increasing mismatch of UAH/RSS against RATPAC RS data from approx 15 yrs ago – near enough the duration of the “pause”?
Geran:
Sorry, Quote-mining is not science.
I asked for a link to some peer-reviewed science that addresses the problem of the TLT sat data no longer being calibrated with RATPAC RS data.
So therefor (apart from not being surface data of course).
It does not do what it says on the tin.
They HAVE to be calibrated vs RS’s.
What would you say if the data were going the other way. Warming?
Precisely.
Is this what you mean by “quote-mining”?
>>And, because you do not have science on your side, you rely on endless, agenda-driven, peer-reviewed papers.<<
geran:
“Is this what you mean by quote-mining?
>>And, because you do not have science on your side, you rely on endless, agenda-driven, peer-reviewed papers.<<"
You don't get to turn the world upside to fit your view of it my friend.
The science is most certainly on "my" side.
I have asked you for the science that is on "your" side …. and I'm still waiting.
FYI: Science does indeed consist of "endless, agenda-driven, peer-reviewed papers"
The agenda being to discover the way things work.
Must be a bummer that it doesn't fit your ideology.
And it sounds like that you reckon climate scientists are out to deceive us all.
Is that your stance?
If so it says much more of you than anything I can.
Okay, now you are getting funny.
You claim the science is on your side. You imply that you have all the science, and I have none.
Well, I asked for “your” science. I asked to see the proof of the basis for AGW pseudoscience. I asked to see the proof of the Arrhenius CO2 equation. Still waiting.
Since “your” science is so settled, it kinda seems like there would be at least one peer-reviewed paper out that with the proof of the equation, huh?
I mean billions and billions of dollars have been spent on research.
And still no proof?
Still waiting?
Let me guess–someone needs more funding!
I guess that happens quite often in pseudoscience.
geran: Have you ever bothered to read a textbook on climate science? Just one?
I’ve done years of research, that’s why I recognize pseudoscience so quickly.
well said geran .
Dr. Spencer,
“Then we have scientists out there claiming silly things, like the satellites measure temperatures at atmospheric altitudes where people don’t live anyway, so we should ignore them. Oh, really? Would those same scientists also claim we should ignore the ocean heat content measurements — also where nobody lives — even though that is supposedly the most important piece of evidence that heat is accumulating in the climate system?”
I dunno what those same silly scientists would say (whomever they are), but as for me: looking to the largest heat-sink in the system does seem the most appropriate place to find evidence of whether the system is gaining or losing energy over time.
The oceans are not the largest heat sink: the crust, mantle and core far exceed such. The Sun maintains all temperatures from the exosphere to the core.
If you are interested in reading the 21st century breakthrough in physics which explains why, start here.
Meanwhile you cannot explain a single surface temperature using radiation calculations correctly, now can you?
“The Sun maintains all temperatures from the exosphere to the core.”
False. Inner Earth temperatures depend on:
1) radioactive species
2) the Earth’s energy of formation.
I used to trust Roy Spencer as being the voice of reason. It is disappointing to see you into more and more out of sync with the reality of global Warming.
I have been looking and reading climate scientists who DIRECTLY address all those objections you have raised here on this recent blog. Yet Roy, you seem blissfully unaware that a torrent of climate scientists disagree with your assessments and have DIRECTLY addressed all those issues you have mentioned. And many times over. You are just plain wrong on some many counts.
Putting all that aside why don’t you call out the cranks and misinformation bloggers on this site. You are sitting with bunch of of deniers with buckets loads of Dunning Kruger syndromes.
You prefer to sit with the scorners who trash the science here daily.
There are Christian believing climate Scientists who DISAGREE with you. There are deeply supporting Republicans who disagree with you. The are FREE market advocates who DISAGREE with you.
Where next? You seem to be digging in and ignoring the mounting overwhelming evidence. Watts Up of all sites you QUOTE. That wild conspiracy driven blog of all places.
When you, Ross, can explain the mean surface temperatures even just for Earth and Venus, based on correct radiation computations, then some may listen to you. The IPCC can’t.
No one else has been able to this month, Ross, so be the first to answer in your own words (no citations) …
THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS
(1) You claimed an incremental rise in surface temperature can be expressed as a function of an incremental increase in carbon dioxide radiation which would normally come from a colder region of the atmosphere. Is that a reasonable summation of a key element of the greenhouse hypothesis?
(2) Assuming yes then I say that (to convince me of that hypothesis) I need empirical evidence that the surface temperature is a function of such radiation, because if it is not, then neither is the derivative of the temperature. Is that correct?
(3) Assuming yes then please explain at least one point on the graph. Doing so does not prove that the function is correct, but it at least supports it and does not disprove it. If you cant explain even a single temperature with correct physics then I am not convinced in any way, shape or form. Is that reasonable?
(4) Assuming yes then please explain a typical surface temperature of, say, 15C by demonstrating (using any relevant data about any flux) how you calculate 15C from such typical radiative flux alone.
I would appreciate discussion of the physics only.
When they claim that a mean flux of 390W/m^2 explains 15C (because that is the blackbody temperature) ask them if they understand that temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. Then, get them to agree that the flux varies a lot, and ask for calculations for five equal regions having 20%, 60%, 100%, 140% and 180% of the mean flux. (They will get a lower mean temperature around 3C.) Finally, ask them why they think they can add together solar radiation and back radiation in their Stefan-Boltzmann calculations. Suggest that, if an electric bar radiator is raising the temperature of an object to 350K, then, if there were sixteen such radiators and we add all the flux, Stefan Boltzmann calculations would give a temperature of 700K. Ask if they think that would happen. Assuming no then ask why they think they can add solar radiation and back radiation. They cannot claim to be able to do so because they have just agreed that adding the flux from all the radiators does not give a realistic temperature. Any one such example disproves their conjecture that radiative fluxes can be compounded in that way.
Congrats – you just were wading into Dr. Specers Top 10 of the stupidest claims (to paraphrase a bit…) that you could have made…
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/04/skeptical-arguments-that-dont-hold-water/
And your answers are … ???
The day is coming when this post will read “lukewarm arguments that don’t hold up to the properties of water”.
The GHG effect drowns in the first five microns of the ocean.
FTOP: The ocean isn’t flat as glass, is it? Turbulence mixes it up, even the top 5 microns. Plus, there is thermal conduction.
Result: The latest ocean heat content data, just released two days ago, shows again continued strong heating of the ocean, with a positive acceleration:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2016/01/latest-data-for-ocean-heat-content.html
The ocean swells do not disturb the surface tension of water. Typically, a swell has an amplitude of 2-4 meters and a wavelength 80-220 meters. There is no surf except at shores or shoals. The GHE does not contribute to SST.
Surely the radiative flux is extremely rapid compared with the hydraulics!
david is right of course, though it does not look like all that turbulence is bring much warmth to the surface at the moment.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.1.28.2016.gif
painter wrote:
“The ocean swells do not disturb the surface tension of water.”
Bull. The same few millimeters of the ocean does not stay on top because of the surface tension of water — that’s just laughable.
“overwhelming evidence”
Overwhelming evidence. overwhelming evidence, parrots this Koolaid saturated clown. I tell ya, I ain’t overwhelmed Ross baby…in fact I’m distinctly underwhelmed.
Rationalizations and Just So stories do not “address” the issues. They just give sympathetic readers comfort in believing what they want to believe.
You can rationalize all kinds of things. But, when all the rationalizations and handwaving miraculously result in unidirectional adjustments, you can be sure people are fooling themselves.
Prior to the Karlization of the surface temps, they agreed with the satellite records that there had been an extended pause in global average temperature anomaly. Now, there is a concerted effort to reinterpret all the data sets relentlessly in a direction most favorable to the AGW hypothesis. This is not science. This is confirmation bias on steroids.
The science that led to Karl et al’s results was first done in order to obtain more accurate ocean surface temperature data, by analzing (especially) how temperatures were measured on ships and buoys.
Do you have specific issues with THAT science? Or do you just not like its results?
A new word has been added to the climate vocabulary: realization.
_Karlization_
!@##* spelling corrector
I didn’t think that you could address the scientific issues. Because you rarely, if ever, can.
You have checked?
Nope.
ERSST3b is still there for those who like to check. That is the one Spencer called fishy. He was spot on. Kudos to Spencer for that. It had too little warming.
Even with that cold bias: Here is ERSST3b vs UAH v6 ocean:
http://i.imgur.com/y0QefQz.png
Don’t the deniers get anything right?
Hilburn has naught to present except sputterings about “deniers”.
Hilburn, your mentor Carl Mears uses the term “denialist”, but you prefer the old way of smearing skeptics.
On Jo Nova’s blog Bobl writes assertively “you are still wrong that scattering (Back radiation) cant warm the planet more than The Sun by itself”
No I’m not. When radiation is scattered it is not thermalised in the target. Back radiation is like radiation from another iceberg, maybe not quite as cold as the Sun. It cannot violate the Second Law. It doesn’t even penetrate water anyway, so how can it add thermal energy to 70% of Earth’s surface which is water?
The fact that the “lapse rate” is lower than 9.8 is explained in my 2013 paper. Lowering the temperature gradient causes the plot of temperature against altitude to swivel downwards at the surface end. IR-active gases cause that to happen. The reduction is primarily due to inter-molecular radiation which has a temperature leveling effect, working against the gravitationally induced “dry” temperature gradient.
Regarding “reduction of outgoing energy” no such thing happens. Measurements at TOA confirm outgoing is always within 0.5% of incoming radiative flux – sometimes more, sometimes less. Any difference is a result of natural climate cycles, not the cause thereof. Radiation cannot be compounded. You have to explain the energy flows.
You cannot assume (as David Evans did) that you can explain the effect of a change in radiation on surface temperatures when you cannot confirm empirically even a single calculation of any such surface temperature using any radiation calculations.
Please don’t waste my time when you could have read what I wrote about this three years ago.
Q. Do you agree that Dr. Spencer “provide[d] significant evidentiary support for the following statement”:
“An increasing number of peer-reviewed studies are suggesting much lower climate sensitivity than the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] IPCC and its models assume, possibly as low as 1 deg. C or less for a doubling of atmospheric CO2”?
A. No. First it should be noted that Dr. Spencer has changed his claim. His initial claim is that climate sensitivity is as low as 1°C or less.2
In his rebuttal testimony, he now asserts that studies find climate sensitivity less than 3°C. These claims are very different from each other. Perhaps it is most noteworthy that Dr. Spencer omits many studies which report higher than 3 degree climate sensitivity.
In general, the papers Dr. Spencer cited in response to Information Request 10c from the Clean Energy Organizations (“CEO”) are either from advocacy organizations (such as the
Page 8, lines 19-20, Spencer direct testimony.
Peabody Energy Response 10c to Information Requests Nos. 2-10 of Clean Energy Organizations to Peabody Energy.
For a summary, see chapter 12, IPCC AR5 report, 2013.
PUC Docket No. E-999/CI-14-643
OAH Docket No. 80-2500-31888
Clean Energy Organizations Exhibit ________
Global Warming Policy Foundation, Climate Audit, Cato Institute),
have been shown to be incorrect, or do not claim what he asserts.
As stated in my rebuttal testimony, the self-cited work Spencer and Braswell, 2013 has been shown to be faulty and Dr. Spencer is aware that his work was rebutted in the scientific literature. To my best knowledge, he has not responded in the peer-reviewed
literature to the errors which were identified in his work. It is not intellectually honest to use his faulty paper as a supporting document without also mentioning these identified errors.
Dr. Spencer also cites work by Dr. Lindzen, (Lindzen and Choi 2011), which has been shown to be in error. It is misleading to cite this work as a supporting reference without acknowledging the errors which were later found.
Dr. Spencer also cites other works which he claims supports his assertion that climate sensitivity as low as 1°C. However the citations do not assert this. For instance, in all of these papers cited by Dr. Spencer in response to CEO Information Request 10c, the climate sensitivity estimate is greater than 1 degree or at the very least, highly unlikely to be as low as 1 degree:
J. Annan, J.C. Hargreaves, On the Generation and Interpretation of Probabilistic Estimates of Climate Sensitivity, Climatic Change, Vol. 194, Vol. 104, pp. 423-436, 2011.
See, e.g., Peabody Energy Response 10c to Information Requests Nos. 2-10 of Clean Energy Organizations to Peabody Energy at pp. 22-23.
PUC Docket No. E-999/CI-14-643 OAH Docket No. 80-2500-31888
Clean Energy Organizations
Exhibit ________
A. Schmittner et al., Climate sensitivity estimated from temperature reconstructions of the last glacial maximum, Science, Vol. 333, pp. 1385-1388, 2011.
M. Aldrin et al., Bayesian Estimate of Climate Sensitivity Based on a Simple Climate Model Fitted to Observations of Hemispheric Temperatures and Global Ocean Heat Content, Environmetrics, Vol. 23, pp. 253-271, 2012.
J.C. Hargreaves et al., Can the Last Glacial Maximum Constrain Climate Sensitivity, Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 39, L24702, 2012.
A. Otto, et al., Energy Budget Constraints on Climate Response, Nature Geoscience, Vol. 6, pp. 415-416, 2013.
J.H. van Hateren, A Fractal Climate Response Function can Simulate Global Average Temperature Trends of the Modern Era and the Past Millennium,
Climate Dynamics, Vol. 40, pp. 2651-2670, 2013.
R.B. Skie, et al., A Lower and More Constrained Estimate of Climate Sensitivity
Using Updated Observations and detailed Radiative Forcing Time Series, Earth
System Dynamics, Vol. 5, 139-175, 2014.
C. Loehle, A Minimal Model for Estimating Climate Sensitivity, Ecological
Modeling, Vol. 276, pp. 80-84, 29014
T. Masters, Observational Estimate of Climate Sensitivity from Changes in the Rate of Ocean Heat Uptake and Comparison to CMIP5 Models, Climate
Dynamics, Vol. 42, pp. 2173-2181, 2014.
N. Lewis, An objective Bayesian, Improved Approach for Applying Optimal Fingerprint Techniques to Estimate Climate Sensitivity, Journal of Climate, Vol.,
26, pp. 7414-7429, 2013.
N. Lewis, J.A. Curry, The Implications for Climate Sensitivity of AR5 Forcings and Heat Uptake Estimates, Climate Dynamics, Vol. 45, pp. 1009-1023, 2015.
Dr. Spencer also neglects including the most recent two years in his analysis, which show that the rate of temperature change is greater than many of the instrumental studies show.
Not only is 2014 the hottest year on record, and 2015 on pace to exceed 2014, but recent PUC Docket No. E-999/CI-14-643
OAH Docket No. 80-2500-31888
It would take the best part of a millennium if Trenberth is correct and heat can reach the deepest part of the Oceans.
its worth considering the time scales involved if reasonable mixing is happening
http://judithcurry.com/2013/03/29/has-trenberth-found-the-missing-heat/
If the Planet gains more heat than it radiates away then planetary temperatures rise
If the Planet gains same heat as it radiates away then planetary temperatures do not change
If the Planet gains less heat than it radiates away then planetary temperatures fall.
So its the imbalance that causes the temperature change.
Now we are told that on average there is a 0.58w/m^2 gain over the recent past
So use this to find out how long the Oceans would take to increase the Ocean temperatures by one degree Kelvin or Celsius
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget#Earth.27s_energy_imbalance
Scientists calculate that the total mass of the oceans on Earth is 1.35 x 1018 metric tonnes, which is 1/4400 the total mass of the Earth. In other words, while the oceans cover 71% of the Earth’s surface, they only account for 0.02% of our planet’s total mass.
Approximately 360 million square kilometers (140 million square miles), or 71 percent, are represented by the oceans and marginal seas.”
one metric ton = 1000Kg
10^9 cubic metres = one metric cubic kilometre
10^6 sq metre = one sq kilometre
Formula used P.A.t = C .M. deltaT
This equation is an application of the first law of thermodynamics or the energy conservation formula
P = imbalance of power/unit area = .58w/m^2 A = surface area of Ocean
t = how long the Oceans would take to increase the Ocean temperatures by one degree K
C = specific heat capacity of water = 4180 J/kgK
M = mass of Ocean water = 1.35 x 1018 metric tonnes
deltaT =temperature change of water =1 K
Plug in the numbers and calculate t = 870 years
Readers can try this easy formula for yourselves
If this is correct then the level of global warming by this method is completely negligible
Models models everywhere and not a drop of empiricism to drink…
BEFORE THE MINNESOTA OFFICE OF ADMINISTRATIVE HEARINGS
600 North Robert Street
St. Paul, MN 55101
FOR THE MINNESOTA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
121 Seventh Place East, Suite 350
St Paul, MN 55101-2147
SURREBUTTAL TESTIMONY OF DR. JOHN ABRAHAM,
Professor of thermal sciences, University of St. Thomas School of Engineering
https://www.edockets.state.mn.us/EFiling/edockets/searchDocuments.do?method=showPoup&documentId=%7bC507C9D1-5082-4CE6-BA2B-508FD1C47E42%7d&documentTitle=20159-113910-03
And Roy, if you don’t want to be over-run (as in the linked documents) you have to attack the false physics, not the fiddled temperature records.
I can help you Roy, and it’s already well explained in the 43 minute video presentation, as well as my website, my linked papers and my book.
I would happily give testimony at such a hearing, perhaps by video link up. I hope to do so personally in a potential major class action involving large Australia companies versus our government.
Climatologists know nothing of the 21st developments in our understanding of radiative heat transfers, entropy maximization and thermodynamics.
I can tie them all in knots, Roy, including “Ross” and Prof John Abraham, etc, etc. They wouldn’t even know what entropy is, let alone why it is so critically relevant to atmospheric physics.
Have you ever seen anyone “out-argue” me in any climate blog on the subject matter in the “heat creep” hypothesis? If you think so, or if any reader does, link me to any such response.
Ross
I was reading through your material by Dr. John Abraham. I think he has frequent posts on Skeptical Science.
He states “Yes. Peabody Energys experts have repeatedly discounted changes to extreme weather. While I discussed this in my rebuttal testimony, very recent research makes the case more strongly. For instance, Mazdiyasni and AghaKouchak (2015)23 find a substantial increase in current droughts and heatwaves in the USA from 1960 through 2010, not even including the droughts of 2011, 2012, and the multiyear drought in California. Similarly, Wang et al., (2015)24 finds that human emissions of greenhouse gases are increasing extreme precipitation events”
Intelligent as he may be I am certain his mind is clouded by emotional connection to the topic.
He uses charged words that contain emotional content like “substantial” and he cherry picks to make sure not to include the worst droughts in US current history of the 1930’s and 1950’s.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2015/05/13/forget-california-north-america-has-faced-far-worst-droughts/#ce107285c3c4
I am not sure I trust anything from Wang. How does he conclude greenhouse gases are increasing extreme precipitation events? It sounds like a biased thought process and unwilling to look at other possibilities like irrigation. In some locations irrigation pulls water up from deep areas underground that normally would not be added to the surface. Now irrigation is used in drier areas in the Western US and it will add lots of water to the atmosphere and increase rainfall in the East part of the US.
But anyway the word “extreme” another highly emotional charged word. What does that mean in reality. Well look at this link.
http://www.amwa.net/galleries/climate-change/2010_NortheastExtremePrecip.pdf
Scroll down to Graph 10. Oh NO! Time to panic. The yearly rainfall increased from 39″ or so in 1900 to 43″ in 2007. We are all going to drown now for sure!
Thanks Norman for the post. It’s good to keep in mind that alarmists worry about increased drought events due supposedly to increasing CO2 all the while average rainfall increases as well. How exactly does more rain lead to drought? Fascinating question, and I’m almost certain there exists a pseudo-science attempt to explain it somewhere.
Have a great day!
Hi Norman,
An obvious point should be mentioned. Emotional rhetoric disguises mainly political motives. How? Ask an old person, what’s the worst drought in US history and they’ll often tell you the dust bowl of the 1930’s. Why? Due to the HUMAN costs in lives and property. We anthropomorphise our tragedy’s and see them through the filter of how they effect us personally and not necessarily on their objective value. For example, the large human cost of the dust bowl described so well by Steinbeck in “The Grapes of Wrath” resulted from a POLITICAL decision to settle the Midwest grasslands east of the Mississippi and encourage people to farm there during decades prior to the 1930’s that witnessed high rainfall. That dry grassland region is fit for cattle and buffalo, including ranching not as well for farming. To farm it successfully over time one must bring water to the site, rainfall alone will not suufice. Farmers often dig wells or drain the aquifers. So when the rainfall fell back to drier levels, the majority of unprepared farmers counting on rain that didn’t come lost out. Many who lost their farms moved to California. As human population swells and greater numbers of people make riskier decisions regarding life and careers the number of such disasters inevitably increases.
Today we hear about increasing storm intensity supposedly due to climate change. it seems to me another political disguise. Katrina was not an unusually strong storm, but a week levy turned it into a disaster. As the human population increases in the hurricane belt and other storm regions and our government prints more dollars, inevitably declining in value, to cover the cost of more and more people choosing to live in substandard dwellings situated in regions frequented by extreme weather events the carnage, damage and costs inevitably rise. Apparently to disguise this reality and the poor and frankly idiotic political decisions made that subsidize and allow it a life supporting chemical compound CO2 gets blamed, never the illogical risky and costly decisions made by men and women every day.
Have a great day!
Correction, the decision to locate people WEST of the Mississippi River contributed to the dust bowl tragedy. Please excuse my error above.
Have a great day!
Just figured you are dyslexic. We knew what you meant.
Hi Norman,
Please note this correction to my post. The decision to encourage people to farm WEST of the Mississippi contributed to the dust bowl tragedy.
Have a great day!
Curious.
You can accept that abuse of the land by humans led to the catastrophic dust bowl tragedy but will not accept that abuse of the atmosphere will have any ill effects.
Please explain.
DEC,
One can hardly call it abuse of the land. John referred to decision making about long term ability based on short term weather patterns.
To answer your question one would have to accept your premise. I don’t. Many others don’t. Further, many of us agree that stopping sulfur emissions into the atmosphere was a good thing. Concurrently we believe increased CO2 in the atmosphere is also a good thing.
Smile when you say that!
Hi DEC,
You state:
“You can accept that abuse of the land by humans led to the catastrophic dust bowl tragedy but will not accept that abuse of the atmosphere will have any ill effects.”
Humans do abuse the atmosphere and suffer the consequences when they pollute excessively and I’ve addressed it before. Not long ago my wife and I met a woman Doctor from China who apparently had business with UCLA. She drove a Jeep Wrangler and seemed impressed she could cross the country several times in the vehicle. She delighted in how clean Los Angeles area air is because the pollution level proves so high in Beijing where people have trouble seeing anything beyond the length of their street. They also wear masks and carry oxygen bottles. I kid you not. Excess airborne particulate matter poses a problem and I have no problem with people finding ways to address it. However, in regards to CO2 I must ask:
Why would a little atmospheric warming during an ice-age, more rainfall and a greener landscape be an excessive problem at this point in time?
Have a great day!
P.S. – Please note that, while I don’t panic over current CO2 levels, if people prove doggedly determined to never improve their energy and resource utilization, CO2 levels should not increase forever. At 10,000 ppm I’ve read humans face breathing problems. Already, in some inner city neighborhoods CO2 levels fall ~1500 ppm. Still we are carbon life forms and carbon is a useful part of our planet. We will need to find better ways to utilize the resource rather than generate fear and panic over it’s existence. For example, earlier I mentioned the female Chinese Doctor I met from Beijing and the problems Chinese people have with pollution levels. Their problem exists because of the excessive burning of coal throughout the country. Coal is the dirtiest of hydrocarbons. Switching to Natural Gas makes all the sense in the world. It would reduce CO2 levels that Al Gore and the wamista’s worry about and enormously reduce the particulate levels. Bringing natural gas to China could help the lives of millions. That is millions/billions who cannot afford the high fixed costs of alternative solar power, but still want to heat their winter time homes. This is only one example, numerous others exist.
Have a great day!
JohnKl,
Great post. Lots of good material in it. When taking vacations you see all these huge houses in forests on hills and mountains just waiting for that weather pattern to change and now you are in danger zone. I would think a modest house in a tree covered mountain would be all one needs. The loss is not so great when the fire comes (and it will).
Even NOAA warns against the migration to coasts (prone to storm surges, and hurricanes).
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20130325_coastalpopulation.html
Your posts are thoughtful and intelligent and help provoke thought. Thanks.
Drop the “isothermal” conjecture, Roy!
It has been proven wrong this century, both with correct physics (based on the Second Law) and over 850 experiments, as well as by every vortex cooling tube ever made, and now in centrifuge machines as well.
The isothermal conjecture defeats your whole purpose, Roy. Why do you think you know better than the brilliant physicist Josef Loschmidt?
In believing and promoting such, you are agreeing with the fundamental building block of the greenhouse fictitious, fiddled fissics, namely that the Earth’s surface would have been “255K” without greenhouse gases which thus warm it 33 degrees.
There’s no warming of 33 degrees by greenhouse gases, Roy. Gravity sets up the “dry” gradient (warming the surface to means of over 300K in very dry regions in summer) and then water vapor, CO2 and CH4 lower that gradient, thus cooling.
DougCotton,
Is it an obsession with you to get the very last post on every thread?
You can’t answer the questions that stump liukes and warmists, Norman, so I have nothing further to say to you, especially in response to your “last resort” comments that include not a word of physics.
Doug,
Did you get your own blog yet? It would be easy enough to overfill – just cut a paste from Dr. Spencer’s.
Also, it snowed here yesterday. It seemed gravity was working overtime and pulled an excess of frozen H20 from the sky and deposited on the surface.
Along that line, please explain why gravity doesn’t keep us as warm when the sky is dark. Seriously, how are dark and gravity related?
And your answers to the questions are … ????
Try https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com
Doug,
My point is for you to spend your time there so those who enjoy DR SPENCER’s Blog can do so without having to scroll past you.
I don’t have to spend much time there because those who read the hypothesis (out of 1,000 a month who visit the blog) have never found any fault in it that warrants writing a comment or even asking a question. But I will answer genuine questions. The 43 minute video presentation is the best and most detailed explanation of the errors in the greenhouse conjecture and why the “heat creep” hypothesis explains all temperatures and energy transfers.
Thermal energy keeps us warm, not gravity. Whatever gave you that absurd idea? Obviously you have no solid understanding of physics and have most certainly not done at least three years at university level, now have you? So what makes you think you are qualified to discuss such physics?
Those who “enjoy” promulgating false physics that costs countless lives and causes immeasurable poverty could quite easily chat to themselves by email or in their climatology classes, rather than try to spread their garbage science which they never bother to check.
I’m waiting for your answers to the questions that stump lukes and warmists.
I am befuddled how the 33C conjecture at the root of the GHG theory holds up to learned men with letters behind their name.
Here is the logic that cannot be reconciled ACCORDING to the GHG Theory
Solar insolation only delivers enough w/m2 to achieve a -18C
GHGs “enhance” this “force” by 33C
Now, based on Tamgaroa and some slight of hand alarmist agree that Co2 can’t penetrate the surface layer so GHGs don’t heat the ocean, but rather reduce cooling.
So you have a heat source which can raise the ocean temp to only -18C and a CO2 force that “reduces cooling”
This means that the ocean could only ever reach a maximum temperature of -18 when it reaches perfect equilibrium with the heat source.
Thermodynamics states that you cannot heat an object beyond the energy input it receives.
The oceans clearly reach temperatures above -18C
Cooling reduction cannot raise that baseline temperature
So either there is more insolation reaching the surface and GHG is wrong
Or you can’t average insolation and GHG is wrong (which is the most likely answer)
Or the surface temperature is set by another mechanism
Anyway you slice it, the GHG Theory cannot logically exist on earth due to the properties of water which comprise our vast oceans.
FTOP,
You have put your finger on the fundamental fault of AGW theory. They apply black body principles to the surface of the earth and these do not apply. The fact is that the oceans accumulate solar energy and warm according to this cumulative process. No black body there. They cool evaporatively, mostly; no black body there. This is observation, a method strange to the AGW types.
Bottom line: the earth does indeed achieve its surface temperature via insolation, not through back radiation. None can talk their way around these fundamentals.
The Earth is a very good blackbody in the part of the spectrum that radiatively matters for AGW, the infrared. The nonradiative part is then included via its own physical laws for convection, etc.
The earth’s surface cools mainly through evaporation. TOA is not surface.
The sea warms through insolation. The GHE does not get past the surface upper five microns. The insolation is cumulative.
And don’t forget, the temperature increases with depth on land. The climateers don’t know that, either.
painter wrote:
“The earths surface cools mainly through evaporation.”
Bull.
Learn some science:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/abstracts/files/kevin1997_1.html
From, https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/01/21/can-co2-warm-the-oceans/
I hope the precious CO2 molecule doesn’t read this, it will realize how meaningless its life has become for ocean temperature and by proxy GAT.
“It is simply impossible for the observed increase in downward LWIR flux from a 120 ppm increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration to heat the oceans. This presumed LWIR induced ocean warming is one of the major errors in the global warming scam. The increase in flux from CO2 is nominally 2 W.m^-2 or 0.18 MJ.m^-2 per day. The oceans are heated by the sun up to 25 MJ m^-2 per day for full tropical or summer sun. About half of this solar heat is absorbed in the first 1 m layer of the ocean and 90% is absorbed in the first 10 m layer. The heat is removed by a combination of wind driven evaporation from the surface and LWIR emission from the first 100 micron layer. Thats about the width of a human hair. In round numbers, about 50 W.m^-2 is removed from the ocean surface by the LWIR flux and the balance comes from the wind driven evaporation. The heat capacity of the cooled layer at the surface is quite small 4.2 kJ.m^-2 for a 1 mm layer. This reacts quite rapidly to any changes in the cooling flux and the heat transfer from the bulk ocean below and the evaporation rate change accordingly. The cooler water produce at the surface then sinks and cools the bulk ocean layer below. This is not just a diffusion process, but convection in which the cooler water sinks and warmer rises in a complex circulating flow pattern (Rayleigh-Benard convection). This couples the surface momentum (wind shear) to lower depths and drives the ocean currents. At higher latitudes the surface area of a sphere decreases and this drives the currents to lower depths.
In round numbers, the temperature increase produced by a 2 W.m^-2 increase in LWIR flux from CO2 is overwhelmed by a 50 50 W.m^-2 flux of cold water and a 0 to 1000 W.m^-2 solar heating flux.
Over the tropical warm pool the wind driven cooling rate is about 40 W.m^-2.m.s^-1 (40 Watts per square meter for each 1 m/sec change in wind speed). This means that a change in wind speed of 20 cm.s^-1 is equivalent to the global warming heat flux. (20 centimeters per second).”
Thanks, Dr. Spencer, for your clear words.
May your good wishes for science come true. This will require a political change, I think.
Exactly – you said it all – POLITICAL change. Let’s hope not. Republican’s – the good ones also believe the scientists – aka Climate Change is REAL. For you however, this appears a liberal issue WHICH it IS NOT! Sorry it is not a liberal, democrat, non-Christian, atheistic and one government implied conspiracy. It is utter garbage to think it is.
“It is utter garbage to think it is”
Then why would you think it?
AGW is a political endeavor for those who must control and have power at any cost. Leftism is their religion and you will never be able to convince them of giving it up. Liberalism, Communism, Socialism, Marxism and Fascism all have the same goals as Environmentalism at this point; to gain absolute control of other humans and their destination by forcing their beliefs on others.
Ross, the problem your side has is that people will not sit by in the 21 century and let you use 18th, 19th and 20th century ism tactics to win your way. Unless you can shut off all information going to people like myself and also prevent us from voting, your efforts will be feudal.
So, Roy rising molecules slow and cool, falling ones warm. Gravity and centrifugal force act alike.
In this experiment they write ” the molecules are exposed to the outwardly directed centrifugal force, adds Martin Zeppenfeld. On their way to the center, the particles must surmount a huge mountain, and are continuously decelerated while doing so, until they finally come almost to a standstill. For comparison: for the particles to experience the same braking effect in the Earths gravitational field, they would have to fly 2,000 meters upward.”
So isothermal conditions cannot be the state of thermodynamic equilibrium in a force field, Roy. So the greenhouse conjecture collapses because it is built upon sand by foolish men.
By the way, their “2,000 meters” is incorrect – it should be at least 12,000 meters and was probably meant to be 20,000 meters. Regions in the mesosphere are the coldest, but they are not down to 1K because there is a daily supply of new solar energy being absorbed in the stratosphere that warms regions above and below it by natural convective heat transfers. The rate of absorption is, however, greater than the rate of this convection, so the former over-rides the gravitationally-induced temperature gradient in the tropopause and most of the regions above that.
Thank you Dr Spencer.
Roy Spencer’s claim on Urban heat is just plain wrong and incorrect.
Evaluating this urban heat island effect was also on Berkeley Earths to-do list. They found (as othershave) that it had no effect on their estimates of global temperatures. Zeke Hausfather, now a research scientist on the Berkeley Earth team, led a separate 2013 study examining this question. That study split about 10,000 US stations into urban and rural ones, examining their warming trends separately. There was some difference in the raw data, Hausfather told Ars. But once you do [the homogenization], theres no difference between urban and rural stations.
As another check, they homogenized all the stations using only the rural ones as the comparisons. We used the rural stations to adjust the urban stations, but the urban stations themselves were not used to adjust anything, Hausfather said. We got pretty much the exact same result as if we used all stations, urban and rural, which is a very strong indication that these adjustments are good at picking up these divergent signals, and the network itself is sufficiently rural that its not being swamped by urban signals.
Another way to test the homogenization process, specifically, is to feed it virtual datasets. That gives you the advantage of knowing exactly what the final answer should look like if the algorithms work reliably.
One of those studies was done by Peter Thorne and a pair of NOAA colleagues. I visited [NOAA] in 2008 and I said, Righttell me where your stations are, tell me when they observe, tell me nothing else. And I went and got five different climate model runs [and] sub-sampled them in space and time at the same locations, Thorne told Ars. Then I added in a whole bunch of data issues that I knew about, but they didnt. And they ran it on their algorithms.
And did the algorithms root out these manually inserted, non-climatic distractions?
In the world where I hadnt entered any changes, it returned virtually zero adjustments, Thorne said. Then you get increasingly hard, up to something where you have clustering of breaks [in records] that are mainly small, and they have pervasive [net warm or cool] biases. And the further along that spectrum you go, the more [the algorithm] starts to fall down. The way it falls down is it doesnt adjust enough. So it takes you in the right direction, but it doesnt take you far enough.
In other words, homogenization did its job, cleaning up the data to reveal the (known, because it was virtual) climate trend. It didnt inflate the trend by only adjusting things in one direction. And when the problems were small and hard to detect, the homogenization process erred on the conservative side.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/01/thorough-not-thoroughly-fabricated-the-truth-about-global-temperature-data/
But Ross you cannot with any correct physics prove that there is any way in which water vapor, CO2 and CH4 could warm Earth’s surface, when in fact the evidence is that they cool it, and the correct application of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (and the associated maximization of entropy) enables us to explain the surface temperatures, the required energy transfers and what causes warming or cooling.
And Ross, you still cannot answer the questions which stump lukes and warmists as in this comment.
Thus you have no scientific basis for anything related to the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture, which data proves to be false.
Well said Ross.
I am afraid much of it is wasted on some people here.
Yes, some of us are not bluffed by claims that are not based on the laws of physics. You can’t prove such, now can you? Do you have at least three years of university physics behind you?
Any Lukes or Warmists (like anonymous Ross) who are hoping to persuade others here to their way of dreaming should consider it a reasonable request to produce a study confirming the IPCC claim that water vapor warms – a study as described in this comment.
Unless I’m talking about something entirely different without knowing it; every time it freezes at my house in AZ (not very often) you can measure and observe increasing freeze damage the farther the plant is away from the house. Isn’t that an indication of the UHI effect?
All plants observed were Lantana.
“But once you do [the homogenization], there’s no difference between urban and rural stations.”
Yes but the homogenization is done the wrong way. It is obviously the urban ones which show the greatest warming because they are wrong due to urban crawl.
So what do they do? They take the faster rate for the urban ones and apply it to the rural ones. Instead, they should have taken the slower and more realistic rural rate and applied it to urban readings.
In other words, they ensure that the rural ones are distorted by urban crawl as well.
When we look at raw data, particularly for individual locations over 200 years like this we see just a little over 1 degree of steady warming spread over 200 years. And that’s all natural, because there is about 2 degrees between maximum and minimum each 500 years in the 1,000 year cycle.
I saw a badge the other day that said “jdam gives you wings” lol
Roy, I find it astonishing that NOAA and NASA can produce a report without pointing out that there is a satellite record and that it is in fundamental disagreement with the thermometer record.
Equally astonishing is that the chart is in ˚F. How many furlongs is the space station from Earth?
And Schmidt has forecast this year will be even warmer – does that mean that the data are already in?
Upton Sinclair
http://euanmearns.com/the-diverging-surface-thermometer-and-satellite-temperature-records/
http://euanmearns.com/the-atlantic-multidecadal-oscillation-and-the-temperature-record/
2016 is a presidential election year. Schmidt, Karl, and others in public employ will be called to account if the wrong fellow gets elected. They will stake all to get the right fellow elected.
Nonsense, written with no evidence whatsoever.
That makes it typical from painter.
David needs a peer-reviewed study that tells him that this is an election year. Otherwise, it’s not, not until the peer-reviewer tells him so.
You never can provide any real science.
EsF = degrees F
Reply to HenryA
Re. Double blind study.
I remember reading something whereby some economists were
given falsly labled climate data under the guise it was economic data and to
and asked to analyse it for trends and
whatnot.
Not exactly double blind but interesting none the less.
From memory only, the economists
largly concurred with the prevailing
consensus on that data.
Wish i could remember more details. Sorry.
It was economists who were given climate data in an attempt to determine if the so-called ‘pause’ which gets mentioned a lot on sites like these had any significance. The economists found no reason to believe there was a pause in the data.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/sep/18/in-a-blind-test-economists-reject-the-notion-of-a-global-warming-pause
Why is conspiracy ideation so
common in writings by Americans?
Its occassional in Australia but so
absolutly in ones face when reading
American blogs.
Oh, Australians are so much superior to Americans, you see. They lack such faults as the Americans commonly have, you see. So aren’t you glad that you are Australian and not one of those nasty conspiracy ideationists that the US is full of.
Er, ok.
I was just asking ” why “.
If ya know why please share.
You just feel superior because you have your new tinfoil hat. You think you don’t have to worry about conspiracies.
But, did you hear what they are putting in the new tinfoil hats?
Because the U.S. government and media ars transparent and scandal free:
Watergate
Weapons of mass destruction
IRS emails “lost”
Fast & Furious
Hands up don’t shoot
Private e-mail server
“A lie travels around the world before the truth puts on its shoes” – Mark Twain
Hello, i think the biggest problem is that we are losing gradually our ozone layer. This lack of Protection may produces anomalies in summer with High radiation levels and i propose is the last cause of climate anomalies. The ozone layer is our envelope that regulates temperatures protect as from cold space and filter shortwaves uv radiation without it life will be very difficult.
The Climate Bet is a good place to track the IPCC forecasts.
Doc, can`t you place a front end filter on access to your site?
Blocking identified offenders by geography, IP, anonymous servers etc.?
One wonders why some might want to oppress your scientific opinion, if it were not a robust and verifiable threat to their ideology.
Beg your pardon. Calling into question Roy and his mate John Christy who constantly denies the actual data from multiple data sources and presents cherry picked and selective chosen data to Senate hearings is the right of everyone. He is so SELECTIVE on many accounts so as to distort clarity of dialogue on Government policy action.
Satellite data is NOT and never have been a DIRECT measurement of air temperatures. IT is a CLIMATE modelling algorithm that reads INVISIBLE wavelength bands from which temperature maybe INFERRED. that is constantly being REVISED.
Another is that these methods of satellite readings ALSO support the FACT that extra concentrations of CO2 added to our atmosphere cause GLOBAL warming over time. This fact seems to lost in many of the bloggers here who DENY here even the BASIC science of it!
Repeat: Satellites do not measure temperature directly. They measure radiances in various wavelength bands, from which temperature may be inferred.[1][2] The resulting temperature profiles depend on details of the methods that are used to obtain temperatures from radiances. As a result, different groups that have analyzed the satellite data have obtained different temperature data. Among these groups are Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) and the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). The satellite series is not fully homogeneous – it is constructed from a series of satellites with similar but not identical instrumentation. The sensors deteriorate over time, and corrections are necessary for satellite drift and orbital decay. Particularly large differences between reconstructed temperature series occur at the few times when there is little temporal overlap between successive satellites, making intercalibration difficult.
1) National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Earth Studies (2000). “Atmospheric Soundings”. Issues in the Integration of Research and Operational Satellite Systems for Climate Research: Part I. Science and Design. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press. pp. 1724. ISBN 0-309-51527-0.
2) Uddstrom, Michael J. (1988). “Retrieval of Atmospheric Profiles from Satellite Radiance Data by Typical Shape Function Maximum a Posteriori Simultaneous Retrieval Estimators”. Journal of Applied Meteorology 27 (5): 515549. Bibcode:1988JApMe..27..515U. doi:10.1175/1520 – 0450(1988)0272.0.CO;2.
Yeah ok, so huge issues with terrestial station placement, using nearly 40% station data that is manufactured and does not even exist, 1,200 km smoothing, extrapolation, secret homogenization algorithms and massive and subjective adjustments to the terrestial data set, tossing specifically designed for the task ARGO data aside and using ship engine intake measurements instead, is a much better method for calculating global temperature.
Pot meet Kettle! The epitomy of invested ideology is in that post. Very nice example for all to see. Thank you for volunteering it.
Gish Gallop here my friend, Ossqss. It looks like a lot of cobbled together conspiracy ingredients. All baked quickly for your own confirmation bias. Remove your tin foil hat p-l-e-a-s-e and stop eating your own baked cake. Not one element of truth in it.
“All baked quickly for your own confirmation bias.”
Hey Ross, speaking of baking, did you hear that half of Australian was baked due to AGW, and the other half was underwater due to sea level rise?
I just wondered if you had heard yet.
That should make you happy.
Confirmation bias? So none of those things/processes exist?
Yet another perfect example of ideological bias.
Lets just take the first statement and take that foil off.
Thank you
Enjoy
http://www.surfacestations.org
But there is no valid physics which supports your claim, Ross, that carbon dioxide (and water vapor) cause warming.
There is real-world evidence that shows water vapor cools.
There is correct physics here which explains why both cool.
The best evidence:
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Their press release: “First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxides Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earths Surface,” Berkeley Lab, 2/25/15
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Since the observed temperature went down it shows that increased CO2 improves the radiative properties of the atmosphere. Since the atmosphere cools the earth, empirically, your study proves increased CO2’s effect must be …..COOLING.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/02/26/new-result-shows-co2-has-almost-no-effect-on-temperature/
And this is the “best” evidence.
Remember how heavily Tallbloke pushed the work of Nikolov & Zeller?
That went nowhere at all; it was clearly wrong.
This will do the same.
FTOP says:
“Since the observed temperature went down it shows that increased CO2 improves the radiative properties of the atmosphere.”
1) Observed temperatures wouldn’t and can’t disprove the Zeldman’s paper’s findings. The result was about forcing and its changes.
2) Saying CO2 “improved” the radiative properties of the atmosphere is meaningless, scientifically. Physical processes don’t “improve” anything — they just are.
The Keeling curve goes ever upward and the spikes of El Nino are all the poor global warmers have to show, tsk, tsk. Ma Nature, darn her, how she loves to torment the poor global warmers.
David,
CO2 is known to be a GHG and if its atmospheric concentration is increased then so too radiative effects should follow. However, there is other stuff going on like according to Trenberth; evapotranspiration amounting to almost 50% of heat loss from the surface and another 10% in thermals.
There are apparent negative feedbacks involved which are poorly understood and receive little attention, seemingly because of the obsession with radiative effects. Do you have any empirical evidence for quantitative CO2 warming?
“Observed temperatures wound’t and can’t disprove the Zeldman’s papers finding”
Yes. Because measuring CO2 concentration and calling it a “force” has no effect on temperature.
mpainter says:
“The Keeling curve goes ever upward and the spikes of El Nino are all the poor global warmers have to show….”
Want to explain why surface temperatures for this El Nino were about 0.4 C above 1997’s El Nino, and about 0.8 C above 1982?
Ross,
RSS and UAH have independently had 35 years to develop calibrations and with version 6 of UAH they are close together. I think youre being a bit cynical if you think that more than 36 years are required. If I remember correctly there was a significant correction for satellite drift in 1998 of 0.1C but the others were relatively minor.
Are you just as cynical about satellite data for sea level rise? Are we all going to drown?
The honest scientist asks for evidence when an hypothesis is suggested. For example, he/she asks questions about the radiative greenhouse conjecture such as those in this comment that nobody has answered and nobody can.
When the honest scientist realizes that
(1) there is no empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis,
(2) that questions such as the above cannot be answered (and yet need to be answered if one is to believe the hypothesis)
(3) that the hypothesis assumes violation of the laws of physics
then the hypothesis is rejected.
The honest scientist then considers any other hypothesis that claims to explain observations, and he/she carries out the same tests before believing such.
The honest scientist writes only about an hypothesis that does in fact have supporting evidence, no evidence that refutes it and is in agreement with the laws of physics.
He/she helps others to understand that they have been misled if they apparently believe a false hypothesis.
The hypothesis here stands up to testing. If you think you understand it, a simple way to privately test your understanding is to draw the “heat creep” diagrams from memory – complete with labelled axes. Try it!
“Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html
Their press release: “First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxides Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earths Surface,” Berkeley Lab, 2/25/15
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/
Appell and his Oklahoma-Alaska Keeling curves.
As usual, no science, worthless snark.
The temperature at the Alaska site went down, David, during the study interval 2000-2011. See FTOP link above. And now, tell us how the Keeling curve works once more, please and thank you.
So? Warming isn’t monotonic.
Trend in Alaska temperature since 1925: +0.23 F/decade.
In the last 30 years: +0.44 F/decade.
data via:
http://www7.ncdc.noaa.gov/CDO/CDODivisionalSelect.jsp
More:
Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract
Re Spencer’s claim that MSU/AMSU agree with radiosondes.
2015 warmest year for RATPAC radiosondes.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/upper-air/201513
Busted claim from Spencer. Again.
How many radiosonde stations are included in ratpac, Hilburn? And where are they?Don’t you think the whole story should be told? What are we to think of you? tsk tsk.
Ask Spencer and Christy. You know, your authorities on radiosondes who says the radiosondes agrees with MSU/AMSU.
Well they did 15 years ago that is. More or less.
Now MSU/AMSU disagrees with in situ SST, satellite SST, land temperature, satellite water vapor.
And of course: radiosondes.
Problem is: they will not answer. They cannot even tell you what radiosonde data they use in graphs presented in Senate hearings.
But, Hilburn, do you not wish to be forthcoming? People will have a better opinion of you if you are. They might even begin to take you seriously, but please don’t take that as a promise. You have a big, wide gap to close, in that respect.
Anyway, here’s my advice: be more forthcoming in your science, avoid all scientific dishonesty, drop your yip-yap, snarling tone, and quit going for the ankles of Roy Spencer. That would be a good start.
Looks like Hilburn doesn’t like the idea that he should be forthcoming. See how he vanished at the suggestion.
Here are facts on Ratpac: 85 stations worldwide, all on land, none over the ocean or Antarctica and produced by the NOAA, the same friendly folks that brought you global warming. How nice.
That works out to one station per 2.35 million square miles of the earth’s surface. All stations carefully screened and selected by…guess who.
Ironies in queue from mpainter. mpainter fist claimed (echoing Spencer) that the radiosondes validated MSU/AMSU. Now the radiosondes could not be used for that purpose because of only 85 stations worldwide.
Why don’t you address Spencer’s claim on this mpainter? Why not address Christy using the same radiosondes in hearings in Congress/Senate?
Crickets.
But we can of course take mpainter backing down as an indication of mpainter at long last got the message: The radiosondes do not longer agree with RSS/UAH v6betasomething.
Ratpac agrees with MSU/AMSU from year to year. That is a clear indication of they can very well be compared to MSU/AMSU. The problem is the drifting starting around 2000.
Another irony is of course the same mpainter who proclaims we only need ONE tidal gauge to measure global sea level….
Hilburn, I note that you make no specific claims about the validity of the ratpac data. Understandably, since such sparse coverage, omitting over half of the planet, is hardly the basis for such a claim. Also, the keepers of the database are not the most trustworthy types. NOAA has some house cleaning to do.
Also, Hilburn, you have complained several times on this thread about hearing “crickets”. I submit that is only a buzzing in your ears known to ear physicians as “tympania”, a common complaint of persons with recursive phobias that have become a dominant framework for their views. That pesky CO2 again, tsk, tsk.
Again mpainter: Address Spencer & Christy on the uselessness of radiosondes for validating MSU/AMSU.
Tell Ted Cruz too.
Hilburn, we were talking about a selected dataset known as ratpac, are we not?
Answer: yes, we were.
We were not talking about the entirety of radiosonde data, are we?
Answer: no, we were not.
So try not to confuse (or obfuscate) the matter, there’s a good fellow.
And Hilburn, if you wish to denigrate radiosonde data in general, you must do that yourself. Don’t expect me to do that for you, silly boy.
Hilburn/ehak says
“Another irony is of course the same mpainter who proclaims we only need ONE tidal gauge to measure global sea level.”
###
Almost, Hilburn, but still short on comprehension. What mpainter actually said:
For determining a general, worldwide sea level trend, only one tidal gauge is needed.. IF .. that gauge is on a stable coast.
I predict that Hilburn/ehak will continue to misconstrue the meaning. Perhaps he really does not comprehend.
Well. Christy and Spencer have of course used ratpac. Go tell Cruz that his expert presented data that cannot be trusted.
And for coverage: When it is sea level, one gauge is enough. Consistency is overrated.
Exactly: One tidal gauge. Sea level all around the world change in perfect synchronicity. Phenomena like Enso have no effect on sea level.
And there is only one stable coast. West coast of USA. Guess that is because there is no geological activity along that coast.
Is this Comedy Central mpainter?
Hilburn/ehak, you again show your incomprehension of what is meant by “a general, worldwide sea level trend”.
Well, so be it. Snark away.
As for your dislike of Roy Spencer, John Christy and their MSU/AMSU product at UAH, go tell that to Cruz yourself, silly boy. Make sure to take Carl Mears with you, he can ask for more NASA funding at the same time that he tells the committee that satellite temperature datasets stink.
mpainter asks “what is meant by “a general, worldwide sea level trend”.
We can see what mpainter think that means: Sea level measurement from ONE gauge somewhere on the west coast of USA. The only place on earth with at stable coast. And no difference in sea level and variability can be found anywhere else in the world. If another gauge somewhere else have other measurements that is because that coast is moving up and down from year to year.
Thank you mpainter.
Hilburn, you wallow in confusion, still. I tried to help, but it’s no use. Sorry.
There’s no valid physics which can in any way associate surface temperatures with carbon dioxide levels. The Earth is kept warm at night by the “blanket” of mostly nitrogen, oxygen and argon molecules that hold over 98% of all the thermal energy in the atmosphere.
IR-active molecules acquire thermal energy in the same way as nitrogen, oxygen and argon and also by radiation, some from incident solar radiation and a little less from surface radiation.
But these IR active “greenhouse” gases are the “holes in the blanket” radiating energy out of the atmosphere.
A study of real-world temperature and precipitation data showed water vapour does indeed cool.
Roy wrote:
“El Nino that a goodly portion of the record warmth in 2015 was naturally induced, just as it was in previous record warm years.”
Yes. But this El Nino year is about 0.4 C warmer (surface) than the 1997 El Nino of comparable size, and abou t0.8 C warmer than 1982. That needs to be explained.
In recent months LT temperatures have also been larger than for 1987 and 1982; see this graph:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2016/01/this-el-nino-lower-troposphere.html
Hi David, I have this thought. When we were living in La Nina years, some of these were the warmest on record. Records indicate that the SH were coldest on record for La Ninas in the 1960s*, yet now beyond 2000, they are the warmest on record. Roy wants to have his bet both ways. And that aside, he would care to not to be so centric to the US continent, he might just change his views about this nonsense about lack sensitivity to Global increases of CO2 in his UAH datasets.
Increased WATER vapour (continental effect) activity does not COOL the Australian continent. IT warms it and holds in temperatures aka humidity % at very high temperatures at night and more so in Winter.
* BOM archives for Australian Winter Temperatures in the 1960 series.
Increased water vapour concentration does cool: my study shows thus, and correct physics explains why. What evidence do you have to the contrary?
Means of Adjusted Daily Maximum and Daily Minimum Temperatures
Wet (01-05): 30.8C 20.1C
Medium (06-10): 33.0C 21.2C
Dry (11-15): 35.7C 21.9C
IPCC implied claims regarding warming for each 1% of water vapour …
1% …. 20 degrees (desert)
2% …. 40 degrees (fairly moist)
3% …. 60 degrees (very moist)
4% …. 80 degrees (rain forest)
Any real world evidence?
Where did the IPCC say this? Citation and link?
Ross: Yes, years for each ENSO state keep getting warmer.
And you’re right — increased atmo water vapor certainly is not a cooling influence.
Roy wrote:
” Thermometers Still Disagree with Models.”
These data from Gavin Schmidt say otherwise:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2016/01/too-good-not-to-post.html
Roy wrote:
“Im not claiming our satellite dataset is necessarily the best global temperature dataset in terms of trends, even though I currently suspect it is closer to being accurate than the surface record….”
Carl Mears (RSS)”
“The author is guilty of ignoring the surface temperature record, which is probably more accurate than the satellite temperature record.”
http://climatefeedback.org/evaluation/james-taylor-2015-was-not-even-close-to-hottest-year-on-record/
DA,
If RSS is not as accurate as the land based thermometers then why are we still paying them to produce useless data? Perhaps that money could be spent curing cancer etc instead
The RSS (or UAH) data certainly aren’t useless.
Both calculate temperatures other than for the surface. It is useful information, if not (in Mears’ opinion) as reliable as the surface temperature.
The lower tropospheric temperatures are not expected to duplicate surface temperatures. They are measuring different things.
The lower troposphere controls surface temperatures, much to your surprise.
You could not explain the mean surface temperature based on radiation computations, and nobody can because its not a black or grey body being heated only by radiation.
Unfortunately you don’t even understand the need to explain the mean surface temperature. It is necessary to do so in order to confirm that the process we think may warm it more is in fact the same process that got it to that temperature in the first place. In fact its not.
See http://climate-change-theory.com
DougCotton says:
“You could not explain the mean surface temperature based on radiation computations….”
“Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity,” Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, v24 n3 (May 1967) pp 241-259.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sm6701.pdf
DA: Manabe even got the terminology wrong: their “thermal” equilibrium is quite different from the state of thermodynamic equilibrium which the Second Law of Thermodynamics says will evolve. No wonder they did not realize that the state of thermodynamic equilibrium has a non-zero temperature gradient, cooler at the top.
When there is more moisture the magnitude of the temperature gradient reduces because of the temperature leveling effect of inter-molecular radiation between IR active (“greenhouse”) gases. Hence the plot of temperature against altitude must rotate (maintaining radiative balance with insolation) and that rotation is thus downwards at the surface end, causing cooler surface temperatures in more moist regions. Real world data in my study confirms this. Prove otherwise!
No, DA, they got it wrong because they added back radiation to solar radiation. Now, next time read the question first and don’t waste my time because you assume what the question asks. Your personal explanation or nothing. No citations like Pierrehumbert or James Hansen who also got it wrong.
Radiation cannot be compounded and you cannot prove with any experiment that it can be. There is such an experiment explained in “THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS ALIKE” and I suggest you need to realize that I know and understand this physics somewhat better than yourself, Hansen, Pierrehumbert, Manabe et al, having studied it extensively at post-graduate level and written about 70 pages on it in two papers and a book.
Both the atmosphere and the Sun deliver energy to the Earth’s atmosphere and surface.
Manabe and Weatherald certainly considered solar radiation. See their section 2, point 1, page 242.
“Thermal Equilibrium of the Atmosphere with a Given Distribution of Relative Humidity, Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, v24 n3 (May 1967) pp 241-259.
http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/bibliography/related_files/sm6701.pdf
Regarding your first sentence DA: by what heat transfer process(es) and by how much? Quantify each process in your own words, not Manabe’s. Then show your calculations getting 288K temperature for a spherical earth receiving variable solar radiation day and night. For example, you can assume no warming at night. You may just provide the input and output for Stefan Boltzmann calculations and you may use an on-line calculator for such. But I will not accept solar flux and back radiation flux being added for the input into S-B. No valid physics says that can be done.
Your anticipated answers are already refuted in the discussion regarding the questions that stump lukes and warmists. So as I said before, read the questions first and all the notes therein.
Doug: Why should I answer any of your questions when you routinely ignore all of mine?
It’s you David Appell trying to justify the false physics you promulgate, saying the cold atmosphere transfers [thermal] energy to the warmer surface, but not being able to explain how.
I know what’s correct and what’s not, based on the laws of physics: you haven’t a clue about the relevant physics as I can easily tell.
There is nothing anywhere that proves with correct physics that water vapor and carbon dioxide somehow warm Earth’s surface.
Correct physics can be used to deduce that they cool. Correct physics is supported by evidence, whereas the greenhouse conjecture is not.
So nothing you write David Appell is supported by physics or evidence, and thus you are misleading people, and the fact that you can’t answer the “questions that stump” proves you have no integrity to check the validity of what you sprout for your own financial or political reasons. It’s called fraud.
What questions anyway, DA? I have very clearly set out the physics upon which I rely and which should answer any questions you or anyone has.
DougCotton says:
“What questions anyway, DA?”
This question: why haven’t you submitted your groundbreaking work to a quality peer reviewed scientific journal?
Interesting analysis of the flaws in in the Manabe/Werherald paper.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/3/19/climate-models-for-politicians.html?currentPage=2#comments
My view is that GCM’s are what you get when the modeler has an incorrect and/or incomplete understanding of the natural processes that he attempts to model.
Hence, it never is any surprise to me when someone points out another flaw in these.
The list of flaws must total in the scores.
This is most telling, because the AGW types have nothing to support their hypothesis except these GCM’s. And lately, fabrication.
Roy,
Can’t you do something about Cotton and his quackery…
Can’t you DM help David Appell answer the questions I have asked anyone, but nobody can answer? I promise I will stop if you can answer the QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS in your own words with correct physics. Otherwise you have no foundation for your quackery about carbon dioxide supposedly warming Earth’s surface. Without a starting point based on correct physics you have nothing at all by way of any theory about CO2.
What I say is derived from Kinetic Theory and the Second Law of Thermodynamics, about which I know and understand heaps more than you Doug MacKenzie. If that were not the case, you would recognise the truth in what I have explained, based on correct physics and supported by copious evidence.
Alas DougCotton, Doug MacKenzie can integrate dq/T and identify quackery.
I agree. Cotton’s comments are so far from the topic of these posts that they should be removed. I just did the when he tried the same trick on my blog:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2016/01/largest-prime_23.html?showComment=1453605442927#c4553874816626514021
Roy
Same goes for you if you can answer those questions that stump lukes and warmists: nobody can here as you can see for yourself.
You will learn a lot by trying Roy – trying to the point that you realize the GH conjecture is totally false. That only leaves the one and only (opposite) hypothesis which I have been first in the world to explain, and which is based on correct physics and supported by evidence from throughout the Solar System.
Doug,
People here are tired of hearing the same thing over and over and over again. Surely your fingers are tired by now?
if you are not going away, at least talk about something different.
For example, how the “Saturn-Jupiter resonance cycle” affects Earth’s temperatures.
What I wrote to David here applies to you also.
Admit it. The Saturn-Jupiter resonance cycle is a load of codswallop without an iota of physics.
You may as well resort to astrology.
MANABE CONTRADICTS THE IPCC
It would be funny if it weren’t such a serious matter …
David’s cited Manabe et al paper says that cloudy regions are 20.7 degrees cooler than regions without cloud. That is believable because there is usually more water vapor in such regions, reducing the temperature gradient, causing the thermal plot to rotate downwards at the surface end. There is also greater albedo, which means the whole temperature plot lowers to a cooler position parallel with the dry plot above.
So there is a double cooling effect due to water vapor lowering the “lapse rate” and also due to the increased albedo resulting from the clouds it forms, all of which I have explained many times.
But the IPCC says greenhouse gases (water vapor, CO2 and CH4) in total warm the surface by 33 degrees, and obviously water vapor must (according to them) do most of that warming.
Of course there is some bias in climate science toward looking for signs of warming, but there are those who would prefer not to find warming, yet they still do. The classic case is Richard Muller at Berkeley who was funded by the Koch brothers to analyze the data. His conclusion was that even after eliminating potential bias from urban heat islands and so on, the conclusion is the same: the world is warming, and the only strong correlation is with CO2 levels.
Furthermore, we recently saw almost 200 governments sign on to address global warming, including governments like Saudi Arabia that would obviously rather CO2 emission were not a problem.
“…governments like Saudi Arabia that would obviously rather CO2 emission were not a problem.”
Well I might be tempted to get into an arguement about this ,(and Richard Muller’s preservation of family harmony with his daughter), with you Bill…but Roy says this..
“Let me be clear: I’m not saying climate change is a non-problem”
If you are right Bill, Roy may be thinking along the same lines as the Saudi govt. The only compensation in Roy’s case, is that he doesn’t behead people at the drop of a hat.
Bill, the more you learn about Muller, the more you will be disenchanted. It’s the old “follow the money” thingy.
Crash goes the theory – Clouds DO NOT cool Global Warming in a warming world!
The authors of Sherwood (2014) looked at the way that the various climate models handle the cloud feedback and found models with a low climate sensitivity were inconsistent with observations. It turns out that these models were incorrectly simulating water vapor being drawn up to higher levels of the atmosphere to form clouds in a warmer world. In reality (based on observations) warming of the lower atmosphere pulls water vapor away from those higher cloud-forming levels of the atmosphere and the amount of cloud formation there actually decreases. The diminished cloud cover leads to greater warming (a positive feedback).
“The diminished cloud cover leads to greater warming (a positive feedback).”
Not at night in the desert….
Hi Mike M,
Sorry the cooling effect of cloud study FOUND the following:
Higher altitude cloud covers DO NOT exist as the world gets warmer.
LOWER cloud cover INCREASES however according to the study – drawing in the higher altitude clouds, hence humidity increases and heat loss (energy) otherwise to higher altitude is locked into the lower atmosphere. IT is something ROY SPENCER must investigate as its turns on its head the IRIS theory of Linzden.
Therefore cloud cover in the deserts lead to lower loss heat at night.
This has been proven during times of great moisture content (high humidity and cloud cover and atmospheric river deposits (extreme rainfalls (troughs and lows) to patched deserts areas. (low lying moisture laden air) at night over large swathes of the Australian Outback (in Summer and Winter) with low lying low altitude clouds.
As the World warms even by 1 degree Celsius, moisture increases in the atmosphere causing two things: The falling out of this increased moisture in the form of extreme atmospheric river events: England, USA, Australia, India, Southern China and Europe. The other event: You get snow in record falls – TONES of it dumped in records broken! Logic: As atmosphere cools (North polar oscillation collisions) – the atmospheric moisture must fall out. At the times of great glaciers (100,000 years ago) – the air was very DRY. Warmer world equals greater moisture held in lower atmosphere.
When sky and clear there is dramatic heat loss over deserts at night.
Ross, I’m afraid that you are a case. Have you tried tranquilizers?
Ross is pretty sure the globe is about to explode. Or maybe it already has…
🙂
Ross has this great concept…as the world warms you get more snow. Sen. Inofe delivers a snow-ball to the face of you unhinged believers, Snow does not equate to cold…riiight.
“There indeed is a climate change problem to study…but I don’t think we know with any certainty how much is natural versus manmade.”
Indeed a problem? No, the first part is just as uncertain and therefore deserves as much or more scrutiny as the second part. There is no “problem” that I can see, warming and more CO2 are both better for life on this planet.
It’s not the amount of CO2 that matters, it’s the transition from one level to another that is the problem. And right now, CO2 is causing climate to change extremely fast, in geological terms….
David gets all worked up into a bother on a regular basis. In fact, nothing unusual in today’s variability. The beginning of the Holocene saw temperatures rise at the rate of 10-15/century, as per ice core data. Now there’s your climate change.
“The beginning of the Holocene saw temperatures rise at the rate of 10-15/century.”
Pure idiocy.
I can’t wait to see you try to prove THIS…..
Appell has never heard of ice core d18 O analysis.
Your proof we are in a D-O event?
aCO2 and other aGHGs are radiative forcings even if we are in a D-O event. And the warming we’re seeing is consistent with that, as is stratospheric cooling.
David, you have shown your ignorance ignorance of oxygen isotope proxy analysis.
What stratospheric cooling, pray tell. The last was in 1993: the step-down following Pinatubo.
Your proof we are in a D-O event?
Even if we are, CO2 is still a greenhouse gas that traps heat. As stratospheric cooling shows, it is very much in operation and explains modern warming.
“Global Change in the Upper Atmosphere,” J. Latovička et al, Science 24 Nov 2006: Vol. 314, Issue 5803, pp. 1253-1254
DOI: 10.1126/science.1135134
From that paper’s conclusions:
“The upper atmosphere is generally cooling and contracting, and related changes in chemical composition are affecting the ionosphere. The dominant driver of these trends is increasing greenhouse forcing, although there may be contributions from anthropogenic changes of the ozone layer and long-term increase of geomagnetic activity throughout the 20th century. Thus, the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases influence the atmosphere at nearly all altitudes between ground and space, affecting not only life on the surface but also the spacebased technological systems on which we increasingly rely.”
Appell you are base.
Climate change is a problem? Really? That’s like saying, “the meteorological conditions of the Western United States is a problem”. Like saying, “the sun is a problem”. Or “rain is a problem”.
Personally, I think “night time is a problem”. It is really too dark and cold at night time. We need to do something to fix the problem of “night time”.
Adapt.
Good grief.
— Phyte On says:
January 24, 2016 at 9:14 AM
Climate change is a problem? Really? Thats like saying, the meteorological conditions of the Western United States is a problem. Like saying, the sun is a problem. Or rain is a problem.
Personally, I think night time is a problem. It is really too dark and cold at night time. We need to do something to fix the problem of night time.–
It seems to be that if one could not predict when there was a night time- night time would be a bigger problem.
Fortunately, this is quite easy to predict- even if one were to fly 1/2 way around the world.
The Sun *would* be a problem if its irradiance was increasing by 0.2 W/m2 every decade, one after the other….
Davie, subjunctive case, “…if its irradiance WERE increasing…”
You probably never learned grammar because you were too busy studying pseudoscience, huh?
–The Sun *would* be a problem if its irradiance was increasing by 0.2 W/m2 every decade, one after the other.–
If solar flux was increasing by .2% every decade it might be
a problem and probably would know this was the case, but I don’t we know if the sun is or is not [or has or hasnot] constantly rising at rate of 0.2 W/m2 every decade. Or what would be smaller increase of 2 watts per century.
Wiki says:
The solar “constant” is not a physical constant in the modern CODATA scientific sense; it varies in value, and has been called a “misconception”. It has been shown to vary historically in the past 400 years over a range of less than 0.2 percent.”
0.2 percent of 1361 watts is 2.72 watts per square meter.
Wiki continues later:
“Solar output is nearly, but not quite, constant. Variations in total solar irradiance (TSI) were small and difficult to detect accurately with technology available before the satellite era (+/- 2% in 1954). Total solar output is now measured as varying (over the last three 11-year sunspot cycles) by approximately 0.1%”
So with +/- 2% in 1954. If measured to be 1360 watts as the average total flux, it’s +/- 27.2 watts.
But we currently have satellite trying to measure it more precisely and variation of different type of solar radiation and we might be able to accurately measure something like .2 watts per decade in total flux, or variation in the solar flux which is as significant as .2 watts per every decade in total flux.
But if solar flux was increasing by .2% every decade, which have no evidence of this happening, but were this happen, it might not be problem to be concerned with in the near term.
Or it’s quite possible to reduce the amount sunlight reaching earth within a couple decade at low “global” a few tens of billions. Whereas attempting it now, could cost 100 billion or more. Or it would useful to be aware of this, were this the case, but doesn’t require specific action taken at the present. Though it would be one more issue which would support continued space exploration. And of course further understand of the sun what causing such an increase [or could cause a future decrease].
gbaikie: I didn’t say the sun’s irradiance *is* increasing by 0.2 W/m2 at the TOA. It isn’t.
I said *if* it was, over several decades, it would be a problem because the climate would heat up.
— David Appell says:
January 29, 2016 at 1:02 AM
gbaikie: I didnt say the suns irradiance *is* increasing by 0.2 W/m2 at the TOA. It isnt.–
I am saying we don’t know it if this was occuring at the moment as it’s not been measurable in terms if such a small increase
–I said *if* it was, over several decades, it would be a problem because the climate would heat up.–
Not by much and could not be a problem anytime soon.
And if in the future we wanted to lower the solar flux we could do this at low cost. A single nation could do it- Japan or Australia. Or some billionaire could do it- if they wanted to [and were “allowed” to do it].
But within the next century it’s doubtful there would be any need or desire to cool Earth by any amount.
“NOAA-NASA report that 2015 was the warmest year by far in the surface thermometer record.”
which is only a few decades long in its global coverage and a few hundred years in specific, local, points.
So absolute certainty there then.
Richard: Two questions:
1) When does NOAA’s record of global monthly temperatures begin?
2) Same for NASA’s record.
The real question is when will the corruption of the data be put right?
A typically a-scientific response from painter.
When David?
painter, when did you stop beating your wife?
My wife passed away last year of lymphoma.
If you ask disrespectful questions, you don’t get to complain when you get them in return.
You are base
@David Apell…mpainter tells you his wife passed away last year from lymphoma and you justify asking him when he stopped beating his wife.
You’re an asshole, just like the rest of your alarmist brethern.
Gordon: As I wrote, when painter asks a rude question, he has to expect getting one back in return.
Sorry to learn about your wife, mpainter.
Re natural variation vs. human caused, per IPCC, humans inject 5 gigatons of CO2, while natural release of CO2 is 150 gigaton. Let that all sink in…..
Joel: How much CO2 does nature take up every year?
As much as it can David, in every increasing amounts. It’s plant food, you see.
Now watch David link to a peer-reviewed study that tells us that CO2 is bad for plants.
How much CO2 does nature take up every year?
See above
How much CO2 does nature take up every year?
A: In fact, it takes up MORE than nature emits. At least so far. Let’s hope that continues.
Davie, I think that is the first thing you have gotten right! Maybe if you keep studying….
“A: In fact, it takes up MORE than nature emits.”
Of course it does. It proportionately takes up all emissions. If you ceased anthropogenic input, the amount it takes out would decline to less than what nature emits, and nature would be seen to be the driving force.
What you are offering is the very stupid and jejune pseudo-mass balance argument, offered by ingenues who have no idea how dynamic systems work.
Bart says:
“A: In fact, it takes up MORE than nature emits.
Of course it does. It proportionately takes up all emissions.”
Only on time scales of order 100,000 years.
“If you ceased anthropogenic input, the amount it takes out would decline to less than what nature emits, and nature would be seen to be the driving force.”
Only on time scales of order 100,000 years.
“What you are offering is the very stupid and jejune pseudo-mass balance argument, offered by ingenues who have no idea how dynamic systems work.”
Clearly that includes you.
Archer, D., and V. Brovkin (2008). Millennial lifetime of fossil fuel CO2. Climatic Change. DOI:
10.1007/s10584-008-9413-1.
Archer, D. (2008) The Long Thaw: How Humans are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth’s
Climate. A book for a popular audience, Princeton University Press.
“Only on time scales of order 100,000 years.”
Nonsense. Bald assertion.
“Clearly that includes you.”
Sorry, no. Non-negotiable. The pseudo-mass balance argument is transparently idiotic on a very elementary level to anyone who understands even the bare rudiments of dynamic systems theory.
If these authors you are trotting out are invested in it, then they are ipso facto unqualified to hold an opinion on anything relating to the issues before us.
Roy wrote:
“Because scientists, I have learned, will tend to find whatever they are paid to find in terms of causation….”
And — let me guess — you think you are the exception?
The ugliest thing about this global warming hysteria is the corruption of science. Take David Appell, who has all the marks of a paid troll.
Is David Appell a paid troll? Well, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
Having to resort to personal attacks shows you can’t compete on the science.
I accept your surrender.
Davie, please present your “science”. Where is the mathematical proof that CO2 can warm the planet?
We’ll be waiting….
I’m not here to be your tutor.
Read [if you can] any modern textbook on climate science, or “The Warming Papers” (ed. Pierrehumbert and Archer) for the important historical papers that lead to today’s understanding.
David must have no pay-walled link for us. How about it David? Kindly enlighten us on the available dogma.
Let’s just put it this way, David Appell:
I have read Pierrehumbert etc and found errors in their physics, a subject in which I am qualified and about which I know and understand more than they.
You have not convinced me, and will not convince me that the conjecture that IR-active gases like water vapor, CO2 and CH4 raise the surface temperatures of planets like Earth and Venus whilst I have serious objections to the hypothesis because, from my experience and understanding of radiative heat transfer, entropy and thermodynamics (which I suggest surpasses yours and Pierrehumbert’s et al) I see that the hypothesis assumes violations of the laws of physics and has incorrect application of Stefan-Boltzmann computations.
The paper you thought would answer my objections does not do so – it just reiterates the errors. In any event, how could a paper written last century answer questions I have asked only this month based on 21st century understandings of radiative heat transfer, entropy maximization and thermodynamics, about which I have published two papers and a book?
In contrast to what I see as incorrect physics in the radiative forcing “greenhouse” conjecture, I have used correct physics to explain what really does happen in all planets and satellite moons regarding the supporting of temperatures and the necessary heat transfers. If what I have explained is correct, then the greenhouse conjecture is false because the two are mutually exclusive.
So, I am not convinced (and will not be convinced) that you are basing your communication here upon correct physics, unless and until you satisfactorily respond in your own words to the questions on my blog which I shall now copy below for the convenience of new silent readers whom I am referring here from a hundred or so climate blogs and threads, so don’t let them down …
THE QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS
(1) You claimed an incremental rise in surface temperature can be expressed as a function of an incremental increase in carbon dioxide radiation which would normally come from a colder region of the atmosphere. Is that a reasonable summation of a key element of the greenhouse hypothesis?
(2) Assuming yes then I say that (to convince me of that hypothesis) I need empirical evidence that the surface temperature is a function of such radiation, because if it is not, then neither is the derivative of the temperature. Is that correct?
(3) Assuming yes then please explain at least one point on the graph. Doing so does not prove that the function is correct, but it at least supports it and does not disprove it. If you cant explain even a single temperature with correct physics then I am not convinced in any way, shape or form. Is that reasonable?
(4) Assuming yes then please explain a typical surface temperature of, say, 15C by demonstrating (using any relevant data about any flux) how you calculate 15C from such typical radiative flux alone.
I would appreciate discussion of the physics only.
When they claim that a mean flux of 390W/m^2 explains 15C (because that is the blackbody temperature) ask them if they understand that temperature is only proportional to the fourth root of the flux. Then, get them to agree that the flux varies a lot, and ask for calculations for five equal regions having 20%, 60%, 100%, 140% and 180% of the mean flux. (They will get a lower mean temperature around 3C.) Finally, ask them why they think they can add together solar radiation and back radiation in their Stefan-Boltzmann calculations. Suggest that, if an electric bar radiator is raising the temperature of an object to 350K, then, if there were sixteen such radiators and we add all the flux, Stefan Boltzmann calculations would give a temperature of 700K. Ask if they think that would happen. Assuming no then ask why they think they can add solar radiation and back radiation. They cannot claim to be able to do so because they have just agreed that adding the flux from all the radiators does not give a realistic temperature. Any one such example disproves their conjecture that radiative fluxes can be compounded in that way.
It’s real simple Davie, either you got the actual science or you been sucking down pseudoscience all these years. Which is it?
“Where is the mathematical proof that CO2 can warm the planet?”
It’s in their papers. See first Manabe and Wetherald 1967, who were the first to calculate the Earth’s baseline temperature due to the greenhouse effect.
Then you can procede to their second big paper:
“The Effects of Doubling the CO2 Concentration on the Climate of a General Circulation Model,” Syukuro Manabe and Richard T. Wetherald, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, vol 32 no 1 pp 3-15 (1975).
https://courses.seas.harvard.edu/climate/eli/Courses/EPS281r/Sources/Greenhouse-effect/more/Manabe-Wetherald-1975.pdf
Painter wrote:
“David must have no pay-walled link for us.”
Don’t be a cheapskate.
No, David Appell the mathematical “proof” is not in their papers which contain the errors in physics outlined in the QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS which I have repeated in my comment above.
I am now about to link this thread, starting with my comment, from about 100 or so other climate blogs and social media climate threads.
This will be the debate to end all debates. Was Loschmidt right or wrong?
You should NOT be on THIS web site as you disagree with Roy Spencer’s climate science.
Davie says: Its in their papers. See first Manabe and Wetherald 1967, who were the first to calculate the Earths baseline temperature due to the greenhouse effect.
Davie, it’s not there. Equations, Davie. It’s not happening.
But, check the records being set on the East Coast. THAT’s happening!
geran: Read harder. Science isn’t all neat and tidy like the F=ma you might have learned in high school.
Here is another fun paper along these lines:
“Radiative forcing at high concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases,” Brendan Byrne and C. Goldblatt, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 13 2014.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058456/abstract
Davie, it’s not happening for you. Your papers are not science. Most are behind paywalls. That should tell you something.
Here’s your sacred equation:
(Delta) F = 5.35*ln (C/Co)
Where is the proof of that equation?
No links, no paywalls, just print your mathematical proof.
Or just quietly disappear into your basement apartment playing video games.
Doug “4:54pm water vapor cools ” has already lost the debate as proven by the experiment of Dr. Spencer showing added atm. water increases (not decreases per Doug’s book) thermometer temperature of a water sample over control. Remember Doug writes: “The honest scientist writes only about an hypothesis that does in fact have supporting evidence..”; Doug’s study is not a test.
Doug’s book and papers are thus proven wrong by proper “supporting evidence” meaning proper atm. experimental data here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/06/can-infrared-radiation-warm-a-water-body-part-ii/
—–
The scientific answer to Doug’s question (1) 9:07pm is “incomplete summary”. So Dougs other questions are moot. Doug isn’t accomplished enough in the subject matter to even pose a proper question by admittedly not having passed a college course in atm. thermo. 101.
Actually the incremental optical depth of an atm. enables a sun to incrementally force a rise in surface median annual thermometer temperature. Optical depth is driven by the product of total atm. surface pressure, well mixed mass mixing ratio of species and extinction coefficient of each species. Atm. optical depth does not change the annual brightness temperature of a planet.
And still the QUESTIONS THAT STUMP LUKES AND WARMISTS have not been answered with any correct physics, and never will be if that physics only takes into account radiation reaching the surface.
Consider the base of the 350Km high nominal troposphere of Uranus. Sorry, there’s no solid surface to get warmed by direct solar radiation, and there’s none of that down there either. Shame! You can’t explain why it’s hotter than Earth there, now can you? I can, and I have explained how the required thermal energy actually gets there by non-radiative processes that are complying with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
It’s all at https://itsnotco2.wordpress.com
Ball4 says:
January 25, 2016 at 7:36 AM
Doug 4:54pm water vapor cools has already lost the debate as proven by the experiment of Dr. Spencer showing added atm. water increases (not decreases per Dougs book) thermometer temperature of a water sample over control.
Mmmm… I don’t like to encourage DC, but feel it necessary to point out that the moist adiabatic lapse rate is, in fact, lower than the dry adiabatic lapse rate.
geran says:
“Heres your sacred equation:
(Delta) F = 5.35*ln (C/Co)
Where is the proof of that equation?”
That equation is only a fit to the data. The paper I cited shows how that’s done, and derives higher-order terms, too.
Radiative forcing at high concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases, Brendan Byrne and C. Goldblatt, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 13 2014.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013GL058456/abstract
Bart. Doug would only benefit from positive encouragement to pass a college course in atm. thermo. 101.
Yes, the moist lapse is lower than DALR since added atm. water vapor increases temperature thus decreasing the decline (lapse) in temperature with increasing height toward say 6K/km just as it did in the test by Dr. Spencer (+0.1F over control water bath). You do not encourage Doug as he wrongly writes added water vapor cools which would increase the moist rate above the earth DALR -g/Cp 9.8K/km to say 11K/km or more. This is not observed and the test by Dr. Spencer (linked) proves Doug wrong in this & more than one assertion.
Doug is thoroughly proven wrong by huge amount of observation & experimental data. Doug has no experiments to cite other than the 850 lab cylinders confirming the very slow (days, weeks) to operate so called “heat creep” observations in the larger atm. These are really observed as processes of diffusion, conduction and convection well known since early 1800s.
“That equation is only a fit to the data.”
Exactly! There is NO mathematical proof because the equation is bogus.
It only “fit” the data once. It no longer “fits”. It was a case of “correlation without causation”. It happens all the time in pseudoscience.
Ball4 says: January 29, 2016 at 12:57 PM
Well, I hold no brief for Doug. And, I am no atmospheric scientist, though I am scientifically engaged professionally.
I’m not convinced, though, that a simple experiment with bath water translates to the global regulatory system. What I would expect is that temperatures would more or less obey
T = T_ERL + L*(ERL – h)
where ERL is the effective radiating layer, h is altitude, and T_ERL is the temperature at the ERL. T_ERL should be approximately constant at steady state for constant input solar radiation in order to maintain balance. So, surface temperature would be
Tsurf = T_ERL + L*ERL
An incremental change in L demands a change in either Tsurf or ERL, or both
dTsurf = dL*ERL + L*dERL
If the lapse rate decreases, then dL is negative. Thus, if ERL remains constant, then Tsurf must decrease with decreasing L. For Tsurf to increase, you’ve got to have the ERL increasing in height enough to make the sum positive.
Is there evidence that water vapor causes an increase in ERL? And, enough of one to offset the -|dL|*ERL term to produce a net positive dTsurf?
“Is there evidence that water vapor causes an increase in ERL? And, enough of one to offset the -|dL|*ERL term to produce a net positive dTsurf?”
Solid evidence, I mean. And, is the functional dependence monotonic? Increasing surface temperature has other effects, e.g., on convection, which can alter the response from what it otherwise would be. So, in the aggregate, can we really say for certain that the effect is to increase surface temperature in all possible states of the system?
I do not think so.
“Im not convinced, though, that a simple experiment with bath water translates to the global regulatory system.”
The test by Dr. Spencer is not site specific Bart, move it to any point on the globe (well, with liquid water in the containers) and the result will be same – no geographic dependency.
“If the lapse rate decreases, then dL is negative.”
Here your formula has the lapse as a positive, if your lapse decreases say from 6.5 standard atm. to 6.0, then dL is positive (6.5-6.0), not negative. Run check numbers:
T_ERL = 255K
Lapse begin = +6.5K/km standard.
ERL standard atm. = 5.1km, h=5.1km
Find T= 255K, and for h=0, find Tsurf=288.15K, the standard.
For lapse decreased to +6.0 from +6.5, find dTsurf=+2.55K, Tsurf=290.7K as expected from increased atm. water LH released (moist-er) and as shown by Dr. Spencer test.
For lapse increased to 7 from 6.5, drier (less moisture from volatiles, less LH from condensing water): find dTsurf=-2.55K, Tsurf=285.6 as expected and as shown by Dr. Spencer test when the cirrus apparently had a break.
Pretty sure if you run that as a real lapse (a decline of something) from surface to ERL, lapse decrease 6.5 to 7.0, you will find the same result. Try it as an exercise.
lapse decrease 6.5 to 7.0
The site has been eating my apostrophes and minus signs sort of at random. That should be decrease minus 6.5 to minus 7.0.
A pox upon me for a clumsy lout. You are correct. Somehow got it fixed in my head it was negative, without checking.
Still not convinced of the monotonicity, but don’t have anything else to offer on that front right now.
Well, I do have one little thing. It’s pretty obvious there has to be a point of diminishing returns. If the atmosphere became dense and saturated with water, it would basically become ocean, and we all know ocean temperatures decrease with depth.
So, toy equations are nice in pointing out general relationships, but they do not necessarily tell you what would happen in every potential circumstance.
But, that’s just conversation. The match is yours for today. Adios.
DALR 9.8 C/km
SALR 5 C/km
Hold up here. Shouldn’t have responded after a glass of wine.
If your air is dry, your DALR is about 9.8C/km. When it becomes saturated, your SALR goes to about 5C/km. Change is dL = 5 – 9.8 = -4.8C/km.
It becomes less steep so, starting from the ERL, your surface temperature T_ERL cannot change as fast, and so cannot become as warm as it could under dry conditions if your ERL is at the same height.
In your example:
T_ERL = 255K
Lapse begin = +6.5K/km standard.
ERL standard atm. = 5.1km, h=5.1km
Tsurf = 255 + 6.5*5.1 = 288.15K
For lapse decreased to +6.0 from +6.5, find
Tsurf = 255 + 6.0*5.1 = 285.6K
Change is
dTsurf = 285.6K-288.15K = -2.55K
The surface is cooler under the wet conditions than under the dry.
Correction:
“It becomes less steep so, starting from the ERL, your temperature along the route to the surface cannot change as fast, and so Tsurf cannot become as warm as it could under dry conditions if your ERL is at the same height.”
“Change is dL = 5 minus 9.8 = minus 4.8C/km.”
That would mean release of LH subtracts from atm. energy, the opposite process evaporation would then add to energy. This is not what is observed Bart, you did better with the wine.
Example: LH evaporates goes up 1km then condenses. Under your arithmetic, the LH release would cause minus 4.8C. Actually the LH should increase the decreasing T by +4.8C.
dTsurf for my example is: (6.5 minus 6) * 5.1km = +2.55K
Tsurf=290.7 with moist-er atm. is correct.
Check as I did by recovering standard Tsurf: Suppose dL were negative 0.5 in my example then dTsurf comes out negative 2.55 and Tsurf=285.6K standard. That math doesn’t recover standard Tsurf=288.15 as I showed correctly does check at 6:49pm (Tsurf = 255 + 6.5*5.1 = 288.15K).
For SALR= 5K/km then find dTSurf=7.65 and Tsurf=295.8.
The standard atm. Tsurf. 288.15 is midlatitude tropics from an avg. of many tests voted on by a committee. If the standard atm. was at the poles, would be Tsurf. lower and at the equator Tsurf. higher. Your math would show the opposite.
You should double check comes out reasonable from surface up to ERL with a standard lapse (a decline of something not increase) minus 6.5 to show 288.15K declining to 255K
NB: I edited the minus signs to the word minus or negative
Just do the math. Before, Dry:
Tsurf_DALR = 255 + 6.5*5.1 = 288.15K
and After, Wet:
Tsurf_MALR = 255 + 6.0*5.1 = 285.6K
If you hold ERL constant, Tsurf_MALR is less than Tsurf_DALR.
The equation is
T = T_ERL + L*(ERL-h)
You start at h = ERL, where T = T_ERL, and you go to h = 0, where T = T_ERL + L*ERL, increasing as you get lower. If there is no change to ERL, then a lower L does not allow T to get as high by the time it gets to the surface.
“Your math would show the opposite.”
If the conclusion is incorrect for what is observed in our atmosphere, then the a prior assumption that ERL remains constant must be incorrect.
I conclude that the ERL must increase, over and above the decrease due to the change in lapse rate.
But, just so, the assumption that it will always do so in every state of the system could be wrong, too.
Bart. Tsurf_MALR = 255 + 6.0*5.1 = 285.6K
is nonsense for Earth, as it returns 285.6K which is not Earth standard, 6.0 is not correct in this, standard 6.5 is correct in this eqn. which returns the 288.15K standard.
Once you see that, then 6.5 less 6.0 sign is correctly positive. To follow your differential eqn.s as you wrote them then: you can find that dL=6.5 less 6.0 from which dTsurf = +2.55.
If you start with an alien standard Tsurf_MALR = 255 + 6.0*5.1 = 285.6K then for MALR 5, dTsurf = +5.1 and Tsurf = 290.7 still higher on the rainy alien world than 285.6K, from the higher LH condensed moisture. Build a simple spreadsheet, that’s what I did.
Yes, Earth ERL height of 5.1km will change as the optical depth of the atm. changes. Most of the outgoing radiation (the ERL) comes from a level 1 optical thickness unit below the TOA (say the orbit of CERES where this stuff (255K) is measured). Read up on meteorologys Chapman layer math, exponentials are too hairy for here. Physically, the ERL corresponds to the optimal trade-off between high density (gives high emissivity) and little overlying atm. to permit the radiation to escape to deep space.
I’m not going to argue straightforward math, Ball4. To get an increase of surface temperature, the combined quantity L*ERL must increase.
The effect of a decrease in L alone is to produce a decrease in surface temperature.
To get a net increase, you must have the incremental change dL*ERL + L*dERL > 0. Thus, you must have dERL > -ERL*dL/L. If you want Tsurf = 290.7 for L = 5.0, you must have
290.7 = 255 + 5*ERL
or, ERL = 7.14 km. Thus, ERL must increase by 7.14-5.1 = 2.04 km.
The question is, why does the ERL increase? And, is the mechanism for increase consistent and universally applicable? Or, is it dependent on the state of the system, and potentially providing diminishing returns as the vapor concentration increases? I would expect the latter.
“The question is, why does the ERL increase?”
A: As atm. optical depth increases, ERL increases (Chapman layer physics). Optical depth increases by increasing product of each: total surface pressure, mass mixing ratio of IR active species, extinction coefficient of each species constituting the atm.
“And, is the mechanism for increase consistent and universally applicable?”
A: So far as is known and tested. Mars w/optically thin atm. has low optical depth, low near maybe ~1km ERL. Venus w/optically thick atm. has high optical depth, high ERL ~65km. Earth in between optical depth at 5.1km standard ERL.
As atm. water vapor increases, this increases the mass mixing ratio of that IR active gas specie. It is pretty well established that given a surface pressure, given solar constant, that increasing IR active gas mixing ratio has a logarithmic declining affect on median surface T increment.
There are only so many photons available to marry up with, as the number unmarried photons reduce, there aren’t as many to marry with each increment of IR active gas mixing ratio until there are no unmarried photons for any increased amount of IR active gas. At that point, no further surface T median increment.
This theory and supporting test is so well established – can be applied to exoplanets with some reasonable confidence.
And waggles its tail just like a duck.
Mpainter, you are one serious character here! All clichs and no answers.
From “Your ice core” we read:
Methane synchronization of the EDML and the NGRIP records reveals a one-to-one assignment of each Antarctic warming with a corresponding stadial in Greenland (adapted from EPICA Community Members, 2006) a lot of information relevant to future climate change, with the discovery, in Antarctica, of a strong link between greenhouse gases and climate over the last 800 000 yr and of rapid and abrupt climate changes in Greenland.
They allow us to document past climate variability at various time scales, contribute to establishing the links between climate changes in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. They are unique in that they provide access to past climate forcings.
This includes greenhouse gases but also solar (from cosmegenic isotopes), volcanic and other aerosols forcings (from the chemical composition of the ice) allowing them to test the sensitivity of climate models and their ability to identify the contribution of human activities to recent climate change.
That is called science mpainter. I rest my case.
“(Science blah blah blah)…to identify the contribution of human activities to recent climate change.”
Yeah, your pseudoscience has already made the assumption that human “activities” make a “contribution” to climate change.
All you would need to do is change that to “…to identify if there is a contribution of human activities to recent climate change”.
See Ross, that’s all that would be required…”if there is”..
It’s just one difference in the wording of your “science” which might actually make it real science as it should be.
Science that mpainter, and the rest of us, might not throw up on.
Sorry to hear about your wife, Painter.
Science,Ross? More like blather.
What are you trying to say, that CO2 caused the climate changes of the Pleistocene?
If that is your message, you will be disappointed to learn that theory was debunked many years ago by ….ice core data. Poor fellow, you are wallowing in in the dark, stuffing your skull with misinformation. Did you see my suggestion about tranquilizers?
Ross, as a skeptic who is also skeptical of skeptics, I find your level of certainty and lack of humility to be very suspicious. You are clearly an advocate for an extreme position that has not, and can not be proven. You appear to be taking the position that human caused warming is a proven certainty, and that naturally occurring influences of a cyclical nature are impossible. That is just stupid on any level. So what is your problem with people who want to think skeptically and explore different possibilities? What exactly is your problem with allowing talented scientist to do basic research and post their views?
Tornado alley. Rate of sea level rise. Hurricane season. Hot summers in Sothern California. Snow storms on East Coast. Santa Ana east winds during the fall.
Next 50 years of climate will be very very similar to last 50 years.
All of which is predictable.
Anticipate. Adapt. Plenty of time to expect tornados.
Even earthquakes are anticipated along San Andreas fault.
Good grief. This is reality. The real world. Get a grip.
Climate change is reality. Adapt. Plenty of time to plan. No need for Big Government to regulate the climate.
Climate change is not a problem. It is a fact of life.
Plenty of time? At the moment we are trying to head off having 1,000 years of worsening climatic conditions as opposed to 300 years improving climatic conditions. The culprit – Getting well beyond 400ppm CO2 and NOT stabilising the situation!
Ross’s contributions are liberally sprinkled with capital lettered wording, indicating he’s a mad loon.
That would be LOON.
Personally, I’m still waiting on the warmistas to tell me why they want more snow and ice. I’ll take warming anytime, so if CO2 helps, give me more of it.
Then there is the Doug C – David A – letters to each other. That was rich and, if I may say so, they deserve each other. Now, if they’d just stick to their own blogs.
Mack, Much like the Republican loon who talks with capitals as well eh?
Well Lewis, there is no valid physics which can be used to explain any warming at all by IR-active gases like water vapor, CO2 and CH4, so what’s your problem regarding myself proving that it doesn’t (as per standard physics) and explaining what does keep you and yours within a comfortable temperature range, all based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which is well established physics, by the way. If you want to learn about what’s really happening, then feel free to ask questions: if you prefer ignorance then don’t. Do you have any qualifications in physics, by the way?
Lewis says:
“Ill take warming anytime, so if CO2 helps, give me more of it.”
Have you realized there are about 3 billion people who live in the tropics who likely have a different view on this than you?
Do you realize how heat jeopardizes them?
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2016/01/dangerous-heat-waves-in-persian-gulf.html
Relax Ross.
There’s still my reward of AU $10,000 if you can be the first (in 3 years) to fault the physics I have explained on my blog which shows why carbon dioxide and water vapor cool rather than warm.
So try to do so first (as that will assist your learning process) before you lose too much sleep over what are just natural climate cycles quite beyond the control of mankind – and declining as often as they rise.
You see, Ross, we all need to think, not be misled by those who have financial incentives so to do. Oh, and having a correct understanding of radiative heat transfers, entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics helps enormously. Then it’s not hard to understand what I have correctly explained, and which is backed up by evidence from throughout the Solar System.
No it isn’t. Your maths/science is wrong. Plain and simple.
Well tell me what precisely you doubt in my explanation regarding the process that approaches maximum entropy and the resulting density gradient and temperature gradient.
Some info about David Appell ….
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/28/paging-david-appell-and-nick-stokes-again-time-to-fess-up-and-apologize/
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2011/07/death-threat-captured-on-video.html
I think they are good at finding correlation and then claiming they have discovered causation …
Wow, a post that assumes that everybody else is corrupt.
Radiosonde data does not agree with RSS and UAH. It shows no significant pause.
The models are pretty close to the data. Old models included stuff that has changed (for example CFCs). Newer models don t have enough data points after the model runs.
Bringing up el nino is plain out stupid. Of course records will be broken in el nino years. The question is, why is this el nino the warmest on record?
The thermometer problem is much smaller than it is made to be. Rural sets show a similar trend.
—————–
People all around the world could feel how warm this year was. If UAH shows something different, then i would start wondering about my product.
sod,
if you really known what ground real temperature measurements are, then you surely didn’t write that post.
The ground measurements are nothing other than a joke for the purpose you believe they are reliable.
Much better that you never try to work in fields where temperature measurements are vital, believe me.
Have a great day.
Massimo
“Radiosonde data does not agree with RSS and UAH. It shows no significant pause.”
Incorrect. Dr. Christy, in particular, has shown the agreement.
“The models are pretty close to the data. Old models included stuff that has changed (for example CFCs). Newer models don t have enough data points after the model runs.”
IOW, the models are pretty close, once you adjust things. So, basically, they are unfalsifiable.
“Bringing up el nino is plain out stupid. Of course records will be broken in el nino years. The question is, why is this el nino the warmest on record?”
1998 was warmer. And, in any case, its a stupid inference. We’re in a long term recovery from the LIA, and the globe has warmed. But, that does not mean it is warm because of CO2. The lack of further warming of the past two decades, while CO2 has increased an additional 30%+ from its purported pre-industrial level, tells us CO2 is not in the driver’s seat.
“The thermometer problem is much smaller than it is made to be. Rural sets show a similar trend.”
No, they don’t.
“People all around the world could feel how warm this year was. If UAH shows something different, then i would start wondering about my product.”
The opposite of data is anecdote. For me, this year has been moderate, with the last couple of weeks veering to the cold side.
Bart says:
“Were in a long term recovery from the LIA, and the globe has warmed.”
The volcanic dust that (probably) caused the LIA is gone. Further warming doesn’t happen because of some further “rebound.” Planets don’t heat up without a reason.
“But, that does not mean it is warm because of CO2. The lack of further warming of the past two decades, while CO2 has increased an additional 30%+ from its purported pre-industrial level, tells us CO2 is not in the drivers seat.”
About 93% of the added heat goes into the ocean, and it is heating up fast:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
That’s the clearest signal that the Earth has a planetary energy imbalance.
“The volcanic dust that (probably) caused the LIA is gone.”
Probably? I’m supposed to revert to a preindustrial existence because you think the thing that probably caused the LIA is probably gone? Have you taken your meds today?
“Planets dont heat up without a reason.”
Actually, they do. Or, rather, the causes are often very long term functional modes of energy storage and release within the system, and are often hidden from plain view over short timelines.
We have known modes of this system which stretch for hundreds, and even thousands, even tens/hundreds of thousands of years. It is absurd to think you can characterize the complete response on the basis of short term data and dodgy proxy estimates, and thereby invoke process of elimination to arrive at a conclusion. It is an argument from ignorance, of the type employed by ancient mystics to justify human sacrifice to appease the Gods. It is positively primitive.
“About 93% of the added heat goes into the ocean, and it is heating up fast:”
Sure, sure. That is the excuse offered. But, even if it were so, it is by negligible amounts. This excuse for the “pause” actually renders moot the claim of any significant sensitivity. We really do not care at all about hundredths of degrees of temperature. That old pesky 2nd Law assures us it can at most warm us by… wait for it… hundredths of degrees.
What a moronic argument. I can’t believe we are getting wrapped around the axle over such primitive and benighted thinking.
Sod,
Isn’t it wonderful how humanity is putting something beneficial into the biosphere after countless centuries of taking from it? I’m talking about that miraculous molecule: CO2, the very essence of life on earth without which there could be no life.
They call it plant food but in reality it is the basis of photosynthesis and therefore the ultimate source of food for all organisms.
Atmospheric CO2, the more the better. There’s simply no such thing as too much CO2.
Sod,
It’s even more wonderful how this miraculous gas so essential to life can also reach the very upper atmosphere (thermosphere) and together with waste nitric oxides help to cool the planet by absorbing some of that fierce incoming solar radiation of 1360w/sq.m at the TOA.
Atmospheric CO2, the more the better. There’s simply no such thing as too much CO2.
Hi mpainter and Mack,
You know I agree with you regarding CO2 warming alarmism, but one can have too much of a good thing in any given segment of time. Too much of anything can possibly kill. Remember Lake Nyos:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2013/07/26/lake_nyos_killed_1746_when_it_released_a_huge_pocket_of_co2.html
Just say’n…
Have a great day!
JohnKL. Is water beneficial? You can drown in water, too. Don’t fret about Nyos.
Hi mpainter,
I don’t fret about Nyos, it’s an unusual geological event. Your example that one can drown in water proves my point. Thanks, and…
Have a great day!
painter wrote:
“They call it plant food but in reality it is the basis of photosynthesis and therefore the ultimate source of food for all organisms.”
Plants need more than CO2 to survive — they also need appropriate temperatures and precipitation. AGW changes both of these.
Higher CO2 tends to inhibit the ability of plants to make protein And this explains why food quality seems to have been declining and will continue to decline as CO2 rises because of this inhibition of nitrate conversion into protein. Its going to be fairly universal that well be struggling with trying to sustain food quality and its not just protein its also micronutrients such as zinc and iron that suffer as well as protein.
— University of California at Davis Professor Arnold J. Bloom, on Yale Climate Connections 10/7/14
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/10/crop-nutrition//2014
“We also find that the overall effect of warming on yields is negative, even after accounting for the benefits of reduced exposure to freezing temperatures.”
— “Effect of warming temperatures on US wheat yields,” Jesse Tack et al, PNAS 4/20/15
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/05/06/1415181112
“Anthropogenic increase in carbon dioxide compromises plant defense against invasive insects,”
— Jorge A. Zavala et al, PNAS, 51295133, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0800568105
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/13/5129.full
You are trash with trash science.
Sorry, your understanding of CO2 is on a primitive level. Please educate yourself on the subject.
sod says:
Blah ,blah, blah,….ie nothing.
Commercial greenhouses maintain a CO2 level above 1,000 ppm.
So, sod, enlighten us with the approved dogma. What are these commercial growers doing wrong?
Mpainter. You obviously don’t live in Australia where the intense summer heat and extended bush fire seasons have become the norm.
Glad you are enjoying the milder winters despite the occasional record snow fall.
Intense summer heat and bushfires are always the “norm” in Australia. Nothing unusual about the winters or snowfall either.
I said the extent of the bushfire season. Read about it in a global context at –
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150714/ncomms8537/full/ncomms8537.html
For Australia there were zero recorded major bushfires from 1850 to 1979 starting any month prior to December.
Since then there have been the following-
November 3 1980 -Waterfall bushfire in NSW.
October 16- 1991- Sydney Hills District and Central Coast bushfires
November 24 2011 – Margaret River bushfire WA
October 16 November 2013 – NSW bushfires
November 15-20 2015 – Esperance bushfire WA
November 25 -27 2015 Pinery Bushfire SA
Just missing out on the November 30 cutoff were the 200607 Eastern Victoria Great Divide bushfires that started on December 1. Also the Lithgow bushfire of December 2 1997, the Linton bushfire in Victoria and the 1997 Perth and SW Region bushfires which also started on the same day in 1997.
Mack, If you want to argue the point then see the list of major bushfires at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushfires_in_Australia.
We have a similar record of increasing wildfires in the US. Its source: a shift in forest management practices toward nonintervention, promoted and implemented by the same nutcases who now blame the wildfires on a harmless trace gas.
It is asinine to ascribe the incidence of a phenomenon which depends on many influences to a very minor uptick in CO2 concentration, which does not, in any case, correlate with increasing temperatures for the past two decades.
Bart,
Below are links to the correlation between CO2 and temperature records for satellite and land based measurements for the past two decades. This does not include 2015 data for the temperatures. The correlations improve with the 2015 data. The correlations are also very good since the beginning of the CO2 record in 1960.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1995/to:2015/from/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/offset:-0.1/from:19l/from:1995
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1995/to:2015/from/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/offset/from:19l/from:1995
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1995/to:2015/from/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/offset:0.2/from:1995/from
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1995/to:2015/from/plot/esrl-co2/normalise/offset:0.32/from:1995/from
No, we don’t have a trend in increasing wildfires in the US — the trend since 1960 is -1,600 fires/yr.
However, the trend in acres burned is increasing fast: +52,200 acres/yr from 1960 to 2014.
annual data:
http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html
@miker…”Below are links to the correlation between CO2 and temperature records…”
Will you get a grip? You are linking to an amateur do-it-youself, make-a-graph site. Woodfortrees is for plonkers.
miker – absolutely pathetic. These are not strongly correlated data, just a couple of series which happen to be going vaguely in the same direction, a 50/50 coin toss.
“Woodfortrees is for plonkers.”
You obviously do not like data. Do the facts contradict your opinion?
woodfortrees is a perfect source, their data use is completely transparent
I have also found bad erros in Woodfortrees:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2015/05/wood-for-trees-you-cant-trust-it.html
I don’t trust it and prefer to download the data and do the calculations for myself.
“Do the facts contradict your opinion?”
No, they do not. This is a 50/50 coin toss on variables that show no significant correlation.
Hi Miker,
While I don’t live in Australia I spent last Summer in Phoenix, Arizona (Ahwatukee) and I can tell you temperature wise it likely compares to be hotter than the Australian outback. Brushfires prove at a moments perusal of California newspapers throughout the year common enough. Many such fires appear to be arson related. My guess is given the historical record you list of Australian bush-fires beginning in 1980 and the growing population they may very well be arson related as well. Please let me know your thoughts and …
Have a great day!
Hi John,
The number of arson related bush fires are about 13% with arson suspected in about 37% of cases see -http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/bfab/41-60/bfab051.html.
The wiki article I linked to above were bushfires from 1851. AS I have said to Mpainter there appears to be no obvious reason for the arsonists to start their work earlier and earlier (other than the conditions for major fires being more conducive earlier in the season, which leads back to climate related reasons).
Likewise I appreciate your cordial sentiments and hope you are also having a great day.
JohnKL: The trend in US wildfires, since 1960, is -1600/yr.
annual data:
http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html
Bart,
Clearly fitting a relatively smooth function like CO2 increases to a temperature record full of ups and downs due to El-Ninos, volcanoes, etc. is never going strongly correlate( say Rsq>0.9)!
Your claim which does not, in any case, correlate with increasing temperatures for the past two decades. implies that there is no (underline no) correlation . This claim would be justified if the long term temperature trends over 20 years were going down or flat.
Returning to the correlation coefficient I have managed by simple scaling with an offset to the CO2 data generate a correlation coefficient of Rsq of around 0.8 for the data from 1979 to 2015 for Hadcrut, NOAA and GISS . The correlation for UAvH5.6 UAHv6 and RSS are in the range of 0.47 to 0.61 .
The lower correlations for the satellite data are probably due to the stronger influence of ElNino on this data.
Ken Stewart , a leading figure of the Australian climate change denial community, found a value 0.43 for UAH (see the blog and comments section at https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/energy-carbon-dioxide-and-the-pause/ .
If you want I can provide you with the scaling parameters for the CO2 trends I used to get these correlations and you can plug them into Excel if you like. I just need to dig up the spreadsheet from November. Let me know if you need them.
“Clearly fitting a relatively smooth function like CO2 increases to a temperature record full of ups and downs due to El-Ninos, volcanoes, etc. is never going strongly correlate( say Rsq>0.9)!”
Actually, no. There is a very strong correlation between temperature and CO2. However, the arrow of causation is from temperature to CO2, not CO2 to temperature.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/temp-CO2-long.jpg_zpsszsfkb5h.png
Your argument is pitiful.
Bart,
Good try but no cigar. The graphs are interesting but the correlation coefficients for both Hadcrut Southern Hemisphere data (0.46) and RSS(0.36) while appear to be significant are much lower than the 0.8 obtained by using the more direct approach.
The other interesting thing about this data is that if you cross-correlate the data using HadCrut Global (I am not sure why you cherry picked the Southern hemisphere data only), the correlation values indicate that there is a significant greater correlation for HadCRUT lagging CO2 (compared to CO2 lagging HadCrut).
For instance for a 16 months delay, the correlation coefficient for HadCrut lagging CO2 is 0.24 versus 0.1 for CO2 lagging Hadcrut. The significant values of the correlation coefficient for such long periods at first seems strange but the CO2 data is strongly serially correlated due to the 12 month averaging of this data. The GISS data also show similar lag behaviour.
The RSS data do not show any lag in either direction but the satellite data when correlated with ElNino lags by about 5 months which may complicate things. Incidentally the 5 month lag demonstrates what is in store for 2016 for the satellite temperature data. As the song goes Up, up and away.
So thanks for your interesting data which provides evidence that CO2 is driving temperature increases not the other way around.
Bart, If you do not know how to do a cross correlation using Excel I would be happy to show you.
I also note you have backpedalled furiously from your assertion above that temperatures and CO2 show no correlation for two decades. What happened?
I did not mention causation in any of my, comments but as you have introduced the topic I would very much like you to elaborate. If higher temperatures caused the increases in CO2 over the past decades then which of the numerous theories espoused in the comments sections of this blog over the year do you subscribe to for this increase in temperatures ? Or do you have your own theory to peddle?
In addition do you have some plausible theory ( I will even accept a totally implausible theory as this seems to be the flavor of the month here) why increasing temperatures caused CO2 to increase over the past decades ?
Finally for your perusal – http://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-increase-is-natural-not-human-caused.htm .
“I am not sure why you cherry picked the Southern hemisphere data only”
Because they match the satellite record in the period of overlap. It is apparent that the Northern temperatures have been too manipulated to be of any value.
“So thanks for your interesting data which provides evidence that CO2 is driving temperature increases not the other way around.”
Not possible. You have missed a key detail: these are plots of the rate of change of CO2 against temperature. To posit that the rate of change of CO2 drives temperature quickly leads to logical absurdities.
“I also note you have backpedalled furiously from your assertion above that temperatures and CO2 show no correlation for two decades.”
No backpeddling at all. Temperatures and CO2 show no correlation. The correlation is between temperatures and the rate of change of CO2.
“If higher temperatures caused the increases in CO2 over the past decades then which of the numerous theories espoused in the comments sections of this blog over the year do you subscribe to for this increase in temperatures?”
The increase in temperatures has been evident, and the pattern laid in, since the exit from the LIA. That pattern never changed, even when CO2 accelerated markedly in the post-WWII period. The pattern preceded the observed rise in CO2 concentration, ergo, CO2 is not the causal agent.
The pattern can be described as being dominated by a long term trend plus an approximately 60 year cyclic component. The current “pause” or “hiatus” is due to our moving into the downward phase of the ~60 year cycle. It will last possibly for another 20 years or so.
I expect it is a natural interaction between solar input, tidal activity, and long term energy storage and release modes of the Earth-Sun-Moon system. Such activity is evident throughout the climate history of the Earth.
“In addition do you have some plausible theory… why increasing temperatures caused CO2 to increase over the past decades ?”
The empirical evidence shows us that, to a very high degree of fidelity,
dCO2/dt := k*(T – T0)
i.e., atmospheric concentration is affinely related to temperature anomaly. Such a relationship naturally arises from the throttling of the flow of CO2 within the THC due to temperature changes.
“Finally for your perusal…”
SkS is a hack site run by amateurs providing a veneer of sophistication for the unwary reader to confirm his or her biases.
Clarification:
“…i.e., the rate of change of atmospheric concentration is affinely related to temperature anomaly.”
Another clarification:
“…That pattern never changed, even when CO2 production accelerated markedly in the post-WWII period.”
Bart, again no cigar, not even a cigarillo.
Lets get your first bit of nonsense out of the way. Your claims regarding the northern hemisphere data being manipulated while the southern hemisphere data is more pristine is easily refuted.
The denial community regard the satellite data as being more reliable than the surface based data so lets correlate HadCrut for both hemispheres with the gold standard UAHv6 data.
The correlation coefficient for HadCrut N.H versus UAHv6 N.H is 0.59 while for S.H/ the correlation is 0.44 and for both hemispheres the correlation is 0.51. Essentially this is saying that your choice of HadCrut S.H. is a cherry pick. Either that you or disbelieve the UAH data and/or Roy Spencer is secretly an AGW supporter.
I am becoming more and more amused by your statement Temperatures and CO2 show no correlation other than for the derivative.
This might also be a good time to introduce the Occams razor approach The correlation between 12 month smoothed HadCrut global and CO2 using just the raw data scaled and an offset gives a correlation coefficient of 0.78 while your 12 year smoothed, derivate, scaled and offset for one cherry picked set of HadCrut S.H. gives 0.46. You go one step further via a derivative and your correlation coefficient drops ! By the way if you use the global Hadcrut value instead your approach gives a correlation coefficient of 0.4. Never let the facts get in the way of a good theory.
Your empirical relationship is just that i.e it is just a correlation. You have not provided any explanation or as to why increasing temperatures cause increasing CO2 levels except for the vague reference to throttling of the flow of CO2 within the THC due to temperature changes.
I assume THC refers to Thermohaline Circulation and not the hallucinogenic constituent of cannabis. Your contributions suggest you may need to cut down on your consumption . Alternatively maybe the increasing use since the 60’s of this substance is causing the increase in CO2 . This is no less plausible than some of the theories found in the comments section, but please elaborate further.
Most of the references found by a cursory search (http://tinyurl.com/gwnlq7o ) talk about increasing CO2 causing changes in the Thermohaline Circulation not the other way around. There is however a reference from 1990 by Oppo and Fairbanks to something that might explain the interesting derivative signal which could be due to changes of upswelling of the Atlantic ocean which can cause changes in CO2. Similar changes could result from El-Nino so this maybe why you can see this signal in the derivative data but this is pure speculation.
In contrast to the more speculative theories there is however a much more conventional explanation for the increasing levels of C02 due to emissions from industry and transport, destruction of forests etc., etc. Even you may have to admit this has some plausibility as to the reason why CO2 levels have increased.
Your peremptory dismissal of the skeptical science site as being run by amateurs demonstrates your degree of self regard. Do you have academic qualifications in the field of climate science and can you provide a list of publications in peer reviewed journals (by peer reviewed I dont mean by Lord Monckton)? Are you one of the dissident 3%?
Personally I regard myself as an amateur and have no professional qualifications or publications as a climate scientist ( I do have 40 years experience as an experimental scientist in a different field) and I prefer to trust the judgement of experts in their field. In fact I am not sure why I am commenting here but my data analysis skills have come in handy when dealing with b.s. generated by people whose pompous self regard dwarfs even my own. In summary I call them as I see them.
Back to sceptical science article which has many links to scholarly material. Maybe you should have read the relevant contents. There are 6 points, just two of which I have selected that clearly blow your theory out of the water .
They are as follows and maybe you can critique the articles that are linked below .
1. Isotopic evidence.
see http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/6862/1/LevinRAD2000.pdf or the extensive literature supporting https://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/papers-on-anthropogenic-carbon-dioxide-observations/
2. Atmospheric O2 is decreasing while CO2 is increasing.
Again maybe you can provide your personal critique of http://geoweb.princeton.edu/people/bender/lab/research_o2n2.html .
By the way you have not mentioned the lagging of temperature compared to CO2 that shows up in your derivative data.
Have a nice day.
miker – your use of inappropriate statistics and kowtowing to “expert” opinion put you firmly in the camp of devotees to the Church of Anthropogenic Climate Change. Your faith will not be shaken until the walls come crumbling down, so there is little point in further discussion, and this will be my last word.
I’ve perused the SkS site before. The “points” they make are hand waving nonsense. The pseudo-mass balance argument is particularly amateurish and worthy of contempt.
It is a fact that temperature is not correlated to total CO2 in any meaningful way, but rather the rate of change of atmospheric concentration is virtually identical, modulo a scaling factor, to appropriately baselined temperature amomaly. That means, beyond any doubt, that the impact of human release of latent CO2 from fossil fuels is, at most, negligible vis a vis atmospheric concentration.
The temperature pattern of the past 100+ years was laid in well before humans could have initiated it, and there has been no apparent change in that pattern due to human influence.
AGW is a damp squib. Indeed, an utter and complete fiasco from a scientific perspective. It is not science. It is faith, aided and abetted by noble cause corruption and confirmation bias on steroids.
miker: “experts in their field”
####
Fine, that’s your problem. I have learned to rely on my own judgement, and I find the so-called experts to be lacking in theirs, as do other skeptics. I agree with the fellow who says that science is advanced by those who ignore the experts. Climate science by the “experts” is rigid dogma. Your appeal to authority carries no weight.
Bart,
I know you have now fled the scene but maybe you could find some time to make one further contribution elaborating on my inappropriate use of statistics. I am a total amateur regarding climate science but I have some limited knowledge of statistics. I need your professional assistance to show where I have gone wrong.
As for kowtowing to expert opinion I would gladly kowtow to you if you could provide some reasoned arguments about the points I have made above . I gave you two of six points from the skeptical science site regarding CO2 and temperatures to stimulate your intellect and you switched to the one you clearly have contempt filled difficulties with .Interestingly you dont bother to flesh out why addressing even this issue . Does this mean you are in agreement with the other five points?
With regard to your continued ,and I am afraid to say ridiculous claim, that temperature is not correlated to total CO2 in any meaningful way , I have for your personal enjoyment have created an amateur slideshow illustrating the long term correlations (and also addresses your cherry picking) at http://tinyurl.com/jabkfph .
Finally this site and its associated comments seems to be an incubator as well as being a vector for that disease commonly called the Dunning Kruger effect (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect) .
The manifestation in this case is amateurs with enormous amount of self-regard who try and take on the evil establishment (and even the other inmates of the asylum) lightly armed at best with an Excel spreadsheet . Good luck with that.
At least the number of contributors who cant even get past first base by claiming that it is not actually warming (or even that is really cooling) seem to be diminishing. Maybe its the case of getting out of the kitchen because they cant stand the heat.
Heat of the kitchen ? Maybe Bart can’t be bothered wasting his time argueing with an arrogant, academic, AGW brainwashed tosser.
miker – you have nothing to go on but your misplaced faith in self-styled authorities in whom you have chosen to place your trust. I suffer no illusions that I can turn you from your faith. Go ahead and believe what you want to believe. No skin off my nose.
I think I have made my point with regard to Bart with his latest content free contribution and his going M.I.A.( are you related to Berghdal?) when the going got tough.
I even went to the trouble of downloading data, analyzing it in Excel and then uploading the results into photobucket(Bart that was a good idea of yours to use PhotoBucket but I don’t know why you used it to display WoodfortheTrees plots when a simple link to the plots from that website would have sufficed) .
So if people think the experts are pulling the wool over their eyes, then I encourage them to make up their own minds and use (or learn to use) these tools which hopefully are at your disposal. There are plenty of sites where you can download the data. Then we can see who is talking total and utter b.s..
Is Bart so incapable of formulating a sensible response he has to rely on Mack as his spokesman?
I guess desperate times call for desperate measures.
As for Mack. I thought he was so punch drunk from our previous encounters that he had thrown in the towel. I do grant him one thing. He does make up for the multitude of his profound deficits with his bulldog persistence.
He reminds me of Monty Python’s Black Knight but in Mack’s case his one remaining appendage does not appear to contain any grey matter.
miker, you’re just a spectator with his nose firmly lodged in the rectums of the team you are cheering on. What is the purpose of engaging you further? What do you have to offer, other than regurgitation of the matter you have snuffled down?
Barts intellectual contribution from left field to the climate change debate via reference to rectums suggest he may have an anal fixation that is clouding his judgement.
Beware there are many dangers in inserting objects into this orifice so I urge Bart some restraint in this matter.
There are many better ways to assuage one’s inner rage.
Now after getting that little bit of unpleasantry out of the way, I think its time for me to bid adieu. It has been a pleasure engaging with some of you, especially JohnKL who despite our differences in opinion were able to conduct our interchanges in a cordial matter.
As for the more obviously deranged individuals, mpainter I am thinking of you, but both Bart and Mack must receive honourable mentions.
Most of my engagements with the above were obviously fruitless as both sides returned to our respective trenches exchanging vitriol.
My only consolation that these exchanges are being preserved for posterity. This demonstrated that many, or maybe most, of those who comment here when asked to sustain an argument with facts, logic etc., are incapable of doing so and just resort to name calling.
I myself in turn have responded with vitriol, my only justification for this is this is as a result of my curmudgeonly intolerance of fools. I am trying to curb this but the nature of the material presented in the comments sections here makes it difficult to tolerate.
Finally with regard to to the topic of Roy Spencer’s blog. Of the 400 or so comments here, maybe a dozen at the most relate to the 2015 UAH temperature.
Accordingly I think it might be time to reintroduce the topic.
The temperature for January 2016 is in and it has been the hottest January on record for UAH. This now makes it four months in a row where the UAH temperature is a record for that month. I am in full agreement with Roy Spencer when he said previously Since 2016 should be warmer than 2015 with the current El Nino, there is a good chance 2016 will end up as a record warm year.
Big deal. El Ninos are naturally occurring. Absolutely nothing to do with CO2.
Your engagements are fruitless because you have no idea what you are talking about. You can’t argue the facts. You can only parrot party lines. Go forth and enjoy your cozy little fantasy world.
RSS is now in and (like UAH) it has January 2016 at 0.663 C as being the warmest January in the satellite record, easily beating the other El-Nino January values i.e. for January 2010 (0.587 C) and 1998 (0.550 C).
It is always good to compare like with like.
Formula for bushfires:
1. Millions of square kilometers of brush and a dry season that turns the brush into tinder.
2. A negligent (or worse) government that forbids the clearing of firelanes through the brush.
2. One global warming zealot who intends to save the world from daemon CO2.
3. One box of matches.
4. A herd of alarmists ever ready to seize upon an increased incidence of bushfires as an occasion to crank out AGW alarmism.
It also helps to have the gullible types who help propagate the alarmism:
“Oh dear, another bushfire. What shall become of us?” (wrings hands)
Hi mpainter,
Great post. It’s not as if enviro-whackos haven’t started fires before. EARTH FIRST set fire to automobiles once. It sure seems a curious tactic by the infantile enviro-left to create environmental disasters as a protest of carbon emissions. If they seriously believed their own rhetoric it would be like the supposed militarist that asserts it was necessary to destroy the village to save it. Hilarious!
Have a great day!
John:
So, just to be clear, you’re blaming US wildfire trends — +52,200 acres/yr since 1960 — on environmentalists committing arson?
BTW, the trend in fires since 1960 is -1,600 fires/yr.
annual data:
http://www.nifc.gov/fireInfo/fireInfo_stats_totalFires.html
Hi David Appell,
Don’t worry your logic proves as clear as mud. Frankly, I have no idea if the US wildfires were all started by environmentalists who happen to be arsonists. If you read I simply noted that an environmentalist group in the past has indeed started a fire to in their mind advance their agenda. Moreover, communists do create crisis in order to pressure for change ( crisis – anti-thesis – synthesis ). Earth Liberation Front and others supposedly do commit arson. Do you claim such people don’t exist or that extremist groups won’t damage the environment to save it? Try again David. People have killed for such, just ask David Kaczinski, he can tell you all about his brother.
Have a great day!
So one incidence of arson by a far left organization. From one incident you generalize.
And you want to talk about logic?
The Hammond ranchers, Dwight and Steven, were convicted of arson. By your logic, we can conclude “its not as if rightwing-whackos havent started fires before.” If they seriously believed their own rhetoric it would be like the supposed militarist that asserts it was necessary to destroy the village to save it. Hilarious!
Quite apart from the fact there’s an increasing population, building their houses among the inflammable eucalypts. Eucalypts , for the purposes of propagation, have evolved to burn. The people seek shade from the beating down sun under inflammable trees. A shit of a country in summer…heat, flies, and fires.
Btw, Miker is an academic of 25yrs, which says it all… an institutionally brainwashed believer who frequents the Hot Whopper lady’s site, echoing the delusions of the pack of pommie commie fellow travellers.
Mack again,
I havent heard from you since our infamous encounter at http://jennifermarohasy.com/2015/10/sceptics-and-alarmists-together-present-to-coalition-environment-committee/ on November 11 of last year.
Anyone who would like a laugh, feel free to scroll down to near the bottom of the comments on that site and follow our exchange where Mack goes out on a limb and starts sawing his way back to the trunk, and all without a safety net.
I think I said at that time that facts sometimes end up biting you on the bum. Mack, have your lacerations healed yet? If not you can get standing desks where you can use a computer standing up. But I think you must have a very thick hide to take me on again or very ignorant or both.
On that note I also am forced to repeat what is I said of you at the time, if ignorance is bliss then Mack you must be the happiest man alive.
As for your accusation of being a commie, can you elucidate as to which branch of communism I apparently support? Is it the Maoists, Leninists or the Trotskyists? Am I a follower of Comrade Hoxha?.
Thanks for the heads up. I will now prepare my defence when Tony Abbot knifes Turnbull , returns to power and sets up the House of Un Australian Activities Committee .
I think you might also prepare yourself for an appearance as well. My accusation is that you are a commie stooge that uses false flag sabotage of the climate change denial community, via your demented comments. This is well supported by your many contributions to sites like this and would be hard to argue against.
I do however commend you for your success in your endeavours so far and I am sorry that I have now blown your cover.
As for Macks accusation of being an academic in the past , I plead guilty your honour and will try and restrain myself from using scientific methodology or even, god forbid, logical thinking. This should fit in with the core incompetencys of mpainter et al..
Miker boy uses false extension to try and stick me with bollocks, that I accuse him of being a pommie commie…nah, I mean’t you only echo their AGW delusions.
Note, in that link, this tosser tells you to scroll down to near the bottom of the comments, where admittedly, I made a big fubar, but then Cohenite finally shuts him up. If you bother to read this whole thread, you’ve read a fine example of how this troll “loves the sound of his own voice”, hi-jacking the thread, suffering the water-duck syndrome to anything said to him.
About 1/4 way down I thought he’d STFU, but no, he persisted.
Advise to readers, don’t feed this one…he could even get up to Cotton standards.
Mack,
You are right I missed the pommie bit. I am not sure how you could deduce my country of origin but you also got that wrong. I was actually born in Carlton, Melbourne.
I was extremely surprised to see your contribution following my comments in light of your disastrous performance , now forever known in the annals of history, as the Great (big does not do it justice) Fubar Disaster of 2015.
The magnitude of this ‘big fubar’ was impressive for someone like yourself who is proud to display his expertise on climate and atmospheric matters.
Sorry to rake over the coals again but these are your quotes from the big fubar-
“Theres a whole swag of pemanently stupid people who adhere to some quack greenhouse theory which saysand they actually produce figures to support thisthat the atmosphere prevents the oceans from freezing up.
It seems youre right in there with that permanently stupid bunch, Miker.”
“Then theres some more ignorant,deceptive,illconceived concocted crap parroted by our AGW brainwashed mug MikeR here. He thinks, (actually hes incapable of thinking) that the Moons low temperature is because theres no atmosphere on the Moon.
Nah Mikky boy, The Moons measured mean surface temperature is only -77degree C . This extremely low average of temps. is a result of having a large planet called the Earth, interposed between it and the Sun a lot of the time. Also rotational characteristics of the Moon give it regions where the sun hardly gets to it at all.
Its called lack of sun on the Moons surface. Nothing to do with any lack of an atmosphere, causing some supposed lack of greenhouse effect implanted in your brain, MikeRits the Sun, stupid.”
Mack kept digging deeper and deeper by saying –
“When the Earth interposes itself between Sun and Moon its called, phases of the Moon. Ever heard of that phenomenon.?”
After I posted a YouTube video aimed at primary level school students explaining the phases of the moon that it finally dawned upon him that he may have seriously blundered and issued the following apology –
“Sorry Jennifer, Cohers, Spanglers, etc. I really goofed up there.”
In contrast I did not receive an apology at the time regarding the numerous intemperate personal comments directed at myself. This of course is unsurprising. I would not have expected anything else from Mack.
I was however surprised that his cohort of like minded commenters didn’t realize the schoolkid errors Mack was making and let him dig his ever deepening hole. Even after this fiasco none of his erstwhile colleagues commented, which reflects badly on either the integrity or intellectual capabilities of those who regularly comment on the Marohasy site.
Yeah, OK, sure, I mixed up phases of the Moon with eclipses..biiig..deeal (Benny Hill)
I’m an anonymous layman, not a scientist, so really don’t give a toss.
What I stand by is the rest of what I’ve said…mainly that because of rotational or orbital (whatever) characteristics of the Moon there are regions where the Sun doesn’t get to the surface at all…inducing some of the coldest temperatures ever recorded in the solar system.
This of course brings the average Moon surface temperatures down to -77deg C. It’s lack of SUN..not lack of ATMOSPHERE..causing these cold temperatures.
Are you listening Duggie boy? …(no, he’s not listening)
@Mack…fair dinkum, cobber.
Mack,
You clearly misunderstand the misnomer ‘The Dark Side of the Moon”‘. The dark side of the moon gets as much sunlight as the side facing the earth
All parts of the moon (with the possible exception of the bottom of a crater near the poles of the moon) receive sunlight at some part of the lunar month. AS the inclination of moon to the ecliptic is 5.1 degrees even the moon has seasons so the each pole of the moon is illuminated for half the lunar orbital period (13.5 days) and is in darkness for the same time.
Maybe you need to have a look at that YouTube video again.
The argument that preceded your lunatic assertions was about the influence of the the atmosphere upon the surface temperatures of planets. Your claim was that there was no influence and the temperature of the surface was only due to the illumination by the sun. I pointed out the differences in the average temperatures between Mercury, that lacks an atmosphere, and Venus whose atmosphere (comprising 96% CO2) that totally blocks the illumination of the surface. For Mack’s sake I think I need to point out that Mercury is much closer to the sun than Venus and has an average temperature (427C) that is lower than Venus (460C).
Mack, you did not address this at the time do you have any thoughts regarding this?
Finally Mack I see you do not give a toss about being wrong. This means you can retain your amateur status as a total tosser. For those not familiar with the term see http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Total+Tosser .
OK then smart boy…you’re comparing Venus “surface temperature” with Mercury surface temperature. Let’s take the surface temperatures of both planets in the same way as we take surface temperatures here on Earth. What is Mercury’s surface temperature about where we would place Stevenson’s screens. The answer is no, or bugger all temperature, because it’s in space. Same scenario for the Moon. Your pontifications about the relevancies of temperatures of other planets depends upon where you’re sticking your thermometer. I’ve a suggestion for you….
With regard to Mack’s comments below, he does make a pertinent comment which i think meant he meant that the thermometer should be placed ‘whre the sun dont shine” (see http://www.statnews.com/2015/11/17/rectal-thermometers/).
Mack you could enjoy the use of your own personal Stevenson screen but if you have a fetish for such procedures please go ahead, but don’t count me in.
Finally, Mack I recall your statement referring to myself ” You seem to be under some illusion there maybe some thermal effect from the atmosphere. Sorry mate, the atmosphere,(along with the oceans) has no thermal effect ,other than leveling,or ironing out of the heat which is entirely generated by the suns energy stricking the earths surface. No addition or subtraction of temperature. Easy enough for you to understand? ”
Mack have you changed your mind about the above or is the current state of your thinking?
Yep, it’s my current thinking.
You’ll note I’ve also got quote marks around the “surface temperature” for Venus. Here’s a bit more for you to think about wrt Venus….
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2016/01/frost-flowers-the-frost-awakens/#comment-206522
Mpainter.
My point above was not about the number of bushfires but the early onset of the bushfire seasons for Australia and elsewhere (remember the Nature paper I linked to) .
Your point 1 about the state of the bush seems relevant to this discussion as this is a necessary condition for bushfires. The recent increase in the early onset of bushfires suggest that the bush has been drying out earlier in he season for whatever reason. However a possible reason could be found at http://tinyurl.com/htgrz37 .
If you have another plausible reason as to why the bush has been drying out earlier please let me know. Rainfall has shown a slight increase in spring but this may just have exacerbated the situation by providing more fuel.
Similarly an arsonist with a box of matches, driven by whatever motive, would find it impossible to start a major bushfire when the conditions are not favourable.
If we are to believe the arsonist theory for the early onset, then again can you suggest why the arsonists have decided to start their activities earlier and earlier in the year.
With your intimate knowledge of their pysche can you provide an explanation? Maybe the arrival in Australia of the broadway hit “Spring Awakeneings” in 2010 is responsible.
On a more serious note your supercilious ( actually just super silly) comment – “Oh dear , another bushfire what shall become of us….” does not sit well with those who live in S.E. Australia where the memories of the 173 lives (one who I knew personally ) were lost to bushfires in 2009.
Hi Miker,
You stated:
“Similarly an arsonist with a box of matches, driven by whatever motive, would find it impossible to start a major bushfire when the conditions are not favourable.”
Aren’t there favorable conditions at some point in time every year? Hasn’t that always been the case?
In California, the chaparral and other vegetation burn readily. I’ve been told the seeds of some flora will only generate at temperatures in excess of 4oo degrees F. Fire for some climates is a natural part of the ecosystem.
Have a great day!
Hi John,
Unlike the the Californian chaparral, the forests that burn in S.E. Australia are temperate rain forests. The conditions are very damp for the majority of the time during the cooler months. There have never been major bushfires from mid March to the end of August in these forests.
The only time they have burnt prior to December is since 1980 and the prevalence during the period September to December has increased dramatically since then.
All the best and have a great day.
Hi Miker,
During the September to December period that you noted witnessed dramatically increasing brush fires I still see that increased human population in this region can easily result in increased brush fires even if no arson proves involved. People burn things like barbecues, campfires, cigarettes, oil fires from working on their cars, controlled burns by homeowners, etc. More people living within the region increases the odds of conflagration whether intentionally or not. The dry brush is merely the requisite fuel waiting and available for people to ignite. What evidence exists that dry brush has increased dramatically over recent decades and that it primarily resulted in greater conflagration? Which do you think increased more in the last few decades human encroachment in Australia’s SE or dry brush?
Have a great day!
When you have a pack of arsonist global warmers looking for opportunities to set fires, you will see more fires and earlier. It is no great feat to locate the drier areas, with the rainfall accumulation totals nowadays available from the weather service.
Concerning your part in all of this, see item #4 in my above comment.
Concerning the weak-minded and the gullible, you have no sense of shame, do you?
John,
I gather you do not understand the historical context of Australian bushfires.
We have had an enormous campaigns especially since the disasters of 1983 Ash Wednesday and the 2009 conflagration to inform the public about the dangers of barbecues, campfires working on equipment outdoors etc. etc. We have what are called Total Fire Ban days (see http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/warnings-restrictions/can/ ) where none of these activities are permitted in the open and the punishments are severe if they are violated. These total fire bans are imposed when the bush is susceptible and the weather is extreme.
We now have these total fire ban days much much earlier than they used to be. For example we had a number of total fire ban days at the beginning of October this year in Victoria and South Australia.
It is totally unprecedented to have these days so early in the year. If you don’t believe me then check the historical database of total fire ban days at http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/warnings-restrictions/history-of-tfbs/.
@miker…”I gather you do not understand the historical context of Australian bushfires”.
We call them forest fires up here in the Pacific coast of western Canada. We have places in BC, like Lytton, where temps exceed 40C regularly in summer.
Lytton is located in a strip of desert region where the major rivers of the Fraser and Thompson meet. We have fires up there almost every year and we know the cause…lightning.
It likely happened a bit earlier last year up here as well but that is not evidence that anthropogenic sources are an issue. Lytton is still in a desert climate and that climate is not spreading to neighbouring regions, nor is it getting worse.
Not many people up here are blaming global warming/climate change for the fires, we are blaming the government for cutting back on fire fighting services and doing nothing in the way of fire breaks to prevent the spread of the fires.
Hi Miker,
Thank you for the reply and the link, it provides additional information. You state:
“We have what are called Total Fire Ban days (see http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/warnings-restrictions/can/ ) where none of these activities are permitted in the open and the punishments are severe if they are violated.”
If Australia resembles the US in any way, severe penalties may dissuade a few people but as population rises the shear number of people performing seemingly everyday activities may overwhelm whatever laws one places on the books. Notice I didn’t even mention young people and others who simply like to cause damage. It may be the case that flora has become dryer earlier in the year, but the inflow of more and more people will inevitably lead to an increased chance for brush fires to occur. Btw, moving the fire bans to earlier and earlier periods may just be a desire on the part of land administration officials to simply maintain control of their territory and prevent damage as a result of increasing numbers of people. The public becomes more and more accustomed to behavioral manipulation as a means to maintain the environment and keep order. To me it doesn’t necessarily mean the brush must be getting dryer sooner, not that it isn’t. Thanks again and have a great day!
The following is dedicated to mpainter, Gordon R, Mack and any other of the head in the sand brigade.
The bushfire in the remote central plateau of Tasmania is unprecedented. Started by lightning.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/like-losing-the-thylacine-fire-burns-tasmanian-wilderness-world-heritage-area-20160131-gmi2re.html .
Also to top it off for the poor Taswegians.
http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2016/01/29/floods-fail-to-douse-tasmanian-bushfires.html .
Search: bushfire arson Australia. lots of responses.
it is believed over half of the bushfires is arson.
So arson is the problem, and the alarmists like miker try to capitalize on the arson. which compounds the problem, because it confuses the dimwits. Thus miker and his ilk.
mpainter,
Did your really read the articles linked to? Clearly not.
Despite this your forensic skills are amazing. Previously you seemed to account for every wild fire as being due to “a pack of arsonist global warmers”. I am glad you are now only claiming more than half.
The only way could explain your certainty is that you were at the scene of each fire started by arson and closely observed the ignition and maybe interviewed the arsonist. As most arsonists stay at the scene and watch the fire spread you are also in danger of being accused for almost every wild fire. If indeed you are the culprit for more than half the fires you must be a busy boy (or girl) .
Maybe you need to have an alibi for the Tasmanian wilderness fire. Personally I dont believe you were responsible and believe the account of dry lightning mentioned in the above report .
However if you are charged , I am willing , along with most of the other contributors here , to be witnesses for your defence on the grounds of insanity. Your comments here could also be used as corroborating evidence regarding your mental competence.
Arson===>bushfire===>alarmist hype opportunity.
The mikers of this world do not let such opportunities slip by. Who are the arsonists? Rabid types who imagine to save the world by feeding the mikers, no doubt.
Read again: over one half of the fires are arson. The “guerilla war against climate change” is heating up (quote from Joelle Gergis)
mpainter,
As I said above, a plea of insanity is your best defence.
I was bemused by your reference to The guerilla war against climate change which you claimed was a quote from Joelle Guergis
The following is the relevant extract from Joelle’s blog in 2010.
” American science writer Chris Mooney outlined the guerrilla war on climate science in the untamed jungles of the online world. He said it was nave for scientists to feel that the truth will prevail as the mountain of peer-reviewed evidence grows. He suggests that as a community we must equip ourselves with the professional communication skills to combat the targeted tactics of our opponents. Most people know how easy it is to click the publish button on a blog, but in reality, very few know the rigours of publishing evidence-based science in the peer-reviewed literature.”
What is amazing is your juxtaposition of arson with the above statement.
If you have information that Joelle or in particular Chris Mooney are urging arson then you must report it immediately to the relevant authorities.
The Australian Crime Stoppers web site would be a good place to start.
Actually don’t waste their time. I am sure they have enough trouble with all the other loonies.
The foolish Gergis removed the quote from her blog, but it’s been preserved on the Wayback Machine. It was at Climate Audit that this was uncovered. My quote is correct. You are easily suckered.
mpainter,
I have not been able to find anything relevant except for the title of the article of her blog quoting Chris Mooney at
http://sciencematters.unimelb.edu.au/winning-the-guerrilla-war-on-climate-change-at-science-meets-parliament-2010/.
As you can see it is still available.
Is there anything else that suggests she is provoking a guerrilla war via arson or even encouraging arson?
Is there any upper bound to your lunacy? Clearly not.
I predict that the bushfires will increase until the global warming hysteria passes. But that will take years. Meanwhile, the mikers will revel in the work of the arsonists, cranking out the alarms and duping the gullible. It is well that you should conceal your identity, miker.
mpainter,
OK, so the arsonists in Australia are global warmers who are in cahoots with the local authorities who declare total fire ban days.
You almost make Mack look sane.
You anonymously make common cause with some unsavory types: those who wage “guerilla war against climate change” to quote one Joelle Gergis. This is the zealotry which I meant.
@mpainter…your formula could easily be applied to our forests in the Pacific Coast of Canada (BC). The only difference would be that we don’t need a pyro with matches, in 99% of the cases the fires are started by lightning.
We have the same issues with cheapskate governments who wont build firebreaks or provide adequate fire fighting manpower.
Recently, during an unremarkable wind storm, much of the Vancouver region was without power for several days because the same cheapskate government wont allocate funds to maintain the power line right of way. Therefore, trees get blown over, taking out power lines.
The alarmists don’t understand that global warming officially ended in 1998. They carry on based on sci-fi catastrophic global warming scenarios derived from unvalidated climate models programmed with non-existent positive feedbacks and a delusionary weighting of the warming effect of ACO2.
JohnKL,
Yes population factors clearly could play a part in the number of bushfires but the increasing prevalence in months that have never seen bushfires before is hard to explain using your explanations above.
Claims that the earlier and earlier declaration of total fire ban days, just because the authorities are being unnecessarily cautious do not seem to be borne out by the facts. These early in the season total fire ban days seem to be still accompanied by fires some human related , some caused by lightning etc.. The recent unprecedented heat wave in early October over most of S.E. Australia (see http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs52.pdf) was accompanied by total fire ban days and fires (see http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victorian-bushfires-2015-raging-winds-fuel-threat-at-benloch-20151007-gk398a.html ).
In terms of just frequency of fires, rather the length of the fire season, some of the human related causes are reducing.
The increasing public awareness via TV radio and print campaigns and the increasing severity of fines, one would hope reduce fires started by human means. Because of the severity of fires and the recent death tolls in this country arsonists are in danger of being drawn and quartered but there are idiots in every country. However even an idiot with a flame thrower will not start an inferno if the bush conditions are not right.
Additionally one of the major causes of fires used to be the cigarette butt out the car window. As the rates of smoking in this country have plummeted than this has become less of an issue.
In days past camp fires lit by swagmmen (Aussie for itinerant or tramp) who liked to travel through the most remote areasin the bush were thought to be a problem. The great January bushfires of 1939 were thought to be started by a swagman’s fire . Swagmen have also seemed to died out over the past couple of decades so this is also less of an issue.
Glad to provide you with some more context for Australian bushfires. It is a pleasure to communicate with someone as cordial as yourself. Again have a great day.
Yes, well in Australia, as elsewhere, the original temperature records show cooling and the adjusted ones show warming. See this article about Rutherglen in Victoria.
Roy, you didn’t even try to prove that “Thermometers Still Disagree with Models.”
Where’s your science?
Go to this comment.
Why don’t you go comment on a site that is more your speed Appel, like skepticalscience? You also have realclimate and desmogblog, where they specialize in pseudo-science.
Shut up, Gordon. I’ll comment wherever I like.
@Appell…I am not interested in your rights I am interested in your lack of competence and lack of class. You’re far better suited to the propaganda coming out of the sites I mentioned.
I took exception to you insulting mpainter over his reported loss of his wife. Scumbags like you are far better suited to those sites. You have no class and those sites specialize in that.
Gordon, try to read harder. I didn’t insult painter over the loss of his wife — I said nothing whatsoever about his wife. I wrote that if he asks disrespectul, dishonestly leading questions — which he did — he should then expect them in return.
Your own comments are as scientifially vapid as painter’s. This is a science blog. Start providing data and evidence for your claims.
You stepped over a line, David, and you are only further digging your hole. If you were smart, if you were really interested in swaying opinions, you would try to appear more human to your audience, not less.
Apologize, and move on, is my advice. Otherwise, you appear even more of a dogmatic robot running a canned program on automatic pilot than before, and I have to admit, I would not have thought that possible.
Baloney. Any educated person should know that the question “when did you stop beating your wife” doesn’t refer to anyone’s wife, but is used rhetorically to make a point.
That was the tactic painter used. I asked him back in return.
I am happy to discuss science here. It’s just that so much of what people say here is wrong, and usually obviously wrong. W.r.t. painter in particular, I have seen him make too many blanket statements that are not supported by the data, and even are in direct contradiction to the data. Awhile back he wrote, “sea levels aren’t rising.” Turns out he thought he was citing tide gauges. Then someone showed him that tide gauges show sea level rising too.
As someone said, climate science needs better skeptics.
Dig, dig, dig…
And you David Appell cannot explain the very basic assumption of the GH “science” namely that they assume that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of IR-active (GH) gases. Prove that if you can David Appell using correct physics. There’s a AU $10,000 reward on offer on my blog because such a state has unbalanced energy potentials (more PE at the top) and thus cannot possibly be the state of thermodynamic equilibrium by definition.
If _my_ wife had died from lymphoma a year ago, I certainly wouldn’t be using that to try and score points on an Internet discussion forum.
The end was a long time coming and she faced it with admirable, unfaltering courage. I will remember her example and I am grateful for it.
But there’s no excuse for using her in a debate — that’s just tacky.
No. What was tacky was your lack of empathy. You could easily have sidestepped it, and allowed the man his impromptu expression of grief, but instead, you plowed ahead like a bull in a china shop. It revealed a great deal about your character, mores, and ethics, none of which helped build a case for your reliability and trustworthiness.
I have read many discussions about climate, but never seen anyone getting owned like mpainter in this thread before.
I was just waiting for him to get insulted so that all “sceptics” could get some rest from what matters, the science.
How can one be proven wrong over and over without changing his mind? Really, why is that?
And when all arguments run out, climate change is all about a conspiracy in combination with bad manners from the alarmists. But only until next time, when the arguments that didn’t hold up last time are RE-used!
Your comment is unintelligible…but whatever, mpainter was not “owned”.
And you Mack are in the same boat – you also cannot answer this comment.
“How can one be proven wrong over and over without changing his mind? Really, why is that?”
It’s what we all wonder, David. But, the guilty party is you.
Who can tell the difference? The zealots are interchangeable, mindless drones.
Who can tell the difference? People who take the time to read.
Bart: It was Daniel, not David.
I note that David Appell is still unable to answer this question. Expect some excuse or “last resort” comment soon – anything but an answer.
Doug: I’m not responding to your questions anymore, since you never answer questions when I ask them of you.
Also, there is something worrisome in your quest for attention and the ways you go about it, and I don’t feel I should encourage that anymore.
Good luck, Doug.
Remain in your ignorance David Appell. You have no physics qualifications: you’re just an ill informed, seriously misled journalist who could learn from me, but deigns not to.
Silent readers will note …
(1) that you, David Appell, cannot support the radiative forcing greenhouse conjecture with any valid physics;
(2) that you cannot prove that a planet’s troposphere would be isothermal (from the base to the top) without GH gases;
(3) that you cannot prove that radiation can be compounded, such as with the 4 radiator experiment I suggested;
(4) that you cannot explain in your own words with valid physics why the surface temperature is what it is, and actually rises by day;
(5) that you cannot explain how the surface gets the required new thermal energy to rise in temperature (even under cloud cover) each morning, and
(6) that you cannot prove statistically from real world temperature and precipitation data that more moist regions are significantly hotter than dry regions at similar latitude and altitude, when in fact my study showed they are cooler.
“How can one be proven wrong over and over without changing his mind? “ I don’t know, but Tim Folkerts may be able to explain what narcissism is all about.
Tim was told he was wrong 4 years ago here from which I quote …
“I have been earning a living as an engineer specializing in cutting edge technology for very large scale thermal energy transfer processes and power systems for close to 40 years. My credentials include BS, JD and PE, and I have four patents.
“As for my qualifications to engage in argument with PhDs, I have many times been part of and have led teams with PhD team mates. I was also married to a PhD for 20 years.
“Because the import of the consequence of the radial temperature gradient created by pressurizing a spherical body of gas by gravity, from the inside only, is that it obviates the need for concern over GHGs. And, because this is based on long established fundamental principles that were apparently forgotten or never learned by many PhDs, it is not something that can be left as an acceptable disagreement.”
So Roy Spencer and all Lukes, and Tim Folkerts and all warmists are in the same boat – they also cannot answer this comment.
“And you David Appell cannot explain the very basic assumption of the GH science namely that they assume that a planets troposphere would be isothermal in the absence of IR-active (GH) gases.”
Earth doesn’t have much greenhouse gases. The most abundant
greenhouse gas is H20 gas and H20 gas condenses within Earth’s atmosphere- dissimilar to CO2 in this respect. Or H20 condenses into droplets in the earth’s atmosphere, and CO2 doesn’t transform into a different state of matter within Earth’s atmosphere.
Earth’s most abundant greenhouse gas becomes a liquid and solid within Earth’s atmosphere and can form into clouds and generally cover about 30% of the Earth surface. There are other kinds of clouds created by forest fires, volcanic activity and dust storms, but such clouds are generally less common and do not form into the wide variety of characteristics which are comprised of H20.
The clouds of H20 only form in an atmosphere which has H20 gas and amount of H20 gas in the atmosphere is related to the temperature of the atmosphere.
The sphere of Earth can divided into three zones- Tropics, Temperate, and polar zones. The tropics is about 40% of the entire surface area, both Temperate zone equal about 50% [each being 25%] and polar regions are about 10% of entire surface area.
The highest average air temperature is in the tropics, and has average surface air temperature of about 20 C, whereas temperate zones average is about 10 C, with polar region below 0 C. The temperate and polar zone had large variation in air temperature depending upon the seasons. The temperate zone in summer [25% of earth surface] has higher average air temperature, but most of it’s year has cooler average temperature resulting in it’s lower average temperature.
Most of Earth is covered with ocean, the tropical zone is 80% ocean area and having high surface ocean temperature creates/allows most H20 gas, so the vast majority of greenhouse gases [H20 gas] are in the tropics.
Or one doesn’t need to imagine a world lacking greenhouse gas, as everywhere other than the tropics lacks greenhouse gases. The entire troposphere of Earth is isothermal- has a fairly predictable lapse rate. And any variance of lapse rate is mostly related to condensation/evaporation of H20 in the atmosphere.
Isothermal means having the same temperature. I assumed you knew that. No planetary troposphere has the same temperature from the base to the top – there is always a non-zero temperature gradient. Most people know that.
Don’t we have the greenhouse gas water vapor anywhere but in the tropics? I noticed it rained (rather heavily in fact) on Saturday in Sydney, anyway. I thought most people would have seen some rain outside the tropics.
Now read this comment and the next two of mine after that.
“Isothermal means having the same temperature. I assumed you knew that. ”
Temperature is a method of measuring heat, and I also assume you knew that.
And also that same heat and same temperature are
similar, but also there is differences in meaning.
And that having to do with equal heat is perhaps a better definition of isothermal than isothermal means having the same temperature.
Or that the “entire troposphere of Earth is isothermal”
is another way to say the earth’s troposphere is dominated
by strong convectional process which evenly distributes heat.
One could also say the convectional processes of distributing heat in the Earth troposphere are more violent as compared to say, the Mars troposphere. And such differences can explained
by differences of atmospheric density and weaker gravity of
Mars. Or the presence or lack of greenhouse gases have little to do with it. Though presence or lack of water could be related to it.
” No planetary troposphere has the same temperature from the base to the top there is always a non-zero temperature gradient. Most people know that.”
Yes most could know that.
Less might know that Earth’s upper atmosphere has a extremely high temperature, but this doesn’t mean the upper atmosphere is capable of heating something to higher temperature. Or for a rock or human being which are stationary [not traveling at some hyper velocity] this atmosphere it is close to not having a temperature. Or space
has no temperature- it is neither hot nor cold.
Cf:
Thermosphere:
“This atmospheric layer undergoes a gradual increase in temperature with height. Unlike the stratosphere, wherein a temperature inversion is due to the absorption of radiation by ozone, the inversion in the thermosphere occurs due to the extremely low density of its molecules. The temperature of this layer can rise as high as 1500 C (2700 F), though the gas molecules are so far apart that its temperature in the usual sense is not very meaningful.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth
–Dont we have the greenhouse gas water vapor anywhere but in the tropics?–
Main issue is Earth lacks any greenhouse gases, but the dominate greenhouse gas on Earth is water vapor. And most of the water vapor in in 40% of Earth surface which is called the tropical zone.
One could say that Earth is quite cool, other than other than 40% of Earth surface which is called the tropical zone.
The presence of most of Earth’s greenhouse gases being in the tropical zone is not the cause of the warmth, but the result of this region getting most the energy from sunlight
and that 80% of the tropical region is covered by oceans.
As for the general idea of greenhouse gases causing cooler. Earth’s troposphere works well at convecting heat. Water helps the distribution of heat in Earth’s isothermal troposphere. So roughly the cooling of evaporation of water
results warming other area of the planet.
So if put a fan in front of a fireplace, one doesn’t normally say the fan is cooling the house, rather it’s seen to be warming the rest of the house.
Dear me, gbaikie. Heat in physics is thermal energy in transit between a source and target. Something is getting heated.
Thermal (kinetic) energy is indeed energy (not heat) but just because you know the temperature of a balloon full of gas, does not mean you know how much kinetic (thermal) energy is in that body of gas, because you don’t know the density.
Isothermal is “iso” = same and “thermal” = temperature. No planetary troposphere is isothermal (having same temperature from top to bottom) because that would be an unstable state for the reasons here.
Lapse rate, Convection, Greenhouse Effect
lapse rate: Hypothetically, consider that the earth’s atmosphere consists of a single atom of a non-radiatively interacting gas like nitrogen, affected only by the earth’s gravitational field. This atom has kinetic energy which is preserved when it bounces off the surface, that is, it has temperature. As it reaches a higher altitude it slows down. Its kinetic energy transforms to potential energy. Since the kinetic energy is reduced its temperature is reduced (because temperature is a measure of kinetic energy). As it falls again to the surface its temperature again increases. Therefore, even an atmosphere that does not interact radiatively, will develop a lapse rate, with its temperature profile fixed by conduction at the surface. But once the lapse rate develops it will not convect. That’s why argon is useful at reducing heat loss in double-pained windows and in other applications like welding. The widely stated theory that the atmosphere would go isothermal without greenhouse gasses is incorrect.
convection: Add greenhouse gases and the atmosphere is no longer transparent and part or all of the outgoing spectrum is blocked and heat must find another way out. Enter convection. Convection is active in the daytime in transporting heat from the surface to the radiating altitude. It stops at night so that the only way for heat to get out is via the “radiation clear window.” About 1/6 of the outgoing spectrum is transparent to infrared. A warm-above-cold temperature inversion forms near the ground which quickly disappears under direct sunlight. Convection is strongest at the equator where it acts as a thermostat which limits temperatures to about 30 C.
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/
There is now a small anomaly along the equator due to the ongoing El Niño.
CO2 and greenhouse effect: CO2 is a weak greenhouse gas, especially compared with water vapor. At the equator is has very little effect. At northern latitudes in winter there is little water vapor in the air, so CO2 is by comparison more important. The northern diurnal (day/night) temperature range has narrowed in winter.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asl.632/full
see fig 2 (g),(h),(i)
This means warmer nights at high latitudes in winter. Growth of sea ice in winter will be reduced. Growing seasons will lengthen. The temperature difference that moves heat northward will be reduced (meridional advection), mitigating tropical storms and other convective events.
I believe that the only objective evidence for an effect of CO2 is in the reduction of diurnal temperature range in the northern latitudes. This may also help to explain the relative absence of tornado and hurricane activity. Since the effect is confined to the northern latitudes and mitigated at the equator, its global effect may be “lost in the noise.”
You’re right about gravity forming the temperature gradient which approaches the state of maximum entropy which physicists call thermodynamic equilibrium.
Convective heat transfers cease when the environmental temperature gradient is achieved exactly, usually late at night. When it is steeper, convective heat transfers are mostly upwards, usually in the afternoon and early evening; when it is less steep convective heat transfers are mostly downwards, usually in the morning when new thermal energy is absorbed in the upper troposphere for example.
You are not right in assuming “with its temperature profile fixed by conduction at the surface” because not all planets have solid surfaces. In fact it is fixed by the weighted mean effect of the radiating layers in the stratosphere and upper troposphere that will keep in radiative balance with the insolation.
No atmosphere is transparent and without IR-active gases. We have clouds that reflect, for example. You have no evidence that outgoing radiation is blocked by IR-active gases. In fact IR-active molecules act like holes in the blanket radiating energy out of the atmosphere. Regions with more of the greenhouse gas water vapor are seen to be cooler in analysis of real-world temperature and precipitation data. The cooling is due to the fact that inter-molecular radiation lowers the temperature gradient so that the thermal profile (plot) rotates downwards at the surface end.
Because the surface temperature is determined by the thermal profile in the troposphere (which is fixed in its overall level by radiative balance with the Sun) radiation reaching the surface is not the primary determinant of surface temperatures, and is clearly insufficient to explain such temperatures. Hence there is no effect due to any radiative forcing from GH gases.
“You have no evidence that outgoing radiation is blocked by IR-active gases.”
Before anyone accepts this, go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer%E2%80%93Lambert_law#Beer.E2.80.93Lambert_law_in_the_atmosphere
Yep, CO2 radiation is partly blocked, but the energy still gets out another gate via thermal diffusion and subsequent radiation mostly by water vapor.
You have no evidence that the mean radiative flux outwards at TOA ever varies more than between 99.5% and 100.5% of the mean radiative flux being received at TOA. That is all that the measurements ever show, and the error bars are at least 0.2% anyway.
— pochas94 says:
January 31, 2016 at 9:19 PM
Lapse rate, Convection, Greenhouse Effect
lapse rate: Hypothetically, consider that the earth’s atmosphere consists of a single atom of a non-radiatively interacting gas like nitrogen, affected only by the earth’s gravitational field. This atom has kinetic energy which is preserved when it bounces off the surface, that is, it has temperature. As it reaches a higher altitude it slows down.–
Yes, if one is talking a single atom or atoms moving which are so highly spaced and therefore not interacting much with each other.
So very unlike the troposphere of Earth, more like higher elevations on Earth- the Stratosphere and higher.
Continuing
-Its kinetic energy transforms to potential energy. Since the kinetic energy is reduced its temperature is reduced (because temperature is a measure of kinetic energy). As it falls again to the surface its temperature again increases. —
And again this exclusively actually occurs when atoms are not interacting much. And explains the change of the lapse rate at the Stratosphere. It explains all the stratospheres of all planets with an atmosphere.
–Therefore, even an atmosphere that does not interact radiatively, will develop a lapse rate, with its temperature profile fixed by conduction at the surface. But once the lapse rate develops it will not convect. That’s why argon is useful at reducing heat loss in double-pained windows and in other applications like welding. The widely stated theory that the atmosphere would go isothermal without greenhouse gasses is incorrect.–
Or if stationary in Stratosphere or higher, then a double pane window should not be very useful. A double pane might have other uses, but it’s not useful in terms of lowering
heat loss.
–convection: Add greenhouse gases and the atmosphere is no longer transparent and part or all of the outgoing spectrum is blocked and heat must find another way out. Enter convection. Convection is active in the daytime in transporting heat from the surface to the radiating altitude. It stops at night so that the only way for heat to get out is via the radiation clear window. About 1/6 of the outgoing spectrum is transparent to infrared.–
A few things. The amount something is transparent depends how far it must travel thru a substance.
The ocean is transparent to most of energy of the sun, but after traveling thru about 100 meters of water, most of the energy of sunlight is blocked. A fair amount of the sunlight is blocked going thru about 10 meter of ocean water. And most Longwave IR is blocked by about 1 mm of ocean water. Most of energy of the Sun is IR radiation and most of energy is not block within 1 mm of water- most will travel thru 1 meter of more of ocean water.
With the atmosphere, on clear day and with sun at zenith, about 1360 watts per square meter is at top of atmosphere and about 1000 watts reaches the surface. Or one has about 1360 watts of direct sunlight at top of the atmosphere and considerable less direct sunlight at earth surface and when sun is not perpendicular to the sun, then even more sunlight is prevented from reaching the surface.
Almost needless to say, the sun doesn’t spend much of the time being near perpendicular, and if live in say England it is never near perpendicular. So if in England at noon in summer when sun is highest in the sky, the atmosphere is not very transparent to sunlight.
Or most of daylight hours in England has less direct sunlight as compared to being on the Mars surface and comparing Earth and Mars distance from the Sun, Mars gets far less than 1/2 of the sunlight per square meter.
Or Mars atmosphere is far more transparent to sunlight than Earth’s atmosphere.
Now I am mostly talking about direct sunlight, and will let wiki bring up topic of indirect sunlight:
“The total amount of energy received at ground level from the Sun at the zenith depends on the distance to the Sun and thus on the time of year. It is about 3.3% higher than average in January and 3.3% lower in July (see below). If the extraterrestrial solar radiation is 1367 watts per square meter (the value when the EarthSun distance is 1 astronomical unit), then the direct sunlight at Earth’s surface when the Sun is at the zenith is about 1050 W/m2, but the total amount (direct and indirect from the atmosphere) hitting the ground is around 1120 W/m2. In terms of energy, sunlight at Earth’s surface is around 52 to 55 percent infrared (above 700 nm), 42 to 43 percent visible (400 to 700 nm), and 3 to 5 percent ultraviolet (below 400 nm). At the top of the atmosphere, sunlight is about 30% more intense, having about 8% ultraviolet (UV), with most of the extra UV consisting of biologically damaging short-wave ultraviolet.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight
As quoted from Wiki: “the direct sunlight at Earths surface when the Sun is at the zenith is about 1050 W/m2, but the total amount (direct and indirect from the atmosphere) hitting the ground is around 1120 W/m2.”
Q.1: Why is the back radiation only 70W/m^2 in such a hot place (1120-1050) when the energy diagrams show it as having a global mean of 324W/m^2.
Q.2: The Stefan Boltzmann black body temperature for 1120W/m^2 is 101C so where do we see such temperatures?
Q.3: Assuming the answer to Q.2 is “nowhere” then why does the IPCC assume they can explain the mean surface temperature by using mean flux of 390W/m^2 and black body temperature of 288K for such, when they can’t use that same calculation for a hot location like the above which still contributes to the global mean? If all such hot spots are in fact 50 to 60 degrees cooler than S-B calculations indicate, then I suggest something is seriously wrong with the calculation of a mean surface temperature that ignores the fact that, for whatever reason, the radiation does not achieve temperatures anywhere near what the calculations they use indicate.
As I explained in my 2012 paper, it is wrong to add back radiation anyway because it undergoes resonant (pseudo) scattering and does not transfer thermal energy from a colder troposphere to a warmer surface.
However, in the above comment I have just played along with what they claim and showed that even their false addition of back radiation still doesn’t get the right answer for the surface temperature.
Another reason is that the solar flux is very variable and the temperature achieved is only proportional to the fouth root of the flux. So all the high level flux (like the above 1120W/m^2) that is counted in the calculations of the mean of 390W/m^2 is not achieving a much higher temperature than the mean. You see, here we have an example of flux of 1120W/m^2 (nearly three times the mean of 390W/m^2) only achieving a temperature of 374K compared with 288K for the 390W/m^2.
The overall effect is that a variable flux with a mean of 390W/m^2 only achieves a temperature that is about 10 to 20 degrees cooler than 288K.
As this example demonstrates, for any planet with a significant atmosphere, radiation reaching its surface (or the base of its troposphere) is not the primary determinant of the temperature there.
What is the primary determinant is explained here.
— DougCotton says:
February 3, 2016 at 4:07 AM
As quoted from Wiki: the direct sunlight at Earths surface when the Sun is at the zenith is about 1050 W/m2, but the total amount (direct and indirect from the atmosphere) hitting the ground is around 1120 W/m2.
Q.1: Why is the back radiation only 70W/m^2 in such a hot place (1120-1050) when the energy diagrams show it as having a global mean of 324W/m^2.–
Such a “hot place” is about 1/2 of earth and occurs for about 6 hours of 24 hour day.
As for energy diagrams, a simple answer is there are wrong-
there is no radiant warming of back radiation, the only significant radiant energy causing warming is caused by sunlight.
When sun is at 30 degree above the horizon, it’s warming is weak in regard to each square meter of the surface. Two basic reasons, the sun going thru more atmosphere- twice as much, and the sunlight is spread over larger surface area.
So instead “1120 W/m2″ it’s about 200 watts per square meter of direct and indirect sunlight
But even with such weak sunlight it’s doing more radiant warming then any other kind of radiant energy- back radiation or whatever.
With land, 200 watts of direct and indirect sunlight it is not going to warm the ground by much. Or as each 15 degrees is one hour, two hours after the sun rises and two hours before it sets the weak sunlight isn’t doing much warming of the ground surface- or cold surface of morning might warm a bit and evaporate the dew, and the afternoon warming of surface is lowering in temperature as sun shines on it- and/or say 2” under the surface it’s cooling- one could have more heat transferred from the surface as compared to amount warming caused by this weak sunlight.
But in terms of earth’s average temperature, land surface are rather insignificant. For instance, One could say the “surface of the clouds” is more significance than the surface of the land. Or in terms total surface area the cloud receive far more direct and indirect sunlight than compared to the land surface.
I am talking about land surface mostly because it’s more familiar rather than because of it’s actual importance and because a large part of Earth sunlit region gets less than about 200 watts of direct and indirect sunlight- say about 2/3rd. Or less 1/3rd of sunlit surface is getting around 1120 W/m2 or less”
Of course the surface of the ocean is most dominate factor to do with Earth’s average temperature.
–Q.2: The Stefan Boltzmann black body temperature for 1120W/m^2 is 101C so where do we see such temperatures?–
One needs direct sunlight to get higher surface temperatures. Even the alarmist don’t say “back radiation” increases the surface temperature. In terms of indirect sunlight, an instance where one has mostly indirect sunlight is where clouds don’t completely block the sun, but rather block it enough that you can’t see the orb of the sun- or the sunlight appears as a bright cloud in the sky. If can’t detect the orb of sun, that means one is not having direct sunlight and sun not warming the surface. Or if sun bathing, it’s not warming the skin- it’s like being in the shade.
“Even the alarmist dont say back radiation increases the surface temperature. “
Yes they do actually. Study their energy budget diagrams where back radiation is added to solar radiation, then latent heat and thermals deducted to get a net 390W/m^2 (of which 324W/m^2 is back radiation) and that has a black body temperature of 288K, which wouldn’t be achieved anyway because the solar flux component is very variable.
Re: “One needs direct sunlight to get higher surface temperatures. ”
The ocean never is getting direct sunlight in terms of warming it. Because the ocean is transparent.
Or to get the higher temperatures of say 60 C or more one needs a skin surface which absorbs the direct sunlight.
Though with a solar pond one can get a water temperature of 80 C or higher. Which is higher than any land surface ever gets.
And this is because a solar pond has a surface below the water which can be heated by direct sunlight.
And solar ponds demonstrate that most of the heating of the ocean occurs about 1 meter below it’s surface.
Now if you were to cover and ocean with say black crude oil, it would have a surface which can absorb direct sunlight.
So one could have a surface temperature of a ocean if cover with a surface which adsorbs direct sunlight and could be about 70 C.
BUT even though one have higher surface temperature the NET result would be a much cooler world.
Or one would immediately get more energy radiating into space. Or the energy of sunlight instead warming the rest of the world, would exit the world at the tropics- Europe freezes.
Or one could say the coolness of the tropics makes the world warmer.
But also the higher average temperature of the tropic gives an illusion that Earth is warm- or 40% of earth surface has high average- higher than 20 C, and rest of world is much cooler than 15 C.
So a greater illusion of a warm world is if the tropical ocean had a skin which could warmed by direct sunlight- and so have an even higher average temperature of tropics.
On paper it looks better, but having ice caps covering Europe, would make it a harder sell.
No gbaikie. The mean solar radiation of 168W/m^2 reaching the surface is way too little to raise even a blackbody above -40C.
Go to this comment.
Try measuring the temperature of a 168W/m^2 light bulb while “on” Doug, you will not find -40C. It would be very cold to the touch – not! Now try 240W/m^2 bulb, it will be even hotter Doug! How can that be? Run a test.
–No gbaikie. The mean solar radiation of 168W/m^2 reaching the surface is way too little to raise even a blackbody above -40C.–
Well, an average of 168W/m^2 over 24 hours is .168 kW hours
times 24. Is about 4 kw hours per day.
Germany gets about 2 kW hours per day. Australia gets about 6 to 7 kW per day. With some regions of Australia getting about 8 kW hours per day as does the Sahara desert.
And obviously regions on Earth which get 7 to 8 kw hours per day are the better places to harvest solar energy.
Mars distance is about 600 watts per square meter. Divided
by 4 is 150 watts average over 24 hours. Or 3.6 kW per day.
Without considering global dust storm.
A global dust storm would increase the Mars average temperature though obviously decrease the amount of sunlight reaching it’s surface. Anyhow Mars average temperature is somewhere around -50 to -60 C, though daytime surface temperatures can reach about 20 C.
So if one had planet with rocky surface and thin atmosphere
and it got average 168W/m^2, then is would warmer than Mars. And one might expect daytime highs reaching + 25 C, with and average temperature of around -40 C.
Mars has about 210 ppm of water vapor in it’s atmosphere and it’s atmosphere has about 25 trillion tonnes of CO2.
Per square meter of surface area it has about 28 times more CO2 per square meter compared to Earth’s surface.
Or Earth has 510 million square km of surface area [Mars has 144.8 million km] and has about 3 trillion tonnes of CO2 in it’s atmosphere.
Mars has a fair about H20 gas in it’s atmosphere though probably little in terms of droplets or ice particles, has some very thin clouds of ice particles- though generally
Mars is considered to be very dry compared to Earth.
Or deserts on Earth [say in Antarctic] are warm and wet compared to most of Mars, and it snows CO2 at it’s poles during the winter [more CO2 snow fall than H20 snowfall at Earth’s poles].
Anyhow a major factor related to Earth being a poor place to harvest solar energy at it’s surface is related to it’s clouds. Obviously it’s clouds during daylight, but clouds
are persistent- if have clouds at night one tends to have clouds in the day one could even have more clouds during day than night.
So places which are not deserts, tends to have a lot of daytime clouds and places which cloudy in the summer are particularly poor places to harvest solar energy.
Another major factor is that Earth has massive atmosphere, and this is particularly significant at higher latitudes- so anything above 45 degree latitude doesn’t get high average of solar energy- even if it was a cloudless desert.
Or main reason Germany is a poor place to harvest solar energy is because it’s at a high latitude- though it’s famously cloudy summers doesn’t help.
continuing, re: “The mean solar radiation of 168W/m^2 reaching the surface is way too little to raise even a blackbody above -40C.”
So high latitudes have less sunlight hitting the surface of
Earth- ocean surface, land surface. Anywhere above 45 degrees latitude does not get much sunlight hitting these surface.
Half the world can divided at above 38 degree latitude and between 38 degree north and south.
Between 23 degree north and south is 40% of the surface of the world [the tropics] or 60% is outside the tropics.
If the Earth did not have a massive atmosphere [though nothing compared to Venus’ huge atmosphere], Earth would get
the same amount energy per square meter **IF** one points at the sun, regardless of the latitude.
With harvesting solar energy, one can manage to always point at the sun. So if Earth didn’t have a massive atmosphere one could harvest solar energy in the arctic circle.
Or with Mars one can harvest solar energy at it’s arctic circle- and get the same average yearly amount of solar energy as the equator on Mars.
And in terms our Moon, in it’s polar region there are what are called peaks ethereal light where can more solar energy than anyplace on the Moon. Or elsewhere on the Moon one gets 50% of 1360 watts per square meter:
In average 24 day, 1360 times 24 times .5 is 16320 watt hours or about 16 Kw hour {Earth best being about 8 kw hours per average 24 hours}. Whereas peaks can get 80% or more: 26112 watt hour or 26 Kw hours per average 24 hours- more than 3 times better than Earth’s surface best.
But perhaps more interesting in regard to the Moon [and even Mars] is one could have grid of solar collection which encircles the small lunar polar region in which the grid could have constant solar energy. Unfortunately mainly because of Earth massive atmosphere the same can not be done on the Earth’s surface.
And therefore solar energy is not viable on the Earth surface- not as alternative source of energy for the human civilization.
Now a problem with “168W/m^2 reaching the surface” is that Earth has clouds, and people tend not to regard clouds as a surface. Some sort of prejudice against white and puffy.
Lets look some else which is white and puffy- snow.
Snow is similar to clouds- main difference is it is denser.
And clouds are more transparent than snow- per inch of depth. If one could take about 1 cubic km of cloud, and compress into a football stadium, one could have some puffy snow. And lets say the snow is -40 C.
For snow to melt it has to warm to 0 C.
Ice at -40 C has specific heat of 1.818 kJ/kgK).
So to heat 1 kg of snow by 1.818 kJ increases it’s temperature by 1 C.
And to melt ice requires 334 kJ/kg.
1.818 times 40 K is 72.72 kJ/kg
334 / 72.72 is 4.59, or it takes 4.59 times more joules
of heat to melt 1 kg of ice and increase it’s temperature
from -40 C to 0 C.
So in sunlight how long does it take to warm the -40 C snow
to -20 C?
Generally speaking much quicker increase a kg of ice’s temperature as compared to melting it. But one aspect of huge pile of snow is it’s also filled with air.
So -40 C snow is also filled with -40 C air.
Huge pile of snow, have flat on top, sunlight warms the top surface, the warmed air rises, and is replaces with colder air from below. So one might guess that the top inch of snow could warm by 10 C fairly quickly, but to cool by 20 C, it would be inhibted by the cooler air mass below it mixing with it
And in comparison to a cloud which is more transparent and has a lot more air, one can’t really be looking at 1 inch, instead one could look at several feet of cloud
by 20 C than to melt 1 kg of ice.
Let’s look something different, how much cloud is required to block all direct sunlight. Fog is a cloud on the ground.
And a car headlight is pitifully weak compared to sunlight.
So how far does in take for headlight of the car in fog to become not a point of light, but become a glowing source of light? 100 meters? 100 feet, 50 feet, depending on the fog [and the headlights]. And if you can see something in the night and in the fog, it means the light is returning to you. And if can’t see 100 feet ahead of you, it’s quite a problem to drive in.
And clouds can thick enough that sunlight enters and doesn’t return- it’s absorbed. And clouds can be quite cold and can warmed up fair amount before the ice particles melt.
Now what about cloud in the atmosphere in high latitudes where the sun is low above the horizon?
First I think they follow “different rules” as compared to land surface, metaphorically, they are mountains in the sky. They are third dimensional, not a two dimensional surface.
So with say solar panel, if sun is high above horizon, one places them near horizontal to level ground, at higher latitudes with a sun lower in the horizon, you put them closer to vertical to level ground. So clouds have vertical component [and when measured this vertical component is generally ignored.
Another aspect is it doesn’t much matter what direction the sun hits the cloud. And another aspect is if couple thousand meters above the ground there is less atmosphere between it, and the sun. And of course some clouds can be 10 thousand meters above the ground.
Now clouds are complex beasts, my only point is they are another surface other than the land and ocean surface, and are not counted in regards to 168W/m^2 of the surface.
Though counted by the diagrams as absorbed by atmosphere.
So 240 watt per square meter are absorbed 100 watts reflected. And 240 – 168 is 72. And large part of 72 is absorbed by water droplets and ice particles.
72 might not seem like much, but I would guess less than is absorbed by land surface.
Or a square meter of ocean absorbs more energy than square meter of land. And 7/10th of land and ocean surfaces are ocean. And 7/10th of 168 is 117.6 leaving 50.4 for land.
In summary one can’t ignore earth’s oceans and clouds, though one could ignore earth greenhouse gases which are neither clouds nor oceans.
gbaikie:
It depends what you mean by “absorb” because only a portion of solar radiation is thermalized in regions that are cold enough. Most of the 72W/m^2 reaching the tops of clouds probably is thermalized. Some of the remaining thermalization happens in the stratosphere due to ozone. Of the 168W/m^2 reaching the surface, none would be thermalized in regions above -40C, but of course the 168 is a mean of very variable flux, so, where it is up around 550W/m^2 or more there is a good chance that some will be thermalized. It can also be thermalized in the ocean layers below the surface where it reaches and the temperature is a few degrees colder than the surface.
In general, most thermalization of solar radiation probably takes place in the atmosphere on Earth, and 100% of the thermalization on Venus takes place in the atmosphere well before it reaches the surface.
That’s why there is a need for non-radiative heat transfers from where it is thermalized to the surface as I have explained here.
Go now to this comment.
There’s a comprehensive explanation in this comment.
I suggest you read my paper to find out how energy absorbed in the clouds (and above) makes it to the warmer surface.
The test by Dr. Spencer demonstrated how energy absorbed in the clouds (and above) makes it to the warmer surface.
And the emissivity of the atmosphere, if it is as you mentioned in this comment Ball4 (namely 0.8) keeps the mean temperature up there at about 17.5C so that we get 324W/m^2 of atmospheric radiation. Norman goes one better and shows the average temperature of the troposphere is 25C with his lower emissivity values. Hilarious wouldn’t you say, geran?
Oh don’t worry, Ball4. Although you wrote “how energy absorbed in the clouds (and above) makes it to the warmer surface” we have now seen from your 0.8 emissivity statement that the 324W/m^2 comes from a mean temperature in the troposphere of 17.5C – so it will have no trouble getting to the surface with its mean temperature about three degrees cooler.
..your 0.8 emissivity statement..
The entire STP atm. looking up on a global median basis rounded Doug, with the temperature not observed at 17.5C yet another mistake made by Doug; really at the STP atm. base median ~288.15K over 4-10 yr.s declining from there at 6.5K/km up to the tropopause where Thompsons convection ceases becomes isothermal at 216.65K for another ~10km.
If you do more testing and learning from original science works Doug, your mistakes will decline and your political agenda align with science. How is that political agenda going Doug?
Ball4 admits the mean temperature of the troposphere is not 17.5C and so the atmosphere cannot radiate the “measured” back radiation of 324W/m^2 calculated using Ball4’s cited emissivity of 0.8.
So Doug is correct once again.
Ball4 admits Doug is wrong as there is no such thing in physics as a mean temperature of 17.5C in the atm. or anywhere else as temperature is an intensive property of matter.
If you live in Minneapolis and were to choose your clothing every day on the basis of Doug’s mean temperature – youd likely be uncomfortable most of the time (or possibly even perish).
How are your political aims coming along Doug?
No problem calculating the mean of lots of intensive temperature measurements, Ball4. Wherever did you get the crazy idea that we can’t work out a mean temperature? Go back to your school boy Math, Ball4 as you must have missed something just a few years back I guess it was.
Hello Dr. Spencer I am doing a research project on climate change for my high school physics class and I’d like to ask you some questions and respond to your article. I read your article and enjoyed it very much, especially the insight on the government and how they’re controlling what results and data are found on the topic of climate change. Although you support the idea that climate change is natural, do you at all believe it is human caused? Do you believe that the increase in greenhouse gases that are being used has any affect on the increase in temperature? Or is it just a coincidence that they’ve both been rising at the same time. Even though the government has vowed that climate change is a problem, what can they do to fix it if it’s naturally caused? Also, what is causing climate change if it’s all natural? Thank you for your time and I hope you can get back to me. Great blog.
Hi JW – Dr Spencer I am not, but like many other hapless pilgrims, have become stuck with this climatic tar baby. Stockholm University (Sweden) published a paper on 4th Dec 2015 which concluded that humans had affected atmospheric H2O 290 times more than we have affected the CO2 concentrations, all due to land and river management ~ agriculture, forestation , dams etc. The world has not woken up to this fact yet, and there will be much denial and distraction before anything useful happends; preservaton of the status and dignity of so many individuals, institutions and world figures takes presidence before paltry issues like climate.
My comment below points to matters in the Atlantic, specifically the culprit is a weather system called African Easterly Waves which had covered much of the Equatorial Atlantic mid summer with cloud. A reduction in the mass and frequency of these easterly waves ensured that additional solar energy was able to penetrate this dense cloud layer to heat the ocean surface. This Atlantic warming is what is more commonly known as ‘global warming’. Leave an e address and I can send info – it is basic physics: applied force (solar short wave [UV] energy) @ sea level on a clear day = 440 w/m3 averaged over a 24 hr period = 38M j/m2/day. Pre 1900 cloud cover @ 90% reduced by 15% till mid 1960s, then by another 15% since then. [albedo 90%). Sea surface albedo @ 10%. Salt water specific heat capacity @ 3993 j/kg/C. Multiply this by about 6 million km2 for 4 months per year. That is GW. The reason for this reduction in Easterly Waves is more complex but ultimately due to man made changes to the evaporation from the E Mediterranean and NE Egypt during the annual Nile flood season, due to dam construction – – – its complicated but true.
Conor
According to AR4, 90% of what is called global warming is happening in the oceans. Nearly 50% of that warming is in the Atlantic, but the Atlantic has only 23% of all the planets water and 21% of the planets surface area- ‘global warming’ is really Atlantic ocean warming. If you want to solve any problem first the problem had to be diagnosed properly. SOOOOOOO can we please, please, please concentrate on matters affecting Atlantic warming???????
That’s pretty clever of the back radiation from the colder GH pollutants like water vapor etc when you consider the well known fact that the back radiation does not penetrate the oceans by more than a few nanometers.