UAH Global Temperature Update for March, 2019: +0.34 deg. C.

April 1st, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for March, 2019 was +0.34 deg. C, down slightly from the February, 2019 value of +0.37 deg. C:

We have made two changes in satellite processing starting with the March 2019 update. First, we have decided to stop processing of NOAA-18 data starting in 2017 because that satellite has drifted in local observation time beyond the ability of our Version 6 diurnal drift correction routine to handle it acccurately, as evidenced by spurious warming (not shown) in that satellite relative to the Metop-B satellite (which does not drift). By itself, this change reduces the trends very slightly. Secondly, we have applied a diurnal drift correction to NOAA-19, which previously did not need one because it had not drifted very far in local observation time. By itself, this increases the trends slightly.

The net effect of these two changes is virtually no change in trends (the global trend for 1979-2019 remains at +0.13 C/decade). However, individual monthly anomalies since January 2017 have changed somewhat, by amounts that are regionally dependent. For example, the standard deviation of the difference between the old and new monthly anomalies since January 2017 is 0.03 deg. C for the global averages, and 0.07 deg. C for the USA48 averages.

Various regional LT departures from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 15 months are:

YEAR MO GLOBE NHEM. SHEM. TROPIC USA48 ARCTIC AUST
2018 01 +0.29 +0.51 +0.06 -0.10 +0.70 +1.39 +0.52
2018 02 +0.25 +0.28 +0.21 +0.05 +0.99 +1.21 +0.35
2018 03 +0.28 +0.43 +0.12 +0.08 -0.19 -0.32 +0.76
2018 04 +0.21 +0.32 +0.10 -0.14 +0.06 +1.01 +0.84
2018 05 +0.16 +0.38 -0.05 +0.02 +1.90 +0.13 -0.24
2018 06 +0.20 +0.33 +0.06 +0.12 +1.11 +0.76 -0.41
2018 07 +0.30 +0.38 +0.22 +0.28 +0.41 +0.24 +1.49
2018 08 +0.18 +0.21 +0.16 +0.11 +0.02 +0.10 +0.37
2018 09 +0.13 +0.14 +0.13 +0.22 +0.89 +0.22 +0.28
2018 10 +0.20 +0.27 +0.12 +0.30 +0.20 +1.08 +0.43
2018 11 +0.26 +0.24 +0.28 +0.45 -1.16 +0.67 +0.55
2018 12 +0.25 +0.35 +0.15 +0.30 +0.25 +0.69 +1.21
2019 01 +0.38 +0.35 +0.41 +0.36 +0.53 -0.15 +1.15
2019 02 +0.37 +0.47 +0.28 +0.43 -0.02 +1.04 +0.06
2019 03 +0.34 +0.44 +0.25 +0.41 -0.55 +0.96 +0.59

The UAH LT global anomaly image for March, 2019 should be available in the next few days here.

The new Version 6 files should also be updated at that time, and are located here:

Lower Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt
Mid-Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tmt/uahncdc_mt_6.0.txt
Tropopause: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/ttp/uahncdc_tp_6.0.txt
Lower Stratosphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tls/uahncdc_ls_6.0.txt


1,697 Responses to “UAH Global Temperature Update for March, 2019: +0.34 deg. C.”

Toggle Trackbacks

  1. E. Swanson says:

    For those on who post on this blog and continue to claim that the Greenhouse Effect violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, such as Gordon Robertson and Mike Flynn, I have performed a new demonstration to show that “back radiation” from a colder body can result in an increase in the temperature of a hotter body. This demonstration does not violate the 2nd Law, since the hotter body is being supplied energy from an external source. I call this demonstration The Ice Slab Effect, as it shows that ice can provide such “back radiation” to increase the temperature of the hotter body.

    Let the fossil fools’ flames begin…

    • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

      Nobody respond to Swanson. Trolls are only out for attention. Don’t give him the attention he craves.

      [Speaking of trolls…. -Roy]

      • Norman says:

        Well said Dr. Spencer.

        • Svante says:

          Yes Norman, today is a good day to commend Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team for keeping everyone in line last month, e.g.:

          2019-03-09 Sat 18:01: Dont worry, Im here.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:03: No need for the repeat, barry.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:04: Bobdesbond, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 04:30: Nate, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:06: Entropic Man, please stop “dad-joking”.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:56: Svante, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-10 Sun 06:31: Yes, I meant it too. Svante, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:07: barry, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:25: Bindidon, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:33: Svante, please stop being Svante.
          2019-03-10 Sun 06:29: No, I understood. Now, Svante, please stop being Svante.
          2019-03-10 Sun 10:34: Still being Svante
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:09: Bindidon, barry, please stop boring.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:10: bobdruggy, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:11: bobdroege, bdgwx, please stop defending the GHE.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:14: bobdruggy, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:15: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-06 Wed 18:04: Great! Keep working on those basic human qualities.
          2019-03-07 Thu 11:41: Swanson, please stop trying to change the topic due to your being butthurt
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:50: Bindidon, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:16: Bindidon, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 04:21: Svante, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:35: Bindidon, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 04:25: Dan, please stop enabling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:27: Bindidon, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:19: bobdruggy, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:20: Swanson, bdgwx, please stop defending the GHE.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:21: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-09 Sat 18:29: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 04:24: Svante, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-11 Mon 12:27: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 04:33: Nate, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 04:36: Nate, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 05:55: Whoops!
          2019-03-13 Wed 06:33: Nate, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 11:12: Tim, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 11:13: Svante, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 11:13: Nate, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-11 Mon 12:53: Norman, Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-15 Fri 03:36: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 11:15: Swanson, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:38: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:37: Testicle4, bobdruggy, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-11 Mon 17:39: Testicle4, have you ever considered writing your comments in English?
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:34: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:35: bobdruggy, Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:36: Testicle4, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:45: Swanson, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:46: bobdruggy, please stop trolling.
          2019-03-12 Tue 05:30: Who is currently prepared to acknowledge that the Green Plate Effect is debunked?
          2019-03-13 Wed 14:47: Nate, please stop trolling.

          • MikeR says:

            Svante, yes the Moderation Team of one (or two if you include sock puppets) was very immoderate last month.

            Ninety six repetitions of the same sentence with just a name change at the beginning. I might have aggravated them and caused some of the outbursts. I humbly apologise to all for precipitating many of their aberrant behaviours.

          • MikeR says:

            GAstro’s Dream Team.

            Thanks once again for the free publicity. Much appreciated and it emphasizes the important point that the Internet never forgets (courtesy of the Wayback Machine).

            As part of the exchanges I did leave it to the reader to decide who in these exchanges appears to be the humorless twat repeating tediously the same thing over and over (see Svante’s partially redacted list above of the Dream Teams contributions from last month).

            Hopefully this does not precipitate another PST flame war. I have been scarred for life.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            I just thought it would be worth pointing out that thirty-two of your “ninety six repetitions of the same sentence” were due to your silly, repetitive trolling, e.g:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c/#comment-347617

            Which you are demonstrating once again, for everyone, at that link. As Svante kindly listed out, I have a lot of work to do, with some of you. A lot of requests…

          • MikeR says:

            Yes you have a lot of work to do. Probably years of therapy.

            I do apologise for encouraging you to troll so fervently. However I claim no role with the remaining 2/3 of your output.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            The remaining 2/3 of those comments were for all the others that can’t stop trolling…

          • MikeR says:

            So in effect you are saying

            “Of course, it was entirely their fault. I had no part to play in it. They made me do it.”

            Years, if not decades of therapy.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Please keep proving over and over again that you are a troll, and I will keep making my comments, to others, as I choose…

          • MikeR says:

            Of course you will keep making your comments. It is to be expected as it’s in your DNA. It is so hard to modify innate behaviour without seeking help.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            #2

            Please keep proving over and over again that you are a troll, and I will keep making my comments, to others, as I choose

          • MikeR says:

            I can feel a flame war coming on. Maybe we should shake hands and move on.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            OK, MikeR.

        • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

          …and none of them are as offensive as the average comment from Norman.

          • Norman says:

            Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            The issue is about “trolling” and has nothing to do with offending people who make unsupported claims and then tell me to study physics.

            You troll and troll often.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Who kicked off the very first comment with an extremely contentious (i.e. likely to lead to yet more endless bickering) and completely unrelated issue? Who has done that many times before?

            Asking people to stop trolling certainly seems to upset some of them. Maybe it’s because deep down they know that’s exactly what they’re doing.

            [While Swanson was definitely off-topic, him providing new evidence to support a position isn’t trolling. “Trolling” is coming here and asserting things like “There’s no such thing as the greenhouse effect, anyway”. Or, “The GHE violates the 2nd Law”. -Roy]

          • MikeR says:

            Roy,

            Hear, hear! Hopefully your admonition will remove a lot of the noise from the comments section, but I doubt it. As for E.Swanson’s comment it is way,way more relevant than a debate about lunar rotation.

          • Kristian says:

            drroyspencer says:

            [“Trolling” is coming here and asserting things like “There’s no such thing as the greenhouse effect, anyway”.]

            So the definition of “trolling” includes simply questioning the assertion that the atmospheric thermal (insulative) effect on the surface is specifically caused by the RADIATIVE properties of the atmosphere?

            I guess that makes me a troll, then.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            This is what I received under that same article that Svante referenced (and this is fairly typical):

            “your dear wife DREMT…neither know a lick of physics…if you are not in the Dremt and JD camp, commonly referred to as the ****** (a small French coin) camp…Troll on…You aren’t being skeptical. You are denying the science…Of course, being a denialist troll instead of a scientist or engineer…How old are you?…clearly trolling doesnt require you to be consistent with yourself or even make sense…Congratulations! You are promoted to full Troll status…Hilarious. MF, JD, DREMT all high-fiving over their collective self delusion. Guys, why don’t you share some cool-aid to celebrate…You have no idea how little actual physics you understand or know…As it goes you know less than the phony JDHuffman…your one, adoring fan DREMT…your wife DREMT…Of course, Trolls dont need to agree with themselves, ;or facts, so it totally works for the TEAM…Come on girls, step up to the experimental plate…I know this science is kind of hard for someone that hasn’t sufficiently passed the pre-req.s…DREMT does not even understand simple discussions…Comment some more sophistry, DREMT, you have become as amusing as JD…whatever nonsense DREMT writes…Obviously DREMT has to ignore basic physics to write nonsense…Heres how the Village Idiots debunk…DRsEMT and Huffingman denialist…Testicle team…You defending that JD is exempt from laws of physics is well over the limit of sanity…What is amazing is Team Dork is proud of their stupidity. They wear it on their sleeve…Uber Dork moans…the dolt Gordon and his Team Dork morons…Or continue to be ignorant, or go back to school…However as we have now two puppets, one of them could be usefully employed as an enema if needed while the emetic quality of the other could be also employed in a medical emergency…Dear Putz…your partner in grime…How pathetic…your anger management issues…my suggestions regarding your lifestyle issues and changes to your medication…Developmentally delayed or just a slow learner?…It appears he may have ended up in that orifice where the sun don’t shine…could this troll attempt to be more creative?…nothing more obnoxious than a boring repetitive troll…infantile behaviour…Dr Evils Team of Maniacs…The first step is for DREMT to get back on his antipsychotic meds…Clozapene is known to exacerbate obsessive compulsive disorders…I think what may also complicate treatment is the range of comorbidities exhibited…persistent delusional state…physical restraint may be required…Hopefully he can then be gently reacquainted with the outside world and end up being reintegrated into society as a fully functioning human being…the Huffingboy/DRsEMT sock puppet…Rather pathetic…Doctor Empty?…you guys are as committed as ever to ignorance…As for handicapped, let me count the ways…DR Evil Mini-me Twin…obsessive compulsive posting…And your high-fiving is pathetic…DREMT cannot seem to comprehend…Take the two plates seperated by a small gap. 1mm should do . Insert into the gap two small objects, testicles if equipped or thumbs otherwise. Bring the plates rapidly together. Observe the effect. Repeat until the effect is well understood…repeat the experiment with the plates heated with a blow torch…your other intellectual vacuous persona…Gasterisk’s two sick puppets…Even you with your limited skills…your fragile ego…So as per usual just more bluster and , pardon my French, more bull shit…Unfortunately you appear to be so irony deficient that your haemoglobin levels might be the cause of a range of your other afflictions, particularly involving those that involve thought processes…Accordingly I will enquire as to your mental health…This author is totally incapable of an original thought…best described at being at the level of an uneducated slime mold…Presumably they are running in ever decreasing circles until they return home to the bosom of mother. I assume then they will then disappear up the appropriate orifice, hopefully to be never regurgitated…endless mindless posts…Do you have an underlying medical condition?…Thats the beauty of physics that, unfortunately, you cannot appreciate, DREMT…you don’t really understand what you are doing…The combination of arrogance and stupidity is a sight to behold…Ha! Ha! Ha! What a dork…this ignorant troll…why I am attempting to mock him mercilessly instead…Maybe you have some employment prospects as a village idiot…Oh well, hopes of DREMT showing maturity dashed…Ok, so this is where you display the depth of your ignorance…the desperate DREM Team…humorless twat…Emergency Team of Manic Trolls…YOU’RE the laughing stock here…”

          • Norman says:

            Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            The list you compiled from numerous posters seems a really accurate assessment of your knowledge of physics. If you spent as much time reading some actual textbooks as you do posting, you may get somewhere.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Norman declares that level of abuse is justified, thus confirming to anybody impartial that he is a troll.

          • Norman says:

            Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Many are just pointing out how little you know about physics and then you come on and post really stupid ideas like you know what you are talking about. I have not seen even one post from you that has even remote valid physics contained within. Posters want to have intelligent discussions about Global Warming. It needs to be based upon valid credible science. You, JDHuffman, Mike Flynn, Gordon Robertson…just make up nonsense and then waste a lot of time as posters try really hard to point out the many flaws in your thinking. I have linked you to actual physics textbooks. I guess you ignore the material like JDHuffman does and then you persist in stupid points. Now you seem that you have this justification for being upset at people pointing out how stupid you are. You have no justification at all. If you post really stupid ideas and continue to do so expect to be called what you are, stupid!

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            I’m not upset at all, Norman. Just pointing out the fact that you are a troll, as you keep kindly confirming for everybody, with your comments.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman never gets the physics correct. And when he starts off on his juvenile obsession with personalities, I lose interest.

            Nothing new.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            Makes false and misleading comments like “Norman never gets the physics correct.”

            I get real physics quite correct. I can’t follow your nonsense made up version that you never support with any valid textbook information or testing. You tell people their tests are bogus but you never do any of your own.

            You are a total phony pretender which is NOTHING NEW.

            Keep pretending you know physics. It gest a chuckle from people.

            DREMT. Your pal is a total example of a troll. He never supports one claim. Taunts and ridicules and makes up stuff. If you want to know what a troll is read his posts. He is trolling.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, as usual, you avoid reality. You don’t have a clue about physics. You try to run down others that don’t share your erroneous opinions.

            Want a perfect example?

            It was DREMT that pointed out your mistake about 345K. You seem to forget things like that.

            Nothing new.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            You are wrong again as usual. Making a mistake and correcting it is not a lack of physics knowledge. Your example is a really poor one.

            The blue plate would gain 800 watts of energy I just used only one emitting side to calculate the steady state temperature and not the other side. 400 watts per side. I thanked him for the correction.

            You actually do not know any real physics and will not correct you many errors. I have linked you to textbook physics that clearly state your view is totally wrong. You don’t accept you are mistaken and correct your view. You double down with even more stupid posts.

            Nothing new with you. You will make up fake physics for as long as you post. You don’t know the real material and are unwilling to invest any time learning it. It seems DREMT is similar. He/She also has no interest in actual physics.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Nice try Norman, but reality is bearing down on you.

            It’s not only your deficit in physics, but your basic common sense is lacking. You believe a racehorse rotates on its axis as it runs the oval track. If shown an example of “rotating on an axis”, most people could easily figure it out.

            You can’t even figure out that a Ferris wheel chair must rotate on an axle. And, you won’t even buy the cheap toy to learn.

            All you know is how to type, and you refuse to learn anything else.

            Nothing new.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            You are bringing up your stupid rotation points again. I have shown you to be wrong continuously. As you said, most can understand what rotation on axis is. You can’t and it is worthless to spend time attempting to reason with you. Since you cannot seem to grasp the reality that a Ferris wheel chair can’t be rotating on its axis. You lack logic and reason and just make stupid unproven declarations.

            DREMT: Note for you. JDHuffman is trolling. This is what trolling is. He wants a reaction so he continues until he gets one. That is a troll. The troll never offers anything of value and when you request any support for their points they offer none. You might like the troll but that is because you are one. Trolls stick together like glue.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Wrong again, Norman.

            You want the point to be stupid, because it makes you look stupid. I didn’t mention “axis”, I mentioned “axel”. You still can’t understand simple motions.

            Nothing new.

          • MikeR says:

            From above DREMT :I’m not upset at all, Norman

            This is pleasing as one got the opposite impression from your diligent collection of your personal descriptions by others.

            DREMT, your record is not totally unblemished, to say the least. Your incessant PST certainly aggravated me (which is clearly the point of a troll) and I returned fire accordingly. Sorry if I have offended but ridicule and mocking could be more effective than trying to engage you (and your partner) in scientific debate, as so many can attest.

            You also have some form in the matter such as,
            Testicle4, please stop trolling (12 times )
            “Begone, witless troll Svante” (now I know where Mike F gets his material from). March 29, 2019

            Not much but when you throw in ninety six of your highly aggravating please stop … then I am amazed you did not expect much blowback.

          • MikeR says:

            From above DREMT :I’m not upset at all, Norman.

            This is pleasing as one got the opposite impression from your diligent collection of personal descriptions by others.

            DREMT, your record is not totally unblemished, to say the least. Your incessant PST certainly aggravated me (which is clearly the point of a troll) and I returned fire accordingly. Sorry if I have offended but ridicule and mocking could be more effective than trying to engage you (and your partner) in scientific debate, as so many can attest.

            You also have some form in the matter such as,
            Testicle4, please stop trolling (12 times),
            “Begone, witless troll Svante” (now I know where Mike F gets his material from).

            Not much but when you throw in ninety six of your highly aggravating “please stop … ” then I am amazed you did not expect much blowback.

          • MikeR says:

            Sorry for the dual post. My internet has been dropping out and strange things are happening. Anyway it was worth repeating.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Please keep proving over and over again that you are a troll, and I will keep making my comments, to others, as I choose.

      • Kristian says:

        Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says, April 1, 2019 at 11:53 AM:

        [Speaking of trolls…. -Roy]

        And it’s official.

        • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

          “As for E.Swanson’s comment it is way,way more relevant than a debate about lunar rotation.”

          As far as I’m aware, I never instigated any of those discussions.

        • MikeR says:

          No DREMT but you have aided and abetted your imaginary friend’s lunar fantasy. You have always sung from the same song book and always off key.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            So has Nikola Tesla, Gordon Robertson, gbaikie, AndyG55, ftop_t, A. Tomic, Savic & Kasanin…

          • MikeR says:

            I suspect the provenance of the short lived Nikola Tesla. I thought he passed many years ago. As for the others that have come along for the ride, the only ones that seem to have survived long term are Gordon (god bless his soul, if he didn’t exist he would have to invented) and Andy. The others maybe ghosts, or more of your puppets.

            Anyway there has always been the gullible to recruit from , witness the existence of the Flat Earth Society. I hope you don’t take up this as a suggestion but at least it would be more relevant to the topic of climate change and it could be interesting. We could have a new set of climate models based upon this concept. Would it be a rotating or non rotating flat earth? Can you imagine the discussions about the impact of the Coriolis force on weather patterns?

          • MikeR says:

            Nikola Tesla was a genius of the highest order. The line between genius and madness is sometimes crossed and Nikola sometimes ended up on the wrong side of the road. Hie effort with the moon was a blemish but largely ignored. Fortunately he is much better remembered for his accomplishments.

            Other geniuses such as Newton, when dealing with areas outside there expertise, also blundered but Newton’s fascination with alchemy was more a sign of the times so it is usually forgiven.

            Some others geniuses blunder and it is hard to understand exactly why. It is said anecdotally that after a lecture by Linus Pauling (the patron saint of lithotripsy) the attendees would wait until Linus needed to go to the toilet. They would follow him in so they could be spared the normal stale urine smell and indulge in the pleasant citrus fragrance that permeated the air.

            I just made that up, but as a member of the Australian Skeptics society, many from that Society have pointed out that consuming lots of vitamins unnecessarily, gives you the boasting rights of having the most expensive pee and with the side benefit of a possible gallstone.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            …so anyway, back to my point…

            I didn’t instigate any of the moon discussions, as far as I know, and I’m not the only person (alive or dead) in support of JD on the subject.

          • MikeR says:

            DREMT, I don’t think I accused you of starting the whole madness. I seem to recall it was Gastro back at the end of 2017 that was responsible for the fiasco and then it was resurrected by your imaginary friend in the middle of last year.

            I am glad you have mates that believe in this nonsense. Does the set of the members of Flat Earth Society a subset or superset of these mates of yours? Do you have a Facebook group as well?

            I suspect the numbers of your mates is very limited. Could it be that in the multitude of infinite universes we lucked out with having a few of your lunatic mates in close proximity and posting in the same blog?

            What are the odds? Probably infinitesimally small.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            “I don’t think I accused you of starting the whole madness.”

            I didn’t say you did. Not very good at following a discussion, are you?

            I argued that Swanson was trolling, because he had deliberately jumped in with the very first comment in an attempt to initiate yet another discussion on an already contentious, off-topic issue, that was likely to spark off another interminable repetition of something already done to death. Not the first time he has done so, either.

            You countered that it was more on-topic than the moon debates.

            True, but as far as I’m aware I never instigated any of those. Meaning both that I didn’t start the whole thing off, or initiate any of the subsequent discussions.

            You seemed to accept this, yet despite it nullifying your whole point, you decided to continue that I had “aided and abetted” the discussions.

            When I pointed out that I wasn’t the only one to have “aided and abetted” it, you’re now just resorting to ridicule again. You don’t really have a point, so you’re just lashing out. Seems to be a common theme with you.

          • MikeR says:

            DREMT. This is getting tedious, and confusing. I tend to confuse easily as I age but maybe there is a misunderstanding. You explicitly stated above “I didnt instigate any of the moon discussions”. These discussions were the madness I had in mind.

            Perhaps there was some other madness that you didn’t start? I do however believe you. You never seem to instigate any madness, it just follows you around.

            With respect to E.Swanson’s opening comment, your boss Dr Roy made it very clear that he didn’t regard it as trolling. Are you disputing this?. I think Dr Roy should review his contract with you and see if he can terminate your services, possibly with extreme prejudice.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            That’s a good one, yes. But I think your “I returned fire accordingly” is the funniest.

            Is there a Universe in which you are able to stop responding to people?

          • MikeR says:

            Yes, it did become reflexive after your barrage of PSTs. I tend to be a counter puncher and you lead with your chin.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Nonsense. You attack me for my position on the GHE. That’s the truth, behind the whole thing.

          • MikeR says:

            Yes possibly, it is hard to keep track of all these exchanges. You seem to have a glass jaw so I am tempted to throw in a sly punch or two. Just to keep you on your toes.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            I don’t care what ridiculous insults and nonsense you come up with. I share it all, above, simply to put things into perspective.

          • Nate says:

            “I argued that Swanson was trolling, because he had deliberately jumped in with the very first comment in an attempt to initiate yet another discussion on an already contentious, off-topic issue, that was likely to spark off another interminable repetition”

            Swanson has gone to a lot of trouble to do an experiment, and do it well.

            IMO, that has much more value than hand waving declarations with little to back them up.

            What you are making clear is that you cant see value in experiments. Thats pretty sad.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            OK Nate.

    • Craig T says:

      The radiation from the colder body will NOT warm the hotter body, but it will slow the cooling of the hotter body. It’s the same reason that a Thermos has a silver coating – reducing the loss of radiative energy slows down the cooling.

      https://futurism.com/physics-thermos-heat-transfer

      It’s ridiculous to constantly argue about basic physics.

      • Tim Folkerts says:

        Craig, I am not sure about the point you are making. Could you clarify?

        Suppose I have a vacuum chamber and I can control the temperature of the walls (which have a blackbody coating). Inside is a blackbody sphere with a surface area of 1 m^2 and a 300 W heater inside.

        If the the walls are set to 0 C (273 K), do you agree that the sphere will be 50 C (323)?

        If the walls are set to -40 C (233 K), do you agree that the sphere will cool to 28 C (301 K)?

        If the the walls are reset to 0 C (273 K), do you agree that the sphere will warm back to 50 C (323)?

        When the walls are rewarmed, isn’t that radiation from the cooler body (walls that are always 0C or colder) warming a warmer object (the sphere that is always 28 C or warmer)? Certainly there is also a heater at work, but that heater is enhanced by the radiation from the cooler surfaces. That is how the earth is too. The solar heating of the surface is enhanced when the there is some radiation from the cooler atmosphere (as opposed to radiation from even colder outer space). (Or maybe that was your point, too).

        • Craig T says:

          Tim, Fritz, let me explain!

          I’m agreeing with both of you, we’re just getting tripped up on the words.

          The 2nd law says the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. Given a warm object and a cool object insulated from the rest of the world the warm object loses energy rather than gains energy over time. I stress that to make it clear that the 2nd law is in place.

          But thermal energy given off by the cooler object still has an effect on the warmer. Equilibrium temperature depends on the energy both items carried into the closed system. The energy doesn’t disappear and nothing prevents radiation from the cooler object from being absorbed by the warmer object.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Craig, glad to hear we are on the same page.

            My one follow-up comment/clarification (for other readers mostly) is that the earth is not a closed system. The sun continuously adds energy. This makes for a much more interesting situation that simply putting a hot obkect and a cold object in an isolated system.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            TF,

            You wrote –

            “The sun continuously adds energy.”

            Obviously not enough to prevent the Earth from cooling. After four and a half billion years of applied sunlight, the surface is no longer molten. Not even above the boiling point of water.

            You can call that warming, heating, reduced rate of cooling, or whatever you like. It is still a reduction in temperature.

            It makes no difference to the fact that you still cannot describe the GHE, does it?

            Cheers.

        • gbaikie says:

          –Tim Folkerts says:
          April 1, 2019 at 1:05 PM
          Craig, I am not sure about the point you are making. Could you clarify?

          Suppose I have a vacuum chamber and I can control the temperature of the walls (which have a blackbody coating). Inside is a blackbody sphere with a surface area of 1 m^2 and a 300 W heater inside.–

          The problem is the heater- 300 Watt heater doesn’t say much.
          A 100 watt lightbulb can have filament which about 3000 K.

          The sun about 6000 K but at 1 AU distance it’s magnified sunlight is about 120 C [400 K].
          If you magnify the sun or 3000 K filament you can heat something to 6000 K or 3000 K. But such heat is limited by size of heat source [with sun it is huge so not limiting factor], but if you can insulate or prevent heat loss, the small size of lightbulb filament
          can heat a larger area. Or lightbulbs are not suppose to be well insulated else they can start fires. Or as is known, books burn at 451 Fahrenheit:
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451

          • gbaikie says:

            “its magnified sunlight is about 120 C [400 K].”
            should be:
            its Non magnified sunlight is about 120 C [400 K].

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Gbaikie,

            The heater is not actually a problem. Any 300 W heater will — by definition — provide 300 J of thermal energy every second to the sphere. The heater could be a single, small hot 300 W light bulb filament. It could be could be tubes through which 100 C water circulates. It could 60 5-watt resistors.

            As long as the heater fulfills the requirement of actually delivering 300 J/s to the interior of the sphere, it will work as I claimed.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Tim,

            300 W can be emitted by a square meter of ice. It is hot – it is providing 300 J every second.

            Maybe you might choose to redefine your specification?

            GHE supporters say that global temperatures are rising – but then start talking about anything except the fact that a thermometer only indicates a higher temperature when exposed to radiation from something hotter.

            Maybe pseudoscientific cultists have different watts for ice – very small watts and joules of the climatological type. Why are ice generated watts not good enough? Are you being iceist?

            Cheers.

        • JDHuffman says:

          Some great humor for April 1st. Swanson starts off with another one of his magic tricks, followed by Tim still confused about radiative physics.

          “If the the walls are set to 0 C (273 K), do you agree that the sphere will be 50 C (323)?”

          The sphere will be emitting 300W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K. The warmer walls might provide some slight warming, but never above 273. And certainly NOT 323K!

          “If the walls are set to -40 C (233 K), do you agree that the sphere will cool to 28 C (301 K)?a’

          No, the sphere will remain at 270K.

          “If the the walls are reset to 0 C (273 K), do you agree that the sphere will warm back to 50 C (323)?”

          Nope, nothing above 273K.

          Some great pseudoscience though, Tim.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            JD,

            I’m just curious — where does the magical number “273” come from. Why can the walls warm some, but only that amount?

            What if the walls are set to 270 K as well. Now the sphere would be 270 K with no heater at all! Will turning on the 300 watt heater have no effect? Will the sphere decide that 273 K is a nice temperature and just stop there?

            What if the walls are set to 271 K . Now the sphere would be 271 K with no heater at all! Will turning on the 300 watt heater have no effect? Will the sphere cool back to 270 K since that is the preferred temperature with 300 W of radiation?

            I know some of these are facetious, but what equation will you use to solve these? What actual answers will you get for walls at 269 K 270 K or 271 K? There can only be one right answer. Every textbook dealing with radiative heat transfer will guide us to the same equation and the same answer.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            TF,

            You are just being silly on purpose, I assume.

            The 300 W heater is made of ice. How much hotter than 273 K do you think it will be?

            Do you really imagine you can heat something to 50 C using ice? What pseudoscientific fantasy world are you inhabiting?

            A sphere containing a chunk of ice, walls of ice, and you claim to have a magical globe which heats itself to 50 C? Maybe you need to get a new radiative transfer textbook.

            Next thing, you’ll be claiming that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter!

            Good luck with that.

            Cheers.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, you are terribly confused. You’re throwing out different scenarios and different numbers faster than you can pose a logical question.

            Pick one scenario that you are confused about, and compose one responsible question, and I will try to help.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            JD, so you are saying that …

            * A sphere just hanging in a 270 K vacuum chamber with no power added will be 270 K.

            * And after turning on a 300 W heater inside the sphere, the sphere will STILL be at 270 K. The 300 W heater will have zero effect on the sphere.

            Is that REALLY the position you want to defend?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Tim, please stop trolling.

          • Nate says:

            ” blackbody sphere with a surface area of 1 m^2 and a 300 W heater inside.’

            * A sphere just hanging in a 270 K vacuum chamber with no power added will be 270 K.

            * And after turning on a 300 W heater inside the sphere, the sphere will STILL be at 270 K. The 300 W heater will have zero effect on the sphere.

            Is that REALLY the position you want to defend?”

            He’s really got you there JD. Difficult to defend that.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            JD,

            Any unheated object in a 273 K chamber will eventually reach 273 K. So the sphere without any heater would be 273 K.

            You literally claim that turning on the heater in the sphere will COOL the sphere to 270 K!

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, now you’ve even trapped poor Nate. Of course, that’s not much of a challenge.

            But, you know what they say “third time’s a charm”:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c/#comment-347733

          • Nate says:

            And yet you still cant defend your silly blunder.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            …and yet this was moved further down-thread. Down you go.

          • Nate says:

            As DREMT gives the play by play coverage..

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            …down you go.

      • Fritz Kraut says:

        Graig T says:
        April 1, 2019 at 12:22 PM
        The radiation from the colder body will NOT warm the hotter body
        _______________________________________

        EACH additional radiation, no matter how strong, no matter where it comes from, will raise equilibrium temperature.
        Energy cant disappear.
        THATS basic physics.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          fritz…”EACH additional radiation, no matter how strong, no matter where it comes from, will raise equilibrium temperature.
          Energy cant disappear.
          THATS basic physics.”

          Energy does not disappear, it is converted from one form to another. When a hot body radiates EM, heat is converted to EM and the heat is lost. If that EM encounters a cooler body than the source of the EM, the EM is converted back to heat and the EM is lost.

          It is simply not possible for EM from a cooler body to be absorbed by a hotter body. The 2nd law says so, entropy says so, and so does the fundamental axiom in physics that energy cannot be transferred naturally from a lower energy potential to a higher energy potential.

          With regard to your assertion, energy doesn’t have to disappear. If EM from a cooler body encounters a hotter body, it is simply not absorbed. That satisfies the 2nd law.

          In the case of thermal equilibrium, EM can be absorbed and emitted between bodies but no heat can be transferred.

          • Craig T says:

            “It is simply not possible for EM from a cooler body to be absorbed by a hotter body. The 2nd law says so, entropy says so, and so does the fundamental axiom in physics that energy cannot be transferred naturally from a lower energy potential to a higher energy potential.”

            There is nothing in the 2nd law that says radiation from a cooler object can’t be absorbed by a hotter object, only that the overall trend will be more energy leaves the hotter object than is added to it. The photons emitted by the warmer object carry more energy than the ones it absorbs.

            For more information:
            https://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node137.html

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Gordon Robertson says:
            April 1, 2019 at 5:31 PM

            It is simply not possible for EM from a cooler body to be absorbed by a hotter body.
            ________________________________________

            And then? – What does this radiation do, where does it goe to, after the body refused to adsorb it?
            You just agreed, its energy cant disappear, so you must have any idea, what else will happen with it.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Fritz naively enquires: “What does this radiation do, where does it go to, after the body refused to adsorb it?”

            Fritz, if you’re in a dark room and you turn the light on, where does the light go when you turn the light off?

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            JDHuffman says:
            April 1, 2019 at 11:14 PM

            Fritz naively enquires: What does this radiation do, where does it go to, after the body refused to adsorb it?

            Fritz, if youre in a dark room and you turn the light on, where does the light go when you turn the light off?
            ______________________________

            When you turn off the light, there is no light which could go anywhere.

            Why dont you just answer my “naively” question, instead asking other questions?

          • JDHuffman says:

            But Fritz, you told us that “its energy can’t disappear”.

            So, where does the light energy go when you turn out the light. It can’t leave the closed room. And, according to you, it can’t disappear. So, where does it go?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            FK,

            Shades of David Appell! A demand for an answer to a gotcha!

            Are you really that stupid and ignorant, or just pretending? I’ll give you a practical practical example of a body not absorbing photons. It is called a lens. The photons pass through without being absorbed. Another example of photons passing through matter – infrared passes through thin black plastic sheeting which blocks visible light.

            Or radio and TV wavelengths passing through buildings, and you, and your furniture, and your glass windows, and your curtains and . . .

            Or put some paper in a microwave oven – I’ll let you figure out how the photons have no effect on the paper (or anything else that is “microwave safe”.

            Any more stupid and ignorant gotchas? I’m here to help. You don’t need to thank me.

            Cheers.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Mike Flynn says:
            April 1, 2019 at 11:49 PM
            FK,

            Shades of David Appell! A demand for an answer to a gotcha!

            Are you really that stupid and ignorant, or just pretending? Ill give you a practical practical example
            ______________________________

            Please not.
            No examples, no stupid questions, no insults.

            Just an answer. Where does the energy of the radiation go to??

          • Mike Flynn says:

            FK,

            You posed the following stupid gotcha –

            “Where does the energy of the radiation go to??”

            You asked an ill posed gotcha, but I’ll give you a well posed answer.

            Wherever it can. Feel free to blame me if you don’t possess the mental acuity to understand.

            Cheers.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Fritz is worried about reflected infrared, since it “must” go somewhere. He believes that reflected infrared means the system will continue to warm. He completely ignores reflected visible light. Visible light photons have more energy than infrared photons, that is, more ability to raise the temperature. But, Fritz doesn’t want to talk about “where does the energy go when you turn out the light”.

            Fritz offers a perfect example of wanting to believe only what you want to believe.

            Plus, he avoids any entanglements from reality or the relevant physies. He’s obviously never heard of “energy dissipation”.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            JDHuffman says:
            April 2, 2019 at 5:28 AM

            Fritz is worried about reflected infrared
            ____________________________________________

            Not at all. Why should he?
            He just wants to know, what happens to the radiation and its energy when a colder body radiates towards a warmer one.
            And he deeply hopes, you dont think, reflection depends on any temperature difference.
            No better idea?
            You can answer him directly.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Fritz, you show no interest in learning.

            You avoided the example I provided about turning out the light.

            You avoided looking up “energy dissipation”.

            I have no interest in trying to teach someone who has no interest in learning.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            fritz…”What does this radiation do, where does it goe to, after the body refused to adsorb it?
            You just agreed, its energy cant disappear, so you must have any idea, what else will happen with it”.

            The universe is full of EM moving around and doing nothing. It’s not just in the IR range which represents heat, it’s across the entire EM spectrum.

            We see colour because a body absorbs some of the visible EM striking it and rejects the rest. The rejection is the colour we see. Where does all the EM go that is rejected by every object on Earth?

            It just keep moving around, doing nothing.

            How about all the radio frequency EM (and above) that we have been transmitting since the 1940s? If it has not been absorbed, it’s likely still floating around the universe somewhere.

          • Svante says:

            JDHuffman says:

            “where does the light energy go when you turn out the light.”

            It is added to the temperature at the point of a*b*s*o*r*p*t*i*o*n.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            fritz…”fritz…”What does this radiation do, where does it goe to, after the body refused to adsorb it?
            You just agreed, its energy cant disappear”

            You need to step back and look at this is greater depth. If you want to, that is.

            EM is free to move anywhere it wants in space until it encounters a resonant situation with electrons in atoms. If the EM frequency does not resonate with the frequency of the electron it is not absorbed. What happens to it is not the question because not one can answer that question.

            Heat and EM have nothing whatsoever in common with each other as energies go. The 2nd law applies to heat, not to EM. The 2nd law governs the direction of heat transfer and EM has nothing to do with that whatsoever.

            The 2nd law does NOT apply to a balance of thermal energy, as some claim, it clearly stipulates that heat can NEVER, by its own means, be transferred from a colder body to a hotter body. Since heat is restricted to a transfer from hot to cold that implies clearly that EM cannot be absorbed when transmitted from a cooler body to a warmer body.

            A net balance of GENERIC energy is pseudo-science. You must specify the energy to which the balance applies and if the energy is heat, it must be transferred in accordance with the 2nd law.Furthermore, you cannot arbitrarily sum EM and heat to arrive at a balance.

            The energy to which you refer is electromagnetic energy, which has unique qualities compared to other forms of energy. EM has no mass and it is composed of an electric field perpendicular to a magnetic field. It is comprised of a humungous spectrum of frequencies.

            EM CARRIES NO HEAT.

            Heat, on the other hand, is a property of mass. Clausius defined it as the kinetic energy of atoms in motion. By that, he not only meant gas molecules (which are atoms) moving about and colliding, he meant the motions of atoms as they vibrate in a lattice in solids.

            Clausius spent a lot of time comparing heat and work because they have an equivalence. The equivalence was first noted by Count Rumford, who set up a large drill bit which he drove with horses. The tip of the bit was encased in a barrel with water and he noted that within 2 hours, the work done by the drill had raised the temperature of water to the boiling point.

            Along came Watt, of steam-engine fame, and quantified the work of horses pulling a load, deriving the horsepower, a measure of mechanical work. Later still, a sub-division of the horsepower, the watt, named in honour of Watt, with 1 HP approximately equal to 746 watts. Both HP and watts are measures of mechanical energy.

            Later. the scientist, Joule, did a superb experiment in which he had a small paddle turning in water, driven by a mechanical device. He was able to derive a relationship between the mechanical energy and the heat produced.

            However, heat is measured in calories, not watts or joules. The calorie is a measure of the heat required to raise 1cc of water by 1C. So, Joule had to relate the calorie (heat) to the joule (work) which he did.

            It is known, based on the work of Tyndall and Stefan, that a body heated to a temperature, T, will give off EM where the EM intensity is the 4th power of the temperature. Of course, you have to multiply by the tiny constant provided to get the relationship.

            At the quantum level, that EM is given off by electrons, which have an electric field accompanied by an electromagnetic field, hence the EM field they give off. The EM is measured in electron volts since it is a measure of the electrical potential between electron orbital energy levels.

            Yet EM is measured in units of work, as W/m^2. How the heck is that possible? For one, by the time Stefan put his equation together circa 1870, Joule had already established a relationship between heat and work. As Clausius put it, it’s OK to use units of work to represent heat as long as you keep the units of equivalence consistent. But that does not explain the application of W/m^2 to EM.

            The 1st law states that Q = U + W. It’s a statement of energy balance between the heat added to or taken from a system to the work done by or done on the system and the energy internal to the system.

            But, wait…Q and W do not have the same units since Q is in calories and W is in watts. Furthermore, U, which Clausius created, is a combo of internal work and heat.

            Clausius addressed that issue in his two editions of the Mechanical Theory of Heat. He claimed it is OK to use Q in an equation with W as long as you convert one of them to the equivalent value of the other as laid down by Joule, circa 1840.

            But, wait again…where does EM fit into the equation? IT DOESN’T!!! There is no reference to EM in either the first law of thermodynamics or the 2nd law. That’s why you must be seriously careful when you talk about a net balance of energy when that energy is made up of both thermal and electromagnetic energy.

        • Mike Flynn says:

          FK,

          And yet, the temperature of the hotter body does not rise. That is, indeed, basic physics.

          Equilibrium temperature does not result in the temperature of the hotter body rising.

          Add radiation in the form of a large block of ice to a ladle of molten lead. Now convince yourself that the lead became even more molten due to the additional radiation introduced into the system.

          If you want a challenge, find a description of the GHE. How hard can it be?

          Cheers.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Mike Flynn says:
            April 1, 2019 at 6:47 PM

            FK,

            And yet, the temperature of the hotter body does not rise.
            _____________________________________________

            Of course it does. Temperature will rise until new equilibrium temperature is reached.
            Until there is again balance between incoming and outgoing radiation.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            FK,

            Nope. If the temperature of the hotter body were to rise, the energy would have to come from somewhere – conservation of energy, and all that.

            The only place it can come from is the cooler body. The cooler body must lose energy. It will become cooler. Unfortunately, this will have two odd effects – the cooler body will continue to become cooler, whilst the hotter body will become even hotter. The increased temperature differential will result in a decrease in entropy, and give rise to a perpetual motion machine, by utilising the temperature differential.

            I don’t think so. Actually, I know so.

            A practical example. Start with some water. Add some ice. Now tell me how the water gets hotter as it cools.

            Stupidity and ignorance is only a substitute for reality in the pseudo-scientific climate cult. Good luck with the perpetual motion machine.

            Cheers.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Mike Flynn says:
            April 1, 2019 at 11:37 PM

            FK,

            Nope. If the temperature of the hotter body were to rise, the energy would have to come from somewhere conservation of energy, and all that.

            The only place it can come from is the cooler body.
            __________________________________________

            Exactly thats where it comes from. Where else?
            The energy comes from where the radiation comes.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Mike flyn says:
            April 2, 2019 at 4:40 PM
            FK,
            If you refuse to provide an answer because you don’t want to, fair enough.

            Presumably, you will accept the same reason from others who may not wish to answer your questions. That would be fair, wouldn’t it?
            ____________________________________

            To make this endless story short:
            None of you climate deniers have the slightest idea, what should happen with the radiated energy from a colder body, if it doesnt warm the receiving body.
            Why dont you just admitt, that you reject physics and reality, because you dont like reality?
            That wold be fair, wouldnt it??

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            You responding in the right place would be fairer.

        • Fritz Kraut says:

          JDHuffman says:
          April 1, 2019 at 11:40 PM

          But Fritz, you told us that its energy cant disappear.

          So, where does the light energy go when you turn out the light.
          ________________________________

          When you turn out the light, there is no light.
          When there is no light, there is also no “light energy” which could go anywhere.

          Why are you going on asking stupid questions instead of answering my serious one??

          • Mike Flynn says:

            FK,

            Because you are a stupid and ignorant troll, perhaps? Why can’t you answer a perfectly reasonable question?

            Are you really stupid and ignorant, or just pretending? What efforts have you made to provide JDH with an answer to his question? None? Why not?

            The world wonders.

            Cheers.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            Mike Flynn says:
            April 2, 2019 at 4:34 AM
            FK,
            Because you are a stupid and ignorant troll, perhaps? Why cant you answer a perfectly reasonable question?
            _______________________________________

            First of all because I dont want to. Because my question was first. Annother question is no answer to my question.

          • Mike flyn says:

            FK,

            If you refuse to provide an answer because you don’t want to, fair enough.

            Presumably, you will accept the same reason from others who may not wish to answer your questions. That would be fair, wouldn’t it?

            Cheers.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Craig T…”The radiation from the colder body will NOT warm the hotter body, but it will slow the cooling of the hotter body”.

        It doesn’t slow the cooling, it affects the ability of the hotter body to dissipate heat. It may sound as if I am nit-picking but the distinction is important.

        If you heat a body electrically, and you prevent it dissipating heat, either by radiation, conduction, and/or convection, the wire will reach an optimal temperature due to the electrical current alone. The moment you introduce any kind of dissipation, the temperature will drop until the heat lost by the heated body via radiation, conduction, and/or convection, matches the heat produced by the electrical current.

        Heat in = Heat out.

        The ability of a heated body to dissipate ‘heat in’ determines the temperature of the body. All a cooler body can do is interfere with the ability of the body to dissipate heat via radiation, conduction, and/or convection.

        Radiation from the cooler body will have no effect on heat dissipation but its temperature will.

        Here’s the explanation.

        The basic Stefan Law is P = (sigma).T^4, which describes the radiation intensity from a body at temperature T. It is based on an experiment by Tyndall in which he heated a platinum filament wire electrically till it glowed colours in a range between temperatures from about 700C to 1500C. Another scientist, forgive me for forgetting his name, converted the reported colours and temperature from Tyndall to electromagnetic frequencies.

        From that, Stefan derived the T^4 relationship between radiation and temperature.

        Later, through the work of Stefan’s student Boltzmann, the latter came up with an extended formula which was:

        P = e .(sigma) . A (Th^4 – Tc^4) where e= emissivity, sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, A = area of radiation, Th = temperature of hot body and Tc = temperature of cold body).

        The first thing to note is the lack of provisions for a two-way transfer of EM between bodies. This is a one way transfer of EM and heat in accordance with the 2nd law.

        Another thing to note is the condition where Th = Tc, a state of thermal equilibrium, where the radiation intensity P = 0. As Th – Tc gets larger, the radiation from the hotter body increases. As Th – Tc gets smaller, with Th = Tc as the limit, the hotter body gets hotter.

        The hotter body is not being heated by anything other than the electrical current through it. It’s temperature increases only because it cannot get rid of it’s heat as fast.

        I don’t understand the physical manifestation of the 2nd S-B formula but there is a lesson there for how bodies of different temperatures interact.

        Taking it back to the simple Stefan formula, it is stating that an electrically heated platinum filament wire, which is obeying the 2nd law, will, under ideal conditions, emit an EM intensity P, from a body at temperature T.

        In the days of Tyndall, Stefan, Boltzmann, Clausius, and Planck, they knew nothing about electromagnet radiation other than near-field EM a la Faraday in electric motors and devices. They had no idea that heat was not moving through space as ‘heat rays’ and they knew nothing about the conversion of heat to EM as in Stefan I. As far as they knew, heat was leaving a hot body and somehow moving through space as some kind of radiation.

        We know now that heat is lost in a hot body when it is converted to EM. EM flows through space, not heat. If that EM encounters a body of a lower temperature than the source of the EM, the EM will be converted back to heat in the cooler body. If the EM encounters a body hotter than the EM source, NOTHING will happen. That satisfies the 2nd law as well as the quantum theory of Bohr and Schrodinger.

        There’s no way that radiation from a cooler body can affect the cooling rate of a hotter body. To see, that, you have to consider the hotter body under ideal conditions, where it is prevented from dissipating heat.

        .

        • Stephen P Anderson says:

          How do you guys write this much and not get it filtered?

          • E. Swanson says:

            SPA, Gordo is just doing a copy-and-paste from his many older posts.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            More baiting from Swanson (baiting is a part of trolling).

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            stephen…”How do you guys write this much and not get it filtered?”

            Obviously, because the man editing the blog has intelligence, tolerance, and integrity, unlike his counterparts at skeptical science, realclimate, and even our skeptical ally at WUWT.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            swannie…” Gordo is just doing a copy-and-paste from his many older posts.”

            No swannie…I can rattle this stuff off in my sleep because I have actually studied it at the university level, I have researched it extensively, and I have applied it.

            You are still stuck with the notion that radiation from a cooler body can raise the temperature of a hotter body, ergo, you have not even begun to think.

        • Craig T says:

          “In the days of Tyndall, Stefan, Boltzmann, Clausius, and Planck, they knew nothing about electromagnet radiation..”

          You might want to read up on Planck and the ultraviolet catastrophe.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            craig t…”You might want to read up on Planck and the ultraviolet catastrophe”.

            Planck based his work on the statistical analysis of Boltzmann. Neither knew anything about the source of EM, which is electrons.

            Planck admitted much later, that had he known about the electron, which was just being investigated as he released his work related to the UV catastrophe, it would have made his work much easier.

            As it stood, Planck’s equation that solved the UV catastrophe used statistical probability to presume that EM frequencies were not as likely to occur as frequency increased. You can see that applied in the equation with the natural log, ‘e’ in the denominator.

            Bohr actually used the unadulterated form, E = hf, to describe the relationship between the frequency of radiation given off by an electron and the intensity of the EM, E. That E is the difference between electron orbital energy level through which the electron drops during emission, where f is the frequency of the electron.

            E = hf will lead to the ultraviolet catastrophe since E goes toward infinity as f increases. If Planck had known that at the time, about the electron, he could have figured out that it was unlikely that E would approach infinity since the electron itself would have limitations in its frequency.

            As it stood, Planck had no idea that electrons emitted EM.

        • Craig T says:

          From Heat and Mass Transfer: Fundamentals & Applications
          Fourth Edition:

          “When the surfaces involved can be approximated as blackbodies because of the absence of reflection, the net rate of radiation heat transfer from surface 1 to surface 2 is Q1 to 2 = (radiation leaving the entire surface 1 that strikes surface 2) – (radiation leaving the entire surface 2 that strikes surface 1). A negative value for Q1 to 2 indicates that net radiation heat transfer is from surface 2 to surface 1.”

          • JDHuffman says:

            The situation described NEVER happens in reality.

            That’s why it is always used in pseudoscience.

          • Craig T says:

            I didn’t know that thermodynamics now is a pseudoscience.

            The only part of that formula that is not realistic is the blackbody assumption. Engineering students have been learning this for years.

          • JDHuffman says:

            I never mentioned “thermodynamics”, so thanks for misrepresting me.

            The situuation you described NEVER happens in reality, which is the reality you must ignore to believe in pseudoscience.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            craig t…”When the surfaces involved can be approximated as blackbodies because of the absence of reflection, the net rate of radiation heat transfer from surface….”

            Absolute nonsense. Most physics textbooks don’t define time yet some have no problem claiming it can dilate and warp. My electrical engineering textbooks still defines electrical current flow from positive to negative, a convention established circa 1926.

            The statement above contravenes the 2nd law. All it’s telling you is that even authors of texts on thermodynamics don’t understand the science completely. Many of the modern texts I have read don’t even acknowledge Clausius as the inventor of the 2nd law nor do they credit him with inventing entropy.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            craig t…”Engineering students have been learning this for years”.

            Electrical engineering students, like me, were force fed crap about electrical currents flowing from positive to negative. I knew better, having been an electronics technician before returning to university. Many others were horrified after graduation to learn that both the electronic and electrical industries regard current as flowing negative to positive.

            I am sure that physics student graduating with a specialty in thermodynamics will be equally horrified to learn what a load of nonsense they were taught about two way heat flows between objects of different temperatures.

          • Craig T says:

            “The situation described NEVER happens in reality.
            That’s why it is always used in pseudoscience.”

            Or in rocket science:

            RADIANT HEAT EXCHANGE BETWEEN SURFACES
            The Stefan-Boltzmann equation for the net radiant exchange of energy between two black body radiators, one completely enclosing the other, is q net = delta A1 T1^4 – delta A2 T2^4
            (Where delta is the Stefan–Boltzmann radiation constant, q is energy per unit time, A is area and T is temperature Kelvin.)

            It continues:

            “In most cases, radiant heat exchange between two surfaces is influenced by the absor*ption, reflection and emission from connecting surfaces. If the surfaces are non-black (i.e., gray or real), a complete accounting of all the interreflections is quite difficult to accomplish analytically. Fortunately, methods are available for the more complicated radiation problems.”

            Page 19 & 22, RADIATION HEAT TRANSFER ANALYSIS FOR SPACE VEHICLES
            SPACE AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS DIVISION NORTH AMERICAN AVIATION, INC.
            December 1961
            https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/271917.pdf

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            2 days late…no, they will probably have moved down-thread. Down you go.

    • MrZ says:

      This is easy to confirm.
      Place a 10 cm diameter -2C snowball and an equal size 50C hot stone each on a thin pin in an well insulated box. Should ideally be in vacuum but that is maybe hard to achieve. Does not matter, this works almost as well. The pins must be 30cm apart and also 30cm from the box walls. Close the box and wait for 30 minutes. Depending on your thermometer precision the stone will now measure approx 52C.

      Since I discovered this I have installed floor heating in my house. I am pumping CO2 to exactly 4000ppm and at that level I can turn the floor heating off. The pump consumes some energy but far less than what the floor originally needed. Backradiation saves me 200USD per month (winter season).

      • Roy W. Spencer says:

        adding a bunch of CO2 only reduces cooling if it is placed in front of something colder (like outer space, which has essentially zero IR emission). In your example, the CO2-enriched air is in front of a ceiling at about the same temperature as the air, so there will be virtually no effect on heat loss by the floor.

        • MrZ says:

          I am surprised it works then.
          What date is it today again?

          • Too many confusing reports today. Maybe it will settle down tomorrow.

          • Craig T says:

            Z, those kind of calculations are tricky to do at home. From what I’ve seen Dr. Spencer understands CO2’s impact on Earth’s temperature even if a lot of posters on this site don’t. I suspect the CO2 level in your house is lower than you think. CO2 levels above 2000 ppm can cause headaches, insomnia and nausea.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Z,

            Good one. I suspect Craig T was even slower than me.

            Oh well.

            Cheers.

          • Craig T says:

            Opps… around here Poe’s law trumps April 1 expectations.

        • Stephen P Anderson says:

          Craig T, I can tell you that isn’t true. I did a dozen patrols on a couple nuclear submarine with higher CO2 levels and none of the crew experienced any symptons like you describe.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        MrZ…”Depending on your thermometer precision the stone will now measure approx 52C”.

        For the simple reason I explained earlier. When you heat the stone to 50C in the atmosphere, it is subject to heat dissipation by radiation, convection, and possibly by conduction through the air surrounding the pin, and through the pin to whatever is supporting the pin.

        When you place it in the container, you have changed the parameters of dissipation, therefore the temperature rises closer to its natural temperature with all means of dissipation removed.

        That is, if you heat the stone, say with a flame, it is losing heat as you heat it.

        You would have to conduct this experiment with extreme care to ensure the environments are identical.

    • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

      “It’s the same reason that a Thermos has a silver coating – reducing the loss of radiative energy slows down the cooling.”

      Sure, radiative insulation works by reflectivity, thanks to the silver coating in that case.

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

      “Heat flow is an inevitable consequence of contact between objects of different temperature. Thermal insulation provides a region of insulation in which thermal conduction is reduced or thermal radiation is reflected rather than absorbed by the lower-temperature body.”

      But still, in order to avoid another 2,000+ comment food fight, it would be better not to feed the Swanson.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      swannie…”For those on who post on this blog and continue to claim that the Greenhouse Effect violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, such as Gordon Robertson and Mike Flynn, I have performed a new demonstration to show that back radiation from a colder body can result in an increase in the temperature of a hotter body”.

      I think it’s inappropriate for you to be the first one commenting on this thread with a subject that is off-topic and dead wrong. Roy allows us plenty of leeway to go off-topic once everyone has had their say about the topic at hand.

      Trying to bring this on-topic, the current global average has dropped slightly but if you look at the overall average from 1998 till present, there has been virtually no true warming to validate your claim. The UAH data proves CO2 is having an insignificant effect on the global average. Ergo, back-radiation from CO2 is having no effect on the global average.

      Your comment, however, reveals the pseudo-science of climate alarmists who stubbornly try various goal-post moving scenarios to get around the 2nd law. It was stated by the scientist who wrote the 2nd law, Rudolf Clausius, that heat can NEVER, by its own means, be transferred from a cooler body to a hotter body. He applied that equally to radiation.

      That law is intuitive. Anyone you ask knows heat cannot be transferred under normal circumstances from a colder object to a hotter object. Alarmists are trying to get around that by referring to a net balance of energy, without defining the energy involved. They are confusing electromagnetic energy with thermal energy.

      We are talking about thermal energy, aka heat. There is no way to transfer it from a colder source to a hotter source without supplying external power to drive a compressor, to compress a gas to a high pressure liquid, from which heat can be vented to a hotter atmosphere than the source.

      However, to compensate, that high pressure liquid must be converted back to a liquid spray where it is then allowed to evapourate back to a low pressure gas. During the evapourative expansion, the gas can absorb heat from a cooler area.

      That is a far different process than your natural process where heat can be allegedly transferred via back-radiation from a colder body to a hotter body. It simply cannot happen and the explanation for why it can’t is found in quantum theory.

      • E. Swanson says:

        Well, Gordo is still hitting zero. He hasn’t yet provided a physics based explanation for my Green Plate demo and now he’s ignoring the results of my Ice Slab demo as well. As our Prez La Plump might say, “What a loser! Too bad, so sad!”

      • Stephen P Anderson says:

        That’s because the temperature is causing the CO2-not the other way around.

        • E. Swanson says:

          SPA, That was true before mankind began modifying the environment by burning fossil fuels. It’s a different world since the start of the Industrial Revolution.

        • bdgwx says:

          SAP, yeah so CO2 is in both a feedback relationship with the temperature and a forcing relationship. That means CO2 will respond to temperature changes and it will catalyze temperature changes. And, of course, both can happen simultaneously. The paleoclimate record has examples where CO2 was both feedback dominated and forcing dominated in the early stages of temperature changes. For example, the Paleo-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was caused by a large pulse of CO2. On the flip side the glacial cycles mostly resulted in a feedback dominated behavior of CO2 at least initially. But remember, CO2 also catalyzes temperature changes so though it may not have been the initial catalyzing agent it was still responsible for a large part of the glacial cycle temperature swings.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            BGDWX,

            That’s true of all the IR absorbing gases but CO2 is insignificant-it is about 1% of the energy budget. Read Salby’s book. You’ll learn something.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            Also, you really don’t know if any of that paleo proxy stuff is valid. There’s no way to verify.

          • Craig T says:

            Reconstruction of early spring temperature for central Japan from the tree‐ring widths of Hinoki cypress and its verification by other proxy records
            https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2006GL026170

            Evaluation of proxies for European and North Atlantic temperature field reconstructions
            https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2003GL017589

            A critical evaluation of multi‐proxy dendroclimatology in northern Finland
            https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jqs.1408

          • bdgwx says:

            SPA,

            “That’s true of all the IR absorbing gases but CO2 is insignificant-it is about 1% of the energy budget.”

            Not really. CFCs are synthesized and have no significant natural sources so they don’t have a feedback aspect unless you consider increased HVAC usage due to an increase in temperature a legitimate feedback. H2O is not a forcing mechanism and cannot catalyze temperature changes on its own. It does have a feedback effect that can amplify the warming caused by another catalyzing agent but the feedback is self limiting. CH4 is both a feedback and forcing mechanism though.

            1% is pretty substantial. The Maunder Minimum produced a radiative forcing at the surface of around -1 W/m^2 which is considerably less than 1% and it was a significant contributing factor during the LIA. A doubling of CO2 would be greater than 1%.

            “Also, you really don’t know if any of that paleo proxy stuff is valid. There’s no way to verify.”

            Sure. We’ll likely never be able to know for certain what happened in the past, but that doesn’t preclude scientists from drawing conclusions with relatively high confidence.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            BGDWX,
            You are just regurgitating alarmist dogma. Don’t you get tired of being a barking lap dog? “Water isn’t a forcing. Water isn’t a forcing.The sky is falling.” Where is this leftist utopia? Where has it ever been?

          • bdgwx says:

            SPA, I think it’s somewhat intuitive that water vapor isn’t a forcing agent. If it were then something as simple as a hyperactive tropical cyclone season could have kick started a runaway greenhouse effect. But after a billion years of countless tropical cyclones that never happened. And it’s hard to imagine what process would allow it because WV mixing ratios are capped by the thermodynamic nature of the atmosphere. If there’s too much the column saturates and it precipitates out quickly. If there’s too little clouds disappear and evaporation kicks into overdrive. That’s why it is said that WV is locked into a mostly stable equilibrium with the temperature.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            BGDWX,
            Why can’t water be both?

    • Kristian says:

      E. Swanson says, April 1, 2019 at 11:31 AM:

      (…) I have performed a new demonstration to show that “back radiation” from a colder body can result in an increase in the temperature of a hotter body.

      No, as usual, you haven’t. That’s merely your INTERPRETATION of your results. The “back radiation” part simply reflects the mental model that you pictured in your head to begin with, even BEFORE doing the test. It’s not something you ever observed.

      This is equivalent to CO2 heads just assuming that since temps have gone up and so has atmospheric CO2, then the latter is automatically the CAUSE of the former, without any other supporting evidence, simply because they already held the belief in their head before they went looking, that more CO2 in the atmosphere automatically causes the surface to warm.

      Completely circular.

      You need to observe clear signs of the proposed MECHANISM behind an observed effect (“back radiation” from cold => +T_warm; +CO2 => +T) in order to conclude that the proposed mechanism is (likely) what caused the effect. You can’t just observe the effect and assume YOUR mechanism caused it without actually OBSERVING it doing so.

      This is one of the fundamentals of the scientific method that seems to utterly escape most CO2 cultists. They’re completely blind to it. And you’re one of them, S-man.

      • E. Swanson says:

        Kristian claims that my “interpretation” of the results of my latest demos is “Completely circular”, yet, provides no other explanation for the observed results, i.e., the metal plate is warmer with the “back radiation” from the various covers than without. Sad to say, this (and the rest of the post) is just another denialist red herring, throwing out an objection with no support from physics. It’s the same old rejection of engineering practice and scientific findings, endlessly repeated on this blog.

        • Kristian says:

          E. Swanson says, April 2, 2019 at 8:26 AM:

          Kristian claims that my “interpretation” of the results of my latest demos is “Completely circular” (…)

          I don’t claim it. I point it out. If you can’t see that your argument is completely circular, then I cannot help you, I’m sorry. You’re a lost case.

          I have no problem with your results. I do, however, have a problem with your conclusion based on those results.

          Wanna hear my conclusion? Based on the exact same results …

          • E. Swanson says:

            Kristian, What’s keeping you? This “debate” has been going on for more than a year. Do provide references from reputable sources please.

          • Kristian says:

            E. Swanson says, April 2, 2019 at 8:50 AM:

            Kristian, What’s keeping you? This “debate” has been going on for more than a year.

            Indeed. Even longer. And during that time I’ve explained it tens of times. But you people just keep shutting your eyes and ears. There simply is no talking to you. You’ve just made up your mind, and that’s it; your particular ‘mental model’ IS correct.

            I’m asking you: Do you actually wanna hear (i.e. ‘read’) what I have to say? Or will you once again just dogmatically turn a blind eye?

            Do provide references from reputable sources please.

            Hehe, why? Science is observation and interpretation, not “references from reputable sources”. That’s where you misconstrue the whole point of the scientific endeavour.

            But if you really want to have a go at it, I can strongly recommend picking up any textbook on thermodynamics and start reading.

            I’ll simply explain a thermodynamic effect using a thermodynamic mechanism. Which YOU aren’t.

          • E. Swanson says:

            Kristian, I suppose your link represents your reply. The analogy you present is entirely inappropriate for several reasons. While the bottom slab may represent the surface of the Earth and thus emit only in the upward direction, the upper slab must emit from both sides if your model is to be in any way representative. Furthermore, the bottom slab must be supplied with energy from an external energy source if your mental model is to have any relevance to the situation. Your model apparently assumes constant temperatures for the two slabs, which is again not relevant, since the temperatures are the result of the rate at which energy flows from the heated slab thru the cooler slab to some ultimate sink, be that the surroundings or deep space. Of course, you are quoting yourself, without any reference(s) to accepted scientific results for support of your daydreams.

            I think you are just tossing out complete BS, whether you realize it or not.

          • Kristian says:

            Placing a cooler plate in front of a warmer one will make the warmer one even warmer if 1) the warmer plate is already heated by a constant power/heat source, and 2) if the cooler plate is warmer than the surroundings beyond it. This is simply the well-known thermal (thermodynamic) phenomenon of “insulation”.

            But insulation is specifically a THERMODYNAMIC process/mechanism, in this case leading to a temperature rise, which is specifically a THERMAL effect. The thermal effect was CAUSED by a thermal (thermodynamic) process/mechanism. Insulation.

            So what does insulation do? It reduces the HEAT LOSS (the net transfer of energy) from a warm object to its cooler surroundings, thus potentially forcing a positive heat imbalance on the object. And a positive heat imbalance normally leads to a rise in temperature.

            So what made the cooler plate insulate the warmer one? Its temperature. Simple as that. Its temperature is simply higher than the ambient, and so the heat loss from the warmer plate to its surroundings is reduced as a consequence:

            q/A = e s [T_wp^4 – T_am^4] = ++

            q/A = e s [T_wp^4 – T_cp^4] = +

            The surplus (the net loss of energy from the warmer plate) is explained, by analogy, in the link above (previous comment).

            The photons are ultimately the tranferring TOOL, but the cooler plate temperature is the ultimate REASON (cause) why the heat loss of the warmer plate ends up smaller with the cooler plate in place. THAT’S ultimately what generates the insulative effect.

            Claiming that an increase in “back radiation” from cold to hot is directly what CAUSES hot to grow even hotter clearly violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Note, the mechanism of insulation itself obviously does no such thing. But your attempt at EXPLAINING it with “back radiation” as your cause clearly does. Because now what you’ve done, in your head, is essentially turned the “back radiation” into a separate macroscopic (thermal) flux from cold to hot making hot even hotter upon absorp.tion. But in thermodynamics (the field of physics specifically governed by those pesky thermodynamic laws), such a flux would – whenever a thermal process is discussed – constitute a HEAT flux. And a heat flux NEVER moves spontaneously from cold to hot.

            Put slightly different:
            A cold thing can NEVER in nature make a warmer thing even warmer by HEATING it. A cold thing can only ever (potentially) make a warmer thing warmer still by INSULATING it.

            The process of HEATING and the process of INSULATION are thermodynamic opposites: The former involves an increase in the INCOMING heat flux to a surface, while the latter involves a reduction of the OUTGOING heat flux from that same surface (at any given surface temperature).

            Heating can only be done by something (or somewhere) warmer. Like the Sun heating the Earth.

            Insulation, however, can be (and is) done by something (or somewhere) cooler. Like the fairly balmy atmosphere insulating the warm surface of the Earth against the utter coldness of space.

            All of this is (or, at least, should be) common knowledge to people who’ve studied thermodynamics even a tiny bit.

          • E. Swanson says:

            Kristian, You state that the increase in temperature is the result of insulation, which is typically a property of the material between the two plates and the mode of heat transfer. But, with a vacuum (or even air) between the two plates, the only (main) mode of energy transfer is via radiation. Radiation follows different physical rules than conduction or convection, a fact which you choose to distort by calling the flow of photons from the cooler plate to the hotter plate INSULATION instead of HEATING. You wrote:

            The process of HEATING and the process of INSULATION are thermodynamic opposites: The former involves an increase in the INCOMING heat flux to a surface, while the latter involves a reduction of the OUTGOING heat flux from that same surface (at any given surface temperature).

            Do you deny that the photons from the cooler plate are absorbed by the warmer one, adding to the warmer plate’s internal energy, when you claim that this causes a reduction in the outgoing IR EM from the hotter plate. If you are to be believed, you must provide some evidence for this, other than the words which are bouncing around inside your skull, as in, references.

          • bdgwx says:

            I’m okay with both conceptualizations of the process. It seems to me that this is more related to semantics of how the process is described and less with the end result. The important thing is that when you place an IR active material between the warm plate and the cool plate the end result is that the warm plate will have a higher temperature than it would have had had the IR active material not been there. The other interesting aspect of this experiment is that it demonstrates the distinction of the 2LOT in regards to the system being isolated. If you remove the energy source on the warm plate thus removing the external stimuli then the plates will spontaneously equilibriate in accordance with the 2LOT. Am I understanding this line of discussion correctly?

          • Nate says:

            ‘Im okay with both conceptualizations of the process. It seems to me that this is more related to semantics of how the process is described and less with the end result. ‘

            Well put. I agree.

            Both agree on the end result, and both agree on the proper equation to describe it, the RHT equation. And both agree that photons are involved in the transfer of energy.

            Because many heat transfer courses and textbooks describe RHT as a two-way flow of energy, describing it that way is generally accepted, and certainly does no harm.

            ‘Claiming that an increase in back radiation from cold to hot is directly what CAUSES hot to grow even hotter clearly violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.’

            I disagree with this.

            Again, both the results and analysis of it show no NET spontaneous transfer of energy from cold to hot.

            A 2LOT violation, IMO, is a device or a solution to a problem that has a NET spontaneous transfer of energy from cold to hot.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Swanson conclusively states that it is not insulation. After all that…

            Funny watching them argue amongst themselves.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            swannie…”Do you deny that the photons from the cooler plate are absorbed by the warmer one, adding to the warmer plates internal energy,”

            I do.

            Kristian has already stated the reason, the 2nd law. It is specific in that it claims heat can NEVER be transferred, BY ITS OWN MEANS, from a colder body to a warmer body. You are describing a transfer of heat from a cooler body to a warmer body via radiation, and that is simply not possible to to the underlying quantum physics.

            I am not arguing that you cannot move heat from a cooler body to a hotter environment, it just won’t happen naturally. You need external power and apparatus like a compressor, condenser, and evapourator, along with a special gas that can be easily compressed to a liquid at high pressure.

            It’s the conversion of a low pressure gas to a high pressure liquid that allows the reverse transfer of heat when the HP liquid is allowed to vent heat to a warmer environment.

            The bodies to which you refer, presumably solids, are aggregations of atomic nucleii bonded together by electrons. It is the electrons that absorb and emit the radiation and when they absorb EM they must rise to a higher orbital energy level. That means the body as a whole must increase in temperature.

            However, the electrons in a hotter body are ALREADY AT A HIGHER ENERGY LEVEL and to move them to an even higher energy level you must supply EM with an intensity and frequency that at least matches the higher energy level. That EM can only come from an even hotter source.

            EM from a cooler body does not have that intensity or frequency. All it could do, if absorbed, is pull the electrons to a lower matching energy level, meaning the body would have to cool.

            However, that makes no sense since electrons don’t react to negative energy. They can only fall to a lower energy level by emitting EM.

          • bdgwx says:

            GR, Assuming I’m understanding correctly Swanson’s experiment is not an isolated system. It is not being allowed to evolve by it’s own means. If he removed the external power source then the apparatus would naturally equilibrate as the heat spontaneously flowed (by its own means) from the hot side to the cold side in accordance with the 2LOT.

          • Kristian says:

            Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says, April 2, 2019 at 2:45 PM:

            Swanson conclusively states that it is not insulation. After all that…

            Hehe. Yeah, that is quite revealing, isn’t it? It means he’s just as confused about this as you are.

          • Kristian says:

            E. Swanson says, April 2, 2019 at 11:45 AM:

            Kristian, You state that the increase in temperature is the result of insulation, which is typically a property of the material between the two plates and the mode of heat transfer.

            No. Insulation is simply the thermodynamic process whereby the heat loss from a surface is reduced at any given surface temperature. It doesn’t have anything to do with the material you’re using. That would be the concern of engineers, not physicists.

            Anything you put up around some object to thermally shield it against the absolute cold of its outer surroundings will insulate that object. It doesn’t matter whether that something does so radiatively, conductively or convectively. It’s the exact same phenomenon, the exact same process, thermodynamically.

            Radiation follows different physical rules than conduction or convection (…)

            No, it doesn’t. Not THERMODYNAMICALLY! When you go down to the QUANTUM level, it does, and this, it appears, is what confuses you. Because you’re stuck at that micro level, trying to explain a distinctly thermodynamic effect by talking about photons.

            But this is, again, a thermodynamic problem, not a quantum-mechanical one.

            You cannot explain a thermodynamic effect, which has to abide by the Laws of Thermodynamics, with a process/mechanism that doesn’t. Photons, being outside the thermodynamic limit, are free to move from cold to hot as much as they like. But you can’t use this fact to claim that it is therefore the photons moving from cold to hot that creates the thermodynamic effect that you want to explain.

            I realise you people have a hard time grasping this distinction.

            Do you deny that the photons from the cooler plate are absorbed by the warmer one (…)

            Of course not. But that’s irrelevant. Didn’t you read what I wrote in the link above? The quantum vs. the thermo perspective on reality. Micro vs. macro. Distinct realms, different physical laws. That’s why you cannot merge them into one, as if they addressed the same aspects of reality, the way you do.

            You need to try and understand this, Swanson.

            (…) adding to the warmer plate’s internal energy (…)

            *Sigh*

            No. The specific absorp-tion of individual photons doesn’t and couldn’t add to a macroscopic body’s internal energy. This is the whole point. Again, READ THE LINK ABOVE. That’s where I explain the distinction between micro and macro when it comes to energy transfer.

            The internal energy [U] of a body or region is distinctly a MACROSCOPIC property, a THERMODYNAMIC state function. It can be changed by the net transfer (statistical average) of ALL energy packets within an exchange only, not by individual energy packets.

            Please try and understand.

            Read some thermodynamics. And do try to find out what a “radiative flux” really is, how it’s defined and how we quantify it.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Kristian conclusively states that it isinsulation.

            After another few hundred comments of discussion, I wonder if they will have reached a group decision on what Swanson’s experiment is actually supposed to demonstrate; “heating”, or “insulation”. I expect the end result will be the same as always: they will claim it is both “heating”, and “not heating”. Plus, it is both “insulation”, and “not insulation”. It is all those things at the same time. Then, the icing on the cake will once again be, that whoever suggests there is inconsistency in their position will be the one that is accused of “arguing semantics”.

            Funny watching them argue amongst themselves.

          • E. Swanson says:

            All of the denialist above offer the same sort of argument, which is that my “interpretation” of my ice slab demonstration somehow violates the 2nd Law of thermodynamics, which they contend is impossible. Never the less, they now call the observed effects some form of “insulation”, which apparently makes the observed results possible without actually explaining how this process occurs in physics.

            Great, now they have inadvertently admitted that whatever process is involved, which is the same as that called the Greenhouse Effect, doesn’t violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. CO2 (and other greenhouse gases, especially WV) in the atmosphere fits Kristian’s description of an “insulator”. Thus AGW is also real because increasing the CO2 amount will increase the insulating effect on the surface.

          • barry says:

            I’m okay with both conceptualizations of the process. It seems to me that this is more related to semantics of how the process is described and less with the end result.

            Exactly.

            The important thing is that when you place an IR active material between the warm plate and the cool plate the end result is that the warm plate will have a higher temperature than it would have had had the IR active material not been there.

            Exactly.

            The rest is semantics: apart from those who are hopelessly lost on the matter, despite years of reading sensible comment here.

          • Nate says:

            ‘You cannot explain a thermodynamic effect, which has to abide by the Laws of Thermodynamics, with a process/mechanism that doesnt.”

            Actually statistical mechanics does just that. It explains how the thermodynamic laws derive from the movements of molecules or photons.

            Fluctuations in energy flows, energy content, or pressure are also observed and can be explained as arising from particle number fluctuations (for example).

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

          • Kristian says:

            E. Swanson says, April 3, 2019 at 8:38 AM:

            All of the denialist above (…)

            Enough said. If you disagree with S-Man’s a priori interpretation of his results, you are simply declared a “denialist”.

            Very scientific indeed.

            They’re all the same …

          • Kristian says:

            E. Swanson says, April 3, 2019 at 8:38 AM:

            Never the less, they [meaning moi, the latest “denialist”] now call the observed effects some form of “insulation”, which apparently makes the observed results possible without actually explaining how this process occurs in physics.

            I have explained how it occurs “in physics”. What makes my explanation less physically valid than yours? In fact, it is much more physically valid than yours, because it doesn’t mix together two fundamentally different physical realms, governed by completely different physical laws.

            CO2 (and other greenhouse gases, especially WV) in the atmosphere fits Kristian’s description of an “insulator”.

            No. The “insulator” is the warm atmosphere.

            Thus AGW is also real because increasing the CO2 amount will increase the insulating effect on the surface.

            And no. Because there are other factors involved.

            But you will never get this, Swanson.

          • Kristian says:

            barry says, April 3, 2019 at 8:41 AM:

            The rest is semantics: apart from those who are hopelessly lost on the matter, despite years of reading sensible comment here.

            In physics, getting semantics right is everything. But barry doesn’t get that, despite years of reading sensible comment here.

            In proper physics, you would never describe the process of insulation as if it were the process of heating. Full stop.

          • Kristian says:

            bdgwx says, April 2, 2019 at 12:11 PM:

            I’m okay with both conceptualizations of the process. It seems to me that this is more related to semantics of how the process is described and less with the end result.

            The crucial point here is that in physics, the explanation of a physical effect should obey the same physical laws as the ones constraining the effect itself. The “back radiation” explanation doesn’t do that, because it tries to explain a thermodynamic effect via a phenomenon that distinctly operates outside the thermodynamic limit. It tries to have the cake and eat it. It tries to get away with claiming that a separate transfer of energy from cold to hot directly causes hot to get even hotter WITHOUT this being a violation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, because the energy transfer in question isn’t really HEAT, it’s just a bunch of photons.

            In actual physics, you won’t get away with that. You cannot (and wouldn’t) explain a thermal effect (like a temperature rise) clearly resulting from the process of insulation as if it were instead resulting from the (opposite) process of heating, just because “the end result” (the temperature rise) happens to be the same.

            A cooler place can’t heat a warmer place. It CAN, however, insulate that warmer place. And so, whenever you use a cooler object to somehow make a warmer object warmer still, you KNOW (!!) you have made use of the thermodynamic process/mechanism of INSULATION, not heating. The Sun heats the surface of the Earth. The atmosphere only insulates it. Why the distinction? Because the Sun is hotter than the surface of the Earth, while the atmosphere is cooler. But both work to make Earth’s average surface temperature higher than if they weren’t there. The mechanisms, however, by which they do so are vastly different. And it’s important to make people understand this.

            I hope this made things a little bit clearer.

          • barry says:

            In proper physics, you would never describe the process of insulation as if it were the process of heating.

            A “process” is not being described. A result is being described.

            ‘The introduction of a cool object to a purely radiative system can cause a warmer object to become even warmer.’

            There is no description of process in that statement. There is not even a description of directional flow of anything.

            Breaking it down into the mechanics introduces the “process” you take issue with, and there is nothing wrong with it in terms of statistical or quantum mechanics. The warmer object loses energy at a slower rate because it is receiving more energy than before, from the cooler object. That’s why it becomes warmer (with a heat source present).

            Nothing about that defies physics. That is what actually, physically, happens.

            Whereas with the semantical rules you labour under, you could never describe what is happening in this situation. You could never pinpoint the physical mechanism that acts upon the warmer object to change its temperature once the colder object is introduced.

            At least, I’ve never seen you pinpoint the discrete physical mechanism in any of your attempts.

          • Nate says:

            ‘The crucial point here is that in physics, the explanation of a physical effect should obey the same physical laws as the ones constraining the effect itself. The ‘back radiation’ explanation doesnt do that, because it tries to explain a thermodynamic effect via a phenomenon that distinctly operates outside the thermodynamic limit.’

            As already noted, but you ignored, Thermodynamic laws governing heat and energy flows can be derived from statistics of the movement of photons and molecules.

            Just as economic ‘laws’ arise from many individual transactions.

            Those movements of photons and molecules obey laws of physics, and ARE the fundamental mechanism for the energy transfer.

            “the explanation of a physical effect should obey the same physical laws”.

            No, that’s just a declaration.

            Individual movements of photons or molecules don’t obey the 2nd Law, but the collective movements of photons do.

            Yet, the movements of photons ARE the explanation/mechanism for heat transfer from hot to cold.

            Whereas, as Barry notes, you never pinpoint the mechanism for how the hot object ‘knows’ the temperature of the separate cold object, and thereby ‘knows’ how much heat to transfer.

            The thermodynamic laws are NOT the mechanism.

          • Kristian says:

            barry says, April 4, 2019 at 7:02 PM:

            ‘In proper physics, you would never describe the process of insulation as if it were the process of heating.’

            A “process” is not being described. A result is being described.

            ‘The introduction of a cool object to a purely radiative system can cause a warmer object to become even warmer.’

            There is no description of process in that statement. There is not even a description of directional flow of anything.

            Whatever makes you think THAT was the statement I was addressing with mine? I was of course addressing statements like the ones coming from Swanson et al. about “back radiation” from a cooler plate being the cause of observed temperature rise on an already warmer plate. Or the IPCC or NASA claiming that atmospheric “back radiation” provides more energy to the surface to heat it some more.

            But you knew this, barry. You just being you, I guess …

            The particular statement you quote (from bdgwx) is perfectly fine. It’s the way it should be. We’re talking INSULATION. I was, however, explaining what is NOT perfectly fine when talking about these things.

            Breaking it down into the mechanics introduces the “process” you take issue with (…)

            *Sigh*

            I don’t “take issue with” the process, barry. I take issue with the way this process, which is distinctly a NON-thermodynamic (quantum-mechanical) one, is USED to explain an inherently thermodynamic (thermal) effect.

            THAT’S my problem. That’s THE problem. How bloody hard is this to grasp?

            (…) and there is nothing wrong with it in terms of statistical or quantum mechanics.

            Only, it cannot and will not itself be able to ’cause’ or ‘create’ changes in TEMPERATURE. Because it is itself merely a microscopic EFFECT of temperature (a macroscopic property), which is why this kind of radiation is called THERMAL radiation to begin with. Thermodynamically, it’s at best a carrier of a temperature signal.

            The warmer object loses energy at a slower rate because it is receiving more energy than before, from the cooler object.

            Hehe, no, barry. Again, this is you trying to have the cake and eat it, mixing different realms of physics governed by different laws together as if they were one. This is thermodynamics (or statistical mechanics, if you prefer) we’re dealing with, NOT quantum physics. There are no changes in overall (macroscopic) rates of energy loss in quantum physics. For the same reason that there are no changes in temperatures. For that to be observed, you need to be IN the thermodynamic limit, not outside of it. And when you’re in the thermodynamic limit, what you have is only ever the probabilistic average of ALL photon movements/exchanges at each moment in time. You only have ‘energy’ in the generic sense, no individual packets of energy. A single-photon absorp-tion (or emission) event (a quantum process) does nothing in itself to change the internal energy of an entire macroscopic object/surface.

            See my slab analogy to have the fundamental distinction between the MICRO and MACRO perspectives on ‘energy transfer’ clarified:
            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/06/uah-global-temperature-update-for-may-2018-0-18-deg-c/#comment-308771

            Or try this oldie:

            Imagine you have your hand stretched out with the open palm facing up. In your palm lie two dimes. A person is standing right in front of your outstretched hand, holding a single dime. In this situation, you represent the surface, the person in front of you represents the atmosphere, and the dimes represent photons.

            Now here’s what happens: The person holding the single dime places it in your palm with his one hand at the very same moment as he grabs the two dimes that were there already with the other, removing them from your hand. That is, he performs these two separate operations simultaneously.

            The question then becomes: Did you ever have THREE dimes in your hand during this exchange?

            The answer is of course “No”. First you had TWO. Then you had ONE. And that’s it. The first of the original two was simply exchanged with another one, while the second was lost.

            There are two distinct ways of seeing this exchange, two ‘perspectives’, so to say:

            #1 The MICROscopic (quantum mechanical) perspective, and
            #2 the MACROscopic (thermodynamical) perspective.

            Both are in a sense ‘real’, but they address very different aspects of ‘reality’.

            What people like you, barry, tend to do is mix them up, or rather somehow merge them into one and the same perspective. And that’s where the confusion arises.

            It is claimed (or at least very much implied) that the atmosphere (the person originally holding the single dime) ADDS energy to the surface (the palm of your outstreched hand). However, this is only correct in the MICROscopic perspective, that is, IF – and only if – we choose to follow ONE particular photon (dime) through the exchange and ignore the other two; that is, the photon/dime originally held by the person in front of you, coming IN from ‘the atmosphere’.

            THAT individual photon (and the energy it carries) is indeed ADDED to the surface in this exchange. But this circumstance is irrelevant to what we’re actually trying to get a grasp of here. Which is whether or not ‘energy’ (in the generic sense, not one particular quantum of energy) was added from the atmosphere to the surface during the exchange. The MACROscopic perspective, dealing specifically with macroscopic fluxes, internal energy and temperature.

            Did the atmosphere ADD energy equivalent to the energy of a single photon to the surface during the exchange? No. It added one PARTICULAR photon, yes, but it removed two OTHER photons at the exact same time. From the very same surface. Your hand.

            So what ACTUALLY happened? The energy associated with one of the two photons/dimes that you held in your hand originally was simply EXCHANGED with the energy associated with the one photon/dime originally held by the ‘atmosphere’ person in front of you. The other one was lost (removed by the ‘atmosphere’ person), without compensation.

            And so, the NET effect – the THERMODYNAMIC (macroscopic) effect – of the thermal radiative exchange between sfc and atm is that the atmosphere doesn’t add ANY energy at all to the surface (zero dimes), while the surface gives IT some energy (one dime), but LESS energy than it would’ve handed to space in the same situation (two dimes).

            – – –

            The Sun, being hotter than Earth’s surface, adds energy to the surface to make it warmer. Thermodynamically, it’s a source of energy (heat) to the surface. The atmosphere, being cooler than the surface, isn’t. And so it doesn’t add energy to the surface to make it warmer. We see this in the way the surface actually WARMS in daytime, with the Sun up and with the atmosphere present, but COOLS at night, with the atmosphere still present, but with the Sun gone.

            The atmosphere simply receives LESS energy from the surface than what space would, at any given surface temperature. Because the atmosphere is warmer than space. The atmosphere thus INSULATES the solar-heated surface.

            So, in conclusion, barry: Yes, energy from cold is indeed absorbed by warm, but you can’t use this one-dimensional, isolated circumstance to EXPLAIN why the internal energy – and hence the temperature – of warm ultimately rises. Because then you are in fact “describ[ing] the process of insulation as if it were the process of heating”.

            Which would make your explanation violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

            Semantics matters, barry. In physics it does.

            Whereas with the semantical rules you labour under, you could never describe what is happening in this situation.

            Of course I could. And I have. Multiple times. And I did it again just now, above. Read my two analogies.

            You need to understand the distinction between the MICRO and the MACRO realms. And you need to be able to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. WITHOUT being utterly confused by it.

          • Kristian says:

            Nate says, April 6, 2019 at 8:06 AM:

            As already noted, but you ignored, Thermodynamic laws governing heat and energy flows can be derived from statistics of the movement of photons and molecules.

            I’ve never ignored it, Nate. I’ve discussed this fact on several occasions. Where were you then?

            The simple point you people seem to be missing is that, when using statistical mechanics to bridge the gap between the quantum and thermo realms, you effectively remove all individual energy packets from the equation, using … statistics. You mathematically average ALL quantum pieces to get ONE full thermo picture. It’s not like you can use statistical mechanics to somehow make photons cause thermodynamic effects, Nate. Statistical mechanics specifically makes rid of individual photons and any quantum effects they might have.

          • barry says:

            The problem is that your overweening pedanticism muddies more than it illuminates, Kristian. The actual mechanism causing (yes, “causing”) the blue plate to get warmer (yes, an expression of temperature) in the familiar set up is extra radiation (back radiation) from the newly introduced green plate.

            That language may offend the sensibilities of a classicist whose grip on terminology is so tight that it becomes unwieldy for certain purposes, but that is what actually physically happens. The external energy source doesn’t cause the object to get warmer, because that is steady, and saying “it’s insulation” is too coarse if. The inquisitive soul asks, “but HOW does the green plate provide insulation in a vacuum? How does it affect the blue plate at all?” There is only one clear answer. “Insulation” isn’t it.

            You give comfort to those here who opine that energy from a cool object cannot be absorbed by a warmer object. You know and say better, but you spend so much time knit-picking the point that they don’t see that you know they are wrong. That may not be your fault, but it is a consequence of how you go about this discussion.

          • Nate says:

            K,

            “The question then becomes: Did you ever have THREE dimes in your hand during this exchange?

            The answer is of course ‘No’.”

            In the real world, the answer is YES, because in the real world there are observable fluctuations in energy of objects and transports, due to the discreteness of molecules and photons. Your dime analogy doesnt conform to actual stat mechanics.

            Your lengthy discussions still all amount to saying the NET flow of energy is always from hot to cold. Which is fine. But it just takes one line to say.

            But the NET flow still can and fundamentally SHOULD be understood as arising from the sum of two flows.

            Causality requires that effects must be understood LOCALLY.

            Thus, a hot object emits the right amount of heat flow toward a distant cold object without ‘knowing’ the cold object’s temperature.

            How does it do that?

            Simply, it just emits according to its temperature and emissivity as required by SB law. AND it simply abs*orbs or reflects ALL radiation that hits it, according to its emissivity and Kirchoff’s law.

            That’s it. There is no magical knowing of the other objects temperature required. It simply emits and absorbs according to its LOCAL properties.

            That external radiation could have been emitted by a distance source that has since exploded.

        • Nate says:

          Nobody respond to DREMT. Trolls are only out for attention. Dont give him the attention he craves.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Pardon my intrusion, Nate. Please do ignore me, and carry on your discussion. Five hundred more comments, please.

          • Nate says:

            ‘After another few hundred comments of discussion’ there will still be general agreement that DREMT and JD STILL get the wrong answer..

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            …five hundred more comments, please.

    • Nate says:

      Excellent experiment, Swanson!

      And far far more informative than the ‘declarations’ and ‘cartoons’ from the usual suspects.

      • Nate says:

        K:’Completely circular.’

        Hardly. This result confirms well established and well tested physics for skeptics.

        He could have used a photon counter to detect photons from the ice. But no need, its been done.

        • Kristian says:

          Nate says, April 2, 2019 at 6:47 AM:

          K:‘Completely circular.’

          Hardly. This result confirms well established and well tested physics for skeptics.

          He could have used a photon counter to detect photons from the ice. But no need, its been done.

          *Facepalm*

          That isn’t the issue, Nate. I’m not saying photons don’t exist. Are you an idiot, or are you just pretending to be one? I just have to ask.

          Other than that, no surpise that Mister Religious Zealot here also doesn’t get the problem with S-man’s result=>conclusion.

          Mechanism, Nate. THERMODYNAMIC mechanism. This is what you people keep mixing up. You’re discussing a distinctly THERMODYNAMIC effect, but want to explain what’s causing that effect using a distinctly QUANTUM-MECHANICAL process. It doesn’t work like that. A thermodynamic effect will have (and needs) a thermodynamic cause. Quantum mechanics doesn’t deal with temperature. Thermodynamics does.

          • Nate says:

            ‘That isn’t the issue, Nate. I’m not saying photons don’t exist. Are you an idiot, or are you just pretending to be one? I just have to ask.’

            As usual, legit counterarguments met with ad-homs from K.

            ‘Mechanism, Nate. THERMODYNAMIC mechanism.’

            In his original post, K makes no mention of ‘thermodynamic’ only mechanisms.

            ‘You need to observe clear signs of the proposed MECHANISM behind an observed effect (“back radiation” from cold => +T_warm; +CO2 => +T) in order to conclude that the proposed mechanism is (likely) what caused the effect’

            And as usual, K does not take responsibility for confusions he caused.

            My post makes the legitimate counterpoint that, Swanson is simply doing a demonstration of phenomena that has a well-established mechanism.

            He doesnt NEED ‘to observe clear signs of the proposed mechanism’.

  2. Eben says:

    another step sideways of 20 years non warming –
    all additional posts redundant

    • Craig T says:

      The average of the last 20 years of TLT anomaly is 0.16C. The average of the last 10 years is 0.23C. The average for the last 12 months is 0.26C. That doesn’t look like non warming.

      • Richard M says:

        Most of that warming is ENSO/AMO related. If you only look at the periods of time where those effects are the lowest then that warming disappears.

        Or, you can wait until the AMO goes negative and a period when La Nina dominates. Then it will look like cooling.

        • ENSO cycles are changed quite a bit and will continue to change in future. As oceans receive more energy from atmosphere (of course, very slowly, but they still do to some degree) El Nino periods become more often then La Nina and more intense. Just because, El Nino means warmer surface at some region, as oceans warm, it is logical that El Nino will be warmer, La Nina also will be warmer with time.

          So pretty much, atmosphere do respond to ocean surface energy forcing, but as oceans are warmer with time, so the response is too. We can not look at oceans and atmosphere as one way forcing system, it is two way.

          With that being said, conclusion is that we do see warming with time and it’s average rate is well known = 0.13°/decade or 1.3°C/100 years. So, does warming happen? Yes. Will it continue in future? Nothing indicates that it will not. What rate we will see in future? Probably the same or very similar to current one. Will this be catastrofic in next 100 or 200 years? No. Will it be catastrofic in 1000 years? Probably. But we will probably find a way to adapt.

          That’s my two cents.

          • Except it difficult to say what our dominant source of energy will be in 100 years.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            Meteo…”ENSO cycles are changed quite a bit and will continue to change in future. As oceans receive more energy from atmosphere (of course, very slowly, but they still do to some degree)”

            How can that occur if the oceans are heating the atmosphere above it, and the atmosphere becomes progressively cooler with altitude?

            You are describing perpetual motion, where a body heats a body and the heated body recycles heat to the heating body to raise its temperature.

            The oceans are heated by solar energy.

          • Layman says:

            I have been reading this blog for several years now, commenting very infrequently but taking in the argument/perspective types that consistently materialize. I tend to be very much open to all sides of this issue (I am a University Professor, with I hope a modicum of critical thinking skills). This comment by MeteoAdriatic (April 1, 2019 at 2:45 PM) comes about as close to my current perspective (or at least identifies a plausible account of what is going on) about this issue as I have seen to date. Thank you, MeteoAdriatic!

          • bdgwx says:

            Agreed. This post is very reasonable.

        • Stephen P Anderson says:

          They keep making strides with fusion development. Hopefully the obstacles can be overcome. There’s plenty of heavy water to supply the energy needs of the planet until the Sun burns out.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Craig T…”The average of the last 20 years of TLT anomaly is 0.16C. The average of the last 10 years is 0.23C”.

        According to the IPCC, there was no significant warming from 1998 – 2012. That’s 15 years of the 20. If you look at the UAH graph on this site, there was a further insignificant warming till 2015, making it 18 of 20.

        In 2016, we had a major El Nino that raised the global average in a brief spike to nearly 1C. Since February 2016, the global average has been gradually dropping back to the flat trend from 1998 – 2015.

        • bdgwx says:

          I just want to put this 1998 to 2012 period in context.

          1998 was a strong El Nino and 2012 was a strong La Nina.

          Do you think in the interest of providing a balanced viewpoint in regards to global temperature trends that a cherry pick of 1998-2012 should we be weighed against a similar period of opposite ENSO phase?

          1984 was a strong La Nina and 1998 was a strong El Nino. Warming was rather aggressive during this period.

          Also, during the 1998 to 2012 period the oceans accumulated ~125e21 joules of energy. Although the troposphere didn’t warm the hydrosphere certainly did.

          Is it possible that by focusing on “the pause” period that we are introducing selection bias?

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            This isn’t the only pause. There have been many. Salby descibes them shows why they are not systematic. You really need to delve into his work and get off the looney bandwagon.

          • bdgwx says:

            SAP,

            There have been many pause and there will be many more. In fact using the Berkeley Earth annual data I counted more than a dozen pauses and yet the global mean surface temperature is warmer overall and continues its long term secular increase.

            I have delved into Salby’s work and so have many others. It was Harde (2017) who managed to get a formal manuscript published that essentially echoed some of Salby’s points. That is Harde conflates the topics of residence time and adjustment time just like Salby does.

            May I recommend reviewing the formal response to Harde’s publication.

            official: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818117301364

            free: https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/oceanography/faculty/zeebe_files/Publications/KoehlerGPC17.pdf

            And here is the editors commentary on Harde’s publication.

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818117306586?via%3Dihub

          • Philip says:

            bdgwx,

            You conveniently ignored Harde’s reply to the party-line comment by Kohler et al. It was muzzled by the climate change industry – because it exposed in no uncertain terms fundamental errors in the IPCC, which were simply parroted in that comment. Some of those errors are so basic as to be laughable. See

            https://youtu.be/rohF6K2avtY near time (56:00)

            https://hhgpc0.wixsite.com/harde-2017-censored

            The errors reduce the comment and the IPCC to rubbish.
            If your hope is to invalidate this consequence, it will take more than reference to feigned authority. You’ll have to invalidate the clear and empirical facts laid out in Harde’s analysis. Good luck.

          • Richard M says:

            bdgwx, no one compares 1998 to 2012. Do you have any idea how trends are computed? ENSO has very little effect on the trend because BOTH El Nino and La Nina events balance out pretty well over that time period. It appears you have fallen for the numerous lies about how ENSO created the pause.

            Not to mention the pause is actually even longer … 1997-2015. It is only interrupted by the super El Nino and last summer we returned to the same baseline as prior to that El Nino.

            http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/from:1996.66/to:2018.5/plot/uah6/from:1996.66/to:2014.66/trend/plot/uah6/from:2014.66/to:2016.12/trend/plot/uah6/from:2016/to:2018.5/trend

          • bdgwx says:

            RichardM,

            The ONI averaged -0.24 in the 1998 to 2012 period.

            The ONI averaged +0.12 in the 1984 to 1998 period.

            Not that I’m suggesting that we deal with the problem in this manner, but if we are going to go the way of using a selection rule related to how well the ENSO balances and thus limit our analysis to a subset of available years then wouldn’t it be better to choose the period where the average ONI was closet to 0?

            And what makes the 1998 to 2012 period more special than any other? Can you provide justification as to why we should only focus on that period?

            And do you have any comments regarding the oceanic heat content during that period?

          • Craig T says:

            “BOTH El Nino and La Nina events balance out pretty well over that time period. It appears you have fallen for the numerous lies about how ENSO created the pause.”

            On a scale of 30 years or more the ENSO cycle cancels out. But the 1998 El Nino was followed by 3 strong la Ninas (4 if you count the double valleys of 1999 & 2000 then 2007 & 2011.) Measuring from when the ONI reached 0 after the 1998 El Nino to when it hit 0 on the way to the 2016 El Nino, the average Oceanic Nino Index is -0.26.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            bdg…”I just want to put this 1998 to 2012 period in context.

            1998 was a strong El Nino and 2012 was a strong La Nina.

            Do you think in the interest of providing a balanced viewpoint in regards to global temperature trends that a cherry pick of 1998-2012 should we be weighed against a similar period of opposite ENSO phase?”

            ***********

            The cherry-pickers to whom you refer are the IPCC. In AR5 they admitted there had been no significant warming between 1998 and 2012. I did not pick 1998 as the start of the range or 2012 as the end.

            BTW…2008 was a stronger La Nina, that’s why I picked 1998 – 2015 for my range.

            Another good reason for picking 1998 comes from John Christy of UAH (maybe it was Roy). He pointed out that prior to the 1998 EN, there had been no TRUE warming since the UAH series began. Most of the anomalies were below the baseline until 1998. Therefore, 1998 is signified as the beginning of true warming, meaning anomalies prior to that were dragged down by volcanic aerosols and such.

            I have pointed what I consider to be strange. Following the 1998 EN, one might have expected the average to drop back below the baseline somewhat. Rather, it suddenly jumped about 0.2 C and that has remained an average till around 2015.

            CO2 could not create such a sudden rise like that, a phenomenon that occurred circa 1977 and later related to the PDO.

            I don’t think there is evidence to support the AGW theory that CO2 is behind any warming we have noticed.

          • bdgwx says:

            GR, the lower troposphere (TLT) represents but a small fraction of the thermal mass of the geosphere. The oceans absorb about 90% of the excess heat. But the heat is constantly moving from one medium to another (cryosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere) via several heat flux processes. During the pause period from 1998 to 2012 (or 2015) the geosphere absorbed 125e21 joules (150e21 joules) of energy.

            And there’s clearly a link between oceanic heat content and troposphere temperatures. During El Nino heat pulses in the troposphere the ocean cools. Vice versa for La Nina. Though the effect is more pronounced on the El Nino side because the thermal mass of the ocean is so much greater than the atmosphere. CO2 didn’t cause the sudden rise in temperature in the runup to 2016. The heat flux processes from hydrosphere to atmosphere went into overdrive. That was the dominating factor in that particular sudden rise.

            OHC values are crucial in the interpretation of global warming. The fact that the oceans continue to accumulate energy and break records seemingly year after year now only means the potential energy that can be used to heat the atmosphere is increasing. It’s a loaded spring. It will release the pent up energy…eventually. This is why the TLT temperature has a sort of stair-step upward behavior at times.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            bdgwx, please stop trolling.

  3. Richard M says:

    Almost exactly as I predicted. The peak of the current El Nino will generally warm Feb/Mar months the most.

    Now, assuming the El Nino fades away as the current upwelling of cold water along the SA coast seems to indicate, we should see a drop back to the 21st century baseline over the summer. April will likely still be a little warmer given the satellite data lags by a few months.

    I’m hoping for another neutral summer as that will give us an even better indication of what is happening globally.

  4. Coolist says:

    Craig T. Does that warming seem unusual, unprecedented or catastrophic compared to past data sets and proxys? Also important to note that the past does not predict the future. In a system where cooling has always followed warming on all time scales its impossible to predict when the trend will reverse and over what time scale.

    • PmhinSC says:

      Coolist says: In a system where cooling has always followed warming on all time scales its impossible to predict when the trend will reverse and over what time scale.

      As Yoga Berri said Its tough to make predictions, especially about the future.
      I have been following those who predict a cooling earth. In part because their predictions are short term and by definition, falsifiable in my assumed life time. The last 3 months have been the warmest since Dec 2017. So far, no decision. I give the cooling theories another 9 months; after that I am not aware of any theory that holds water.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        pmh…”The last 3 months have been the warmest since Dec 2017″.

        Don’t know where you live, but here in Canada, we have set records for cold weather during the past 3 months. This February has been the coldest in my memory.

        • PmhinSC says:

          My reference to “the last 3 months have been the warmest since Dec 2017” is Jan, Feb, & March 2019 Global temps reported by this post. According to our host, Dr. Spencer, Dec 2017 Global temp was +0.41.

  5. Coolist says:

    Dr. Roy Spencer do you have any concerns that in the future, possibly after you retire, the satellite data may fall under the control of scientists with less integrity than yourself and Dr. Christy. The concern being that the data could be adjusted to show more warming or less cooling in coming decades. After reading your previous article on the apparent error in sea level monitoring, I wonder if there is anything in place to guarantee the accuracy of the satellite temperature data long term.

    • No guarantees. It will take someone who has not been bought off by the Scientific-Governmental Complex which promotes specific policy goals in return for career funding of scientists (as President Eisenhower warned). The hard part is that it needs to be someone with satellite remote sensing experience, otherwise they won’t be able to decide how to handle new satellite instrumentation or changes in existing instrument calibration. It’s not just stuffing numbers into a spreadsheet. At this point, the long-term outlook is rather bleak.

      • MikeR says:

        Dr Roy,Could it be that you or your organization does not have any succession plan in place? Surely not. There must exist somewhere a younger scientist who could learn from your expertise.

        Do you really believe there is unlikely to be anyone else who could adequately fill your shoes? Has every young scientist been brainwashed and lacks your integrity? Big call.

        • It would take someone who isn’t afraid to be essentially black-listed by the establishment. Climate scientists are basically 100% dependent upon government funding, and are expected to support the consensus. It’s career suicide to be on our side.

          • MikeR says:

            Roy, I wouldn’t be so despondent. You have had a long and illustrious career bucking the trend in more than one way and you are still standing. Surely in the entire US (or word) there would be one person of sufficient calibre and integrity to continue your work. If not the 97% consensus figure is probably a vast underestimate.

            If you believe there is not another person that has the necessary experience with satellite remote sensing experience then it is really puzzling you have not mentioned a succession plan. It would obviously take time for a transfer of your skill set but this could be a great opportunity for someone such as a postgrad, even one of your graduate student. Hopefully your successor could provide fresh insight to validate (hopefully not invalidate) your life’s work. We all think we are irreplaceable but no one gets out of here alive.

            As for the funding requirements, if you cannot get government funding then I note that UAH has received endowments for professorial chairs. The industries who have a lot to lose in the current climate surely could provide funding for a successor.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR,

            Oh, the faux concern! Capable of bringing a tear to to the of the most hardened cynic – not.

            Begone witless troll.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        Roy…”It will take someone who has not been bought off by the Scientific-Governmental Complex which promotes specific policy…”

        Hope such people exist, Roy.

        Linus Pauling was a renegade scientist who was seldom wrong. He was involved with the Linus Pauling Institute but powers within turned LPI into a politically-correct group of scientists who lack Pauling’s courage to offer cutting-edge science.

        I recall Linus talking about the double-blind study when he was confronted about not using one. He asked why a double-blind study was required when an outcome was so obvious.

        I went to see him give a talk here in Vancouver. He was addressing the government RDA for vitamin C, which is about 75 mg per day.

        Linus pulled three large test tubes from inside his jacket pocket. He held one up and he told us it was empty, equivalent to the amount of C made by a human in a day. Then he held up one with a pinch of powder in it, revealing it as the amount recommended by the government for a human per day.

        In the third test tube there was about 2 inches of powder, which Linus claimed represented the 12 grams made by a 154 pound billy goat in one day. He commented that it seemed the billy goat knew more about science than the government.

        I really hope the good work done by you an John is continued after both of you retire.

  6. PhilJ says:

    Pm,
    ” I give the cooling theories another 9 months; after that I am not aware of any theory that holds water. ”

    Have you seen this one?
    http://ozonedepletiontheory.info/index.html

    • Eben says:

      ” I give the cooling theories another 9 months ”
      it takes 30 years to create one climate data point
      go find another hobby

  7. Aaron S says:

    Succession planning is a challenge. On one hand I would go to the computer science department and create some AI digitilization capacity to QC data and configure new data, because that is basically unbiased if set up correctly. On the other hand that doesnt solve the problem of new satellites and tools, but it could probably detect bias compared to the existing methods when new data is added. Im still shocked the comprehensive 2019 global climate data assemblage (thermometers and satellites) doesnt use machine learning to reconstruct backwards. It would see all sorts of signals in the noise of the data to improve relationships as there become less and less data available deeper back in time. It is basically like having and autistic genius like Alan Turing that can see through the politics. I would think you could find a MS or PhD student to do the digitilization of global climate data.

  8. Stephen P Anderson says:

    I like Salby’s Francis Bacon quote he always uses- “Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.” History will make people like Dr. Spencer and Dr. Salby heroes.

  9. DocSiders says:

    The (near) total corruption and politicization of science is one of the biggest and most frightening developments ever.

    Nothing but Fake Science is ever presented to the public at large.

    Fake News isn’t new…but it has reached a saturation point. It would be hard to lie more often than the MSM does.

    Fake Polling claiming a 97% CAGW consensus goes uncontested… even on Fox! Where the heck are some real polls?

    Fake Education is terrorizing our children.

    All of the foundational institutions of our civilization…Science, Academia, Education, Media, Law, Entertainment, Commerce (crony capitalists), Finance, Government, and even Religion…ARE IN ON THIS MASSIVE PROPAGANDA CAMPAIGN.
    _____________________

    Topic appropriate quip:

    “If you need fake news to make you happy…….you might be a Democrat.”

    • Stephen P Anderson says:

      I think science has always been a political tool. At least Dr. Spencer isn’t in fear of his life like Copernicus was. At least I don’t think he is?

    • Craig T says:

      If you see all the news reporting that you don’t like as fake news and all the science you don’t like as fake science, you’re filtering out a lot of information.

      • Stephen P Anderson says:

        Give me an example.

      • Stephen P Anderson says:

        It is not about the Science I don’t like. We used to have a thing in science called the scientific method. There are a lot of scientists today who still practice it. I’ll give you an example. This view the last two or three decades about birds being descendants of dinosaurs. I didn’t think much about it-seemed plausible by some of the articles in Nature. But then one of the world’s leading ornithologists comes out who’s the director of bird study at the Smithsonian and says “birds didn’t evolve from dinosaurs.” There are some similarities like there are with many different species but he states there are some critical differences and there is no path from a bird to a dinosaur. He supports his claim and essentially falsifies the hypothesis. He has been pillioried called a charlatan. This is a distinguished scientist and researcher. Then look at all the distinguished scientists who have shown how AGW doesn’t follow the scientific method. The are called old senile nitwits.

        • Craig T says:

          I followed the origin of birds argument in real time. I never heard anyone call Alan Feduccia a charlatan. In the 80’s his position against birds evolving from dinosaurs held some weight. But advances in DNA, evolutionary development, and finds of feathered dinosaurs turned the tide against him. By 2000 if I saw a headline claiming new evidence that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs I knew it would be Feduccia’s latest claims.

          The bird/dino camp presented evidence that nullified Feduccia’s argument that birds had anatomy that could not evolve from dinosaurs as well as clear evidence they did. It wasn’t groupthink, politics or conspiracy. It was good science supported by data.

          The fact you feel Feduccia had the better argument shows you only looked at one side of the story or ignored what a lot of experts said on the subject.

          I followed the arguments because I was interested but also I couldn’t resist arguing with Creationists. They would use Feduccia’s writings as a weapon against evolution yet ignored his views on how birds evolved. I read a lot of claims that there was no real consensus on evolution, that scientists that disagreed were discriminated against and how it was all a conspiracy. I even got tired of absurd reinterpretations of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            I’m not talking about Alan Feduccia. Maybe you didn’t follow it as closely as you think. But, he’s another example. And, he hasn’t been debunked and now there are many others falsifying this dinosaur to bird claim. You depend on Wikipedia a lot don’t you?

          • Craig T says:

            So who is your wronged scientist?

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            Yes, if it makes you feel better. So you want to start debating dinosaurs had feathers? If you can convince Storrs then I’ll believe you.

          • Craig T says:

            At this point debating if dinosaurs had feathers is like debating if there were dinosaurs.

            Olson had a point in 1999. National Geographic got snookered into doing a special on a fake feathered dinosaur. Olson’s other arguments were still valid at the time. Since then over 50 species of non-avian dinosaurs with feathers have been found. There’s even been a short section of tail from a juvenile feathered dinosaur found in amber.
            https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(16)31193-9

            I love Olson’s line that this was “the paleontological equivalent of cold fusion.” Time has shown him wrong but back then his views were valid. Scientists argue like that all the time then get misquoted to attack an entire field of science.

            As I suspected Creationists are using his letter to discredit evolution. They bring up “supposed horse evolution”, Nebraska Man and even make reference to scientists using the “Big Lie.” (interesting fact – Hitler wrote about the Big Lie but he claimed Jews told the Big Lie about Aryans.) Nat Geo showed a fake dino on TV so all evolution must be wrong!

            Olson wasn’t near as big a player in the actual scientific debate as Feduccia. His letter is used only for its propaganda value. If you’re convinced this is valid evidence against evolution no amount of scientific evidence will change your mind.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            You need to read this.

            https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780300164350

            See, leftists aren’t the only ones who can link something.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            By the way Craig humans have been around for about a million years now according to Darwinists. When will we evolve into something else?

          • Craig T says:

            “Darwinists”

            I did call it right, you only care about Feduccia’s work as a tool to attack evolution as a whole. That’s OK, I’m happy to be labeled a Darwinist, Vaxxer, Warmist Sheeple who doesn’t realize everything is a conspiracy.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      docsiders…”Nothing but Fake Science is ever presented to the public at large”.

      I have tried to point that out about NOAA and NASA.

      Both claimed 2014 the hottest year ever with a confidence level of 48% and 38% respectively that they were not lying. By using those odds they were declaring they were likely lying.

      The question is why.

      • bdgwx says:

        The odds that the maintainers of these datasets publishes have nothing to do with the probability of lying.

        These are statistical measures of the probability that the conclusion is correct. This is a manifestation of the uncertainty in the measurements which for the conventional datasets and for contemporary data is about 0.05C. The reason why the confidence in the conclusion that 2014 was the warmest year is the result of other years being within the margin of error. That makes them candidates for being the warmest also. And just because 2014 had confidence levels of 48% and 38% doesn’t mean there was a 52% or 62% chance that it could have been the coldest year ever.

        It’s ubiquitous nearly all disciplines of science to quantify the margin of error and the confidence level of any conclusions. Choosing not to do this doesn’t make you truthful. In fact, electing not to do this when it an demonstrated that it is possible would be considered unethical by many.

  10. JDHuffman says:

    March results continue reflecting the struggling El Niño. The next drop to La Niña will likely take UAH global below the long term average, +0.13 C.

    That would mean more panic time for some….

  11. SAMURAI says:

    Were currently in a weak double-peak (Oct 18/Apr 19) El Nio cycle, so given the 5-month lag, UAH will slowly fall for the next 4 months, then rise slowly again for 4 months (effects of second peak) and then fall slowly again, then remain relatively static until the next La Nia cycle starts towards the end of 2020.

    The next La Nia cycle should be a strong one since we havent had a strong one in 10 years, and there is usually a at least one strong La Nia every 10 years. If there is a strong La Nia, UAH could hit -0.2C~-0.3C and this is where things will get very interesting.

    Within the next few years, the PDO, AMO and NAO will all be in or near their respective 30-year ocean cool cycles. Historically, whenever this happens, global temperatures fall as observed from 1945~1975 and from 1880~1910.

    Moreover, a 50-year Grand Solar Minimum just started, which will likely cause additional global cooling for the next 50 years if the Svensmark Effect hypothesis is validated.

    CAGW advocates will have an extremely difficult time explaining why their average global warming model projections are 3~4 standard deviations higher than observations, and why theyve consistently been more than 2 standard deviations higher for almost 30 years, especially in light of the new Leftist prediction that the earth will be uninhabitable in just 12 years from the ravaging effects of CAGW..

    Were finally at the beginning of the end of this absurd CAGW Hoax…

    • LA_Bob says:

      @SAMURAI,

      Sometime back I read about the confluence of “cooldown” forcings expected to happen in the next few years. I read about it on Judith Curry’s website. You have articulated it very well here. But you have mostly described the warmists’ political problem.

      The fact is, neither you nor I nor Drs Spencer nor Curry nor anyone else can say with full confidence your expectations will come to pass. And particularly none of us can know what the warming trends will be like in two generations now when different forcings predominate.

      I prefer to think of CAGW as a mistake, not a hoax. The political left has a bias toward this mistake because it begs a need for social control, something of which the left is most fond. But a bias is not necessarily a hoax.

      I seriously doubt Dr Spencer would ever make reference to “this absurd CAGW Hoax”.

      • SAMURAI says:

        LA Bob-san:

        One can legitimately call CAGW a Hoax because of all the overwhelming empirical evidence which completely disconfirms all the dire projections of CAGW hypothesis, and yet political and academic advocates still insist and propagandize CAGW is irrefutable fact, and even go so far as to claim observations are worse than their original hypothetical projections.

        There are strict rules of the scientific method to disconfirm a hypothesis, and CAGW has already exceeded them, thus further advocacy of CAGW being a viable hypothesis has moved from science to a religious hoax..

        Based on known physics and observational data, one can say with high confidence that CO2 is certainly not earths climate control knob and only has an ECS (warming per CO2 doubling by 2100) will be somewhere around 0.6C~1.5C, which not only isnt a catastrophic problem, but will have numerous advantages: milder winters, earlier springs, longer growing seasons, higher crop yields from CO2 fertilization, higher plant drought resistance, fewer early frost crop loss events, more arable land in Nothern latitudes, increased global greening, less desertification, etc.,

        The CAGW hypothesis should have already been tossed on trash heap of failed hypotheses.. The fact that it hasnt is proof that it is a political phenomenon, not a physical one..

        • bdgwx says:

          The global mean surface temperature has already risen about 1.0C since WWII so 0.6C is already falsified. I think 1.5C is unrealistic as well. My reasoning is that still have about ln(410/280)/ln(560/280) = 45% of the doubling TCR that needs to play out. This would be 1 / 0.45 = 2.2C of TCR. Using a somewhat conservative value of the ECR-to-TCR multiplier of 1.2 this would yield an ECR of about 2.6C. I feel pretty comfortable with lower bound for the doubling sensitivity of 2.0C. The upper bound is a bit nebulous in my opinion because there are several potential positive tipping points that could activate. I’ll ignore those for now and conservatively 4.0C of warming seems like a reasonable upper bound. I doubt I’ll be alive long enough to see the results of the experiment though.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            You cannot even define this “surface” to which refer, let alone provide a figure for a number which is meaningless, in any case.

            Just more pointless pseudoscientific garbage. Carry on.

            Cheers.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            bdg…”The global mean surface temperature has already risen about 1.0C since WWII so 0.6C is already falsified.”

            You mean, according to the NOAA fudged record. They had to retroactively adjust the North American temperature records in the 1930s to get a positive trend because we have yet to reach the sustained record temperatures of the 1930s in reality.

          • bdgwx says:

            GR, NOAA does not “fudge” data. They make adjustments to the raw for legitimate reasons. I should also point out that their adjustments actually reduce the warming trend from the early 1900’s as compared to the raw data.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            NOAA would never “fudge” data. They’re the government.

    • Craig T says:

      “If there is a strong La Nina, UAH could hit -0.2C~-0.3C and this is where things will get very interesting.”

      That would be interesting. We had 3 strong la Ninas between 1999 and 2012 and the TLT anomaly never went down to -0.3C. Only 5 months showed a global anomaly below -0.2C.

      The ENSO cycle is cyclical, for the last 30 years the average of the Oceanic Nino Index was 0.018. Three or more months above 0.5 is considered an El Nino and three or more months below -0.5 a la Nina.

      During the “pause” the ONI average was -0.26 (Starting when the index hit 0 after the 1998 El Nino and ending when the index crossed 0 at the beginning of the 2015 El Nino.) The average global anomaly for that period is 0.12C. It would take a lot of cooling to get back where -0.2C anomaly is a common occurrence.

      • SAMURAI says:

        Craig-san:

        During 30-year PDO cool cycles, El Nios tend to be weaker and La Ninas tend to be stronger, which should contribute to global cooling as we saw from 1880~1910 and 1945~1975.

        Moreover, there is a high probability the coming 50-year Grand Solar Minimum will contribute to additional global cooling as observed during the Wolf, Sporer, Maunder and Dalton GSMs…

        Please also note that the strongest Grand Solar Maxiimum in 11,400 years occurred from 1933~1996, which may have contributed to a substantial portion of 20th century warming.

        Well see soon enough..

        BTW, Im typing on a Japanese keyboard, so tildes and apostrophes dont show up in my posts… sorry..

    • bdgwx says:

      Regarding the “Svensmark Effect” there has been a lot of published research most of which questions the link between GCRs and modern climate change. These include Muscheler 2005, Lockwood 2007, Sloan 2008, Pierce 2009, Overholt 2009, Kulmala 2010, Calogovic 2010, Benestad 2013, and Erlykin 2013 and more.

      On interesting aspect of the GCR hypothesis is that depending on who you ask it can work in either direction. Those in the positive feedback camp say more GCRs leads to warming and less leads to cooling. Those in the negative feedback camp say more GCRs lead to cooling and more leads to warming. In his 1998 publication Svensmark was in the negative feedback camp so I’ll assume the “Svensmark Effect” is the negative feedback variation of the broad hypothesis. And it’s generally accepted among proponents of either camp that higher solar activity is inversely related to the GCR flux on Earth. I’ll leave you to make your own judgement as to how skillful the “Svensmark Effect” has been in predicting the global mean temperature especially over the last couple of decades.

      Perhaps one of the most relevant publications is Dunne 2016 which documents the results of CERN’s CLOUD experiment. It is worth a read. If nothing else then at least read the abstract.

      http://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6316/1119

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        bdg…”Regarding the Svensmark Effect there has been a lot of published research most of which questions the link between GCRs and modern climate change.”

        Something caused the Little Ice Age and sustained it for 400 years. The only good explanation is solar variation.

        That also explains our current warming since temps during the LIA were 1C to 2C below normal. According to Akasofu, it would take at least a century to recover from such a cold period.

        • bdgwx says:

          GR, yes I agree. The Maunder Minimum in conjunction with increased volcanism explains a large part of the LIA. Likewise, the Modern Maximum in conjunction with reduced volcanism explains a lot of the warming (though not all) prior to WWII. After WWII solar variation breaks down almost entirely in explaining the warming. But in the cases where solar variation was a dominant factor it was not the “Svensmark Effect” that was the cause. It was because TSI was changing.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      samurai…”Were currently in a weak double-peak (Oct 18/Apr 19) El Nio cycle, so given the 5-month lag, UAH will slowly fall for the next 4 months, then rise slowly again for 4 months (effects of second peak) and then fall slowly again, then remain relatively static until the next La Nia cycle starts towards the end of 2020″.

      You are saying, in effect, that the UAH record will reflect the natural variations in weather/climate.

      • SAMURAI says:

        Gordon-san:

        Yes, UAH tracks ENSO very closely (with about a 5-month lag). During El Nino events, UAH global temps rapidly (especially during Super El Nino events (97/98 and 2015/16)) and during La Nina events, UAH global temp anomalies fall especially during strong La Nina events (again with a 5-month lag).

        UAH is also going to show that 30-year PDO/AMO/NAO cool cycles also cool the planet as the did from 1880~1910 and from 1945~1975…

        In about 5 years, the silly CAGW hoax will be laughed at when comparing global temp model projections vs. UAH reality.

  12. Eben says:

    The sun is going from recent very high activity into lowest activity in two hundred years, the warmistas who keep claiming sun has nothing to do with the temperature are about to get a climate lesson .

    • bdgwx says:

      The scientific consensus fully embraces the idea that the Sun is an important agent in modulating the temperature of Earth. There is no serious claim that the “sun has nothing to do with the temperature”.

      • Stephen P Anderson says:

        Will you please stop bantering about scientific consensus. You’re smarter than that.

        • bdgwx says:

          The prevailing theory that best matches observations definitely includes a component from the Sun. And I’m not aware of any reputable scientific institution or group of scientists that have proposed an alternative view that completely ignores solar influences on climate change either past or present. I don’t know these “warmists” that Eben speaks of. I’m just saying in general that no one really believes that the Sun is irrelevant. I do, however, think everyone, regardless of their position on the topic, will get a “lesson” in climate change over the next two hundred years.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            I just want you to please stop invoking authority. Conventional wisdom is usually wrong.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            I think we might have some type of fusion power by then and everyone will be driving efficient cars on a magnetic field. I think cars are only about 25% efficent right now. Of course you leftists will be screaming about how the magnetic fields are causing the insects to die or something.

          • Eben says:

            Climate shystering 101 , I could post references like this a mile long
            Go take your crap to somebody elses thread
            https://bit.ly/2FSNU7V
            https://bit.ly/2HVt7mF

          • bdgwx says:

            Let me just clarify something. When I use the term consensus in my posts I’m not talking about a poll or vote or authority. What I’m talking about is the theory that consolidates a set of hypothesis that have survived falsification and which there is an abundance and consilience of evidence that best matches reality. That theory among all of the available theories that best matches all available observations is what I’m referring to as the consensus.

            If you selectively ignore certain forcing agents whether it be solar, aerosols, greenhouse gases, etc. then you will be left with a theory that is inferior to a theory that considers ALL forcing agents.

          • bdgwx says:

            Eben, just because the Sun isn’t THE cause of the warming for the current era does not mean that it isn’t a factor in determining the temperature or that it is ignored. In fact, if scientists were to ignore the Sun then they wouldn’t be able to adequately explain past climate change events.

            Scientists have studied the relationship between solar activity, solar irradiance, galactic cosmic rays, etc. and climate change quite a bit. It is because of this focus on the Sun that scientists are in a position to conclude that solar forcing is inadequate to explain to explain the current warming.

            And there’s even been a lot of research in regards to what it would mean if the Sun were to enter into a hypothetical grand solar minimum. The available research is highly suggestive that a hypothetical GSM would suppress the warming some or delay warming milestones, but it won’t stop it and any effect it has will be temporary since a GSM would complete long before CO2 would deplete on its own.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            You wrote –

            “What Im talking about is the theory that consolidates a set of hypothesis that have survived falsification and which there is an abundance and consilience of evidence that best matches reality. That theory among all of the available theories that best matches all available observations is what Im referring to as the consensus.”

            Complete nonsense. Just more pseudoscientific blather. You cannot state any testable hypothesis relating to “greenhouse gases”, can you? How about a “theory” of AGW or anything remotely similar?

            You are just spouting sciencey nonsense, hoping that those even more stupid and ignorant than yourself will believe your nonsensical assertions.

            Go on, try and explain how your hypotheses and theory incorporate “forcing agents” and “greenhouse gases”. Your attempt at comedy will be appreciated.

            Cheers.

          • Stephen P Anderson says:

            Eben thinks the Moon is causing the warming.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bdgwx: “The prevailing theory that best matches observations definitely includes a component from the Sun.”

            The only “prevailing theory” that does not violate the laws of physics is “natural variability”. And it definitely includes the Sun.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            bdg…”What Im talking about is the theory that consolidates a set of hypothesis that have survived falsification…”

            Like the consensus that stomach ulcers are caused by stress or that cholesterol causes heart disease?

            In the 1920s, in southern US states, they had an outbreak of pellagra. A government agent immediately identified the cause as diet-related, but consensus claimed that was wrong. It took them another 25 years, till the discovery of B-vitamins, to relent and admit the cause was a dietary deficiency.

            James Lind, discovered that lime juice could cure/prevent scurvy, but it took the British Navy 45 years to implement his findings.

            Peter Duesberg, a world-renowned expert on retroviruses, claimed at the outset of the HIV/AIDS hypothesis that HIV could not possibly cause AIDS. More than 30 years later, the scientist who discovered HIV, Luc Montagnier, stated that HIV will not harm a healthy immune system.

            Despite the testimony of these two experts, the consensus still stands that HIV is a dangerous virus that causes AIDS. The fact that 99.99% of North Americans and Europeans, who have healthy immune systems, have never encountered AIDS, has had no effect on the consensus.

            It would not have been so bad if someone had listened to Duesberg and tested his hypothesis. Oh no, they ostracized him because it was extremely lucrative to get on the HIV/AIDS bandwagon and get big bucks for researching an idiotic hypothesis.

          • Nate says:

            ‘Conventional wisdom is usually wrong.’

            Every month I get emails from people who’ve discovered why relativity or quantum mechanics are wrong.

            You’ll never hear of these ‘revolutionaries’ who failed to overturn the consensus.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Nate, are your emails as bogus as your “basic physics textbook”?

  13. Mike Flynn says:

    This may even be fact –

    “Now this solar constant is actually not a true constant. It varies by +/- 3% because of the Earth’s slightly elliptical orbit around the Sun, being larger when the Earth is at perihelion (currently the first week in January) and smaller when the Earth is at aphelion (currently the first week in July). Some people, when talking about the solar constant, correct for this distance variation, and refer to the solar constant as the power per unit area received at the average Earth-Sun distance (this is called the Astronomical Unit or AU and has the value 149.59787066 million kilometres).

    Even when we correct for the changing Earth-Sun distance we still find that there is a small variation in the solar constant, and this is due to a variation in the intrinsic luminosity of the Sun itself. This variation has been measured by radiometers aboard several satellites since the late 1970’s and is shown in the graph below. This is a composite graph produced by the World Radiation Centre and shows that our Sun is really a (slightly) variable star.”

    Meantime, ladies and gentlemen, pick your “solar constant” of choice. Add 3% or deduct 3% as you prefer. Now figure out if a watt or two at an unspecified temperature is relevant in both cases, and all values in between. If you want to, include your assumed variables for the variable output of the Sun, both in terms of power , and spectral composition.

    Have fun trying to show how much the Earth has heated over the last four and half billion years.

    Cheers.

    • DukeSnide says:

      M Flynn,
      How is it possible for this planet to warm up for hundreds of millions of years, suchas from the cold of the Upper Ordovician Period to the high warmth of the Eocene Optimum, according to your theory that this planet has only been cooling for 4 1/2 billion years?

      Just wondering.

      • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

        Three days late? No, they will have moved further down-thread. Down you go.

  14. Krakatoa says:

    Samurai, there is no way you can predict enso 2 years ahead, or how strong it will be.

    • SAMURAI says:

      Krakatoa-san:

      Youre correct that I cant predict with 100% accuracy the next La Nia will be a strong one, but its highky likely it will be, based on 60+ years of ENSO data. Thats why I used the qualifier should instead of will…

      Well see soon enough.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        S,

        I have adopted your philosophy. Based on 60+ years of life, (although I might be lying), I predict it is highly likely I will live forever. The trend can obviously used to predict the future.

        So far, so good. And, no, I don’t want anyone to confuse the issue by referring to the lives of others. I’m only interested in me.

        Cheers.

      • skeptikal says:

        We are due for a good La Nina.

  15. MikeR says:

    Mike F, are you channeling the Dream Team?
    Boring repetitive posts are his patented trademark.

    Beware, you could be violating his copyright.

    • Mike Flynn says:

      Begone troll.

      • MikeR says:

        You will be getting a letter from his solicitors.

        • Mike Flynn says:

          Begone troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Lawyer up.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone troll.

          • MikeR says:

            The current score is 7 B.T. versus 1 P.S.T.

            At this rate Mike F is going to win the Golden Troll award in a canter.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, troll!

          • MikeR says:

            Wow. World record pace. 8 repetitive trolls and we are not even at the end of day 1! Poor DREMT is being left in his dust.

            For those keeping score it is 8 – 1 to Mike F.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, troll.

          • MikeR says:

            9-1

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, stupid and mindlessly incessant troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike .

            Glad you have been able to expand your comments. The intellectual demands must have been horrific. Maybe we can take a break from our tedious exchanges. What do you think?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, stupid troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F.

            So much begoning overkill. How about a bit of begatting? I would have commented “go forth and multiply” but that wouldn’t be nice and multiplication may be beyond your arithmetic capabilities.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Troll, begone.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F,

            I have taken the liberty of including your latest contributions as they appear to be just a variation upon a theme. Accordingly if the word begone and troll appears in your comment then +1 to your score,

            Surely you realize that the higher the score the dumber you appear.

            It is now 12 – 1 to Mike F.

          • MIke flynn says:

            Begone foolish troll.

          • MikeR says:

            All this archaic language makes me yearn for the return of The Black Adder.

            Mike F.

            Thou hast the personality of a suppurating pimple on one’s arse but lacketh the charm.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, foul troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F. Though hast cast vile aspersions against my character. This dispute needs to be settled post haste.

            I challenge you to a duel at 20 paces at dawn. My second will be my valet Baldrick. He will slap you with my glove and you are then free to slap him in return.

            If I am not awake at that ungodly hour please feel free to start without me.

            In the meantime the score stands at 14 – 1 for Mike F.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, witless troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F.I am truly devastated that you consider me witless unlike your good self. I know i can only aspire to your superbly crafted commentary. Every word so carefully considered. One day you when you publish your memoirs, each could be a chapter that is testament to your craftsmanship.

            How do you become such a the peerless troll? Was it nature or nurture. Was it due to your relentless questioning of GHE over the past months and years that allowed Dr Roy to officially designate you a troll.* So many questions.

            * Trolling is coming here and asserting things like Theres no such thing as the greenhouse effect, anyway. Or, The GHE violates the 2nd Law. -Roy]

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Begone, foolish troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike,

            A spirit of compromise has broken out in the comments section. Likewise I would be happy if we could settle our petty differences and move on. How about it?

            Cheers.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Troll, be thrice gone.

          • MikeR says:

            Ok Mike. Be it on thy head.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            MikeR, please stop trolling.

          • MikeR says:

            My god, the recividist is still at it,

            16 – 2 to Mike F.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            #2

            MikeR, please stop trolling.

  16. MIke Flynn says:

    Earlier on, I wrote –

    “FK,

    Nope. If the temperature of the hotter body were to rise, the energy would have to come from somewhere – conservation of energy, and all that.

    The only place it can come from is the cooler body.”

    and FK responded –

    “Exactly thats where it comes from. Where else?
    The energy comes from where the radiation comes.”

    I won’t hit FK with a gotcha. There is no point asking someone with no understanding, whether they understand something.

    However, when a body loses energy, it cools. FK claims that a hotter body absorbs radiation from the colder one, and its temperature increases as a result. The colder body, having lost energy to the hotter, must cool. It cannot get hotter – it has surrendered energy. So now, according to FK, the cooler body will supply more energy to the hotter, getting colder in the process, until the colder body reaches absolute zero, and the hotter reaches the maximum temperature consistent with its energy level.

    Starting with two bodies of water, one at 40 C and one at 50 C, according to FK the cooler one will proceed to absolute zero. This is absolute nonsense, unless the laws of thermodynamics were rewritten while I was having coffee.

    I prefer to believe that FK is mentally deficient, and is in the grip of a pseudo-scientific aberrational delusion.

    All part of the rich tapestry of life, I suppose.

    Cheers.

  17. Bindidon says:

    SAMURAI

    As usual, you claim about following the science but in fact completely discard it.

    1. It is true that in a study (considered deprecated since years), NASA has shown some evidence for planet greening due to increased CO2 levels.

    But the reality looks like this:
    http://tinyurl.com/y5dwmeut

    Most of the man-made greening has nothing to do with CO2, but with – China’s billion-tree fight against desertification, and
    – India’s urge in increasing crop production.

    The greatest greening losses are there where you would expect them the least: in the globally greatest rain forest region (Amazonas). Brazil loses forest at a rate of round 100,000 km^2 per decade.

    2. To speak, in 2019, about ‘ less desertification’ is simply ashaming.

    https://wad.jrc.ec.europa.eu/

    Actually, worldwide desertification grows at a rate approaching 100,000 km^2 per year.

    • SAMURAI says:

      Bindidon-san: A recent peer reviewed paper (Vinter et al 2018) shows the Sahara desert has shrunk 6% over the last 30 years, or roughly 25%/century, if current trends continue… oops..

      Much of this is attributed to the beneficial increase of the CO2 fertilization effect from beneficial increases in CO2 concentrations…

      The earth is still starved of CO2 and we should be ecstatic CO2 levels are improving…..but, alas…

      • bdgwx says:

        While there are certainly many positive aspects of higher CO2 concentrations it isn’t a panecea. Just like global mean temperature growth isn’t the product of a single actor neither is plant growth. There are many actors that affect growth rates including soil chemistry, moisture, temperature, sunlight, etc. Some of these actors may be negatively affected on a more regional basis because of CO2. And the planets that live today may not being able to adapt fast enough to match the pace of climate change today. Nevermind that CO2 is not universally beneficial to biomass in general. For example, C4 carbon fixation does not benefit much if at all from higher CO2 concentrations. C4 plants evolved in part to tolerate lower CO2 concentrations. Corn is an example of a C4 crop.

        • SAMURAI says:

          Almost all peer reviewed papers agree that crop yields increase by around 30% per CO2 doubling.

          The CO2 fertilization effect is logarithmic, so after CO2 exceeds 1,000ppm, there isnt much of an increase in crop yields, which is why commercial vegetable and flower greenhouses keep CO2 levels at around 1,000ppm~2,000ppm.

        • Stephen P Anderson says:

          BDGX,
          If you can explain how corn evolved you can win a Nobel prize.

      • SAMURAI says:

        Typo… Sahara decreased 8%, (not 6%) according to Venter et al 2018.. sorry.

      • Bindidon says:

        SAMURAI

        I lack the time right now to go deeper in the stuff. But I’ll come back to you concerning that.

        Meanwhile, I recommend reading this paper:

        https://www.atmos.umd.edu/~nigam/JCLIM.African.Sahara.Desert.Expansion.published.29March2018.pdf

  18. Mike Flynn says:

    Quick! Everybody panic!

    “Right now, scientists say we have just over a decade to get our collective shit together. Or to be exact, thats 12 years until earth begins its transformation into a giant furnace, devoid of crops and full of even more poverty.
”

    Doom! Doom! Thrice doom! The giant furnace cometh! Scientists say so, so it must be true!

    Cheers.

  19. Krakatoa says:

    Yes, the next La Nina could be a strong one. Maybe it won’t and the second La Nina from now will be strong. Its nothing more than guessing at this point.
    A lot of people were saying that a strong La Nina would follow after the 2016 super El Nino, only because the same thing happened after a couple of previous El Nino’s. That also didn’t happen. Be careful when you try to find patterns in data.

  20. Nate says:

    Kristian

    K:’I guess that makes me a troll, then.’

    No, but when people make genuine scientific criticisms of your posts, like:

    You havent taken into account ‘Enthalpy’, ‘Latent Heat’, ‘The General Circulation, that moves heat poleward from the equator’

    You respond with ad-homs like:

    “Thats the problem with religious zealots like yourself, Nate.”

    “More self-righteous drivel and zero substance. Typical.
    As I pointed out, theres no talking to religious zealots.”

    and projections of your behavior onto others like:

    “Your going ballistic whenever I point this simple fact”

    “throwing an endless string of inconsistent, incoherent word salads my way”

    “People like Nate here have been conditioned to automatically interpret any view that disagrees with theirs on this particular issue (GHE and AGW) as a personal attack, one they simply cant let pass, against them and their very identity.”

    Those are things that make you a troll.

    • Nate says:

      And BTW, your last point in previous Update:

      “2. Poleward heat transport from equator by General Circulation.

      Not at the surface, Nate. At the surface, the heat is coming IN laterally. At the surface, the heat escapes to the sides via general circulation in the SUBtropics, not around the equator.”

      FALSE. The Hadley Cell circulation causes vertical movement of air and latent heat UP from the surface at the equator and DOWN go the surface in the desert.

    • Kristian says:

      LOL! You’re such a weird person, Nate.

      Because here you are again (zealots don’t give up easily, do they?), insisting that I should somehow come to terms with my OWN argument as an argument AGAINST it !!?

      I DO take ‘enthalpy/heat capacity’ and ‘latent heat/evaporation’ and ‘circulation/convection’ into account, Nate. They’re the core of my argument.

      If you were to predict the average surface temperature (T_s) of two regions that absorbed the same amount of average heat input to their surfaces from the Sun, but with the one region being burdened at the same time by a much stronger “GHE” than the other (from having a troposphere on top with a lot more H2O in it (WV and clouds), making its IR opacity substantially higher as a result), meaning its surface radiative heat loss was much smaller, what would be your guess? What region should have the higher T_s? The one with a stronger “GHE”? Or the one with a weaker “GHE”? (Remember, now: Heat input is the same in both regions.)

      If you were to predict that the former region (the one with the stronger “GHE”) should have the higher T_s, then you would simply take the standard ‘All Else Being Equal’ “AGW” stance of “stronger “GHE” => higher T_s“.

      If you, however, were to predict that the latter region (the one with the weaker “GHE”) should still have the higher T_s, DESPITE its surface radiative heat loss being much more efficient than in the former region, then it would mean you acknowledged the real-world circumstance that ‘All Else Is NEVER Equal’, and so we can’t just assume that a stronger “GHE” (directly associated with a smaller surface radiative heat loss) will necessarily lead to a higher T_s. Because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED!

      Which is exactly the point of MY argument, Nate. Not yours. MY argument.

      Either you take the first stance, and you’ll easily be proven wrong. Or, you take the second stance, and effectively acknowledge that stronger evaporative surface loss always trumps equally weaker radiative surface loss. It doesn’t just REDUCE the potential thermal effect of a stronger “GHE”, it completely NEGATES it, and even REVERSES it – we end up COOLER, not LESS warm.

      And by that, we have – in all but name – rendered the idea of “the anthropogenically enhanced GHE” causing ‘global warming’ (“AGW”) moot, no explanatory power left at all.

      You’re freely admitting that more evaporation, a more dynamical circulation and a higher atmospheric (and surface) heat capacity, all conditions strongly and directly connected to having a moister atmosphere, will easily overpower any isolated thermal effect potentially caused by the higher atmospheric IR opacity (creating an “enhanced GHE”) that also follows from having more H2O in the air column.

      Which has been precisely my point all along.

      But then, instead of recognising this pretty obvious fact, and concede that I do in fact have a point, you’re trying to somehow turn it into a counterargument to mine!!???

      Do you seriously not see how ridiculous this makes you look, Nate?

    • Nate says:

      First, you said that ‘(Worth noting: Also according to CERES, these two regions get more or less the exact same average heat input to the surface from the Sun.’

      I assume you mean absorbed solar. This is ~ 280 W/m^2 I believe.

      But the outgoing TOA LW for the two regions is very different.

      Congo
      LW_up(toa), F: 225.23 W/m^2

      Sahara-Sahel

      LW_up(toa), F: 279.10 W/m^2

      Clearly the Congo has a large positive IMBALANCE at TOA. This shows that it has a significant flow of energy to somewhere…poleward transport is the likely culprit.

      And that concurs with slide 28 here

      https://maths.ucd.ie/met/msc/fezzik/Phys-Met/Ch04-4-Slides.pdf.

      ‘Because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED!

      Which is exactly the point of MY argument, Nate. Not yours. MY argument.’

      Clearly that is why comparison of these two very different locations makes no sense, as a test of the GHE.

      “If you were to predict that the former region (the one with the stronger ‘GHE’) should have the higher T_s, then you would simply take the standard All Else Being Equal ‘AGW’ stance of ‘stronger ‘GHE’ => higher T_s.”

      All else is definitely not equal.

      “it would mean you acknowledged the real-world circumstance that All Else Is NEVER Equal, and so we cant just assume that a stronger ‘GHE’ (directly associated with a smaller surface radiative heat loss) will necessarily lead to a higher T_s. Because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED!”

      Neither I, nor climate scientists advocated tests of the GHE, like this one, that so poorly control for other variables. Thats just bad science.

      But, In your VERY FIRST post you clearly intended this comparison to show that the GHE is NOT doing what its SUPPOSED to do. And you continued to make this claim again and again.

      This meme, a comparison between monkeys and camels, reveals nothing about whether temperature increases with an increased GHE.

      • Kristian says:

        Nate says, April 2, 2019 at 3:28 PM:

        First, you said that ‘(Worth noting: Also according to CERES, these two regions get more or less the exact same average heat input to the surface from the Sun.’

        I assume you mean absorbed solar. This is ~ 280 W/m^2 I believe.

        No, we’re talking about the surface here. Solar heat absorbed at the surface is ~174 W/m^2 on average in both regions.

        The solar heat going through the ToA is much higher above the Congo than above the Sahara-Sahel: 287 vs. 269 W/m^2. Which means much more solar heat is absorbed on the way down through the tropospheric column in the Congo than in Sahara-Sahel, surely owing significantly to the fact that the former contains so much more H2O; another reason why more H2O in the troposphere will act, in itself, to reduce surface heating (and that’s even beyond the mere increase in overall albedo).

        You see, Nate, once you make one change to a complex, dynamic system such as the Earth system, other changes will naturally follow. Heck, even without making such specific (controlled) changes, lots of different things about the system will have changed from one time interval to the next. Because of … tons of various reasons. And these are variables (dependent and independent) that you can’t control for. That’s why you cannot go around pretending that everything else just stays the same whenever you change one parameter of choice. This is something you can only do and accomplish inside computer models. Which means those models do not model actual reality, but a hypothetical version of it.

        But the outgoing TOA LW for the two regions is very different.

        Indeed.

        Congo
        LW_up(toa), F: 225.23 W/m^2

        Sahara-Sahel
        LW_up(toa), F: 279.10 W/m^2

        Correct.

        So, as you can see, the Congo has a HUGELY positive heat imbalance at its ToA: [287-225=] +62 W/m^2, while the Sahara-Sahel has a strongly negative one: [269-279=] -10 W/m^2. And STILL, the T_s in the Congo is much lower than in the Sahara-Sahel – go figure!

        This shows that it has a significant flow of energy to somewherepoleward transport is the likely culprit.

        Of course. From the tropopause, not from the surface. This is basic stuff, Nate. Along the equatorial belt, there is CONvergence at the surface and DIvergence at the tropopause:
        https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/satdat2011-1b1.jpg

        You bring nothing new to the table here. What is your point?

        ‘Because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED!

        Which is exactly the point of MY argument, Nate. Not yours. MY argument.’

        Clearly that is why comparison of these two very different locations makes no sense, as a test of the GHE.

        Are you telling me, Nate, that you still haven’t grasped what my argument is all about!?

        What I’m testing isn’t the base “GHE”. Everyone knows (or, at least, should know) that Earth’s T_s with an atmosphere on top will be higher than without. You need look no further than the Moon.

        What I’m testing – and I thought it was obvious! – is the specific premise lying at the heart of the idea of the ENHANCED “GHE”, namely the one saying that increasing the IR opacity of the atmosphere WILL and MUST cause the average surface temperature to rise, ‘All Else Being Equal’.

        Yes, in theory, all else being equal, that might very well happen; such a result is THEORETICALLY plausible, if only IN ISOLATION, all other relevant factors disregarded.

        But can you ever disregard all other relevant factors? In the real world? And if you can’t, how can we know that our theoretical end result, that simply increasing the IR opacity of the atmosphere WILL and MUST cause the average surface temperature to rise, will also be the end result … OUT THERE IN THE ***REAL*** WORLD!!!??

        So, what I’m testing, Nate, is simply that premise: Will simply increasing the IR opacity of the atmosphere, while keeping the heat input to the surface constant, defined as the fundamental warming mechanism of an “enhanced GHE”, will it necessarily cause the T_s to rise EVEN when all else isn’t equal?

        If this premise only works in a hypothetical case where All Else Is Equal, that is, if it fails the test above, what good is it as a predictor of future T_s?

        It would have ZERO predictive or explanatory power.

        “If you were to predict that the former region (the one with the stronger ‘GHE’) should have the higher T_s, then you would simply take the standard All Else Being Equal ‘AGW’ stance of ‘stronger ‘GHE’ => higher T_s.”

        All else is definitely not equal.

        Ok. So we agree …?

        “it would mean you acknowledged the real-world circumstance that All Else Is NEVER Equal, and so we cant just assume that a stronger ‘GHE’ (directly associated with a smaller surface radiative heat loss) will necessarily lead to a higher T_s. Because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED!”

        Neither I, nor climate scientists advocated tests of the GHE, like this one, that so poorly control for other variables. Thats just bad science.

        Hahaha! The irony.

        Allowing other variables to do their thing IS the test, Nate! That’s what my test is all about!

        Like I said, if the fundamental warming mechanism of an “enhanced GHE” only works (actually creates net warming) in a hypothetical case where all other variables are held constant, then what good is it?

        We are NOT testing whether or not the postulated radiative warming mechanism will create warming IN ISOLATION, all by itself. We are testing whether it is able to create warming even after including all of the OTHER relevant factors!

        My test includes the other factors. And thus the postulated radiative warming mechanism fails: It doesn’t create net warming.

        No, the bad science here is simply asserting that more CO2 in the atmosphere MUST make the global surface warmer, no matter what, without ANY KIND of real-world test to support it.

        Where’s your test, Nate? How and where have you acquired the empirical evidence showing unambiguously that simply increasing the IR opacity of the atmosphere WILL and MUST CAUSE the surface T_av to rise?

        It’s just an assertion, Nate. An assumption. And it only works in the models …

        Which is my point.

        • Nate says:

          ‘Of course. From the tropopause, not from the surface.

          And what happens up there doesnt stay up there. Examples: the arctic vortex, the jet stream.

          The whole equatorial tropics is cooler because of this massive poleward heat transport. And the poles are warmer.

          And also the apparent ‘GHE’ in Congo is exaggerated by all this heat NOT exiting thru the TOA.

          Its hard to believe your intent was to post such a hot mess of a GHE test.

          • Kristian says:

            Nate says, April 4, 2019 at 5:42 PM:

            ‘Of course. From the tropopause, not from the surface.’

            And what happens up there doesnt stay up there.

            Hehe, very true. Which is just one MORE piece of evidence from the real Earth system invalidating the core premise of the “AGW” idea that simply increasing the atmospheric IR opacity MUST and WILL cause the average surface temperature below to rise.

            I discussed this topic already way back:
            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/the-greenhouse-effect-that-wasnt-part-2/#comment-389

            An interesting aspect of this assessment of regional rGHE that I didn’t really mention in the post itself, is how there appears to be absolutely no balance between incoming and outgoing radiative flux through the ToA:

            The Congo sector: 287.4 W/m^2IN – 224.7 W/m^2OUT = +62.7 W/m^2

            The Sahara-Sahel sector: 267.5 W/m^2IN – 279.8 W/m^2OUT = -12.3 W/m^2

            This should come as no surprise. We are after all looking only at regional systems here, not at the total (global) system. A large part of the energy absorbed (in fact, most of it) is moved internally by advection (oceanic and atmospheric circulation) between regions throughout the world before it is ultimately radiated back out to space. So this energy, while moving internally, would fall outside the particularradiative budgets of the two particular ‘subsystems’ discussed here.

            Is this, then, the reason why the Congo region is cooler on average than the Sahara-Sahel region, despite having a much stronger rGHE as defined?

            I could understand why rGHE proponents would want to claim this to be the case.

            However, it won’t help their hypothesis trying to locate this ‘missing’ (non-radiated) energy …

            The thing is, what happens in the equatorial belt? Over land? There is no significant advection close to the surface away towards the north or south. Air (and energy) is rather coming in from the north and from the south. Or it movesalong the equator. If anything, at the surface, equatorial continental regions would on average get extra energy IN from surrounding regions, by advection from higher pressures towards the central low. That’s how the Hadley-Walker cells work. The overwhelming majority of the energy coming directly in from overhead (the Sun) would be shed straight back up, convected vertically towards the tropical tropopause, still comfortably within the same sector.

            What happens in the equatorial belt is that there is convergence at the surface and divergence at the tropopause. The energy not being radiated away on its way up to the tropopause (inside the sector), will rather be radiated away from tropopause or near-tropopause level on its way north or south to the subtropics (outside the sector):

            “Air convected to the top of the troposphere in the ITCZ [InterTropical Convergence Zone] has a very high potential temperature, due to latent heat release during ascent in hot towers. Air spreading out at higher levels also tends to have low relative humidity, because of moisture losses by precipitation. As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space (this is a diabatic process, involving exchanges of energy between the air mass and its environment). Decreasing potential temperature leads to an increase in density, upsetting the hydrostatic balance and initiating subsidence. The subsiding air warms (as pressure increases towards lower levels), further lowering the relative humidity and maintaining clear-sky conditions. However, although the subsiding air warms, it does not do so at the dry adiabatic lapse rate. Continuing losses of longwave radiation (radiative cooling) means that the air warms at less than the dry adiabatic lapse rate (i.e. some of the adiabatic warming is offset by diabatic cooling).”

            http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~dib2/climate/tropics.html

            As you can well read from the highlighted part (my emphasis) in the quote above, energy is definitely being brought out of the equatorial belt before it can be radiated to space. But it happens aloft, not significantly at the surface. It is brought to those regions, like the Sahara-Sahel sector, that end up radiating more to space than what they absorb from the Sun, the surplus energy brought in aloft from the ITCZ.

            The absorbed solar heat is simply thoroughly shuffled internally within the Earth system before it is finally allowed to be reemitted to space.

            The point I want to make is this:

            If you want to argue that energy is being ‘trapped’ by gases and clouds in the troposphere, and that this somehow constitutes the rGHE, then you cannot also invoke the “energy being brought out of the region by other means offsetting a regional warming” argument, because then the energy you claimed to be ‘trapped’ and which would then (by rGHE logic) necessarily warm the troposphere and, consequently, the surface below, would not have been ‘trapped’ at all to begin with. It managed to get (‘radiatively undetected’) all the way from the surface up to the top of convection and only from there moving poleward and out of the region; at last radiated to space along the way. So your whole ‘warming mechanism’ would no longer be fit for purpose. It would no longer be at all.

            You can’t have it both ways …

            Original test:
            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/the-greenhouse-effect-that-wasnt-part-2/

            Update:
            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2017/04/15/the-congo-vs-sahara-sahel-once-more/

            The whole equatorial tropics is cooler because of this massive poleward heat transport. And the poles are warmer.

            Yes, but at the SURFACE (!), where this test was done, the heat advection moves rather FROM the hotter (and drier) SUBtropics and in TOWARDS the cooler (and wetter) tropics. So heat moves from a hotter region with a much WEAKER “GHE” to a cooler region with a much STRONGER “GHE”. Because factors OTHER THAN the “GHE” one is vastly more potent, more powerful and more important when it comes to setting the average surface temperature.

            You just keep proving my point for me, Nate. With every single comment. Keep going.

          • Nate says:

            ‘You just keep proving my point for me, Nate. With every single comment. Keep going.’

            I know, but your ‘point’ has evolved to match the available facts.

            You also keep proving my point that this comparison is a red herring.

            If an observation requires this much speculative analysis, then it isnt worth much toward demonstrating any quantitative relationship, or lack of one.

          • Nate says:

            “As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space (this is a diabatic”

            So again, this artificially decreases the ‘GHE’ over the Sahel, while increasing it over Congo. Again whatever relationship there may be between ‘GHE’ and surface temperature is thoroughly muddied.

            You need to find two more similar locations, or just look at Global averages.

          • Nate says:

            K,

            When you say things like this

            “What Im testing isnt the base ‘GHE’. Everyone knows (or, at least, should know) that Earths T_s with an atmosphere on top will be higher than without. You need look no further than the Moon.”

            Its difficult to reconcile that with your earlier comments like:

            ‘Yes, changing the radiative parameters of the troposphere MIGHT (!!) affect the average surface T positively. Theoretically it could definitely happen.’

            or N: ‘When one does all of that, spatially averaged warming is the result.’

            K: ‘Yes, in the MODELS, Nate. In the MODELS. Based on your THEORY being true. But there is no real-world evidence that it is true. There are ONLY theoretical considerations. And there is no evidence that what the models claim will happen is actually what happens IN THE REAL WORLD.’

            No, IN THE REAL WORLD also. It is obviously happening (base ‘GHE’) to explain our present climate and its spatially averaged warming! And the present general circulation, and present weather patterns over Africa.

            Weather models work in the real world.

            But then, it seems like you are trying to separate out the ‘GHE’ part of the heat transfer in the atmosphere, and show that it is ‘misbehaving’ over present-day Africa.

            But real weather modelers and climatologists don’t separate it out the way you are trying to do. They model overall heat transfer, and find that it matches the real world.

          • Ball4 says:

            Kristian’s work on the Sahel vs. Congo compares the surface temperature as if the two regions have the same climate. One region contains plains, one region contains high mountains for which Kristian doesn’t adjust temperature as in Dr. Spencer’s analysis of Australia:

            “The surface-troposphere system is not regionally isolated over Australia, as the troposphere can be affected by distant processes. For example, subsidence warming over the continent can be caused by vigorous precipitation systems hundreds or thousands of miles away.”

            The two regions are also at different avg. altitudes, different avg. latitudes, again no adjustment in T by Kristian. Kristian’s work is superficial at best, Nate is right that Kristian should use global data.

          • Kristian says:

            Nate says, April 5, 2019 at 6:40 AM:

            ‘You just keep proving my point for me, Nate. With every single comment. Keep going.’

            I know, but your point has evolved to match the available facts.

            Hehe, no. I was there all along. From the get-go. You simply tried at once, and quite bizarrely, to turn the facts of reality that I pointed out somehow into a counterargument against themselves. And you’re still on that train.

            For the simple reason that you just cannot get yourself to concede the simple point I am making, that there is no way we can know that by merely enhancing a “GHE” as radiatively defined, we will and must cause average surface temps to rise … because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED.

            How long has this evasion game of yours been going on now, Nate?

            When will we get the actual concession?

            If an observation requires this much speculative analysis, then it isnt worth much toward demonstrating any quantitative relationship, or lack of one.

            Hahaha, there is nothing “speculative” at all about my analysis, Nate. It is utterly straightforward, and I have explained it to you now probably a dozen times. You’re the one who insists on muddying this issue, by laying out red herrings east and west and burning down straw men around the clock.

            Again, the test is very simple indeed:

            If the prediction of a net rise in T_s resulting purely from an enhancement of a “GHE” cannot survive a simple real-world test like mine, where all different variables of the climate system are allowed to do their thing, then the entire idea of “AGW” is based on theoretical speculation and nothing else.

            Which is my point.

            Your being completely unable and/or unwilling to come to terms with this point isn’t really my fault OR my problem, Nate. It’s just the way it is.

            Nate says, April 5, 2019 at 6:53 AM:

            “As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space (this is a diabatic”

            So again, this artificially decreases the ‘GHE’ over the Sahel, while increasing it over Congo.

            Artificially decreases the ‘GHE’!!????

            What are you on!? If you hadn’t already, you have now officially entered clown territory, Nate.

            Did you read my comment at all??

            It’s like talking to a wall. Or, what was it? A religious zealot.

            Again whatever relationship there may be between ‘GHE’ and surface temperature is thoroughly muddied.

            EXACTLY, Nate!!!! So again I will have to bring up questions that I asked you already on the previous monthly update thread:

            1.
            The TOTAL heat input and heat output to the surface are the SAME in both the Congo and the Sahara-Sahel regions. Only, the RADIATIVE heat output is much SMALLER in the Congo: It has a much stronger “GHE” => much more “back radiation” => much less net IR escaping the surface.

            So why is it still so much COOLER …!?

            Why is it cooler, Nate? Because …? Say it!

            2.
            The Congo surface has a much higher rate of evaporation than the Sahara-Sahel. But the Sahara-Sahel surface has a much higher rate of radiative loss, due to a much weaker “GHE”. The TOTAL loss is the same in both regions, as is the total gain.

            So what does this tell you, Nate? What is the more important surface heat loss mechanism when it comes to surface temperature? Radiation or evaporation-convection?

            Say it, Nate! Just say it. Don’t be afraid.

            You need to find two more similar locations, or just look at Global averages.

            No. You don’t get my test. I’m not testing what you want me to test. I’m not testing the isolated effect of an “enhanced GHE”, as in the case where no other factors but the atmospheric IR opacity one change. I’m testing whether this hypothetical isolated effect will also work in a (real-world) case where all those other factors DO change. It doesn’t. THAT’S the test. It failed. And you simply won’t and cannot accept it.

            Show me YOUR test, Nate. What real-world test have YOU done to show that YOU’RE right? Time to put up or shut up.

            Nate says, April 5, 2019 at 10:02 AM:

            When you say things like this

            “What Im testing isnt the base ‘GHE’. Everyone knows (or, at least, should know) that Earths T_s with an atmosphere on top will be higher than without. You need look no further than the Moon.”

            Its difficult to reconcile that with your earlier comments like:

            ‘Yes, changing the radiative parameters of the troposphere MIGHT (!!) affect the average surface T positively. Theoretically it could definitely happen.’

            I’m sure it is. But it’s not. It’s hard for you to reconsile because, on this particular topic, your mind is utterly one-dimensional, Nate. Your blinded by your doctrine. You’re effectively a religious zealot.

            Try entertaining more than one thought in your head at the same time. Even if two thoughts MIGHT seem contradictive on the face of it, it’s not necessarily the case.

            K: ‘Yes, in the MODELS, Nate. In the MODELS. Based on your THEORY being true. But there is no real-world evidence that it is true. There are ONLY theoretical considerations. And there is no evidence that what the models claim will happen is actually what happens IN THE REAL WORLD.’

            No, IN THE REAL WORLD also. It is obviously happening (base ‘GHE’) to explain our present climate and its spatially averaged warming!

            Is it? How and where do you see it? Outside the models …

            Weather models work in the real world.

            Yes, WEATHER models. Up to a point. But they don’t work on the premise that the atmospheric CO2 content controls the future climate. They VERY MUCH take the fluid dynamics side of the climate system into account.

            And that’s why CLIMATE models don’t work in the real world. Because they’re prognosticating something else entirely. They simply let “radiative forcing” determine everything …

          • Nate says:

            “Is this, then, the reason why the Congo region is cooler on average than the Sahara-Sahel region, despite having a much stronger rGHE as defined?

            I could understand why rGHE proponents would want to claim this to be the case.”

            Yes because heat going elsewhere results in cooling! Its a no-brainer. But you would like to ignore it.

            ‘there is nothing “speculative” at all about my analysis, Nate. It is utterly straightforward, and I have explained it to you now probably a dozen times.’

            No it is not ‘straightforward’ that this heat going elsewhere from the troposphere has no effect on the surface analysis. Your discussion about this is speculative.

            N: ‘So again, this artificially decreases the ‘GHE’ over the Sahel, while increasing it over Congo.’

            ‘You’re effectively a religious zealot.’

            This has nothing to do with religious zealotry, asshole!

            Look, it is simple, as your quote showed, heat transported to and beyond the Sahel is ‘As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space ‘

            That means additional F in Sahel that is NOT the result of any GHE between the surface and atmosphere. But the calculated ‘GHE’ defined as G = E – F is REDUCED.

            Similarly the vertical heat transport from the surface in the Congo, splits into F outgoing and T transported, thus the G = E-F is apparently INCREASED by T.

            Of course its not quite that simple, but as I said, it muddies any conclusions you would like to make about surface T and G.

            ‘If the prediction of a net rise in T_s resulting cannot survive a simple real-world test like mine, where all different variables of the climate system are allowed to do their thing, then the entire idea of ‘AGW’ is based on theoretical speculation and nothing else.’

            Its a glaringly NOT simple ‘real world test’.

            You just cannot get yourself to concede the simple point I am making.

            “Where all different variables of the climate system are allowed to do their thing”

            Yes indeed! These variables causing regional additions or subtractions of energy don’t affect the Global average, which is, as you admitted, WARMER because of the GHE.

          • Nate says:

            ‘Yes, WEATHER models. Up to a point. But they dont work on the premise that the atmospheric CO2 content controls the future climate. They VERY MUCH take the fluid dynamics side of the climate system into account.’

            And of course, they MUST take into account radiation, else they would fail badly a predicting temperatures of air masses!

            They work well to predict weather, eg over Africa. I don’t see how they can do this w/o including the GHE properly.

            This is what mean, when I say it is confusing that you think the GHE is somehow not doing what its supposed to do over Africa. Of course it is! Otherwise weather models would be failing.

            Atmospheric physics is a mature field. We understand the movement of heat in the atmosphere very well by now. Obviously so, since weather models work, and the general circulation can be properly modeled.

            You quote atmospheric scientists describing the movement of heat in the atmosphere, and you understand heat transfer.

            So it is baffling that you (off and on) think they are getting the GHE wrong, and you say things like this:

            “What the rGHE proponents are in fact doing, is simply ignoring the larger ‘cooling’ effect of having a radiatively active atmosphere and focusing only on the smaller (alleged/assumed/postulated) ‘warming’ effect, and then claiming that this smaller (alleged/assumed/postulated) ‘warming’ effect is what makes Earths global mean surface temperature as balmy as it is.”

            Again, you seem to be arguing against this:

            “What Im testing isnt the base ‘GHE’. Everyone knows (or, at least, should know) that Earths T_s with an atmosphere on top will be higher than without. You need look no further than the Moon.”

          • Kristian says:

            Nate, we are as always getting nowhere with this. But that’s, after all, also your goal with these endless fruitless interactions – just keep up the pressure (like the good Alinsky disciple you are) until the opposition tires and loses interest, and you can go on claiming a win (‘I finally split his argument apart!’). At this point, what we have left is a sorry game of tit for tat. We have both already said what we have to say on this subject. You’re not reading what I’m writing. Just ceaselessly repeating your talking points. There are no new arguments being presented. The original one was mine. You’ve made a continued great show of critiquing it, yet you’ve never made any attempt whatsoever to actually understand – and thus address – its central point. I keep pointing this out to you, explaining in detail what that central point is. But you keep evading it. Pretending somehow there is no such point (‘Point? What point?’).

            Nate says, April 5, 2019 at 12:42 PM:

            Look, it is simple, as your quote showed, heat transported to and beyond the Sahel is ‘As this dry upper air drifts polewards, its potential temperature gradually falls due to longwave radiative losses to space ‘

            That means additional F in Sahel that is NOT the result of any GHE between the surface and atmosphere. But the calculated ‘GHE’ defined as G = E – F is REDUCED.

            Hahaha! You’re just showcasing the fundamental weakness of R&R’s “GHE” definition, Nate.

            So, the tropospheric column above the Congo should have a much stronger “GHE”, as radiatively defined, than the same above the Sahara-Sahel, simply due to the fact that it contains so much more H2O (WV and clouds). It should be much more opaque to outgoing surface IR. This is something I think we can all agree on.

            But what happens if we follow our common logic here, Nate? What happens when we simply acknowledge that the energy not being radiated out to space from within the Congo sector is instead brought out of the region at the tropopause level via advection, and that this energy is rather moved aloft, north and south, to the subtropical regions, like the Sahara-Sahel, to be radiated to space from there?

            Down the drain goes the entire “GHE” definition as an indicator of … anything.

            We realise that the ‘missing’ ToA energy in the Congo ISN’T held back inside the region by the stronger “GHE” holding it ‘captive’ (a direct consequence of its much higher tropospheric content of H2O) at all, and at the same time that the abundant ToA energy in the Sahara-Sahel ISN’T all coming straight through its weaker “GHE” from its surface to space (a direct consequence of its much lower tropospheric content of H2O). No, energy is simply taken from the former region’s ToA radiative budget and moved to the latter region’s ToA radiative budget to make it SEEM as if the “GHE” in the Congo is much stronger than in Sahara-Sahel.

            But isn’t it much stronger? It has so much more H2O in its tropospheric column, right? And H2O is by far the major contributor to Earth’s “GHE”, right?

            Well, if we were to compensate for the energy taken from the Congo and given to the Sahara-Sahel, it might look something like this …

            The Congo (real-world situation): G = E – F => 450-225= 225 W/m^2
            The Congo (no-loss situation): G = E – F => 450-280= 170 W/m^2

            Sahara-Sahel (real-world situation): G = E – F => 480-280= 200 W/m^2
            Sahara-Sahel (no-gain situation): G = E – F => 480-265= 215 W/m^2

            Let’s say, then, that in the no-loss situation, the T_s in the Congo increased by more than 3 K, and that in the no-gain situation, the T_s in the Sahara-Sahel region decreased by about 1.5 K. That would STILL leave the former region with a much, much weaker “GHE”, as radiatively defined by R&R, than the latter.

            Which makes absolutely no sense.

            Conclusion: The Earth system gets what energy needs to get out out. You cannot hold more of it ‘back inside’ by simply increasing the IR opacity of its atmosphere. Because of the constant NON-radiative movement of internal energy, easily and routinely bypassing any kind of potential radiative impediment to energy flow. In short: Convection; fluid dynamics.

            Which is my point.

            You just cannot get yourself to concede the simple point I am making.

            You’re not making a point. I am. And you STILL haven’t dared to address it.

            I’m apparently forced to reiterate the whole thing yet again! Why the perpetual evasion, Nate?

            1.
            The TOTAL heat input and heat output to the surface are the SAME in both the Congo and the Sahara-Sahel regions. Only, the RADIATIVE heat output is much SMALLER in the Congo: It has a much stronger “GHE” => much more “back radiation” => much less net IR escaping the surface.

            So why is it still so much COOLER …!?

            Why is it cooler, Nate? Because …? Say it!

            2.
            The Congo surface has a much higher rate of evaporation than the Sahara-Sahel. But the Sahara-Sahel surface has a much higher rate of radiative loss, due to a much weaker “GHE”. The TOTAL loss is the same in both regions, as is the total gain.

            So what does this tell you, Nate? What is the more important surface heat loss mechanism when it comes to surface temperature? Radiation or evaporation-convection?

            Say it, Nate! Just say it. Don’t be afraid.

            “Where all different variables of the climate system are allowed to do their thing”

            Yes indeed! These variables causing regional additions or subtractions of energy don’t affect the Global average, which is, as you admitted, WARMER because of the GHE.

            As usual, you haven’t been paying attention, Nate.

            The global average surface temperature of the Earth isn’t higher because of the “GHE”. It’s higher because of the thermal (insulating) presence of the atmosphere resting on top of the solar-heated surface.

            And still here, you’re not addressing the actual POINT I’m making. You’re specifically addressing a straw man.

            Again I’ll refer back to the two points above.

          • Kristian says:

            Nate says, April 5, 2019 at 1:57 PM:

            (…) it is baffling that you (off and on) think they are getting the GHE wrong (…)

            Hehe. They’re not getting the “GHE” wrong, Nate. They’re getting it right. The “GHE” itself is what’s wrong, in the sense that it’s a purely theoretical (speculative) idea and nothing else. It has no hard observational science behind it. Any claimed “evidence” of its efficacy is always a simple result of seeing an effect and thinking it’s a cause. If you observe an increase in atmospheric “back radiation” over time, you haven’t thereby observed the CAUSE of an increase in surface temperature over that same time. No, you’ve observed a secondary EFFECT of an increase in surface temperature; not even a primary effect, a secondary one. The surface warmed first, then it heated the troposphere above, making it warm as well, which in turn resulted in the apparent increase in atmospheric “back radiation”. A secondary effect of an original cause is NOT the cause of that original cause. That’s like saying a tiny strand of hair on the dog’s tail wags the entire dog.

            This is what the “GHE” argument amounts to.

            But this is an altogether different issue than the Congo vs. Sahara-Sahel test …

          • Nate says:

            “They’re not getting the “GHE” wrong, Nate. They’re getting it right. The “GHE” itself is what’s wrong, in the sense that it’s a purely theoretical (speculative) idea and nothing else. It has no hard observational science behind it.”

            Weird. But the hard evidence IS there in highly accurate regional weather prediction, and highly successful modeling of atmospheric properties and global circulation.

            You just dismiss it.

        • Nate says:

          Indeed we agree on most of the facts that have arisen in this lengthy discussion with TWO participants (but somehow only ONE is responsible for it??)

          And the more we look at these facts, the more we ought to see that they clearly confirm my original point:

          Comparing the ‘GHE’ and Ts of these two different locations, demonstrates exactly NOTHING about their relationship.

          Claiming that it DOES is a strawman argument.

          As you do here:

          ‘If the prediction of a net rise in T_s resulting purely from an enhancement of a ‘GHE’ cannot survive a simple real-world test like mine”

          There is no “pure enhancement of ‘GHE’ going on here. That is obviously FALSE.

          So it is utterly ridiculous to call this a simple real-world test. It is nothing but simple!

          So your ‘point’ OSCILLATES between

          “there is no way we can know …. because of OTHER FACTORS INVOLVED.”

          and its

          “a simple real-world test”,

          because we CAN account for the OTHER FACTORS like advection, etc

          Its clear that you are highly confused about what your point is.

          Just as you OSCILLATE between

          “What Im testing isnt the base ‘GHE’. Everyone knows (or, at least, should know) that Earths T_s with an atmosphere on top will be higher than without.”

          and

          “What the rGHE proponents are in fact doing, is……. claiming that this smaller (alleged/assumed/postulated) ‘warming’ effect is what makes Earths global mean surface temperature as balmy as it is.”

          Again, you are not being consistent and tie yourself in knots, to defend the indefensible.

  21. ren says:

    Will the temperature of the troposphere over North America be low also in April?
    https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_hgt_trop_NA_f00.png

  22. Swampgator says:

    Can someone direct me to the UAH records for Canada only?

    • Bindidon says:

      Swampgator

      “Can someone direct me to the UAH records for Canada only?”

      *
      The file
      https://tinyurl.com/y997zl7w

      contains regional data for USA and Australia, but not for Canada.

      You will think I’m joking or laughing at you but I don’t either.

      Here is a graph comparing for the period 1978-2019
      – the data from all accessible GHCN V3 stations in CA;
      – the data from all UAH 2.5 degree grid cells encompassing the stations’ locations.

      https://drive.google.com/file/d/15t-8wx4GQ7Aod3SuGp-VNVywePsErvdh/view

      During the period, 194 CA stations provided data (194 is the sum of all stations reached in the 40 years, and NOT the average number per year). I don’t trace the stations.

      Linear trend estimates for 1978-2019 in C / decade
      – UAH: 0.17 +- 0.03
      – GHCN: 0.18 +- 0.05

      The surface trend would be of course a lot higher if GHCN V3 had more stations in the Arctic.

      When I have some time, I’ll transfer the GHCN-UAH methods to the GHCN daily corner, which has many more stations above 60N.

      Sources:
      – GHCN V3: http://tinyurl.com/y98yy8fp
      – UAH: http://tinyurl.com/yyxne3rd

      *
      P.S. There is a pseudoskeptic genius pretending I would produce faked graphs out of fudged data. The best is to gnore him.

      Enjoy the graph…

  23. DocSiders says:

    It is a conscious hoax.

    Strong evidence. How much evidence do you need to discredit a theory…and prove a hoax?

    Here’s a short list supporting the hoax claim. I’ve got lots more.

    Climategate. Totally unscientific and unethical behavior. Behavior that only people supporting a hoax would employ.

    Increased CO2 is having a very substantial positive effect on plant growth. Plants have been starving slowly as ocean creatures continued to sequester CO2 (in shells on the ocean floors) as CO2 declined steadily over the last 150 million years. THEN ALL YOU HEAR ABOUT IS HOW THAT MIGHT NOT BE ALL A GOOD THING !!! It is a great thing…that the hoaxers have to try hard to find something bad about.

    Insignificant global temperature rise (Satellite AND Balloon) for 20+ years. We were told at 10 years that we needed 15 years (and I agreed). But then after 15 years of no significant warming we were told 20 years would be needed. Now at 20+ years they start using new “temperature effect” oceanic warming adjustments to global averages !!! THE GOALPOSTS ARE ON WHEELS…..because this is an unscientific hoax.

    Tornado and Global Cyclone Total energy has declined since the 30’s. Historic records show a strong decline in Tornado frequency and energy since the 30’s. Weather theory would predict lower cyclone energy with warming and consequent lower temperature gradients.

    The temperature rise from the 20’s through the 40’s was virtually identical to the rise from the 70’s through the 90’s. So not unlikely from the same cause (ocean cycles…coming out of the little ice age…etc). The models that can show CO2 and the later warming do not also show the earlier warming, therefore those models are falsified…have no skill.

    El Ninos are present at every step of recent warming. That El Nino warming is from direct sunlight and has next to nothing to do with CO2.

    The 97% consensus claim is a lie. Less than half of scientists believe warming is a serious threat. 97% do believe humans have some impact…I do. 97% don’t believe it’s catastrophic. That’s a lie easily proven that you lefties still want to believe Cook the cartoonist’s discredited paper.

    Normal scientific processes are NOT followed. Skeptics of great stature (e.g. Freeman Dyson and many others) receive ad hominem attacks (from dumb asses) AND are never substantially (seriously) responded to.

    Well defended theses (e.g. Lindzen’s Iris Effect – with actual empirical data support…unlike anything AGW theory has) are labeled as “discredited” when they have not been falsified even in part…let alone totally discredited. This is hoax propaganda…not science.

    Non-complying scientists lose funding, get fired, and ostracized…almost never promoted (they are threats to power and continued funding)

    If the CAGW cabal really believed that an existential crisis is unfolding…with the globe racing towards unmitigated disaster…they would not be giving China, India, and Southeast Asia a pass. Emissions are guaranteed to rise sharply even if the USA and the EU go to zero emissions.

    The CAGW numbers predict less than 0.05 C temperature reduction by 2100 if the UN plan is followed. Therefore, it isn’t about global warming…since their own plan doesn’t fix global warming. It does give them total political and economic control of energy production and use BUT ONLY IN THE WEST.

    If the CAGW’ers believed what they say, they would be advocating for a MASSIVE nuclear power expansion. Instead, they do the OPPOSITE !!! and they would be pointing fingers at the Chinese. The CAGW’ers have influence only where the MSM Press speaks (propaganda) for them. The CAGW crowd has no influence in China. China doesn’t care because they don’t believe either. They will clean up coal some so they can breathe…but not for CO2 emissions.

    There’s a lot in the ice core records showing poor and even negative CO2 correlations with temperatures.

    CO2 goes up with temperatures at the end of every glaciation. These rapid Temperature rises aren’t following some magical rise of CO2. What kind of CO2 release is so smooth and regular?? Not some mysterious growing volcano eruption growth pattern. Atmospheric CO2 is obviously following ocean temperature rises (and its predictable). But then those rapid temperature rises all stop at about the same temperature each time. Most likely (in agreement with control theory basics), these peaks are regulated…and not by the lagging CO2.

    Current temperatures are well below peak Holocene interglacial maximums. Every species alive today lived through these higher temperatures. Early civilization fared much better when it was warmer…and crumbled when colder (Romans).

    Anyone who cannot see the unscientific nature of CAGW (the hoax) cannot by honest.

    _____________
    “If you need Fake News to be happy…….you might be a Democrat”.

    • JDHuffman says:

      Well done, DocSiders, and you didn’t even get to the bogus “energy balance” which is a comical farce.

    • Carbon500 says:

      DocSiders: Well said! I for one am heartily sick of all the half-baked rubbish that purports to be ‘climate science’. I’m fed up of hearing about greenhouses, the fraudulent twisting of words used to promote ‘acidification’ of the oceans, oceans rising by claimed fractions of a millimetre due to CO2, disappearing ice caps and the rest of the junk – Al Gore claiming in his book that we are ‘thickening’ the atmosphere with CO2′ for example. The sad thing about it all is that so many people believe it, and it’s been sold to gullible and lazy politicians who didn’t think for themselves before throwing their weight behind the issue. So raw has that this become that even when sharing a meal with friends a heated row can result – it’s best to avoid the subject. I’ve written to a local newspaper on several occasions about the alleged dangerous man-made global warming (now repackaged as ‘climate change’ of course), particularly when the threat of wind turbines loomed over a beautiful part of rural England, farmed by our ancestors for centuries and now threatened by the sheer idiocy of the modern world. None of the replies to my letters contained any factual observations or evidence that the writers had looked at any data for themselves – it was always ‘trust the scientists.’ I’m pleased to say that the local council saw sense and refused planning permission for these monstrosities. How can anyone look at the satellite data which Roy Spencer puts out every month on this website and kid themselves that we’re looking at a malign process caused by mankind? Fraction of a degree changes, up and down over the years – arguably the planet going about its normal business. I think at when all of this finally ends there’ll be many a book and thesis written about how what Axel Mörner has called ‘the greatest lie ever told’ came to be so effectively promoted – and the colossal sums wasted which could have been better spent on society’s genuine needs – health, social care and education for example.

    • RW says:

      DocSiders,

      Awesome.

    • DukeSnide says:

      DocSiders,
      You stated that ‘CO2 is obviously following ocean temperature rises.’

      It would take a massive amount of energy to heat 326 million trillion gallons of water so there must be something causing the ocean temps to rise.

      Would you have an explanation why only now over the last century that amount of water is suddenly warming?

      Just wondering.

      • bdgwx says:

        Exactly. The oceans are accumulating energy at a phenomenal rate…about +10e21 joules/year right now. That energy didn’t just magically appear out of thin air.

        • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

          Two days late? No, they will have most likely moved down-thread by now. Down you go.

  24. Bindidon says:

    DocSiders

    Your comment is full of polemics I’m not at all interested in.

    Let me just give a short reply to the most disgusting point.

    If all newspapers, but especially those owned by e.g. Rupert Murdoch would have had to face legal action for their lies and therefore had to fear harsh prosecution, lawsuits and extremely sensitive punishments, there would have been no ‘Climategate’ at all.

    Final point for me.

    *
    More interesting is what you pretend in a context a bit nearer to science and engineering:

    “Insignificant global temperature rise (Satellite AND Balloon) for 20+ years.”

    1. I suppose that you ‘restrict’ your satellite understanding solely to UAH6.0 TLT, and therefore deliberately ignore other time series like RSS4.0 TLT, or NOAA STAR TMT, just because the latter were the target of repeated unscientific attacks like Karlization of data, ‘pausebuster’ claims, etc.

    I have greatest respect for Roy Spencer’s work, but that does not at all imply for me to lack this same respect for Carl Mears: a respect which has been thoroughly absent on all blogs discussing RSS’ transition from rev 3.3 to rev 4.0.

    DocSiders, I don’t know in which discipline you obtained the PhD degree suggested by your pseudonym. But at least you should be able to give us an irrefutable, scientific explanation for the suddent discrepancy, starting in 2004, between UAH6.0 and all other temperature series accessed by the WoodForTrees processor:

    http://tinyurl.com/y4en46r3

    (I hope you are educated enough to accept that the offsets specified for each series – UAH excepted – specify the correct displacement due to different means for the common reference period chosen.)

    If you are not able to provide for a correct explanation, then we do not need any further discussion.

    Otherwise we might start discussing about the interesting discrepancy between
    – UAH6.0’s mean absolute temperature (around 265 K) and the resulting altitude of its measurements,
    and
    – the measurements provided by the RATPAC B radiosondes (officially acknowledged by Prof. Christy) at atmospheric pressures equivalent to UAH’s measurement altitude…

    • JDHuffman says:

      Bindidon, if you knew more about the relevant physics, you could better understand your frustration. All of your obsession with various data sources is for naught. There is NOTHING unnatural happening with global temperatures. AGW/GHE is pseudoscience.

      Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

      • Bindidon says:

        Seuls les ignorants ressentent le besoin de s’exprimer quand ils n’ont strictement rien à dire.

        • Mike Flynn says:

          कस्तो मान्छे!

          Cheers.

        • Bindidon says:

          कस्तो बुद्धिमानी नोट!

          • Mike Flynn says:

            B,

            My comment wasnt Hindi. Good try. You see the problems which may arise through leaping to conclusions.

            Try another language if you wish.

            Cheers.

          • Bindidon says:

            “You see the problems which may arise through leaping to conclusions.”

            Who tells you my comment was?
            Bad try.

  25. Mike Flynn says:

    Here’s a snippet from a real Nobel Laureate (unlike the fake pseudoscientific climatological variety – such as Michael Mann’s fake self awarded Nobel Prize) –

    “I must also point out to you that you cannot prove a vague theory wrong. If the guess that you make is poorly expressed and rather vague, and the method that you used for figuring out the consequences is rather vague, you’re not sure, and you just say I think everything is because it’s all due to moogles, and moogles do this and that, more or less. So I can sort of explain how this works. Then you say that that theory is good, because it can’t be proved wrong.”

    The “moogles” in this case would be GHGs. The vague “theory” would be the missing-in-action “theory of AGW”.

    As Richard Feynman pointed out, if you never define what you are talking about, then you can just keep demanding to be proven wrong. You won’t achieve anything of benefit to mankind in the long run, but your delusions will remain intact until people wake up to your chicanery.

    Delusional psychotics will then fabricate a narrative involving paranoid assertions of secret conspiracies against them – dark powers refusing to recognise their intellectual brilliance!

    Undistinguished mathematicians pretending to be climate scientists. A “distinguished professor” claiming undeserved Nobel Prize status. And so on.

    No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should – providing mirth and merriment for all, as it does so.

    Cheers.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      Mike…”As Richard Feynman pointed out, if you never define what you are talking about, then you can just keep demanding to be proven wrong. You wont achieve anything of benefit to mankind in the long run, but your delusions will remain intact until people wake up to your chicanery”.

      There are those who are deluded and there are those who know darned well they are wrong but take the money and run.

      Eisenhower hit the nail on the head when he made money available from the US government in the 1950s for scientific research. His greatest fear was that the money would be taken as a matter of course just to receive it. His worst fears have come about as Feynman noted vis a vis the chicanery.

  26. Gordon Robertson says:

    craig t…”There is nothing in the 2nd law that says radiation from a cooler object cant be absorbed by a hotter object, only that the overall trend will be more energy leaves the hotter object than is added to it. The photons emitted by the warmer object carry more energy than the ones it absorbs.

    For more information:
    https://web.mit.edu/16.unified/www/FALL/thermodynamics/notes/node137.html

    This nonsense comes from one text book by two authors. It is typical of the genre where equations are provided with no concrete examples of how they can be applied.

    I am sure you will point out the name of MIT attached but MIT puts out nonsense as well as good stuff. Kerry Emmanuel is a professor at MIT who supports the alarmist science associated with AGW. Another prof at MIT, Richard Lindzen, who has expertise as an atmosperic physicist is a skeptic.

    Physicist, David Bohm, referred to such equations as garbage.

    These examples have no units and no practical examples to accompany them. Furthermore, they take liberties with the Stefan-Boltzmann equation which were not in the original equation. The original describes a one-way transfer of energy from a hot body to a cooler environment.

    Worst of all, this nonsense contradicts the work of Clausius who went to great pains to establish that heat can NEVER, by its own means, be transferred from cold to hot.

    Finally, the assertions of a two way flow of heat contradicts the quantum theory established by Bohr and Schrodinger.

    Most textbooks I have read have sections in them that are quickly glossed over just so the topic can be addressed. This is the case in your example, Poorly thought-out drivel.

    • bdgwx says:

      The key phrase in Clausius’ statement is “by its own means”. With no external stimuli to the system then a cold body cannot increase the temperature of a hot body. Heat will spontaneously (by its own means) flow from the hot body to the cold body. But if you add energy to the system and configure it properly then the system can evolve in such a manner that the cold body gets cooler and the hot body gets warmer without violating the 2LOT.

      And although the heat flow processes are completely different a similar story plays out with heat pump systems. You can transfer heat from the cooler body (refrigerator) to the warmer body (ambient) because an external source of energy is being used to perform work on the system in a way that is specifically configured to further separate cold from hot. If you redraw the boundary of the system to include the energy source then you can apply the 2LOT and you will observe an overall increase in entropy.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        b,

        Adding energy, as you intend, rather invalidates the phrase “by its own means”, don’t you think?

        Are you trying to say that the GHE in some way provides energy, or not?

        If it does, where does this additional energy come from?

        Maybe you could define this GHE, so that people would at least know what you are talking about. I don’t believe you can, although I am sure you will claim that you could if you felt like it.

        Cheers.

        • bdgwx says:

          MF,

          Yes. I agree. Adding energy to a system invalidates the “by its own means”, “isolated”, “spontaneous”, etc. clauses in the various 2LOT statements.

          The Earth system is not isolated. It is not evolving “by its own means”. The external stimuli in this case is the radiant energy from the Sun.

          If you wanted to model a system in which the 2LOT could be applied then you must expand the boundaries of the system to include the Sun as well.

          The geosphere is configured in a way such that when energy is applied a steepening temperature gradient develops vertically over the depth of the atmosphere and down to the surface. The configuration in which entropy is locally decreased by the GHE is by using an IR active material (polyatomic gas species). But the entropy of the Sun/Earth system as a whole is still increasing overall. If you could magically turn off the Sun and allow the Earth system to evolve “by its own means” then the GHE would shut off as well and any temperature differentials would spontaneously equilibriate as heat is once again allowed to transfer from hot to cold by its own means.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            You wrote –

            “The geosphere is configured in a way such that when energy is applied a steepening temperature gradient develops vertically over the depth of the atmosphere and down to the surface. The configuration in which entropy is locally decreased by the GHE is by using an IR active material (polyatomic gas species).”

            This looks suspiciously like pseudoscientific bafflegab. The “geosphere” generally refers to the solid parts of the planet. If you mean “atmosphere” why not just say so?

            The rest of your nonsensical stringing together of pseudoscientic jargon is both meaningless and irrelevant. You intentionally avoided mentioning the GHE. I don’t blame you – you would have looked pretty silly. Best to avoid it totally, eh?

            You don’t “model” the LOT. They are laws (as far as is known). No models involved.

            As to the Sun/Earth system, the Sun seems to magically “turn off” every night, and heat spontaneously leaves the Earth’s surface for the cold of outer space. It has been doing so for about four and a half billion years, and the surface has cooled as a consequence.

            You still can’t describe the GHE? What a surprise – not. Neither can anybody else.

            Cheers.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            bdg…”The Earth system is not isolated. It is not evolving by its own means. The external stimuli in this case is the radiant energy from the Sun”.

            That’s not what Clausius meant ‘by it’s own means’. It’s obvious that the transfer of heat from the Sun to the Earth obeys the 2nd law.

            It doesn’t matter a bit wrt the 2nd law whether a system is isolated. There are very few truly isolated systems in reality because an isolated system is one that cannot pass energy or mass.

            The Earth is not an isolated system and Clausius said nothing about isolation or non-isolation as a factor in the 2nd law.

            He derived it from a heat engine in which pressure, temperature, and volume are constantly changing. When he claimed heat can never be transfer by it’s own means from cold to hot, he meant it cannot do it unless it is compensated.

            He made that clear, if you want to transfer heat from a cold body to a hot body, you must immediately compensate the cold body for the heat removed.

            That cannot occur naturally, it needs intervention. In an air conditioner, a gas at low pressure is compressed into a liquid at high pressure. The HP liquid runs through a condenser where it vents heat to the atmosphere. Then it is vapourized through a nozzle and allowed to expand back to a low pressure gas in an evapourator.

            As it expands in the evapourator it cools and the evapourator is placed in the area requiring cooling. Room air forced through the evapourator cools, withdrawing heat from the room. That heat is later expelled to the atmosphere in the condenser.

            The compensation comes through the manipulation of temperature, pressure, and volume (Ideal Gas Law) which requires external power to drive a compressor.

            In other words, you can’t get something for nothing. Heat simply won’t transfer from a cold area to a warm area on it’s own.

          • bobdroege says:

            Good Grief Gordon,

            You can’t even get the refrigeration cycle right.

            A low pressure gas is compressed into a high pressure gas

            The high pressure gas is cooled and condenses into a high pressure liquid

            The high pressure liquid expands through a nozzle if you want

            Vaporizing and becoming a low pressure gas extracting heat from the room.

            Heat is transferred from cold to hot because work is performed by the pump or compressor.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            bobdroege, please stop trolling.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        bdg…”If you redraw the boundary of the system to include the energy source then you can apply the 2LOT and you will observe an overall increase in entropy”.

        redrawing the boundaries is not what the 2nd law is about. It is simply about the heat transfer between a hotter and a colder body.

        If you are regarding the atmopshere, the surface, and the Sun under the 2nd law, then you must apply each body separately. You cannot, as some claim, add back-radiation from GHGs in the atmosphere to solar input so they sum.

        You either regard the Sun and the surface as two bodies, or the atmosphere and the surface as two bodies. With the atmosphere and the surface, it’s obvious that the atmosphere will always be equal to the surface temperature or less. In that case, no heat can transfer from the atmosphere to the surface.

        It also means no IR can transfer from the atmosphere to the surface to cause the surface temperature to rise. That should be plain, it would involve perpetual motion.

        Clausius developed the theory of entropy to give a mathematical explanation for the 2nd law.

        He defined entropy as the sum of infinitesimal changes in heat at a temperature T at which the changes occur.

        ds = dQ/T

        That ds is not entropy per se, the integral is the entropy. That is S = (integral)dQ/T

        If you make T a constant, by drawing the heat from a heat bath at constant T, then entropy becomes the total sum of the changes of heat in the system.

        S = Q

        The significance is whether the process is reversible or irreversible and the degree to which the heat change takes place.

        If the process is reversible, S = 0. If the process is irreversible, S must be positive. Therefore S is always greater than or equal to zero.

        There is nothing in the equation that measures disorder, it is something Clausius noted about entropy. If a process is irreversible it moves toward disorder.

        The notion of entropy increasing is ambiguous. How can an integral increase unless the quantity being summed increases? For entropy to increase, the heat must increase.

        So, it’s the same thing. The entropy version of the 2nd law tells us that heat can only be transferred cold to hot by its own means.

        If you have a hotter body at T1 and a cooler body at T2, then entropy can be stated as:

        S = Q(1/T2 – 1/T1)

        The only way S can be greater than or equal to zero is when T1 is hotter than T2. If T2 > T1, S becomes negative and that is not allowed.

    • Norman says:

      Gordon Robertson

      I am calling out the BS flag on your post. First you make the completely false (outright lie): “This nonsense comes from one text book by two authors. It is typical of the genre where equations are provided with no concrete examples of how they can be applied.”

      I have linked you to many textbooks that say exactly that radiation transfer is a two-way process. Clausius himself said it. We have linked you to his own words. You are a sad lying phony. I don’t mind if you have your fantasy opinions on how heat transfer works. When you blatantly and deliberately lie to make a false misleading point I highly object to your garbage post!

      Now you must prove your statement: “Physicist, David Bohm, referred to such equations as garbage.”

      Since you demonstrate to be an outright lying fraud, I want you to prove your statement. Or is this more of your dishonest personality?

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        norman…”I have linked you to many textbooks that say exactly that radiation transfer is a two-way process. Clausius himself said it”.

        I have used textbooks at university that had errors in them and I am sure there are many texts today with errors.

        When I studied an elective course in astronomy, not so long ago, we were taught that black holes are formed from the remnants of stars at the end of life. Some explode in a super nova, others condense into neutron stars, and others go further in a super-density black hole.

        A neutron star is a super-dense body made up of neutrons after the electrons and protons have been ejected. I can almost buy that but I can’t buy the mythical process in which those stars break down even further into super-dense black holes.

        Today, students are taught that black holes form from space-time anomalies, which is major bs. Some are being taught that gravity is not a force, that it is another form of space-time anomaly.

        The thing you should note about your textbook definitions of two-way IR transfer…it should stand out like a sore thumb…is the lack of units in the descriptions and the utter lack of real, physical examples. If you look at the examples in your texts, none will show a two-way radiative transfer with units and temperatures.

        That’s because it is all highly theoretical blackbody bs.

        With regard to Clausius, you have to read him very carefully. One of the points you guys presented was in connection with him explaining what he meant by compensation. He stated clearly that heat can NEVER be transfer BY ITS OWN MEANS from cold to hot.

        Then he went into an explanation of compensation which he called ‘by its own means’. During that explanation he talked about heat flowing both ways but at the same time he insisted it had to be compensated, cool to hot, like in a refri.g.e.r.ator or an air conditioner.

        You guys focused only on the two way reference, completely missing the context.

        With regard to radiation, I have explained the best I can that in the days of Clausius no one knew anything about electrons and EM. They all thought heat flowed somehow through space as ‘heat rays’. Even Planck thought that a couple of decades after Clausius had passed on.

        Still, if you read Clausius carefully, he states in one part of his book that radiative heat transfer must obey the 2nd law as stated above.

        I have backed that up with examples from quantum theory. The mechanism at the atomic level underlying heat transfer cannot permit a two-way, simultaneous transfer of heat or a two-way simultaneous transfer of EM.

        It’s simply not possible for the electrons in atoms to absorb and emit at the same time unless their atoms are at thermal equilibrium.

        • Craig T says:

          But one atom can absorb a photon while another emits. What’s relevant is the the overall energy of the system not individual atoms and photons.

          Richard Lindzen may disagree with the IPCC but he still understands how changes in the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) affect the climate. Here’s what he wrote in 1997:

          “The ratio of the temperature variations to the variations in OLR would represent the climate sensitivity. However, a priori, naturally occurring changes in global mean temperature on time scales of from weeks to years may not form proper surrogates for warming due to increased CO2. Another problem with this approach is that OLR is not the sole contributor to the radiative response. In principle, we should look at the change in total radiative flux at tropopause levels. For the tropics, however, OLR in clear sky regions appears to be the dominant contributor to the total flux change.”

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            craig t…”But one atom can absorb a photon while another emits. Whats relevant is the the overall energy of the system not individual atoms and photons”.

            Atoms don’t absorb EM as a unit, it is the electron(s) in the atom(s) that absorb EM.

            What you fail to understand is the rules of absorp-tion and emission imposed on the electrons by natural quantum laws. If the atoms of a body are at an exact temperature, all of the electrons occupy certain precise energy levels.

            What you are describing is a substance where the electrons of different atoms are at different energy levels. That would mean different temperatures at nearby locations in the substance.

            It doesn’t work that way. If you have an electric current running through a conductor like tungsten, that heats up and produces light with certain currents, the temperature will be uniform throughout the tungsten filament.

            The electrons will jump back and forth between energy levels associated with that temperature, emitting EM related to that temperature. However, the electrons will ignore EM from cooler bodies.

            The only way to get the electrons in the tungsten to a higher energy level is to increase the current or expose them to a body at a higher temperature. EM from a cooler body will have no effect.

          • Craig T says:

            “What you are describing is a substance where the electrons of different atoms are at different energy levels. That would mean different temperatures at nearby locations in the substance.

            It doesnt work that way.”

            When a single photon is absorbed by a single atom, that atom gains energy. Within picoseconds that atom will emit a photon and return to its lower energy state. It doesn’t wait for the atoms around it to reach that same energy level.

            Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of a substance. Individual atoms or molecules may have more or less kinetic energy than the average.

            Raising the energy level of atoms doesn’t by itself change the temperature. If all the energy is emitted as light the kinetic energy does not change. Light only changes the temperature when radiant energy is converted to kinetic energy.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            craig t…”When a single photon is absorbed by a single atom, that atom gains energy. Within picoseconds that atom will emit a photon and return to its lower energy state”.

            Once again, atoms do not absorb or emit EM as a generic unit. An atom, as you know, is comprised of a nucleus with neutrons and protons with electrons orbiting the nucleus. At least, that’s the prevalent model.

            Only the electrons can absorb and emit EM and that applies to transitions, rotation, and vibrations. Only the electrons can absorb and emit EM.

            Furthermore, the KE of an atom ‘in’ an atom is due to the motion of the electrons in their orbits. The KE rises and falls as the electrons change energy levels. That means the temperature changes as the electrons change energy levels. That explains why atoms warm and cool as they absorb and emit EM.

            During collisions, it has to be the electrons exchanging energy since they surround the nucleus.

            There are rules for electron absorp-tion and emission, as laid down by Bohr and Schrodinger. The basic rules have been amended over the decades to allow for multiple electrons in atoms more complex than hydrogen but the underlying principles are still the same.

            I am not disagreeing the atoms rise only briefly to higher energy levels before dropping back and emitting EM, I am arguing that EM from cooler bodies cannot cause the electrons in hotter bodies to transition to higher levels. That’s because the electrons are already at a higher energy level than the energy level of electrons in cooler bodies.

            You are describing atoms in bodies at thermal equilibrium.

  27. Mike Flynn says:

    craig t,

    Do you think you could state the version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics upon which you make your argument?

    There are several, but they differ in their semantics.

    You might well say that the there is nothing in the second law that prevents a certain thing from occurring, but likewise there is nothing which says it could, either. However, if you can give the version of the Second Law of Thermodynamics you use, I might be able to convince you that the theory and facts are not on your side. Or maybe not.

    For example, if you choose to accept “The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. The total entropy of a system and its surroundings can remain constant in ideal cases where the system is in thermodynamic equilibrium, . . .”, then your implication that radiation from a cooler body can be absorbed by a hotter, is clearly false, by the definition of the second law I provided.

    Quite apart from that consideration, as Richard Feynman said –

    “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

    You cannot even propose an experiment to back up your assertion, so your speculation remains just that, with no scientific justification. Idle words – no more, no less.

    Cheers.

    • Craig T says:

      Any version of the 2nd law is only concerned with the net transfer of energy. It doesn’t require tracking every photon absorbed or emitted by an object.

      Let’s start with the classic thermodynamics example of two chambers connected by a small opening. At the start the left side is full of warm air and the right cool air. Over time the left side will cool and the right side warm because of the random movement of atoms.

      But temperature is a measure of the overall energy of the gas. Some molecules are moving faster and some slower. Nothing about the 2nd law keeps a fast moving molecule from moving from the right chamber to the left. More fast moving molecules move from the left chamber to the right than right to left, so the 2nd law is not violated.

      Likewise, nothing in the 2nd law keeps a photon from carrying energy from a cooler object to a warmer object because more energy will travel by photons from the warmer object to the cooler.

      Any textbook word problem on radiative transfer is a testable experiment. So here’s one:

      Example 8 – 1 A spherical vacuum bottle consists of two silvered, concentric glass spheres, the inner being 15cm in diameter and the evacuated gap between the spheres being 0.65cm. The emissivity of the silver coating is 0.02. If hot coffee at 368K is in the bottle and the outside temperature is 294K, what is the radiatiative heat leakage out of the bottle?
      https://books.google.com/books?id=O389yQ0-fecC&pg=PA296&lpg=PA296&dq=heat+transfer+diffuse+concentric+spheres&source=bl&ots=7BK77d_yfI&sig=ACfU3U0zEUwnpb111CHYRvypOQl2Ub8GAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjx1NqCs7ThAhUKEqwKHVi6AXE4ChDoATAAegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=concentric%20glass%20spheres&f=false

      • JDHuffman says:

        Craig T: “Likewise, nothing in the 2nd law keeps a photon from carrying energy from a cooler object to a warmer object…”

        Craig, just because a photon carries energy to an object does not mean the photon, or its energy, will be absorbed. Photon absorb.tion is interestingly linked to wavelengths, which are interestingly linked to temperature.

        • bdgwx says:

          If it doesn’t get absorbed then where does it go?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            Wherever it can?

            Why bother with gotchas when you know the answer?

            Cheers.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bdgwx, do you sleep with the lights on?

            If you’re not afraid of the dark, and turn your lights off, where does the light go?

            (Hint: That’s how silly your question is.)

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            bdgwx says:
            April 3, 2019 at 5:56 PM

            If it doesn’t get absorbed then where does it go?
            ____________________________________________________

            You wont receive an answer. Never.
            I have asked these physics-deniers 100 times.
            They havnt the slightest idea.

            Propably this non-absorbed photon with its energy escapes into some parallel universe?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            Identify the particular photon you are talking about. Describe the environment. Predict the future.

            If you can’t you are just demanding answers to stupid gotchas, trying to avoid looking stupid and ignorant.

            It would be easier to demand an answer to “How long is a piece of string?”

            What is a “physics-denier”? If I asked you 100 times how stupid and ignorant you were, you might well be too stupid and ignorant to provide a cogent answer.

            Off you go now. Find me a photon, put it in a bottle, and describe it. Then get back to me with any questions you might have.

            Cheers.

          • JDHuffman says:

            I have given poor Fritz hints. But, like Norman, he can’t think for himself.

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

            Nothing new.

          • bdgwx says:

            The photon I’m talking about is the one JD mentioned above.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            You wrote –

            “The photon Im talking about is the one JD mentioned above.”

            That would be the one that doesn’t get absorbed by a particular piece of matter?

            You are refusing to tell me what type of matter is in its path, what its energy is, or what the environment contains in the future – all of which are relevant. Maybe it is a magic pseudoscientific photon?

            You are just firing off stupid and ignorant gotchas, because you are too lazy or incompetent (or both) to absorb the necessary knowledge about QED.

            If you can produce evidence to show you are not stupid, ignorant, lazy or incompetent in regard to learning as much about QED as is necessary to find the answer to your witless gotcha, feel free to do so.

            Cheers

          • bdgwx says:

            MF, this is all I know about the photon at this point.

            “Craig, just because a photon carries energy to an object does not mean the photon, or its energy, will be absorbed. Photon absorb.tion is interestingly linked to wavelengths, which are interestingly linked to temperature.”

            I think JD is going to be the best person to clarify the details about it since it is his photon.

        • Craig T says:

          “Craig, just because a photon carries energy to an object does not mean the photon, or its energy, will be absorbed. Photon absorb.tion is interestingly linked to wavelengths, which are interestingly linked to temperature.”

          All that is true by itself but an object still will absorb wavelengths that have a color temperature lower than the temperature of the object. If that were true you would never have a dropped call.

          All radio waves are below 1 degree Kelvin while everything we interact with is above that temperature. Buildings, the ground, water all absorb radio waves. Driving through a tunnel guarantees a dropped call. Then again, if your antenna couldn’t absorb radio waves (only reflecting them or allowing them to pass through) the phones wouldn’t work in the first place.

          • jdhuffman says:

            Craig, you are confusing “absorp.tion” with “induction”. An antenna is designed to convert electromagnetic energy into current by induction. The temperature is not really relevant. The magnetic field is the key.

          • Craig T says:

            JD – maybe the antenna is designed for induction but the radio wave is absorbed by the ground and the water.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            CT,

            Radio waves are not below 1 K – that is, generated by matter below 1K. You are confused by the terminology. If you believe that exposing matter at 2 K to the radiation of matter at 1 K will result in the hotter material becoming even hotter,while the colder material becomes even colder, you may have to carry out reproducible experiments to back up your assertions.

            Maybe you need to re-examine your assumptions. If you use Wikipedia, you might care to verify what is said there with other sources. Your choice, but much of the information on Wikipedia is pretty dreadful, as far as fact and completeness is concerned.

            Believe as you wish, but I am happy enough to believe that the Laws of Thermodynamics still apply, without exception, in the real world.

            Cheers.

          • Craig T says:

            “Radio waves are not below 1 K that is, generated by matter below 1K. You are confused by the terminology.”

            Nor is the Earth 193 K when it gives off 15000 nm IR and the CO2 that absorbs and emits 15000 nm light is warmer than 193 K.

            The color temperature of a given wavelength is based on the peak wavelength of a blackbody of that temperature. The total emission is a range of wavelengths both above and below the peak wavelength. For a black body at 297 K (20 C) the peak wavelength is 9885 nm. Roughly 1/4 the power given off is in wavelengths shorter than the peak. 3/4 in wavelengths longer. More energy is emitted

          • Craig T says:

            (Opps, accidentally hit submit button.)

            So 3/4 of the light emitted is in wavelengths whose Kelvin value is below the temperature of the object. Once a photon is on its way, nothing in nature keeps track of the temperature of the object that emitted it.

            The only condition that will result in the hotter material becoming even hotter is more energy entering than leaving, and the rate of cooling depends on the ratio of energy leaving the object to the energy entering. The 2nd law is safe without making up extra rules.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, when you claimed that sll photons would be absorbed, I corrected you.

            Then, you claimed that all photons would be absorbed by an antenna., I corrected you again.

            Then you claimed the photons were absorbed by ground and water.

            But, that is where we started.

            Photon absorp.tion is based on wavelengths.

            You seem to wamt to avoid the relevant physics.

        • Nate says:

          JD:”Photon absorb.tion is interestingly linked to wavelengths, which are interestingly linked to temperature.”

          OK, show us some data for charcoal or any similar material that shows a sharp drop in absorb.tion with wavelength or temperature.

          • Nate says:

            Heres a hint. if you can find emissivity data for the material, you can use Kirchoff’s law to find the absor.tivity.

            Whoops, you don’t think Kirchoff’s law is valid for your Blue plate, so never mind..

          • JDHuffman says:

            Obviously poor Nate does not know charcoal emits light (glows), when at an elevated temperature.

            Physics deprivation is an ugly thing.

    • Tim Folkerts says:

      “For example, if you choose to accept “The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy of an isolated system can never decrease over time. The total entropy of a system and its surroundings can remain constant in ideal cases where the system is in thermodynamic equilibrium, . . .”, then your implication that radiation from a cooler body can be absorbed by a hotter, is clearly false, by the definition of the second law I provided.”

      No!

      The correct conclusion is:
      “The implication that MORE (radiation from a cooler body to a warmer body) can be absorbed than (radiation from a warmer body to a cooler body) is clearly false, by the definition of the second law I provided.”

      As long as the net energy flow is from warmer to cooler, entropy will increase in the system. Individual photons can and do transfer energy from the cooler areas to the warmer areas. Just like individual collisions between atoms in a warm object and a cool object can and do transfer energy from the cooler object to the warmer object (as Craig T also eloquently argued).

      • JDHuffman says:

        Tim: “Individual photons can and do transfer energy from the cooler areas to the warmer areas.”

        A photon from “cold” transferring to “hot” is a very special case. It doesn’t happen more than it happens. And, even when it happens, it does not raise the temperature of the “hot”.

        (Tim, since you mentioned “entropy”, maybe you would like to explain how the entropy of the blue/green plates decreases with no change in energy in/out. That would be amusing.)

        • Tim Folkerts says:

          “A photon from cold transferring to hot is a very special case.”
          No, it is a perfectly common and perfectly normal case. It happens literally all the time.

          (And since you mentioned entropy and the “blue plate” experiment, you need to explain how heat flows from one plate @ 244 K to another plate @ 244 K. This violates both the 0th Law (systems at the same temperature but are not it thermal equilibrium) and the 2nd Law (heat only moves from warmer areas to cooler areas, but you have heat moving between objects at the same temperature). )

          • JDHuffman says:

            Water flowing down a mountain creek will often hit a boulder and splash back uphill. Only a silly pseudoscientist would claim that proves water flows uphill.

            And the correct solution to the “plates” does NOT violate ANY laws of physics. This has been explained to you before. But, I’m willing to explain it again, after you explain the decrease in entropy from the incorrect solution.

            You have a good history of asking questions, but a poor history of answering questions.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            JDHuffman says:

            Water flowing down a mountain creek will often hit a boulder and splash back uphill. Only a silly pseudoscientist would claim that proves water flows uphill.
            __________________________________________________

            So what? What are you talking about splashing water?
            The point is, that photons radiate in ALL directions and transfer energy in ALL directions.
            What do you think will happen to this transferred energy, when the photon hits matter? Any idea?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            FK,

            Do you suffer from a delusional compulsive disorder?

            You seem to repeating the same witless gotcha, obviously disbelieving the evidence of your own lying eyes!

            Are you aware of this wonderful concept called transparency? This is where photons pass through matter, like window glass, computer screens, watch and clock glasses, glass in picture frames and so on. I know you don’t believe it, but it’s true! Light even passes through the atmosphere from stars many, many, light years away!

            There is another wonderful concept called reflection. This is where photons actually bounce off matter, without being absorbed. Of course, perceiving colour shows what happens when matter absorbs some photons and reflects others.

            Are you perhaps delusional, as well as stupid and ignorant? I demand you answer!

            Cheers.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Yes Mike, Fritz keeps asking the same question but avoids our examples, hints, and links as if they were poison.

            He’s very afraid of reality.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            JDHuffman says:
            April 4, 2019 at 4:56 AM

            He’s very afraid of reality.
            _____________________________________

            No. He is completely fearless.
            Try it. Tell him reality and you will see.
            Where does the energy of this non-adsorbed photons radiated by a colder body go to?
            No links, no “hints”.
            Just an straight forward answer.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Fritz, a reflected photon will travel until it hits mass. The comparison of wavelengths will be instantaneous. If there is a mismatch, the photon will again be reflected. The process will continue until the photon can eventually find something that will absorb it.

          • Fritz Kraut says:

            “…The process will continue until the photon can eventually find something that will absorb it.”
            _______________________________________

            Great fun, Huffman, realy. Haha.
            But now a serious answer please.

            1.April is over.

          • JDHuffman says:

            April 1st is over.

            But climate clowns never stop, as you so well demonstrate.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        TF,

        Whichever way you choose to put it, in your scenario entropy must decrease. When the cooler body loses energy, it cools. It is now cooler than it was before. Even if the hotter body’s temperature did not increase (assume the photon is still in transit, say), then entropy has decreased, albeit for a short (but finite) time.

        So you see, under no circumstances can the warmer body spontaneously increase in temperature, which is precisely in accord with the Clausius statement, at least.

        Here it is again –

        “Heat can never pass from a colder to a warmer body without some other change, connected therewith, occurring at the same time.”

        Of course, heat is measured by an increase in temperature in practice. You may have an imaginary scenario in which the Second Law of Thermodynamics can be shown to be invalid, in which case I repeat –

        “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”

        No transfer of energy from a cooler body to a hotter. This causes an immediate decrease in entropy by creating a temperature differential. Not allowable, I’m afraid.

        Eloquence and debating tactics will not turn fantasy into fact.

        Cheers.

        • bobdroege says:

          You don’t have a clue

          “No transfer of energy from a cooler body to a hotter. This causes an immediate decrease in entropy by creating a temperature differential. Not allowable, Im afraid”

          Except there is something available to do the work necessary to cause the transfer of energy from a cooler body to a hotter.

          It’s the Sun!

          • Mike Flynn says:

            bob,

            Except that another source of heat, in and of itself, cannot force the transfer of energy from a colder body to a hotter.

            Apart from that, the Sun is conspicuous by its absence at night. Additionally, four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight has resulted in surface cooling.

            Have you anything factual to contribute, or just more stupid and ignorant, pointless pseudoscientific blather? No? Why would anyone be surprised?

            The world wonders! Carry on regardless.

            Cheers.

          • bdgwx says:

            MF,

            And yet my refrigerator moves heat from a cooler area to a warmer area all of the time. And this is done via another source of heat located at a nearby power plant which is converted into electricity that my refrigerator then uses to perform the work necessary to locally decrease the entropy even as the entropy of the entire system is still increasing.

          • bobdroege says:

            “Apart from that, the Sun is conspicuous by its absence at night. ”

            Um, no, it’s still there at night.

            “Except that another source of heat, in and of itself, cannot force the transfer of energy from a colder body to a hotter”

            So you say, but the sun heats the earth and the earth heats the CO2, and the CO2 heats the earth and the wheels on the bus go round and round.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            bobdroege, please stop trolling.

        • Nate says:

          MF,

          “Even if the hotter bodys temperature did not increase (assume the photon is still in transit, say), then entropy has decreased, albeit for a short (but finite) time.”

          Thermodynamics laws are fundamentally statistical laws..they don’t apply to transfer of SINGLE photons or atoms.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            N,

            You wrote –

            “Thermodynamics laws are fundamentally statistical laws..they don’t apply to transfer of SINGLE photons or atoms.”

            Your response doesn’t seem to be related to the words of mine which you so kindly quoted.

            Maybe you could explain what you mean by “fundamentally”, as this often appears as a weasel word when used by pseudoscientific climate cultists. How much energy needs to be present before the laws of thermodynamics apply? If a photon contains 10,000,000 times as much energy as another, do you have to multiply your minimum energy number by 10,000,000?

            Have you the faintest idea of what you are talking about?

            Maybe you would do better addressing what I said, rather than what I didn’t. What’s the point of quoting someone if you are going to fly off at an irrelevant tangent?

            Carry on ignoring the fact that you can’t even describe the GHE, much less explain why it hasn’t worked for four and a half billion years as the earth cooled. What a fool! Worshipping an indescribable and invisible god is religion, not science.

            Pray harder. A miracle may yet occur – maybe someone will devise a testable GHE hypothesis for the non-existent GHE!

            Cheers.

      • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

        Tim Folkerts has an important question to answer. No more distractions, please.

        • Tim Folkerts says:

          Before we get to JD’s eager questions about entropy, we ought to look back at JD’s understanding of basic physics.

          [TF] “If the the walls are set to 0 C (273 K), do you agree that the sphere [with a 300 W heater inside] will be 50 C (323)?”

          [JD] The sphere will be emitting 300W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K.

          Did you all see that? Any unheated object in a fixed 273 K environment will warm/cool until it is 273 K. So if the sphere had no power whatsoever, it would be 273 K.

          In JD’s world, adding a 300 W heater would COOL the sphere by 3 K! (He does later admit that maybe the heater might simply have no effect, rather than cooling off the sphere.) This same sort of fundamental misunderstanding creeps into pretty much everything he does (eg his explanation of the blue/green plate thought experiment).

          If heaters cool in JD’s world, there is no reason to even try to imagine how entropy works in his world!

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Answer the question, Tim.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim has degenerated to the level of Nate, fluffball, and several others. He tries to coverup his deficiencies in physics with misrepresentations.

            Here was my ACTUAL response: “The sphere will be emitting 300W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K. The warmer walls might provide some slight warming, but never above 273. And certainly NOT 323K!”

            Tim completely omitted my last two sentences. “The warmer walls might provide some slight warming, but never above 273. And certainly NOT 323K!

            It appears he will attempt any deception to cover his incompetence.

            Tsk, tsk.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Just in case anyone was wondering, this is the context for the question Tim’s about to answer:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/03/uah-global-temperature-update-for-february-2019-0-36-deg-c/#comment-344407

            Read from there until the end for the (approx. 79th) debunk of the Green Plate Effect, and then 20 days of denial, insults and trickery from a dedicated team of professional sophists.

            Now, Tim…away you go.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim has a history of running away when he gets caught. I doubt he will show up to answer for all his fraud and deception.

            Nothing new.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Those two sentences do nothing to improve your position, JD!

            What do you disagree with bellow?

            1) The walls are 273K.
            2) An unheated object in a 273 K chamber will be 273 K.
            3) A heated object in a 273 K chamber will be WARMER THAN 273 K (and not equal).
            4) You said the heated object will be cooler than 273 K. At best equal to 273 K.

            By your logic, as I turn down the heater, the sphere would keep getting colder!

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            #2

            Answer the question, Tim.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            You are disagreeing with #2 ??

            If a sealed room has all the walls at 2O C, you disagree that unheated objects will equilibrate to 2O C? If the wall of my freezer are -10 C, what temperature do you think objects inside the freezer will be? If my oven is set to 150 C, will the casserole become warmer or cooler than 150 C?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, your physics is horrible. 273K and 270K together make 323K? That is uproariously horrible!

            Then, you got caught red-handed trying to take my words out of context, and misrepresenting them. You’re not only a clown, you’re a scoundrel.

            You’re only fooling yourself and other clowns.

            Learn some physics, and clean up your act.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            At least when I add a heater, I calculate that an object will get warmer, not colder!

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            #3

            Answer the question, Tim.

          • JDHuffman says:

            And even funnier, I figured out how you got the 323K.

            [(273)^4 + (270)^4]*0.25 = 323

            What a CLOWN!

            And continuting to claim that I said adding a heater makes anything cooler is just simply dishonest.

            Learn some physics and clean up your act.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Correction: [(273)^4 + (270)^4]^0.25 = 323

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            …and, for the fourth time, “answer the question, Tim”.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            You are disagreeing with #3?

            Heaters don’t make things warmer than the surroundings? Putting 60 W of power into a little glass sphere on my desk (aka a light bulb) won’t warm the light bulb above room temperature? Putting 300 W into a slightly larger sphere in a vacuum chamber won’t warm up the sphere above the temperature of the vacuum chamber walls?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            #5

            Answer the question, Tim.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Folkerts might be ready for an appointment with a shrink.

            That’s what pseudoscience does to a person.

            I’ve warned him and warned him.

          • Craig T says:

            answer the question:

            “If it doesnt get absorbed then where does it go?”

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, maybe they go to rest homes, for dejected, rejected photons?

            (There’s some pseudoscience you can suck up.)

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            As long as JD insists that heaters cool objects, there is no point is delving into more advanced questions.

            Lets follow up on something ELSE you said, JD.
            “The sphere will be emitting 300W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K. ”
            Clearly you use S-B to get this. 300 W/m^2 = 5.67e-8(270 ^ 4)

            By this logic, if I turned the heater down to 250 W, the sphere would drop to 258 K? And at 200 W, the sphere would drop to 244 K? Heck, I should just turn the heater off all together and the sphere would drop to 0 K!

            If this is NOT what you think, then what temperature would you predict for the sphere with these other amounts of heat? Are they all going to be 273 K to match the walls?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Folkerts, as long as you keep misrepresentating me, you’re a dishonest clown.

            Clean up your act, then I will teach you some physics.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            JD, The simple fact is that you claim that a heated object will be cooler than its surroundings. And you can’t support that claim, so you attack.

            “The sphere will be emitting 300 W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K. The warmer walls might provide some slight warming, but never above 273. And certainly NOT 323K!”

            This was false the first time you said it and still false now. You are welcome to admit this glaring error and then we could try to move forward.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, you’ve started quoting me exactly, so that cancels your dishonesty. But, you’re misinterpreting my quote, which leaves your incompetence.

            I did not “…claim that a heated object will be cooler than its surroundings.”

            That is your inaccurate inference.

            Again, my exact quote: “The sphere will be emitting 300 W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K. The warmer walls might provide some slight warming, but never above 273. And certainly NOT 323K!”

            I specifically mentioned the temperature of the walls, 273K. I implied that the sphere might even warm that much, but never above 273K.

            Your “323K” is nonsense.

            You’ve cleaned up your act, somewhat. Now, you need to learn some physics.

          • Nate says:

            ‘I specifically mentioned the temperature of the walls, 273K. I implied that the sphere might even warm that much, but never above 273K.’

            And, he still doesnt get it.

            273K is what it will, obviously, reach with no added 300 W!

            Now add 300 W to it. It stays the same temperature?!

            C’mon JD, even grade schoolers can figure out this makes no sense.

          • JDHuffman says:

            “273K is what it will, obviously, reach with no added 300 W!”

            Wrong. The flux the sphere receives depends on the distance to the walls and the geometry. It can NEVER receive more than 315 W/m^2. So it can never be above 273K.

            “Now add 300 W to it. It stays the same temperature?!”

            Yup. The sphere is already emitting and absorbing 315 W/m^2, if it’s at 273K. So it just reflects more back to the walls, which may have to be cooled to maintain the 273K, which was the condition of the original scenario.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            “The flux the sphere receives depends on the distance to the walls and the geometry.”
            A condition of the original scenario is that the walls of the vacuum chamber completely surround the sphere. (You can’t have a vacuum chamber with a hole in the wall!).

            In this geometry, the flux received is always exactly 315 W/m^2 from the 273 K walls. So even this objection is invalid.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, I never said there was a hole in the wall.

            So your objection is invalid.

            (This is like trying to have a conversation with an adolescent female.)

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Tim doesn’t want to answer the question. He’s washing his hair.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            “Tim, I never said there was a hole in the wall.”

            The only way that the sphere would NOT receive 300 W/m^2 is if the walls did not completely surround the sphere — ie if there were some hole in the wall.

            So by saying the sphere might not receive the full flux of 300 W/m^2 and might not be at 273 K, you ARE saying that there could be a hole in the wall.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Oops .. that should be “the full 315 W/m^2”

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, you’re just one big “oops”.

            Clean up your act and learn some physics.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            And yet, I am not the one who uses heaters to cool things. And I am not the one who uses heaters to absolutely no effect.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            But you are one of the most determined people to avoid answering a question I have ever encountered.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, no one is using heaters to cool things. Your problem is you can’t understand relevant physics. That causes your frustration. And apparently you become so frustrated you can’t think rationally.

            Nothing new.

          • Nate says:

            “Now add 300 W to it. It stays the same temperature?!

            Yup. The sphere is already emitting and absorbing 315 W/m^2, if its at 273K. So it just reflects more back to the ”

            Ok, JD is officially declaring he has less common sense than grade schoolers.

            He is saying, if I send many watts of electric power to the heating element in my toaster, and we ask will it stay at room temperature? He will have to say ‘Yup’, and offer tangled logic..

          • Nate says:

            Maybe DREMT can come and help you dig out of the deep hole of illogic that you’ve dug for yourself?

            Maybe DREMT can explain to you that, NO, things heated by hundreds of Watts do not stay at room temperature.

            Like the filaments of light bulbs, the heating element in his toaster, or space heater.

            At work, we have vacuum systems with heating elements inside, designed to melt metal. Shockingly when power is applied to them, they get hot!

          • Nate says:

            Ha! Neither JD cannot deal with the dumb consequences of his fake science. And co conspirator, DREMT, can offer no rope to pull to safety.

            This shows the silliness you get when you insist that laws of physics, like Kirchoffs Law, and the Radiative Heat Transfer Law are invalid.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Nate shows up 3 days later and makes his false statements, hoping I won’t see them.

            But, he got caught again!

            (They are sooooo desperate.)

            Nate, I’m not coming back to this dead thread. If you have a responsible question, ask at the very bottom.

            Otherwise, you’re just playing with yourself….

  28. I think I am going to have to limit the number of comments allowable from a single person. Maybe 1,000 should do it.

    • E. Swanson says:

      Trolls are an “old” problem on the ‘Net. There already appear to be posters who are using more than one alias these days, so they could simply create still more e-mail accounts and aliases to overcome any posting limit. Banning an individual is also easily worked around using the same method (you know who–> G***N). I’ve been a moderator on another blog and the traffic fell off a cliff when the newer “instant post” blogging appeared. The comments on RealClimate are moderated, so there’s much less traffic there as a result and more thought appears to be included in those comments.

      Sad to say, moderation takes a lot of work…

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        My only comment at RealClimate was deleted. You may find that level of moderation acceptably more thoughtful. I call it bias and censorship.

        Maybe a reasonable compromise would be to give excessive commenters a time out.

        I’m taking a break from my own self-imposed timeout. Posting was/is becoming addicting.

        • Bindidon says:

          Chic Bowdrie

          I understand your reaction.

          But it moves into the same blind-alley as Roy Spencer’s proposal, as both are based on quantitative aspects.

          What we need is that people like Flynn, Robertson and others stop to call everybody disagreeing with them ‘stupid and ignorant’, or ‘blithering idiot’ and the like.

          I can’t remember having ever insulting anybody here before Robertson started to name me and others ‘idiot’s. When that happens all the time, you loose any self-control.

          All these people really show cowardice: they perfectly know that the lack of moderation on this blog allows them to publish any nonsense or attack.

          Try to do that at Watts’ WUWT, and you get banned within hours. We don’t need to take RealClimate or SkS as examples.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            A little reality-check for Bindidon:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c/#comment-347669

            That was received in the comments under just one article. If I have time tomorrow, I may do a similar list for the mountains of sludge JD received under the same one. It will be about two or three times as long (to be honest I just may not have the time). Gordon and Mike Flynn get more than their fair share too. You really have absolutely no idea.

          • Bindidon says:

            Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team

            You are, as usual, willingly interverting causes and effects.

            1. I repeat for myself:

            I can’t remember having ever insulted anybody here before Robertson started to name me and others ‘idiot’s. When that happens all the time, you loose any self-control.

            2. YOU started creating the problems you sooo poor guy now are whining about all the time.

            Simply by writing everywhere your tendencious, unilateral comments against lots of people:

            “XXX, please stop trolling.”

            But… you never wroote such comments concerning those people who troll as much as the others, but whose meaning you are a fan of, despite the incredible amount of insult AND nonsense they produced all the time:
            – Flynn
            – Robertson
            – Eben
            etc etc.

            THAT, pseudomoderator, is the reality you try to dissimulate.

            You were partial: noew you have to pay for your partiality.

            The first you shoud do would be in my mind to change your pseudonym.

            Regards
            J.-P. Dehottay

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Oh no! Politely asking trolls to stop trolling! That definitely justifies the comments I received concerning genital torture and how I’m supposedly so mentally unstable that I should be physically restrained, etc.

            As promised, here is part of the slime JD received under the same article. This is everything from up to only a quarter of the way through (no exaggeration):

            “…never contribute anything of value, and I mean “never” literally…your nonsense…neither of you has a lick of logical, or rational thought process…you are a fraud and phony and you like to troll…stupid unscientific declarations…you are about as useless as dirty toilet paper…get a clue…no one really cares about your declarations or opinions…most know you to be a complete fraud…you are a fraud and phony and you like to troll…can you post anything at all of value?…you are a phony fraud that pretends to have studied heat transfer…quit being such a phony jerk…your endless made up declarations…your phony arrogance…quit lying and being such a phony…it gets sickening to see…you don’t know real science and fake your way through things…you are an arrogant fraud…soon all will see how phony you are…what a fake you are… I can’t imagine him having a spouse, poor soul otherwise…he is a total fraud on this blog…most are aware he is a lying phony that pretends to have studied actual physics…the insulting arrogance of the two clowns on this blog…JDHuffman really does not know any physics…what a phony troll…JD goes from stupidity to insult…well for the first time you are not a lying phony troll…one thing I have going for me that you lack is logical rational thought process… you are talking bullshit!…you look extremely ignorant compared to Tim Folkerts…your unsupported anti-science declaration…this one is not even remotely logic…YOUR CLOWN PHYSICS…your declarations are lame and devoid of rational thought…you are not able to read well enough to learn actual physics…some short blog articles are hard enough for you to process…you are not logical or scientifically knowledgeable to even remotely hope to understand my last post…you made up physics is failing…pretend you studied physics…pretend you know heat transfer…keep the comedy flowing….your wacky made up ideas can amuse people…I just can sit back an be entertained at your funny attempts to pretend to know physics…post on give us a laugh!…are you being intentionally dense?…don’t pretend you studied real physics…I do not think your mind is capable of understanding the logic…you think you possess an open mind and are able to think…you are a simpleton phony…the error is on your ability to comprehend…you have very poor reading comprehension…you are just a troll…your inability to read well…you are a really ignorant poster….show the world how ignorant you are…worse than ignorant…you have this smug arrogance…severe case of Dunning-Kruger…you don’t have any real physics knowledge…you are such a funny clown…keep posting for the amusement of people that know science…it is like hearing science ideas from 1st graders…we need your clown knowledge for some good belly laughs…your nonsense made up funny stuff…you are not rational or logical…You have to make up fake physics…you are an ignorant person…how did you do in this class?…did you graduate?…liar liar…I could help you get out of your mama’s basement if you want a entry level low pay third shift STEM job…JD fails the basics, typical for an entertainment specialist…the thoughtless one…you really do like to show your ignorance…no shame…mr. anti-science…your ignorance might be bliss to you but it is annoying to others…about the dumbest cartoon physics I have seen…any idiot can make up anything they want…your cartoons are worthless nonsense…you make yourself look really ignorant…JD’s physics are so outrageously uninformed…JD is simply an uninformed commenter here only for entertainment purposes…two-time loser JD…more false science please JD, your antics continue to amuse the blog readership…show this blog how incredibly ignorant JDHuffman really is…the best thing is to ignore an ignorant troll like you…you have to inject your troll comments until I play with you…you are a worthless blog troll…your pretend knowledge of physics is pathetic…You are about as smart as the noodle heads that post on Joseph Postma site…JD is so uninformed…if your sole aim is to troll, then you are right, no problem…prove you are not a troll…the funny thing might be that you actually believe you studied physics somewhere…boy you are one ignorant poster…you are not smart enough to see how ignorant your ideas are…you hate physics so much you want to remain in the dark…such sources would show you how ignorant you really are…you need to have rational and logical thought to qualify…“

          • MikeR says:

            If you think J.D. was reviewed badly I recall some of the reviews of g.e.r.a.n. and G asterisk E asterisk R asterisk A asterisk N asterisk (Gastro for short) before they were banned ,

            Some people call them as they see them. Others are more polite. I am in the former category. My tolerance of fools is very limited.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Bindidon,

            I think examining examples is a good way to improve. I would reject RC and SkS models for being overly censorious with respect to ideological bias. OTOH, WUWT’s censorship seems limited to etiquette rather than a particular political or scientific opinion.

            Rather than limiting the number of responses, or better the number of words, I suggest simply ignoring posters who resort to ad hominems and name calling. But I wouldn’t throw out the baby with the bath water either. Some seemingly obnoxious posters make some strong arguments or entertaining comments.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            I think the funniest part of Bindidon’s 4:32 AM comment was that, reading between the lines, he is actually most bothered by the fact that I don’t ask “the right people” to stop trolling. It’s like, he’d be fine with the concept so long as I also involve the people he doesn’t like.

            ☺️

            But by all means, Chic; start ignoring Norman, bobdroege, Nate, Svante, Bindidon, E Swanson, MikeR, Kristian, yourself, and the rest of the gang that resort to ad hominems and name-calling. Ignore me too, I guess. In fact, that would be great. I’d love to be ignored.

          • Nate says:

            Lets face it DREMT. As a self-declared troll-cop you are thoroughly corrupt. And the whole community knows it.

            You let the worst offenders slide..because they let all of your nonsense slide.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            You’re as bad as Bindidon. Nate, we receive more abuse in the comments under one article than you have in your whole time commenting here. Whine away.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            binny…”What we need is that people like Flynn, Robertson and others stop to call everybody disagreeing with them stupid and ignorant, or blithering idiot and the like.

            I cant remember having ever insulting anybody here before Robertson started to name me and others idiots”.

            ************

            I think you have exaggerated the case somewhat. Yes, I have called you an idiot a few times when you have behaved like an idiot.

            BTW…my girlfriend calls me an idiot all the time. I find it amusing.

            For example, when I posted a link in which NOAA admitted to slashing over 75% of its surface stations, and you defended them with absolute blather, I called you an idiot.

            When NOAA and GISS claimed 2014 was the warmest year ever, based on confidence levels of 48% and 38% respectively that they were likely telling the truth, you defended them. In other words, their confidence levels were stating a 52% and 62% likelihood that they were lying.

            When you have continued to use NOAA temperature data that they don’t use themselves, to create a case that NOAA and GISS time series are virtually identical to the UAH time-series, I have called you an idiot.

            I reserve the word idiot for posters who are so far removed from reality, that their positions are absurd.

            I think you have taken me far too seriously and far too literally. Idiot is just a word, it does no harm. You have been unable to mount a satisfactory rebuttal, without leaning on appeals to authority, as if NOAA and GISS are beyond lying based solely on their names.

            The IPCC lie and manipulate all the time because they serve politicians, not science. I find it somewhat exasperating that you are so hung up on your appeal to authority that you refuse to open your eyes to such fact.

          • bdgwx says:

            GR, I’m curious…what do you think those 38% and 48% figures in relation to the ranking of years even means? How do you think it is calculated? I’m asking these questions because I’m hoping you’ll take a moment to understand what they actually mean at the most technical level.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bdgwx: “I’m asking these questions because I’m hoping you’ll take a moment to understand what they actually mean at the most technical level.”

            bdgwx, Gordon has already indicated what “they actually mean”. The two agencies were requested to provide evidence of AGW for Obama’s State of the Union speech. They both claimed that 2014 was the warmest year on record. Later, they clarified with 38% and 48%, so that they couldn’t be proscuted for fraud.

            Just more evidence the hoax is all about politics, not science.

          • bdgwx says:

            JD, How do you think they are calculated?

      • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

        Current no. of comments are:

        Mike Flynn = 40
        Gordon Robertson = 30
        DREMT = 30
        Stephen P Anderson = 25
        MikeR = 24
        bdgwx = 20
        Craig T = 19
        JD Huffman = 19
        E Swanson = 15
        Kristian = 14
        Nate = 12
        Fritz Kraut = 10
        Norman = 8

        I have no plans to make too many more comments, unless I continue to be personally attacked by multiple commenters.

        • bobdroege says:

          Doctor Empty,

          You get treated the way you treat people.

          Be nicer to others and others will be nice to you.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          dremt…Gordon Robertson = 30

          I always wanted to be a writer.

          I’m lonely, what can I say?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Keep on keeping on…we will see who’s the winner by the end of the month!

  29. Bill Rudd says:

    You folks that are only interested in harassment need to find another place to get your jollies. If you can’t amicably join a discussion without making personal attacks and generally nasty innuendos about the subject matter, you can at least be humane and keep quiet.

    • MikeR says:

      Bill,

      Your comment is entirely correct and clearly this is how we should all behave in an ideal world. Unfortunately, the comments section here is a bit of a wild west and I have been a serial offender in participating in some of this. My Mea Culpa is accompanied by the following statement of reasons.

      I really wish one could have rational scientific discourse with all of the individuals that comment here.

      However, over the past 5 or so years it has been clear there has been one particular commentator, along with his accompanying aliases, that cannot be reasoned with. Dr Spencer has banned him along with two others for this type of behaviour. The other two have left the scene but this character has transmogrified into at least two permanent offshoots, so he does not seem to ever get the message. He still persists despite Roy’s recent labeling him (actually only one if his aliases but we get the picture, even if he doesn’t) as a troll . I can understand Dr Spencer’s reluctance to ban him totally again as has it hasn’t really worked out that well in the past. His Medusa like qualities means we might end up with four sock puppets running riot instead of just the two.

      With regard to him/them playing the victim card, I am afraid he doesn’t hold a strong hand. This fellow has dished out more than his fair share of material that could only be characterized as vexatious in the extreme.

      Huff/DREMT used to, in his previous incarnation as Gasterisk, label everybody else’s arguments as hilarious. I seem to recall a 100 or more such comments per month. In his latest version he seems to have outsourced this tactic to another of his persona. The behaviour of this alias with his persistent “please stop trolling” is a prime example. You are supposed to ignore the taunts of a troll and hope they will go away. This tactic to date seems to have been totally ineffective. My responses may also prove to be fruitless but you never know.

      I stopped commentating regularly at this site about a year ago primarily due to the frustrations of dealing with Gastro and his ilk and have just returned to the fray. Many of the discussions are eerily similar to those of year ago with the only the names of the protagonist(s) changed. As they say the more things change, the more they stay the same.

      Finally I have to say I have had to resort to ridicule and mockery as my two main weapons to deal with the Gastro/Huff/DREMT team. I am keeping sarcasm, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire in reserve. You can’t question my humanity as I have, until now, avoided the use of heavy weaponry.

    • Gordon Robertson says:

      bill…”You folks that are only interested in harassment need to find another place to get your jollies”.

      I have not seen what I’d call harassment here. I find many of the comments to be entertaining.

      There are subtle thrusts by alarmists, particularly those who have advised me I have been informed by them as to the truth. Has anyone mentioned arrogance?

  30. barry says:

    Partly for Bindidon (see end).

    ENSO updates:

    NOAA will almost certainly call a weak el Nino when March data come through in a few days, according to their criteria, which would be one of the lowest thresholds.

    https://tinyurl.com/y255ywhj
    https://tinyurl.com/y5z4von8

    BoM remains on el Nino alert, but it’s less certain they will call el Nino, owing to their higher threshold.

    https://tinyurl.com/q67jw2x

    Japanese Meteorological Agency will very likely call el Nino next month:
    https://tinyurl.com/y5sv28gn

    The MEI index, which I favour owing to having 5 variables instead of just 1, has moved location since last I looked. Here is the latest web page and indices. The value set is different, resembling the other indices more now.

    https://tinyurl.com/y5hfkwwo

    (This last for Bindidon, in case it was not known)

    • Bindidon says:

      barry

      Thanks for the link to V2, last week it wasn’t active yet.

      It is interesting to see that 1982/83 has retroactively bypassed 1997/98:

      https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/img/meiv2.timeseries.png

    • JDHuffman says:

      CO2 never was able to warm the Earth. It was all a hoax.

      But now it has come down to the “final countdown”.

      A major La Niña could easily drop UAH global below zero. Such an anomaly, after 40 years, would not be good news for Warmists.

      To keep the pseudoscience party going, we need another El Niño!

      Maybe even by Cinco de Mayo?

      Olé!

    • Bindidon says:

      To you list let me add a nice little corner:
      https://werme.bizland.com/werme/wuwt/elninometer-current.gif

      As you can see, some people really need a psy.

      They can’t stop their own CO2/El Nino nonsense nobody else is talking about, some bloody warmistas excepted.

    • barry says:

      Ironically, I only started doing these updates because ‘skeptics’ started to put so much faith in what ENSO events would reveal. For example, the so-called pause “will return” after a la Nina was a constant refrain just after the 2016 el Nino. That notion has appeared on this very thread, too. They can’t let it go. They need a return to ‘pause’. Talk about motivated reasoning.

      • JDHuffman says:

        Ironically, I only made the comment because of Warmists “need” for another strong El Niño. Continuing the irony, I actually prefer El Niño conditions. My little plot of the globe benefits from the increased precipitation. So, if our votes meant anything, we would both be voting for El Niño.

        But, we both know the unavoidable reality–the “little girl” will be back.

      • barry says:

        I have no preference.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        barry…”That notion has appeared on this very thread, too. They cant let it go. They need a return to pause”

        ‘The pause’ is an alarmist term. It’s denial that the warming has ended for some 20 years. Since 1998, we’ve had little or no sustained warming.

    • bdgwx says:

      Speaking of ENSO the El Nino became official as of this morning using CPC guidelines and the ONI.

      • Craig T says:

        Interesting fact about calculating the ONI:

        “Due to a significant warming trend in the Nio-3.4 region since 1950, El Nio and La Nia episodes that are defined by a single fixed 30-year base period (e.g. 1971-2000) are increasingly incorporating longer-term trends that do not reflect interannual ENSO variability. In order to remove this warming trend, CPC is adopting a new strategy to update the base period.

        There will be multiple centered 30-year base periods that will be used to define the Oceanic Nio index (as a departure from average or “anomaly”). These 30-year base periods will be used to calculate the anomalies for successive 5-year periods in the historical record.”

        If NOAA still used the the 1936-1965 base period for calculations every year would be an El Nino year.

        • JDHuffman says:

          “If NOAA still used the the 1936-1965 base period for calculations every year would be an El Nino year.”

          What a pile of excrement!

          If every year were an El Niño year, we would certainly know about it!

          What will they try next?

          • Craig T says:

            The Nino-3.4 region 1986 – 2015 average is 0.4C higher than the 1936 – 1965 average in May and 0.9C in October.

            https://origin.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_change.shtml

          • JDHuffman says:

            So now they’re adjusting SSTs also, huh?

          • Craig T says:

            Not the SSTs, the calculation for the ONI. Since any “adjustment” is in the downward direction are you suggesting that it was done to make it look like the Earth is not warming?

          • barry says:

            The greater the ignorance, the greater the suspicion.

            This information takes only a little effort to hunt down, and is explained quite openly if one cares to look.

            And it makes sense. El Ninos/la Ninas are an in-system fluctuation, observable on multiple metrics, not just temperature. So if there is a metric that has a trend more persistent than the fluctuation, one must remove that trend from the data on which the fluctuation is calculated.

            Otherwise, as Craig says, we would statistically be in a permanent el Nino at this time, as SSTs have gone up over the long term. That’s why the institutes monitoring ENSO detrend the data to expose the fluctuation more clearly.

            That’s right – they get rid of the warming trend. The dirty alarmists.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Okay gents, let’s consider some reality.

            My property benefits from an El Niño. With a strong El Niño, I can get about 30% more rainfall. So if they change their base line, making it harder to obtain “official” El Niñ conditions, do you believe it will reduce my rainfall?

            It’s funny how reality always wins out, huh?

          • barry says:

            “So if they change their base line, making it harder to obtain ‘official’ El Niñ conditions…”

            The baseline is changed to make it easier to monitor ENSO conditions.

  31. Yonason says:

    …the Internet never forgets (courtesy of the Wayback Machine).

    I cant count the number of references I havent been able to recover at W.M. Sometimes its robot texts blocking, and sometimes its just that they are not found. Anyone can request that W.M. hide anything.

    Sorry, I wish it were otherwise, but the internet has a selective memory.

  32. Mike Flynn says:

    For those seemingly convinced they understand QED (photons and how they interact with things, and all that), consider the following –

    As I have mentioned before, Richard Feynman said “It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.” If you agree with this statement, what sort of experiment could be devised to establish if photons emitted by a cooler body were absorbed by a hotter body?

    Bear in mind that the quantum world is not the classical one. For example the double slit experiment shows that if you detect which slit a photon passes through you do not get interference. If you don’t, the photons behave as a wave, even if you count them as they proceed from the emitter to the slits.

    How do the photons “know” you are looking at them one way or another? It doesn’t matter! QED theory predicted this behaviour, and the theory has been verified. No point talking about “billiard balls” or “bouncing molecules”.

    It might offend common sense, so I’ll almost finish with another Feynman quote (Surprise, surprise!)-

    “The theory of quantum electrodynamics describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you accept Nature as She is absurd.”

    Any ideas for an experiment (don’t forget any observations you try to make will prevent you from getting the answer you want)?

    Cheers.

    • E. Swanson says:

      MF blovates again, ignoring my latest experimental results. Have you figured out yet how the ice slab warmed the metal plate? I say it’s back radiation from the ice slab to the metal plate, which the IR EM absorbing plastic sheets also provide. It’s called radiation shielding, if you want to look it up. I’m sure that you remember that ice slab is emitting thermal IR EM at almost 300 W/m^2 toward the metal plate…

      • JDHuffman says:

        Yes Swanson, your “ice slab” was funny. You can heat a plate in a vacuum, and you can heat a plate in a freezer.

        You must be amazed….

      • Mike Flynn says:

        ES,

        If you can’t be bothered quoting me, you are just trolling. On that basis, I can’t be bothered responding.

        Cheers.

        • E. Swanson says:

          MF, As expected, when confronted with a rebuttal to his favorite claim, slithers away into the night.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Swanson, maybe you would like to explain the increase in enthalpy with no change in energy in/out.

            The 3 plates are together >>> 244K…244K…244K

            They are slightly apart >>> 244K…290K…244K

          • Mike Flynn says:

            ES,

            You wrote –

            “MF, As expected, when confronted with a rebuttal to his favorite claim, slithers away into the night.”

            Unfortunately, you haven’t managed to confront me with anything. What “favorite claim” are you claiming you have “rebutted”? I am prepared to let others decide just how stupid and ignorant (not to say delusional) you are.

            As JDH pointed out, you seem to be amazed that you can raise the temperature of an object by using a heat source at a higher temperature! You may have noticed by now that nobody seems to care – that phenomenon has been observed since the dawn of time.

            Good luck – maybe you could pay people to applaud your brilliance. Apart from that, the world is unlikely to beat a path to your door. So sad, too bad.

            Cheers.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            Your point can be demonstrated with a strong insulating material instead of plates.

            With just the blue plate, it reaches a steady state temperature of 244 K. Now if you wrap it up in good insulation, the blue plate will heat up and reach a higher temperature until the energy out of the insulation equals that going into the blue plate. No change in energy in or out at steady state, but the blue plate will be much hotter than 244 K once a new steady state is reached with good insulation surrounding the plate.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, surely you are not that stupid?

            Adding insulation changes the conditions. A vacuum is NOT a radiative insulator.

            Together >>> 244K…244K…244K

            Slightly apart >>> 244K…290K…244K

            There is an increase in enthalpy, with no change in energy in/out.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            I was responding to your post.

            YOU: “Swanson, maybe you would like to explain the increase in enthalpy with no change in energy in/out.”

            There is no change with the energy in/out if you insulate the blue plate. The same energy in and in time the same energy out yet the blue plate is much hotter (contains more internal energy).

            And in the blue/green plate situation you have drastically changed the energy in/out for the blue plate (not the overall state). The blue plate no longer conducts any energy to either green plate. That is a significant change.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, adding insulation changes conditions. So it is irrelevant and merely a distraction.

            When the plates are slightly separated, energy transfer by conduction ends, but radiative energy transfer begins.

          • E. Swanson says:

            MF wrote:

            As JDH pointed out, you seem to be amazed that you can raise the temperature of an object by using a heat source at a higher temperature! You may have noticed by now that nobody seems to care that phenomenon has been observed since the dawn of time.

            Well now, since our resident troll(s)/sock puppets have decided that my demonstrations of back radiation actually just represent another form of “insulation” and thus does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, perhaps it’s time they also admitted that a dimilar physical process in the atmosphere also does not violate said “Law”. And, as a consequence, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere must therefore result in a warmer surface. Of course, MF can’t bring itself to actually writing something which agrees with that conclusion after years(?) of claiming otherwise, resorting instead to more obfuscation.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Swanson, keep twisting and spinning reality. It’s a cheap thrill.

            It’s like jumping off a tall building. At first you feel like you’re flying….

          • Kristian says:

            E. Swanson says, April 5, 2019 at 8:04 AM:

            And, as a consequence, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere must therefore result in a warmer surface.

            Why the “must”? How do you know it’s a given?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            ES,

            “And, as a consequence, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere must therefore result in a warmer surface. Of course, MF can’t bring itself to actually writing something which agrees with that conclusion after years(?) of claiming otherwise, resorting instead to more obfuscation.”

            Unfortunately, the Earth has cooled over the last four and a half billion years, and you can’t actually describe the GHE, can you? Why should I agree with your stupid and ignorant conclusions?

            Go ahead and believe that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter, if you wish. Then wish in one hand, and urinate in the other, and see which fills up first!

            Maybe you could believe that reducing the amount of radiation reaching a thermometer makes it hotter? Have you tried that?

            Off you go now. You might need more heaters, insulation, and other intricacies to show that impeding the amount of radiation reaching a thermometer results in an increase in temperature. Good luck.

            Cheers.

        • E. Swanson says:

          Kristian, It’s not a “given”, it’s what happens in the atmosphere when there are different amounts of greenhouse gases, for example, when the air is moist and when it’s very dry. CO2 is just another greenhouse gas and increasing it’s concentration will produce the same result as going from a dry atmosphere to a moist one, except the wavelengths influenced are different.

          • Ball4 says:

            More accurate to write as a given: And, as a consequence, adding more CO2 to the atmosphere must therefore result in a warmer surface than without that added CO2.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Bright sunny day, clear sky.

            Temperature directly overhead… -35 F

            Ground temperature (shade)… 61 F

            Daily reality check.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Just another reality check.

            Bright sunny day, clear sky.

            Temperature directly overhead -24 F

            Ground temperature (shade) 68 F

            The Sun warms the surface, and the surface warms the atmosphere.

            It’s kind of like a reverse GHE, huh?

            Nothing new.

          • Kristian says:

            E. Swanson says, April 5, 2019 at 10:47 AM:

            Kristian, It’s not a “given” (…)

            Oh, really? So the fundamental premise lying at the heart of the “AGW” idea is invalid? More CO2 in the atmosphere mustn’t necessarily cause average surface temps to rise?

            That’s quite an admission.

            (…) it’s what happens in the atmosphere when there are different amounts of greenhouse gases, for example, when the air is moist and when it’s very dry. CO2 is just another greenhouse gas and increasing it’s concentration will produce the same result as going from a dry atmosphere to a moist one, except the wavelengths influenced are different.

            Only, in the real-world, more H2O in the atmospheric column above land (i.e. a solid, unmoving surface) consistently correlates with a LOWER average surface temperature, not a higher one, heat input being equal.

            Even WITH a much stronger “GHE”, as radiatively defined.

          • Ball4 says:

            “It’s kind of like a reverse GHE, huh?”

            No, that’s obviously a forward GHE as your two overhead readings would have been space about 3K without the atm. GHE so they are way positive “given” the GHE. Thanks for providing Mike Flynn’s long sought GHE test data. An actual test from JD was a bit unexpected though, especially one proving the GHE, way to go JD.

          • Ball4 says:

            “More CO2 in the atmosphere mustn’t necessarily cause average surface temps to rise?”

            Yes. That’s true as there are many more global surface Tmean forcings than just CO2 et. al. IR active gas. CO2 is just one that doesn’t cycle, it’s always additive over the atm. Tmean without the added CO2 ppm.

          • JDHuffman says:

            fluffball believes the lapse rate is “proof” of the GHE!

            Of course, to clowns, EVERYTHING is “proof” of the GHE.

            Nothing new.

  33. Mike Flynn says:

    FK wrote earlier –

    “To make this endless story short:
    None of you climate deniers have the slightest idea, what should happen with the radiated energy from a colder body, if it doesnt warm the receiving body.
    Why dont you just admitt, that you reject physics and reality, because you dont like reality?
    That wold be fair, wouldnt it??”

    FK refused to acknowledge that visible light can pass through a transparent medium such as glass without being absorbed. Simply put, the final destination of all radiated energy in the universe will result in a situation where entropy is maximised, no thermodynamic free energy – the “Heat Death of the Universe”. Or maybe not – how the heck would anybody know?

    FK doesn’t like the current reality, where no matter how many squillion joules you have available, if they have been emitted by ice, you cannot employ them to raise the temperature of a single drop of water.

    FK is stupid if he believes he can raise the temperature of a hotter body, solely by exposing it to the radiation of a cooler one. Ignorant, if he does not know why.

    Stupid and ignorant.

    Cheers.

    • E. Swanson says:

      MF wrote:

      FK doesn’t like the current reality, where no matter how many squillion joules you have available, if they have been emitted by ice, you cannot employ them to raise the temperature of a single drop of water.

      FK is stupid if he believes he can raise the temperature of a hotter body, solely by exposing it to the radiation of a cooler one. Ignorant, if he does not know why.

      MF, you silly guy(?), did you even take one minute to read my ice slab demo? If you had done so, you might have noticed that the ice slab positioned between the cold interior of the freezer and the heated plate caused the temperature of the heated plate to increase. If I had gone to the trouble to place “a single drop” of water on the top of the heated plate, it’s temperature would have also been increased. Reality bites, doesn’t it?

      • Mike Flynn says:

        ES,

        You believe you can heat a drop of water with a heated plate (presumably hotter than the water drop).. Astounding! Amazing! Earth shattering!

        Excellent! Now you may fantasise about replacing your pseudoscientifically vague water drop with one of 80 C.

        Try raising its temperature with a plate heated to 75 C. Do you need more ice, perhaps?

        Even fantasy bites, if you can’t get anybody to believe your favourite fantasy.

        Off you go now. Surround a thermometer with CO2. Oh, you need a heater to make thermometer hotter? What a surprise! Try putting it in the Sun. Hotter now? In your fantasy, that would be due to the CO2, I suppose.

        What a fool.

        Cheers.

  34. Gordon Robertson says:

    craig t…”Any version of the 2nd law is only concerned with the net transfer of energy. It doesnt require tracking every photon absorbed or emitted by an object”.

    The 2nd law was stated very precisely by Clausius and he said nothing about the net transfer of energy. He talked only about the one-way transfer of HEAT.

    There is no net transfer between bodies of different temperaturesvia radiation. A hotter body loses heat when it is converted to EM, and the EM disappears if it is absorbed by a cooler body.

    The 2nd law is about a one-way transfer of HEAT from a hotter body to a cooler body. If the transfer is by radiation, which is not heat, but electromagnetic energy, the EM serves only as a messenger. There is no way to add/subtract it to get a net ENERGY, since both forms of energy do not exist simultaneously.

    • Craig T says:

      “The 2nd law was stated very precisely by Clausius and he said nothing about the net transfer of energy. He talked only about the one-way transfer of HEAT.”

      Clausius did talk about radiant energy:

      “The discussion must also be extended to the radiant heat, or otherwise expressed, to the heat transmitted through the universe in the form of advancing vibrations of the ether, and also to such motions as cannot be comprehended under the name heat. … I reserve for future consideration the more particular application of the mechanical theory of heat and especially of the law of equivalents of transformation to radiant heat.”

      Boltzmann expanded the concept of entropy to include radiant energy. Net radiant transfer is determined using the StefanBoltzmann law. The formula subtracts the radiant emission of the cooler object from the radiant emission of the warmer object to find the net energy transfer between the two objects.

      • JDHuffman says:

        Craig believes: “Net radiant transfer is determined using the StefanBoltzmann law.”

        Wrong Craig. The S/B law does NOT consider “net”. It only refers to the emission from ONE surface.

        The equation from the S/B law only has ONE “T”: P/A = σT^4

        • Craig T says:

          Here’s the application of the Stefan-Boltzmann law to find the net rate of heat loss by a warm object in a cooler environment:

          P = e delta A (T^4 – Tc^4)

          Where P is the net radiated power, e is emissivity, delta is the SB constant, A is area, T is the temperature K of the warm object and Tc is the temperature K of the environment.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Wrong again, Craig. That equation has NO practical application. If used incorrectly, it violates the laws of physics.

            The S/B law does NOT involve ΔT.

            .

          • Norman says:

            Craig T

            You have the correct physics. JDHuffman is wrong again. Nothing new. He does not believe that is the Stefan-Boltzmann Law. I linked him to a science source clearly saying it was. The part of the Stefan-Boltzmann law JDHuffman refers to is if there is no other radiating bodies. It is an isolated case of the overall Law which is used all the time in actual engineering applications. If JDHuffman wanted to know this he could look online for engineering problems involving radiative heat transfer. The equation you posted is used in most the problems.

            The T^4 is the temperature of the Surface that the rate of heat transfer is being determined. The Tc^4 is the amount of energy the colder surroundings emit toward the hotter surface. The energy lost by the surface is the amount of energy the surface emits minus the energy it gains from its surroundings. All physics textbooks on heat transfer make this clear. JDHuffman could read the material and correct his incorrect view. He won’t though. Nothing New with him. He does not read actual physics. It would interfere with his made up version he believes in (even with zero support and in direct contradiction of actual testing performed by E. Swanson and Roy Spencer).

          • JDHuffman says:

            Poor Norman desperately tries again.

            The S/B Law is perfectly clear. It only refers to ONE temperature–the temperature of the emitting surface.

            Clowns try to seek to pervert the well established physics.

            And failing that, Norman tries to cling to others, while imitating me.

            Nothing new.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            It is not my ideas. This one is from an engineering site.

            https://www.engineersedge.com/heat_transfer/black_body_radiation.htm

            Check it out. It explains what you don’t understand about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. Not that it will change your belief. Nothing new. It seems real physics is not able to sway your belief system. I have proved you wrong and inaccurate. You are not able to do the same with any valid supporting evidence. You may post your opinion I am wrong or I don’t understand the link. All false opinions. You will never support any of your claims. You never have and you never will but you will continue to make them and DREMT will continue to support them no matter how far off and unscientific they are.

            Nothing New. I am using up my quota of 1000 posts with nothing to show for it. I give facts, evidence and supporting links. You give unsupported opinions.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            “and DREMT will continue to support them…”

            Once again I’m dragged into something, for no apparent reason.

          • JDHuffman says:

            DREMT, when poor Norman starts pounding on his keyboard, it’s just a flurry of random rambling. He never gets the physics correct, so he has to bring personaltiies into it. Often, his randomness actually causes him to get something correct. He was right when he stated: “I am using up my quota of 1000 posts with nothing to show for it.”

            So true….

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, that bogus equation has been debunked numerous times. You just don’t have the background to understand it. You find some website, that you can’t understand, and you believe you have “proved” something.

            The very website you linked to clearly explains the bogus equation is for perfect black bodies that radiate to each other. It does not mention “absorb”. It incorrectly uses the term “heat”.

            The 3 plates example is just one more example of debunking the bogus equation. The values, 244K, 290K, and 200 Watts, fit the equation, but are INCORRECT. The 290K violates both the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics.

            You just don’t understand, but at least you know how to type….

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Hmmm, who will be randomly brought into it next, I wonder…Joseph Postma? Claes Johnson?

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            How wrong can you get? YOU: “Norman, that bogus equation has been debunked numerous times. You just dont have the background to understand it.”

            An equation used in all radiative heat transfer engineering is “bogus” and has been debunked? By who? When? Again you state an unsupported and unsupportable opinion on matters you are ignorant of.

            E. Swanson has clearly demonstrated the falsehood of your deluded beliefs. You make claims that are totally untrue and have been experimentally shown to be completely false and yet you need to pretend they are real science. No your opinions are not science, they are not even good ideas.

            You will keep going with the nonsense. Nothing new.

          • JDHuffman says:

            WRONG again, Norman.

            The bogus equation is NOT “used in all radiative heat transfer engineering”. You are delusional. Again, you state an unsupported and unsupportable opinion on matters you are ignorant of.

            Swanson’s “experiment” only demonstrated his inability to perform meaningful experiments. He still hasn’t revealed the relevant information. Like you, he clearly doesn’t understand thermodynamics.

            You will keep going with such nonsense. Nothing new.

          • Craig T says:

            Above I posted a link to a 1961 paper discussing the transfer of heat within a space vehicle or satellite. Long before anyone knew about rising CO2 and GHW wasn’t even a twinkle in a warmist’s eye. Throughout the paper they use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation for the net radiant exchange of energy. They look at many factors affecting radiant transfer but start with the simplest example of one blackbody completely enclosing the other of a differing temperature.
            Look at the equation they give on page 20.
            https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/271917.pdf

            Heck, even Kristan uses the formula:

            The net radiation between two surfaces can be expressed as [Qdot_12 =>] Q_12 = (radiation leaving surface 1 that directly strikes surface 2) – (radiation leaving surface 2 that directly strikes surface 1)
            Q_12 = A_1 F_12 E_b1 – A_2 F_21 E_b2
            [where A is the radiating area of each surface, F is the view factor of each surface with respect to the other, and E_b is the BB emissive power of either surface]
            Applying reciprocityA_1 F_12 = A_2 F_21yields
            Q_12 = A_1 F_12 s(T_1^4 – T_2^4) (W)

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c/#comment-348331

            I could break the 1000 post limit by linking to engineering pages using that formula. You should consider that they all may be right about this.

          • Craig T says:

            But in full disclosure I don’t think Swanson has a good enough set up to accurately measure the change in temperature caused by back radiation from ice. That requires a well furnished physics lab.

  35. Gordon Robertson says:

    tim…”As long as the net energy flow is from warmer to cooler, entropy will increase in the system”.

    Entropy is about heat, not energy per se. It is about thermal energy only.

    BTW…that applies equally to the 1st law, described as the conservation of energy, It applies only to work and heat but both are normally involved with other forms of energy.

    Clausius defined entropy as the sum of infinitesimal changes of heat at the temperature T at which the changes occur. Also, he stated the infinitesimal change as

    ds = dQ/T

    If you sum that through integration, you get roughly S = Q/T, provided T is constant. Therefore entropy is related to total heat in a process.

    Enthalpy is the heat ‘content’ of s system. Enthalpy is related to the internal energy and the effect on it by work done by or on the system. Entropy merely expresses the total heat transferred from or to a system.

    Things to note:

    -If you keep T constant by sourcing the heat in a heat bath, S simply equals Q(total) transferred over a process.

    -T is a relative measure of heat. In a heat bath, at constant T, there is theoretically a constant source of heat, therefore entropy is the amount of heat withdrawn from the bath (or added to it from a hotter body).

    -if the process is reversible, the integral cancels and S = 0.

    -if the process is irreversible, entropy increases till the process terminates. That’s the same thing as claiming the heat increases till the process terminates.

    -for bodies of different temperatures where hotter body 1 is T1 and cooler boy 2 is T2, entropy becomes:

    S = Q(1/T2 – 1/T1)

    Thermal processes are determined by the initial and final conditions. If the above represent such a process, where T1 = T2, S = 0 and the process is reversible.

    If the process is irreversible, and T1 > T2, S is always positive, as Clausius defined entropy. It must be greater than or equal to zero.

    Entropy is nothing more than a means of keeping tract of the heat transferred in a process. It can never be negative, by definition, therefore the heat (Q) transfer MUST be from the hotter body to the cooler body or S will be negative.

    Because substances break up as they emit heat, entropy can describe the movement toward disorder. However, that was an aside by Clausius, the real intent of entropy was to give the 2nd law a mathematical expression.

    A heat transfer from a cooler body to a hotter body makes no sense either by the 2nd law stated in words, or by entropy, the mathematical statement of the 2nd law.

    • bdgwx says:

      GR,

      “A heat transfer from a cooler body to a hotter body makes no sense either by the 2nd law stated in words, or by entropy, the mathematical statement of the 2nd law.”

      Again, with the caveat that the system encompassing the cooler body and the hotter body is isolated. This is a crucial distinction. The word isolated is used to mean without external stimuli or “by its own means” or spontaneously.

      We know heat can indeed flow from a cooler body to hotter body because we can all observe that refrigerators work. The reason this works is because the refrigerator is using an external energy source to cause an effect that would otherwise not be possible if the device was left to evolve “by its own means” or “spontaneously”.

      Clausius mentions this caveat in his own work.

      Just as the refrigerator will stop working when you removed its energy source (electricity supply) so too would the GHE stop working if you removed its energy source (the Sun).

      • JDHuffman says:

        Wow, that’s a real twist on the IPCC AGW/GHE nonsense.

        Next Warmists will be saying “It’s the Sun, stupid”.

        They’re learning….

      • Mike Flynn says:

        b,

        Considering you cannot even describe this “GHE”, pretending you know what makes it “work” is just demonstrating silliness, if not stupidity and ignorance.

        Even so, you seem to be saying that the GHE stops working at night, or during a solar eclipse, or indoors and so on. The fact that the Earth has cooled over the last four and a half billion years shows that the GHE does not actually heat anything, given that the Sun seems to have kept shining over this period.

        If you cannot even describe the GHE, why should anyone take the slightest notice of your pseudoscientific pronouncements?

        Carry on blathering.

        Cheers.

        • bdgwx says:

          The GHE does not stop working at night because the outgoing longwave radiation, which still occurs at night, is mostly the result of daytime heating. The Sun does not stop working at night. It just shines on half of the surface at a time so there is a cyclic as opposed to continuous nature to it. Note that heat pump systems are often cyclic as well and that in no way prevents them from working.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            If you cannot describe the GHE, why would anybody take notice of you telling them how it works?

            How did the GHE work in allowing the Earth’s surface to cool over the last four and a half billion years or so?

            If you could provide a useful definition of the GHE it would be a start, except you can’t, so that’s more of a dead end than a start.

            You could try blathering about heat pump systems, orogenesis, parthenogenesis, pressure gradients, or, indeed anything else which would avoid having to acknowledge that you have no clue. How about getting really silly, and claiming that increasing the amount of CO2 between the Sun and a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter?

            That should get a few laughs!

            Cheers.

          • DukeSnide says:

            MickeyFlynn,
            Why do you keep referring to the molten core of the Earth cooling
            over 4 and a 1/2 billion years time in the bitter cold vacuum of the universe as having something to do with the temperature of our atmosphere at any given time?

            The Earth’s atmosphere has warmed and cooled on many occasions and for hundreds of millions of years at a time in the past while the molten core has continued cooling which easily disproves your straw man.

          • Gordon Robertson says:

            duke…”Why do you keep referring to the molten core of the Earth cooling
            over 4 and a 1/2 billion years”

            Don’t you think heat from that molten core has warmed the oceans over that 4 1/2 billion years? I means, there are underwater vents of molten magma pouring into the ocean base.

            Don’t you think that warming in the oceans has helped the Earth warm as a whole? The oceans are like a hot water bottle that stabilizes the atmospheric temperature. Don’t ya think?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            DS,

            You wrote –

            “The Earth’s atmosphere has warmed and cooled on many occasions and for hundreds of millions of years at a time in the past while the molten core has continued cooling which easily disproves your straw man.”

            I’d ask you what physical phenomenon would explain this magical warming and cooling, apparently happening at ramdom for no discernible reason, but I know you have no explanation whatsoever.

            Keep rambling.

            Cheers.

          • E. Swanson says:

            Gordo wrote:

            Don’t you think that warming in the oceans has helped the Earth warm as a whole? The oceans are like a hot water bottle that stabilizes the atmospheric temperature. Don’t ya think?

            And MF continued with the delusional thinking:

            I’d ask you what physical phenomenon would explain this magical warming and cooling, apparently happening at ramdom for no discernible reason, but I know you have no explanation whatsoever.

            Hey trolls, the deeper layers of the world’s oceans are very cold, near zero C. So, how is it possible in your warped physics that there’s enough energy from the ocean bottom to warm the ocean surface and the atmosphere above, which are much warmer at tropic and temperate latitudes? Wouldn’t that be a violation of your favorite straw man, the 2nd Law of thermodynamics?

          • DukeSnide says:

            Gordon,
            MFlynn makes a straw man argument with the Earth’s molten core cooling over 4 1/2 billion years = no atmospheric GHE.

            a – He conflates different things to build his straw man, the molten core with the atmosphere blanket.

            b – Any leisure look at this planets epochs global temperatures shows many instances of going from cooling to warming. The end of the Upper Ordovician Epoch and Permian glaciations 300 million years ago eventually led into the warm Eocene Optimum 50 million years ago, which was many degrees Celsius warmer.
            According to Flynn’s straw man that is not possible.

            So unless you and Flynn are claiming the molten core spewed millions of tons of GHG’s into the atmosphere, the 4 1/2 billion year cooling molten core has little to do with atmospheric warming over millions of recent years.

            If you both are claiming it was the molten core that put GHG’s into the atmosphere, then you’re also explaining exactly what the GHE is, don’t ya think?

          • DukeSnide says:

            And didn’t you just prove Flynn’s molten core straw man wrong Gordon?

            Flynn claims the planet has been cooling for 4 1/2 billion years. Now you Gordon claim that ‘underwater vents of molten magma pouring into the ocean’ are warming said ocean and therefore warming the atmosphere.

            Flynn says that impossible, the planet is cooling.

            So which is it? Is the molten core cooling down the planet like Flynn claims or is it now warming the planet like you claim?

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        bdg…”Again, with the caveat that the system encompassing the cooler body and the hotter body is isolated. This is a crucial distinction. The word isolated is used to mean without external stimuli or by its own means or spontaneously”.

        Isolated systems are a red-herring argument. A thermally-isolated system can exchange no mass or heat with it’s surroundings.

        The atmosphere does exchange heat with the surface and space and it exchanges mass in the form of water vapour and precipitation. The 2nd law applies to the atmosphere therefore a cooler atmosphere cannot transfer heat to a warmer surface, especially a surface that warmed it. That’s a recycling of heat to produce an increase in the source’s temperature which is perpetual motion.

        A refrigerator work by making use of the Ideal Gas Law.
        PV = nRT. When you compress a low pressure gas to a high pressure liquid, it’s temperature rises. When you run that HP liquid through a radiator exposed to the environment, it loses heat to the environment.

        When you take the HP liquid at a reduced temperature and force it through a nozzle, it becomes a spray and when you run that spray into another radiator it expands and cools to a low pressure gas. If that radiator is in an area you want to cool, the radiator cools the air.

        That what Clausius meant by compensation. In any other environment without compensation, heat can NEVER, by it’s own means, be transferred from a cooler body to a hotter body.

        It’s actually rather simple. I don’t know why climate alarmists have so much trouble with it.

    • bdgwx says:

      GR,

      A natural example of locally lowered entropy is that of frontogenesis or the tightening of temperature gradients in the atmosphere. There are many different processes that can causes frontogenesis with kinematic effects dominating the list, but radiation can also cause this to happen as well. Frontogenesis isn’t a process that could happen if the atmosphere were left to evolve “by its own means” or spontaneously.

      • JDHuffman says:

        bdgwx: “Frontogenesis isn’t a process that could happen if the atmosphere were left to evolve ‘by its own means’ or spontaneously.”

        Very good, bdgwx. Yes indeed, the Sun is a dominant player in weather systems. As you may have heard: “It’s the Sun, stupid”.

      • Mike flynn says:

        b,

        Do you have a point? Randomly stringing sciencey sounding words together, imparting no useful information whatever, is the distinguishing mark of the desperate pseudoscientific climatological cultist.

        Try lifting some more random stuff from Wikipedia if you think it will make you look intelligent.

        Ho ho ho! Good luck with that.

        Cheers.

      • Gordon Robertson says:

        bdg…”A natural example of locally lowered entropy is that of frontogenesis…”

        Locally lowered entropy is another term for locally lowered heat. Call it what you want it’s all about heat transfer and its direction.

      • bdgwx says:

        GR, Frontogenesis makes cool bodies cooler and warm bodies warmer. And although the fundamental physical processes are different this is conceptually the same effect the GHE has. That is cool bodies get cooler and warm bodies get warmer. It is not a violation of the 2LOT. I’m hoping this natural example drives home that point since most people are in agreement that cold fronts and warm fronts do happen.

        • JDHuffman says:

          bdgwx, the only point you’re driving home is that you don’t understand 2LoT. Weather systems obey laws of physics. When you believe otherwise, that just indicates you need more study.

        • Mike Flynn says:

          b,

          Frontogenesis is a result of physical factors, not a cause. You are talking nonsense. Read the Wikipedia entry more closely, and at least ry to understand what it says.

          You might as well say that climate change is a cause of weather events! Climate is the average of past weather – nothing more, nothing less. Of course it changes – after the averaging, not in advance.

          Maybe you are in the grip of some pseudoscientific climatological delusional fantasy.

          Putting the cart before the horse is not generally recommended, but fell free to appear as stupid and ignorant as you wish.

          Cheers.

    • Tim Folkerts says:

      Gordon,

      1) Pretty much every time you write about “S”, you are really discussing “ΔS”. (“Delta(S)” in case the Greek letter didn’t work.) This has a few important implication to what you wrote.

      2) Entropy is MUCH more than a means of keeping tract of the heat transferred in a process.

  36. bdgwx says:

    I’m still not seeing the March 2019 data in the text files. What is the word on that?

  37. PhilJ says:

    Miker,

    “Finally I have to say I have had to resort to ridicule and mockery …”

    Just couldn’t help yourself eh?

    • Mike Flynn says:

      P,

      I await with interest the unleashing of the heavy weaponry” to which he referred.

      I wonder if will be more powerful than the “deadly potential” of the USAF which another commenter threatened to unleash.

      Some people seem to be even more prone to delusional psychotic states than the self-appointed climatologist and Nobel Laureate Michael Mann.

      All part of the rich tapestry of life, no doubt.

      Cheers.

      • MikeR says:

        Mike F, having no involvement with the USAF I can state categorically that I am not into carpet bombing. More of a selective munitions type. As you have stuck your head out of the foxhole I can add you to my dance card for my next sortie if you wish.

        On a less tongue in cheek note, I don’t particularly desire another war of attrition. I am and old fart and I suspect you may also be a fart of a similar vintage. There are better things to do in life and I don’t think anything of worth was accomplished by either of us during our last altercation .

        Cheers

        • Mike Flynn says:

          MR,

          You may be confusing your fantasy with reality. I am unaware of any altercation, but if it makes you happy, carry on with your belief.

          Your talk of foxholes and sorties is the usual vacuous nonsense proffered by pseudoscientific climatological cultists, who can’t even clearly state what their GHE is all about. You have no power to affect me, no matter how awesome you believe yourself to be. Try to bend me to your will, if you feel like looking foolish.

          Be as stupid and ignorant as you wish. Blame me if you like. I don’t care. Why should I?

          Cheers.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F,

            Relax. I did say my comments re foxholes and sorties were tongue in cheek. Do i need to repeat this?

            I assure you I have no mechanism to control you or bend you to my will. I am also not blaming you for anything.

            Take it easy and cheers.

          • MikeR says:

            Before I head off,

            Mike, you seemed mystified by the term altercation, I meant the tit for tat exchanges via comments at the end of last month and several more exchanges this month. Maybe you don’t remember or wish to remember which is perfectly understandable.

            Cheers again.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR,

            You are obviously in the grip of some delusional fixation. Tit for tat would imply some exchange between equals, and you are obviously stupid and ignorant, unlike myself.

            Why would you imagine that I would be involved in “exchanges” with such as yourself?

            You cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy, it would seem. Or between pseudoscience of the climatological type, and real science – involving testable hypotheses and all that sort of thing.

            Have you managed to find a testable GHE hypothesis yet? No? That’s because no such thing exists. So sad, too bad.

            Cheers.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike, I never suggested we were intellectual equals so I am not sure why my description of our little contretemps,as a tit for tat exchange, offended you,

            You suggested that I was going to be subjected to ridicule and mockery if I didn’t describe the GHE and formulate a testable GHE hypothesis. I did neither.

            You had over 3 hours to come up with a tour de force of ridicule and mockery and this is the best you can do. A bit of a damp squib. At best F for ridicule and F- for mockery.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            MikeR, this isn’t an attempt at ridicule or mockery, just an observation.

            You don’t appear to sleep.

            At least, I’m not aware of any gap in the times of day that you have posted, where any decent amount of sleep could have occurred. Your posting history seems to indicate that comments from you can occur at any point in a 24-hour period.

            Do you not sleep, or is there more than one of you behind the “MikeR” relentless attacking machine?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR,

            You are still confusing your delusional fantasy with reality.

            Maybe could actually quote something with which you disagree, and indicate why, although I doubt it.

            Why would I waste my time feeling offended or offering you ridicule and mockery? Have you a reason for thinking I care about what you think? Maybe you, like other stupid and ignorant pseudoscientific cultists, believe you can read my mind.

            Oh well, if you try hard, maybe you can convince somebody that your fantasy is important to them. Or maybe not. My care factor remains zero either way. Feel free to ridicule and mock yourself if you wish.

            Cheers.

          • MikeR says:

            DREMT. Morning has broken and I was woken by the sounds of flocks of squawking corellas.

            I thank you for your concern about my posting habits. I am a bit of a night owl but I prefer to post when I am not sleeping. Accordingly I tend to avoid the hours of 12 am to 9 am local time. You may be confused by the change over in daylight saving in the northern and southern hemisphere which takes place at this time of the year, it can introduce a relative time shift of 2 hours.

            The time difference between Eastern Australian Standard time and US Central zone Time ( I believe that is time stamped on the posts) is currently +14 hours.

            I see you and JDHuff are usually both off the air between 3 pm and 10 pm our local time . You can do the math.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            That’s a relief. I’m pleased to hear that you at least have two settings: “sleep” and “attack!”

          • MikeR says:

            Nah DREMT, I have many settings. You should count your lucky stars that I have not exposed you to my full repertoire.

            For instance, I could go into full bizarre mode and summarize all our exchanges in the form of an interpretive dance and post it on social media. I envisage you as a dying swan as I can imagine you could be quite fetching in a tutu.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            No, just seems to be two. Maybe, “massively over-inflated sense of self-importance” is a possible third.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR wrote –

            “For instance, I could go into full bizarre mode and summarize all our exchanges in the form of an interpretive dance and post it on social media. I envisage you as a dying swan as I can imagine you could be quite fetching in a tutu.”

            More witless by the minute. All pretense of being rational has been abandoned.

            For some bizarre reason, MR imagines that somebody should actually care about his future actions. Why would anybody give a toss? Has he some awesome hidden super power, perhaps? He obviously believes he can read minds, and bend people to his will from a distance – in common with many people suffering form severe mental deficiencies.

            Maybe in his rich fantasy world, he imagines himself dancing a pas de deux with another tutu clad person. Oh the horror! Obviously he fancies himself light on his toes.

            After all, Gavin Schmidt claims to be a climate scientist, and Michael Mann awarded himself a totally fictitious and undeserved Nobel Prize. No doubt MR feels that assuming the persona of a world famous ballerina advances the pseudoscientific climatological agenda.

            I wish him well in his future as a ballerina, if he cannot master the highest expression of the interpretive dance to which he aspires.

            Time will no doubt tell.

            Cheers.

          • MikeR says:

            DREMT. I may have a massively overinflated sense of self importance but in that regard I am a mere dwarf that stands in the shadow of a giant.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F. Once again you take my, tongue firmly embedded in my cheek, comments way too seriously. Lighten up.

            You however have made some disparaging remarks about my dancing abilities. My career in ballet was curtailed by an unfortunate incedent with the pointe shoe of my partner. Since then I have restricted myself to solo performances.

            Yes Mike, I have to dispense with logic and reason. There is no place for it here. You have to either laugh or cry at some of your comments. I prefer to laugh.

            I know my sense of humour may not be appreciated by those who are in proximity of the butt end of it. Others might find it mildly amusing but then again…. As they say it’s in the eye of the beholder.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR,

            You seem to be suffering from a severe physical disability, in addition to your demonstrated stupidity and ignorance, accompanied by severe delusionally psychotic fantasy episodes. An example of your mental deficiencies is demonstrated when you demand that I dance to your tune.

            You claim to have your tongue in your cheek, having at the same time having placed your foot in your mouth. You manage to spout garbage, whilst talking through your nether regions, with your head inserted firmly up your backside.

            If you have managed this unlikely combination, all the while assuming the persona of a balding bearded bumbling buffoon of the pseudoscientific climatological variety, I have only one response –

            Begone troll.

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F. I detect a note of anger in your latest comment. I am glad you have had your little tanty. Letting off steam can be very cathartic but you may have to turn down a notch or two on the inchoate rage. Your reference to, how as you say, “nether regions, with your head inserted firmly up your backside.” brang back taunts from early childhood. Were you perhaps referencing the seminal Australian work, The_Day_My_Bum_Went_Psycho? Maybe not because I don’t recall reading in this book any specific reference to GHE. However there were lots of fart jokes and we know that methane is considered to be a potent greenhouse gas.

            Like my children, I know you hate to take my advice but before you burst an aneurysm why don’t you take a chill pill , maybe have a cold one or two, or a slab if necessary and turn up the A/C. Download the Calm App on to your phone and do some mindfulness exercises. Remember to concentrate on your breathing.

            While you are in a quiet meditative state consider looking up the term “transference” at a psychology website. You may be able to gain some useful insights.

            Also try and gain some perspective. As someone has pointed out the Way back Machine is not that effective and Roy’s archive only goes back to 2009. Remember also that no-one knows your real name here. You could be Arthur or Martha or even Paul Manafort for all we know or care.

            I have just been on my daily constitutional and maybe you should also get out and smell the roses. You keep returning for more but I would personally like to invoke the Mercy Rule and terminate these exchanges before they get even more heated.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Troll begone.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            “in that regard I am a mere dwarf that stands in the shadow of a giant.”

            If you’re referring to me, I have no idea why people have taken this “please stop trolling” so seriously, but it’s funny that they have. Guess it proves that deep down, they know there’s some truth in it.

            Now, MikeR, please stop trolling.

          • MikeR says:

            Nah, DREMT. It’s just because I have PTSD from your incessant PST,

            Anyway it’s 19 – 10 to Mike F.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            MikeR, please stop trolling.

          • MikeR says:

            The deadline for submission for this months Troll of the Month close, not unexpectedly , at the end of the Month. The finally tallies will, be audited carefully , so that any irregularities such as the use of Troll Farms could potentially be detected. After the conclusion, a prize (details to follow) will be awarded. All letters of complaint have to be submitted prior to the close of trolling. No correspondence will be entered with regard to the result after that. Provisional totals will be posted periodically, usually on a weekly basis

            The troll who has most monthly victories in one calendar year will be awarded the Golden Troll of the Year which entitles them to be inducted into the Troll Hall of Fame. Previous winners include g.e.r.a.n. and Gastrorisk who have both been inducted posthumously.

          • MikeR says:

            At the conclusion of the first week of trolling, Mike F leads with 19 trolls followed by Gastro/DREMT with 13 trolls.

            The race is tightening as Mike F has stalled while DREMT, after a quiet start, is ramping up to his long term average of 3 trolls per day. Unless Mike F pulls his finger out he could be passed in the back straight.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            #2

            MikeR, please stop trolling.

    • MikeR says:

      Phil,

      As i am a grumpy old curmudgeon (is there any other type?) I can’t resist resorting to these tactics. It comes with the territory.

      By the way are you also a card carrying member of the Axis of Dr Evil? Non rotating of course.

      Nice chatting with you.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        MR,

        How did the “ridicule and mockery” work out for you?

        I suppose if you can’t even describe the GHE, much less formulate a testable GHE hypothesis, then you will need practice in relation to being exposed to ridicule and mockery.

        You will receive plenty of both.

        Cheers.

        • MikeR says:

          Ok Mike F, go for it. Get it off your chest. I am sitting in my comfy chair ready to be ridiculed and mocked.

          If one is going to ridicule and mock others then one should expect to be on the receiving end. As they say, live by the sword and die by the sword.

          I am off to have a quiet ale with friends so you can take your time, if necessary.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR,

            And I should be bothered because . . .? You have a greater sense of your importance than I, obviously.

            Cheers

          • MikeR says:

            Mike F.

            I am glad you didn’t bother. That makes two of us.

            Anyway I am clearly not as important as you are as I am stupid and ignorant. I also lack your self effacing modesty.

            Additionally, like yourself, I do not pesonally have a testable GHE hypothesis or an excellent description of the GHE. I believe that boat sailed a long time ago. I suspect that is why Roy Spencer has made the excellent point that discussion of the existence of the GHE is superfluous and one trick ponies like yourself should be regarded as trolls.

            On that basis this correspondence is now terminated. Cheers and have a nice day.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            MR,

            You wrote –

            “On that basis this correspondence is now terminated. Cheers and have a nice day.”

            Really? You are obviously delusional if you believe you have any power over me! What a fool!

            By all means, refrain from commenting all you like. I doubt your ability to even control yourself. You may find you cannot help yourself – lacking self control, of course.

            Carry on at your convenience.

            Cheers.

        • Gordon Robertson says:

          Mike Flynn, …”MR,

          How did the ridicule and mockery work out for you?

          I suppose if you cant even describe the GHE, much less formulate a testable GHE hypothesis”

          ********

          That’s the whole point, Mike, the alarmists cannot interact without dodging, obfuscating, red-herringing, goal-post moving, and any other diversion to answering the question.

          I think we both agree that something has caused the theorized 33C difference in temperature between an Earth with no atmosphere and oceans and an Earth with both. I think we both agree that no one knows the answer but that the current GHE fails to explain the discepancy.

          You have been asking the same question for a couple of years now and I am still awaiting a response to your request for a testable hypothesis for the GHE.

          There is none. The GHE and its offspring, AGW, both rely on two premises: that GHGs in the atmosphere are trapping heat or slowing radiation from the surface, or back-radiating EM from a colder area to a warmer surface that causes the warmer surface to warm.

          The GHE is even named after a real greenhouse that relies on real glass to trap molecules of air, made up 99% of nitrogen and oxygen. However, the inference is that the glass traps infrared energy from roughly 1% of the air molecules and, in an inexplicable manner, that IR somehow warms the greenhouse air through being trapped.

          Even if that glass could trap IR, it’s a solid surface and there is no such solid surface in the atmosphere. It’s absurd to propose that partial gases in the atmosphere, accounting for roughly 1% of the atmosphere could possibly trap enough surface emissions to make a 33C difference in our planet with an atmosphere and without.

          The back-radiation theory, in which IR emitted from the surface is supposedly captured by 1% of the atmosphere (CO2 plus average WV), in an atmosphere that can never exceed the temperature of the surface, and which gets progressively colder with altitude, then back-radiated to the surface where it is claimed to be absorbed thus increasing the surface temperature, contradicts the 2nd law and proposes a state of perpetual motion.

          Like you, I am still awaiting an explanation for such pseudo-science. Rather than scientific answers, we are inundated with theories like a net balance of energy, an obfuscation which makes absolutely no sense when broken down to the energies involved, thermal energy and electromagnetic energy.

          Those energies cannot be summed to a net value for the simple reason they have vastly different properties and units and they cannot exist at the same time in relation to heat transfer. When heat is transferred via radiation, the heat producing the radiation is lost when the EM is created, then, on the other end, when a cooler body absorbs the EM, the EM is lost when heat is created.

          Where is the net balance? The alarmists are proposing that
          heat can be transferred both ways simultaneously, a contravention of the 2nd law and the underlying quantum theory. It’s even a contravention of Stefan-Boltzmann, a law based on a one way transfer of heat from a heated platinum filament to a much cooler environment.

          The alarmists are proposing that a hotter body, heated by an external source, so it’s temperature is relatively constant, must rise in temperature when any EM strikes it. They are confused about the claims of black body theorists who make such claims at thermal equilibrium. A BB is defined as a cavity that must absorb all EM incident upon it.

          A BB is a model proposed by Kircheoff circa 1850, long before EM was understood in its relationship to electrons that bind the atoms together in solids. The rules changed, but the BB fetishists cannot relate the theory to the reality.

          There is nothing in nature that comes close to a theorized cavity resonator (aka BB). Trying to apply BB theory to our atmosphere/surface problem is ludicrous. That’s especially true when the bodies involved are of different temperatures. BB theory applies between two bodies only at thermal equilibrium.

          Energy can only ever be transferred from a state of higher potential energy to a state of lower potential energy unless we humans intervene with external power and equipment.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Good points, Gordon.

            And even the “33K” is pseudoscience. It is the difference between Earth’s average surface temperature (288K) and the calculated temperature of a perfect black body sphere (255K). That’s even more absurd that comparing “apples and oranges”. It’s more like comparing apples with space monsters!

            There is NO AGW/GHE. It’s all a hoax.

          • bdgwx says:

            GR, I’m curious. What would be a falsifiable test of the non-GHE theory (whatever it may be) for the warming?

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            That’s a really, really, stupid gotcha – even for a delusional pseudoscientific cultist!

            A falsifiable test of something non-existent? Would that be the same falsifiable test of unicorns?

            Are you really stupid enough to believe that increased temperature is caused by slower cooling, or something equally witless? Would you accept that warming is associated with heat?

            Probably not. Let me know what you think of my radical suggestion, if you wish.

            Cheers.

          • bdgwx says:

            Something has caused the troposphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, etc. to warm. Which physical processes and modulating agents explain it? What hypothesis can be constructed and what test can be employed to falsify them?

          • PhilJ says:

            GR,

            “I think we both agree that something has caused the theorized 33C difference in temperature between an Earth with no atmosphere and oceans and an Earth with both. I think we both agree that no one knows the answer but that the current GHE fails to explain the discepancy.”

            On the contrary, the answer is obvious: The Earth has not cooled to the temp it will have with no atmosphere and oceans, because it has not yet had time to cool to that point…

            to say ‘but without an atmosphere and oceans the world would be colder, is the same as saying ‘when the Earth is colder it will be colder….

            its the difference between a pot of water sitting at a steady 80C on a burner and another boiling merrily away at the same setting…. one was already boiling when placed on the burner… the other was not…

            the ‘GHE’ paradigm is based on the fundamental flaw of a cold Earth warmed up by the Sun, rather than a hot ball of gas and magma that has cooled despite the solar input…

          • Mike Flynn says:

            PJ,

            You are correct. Imagine the excuses that will be given if you ask them to explain what their calculations give if the surface temperature was nowhere less than 100 C, before the first liquid water formed.

            I assume they would come up with the usual stupid 255 K, and claim the GHE explained the actual difference between 255 k and 373 K. Very flexible, this GHE concept.

            Cheers.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bdgwx: “Something has caused the troposphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, etc. to warm.”

            bdgwx, there are many different cycles at play. We know of several different ocean cycles. We know of several different solar cycles. We know about several orbital cycles. But, do we know about ALL cycles that might affect Earth temperatures? Do we have enough data to have seen all such interactions?

            Your “Something has caused…” might just be called “natural variability”. When we have about 1000 years of reliable data, we may have a pretty good idea about all the natural interactions, and have a rough idea of the resulting temperature ranges.

            The only thing we can be fairly certain about now is that CO2 can NOT warm the planet.

          • bdgwx says:

            JD, can you point to a repeatable experiment that proves CO2 cannot cause the surface to being warmer than it would have been otherwise?

          • JDHuffman says:

            No experiment is necessary, as the physics is so clear.

            But, if you want to see with your own eyes, take a look out your window. The atmosphere has about 410 ppm CO2, but there is no warming detectable.

          • bdgwx says:

            JD, UAH, RSS, Berkeley Earth, Cowtan&Way, ERA, CFSR, ERSST, etc. are all showing a warming troposphere/hydrosphere and a cooling stratosphere. OHC is increasing by about 10e21 joules/year which is about 0.6 W/m^2. Can you post a link to a dataset that you trust which does not show any long term warming?

          • JDHuffman says:

            bdgwx, even with all the “adjustments” there has not been any warming that can be shown to be unnatural. OHC, SLR, stratospheric cooling, ocean acidification, etc are all based on securing more funding. Pseudoscience has become a major industry.

            Does your income depend on supporting the hoax?

          • PhilJ says:

            “JD, can you point to a repeatable experiment that proves CO2 cannot cause the surface to being warmer than it would have been otherwise?”

            Can you make a repeatable experiment that disproves a fantasy effect based on a fantasy atmosphere….

            rofl

            think that’s a keeper

  38. Mike Flynn says:

    Some odd person wrote –

    “So you say, but the sun heats the earth and the earth heats the CO2, and the CO2 heats the earth and the wheels on the bus go round and round.”

    And at night, and in winter, and even after four and a half billion years of continuous sunlight, the temperature falls.

    No wonder nobody belonging to the pseudoscientific climatological cult can actually describe the GHE, except to agree that it has nought to do with greenhouses, and it doesn’t seem to have any effect. What a pity!

    Cheers.

    • bdgwx says:

      Except that the Earth has been colder and warmed quite rapidly several times in the past. And the vertical temperature profile of the oceans is not consistent with the cooling molten core hypothesis.

    • bobdroege says:

      Except I can actually describe the greenhouse effect and you are correct in that it has nothing to do with greenhouses.

      CO2 is a gas in our atmosphere that emits radiation because the molecules have bending and stretching modes that are higher in energy than the ground state and the population of these states are only dependent on temperature.

      Some of this radiation reaches the earth’s surface and increases the enthalpy of the earth’s surface which is evidenced by an increase in temperature.

      And the core of the earth is solid,

      • JDHuffman says:

        bob beleives: “Some of this radiation reaches the earth’s surface and increases the enthalpy of the earth’s surface which is evidenced by an increase in temperature.”

        Wrong bob. Atmospheric CO2 cannot raise surface temperatures.

        • bobdroege says:

          JD,

          if you consider that a debunking, well it’s pretty weak.

          There is a correlation between the temperature and the CO2 concentration, and I already provided the mechanism.

          • JDHuffman says:

            No bob, all you have are your beliefs. CO2 is NOT a heat source. That means is can NOT raise the temperature of the system. It is NOT a radiative insulator. That means it can NOT “trap heat”.

            AGW/GHE is NOT science, it is another false belief system, AKA “pseudoscience”.

          • bobdroege says:

            Putting not in all caps does’t improve your argument.

            Just shows you don’t know.

          • JDHuffman says:

            The emphasis was so you couldn’t claim later that no one told you the truth.

            You’ve been told. Now, you must deny reality.

            Nothing new.

          • bobdroege says:

            Why would I make a claim like that?

            You are not telling the truth.

            Putting a lie in all caps doesn’t make it true.

            Physics isn’t your strong suit, now where did you study physics?

            Are you denying the reality that CO2 emits radiation and some of it is absorbbed by the surface?

          • JDHuffman says:

            bob, atmospheric CO2 emits mainly 14.7 μ photons. A 14.7 μ photon corresponds to the peak of a spectrum from a 197K (-76C, -105F) surface. So if you believe such low energy can affect Earth’s average temperature of 288 K, well, enjoy your pseudoscience.

            And, more such low-energy photons won’t help, because fluxes don’t simply add. An analogy would be trying to pour two glasses of water, both at 20C, together to have 40C water. That’s NOT (notice the emphasis) how it works.

            But, I won’t bore you with physics, I know you have NO interest….

          • bobdroege says:

            Actually JD, you are sadly misinformed

            “bob, atmospheric CO2 emits mainly 14.7 μ photons. A 14.7 μ photon corresponds to the peak of a spectrum from a 197K (-76C, -105F) surface.”

            The correspondence of temperature to wavelength doesn’t exist when you are talking about emissions of IR from rotational and vibrational transitions.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Actually bob, it is you that is sadly misinformed.

            A 14.7 μ photon ALWAYS has the same energy, regardless of how it was emitted.

            And, again, that energy corresponds to 197K (-76C, -105F).

            Just some more reality for you to ignore.

          • bobdroege says:

            Sadly no JD,

            “And, again, that energy corresponds to 197K (-76C, -105F).”

            But you can’t say that a photons wavelength, frequency or energy is determined by the temperature of the substance that emits it.

            The CO2 in your dog’s breath, and your own, cause they smell the same, always emits 14.7 um photons, no matter what temperature.

            Again, you don’t understand

            “atmospheric CO2 emits mainly 14.7 μ photons. A 14.7 μ photon corresponds to the peak of a spectrum from a 197K (-76C, -105F) surface.”

            That’s the peak of the spectrum for a blackbody.

            And in case you missed the lecture….

            CO2 has an emissivity of 0.006, so it doesn’t behave as a blackbody,

            In fact it always emits at 14.7, 2.7, and 4.3 um and the temperature doesn’t matter.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bob, you get high scores for avoiding reality, as usual.

            A 14.7 μ photon always has the same energy. And that energy corresponds to 197K (-76C, -105F).

            And, again, that means such a photon has no effect on something at 288K. Even a bazillion such photons would have no effect. That’s just one of the reasons the GHE is pseudoscience.

            Now, you can avoid reality some more.

          • bobdroege says:

            So what you are saying JD, is that CO2 only emits radiation when it is at a temperature of 197 K?

            But what if the CO2 molecule emitted a 2.7 um photon?

            That corresponds to a temperature of 1073 K.

            Or a 4.3 um photon?

            674 K.

            Write on the blackboard 250 times

            CO2 is not a blackbody.

          • JDHuffman says:

            That’s NOT what I’m saying, bob. You’re trying to misrepresent me because you got caught, again.

            The 14.7 μ photon has the same energy regardless of the mass it’s emitted from. You seem bent on perverting that fact.

            That’s why it’s necessary to correct you.

          • bobdroege says:

            Okay JD,

            You seem to be confused about what I am disagreeable about.

            “A 14.7 μ photon always has the same energy. And that energy corresponds to 197K (-76C, -105F).”

            You wrote two sentences

            “A 14.7 u photon always has the same energy.”

            I agree with this statement.

            However

            “And that energy corresponds to 197K (-76, -105F).”

            Is complete bonkers

            CO2 emits radiation of 14.7 u no matter what the temperature.

            And if you really want to know, this is an individual molecule doing the emitting and individual molecules don’t have a temperature.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bob, you’re STILL not getting it.

            The 14.7 μ photon occurs at the peak of the spectrum corresponding to 197K (-76C, -105F). Let me emphasize, PEAK. That indicates how little energy the photon has. It’s nowhere near enough to affect 288 K, even if it were absorbed.

            Your latest nonsense started with you trying to counter my statement: “Wrong bob. Atmospheric CO2 cannot raise surface temperatures.” You’re trying to do the impossible. You’re trying to empty the ocean with a bucket that has a hole in it.

            Best of luck.

          • bdgwx says:

            JD, Consider a perfect BB at 288K. You direct a stream of 14.7 um photons at it. What happens to both the BB and the photons?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Well bdgwx, since you did not specify the “stream” of photons was from a laser, and since you didn’t restrict the material the BB was made from, I could say the photons are all reflected and the BB does not increase in temperature.

          • bobdroege says:

            JD,

            I see you are still refusing to understand that CO2 in the atmosphere is not a blackbody.

            Even thought a 14,7 um photon doesn’t have a lot of energy, it does have enough when there are a lot of them, to raise the temperature of the earth’s surface.

            This statement

            “Let me emphasize, PEAK. That indicates how little energy the photon has. It’s nowhere near enough to affect 288 K, even if it were absorbed.”

            Is just opinionated hogwash.

            Because you are still treating CO2 as a blackbody.

          • JDHuffman says:

            bob, your nonsense has been sufficiently debunked.

            The 14.7 μ photon occurs at the peak of the spectrum corresponding to 197K (-76C, -105F). That indicates how little energy the photon has. It’s nowhere near enough to affect 288 K, even if it were absorbed.

            You just aren’t able to think for yourself.

            Nothing new.

          • PhilJ says:

            bob,

            “Even thought a 14,7 um photon doesn’t have a lot of energy, it does have enough when there are a lot of them, to raise the temperature of the earth’s surface.”

            You’re assuming you can just add them to transfer the amount of energy you require, this is not the case.

            Let’s see is I can demonstrate…

            If I have a swing above my arm oscillating at the same frequency as my arm but with a greater amplitude I cannot push the swing transferring any energy from my arm to the swing…

            it doesnt matter if I have 1 arm or 1000 arms, if they all have a lower amplitude than the swing the energy transferred will be 0

            If however the swing has a lower amplitude than my arm some of the energy from my arm will be transferred to the swing increasing its amplitude..

            As the amplitude of the swing approaches the amplitude of my arm the amount of energy transferred to the swing approaches 0

      • Mike Flynn says:

        b,

        “Some of this radiation reaches the earths surface and increases the enthalpy of the earths surface which is evidenced by an increase in temperature.”

        Except for the last four and a half billion years (obviously), at night, during a solar eclipse, indoors, during winter or a cold spell, and so on.

        The temperature falls. Does your description of the greenhouse effect mention temperature falling as well?

        You’ll have to do better than just stringing some irrelevant sciencey words together. When the temperature falls, it is called cooling. You appear to think that redefining “cooling” to mean an increase in temperature solves your problem. Good luck with that.

        Off you go now. Have a think, and come back with a GHE description that agrees with fact, if you can spare the time.

        As to the inner core of the Earth, what is your point? Any 12 year old child can point out that I might well simplify the inner structure whilst pointing out that the interior temperature is probably in excess of 6000 K. if you don’t like me referring to the interior of the Earth as molten, by all means provide a more detailed picture for the benefit of those who cannot be bothered establishing the facts for themselves.

        You may wish to include the following, for the sake of completeness –

        “Because of this unusual set of circumstances, some geophysicists prefer to interpret the inner core not as a solid, but as a plasma behaving as a solid.”

        There are several theories, so maybe you should mention them all. Or you could just assert “And the core of the earth is solid,”. Your choice I guess.

        Cheers.

        • bobdroege says:

          How about the mantle then, you would say it’s molten, but then so are the asphalt roads you can drive on, their molten too, if you claim the mantle is molten.

          The core can be hot under high pressure, but still a solid.

          So you are going to say some geophysicist consider the core to be a plasma rather than a solid, so you are going with the minority report.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            Maybe you could actually try figure out whether you are asking a question, trying for a gotcha, or just making a series of pointless and meaningless statements.

            If you are actually trying to disagree with something I wrote, you might make you intention clearer by directly quoting me. On the other hand, you could utter a few disconnected sentences, hoping no one will notice how stupid and ignorant you appear.

            Your choice.

            Cheers.

  39. Matt R says:

    There is some possibilty that another energy source is discovered or fusion becomes practical but of those seem unlikely. It seems to me we are likely stuck with what we have with incremental improvements in scalable energy storage and solar efficiency or that we solve the cost and PR problems of fission.

    • E. Swanson says:

      Matt R, Interestingly, it appears that electric motor technology already available is good enough to carry passengers in small aircraft for 105 miles. There’s also the prospect of using this technology in hybrid designs, with the electric motors used for takeoff and climb and small turbines used for cruise. The electric energy could be sourced from renewables and wired directly into the batteries on the planes.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        ES,

        “The electric energy could be sourced from renewables and wired directly into the batteries on the planes.”

        Yes, except the 105 mile long extension cord would need to be made of high grade unobtainium, supported by a network of skyhooks. I suppose high output LEDs would ensure that other similarly equipped craft did not tangle their extension cords.

        I saw someone had come up with an idea for a wind turbine mounted on an aircraft which would supply the power to the high efficiency electric motor driving the propeller. The faster the aircraft flew, the more power it would generate. I suggested combining the two to save weight and duplication, but my suggestion was rejected as being silly. Oh well. Can’t win them all, I guess.

        Let me know when your fantasy becomes reality.

        Cheers.

  40. PhilJ says:

    Burning of fossil fuels removes O2 from the atmosphere and adds h2o and co2, thus increasing the emissivity of the atmosphere.

    Increasing the emissivity of the atmosphere will increase the amount of IR emitted at any given temperature.

    It follows that this will increase the amount of IR exiting the TOA thus cooling the atmosphere.

    Observed reduced drag on sattelites is evidence that the TOA is contracting.

    If the volume of the atmosphere is decreasing then either temp is decreasing or pressure is increasing or some combination of the two..

    This I conclude that burning of fossil fuels poses no danger of catastrophicly raising the temp near the surface….

  41. PhilJ says:

    Bob,

    “Some of this radiation reaches the earths surface and increases the enthalpy of the earths surface which is evidenced by an increase in temperature.”

    “Nobody pretends that a colder atmosphere can heat a warmer surface. Nobody – bindion

    • bobdroege says:

      Right, I don’t pretend, I know it for a fact.

      • JDHuffman says:

        Clowns must be required to violate the laws of physics, daily.

        • Tim Folkerts says:

          You mean like thinking a heated object will be COLDER than its surroundings?
          Like heated objects are no warmer than unheated objects?

          • Kristian says:

            Tim,

            For once, try to set the idiots on your side of this debate straight as well. Don’t just let them get away with their buffoonery. Please help letting bobdroege know how wrong he is. Read what he writes, for Christ’s sake!

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, are you still confused about radiative energy transfer?

            Maybe if you could compose a sensible, responsible question, then I could help you. I can’t help you with your immature, illogical ramblings.

          • bobdroege says:

            Christ ain’t going to help you Kristian.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            Tim,

            Your gotcha appears eminently stupid. What next – “You mean like thinking an unheated object will be HOTTER than its surroundings?”

            Who cares what you or I “think”? You may “think” that reducing the amount of energy reaching a thermometer makes the thermometer hotter. You may “think” that Gavin Schmidt is a “climate scientist”. You may “think” you are not actually stupid and ignorant. Facts are facts. Fantasies are fantasies. You choose.

            Cheers.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Kristian says: “For once, try to set the idiots on your side of this debate straight as well. Dont just let them get away with their buffoonery. Please help letting bobdroege know how wrong he is. Read what he writes, for Christs sake!”

            Bob says a few things where I think he needs to be “set straight” — but not a lot. But in the spirit of cooperation, here goes. (These are not necessarily ALL the things I might comment on; they are the two that jumped out at me as I skimmed all his comments.)

            1) Bob said: “… but the sun heats the earth and the earth heats the CO2, and the CO2 heats the earth and the wheels on the bus go round and round.”
            He should have used “supplies energy to” rather than “heats”. CO2 does not “heat” the surface in the thermodynamic sense of “heat”. [However, other comments suggest that he really does understand, eg “CO2 is a gas in our atmosphere that emits radiation …Some of this radiation reaches the earths surface …”. That is a perfectly reasonable description.]

            2) Mike objected to something I wrote, and Bob objected to the objection:
            MF>> No transfer of energy from a cooler body to a hotter. This causes an immediate decrease in entropy by creating a temperature differential. Not allowable, Im afraid
            Bob> Except there is something available to do the work necessary to cause the transfer of energy from a cooler body to a hotter. It’s the Sun!”

            It turns out both objections were misguided.

            Mike’s error is one you are familiar with, Kristian — confusing MICROscopic and MACROscopic realms. At the atomic level, energy can and does move from atoms with a lower energy to atoms with a higher energy. This does not violate the classical statement of the 2LoT, because the 2LoT does not apply to individual atoms or photons; it only applies to macroscopic collections of atoms and/or photons. [Much like the macroscopic idea of “temperature” only applies to collections of atoms, not to individual atoms.]

            Bob’s error was attributing Mike’s error to external work, rather than attributing it to the macro/micro issues described above. Bob’s answer seems to suggest [at least to me] that the sun’s photons somehow help move the IR photons from the atmosphere to the earth to “cause the transfer of energy from a cooler body to a hotter”.

            *****************************************

            Yes, these are errors, but compared to other errors floating around the comments here, these are pretty minor.

            **************************************

            Oh, and Bob’s comments about supercooled water are a bit silly (but not ‘wrong’.] Yes, you *can* have water cooler than 0 C, but that is not really the issue being addressed.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Mike, those are not *my* “gotchas”. Those are actual claims JD made earlier in the comments.
            “The sphere will be emitting 300W/m^2, resulting in a surface at 270 K [inside a warmer chamber @ 273 K].”

            Clear violations of the laws of physics by a fellow loudly complaining about violations of the laws of physics. No one should be taking advice from someone who has heat literally flowing from the 270 K sphere to the 273 K surroundings!

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, if you are going to start correcting other clowns, shouldn’t you clean up your own act first?

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c/#comment-348019

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            One again, that comment does nothing to bolster your position.

            First, you admit your own answer of of 270 K might be wrong. Then you speculate the temperature might approach 273 K (the temperature of the surroundings. But even your most extreme speculation of 273 means that 300 W of heat are going from a surface at 273 K to a second surface at the identical temperature. Even your most extreme speculation means that we can turn on a heater (equivalent to 5 60-Watt light bulbs) inside a sphere the size of a beachball (22″, 56 cm) and not have it warm up by even 0.00001 K.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Tim, misquoting me and misrepresenting me only shows your desperation, incompetence, and dishonesty.

            And, I’m loving it. Please continue.

          • Kristian says:

            bobdroege says, April 6, 2019 at 5:08 PM:

            Christ ain’t going to help you Kristian.

            I fear you’re right. After all, against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.

          • Kristian says:

            Tim Folkerts says, April 7, 2019 at 11:41 AM:

            [(…) other comments suggest that he really does understand, eg “CO2 is a gas in our atmosphere that emits radiation …Some of this radiation reaches the earths surface …”. That is a perfectly reasonable description.]

            Hehe, but he goes on, Tim. His statement doesn’t end there. And you know that. Because the end is included in PhilJ’s original comment above:

            “Some of this radiation reaches the earths surface [this is where you cut bob’s description short, Tim] and increases the enthalpy [alternatively, internal energy (U)] of the earths surface which is evidenced by an increase in temperature.”

            This is tantamount to describing the CO2 “back radiation” as an extra input of HEAT to the surface, Tim.

            CO2 does not “heat” the surface in the thermodynamic sense of “heat”.

            Good. Now let him know. Set him straight. Tell him directly. Because he absolutely does not understand.

      • Kristian says:

        So you still think in earnest that a cold thing (like the atmosphere) can and does in fact HEAT (and not just insulate) a warmer thing (like Earth’s surface), bob? That the way the atmosphere forces the average surface temperature to be higher than if it weren’t there is exactly thermodynamically equivalent to the way the Sun does the same …!?

        Where do you get this kind of idiocy from?

        Or is it simply that you STILL haven’t managed to pick up a book to read on the basic thermodynamic concepts of HEAT and heat transfer?

        • bobdroege says:

          From a little red book on quantum mechanics.

          Heat transfer via radiation, a post classical thermodynamics subject.

          Maybe you should study some modern science.

          • Kristian says:

            Quantum-mechanical heat transfer. Heat transfer from cold to hot via radiation. Yeah …

            Are you an idiot, or are you just pretending to be one, bob?

            Who could ever take you seriously?

          • JDHuffman says:

            bob doesn’t have to pretend….

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            From your stupid link –

            You have probably heard the expression “Hot air rises and cool air falls to take its place” – this is a description of convection in our atmosphere. Heat energy is transfered by the circulation of the air.”

            Ah, more “lies for children” – complete with a spelling mistake as an added bonus!

            Presumably, even you are unprepared to provide a link to your ” . . . little red book on quantum mechanics.” Fantasy is no substitute for fact, unless you are a believer in pseudoscientific climatology. If you don’t like me pointing out that ice cannot be used to heat water (in spite of your little red book), how about trying to keep lead molten by surrounding it with boiling water?

            Boiling water is pretty hot, isn’t it? Lots of photons, lots of energy. You can’t even boil water by exposing it to the unconcentrated rays from the Sun, at around 5800 K. What use is your pseudoscience?

            Carry on b. Trenberth wanted to redefine the scientific method because normal science didn’t agree with his pseudoscience Do you think you can do any better?

            Cheers.

          • bobdroege says:

            “If you dont like me pointing out that ice cannot be used to heat water”

            You sure about that?

            There have been some interesting recent discoveries about ice and diamonds in the last year.

            And not by climatologists.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            What a stupid and pointless gotcha! Am I sure I wrote what you correctly quoted? Absolutely!

            Are you crazy, or just addicted to mindless utterances?

            At least you don’t have to pretend to be a witless fool – it obviously comes naturally.

            Cheers.

          • bobdroege says:

            The point being ice can be warmer than water.

            So yes you could heat water with ice.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            You fool. My ice is at -100 C. Try and heat your imaginary supercooled water with that!

            Your stupid assertion that you can heat something by exposing it to the radiation of something colder is pseudoscientific claptrap.

            Try for a more clever gotcha. It still wont help you to come up with a useful description of the GHE, will it? You will remain as stupid and ignorant as ever.

            Keep trolling.

            Cheers.

          • Kristian says:

            OK, so a quick lesson in radiation heat transfer for little bob. Because it seems he sorely needs one.

            First, the blackbody:

            The radiation energy emitted by a blackbody per unit time and per unit surface area can be determined from the Stefan-Boltzmann Law:

            E_b = sT^4 (W/m^2)

            where

            s(sigma) = 5.67 x 10^-8 W/(m^2 K^4)

            where T is the absolute temperature of the surface in K and E_b is called the blackbody emissive power.

            http://www.mhtl.uwaterloo.ca/courses/ece309_mechatronics/lectures/pdffiles/summary_ch12.pdf

            Note, an object’s E (emissive power), dependent only on the object’s own temperature (and emissivity), is only ever, with regard to its thermal surroundings, equal to its Q (or Qdot, or q) (NET exchange of thermal radiation = radiative HEAT transfer), in the case where those surroundings are at absolute zero:
            https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/docs/documents/431/heat_radiation_from_black_surface_absolute_zero.pdf

            Radiation Heat Transfer

            The analysis of radiation exchange between surfaces is complicated because of reflection. This can be simplified when surfaces are assumed to be black surfaces.

            The net radiation between two surfaces can be expressed as

            [Qdot_12 =>] Q_12 = (radiation leaving surface 1 that directly strikes surface 2) – (radiation leaving surface 2 that directly strikes surface 1)

            Q_12 = A_1 F_12 E_b1 – A_2 F_21 E_b2

            [where A is the radiating area of each surface, F is the view factor of each surface with respect to the other, and E_b is the BB emissive power of either surface]

            Applying reciprocity A_1 F_12 = A_2 F_21 yields

            Q_12 = A_1 F_12 s(T_1^4 – T_2^4) (W)

            (Same source as above.)

            Always bear in mind the following:

            Radiation heat transfer must account for both incoming and outgoing thermal radiation.

            https://www.efunda.com/formulae/heat_transfer/radiation/overview_rad.cfm

            E (emissive power), or J (radiosity: the total radiation energy streaming from a surface, per unit area per unit time; the sum of reflected and emitted radiation; for a BB, J is equal to E), is NOT the same as radiation heat transfer (radiative heat). The heat transfer is only ever the NET thermal radiation between two surfaces or regions, in nature always and only moving from hot to cold.

            (Back to the first source):

            Net Radiation between Two Surfaces

            Consider two diffuse, gray, and opaque surfaces of arbitrary shape maintained at uniform temperatures. The net rate of radiation heat transfer from surface i to surface j can be expressed

            [Qdot_ij =>] Q_ij = A_i J_i F_ij – A_j J_j F_ji (W)

            Applying reciprocity

            Q_ij = A_i F_ij (J_i – J_j) (W)

            In analogy with Ohm’s law, a resistance can be defined as

            Q_ij = (J_i – J_j) / R_ij

            R_ij = 1 / (A_i F_ij)

            where R_ij is called the space resistance to radiation.

            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2019/04/fig.12-11.png

            3.1 Heat Transfer by Thermal Radiation

            Heat transfer from a body with a high temperature to a body with a lower temperature, when bodies are not in direct physical contact with each other or when they are separated in space, is called heat radiation [or rather “radiative heat”].

            […]

            In the context of heat radiation, a surface that absorbs all incident radiation and reflects none is called a black surface or black body. The StefanBoltzmann law of thermal radiation for a black body states that the rate of radiation energy from the surface per unit area is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature of the body:

            q = A sT^4 (3.1)

            with q rate of energy emission from the surface [“emissive power”], A surface area of the radiator and s(sigma) the Stefan-Boltzmann constant. If we consider a black body with surface temperature T_1 which radiates to another black body with surface temperature T_2 that completely surrounds it, the second black body completely absorbs the incident energy and emits radiant energy that is proportional to T_2^4. The net rate heat transfer by thermal radiation is then given by:

            q = A s(T_1^4 – T_2^4) (3.2)

            A black body is a perfect radiator. Real bodies, however, do not act like a perfect radiator and emit at a lower rate. To take into account the real nature of the radiant bodies, a factor e(epsilon), called emissivity, is introduced. Emissivity is defined as the ratio of the emission from a real “gray” surface to the emission from a perfect “black” surface. Then, the rate of radiation heat transfer from a real body at temperature T_1 which is surrounded by a black body at temperature T_2, is given by:

            q = A_1 e_1 s(T_1^4 – T_2^4) (3.3)

            It is worth pointing out that in most practical engineering problems, usually all three heat transfer mechanisms, namely conduction, convection, and radiation, occur simultaneously.

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/radiation-heat-transfer

            * * *
            The all-important take-home message here is the following:

            What affects a body’s ‘internal energy’ [U] and ‘temperature’ [T] across some time interval (from t_0 to t_1) is the ‘HEAT’ [Q] transferred to or from it during that time (and/or the ‘work’ [W] performed by or on it, but this we disregard), NOT (!!) its emissive power [E] or radiosity [J], not the E or J or its surroundings.

            When it comes to THERMODYNAMIC (thermal) changes to a macroscopic system, only the overall NET EXCHANGE of energy between it and its surroundings matters. The HEAT in or out.

            If you only increase the E or J of a body’s surroundings to that body, there is no way you can tell whether or not that increase alone will cause the U and T of the body to rise also. You simply need more information. Like: What happened to the E or J of the body itself while you increased the E/J of its surroundings? Did it somehow stay unchanged? Did it increase as well? By how much? Or did it even decrease?

            Ultimately, it’s the change in the NET exchange of energy (the HEAT transfer) between two systems that creates a thermal effect, not each individual component. E and J are mere radiative effects (or expressions) of specific macroscopic states/properties of thermodynamic systems (like temperature), not themselves CAUSES of temperature.

          • Kristian says:

            Kristian says, April 7, 2019 at 1:58 AM:

            (…) NOT (!!) its emissive power [E] or radiosity [J], not the E or J or its surroundings.

            Correction: Not its emissive power (E) or radiosity (J), nor the E or J of its surroundings.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Kristian, do you agree with graphic? If not, what temperature do you believe the blue plate would have, at equilibrium?

            https://postimg.cc/KKx5hx4H

          • JDHuffman says:

            In case you haven’t been paying attention, all plates have sides with surface area of 1 square meter, and are in a vacuum.

          • bobdroege says:

            So you say there is a two way flow when talking about heat transfer by radiation.

            Q_12 = A_1 F_12 s(T_1^4 T_2^4) (W)

            Glad to see you understand that

          • Kristian says:

            JDHuffman says, April 7, 2019 at 6:15 AM:

            Kristian, do you agree with graphic?

            Of course not. If the central plate can be considered to be two-dimensional, that is, only radiating towards the other two plates, then in the steady state it will have warmed to 290 K, with the two green plates on either side of it, and in the same state, at 244 K.

            All a simple case of insulation. But you don’t know what insulation tends to do, do you JD? At least you can’t find it in yourself to answer even the most basic questions about it …

          • Kristian says:

            bobdroege says, April 7, 2019 at 8:19 AM:

            So you say there is a two way flow when talking about heat transfer by radiation.

            Q_12 = A_1 F_12 s(T_1^4 T_2^4) (W)

            Glad to see you understand that

            “A two way flow”, now there’s a contradiction in terms.

            Now, what do YOU understand about radiation heat transfer, bob? To much work to read, is that it?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Kristian answers: “If the central plate can be considered to be two-dimensional, that is, only radiating towards the other two plates, then in the steady state it will have warmed to 290 K, with the two green plates on either side of it, and in the same state, at 244 K.”

            Thanks for an answer.

            Now, can you explain how the blue plate’s enthalpy increases, and its entropy decreases, with no change in energy in/out?

          • bobdroege says:

            So what’s happening to your brain Kristian when your thermodynamics texts start discussing two way transfer by radiation.

            You blacking out?

            Eyes go all fuzzy?

          • Craig T says:

            Kristian said:
            The net radiation between two surfaces can be expressed as

            [Qdot_12 =>] Q_12 = (radiation leaving surface 1 that directly strikes surface 2) (radiation leaving surface 2 that directly strikes surface 1)

            JD, you’re not troubled by her use of the Stefan-Boltzmann law to determine net radiative transfer?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig T asks: “JD, you’re not troubled by her use of the Stefan-Boltzmann law to determine net radiative transfer?”

            Of course not. I enjoy climate comedy as much as anyone.

          • Kristian says:

            bobdroege says, April 7, 2019 at 4:21 PM:

            So what’s happening to your brain Kristian when your thermodynamics texts start discussing two way transfer by radiation.

            Nothing happens. Because I have no problem holding two thoughts in my head at the same time, unlike certain other people commenting here. Micro vs. macro, bob.

            So, clown: Getting any closer to finding out what heat really is, and that “back radiation” from the cooler atmosphere could never heat the warmer surface below? Or are you still just wallowing in your own ignorance?

          • Kristian says:

            JDHuffman says, April 7, 2019 at 4:12 PM:

            Thanks for an answer.

            No worries. You’re good at posing questions to others, JD. Not so good at answering other people’s questions to you, however.

            Now, can you explain how the blue plate’s enthalpy increases, and its entropy decreases, with no change in energy in/out?

            There WILL be a change in the energy (heat) OUT, JD. As you put those two green plates next to it. That’s what insulation does. This is exactly the basic thermodynamic principle that you need to investigate in order to gain some understanding about how the world works.

          • JDHuffman says:

            K, just as I suspected. You can’t understand simple problems. You ramble endlessly on semantical issues, but you aren’t able to apply any actual physics.

            The 3 plates together would all reach the same temperature at equilibrium, 244K. The plate temperatures would look like this:

            244K…244K…244K, with 400 Watts input to the middle (blue) plate, and 200 Watts output from each green plate.

            Pulled slightly apart, there is the correct solution, and the incorrect solution.

            The correct solution looks like this:

            244K…244K…244K, with 400 Watts input to the middle (blue) plate, and 200 Watts output from each green plate. Essentially it is the same as if the plates were together.

            The incorrect solution, supported by all the clowns, including yourself, is:

            244K…290K…244K, with 400 Watts input to the middle (blue) plate, and 200 Watts output from each green plate.

            So there is NO change in energy in/out. You were not able to understand the problem.

            Now that I have cleared it up for you, the question is, in the incorrect solution, “How does the enthapy increase and the entropy decrease, with no change in energy in/out?”

          • bobdroege says:

            Kristian,

            I was pointing out that the cites you bring to the table support the idea of a two way flow of thermal radiation.

            “Radiation heat transfer is the process by which the thermal energy is exchanged between two surfaces obeying the laws of electromagnetics.”

            That’s from here

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/radiation-heat-transfer

            Which you linked to.

          • Kristian says:

            JD,

            I won’t bother much with this silliness, because it’s tedious, you’re obviously a troll, and I’m right and you’re wrong, simple as that.

            But I’ll address the central problem of your “analysis”. You say:

            The incorrect solution, supported by all the clowns, including yourself, is:

            244K…290K…244K, with 400 Watts input to the middle (blue) plate, and 200 Watts output from each green plate.

            Exactly. The central plate HAS TO end up at 290K in order to remain the heat source of the two green plates.

            Look, with no green plates around, the blue plate would equilibrate with its input and reach a steady state temperature of 244K:

            q_in = 400 W / 2 m^2 = 200 W/m^2

            q_out = sT_bp^4 = s244^4 = 200 W/m^2

            Heat balance: q_in = q_out => 200 W/m^2 in, 200 W/m^2 out. A dynamic steady state.

            But once you place those two green plates on each side of the blue plate, this heat balance is disrupted. The blue plate starts heating the green plates, feeding them with net energy. They warm as a result, and they do so until a NEW dynamic steady state is reached. That only happens at the point where the ‘heats’ (in/out) of all three plates finally balance.

            For the central plate, that new balance would look like this:

            q_in = 400 W/ 2 m^2 = 200 W/m^2 (the INPUT hasn’t changed, after all)

            q_out = s(T_bp^4 – T_gp^4) => s(290^4 – 244^4) = 200 W/m^2

            Heat balance once again: q_in = q_out => 200 W/m^2 in, 200 W/m^2 out. A dynamical steady state.

            At this point, each of the two green plates absorbs a radiative heat flux of 200 W/m^2 on its inner face, from the central blue plate, and at the same time emits a radiative heat flux of equal intensity to the outside surroundings from its outer face. Heat balance: q_in = q_out.

            The green plates INSULATE the blue plate, which means they REDUCE the blue plate’s q_out at any given blue plate surface temperature. And they do so because they’re WARMER THAN THE OUTSIDE SURROUNDINGS.

            Since the blue plate is provided with a constant power/heat INPUT (400 W => 200 W/m^2), the reduction in its heat OUTPUT as the green plates warm around it, forces its surface temperature to rise, in order to increase the blue plate’s output back to where it was before the green plates started warming, matching the input.

            Again, JD: The basic phenomenon of insulation.

            This wouldn’t have been so hard for you if you only bothered to find out how it works, thermodynamically. In heat transfer, the surroundings ALWAYS matter. You don’t get to pretend they’re not there …

            I’m afraid YOU’RE the one who doesn’t understand this problem, JD.

          • Kristian says:

            bobdroege says, April 8, 2019 at 7:06 AM:

            I was pointing out that the cites you bring to the table support the idea of a two way flow of thermal radiation.

            *Sigh*

            Whether they do or not is irrelevant, bob. It very much seems like you’re deliberately trying to redirect the discussion.

            The question here, bob, is: Do you understand what HEAT is, how it works and what it does?

            “Radiation heat transfer is the process by which the thermal energy is exchanged between two surfaces obeying the laws of electromagnetics.”

            Exactly! Did you get what that actually means? What that quote actually says?

            It essentially says: “Back radiation” from the atmosphere to the surface is NOT “radiation HEAT transfer”, because it would NOT constitute a process by which thermal energy is exchanged between two surfaces/bodies/regions. Your “back radiation” is only HALF (in fact, less than half) of the continuous radiative exchange between the atmosphere and the surface. The radiation heat transfer between the surface and the atmosphere is the NET exchange of thermal IR between them, and it goes one way and one way only: UP. From warmer surface to cooler atmosphere.

            So no, “back radiation” from a cooler atmosphere to a warmer surface does NOT heat the surface, bob.

            These are principles kids learn in elementary school.

          • JDHuffman says:

            K, it’s amazing how similar you are to Norman. All you offer are long rambling dissertations avoiding the issue. You’re as phony as he is.

            The issue is NOT about insulation. Insulation does NOT violate the laws of thermodynamics. But, the incorrect solution DOES violate both 1LoT and 2LoT. You just don’t know how the laws apply, and consequently are unable to answer the question about the incorrect solution: “How does the enthapy increase and the entropy decrease, with no change in energy in/out?”

            Now, imitate Norman with more rambling diatribes that avoid reality.

          • bobdroege says:

            Kristian,

            When have I called it back radiation?

            You seem to not understand what arguments I am making.

            Back radiation is not one of them.

            The flux in both direction have actually been measured, lately by JD possibly in this very thread.

            So stop attacking the straw man you have constructed.

            The thermodynamics texts you have cited actually state that there is a two way flow of energy, like the last post I made, an exchange of
            thermal energy.

            For there to be only the net, as you claim, there would have to be evidence that photons interact with each other.

            As far as I know, there is no such evidence.

            You are wrong and need to pay more attention to your texts.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            “The green plates INSULATE the blue plate”

            But Kristian doesn’t think this insulation happens when the perfectly-conducting BB green plates are pressed right up against the blue (244 K…244 K…244 K), bizarrely it only happens when they are separated (by any distance at all). He also stated the vacuum gap is not the insulator:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/03/uah-global-temperature-update-for-february-2019-0-36-deg-c/#comment-347352

            Odd position.

          • Nate says:

            DREMT, ‘The green plates INSULATE the blue plate’

            “But Kristian doesnt think this insulation happens when the perfectly-conducting BB green plates are pressed right up against the blue (244 K244 K244 K), bizarrely it only happens when they are separated (by any distance at all).”

            You explained it right there, DREMT: ‘perfectly-conducting BB green plates are pressed right up against the blue’

            ‘perfectly conducting’ means ‘NOT insulating at all’.

            while with a vacuum gap, as his source explained

            ‘In analogy with Ohms law, a resistance can be defined as

            Q_ij = (J_i J_j) / R_ij

            R_ij = 1 / (A_i F_ij)

            where R_ij is called the space resistance to radiation.’

            So nothing bizarre about it.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            “‘perfectly conducting’ means ‘NOT insulating at all’.“

            Sure. And, “BB plates” = “zero reflectivity” = ‘NOT insulating at all’, when separated. And, as he writes in the comment I linked to, Kristian doesn’t agree that the vacuum gap is the insulator. And, I was talking to Kristian, not you.

          • Kristian says:

            Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says, April 9, 2019 at 2:30 AM:

            “The green plates INSULATE the blue plate”

            But Kristian doesn’t think this insulation happens when the perfectly-conducting BB green plates are pressed right up against the blue (244 K…244 K…244 K), bizarrely it only happens when they are separated (by any distance at all).

            Stop misrepresenting my position, DREMT. I’ve said nothing of the sort. I haven’t commented on the plates-together situation at all. Instead of linking to a full comment in the hopes that the reader will think that somewhere in there I state something that could be interpreted to mean what you claim I say, like any troll would do, just QUOTE my words directly. Where do I write that I don’t think the green plates will insulate the blue plate as long as they’re all squeezed together?

            In fact, what I do write is this:
            “In this ideal case, internal conduction is apparently ignored. So the central plate has ONE temperature, as do the other two – there is ONLY a temperature difference BETWEEN the plates, not within them.”

            Got it?

            He also stated the vacuum gap is not the insulator:

            Of course I did. Because it isn’t.

            The insulation effect arises simply as a natural consequence of a reduction in the temperature difference between the insulated body and its surroundings.

            How hard is this to grasp?

          • Kristian says:

            bobdroege says, April 8, 2019 at 8:38 PM:

            When have I called it back radiation?

            *Eyeroll*

            bob, don’t be a child. You talk about the radiative energy flowing from the CO2 molecules in the air to the surface, HEATING the surface (that is, raising its enthalpy, evidenced by a rise in surface temperature). That’s “back radiation heating”, dimwit. Doesn’t matter what you happen to CALL it.

            You do NOT talk about the net flow of radiative energy (the ACTUAL radiation heat transfer) flowing between the surface and the atmosphere.

          • Kristian says:

            JDHuffman says, April 8, 2019 at 3:35 PM:

            K, it’s amazing how similar you are to Norman. All you offer are long rambling dissertations avoiding the issue. You’re as phony as he is.

            Hehe. Thus spake the House Troll, JDHuffman.

            You’re wrong. Live with it.

          • Kristian says:

            JDHuffman says, April 8, 2019 at 3:35 PM:

            The issue is NOT about insulation.

            Yes, it is. How does insulation work, thermodynamically, JD? Are you going to answer? Or are you just going to continue evading?

            Insulation does NOT violate the laws of thermodynamics.

            Correct. It doesn’t. It’s a thermodynamic process/mechanism, after all.

            But, the incorrect solution DOES violate both 1LoT and 2LoT.

            Nope. YOUR solution does. By setting up full heat fluxes between bodies at equal temperature.

            You just don’t know how the laws apply (…)

            Yes, I do. That’s WHY I’m telling you you’re wrong. Because YOU apparently don’t know how to apply them.

            (…) and consequently are unable to answer the question about the incorrect solution: “How does the enthapy increase and the entropy decrease, with no change in energy in/out?”

            Strange, the house troll can read my answer to his question himself right upthread, and still it claims I’m “unable to answer” it. The troll might not LIKE my answer to his “when-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife” type question, but that’s not really my problem, now is it?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Actually, Kristian, I made it perfectly clear that I was linking to your comment specifically for the part about the vacuum gap not being the insulator (and, I agree with you).

            Apologies if I got you wrong on what you think the temperatures of the plates are when pushed together. So, what do you think they will be?

          • bobdroege says:

            Kristian,

            You post in all caps and call me a child.

            You are the one being childish, what’s with all the insults.

            Not that I expect any better of you.

            The reason I don’t call it back radiation is because when a CO2 molecule in the atmosphere abzorbs a photon coming upward from the earth’s surface it is highly likely that that energy is transferred to another atom or molecule before the molecule returns to the ground state by emitting a photon.

            The reverse also happens where a CO2 molecule is excited out of the ground state by collisions with other atoms and molecules.

            So you have two different sources of flux, the upward is black-body radiation modified by emissivity and the downward infrared is emission from the CO2 molecules relaxing from the ground state.

            So the upward and downward fluxes have different sources so you just can’t claim there is only the net.

  42. Mike Flynn says:

    bdgwx wrote –

    “Except that the Earth has been colder and warmed quite rapidly several times in the past. And the vertical temperature profile of the oceans is not consistent with the cooling molten core hypothesis.”

    Another grand unsupported assertion, as is generally the case with pseudoscientific cultists.

    Completely irrelevant without some physical mechanism being advanced to support the assertion. Maybe he claims the never described GHE possesses both cooling and heating properties, and these come into effect at random times – unpredictably. A completely pointless waste of time investigating an effect that comes and goes at will, with an unpredictable outcome! Obviously beloved of pseudoscientists, who demand that rational people “prove them wrong”!

    What the reference to the vertical temperature profile of the oceans has to do with the fact that the Earth’s surface is no longer molten, i.e., it has cooled, is unknown.

    I would be happy to explain to bdgwx the mechanism which results in the densest water being found at the bottom of any deep body of water below a certain threshold of geothermal input.

    This is conditional on bdgwx demonstrating to me that he has made at least a minimal effort to investigate the physics involved. If he is too stupid, ignorant, incompetent or lazy to help himself, why should I waste my time spoon feeding him?

    What a deluded Wally!

    Cheers.

  43. Mike Flynn says:

    E Swanson wrote –

    “Hey trolls, the deeper layers of the world’s is oceans are very cold, near zero C. So, how is it possible in your warped physics that there’s enough energy from the ocean bottom to warm the ocean surface and the atmosphere above, which are much warmer at tropic and temperate latitudes? Wouldn’t that be a violation of your favorite straw man, the 2nd Law of thermodynamics?”

    ES still cannot quote anything in particular with which to disagree, so lurches off into a weird gotcha, based on something that nobody actually said – if somebody said that water at near zero at the bottom of the oceans somehow results in atmospheric warming, I must have missed it.

    Maybe ES can back up his wild accusation, but I doubt it. A direct quote might help.

    The colder abyssal depths of the oceans (around 3C or so), even though the surrounding rocks at a similar depth may exceed 250 C (at around 25 C/km), are easily explained by conventional physics. No need for pseudoscientific climatological nonsense.

    What a fantasist!

    Cheers.

    • E. Swanson says:

      MF wrote:

      The colder abyssal depths of the oceans (around 3C or so), even though the surrounding rocks at a similar depth may exceed 250 C (at around 25 C/km), are easily explained by conventional physics. No need for pseudoscientific climatological nonsense.

      MF still can’t understand that the water temperature results from an average of the energy flows near the bottom with the source waters being high latitude sinking. Of course, in some locations, near plate boundaries and volcanoes, the water can be quite warm, but, overall, the cold average temperature means that there’s no way for these waters to warm the atmosphere above. That would violate the 2nd Law, remember?

      • Mike Flynn says:

        ES,

        Thanks for the direct quote.

        Your comment seems to have nothing to do with the quote you so kindly provided.

        Are you disagreeing with what I wrote, or just pretending that you can read my mind?

        Your sciencey nonsense accidentally contains one grain of truth. As you say, the colder ocean water cannot [generally] warm the [warmer] atmosphere above.

        Of course, if the water surface is say, 0C, and the air above is -40C, I guess the water, even if frozen, would warm the air which is colder. This wouldnt contravene any physical laws, would it?

        Maybe you could disagree with something I wrote, rather than something you believe you obtained from your mindreading attempts.

        Your fantasy world is rich indeed, if you believe that your incoherent pseudoscience is in any way related to reality.

        Cheers.

        • gbaikie says:

          “Of course, if the water surface is say, 0C, and the air above is -40C, I guess the water, even if frozen, would warm the air which is colder. This wouldnt contravene any physical laws, would it?”

          A liquid ocean would warm more than frozen ocean- so, 0C ice might only add significant warmth to -40 C air.
          But if water was 1 C or more it would have a significant effect upon the air temperature, a few degrees cooler than the water.
          Or coastal region of Greenland which don’t have a frozen ocean have milder air temperature conditions in the winter.

          Or Europe would about 10 C cooler without Gulf Stream which might be somewhere 10 C during the winter and warmer during summer.
          Or Europe average temperature is about 9 C but without warmer water of gulf stream it would average yearly temperature below 0 C.
          Or it’s mostly warming Europe during winter, but also warms Europe during the other seasons.

          • gbaikie says:

            And I would say that all of global warming is mostly about warming the 60% of the north and south hemisphere outside of the tropics [tropics being 40% of Earth surface].
            And this 60% of earth is warmed quite a bit from our cold Ocean which as average volume temperature of about 3.5 C. And this ocean temperature varies by 1 to 5 C.
            And 1 C ocean has to be a glacial period and 5 C ocean has to be interglacial period.
            Also 1 C ocean has to sea level 100 meter or lower than present and 5 C ocean has have sea levels that are meters higher than the present sea level.

  44. Mike Flynn says:

    DukeSnide wrote –

    “Flynn claims the planet has been cooling for 4 1/2 billion years. Now you Gordon claim that underwater vents of molten magma pouring into the ocean are warming said ocean and therefore warming the atmosphere.

    Flynn says that impossible, the planet is cooling.

    So which is it? Is the molten core cooling down the planet like Flynn claims or is it now warming the planet like you claim?”

    DS is seemingly off with the fairies, in the best pseudoscientific climatological tradition.

    I cannot see where GR claimed that a colder ocean surface raised the temperature of a hotter atmosphere. Maybe you could provide a direct quote, rather than making something up. If you refuse to believe that an unknown number of geothermal vents, magma flows from the mid ocean trenches, and the proximity of the very hot fluid mantle, prevent the ocean depths (and even deep lakes) from freezing, then good for you!

    You obviously don’t need no stinkin’ facts to disturb your pseudoscientific fantasy world.

    Carry on being as stupid and ignorant as you wish. Include lazy and incompetent, in case all you are capable of is posing witless gotchas. Have you even considered learning physics? No? I am not surprised – it might take more mental effort than you could cope with.

    Off you go now – try for a better standard of gotcha, at least.

    Cheers.

    • DukeSnide says:

      Round and round goes Mickey Flynn with his double speak.

      Its only you claiming that Gordon said “a colder ocean surface raised the temperature of a hotter atmosphere”. No one else said that, only you. Except hahaha, Gordo did kinda say that didn’t he? Thanks for clarifying that. But oops, wouldn’t that disprove Gord’s whole spiel about the 2nd law?

      So when will you answer Mickey, has the planet warmed for hundreds of millions of years at a time over and over again or will you continue with your Straw Man Argument ‘the Earth has only been cooling for 4 1/2 billion years’?

      Cheerio mate

      btw Mickey, you sound just like a certain woman politician who’s disappeared from view with all your ‘gotcha’s’ now.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        DS,

        What are you rambling about? Maybe you could quote something I said, rather than something you made up. In any case, why should I answer your stupid gotcha?

        Claiming that a large blob of hot rock magically warms and cools over and over, for no reason that you can state, seems delusional.

        Any rational person can see that your bizarre statement – “Its only you claiming that Gordon said a colder ocean surface raised the temperature of a hotter atmosphere”, is a product of your fantasy. I said that I could not see where GR made such a statement, but your delusional thinking obviously interferes with your eyesight.

        Whether you like it or not, the Earth is cooler now than it was four and a half billion years ago. The surface is no longer molten. Only a stupid and ignorant pseudoscientific cultist (or someone equally delusional), would believe that a drop in temperature is really evidence of heating.

        You really have no clue, have you? No GHE description, no testable GHE hypothesis either. Just fanatical belief in something you cannot even clearly articulate. Standard for lazy and incompetent GHE believers.

        Carry on appearing stupid and ignorant – you are doing well. I’m always glad to help, of course.

        Cheers

        • DukeSnide says:

          Mikey Mikey Mikey, lighten up dude. Was just having fun with your bizarre non sequitur claim about what you said Gordon didn’t say. No biggie.

          Let me simplify the question:

          How does your theory about the ‘cooling core of the planet equals the atmosphere can’t warm’ actually work, how exactly does this planets cooling core stop the atmosphere from warming?

          The evidence of Earth’s history shows you are wrong, I’m just wondering how you justify your claim?

          Cheerio mate

  45. Gordon Robertson says:

    tim…”Gordon,

    1) Pretty much every time you write about S, you are really discussing ΔS. (Delta(S) in case the Greek letter didnt work.) This has a few important implication to what you wrote.

    2) Entropy is MUCH more than a means of keeping tract of the heat transferred in a process”.

    **********

    I am going by the entropy definition by Clausius. He stated that entropy is the sum of infinitesimal changes in heat at the temperature T at which the changes occur.

    He stated ds = dQ/T

    ds is not delta S. You have to integrate (sum) the dQ’s to get the large S = entropy. Now you are talking of a change in entropy.

    If S = (integral)dQ/T then in order to change S to a higher level, you need more heat.

    There is no other quantity in the equation that can be summed to equal entropy as the integral. Even T is dependent on heat since it is a relative measure of heat.

    According to Clausius, entropy is not much more than the transfer of heat. It is the transfer of heat.

    I know many scientists over the years have given their own definition of entropy and they are technically wrong. Entropy is about heat transfer and it was intended by Clausius as a mathematical statement of the 2nd law.

    Many people presume entropy is a measure of disorder but that not necessarily the case. In a reversible process, there is no overall disorder, yet ds can change incrementally with dQ throughout the reversible process.

    As I pointed out before, disorder is an aside mentioned by Clausius when he defined entropy. He defined it first then added that entropy is also a measure of disorder due to the properties of an irreversible process. Things tend to come apart during an irreversible process.

    One philosopher I read had the temerity to claim Clausius was wrong, even though C. defined entropy. That’s the kind of arrogance with which we have become besotted.

  46. Svante says:

    Molten Mike, winner in the stupid category:

    uah-global-temperature-update-for-february-2019-0-36-deg-c.org
    No. Words Avg Stupid Name
    127 14670 115 63 Mike Flynn
    472 21880 46 18 JDHuffman
    95 13106 137 10 Norman

    is-satellite-altimeter-based-sea-level-rise-acceleration-from-a-biased-water-vapor-correction.org
    62 8281 133 26 Mike Flynn
    11 556 50 3 barry
    25 2911 116 1 Bindidon

    uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c.org
    69 6250 90 30 Mike Flynn
    14 1502 107 8 Norman
    14 786 56 4 Fritz Kraut

    • JDHuffman says:

      Mark, you seriously need to find something constructive to do.

      No wonder you fall into cults so easily.

    • PhilJ says:

      Svante,

      “winner in the stupid category:”

      “If you think the earth warms, radiates more, and therefore naturally cools again……you are mistaken as well.” – Snape

  47. TheFinalNail says:

    With apologies if it’s been mentioned before (I tried to read through the above thread but kept getting a nosebleed), the RSS LT update for March is out too now.

    Once again there is a substantial discrepancy between RSS and UAH LT. Even the sign is opposite this time (UAH cooler than last month, RSS warmer).

    Both these data sets use essentially the same information, as far as I know. Both methods of interpreting this data are published in peer reviewed papers. No one (certainly not me) is suggesting any improper behaviour by anyone.

    But WHY are these 2 data sets, that represent essentially the same information, so different in terms of absolute numbers and long term trends?

    Thank you.

    TFN

    • E. Swanson says:

      TNF, A couple of points. First, RSS uses a different base period than UAH. Thus, the monthly values for RSS are biased upwards in comparison because the more recent warming is removed from the UAH data. Second, RSS excludes data over the Antarctic and other regions with high elevations, as these areas strongly influence the MSU channel 2/AMSU channel 5, aka, the TMT channels Third, RSS doesn’t build their TLT product using the higher elevation MSU channel 3/AMSU channel 7. There are other differences as well, such as the compensations used for orbital LECT drift and orbit decay, stitching together data from some 16 satellites, some as “morning “crossing and other as “evening” crossing.

      In addition, the new UAH LTv6 involves a much different processing approach than the old RSS TLT, which is similar to the old UAH TLT. Both are attempts to compensate for errors in the TMT due to contamination in the signal from the stratosphere, which is known to be cooling. There are other approaches as well, such as the U. Washington TTT series which RSS provides.

    • bdgwx says:

      There are many surface based, balloon, reanalysis, etc. datasets as well. The idea is to employ different techniques from different groups using different subsets of available and analysis techniques. It is a form of check and balance that is useful in helping scientists identify errors. It wouldn’t be very useful if UAH and RSS did the exact same thing.

    • MikeR says:

      TFN,
      It appears that the UAH is weighted higher up in the troposphere than RSS. The correlation coefficient (R2) between UAH and all the common surface metrics NCEP/CFS, NOAA, HC4, Berkeley, GISS etc are between 0.61 and 0.66 while for RSS TLT v4 the correlations are between 0.71 and 0.82 for the same surface data sets.

      Another strong indication that UAH is weighted to higher elevations are the lagged correlations between EL Nino and the different satellite data sets.

      I have Just pulled out Excel and ran some lagged correlations between ENSO (NOAA) and the different temperature data sets.

      The maximum correlation at 5 months delay is about 0.39 for UAH TTP, 0.32 for UAH TMT and 0.19 for UAH TLT. The correlation drops as the characteristic height drops. These are all R2 correlations.

      In contrast RSS TLT has a lagged correlation of only 0.13 after 5 months. The lagged correlation for a surface measure such as NCEP/CFS have an even smaller maximum ( 4 months) of 0.07.

      All this points to UAH and RSS measuring slightly different things. One correlates better to the surface temperature while the other is more tuned to higher in the troposphere ( and may include more of a stratospheric component).

      Note that I obtained very similar results for lagged correlations using MEI instead of the NOAA ENSO.

      The other take home point of this exercise is how much more El Nino and La Nina affect UAH in comparison to RSS and all the surface temperature data sets.

      I think this is why UAH is much favored by those who like to cherry pick. You have much larger swings that allows better opportunities to cherry pick a trend by selecting sub sets of the data. RSS and the surface data are much less useful in this regard.

      • MikeR says:

        The relevant Excel chart showing the lagged correlations for the data sets described in the comment above is here – https://postimg.cc/0MXs1qNC .

      • MikeR says:

        This may or not be of interest to E.Swanson, bdgwx, The Final Nail and even possibly Roy himself. I myself find it interesting. The following chart is of lagged correlations of UAH TLT for different zones showing how long it takes the ENSO signal to propagate away from the equator to the poles.

        https://postimg.cc/zbPvCFvD

        You can see that, not unexpectedly, that the Tropics has the greatest ENSO signal (R= 0.72) after 3 months. This is followed by the Global tTemperatures (R = 0.44) at 5 months delay. The Northern temperate zone (NoExt) shows the next highest correlation ( R = 0.21) after 9 months while the north polar region (NoPo) has the lowest correlation (R about 0.1) for a stretch going from 5 to 14 months delay.

        The other interesting thing to note is that, displaying the chart using R instead of R squared correlations, you can see that the correlation goes negative after 15 months for the tropics and globally. I guess this is a function of the quasi-periodic nature of ENSO (perhaps 40 months?).

        • bdgwx says:

          That is interesting. I track Arctic sea ice (which by the way is in record territory again as I type) so seeing these lags between ENSO and NoPol response helps provide some context in trying to do seasonal sea ice forecasting.

          Something you might be equipped to easily…I’d be interested in seeing sunspot activity used as an input instead of an ENSO index. Using your exact same technique can you tease out the lags for the solar cycles?

          • MikeR says:

            Hi bdgwx ,

            The following show the lagged correlations for HAD4 surface data with sunspot numbers, for the period 1850-2018

            https://postimg.cc/ThBkynRT

            while for the period 1950 – 2018 is shown here.

            https://postimg.cc/LJpNDRY7

            The take home message is that their very little evidence of a relationship between sun spot number and surface temperatures . The peaks are very small with a maximum of r<0.2 (i.e. R2 <0.04).

            What is most illuminating is the lagged correlation for the period 1950 -2018 ,the majority of the increase in surface temperature has taken place. The correlation is even tinier and predominantly negative for 30 years. Thus suggests that the decrease in sunspot numbers will cause an increase temperatures and vice-versa. However the correlations are so small that I wouldn’t bet my house on it. What I would bet is that effect of sunspot numbers on surface temperatures in insignificant.

            The very small peaks in the lag correlations could be due to an interaction between the sunspot cycle and long term variation due to factors such as the PDO.

            I have had a look at the periodicity in HAD4 and there is a small signal of a period of about 60 years. What is interesting is that the temperatures since 200o now have risen well above the 60 year cycle.

            The power spectrum (at the top) and low pass filtered HAD4 data plus the raw data using a 56 year period (bottom left) as the cutoff is shown here

            https://postimg.cc/mtNrcNQ9

            It looks like any possible decrease in sunspot numbers is not going to save us. Neither is a downturn in the PDO despite all such assertions by the range of people who post comments here.

            p.s. I notice on my windows 7 machine the postimg graphs are not rendered well. If this is happening then the solution seemed to be to download the jpeg files onto a local disk. My Windows 10 laptop does not seem to have this problem.

          • MikeR says:

            Hi bdgwx,

            Just wanted to also thank you, Tom, E.Swanson and all the others (too numerous to mention) for joining the battle against the twin trolls and associated hangers on. I gave up trying to reason with this mob and follow them down their rabbit holes a long, long time ago and have resorted to other means to deal with them (probably unsuccessful, but it was worth a try).

            I think if SETI is going to be successful, then finding intelligent life amongst these bizarre characters would be a good testbed.

          • bdgwx says:

            MikeR, again…very interesting. Yeah, it doesn’t appear like there is much correlation.

        • TheFinalNail says:

          MikeR,

          Thanks for the response and chart. Very interesting indeed.

    • MikeR says:

      There is an interesting new paper about an independent satellite based estimation of surface temperatures using the
      Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder (AIRS) .

      https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aafd4e

      This data set tends to confirm surface temperature measurements over the past 15 years. If anything, this data set shows a higher trend 0.24 degrees per decade than any of the surface measurements. The authors attribute this to better Arctic coverage for the satellite AIRS.

      It looks like UAH is becoming even more of an outlier.

      • Craig T says:

        It seems to me that comparing lower troposphere temperature anomalies to surface anomalies is apples to oranges. I haven’t found an article on the subject. Clearly a strong El Nino creates a bigger temperature spike in the troposphere. Are there any sources of TLT data besides UAH and RSS?

        This does make it less likely that temperature rises can fairly be blamed on heat islands. Both ground stations and satellites have their good and bad points but satellites sample a broader area.

        I just checked the authors of your link and expect the Schmidt to hit the fan in the comments.

        • MikeR says:

          Yes, with regards to Gavin Schmidt, the denialarati will be foaming at the mouth.

          Historically, one of the major misuses of the UAH dataset has been to claim that the surface data is all wrong, manipulated etc.. It seems that the surface component of the UAH is not that large so these attempts are just the usual b.s..

          The only other set of data that I know of and that is relevant to TLT is the radiosonde data. I gather there are issues with this data with respect to coverage and data homogeneity (sampling and instrumental changes over time) so often this is data is not immediately relatable to the satellite data.

  48. Norman says:

    JDHuffman

    I will attempt (in vain) to offer you a chance to reconsider your current understanding of radiative heat transfer.

    Above YOU claimed: “WRONG again, Norman.

    The bogus equation is NOT “used in all radiative heat transfer engineering”. You are delusional. Again, you state an unsupported and unsupportable opinion on matters you are ignorant of.”

    Here look at some problems on heat transfer. (You will probably not take a look but say something like I don’t understand the link). Regardless if you reply with some such nonsense you will see the equation is used most often and is NOT a “bogus” equation. You are a science denier. I will give you facts. But someone like you in a deep state of denial will not be able to process what is very clear to anyone else.

    https://www.academia.edu/7144724/Chapter_12_Radiation_Heat_Transfer_Chapter_12_RADIATION_HEAT_TRANSFER_View_Factors

    Every problem I looked at (numerous not all) uses some variation of the general equation you call “bogus” (without any reason).
    The equation is more complex since it deals with view factors and emissivities but the skeleton equation is used in all the problems on radiative heat transfer. Again you show you are clueless and don’t know what you are talking about.

    • JDHuffman says:

      Norman, you keep missing the point, as usual. That equation is bogus, and will yield inaccurate results in most cases, as demonstrated with the 3 plates.

      The equation is based on conditions that do not exist in the real world.

    • Norman says:

      JDHuffman

      No the equation is not “bogus”. It is well established and a heated blue plate would certainly get warmer if you put the green plates away from it as described. If you did an actual experiment (you won’t) you would find that you are totally wrong. You would find that if you had three identical plates with the middle one heated, and performed in a vacuum to eliminate other heat transfer mechanisms, the temperature of the middle one will increase once you move the outside plates a little away from the blue plate.

      You are just wrong about this and you will not accept the reality that you do not understand the 1st or 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

      If you did an actual experiment it would show you are wrong. Since you will not (and will not accept anyone else’s experiments no matter how many they do) do any actual experiments you will continue to waste everyone’s time with you made up opinions based upon nothing but your incorrect thinking process.

      Nothing new.

      Anyway, my point is proven. Engineering equations on radiative heat transfer use the equation extensively. You are not even capable of seeing you are completely wrong about that.

      • JDHuffman says:

        Norman, you keep telling us how well you understand physics, but you keep getting it all wrong.

        If you understood physics, you would instantly see the flaw in the 3 plates. Starting with all 3 at 244K, and then slightly separating them could not cause the middle plate to increase to 290K, as your bogus equation indicates. That would be increasing enthalpy, while decreasing entropy, all with no change in energy in/out. Your bogus equation succeeds in violating both 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics!

        Now, tell us some more how well you understand physics….

      • Mike Flynn says:

        N,

        I presume your waffling has something to do with your imaginary and indescribable GHE. If I am wrong, you might care to let myself and others what the heck you are trying to say.

        If you believe you can describe the GHE, now might be the time to do it. Otherwise, it is possible that some might think you are a raving nutter of the pseudoscientific variety.

        Or you could start raving about physics and textbooks – fairly pointless, if you don’t actually have a point, wouldn’t you agree?

        What is your point?

        Cheers.

    • Norman says:

      JDHuffman

      If you actually did science and some testing you would see that the heated blue plate would increase in temperature! In the real world it would not reach the hypothetical blackbody temperatures achieved with the given power input, but there would be the similar temperature change (just not identical).

      So as long as you will not do an experiment you are a science denier. You are opposing established physics that is used in real world engineering (I gave you a link to several problems that use a variation of the equation you call “bogus”)

      I can’t help you. No one can. You are in total denial and will also refuse to correct your errors with experiment. You could even do it in air (a reasonable insulator that would still show the effects if you reduce convection). You won’t even do that but you will continue to pretend you know physics and tell everyone else they are wrong. With all the textbook information you have been linked to, it could be possible for you to accept you are the wrong one and not everyone else.

        • Norman says:

          JDHuffman

          It violates neither law. Do the experiment and you will see.

          E. Swanson has already done the experiment. Moving the green plate up near the blue plate caused the blue plate temperature to increase. You waffle that it is “bogus” because he did not include fluxes for you. Well that was not the point of the experiment at all. The point was to demonstrate that moving a green plate (heated only by the blue plate) would increase the temperature of the blue plate. It did. You are wrong and so is your understanding of both Laws of thermodynamics.

          Your objection should also hold for any insulation (which is colder than the heated object). How does putting a colder blanket on a heated body cause its temperature to increase.

          Again you can give your opinions 10,000 times. It still is not a bit of proof or evidence. We have a test proving you are wrong. You have not one experiment or evidence even remotely proving your opinions are correct. They are not. If you did an experiment it would prove to you that you need to rethink your understanding of the laws of physics.

          You will not do an experiment. You will continue to present your unsupported opinions as if they were facts. Nothing new it is what you do. You are a science denier. You have the evidence proving you wrong yet you will not accept it.

          https://app.box.com/s/5wxidf87li5bo588q2xhcfxhtfy52oba

          The temperature graph proves you wrong. You would get similar results it you did your own tests.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Wrong again, Norman.

            Swanson set out to prove the incorrect solution to the 2-plates. He failed, and changed it to just raising the temperature of the plates. He proved that insulation works! His “experiment” proved NOTHING about the 2-plates, you just BELIEVE it did.

            That’s why he won’t produce the information I asked for. It would show he didn’t “prove” anything.

            I explained why the bogus equation produces invalid results, with the 3-plates example. I explained that you can’t increase enthalpy and decrease entropy with no change in energy in/out. But, you can’t understand thermodynamics.

            Nothing new.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            You are wrong again. You say you are not changing the In/Out energy.

            You are changing the In/Out energy to the heated blue plate when you move the two green plates away. The In energy to the blue plate is the same. The out energy has changed. The blue plate does not lose as much energy via radiation as it did via conduction.

            The equation is not at all bogus. It is completely valid and its use is quite valid in determining the correct temperature of the hypothetical blackbody plates in vacuum conditions.

            E. Swanson did not fail at all. His blue plate got hotter (with no new energy source than previous). The energy from the green plate reached the blue plate and this energy plus the energy from the light source forced the blue plate to reach a higher temperature to emit energy at the same rate it is receiving it from the light and the green plate. No it does not matter to the blue plate that the light is visible and the green plate is IR. When the surface absorbs both types of energy it becomes random internal energy and the temperature goes up until the new steady state temperature is reached. Review the experiment and quit trying to make it about something else. The blue plate temperature goes up. The only change is moving the green plate up. Give it up already. You are just wrong and deny science. A science denier is one who will reject empirical evidence when presented.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, I notice when you get frustrated, your comments get even longer. And your “physics” gets even funnier!

            Here you are trying to claim the energy changes when the plates are separated. “The blue plate does not lose as much energy via radiation as it did via conduction.”

            FALSE. That’s just more of your made-up “physics”. The energy flow is the same before and after separation.

            You cannot understand the many hints I gave you that debunk the bogus equation, and the “plates” incorrect solution, and Swanson’s “experiment”. You cannot understand the thermodynamics involved. You cannot understand enthalpy and entropy.

            Let me make it easier for you.

            Just using basic arithmetic, consider the energy in/out of the blue plate, at the bogus 290K.

            Energy in = 400 Watts
            Energy out = 400 Watts each face = 800 Watts total

            In your bogus physics, the blue plate is “creating” 400 Watts!

            See how funny you clowns are?

          • Norman & Lori Grinvalds says:

            JDHuffman

            No the blue plate is not creating 400 watts. It has an continuous input of 400 watts. It is always gaining energy. The temperature it will reach is the temperature necessary to get rid of the 400 watts. It really is that simple and is quite well established thermodynamics.

            It is not creating this energy, it is just not able to get rid of the same amount of energy with the green plates surrounding it since they are returning some of the energy.

            You have had it explained to you but fail to understand. The big question is why do I waste my time thinking a rational thought will ever form in your mind and you will go “Yes I see now, I was wrong”.

            In your deluded thought process you think the blue plate is creating some energy. If you surrounded the blue plate with a highly polished material that reflected nearly all the energy from the blue plate the blue plate would really get hot, it might even melt.

            Why not do the experiment with a thermos. Put a heater in a thermos and see how hot it will get when the energy you are adding is not lost. When the liquid gets really hot maybe you will conclude the liquid is creating energy because the liquid in a thermos will reach a much higher temperature with the same input than if you put an identical heater in a glass of water that is not radiatively insulated.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, you really are frustrated now. You’ve even got your wife to help you. Ask her to help you subtract 400 from 800. If she gets more than zero, then the system is creating its own energy.

            More long rambling, frustrated, vacant comments, please.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            I think you forgot your original situation. The blue plate has a continuous supply of energy. It is not creating energy, it is supplied with new energy continuously.

            I am not sure what your points are, the logic behind them, the reason you are making them. Talk about rambling. Maybe you should consider your own posts. They are senseless. What are you trying to say?

            If you continuously add energy to the blue plate, its internal energy can increase and will increase until it reaches a temperature that allows it to lose the same amount of energy it gaining. With two green plates on each side, it has to reach a temperature so that it will emit 400 watts from each side so the whole system is losing 400 watts. For some reason it is impossible for you to conceive of the correct and easy answer that explains it quite well.

            The green plates emit radiant energy back to the blue plate so some of the 400 joules it had emitted is now returning to be absorbed. It has the 400 watts from the continuous source plus the 400 watts from each green plate. Simple, accurate, logical and proven by experimental evidence.

            Once again I ask you, why don’t you do your own experiment? What is stopping you from doing one? Are you so poor or broke you can’t set up some simple experiment? Are you spending all your time posting on this blog and have zero time to do some science? I don’t know what excuse you use, but if you did a real experiment with three plates, if you had a heater for the middle plate and you moved the two outer plates away, the inner plate would warm up. If you did an actual test instead of endless opinions, you would find this to be the case.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, you make up some funny “physics”.

            If you could think for yourself, you would know that is all nonsense. Just the simple act of putting the plates back together ruins your fairy tale.

            But, everyone loves a clown.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            YOU: “If you could think for yourself, you would know that is all nonsense. Just the simple act of putting the plates back together ruins your fairy tale.”

            You will never know since you will never attempt to perform an experiment. It is good circular reasoning on your part.

            You will continue giving your incorrect opinions thinking they are right, you will not do any experiments that will clearly show they are wrong so you can continue to make your unfounded claims. It works for you.

            If you did the actual test you would find the heated blue plate increases in temperature when you move the green plates far enough away to stop conduction. You would find the blue plate cools back down when you move the green plates in contact and restore conduction. You could do this test many times and you would find the same result. You will never know the truth since you will never do any real science like E. Swanson did.

            Nothing new.

          • JDHhuffman says:

            Norman, rather than rambling randomly, see if you can answer the question, correctly.

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2019/04/uah-global-temperature-update-for-march-2019-0-34-deg-c/#comment-348415

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            You are diverting. Requesting an answer to your question about entropy and enthalpy.

            The question is a diversion from you doing actual testing. You will continue running in a circular argument forever it seems.

            You will not do an experiment that could prove the correct answer. E. Swanson has done such and proven you quite wrong. You do not accept his test so you keep running in your circle.

            Do your own test and quit diverting to other issues! You act like an answer to your question means something. It does not! No matter what answer anyone gives you it will not change the reality that the blue plate will heat up once you break conduction. It will do so because of the radiant IR emitted by the green plates that the blue plate is able to absorb.

            Enjoy running in your circles. You might convince yourself you are right. You won’t convince anyone else.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, your beloved “experiment” only proves you can heat an object by adding heat. It doesn’t prove the incorrect solution to the plates, because that solution is pseudoscience. That’s why you can’t answer the question: “How does the enthapy increase and the entropy decrease, with no change in energy in/out?”

            But physics never was your strong suit….

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Nate, please stop trolling.

  49. Mike Flynn says:

    bdgwx wrote –

    “JD, Consider a perfect BB at 288K. You direct a stream of 14.7 um photons at it. What happens to both the BB and the photons?”

    What a stupid attempt at a gotcha! Typical of half-smart pseudoscientific wannabes.

    Consider that the BB is infinite in extent, infinitely larger than the universe. It will obviously cool to a temperature indistinguishable from 0 K. I’m not surprised you couldn’t figure this out for yourself.

    At this point, you will no doubt reveal all the additional gotchas you had hidden away – maybe your black body is supposedly fitted with a previously undisclosed infinite heat source, or some other such nonsense. This cunning problem redefinition will still not make you wise and knowledgeable, rather than stupid and ignorant.

    You need to return to your gotcha school and demand a refund. Obviously, you are not well suited for this occupation.

    I’m here to help.

    Cheers.

  50. Mike Flynn says:

    bobdroege wrote –

    “CO2 emits radiation of 14.7 u no matter what the temperature.”

    Well, no, temperature does matter. For example, at 0 K, CO2 emits nothing. bobdroege will no doubt say he didn’t really mean “no matter what the temperature”, but really meant something else. This is normal for pseudoscientists when somebody points out they have said something either misleading, stupid, or just plain silly.

    What bobdroege does not say (because he is stupid and ignorant) is how and why CO2 can be heated by compression, say. Some particularly dimwitted pseudoscientific types have convinced themselves that CO2 can only absorb and emit energy of certain specified levels. They cannot accept that CO2 heated to 10 K will emit a different radiation spectrum than CO2 at say 310 K (around human body temperature), or at say 800 K (after compression in an internal combustion engine).

    An obvious problem is that if CO2 can only emit the same energy photons it accepts, then it would be impossible to ascribe any effect to the action of these photons, as the CO2 would emit precisely any energy it absorbed. Any change to the CO2 requires energy, and if all absorbed energy is emitted, than obviously precisely none is available to have any effect on the CO2.

    What a load of cobblers! Just bunch of bumbling knuckle-draggers attempting to appear intelligent. The sorts of people who would believe that Gavin Schmidt is a climate scientist, or Michael Mann received a Nobel Prize, or that CO2 does not interact with light following the same QED principles as other matter.

    Carry on, chaps. Blather on about molecules colliding with each other, and keep spouting the nonsense you read in Wikipedia. Ask yourself why all gases can be raised to the same temperature, separately, by compression, even though some fool claims they all only absorb and emit photons of very specific energy levels. Or not, as you wish. It doesn’t matter what you think, Nature ignores you (and me, if it comes to that).

    Cheers.

    • bobdroege says:

      Flynn,

      For one, you can’t get to 0 K, so that statement

      “For example, at 0 K, CO2 emits nothing.”

      means absolutely nothing.

      For you guys, again CO2 is not a blackbody, so the CO2 spectrum is dominated by the emissions at 2.7, 4.3 and 14.7 um.

      • Mike Flynn says:

        B,

        You wrote –

        “CO2 emits radiation of 14.7 u no matter what the temperature.”

        When I pointed out you were wrong, you said “For one, you cant get to 0 K,. . . ” Who cares? How about 0.00001 K? Pseudoscientific cultists rattle on at length about all sorts of non-existent things – black bodies and so on.

        You went on to write – “For you guys, again CO2 is not a blackbody, so the CO2 spectrum is dominated by the emissions at 2.7, 4.3 and 14.7 um.”

        More sciencey and misleading nonsense. Who said CO2 is a blackbody? Nobody? That would be about right. Your assertion about CO2 emissions is just nonsensical. If you feel like it, explain why a thermometer can assess what sort of gas surrounds it, before telling you what temperature it should show? Will filling a room with CO2 change the temperature?

        Maybe you should try defining the GHE before you start blathering irrelevant nonsense. Or just keep right on – makes no difference to me. Facts are facts, and you don’t appear to have any.

        I suppose you might even claim that the radiation from frozen CO2 (dry ice) will be absorbed by CO2 at 20 C, and the CO2 at 20 C will get even hotter! How stupid would that be – heating CO2 gas using dry ice!

        Tell me you are not that stupid if you like.

        Cheers.

        • bobdroege says:

          When was this

          “When I pointed out you were wrong”

          You don’t have a clue.

          About the behavior of CO2.

          • Mike Flynn says:

            b,

            If your lamentable standards of English comprehension and expression are not due to stupidity and ignorance, but rather to some specific mental impairment, let me know.

            It is still not my problem, but you might be able to play the disability card and impress others. Don’t blame me if nobody cares.

            Cheers

          • bobdroege says:

            Well I am not stooping to insults, so have a nice day, since an intelligent conversation on the greenhouse effect is not possible with you.

          • Mike says:

            b,

            I am pleased you realise that stooping to insults is pointless. You provide no reason at all for me to feel insulted or offended.

            There is no point at all discussing something you cannot even describe, is there?

            Cheers.

          • bobdroege says:

            CO2 emits radiation that heats the surface of the earth.

            I’ve said similar before and you haven’t refuted it or even showed you understand what I have written.

            Jeers

          • JDHuffman says:

            No bob, you BELIEVE a 14.7 μ photon can heat the surface. But first you have to somehow get such a low energy photon absorbed. Then, you have to ask how such little energy could ever warm anything above -100F.

            You’re a long ways from reality, and aren’t even on the right road.

          • bdgwx says:

            JD, if a material can spontaneously emit a 14.7 um photon then it can absorb it to.

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            YOU: “Then, you have to ask how such little energy could ever warm anything above -100F.”

            Yes one photon of energy would have a really difficult time of warming anything even to -100F. Even the most powerful gamma ray photons would not do much warming if you only have one of them.

            Consider you can have an unlimited amount of these photons. You can warm things to whatever temperature just using the 14.7 micron photons if you have enough of them reaching a surface that absorbs them.

            Sometimes I think you try to make points but in this case I think you are making no valid point and maybe should reconsider your posting. Think a little.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman contributes more confusion: “You can warm things to whatever temperature just using the 14.7 micron photons if you have enough of them reaching a surface that absorbs them.”

            Norman, “if” and “absorbs” are key words. You can probably understand that if a photon is reflected from a surface (not absorbed), it can not warm the surface.

            But, your preceding wording is more complicated for you–“You can warm things to whatever temperature…”

            That is completely incorrect, and again, demonstrates your lack of understanding of the relevant physics. Just because you have a whole bunch of 14.7 μ photons does not mean you can warm to “whatever tempeature”. You don’t understand quantum physics, but a simple analogy is ice. Ice emits photons at spectrum peak of about 10.7 μ. But it does not matter how much ice you bring in you can not raise the temperature above 273K.

            Study up on the relevant physics, and get back to me in about 6-8 years, when you know something beyond what you got from wiki.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Bob says: “CO2 emits radiation that heats the surface of the earth.”
            CO2 emits radiation that provides some energy to the surface.
            CO2, in conjunction with sunlight, helps warm the the surface to a higher temperature than the sunlight could alone.

            But CO2 does not heat the surface in the thermodynamic sense. CO2 can help limit the heat leaving FROM the surface, but CO2 does not provide heat TO the surface.

            JD says: “first you have to somehow get such a low energy photon absorbed.”
            Not a problem. The surface of the earth absorbs 15 um IR quite well. This is an experimentally confirmed fact. For example, water has an emissivty of about 0.99. Sand has an emissivity of about 0.95.

            JD also says: “Just because you have a whole bunch of 14.7 μ photons does not mean you can warm to whatever tempeature.”
            Well … a CO2 laser uses ~ 10 um photons to melt metal, so a “whole bunch of 10 um photons” can warm to 1000’s of degrees. If you made a laser @ 15 um, it could do the same.

            Granted, lasers are quite different from thermal IR from the sky, but a “whole bunch” of 15 um photons could indeed in principle warm things to very high temperatures.

          • Ball4 says:

            “CO2, in conjunction with sunlight, helps warm the the surface”
            “CO2 does not heat the surface in the thermodynamic sense”

            Warm the surface means an increase in temperature of the surface. Heat the surface means an increase in temperature of the surface.

            CO2 can per Tim increase the temperature of the surface and NOT increase the temperature of the surface in the space of a sentence.

            This illustrates the major confusion using the term heat. Tim could eliminate that confusion easily, the solution is obvious.

            Hint: Yes, CO2 emits radiation that provides some energy to the surface.

          • JDHuffman says:

            It’s hard to tell if Tim is dishonest or incompetent, or both.

            But implying that a 14.7 μ photon will be absorbed based on a value of emissivity, and and also trying to claim lasers are relevant, definitely shows his desperation.

            Nothing new.

          • bobdroege says:

            The molecule that emits the 14.7 um photon is a singular object and as such has no temperature.

            So the cold can’t heat hot is a red herring.

          • Craig T says:

            JD, you never like lasers.

            Every 10µm photon carries the same amount of energy: 0.1240 eV. It doesn’t matter if they travel together in a coherent beam. There is strength in numbers so the bottom line is the total watts carried by all of the photons.

            CO2 lasers are commonly used for tissue ablation because they can only penetrate around 20µm into the skin. This is because water in the tissue is highly absorbent of wavelength.

            Light at 14.7µm has around 3 times the absorρtion coefficient and cannot penetrate water deeper than 10µm. The light is not reflected nor is it transmitted. Light in that spectra is taken in by vibrations within the water molecule so it becomes kinetic energy raising the temperature of the water.

          • Craig T says:

            “The molecule that emits the 14.7 um photon is a singular object and as such has no temperature.”

            All photons are emitted by atoms or molecules. They are all singular objects. Are you suggesting that temperature does not exist?

          • JDHuffman says:

            bob, temperature is basically a measure of the average kinetic energy of a mass. So since a single molecule has mass, it would have some kinetic energy, or vibration. Which means it would have a temperature, even if we don’t have the technology to measure it.

            Craig, I like lasers just fine. I don’t like clowns trying to imply that the sky is a laser.

            A breeze might blow a bird feather against the door to your house. But, there would be no effect. If you shot a ton of feathers, from a high-powered cannon, your door would be demolished. Neither lasers nor high-powered cannons exist in the atmosphere.

            Water vapor can absorb a 14.7 μ photon, but liquid water does not easily absorb FIR. Since 14.7 is on the ragged edge of FIR, trying to claim 14.7 μ photons can warm the ocean is like claiming the single bird feather is going to knock down your door.

          • Craig T says:

            The sky is not a laser, but like a laser atmospheric CO2 is not giving off radiation at 14.7µm because its temperature is -76C.

            Lasers work by stimulating atoms with electric current. The atoms jump to a more excited state then emit photons when atoms drop to a lower energy state. The power of a laser depends on the watts pumped into the atoms as electricity not the temperature of the atoms.

            CO2 in the air is always giving off thermal radiation but the issue is what happens when the molecules are hit by upward longwave radiation. For some of those wavelengths the molecules absorb then emit the same wavelength when they drop to a lower energy state.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig begins with a true statement: “The sky is not a laser…”

            But he quickly devolves into pseudoscience: “…but like a laser atmospheric CO2…”

            Tricky.

          • bobdroege says:

            Temperature is average kinetic energy plus the energy associated with electronic, vibrational, and bending modes.

            With one molecule you can’t have an average.

            This I got from a PhD in physics.

          • Craig T says:

            “Water vapor can absorb a 14.7 µ photon, but liquid water does not easily absorb FIR.”

            You have that backwards. Water vapor has a valley in its absorρtion spectrum between 6 µm and 50 µm. Water readily absorbs at that range because of the L1 and L2 librations between molecules. As a gas, water vapor lacks any bonds between molecules causing the inability to absorb that range.

            Explain what made you think that water vapor could absorb a 14.7 &microm photon? You always claim that objects can’t absorb a photon whose blackbody temperature is below the temperature of the object. I’m sure that under some conditions the temperature of liquid water can be lower than water vapor, but usually it is not.

            But a look at the absorρtion spectrum shows you are wrong. Between 1 µm and 10 µm (2897K to 289K) absorρtion increases with the exception of a sharp peak at 3 µm. After 10 µm absorρtion basically plateaus at least to 100 µm (29 K or -244 C.)

            The experimental evidence of water’s absorρtion spectrum alone proves you are wrong to claim the second law prevents anything absorbing photons with a lower color temperature than that object.

            Note: I wanted to link to a graphic showing water absorbing all the way to 100 µm but the link had the dreaded *absorρtion* word in it. I have to settle for experimental data going to 20 µm (-128 C.)
            https://omlc.org/spectra/water/data/wieliczka89.txt

          • Craig T says:

            Craig begins with a true statement: “The sky is not a laser…”

            But he quickly devolves into pseudoscience: “…but like a laser atmospheric CO2…”

            Tricky.

            I said “The sky is not a laser, but like a laser atmospheric CO2 is not giving off radiation at 14.7µm because its temperature is -76C.” Would you have preferred “… but like a laser, atmospheric CO2 …”?

            Most atmospheric CO2 is in the troposphere. Even at the top of the troposphere it is almost always warmer than -76 C. Instead CO2 absorbs upwelling IR and then emits it. Claiming otherwise is pseudoscience.

            Spectral absorρtion data never shows a sudden drop off at the current temperature of the substance. Claiming otherwise is pseudoscience. Your denial of that fact shows that no amount of data will ever change your unscientific beliefs.

            I really work hard to resist being snarky on here. I’m not trying to rub your nose in how wrong you are. I just want to point out the fact.

          • Tim Folkerts says:

            Ball4 says: “Heat the surface means an increase in temperature of the surface.”

            * Some might say that “to heat” means “to warm” (ie increase the temperature of a body).
            * Others might say that “to heat” means “to transfer net thermal energy to something via conduction, convection, or radiation.” (ie to add to the internal energy of a body).

            That is why definitions are so important in discussions like this. If one person assumes one definition and someone else assumes another definition, communications will fail.

            In the formal language of thermodynamics, the latter definition is what scientists mean by “to heat”. Warmer objects can “heat” cooelr objects; cooler objects can never “heat” warmer objects by this definition. That is the definition I always will use.

            Re-read my comments in that light, and hopefully you will no longer think i am contradicting myself.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, you obviously are confused with absorp.tion, absorp.tion spectrum, absorp.tion coefficient, etc. And, you are obviously obsessed with “proving” me wrong. So obsessed, that you are willing to make up stuff:

            Craig