Fight for climate evidence goes on … and on

Our good friend Bryan Leyland wrote this hard-hitting article describing correspondence he had with the newly-formed NZ Climate Change Commission. [Download the correspondence file here (pdf, 536 KB).] He’s been engaged on a dogged search for evidence that human activity dangerously heats the earth. Everyone says the evidence is “overwhelming” but when you ask them nobody actually has any, which strikes us as a confidence trick. He offers us the article in hopes of the widest possible distribution, because everyone’s asking: “What is the evidence?”

NOTE ON THE COMING ELECTION: If you think setting up this commission and hiking the ETS carbon price is bad, wait for the next three years of government by these backward-looking, anti-farming, communist wreckers.

The Climate Commission has no clothes

— by Bryan Leyland, Consulting Engineer
Member, NZ Climate Science Coalition

The Climate Commission claims, “We provide independent, evidence-based advice to Government to help Aotearoa New Zealand transition to a low-emissions and climate-resilient economy.”

Spending huge amounts of money on a low-emissions economy is only justified if proof exists that man-made greenhouse gases cause dangerous global warming. If there’s no evidence there’s no need for the transition.

The NZ Climate Science Coalition (NZCSC) have been asking for evidence for several years and offered a $10,000 prize to anyone who had some. It has not been claimed.

We asked the Commission for evidence. The “Engagement and Communications Team” responded that they relied upon the consensus views of climate scientists. We consider, with Karl Popper, that science relies not on consensus but on falsification of evidence. Major scientific discoveries have been made with evidence that defied the consensus but could not be falsified. The Commission responded that the major global scientific institutions were of the same mind [download correspondence file here (pdf, 536 KB)]. Nonetheless, they all cite the IPCC but they don’t cite evidence.

The Communications Team referred us to the IPCC AR5 report and the NASA website. We told them that the AR5 Technical Reports describe major uncertainties in key factors fed into the climate models. Certain crucial factors specify that man-made greenhouse gases cause dangerous global warming. In other words, the models don’t come to that conclusion of their own accord, they’re told what to think.

We told the Communications Team that NASA, too, relies on consensus and states, “Climate warming trends over the past century are extremely likely due to human activities.” The term extremely likely refers to a specific mathematical probability, but we want to know the evidence—the numerical chance it might be true means nothing. Physical evidence is powerfully persuasive—indeed, sometimes it’s the only way people will believe the truth.

The NZCSC would agree that the world has been warming in emerging from the Little Ice Age (1300 – 1870) and the cold dip around 1910. But there is no evidence of a significant man-made influence in any of that.

The Commission advised us to publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal refuting man-made warming. So they’re saying, “We don’t have any evidence but if you can’t prove it’s wrong, then it’s true,” which is nonsense. It is entirely up to them to bring evidence for their own statements and it’s not anyone else’s job to prove they’re wrong. The people of New Zealand deserve to know why they say temperatures are dangerous and man-made. Without that evidence they won’t believe it.

Since the above exchanges occurred, a letter from the NZCSC went to Dr Rod Carr, who leads the Commission, asking for evidence the Engagement and Communications Team won’t give us. The letter said that if he cannot, he should inform the government that the Commission should be disbanded. We await a response.

We note that the Climate Commission is not on its own. Its inability to provide evidence when asked is shared by the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Royal Society (London), Professor James Renwick and the IPCC. We can provide the correspondence if you wish.

Billions of dollars are being squandered and our agricultural industry is being seriously damaged because of a wholly unproven belief that man-made global warming is dangerous.

But this Emperor has no clothes!

Download Leyland-CCC correspondence (pdf, 536 KB)

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40 Thoughts on “Fight for climate evidence goes on … and on

  1. Rick on 12/06/2020 at 5:15 am said:

    Wow! This is hot stuff, Richard! I think it could make disturbing waves throughout the climate change establishment and far beyond the shores of New Zealand.

    Having demonstrated that no empirical scientific evidence for dangerous man-made global warming is available from two of the principal information sources in the world which claim to possess it (i.e. the UN IPCC and NASA) and that none is available from the NZ government’s advisory body (the NZ Climate Commission) either, I’m wondering whether the best next step for the NZ CSC to take might be to write to the relevant minister with a request to know why the government is taking advice from a body which effectively admits in writing that it cannot produce any actual empirical evidence to support the advice it is giving. (This has echoes of the Ferguson coronavirus model.)

    Clearly, the Climate Commission is basing its advice on arbitrary assumptions which may not be true and therefore it is not fit for purpose. I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but I can’t imagine that the government, or the Climate Commission would be able to argue in court that they can produce the said evidence when they have already admitted in writing that they can’t.

    • Richard Treadgold on 12/06/2020 at 7:46 am said:

      Yes, I share your thinking, Rick. This project has a lot of potential. What it needs now is an audience. But let’s keep the thinking caps on to take it further. Following your comments, I plan to write to the Law Society. But anyone can write to anyone, and in this country we still can, so we should. Thanks.

  2. Simon on 12/06/2020 at 8:11 am said:

    The physical laws that govern climate are clear and unambiguous, increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere increases surface temperatures. This has been confirmed by observational evidence. The onus in on yourselves to find a previously unknown principle that counteracts the greenhouse effect.


    Simon, I’m letting this comment in because you refrain from abuse, thank you. – RT

    • Richard Treadgold on 12/06/2020 at 8:33 am said:

      Simon, talking about the physical laws that “govern” climate as though somebody knows what they are is waffle. So little is known about weather and climate that we discover more practically each month. What you say about GHG increasing is true. However, to claim they increase surface temperatures is only somewhat correct, because (did you notice?) for about 20 years since about 1996, temperatures were at a hiatus while CO2 concentrations rose relentlessly—such warming appears to be of a low magnitude. Also, perhaps you’re unaware of what the IPCC say about the warming process. The greenhouse effect causes only a little warming, but there’ll be further dangerous warming caused by feedback. They say more water will be evaporated to cause great warming.

      Of course, it’s wrong, but my point is that the danger is not represented by the greenhouse effect itself, as you claim, but by subsequent feedback, so we don’t have to refute that, in fact we’ve always accepted it (you must have overlooked that, too). It is behoven on you to present proof of the process the IPCC describe, because there is no sign of the feedback they talk about. It’s not our responsibility to disprove it. What (yet again I ask, sir!) is the evidence?

    • Simon on 12/06/2020 at 12:37 pm said:

      The physical laws concerning climate are:
      1. The first law of thermodynamics
      2. Stefan-Boltzmann Law,
      3. Clausius-Clapeyron equation,
      4. Navier-Stokes equations of fluid motion.
      With these you can then go and build your own Global Climate Model and show us what we are doing wrong.

    • Richard Treadgold on 12/06/2020 at 12:52 pm said:

      Simon,

      Is that all it takes? But no, I don’t think so. If it were possible, they would have done this long ago, but they obviously haven’t, since the AR5 stated that 111 of its 114 models overstated warming in the previous 15 years. If your rudimentary, rather haughty suggestion had merit and produced a skilful model, they wouldn’t need to use 114 of them and take meaningless averages.

      Anyway, you’re not paying attention to the topic. I’ve revealed the IPCC refuse to give us evidence. Whaddya think of that?

    • Mack on 13/06/2020 at 10:54 pm said:

      Simon,
      The science behind flying pigs is also clear, well understood and unambiguous. Pigs are airborne directly as a result of the Ist and 2nd physical laws of aerodynamics causing elevation beneath their “greenhouse wings”. The number of the human induced greenhouse wings are steadily increasing causing more pigs to fly.
      Also note, there are +ive and -ive feed backs . Feeding the pigs decreases aerodynamics leading to less pigs in the air. Less feeding = more speed and greater danger of being hit by one.

    • Simon, I would be interested to see your “observational evidence”. If it exists, why haven’t the Climate Commission, RSNZ. RSUK and the IPCC itself presented it to us?

      Don’t forget that there is a “climate forcing factor” entered in to the climate models to amplify the “greenhouse” effect. There is huge uncertainty in the magnitude of this factor. If it was one, man-made global warming would not be noticeable.

      There is no doubt that the climate changes naturally and, as I have said, it is up to you and your friends to prove that there is a man-made influence.

      According to the satellite temperatures – which Nasa said are the most accurate – world temperatures have decreased since 2016. If you look at my website BryanLeyland.co.nz, you will see that there is an excellent correlation between world temperatures and the Southern Oscillation Index four months ahead. This correlation leaves very little space for a significant man-made influence. And yes, I know that correlation doesn’t prove causation, but it should make you think.

    • Richard Treadgold on 12/06/2020 at 10:51 am said:

      Bryan,

      Thanks for dropping in. Good to hear from you.

    • Simon on 12/06/2020 at 12:47 pm said:

      There is uncertainty over equilibrium climate forcing but the largest uncertainty is what anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions will be in the future.
      Climate changes according to well-understood forcings, both anthropogenic and “natural”.
      “World temperatures have decreased since 2016” is not statistically significant. That’s simply variation and related to ENSO as you suggest. ENSO is not a forcing, note that O stands for Oscillation. SOI positive means warmer atmospheric temperatures, negative is cooler.

    • Simon, when I was in Stockholm a few years ago I met a very experienced climate modeller who told us that no climate model can deal with clouds. As a 1% also change in cloud cover can explain all the warming that has taken place so far, there is a lot to learn.

      I would also point out that no climate model can predict an El Niño event – the major climate disturbance in the world. A model that cannot predict that is pretty well worthless.

      Once again, if you have concrete evidence, please produce it. All you have produced at the moment are assertions.

    • Simon on 13/06/2020 at 1:24 pm said:

      It must have been more than a few years ago because clouds are an emergent property of modern GCMs. Clouds can have a positive and negative feedback depending upon formation, but obviously something has to have changed to the climate to make them different. The papers I have seen suggest that change in cloud cover has a slightly positive feedback rather than a large negative one.
      Short-term weather events are chaotic but in the long-run the trend dominates and that trend is increasing surface air temperatures just as forecast by the models.

    • Richard Treadgold on 13/06/2020 at 2:40 pm said:

      Simon, you say:

      Clouds can have a positive and negative feedback

      The behaviour of an individual factor in a complex system is usually referred to as an ‘effect’. Or are you referring to temperature feedbacks? Then:

      something has to have changed to the climate to make them different

      ‘Them’: do you mean clouds? Different from what and in what way?

      Demonstrate the warming trend, please, and show how they match the models. I have looked carefully and have not found a long-term trend of warming at the magnitude expected from the models.

    • Simon on 14/06/2020 at 8:38 am said:

      This discussion is timely because the more precise CMIP6 models are suggesting a potentially higher equilibrium climate sensitivity because of Southern Ocean cloud feedback. If you are genuinely interested, you can follow the discussion here: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2020/06/sensitive-but-unclassified-part-ii/#more-23118

    • Rick on 15/06/2020 at 11:24 pm said:

      Simon,

      Discussing Southern Ocean cloud feedback is like blind men feeling up an elephant. I think you need to let go of the bit of the elephant that you have got hold of, then open your eyes and see the whole elephant in the IPCC’s living-room which, in the context of the discussion of climate feedbacks, is the feedback from the whole global water-cycle, not just the parts of it that you are all fumbling with at the moment.

      The absolute, existential proof that the overall feedback from the water-cycle is negative is the simple fact that we are here to talk about it, because if it was overall positive instead the earth would have undergone a runaway greenhouse excursion aeons ago. By now the oceans would have boiled dry, the temperature at the surface would exceed the surface temperature on Venus and no organic life would exist or even be possible anywhere on the planet.

      The fact that the net feedback from the global water-cycle is negative implies that the water-cycle (not CO2) regulates the global mean surface temperature (GMST) to keep restoring it to an equilibrium value whenever it is displaced from that standard by the countless internal and external influences acting continually upon it. Thus, the water-cycle constitutes a basic vital mechanism for the thermal self-regulation of the planet, perhaps like the blood-circulation in our mammalian bodies.

      BTW The IPCC’s notion that clouds and water vapour are direct feedbacks to CO2 is a fallacy. As phases of the water-cycle they are actually direct feedbacks to surface energy: the more energy that is present at the surface the more evaporation occurs to create first more water vapour (which warms the surface by its own greenhouse effect), then more cloud (which cools the surface by reflecting more sunlight away into space) and finally more precipitation (which can warm or cool the surface depending a number of complex factors yet to be investigated). And vice versa for less surface energy, of course.

      Finally, the IPCC’s notion that the so-called ‘non-condensing’ greenhouse gases like CO2 and CH4 determine the earth’s equilibrium surface temperature is also a fallacy. It is precisely because the water-cycle is a regulatory feedback to surface energy that it is the primary determinant of the prevailing equilibrium GMST. CO2 and CH4 might raise this standard by a small amount each perhaps, but since the net feedback from the water-cycle is negative, their effects on the equilibrium GMST would automatically be less than they would be if the water-cycle provided no feedback at all.

  3. ross on 14/06/2020 at 3:00 pm said:

    Dr Ed Berry (edberry.com) has just completed his 3rd preprint on CO2 which seems to completely debunk the IPCC theory of man made CO2 and global warming. His comprehensive analysis in preprint 2 and 3 has been open to comments which is interesting reading .

    • Richard Treadgold on 14/06/2020 at 4:58 pm said:

      Do you have a link for us, ross?

    • Rick on 15/06/2020 at 8:05 pm said:

      The link is https://edberry.com/ , Richard.

    • Richard Treadgold on 15/06/2020 at 10:35 pm said:

      Thanks, Rick. I thought it might be Ed Berry. He sounds right about the logic of the various fluxes in the biosphere, ocean and atmosphere. But I’d love to hear scientists take it apart. I’m happy to cite his figure of 18 ppmv as the amount of accumulated atmospheric anthropogenic CO2, but I’ll be certain of its accuracy only when someone else confirms and explains it.

  4. Courtesy Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, may I quote her quoting B.F. Skinner what he told a 1947 symposium, “It is not a matter of bringing the world into the laboratory, but of extending the practices of an experimental science to the world at large. We can do this as soon as we wish to do it.”

    However much I appreciate the cleverness of those who keep on keeping on trying to disprove the undisprovable, I do think it may soon amount to a tilting at windmills while the action demanding attention happens elsewhere. Governments everywhere listen to certain experts and scientists while unstudiously ignoring others. We are now subjected to decrees based not just on any kind of modelling, or a competition between models which give the best result from a scientific perspective, but on modelling chosen because they give the best excuse for an agenda unrelated to the problems the models are programmed for.

    As has been remarked, scientific computer modelling is not scientific unless the input matches the real world. It does not even produce scientific theories which may be proven wrong. Scientific computer modelling so-called provides results which may or may not approximate the real world, but if they do it is co-incidence, not correlation, false justification, not causation. As to predicting the future, astrology would be a better bet as it relies on a universal clockwork which can be, and has been for thousands of years, based on factually-observed astronomy.

    Climate science is not science. As for other science informing governments lately, if it leads to the world’s public, as opposed to scientists, experts, academics, politicians, bureaucrats, and the media hacks, becoming lab rats and experiment bunnies, with the rich and super-rich claiming the rewards, it can only be a matter of time before it becomes necessary for the world’s public to try an experiment of their own. Incommunicado house arrest for the experts, to start with.

    • Richard Treadgold on 14/06/2020 at 9:31 pm said:

      Yes, Jacob. I increasingly fear that people capable of rational thought must begin to disregard and bypass those in superior positions, for politicians, bureaucrats and academics detuned to sensitive reasoning are becoming part of the problem and actively impede solutions.

      I recommend The Thin Red Line, an essay on modern developments in the common law by Anthony Willy, former NZ judge, posted last week at the NZCPR, which makes a thoughtful contribution to understanding current challenges in jurisprudence.

    • Thanks. Will check it out, Richard.

    • Yes, well. Well done, but the horse has bolted. It’s a good piece for people to keep abreast of things, and an example of what the West is acquiring and losing, but there are tectonic shifts happening which will not be stayed. The point is to understand it and be effective in one’s defence.

      To (mis)quote from another switched-on knowledgeable person, now long deceased, one Bob Santamaria, Australian and, at the time, well-known Roman Catholic columnist;
      “Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make collectively insane”. Universal Law dictates that a sizeable proportion of a reigning culture which is past its best and not renewing itself must need self-destruct. It is then said, “it is already baked in the cake”.
      The point is to not be baked into the cake, lest one gets eaten by inexorable tumults.

  5. Cambridgedon on 18/06/2020 at 3:43 pm said:

    Rick believes it’s water vapour not carbon dioxide and methane that determine Earth’s temperature.

    Is so, why is the temperature rising? That is, why is there more water vapour now than before the Industrial Revolution, only 200 years ago?

    It doesn’t make any sense, at any level, even kindergarten.

    • ross on 18/06/2020 at 9:25 pm said:

      cambridgedon, its fully explained in preprint 3 at edberry.com. This paper is very scientific but over the next few days ed is writing a more public user friendly version. The comments section in preprint 2 covers questions and queries from people including scientists which Ed responds and provides sound
      science based answers.

    • Rick on 19/06/2020 at 11:00 am said:

      You appear to have either misread or misunderstood what I wrote, Cambridgedon. I never said that water vapour determines Earth’s temperature. Nor do I believe that it does.

  6. Cambridgedon on 19/06/2020 at 1:58 pm said:

    @Rick: You appear to have either misread or misunderstood what I wrote, Cambridgedon. I never said that water vapour determines Earth’s temperature. Nor do I believe that it does.

    Rick on June 15, 2020 at 11:24 pm said: ” It is precisely because the water-cycle is a regulatory feedback to surface energy that it is the primary determinant of the prevailing equilibrium GMST.”

    I read that as, “… it’s water vapour not carbon dioxide and methane that determine Earth’s temperature.”

    Anyway, it’s nonsense. It is the non-condensible GHG gases that govern Earth’s temperature. Whatever it is you believe is irrelevant, because climate scientists accept the IPCC reports, not yours.

    • Rick on 20/06/2020 at 12:23 am said:

      Well, Cambridgedon, if I write one thing and you read into it something else of your own spontaneous, creative invention, you only have yourself to blame for the “nonsense” that you find yourself reading.

      You say, “It is the non-condensible GHG gases that govern Earth’s temperature”.

      Do you have some real evidence with which to support this peculiar claim, or is it, perhaps, another one of your spontaneous, creative inventions whose veracity you have not checked before uttering it as a pronouncement of indisputable fact from on high?

    • GH AGW climate caper lukewarm political gases are, indeed, not condensible. If only we could bottle it. There is no end to it, it seems.

  7. Simon on 20/06/2020 at 4:44 pm said:

    Rick, Let’s see what NASA has to say:
    There is a close analogy to be drawn between the way an ordinary thermostat maintains the temperature of a house, and the way that atmospheric carbon dioxide (and the other minor non-condensing greenhouse gases) control the global temperature of Earth.
    https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/lacis_01/

    • Richard Treadgold on 20/06/2020 at 4:48 pm said:

      You would expect see some good correlation between CO2 and temperature.

    • Mack on 20/06/2020 at 10:16 pm said:

      Simon,
      “Let’s see what NASA has to say: ”

      Aaahahahahaha ….well let’s see what NASA has to say, will we? So, first of all, the “NASA” you are referring to, is the Goddard Institute of Space Studies , GISS , which is nothing to do with a “Space Flight Centre” … but is a building in downtown New York filled with AGW deluded climate clowns.. formerly overseen by the nutty fraudster, James Hansen…. since booted out and replaced by a pommie mathematician, Gavin Schmidt. It’s that NASA… nothing to do with the men who put us on the moon.
      So the link you’ve provided, Simon, links to an article written by Andrew Lacis, back in 2010. Here we have spiel of “climate science” verbal sophistry of unmitigated sciency sounding garbage. …. headed up with…
      “CO2 The Thermostat that Controls Earth’s Temperature” …. ? ? 🙂 🙂 … riiight.
      Here’s some of the sciency word-smithing ….
      *Radiative Forcing
      *Radiative processes
      *global equilibrium value
      *atmospheric temperature structure
      *carbon dioxide thermostat
      ….but here it’s revealed that Andrew Lacis … along with all the rest of these educated clowns at NASA…. go along with your looney belief in the -18deg C FROZEN EARTH tripe. Simon….. not only once…. but twice !!
      1) “……. without which the water vapor dominated greenhouse effect would inevitably collapse and plunge the global climate into an ICEBOUND Earth state”
      2 “…… collapsing the terrestrial greenhouse effect, and plunging the Earth into an ICEBOUND state”

      I’ve heard about Andrew Lacis with your wacko “greenhouse effect” from the ATMOSPHERE, raising the Earth’s temperature from the -18 deg C to the +15 deg C … back in 2014 ….. from this arrogant true believer, Cloudpoint….
      ” I’ll let Dr Andrew Lacis of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies educate you about insolation”…he said.
      An interesting read for you there, Simon. the comments surrounding are entertaining too….
      https://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/08/sack-australias-biggest-laughing-stock.html?showComment=1408251315981#c1504996230298507007

    • Rick on 25/06/2020 at 12:24 am said:

      I don’t know why you want me to look at what NASA has to say, Simon, because NASA is not an independent, open scientific research organisation whose word can be trusted on any scientific matter. As its name suggests, NASA is an administrative agency of the US government and therefore its nature is essentially political, not scientific. Being a political organisation, NASA is primarily concerned with the exercise of power, not the pursuit of truth and the dissemination of knowledge. Therefore, NASA has no real scientific authority and we believe what it says at our peril.

      The Lacis paper from which you quoted is a classic example of NASA’s political propaganda disguised as science. It begins with the introductory assertion:

      “A study by GISS climate scientists recently published in the journal Science shows that atmospheric CO2 operates as a thermostat to control the temperature of Earth.”

      The GISS study referred to here is the Andrew Lacis, Gavin Schmidt, et al paper referenced at the bottom of the page at the link you gave and, as far as I can see, that paper does not really show what Lacis says it does. Apparently, all that it really shows are the results of Lacis, Schmidt et al’s “modelling experiments”, which means the results of their computer calculations which they interpret as showing that “CO2 operates as a thermostat… etc.” I’ll hazard a guess that Lacis et al are good at calculating things on computers, but the GIGO principle applies in force here. As far as I am aware, no critical, real-world observational testing has been done on their models to determine how well they correspond with reality, so I remain unconvinced of their validity.

      But I confess that their basic proposition of the CO2-thermostat does look unscientific and illusory to me. Apart from the total absence of any empirical evidence for it which stands up to honest scrutiny, I am also aware that it conflicts with some well-known and long-established laws of physics, especially those relating to the properties of water in its various forms and phases.

      Their ‘scientific’ argument (which they claim their models have led them to discover) is that if all the non-condensing greenhouse gases (mainly CO2) were to be removed from the atmosphere, the resulting loss of the greenhouse effect from those greenhouse gases (GHGs) would cause Earth’s temperature to drop so severely that all the water vapour in the atmosphere would precipitate out so that the predominant greenhouse effect from water vapour would also be lost and the entire greenhouse effect on Earth would disappear, whereupon the planet would plunge into an extremely cold, “icebound state”. This implies (they allege) that the operation of the non-condensing GHGs is supporting the operation of the condensing one (water vapour), which in turn implies that the non-condensing GHGs (principally CO2) are controlling the temperature of the planet.

      However, when we look beneath the surface of this argument we can see that it is false for several reasons as follows:

      1. There appears to be no empirical evidence for the proposition that the removal of all non-condensing GHGs would cause the global mean temperature to drop so severely as to cause all moisture in the air to precipitate out. In fact, there seems to be no empirical evidence that there would even be any noticeable drop in the global mean temperature at all. The only purported ‘evidence’ for either of these propositions comes from empirically unverified models, i.e. computerised mathematical conjectures unsupported by confirmatory real-world observations.

      2. Even if the removal of all non-condensing GHGs did cause the global mean temperature to drop so severely as to make the atmospheric moisture precipitate out, the physical laws governing humidity and precipitation dictate that for any atmospheric temperature above absolute zero there will always be some molecules of water vapour present in the atmosphere. Since water vapour is a greenhouse gas, it follows that a greenhouse effect from water vapour would still be present to warm the surface, albeit not a large one. Therefore, the claim that removal of the non-condensing GHGs would cause the collapse of the entire greenhouse effect on Earth is false: there would always be some greenhouse effect from water vapour.

      3. Even if, by some freak accident of nature, the removal of all non-condensing GHGs would cause the global mean surface temperature to fall to absolute zero and bring about the complete removal of all water vapour from the atmosphere so that the entire global greenhouse effect vanished, the greenhouse effect from water vapour would start to return immediately and would eventually replace the old greenhouse effect (from non-condensing GHGs plus the condensing GHG water vapour) completely because of the action of the Sun on the deeply frozen Earth’s surface water. Let us look at how this would occur in a little more detail.

      Because all the atmospheric water had precipitated out, there would be no clouds in the sky and therefore the surface would be exposed to the full intensity of incoming solar radiation, which is presently estimated to be about 1.36 kilowatts per square metre (kW/m²) on a plane set perpendicular to the Sun’s rays. The effective temperature of radiation with an intensity of 1.36 kW/m² is about 120⁰C, which I’m sure you will appreciate would be hot enough to not just melt the ice at the surface but also to boil the meltwater. Hence, at least in the tropics initially, the ice covering the surface would immediately start melting and evaporating, thereby producing a continual supply of water vapour, which would start to accumulate in the atmosphere.

      Since water vapour is a GHG, the production of water vapour would escalate as the primary input of solar radiation was amplified (or ‘enhanced’) at an ever-increasing rate by the ever-increasing positive feedback from the ever-growing quantity of water vapour accumulating in the atmosphere.

      This self-escalating process would soon become a runaway greenhouse effect based on positive feedback from water vapour if it was not for the intervention of negative feedback from cloud formation and precipitation, which would eventually stabilize the process at an equilibrium level.

      This equilibrium level would be reached when the rate of water vapour production, the rate of cloud formation and the rate of precipitation were all equal to one another. Coincidentally, the energy-flows into and out of the surface would also come into equilibrium and stabilize too. At this point of general equilibrium of the system, the previous greenhouse effect from water and non-condensing GHGs would have been restored completely by the new greenhouse effect from water vapour alone. The new greenhouse effect would have approximately the same magnitude as the old one because that would have been determined mainly by the common rate of water vapour production, cloud formation and precipitation and barely at all by the relatively small quantities of non-condensing GHGs like CO2.

      [Incidentally, Earth’s equilibrium global surface temperature is not determined by the equilibrium level of the global surface energy-flow alone, but the distribution of energy-flows across the global surface also affects it. However, their distribution is impossible to calculate or measure in practice and therefore no fixed formula for converting surface energy values into global mean surface temperatures is possible either. This ‘non-linear’ mathematical relationship between surface energy and surface temperature is another reason why the ‘CO2 thermostat’ cannot possibly work, because even if it did operate as Lacis et al envisaged it would only be able to control the global mean surface energy-flow, not the global mean surface temperature.]

      Conclusion: I think the analysis above demonstrates that the results of Lacis et al’s purported ‘modelling experiments’ do not show “…that atmospheric CO2 operates as a thermostat to control the temperature of Earth.” as Lacis says they do. Consequently, I also think it demonstrates that their idea of the CO2 planetary thermostat is an impossible pseudoscientific fantasy, not a scientific fact.

      Isn’t it amazing, though? These ingenious NASA climate-modelers appear to have conjured up a false scientific justification for a regressive world technological, social, economic, political, cultural and spiritual revolution straight out of their computers, without a scrap of real-world empirical evidence to back it up and flying in the face of commonly-known, well-established physics.

      Whenever we need to decide what to believe, we can only choose from the options available to us. Here it seems that we only have two options to choose from: i.e. NASA’s impossible science fiction models, or the standard laws of physics. But we cannot choose to believe both, because each option automatically denies the validity of the other. So, it’s one or the other, for all of us.

  8. Richard Treadgold on 21/06/2020 at 8:24 pm said:

    Mack,

    This is a hodge-podge of disconnected remarks and ad-hominems that do you little credit. Not the kind of conversation we value, really. I’ve not approved Simon’s response, but you don’t actually deserve my protection. When you talk about the science, you’re interesting and informative.

    • Mack on 22/06/2020 at 11:34 am said:

      Thankyou RT, I’m just happy to be able to comment on your valuable, accredited blog.
      Hoping that will continue.
      Mack,
      Sky Dragon Slayers Chief Public Relations Officer.

  9. Cambridgedon on 22/06/2020 at 11:23 am said:

    The IPCC reports do not contain “proof”; proof is not in the nature of science. The reports represent the consensus view of the science, based on judgement of all the evidence by experts. For the layman and any scientist with no expertise in climate science that constitutes proof — of suitably phrased explanations and conclusions.

    Denial without evidence and explanation is just denial, not rebuttal, and to have any significance rebuttal needs to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. Rick has no coherent rebuttal, that’s why he doesn’t do just that.

    Just a fog of confused waffle.

    • Rick on 23/06/2020 at 1:34 am said:

      I haven’t the foggiest idea what you’re burbling on about, Cambridgedon. Have you?

  10. Mack on 24/06/2020 at 7:18 pm said:

    Did you see this one in tonight’s Stuff, RT ?
    https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/300026232/climate-change–its-a-real-thing-and-a-big-deal-too
    Good comedy … and of course there will be people who won’t be able to see he’s taking the mickey out the “climate change”. We need to see more of “Carol”.

  11. Brett Keane on 10/08/2020 at 3:53 pm said:

    Consensus don is not science either, like ipcc models. You have to confound Maxwells” Kinetics of Gases” and Poissons’ Ideal Gas Laws before you can even start to be an honest scientist or commenter. Then might come respect, earnt. Brett Keane

  12. Brett Keane on 10/08/2020 at 5:50 pm said:

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