Yes, Dr Hansen says our oceans will boil

The man is dangerous

This loony scientist-turned-climate-activist is reckless with science and his unfounded claims of peril are a threat to public order. Even his followers cannot believe he really said the oceans will boil, but here is the evidence. Should you not believe my biased sceptical transcript, just read his lips.

James Hansen: The Runaway Greenhouse Effect   (video posted Jan 10, 2012)

At 1:55 (the link goes straight there) Hansen poses the question:

Dr James Hansen

What is the runaway greenhouse effect?

Which he answers concisely and unambiguously:

That means once the planet gets warmer and warmer then the oceans begin to evaporate, and water vapour is a very strong greenhouse gas, even more powerful than carbon dioxide, so you can get to a situation where it just… the oceans will begin to boil and the planet becomes so hot that the ocean ends up in the atmosphere and that happened to Venus. That’s why Venus no longer has carbon in its surface. It’s atmosphere is made up of… basically of carbon dioxide because it had a runaway greenhouse effect.

Up to this point, you might reasonably claim (as his believers will, because they don’t want to think that he’s loony) that Hansen is merely exaggerating the possibility of runaway heating, for drama, without intending that anyone should think it could actually happen. Well, don’t believe it, because he now says that the Earth WILL BE DESTROYED by runaway warming caused by our carbon dioxide emissions if we do nothing to stop it. He spells it out:

Now the Earth, it can go unstable either toward a cool climate or toward a hot climate and the Earth has had a runaway snowball earth situation. This happened most recently about 700 million years ago. The Earth froze all the way to the equator, so the runaway situations can occur. We’ve never had a runaway greenhouse effect, because if we did, that would have been the end. Once… that’s a permanent situation. In the case of a snowball earth, when the Earth becomes ice-covered, then the planet can escape from that situation because volcanoes continue to go off, but the weathering process is greatly reduced. So volcanoes put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and it builds up more and more until there’s enough to melt the ice. But we can’t push the planet off of the runaway greenhouse end of it, that’s… that’s the end for everybody if we do that.

So the end of the world is the first loony part of his climate “science”. But there’s a second loony thing: it could happen within a century. He maintains that the planet’s ice sheets could melt that quickly just from our emissions of greenhouse gases. So the Antarctic ice cap (2000 to 4000 metres thick) and the Greenland ice cap (3000 metres thick) could both be gone within a century—but not according to any scientific study. Estimates I’ve seen are far more conservative and range from about two thousand to ten thousand years and even longer. The amount of warming we might be causing is very small and in fact there’s no proof that we cause any detectable warming at all.

This is the man who admitted it’s impossible to determine the average surface temperature of the earth. He must have forgotten.

Don’t let this idiot near any important committee or panel. Like, say, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change or the US House of Representatives. Oh, too late.

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75 Thoughts on “Yes, Dr Hansen says our oceans will boil

  1. Mike Jowsey on 27/07/2015 at 5:06 pm said:

    … and will we see a retraction from Simon?

  2. Mike Jowsey on 27/07/2015 at 5:16 pm said:

    Oh, and this just in… http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/26/dr-james-hansens-recent-alarm-of-catastrophic-co2-driven-sea-level-rise-looks-to-just-be-spurious-correlation-in-his-own-mind/

    Hansen is lead author.

    Ice melt, sea level rise and superstorms: evidence from paleoclimate data, climate modeling, and modern observations that 2 ◦C global warming is highly dangerous

    I think Morano sums up the strategy very well:

    Simply put, when current reality fails to alarm, make scarier and scarier predictions of the distant future.

  3. Andy on 27/07/2015 at 6:10 pm said:

    At some point in the past, all the carbon that is currently sequestered as hydrocarbon deposits was, presumably, in the atmosphere

    So why didn’t this happen before?

  4. Richard Treadgold on 27/07/2015 at 7:19 pm said:

    “So why didn’t this happen before?”

    Perhaps there wasn’t time. There was only the latter half of the Devonian before the Carboniferous was suddenly on us, sucking up all the available CO2 molecules for ferns and dinosaurs which later became our bountiful supplies of coal and chalk. The Geocraft Scotese/Berner chart is a common reference, at http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/Carboniferous_climate.html — scroll down to Global Temperature and Atmospheric CO2 over Geologic Time.

    Not sure about the dinos, but it meant only about 200 million years of CO2 levels above 2000 ppmv, during which time temperature plunged briefly from 25°C to today’s levels of 12°C or so (hard to overcome that). Of course, after the Carboniferous and the Permian had emptied the atmosphere of CO2, levels zoomed again to 2000 ppmv, even 2500 ppmv. Since the Cretaceous it’s been a steady slide to bottom out again at 400 ppmv.

    Anyway, a simple alternative answer is that atmospheric CO2 does not regulate global surface temperature.

  5. chris y on 28/07/2015 at 1:25 am said:

    Well now, if the oceans did boil off into the atmosphere, then sea level rise becomes even worse than we thought as well. We could redefine sea surface as the top of the lower troposphere, or maybe the tropopause?

    The alarmism writes itself!

    Or maybe if defined at the liquid-gas boundary, it is actually catastrophic sea level *drop*.

    Not sure why cloud formation ceases or rainfall stops. Does Hansen make the moist adiabatic lapse rate suddenly disappear?

  6. Andy on 28/07/2015 at 8:13 am said:

    The geological record would suggest that CO2 doesn’t regulate temperature to any significance. I can’t see any correlation and only con men like Al Gore use graphs that have temps lagging CO2 from Vostok which do show good correlation but the other way round.

  7. Simon on 28/07/2015 at 8:55 am said:

    Nothing James Hansen says is factually incorrect. It is the carbon cycle that stops a runaway greenhouse effect from occurring on this planet. James Lovelock uses it as an example of his Gaia hypothesis, life creates conditions suitable for life.

  8. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2015 at 9:18 am said:

    Simon.

    >”Nothing James Hansen says is factually incorrect”

    Well then, you will be able to take us through the physical processes by which this happens:

    “it [carbon dioxide] builds up more and more until there’s enough to melt the ice”

    I expect your explanation will be in terms of heating effect of some sort i.e. radiative heating, sensible heat etc. Also where the energy has come from (the source), why is doesn’t dissipate etc. And in conventional thermodynamic terminology and definitions.

    Remember, the heat is enough to boil water (100 C), not just to melt ice (0 C).

  9. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2015 at 11:48 am said:

    Mike,

    My most recent reply re CO2 “forcing” went to page 2 in comments so you might miss it. Here’s the link:

    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2015/07/reminder-your-stubborn-sceptical-mind-will-be-dissected-this-week/comment-page-2/#comment-1352081

    Still pertinent to this thread so worth copying here too:

    >”Therefore any posited forcing of CO2 in between [Sfc and TOA] is invalid.” YES. You have it here. The posited “forcing” is there but it is ineffectual.

    When I say the forcing is “there” I mean in 2 ways, both of which are theoretical even though the second may lead one to think it is actually effective because there are observations involved:

    1) The theoretical CO2 forcing can be estimated for any period using the IPCC’s simplified expression,

    dF = 5.35 ln (C/Co). Where Co is initial year CO2 level in ppm and C is final year CO2 level in ppm.

    This expression is at odds with other CO2 forcing expressions used for example in furnace design which are validated expressions. Here is the IPCC’s expression graphed against the Leckner expression for 278 K (typical of lower mid troposphere temperature):

    https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/eggert-co2.png

    The Leckner curve reaches maximum forcing around 200ppm and that’s it – no more. The IPCC curve continues with increased forcing.

    Nevertheless, this is one method of determining the IPCC’s theoretical CO2 forcing in the atmosphere from historical CO2 levels and developing future scenarios, however erroneous those might be.

    2) The theoretical CO2 forcing can also be measured by going out to any location and pointing appropriate instruments at the sky to spectroscopically identify the CO2 signal from its emission spectrum. That’s this graph (The wavelength is in wavenumber (which I hate) but that can be converted to simple microns for convenience):

    http://clivebest.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/smoothed-CO2-emissionheight1.png

    These observations must be done regularly over time to track the additional CO2 molecules in the air i.e. as CO2 levels increase the theoretical forcing increases. The CO2 molecules intercept outgoing radiation, they thermalize (get heated), then almost instantly re-emit radiation (give off heat) . They do not “trap” heat as is the common notion. CO2 is an effective energy transfer medium. In the thermosphere coronal mass ejection (CME) energy from the sun (dollops when this happens) is sent right back out to space by CO2 and NO2. We would cook if that didn’t happen. CO2 is used as a coolant in refrigerators (Code R744). It does exactly the same job in the troposphere but climate science says it doesn’t.

    Note that there is no observed downward trend in outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) at TOA as would be expected from the theory that OLR intercepted by CO2 and converted to energy in the form of heat is blocked from egress to space as radiative energy. Observed OLR is increasing not decreasing.

    The observed increasing atmospheric CO2 emissions from spectroscopy can then be converted to a theoretical forcing at TOA. Berkeley Labs did exactly this study over 2000 – 2010 at Oklahoma and Alaska:

    ‘First Direct Observation of Carbon Dioxide’s Increasing Greenhouse Effect at the Earth’s Surface’
    http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/02/25/co2-greenhouse-effect-increase/

    “Both series showed the same trend: atmospheric CO2 emitted an increasing amount of infrared energy, to the tune of 0.2 Watts per square meter per decade. This increase is about ten percent of the trend from all sources of infrared energy such as clouds and water vapor.”

    The observed and derived theoretical “forcing” (which is actually a TOA term – not “Earth’s Surface”) is a little less than what would be arrived at by using df = 5.35 ln (C/Co) over the same period.

    # # #

    Both methods are theoretical. But by however means the theoretical CO2 “forcing” is arrived at it is inescapable (undeniable) that the theoretical forcing is having no effect whatsoever on the earth’s energy budget which is the primary critical criteria for climate change.

    In other words, the theory of man-made forcing of climate change is wrong. This by the IPCC’s own criteria.

  10. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2015 at 12:10 pm said:

    Boston couldn’t dump huge amounts of winter snow into the harbour because city rubbish was scooped up with it. So they dumped it in unused carparks. But it didn’t melt. Why not?

    ‘The science behind why those huge snow piles just won’t melt’

    By Eric Levenson @ejleven
    Boston.com Staff | 05.28.15 | 3:14 PM

    It’s been a pleasant May and a scorching past few days, and yet some of those no-good-dirty-rotten mounds of this winter’s historic snow still haven’t melted. How is that possible?

    “The fact that it’s still there is a science experiment waiting to happen,” Michael Dennehy, commissioner of the city’s Department of Public Works, told The Boston Globe .

    Good thinking, commissioner.

    We asked Michael Dietze, an associate professor in Boston University’s Earth & Environment department, to explain the science behind why these snow piles are taking so long to liquify.

    The answer boils down to three main reasons: the incredible energy needed to change a solid to liquid, the lack of rain, and the thickness of the piles.

    Latent heat of fusion

    Latent heat refers to the energy needed to change a substance into a different state of matter. Basically, this is energy that a thermometer can’t measure as heat.

    Ice doesn’t immediately turn into water as soon as it warms to the melting point. Although the temperature for both ice and water can be 32 degrees Fahrenheit, transitioning from one to another takes a massive amount of energy. To turn ice into water, that’s called latent heat of fusion. When liquid turns into vapor, that’s called latent heat of vaporization.

    Here’s a graph of this phenomenon from Splung.com. The energy added is on the x-axis, and the temperature is on the y-axis.

    [See graph ]

    Notice the two plateaus in the graph. At those sections, as more heat is added to the substance, the temperature does not change. These plateaus represent each change of phase, from ice to water and then water to vapor. Warming ice up to 32 degrees doesn’t take too much energy, but getting all of that ice to melt takes a lot more time and energy.

    This is the main reason why using a flamethrower wouldn’t be all that helpful for melting ice. It’s not the danger aspect — though that’s there, of course — it’s that flamethrowers wouldn’t actually be that efficient for all the energy they use.

    The lack of rain

    Air is a fairly good insulator, and snow is chock full of pockets of air. That makes snow piles less sensitive to the outside air temperatures.

    But water and rain pierces right into the snow and those pockets of air, and the rain brings plenty of heat with it. The more wet things are, the worse they are at insulating against the outside temperature; “imagine a wet down jacket vs. a dry one,” Dietze says. A rainy few days, then, would do a good job at melting these snow piles.

    Unfortunately for us, Boston just experienced the driest May on record since 1944, according to the National Weather Service. Just .31 inches of precipitation have fallen this month. That’s not conducive to melting snow.

    The thickness of the piles

    These surviving snow piles were packed into a small location on purpose, and so they are incredibly tall and dense. That means there are layers and layers of snow that have not seen direct sunlight, and they remain buried under insulating ice and snow (and garbage).

    Putting all that snow in one compact spot is great for space conservation. However, it means that these thick mounds take longer to melt than, say, a thin sheet of snow on the ground. The more surface area of snow, the quicker it will melt.

    This is the reason why a snowman can remain solid while the snow and powder on the nearby ground melts. That snowman’s compactness means that he (or she) needs more energy to melt.

    And that’s true whether the snow has an orange carrot stuck in it, or, like these remaining trash-filled snow piles, orange cones formerly used as space savers.

    http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/05/28/the-science-behind-why-those-huge-snow-piles-just-won-melt/b89Zgg8N9ltetckQvFbHWN/story.html

  11. Richard Treadgold on 28/07/2015 at 12:46 pm said:

    Simon,

    You say “Nothing James Hansen says is factually incorrect.” But that cannot be, since he contradicts himself. Perhaps you would tell us which of these statements is correct? This one:

    Now the Earth, it can go unstable either toward a cool climate or toward a hot climate

    Or this one:

    We’ve never had a runaway greenhouse effect [producing a hot climate]

    Take your time.

  12. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2015 at 12:53 pm said:

    [Hansen] – “That means once the planet gets warmer and warmer then the oceans begin to evaporate,”

    The earth’s oceans are already evaporating, they are evaporating continuously. Ocean evaporation is the largest mechanism of heat loss from the ocean:

    Earth’s Energy Flows
    https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif

    Evaporative heat loss: 88 W.m-2
    Radiative heat loss: 53.4 W.m-2 (398 – 345.6 = 52.4 W.m-2 OLR Sfc)
    Sensible heat loss: 24 W.m-2

    The ocean evaporates, surface heat is transferred to the air at altitude, and then it rains. Water is returned to the ocean at a lower temperature than when it left. The heat dissipates to space

    But we can infer that in Hansen’s scenario it will stop raining and all the H20 in the ocean will be converted to CO2 somehow:

    “the ocean ends up in the atmosphere and that happened to Venus. That’s why Venus no longer has carbon in its surface. It’s atmosphere is made up of… basically of carbon dioxide…”

    1) I want to know why it will stop raining on earth.

    2) I want to know how water is converted to carbon dioxide,

  13. Andy on 28/07/2015 at 12:58 pm said:

    Hansen did his doctorate on Venus.

    That is, he studied Venus, if you get my drift.

  14. Richard Treadgold on 28/07/2015 at 1:17 pm said:

    RC,

    I want to know [× 2]

    So do I. Anyone have his contact details?

  15. Andy on 28/07/2015 at 1:39 pm said:

    Actually, the idea of whether a runaway greenhouse effect is mathematically and physically possible is quite an interesting one, irrespective of the likelihood of such an event

    As an analogy, it is apparently unknown (the n-body problem) whether our solar system is in a stable state or whether one or more planets will disappear out of the solar system of its own accord, with no external stimuli, even though the system is almost entirely determinstic

  16. Andy on 28/07/2015 at 3:32 pm said:

    The counter argument is this

    More CO2 is like putting another blanket on the bed and less is like taking away a blanket. No CO2 and the earth freezes – temperatures like we had in the South Island in late June would be the norm everywhere, all the time.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/a-tale-of-two-hemispheres/

    I realise that that this is the current thinking about the “greenhouse effect”, but I have a little difficulty imagining that removing a gas that forms 0.04 percent of the earth’s atmosphere will turn it into a frigid ice ball.

  17. Richard C (NZ) on 28/07/2015 at 4:12 pm said:

    >”I realise that that this is the current thinking about the “greenhouse effect”,”

    Depends where you look,

    ‘How pressure-dependent atmospheric warming explains the entire 33C greenhouse effect’

    The Hockey Schtick, Saturday, February 21, 2015

    Nice to see that others are beginning to appreciate the Maxwell/Carnot/Clausius atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure theory of the greenhouse effect [hotllink], which completely explains the atmospheric temperature profiles from the Earth’s surface all the way to the top of the atmosphere at ~100,000 meters, entirely without radiative forcing from greenhouse gas ‘back-radiation’. [hotlink]

    The latest is a forthcoming series of articles at the Swedish climate skeptic site Stockholm’s Initiative, the first chapter of which is below [Google translation + editing]. These concepts have been discussed in further detail in the series of Hockey Schtick posts on the ‘greenhouse equation’ [hotlink] and in relation to the Maxwell/Carnot/Clausius atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure theory of the 33K greenhouse effect. [hotlink]

    ‘The atmosphere from inside out’

    02/18/2015 by Goran Ahlgren .

    [See Chapter 1]

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/how-pressure-dependent-atmospheric.html

    # # #

    Maxwell/Carnot/Clausius atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure theory of the greenhouse effect was how NASA modeled the standard atmosphere for the space race. CO2 was neglected as insignificant. The model is verified.

    Weather forecasts by meteorologists obtain detailed temperatures at specific locations without recourse to a radiative greenhouse but by using mass/gravity/pressure theory as the basis for weather models.

  18. Mike Jowsey on 28/07/2015 at 4:42 pm said:

    Richard C., thanks for elaborating. In conclusion you say:
    “But by however means the theoretical CO2 “forcing” is arrived at it is inescapable (undeniable) that the theoretical forcing is having no effect whatsoever on the earth’s energy budget which is the primary critical criteria for climate change.”
    I would encourage you to submit a paper on your research in this regard to the Open Atmospheric Association (theoas.org). It would get a wider and more responsive audience that Joanne Nova…..

  19. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2015 at 3:45 am said:

    >”I would encourage you to submit a paper on your research in this regard”

    There’s no research Mike. All it is is the IPCC’s criteria and 2 bullet points – that’s all. Nothing more is required, no paper, just the simplest comprehension that CO2 (or net anthro) forcing of 1.5+ W.m-2 and increasing is now more than twice the TOA imbalance of 0.6 W.m-2 which is trendless.

    That’s it. Period. Game over.

    The inclusion of the surface imbalance is not actually necessary but it provides proof of what the actual forcing is i.e. the forcing has already occurred before surface to TOA energy flow.

  20. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2015 at 4:05 am said:

    >”More CO2 is like putting another blanket on the bed and less is like taking away a blanket”

    CO2 is the flimsiest of sheets, water vapour is the blanket (if the bed analogy must be used). WV is 95% of GHGs.

    But what happens when you add or remove the WV blanket?

    With WV blanket e.g. humid equatorial: moderated temperatures (no extremes)
    Without WV blanket e.g. dry equatorial: extreme temperatures (hot and cold).

    The blanket-bed analogy is dopey.

  21. Simon on 29/07/2015 at 7:23 am said:

    It’s not just CO2 Andy. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas too and the amount of water vapour depends upon air temperature. There is almost no water vapour in a Snowball Earth scenario. Conversely, increasing temperature results in more water vapour which results in more warming; what climate scientists call a forcing.

  22. Andy on 29/07/2015 at 9:08 am said:

    In the snowball earth scenario, we remove all the CO2 from the atmosphere, so the water drops out and the Earth turns into a snowball.

    I imagine that the sun with still cause evaporation during the day, loading the atmosphere with water vapour regardless of whether we have CO2 in the atmosphere.

    Are there any academic references to this theory, and is it actually considered as gospel in the climate science community?

  23. Magoo on 29/07/2015 at 11:14 am said:

    Simon. Increased water vapour can result in more warming but hasn’t, instead it has resulted in more precipitation. Don’t believe me? Check out the data from the IPCC AR5 report:

    http://dailymediareview.weebly.com/what-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-climate-change.html

  24. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2015 at 11:43 am said:

    >”what climate scientists call a forcing.”

    Wrong Simon. change in water vapour is what scientists call a feedback. Forcing is another concept we’ve been discussing where the theory of man-made climate change is falsified by the IPCC’s own forcing criteria. You’ve been strangely absent from that discussion I note.

    >”Conversely, increasing temperature results in more water vapour which results in more warming”

    That’s the necessary theoretical adjunct to multiply the posited CO2 effect which is minimal by itself (and actually irrelevant to primary climate change criteria). The theory is a miss-application of the Clausius Clapyron relation. As Magoo alludes, the water vapour feedback scenario is not reality. Water vapour precipitates out as rain. Hansen is implying it will stop raining on earth, why will it stop raining?

    Besides, evaporation is the largest heat loss mechanism from the surface:

    Earth’s Energy Flows
    https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif

    Evaporative heat loss: 88 W.m-2
    Radiative heat loss: 53.4 W.m-2 (398 – 345.6 = 52.4 W.m-2 OLR Sfc)
    Sensible heat loss: 24 W.m-2

    More evaporation just means more heat loss i.e. heat transfer from surface to upper troposphere from which it dissipates to space radiatively, eventually.

    And you might think about why temperatures in say, humid Singapore, are not nearly as high as say, dry Marble Bar, given your statement.

  25. Andy on 29/07/2015 at 12:00 pm said:

    On the “snow ball earth/CO2 control knob hypothesis”, Judith Curry writes here:
    http://judithcurry.com/2013/09/20/co2-control-knob-fallacy/

    From the perspective of comparative planetology, I think that Lacis makes a plausible argument, from which I infer that without CO2 in the atmosphere, the Earth’s climate would more closely resemble the climate of its moon rather than the current Earth’s climate. For reference, the surface temperature of the moon can swing between -150°C during the night and 120°C during the day. (pay attention, greenhouse effect deniers)

    I can’t buy this argument. The moon exhibits this behaviour because it has a virtually non-existent atmosphere

    At sea level on Earth, we breathe in an atmosphere where each cubic centimeter contains 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules; by comparison the lunar atmosphere has less than 1,000,000 molecules in the same volume. That still sounds like a lot, but it is what we consider to be a very good vacuum on Earth. In fact, the density of the atmosphere at the moon’s surface is comparable to the density of the outermost fringes of Earth’s atmosphere where the International Space Station orbits

    https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LADEE/news/lunar-atmosphere.html#.VbgT8hOqpBc

    So the moon gets warmed almost entirely by solar radiation. There is virtually no contribution from the atmosphere because the molecules that form it are hardly ever colliding, which, conversely, provides heat energy in the earth atmosphere.

    From the same NASA link:

    One of the critical differences between the atmospheres of Earth and the moon is how atmospheric molecules move. Here in the dense atmosphere at the surface of Earth, the molecules’ motion is dominated by collisions between the molecules. However the moon’s atmosphere is so thin, atoms and molecules almost never collide. Instead, they are free to follow arcing paths determined by the energy they received from the processes described above and by the gravitational pull of the moon.

  26. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2015 at 12:08 pm said:

    Mike, forget power and W.m-2 for the following Q and A and just consider numbers. a and b are TOA and Surface respectively

    1) There are 2 critical numbers in the primary criteria: 0.6a and 1.5+a

    The first number is the criteria bound (the limit). Does the second number fall within the limit?

    2) In addition to the primary criteria bound there is a secondary parameter, so now there is a 2 number range and a 3rd number: 0.6a to 0.6b, and 1.5+a

    Does the 3rd number fall within the range?

    3) The secondary parameter (0.6b) is the fixed precedent in a sequence. Can the third number alter or supersede the precedent?

    If you answered NO to 1) then man-made climate change is falsified but there may be lingering doubts.
    If you answered NO to 2) then man-made climate change is eliminated from consideration.
    If you answered NO to 3) then man-made climate change need not be considered in the first instance.

  27. Richard C (NZ) on 29/07/2015 at 12:46 pm said:

    ‘Greenhouse Gases Warmed the Earth Somewhat, but Additions Now Cool the Earth’

    Reblog of a new post by materials physicist Dr. Charles Anderson, which discusses the recent paper by Chilingar et al posted here. Dr. Anderson improves upon some aspects of the paper, but in general comes to the same basic conclusion that additions to the present levels of the greenhouse gases CO2, H2O, and methane will cause cause cooling, not warming, of the Earth surface & atmosphere.

    27 July 2015

    Greenhouse Gases Warmed the Earth Somewhat, but Additions Now Cool the Earth

    By Charles R. Anderson, PhD, physics

    […]

    So, it is not a foregone conclusion that adding CO2 to the present mix of gases in the Earth atmosphere will cause further warming, just because the additions of the first molecules did cause warming. We do not immediately know whether the so-called greenhouse effect is increasing or decreasing with further additions of greenhouse gases. This is a question I have been discussing for years on this blog and since I wrote a book chapter called “Do IR-Absorbing Gases Warm or Cool the Earth’s Surface?, in Slaying the Sky Dragon — Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory, Stairway Press, published in January 2011. Of course, the presence of water on the Earth’s surface and water vapor in the atmosphere causes the Earth’s surface to be warmer than it would be without water, but unlike the common assumption, this does not tell us that further additions of the so-called greenhouse gases will cause further warming. I have many times explained why the physics commonly and vaguely offered as the reason why such gases would continue to warm the Earth’s surface is wrong.

    The recent paper by G.V. Chilingar, O.G. Sorokhtin, L.F. Khilyuk, and M. Liu entitled Do Increasing Contents of Methane and Carbon Dioxide in the Atmosphere Cause Global Warming?, Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, Vol.04 No.05 (2014), Article ID:51443 addresses this question.

    […]

    There is a warming of the surface by infra-red active gases, the so-called greenhouse gases, but that effect was maximized at lower concentrations of those gases than we now have. Increases in those gases now cause small decreases in surface and general tropospheric temperatures. This is because the mean free length for infra-red absorption by these gases is now too short for them to move the upper troposphere radiative equilibrium altitude to higher altitudes in the dense troposphere. With that space radiation shell at the top of the troposphere relatively stabilized, the increased role of the gases in transporting heat energy upward from the surface means they are stronger coolants than they are “greenhouse” heaters.

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2015/07/greenhouse-gases-warmed-earth-somewhat.html

  28. Andy on 30/07/2015 at 9:39 am said:

    The theory that the Earth would become icebound with no CO2 is proposed by Lacis et al, which Roger Pielke Snr presents here

    https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/guest-post-co2-the-thermostat-that-controls-earth%E2%80%99s-temperature-by-andy-lacis/

    The non-condensing GHGs, mainly CO2, are presumed to drive the condensing GHGs like H2O

    That’s the theory, anyway. Since we can’t test this, it would appear to be unfalsifiable

  29. Alexander K on 30/07/2015 at 9:53 am said:

    Dr Hansen discredited himself thoroughly when he admitted subverting the aircon in the meeting room before his presentation to congress about the imagined evils of CO2. Any person who takes this charlatan seriously needs to study some basic earth sciences.

  30. Andy on 30/07/2015 at 10:09 am said:

    If he admitted subverting the aircon then I’d give the guy a little credit.
    Far worse things have happened for “the cause”.

  31. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2015 at 7:13 pm said:

    The Mathematics of Carbon Dioxide Part 2

    by Mike Jonas

    There has also been a lot of discussion about whether climate scientists have tried to “get rid of” the MWP. For example, David Deming’s statement [2] to the US Senate in 2006 includes :

    “I had another interesting experience around the time my paper in Science was published. I received an astonishing email from a major researcher in the area of climate change [Jonathan Overpeck] . He said, “We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”

    Figure 3: Contribution of CO2 to global temperature through the MWP and LIA
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/clip_image0062.png

    Figure 3 shows very clearly why the promoters of the computer climate models were so keen to get rid of the MWP : it demonstrates that the computer climate models are incapable of representing the climate. The impact of CO2 on the whole of the MWP and LIA periods was utterly trivial. CO2 even went in the opposite direction at times – rising while the temperature fell, and vice-versa. The models’ big upturn in CO2 contribution in the 20th century is not reflected in the temperature after 1939.

    Conclusion

    The picture of global temperature and its drivers as presented by the IPCC and the computer climate models is one in which CO2 has been the dominant factor since the start of the industrial age and other factors have had minimal impact. In order to support this picture, the IPCC has sought to portray CO2 as having been an important driver of global temperature in the past.

    The idea that CO2 has been an important driver of global temperature is not supported by the evidence from the MWP and LIA (905 to 1977).

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/27/the-mathematics-of-carbon-dioxide-part-2/

  32. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2015 at 7:58 pm said:

    Magoo, from your essay:

    ‘ … we know that if the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth’s atmosphere doubles from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to 560 ppmv, this will cause an energy imbalance by trapping more outgoing thermal radiation in the atmosphere, enough to directly warm the surface approximately 1.2°C.’

    Source: http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity-advanced.htm

    I’ve emphasized the critical element of man-made climate change theory.

    The theoretical forcing of 280 ppm to 400 ppm is: dF = 5.35 ln(400/280) = 1.9 W.m-2

    The current TOA imbalance is 0.6 W.m-2 and trendless. Thus man-made climate change theory is falsified. “more outgoing thermal radiation [is NOT trapped] in the atmosphere”.

    Still, good to get a handle on how silly this gets.

    The theoretical forcing 280 ppm to 560 ppm is: 3.7 Wm-2.

    BTW, I make no apology for highjacking your excellent water vapour case Magoo – sorry.

  33. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2015 at 9:03 pm said:

    [SkS] – “this will cause an energy imbalance by trapping more outgoing thermal radiation in the atmosphere”

    Tom Curtis at SkS preached a beautiful, but completely woolly, sermon to me a couple of years ago complete with an impressive water tank graphic for his analogy (abbreviated below #65), which he launched into after a previous admonition (#60 below) that leaps a giant stride from the above statement:

    #65 Tom Curtis at 17:35 PM on 6 February, 2013

    Richard C, you may becoming confused as the result of a simple, and pervasive analogy.

    Consider the following diagram:

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/taps.jpg

    It represents a water tank, with the water level within the tank controlled by flow from two taps. Suppose the tank is initially in equilibrium, so that water flowing from the upper tap is exactly matched by water flowing from the lower tap, such that the water level does not change. We then alter the situation by slightly closing the lower tap. That initially results in a decrease in flow. The resulting disequilibrium results in an increase in water level, which in turn results in an increase in pressure at the level of the lower tap. That increase in pressure results in the velocity of the water in the tap increasing, until eventually the increased velocity compensates for the decreased aparture, resulting the the flow through the two taps matching again, and a restoration of equilibrium.

    In this situation, it is natural to say that the lower tap has trapped more water.

    But what does that mean?

    It does not mean that water enters the tap and does not leave it. Indeed, water entering the tap now spends less time in the tap than previously, not more.

    It does not mean the water occupies a greater volume in the tap. On the contrary, the closing of the faucet means the volume of water in the tap has decreased slightly.

    If you think that “the tap has trapped more water” means something exclusively about the tap and the water, you are inevitably confused.

    In fact, “the tap has trapped more water” means only that the volume of water in the reservoir controlled by the tap has increased.

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=2&t=77&&n=1853#90426

    Needless to say, I remain a Church of Climatology heathen despite Tom’s best efforts to convert me (Yes, this is Tom’s best communication, sadly). This was a heavily censored and “adjusted” thread which looks nothing like the original now. I’ve got the original comment links so can access the original structure and sequence. Something that oddly, does not appear to concern SkS.

    The IPCC comes through clear as crystal compared to Tom Curtis’ muddled version of the doctrine, which I “do not” understand apparently:

    #60 Tom Curtis at 15:43 PM on 6 February, 2013

    “Richard C @58, process (b) is not a reasonable inference from the quotes, and would only seem so if you do not understand how the greenhouse effect works. Each of the quotes you select says, in slightly different ways, heat trapped by the greenhouse effect is predominantly stored in the oceans. You can only understand such statements if you know how the greenhouse effect traps heat – which plainly you do not.”

    This must be read of course in the context of a somewhat unorthodox SkS interpretation of the CofC’s articles of faith, which requires interpretation via a water tank analogy for some reason.

  34. Andy on 30/07/2015 at 9:50 pm said:

    I think it is fair to say (for all of us, sometimes) that there is a “trapping mechanism” that does not enable other thought processes and paradigms to penetrate the “skin effect” that surrounds our various dogmas

  35. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2015 at 9:50 pm said:

    [Tom Curtis] – “Suppose the tank is initially in equilibrium”

    The theory of man-made climate change (MMCC) presupposes that the TOA energy budget is in balance without forcing of any kind. According to Tom, I have to know this via a water tank analogy.

    What the SkS geniuses like Tom attribute to CO2 forcing (ocean heat storage) in the Surface energy budget is simply solar-ocean energy input and time lagged solar energy storage – CO2 forcing has absolutely nothing to do with that (GCM modelers “impute” heat to the ocean by GHG forcing even so). And the chances of the “tank” ever being in equilibrium are remote. The “tank” being the planet’s energy budget, I guess Tom thought I wouldn’t understand that if he stated so plainly, that’s if he understands it himself of course. I doubt that.

  36. Richard C (NZ) on 30/07/2015 at 10:10 pm said:

    >a “trapping mechanism” that does not enable other thought processes and paradigms to penetrate the “skin effect”

    Granted. But I would have preferred Tom to elucidate the conventional paradigm directly with recourse to the relevant science (e.g. the IPCC and Stephens et al) rather then via a water tank, but that’s just me. He didn’t trigger my trapping mechanism though, I do understand his paradigm even if I must do so in terms of a water tank rather than planetary energy flows. I can do without the abstraction but that seems to be the warmists way.

  37. Andy on 31/07/2015 at 10:56 am said:

    Roy Spencer has an interesting post on the role of CO2 and the issue around pressure and lapse rate

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/12/why-atmospheric-pressure-cannot-explain-the-elevated-surface-temperature-of-the-earth/

    This has probably been posted before but I thought it worth posting as it explains the thinking behind the greenhouse effect and the energy budget. RC may disagree, I don’t know

  38. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 12:51 pm said:

    >”RC may disagree, I don’t know”

    It is not just pressure and it is not just me Andy. NASA modeled the entire atmospheric temperature profile without recourse to a greenhouse effect. Roy Spencer is up against a formidable wall of science.

    The Maxwell/Carnot/Clausius atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure theory of the greenhouse effect completely explains the atmospheric temperature profiles from the Earth’s surface all the way to the top of the atmosphere at ~100,000 meters (from THS):

    ‘Why Atmospheric Temperature is a Linear Function of Mass & Gravity, and Not Influenced by Greenhouse Gas Concentrations’

    In the previous post of this series, we demonstrated why the US Standard Atmosphere Model & Observations Prove Maxwell’s Mass/Gravity/Pressure Theory of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is Correct & Falsifies Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW). [Hotlink – see below]

    We now show why the hundreds of rocket and atmospheric scientists, physicists, and aeronautical engineers who created the gold standard and final 1976 version of the US Standard Atmosphere Database (created during the ice age scare of the 1970’s and just one decade prior to the global warming scare of the 1980’s) in effect were “deniers” of any significant “radiative forcing,” “heat trapping,” or “radiative imbalance” from any greenhouse gases in their physical chemical calculations of the temperature profile of Earth’s entire atmosphere from the surface all the way to the edge of space at ~100 kilometers altitude.

    […]

    In physics, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation is essential to calculate radiative emissions as a function of temperature (to the fourth power), but does not appear even one single time in any of the calculations in the 241 page US Standard Atmosphere description document or in their atmospheric model calculations. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant, which is absolutely essential to any radiative calculations from greenhouse gases or any gases or solid bodies also does not even appear once in the extensive tables of constants and definitions used in all of the calculations of the standard atmosphere, proving radiative considerations from any greenhouse gases are completely unnecessary to determine the average temperatures anywhere from the surface to the edge of space, and also that greenhouse gases have no radiative influence whatsoever upon the ~7 different lapse rates that occur in each of the ~7 different levels of the atmosphere from the surface to space.

    The Standard Atmosphere document indicates the only effect of water vapor upon the troposphere lapse rate is to reduce it from 9.8C/km to 6.5C/km on average, solely due to the high heat capacity Cp (1.865 Joules per gram per degree Kelvin) of water vapor compared to all of the other atmospheric gases. Per the lapse rate equation

    dT/dh = -g/Cp

    where

    dT = change in temperature with height
    dh = change in height/geopotential altitude
    g = gravitational acceleration constant = 9.8 meters/sec/sec
    Cp = heat capacity at constant pressure (1 atmosphere constant pressure at the surface)

    the temperature at any height or geopotential altitude is a function of and inversely related to heat capacity Cp. Thus any increase of Cp from water vapor will decrease the lapse rate and thus temperature at any height including at the surface (up to 25.5C as we previously calculated). This has absolutely nothing to do with “radiative forcing” from any greenhouse gases including water vapor itself.

    The first 6 of these linear lapse rates are shown in figure 3 below, and calculated entirely on the basis of geopotential altitude (a measure of gravitational potential energy PE) vs. molecular-scale temperature [defined in the scan below of page 9 as the mean molecular weight at that geopotential altitude], which has absolutely nothing to do with any alleged “heat trapping” or “radiative forcing” from any greenhouse gases:

    http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4n046MfBYm8/VIC_d9-rMaI/AAAAAAAAG7U/vIZHDP9B9Rk/s1600/molecular%2Bscale%2Btemperature%2Bas%2Bfcn%2Bof%2Bgeopotential%2Bheight.jpg

    And we previous demonstrated with the greenhouse equation that we can exactly duplicate the 1976 US Standard Temperature database and model without even knowing anything about the surface temperature or greenhouse gases in advance, entirely based upon solar radiation at the Earth’s surface, gravity, mass, and pressure of the atmosphere, proving no measurable effect from CO2.

    [See the ‘Greenhouse Equation’]

    Some commenters still doubt this is possible and conveniently claim [without any mathematical or observational proof whatsoever] as a last resort that greenhouse gases somehow control the lapse rates in each atmospheric layer. The US Standard Atmosphere and millions of confirming observations prove this is false, demonstrated by the linear kinematic velocity graph shown from the US Standard Atmosphere report below (from page 19 also scanned further below), which shows an almost perfect linear relationship between geopotential altitude and kinematic velocity from the surface to space, calculated entirely without any radiative forcing whatsoever and confirmed by observations.

    Continues, including US Standard Atmosphere description document >>>>>>
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2014/12/why-atmospheric-temperature-is-linear.html

    ‘US Standard Atmosphere Model & Observations Prove Maxwell’s Mass/Gravity/Pressure Theory of the ‘Greenhouse Effect’ is Correct & Falsifies CAGW’

    Early in the “space race” of the 1950’s, US Air Force Research Laboratory meteorologist and “rocket design climatologist” Norman Sissenwine “recognized the urgent need for complete data on the properties of the atmosphere” and thus became “a catalyst between the aerospace and meteorological community” to develop the US Standard Atmosphere physical model of Earth’s atmospheric pressure, density, and temperature profile by altitude from the surface all the way up to the edge of space at ~100,000+ meters altitude.

    This massive effort was critical to the entire space program and aeronautics, and hundreds of rocket scientists, physicists, meteorologists, aeronautical engineers, and atmospheric scientists contributed to this project necessary to physically model and then verify with millions of observations from weather balloons, research flights, and rocket launches, that their physical 1-D vertical model of the atmosphere was correct. The 1958 first edition of the US Standard Atmosphere was followed by revisions, mostly of the far upper atmosphere at the edge of space, as more data became available from the space program, with revisions published in 1962, 1966, and the final 1976 version still widely used as the gold standard today.

    This effort to model the atmosphere for NASA, NOAA, and the US military during the cold war began long before the field of ‘climate science’ or ‘climatologists’ even existed, long before anyone ever thought or knew about alleged “radiative forcing from greenhouse gases” causing “catastrophic man-made global warming or climate change,” and twenty years before the first ‘climatologists’ gave us the ice age scare of the 1970’s, immediately followed by the global warming scare of the 1980’s that is still haunting us today [but now called ‘climate change’ since it’s not warming].

    These early atmospheric scientists began this effort to model the atmosphere with the basic physics of gases and air known since the 1800’s from the ideal gas law, 1st Law of Thermodynamics, Newton’s second law of motion (F=ma=mg), the physical chemistry of molecular weights, partial pressures of each gas, heat capacities of individual gases and air at both constant pressure and constant volume, the gravitational acceleration constant, barometric formulae, Boltzmann’s constant, Avogadro’s number, mean atmospheric molecular weights, number density of individual species, total number density, atmospheric mass density, mole volume, scale height, geopotential height of gravitational potential energy (PE), mean air-particle speed, mean free-path of air molecules, mean collision frequency, calculated speed of sound, dynamic viscosity, kinematic viscosity, coefficient of thermal conductivity, and on and on…

    And never once used any “radiative forcing” from any IR-active greenhouse gases or any radiative calculations from any greenhouse gases whatsoever to produce an accurate 1-D model that could calculate Earth’s entire pressure, mass density, temperature, and molecular-scale temperature as a function of geopotential altitude (geopotential height ~ geopotential altitude ~ gravitational potential energy (PE)) profile from the surface to the edge of space.

    Continues>>>>>
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2014/12/why-us-standard-atmosphere-model.html

    # # #

    This is the non-radiative case that Roy Spencer is up against and we see that Spencer is immediately wrong. “Mass/gravity/pressure theory of the greenhouse effect completely explains the atmospheric temperature profiles from the Earth’s surface all the way to the top of the atmosphere at ~100,000 meters”. This of course includes Spencers “elevated surface temperature of the earth”.

    I’ll have a look at Spencer’s post a bit later in respect to the above but he’s pushing a redundant meme IMO.

  39. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 1:24 pm said:

    Spencer is responding to ‘Expanding the Concept of Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect Using Thermodynamic Principles: Implications for Predicting Future Climate Change’ – Ned Nikolov, Ph.D. & Karl Zeller, Ph.D. here:

    ‘Unified Theory of Climate’

    3. The Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement

    […]

    Previous studies have noted that the term Greenhouse Effect is a misnomer when applied to the atmosphere, since real greenhouses retain heat through an entirely different mechanism compared to the free atmosphere, i.e. by physically trapping air mass and restricting convective heat exchange. Hence, we propose a new term instead, Near-surface Atmospheric Thermal Enhancement (ATE) defined as a non-dimensional ratio (NTE) of the planet actual mean surface air temperature (Ts, K) to the average temperature of a Standard Planetary Gray Body (SPGB) with no atmosphere (Tgb, K) receiving the same solar irradiance, i.e. NTE = Ts /Tgb. This new definition emphasizes the essence of GHE, which is the temperature boost at the surface due to the presence of an atmosphere. We employ Eq. (2) to estimate Tgb assuming an albedo αgb = 0.12 and a surface emissivity ϵ = 0.955 for the SPGB based on data for Moon, Mercury, and the Earth surface. Using So = 1362 W m-2 (Kopp & Lean 2011) in Eq. (2) yields Tgb = 154.3K and NTE = 287.6/154.3 = 1.863 for Earth. This prompts the question: What mechanism enables our atmosphere to boost the planet surface temperature some 86% above that of a SPGB? To answer it we turn on to the classical Thermodynamics.

    […long non-radiative thermodynamic discourse and graphs….]

    3.1. Climate Implications of the Ideal Gas Law
    3.2. Interplanetary Data Set

    4. Implications of the new ATE Concept [abbreviated]

    The implications of the above findings are numerous and paradigm-altering. These are but a few examples:

    A) Global surface temperature is independent of the down-welling LW flux known as greenhouse or back radiation, because both quantities derive from the same pool of atmospheric kinetic energy maintained by solar heating and air pressure. Variations in the downward LW flux (caused by an increase of tropospheric emissivity, for example) are completely counterbalanced (offset) by changes in the rate of surface convective cooling, for this is how the system conserves its internal energy.

    B) Modifying chemical composition of the atmosphere cannot alter the system’s total kinetic energy, hence the size of ATE (GHE).

    C) Equation (8) suggests that the planet’s albedo is largely a product of climate rather than a driver of it.

    D) Large climatic shifts evident in the paleo-record such as the 16C directional cooling of the Globe during the past 51 million years (Fig. 8) can now be explained via changes in atmospheric mass and surface pressure caused by geologic variations in Earth’s tectonic activity.

    5. Unified Theory of Climate >>>>>>>
    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/29/unified-theory-of-climate/

  40. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 1:46 pm said:

    [Spencer] – “We [Spencer & Braswell] could initialize the model with an atmosphere at absolute zero, or at an absurdly high temperature, and it would still settle out to about the same temperature profile as is observed in the global average. (I continue to challenge those with alternative theories to do the same).”

    “One of the first things you discover when putting numbers to the problem is the overriding importance of infrared radiative absorption and emission to explaining the atmospheric temperature profile. These IR flows would not occur without the presence of “greenhouse gases”, which simply means gases which absorb and emit IR radiation. Without those gases, there would be no way for the atmosphere to cool to outer space in the presence of continuous convective heat transport from the surface.”

    # # #

    >”I [Dr Roy Spencer] continue to challenge those with alternative theories to do the same”

    Well, in the 1950’s, the US Air Force Research Laboratory did exactly that with an alternative theory and model and without recourse to “the overriding importance of infrared radiative absorption and emission to explaining the atmospheric temperature profile”.

  41. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 2:34 pm said:

    [Spencer] -“it [S&B’s model] would still settle out to about the same temperature profile as is observed in the global average”

    Not sure what Spencer is referring to with “profile” or “global average” here. I assume he means Surface to TOA but it would have been good to be able to see a graph of what he is talking about to be sure.

    Except Standard Atmosphere “profile” refers to the entire atmospheric model of Surface to TOA – not just temperature. The commonly available graphs of the Surface to TOA model were all produced without recourse to the greenhouse effect. For example:

    Atmosphere of Earth

    Graph: Comparison of the 1962 US Standard Atmosphere graph of geometric altitude against air density, pressure, the speed of sound and temperature with approximate altitudes of various objects

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth/File:Comparison_US_standard_atmosphere_1962.svg

    Spencer & Braswell’s model needs to do a lot more than just reproduce a temperature profile.

  42. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 4:13 pm said:

    Andy. I think the rebuttal to Roy Spencer is, in summary, this:

    [THS] – “The “Greenhouse Equation” calculates temperature (T) at any location from the surface to the top of the troposphere as a function of atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure and radiative forcing from the Sun only, and without any radiative forcing from greenhouse gases. Note the pressure (P) divided by 2 in the greenhouse equation is the pressure at the center of mass of the atmosphere, where the temperature and height are equal to the equilibrium temperature with the Sun and average “Effective Radiating Level” or ERL, respectively.”

    The “Greenhouse Equation”
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xXJOurldG_E/VHjjbD6XinI/AAAAAAAAGx8/8yXlYh8Lcr4/s1600/The%2BGreenhouse%2BEquation%2B-%2BSymbolic%2Bsolution%2BP.png

    [THS] – “Fig 3 from the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere description document below, with added annotations showing how the center of the tropospheric lapse rate is “triangulated” by the known constants of mass and the center of mass, the height where the center of mass can be calculated which is where the mass above is 1/2 of the total mass and the Pressure (1/2 atm) is 1/2 of the surface pressure (1 atm), and the known constant of equilibrium temperature Te between the Earth and Sun. This is the exact location of the ERL, where the temperature must equal the equilibrium temperature with the Sun. By determining the height of the ERL, the greenhouse equation then extends the linear adiabatic lapse rate up to the top of the troposphere at ~12,000 meters and down to the surface at 0 meters, from which the entire tropospheric temperature profile from the top of the troposphere to the ERL to the surface temperature can be determined by only knowing the constant equilibrium temperature with the Sun = Te = 255K.”

    Figure 3
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wryhl6wY-Cc/VIDDcT1ZlPI/AAAAAAAAG7g/QHaaTXQs-ac/s1600/molecular%2Bscale%2Btemperature%2Bannotated%2Bas%2Bfcn%2Bof%2Bgeopotential%2Bheight.jpg

    [THS] – “This proves that only kinematic viscosity effects, not radiative effects, of any gases including greenhouse gases, are what determine the kinematic temperatures at all locations, not “greenhouse gas radiative forcing.” The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space, just like a bigger heat sink on your microprocessor does.”

    [THS] – “It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect. The Maxwell mass/gravity/pressure 33C “greenhouse theory” was proved physically and verified with the millions of observations of the 1976 US Standard atmosphere physical and modelled derivation and confirming observations, proving that temperatures everywhere from the surface to space are due to solar radiation plus the effect of atmospheric mass/gravity, thereby excluding any significant radiative effects from greenhouse gases (other than radiative cooling effects essential for the atmosphere to lose heat to space, i.e. the opposite of “trapping heat”). Only one of these two competing 33C “greenhouse effect” theories can be true, you simply cannot have it both ways, because if you did, the Earth would be 33C warmer at the surface than the present (in addition to multiple violations of physical laws).”

    # # #

    >”The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space,”

    Spencer agrees in paraphrase:

    “1) For the atmosphere as a whole, greenhouse gases COOL the atmosphere, through IR radiation to outer space, in the face of heating of the atmosphere by the solar-heated surface.”

    >””It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect.”

    Spencer gets cause and effect confused:

    “2) In the process, however, greenhouse gases drastically change the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere, warming the lower layers, and cooling the upper layers. Think of greenhouse gases as a “radiative blanket”…”

    The vertical temperature structure is already changed by the mere presence of the greenhouse gasses but the sun is still the energy source and mass/gravity/pressure is still the temperature determinant. This is the “kinematic viscosity effects” THC is talking about. Engineering tends to start with temperature though. From Engineering Toolbox:

    Dynamic, Absolute and Kinematic Viscosity

    Dynamic (absolute) Viscosity

    “Absolute viscosity – coefficient of absolute viscosity – is a measure of internal resistance. Dynamic (absolute) viscosity is the tangential force per unit area required to move one horizontal plane with respect to an other plane – at an unit velocity – when maintaining an unit distance apart in the fluid.”

    Kinematic Viscosity

    “Kinematic viscosity is the ratio of – absolute (or dynamic) viscosity to density – a quantity in which no force is involved. Kinematic viscosity can be obtained by dividing the absolute viscosity of a fluid with the fluid mass density.”

    ν = μ / ρ (2)

    where

    ν = kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
    μ = absolute or dynamic viscosity (N s/m2)
    ρ = density (kg/m3)

    Viscosity and Reference Temperature

    “The viscosity of a fluid is highly temperature dependent – and for dynamic or kinematic viscosity to be meaningful the reference temperature must be quoted. In ISO 8217 the reference temperature for a residual fluid is 100oC. For a distillate fluid the reference temperature is 40oC.”

    for a liquid – the kinematic viscosity decreases with higher temperature
    for a gas – the kinematic viscosity increases with higher temperature

  43. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 4:17 pm said:

    Andy. I think the rebuttal to Roy Spencer is, in summary, this:

    [THS] – “The “Greenhouse Equation” calculates temperature (T) at any location from the surface to the top of the troposphere as a function of atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure and radiative forcing from the Sun only, and without any radiative forcing from greenhouse gases. Note the pressure (P) divided by 2 in the greenhouse equation is the pressure at the center of mass of the atmosphere, where the temperature and height are equal to the equilibrium temperature with the Sun and average “Effective Radiating Level” or ERL, respectively.”

    The “Greenhouse Equation”
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xXJOurldG_E/VHjjbD6XinI/AAAAAAAAGx8/8yXlYh8Lcr4/s1600/The%2BGreenhouse%2BEquation%2B-%2BSymbolic%2Bsolution%2BP.png

    [THS] – “Fig 3 from the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere description document below, with added annotations showing how the center of the tropospheric lapse rate is “triangulated” by the known constants of mass and the center of mass, the height where the center of mass can be calculated which is where the mass above is 1/2 of the total mass and the Pressure (1/2 atm) is 1/2 of the surface pressure (1 atm), and the known constant of equilibrium temperature Te between the Earth and Sun. This is the exact location of the ERL, where the temperature must equal the equilibrium temperature with the Sun. By determining the height of the ERL, the greenhouse equation then extends the linear adiabatic lapse rate up to the top of the troposphere at ~12,000 meters and down to the surface at 0 meters, from which the entire tropospheric temperature profile from the top of the troposphere to the ERL to the surface temperature can be determined by only knowing the constant equilibrium temperature with the Sun = Te = 255K.”

    Figure 3
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wryhl6wY-Cc/VIDDcT1ZlPI/AAAAAAAAG7g/QHaaTXQs-ac/s1600/molecular%2Bscale%2Btemperature%2Bannotated%2Bas%2Bfcn%2Bof%2Bgeopotential%2Bheight.jpg

    [THS] – “This proves that only kinematic viscosity effects, not radiative effects, of any gases including greenhouse gases, are what determine the kinematic temperatures at all locations, not “greenhouse gas radiative forcing.” The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space, just like a bigger heat sink on your microprocessor does.”

    [THS] – “It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect. The Maxwell mass/gravity/pressure 33C “greenhouse theory” was proved physically and verified with the millions of observations of the 1976 US Standard atmosphere physical and modelled derivation and confirming observations, proving that temperatures everywhere from the surface to space are due to solar radiation plus the effect of atmospheric mass/gravity, thereby excluding any significant radiative effects from greenhouse gases (other than radiative cooling effects essential for the atmosphere to lose heat to space, i.e. the opposite of “trapping heat”). Only one of these two competing 33C “greenhouse effect” theories can be true, you simply cannot have it both ways, because if you did, the Earth would be 33C warmer at the surface than the present (in addition to multiple violations of physical laws).”

    # # #

    >”The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space,”

    Spencer agrees in paraphrase:

    “1) For the atmosphere as a whole, greenhouse gases COOL the atmosphere, through IR radiation to outer space, in the face of heating of the atmosphere by the solar-heated surface.”

    >””It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect.”

    Spencer gets cause and effect confused:

    “2) In the process, however, greenhouse gases drastically change the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere, warming the lower layers, and cooling the upper layers. Think of greenhouse gases as a “radiative blanket”…”

    The vertical temperature structure is already changed by the mere presence of the greenhouse gasses but the sun is still the energy source and mass/gravity/pressure is still the temperature determinant. This is the “kinematic viscosity effects” THC is talking about. Engineering tends to start with temperature though. From Engineering Toolbox:

    Dynamic, Absolute and Kinematic Viscosity

    Dynamic (absolute) Viscosity

    “Absolute viscosity – coefficient of absolute viscosity – is a measure of internal resistance. Dynamic (absolute) viscosity is the tangential force per unit area required to move one horizontal plane with respect to an other plane – at an unit velocity – when maintaining an unit distance apart in the fluid.”

    Kinematic Viscosity

    “Kinematic viscosity is the ratio of – absolute (or dynamic) viscosity to density – a quantity in which no force is involved. Kinematic viscosity can be obtained by dividing the absolute viscosity of a fluid with the fluid mass density.”

    ν = μ / ρ (2)

    where

    ν = kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
    μ = absolute or dynamic viscosity (N s/m2)
    ρ = density (kg/m3)

    Viscosity and Reference Temperature

    “The viscosity of a fluid is highly temperature dependent – and for dynamic or kinematic viscosity to be meaningful the reference temperature must be quoted. In ISO 8217 the reference temperature for a residual fluid is 100oC. For a distillate fluid the reference temperature is 40oC.”

    for a liquid – the kinematic viscosity decreases with higher temperature
    for a gas – the kinematic viscosity increases with higher temperature

    http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/dynamic-absolute-kinematic-viscosity-d_412.html

  44. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 4:24 pm said:

    Andy. I think the rebuttal to Roy Spencer is, in summary, this:

    [THS] – “The “Greenhouse Equation” calculates temperature (T) at any location from the surface to the top of the troposphere as a function of atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure and radiative forcing from the Sun only, and without any radiative forcing from greenhouse gases. Note the pressure (P) divided by 2 in the greenhouse equation is the pressure at the center of mass of the atmosphere, where the temperature and height are equal to the equilibrium temperature with the Sun and average “Effective Radiating Level” or ERL, respectively.”

    The “Greenhouse Equation”
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xXJOurldG_E/VHjjbD6XinI/AAAAAAAAGx8/8yXlYh8Lcr4/s1600/The%2BGreenhouse%2BEquation%2B-%2BSymbolic%2Bsolution%2BP.png

    [THS] – “Fig 3 from the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere description document below, with added annotations showing how the center of the tropospheric lapse rate is “triangulated” by the known constants of mass and the center of mass, the height where the center of mass can be calculated which is where the mass above is 1/2 of the total mass and the Pressure (1/2 atm) is 1/2 of the surface pressure (1 atm), and the known constant of equilibrium temperature Te between the Earth and Sun. This is the exact location of the ERL, where the temperature must equal the equilibrium temperature with the Sun. By determining the height of the ERL, the greenhouse equation then extends the linear adiabatic lapse rate up to the top of the troposphere at ~12,000 meters and down to the surface at 0 meters, from which the entire tropospheric temperature profile from the top of the troposphere to the ERL to the surface temperature can be determined by only knowing the constant equilibrium temperature with the Sun = Te = 255K.”

    Figure 3
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wryhl6wY-Cc/VIDDcT1ZlPI/AAAAAAAAG7g/QHaaTXQs-ac/s1600/molecular%2Bscale%2Btemperature%2Bannotated%2Bas%2Bfcn%2Bof%2Bgeopotential%2Bheight.jpg

    [THS] – “This proves that only kinematic viscosity effects, not radiative effects, of any gases including greenhouse gases, are what determine the kinematic temperatures at all locations, not “greenhouse gas radiative forcing.” The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space, just like a bigger heat sink on your microprocessor does.”

    [THS] – “It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect. The Maxwell mass/gravity/pressure 33C “greenhouse theory” was proved physically and verified with the millions of observations of the 1976 US Standard atmosphere physical and modelled derivation and confirming observations, proving that temperatures everywhere from the surface to space are due to solar radiation plus the effect of atmospheric mass/gravity, thereby excluding any significant radiative effects from greenhouse gases (other than radiative cooling effects essential for the atmosphere to lose heat to space, i.e. the opposite of “trapping heat”). Only one of these two competing 33C “greenhouse effect” theories can be true, you simply cannot have it both ways, because if you did, the Earth would be 33C warmer at the surface than the present (in addition to multiple violations of physical laws).”

    # # #

    >”The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space,”

    Spencer agrees in paraphrase:

    “1) For the atmosphere as a whole, greenhouse gases COOL the atmosphere, through IR radiation to outer space, in the face of heating of the atmosphere by the solar-heated surface.”

    >””It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect.”

    Spencer gets cause and effect confused:

    “2) In the process, however, greenhouse gases drastically change the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere, warming the lower layers, and cooling the upper layers. Think of greenhouse gases as a “radiative blanket”…”

    The vertical temperature structure is already changed by the mere presence of the greenhouse gasses but the sun is still the energy source and mass/gravity/pressure is still the temperature determinant. This is the “kinematic viscosity effects” THC is talking about. Engineering tends to start with temperature though. From Engineering Toolbox:

    Dynamic, Absolute and Kinematic Viscosity

    Dynamic (absolute) Viscosity

    “Absolute viscosity – coefficient of absolute viscosity – is a measure of internal resistance. Dynamic (absolute) viscosity is the tangential force per unit area required to move one horizontal plane with respect to an other plane – at an unit velocity – when maintaining an unit distance apart in the fluid.”

    Kinematic Viscosity

    “Kinematic viscosity is the ratio of – absolute (or dynamic) viscosity to density – a quantity in which no force is involved. Kinematic viscosity can be obtained by dividing the absolute viscosity of a fluid with the fluid mass density.”

    ν = μ / ρ (2)

    where

    ν = kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
    μ = absolute or dynamic viscosity (N s/m2)
    ρ = density (kg/m3)

    Viscosity and Reference Temperature

    “The viscosity of a fluid is highly temperature dependent – and for dynamic or kinematic viscosity to be meaningful the reference temperature must be quoted. In ISO 8217 the reference temperature for a residual fluid is 100oC. For a distillate fluid the reference temperature is 40oC.”

    for a liquid – the kinematic viscosity decreases with higher temperature
    for a gas – the kinematic viscosity increases with higher temperature

    http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/dynamic-absolute-kinematic-viscosity-d_412.html

    [The above did not appear when submitted first time, must have been intercepted by the spam trap or something. Posting again gave – “Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!” so I’ve added this]

  45. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 4:31 pm said:

    Andy. I think the rebuttal to Roy Spencer is, in summary, this:

    [THS] – “The “Greenhouse Equation” calculates temperature (T) at any location from the surface to the top of the troposphere as a function of atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure and radiative forcing from the Sun only, and without any radiative forcing from greenhouse gases. Note the pressure (P) divided by 2 in the greenhouse equation is the pressure at the center of mass of the atmosphere, where the temperature and height are equal to the equilibrium temperature with the Sun and average “Effective Radiating Level” or ERL, respectively.”

    The “Greenhouse Equation”
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xXJOurldG_E/VHjjbD6XinI/AAAAAAAAGx8/8yXlYh8Lcr4/s1600/The%2BGreenhouse%2BEquation%2B-%2BSymbolic%2Bsolution%2BP.png

    [THS] – “Fig 3 from the 1976 US Standard Atmosphere description document below, with added annotations showing how the center of the tropospheric lapse rate is “triangulated” by the known constants of mass and the center of mass, the height where the center of mass can be calculated which is where the mass above is 1/2 of the total mass and the Pressure (1/2 atm) is 1/2 of the surface pressure (1 atm), and the known constant of equilibrium temperature Te between the Earth and Sun. This is the exact location of the ERL, where the temperature must equal the equilibrium temperature with the Sun. By determining the height of the ERL, the greenhouse equation then extends the linear adiabatic lapse rate up to the top of the troposphere at ~12,000 meters and down to the surface at 0 meters, from which the entire tropospheric temperature profile from the top of the troposphere to the ERL to the surface temperature can be determined by only knowing the constant equilibrium temperature with the Sun = Te = 255K.”

    Figure 3
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wryhl6wY-Cc/VIDDcT1ZlPI/AAAAAAAAG7g/QHaaTXQs-ac/s1600/molecular%2Bscale%2Btemperature%2Bannotated%2Bas%2Bfcn%2Bof%2Bgeopotential%2Bheight.jpg

    [THS] – “This proves that only kinematic viscosity effects, not radiative effects, of any gases including greenhouse gases, are what determine the kinematic temperatures at all locations, not “greenhouse gas radiative forcing.” The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space, just like a bigger heat sink on your microprocessor does.”

    [THS] – “It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect. The Maxwell mass/gravity/pressure 33C “greenhouse theory” was proved physically and verified with the millions of observations of the 1976 US Standard atmosphere physical and modelled derivation and confirming observations, proving that temperatures everywhere from the surface to space are due to solar radiation plus the effect of atmospheric mass/gravity, thereby excluding any significant radiative effects from greenhouse gases (other than radiative cooling effects essential for the atmosphere to lose heat to space, i.e. the opposite of “trapping heat”). Only one of these two competing 33C “greenhouse effect” theories can be true, you simply cannot have it both ways, because if you did, the Earth would be 33C warmer at the surface than the present (in addition to multiple violations of physical laws).”

    # # #

    >”The only true source of radiative forcing is the Sun, not greenhouse gases which are mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks, which help to cool the atmosphere by radiative loss to space,”

    Spencer agrees in paraphrase except for “mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks”:

    “1) For the atmosphere as a whole, greenhouse gases COOL the atmosphere, through IR radiation to outer space, in the face of heating of the atmosphere by the solar-heated surface.”

    >””It is now absolutely clear that the greenhouse-gas radiative “greenhouse” theory has simply confused cause with effect.”

    Spencer gets cause and effect confused:

    “2) In the process, however, greenhouse gases drastically change the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere, warming the lower layers, and cooling the upper layers. Think of greenhouse gases as a “radiative blanket”…”

    The vertical temperature structure is already changed by the mere presence of the greenhouse gasses but the sun is still the energy source and mass/gravity/pressure is still the temperature determinant. This is the “kinematic viscosity effects” THC is talking about. Engineering tends to start with temperature though. From Engineering Toolbox:

    Dynamic, Absolute and Kinematic Viscosity

    Dynamic (absolute) Viscosity

    “Absolute viscosity – coefficient of absolute viscosity – is a measure of internal resistance. Dynamic (absolute) viscosity is the tangential force per unit area required to move one horizontal plane with respect to an other plane – at an unit velocity – when maintaining an unit distance apart in the fluid.”

    Kinematic Viscosity

    “Kinematic viscosity is the ratio of – absolute (or dynamic) viscosity to density – a quantity in which no force is involved. Kinematic viscosity can be obtained by dividing the absolute viscosity of a fluid with the fluid mass density.”

    ? = µ / ? (2)

    where

    ? = kinematic viscosity (m2/s)
    µ = absolute or dynamic viscosity (N s/m2)
    ? = density (kg/m3)

    Viscosity and Reference Temperature

    “The viscosity of a fluid is highly temperature dependent – and for dynamic or kinematic viscosity to be meaningful the reference temperature must be quoted. In ISO 8217 the reference temperature for a residual fluid is 100oC. For a distillate fluid the reference temperature is 40oC.”

    for a liquid – the kinematic viscosity decreases with higher temperature
    for a gas – the kinematic viscosity increases with higher temperature

    http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/dynamic-absolute-kinematic-viscosity-d_412.html

    [This comment version avoids Unicode problems (I hope), first try with Unicode didn’t appear and resubmission just gave ‘Duplicate comment’]

  46. Richard C (NZ) on 31/07/2015 at 5:33 pm said:

    [Spencer] – “2) In the process, however, greenhouse gases drastically change the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere, warming the lower layers, and cooling the upper layers.”

    The lower layers are already warmed and the upper layers are already cooled in accordance with mass/gravity/pressure and radiative forcing from the Sun. Subsequent radiative energy transfer adds nothing to this. GHGs are “mere passive IR-radiators & heat sinks” as THC puts it.

    Spencer’s misunderstanding is typical of climate science. Proof being that the theoretical radiative forcing by CO2 (now 1.9 W.m-2) does not fit between the Surface energy imbalance (0.6 W.m-2) and the TOA energy imbalance (0.6 W.m-2). The imbalance has already occurred at the surface through sun-ocean energy accumulation. CO2 cannot, and does not, alter this.

  47. Richard C (NZ) on 01/08/2015 at 12:07 pm said:

    >”CO2 cannot, and does not, alter this”

    “However, mounting evidence against climate change theory and the ‘consensus’ is unlikely to stem the tide of policy designed to combat global warming, thanks to the sheer size of the climate change industry that has built up over the last few decades.

    New estimates published by the Climate Change Business Journal put the total size of the industry at $1.5 trillion a year, or $4 billion a day, equivalent to the size of the global online retail market. The figure includes carbon markets, carbon consulting, biofuels, carbon sequestration, renewable technologies, eco buildings and hybrid cars.

    The climate change consultancy market alone is worth $1.9 billion worldwide; $670 million in the United States, thanks to businesses need to keep on top of climate policy. And these figures are expected to more than double by 2020.”

    http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/new-study-majority-of-climate-scientists-dont-agree-with-consensus.html

  48. 4TimesAYear on 02/08/2015 at 9:53 am said:

    Obama pretty much said the same thing “the planet will boil over” https://twitter.com/4TimesAYear/status/627592590762774528/photo/1

    • Richard Treadgold on 02/08/2015 at 10:26 am said:

      Right. When scientists themselves disregard science to sway public opinion, it’s not long before every Tom, Dick and President Harry tries the same thing.

  49. Richard C (NZ) on 02/08/2015 at 2:27 pm said:

    >”Spencer’s misunderstanding is typical of climate science.”

    Case in point – James Renwick (“Jim” at HT): http://hot-topic.co.nz/a-tale-of-two-hemispheres

    “We live in a golden age of earth observation. With a few clicks of a mouse on a web browser, any of us can see the state of the global ocean surface, the current condition of the Greenland ice sheet, how much rain is falling in the tropics today, and on and on.”

    Yes, impressive isn’t it Jim. Then why don’t you consult the IPCC’s observation citations in regard to the IPCC’s primary climate change criteria, TOA energy budget? Viz., Stephens et al (2012) and Loeb et al (2012). Both have a trendless 0.6 W.m-2 imbalance from satellite observations.

    “Carbon dioxide is important because it’s a crucial control on the surface temperature of the earth. It is very good at absorbing heat (infrared radiation) welling up from the earth, then re-radiating both up and down, …..”

    Actually it is negligible and can be ignored Jim. It is a “passive” absorber, heat sink, and radiator. The sun is the energy input. The surface temperature was reproduced in the 1950s without recourse to a radiative greenhouse effect and neglected carbon dioxide entirely.

    “….in the process warming the earth’s surface.”

    No it doesn’t warm the surface Jim. The net longwave effect at the surface is 53.4 W.m-2 cooling. And carbon dioxide is a minor component of downwelling longwave, little more than 6 W.m-2 of the global average 345.6 W.m2. See:

    Earth’s Energy Flows from Stephens et al (2012)
    https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/stephens2.gif

    Radiative heat loss: 53.4 W.m-2 (398 – 345.6 = 52.4 W.m-2 OLR Sfc)

    “CO2 in the atmosphere has increased blindingly fast, by planetary standards. We have really put a lot of it up there in a handful of decades. For many thousands of years before the present, back to the beginnings of agriculture and modern civilisation, CO2 concentrations have been fairly steady, between 260 and 280ppm. Suddenly (in geological terms) they are 40% higher at around 400ppm.”

    Except Jim, CO2 is having no effect whatsoever on the earth’s energy budget and at TOA in particular, the IPCC’s primary and critical climate change criteria (see Stephens et al Figure 2 above):

    TOA imbalance: 0.6 W.m-2 trendless
    Sfc imbalance: 0.6 W.m-2
    CO2 theoretical forcing 1750 – 2015: 1.9 W.m-2 and increasing “blindingly fast”

    It’s life Jim, but not as you know it.

    I rest my case, there appears to be a collective brain failure among climate scientists.

  50. Richard C (NZ) on 02/08/2015 at 6:40 pm said:

    ‘The Greenhouse Equation’

    THS, Friday, November 28, 2014

    A recent series of Hockey Schtick posts

    ‘Derivation of the entire 33°C greenhouse effect without radiative forcing from greenhouse gases’
    ‘Derivation of the effective radiating height & entire 33°C greenhouse effect without radiative forcing from greenhouse gases’
    ‘Why greenhouse gas radiative forcing doesn’t explain Earth’s energy budget’

    have derived the entire ~33°C greenhouse effect as a consequence of gravitational forcing rather than radiative forcing from greenhouse gases, and entirely independent of radiative forcing from greenhouse gases. We have also determined the effective radiating height (average) or ERL in the troposphere (where T = the equilibrium temperature of Earth with the Sun), and found the ERL to be located as expected at the center of mass of the atmosphere if the ERL height and temperature are a function of mass/gravity/pressure rather than radiative forcing from greenhouse gases.

    We now join the gravitational greenhouse effect to the only source of energy that the Earth receives, the Sun, and show that solar shortwave radiative forcing plus gravitational forcing calculates the Earth’s surface temperature, ERL height and temperature, and the entire tropospheric temperature profile perfectly, without any contribution from greenhouse gas forcing, nor dependence on greenhouse gas concentrations, nor dependence upon emission/absorption spectra from greenhouse gases.

    We show that the entire 33°C greenhouse effect that raises Earth’s equilibrium temperature with the Sun of -18C or 255K up to +15C or 288K at the surface, and the temperature at any height in the atmosphere from the surface to top of the troposphere (above which the atmosphere is too thin to sustain convection), can be fully explained by the following equation, which I’m calling “the greenhouse equation”:

    The Greenhouse Equation
    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xXJOurldG_E/VHjjbD6XinI/AAAAAAAAGx8/8yXlYh8Lcr4/s1600/The%2BGreenhouse%2BEquation%2B-%2BSymbolic%2Bsolution%2BP.png

    which solves T as a function of mass/pressure/gravity for which none of the variables are dependent upon radiative forcing from greenhouse gases, and for which the only radiative forcing we require to reproduce the entire tropospheric temperature profile is that from the Sun. Note none of the constants and variables on the right side of the greenhouse equation are related to GHG radiative forcing, and temperature does not appear on the right side of the equation and thus it can’t be a tautology of temperature.

    T = temperature at height (s) meters above the surface, thus at the surface s = 0
    s = height in meters above the surface to calculate the temperature T, thus at the surface s=0
    S = the solar constant = 1367 W/m2, derivation here
    ε = emissivity = 1 assuming Sun and Earth are blackbodies
    σ = the Stefan-Boltzmann constant = 5.6704 x 10-8 W m-2 K-4
    g = gravitational acceleration = 9.8 m/s^2
    m = average molar mass of the atmosphere = 29g/mole = 0.029kg/mole
    α = albedo = 0.3 for earth
    C = Cp = the heat capacity of the atmosphere at constant pressure, ~ 1.5077 average for Earth
    P = surface pressure in the unit atmospheres, defined as = 1 atmosphere for latitude of Paris
    R = universal gas constant = 8.3145 J/mol K
    e = the base of the natural logarithm, approximately equal to 2.71828

    As shown by the prior posts listed above, all of the components of this entire gravitational “greenhouse equation” were first derived from the ideal gas law, the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation, Newton’s second law of motion (F = ma), and well-known barometric formulae, without ever once introducing any variables dependent upon radiative forcing from greenhouse gases.

    Continues>>>>>>
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2014/11/the-greenhouse-equation.html

    The variables in the Greenhouse Equation are explained in a graphic in the above post reproduced here:

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-t3tRuEgR1cs/VHlN9bLvegI/AAAAAAAAGzM/H_H0GjXAxH8/s1600/the%2Bgreenhouse%2BEquation%2B-Explanation2.png

  51. Richard C (NZ) on 02/08/2015 at 7:38 pm said:

    ‘Why greenhouse gas radiative forcing doesn’t explain Earth’s energy budget’

    THS, Wednesday, November 26, 2014

    We have previously demonstrated that the atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure theory of the 33C greenhouse effect explains Earth’s surface temperature and the temperatures throughout the troposphere, rather than radiative forcing from greenhouse gases.

    We have also demonstrated why the atmospheric mass/gravity/pressure theory of the greenhouse effect also perfectly explains the observed greenhouse effect on Titan, the closest Earth analog in our solar system, and the only planet other than Earth with an atmosphere comprised of mostly non-greenhouse gases (Titan: 98.4% Nitrogen, 0.1% hydrogen, and only 1.5% greenhouse gas methane compared to Earth’s 78.09% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide).

    We now address three additional reasons why the conventional anthropogenic CO2 warming theory is flawed due to incorrect assumptions regarding the energy budget. In contrast, the mass/gravity/pressure alternative greenhouse theory is entirely compatible with Earth’s energy budget, physical laws, and observations.

    The radiative greenhouse theory is commonly represented by the Earth energy budget devised by Kiehl and Trenberth as shown in this diagram from their 2008 publication:

    Trenberth, Fasullo, Kiehl 2008 Earth energy budget shows “atmospheric window” transmitting only 40 W/m2 from the surface directly to space [Now superseded by Stephens et al (2012)]
    http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/FT08-Raw-550×398.png

    which shows an “atmospheric window” where the greenhouse gases don’t significantly absorb/emit infrared radiation, and thus most of this radiation travels directly from the surface to space unimpeded by greenhouse gases, or any radiative forcing as a result.

    Earth longwave emission Tropical Pacific:
    Satellite Looking DOWN
    Surface Looking UP
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/gw-spectrum-tropical-pacific.jpg

    The “atmospheric window” of radiation direct to space falls between 8-12 micron wavelengths, as shown in the figures above and below, which includes the peak emission wavelengths (~8-11 microns) from Earth, thus ~80% of these peak emissions from Earth pass directly to space without being absorbed or emitted by greenhouse gases, thus don’t contribute to radiative forcing.

    Radiation Transmitted by the Atmosphere
    Blue curve shows the Planck curve assuming Earth radiated as a true blackbody, with peak emissions located at ~10 microns, which is at the middle of the 8-12 micron “atmospheric window” that is not absorbed/emitted by greenhouse gases.
    http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png

    However, according to the Trenberth et al Earth energy budget above, only 40 W/m2 passes through the “atmospheric window,” i.e. only 10% of the 396 W/m2 radiative surface emissions in his energy budget.

    The Planck–Einstein relation is a formula integral to quantum mechanics, and states that the energy of a photon (E) is proportional to its frequency (ν). The constant of proportionality, h, is known as the Planck constant:

    E = hv

    and since frequency v is inversely related to wavelength λ by

    v = c/λ where c = speed of light

    therefore

    E = hc/λ

    thus, the shorter the wavelength/higher the frequency of a photon, the higher the energy it contains.

    Therefore, the highest energy photons at the short 8-12 micron wavelengths emitted from Earth’s surface fall within the direct atmospheric window to space without any interaction with greenhouse gases.

    We can get a sense for the huge effect just a few microns change in wavelength has on the corresponding blackbody emission temperature by plotting the peak blackbody emission wavelength in microns vs. the peak emission temperature of a blackbody determined by Wien’s Displacement Law, which shows the emission temperature at the beginning of the atmospheric window at 8 microns is 89C, dropping all the way down to -31.7C at the end of the atmospheric window at 12 microns, a temperature change of 120.7C.

    […graph omitted…..]

    The catastrophic greenhouse gas CO2, however, absorbs and emits line spectra centered around 15 microns, so what does Wien’s displacement law calculate for a blackbody (which CO2 is not) emitting at 15 microns? Whoa, a toasty peak emission temperature of minus 80C:

    Peak Blackbody Emission Wavelength vs Peak Emission Temperature
    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s1YfToovzl0/VHa_-v7WsvI/AAAAAAAAGxI/RJWkFjw7FaA/s1600/peak%2Bblackbody%2Bemission%2Bin%2Batm%2Bwindow%2B2.jpg

    Thus, the radiative greenhouse theory makes the absurd assumption that CO2 radiating at a blackbody temperature of -80C contributes 20% of the radiative greenhouse effect and heats the Earth by 6.6C from the equilibrium temperature with the Sun of -18C to -11.4C. How can a cold body radiating at -80C cause a hotter body at -18C to warm by 6.6C or at all? Pictet’s experiment 214 years ago, the 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics, the principle of maximum entropy production, Planck’s law, the Pauli exclusion principle, and quantum mechanics all prove it cannot. CO2 radiating at an equivalent blackbody temperature of -80C cannot possibly account for 20% of the ~33C greenhouse effect to cause 20% of the warming from -18C to 15C.

    Further, even within the CO2 equivalent -80C blackbody emission peak at 15 microns [line spectra range ~13.5 – 17 microns], the CO2 and water vapor absorption/emission spectra significantly overlap such that almost 70% is independently due to water vapor and thus would be completely unaffected by increased CO2. Thus, despite overwhelming evidence that CO2 cannot significantly warm the planet, if you still believe the radiative greenhouse theory and reject the alternate mass/pressure greenhouse theory, the overlapping spectra of CO2 with water vapor prove CO2 is a bit player at most:

    Continues>>>>>>
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2014/11/why-greenhouse-gas-radiative-forcing.html

  52. Richard C (NZ) on 02/08/2015 at 7:42 pm said:

    >”How can a cold body radiating at -80C cause a hotter body at -18C to warm by 6.6C or at all?”

    The Mathematics of Carbon Dioxide Part 4 – WUWT

    Bernard Lodge August 1, 2015 at 10:26 am

    OK, I waited until the fourth posting on CO2 for an explanation but I still have an unanswered question:

    A black body (at any temperature) cannot increase the temperature of a different body to a higher temperature than its own. It doesn’t matter how big the first body is compared to the second, it still cannot raise the temperature of the second body above its own temperature. In other words, you can double the size of the emitting body so that it emits twice as much IR but it does not make any difference to the temperature of the second body.

    CO2 absorbs IR at the 15 micron wavelength. 15 microns equates to a black body emitting at a temperature of -80c. It doesn’t matter how much CO2 is in the atmosphere absorbing 15 micron IR, it still won’t increase the temperature of the earth above -80c.

    But, it seems that ‘everyone accepts’ doubling CO2 will lead to a +1.2c change in temperatures. Where am I going wrong? Can anyone explain this in layman terms?

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/01/the-mathematics-of-carbon-dioxide-part-4/#comment-1998586&lt

    Provoking a long sub-thread that doesn’t resolve Bernard’s question unfortunately.

  53. Richard C (NZ) on 02/08/2015 at 8:29 pm said:

    >”thus, the shorter the wavelength/higher the frequency of a photon, the higher the energy it contains.”

    Infrared

    Near-infrared, IR-A, Wavelength 0.75–1.4 µm, Photon Energy 886-1653 meV [Solar]
    Short-wavelength infrared, IR-B, Wavelength 1.4-3 µm, Photon Energy 413-886 meV [Solar]
    Mid-wavelength infrared, IR-C, Wavelength 3–8 µm, Photon Energy 155–413 meV
    Long-wavelength infrared, IR-C, Wavelength 8–15 µm, Photon Energy 83–155 meV [CO2 centred 15 µm]
    Far-infrared, FIR, Wavelength 15–1,000 µm, Photon Energy 1.2–83 meV [CO2 centred 15 µm]

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

    # # #

    >”there appears to be a collective brain failure among climate scientists”

    Climate science thinks, e.g. Earth’s Energy Budget/Flows, 1 W.m-2 IR-C/FIR has the same effect on matter as 1 W.m-2 IR-A/B i.e. 83 meV (CO2) has the same effect as 413 – 1653 meV (solar).

    Impossible.

  54. Richard C (NZ) on 02/08/2015 at 11:01 pm said:

    >”Climate science thinks, e.g. Earth’s Energy Budget/Flows, 1 W.m-2 IR-C/FIR has the same effect on matter as 1 W.m-2 IR-A/B i.e. 83 meV (CO2) has the same effect as 413 – 1653 meV (solar)”

    83 meV (CO2) or 413 – 1653 meV (solar) being energy-per-photon rather than energy per metre squared. Many, many, photons per metre squared:

    ‘How do I convert irradiance into photon flux?’

    Commonly the irradiance of a light source is given in [W/m2]. Irradiance is defined as the power of electromagnetic radiation incident per unit area on a surface. For biological processes the quantum flux of light with a distinct wave length has a higher relevance than the irradiance. The quantum flux (also called photon flux) is defined as the number of photons in µmol per second and unit area on a surface and given in µE (µ Einstein). To convert irradiance in quantum flux and vice versa the following points have to be considered:

    A photon has a distinct energy quanta Ep which is defined by:

    Ep= h•f = h•(c/λ)

    (with Plancks constant h=6,63•10-34 [Js]; Speed of light c=2.998•108 [m/s]; Frequency f [1/s]; Wavelength λ [m])

    The number of photons Np can be calculated by (Note: the nm value for λ is used):

    Np= E/Ep= E•((λ•10-9)/h•c) = E [W/m2]•λ•10-9[m]•/ (1.988•10-25) [J/s•m/s]

    = E•λ•5.03•1015 [1/(m2•s)] (with Irradiance E [W/m2])

    The photon flux can be determined by:

    EQF = Np/NA (with Avogadro number NA=6,022•1023 mol-1)

    Taken together this leads to the following equation for converting irradiance [W/m2] into quantum flux [µE]:

    EQF = Np/NA = (E•λ•5.03•1015[1/(m2•s)])/(6.02•1017[1/µmol])

    = E•λ•0.836•10-2 [µmol/(m2•s)]

    Examples: >>>>>>
    https://www.berthold.com/en/bio/how-do-i-convert-irradiance-photon-flux

    Wavelength 470nm (0.47 µm), Number of photons for 1W 2.365 • 10^18
    Wavelength 730 nm (0.73 µm), Number of photons for 1W 3.672 • 10^18

    As wavelength increases it takes more photons to deliver the same amount of power. But the same amount of power delivered does not deliver energy to matter, and therefore heating effect, the same way because energy-per-photon is decreasing. Human skin is the classic example:

    http://biologiedelapeau.fr/IMG/jpg/rayonnement-solaire-et-peau.jpg

    Yes, visible light penetrates human skin through epidermis, dermis, and down to the hypodermis (who knew?). But it doesn’t burn like UV-B penetrating only the epidermis and it doesn’t heat like IR-A/B either.

    In the diagram above there is a human hair which is about 100 µm in diameter. This is the penetration depth of IR-C into water (think CO2 centred 15 µm). Compare to:

    OCEAN PENETRATION BY SOLAR SPECTRUM
    https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/ocean-penetration-by-solar-spectrum1.png

    100 micrometers = 0.0001 meters (IR-C). The solar graph starts at 0.001 meters and goes to 120 meters. In other words, the sun heats the ocean, IR-C doesn’t. Besides, net IR-C is a cooling flux.

  55. Andy on 03/08/2015 at 4:31 pm said:

    Hansen has a go at Clinton’s climate plans, describing them as “silly”
    http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/29/hillary-clinton-climate-change-plan

  56. Mike Jowsey on 03/08/2015 at 4:43 pm said:

    Tasman Ocean beginning to boil too!

    Snow falls to sea level in Hobart, polar change reaches NZ this weekend
    Posted by WW Forecast Team on Mon, 03/08/2015 – 14:57
    Filed in:

    Australia NZ

    For the first time in 10 years snow has fallen on Hobart’s beaches and central business district. The polar change across the ditch is connected to the warm weather today in New Zealand, and was forecast by WeatherWatch.co.nz a week ago.

    “This giant Southern Ocean low has been in the models for some time now, it’s developing well south of New Zealand and Australia over the next few days and it’s affecting both nations at the same time” says head weather analyst Philip Duncan.

    “The centre of this large area of low pressure is developing between the southern Tasman Sea and Antarctica, pulling air from the ice shelf up to Tasmania and southern Australia, in the form of southerlies, and this pushes the air from Australia over the Tasman Sea to New Zealand in the form of much warmer west to north west winds”.

    “As of 1pm it was a stunning 23 degrees in Kaikoura, with those north to north west winds” says Mr Duncan. Meanwhile, under the same nor’west flow, it was 21 degrees in Christchurch, 18 degrees in Auckland and 17 in Dunedin.

    (source: http://www.weatherwatch.co.nz/content/snow-falls-sea-level-hobart-polar-change-reaches-nz-weekend )

    Just a reminder to our warmista comrades: warm is good, cold bad. Wrap up people, global weirding is on its way yet again.

  57. Mike Jowsey on 03/08/2015 at 4:46 pm said:

    “pulling air from the ice shelf up to Tasmania and southern Australia”

    Remember the ice shelf is at maximum extent – it reaches now to 30 latitude degrees South. If anyone says this is caused by global warming, point south.

  58. Richard C (NZ) on 03/08/2015 at 8:43 pm said:

    >”Near-infrared, IR-A, Wavelength 0.75–1.4 µm, Photon Energy 886-1653 meV [Solar]
    Short-wavelength infrared, IR-B, Wavelength 1.4-3 µm, Photon Energy 413-886 meV [Solar]”

    How Lasers Work [ACRONYM ALERT]

    “A laser is a device that controls the way that energized atoms release photons. “Laser” is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, which describes very succinctly how a laser works.”

    http://science.howstuffworks.com/laser3.htm

    ‘2 μm Laser Sources and Their Possible Applications’

    Karsten Scholle, Samir Lamrini, Philipp Koopmann and Peter Fuhrberg
    LISA laser products OHG, Germany

    1. Introduction
    The wavelength range around 2 μm which is covered by the laser systems described in this
    chapter is part of the so called “eye safe” wavelength region which begins at about 1.4 μm.
    Laser systems that operate in this region offer exceptional advantages for free space
    applications compared to conventional systems that operate at shorter wavelengths. This
    gives them a great market potential for the use in LIDAR and gas sensing systems and for
    direct optical communication applications. The favourable absorption in water makes such
    lasers also very useful for medical applications. As it can be seen in figure 1, there is a strong
    absorption peak near 2 μm which reduces the penetration depth of this wavelength in tissue
    to a few hundred μm.

    Fig. 1. Absorption and penetration depth in water and other biological tissue constituents
    for different wavelengths
    http://www.intechopen.com/source/html/8446/media/image1.jpeg

    [Note: “strong” is in respect to absorption, much deeper penetration at 0.7μm and 1μm obviously]

    Due to the strong absorption in water, the main constituent of biological tissue, substantial
    heating of small areas is achieved. This allows for very precise cutting of biological tissue.
    Additionally the bleeding during laser cutting is suppressed by coagulation, this makes
    2 μm lasers ideal for many surgical procedures.

    Furthermore 2 μm lasers are well suited to measure the health of planet earth. They can be
    used directly for measuring the wind velocity and for the detection of both water vapour
    and carbon dioxide concentration. Wind sensing is very important for weather forecasting,
    storm tracking, and airline safety. Water vapour and carbon dioxide detection is useful for
    weather and climate prediction and for the analysis of the green house effect.

    4. Most attractive laser applications in the 2 μm wavelength range

    4.1 Laser sensing and spectroscopy
    The 2 μm wavelength range is called “eye safe”, since laser radiation of this wavelength is
    absorbed in the vitreous body of the eye and does not reach the retina. Therefore the
    threshold for untreatable eye damage is much higher than for shorter wavelengths. Laser
    systems that operate in the “eye safe” wavelength range have great market potential
    especially in free space applications where eye safety is very important. So these laser
    systems are ideal for the usage in LIDAR (LIght Detection And Ranging) systems. LIDAR
    systems operate very similar to radar systems except that aerosol particles suspended in the
    air provide the return signal.

    In the wavelength range at 2 􀇍m there are absorption lines of a number of atmospheric
    gasses (e.g. H2O, CO2, N2O) which can be detected and analysed in this spectral region.
    There are different detection techniques for chemical sensing based on short, medium and
    long detection paths. Short range detection means in the immediate location of the laser
    system and the detector, often with both in the same compact housing. Medium range refers
    to a short open path between the source and the detector (some metres). This includes
    systems with an integrated measurement system that use a multi-pass Heriotstyle cell or
    chamber containing the gas of interest. Long range here refers to any detection made over
    an appreciable distance (100 m to several km).

    […]

    Remote chemical sensing with compact and robust laser sources in the 2 μm wavelength range has good potential in the chemical and petroleum industries in terms of safety, quality control, and regulatory enforcement as well as in medical and environmental applications. Recently the sensing of a number of chemical markers in breath analysis (such as ammonia – NH3) has been shown to provide early
    diagnosis of chronic medical conditions.

    4.2 Medical applications
    There are several aspects which make the 2 μm wavelength range a promising candidate for
    highly precise surgical applications for both soft and hard tissue. The most important
    property is the high absorption in water combined with minimal penetration depth within
    human tissue. The superficial mid-infrared tissue ablation effects lead to submicron ablation
    rates which result in minimal damage around the exposed area. The second important
    aspect is the coagulation effect caused by the 2 μm laser radiation, which suppresses the
    bleeding during operations. In the most cases, solid state lasers are used for well established
    medical procedures such as precise tissue ablation, ophthalmic surgery or dentistry. Figure
    18 shows the main medical applications and their anatomic regions within the whole human
    body. For the applications printed in red pulsed laser systems are used, for the others cw
    laser radiation is more practical.

    4.3 Material processing
    The 2 μm wavelength range is also very attractive for material processing especially for
    plastics. The most interesting aspect is the processing of plastic materials that are
    transparent in the visible wavelength range. Figure 19 shows a schematic diagram of the
    welding process for two transparent plastics and two pictures of plastic welds prepared
    with a thulium 2 μm laser. Most of the relevant plastic materials show sufficient absorption
    around 2.0 μm to allow direct processing with lasers operating at this wavelength. Using the
    absorbed energy of a 2.0 μm laser cutting, welding, and marking are easily possible. Using
    “standard” 1 μm lasers this is only possible with additives inside the plastic that increase the
    absorption of the laser light, because the plastics are still highly transparent in this
    wavelength range. These additives make the fabrication process more complicated and the
    addition is sometimes prohibited for example when the plastics are used in medical
    applications. Laser systems for such applications have to deliver high cw output powers
    with a good beam quality and they have to be highly reliable for industrial operation.
    Possible applications in this field also include the processing and fabrication of transparent
    bio-fluidic chips (precise welding or generating of micro-channels) for biological or medical
    mass-screening experiments.

    http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/8446.pdf

    # # #

    >”the so called “eye safe” wavelength region which begins at about 1.4 μm”

    The above is another demonstration of radiation-matter “tuning”. Something climate scientists turn a blind eye to.

  59. Andy on 04/08/2015 at 9:42 am said:

    There is a letter in today’s Press which claims that one metre SLR by 2100 is the “absolute best case scenario”, and then goes on to cite Hansen

    This is of course at odds with the IPCC whose one metre projection is the absolute worst case scenario presented.

    Nothing like a bit of truth inversion with your cornflakes to get the day going..

  60. Richard Treadgold on 05/08/2015 at 9:13 am said:

    Rocks in his head.

  61. Andy on 05/08/2015 at 9:15 am said:

    I googled the writers name, and he runs a company called Applied Physics, and is a former DSIR man.

  62. Richard Treadgold on 05/08/2015 at 9:48 am said:

    Good move. That explains why he can write, but it does not explain why he can’t reason. One metre of sea level rise is incredible, two metres impossible and five metres just a nightmare.

  63. Andy on 05/08/2015 at 10:13 am said:

    One metre of sea level rise is incredible

    yet this is the basis of NZ coastal management for the next 100 years

  64. Richard Treadgold on 05/08/2015 at 10:35 am said:

    yet this is the basis of NZ coastal management for the next 100 years

    Only for now. They’re trying to make it permanent; they would be better advised to make it temporary, as there’s no better permanency in public affairs than a temporary arrangement.

  65. Richard C (NZ) on 05/08/2015 at 11:07 am said:

    >”he runs a company called Applied Physics”

    He writes:

    “there is definitely a gloomy prospect whem verifiable facts are examined and trends analysed”

    No applied brains in this case apparently.

  66. Andy on 05/08/2015 at 2:02 pm said:

    Does anyone know where the “exponential” claim comes from?
    This is from the letter, but also evident from the graph shown in the Christchurch City Council pamphlet.

  67. Richard Treadgold on 05/08/2015 at 2:46 pm said:

    Yes, I was surprised to see that, and put it down to zeal. In the absence of evidence.

  68. Andy on 05/08/2015 at 2:53 pm said:

    I would add that graphs that exhibit acceleration are not all exponential. For example, y = x*x is not exponential, but might fit the graph shown in the CCC pamphlet.

  69. Andy on 05/08/2015 at 3:13 pm said:

    The latter may be stating the bleeding obvious here, btw, but the term “exponential” gets thrown around willy-nilly

  70. Richard C (NZ) on 05/08/2015 at 3:33 pm said:

    >”the term “exponential” gets thrown around willy-nilly”

    As in – “it [SLR] does not stop at whatever figure turns out to be true, as it [SLR] increases exponentially”

    Huh?

    Right now, the figure that turns out to be true is 1.90mm/yr. From 1990 this gives 0.2m SLR by 2100.

    But it doesn’t stop there? It increases exponentially? Is that after 2100 or after now? It was supposed to be from after 1990.

    David Beach is one woolly thinker. Of which there are many on this topic unfortunately.

  71. Richard C (NZ) on 05/08/2015 at 3:42 pm said:

    >”I would add that graphs that exhibit acceleration are not all exponential”

    Yes, the issue is the assumption of increasing growth i.e. the rise rate increasing progressively.

    The downfall of a lot of infrastructural planning failures can be traced back to assumptions of unrealistic growth rates. SLR planning fits that scenario I think.

  72. Andy on 05/08/2015 at 4:00 pm said:

    The great thing about exponential growth is that it exceeds all polynomial growth at some point. So even if you can’t see any trend now, it will eventually become very large

    I don’t suppose it matters that it doesn’t fit any physics. For example, the “forcing” of CO2 is presumed logarithmic, the inverse of exponential

  73. Richard C (NZ) on 05/08/2015 at 4:17 pm said:

    >”For example, the “forcing” of CO2 is presumed logarithmic, the inverse of exponential”

    Except when expressed as change in forcing i.e. dF = 5.35 ln(C/Co), currently 1.9 W.m-2. This gives an increasing curve that I think is an acceleration.

    Haven’t got time to go through this now, got to go to work unfortunately.

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