Fake Climate News from Reuters

August 10th, 2018 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

Will Google down-rank Reuters for spreading fake climate news?

I spoke at Heartland’s America First Energy Conference, held in New Orleans on Tuesday, August 7, 2018. A young Reuters reporter was there, who asked me before I spoke to tell him what I was going to say.

I simply replied, why don’t you come and listen to my talk to find out?

The result was a news story with this headline: Sea level rise ‘overblown,’ solar energy ‘dumb,’ climate change deniers tell forum

Climate change deniers“? Really? This is what passes for responsible journalism today?

As readers here know, I don’t deny climate change. I doubt any in attendance deny climate change.

I don’t even deny recent warming could be mostly human-caused.

The following photo of me speaking had the caption (emphasis added):

Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama, said the presence of Trump administration officials at the conference gave a boost to climate change deniers. (Edmund D. Fountain/Reuters)

I have no idea what I said that led the reporter to write: “Spencer said…the presence of Trump administration officials at the conference gave a boost to climate change deniers”. Where did that come from?

The mainstream news media (MSM) is treading on dangerous ground as Google is now deciding what web content is climate-denying and what isn’t. They don’t even understand the arguments. There are crappy science arguments being routinely published on the web on both sides of the debate.

About the only climate-related statements I might characterize as unsupported scientific claims would be, “the climate has cooled in recent decades”, or “there is no such thing as a greenhouse effect”.

But even though I consider those to be demonstrably wrong, I would not support censoring or putting disclaimers on such content. Even the most ridiculous claims (the Earth is flat, the Moon landings were a hoax) should be allowed to be heard and subjected to questioning, and maybe even ridicule.

If such censorship and search engine down-ranking is implemented, will they do the same for the recent “hothouse Earth” claims, which are little more than speculative sci-fi climate porn, with no new science, and totally ignore the most recent evidence that global warming of the oceans and atmosphere over the last century indicate the climate system is twice as resistant to warming as the IPCC claims?

Such hypocrisy is part of the reason why Americans (Canadians, Australians, et al.) are increasingly distrustful of the MSM.


409 Responses to “Fake Climate News from Reuters”

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  1. TomRude says:

    In typical fashion, the CBC had to reprint the Reuters story:
    http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-conference-new-orleans-1.4779156
    No comments allowed from them, thus no correction to the edict possible. In any case political censorship at the CBC is rife and pretexts abound to ban comments.

    • Bill the Sane Canadian says:

      So very true. CBC is so beholding to PETs brat (Trudeau jr for our American friends) that you simply cannot get anything factual from them anymore.

    • Dale says:

      Tom: The CBC was actually so obsessed with hiding the truth and not permitting any dissent that they wouldn’t even permit comments on the story. Attempts to contact them directly about their complete lack of investigation on this story were also blocked.

      • David Appell says:

        Lots of media no longer allow comments. The trolls and deniers have ruined them.

        • dennisa says:

          If presenting facts that show the AGW mantra to be flawed is trolling, then you have little interest in scientific fact, but merely follow your own group think.

        • WizGeek says:

          @Appell: “The Media” no longer supports comments on articles and opinions because they don’t want to pay for the “CPU cycles” and disk storage to maintain said comments.

          If by “ruined them” you mean “called into question their veracity amd motives,” then so be it. If a position is defensible in the arena of discussion–regardless of whether the position is for or against–then why not welcome and embrace the opportunity to defend? Is not the ultimate goal to arrive at the truth or at least form a cogent theory that allows a scientific method to prove its truthiness?

          Simply cutting off or denying discussion of or forcing acceptance of a position is a very Fascist thing in deed.

  2. Entropic man says:

    I see no problem with Steffan et al 2018.

    Their take-home message is that if we raise CO2 concentration to Eocene levels we will get Eocene temperatures and Eocene sea levels.

    • Nate says:

      I think the media, as usual, exaggerates the certainty about the ‘Hothouse Earth’ scenario. The paper had many caveats.

      The media fails to make clear that such papers are just one of many, with no consensus yet.

      Similarly Roy is over-emphasizing a single climate sensitivity paper, which is one of many, with no consensus yet.

      • Entropic man says:

        There is a theory that the climate tends to settle into one of four stable states.

        https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_and_icehouse_Earth

        Warmest is the Greenhouse or Hothouse Earth. Temperatures around 19C, CO2 over 500ppm and high sea levels.Ice cover is negligible.

        Next are two Icehouse Earth states.

        Icehouse Interglacial has temperatures around 14C, CO2 around 280ppm and current sea levels. Ice above 70N and 70S.

        Icehouse glacial has temperatures around 9C. CO2 is around 200ppm. Ice to 50N and 50S.

        Snowball Earth has temperatures around 4C. CO2 is less than 200ppm. Ice down to low latitudes.

        Nothing in Steffen et al is original. It describes what you would expect if we increase CO2 enough to tip us from Icehouse Interglacial conditions to Hothouse conditions.

        • gbaikie says:

          It is not really a theory, it’s classification.
          It’s like say lions are predators- and predators eat other animals.
          One can have theories related to it, but idea that animals eat meat or animals eat plants is not really a theory. Nor would making cats eat vegetables- prove that cats aren’t predators

          And Icebox climate is when the ocean temperature is 1 to 5 C.

          A snowball climate would be ocean of 0 C or colder ocean temperature. And there is no evidence of this happening on Earth.
          But if it did happen, one just change definition of icehouse to include a colder ocean

          I see it as a classification of two extremes: icehouse and hothouse which very different ocean temperatures. Hothouse is warmest Earth has ever been and icehouse [icebox] is coldest earth has ever been.
          And global climates in the middle of the extremes and most of Earth history in the middle.
          And most human history has been in the extreme of a icehouse climate.

          • David Appell says:

            gbaikie says:
            A snowball climate would be ocean of 0 C or colder ocean temperature. And there is no evidence of this happening on Earth.

            A snowball Earth has happened at least twice on Earth, and possibly several more times.

          • gbaikie says:

            –David Appell says:
            August 10, 2018 at 6:00 PM
            gbaikie says:
            A snowball climate would be ocean of 0 C or colder ocean temperature. And there is no evidence of this happening on Earth.

            A snowball Earth has happened at least twice on Earth, and possibly several more times.–

            As said there isn’t convincing evidence.

            But a question occurred to me, since you believe CO2 is a control knob when in Earth’s history has there been the lowest CO2 levels?

            So two question what is lowest CO2 that have occur [or could have occurred]
            And two, did the lowest CO2 levels occur at all the same time periods as these snowball earths that you are imagining may have occurred.

            It seems to me, that if you actually believed greenhouse gases control global temperature, a very low level of CO2 [and low levels of other greenhouse gases] would be required in order for you to begin to imagine that such cold conditions occurred.

            I and many others don’t think CO2 is this control knob, and lacking CO2 would cause Earth to be -18 C.
            But since you hold this fringe belief, it occurred to me, that the level of CO2 would be the only thing which should provide sufficient evidence.

          • gbaikie says:

            I ask the question, then briefly look for the answer.
            But I expect a fervent believer should have spend considerably more time looking into at this issue.
            So I provide this:
            “It is therefore interesting to ask what, if any, correspondence exists between ancient climate and the estimate of pCO2 in Fig. 4. The gray bars at the top of Fig. 4 correspond to the periods when the global climate was cool; the intervening white space corresponds to the warm modes (18). The most recent cool period corresponds to relatively low CO2 levels, as is widely expected (30). However, no correspondence between pCO2 and climate is evident in the remainder of the record, in part because the apparent 100 My cycle of the pCO2 record does not match the longer climatic cycle. The lack of correlation remains if one calculates the change in average global surface temperature resulting from changes in pCO2 and the solar constant using energy-balance arguments ”
            http://www.pnas.org/content/99/7/4167

            As perhaps, a starting point in the journey in which you can surely provide additional information.
            Or I expect people with fervent beliefs to have some clues which support their delusional ideas.
            So, what else have you got?

          • gbaikie says:

            Now you have mentioned that sun output is higher in last few hundred millions years.
            And you have expressed your belief that sun has not much to do with global temperature, BUT do have any record of lower solar activity, occurring at the same time period as the imagine times of snowball earth, which might have some effect- even though you believe CO2 is the dominate factor.

          • David Appell says:

            “Snowball Earth” Confirmed: Ice Covered Equator, 2010
            https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100304-snowball-earth-ice-global-warming/

            Snowball Earth: New evidence hints at global glaciation 716.5 million years ago, 2010
            https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100304142228.htm

          • David Appell says:

            gbaikie says:
            But a question occurred to me, since you believe CO2 is a control knob when in Earths history has there been the lowest CO2 levels?

            I don’t know offhand, but it doesn’t matter.

          • gbaikie says:

            –In the new study published to the journal Terra Nova, researchers argue that plate tectonics on Earth began 800 million- 600 million years ago.

            This, they say, is evident through both geological and theoretical evidence, and could help to explain nearly two dozen theories that have previously been proposed to explain the onset of Snowball Earth.–
            http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5701555/Snowball-Earth-700-million-years-ago-caused-plate-tectonics.html

            I would argue that plate tectonic 700 million years ago is rather vaque.
            And it seems a lot fuss is made of finding glacial activity near the equator.
            We currently have tropical glacier.
            And seems possible in the past we could different glaciers near equator.
            It even seems possible that during a hothouse climate we could glaciers in the Equator. But let’s make easier, say global temperature was 12 C rather than 25 C.

            As I said endless, what make icebox and Hothouse is the temperature of the ocean. And if want to get more specific- warm surface ocean water in or near the polar regions.

            We don’t have a really massive ocean current going to the poles.
            We call the Gulf stream huge but relatively it could considered on the small size.
            Or movement ocean water of tropics is much bigger than Gulf stream.
            Say, entire ocean average temperature is 10 C and global average is 12 C, and have large flows of tropical waters going both poles or one pole. And you have different glacier in tropics than the glacier we have currently in the tropics.
            Different in terms of bigger, as general thing, also could different in other ways. Or bigger and …

        • Christian says:

          i think it is not possible to simulate the Eem Temperature curve with high sensitivity due to GHG like CO2.
          We see the sharp T increase to the early Eem followed by the CO2 increase up to about 300 ppm (starting at 200).
          Relative small forcings (circulation, orbital) lead to relative fast decreasing T over the following centuries and millennia(2-4C). CO2 and all the claimed positive feedbacks could not stop the T falling to levels we see today and the last ice age was the result.

      • Nate says:

        So isn’t it a question of where are those tipping points? How close are we to a tipping point? High enough CO2 (2000 ppm) seems to do it.

        Also the configuration of the continents seems to matter a great deal.

      • dennisa says:

        But the science has been settled for years…

        • Nate says:

          That there is AGW? Will the Earth keep warming as a result? Yes. The ultimate state of the Earths climate in centuries? No.

    • Chris Hanley says:

      The Eocene planet was very different to now, for instance the oceans were much warmer with waters at 3400 meters depth in the South Atlantic around 16C compared with around 2C- 3C today.
      It would take a very long time to get the deep oceans to the same temperatures under current conditions.

  3. Nate says:

    I wonder if Roy agrees with the statement at the conference from Heartland Institute rep?

    “Huelskamp dismissed United Nations findings on climate change as “fake science” motivated by a desire for “power and control.”

  4. eric says:

    Those that can’t do or teach become politicians, bureaucrats, or “journalists.”

  5. Nudely says:

    “Those” (people) are who’s, not “that”s.

    Those who can’t do or teach…

  6. The next few years is going to put an end to much of this AGW nonsense.

  7. Rob Mitchell says:

    test

  8. Bri says:

    The problem is that they “believe” in climate change, you cant use facts or data to change someones religion. so you are a heretic , you are in good company though Galileo ect.

    • argus says:

      Just think, Industrialization has happened. It will only become more widespread. Warming, very logically, could be a result. While still yet small, in a little over 200 years, we’ve changed the Earth’s composition and makeup remarkably. If you rule out a tiny temperature adjustment upwards caused by the activities of billions of people, and say we’re too small to affect such a tiny speck as the Earth, 260 billion cubic miles, I think that you’re wrong. We’re indeed capable of much, as we’ve shown with Nuclear weapons, heart transplants, and countless concrete meccas.

    • Entropic man says:

      Its hard not to concede that coal hasnt been put on Earth and other fossil fuels as part of a divine plan,

      We are, I know, doing the Lords work.

      Fred Palmer, Heartland Institute

      “There has to be a designer a creator behind this to make something as complex as it is, yet as robust as it is,

      To be a true Christian means you have to believe and understand what we are being taught through the Bible and through Gods word.

      Professor David Legates

      The theory of creation actually had a much better scientific basis than the theory of evolution.

      Dr Roy Spencer

      Unscientific beliefs are more characteristic of climate change sceptics.

  9. Norman says:

    Roy Spencer

    You do bring up a very serious issue. You were misquoted for a story. Journalism needs to be like science. You pay people money to research and find the factual information about things. There could be bad journalists in the bunch but I think the problem is much deeper and serious. That is one thing I agree with Trump doing, pointing out “Fake News”. It upsets the Media but they should be upset with themselves. They need to go back to the basics of looking for the truth and getting away from activism and distortion. I can’t trust any story dealing with climate change and weather patterns. You would hope a good journalist would be like a good scientist and research the story. I can go back on my own and find all types of horrible weather events in the past. It is really difficult to say things are worse, better or the same as the past. Trends are difficult to generate on extreme events which do not happen very often to generate a trend.

    This video on “Fake News” is circulating on the web. It makes things look really bad for CNN. The sad thing is the top people in that organization don’t take active roles to make their news valuable information. Something bad has happened to the News media.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=41&v=buMab0eGAjk

    • gbaikie says:

      “You do bring up a very serious issue. You were misquoted for a story. Journalism needs to be like science. ”

      I tend to think a problem with journalism is they imagine they are like science [pseudo science].

      I think a better model might be a court reporter.
      Maybe, say, a court reporter on the lam.

      • David Appell says:

        Have you ever written any journalism?

        • gbaikie says:

          No.

          But journalism can be many things, and broadly it means selling
          stories- and I have not sold any stories.
          Nor have ever been a employee of publishing company in any capacity in my past.
          I am not a good writer [as numerous posters have pointed this out], but I would like to become better at writing- that requires practice.
          It could be a futile desire on my part.

          But my desire to be writer is not a desire to become a journalist.

          In true or pure sense a journalist is an explorer, attempting to get compensation for the work of the exploration which is done. Making living by exploring and documenting that work.

          Of course one could also do this without the focus earning money or being a paid professional journalist [but earning money at what you want to do, is a brilliant plan].

          It could be a hobby- and in that sense, that is what humans are “always doing”- in one form or another. Gossip [seeking and trading information] is what human do [a lot of], and is the only reason or the driving factor of why there are professional journalists.
          People want the professional help.

          Writing is an art, a writer is type of artist.
          Journalists are explorers or investigators.

          But none of this has much to do with the modern media, which are more like predators or scavengers. Quite similar to a drunken brawl.
          Of course people aren’t “a” anything [a writer or a journalist or an animal], but they can pursue a direction or have a meaning to life.

          Though in terms of modern media, you got to talk about editors and the producers of the news- but I don’t have much to say about that.

    • Svante says:

      A guy on the internet with a viral “fake news” story, what happened to your critical thinking Norman? I would like to see that one fact checked.

  10. gbaikie says:

    “I have no idea what I said that led the reporter to write: Spencer saidthe presence of Trump administration officials at the conference gave a boost to climate change deniers. Where did that come from?”

    Reporters mis-educated to make a story interesting by adding fictional aspects.

  11. m d mill says:

    We can calculate the sensitivity to CO2 doubling somewhat simply using the average linear change in global average UAH lower atmosphere temperatures since 1979, ie approx .5 C; and the co2 concentration change monitored during that same period ie 340 to 410 ppm. Assuming delta T is proportional to ln(concentration) [as every one seems to agree], then
    delta.T=k*[ln(410)-ln(340)] , so
    k=.5/[ln(410/340)]=.5/.187
    k=2.67
    So for doubling of CO2…
    delta.T=2.67*ln(2)
    delta.T=2.67*.693
    delta.T=1.85 degrees C per doubling of CO2 density

    This 1.85 C/doubling is inline with the results of Lewis/Curry, which is encouraging.

    However I still believe there is an underlying un-modeled natural cooling component during the last 100 years which makes this calculation too low.
    I am calculating 2.6+ C/doubling to be more likely.

    • DavidA says:

      m d mill says:
      We can calculate the sensitivity to CO2 doubling somewhat simply using the average linear change in global average UAH lower atmosphere temperatures since 1979

      No we can’t, unless you first subtract out the changes from (1) other GHGs, (2) aerosols, (3) brown carbon, (4) the Sun, (5) ENSOs, and more.

      • m d mill says:

        I said it was a simple calculation, not detailed.
        Please show me how the effects you mentioned change my result substantially. I do not think you can. Prove me wrong, but the burden now lies with you. You don’t seem to want to admit the models do not simulate the UAH data well over the last 40 years.

      • m d mill says:

        It occurs to me, the most important criticism you did not mention, which could indeed be significant, is the effect of deep ocean thermal capacitance. Since a significant temperature rate increase started around 1965, we have been in a ~55 year increase. Therefore my calculation (1.85) is more like the TSR than the ECS! (in fact the TSR would be somewhat larger than 1.85). The recent model average TSR is
        ~1.8C/CO2 doubling (see Eby et al 2013). Therefore the current models ARE in agreement with observed simply calculated TSR, and I have proved myself wrong (beat you to it). The modeled ECS, corresponding to TSR=1.8, is
        ~3C/doubling, so this ECS seems a consistent estimate based on the observed UAH data..at least to me…unless someone can prove another substantial omission.

        • JDHuffman says:

          m d mill, the “most important criticism” is that you are using a bogus equation. Start with garbage, and you end with garbage–GIGO.

          • m d mill says:

            show me the correct equation.
            describe what is incorrect, and why.
            I am open to correction.
            Until you do this what you say is not worth consideration.

            I simply want to know the truth, rationally arrived, regardless where it leads.

          • JDHuffman says:

            There is no “correct” equation because CO2 is NOT a heat source. It can NOT warm the planet.

          • m d mill says:

            If you perturb the resistance of a resistor in a simple voltage sourced circuit the current perturbation through the resistor responds as if the voltage source itself exhibited the perturbation. The calculation is the same. It can be theoretically viewed as a parameter perturbation OR a source perturbation. Your criticism on that score is invalid.

            If you however believe that CO2 does NOT effect the outward conductance of thermal radiative energy, given all the theoretical and experimental evidence to the contrary…well then have a nice life. There is no reason to continue this dialog.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            m,

            If you believe resistors or the atmosphere can accumulate or trap energy in any practical sense, you are mistaken.

            No magic one way insulators. No magic one way resistors in a simple circuit. Energy transmission is restricted equally in both directions.

            Time for you to shift the goalposts, and introduce another pointless and irrelevant analogy to support a GHE concept which you cannot even clearly annunciate!

            Oh, the wonders of climatological pseudoscience! Cooling is warming, anything can be anything else,
            and the GHE is so mysterious that it cannot be expressed in English!

            Time to deny, divert, and confuse, eh?

            Cheers.

          • Nate says:

            ” Energy transmission is restricted equally in both directions.”

            Argument by assertion, Mike. What evidence you got? None of course.

            Plenty of one-way insulators. no magic needed. Example: the window on my house.

            Science does seem like magic to those bad at science.

          • JDHuffman says:

            m d mill, Earth’s surface warms the atmosphere. Just as, in your circuit analogy, the energy from the source warms the resistor. I’m not aware of anyone that would disagree with that.

            The problem arises when the claim is made that the resistor will increase the voltage of the source.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Clown Nate believes windows only work in one direction!

          • Nate says:

            Never heard of passive solar heating?

            If you guys aren’t able to back up your BS comments with facts, then why are you here?

          • JDHuffman says:

            You mean “facts” like “one-way windows”?

            (What a clown!)

          • m d mill says:

            The co2 increase further restricts the long wave radiation which is coming (only) from the earths surface. There is very little coming from the space side of the insulator.
            Therefore it is the earth/surface side that responds with a temperature increase. The insulator is not “one-way”, but it is frequency dependent! This seems to be the key point you miss.

          • Nate says:

            Windows not ‘perfectly’ one-way insulators of course, just much better at transmitting visible light than IR and blocking heated air flow.

          • JDHuffman says:

            m d mill states: “Therefore it is the earth/surface side that responds with a temperature increase.”

            m d, you are unabashedly stating that the resistor can increase the voltage of the source.

            Just be aware that is blatant pseudoscience, my friend.

          • Nate says:

            m d “responds AS IF the voltage source itself exhibited the perturbation.”

            JD: “you are unabashedly stating that the resistor can increase the voltage of the source.”

            Proof positive that JD cannot read.

            And he twists peoples words to try to make them say things they obviously havent. Hes trying hard to get banned again.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Poor Nate can find nothing wrong with what I said. So, he has to make false accusations and mis-represent my words.

            His desperation just makes him that much more ineffective.

          • Bart says:

            Mike Flynn:

            “No magic one way insulators. No magic one way resistors in a simple circuit.”

            The simplest circuit I ever constructed was a crystal decoder for AM radio. Ever heard of a diode?

          • Nate says:

            JD “Poor Nate can find nothing wrong with what I said.”

            Maybe you’re not a native english speaker?

            Everybody who is understands that ‘as if’ means the thing that follows is not really happening.

            “He ran as if ghosts were chasing him.”

            While ‘unabashedly stating’ means the thing the follows is really true and happening.

            STATED: “set down explicitly” : “We declared our stated intention”

            Any other plain english phrases you need explained, JD?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Poor Nate can find nothing wrong with what I said. So, he has to make false accusations and mis-represent my words.

            His desperation just makes him that much more ineffective.

          • m d mill says:

            The co2 increase further restricts the long wave radiation which is coming (only) from the earths surface. There is very little coming from the space side of the insulator.
            Therefore it is the earth/surface side that responds with a temperature increase. The insulator is not “one-way”, but it is frequency dependent! This seems to be the key point you miss.

          • Nate says:

            JD,

            “Poor Nate can find nothing wrong with what I said.”

            Why do you bother even posting, when all you have to say is straight up bullshit?

          • JDHuffman says:

            m d mill says: “Therefore it is the earth/surface side that responds with a temperature increase.”

            No, you’re still trying to reuse the heat energy that left the surface. The concept that the atmosphere can “trap heat” is wrong. It can’t trap heat, and it can’t heat the surface.

    • Fritz Kraut says:

      m d mill says:
      August 10, 2018 at 4:26 PM

      We can calculate the sensitivity to CO2 doubling somewhat simply using the average linear change in global average UAH lower atmosphere temperatures since 1979, ie approx .5 C; and the co2 concentration change monitored during that same period ie 340 to 410 ppm.
      ________________________________________

      One problem is, we dont know the inertia of the global climatesystem. First of all because of the buffering effect of deep sea.
      If 410ppm would stay konstant-how long would warming go on?
      5 or 50 or 500 Years?

      • JDHuffman says:

        ZERO years, Fritz.

        Warming is NOT caused by CO2.

      • m d mill says:

        The ocean beneath the mix layer can be modeled as a simple distributed thermally capacitive/conductive system. Given this simplified but completely reasonable model the response is a theoretically strait forward calculation…it is not a mystery, and the TSR sensitivity is the result.

        The two parameters of this model can be estimated empirically from observed data. I have done so using two completely different methods and data types, and have calculated parameters that are identical to within 10%, which is extraordinary. Using these empirically derived parameters I have calculated the ECS/TSR ratio to be nearly identical to the value calculated by average of most model simulations, ie ~3/1.8=1.67 . Thus I consider the ECS/TSR ratio to be verified.

        To answer your question, the temperature response after 70 years to a linear change in CO2 forcing (which stops at some constant final value after 70 years) is ~.67 of the full final change…but requires hundreds of years to get much above the .9 of full final (due to the distributed nature of the system).

        There may be no reason you should believe me (because I cannot present the details here), but these are my results, sincerely presented to you here, which I hope to publish in years to come.

        • m d mill says:

          Excuse me, I should have said “~.6 of the full final change”
          NOT “~.67 of the full final change”,
          ie .6=(3/1.8) .

        • Bart says:

          Did other people not think of this because it is so esoteric and you are a genius?

          • m d mill says:

            Others may have used the same methods …i don’t know.
            I do not have a particluarily high I.Q., but i work hard and am open to correction.

            The fact that my TWO independantly calculated ECS/TSR ratios(based soley on observation) are nearly identical to the value calculated by the average of most model simulations (ie ~3/1.8=1.67) is encouraging.

            And I have found another error. I started this thread stating the ECS to be 1.85, based on admittedly simplifying assumptions. Then altered that to say it was more likely the TSR, and the ECS would then be about 3.0 .
            But I have misapplied the TRS definition to the UAH data (ie the temperature change from 1979 to the present, whereas the large increases in CO2 started aboout 1965)
            I now see that the value of 1.85 c/doubling is somewhere between the TSR and the ECS value (because the largest temperature lag occurs in the first ~30 years)
            I can figure this more precisely ,but it will take some time.

          • m d mill says:

            I have reviewed my plots of forcing response of the deep ocean to a sudden linear forcing (using a simple distributed capacitance/conductance model). If we approximate the CO2 forcing between between 1960 to 2018 as a sudden linear function, then the temperature change between 1979 and 2018 will be about 0.72 of the value for a similar system without any deep ocean and mix layer thermal capacitance.

            Therefore the estimated ECS for the sensitivity calculation (using UAH temperature data) given at the beginning of this thread would be

            ECS=1.85/.72 = 2.57 C/doubling CO2

            This does assume other sources of forcing variation during that time are insignificant.

            [it is interesting to me that this value is nearly identical to the “most likely” value I have calculated using other completely independent methods that filter out all interfering low frequency forcing trends]

  12. DavidA says:

    Roy wrote:
    If such censorship and search engine down-ranking is implemented, will they do the same for the recent “hothouse Earth” claims, which are little more than speculative sci-fi climate porn

    You’ll have to do better than that. This was a serious paper in a quality journal.

  13. Eben says:

    Welcome to Bizarro World – where politicians write the news – and the reporters engage in politics

  14. Rob Mitchell says:

    NOAA reduced the number hurricanes expected this year. Rush Limbaugh was how I first found out about it yesterday. That should tell you something about the news media!

  15. Rob Mitchell says:

    For Dr. David A. and those who think like him.

    http://www.noaa.gov/media-release/noaa-forecasters-lower-atlantic-hurricane-season-prediction

    Something tells me the global warming fanatics are brooding over this.

    • DavidA says:

      I already gave that link.

      Why did you imply that no media were reporting on it?

      • Mike Flynn says:

        Why do you ask?

        Cheers.

        • Rob Mitchell says:

          Mike, I never heard/saw any news media reports from radio or TV about the revised prediction downward, did you?

          DavidA, I don’t listen to Rush all day! Only in my car, and that is how I found out about it. It doesn’t fit the mainstream news media narrative, so they don’t report it.

          • David Appell says:

            Rob Mitchell says:
            DavidA, I dont listen to Rush all day! Only in my car, and that is how I found out about it. It doesnt fit the mainstream news media narrative, so they dont report it.

            I just *gave* you a link to all the news stories about it, yet you still deny this. Incredible.

            How do you think Limbaugh found out about it — from the media!

            Wake up.

      • Steve says:

        Did it make the headlines on CNN? Did it make the headlines at the NY Times or the LA Times? Of course it didn’t. If it was mentioned at all, it would be buried on page 40. If the NOAA released a report that said that hurricanes will increase, it would have been front page, top of the fold at those papers and top of the hour every hour on CNN and they would have blamed MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING?

        Do you get it now?

        • Rob Mitchell says:

          Thank you, Steve. That was exactly what I was trying to get through to DavidA’s dense skull!

          But he just spins the issue that Limbaugh got it from the mainstream news. And I was listening to Rush Limbaugh all day, and that is why I got the new from Rush instead of the mainstream news.

          This is a typical liberal-socialist-progressive tactic of deception.

  16. M d mill says:

    I said it was a simple calculation, not detailed.
    Please show me how the effects you mentioned change my result substantially. I do not think you can. Prove me wrong, but the burden now lies with you. You don’t seem to want to admit the models do not simulate the UAH data well over the last 40 years.

  17. CraigT says:

    I don’t think Reuters is responsible for the headline. The same Reuters story ran on Foxreuter.com with the headline “United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market.”

    • Mike Flynn says:

      C,

      You might be right, but who said Reuters was responsible? What’s the point of making something up, and then pointing out that you’re wrong?

      The article was credited as follows –

      “Thomson Reuters Posted: Aug 09, 2018 4:01 PM ET | Last Updated: August 10”

      Editors write headlines to go with supplied copy, framing the view as they wish. The copy is provided by so-called journalists, often based on their personal views of good and evil.

      For example, the paragraph “Pumping carbon dioxide into the air makes the planet greener; the United Nations puts out fake science about climate change to control the global energy market; and wind and solar energy are simply “dumb.”” may be factually correct, but presented in such a way as to imply that it is false.

      Emotive descriptions slanted one way or the other do not change physics one bit. Attempting to rally the stupid and ignorant to take up their pitchforks and torches to hunt down GHE unbelievers is pointless in the long run. Just more futile attempts to promote GHE worship – an invisible deity with awesome powers, obviously. Shiva, destroyer of worlds, has nothing on GHE, destroyer of rationality and scientific enquiry.

      Off you go, Craig. Work yourself into a righteous lather of self importance. Thrash around aimlessly, blaming mythical “deniers” for your impotence. See, that made you feel better, didn’t it?

      Cheers.

  18. Ken says:

    The alarmist claim is that we will see anywhere from 1 to 6 meters of sea level rise by 2050 or 2100 (both numbers depend on the alarmist)

    It doesn’t take much to look at a few long record tide gauges to find the average rate of sea level rise is 1 or 2 mm per year (3 mm per year if you believe the satellite data is somehow better) Even if you accept the 3 mm per year ‘data’ it still adds up to anywhere between 10 – 30 cm per century … certainly not 1 meter by 2100, never mind 2050.

    Then I looked at temperatures Antarctic and Greenland -40C and -10C. My understanding is that ice doesn’t melt at atmosphere pressure at temperatures below 0C and not much even at 10C …

    So that’s two strikes on the sea level alarmism.

    How does anyone still believe the AGW hypothesis has any merit?

    • CraigT says:

      “Winds from the south and high air pressure over Iceland caused a spike in melt area in early July. To date, heavy winter snowfall along the eastern side of the island and a near-average melt season means that the ice sheet has gained a large amount of mass. However if the melting intensifies, ice sheet mass could rapidly decline in the second half of the month.”

      There has been some mass gain to the Greenland glacier but the melt extent is higher than average this year.

      http://polarportal.dk/en/greenland/surface-conditions/
      click on the “Melt” tab.

    • CraigT says:

      The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment ran from 2002 – 2017 collecting satellite data on Greenland and the Antarctic ice sheets. Both were found to be losing mass throughout the experiment.
      https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/

    • Fritz Kraut says:

      Ken says:
      August 10, 2018 at 9:50 PM
      The alarmist claim is that we will see anywhere from 1 to 6 meters of sea level rise by 2050 or 2100
      _____________________________________________-

      I dont know what ‘alarmists’ claim (I even dont know one of them), but IPCC projects 70-100cm until 2100. Compared to pre-industrial level.
      And that seems realistic.
      Trend since 1993 is 3.3mm, and rise is accelerating.

        • Fritz Kraut says:

          @Bart
          Jevrejeva says it is accelerating:

          Trends and acceleration in global and regional sea levels since 1807

          “We calculate an acceleration of 0.02 ± 0.01 mm·yr− 2 in global sea level (1807–2009)”

          He also says:
          “There is a good agreement between the rate of sea level rise (3.2 ± 0.4 mm·yr− 1) calculated from satellite altimetry and the rate of 3.1 ± 0.6 mm·yr− 1 from tide gauge based reconstruction for the overlapping time period”

        • Nate says:

          Bart,

          I see you prefer one groups results, Jerejeva over another Church and White. Other than it agreeing with your narrative better, why is Jerejeva better?

          Discussion here seems solid.

          https://tamino.wordpress.com/2018/05/24/sea-level-data-church-white-or-jevrejeva-et-al/

          “By far most of the stations (86 out of 100) show less change than the jev data, which argues that the jev data are giving a false impression of the change in the rate of sea level rise around 1960. Their locations dont contradict that conclusion either; those stations are isolated, apparently at random, except for the fact that there are a number of them along the northeast coast of the U.S.

          It seems to me, this is nearly conclusive evidence that the jev data are seriously flawed. In particular, they point to a large decrease in sea level rise which is not only contradicted by the cw data, it is also contradicted by close examination of individual tide gauge stations.

          How then did the jev data reach this conclusion? In my opinion, its because of two serious analytical flaws. First, the virtual station method puts way too much emphasis on a small number of individual stations, enabling those very few which show the large change to dominate the vast majority which dont. Second, using the first-difference method (actually a modified form of it) so greatly increases the influence of random noise that it alone makes the jev reconstruction unreliable (see this).

          All of this means that we should be using the cw data, not the jev data. “

    • Fritz Kraut says:

      Ken says:
      August 10, 2018 at 9:50 PM

      Then I looked at temperatures Antarctic and Greenland -40C and -10C. My understanding is that ice doesnt melt at atmosphere pressure at temperatures below 0C
      ___________________________________________

      Your understanding is …. limited.
      Even the lowest AVERAGE-Temperature cant prevent ice melting.

      • Bart says:

        Sublimation and melting are two different things. And, if it weren’t, then we might as well party, because nothing can stop it from melting.

        • Fritz Kraut says:

          Bart says:
          Sublimation and melting are two different things.
          ___________________________________________________

          Of course. But thats not the point.
          Temperature and AVERAGE temperature are different things.

          You can even boil eggs in water of an AVERAGE temperature of -40C. It just has to be over 100 for a few minutes.

  19. Nate says:

    Ken,

    “Then I looked at temperatures Antarctic and Greenland -40C and -10C.”

    Parts of Greenland are above 0C this time of year, and the daily melting is tracked and shows more melting than in the past.

  20. gbaikie says:

    Its Easier to Leave the Solar System Than to Reach the Sun
    [[The center of the solar system is a tricky destination, but NASA is going.]]

    “In a very short time, we human beings have seeded our corner of the universe with all kinds of signs of our existence. We have flung hundreds of satellites into the sky, cloaking the Earth in technology. We sent spacecraft to swing by planets and moons, to orbit them, to roam their surfaces. A few years ago, we reached the invisible line between the end of our solar system and the beginning of everything else, and then pierced it, hurtling into the darkness beyond.
    This last achievement, humanitys escape from the solar system, was certainly astonishing, a testament to human ingenuity and engineering. But it was much easier than what were trying to do next.”…

    ” Im always amused when someone says, Shoot X or so-and-so into the sun, says Rand Simberg, a space consultant and an engineer. Because they have no idea how hard that is to do. ”
    https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/08/parker-solar-probe-launch-nasa/567197/

    Linked from:
    http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=71153

  21. gbaikie says:

    Suppose by year, 2050 AD, global CO2 levels are around 475 ppm.

    And if you think rising CO2 levels cause global warming how much would think that level of CO2 have warmed the world since the time of around middle 20th century when there was about 300 ppm?

    And suppose that at 2050 AD and in some fashion or another that CO2 do not increase any further and remain at about 475 ppm for next 200 years.
    Would having CO2 levels remain at 476 ppm for two century cause more additional increases to global temperatures?

    If so, then how much per century do you think having CO2 at 475 ppm would increase global temperatures?

    I imagine some could provide some kind of approximate range of temperatures, which they expect to occur.
    But another aspect is I have never had any answers in regard to possible difference expected in increase in temperatures of global land vs ocean surface temperatures.

    As I said on numerous occasions, global average land temperature is currently about 10 C and global average ocean temperature is about 17 C.

    So if you supposed global average temperature were to increase by 2 C due to increasing CO2 levels, would both the land and ocean surface temperature increase by 2 C?

    Average land would increase from 10 to 12 C and ocean from 17 C to 19 C?

    Or would one expect global land temperature to increase more than global ocean surface temperature?
    For example, land average temperature increase by 4 C and global average ocean surface temperatures increase by 1 C.

    There seems to me there could be numerous possible reasons why one could expect more of an increase in global land temperature as compare to surface ocean temperature.

    • David Appell says:

      delta(T) = (CO2’s climate sensitivity)*delta(forcing)

      delta(CO2’s forcing) = alpha*ln(CO2/CO2_initial)

      where

      alpha = 5.35 W/m2

      This is basic stuff that, if you are going to opine about CO2, you should know already.

      • JDHuffman says:

        It is “basic”–basically wrong.

      • gbaikie says:

        “alpha = 5.35 W/m2

        This is basic stuff that, if you are going to opine about CO2, you should know already”

        What practice value is connected with it?
        Why not simply answer my question using your basic stuff.
        If it doesn’t answer it- why mention it?
        And what could possibly tell you if it has nothing to do with global temperature?

  22. Compared to last month, the updated (June-July) MEI dropped rapidly to +0.07, ending up right in the middle of ENSO-neutral ranking. This means that not a single season has reached El Niño conditions in 2018. Looking at the nearest 12 rankings (+6/-6) in this season, and excluding all cases that departed by more than 0.6 standard deviations in the changes from the previous month as well as three months earlier (March-April), there are only four analogues to the situation this season: 1985, ’00, ’01, and ’08. All four of these cases either continued with ENSO-neutral conditions (2001) or dropped into at least intermittent La Niña conditions (especially in 2008, but also in 2000, and very briefly in 1985). Even among the other eight cases, El Niño was ‘not on the menu’ (2003 came closest). Compared to last month, the likelihood of El Niño conditions later this year has changed dramatically (from “inevitable” to “very unlikely”).

  23. and to add the overall sea surface temperatures are in a down trend.

  24. Darwin Wyatt says:

    I also agree most warming can be human caused. I think the correlation between Uhi is clear. That along w deforestation, water vapor from internal combustion engines and human caused albedo changes all contribute. But it’s also clear natural climate variability is the overwhelming factor with CO2 being a minor player if at all. The tendency for some alarmists on upward trends albeit natural, to politicize is obvious. The same can be said on downward trends, if somewhat less hysterically, by skeptics. I’m guilty of that but mostly because I know the big freeze is literally around the corner, geologically speaking. Meanwhile, the science is somewhat settled on oceans absorbing and releasing CO2 based on cooling or warming completely unrelated to an as of yet trace trace gas (anthropogenic CO2). The alarmist position died with the lack of significant temperature rise in relation to said anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It’s over as far as I’m concerned. Most people get this which explains the panic over gw subsiding. It’s over we’ve won! Eternal vigilance is still necessary to keep the would be collectivists at bay. Liberty 1, communists 0.

    • Nate says:

      “But its also clear natural climate variability is the overwhelming factor with CO2 being a minor player if at all.”

      Its clear? How can it be clear, when scientists who have looked at all the evidence, come to the opposite conclusion?

  25. CraigT says:

    But Darwin the oceans are becoming more acidic from an increased level of dissolved CO2 while the Earth warms.

    • Carbon500 says:

      CraigT: ‘ the oceans are becoming more acidic from an increased level of dissolved CO2 while the Earth warms.’
      The oceans are acidic, and becoming more so? Really?

      • CraigT says:

        Atmospheric CO2 has a higher C^13 to C^12 ratio than the carbon in fossil fuels. Studies show the C^13/C^12 ratio of CO2 both in the atmosphere and oceans are dropping over time as fossil fuel exhaust is added to the environment.
        https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bronte_Tilbrook/publication/6037061_Oceanic_Uptake_of_Fossil_Fuel_CO2_Carbon-13_Evidence/links/0deec526eeff549cc3000000/Oceanic-Uptake-of-Fossil-Fuel-CO2-Carbon-13-Evidence.pdf

        • JDHuffman says:

          Craig, you are WAY behind on your pseudoscience. That silliness is over 25 years old. Ocean acidification has been debunked for years.

          • David Appell says:

            JDHuffman says:
            Ocean acidification has been debunked for years.

            There is idiocy out there, but only at this site do you find it in such raw, unfiltered form.

            “Ocean acidification” (review)
            Phillip Williamsona, Carol Turleyb and Clare Ostlec
            MARINE CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS PARTNERSHIP: SCIENCE REVIEW
            2017
            doi:10.14465/2017.arc10.001-oac
            http://www.mccip.org.uk/media/1760/2017arc_sciencereview_001_oac.pdf

            See especially figure 2.

          • JDHuffman says:

            DA, obviously it is the idiocy you display, both in your links to pseudoscience and your physics.

            As Mike Flynn likes to advise, “Carry on”.

        • Nate says:

          What an idiot you are, JD!

          Isotopic ratio has nothing to do with acidification.

          Yet you splain physics to people with physics degrees!

          • JDHuffman says:

            Obviously poor Nate did not understand the connection between the two links.

            But, poor Nate seldom understands anything….

          • CraigT says:

            As awkward as it is to defend JD, I think he was addressing my first post on ocean acidification not the second on oceans absorbing CO2 released from fossil fuels.

            I’m not sure if the entire concept of pH is considered a pseudoscience by JD but field data shows 40 years of increases in dissolved CO2 and dropping pH in oceans around the globe.
            https://tos.org/oceanography/assets/docs/27-1_bates.pdf

          • Carbon500 says:

            The first use of the term ‘ocean acidification’ was in a paper by Ken Caldeira and Michael E. Wickett (Nature, vol 425, p365 in September 2003.
            This came from from America, of course – where all the good global warming scares began.
            Then there’s this from (of all people!) the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in their bulletin from 2015 (Vol 64, 1) where they claim that ‘anthropogenic CO2 reacts with water to form an acid’ – when referring to a buffered ocean! This has to be deliberately misleading, or written by an incompetent.
            The WMO then refer to ocean pH measurements during the previous 10 years, and say ‘while ocean surface pH has decreased during the period of observations at an average rate of -0.0013 per year to -0.0024 per year, depending on the location.’
            Let’s hope that they calibrate and check their meters at least daily if they claim to be able to measure such tiny pH changes.
            During my many years spent in medical laboratory science, pH measurements to two decimal places were the norm across all the assay systems in use. Making up buffer solutions was a way of life. Once the chemicals had been weighed as needed, mixed and dissolved in de-ionised water, it was customary to adjust the pH at the temperature of the room in which the buffer was to be used. To adjust the pH down, strong acid was added, and vice versa. We wouldn’t have dreamed of using such an idiotic phrase as ‘acidifying’ an alkaline buffer – the process was simply referred to as ‘adjusting the pH’.
            The whole point of a buffer is that it resists changes in pH. The scaremongers are claiming that there’s so much CO2 in the air that the oceans of the world are having their buffer systems overwhelmed by the addition of a few parts per million of CO2. Really? Where’s the bench laboratory experiment for proof of principle? This would be easy to show. Set up a sealed chamber with seawater in it, and add a few ppm of CO2 to the air above. Mix well, and then let’s see what happens – or not. If this hasn’t been done as a proof of principle, then why not? Care would need to be taken regarding the presence of micro-organisms in the seawater because of metabolic products.
            Rainwater is a weak acid (H2CO3) – i.e. it only partly ionises to yield protons (H+). and has a pH of about 5.3. Rain has been hitting our seas since time immemorial, and we’re still here.
            Never mind, these trivial claimed changes make for good scary science and some grant money, don’t they?

          • Nate says:

            Ok. I was too hasty hitting the ‘JD is an idiot’ button this time. My apologies.

          • Nate says:

            Carbon,

            “pH measurements to two decimal places were the norm across all the assay systems in use. Making up buffer solutions was a way of life. ”
            The pH of the global ocean is an AVERAGE of presumably thousands of measurements. As such, it can have a much smaller error than any single measurement.

            Just as the birthrate per woman this year is 1.76 babies is an average, though the individual measurements of babies are integers.

  26. Stevek says:

    The problem the media has today is the internet.

    They simply can no longer go out and tell lies without someone calling them out on internet. The playing field real has changed. They can adjust or die a slow death.

  27. GC says:

    CraigT,

    No, lets test your physically incomplete understanding of the relevance of TSI at TOA vs GASTA.

    You make the specifically unstated claim via suggestion that as TSI at TOA has reduced (approx 0.5 watts/m^2 equating to 1/2720th of TSI – no error bars considered) over the instrumental satellite record (1979) the increase in surface temperature (aggregated ocean and land surface – both without error bars) rules out downwelling incident Solar radiation as the cause of the increase in surface temperature (without error bars).

    However, when one takes into account the observed reduction in low level Cumulus cloud cover over the corresponding time frame (from 1982 when ISCCP satellite observations began) it is easy to see that an increase in downwelling incident Solar radiation penetrating to the surface from TOA far offsets the deceease in TSI at TOA.

    When one investigates the empirically observed ISCCP data further, and determines that the low level Cumulus cloud reduction since 1983 has had its largest reductions at the equatorial latitudes dominated by ocean water, one can easily determine that not only has downwelling incident Solar radiation flux increased at the surface since 1983 from an essentially unchanged TSI at TOA, but that increase in downwelling incident Solar radiation at the surface has largely taken place over ocean water at equatorial latitudes, increasing ocean heat content.

    Further, when one does a few basic calculations based upon the Trenberth energy budget, one can easily determine that the increase in GASTA and ocean heat continent is entirely attributable to the increase in downwelling incident Solar radiation at thesurface secondary to the reduction in low level Cumulus cloud.

  28. CraigT says:

    See my response to your meme-like regurgitated understanding of this topic by reading my post in the main thread of this article post thread below. I have tried to reply to your specific post immediately above with the relevant reply (posted in the main thread of this article post thread below), however my attempts to post into this specific sub thread have failed.

  29. GC says:

    The post immediately above is mine and was directed at CraigT but was posted by me inadvertantly using the screen name CraigT in error when I was rather wanting to initiate the post with @CraigT.

  30. GC says:

    @CraigT

    August 11, 2018
    A lot of people here have said CO2 cant be causing the warming because global temperatures go up and down while CO2 slowly rises. Lets test solar activity the same way.
    The graph at the link shows the total solar irradiance, cosmic ray count from Oulu and UAH TLT global anomaly for 1979 to July 2018. Solar activity ebbs and peaks with the roughly 11 year solar cycle. There is no rise and fall in temperature that matches that pattern.
    More important, over that time temperature has a warming trend while solar activity has a falling trend. Total solar irradiance is less over time and the cosmic ray count increases.
    https://i.imgur.com/RPc0mnZ.jpg

    CraigT,
    No, lets test your physically incomplete understanding of the relevance of TSI at TOA vs GASTA.
    You make the specifically unstated claim via suggestion that as TSI at TOA has reduced (approx 0.5 watts/m^2 equating to 1/2720th of TSI no error bars considered) over the instrumental satellite record (1979) the increase in surface temperature (aggregated ocean and land surface both without error bars) rules out downwelling incident Solar radiation as the cause of the increase in surface temperature (without error bars).
    However, when one takes into account the observed reduction in low level Cumulus cloud cover over the corresponding time frame (from 1982 when ISCCP satellite observations began) it is easy to see that an increase in downwelling incident Solar radiation penetrating to the surface from TOA far offsets the deceease in TSI at TOA.
    When one investigates the empirically observed ISCCP data further, and determines that the low level Cumulus cloud reduction since 1983 has had its largest reductions at the equatorial latitudes dominated by ocean water, one can easily determine that not only has downwelling incident Solar radiation flux increased at the surface since 1983 from an essentially unchanged TSI at TOA, but that increase in downwelling incident Solar radiation at the surface has largely taken place over ocean water at equatorial latitudes, increasing ocean heat content.
    Further, when one does a few basic calculations based upon the Trenberth energy budget, one can easily determine that the increase in GASTA and ocean heat continent is entirely attributable to the increase in downwelling incident Solar radiation at thesurface secondary to the reduction in low level Cumulus cloud.

    • CraigT says:

      Ren claimed “The climate is changing because solar activity and the geomagnetic field are changing in long limits.” Nothing you wrote applies to his post. Without worrying about exact rates or error bars the rising trend in cosmic rays reinforces the general point that total solar irradiance is dropping. Several posters here are betting on global cooling based on changes in TSI. Solar activity is unlikely to be the cause of warming 1979 to present.

      Can you link to the data that shows a reduction in low cumulus clouds?

      • Mike Flynn says:

        C,

        Can you post the description of the mythical GHE?

        Or even the mythical disprovable GHE hypothesis which purports to explain the aforementioned non-existent GHE?

        No? I thought not – climatological pseudoscience is based on unquestioning faith. So unquestioning that you can’t even say what it is that you are required to believe!

        Give it a try if you wish. Maybe you could draw more of the stupid, ignorant, and mentally deranged into your diminishing fold. I wish you well. Only joking.

        Cheers.

        • CraigT says:

          Let’s go old school:

          HEAT TRANSFER BY INFRARED RADIATION IN THE ATMOSPHERE
          By WALTER M. ELSASSER
          1942

          https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002007907;view=1up;seq=7

          • Mike Flynn says:

            C,

            If you appeal to authority, it is generally more useful to use an authority which supports your point of view, rather than your opponent’s.

            I merely point out that –

            1. Your reference is not a description of the GHE, and does not even appear to contain one.

            2. Your reference’s author declares that the ideas of Arrhenius in relation to the effect of CO2 on surface temperature have been shown to be untenable.

            If you actually read the paper, it is obvious that your comprehension skills are sorely lacking.
            There are some instances where various assumptions made by the author have also been shown to be incorrect, but this is not surprising given that more than seventy five years have passed since the publication of the paper.

            Do you wish to appear less ignorant and stupid next time, or is your motto “Backward and downward”? You could always have a stab at a GHE description yourself. How hard can it be?

            Cheers,

          • David Appell says:

            Re: Elsasser

            “Before the advent of numerical models of radiative transfer that included the detailed infrared spectrum of CO2 and water vapor, meteorologists used a simplified atmospheric radiation chart and tables developed by Walter M. Elsasser in 1942 and Arent Bruinenberg in 1946. The Elsasser Chart assumed that CO2 was a perfect black body absorber at all altitudes, but only for wavelengths between 13.1 and 16.9 microns. Other simplifying assumptions were made for water vapor.

            “Plass used his more sophisticated theory to warn that accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from anthropogenic sources could become a serious problem in the near future….”

            – Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, James Rodger Fleming (2005) p 122.
            https://tinyurl.com/y9bkpsuo

          • CraigT says:

            The paper explains and studies data on radiant energy from the atmosphere slowing the cooling of the planet.

            “In the atmosphere there are two radiating substances, water vapor and carbon dioxide. In Fig. 5 this black body flux of temperature To, which might be taken as the emission of the ground, is given by the triangular area (a) +(b). The net flux (which is the net loss of heat at the ground) is equal to the difference of the upward and downward flux and is represented by the area (b).”

            That is how I, Dr. Spencer and physicists for 3/4 of a century have explained the greenhouse effect. There are a lot of things in that 1940 paper that no longer match what we know about the greenhouse effect because of data being gathered and scientists arguing about its meaning.

            But I suppose it might come down to an appeal to authority. You say nothing in that paper could be true because it violates the second law of thermodynamics. Do I believe you or all the physicists like Elsasser who performed radiative energy transfer studies in the lab and saw no violation. Either that group lacked a basic understanding of thermodynamics or you and JD are wrong.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            C,

            A few points.

            Slow cooling is still cooling, isn’t it?

            You claim I said things which I didn’t.

            The paper is not a description of the GHE, nor does it contain one.

            It does not matter who supposedly “explains” something that does not exist!

            You may believe whatever you wish. It still doesn’t make fantasy become fact.

            Notwithstanding any of the above, are you disagreeing with anything I said, or are you just flying off at a tangent because you can’t provide any facts to support your disagreement?

            Complaining based on assertion makes you appear stupid and ignorant. Is this because you are stupid and ignorant, or are you just pretending?

            Cheers.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            DA,

            Are you disagreeing with something I wrote, or just whining for no good reason at all?

            Keep trolling.

            Cheers.

  31. GC says:

    @CraigT

    Keep in mind the below link incorporates other data and the graph displays TOTAL (all latitudes) average reduction globally.

    The latitude breakdown for low level clouds between 15N 15S is approx 6-8% reduction with a 2% rebound in 2001 stable since 2001 at 4-6% down relative to 1983 levels between 15N 15S.

    Ill find the links on my HDD for the more explicitly differentiated data by latitude.

    https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Low-level-cloud-cover-estimated-from-ISCCP-and-MODIS-adapted-from-Laken-et-al_fig3_287209825

    • CraigT says:

      That was an interesting paper:
      “In conclusion, there is no compelling evidence to support a wide-spread cosmic ray cloud connection, as outlined in Cosmoclimatology. I.e. there is no basis to the claims that solar activity, via a modulation of the cosmic ray flux, is able to significantly alter global cloud cover, nor explain recent global warming.”
      https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287209825/download

  32. Aaron S says:

    The left strategy is simple. One they create a trait like: racist, sexist, climate change denier, or nationalist using a fuzzy definition that can be changed depending on context. Then two they create a precedent of social consequences using extreme examples that are valid examples of flawed logic, socially negative behaviour, or even evil. This makes a “power word” that can have significant consequences. Then three, they apply the trait and ‘power words’ to examples that do not fit within the original definition. It is a straw man informal fallacy in essence. In this case, calling Roy Spensor a climate change denier for being a climate model sceptic is a straw man. The media are assigning a position that he never took. I believe this is a big part why fake news trend and media credibility was lost. There are irrational consequences for pointing out empirical facts and all someone has to do is use a power word and there can be real life damage to a person in society. I just hope that the James Damore case with google eventually provides protection against these irrational consequences. How great if you could get 10,000 USD for media slander for this clear example of fake news? In court they could not prove you deny climate change because you have a long precedent as a luke warmist.

    • David Appell says:

      You’re the worst kind of commenter. You have no facts to present, but just rant and rave that the left this and the media that and look how liberals have ruined your poor life.

      The word “denier” was invented to describe people exactly like you.

      (Yes, you.)

  33. Aaron S says:

    Craig T,

    Yet here is is empirical data showing the opposite.

    http://www.nature.com/articles/srep05159

  34. Aaron S says:

    I can not reply to posts. This sucks.

    https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287209825/download

    This paper has a mountain of evidence against it. Including the CERN work that definitively showed the opposite. Seems a case of someone pick and choosing within their biased dogmatic worldview.

    • CraigT says:

      The researchgate paper only addresses the correlation between cloud cover and cosmic rays from 1985 to 2010. There was rough correlation between 1985 – 2000 but after that the two move in opposite directions. Unless you have a possible reason why that would happen the finding is a mark against the cosmic ray – cloud connection.

      Your nature and PNAS papers show good correlation between cosmic rays and temperature on the geological scale. Higher cosmic rays go with lower solar irradiance so it’s hard to say if temperatures changed because of change in cloud cover.

      Note what the PNAS paper said: “Though generally the
      agreement between solar forcing and Asian climate is good, there
      are also periods without any coherence, pointing to other forcings
      like volcanoes and greenhouse gases and their corresponding feedbacks.” Even if increased cosmic rays lead to more clouds it doesn’t eliminate other forcings. For the past 40 years the cosmic ray and temperature trend has both been upwards.

  35. Aaron S says:

    Using a 2015 paper. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/287209825/download

    To go against more recent papers

    1. Svensmark.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02082-2

    2. CERN.

    Cloud chamber aerosol-cloud albedo
    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v533/n7604/full/nature17953.html

    3.
    Donnge cave asian monsoon
    http://www.nature.com/articles/srep05159

    3b.
    Pnas 9400 yr cosmic ray record correlated with asian monsoon
    http://m.pnas.org/content/109/16/5967.full

    This is basicall a case of Dunning Kruger and I am not trying to be critical because I do appreciate that Craig T used an actual citation, but it got crushed later. For the record there is a counter model based paper that suggests cosmic rays stopped working durning modern times because of industrial pollution.

  36. GC says:

    I dont subscribe to the cosmic ray flux theory of cloud modation. There simply is not enough evidence, be it chemical or biological.
    The point of the matter is however, is that the EMPIRICAL observations of low level Cumulus reductions completely undermines the CO2 theory of surface warming when viewed in conjunction with the LT satellite data, which clearly shows that the mechanism as spelt out by the CO2 theory is not causing the warming in the surface datasets. The step change temperature anomly increase in the LT satellite data shows thats not CO2 but strong El Ninos with weaker LaNinas due the increased energy in the upper oceans above the thermochline secondary to the increase in downwelling incident Solar short wave secondary to the decrease in low level Cu
    Ulus over equatorial latitudes. Theres absolutely zero evidence that the warming at the surface caused reduction cloud cover and not the intuitive and far more obvious order of occurance tgat reduced cumulus cloud caused the increase in temperature anomoly at the surface.

    The fact is, clouds are not understood. But what is understood is that increased Solar Short Wave at the surface secondaey ro decreased low level Cumulus cloud cover at the most sensitive latitudes to year round Solar flux – being the equatorial latitudes – dwarfs into insignificance the THEORISED increase in downwelling long wave radiation secondary to CO2.

    In short, the warming at the surface and the increase in ocean heat content is as a result of a clearer path to the surface for Solar radiation from an essentially unchanged TSI at TOA.

    • ren says:

      You make a big mistake by not appreciating the role of the stratosphere in climate change. The increase in GCR causes an increase in ionization in the lower stratosphere, depending on the geomagnetic field. This leads to a local temperature increase in the lower stratosphere at high latitudes. It will increase stratospheric intrusions in winter and spring periods.
      “Stratospheric Intrusions are when stratospheric air dynamically decends into the troposphere and may reach the surface, bringing with it high concentrations of ozone which may be harmful to some people. Stratospheric Intrusions are identified by very low tropopause heights, low heights of the 2 potential vorticity unit (PVU) surface, very low relative and specific humidity concentrations, and high concentrations of ozone. Stratospheric Intrusions commonly follow strong cold fronts and can extend across multiple states. In satellite imagery, Stratospheric Intrusions are identified by very low moisture levels in the water vapor channels (6.2, 6.5, and 6.9 micron). Along with the dry air, Stratospheric Intrusions bring high amounts of ozone into the tropospheric column and possibly near the surface. This may be harmful to some people with breathing impairments. Stratospheric Intrusions are more common in the winter/spring months and are more frequent during La Nina periods. Frequent or sustained occurances of Stratospheric Intrusions may decrease the air quality enough to exceed EPA guidelines.”
      http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/clisys/STRAT/gif/zu_sh.gif

    • ren says:

      Total ozone in the southern hemisphere.
      https://files.tinypic.pl/i/00969/ii4m04q8lrop.png

  37. Bob Tisdale says:

    Roy, you wrote, “This is what passes for responsible journalism today?”

    But isn’t “responsible journalism” an oxymoron nowadays?

    Cheers.

    Bob

  38. Ren you have it correct and I see some do not understand that the global temperature response due to solar activity should have been and was up until 2005.

    Only after 2005 did solar activity become low enough to start to have a cooling impact on the climate but lag times have to be included of 10+ years and thereafter a period of very low average solar parameters has to take place which started in late 2017.

    As one can see the overall sea surface temperatures are off some .2c over the last year and the global temperatures will follow.

  39. There is a galactic cosmic ray cloud/explosive volcanic eruption connection just as there is a UV light intensity /overall sea surface temperature connection.

    We will be finding out now- next few years as the low solar conditions necessary to have a more apparent climate connection are now here.

    Threshold levels are out there meaning you can have items increase/decrease but if they do not reach the threshold the effects are minimal.

    With solar conditions now as they are perhaps some threshold levels will be met.

  40. I have called for global cooling as early as 2010 or 2011 which did not pan.

    The earlier calls were wrong because they were based on a continuation of very low average value solar parameters and not enough years of sub – solar activity in general were present. I did not realize the coming of solar cycle 24 maximum, which although weak was strong enough to put on hold the solar/climate cooling connection.

    This time however is now the first time since the Dalton solar minimum ended, that the solar conditions are in. Also this time(now-next few years) if cooling does not take place , I can not use the excuse that the solar conditions I expected needed for cooling did not materialize.

    So if cooling does not take place now-next few years that will be bad for my theory. On the other hand if no further warming takes place over the next few years, then by the same token that will not look good for AGW theory.

    The climate test in on and I think this year is the transitional year. Only time will tell.

  41. Aaron S says:

    Salvatore. The complexity is if solar and CO2 both have forcing. Then it is a game of rates.

  42. gbaikie says:

    If you ever wondered what a Ice Age looks like, then you should look outside.

    We are in an Ice Age and we have some who think Earth could become like Venus any day now.

    The hoping for the Venus, is something which some day could be realized, because one could travel to Venus.

    Venus may become a hot tourist destination sometime within 100 years.
    If you want to visit another planet, Venus is the closest.

    Venus has lots of sky, so as, to put sky cities in. And one of things you might want to see, is when and where it snows CO2 on Venus. Though skiing the CO2 snow on Venus, could be rather fantastic [not going to happen too soon- Ie, it’s a very daunting plan]. And seems skiing on Mars might be more realistic or practical.

    No one knows much about Venus, but it seems likely the terminator line of night and day could be a good place to witness as a tourist.
    It’s probably quite violent- and if no one getting injured too much, then it’s fun.

    What is knowable about Venus is it in a pretty good location in our solar system- in regards of being in a orbit of Venus.

    One travels about our solar system by using hohmann transfers, which roughly speaking to the longest path to somewhere but requires the least amount rocket power to get to that somewhere. And one could say that Venus is location with a short pathway in terms of distance to getting somewhere- like Earth, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, etc.
    But also, Venus atmosphere could made into a tourist destination.

    What is happening now, is we in a long term growth rate of the global satellite market- and could call this a space market.

    And when this space market grows much, much, bigger in the future, we will probably be doing things like having tourists going to Venus.

    I and many others [including US Congress in terms of passing laws to that effect] think it would good idea to explore the Moon and then explore Mars.
    How this is done, is the difficult thing in terms of finding much agreement.
    And it seems to me, that it’s unlikely I will happy with how it will be done- not too happy about how it’s been done so far, and I expect that this will continue.
    Meanwhile and almost on different topic, we have billionaires doing things like making rockets- Ie SpaceX and Blue Origin.
    I can’t say I have had much faith in billionaires, and I am constantly surprised by their crazy desires [and more importantly, that they are actually getting things done].
    Trump and his Space Force thing- is likewise surprising.

    So we living in an Ice Age and lots of people are worried about it getting a bit warmer.

    That is pretty amazing.

    Stupid, but still, it is quite amazing. An amazing skill- sort of like, juggling 7 balls and an elephant.

    Now, one could say it’s all talk and no action- no one actually juggling an Elephant or even a number of balls.
    But I would say that it’s the thought that counts.

    Does increasing CO2 levels cause warming?
    I believe so.
    But warming means increasing the global average temperature.
    And right now, global average temperature is about 15 C.
    And 15 C is not very warm, or one only get an average global temperature of 15 C when you are in an Ice Age.
    How warm the day gets is different topic, the warming of summer day is due to sunlight. Summer is when the sun gets nearer to zenith at noon.
    70% of Earth is ocean and global average surface temperature is about 17 C, and the result is and average global temperature [Land+Ocean] of about 15 C.
    To get a significant increase in global average temperature, the average surface temperature of ocean has to get warmer than 17 C.
    17 C is not very warm, and it’s average of 17 C because 40% of ocean is in the tropics where the average ocean surface temperature is about 26 C. 26 C is warm and having such a large area be be warm, increase the average surface temperature of entire ocean to 17 C.
    Increasing the global average requires the ocean surface outside of the tropics [60% of all ocean water] to increase in temperature. The 60% of ocean surface water [outside of tropics] average temperature is about 11 C [which is fairly cold] if it were to warm to 15 C [still fairly cool] that would significantly increase global average temperature. And would significantly increase average land temperature [which is currently about 10 C- which is fairly cold].
    If the 60% of ocean warms to 15 C, the nightmare of alarmist becomes a reality [in terms of having a much higher global average temperature number- or much higher than 15 C global average temperature. But Earth is *still* fairly cold.
    But increasing the 60% of the rest of ocean to 15 C, is basically impossible- within a century. Though if allowing for thousands of years into the future, it’s possible, but not likely.

    • David Appell says:

      gbaikie says:
      We are in an Ice Age and we have some who think Earth could become like Venus any day now.

      Bullsh!t.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        DA,

        Bullsh!t??

        Talking to yourself again, David?

        Cheers.

      • ren says:

        Your views are harmful because they do not warn people against the very cold winter of 2018/2019.

      • Carbon500 says:

        DA: I notice that you haven’t responded to gbaikie’s comment that ‘right now, global average temperature is about 15 C. And 15 C is not very warm’,
        Temperature anomalies have been so much more useful in spreading scary stories, haven’t they? Stretch the axis of the graphs upwards, and hey presto – we’re doomed!

        • Nate says:

          Carbon,

          Given that we often get 40C in tropics and -40 C at the poles, is the average of 15 C really meaningful to you?

          Anomalies are helpful in seeing change over time.

        • Bindidon says:

          “Temperature anomalies have been so much more useful in spreading scary stories, haven’t they?”

          If you prefer absolute temperature measurements: feel free to use them!

          But they all will tell you only where it is warm and where it is cold, and not where it gets colder or warmer wrt a given reference period.

          Should you btw think that using absolute values would produce less scary stories, then you might have the problem of terribly underestimating today’s press.

      • tonyM says:

        Ren don’t spoil Appell’s clothing needs. His comments suggest he goes all year round with only shorts. He won’t spare a thought for the sharks and fish which were frozen alive earlier in the year; he just wants more of the same.

        The Emperor penguins aren’t complaining. There is plenty of space around them if he is uncomfortably hot where he lives now (I could get him a special price for a scenic spot close by – only a small fee payable).

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      gbaikie…”Venus may become a hot tourist destination sometime within 100 years”.

      Literally….with a surface temperature around 450C.

      Don’t forget your fire proximity suit and your Scott air pack.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_proximity_suit

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Air-Pak_SCBA

      • gbaikie says:

        wiki:
        “The colonization of Venus has been a subject of many works of science fiction since before the dawn of spaceflight, and is still discussed from both a fictional and a scientific standpoint. However, with the discovery of Venus’s extremely hostile surface environment, attention has largely shifted towards the colonization of the Moon and Mars instead, with proposals for Venus focused on colonies floating in the upper-middle atmosphere and on terraforming.”

        Some people think colonization is not good way describe it- because colonization is defined as “the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area.”
        Or even def 2: “the action of appropriating a place or domain for one’s own use.”
        But I sometime use the word, anyhow, but I like to use word, settlements or towns.

        Also colonization has suggestion by it’s done by a government or by government program. Or people might imagine NASA would colonize or create settlements on a different planet.
        US government or Congress doesn’t support idea of using tax dollars to make space colonies- and it example of Congress making a good decision in my opinion.
        Anyhow, base for exploration purpose is different than a town- Congress is fine with having government bases.

        Wiki, continue:
        At least as early as 1971 Soviet scientists have suggested different approaches, however, claiming that rather than attempting to colonize Venus’ hostile surface, humans might attempt to colonize the Venerian atmosphere. Geoffrey A. Landis of NASA’s Glenn Research Center has summarized the perceived difficulties in colonizing Venus as being merely from the assumption that a colony would need to be based on the surface of a planet:

        “However, viewed in a different way, the problem with Venus is merely that the ground level is too far below the one atmosphere level. At cloud-top level, Venus is the paradise planet.”

        Landis has proposed aerostat habitats followed by floating cities, based on the concept that breathable air (21:79 oxygen/nitrogen mixture) is a lifting gas in the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere, with over 60% of the lifting power that helium has on Earth.[6] In effect, a balloon full of human-breathable air would sustain itself and extra weight (such as a colony) in midair. At an altitude of 50 kilometres (31 mi) above the Venerian surface, the environment is the most Earth-like in the Solar System – a pressure of approximately 1000 hPa and temperatures in the 0 to 50 °C (273 to 323 K; 32 to 122 °F) range. Protection against cosmic radiation would be provided by the atmosphere above, with shielding mass equivalent to Earth’s.”
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus

        Though Venus has lots of hydrogen one get from clouds of acid and atmosphere lacks anything to burn hydrogen.

        • gbaikie says:

          Is It Racist to Refer to Space ‘Colonization’?
          The language police have come for the space geeks.
          Jesse Singal | August 16, 2018

          “On Tuesday, The Outline published a usefully illustrative exemplar of such overpolicing. In “The Racist Language of Space Exploration,” Caroline Haskins digs into the future of space exploration and the forces that will shape it.

          Haskins does raise some interesting points and flirts with some intriguing questions. For example, she notes that there is a looming problem with the concept of private property in space, given that ownership there may well be banned by a treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory.”
          http://reason.com/archives/2018/08/16/is-it-racist-to-refer-to-space-colonizat

          Well there is problem with concept of private property in space,
          And it could or could not related to US making US colonies in space, but idea of mars settlements is being self governed.
          Or a mars could make the dumb choice of being communists- though small communities do naturally tend towards be what you could call communist.
          So there are problems with nations on Earth claiming territory in space, but there shouldn’t be a problem new nations forming on Mars or Venus, or people living there form a new government- probably get around to being recognized as nation by other others on Earth. Or failing that, being recognized by other nations in space. Say two different mars settlements recognizing each other as new nations.

  43. steve case says:

    About the only climate-related statements I might characterize as unsupported scientific claims would be, the climate has cooled in recent decades

    Some aspects of climate have cooled. Summertime highs in much of the United States have cooled since the 19th century:

    https://s6.postimg.cc/pgojg85vl/10er3ps.gif

    • Nate says:

      Some regions yes, but not at all true for the western US.

    • Bindidon says:

      “Summertime highs in much of the United States have cooled since the 19th century”

      1. Are you an American?

      US is about 2 % of Earth, i.e. 7 % of its land surface.

      2. Are you sure?

      If it was true, why then do I see so few maxima coming from before 1900 in a sorted list of all maxima above 40 C collected out of the US GHCN daily stations?

      The highest maxima occured during the 1990’s, and the world’s (!!!) highest maximum in GHCN daily (about 35,000 stations) was recorded in South Dakota in 1997, september 28:

      SD RED CANYON SOUTH DAKOTA 1997 9 28 56.7 C

      Of course: if you average all these local station maxima into months, things become different.

      And if you again average all that into years, 1934 suddenly appears on top.

      3. If US is cooling, why aren’t there in GHCN daily as many minima below 40 C as there are maxima above 40 C? The maxima ratio min/max is roughly 1 (one) %.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        binny…”1. Are you an American?

        US is about 2 % of Earth, i.e. 7 % of its land surface”.

        …..

        Germany is in Europe and you are European. It makes no sense to call Germany ‘Europe’, does it?

        America is a continent and the United States is a country ‘IN’ that continent. Canada in in the continent as well and we are as much Americans as the US, as are Mexicans, Guatamelans, Brazilians, etc.

        http://www.7continents5oceans.com/north-america

        There is no difference between North America and America. The United States is in America, not America itself.

        Sooner or later, preferably sooner, the good citizens of the United States are going to have to drop the anachronism of ‘America’, as reference to themselves only, and join the rest of us as Americans.

        The problem is, the name United States does not lend itself well to a nickname. Still, it makes no sense to call yourself America when the full name is United States of America. The name of the country makes it clear that the good, old US of A is in America, not America itself.

        • Bindidon says:

          As usual, dumb, completely off topic replies written by the most ignorant, incompetent person writing here.

          I will be as tolerant as is Roy Spencer.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            binny….”As usual, dumb, completely off topic replies written by the most ignorant, incompetent person writing here”.

            I call you an idiot for good reason. I made a point about the term ‘America’, backed by geographical fact, and you fail to address my point.

            I pointed out a similarity to you, a German, living in Europe, another continent. You call yourself German and don’t insist that Germany is Europe. Nor do France, Belgium, Poland or any other country in the continent of Europe.

            Mind you, we do have issues with the UK, where some people insist on calling the UK ‘England’. England is a country in the UK and is not the UK itself. Similarly, the United States is a country in America, as it’s full name declares, yet many people insist on calling that country America.

            This is simply bad geography, not to mention bad English, just as AGW is bad science. Anyone speaking English who translates the ‘United States of America’ as the US being America, needs a refresher course in English.

            It seems you support bad science as well as bad geography and bad English.

            Yet here you are calling me ignorant. Go figure.

      • steve case says:

        Even though the United States is only 7% of the land area, it’s a good sampling of a variety of climate types across an entire continent. The implication that it is somehow an outlier in terms of summer maximum temperatures is a matter of faith as weather records in the rest of the world aren’t anywhere near as complete as those in the U.S.

        • Bindidon says:

          “Even though the United States is only 7% of the land area, its a good sampling of a variety of climate types across an entire continent.”

          Yes but this does not make the US by definition a good sampling of the whole world.
          ___

          “… a matter of faith as weather records in the rest of the world arent anywhere near as complete as those in the U.S”

          It is historical evidence that the US stations are thoroughly domnating the rest of the world in any global record.

          But nevertheless, a complete scan over GHCN daily data

          https://tinyurl.com/y8xyojfw

          shows that inbetween, there are as many stations outside as there are inside of the US (nearly 18,000 each).

          The major problem of the US predominance is, as I showed to bilybob some weeks ago, the fact that many world temperature series look as if there were made out of CONUS with a little backyard around it, a situation out of which you can only escape by averaging station data into appropriate grid cells.

      • bilybob says:

        Hey Bindidon,

        I am not familiar with a Red Canyon South Dakota world record in 1997. A world record of 56.7C did occurred in Death Valley in 1913. I was unaware that it had been tied.

        • Bindidon says:

          Hello bilybob

          No idea where you obtained your Death Valley data.

          The Red canyon record was found by tracing all records in GHCN daily above 40 C. Here are the top 5:

          US SD RED CANYON SOUTH DAKOTA 1997 9 28 56.7
          US SD RED CANYON SOUTH DAKOTA 1993 9 29 56.7
          US OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 4 56.7
          US MT LITTLE BULLWACKER CREEK MON 1991 5 3 56.7
          US CA GREENLAND RCH 1913 7 10 56.7

          The first occurrence of Death Valley is at position 96:

          US CA DEATH VALLEY 2013 7 1 53.9

          No record with Death Valley in 1913 was found in the list (over 880,000 lines).

          • bilybob says:

            Greenland RCH is in death valley.

            On 13 September 2012 the World Meteorological Organization disqualified the record for the highest recorded temperature, exactly 90 years after it had been established at El Azizia, Libya, with a measurement of 58°C. The official highest recorded temperature is now 56.7°C (134°F), which was measured on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA.

            Not sure of your other data points, it may be a parsing error. Riddle Mountain north of 40C? Not likely. Others look suspect too. Temperatures above 50C very rare and usually in desert areas.

          • Bindidon says:

            Sorry bilybob: the list seems to be correct.

            I verified for positive and negative extremes (e.g. Tahinichok, AK) in the ‘dly’ files of the GHCN daily record.

            For Riddle Mountain in OR, the data file shows in 2011, June 6 56.7 C in the TAVG line. TMIN and TMAX were invalidated (probably because they show exactly the same value as TAVG).

            If I would not have included TAVG, the line would not have appeared.

            Look at all Riddle Mountain lines above 40 C:

            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 4 56.7
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 5 53.6
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 11 52.4
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 13 51.9
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 10 51.8
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 12 48.2
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 1 47.9
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 2 47.7
            USR0000ORID OR RIDDLE MOUNTAIN OREGON 2011 6 6 44.9

            I cannot imagine all these being outliers. Should you have real doubt, so please contact NOAA. Maybe a forrest burned down at that time?

            *

            Of course you are right: Greenland Ranch is in Death Valley! But

            USC00043603 36.4500 -116.8667 -51.2 CA GREENLAND RCH

            is not

            USC00042319 36.4622 -116.8669 -59.1 CA DEATH VALLEY HCN

          • bilybob says:

            I check the raw data, there seems to be some kind of error. The failure codes are listed below.

            USR0000ORID TMAX 78 H U 20110527
            USR0000ORID TMAX 44 H U 20110528
            USR0000ORID TMAX 233 H S U 20110529
            USR0000ORID TMAX 522 H G U 20110530
            USR0000ORID TMAX 589 H X U 20110531
            USR0000ORID TMAX 572 H X U 20110601
            USR0000ORID TMAX 578 H X U 20110602
            USR0000ORID TMAX 567 H G U 20110604
            USR0000ORID TMAX 589 H X U 20110605
            USR0000ORID TMAX 600 H X U 20110606
            USR0000ORID TMAX 483 H G U 20110607
            USR0000ORID TMAX 172 H U 20110608
            USR0000ORID TMAX 500 H G U 20110609
            USR0000ORID TMAX 550 H G U 20110610
            USR0000ORID TMAX 561 H G U 20110611
            USR0000ORID TMAX 533 H G U 20110612
            USR0000ORID TMAX 561 H G U 20110613
            USR0000ORID TMAX 517 H G U 20110614
            USR0000ORID TMAX 133 H U 20110615
            USR0000ORID TMAX 144 H U 20110616

            G = failed gap check
            S = failed spatial consistency check
            X = failed bounds check

          • bilybob says:

            sorry for the formatting issue. Please note there are a few data points that show no error. The error code is between the H and U.

          • Bindidon says:

            “I check the raw data, there seems to be some kind of error.”

            Again: please consider the TAVG lines, these were accepted.

          • bilybob says:

            Yes, and clearly these should be thrown out. Look at the weeks before and after. I going to go with WHO on the highest temperature. NOAA is clearly wrong here. This is a high latitude and my guess is that the elevation is high too. Someone screwed up on this. Is there a process to inform NOAA?

            SiteID DataType DATA Var1 Var2 Var3 Date
            USR0000ORID TAVG 65 U 20110522
            USR0000ORID TAVG 37 U 20110523
            USR0000ORID TAVG 50 U 20110524
            USR0000ORID TAVG 47 U 20110525
            USR0000ORID TAVG 19 U 20110526
            USR0000ORID TAVG 26 U 20110527
            USR0000ORID TAVG 15 U 20110528
            USR0000ORID TAVG 42 U 20110529
            USR0000ORID TAVG 123 U 20110530
            USR0000ORID TAVG 517 G U 20110531
            USR0000ORID TAVG 479 U 20110601
            USR0000ORID TAVG 477 U 20110602
            USR0000ORID TAVG 567 U 20110604
            USR0000ORID TAVG 536 U 20110605
            USR0000ORID TAVG 449 U 20110606
            USR0000ORID TAVG 379 U 20110607
            USR0000ORID TAVG 102 U 20110608
            USR0000ORID TAVG 185 U 20110609
            USR0000ORID TAVG 518 U 20110610
            USR0000ORID TAVG 524 U 20110611
            USR0000ORID TAVG 482 U 20110612
            USR0000ORID TAVG 519 U 20110613
            USR0000ORID TAVG 311 U 20110614
            USR0000ORID TAVG 74 U 20110615
            USR0000ORID TAVG 76 U 20110616
            USR0000ORID TAVG 129 U 20110617
            USR0000ORID TAVG 86 U 20110618
            USR0000ORID TAVG 90 U 20110619
            USR0000ORID TAVG 144 U 20110620

          • bilybob says:

            TMin also screwy
            SiteID DataType DATA Var1 Var2 Var3 Date
            USR0000ORID TMIN 39 H U 20110530
            USR0000ORID TMIN 411 H G U 20110531
            USR0000ORID TMIN 417 H G U 20110601
            USR0000ORID TMIN 400 H G U 20110602
            USR0000ORID TMIN 567 H G U 20110604
            USR0000ORID TMIN 461 H G U 20110605
            USR0000ORID TMIN 372 H G U 20110606
            USR0000ORID TMIN 111 H U 20110607
            USR0000ORID TMIN 39 H U 20110608
            USR0000ORID TMIN 22 H U 20110609
            USR0000ORID TMIN 483 H G U 20110610
            USR0000ORID TMIN 489 H G U 20110611
            USR0000ORID TMIN 444 H G U 20110612
            USR0000ORID TMIN 478 H G U 20110613
            USR0000ORID TMIN 94 H U 20110614
            USR0000ORID TMIN 22 H U 20110615
            USR0000ORID TMIN 0 H U 20110616
            USR0000ORID TMIN 67 H U 20110617
            USR0000ORID TMIN 61 H U 20110618

          • bilybob says:

            That should have been WMO not WHO.

          • Bindidon says:

            Yes yes bilybob…

            But then all data on top of the list must be wrong, beginning with:
            – USR0000SRED 43.4258 -103.7589 1415.5 SD RED CANYON SOUTH DAKOTA
            – USR0000MLIT 47.8139 -109.0167 944.9 MT LITTLE BULLWACKER CREEK MONTAN
            etc etc.

            Where will you start considering it OK?

            What do you say about the very, very strange lines below 40 C?

            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 1 -72.8
            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 19 -72.8
            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 23 -72.8
            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 2 -72.8
            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 5 -72.8
            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 3 -72.4
            USR0000ATAH AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA 2013 5 4 -70.9

            provided by

            USR0000ATAH 67.5503 -163.5672 294.4 AK TAHINICHOK ALASKA

            Wrong as well?

          • bilybob says:

            Not sure what your asking of me Bindindon. I referenced WMO as saying what the world record temperature was on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch, Death Valley, California, USA. This is also confirmed by Guinness World Book of Records and Wikipedia. I pointed out an apparent error with Riddle Mountain data. The error is not your fault, it is NOAA’s. But the fact remains, the highest temperature recorded on this planet occurred in 1913 using parameters accepted by WMO. There have been higher temperatures recorded but these are either at the surface or other conditions that disqualify it from being an official record.

            As far at the other sites you listed, do you wish me to investigate them? Do you feel they are in error as well? They won’t change the fact Greenland Ranch still has the record temp though. So not sure of your point.

          • La Pangolina says:

            My points are that

            – of course I agree to your consideration of this homologated world record temperature was on 10 July 1913 at Greenland Ranch;

            but also that

            – nonetheless we can’t simply doubt about recorded temperatures because

            — they aren’t homologated by WMO;
            — they were recorded at places inimaginable for us.

            And it is for me (not only for you) hard to imagine that a station like Red Canyon in South Dakota not only is on the world’s podium with a few others but has moreover an incredible amount of (accepted) daily temperatures above 45 C.

            I made a plot of Riddle Mt, OR:

            http://4gp.me/bbtc/153443820789/001.jpg

            Shall we now begin to suspect the 56.7 C just because the plot does not show any monthly peak for June 2011?

            I know: GHCN daily consists of over 800,000,000 single records.

          • Svante says:

            Greenland Ranch had a station move after 1913:
            http://tinyurl.com/yb2a2nbg

            The peak value is off the chart so you can’t see if it is a quality control failure, but both the surrounding peaks are.

            Shall we look up the other stations too?

          • bilybob says:

            Svante,

            Not sure if it would be germane to this discussion. We have been discussing specific site temperature data. The Berkeley Analysis uses anomalies for a region to compare to the site. From a modeling perspective, that would be appropriate.

            Bindindon, I did look up Bullwacker, same issues as Riddle Mountain. Not sure why they do not show an error code for Tavg, not familiar with their algorithm. They do show error for the Tmax which was 210.0C that day. Tmin was -1.7C. I guest that average could be correct.

            If I have time, I will look at the other site data.

          • Bindidon says:

            Oops bilybob, I wrote upthread an answer to you with Pangolina’s Firefox instead of with my good ol’ Chrome!

            As promised weeks ago, I will now start working on an anomaly-based processing of a subset of GHCN daily showing valid data for the 1981-2010 period.

          • Bindidon says:

            bilybob

            “My understanding of the temperature data is that Tmin and Tmax have not changed. The algorithm to calculate Tavg has been modified and may explain the 1934/1998 change. I am not familiar with the details of the algorithm.”

            Why don’t you simply read

            https://tinyurl.com/y9wdx4wh

            You would quickly understand how wrong you are in supposing that TAVG would be an algorithm!

            It is, within GHCN daily, a measurement like TMIN and TMAX, SNOW or EVAP. In the absence of TAVG, everybody sets it to

            (TMIN + TMAX) / 2

            what is not necessarily correct, what you easily c an verify at stations having all three.

            You are, due to your wrong supposition, clearly inverting the logic.

            The correct measurement in Riddle Mt is that of TAVG: tht’s why it was not marked with any error flag.

            And that both TMIN and TMAX were flagged might be due to the fact that they were missing, and that somebody therefore has set them by hand both to the TAVG value, what lead to NOAA’s bounds check failure.

            See, in the same directory, the file ‘ghcnd-inventory.txt’ for stations lacking TAVG! It is in fact the vast majority.

          • bilybob says:

            Bindindon says;
            Why don’t you simply read
            https://tinyurl.com/y9wdx4wh

            I did not read, mostly because I am not interested in Tavg. I have said this many times.

            Bindindon says;
            You would quickly understand how wrong you are in supposing that TAVG would be an algorithm!

            For me Tavg=(Tmin+Tmax)/2 is an algorithm. Algorithm – a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. Again, Tavg not germane to me. You may also want to reference Gordans link.

            “recent scientific advances that better address uncertainties in the instrumental record. Because different algorithms were used in making adjustments to the station data which comprise both data sets, there are small differences in annual average temperatures between the two data sets. These small differences in average temperatures result in minor changes in annual rankings for some years”.

            Bindindon says;
            The correct measurement in Riddle Mt is that of TAVG: tht’s why it was not marked with any error flag.

            Bindindon if you would like to believe that Riddle Mountain in Oregon had an average temperature equivalent of the highest temperature recorded in Death Valley be my guest. I have to see the data as it is, a error, not marked by NOAA. Instead of trying to defend this obvious error, sit back count to 10 and use common sense. There is no way the average temperature for Riddle Mountain Oregon to be above 50C. In my opinion, given the location, the geography, the elevation, I would say it would be impossible for even Tmax to above 50C. The same holds true for Little Bullwhacker Creek in Montana. Just not gonna happen.

            Just out of curiosity, why is this important to you?

          • Bindidon says:

            But bilybob: this is not important to me.

            I am just trying to understand why people simply doubt about things being so incredibly unusual that they would have evidently been flagged if they were erroneous.

          • Bindidon says:

            But please do not think I would not agrre at all with you.

            Let us review this sequence:

            USR0000ORID TAVG 12.3 U 20110530
            USR0000ORID TAVG 51.7 GU 20110531
            USR0000ORID TAVG 47.9 U 20110601
            USR0000ORID TAVG 47.7 U 20110602
            USR0000ORID TAVG 56.7 U 20110604
            USR0000ORID TAVG 53.6 U 20110605
            USR0000ORID TAVG 44.9 U 20110606
            USR0000ORID TAVG 37.9 U 20110607
            USR0000ORID TAVG 10.2 U 20110608

            It becomes suddenly clear to me that somebody very well might have entered Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.

            Time to ask NOAA I guess…

          • bilybob says:

            Bindindon says; I am just trying to understand why people simply doubt about things being so incredibly unusual that they would have evidently been flagged if they were erroneous.

            I will wish you luck on that, if you get an answer be sure to share it. In my work and as part of due diligence I have to seek out the unusual and explain it. Many times, it turns out that the event itself is not so unusual after all. Other times, a simple explanation is all that is needed. But it is those events that can’t be explained that make life more interesting.

            As far as Riddle Mountain being a Fahrenheit entry, that may be a good explanation. Have a great weekend, I will out and about but will check in from time to time.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          bilybob….”I am not familiar with a Red Canyon South Dakota world record in 1997. A world record of 56.7C did occurred in Death Valley in 1913. I was unaware that it had been tied”.

          NOAA, GISS, and Had-crut have taken it upon themselves to rewrite the historical record to better reflect the AGW theory. NOAA recently changed the US record of 1934.

          A while back, GISS tried replacing 1934 with 1998 but Steve McIntyre caught them, forcing them to return the record to 1934.

          https://climateaudit.org/2007/02/15/ushcn-versions/

          • bilybob says:

            Thanks for the info Gordon. My understanding of the temperature data is that Tmin and Tmax have not changed. The algorithm to calculate Tavg has been modified and may explain the 1934/1998 change. I am not familiar with the details of the algorithm.

            My interest has been on the Tmin and Tmax side of the data. I did notice when looking at Riddle Mountain that some Tavg records were not flagged as errors even though the Tmax was a clear error (and flagged as such). This may potentially impact analysis on this data. When I have time, I will check 1934/1998 to see if I see any anomalies in the raw data that would significantly impact the results.

      • Bindidon says:

        Yes, I read that too. No one can beat Grant Foster in that job.

      • bilybob says:

        That summertime graph shows a 3F reduction from the peak in 30/40’s to now (88 to 85). So I guess Steve is correct, his graph was not as good though. This is also why I have been saying that using ratio of new max records is a waste of time in proving increase extreme heat. It certainly has not materialized in the USA. Even with those billion new max records be recorded every microsecond /sarc the summer high temperatures are still below the 1930’s/40’s.

        It is unfortunate that the data is lacking for all other countries. From what I have seen, this phenomenon is true for South America, Australia and Africa as well. Minimum temperatures are up, maximum temperatures down just not as much.

        • Bindidon says:

          bilybob

          You seem to be still fixated on this maxima story.

          What about considering the complementary record created by averaging not only the stations’ highest maxima, but also their lowest minima?

          http://4gp.me/bbtc/153436803149/001.jpg

          And to help you in getting rid of another fixation (new stations screwing the historical inormations), here is the same graph as above but with only those 1058 stations present from 1895 till 2017:

          http://4gp.me/bbtc/1534368174609/001.jpg

          Do you see the similarity?

          • bilybob says:

            I was replying to Svante’s comment as it relates to Steve’s comment. If I was in error, please let me know. But what I stated I believe to be correct.

            As far as your graphs, I neither dispute nor confirm these. I simply trust you know what you are doing and accept it as true. And yes, I see the similarity. But that does not change the ratio discussion from before or that temperatures were generally warmer in the first part of the 20th century. This does not mean that the average temperature is not higher now, I never said that.

            As far as my fixation of Tmax, when we check weather, we don’t look at what the average temperature will be for the day, we look at the upper and lower end and plan accordingly. So yes I do find it interesting that Tmin is up and Tmax is down in the USA. See figure 6.3 and 6.4 for the following.

            https://science2017.globalchange.gov/chapter/6/

          • Bindidon says:

            I see that we agree about the main aspects.

            Thanks for this very informative site you linked us to.

  44. The truth of the matter is since the Holocene Optimum the climate has been in an overall cooling trend punctuated by spikes of warmth, this latest one being nothing in the way of being unique.

    AGW THEROY- is hi jacking the natural variation of the climate to a warmer period following the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850.

    I think this has ran it’s course and this year and the following years should not see any further global warming.

    The climate monitors I am watching are overall sea surface temperatures, global cloud and snow coverage, and major explosive volcanic activity.

    • gbaikie says:

      I prefer to think of it, as, soon we should get better understanding of global climate.
      Maybe even China and India will add a lot to it.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Salvatore…”AGW THEROY- is hi jacking the natural variation of the climate to a warmer period following the end of the Little Ice Age around 1850″.

      And as famed geoscientist Syun Akasofu pointed out, the alarmists did not have the decency to attribute any warming to recovery from the LIA.

    • Bindidon says:

      Interesting paper as far as high latitude like Arctic regions are concerned.

      But even more interesting is that climate depot’s post ‘forgets’ to give the link, so everybody thinks the article was published this year).

      See also

      http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/07/tree-rings-and-climate-some-recent-developments/

      • The climate scam will be ending soon.

      • Svante says:

        They also erased the instrumental part of the graph, and that it ends in 1980. They say Britain when it is for northern Scandinavia.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        binny…”But even more interesting is that climate depots post forgets to give the link, so everybody thinks the article was published this year)”.

        2012 is close enough. It was a year celebrating 15 years of no average global warming, hence the alternative POV.

        Please don’t link to sites that specialize in pseudo-science, like realclimate. This is a scientific blog, have some respect.

        realclimate is run in part by Michael Mann of hockey stick fame. What the heck would he know about tree ring proxies after the fool he made of himself in that regard in MBH98.

        • Svante says:

          Looks like Manns wild guess was pretty good though:
          http://tinyurl.com/y95cmx6t

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            svante…”Looks like Manns wild guess was pretty good though:”

            Note that Mann’s part of the graph only goes from 1760 – 1860.

            Also note the error bars which mysteriously end circa 1985, as if to suggest there are no errors after that.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            S,

            How good is that?

            One wild guess about the past is as good as another wild guess about the past!

            Amazing. Predictions of the past are useful because . . .?

            Stupid, ignorant, and deluded to boot!

            Grand.

            Cheers.

  45. D Clancy says:

    Dr. Spencer should write a letter to Reuters demanding alteration of the headline on the basis that it is false. A letter like that would at minimum get the attention of Reuters legal personnel and put some appropriate scrutiny on the article’s author. (Might the letter be ignored? Yes but there is no cost in sending it and it is the right thing to do as a matter of principle).

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      D. Clancy…part 1….posting issues.

      “Dr. Spencer should write a letter to Reuters demanding alteration of the headline on the basis that it is false. A letter like that would at minimum get the attention of Reuters legal personnel and put some appropriate scrutiny on the articles author”.

      Waste of time. In a court case, there’s no way to prove anything related to climate science, it comes down to consensus and the prevailing paradigm. Judges have recently ruled based on the paradigm rather than fact.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        part 2….

        Here in Canada, I contacted the CBC and a poobah replied, claiming they go by the IPCC, suggesting it is incumbent on the skeptics to prove their case.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          part 3….

          The Catch-22 is that skeptics are not covered by the CBC. No one in Canada hears the skeptic POV.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            part 4…

            Apparently it is not in the interest of the national news media to let the public hear both sides of the story. They are not conveying news, they are proselytizing.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            part 5…

            Backwards logic. It’s up to the pseudo-scientists to prove their case, that CO2 is a pollutant warming the environment.

            This guy did not want to hear a scientific argument against the AGW paradigm, no matter how much sense it made. He did not know physics from a hole in the ground but he was quite willing to blindly accept pseudo-science if everyone else agreed it was correct…or LIKELY.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            Sorry for messed up post in parts. There was something in the wording WordPress did not like and it was not the common words that normally messes up posts.

          • Svante says:

            Apology accepted.

  46. Gordon Robertson says:

    nate…”The media fails to make clear that such papers are just one of many, with no consensus yet”.

    I think you have it backwards. Both the GHE and AGW are based on consensus with little or no proof. No proof for either has come forward.

    Even the IPCC, with all its reviewers cannot claim a proof.

  47. Svante says:

    Salvatore thinks the sun causes volcano activity.
    He has not shown any historical evidence for that as far as I have seen.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      svante…”Salvatore thinks the sun causes volcano activity”.

      Something is causing it but no one has quite nailed what it is.

      The planet has a pumpkin shape, and as it revolves around the Sun, there are tidal stresses put on it by the Sun. Also by the Moon. Those stresses affect the solid surface as well as the oceans.

      It has been theorized that cracks in the surface of the planet (faults) as affected by the tidal forces, producing magma as they rub together. That explanation better explains the locality of Earthquakes rather than the tectonic plate theory.

      There seems to be a correlation between solar activity and the Earth’s spin. Even though the effect may be minute, the size of the planet translates those tiny changes into volcanic activity.

      https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/JB094iB12p17371

  48. D Clancy says:

    Hi Gordon, interesting points and thanks for the response. I am not sure I agree that it would be a waste of time though. First, it would not take much time. Second, it would put a major news organization on formal notice that the label (“climate change denier”) is rejected and not accepted by Dr. Spencer. Third (based on experience in corporate litigation) demand letters like this can and do create an internal stir (justified in this case) even if the company ultimately decides to try to wait it out. Fourth, it is just the right thing to do. “Climate change denier” is by any objective reading a false description of Dr. Spencer. Therefore it ought to be objected to, to the author/publisher directly.
    I suspect Reuters would argue that the term has
    come to mean something other than its literal/objective meaning — but that argument seems weak and insincere to me; the term is used precisely for its pejorative power, and alternate terms are available.
    Thanks again for your comments though — and I fully recognize that I may be wrong in this! I am not a participant in these controversies, just a sometime observer. It is my strong instinct though that if a major news organization says something false about a distinguished scientist he should at minimum formally object to that organization.
    Have a great day.

    • gbaikie says:

      And Roy could be not the only writing to them- and class of people writing about same kind of complaint- is a sign of a future class action suit. And not taking any kind of action, can legally amount to malice. And class action suits can start small and have people piling on to it.
      So, looking for “common problems” is good idea.

  49. Entropic man says:

    Dr Spencer rejects the sciences ofcosmology and biology, instead basing his reality on words written by desert tribesmen thousands of years ago.

    That fits any reasonable definition of scientific denial.

    • JDHuffman says:

      Entropic man, do you have any links/quotes to support such nonsense?

      • Entropic man says:

        There you go.

        http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php

        Written by the gentleman himself.

        • JDHuffman says:

          I was unable to find where he “rejects the sciences of cosmology and biology”. In fact the words “cosmology” and “biology” weren’t even there.

          Did you just dream that up?

          • Entropic man says:

            The big bang theory is part of cosmology, the theory of evolution is part of biology.

            In the linked article Dr Spencer rejects them both in favour of a Creation described in the Bible.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Well then, he’s rejecting pseudoscience, not science.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          entropic…”There you go.

          http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php

          Written by the gentleman himself”.

          You have not outlined your objections to the article. What are they exactly?

          Can you prove scientifically that anything Roy stated is not true? Conversely, can you prove the universe was not created?

          I have issues with certain points he makes but that does not affect my view of Roy as a scientist. I am more concerned about Roy’s view of the 1st law of thermodynamics, that it’s about generic energy whereas it’s about thermal energy (heat) and mechanical energy (work).

        • Norman says:

          Entropic man

          Thanks for posting the Roy Spencer statement of Faith. I like to read that an intelligent rational person can have Faith in God and Christ. Seems like the big push in science is atheism.

          I would agree with JDHuffman on this one. Whereas Evolution itself seems to be supported by observational science. In the layers of rock formation which store the structures of past living things, the progression is always from simple life forms (single celled organisms) to more complex life forms. The mechanism for this process is far from established. It would be an article of Faith to declare that it is random chance mutations. In order for this to become a scientific point, scientists would have to demonstrate that random changes in DNA lead to higher order proteins capable of new interactions.

          From what I read on random generators, the way mathematicians determine if a generator of numbers is truly random is to find NO pattern in the numbers. If you roll dice billions of times you would expect to see no established order anywhere. If you see more 1’s than any other number you start to think the dice are not random. I am not at all convinced that random chance is able to create vast order and structure. If you have links that can show this to be the case I will gladly read up on it.

          • Svante says:

            If you put your mind to it you would come to the same conclusion again: the science is right (I predict).

          • Nate says:

            Norman,”In order for this to become a scientific point, scientists would have to demonstrate that random changes in DNA lead to higher order proteins capable of new interactions.”

            I dont really see the problem with this. DNA sequences produce all possible proteins. Most don’t work or are not useful. The ones that do work or are useful, can, through natural selection, be preserved and continue on.

            Its monkeys typing on keyboard, but if they happen to type words that are useful, they get typed again and again.

          • Nate says:

            “he progression is always from simple life forms (single celled organisms) to more complex life forms. The mechanism for this process is far from established. ”

            Do you agree that the evidence is strong that humans evolved from other homonids? Dogs from wolves, etc

            Evolution is the over-arching theme, a framework. It is seen again and again in the fossil record and today in DNA sequence overlaps among related species.

            But it doesnt mean all the steps are understood yet. Thats the point of evolutionary biology.

            Until proven otherwise, IMO, there is no reason to assume a completely different mechanism is at work.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Norman says:
            “… scientists would have to demonstrate that random changes in DNA lead to higher order proteins capable of new interactions.”
            _____________________________________________________

            No, this they dont have to demonstrate, because thats not what “evolution” means.
            Random-changes alone lead to both: to lower AND higher capability. To improvement AND to worsening. And because very most of the random-changes lead to a lower capability, to lower order and to worsening, random alone would lead to greater disorder and worsening.

            What evolution really means is, that random changes AND selection of the very few and small random-improvements lead on the long run to great changes and improvements.

            This indeed isnt a “theory” but a LAW.
            Neither random-changes nor selection and conservation of improvements can be denied.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      entropic…”Dr Spencer rejects the sciences ofcosmology and biology….”

      There is no science of cosmology. If you study the universe at university you take astronomy or astrophysics. I don’t think Roy has any problem with most biology.

      Isaac Newton, arguably the most eminent scientist of all time, was devoutly religious. He managed to balance his faith with science, why can’t Roy?

      Roy wrote a good article on evolution with which I agree, even though I am not religious. Can’t find the link at this time, it is not valid.

      The basis of the theory of evolution is that 5 elements came together by chance in primeval muds and formed life through an equal amount of chance. An experiment to prove that in the 1950s failed miserably, resulting in tar with no life, the conclusion being given that the conditions required to fuse the chemicals into life could not support it.

      Think about it. Even though we are composed of atoms, where does the life force come from? Nothing in evolution can explain that and the subject is completely ignored.

      Along the way, people like Darwin concluded that a mystical phenomenon called natural selection was at work even though there were no fossils to support it nor was there any proof it was true. Natural selection has never been proved using the scientific method.

      Scientists like Mendel proved that plants can inherit traits from other plants but within the same species. There is not an ounce of proof that one species has ever morphed into another species or that inanimate objects like atoms of hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus can form life.

      Genetics is not evolution.

      Natural selection would require life forms in an intermediate form between species and there is no evidence of that.

      Here again, as in climate science, consensus is the driving force, not observable science. On the skeptical side, one mathematician calculated the probabilities of 5 basic elements forming the life we know today and the odds were billions and billions to one against. Another scientist attacked the problem using entropy with a similar result.

      Roy’s view on evolution are the same as mine, that an intelligence was involved in designing life. Roy may think that intelligence is the Biblical God, I don’t know. My intelligence has nothing to do with the Biblical God, I simply don’t know what it is.

      Although I am not religious, I am convinced that Jesus Christ lived and that he was executed circa 30 AD. His teachings have been passed on and the basis is that we should help the poor, and in general, to treat each other with compassion and empathy.

      He was executed for challenging the orthodoxy of the Jewish church, although some historians have blamed it on the Romans. It was the Jews who tried arrested him and tried him initially, then handed him over to the Romans.

      When criticize Roy you are criticizing Genesis, an ancient Jewish treatise. Jesus Christ changed all that and gave us the basis for our current Western civilization.

    • tonyM says:

      Entropic Man:
      Hard to see how you have a problem with what Dr Spencer says as his personal view. You are trying to conflate two different perceptions and evaluate them by the one standard when there is no such comparability. Science is empirically based and tested; religion is not limited by that given the idea that an all powerful God always existed. If not the latter then where did all the energy for Big Bang come from? You are back to the same position if you believe it has “always” existed.

      It might be worthwhile to note that it was a priest who proposed the Big Bang hypothesis and Darwin was a believer. Go back further in time to Copernicus; he was a cleric and dedicated his treatise to the Pope. There is no conflict unless you wish to impose a limit on “God.” Ironic that Galileo’s conflict was with the “consensus scientists” of the day and not the Church. They at least had a physical geocentric model that worked. All were Christian believers.

      Perhaps you can show a working model for CAGW that has not failed. Your views on Climate seem more akin to a religious belief than science for you cannot show via the Scientific Method that the conjecture holds. There is plenty of evidence which shows it fails. Only one failure is necessary to falsify a hypothesis in science.

      I don’t agree with Dr Roy on evolution as some of the anti evolution “science” arguments are based on the low probability of creating life by pure random events (such as monkey correctly typing the bible). Chemistry and biochemistry do not function like that in that only certain products are produced under given conditions. Fundamentally the primordial soup would only require a mix of four elements and energy to create basic building blocks. If there is enough time and enough environmental variation then it would be possible to form more and more stable compounds which could eventually lead to simple cells etc. Minerals abound in the waters so that they are incorporated in the evolution. You can still witness the most primitive form of life in stromatolites (fossilised and living ) in the North West of West Oz – oldest deposits about 3.5 billion years.

      In any case evolution does not pose a religious impasse; by definition God can “create” by whatever means and pathway! BTW I am not religious.

      • JDHuffman says:

        tonyM states: “If there is enough time and enough environmental variation then it would be possible to form more and more stable compounds which could eventually lead to simple cells etc.”

        “if there is enough time”

        “it would be possible”

        “which could eventually lead”

        “If”, “would be”, and “could”, are NOT science. Evolution is a belief system, supported by pseudoscience.

        • tonyM says:

          G*e*r*

          If I had thought that either Big Bang or Evolution from inception molecules had solid empirical evidence I would have said so and been definitive. They are properly classified as hypotheses rather than your term pseudoscience. There is enough cogent evidence to support them. There is no evidence which dismisses them as I know it. Do you have any such evidence?

          Neither of these conflict with a belief in God; science can never address such a question. Besides science is only the science we can understand from our universe perspective. It can address white horses skyward bound to rendezvous with “God;” Pegasus is a myth.

          CAGW, in the way presented, is properly classified as pseudoscience in that its conjectures have failed yet its proponents continue to believe and even reinforce the same story. I suggest this is why Lindzen has said it has become a religion and called for defunding the lot and start again.

          Aquinas spent much of his life to showing the existence of God. In the end despite his brilliant work he simply philosophized that faith was all that was necessary. The idea of a single God is not as intuitive as might be imagined. Look at Roman, Greek, Egyptian, Norse mythology. Even the Abrahamic Yaweh originally was meant to be the God of the Jews only.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            tony…”Aquinas spent much of his life to showing the existence of God. In the end despite his brilliant work he simply philosophized that faith was all that was necessary”.

            There’s is a lesser known take on early religion that comes from the more recent discovery of ancient papers at Nag Hamadi in Egypt.

            http://gnosis.org/naghamm/Pagels-Gnostic-Gospels.html

            Several Gospels were discovered that had been banned in 325AD by the Roman Emperor Constantine, who essentially formed Catholicism (The Nicene Creed). One of the banned Gospels was the Gospel of Thomas which consists of sayings attributed to the Living Jesus.

            I am not religious in a conventional sense, I regard, ‘to be religious’, by its root meaning, ‘to be serious’. However, I regard the Gospel of Thomas as quite revealing. Thomas is ‘Doubting Thomas’, with whom the 4th Gospel, the Gospel of John, takes umbrage. Thomas was a confidant of Jesus, and typically, the sayings of Jesus are in riddles.

            One of them suggests that God is in everyone and although I don’t know what that means exactly, the idea appeals to me, not as an ego trip, but as an explanation of the mysteries of life.

            I think our job is to try somehow to understand what that means. Isaac Newton wrote two volumes on it.

            I know one thing, if we summarily reject everything religious, based on an ego-trip related to science, we will never understand. I am really into science but I am aware of its limitations and how it is affected by human ego.

            There is room to consider religion. No one said it had to be approached from the Christian Bible, we were born with an intelligence that cannot be explained. We have information inside already, and natural means of understanding through intelligence, compassion, empathy, and insight.

            I don’t think evolution produced any of them.

            Just ask questions and seek answers.

            Is that not one of the tenets of The Bible, “Ask and ye shall find”. No one said finding would be easy.

          • JDHuffman says:

            tonyM: “They are properly classified as hypotheses rather than your term pseudoscience.”

            If the “hypotheses” violate established physics, then the correct term IS “pseudoscience”.

            tonyM: “There is enough cogent evidence to support them.”

            No, there is enough tangled pseudoscience to fool people. Take just one example: The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. The CMBR is touted as “evidence” of the Big Bang. But if it were caused by the Big Bang, how can we still see it? Photons move at the speed of light. And if the Big Bang happened “billions and billions” of years ago….

            tonyM: “There is no evidence which dismisses them as I know it. Do you have any such evidence?”

            In science, the one advocating a theory has the burden of proof.

            Let me turn the table around. Suppose I said that the entire Universe was built by a primitive herd of rabid armadillos. After they created the Universe, and all life forms, they overdosed on
            trilobites and all died off. Fossils of trilobites are proof of my theory. Prove me wrong!

          • La Pangolina says:

            Thanks tonyM.

            For Huffman who knows everything (and the rest):

            https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests_cmb.html

            Since light travels at a finite speed, astronomers observing distant objects are looking into the past. Most of the stars that are visible to the naked eye in the night sky are 10 to 100 light years away. Thus, we see them as they were 10 to 100 years ago. We observe Andromeda, the nearest big galaxy, as it was about 2.5 million years ago. Astronomers observing distant galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope can see them as they were only a few billion years after the Big Bang.

            The CMB radiation was emitted 13.7 billion years ago, only a few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, long before stars or galaxies ever existed. Thus, by studying the detailed physical properties of the radiation, we can learn about conditions in the universe on very large scales at very early times, since the radiation we see today has traveled over such a large distance.

            So far concerning ‘photons moving at the speed of light’.

            I know, Huffman: you keep yourself all the time conveniently behind a wall and claim about pseudoscience.

            In my friend Bindidon’s native language one says:

            “Le sceptique doute de tout et donc ne se doute de rien.”

          • JDHuffman says:

            La Pangolina, it must be true, it came from NASA!

            Since you like obscure sayings, you might appreciate “Stupid is as stupid does”.

          • La Pangolina says:

            JDHuffman says:
            August 16, 2018 at 11:07 AM

            … it must be true, it came from NASA!

            Be proud Huffman. You now really belong to this site’s dumbest commenters, at a level even below that of Robertson.

            http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/C/Cosmic+Microwave+Background

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23006164

            https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Planck/Planck_and_the_cosmic_microwave_background

            http://aether.lbl.gov/www/science/cmb.html

            https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.ss/1105714164

            *

            Stupid is as stupid does.

            Pretty good description of what you write here all the time concerning fluxes unable to add! Ha ha.

            Like Robertson, you are refusing to learn and prefer to stay on your egocentric narrative.

            So what!

          • JDHuffman says:

            Thanks for the verification, LP.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            binny…”Since light travels at a finite speed, astronomers observing distant objects are looking into the past”.

            This is the great screw up of the human mind known in Zen as the Cosmic Joke. Essentially, humans carry that past as memories in their minds and they have confused that space of grey matter with real space.

            There is no past, it’s an illusion based on human thought. Any light we experience is here right now and it does not represent a past. If it was not here we could not see it. Where it came from is irrelevant.

            Someone on a theorized planet halfway between us and the light we see could look back to the source and claim it is the past. Therefore, they could look toward us and claim that light between us and them is the future.

            Sheer nonsense. It does not surprise me that NASA offers it.

            The entire universe is in the same time zone, for want of a better word, and that zone is NOW. It’s the human mind that has difficulty seeing that because it has a sequence of thoughts ordered as pasts and future. So, it thinks the universe must be so ordered.

          • gbaikie says:

            “One of them suggests that God is in everyone and although I don’t know what that means exactly, the idea appeals to me, not as an ego trip, but as an explanation of the mysteries of life.”

            Hmm.
            Well, how could God not be in everyone.
            Being in everyone could be the same meaning as everyone is connected- which is more or less an Eastern idea. Everything is connected- even rocks. And everything as in different planes of existence- and/or future, present, and past.

            Or what about saying Adam and Eve is in everyone- assuming humans start from two parents.
            But even with multiple Adam and Eves it still ends up after thousand of years to have all Adams and Eves being part or connected to all present day humans- that is just biology.

            And if you assume God makes humans that “creation” ends up in everyone.

            So it can’t be any other way, than god is in everyone.
            Unless one imagines there are some other god which is in other people.

            Of course that is a physical connection though generally it referring to some kind a spiritual connection rather than DNA or blood.

            Mainly the “in everyone” is referring finding within, rather than finding somewhere outside of the person. Or if not in everyone, it logically has to be outside of a person.
            Or God could be some kind of idol.
            God could be a mountain or somewhere which is not within you. And not connected to you.

          • tonyM says:

            Gordon R:
            The topic can be made exceedingly broad and we could explore for ages.

            I’ve tried to point out Religion and belief in God can accommodate all of science without a problem. For example Darwin’s position was never an issue within the Catholic religion. It rests on the bible being the inspired word of God and that an omnipotent, everlasting God can create in any manner. Creationism and evolution could both be accommodated.

            Science is far more constrained in that if we follow the Scientific Method we need show empirically that a hypothesis holds. This is not always successful or possible. This strikes at the core of having a falsifiable hypothesis and is the reason that the existence of God can never be a question for science as it is not falsifiable.

            Both fields can be manipulated at an individual, organizational and State level, as we well know. Both can be the cause a lot of pain. Both can be used destructively. Both can be exhilarating and provide great comfort. Both can be divisive. Both can be unifying. Seems there are a lot of similarities which suggests to me that these characteristics are intrinsic to human nature rather than to the particular field.

            You seem to have explored far more than I. We would agree on personalizing religion and its meaning. Biblical texts were selected as part of formalizing Christianity. But there is a certain consistency. A scholar would be in a much better position to comment but I would question the Thomas gospel on the grounds that it is not consistent with the four Gospels and Paul and it appears later. Further Jesus seems open in his teachings and thoroughly Jewish which seems at odds with the Indian influence and secrecy suggested by the Thomas account. No one knows who really wrote the gospels so it is unlikely doubting Thomas wrote that gospel (IMO).

            On God, I can’t see the role for an interventionist God which is implicit in the Bible. It is said that 99% of all species have become extinct – why create them? Noah’s Ark seems fanciful in its limitations; most species would not have even been discovered then. I don’t want to make this a list of deficiencies but it is hard for me to reconcile what is basically a Jewish history designed to bind them together (Old Testament) some of which is not even believed by the Jews. Most of its written form seems to be attributed to post Babylonian captivity.

            Not to leave the Bible isolated the Koran has its own deficiencies in that it is put forward as THE word of God. Well, God was indeed poor at arithmetic for the section on inheritance distribution adds up to more than 100%.

            My mother had a practical take; don’t worry about the individual preacher or his/its behaviour just focus on the positive messages. Trouble is “positive” can be such a relative and personal concept.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Over the last 50 years the “theory” of evolution has morphed into “fact”. Many people have been convinced that evolution is actual, proven, verifiable science!

            That’s WRONG.

            The morphing occurred, not because of advances in science, but because people with agendas have achieved positions in government and institutions to promote their agenda. I have never worked directly for NASA, but I have worked several different times in a consulting capacity for their contractors. I have a pretty good knowledge of the science and engineering at NASA. It is NASA management that is leading the agency astray.

            I get the same kind of views from friends in academe. Anyone that questions evolution in such environments will face retaliation. You can see the same treatment on blogs. Evolution has become a major religion.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            tony…”A scholar would be in a much better position to comment but I would question the Thomas gospel on the grounds that it is not consistent with the four Gospels and Paul and it appears later”.

            One such scholar is Elaine Pagels who has written a book on such matters. She is not dogmatic and very easy to read and follow.

            If you read Pagels, you will see contradictions between the four gospels. As you say, no one knows who wrote them. As for Paul, he was a Jew who hated Christians at one time till he was traveling to Damascus and suddenly had a vision that converted him. Paul was a chauvinist who believed women should play no part in church matters and he was backed on that by the disciple Peter.

            There is no reason to think the 4 gospels from the NT are more factual than the Gospel of Thomas. Thomas had direct contact with Jesus and Paul did not. Thomas traveled to India after being a disciple of Jesus.

            Irenaeus was responsible for the knock on Thomas. His teacher was an advocate of the Gospel of John and Irenaeus seemed to hate Thomas. The work of Irenaeus had a heavy influence with Emperor Constantine when he rammed through the Nicene Creed which outlawed Gospels like Thomas and Mary Magdalene.

            It’s interesting stuff. I am looking at it from a different perspective, one related to human awareness as opposed to the part of the human mind conditioned from birth.

            Awareness has no time element, it has to be always here and now. When we lose the focus of awareness we drift into the past and future state of mind we relate to day-dreaming, which also contains the conditioning we received from birth.

            It seems to me there is something behind all the conditioning, like love, compassion, empathy, and insight. Those seem to be natural attributes that cannot be taught, only subverted. I am leaning toward the notion that those attributes that come with the package at birth MIGHT be the reference to God.

            If there is a designer out there, he/she/it may have designed us with a basic survival package and set us adrift to see what might become of us.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            JD….”The morphing occurred, not because of advances in science, but because people with agendas have achieved positions in government and institutions to promote their agenda”.

            Read something similar the other day. It claimed many scientific paradigms were promoted by scientists who had the personality and forcefulness to see them through, and I’m sure, to prevent them being reversed.

            The HIV/AIDS paradigm is a good example. It was rammed through Congress by Ronald Reagan based on the say-so of Robert Gallo. There was no peer review, just the methodology of Gallo.

            Gallo had hitherto tried to prove cancer was caused by a virus and was proved wrong. He just happened to have an available theory which he switched from ‘a virus causes cancer’ to ‘a virus causes AIDS’. The desperate Reagan admin latched onto it.

            Other notable scientists of the time immediately disagreed. Peter Duesberg, an expert on retroviruses, claimed that HIV could not act as claimed to defeat an immune system.

            The scientist who discovered HIV, Luc Montagnier, disagreed in part. He claimed HIV alone could not cause AIDS, that a co-factor was required. Recently, he claimed HIV cannot harm a healthy immune system, implying the immune system must be compromised beforehand by a separate agent.

            Montagnier also revealed that neither he nor his team ever saw HIV, isolated it, or purified it. They INFERRED it based on RNA strands in a sample they PRESUMED to be a virus. Today, we have people testing positive for this unidentified virus being treated with potent antiviral drugs that are reported by the manufacturers to cause IRS, a drug-induced form of AIDS. Furthermore, the companies offer a disclaimer that the drugs cannot cure HIV.

            The HIV/AIDS theory as currently preached came from Robert Gallo, a forceful personality who would walk out of conferences if anyone questioned his theory. In fact, anyone who questioned the theory over the years was ostracized.

            Vast sums of money became available for HIV/AIDS research and wannabees flocked to the money. Meantime, Peter Duesberg had his career ruined in part by his former friend Robert Gallo, who disowned him.

            Climate alarm is driven today by similar personalities. John Houghton the first co-chair of the IPCC was one such personality, who had the backing of UK PM Margaret Thatcher, another forceful personality.

            Perhaps one of the most forceful of climate alarmists is Kevin Trenberth, who has been known to offer negative opinions on skeptical papers, so-much-so, that a journal editor felt forced to resign.

            The Climategate email scandal revealed a host of such personalities conspiring to falsify data and interfering with peer review.

          • Nate says:

            JD “The Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation. The CMBR is touted as “evidence” of the Big Bang. But if it were caused by the Big Bang, how can we still see it? Photons move at the speed of light.”

            Clear evidence that pseudoscience is defined as ‘science I don’t understand’ by JD.

            The odd thing is that having it explained to him doesnt seem to help.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        tony m…”Fundamentally the primordial soup would only require a mix of four elements and energy to create basic building blocks”.

        Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has an interesting take on that. He compares the amino acids produced by cells to construction material being dropped at a construction site and expecting them to form into a building, perhaps by chance.

        As you pointed out, chemistry has rules. Chemical compounds form based on stringent rules of formation that are based on inter-atomic charges between electrons and protons. All organic molecules are formed and shaped by electrical charges.

        There is absolutely nothing in chemical bonding that can explain life. It’s an incredible stretch to go from the chemical bonding of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in primeval muds to extremely intricate forms of life, such as sight and intelligent thought.

        DNA is a relatively simple bonding of basic elements but the information it contains from which RNA forms different amino acids and proteins, is not something one would expect from chemical bonds. There are intelligent codes in DNA, where did they come from?

        It’s highly unlikely that random, natural selection could produce intelligent codes that are the basis of life and maintenance of life.

        • tonyM says:

          Gordon:
          Sheldrake’s version seems far too limiting. We can see all around us what marvels can be formed by chance. Our solar system did not exist five billion years ago. He could equally say its formation is not possible from particles and so on with the galaxies. Closer to home the Himalayas are formed – far superior to any building. It has direct influence on climate and so on. The idea that God does not play with dice, as Einstein put it, was dispelled by quantum mechanics.

          Wiki:
          The experiment conducted in 1952[3] by Stanley Miller, used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2) …resulted in …more than the 20 [amino acids] that naturally occur in life.

          Then:

          “Our work furnishes a likely explanation for how nature overcame one of the main obstacles in turning the building blocks, demonstrated by Miller, into genetic coding and inheritance,”
          https://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence-emerges-life.html

          Details are there. An alternative hypothesis arises from sea vents with no light using only volcanic energy (I also saw it visually on an Attenborough show):

          Recent studies based on sets of genes that were likely to have been present within the first living cells trace the origin of life back to deep-sea hydrothermal vents. These are porous geological structures produced by chemical reactions between solid rock and water. Alkaline fluids from the Earths crust flow up the vent towards the more acidic ocean water, creating natural proton concentration differences remarkably similar to those powering all living cells.
          :::
          Instead, at the core of lifes energy production are ion gradients across biological membranes.

          https://theconversation.com/weve-been-wrong-about-the-origins-of-life-for-90-years-63744
          https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100202101245.htm

          You are jumping immediately to complex life making it harder to visualize. In fact once a single cell is established pathways to complexity are relatively easy; the hard part is getting that first cell to work. Sedimentary layers confirm patterns of evolution in fossilized remains.

          What is the alternative to abiogenesis? Yes, a direct creationist deity. Let me pose a couple of questions and it must be assumed that we are talking of an omnipotent everlasting being:

          Why does this God find the need to exterminate 99% of the species he creates?
          Why does he create such predatory diversity given it is not all for hygiene?
          Why are children so afflicted by pain and suffering? What do they know or care about life and “free will?”
          Why does he create such disparities within the human species (opportunity, food etc)?
          Why does he make so many errors and I can only see them as blueprint failures:
          – multiple ways to become sick (incl DNA deficiencies); end of life is mostly crappy.
          – multiple invasive organisms including pandemic outcomes
          – why such clumsy physiology (eg. a giraffe having the same muscle which needs to go all the way up to its neck loop over a bone and come all the way back down instead of direct across like short necked animals God was an engineer maybe :))
          – Why create a predator (man) which displaces other species and also just kills for fun using hi tech products.
          – Why the evidence for very primitive forms of cells and evolution?
          – Why take so long to arrive at man?

          Time would not mean anything but it seems a convoluted route to arrive at man, the only species capable of imagining the creator. Creating some individuals in his likeness would suggest this God to be somewhat obnoxious as ultimately God is responsible for all his creation and imperfections as we see them.

          Clearly we could keep asking questions but you get the drift. this God does not give two hoots about man. 🙂

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            tony…”We can see all around us what marvels can be formed by chance. Our solar system did not exist five billion years ago. He could equally say its formation is not possible from particles and so on with the galaxies. Closer to home the Himalayas are formed far superior to any building. It has direct influence on climate and so on. The idea that God does not play with dice, as Einstein put it, was dispelled by quantum mechanics”.

            No one knows how the solar system was formed or when. I studied astronomy for a year and the theories offered are just that, theories. Theories about its formation are conjecture.

            Why should a mass of particles, if that is the theory, form into units like stars and planets? A planet requires a precise angular momentum to maintain an orbit around a star. Where would it get that momentum unless captured, and if that is the theory, why are all the planets except one in a place within a few degrees of the plane?

            The Himalaya can be explained as an uplifting due to internal forces within the Earth. Not the same thing as building materials dropped at a construction site forming themselves into a building.

            With regard to the 1950s experiment, amino acids can be formed in a lab, no one has found a way to add life to them. First they have to be formed into specific proteins which are used to repair organs in a body that already has life.

            Here’s the question. How does RNA interact with codes in DNA, by taking apart DNA rolled on a bobbin in a cell, read it, then go and make the required amino acids to form proteins.

            Some people think that came from chance. I think it had to come from an intelligent source.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            tony…”What is the alternative to abiogenesis? Yes, a direct creationist deity”.

            No need to think in terms of a religious deity, simply think in terms of an intelligent source.

            “God does not give two hoots about man”.

            We have no idea what God might be other than through the thoughts and interpretations of the human mind. The Bible was written by humans, although some of them trying to give credence to their words, claimed their words are the words of God.

            That does not mean there is not some intelligent force behind the universe. We tend to make that source human, but it does not have to be. We also try to define it based on our limited intelligence which is laden with illusions and distorted thoughts.

            Maybe the intelligence from which we draw comes from a universal pool that has nothing to do with the rest of the thought we add after birth.

            Although I regard Feynman with esteem I watched him murder a presentation on entropy the other day. He was trying to claim that entropy is disorder whereas Clausius defined it as heat. Clausius did offer that most reactions are reversible but Feynman went on at length about possibilities and other such nonsense.

            Then I watched him murder an introduction to quantum theory by assigning probabilities to electrons passing through a double-slit setup.

            The fundamentals of the universe come down to the positively-charged proton and the negatively charged electron. Everything else, including all life, comes down to the interaction of those particles.

            There are reputedly sub-atomic particles that can create electrons and protons but that is largely high theory at the moment. The point is that the universe itself depends on two particles and there is no explanation of how and why they work. All we have is a mundane theory, quantum theory, which offers nothing more than an ambiguous mathematical explanation.

            We know nothing about the universe and its origins, if in fact there was an origin. From that perspective, the existence of an intelligence, whether God, or whatever, is just as viable, if not moreso, that an inane theory like evolution.

          • JDHuffman says:

            TonyM, such questions are only asked by someone who rejects the Bible. Or, worst case, wants to play like they are God.

            Either path is NOT recommended.

  50. I think AGW is going to be in more trouble as we move forward and the trends do not cooperate with the theory.

  51. Mike Flynn says:

    Oh well, if we are getting religious –

    “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.” Bible – King James Version

    Sage advice indeed. I’m following it, figuring that if a little is good, more must be better.

    Seems to have postponed onset of infirmities, especially often ones.

    Cheers.

    • Svante says:

      A third of a bottle gives you a blood alcohol level of 0.04%. That’s such a tiny percentage that it will have no effect at all, Gordon can verify that.

      You need an instant consumption of 1250 bottles to make you half drunk, that’s 50%.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        svante…”A third of a bottle gives you a blood alcohol level of 0.04%. Thats such a tiny percentage that it will have no effect at all, Gordon can verify that”.

        Depends on your body weight and how quickly you consume it. If you’re in excess of 200 lbs, one ounce of alcohol will barely get you to 0.04% BAC.

        However, you are mistaking apples for oranges. Blood alcohol content has nothing to do with the atmospheric concentration of gases. BAC affects the cells in a 100 millilitres of blood and the 0.04% CO2 in the atmosphere has to somehow affect the other 99%+ of the atmosphere.

        Th mechanisms and chemistry are entirely different. There is nothing in the atmosphere remotely like a human cell.

        • Norman says:

          Gordon Robertson

          The problem with your continuation of this 0.04% is that you have been shown numerous times that there is quite enough CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the IR emitted from the surface at the 15 micron wavelength. The amount compared to the other gases is meaningless for determining the distance light will travel before being absorbed.

          I have given you many links to understand the physics. I read your other posts and see you have good learning ability in areas that you don’t have a strange bias in. Your problem with GHE is you have chosen to strongly believe it is a hoax and fake and devote all your rational and learning ability trying to prove it. This is a terrible way to proceed in science. You should let the truth guide you and not a strong belief. If you abandon your biased belief that GHE is a hoax and look honestly at the evidence, you will soon see that your point about 0.04% is not a good point at all.

          You will look at actual measured values and when you see graphs of spectrum of DWIR you will learn how to properly calculate that amounts. As long as you spend all your time trying to prove something based upon a biased belief, you will never see the truth and be as deluded as the people who post on Skeptical Science who seem to be you in opposite. So obsessed with proving their strong belief that they will not examine the evidence in an honest way. Let the evidence guide your thoughts and not your beliefs.

          • JDHuffman says:

            More “typing practice” from Grinvalds, filled with his usual confused opinions and interpretations.

            At least he knows how to type….

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            Are you a troll addict? Can’t you post something valuable or useful just once.

            What confused opinions are you jabbering about? Explain or shut up!

            Where is your partner when you need them? They need to tell you to please stop trolling.

            Make a valid point. You like to annoy people, we all know this. Do you have any other purpose in posting besides being a first class troll?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, you can’t recognize science because you don’t know any.

            I just respond to your confused opinions and jumbled pseudoscience.

            No need to thank me, I consider it a public service, serving humanity.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            Still addicted to trolling. You can’t even stop for one post to provide any valid explanations. You respond with more trolling. A true addict. You just can’t stop doing it, a real addiction.

          • JDHuffman says:

            I just respond to your confused opinions and jumbled pseudoscience. I hope you don’t stop.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            norman…”The problem with your continuation of this 0.04% is that you have been shown numerous times that there is quite enough CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all the IR emitted from the surface at the 15 micron wavelength”.

            I have no real issue with that theory, I want proof that the heat formed after conversion can warm the other 99.96% of atmospheric gases.

            I have presented proof based on the IGL and Dalton that the amount of heat a 0.04 percent mass can add to the overall gas mixture is limited to a few hundredths C.

            I have also pointed out, based on a graph you posted, that CO2 can only absorb a small fraction of ALL IR emitted from the surface.

          • Norman says:

            Gordon Robertson

            Consider this. If you have a metal rod and take a blow torch to one end, the number of metal atoms that actually absorb that energy is very small compared with the entire rod. You have maybe a few microns depth and the surface area that are actually in contact with the blow torch heated air molecules. Basically the percentage of atoms of metal that are actually absorbing energy is very small, no doubt less than the percentage of GHG in the atmosphere.

            It is not the percentage that is important. The few atoms of metal that can actually absorb the energy of the blowtorch are able to warm the entire metal rod.

            The GHG in the atmosphere absorb a vast amount of energy.

            https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bb/The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg/1024px-The-NASA-Earth%27s-Energy-Budget-Poster-Radiant-Energy-System-satellite-infrared-radiation-fluxes.jpg

            About 90% of the energy emitted by the surface as IR is absorbed by GHG.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman spouts” “The few atoms of metal that can actually absorb the energy of the blowtorch are able to warm the entire metal rod.”

            Norman, that is your “belief”. You want to believe it, so you use any unsubstantiated nonsense you can imagine to support your belief.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            Please stop trolling

          • JDHuffman says:

            Not a problem. I never troll. I just respond to confused opinions and tangled pseudoscience.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            If this were a remotely true statement (which it is not): “Not a problem. I never troll. I just respond to confused opinions and tangled pseudoscience.”

            You would continuously be responding to your own posts. They are opinions (which are not even remotely correct based upon actual physics) and pseudoscience. You would post then respond to your own bad science over and over.

            You are the King of pseudoscience and a King of trolls.

            Question, have you ever posted real science even once on this blog?
            It may have taken place but I missed it.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Grinvalds, you can’t recognize science because you don’t know any. You can’t even understand that when you multiply something by 4, you then get 4 times what you started wth.

            But, keep pretending you know science. It makes for great comedy.

        • Svante says:

          Gordon Robertson says:

          “BAC affects the cells in a 100 millilitres of blood”

          No, it spreads throughout your body, it even penetrates the blood/brain barrier.

          Where did you get the “100 millilitres” from???

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Mike…”Seems to have postponed onset of infirmities, especially often ones”.

      Modern nutrition is focusing more on cellular nutrition. If you treat your cells well they may respond with longevity. Or, they may not.

      Some of the latest research is on telomeres, which are located at the ends of genes and protect them. With cell aging, the telomeres become shorter and eventually offer little or no protection to cells.

      I read a book recently by an expert who claims the solution to this problem, which may be at hand, could extend life to 500 years.

  52. Mike Flynn says:

    S,

    Do you have qualifications in incoherent gibberish?

    Or just stupidity and ignorance coming to the fore?

    The world wonders!

    Cheers.

  53. gbaikie says:

    Has anyone read: Nature Unbound X – The next glaciation
    https://judithcurry.com/2018/08/14/nature-unbound-x-the-next-glaciation/#more-24256

    I haven’t, it’s quite long, so skip to bottom:
    “6) In the absence of sufficient anthropogenic forcing, glacial inception might take place in 1500-2500 years as determined by orbital parameters, average interglacial length, Neoglaciation length, and solar variability periodicities.”

    Anyhow I bookmarked it, and will read it. And I might even get to reading all the comments.

    Read to this point:
    “Peter Huybers (2006) observed that the melting or growing of the ice-sheets must depend on the cumulative time spent at the ice-sheet border latitude above 0°C during a melting season. This observation led to the proposal of a Milankovitch parameter that is close to caloric summer but accounts better for the different duration of summers. He called it summer energy and is calculated by adding the day-time insolation energy (in GJ/m2) at 65°N for every day that was above a certain insolation threshold enough for ice-melting, that at 65°N was determined to be 275 W/m2(Huybers, 2006).

    Didier Paillard (1998) added the last piece of the puzzle when he proposed a simple model that reproduced the glacial cycle by introducing an ice-volume factor that was needed to transition from interglacial to mild-glacial state, and from mild-glacial to full-glacial state. The model forbids the reverse transitions. In essence Paillard’s model introduced the brilliant concept that ice build-up made the transitions unidirectional towards full-glacial, and when ice-volume was very high, ice-sheet instability caused a glacial termination when enough summer energy was available.

    Figure 133 explains how the glacial cycle depends on summer energy (mainly on obliquity), and on ice-volume, and how ice-volume responds to eccentricity. ….”

    Anyhow I will read rest of it, and looks interesting.

    • gbaikie says:

      Finished and I read a few of comments.

      Well according to to author’s view, we not going to cool much any time soon, but accelerated warming is not expected.
      What I found interesting was idea that, there was no “reason” for LIA. Or my view was/is “something had to cause LIA” – volcanoes and/or solar min and or something. But rather what author needed was explanation is why LIA didn’t continue- and claims nothing to do with CO2. And it didn’t continue because it was too early in cycle to allow it.
      Anyhow, is interesting. And seems to think that near term, to use my way of saying it: “we are still recovering from LIA”.

      • Svante says:

        The LIA may have been set of by Samalas.
        http://tinyurl.com/y9hhm6lf

        • La Pangolina says:

          Yes Svante, and by a few other bad boys together with him:

          Samalas 1257, VEI 7/8

          Quilotoa 1280, 6
          Kuwae 1452, 6
          Bárðarbunga 1477, 6
          Billy Mitchell 1580, 6
          Huaynaputina 1600, 6

          • gbaikie says:

            Samalas and the others, but how exactly does it, cool.

            And the amount of known volcanic activity could be an indication other kinds volcanic activity [less visible] could more likely occurring at same time. Smoke indicate a possible fire. Or if have a lot fires, maybe something causing it or related to it.

            Or these energetic events are shaking the world or as likely, world is shaking and you get such events. Or if Samalas is largest event in the Holocene, is there a why?

            Ocean circulation is global climate, large weather effects could alter ocean circulation- big weather effects could alter global climate.
            But how?
            Or circulation of ocean is an easier way to change global climate- less energy and less time.
            It’s like using a steering wheel rather than pushing the car. So, how are such volcanoes events steering climate.

          • Svante says:

            Gbaikie,
            You need a high VEI to eject aerosols into the stratosphere.
            Small eruptions will be washed out quickly in the troposphere.
            It also needs to be massive for feedbacks to kick in, the aerosols will drop out within a few years.
            For maximum impact you need to be near the equator for aerosols to spread into both hemispheres.

            Those Indonesian volcanoes are due to plate tectonics, I don’t think the plates do any quick turns, although Gordon found a paper that linked it to solar input.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          svante…”The LIA may have been set of by Samalas”.

          The problem I have with volcanic eruptions as the cause is the transient nature of eruption effects. Krakatoa occurred circa 1883 and it was major. It occurred after the end of the LIA and did not produce more cooling.

          It seems to me the LIA had to be related to orbital issues or changes in solar radiation. If there had been volcanic issues I would think a scientist of Newton’s calibre et al would have noted something about it.

        • Bindidon says:

          To what Rose wrote (the VEI 6+ eruption sequence) I might add the following:

          https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/323e/1979fd4205bf5ad93e91c059764d20580872.pdf

          Therein you read:

          ” Northern Hemisphere summer temperatures over the past 8000 years have been paced by the slow decrease in summer insolation resulting from the precession of the equinoxes.

          However, the causes of superposed century‐scale cold summer anomalies, of which the Little Ice Age (LIA) is the most extreme, remain debated, largely because the natural forcings are either weak or, in the case of volcanism, short lived.

          Here we present precisely dated records of ice‐cap growth from Arctic Canada and Iceland showing that LIA summer cold and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300 AD, followed by a substantial intensification 14301455 AD.

          Intervals of sudden ice growth coincide with two of the most volcanically perturbed half centuries of the past millennium.

          A transient climate model simulation shows that explosive volcanism produces abrupt summer cooling at these times, and that cold summers can be maintained by sea‐ice/ocean feedbacks long after volcanic aerosols are removed.

          Our results suggest that the onset of the LIA can be linked to an unusual 50‐year‐long episode with four large sulfur‐rich explosive eruptions, each with global sulfate loading >60 Tg.

          The persistence of cold summers is best explained by consequent sea‐ice/ocean feedbacks during a hemispheric summer insolation minimum; large changes in solar irradiance are not required. “

  54. gbaikie says:

    –Winter weather during the 2018 2019 season will be largely effected by the development of an El Nio trend. With NOAA predicting a 70% chance of an El Nio conditions for January, February and March the question turns to how strong of an El Nio event are we in for?–

    ..
    –For that, I contend, you have to look to the South Pacific, a region that has received little attention in past ENSO studies. And the South Pacific suggests, if an El Nio forms this year, it will be a weak or CP event–

    https://unofficialnetworks.com/2018/07/30/noaa-el-nino-forecast-outlook-for-winter-2018-2019/

    So, not going to get giant walls of mud from all the forests Governor Moonbeam has burnt?
    And can expect hobbit land with nice green rolling hills.

  55. gbaikie says:

    “Current conditions
    Solar wind
    speed: 464.2 km/sec
    density: 1.7 protons/cm3”

    Moderately fast weak soup.
    And we have had a small sunspot:

    “Sunspot number: 11
    Spotless Days
    Current Stretch: 0 days
    2018 total: 132 days (57%)”
    http://spaceweather.com/

  56. gbaikie says:

    –Aug 19 (Reuters) – A massive quake of magnitude 8.2 struck in the Pacific Ocean close to Fiji and Tonga on Sunday but it was so deep that it was not expected to cause any damage, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said.

    The U.S. Tsunami Warning Center also said the quake was too deep to cause a tsunami.

    The quake was 347.7 miles (560 km) below the Earth which would have dampened the shaking at the surface.–
    http://news.trust.org/item/20180819010104-ilciz
    Linked from Drudge

    Biggest recorded [modern instruments] was 9.5
    “1960 Valdivia earthquake 9.4–9.6
    Next two biggest:
    1964 Alaska earthquake 9.2
    2004 Indian Ocean earthquake 9.1–9.3
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes

    8.2 is somewhat rare.
    Also most kill by earthquake according wiki [above]:
    1556 AD
    Shaanxi earthquake 8.0 820,000–830,000 people killed.
    [And obviously not using modern instruments in terms magnitude and
    where it actually occurred]

  57. Earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or higher have increased by some 22% over the last week.

  58. Gordon Robertson says:

    norman…” If you have a metal rod and take a blow torch to one end, the number of metal atoms that actually absorb that energy is very small compared with the entire rod. You have maybe a few microns depth and the surface area that are actually in contact with the blow torch heated air molecules. Basically the percentage of atoms of metal that are actually absorbing energy is very small, no doubt less than the percentage of GHG in the atmosphere”.

    *********

    A metal rod has densely packed atoms bonded by valence electrons, or by the charges created by electrons. The moment heat from a blowtorch impacts the atoms on one end the heat is absorbed and passed atom to atom via the electrons at the speed of light.

    In the atmosphere, molecules of air are spread out widely compared to atoms in a metal rod and conduction is cut drastically. Heat transfer in air is largely by molecular collisions.

    The Ideal Gas Law tells us that gases mixed in a volume have a total pressure equal to the sum of the partial pressures of each gas. If the volume is essentially constant, the pressure is proportional to temperature. That’s because the pressure governs how close the molecules are to each other which governs the number of collisions/second, which sets the temperature.

    It stands to reason that a gas making up 0.04% of the mix contributes heat proportional to it’s percent mass, which represents its partial pressure. It is equally logical that the 99% of the gas made up of nitrogen and oxygen contributes approximately 99% of the heat.

    A metal bar does not operate like that. The atoms are all jammed together in lattices, and even though the heat from a blow torch contacts a small fraction of the atoms, the heat is dissipated to the rest of the atoms over the entire bar at the speed of light.

    What would happen if you applied that same torch to the air in a room? Heat transfer would occur largely over the 99% of the molecules made up of N2/O2. You could remove all the CO2 and WV from the air and the air molecules would heat just the same.

  59. Norman says:

    Gordon Robertson

    I do not think you understand what my point was. I was trying to point out a small percentage of atoms can warm up many other atoms.

    You seem to think 0.04% CO2 molecules could not warm the atmosphere.

    If the atmosphere was cold then CO2 will absorb much more energy than it emits. It will continue this process until it reaches a temperature where it emits as much as it absorbs.

    CO2 and H2O absorb considerably more IR than O2 and N2. The Earth emits hundreds of Watts/m^2 to the atmosphere. Only about 40 W/m^2 make it through the atmosphere without being absorbed.

    You are rejecting the effects of radiant energy on the heat transfer process. You have said, in the past, that radiant heat has little effect when the conditions are cold. That view is not correct.

    Most of the energy the atmosphere receives from the surface is in the form of radiant energy. Thermals and latent heat are much less.

    Radiant energy is responsible for almost 80% of the energy the atmosphere receives from the surface. Until the GHG are warm enough to emit what they absorb, they will continue to warm the surrounding molecules of O2 and N2. The effect will be similar to the metal bar. The GHG absorb IR and this energy is thermalized by surrounding molecules until the atmosphere is warm enough that the GHG are emitting the same amount of energy they receive (not all radiant energy, thermal and latent heat add energy to the atmosphere which will be radiated away).

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      norman…”I do not think you understand what my point was. I was trying to point out a small percentage of atoms can warm up many other atoms.

      You seem to think 0.04% CO2 molecules could not warm the atmosphere.”

      *******

      I have already explained why. They are two different mediums, one a solid with densely packed atoms and another a gas with no packing at all. Gases at atmospheric pressure have very low densities.

      Atoms are not free to move in solids, only electrons in conductors. The electrons can pass electrical charges and they pass heat as energy at the speed of light.

      A conductor like a steel rod passes heat very efficiently whereas a gas does not. A few atoms in a steel rod can gather heat quickly and pass it down the line to other.

      It’s not the same in a gas. atoms in the steel. A gas cannot.

      In order for the 0.04% of C)2 molecules to pass heat to the other 99.96% of the gas they would need to contact almost every other atoms in the gas and the math says that’s unlikely.

      • Norman says:

        Gordon Robertson

        No you still do not understand at all what I am saying.

        Maybe this video graphic will help you.
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXZWRkJeKq0

        You do not need the 0.04% to contact almost ever other atom at all.

        The energy that CO2 absorbs will be given to any molecule it collides with. There are plenty of molecules at surface density to collide with the CO2 and transfer the energy before it reemits the energy as IR. Most likely an N2 or O2 molecule. This molecule has more energy after the transfer with the excited CO2 molecule and will then distribute it with surrounding molecules. The CO2 will continuously be gaining energy by absorbing IR from the surface and losing energy through collisions with surrounding molecules until a steady state condition is reached where the amount of energy the CO2 is giving in collisions is equal to the amount it it gains from absorbing IR and collisions with surrounding molecules.

        Conduction through the air is slow but it is not zero.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          norman…”The energy that CO2 absorbs will be given to any molecule it collides with”.

          Your link is to a simulation represents only one gas in a container. THE IGL is derived from the findings of several scientists, among them Dalton, who added the part about the total gas pressure in a mixed gas equaling the sum of the partial pressures of each gas.

          The simulation in your link represents one gas, not a mixed gas. If, according to Dalton, each gas in a mix adds it’s pressure to the overall mix, then at constant volume, the total pressure is proportional to the gas temperature.

          Although the gas temperature is the average kinetic energy of all the molecules, each set of gas molecule in the mix must add heat according to its partial pressure, which is based on its percent mass. That limits CO2 to a few hundredths C warming.

          As proof of that, consider that the atmosphere prior to the Industrial Era was likely 0.03% at least. That CO2 did not cause catastrophic warming/climate change so why should the addition of 0.01%?

          Arrhenius, Callandar et al failed to take that reality into account when they created their pseudo-scientific claims about CO2.

          Furthermore, the failure of the atmosphere to warm over the 18 years from 1998 – 2015 is ample proof that the atmosphere does not respond to CO2 warming.

          • Norman says:

            Gordon Robertson

            You are failing to understand what is going on with molecules that continuously absorb energy (in this case IR).

            You are going by the mass of the CO2. If you have a very small amount of heated fluid and inject it into a much larger fluid bath, the small amount of fluid will have the small effect you discuss. This has nothing to do with what is going on with IR. The situation in the atmosphere would be more like taking a small amount of heated fluid from the fluid bath and continuing to add the heat. You add a dose of small heated fluid, you remove the same amount from the bath and you heat and add this over and over. The large bath will heat up even though you only add a small amount of heat per dose.

            CO2 absorbs new IR continuously and distributes this energy to the surrounding molecules.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            norman..”You are going by the mass of the CO2. If you have a very small amount of heated fluid and inject it into a much larger fluid bath….”

            There is science and there are thought experiments. The Ideal Gas Law has been accepted as fact for over a century and a half and it is very clear about percent mass, which is directly proportional to gas pressure.

            I don’t care about your thought experiments re ink in fluids, arsenic in human cells, or any other analogy. With a mixed gas, the IGL is clear, the percent mass is related to the partial pressure of a gas in a mix and with a constant volume, the heat contributed by each gas is directly related to it partial pressure.

            There’s no way around that no matter how you well you create fanciful thought experiments.

          • Norman says:

            Gordon Robertson

            Whereas I do understand what you are saying, you do not know what I am saying. Mine is not actually a thought experiment either, it is something you can actually do.

            You are talking about if you have a CO2 that has a temperature, it will contribute very little warming to the rest of the gases. I understand this. What you absolutely fail to understand and are too biased to even try to understand it is that CO2 is absorbing new energy all the time and adding this to the bulk of the atmosphere, none of the nonGHG are contributing. I don’t think you will even attempt to understand what I am saying.

            We are talking on different pages. I read your page fine, you totally can’t read my page. Sad, a totally biased mind. You are so convinced AGW is a hoax you close you mind with fingers in ears and sing “La la la” when any information that does not fit your conspiracy theory comes your way. You lost your rational thought process as you pursue a political agenda.

  60. Norman says:

    Gordon Robertson

    Maybe some math will help to explain it.

    The atmosphere GHG absorb around 350 watts/m^2 of emitted surface IR.

    An area of 1 m^2 of atmosphere, all the way up, is calculated to have a mass of about 10,000 kg.

    https://www.colorado.edu/physics/phys1010/phys1010_fa06/lectures/class11.pdf

    Slide 22 of this presentation.

    Heat capacity for air is around 1 kj/kg-K or 1000 joules/kg-K

    You have 10,000 kg and it takes 1000 joules to raise each kg by one Kelvin. To heat a column of air one K would require an energy gain of 10,000,000 joules.

    The GHG absorb 350 joules/sec for this column of air.

    10,000,000 divide by 350 = 28571 seconds to warm this column 1 K
    About every 8 hours the column of air would increase 1 K until the air was warm enough to emit as much as it absorbs.

    You can see that the trace amounts of GHG are quite sufficient to warm the atmosphere fairly rapidly.

    • Mike Flynn says:

      N,

      Complete nonsense. Most radiation passes through the atmosphere with little attenuation. Otherwise, telescopes in using wavelengths from long radio waves, through IR, through the visual, the UV, and so on would not work. Try to kid yourself you are not being bathed in ionising gamma rays right now, if you wish. Photons, light – really energetic, really short wavelength.

      You would not feel cooler by stepping into the shade, nor would you see comets, satellites, planets or stars!

      About 35% of total solar radiation does not reach the surface, due to optical effects (the interaction between light and matter).

      Concentrating on the minuscule amounts of the energy spectrum which are totally absorbed, before being converted to either kinetic energy or longer wavelengths, is the sort of thing that climatological pseudoscientists delight in using to deny, divert, and confuse!

      Neither you nor any of the other bumbling buffoons can even describe the foundation of their cultist beliefs – the GHE!

      No GHE – no testable GHE hypothesis, is there? No science at all.

      Cheers.

      • Norman says:

        Mike Flynn

        First look at this spectrum covering the EMR bands.

        https://www.everythingweather.com/atmospheric-radiation/transmissionwindow2.gif

        You will notice X-rays and strong UV do not penetrate the atmosphere. You will see visible does, you will see some bands of IR are transparent and others are opaque, most of radio waves are transparent.

        You are not a very intelligent person. You should just quit posting. You don’t have the slightest idea of what you are talking about and really make yourself look stupid.

        I wish you would not jump in with such absolutely stupid comments. I like intelligent thoughtful points. You are not able to produce them. Just junk science from the junk brain of yours. Please do something else with your life than pretending you know what you are talking about.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          norman…”First look at this spectrum covering the EMR bands”.

          Where did you dig up that fiction? It shows an IR band almost as wide as visible light.

          • Norman says:

            Gordon Robertson

            Why do you call these graphs fiction? They are actual science based graphs. What evidence can you provide that the graph is fiction?

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Mike…good response.

        Myki will be rendered speechless, which is not a bad idea.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      norman…”The atmosphere GHG absorb around 350 watts/m^2 of emitted surface IR”.

      According to graphs posted by you and David Appell, CO2 at 15 microns absorbed a few ‘MILLI’watts of surface radiation.

  61. La Pangolina says:

    Gordon Robertson says:
    August 21, 2018 at 3:06 PM

    According to graphs posted by you and David Appell, CO2 at 15 microns absorbed a few ‘MILLI’watts of surface radiation.

    *

    As usual, Robertson replicates the same wrong, nonsensical information as every time in every thread about every matter.

    *

    The radiative CO2 forcing in the US standard atmosphere has been, years ago, computed AND observed by satellites to be at 28 Watt/m2 for 390 ppm.

    The probability that an integration of such local values over the world (Antarctica excepted) differs from that value by a factor of 1000 is imho equal to ZERO.

    • Norman says:

      La Pangolina

      Gordon Robertson just looks at the peak energy for a wavelength and thinks that would be equal to the total energy for the entire band of CO2. He needs to learn integral calculus and would know that the energy CO2 absorbs or emits is the area under the curve. I already explained it all to him in great detail as have others. He ignores them and continues on his mission. He has complete bias that Global Warming is such a hoax he will bend and distort actual science to make sure it is such a hoax. He will never entertain the idea that he could be wrong and the science is good and valid.

      He uses a twisted view of the 2nd Law to come up with claims that a cold object cannot transfer energy to a hotter object, even though all established physics says it does. He can’t grasp that HEAT (which is a net energy transfer) only goes from hot to cold, that is not the same as energy. He will never change as long as he thinks GW is a hoax and he feels he is a champion of Truth.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        norman…”Gordon Robertson just looks at the peak energy for a wavelength and thinks that would be equal to the total energy for the entire band of CO2. He needs to learn integral calculus and would know that the energy CO2 absorbs or emits is the area under the curve”.

        When the Y-axis units are in MILLIwatts, and you integrate over a small area of the curve around 15 microns, the sum is measured in a few watts, not the 365 watts you claimed.

        I worked the CO2 absorp-tion out to about 5% of the surface radiation, if the figure of 365 watts is correct. As Mike tried to point out to you, 95% of the surface radiation goes right past the CO2.

        Even if CO2 does absorb 5%, there’s no proof that it can warm the rest of the atmosphere. The Ideal Gas Law tells you that.

        Also, the CO2 absorp-tion is centred around 15 microns, whereas the surface radiation spectrum will be much broader…about 95% broader.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      binny…”The radiative CO2 forcing in the US standard atmosphere has been, years ago, computed AND observed by satellites to be at 28 Watt/m2 for 390 ppm”.

      Norman claimed 365 watts total surface radiation, so what percentage is 28 watts of 365 watts?

      28/365 = 7.67%.

      Where does the rest of the radiation go?

      I don’t agree that this figure has been observed. The CO2 spectrum is overlain with the WV spectrum. There is no way to separate them and the 28 watts is a guess, nothing more.

  62. Norman says:

    Gordon Robertson

    Here is an actual instrument recorded spectrum at 35 Km altitude. The surface temperature was fairly hot, the testing was done in New Mexico in June.

    https://directory.eoportal.org/image/image_gallery?img_id=218018&t=1339757099635

    From this source:
    https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/airborne-sensors/first

    The BB UWIR for a temperature of 320 K is 594 Watts/m^2

    If you look at the graph of the spectrum I linked to you can see how much energy CO2 absorbs from the total of 594 W/m^2 surface emission.

    The units are in W/m^2 sterdian cm-1

    If you look at the graph for CO2 the surface is emitting 0.18 W/m^2 sterdian cm-1. The CO2 band covers about 200 cm-1 so you multiply directly to get 36 W/m^2. The part I am not good at is what to use with the sterdian. There are 4pi sterdians in a sphere so if you use a sphere you would multiply the 36 by over 12. I am thinking in this case if might just be pi. That would give you a total of 113 W/m^2 absorbed by CO2. That makes sense for dry air. Emission of CO2 is about 20% of a BB.

    113/594 x 100% gives you 19% which is close to the 20% that CO2 will absorb in dry air. I think you would need the knowledge of Tim Folkerts or David Appell to figure out how to calculate for the sterdian in this example.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      norman…”Here is an actual instrument recorded spectrum at 35 Km altitude. The surface temperature was fairly hot, the testing was done in New Mexico in June”.

      Note once again that the notch in the spectrum bottoms at 3/100ths of a watt and the peak is around 0.17 watts. You are claiming a surface radiation of 365 watts. The notch represents a spit in the ocean compared to your alleged overall surface radiation.

      Much ado about nothing, and that’s in a region where the surface temperature will be hotter than normal.

      I don’t care how you integrate the spectrum curve, the notch represents around 5% of total surface emission.

      Besides that, N2/O2 are warmed directly by the same surface as are any GHGs. GHGs heated by surface radiation will not make the N2/O2 much warmer than they were warmed by the surface directly.

      • Norman says:

        Gordon Robertson

        I am not claiming a surface radiation of 365 watts/m^2 in this case. I am claiming a much higher surface emission. Close to 594 W/m^2 (it is summer in New Mexico).

        The peak in the spectrum is for an individual wavelength. Carbon Dioxide covers a band of wavelengths about 200 in this spectrum. You multiply the 0.17 by 200 and then you have to figure out how the steradian is used in this example. If it was for a sphere you would multiply by around 12, a hemisphere by around 6. I think the solid angle used in this case is pi itself.

        At this time I have no clue on what type of logic or reasoning you are applying in your analysis of the graph. I am sure you do not know what you are talking about and you are also not willing to learn and grow. You are an obsessed person. You are a fanatic more goofy than those fanatics at Skeptical Science. I think they are fanatic but they at least try to understand something and don’t make foolish comments about things they don’t know.

        When someone is as closed minded and fanatic as you are, with no desire at all to learn, there is no reason to expect a rational or reasonable argument from you. If valid science goes against your delusional beliefs, you reject the science not your beliefs.

        With such a deluded conviction no one will ever be able to reason with you. You will continue to post your deluded beliefs and twist and distort physics (like you do with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (something you can’t understand) or the Inverse Square Law. You can’t understand what a molecular vibrational mode is regardless of how many times it has been explained to you.

        When I respond to your posts I just have to realize your are a fanatic closed mind and remember that no matter how logical or rational I am with you, it will not change an iota of your delusional thoughts.

        You might have intelligence, which I can see when you do not post about climate change or physics, but when it comes to physics you have a fanatic view of the topic that is just wrong. Too bad no one can reach you with logic.

        • Mike Flynn says:

          N,

          Ice can emit 300 W/m2. Below 0C.

          How hot is 594 W/m2?

          Not relevant, you say? Why bother bringing it up, then?

          Maybe you are stupid and ignorant, maybe deluded, or maybe both. Who cares? Nature certainly doesn’t. You might not believe that the Earth has cooled over the last four and a half billion years, but it has. No GHE involved.

          You can’t even describe the mythical GHE, but there is nothing to stop you believing in the GHE, unicorns, or the balding bearded bumbling buffoon’s Nobel Prize! Go for it Norman. Nothing like a good dose of cultist fanaticism for a bit of light relief.

          Cheers.

          • Norman says:

            Mike Flynn

            You post like a bot. You have said these same things over and over.

            I have a challenge for you that you have never fulfilled. It is not a difficult request.

            In order to prove you are an actual human poster, put a link in your next post. A program would not be able to link. It is a test to see if you are human. You are not passing the Turing Test at this time.

            Prove me wrong, post a link. If you do I might feel more compelled to prove your points wrong.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            N,

            Why would you think anybody cares about your “challenges” or “tests” – apart from yourself, and others who share your delusion?

            I do as I wish. I don’t have to prove anything, to you or anybody else! Why should I?

            I have no intention of complying with your nonsensical demands. If you wish to be compelled to face facts – bad luck. You are perfectly free to believe in myths like the GHE.

            I really don’t care what you think. As far as I know, you have precisely no power to affect me in any way. Try as you might, your thoughts and feelings affect me not at all.

            Have you managed to find a valid description off the GHE yet? No? Not up to the challenge, obviously. Learn some physics. It might help you setting tests for your betters in future. Good luck.

            Cheers.

          • Norman says:

            Mike Flynn

            You sound more like a bot with each post. You just mumble on incoherently disconnected with the request made.

            I am asking you to link to some webpage to prove you are a human and not a bot. You respond like a bot more than a human would.

            My point is, whereas I think bots are interesting development, they are not yet ready to discuss science at this time.

            YOU: “Maybe you are stupid and ignorant, maybe deluded, or maybe both. Who cares? Nature certainly doesnt. You might not believe that the Earth has cooled over the last four and a half billion years, but it has. No GHE involved.”

            Nothing here of value same things you have stated hundreds of times before. The content addresses no real issue and seems more of a program loop (with slight variations derived from the post responded to).

            I should test your program. Is the Sun and orb powered by fusion reactions at its core?

  63. Mike Flynn says:

    N,

    You ask. I say no. Why do you care?

    Test away. Maybe you could define the “orb” of which you speak, and explain why you asking stupid gotchas. Have you tried any other sources of information?

    No? Just trying to waste time for no particular reason?

    Carry on. I’ll humour you.

    What reward do I get if I pass your test? I don’t care about the opinions of yourself or others, generally, so you’ll have to offer some incentive meaningful to me.

    Still no GHE. If you find the repetition of this particular fact causes you to take offense, bad luck.

    Just decline to be offended.

    Cheers.

  64. Gordon Robertson says:

    norman…”I am not claiming a surface radiation of 365 watts/m^2 in this case. I am claiming a much higher surface emission. Close to 594 W/m^2….”

    In that case, CO2 absorbs only 4.7% of the surface radiation. Where does the rest go? Due to the inverse square law, not much would be left to radiate to space.

    • Norman says:

      Gordon Robertson

      What is your math to come up with 4.7%. I get closer to 20% (depending on how you use the steradian in your calculation and I am not sure how they are using it here, I am assuming it is just pi as that number makes the most sense).

      Show your math.

      The rest of the IR is absorbed by the other GHG and clouds with a portion not being absorbed (atmospheric window).

      • Mike Flynn says:

        N,

        Your math won’t help you, will it?

        The surface cools at night. Fact. No warming.

        The surface has cooled from its initial molten state. Fact. No warming.

        Nature doesn’t care what you think, does she? Still no GHE. Only stupid and ignorant, deluded people continue to believe in something that cannot even be described, as being science.

        That’s religion at best, climatological pseudoscientific cultism at worst. Keep wriggling, Norman. Or praying.

        Cheers.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        norman…”Show your math”.

        Good grief, I have revealed it several times. Based on the integration of CO2’s spectrum around 15 microns, where the notch resides, you get 28 watts. You already agreed to that.

        What is 28 watts divided by 360 watts? It’s about 7.7% on my calculator.

  65. Norman says:

    Mike Flynn

    You don’t even address what I am saying. I think who ever wrote your bot program needs to take you offline and tweak your responses to make you sound more human. Either you are pretending to be a bot for some weird reason only you can understand, or you are a bot and the program is limited.

    • Mike Flynn says:

      N,

      I address what I choose to address. Whether it suits you, or not, is of no concern to me.

      Feel feee to take as much offense as you like, or think as much as you like.

      I don’t care – why should I?

      Think away, Norman, think away.

      Cheers.

      • Norman says:

        ordon Robertson

        If you come back to this thread.

        Again the image.
        https://directory.eoportal.org/image/image_gallery?img_id=218018&t=1339757099635

        The radiant IR a 320 K surface will emit is 594.5 W/m^2

        To get the 594.5 from this graph you have to find the average W/m^2 and multiply it by 2000 cm-1.

        If you take 594.5(W/m^2)/Pi = 189.2 W/m^2

        189.2(W/m^2)/ 2000 cm-1 = 0.095 average for the y-axis. Draw a line across the graph using this number and you will see that you will have about as much area above the line as you do below.

        This will point out that to get how much CO2 absorbs from the surface, you have to take what the surface is emitting in the CO2 band and it will absorb all of this in a few dozen meters of air. The emission is not what the CO2 absorbs, it is what the colder CO2 at the TOA emits which is considerably less than it absorbs.

        So again the amount of energy the surface emits in the CO2 IR band would be around 0.18 times 200 times Pi or around 113 W/m^2 which would be 113/594.5 x 100% = 19%. How you get 4.7% is unknown at this time. If you apply your math to the entire curve of the 320 K BB radiation (which should come out to 594.5) what do you get?

  66. Norman says:

    Gordon Robertson

    You are mistaken to assume the amount of IR in the 15 micron band that is emitted by cold CO2 is equal to what it absorbs from the surface.

    The correct way to find the amount the CO2 band absorbs is to find the amount of IR the surface emits in the CO2 band (which depends upon the surface temperature) and that will be the value a few dozen meters of CO2 will completely absorb.

    Try again doing it correctly and you should get around 110 of so watts/m^2.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      norman…”Try again doing it correctly and you should get around 110 of so watts/m^2.”

      A true alarmist dreamer.

      • Norman says:

        Gordon Robertson

        I am neither a dreamer or an alarmist. I am a realist trying to get real science. Seeking the Truth. You are what you hate in reverse. A radical extremist who does not care at all about the truth or science. You pick and choose only the information that confirms your belief and will reject all and anything that does not. You are no better in thought than the alarmist.

        Please explain how figuring out a graph accurately makes me an alarmist?

        Do it correctly. The IR reaching the balloon sensor in the CO2 band is NOT what CO2 absorbs from the surface. Read up on it.

        The IR reaching the balloon sensor (at 35 km) is what the cold CO2 is emitting to the balloon. The two processes are much different.

        Do you think that if you cool a plate that can absorbs most IR, that the amount of energy it can absorb will equal what it is emitting?

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