Okay, I got one: what drives the idiocy we see in the post below? Is it primarily ideological bull-headedness ("I don't want to admit I'm wrong, and that the leftist environmentalist panty-waists are right."), or is it primarily mercenary ("I'm being paid to obfuscate this shit."), or primarily both? Also, kudos to Tim for consistently knocking them down, but this seems to me like fighting a punching dummy. The thing will always get up, and you're just going to tire yourself out. How do you win?
You can't win because the truth is against you. There is a reason the realists keep bobbing back up, the data keeps backing them up. Support for the IPCC keeps draining away while support for reality keeps growing.
I meet people from all over the world and so few support the warmist's position.
Will we really get any action from the G8 meeting in Japan? My money is on ..not much.
These leaders probably don't believe in AGW but have to play to their voters misconceptions about CO2.
Kent, you forgot to mention that Al Gore is fat!
post two tells me the answer to post one is that our society has a lot of folks who have poorly controlled cognitive disorders.
for those who think i'm joshing or induging in ad hominem argument, please explain the assertion "These leaders probably don't believe in AGW but have to play to their voters misconceptions about CO2."
then you can explain how that meshes with the assertion that "I meet people from all over the world and so few support the warmist's position"
to expand on the theme, i don't find cognitive diosorders merely in this area, they're all around us. including, of course, some "liberal" memes. but the majority of "liberal" errors i would put under the category of overthinking a problem, which to me is not in the same category as stupidity (underthinking), deliberate or inadvertent, or bizarre logical lacunae (misthinking) such as the idea that the scientific proponentws of the AGW theory are in league with the socialists because the only way they can control people is with the myth of AGW, global cooling for instance being obviously insufficient.
Saurabh, your post at #1 was wickedly enticing and deliciously prescient, and I had money on it with my friend Wyvern that kent would be the one to stick his head in the noose and fulfill your prophecy. And he did it straight up too...
Thank you kent, I knew that I could trust you.
And z's analysis is merciless. All-in-all, I don't think that even Ben Elton could have scripted posts 1-4 better. I almost laughed my arse off.
Thanks guys for the comic relief - and the fiver.
A fiver? Is that all you bet on a dead cert?
Oh ye of little faith.
It was just a token - after all, I couldn't rob a mate, could I?
what drives the idiocy we see in the post below?
Verily, saurabh is light-years ahead of all of us in his attainment of Master Goracle-hood. :)
"The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition."
...
"2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values."
"5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority."
...
"8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."
You know, like that fat bastard Al Gore
"12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism."
The typical "skeptic" who posts here is a middle class or lower middle class white Australian or American who also scapegoats minorities for social problems (read Lance or Ben on how most of America's problems are caased by blacks); idolises the use of force on the individual level (as characterised by, for example, support for a latitudinous reading of the US 2nd Amendment and on an international level as indicated by their support for the Iraq War. They embrace conspiracy theories regarding the IPCC and are genuinely convinced that a few weeks reading the comments on climateaudit qualify them as climate scientists.
I'm sure this post will produce outraged responses along the lines of "I don't support "X" therefore you're wrong about me." Fascism was always a broad Church - Franco's embrace of the Catholic Church contrasts with Nazi Germany's ambivalent attitude towards Christianity; Goering and Speer were appalled by Hitler's antisemitism (albeit primarily for pragmatic rather than moral reasons); Ernst roehm and the other leaders of the SA were liquidated because their anti-capitalist attitudes clashed with Hitler's desire to ally with the German industrialists.
What matters is the general pattern:
Authoritarianism
Anti-intellecualism;
majoritarianism (hostility to ethnic, religious and other minorities)
the cult of violence;
Ultranationalism and xenophobia
Distrust for democracy (usually dressed up these days in libertarian clap-trap about the evils of government)
Belief in conspiracy thoeries; and
A sense of persecution and ill-traeatment (usually these days once again dressed upon as libertarianism and clap-trap about the evils of multiculturalism; railing about anti-Americanism and so on.)
I should also point out that being a Fascists doesn't make you a bad person. One of my closest friund's fathers served in the Wehrmacht. He's a charming crusty old gentleman (in the best sense of the world) who loves his grandchildren; spends lots of time volunteering for various community groups - and still wishes Hitler had won.
Nor are fascists necessarily foolish - historically after all Ezra Pound, Werner Von Braun; Carl Jung and many other highly intelligent people were supporters of fascism.
So when I say that most "skeptics" are in fact fascists I simply offer a diagnosis not a moral condemnation.
Emissions trading 'to hit Qld farmers'
Sydney Morning Herald - 1 hour ago
Growing calls to delay emissions trading
The West Australian
New climate alliance to seek fair solutions
Government News, Australia - 3 hours ago
PWC says business needs carbon pricing quickly
ABC Online, Australia - 3 hours ago
Emissions trading may start an exodus
The Australian, Australia - 4 Jul 2008
Cut taxes to soften climate pain: Garnaut report
The Australian, Australia - 3 Jul 2008
Rudd faces climate revolt
The Australian, Australia - 21 hours ago
Climate crisis 'diabolical'
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 4 Jul 2008
High cost for climate reform
Sydney Morning Herald, Australia - 3 Jul 2008
Emissions Trading Scheme to hurt poor
Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia - 3 Jul 2008
all 1,683 news articles
Quite a lot of news in the past week about how much carbon trading will hurt the poor. Not sure if any of these hundreds of articles actually worthy of discussion about serious climate change issues include any of the same tired stuff you've covered 500 times already here, but has anyone checked ?
Maybe if someone plots a graph of all the meaningful climate change issues that passed you by and then Andrew Bolt lies about the trend in the graph then we'll see it.
I have an asexual selection theory of troll evolution. As the more rational trolls give up, the terrain will be occupied by the more deluded. There is no end-point: the troll you always have with you. The question for the rest of us is when it stops being worthwhile paying attention to them. I suggest this will be when MSM outlets with a large general readership, like the WSJ, The Australian, and the (London) Telegraph stop giving space to climate delusionists.
Amongst much other tripe, Irekan (well, he is a little confused it seems) said:
The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
Consensus breaking as a metric of scientific greatness? Utter bollocks!
Consensus breaking is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for measuring greatness in scientists.
Are the likes of DH Kenyon and R Milton, the would-be consensus breakers of that father of all consensus breakers, to be considered great scientists?
Becquerel, Boyle, Curie, Dalton, Ohm, Schrodinger, Volta, ... hardly consensus breakers, though still excellent and, some would say (some), great scientists.
And if breaking the consensus is the metric by which scientific greatness and credibility are to be measured, then this must make the likes of Hansen, Wigley and Jones amongst the best scientists who have ever lived, since they were amongst the few who "broke with the consensus" in the 1970s and 1980s. Their siren whispers have reached a consensus crescendo amongst their peers, and it is only their peers that really matter.
Another killfile-room resident looms I think. Bye-bye Areink.
I reckon there are two factors driving climate change denial.
One is obviously the money. A vast amount of the organized denial is known to be funded by lobbyists, from books to "astroturf" campaign groups to junkscience.com.
The second is that I think people have a kind of fascination with conspiracy theories. Every time a major event or issue crops up, conspiracy theories are never far behind - like it's part of the human condition. Why is that? I did a review of a paper on the psychology of conspiracy theorists a while back, and I tend to agree with them that it's a question of preserving your belief system. Once people choose to believe something, they will do anything to avoid confronting any failures in that belief system.
Then of course there's the interplay between the two - lobbyists are able to exploit people's tendency to like conspiracy theories, which may be what we see on websites like The Register.
"New climate alliance"? "Climate revolution"? Bleh. Old is the new old.
News release: Farm lobbies abandon farmers. The Carbon Sense Coalition today accused the big farming lobby groups, government departments, politicians and Ministers representing agriculture of ignoring science and abandoning farmers to unjustified carbon taxation.
Oh noes, farm lobbies are abandoning farmers, and the real people looking after the farmers are... a bunch of think-tankers affiliated with Lavoisier Institute conspiracy theorists!
Now I guess they just need someone to pull a Milloy on the farmers and farm lobbies. Hijack Invest in the farms and tell the farmers what they, deep in their heart, ought to want.
Ian, I don't think the deniers are fascists, and I don't think it's productive to call them that. If anything, they are extreme libertarians. The Nazis and the Italian fascists were very anti-business; both wanted large corporations placed under a tight government rein. The deniers are for leaving business alone at any cost.
I suggest this will be when MSM outlets with a large general readership, like the WSJ, The Australian, and the (London) Telegraph stop giving space to climate delusionists.
You seem to think these MSM outlets 'give space' to trolls. In fact, their business model depends entirely on drawing attention to themselves. They have a long history of relying on controversy - that is, anger - to draw to them the attention they desire. These MSM outlets are trolls.
As I said, Barton, Fascism was a broad church.
Franco adopted an impeccably orthodox economic policy based on neo-classical principles. Later regimes which displayed marked similarities to fascism and which did likewise include Pinochet's Chile, Suharto's Indonesia and Lee Kwan Yu's Singapore.
Even Hitler famously referred to capitalism as the application of the Fuhrerprinzip to economics.
#15 - Wow:
Much of this carbon then gets transferred to the bones and flesh of the growing human population
All this time the solution to global warming is staring us in the face - have more babies! We all just need to have children at the rate of a few tons per year and that pesky CO2 problem is solved. Or maybe we should stop seeing obesity as a problem.
People just want to be special. They want to have saved the world. They want to have been part of something awesome - but not the same thing that every man and his dog was part of. They want to have been lonely voices in the wilderness who were RIGHT.
Problem being that almost the only way to be a lonely voice in the wilderness (that is, the only way without being a very hard working genius) is to be WRONG, so they have to pretend to be right to maintain the mood.
...and papers want people to buy them. As long as the general readership wants global warming to go away, papers will pander to that. Notice the slow shift, though. As the readers are coming over to reality, so are the papers. And that pushes more people over, and that feeds back to the papers, and so on. It's slow, and a responsible press would have made this process much faster - but a responsible press would have been run out of business by the far more profitable irreponsible press, and probably was.
@Barton and Ian: I think the problem with the debate you two are starting is that you're lumping all deniers together, when in fact they come from all over the political spectrum. You can't try to define them as aligned to a particular movement or wing of politics unless you're going to define what, exactly, you mean by a denier.
@James and Llewelly:
MSM is just generally lazy. Most of the stuff they print or show comes pre-packaged by lobbyists or PR people as a press-release or a video clip. They take all the stuff they receive, pick out the exciting stuff, and pretty much print it as if, changing a few words to make it look more original. Having said that, in some cases, like the weird stuff going on at The Register, perhaps something more is going on. At any rate, the problem in a lot of areas is not that the media are anti-science, but that the woo-people and campaign groups are much better at getting themselves heard than most scientists and rationalists are.
Ian Gould,
You have sunk to a new low. In your rambling incoherent manifesto stating that AGW skeptics are fascists you include the following.
The typical "skeptic" who posts here is a middle class or lower middle class white Australian or American who also scapegoats minorities for social problems (read Lance or Ben on how most of America's problems are caased(sic) by blacks
If you had been lucid while reading my posts instead of drinking cheap port or snorting crystal meth, or whatever substance has rotted your brain, you would know that I am married to a black woman, an African woman in fact, you ass.
The fact that your incoherent screed is nothing more than the delusional angry rambling of a frustrated Marxist ideologue is actually the best counter to your ludicrous tirade. It is proof positive that you have projected your political beliefs onto the AGW controversy and haven't the slightest interest in the underlying science but only view the discussion as a vehicle to assail those you view as the enemies of the proletariat.
I have no problem with you expressing your predictably Marxist and acerbic opinions but I will not tolerate being called a racist or a fascist.
You recently went nuts when a "skeptic" referred to you and others as "eco-Nazis". I actually defended you and told that person that you did not deserve such treatment. They were subsequently banned.
You should apologize for calling me a fascist and making the idiotic and slanderous claim that I am a racist.
Oh, that these little conversations could be held face to face.
Changing the topic... I once got in trouble here for supporting the swift-boating of Kerry, and apparently rightly so, at least partly. Now Col. Bud Day is being treated very poorly by the media for being a swift-boat vet, when in fact he never was. He never did criticize Kerry's military record, and the comments in this article at CNN seem to indicate that folks don't know this.
In fact, Day publicly stated that Kerry's military record and decorations were not legitimate targets of criticism. What Day was critical of was Kerry's behavior after he left the service, his testimony before congress (which was apparently full of lies that tarnished the military) and his disgraceful throwing of someone else's medals. These are legitimate criticisms, but Day is being attacked as a swift-vet, which he was not.
Is there not some extension of Godwin's law which extends to fascism?
Jody: yes, I think so.
As I see it, all Ian has done is suggest that one syndrome (fascism) looks very like another (denialism). He may be right, but that doesn't really explain anything.
Personally, I think Magpie's on the right track. I'd add that some people, rather than wanting to save the world, want their voice to be perceived to have status, and become shrill when there isn't instant respect.
The typical "skeptic" who posts here is a middle class or lower middle class white Australian or American who also scapegoats minorities for social problems (read Lance or Ben on how most of America's problems are caased(sic) by blacks
Wow, I didn't see that. Pretty lame, Ian. Scapegoats minorities for social problems? Look, all I did way back was recognize that gun violence was rampant among young black men. This is not scapegoating, and neither is it false. I also never claimed that young black men are some sort of root cause of all of America's problems. The young black man in America had his life ruined well in advance, I believe, by feel-good liberal policies that abrogated the need for fathers in inner-city families. Race has nothing too do with anything except superficially. Didn't the liberal messiah, Obama, just call on Black men to be better fathers? Is that racist? He is half white after all. Maybe it's only half-racist.
I remember another poster on this cite who was driven mad by Ian over time. He was eventually banned, but I understood his obvious frustration.
The basic problem with Ian's approach is that the terms he uses cover - by his own admission - such a broad spectrum of humanity that any overlap is meaningless.
Some are racist, some aren't. Some are right wing, some are left wing. Some are fascist, some are liberal. Some are religious, some are atheist. The only thing they all have in common is their denialism.
\begin rant
I think people are reading way to much into the motivations of climate change denialists. Being a rampant lefty myself, I've run into the odd person, completely to the left of the political spectrum, who denies the science of climate change (Alexander Coburn comes to mind).
Denialists come from all sides of the political spectrum. In Australia, they have certainly been dominated by the right, but I think that is more due to the prevailing political orthodoxy. Assigning 1 (or more) motivations to a broad group of people is bound to be fraught with errors.
Now, to make myself a hypocrit, my personal opinion, is that the majority of denialists are motivated by a simple fact. They don't like the implication of AGW... therefore, they deny the scientific basis. This seems to apply regardless of whether you are a Marixist critic or a neo-con.
I supposed this is fair enough. I don't like the implications of AGW either. It is a significant problem for the world, and adds another stumbling block to lifting quality of life for the poorest people in the world, and has as contemplating technologies I believe are environmentally and economically damaging (such as nuclear power...not that I think it's a solution to climate change mind... but it has certainly seen a resurgence in recent years).
That said, working in the atmospheric sciences means I am confronted with the evidence every day, and its evidence I can't deny, regardless of the implications for society. Others, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum, have no such qualms.
My 18,000 rubels
\end rant
"If you had been lucid while reading my posts instead of drinking cheap port or snorting crystal meth, or whatever substance has rotted your brain, you would know that I am married to a black woman, an African woman in fact, you ass."
I'm perfectly aware of that fact - you screamed it repeatedly in your extended anti-Canadian and anti-European rant on Pharyngula - which was mostly about how those countries all thought they were so superior to the US when they had no idea it was to maintain any sort of civilisation in a country plagued by ethnic minorities.
"Oh, that these little conversations could be held face to face."
Ah, yes veiled threats of physical violence - that'll teach me to associate you with anti-intellectualism and the adulation of violence.
I take your implied threats as lightly as I did those of the blessedly-absent Joe Cumbria - who mysteriously lost all enthusiasm for acting on them when I offered him the chance to do so.
Actually, that is one difference between today's fascists and their forebears. The fascists of the 1930's, actually had the physical courage to face their opponents.
A minor correction: Lance's rant was on "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" not Pharyngula.
Other high points included pronouncing Canada inferior to America because it had a smaller military (military power of course being the only indicator of a nation's worth) and gloated over Europe's supposed imminent demise at the hands of the Muslim hordes.
But, obviously, it's grossly unfair to describe you as an adherent of a world view marked by extreme nationalism; militarism and xenophobia.
WRT ChrisC in #28: Alexander Cockburn actually fits very well into one of the major Denialist categories: the Contrarian, the intellectual who delights in setting himself up as an opponent of Conventional Wisdom, not because he has dispassionately examined the evidence behind the CW and found it to be lacking, but merely *because* it is the CW. His AGW denialism is cut from the same cloth as his denial of the Stalinist genocide (published in a series of _Nation_ articles in the early 1990's).
"His AGW denialism is cut from the same cloth as his denial of the Stalinist genocide (published in a series of Nation articles in the early 1990's)."
I think you have Cockburn's personal psychology correct, but I don't think it's quite fair to say he denied Stalin's genocide. There's been a nasty little debate over the scale (not exactly unheard of in the study of atrocities). IIRC, he cited those who went for the lower estimates but even the lower estimates have Stalin responsible for millions of deaths. There's also a quarrel about whether Stalin deliberately starved the Ukrainians or "only" instituted an insane economic policy that caused millions to starve.
As I recall, Cockburn argued for 'hundreds of thousands', as opposed to millions, and suggested that 'tens of thousands' was entirely plausible. For > 1990, that's a David Irving level of denial.
"Hundreds of thousands" --- Depends on what he meant. That was a reasonable estimate for the number of executions (not the total number of excess deaths, which would include starvation deaths) in the 1930's. The number recorded for the Great Terror in 1937-1938 in the Soviet archives is about 700,000, and that was much much larger than before or after, at least during the 30's. Throw in prison deaths and one is in the low millions, however. And then there are the starvation deaths, which are in the millions--I don't think Cockburn denied those. All of this is controversial, of course, with some saying that the archival numbers are too low, and I'm not going to to take a position on it.
It's been a while since there's been any news/developments on the Iraqi death count measurement situation. Have there been any new publications? Or did everyone get bored?
Changing the topic... I once got in trouble here for supporting the swift-boating of Kerry, and apparently rightly so, at least partly. Now Col. Bud Day is being treated very poorly by the media for being a swift-boat vet, when in fact he never was.
No, he's being treated poorly for having joined the political pressure group, The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, not for being a swift boat vet.
There's a difference, Ben. You didn't need to be "for Truth" in order to join. Nor, as surprising as I imagine this is for you, did you have to actually be a "swift boat vet". Do you really think they were able to raise all that money by restricting membership so severely?
He never did criticize Kerry's military record, and the comments in this article at CNN seem to indicate that folks don't know this.
He joined an organization that was created for the purpose of criticizing Kerry's military record, indeed, worse - it was created in order to convince people that his military record was fraudulent.
He's on record, afterwards, stating that all the group did was to "reveal the truth".
Sorry, no free revisionist history ride for this guy.
Now, do you believe that being a fighter jock and POW somehow, alone, qualifies a person to be President? Wouldn't you agree that being President might require some other skills?
My local paper filed a story in their on-line addition tonight while I was reading the speculation about AGW denialism. I'd been checking to see if there was any information on the kid's condition, as I had news of the incident from his grand uncle who was on the way to be with his sister, the boy's grandmother at the hospital. He had no word on the boy's condition. The Uncle said he understood that the boy had been playing chicken with another boy in traffic, and local TV news seems to have creditably reported this about the same time as the paper filed the story.
This report read: "Traffic has reopened ... following an accident that sent a 12-year-old boy to a hospital with severe head injuries, according to [local] police. Witnesses told police the boy ran out into traffic at about 4:50 p.m., [a] police spokeswoman ... said. A 2003 Mazda sedan struck the boy, she said. The boy, who was not named, was unconscious and had labored breathing when he was taken to a local hospital and listed in critical condition, she said."
In its entirety, the second comment in the response thread attached to the story reads, "the kid is most likely [sic] a liberal... hope he learned a lesson."
While surely there is reasoned questioning and genuine skepticism out there, by far the bulk of denial that I see in responses to climate change reporting in that same paper, falls directly inline with what I've just related.
I'm in quite a "red" state of the US, with many, many around here espousing a highly libertarian credo, and continually hear bits and snatches of the sneeringly delivere "they can't predict the weather, etc., etc." that pervades AM radio. Any thought that tribalism is waning in the west is an illusion. As far as I can judge, it's growing.
Why do I keep doing it?
Curiosity won, and I followed Steve's link, and it all fell to pieces with this Jennifer gem:
We have become familiar with this representation [by plotting anomaly from -0.8º to +0.6ºC on the vertical axis, fig. 2] of global temperatures but it is contrived to emphasis difference and in particular the extent to which temperatures have increased from 1850 to the present. When the same data is plotted just showing the actual global mean temperature for the same time period, the trend is no longer evident, Figure 3.
For those sufficiently wise to avoid looking, Marohasy chose to plot the data with a vertical axis spanning 0º-30ºC.
She's an embarrasment to science, if she think that playing loose with scaling in this fashion is above-board.
I'm surprised that she didn't choose 0-303K; that way, she could have shown everyone a line that is to all intents and purposes apparently dead flat. I would very interested to have Marohasy come here and explain herself.
Shame, Jennifer, shame.
Ian Gould,
Your posts are so inaccurate and slanderous that you had to correct the first one with the second. I notice you didn't bother to quote any of my comments from my exchanges on Ed Brayton's blog, though no doubt you would have done so out of context. Brayton praised Canada as "...being a lot more enlightened..." than the US. While Canada is a fine place it is hardly "a lot" more enlightened than the US.
I never "screamed" the fact that I am married to a black African woman I merely mentioned it (along with the fact that my mother and half of my relatives are Europeans) when another leftist dimwit accused me of being a xenophobic racist.
I made no physical threat, direct or implied. I would like to meet you face to face to answer your idiotic tripe in real time. Also it is my experience that mouthy little cowards shrivel when they have to make their accusations in person.
I wouldn't cross the street to talk to you but if you want to meet me I teach at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis. Call the math or physics department and ask to speak to Lance.
Sorry Dhogaza, but I disagree. From the wiki page:
Day appeared in a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement, saying (referring to John Kerry): "How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?"
Sure, he appeared in their Ad, but only to say that Kerry is a damn bastard for his lies at the congressional hearings etc. He was part of a different group that had Zero funding to get their message out, and the media sure as hell wasn't covering the actual truth, so he did what he had to do to remind everyone that Kerry is a sniveling bastard.
The CNN description of Col. Bud Day was simply wrong. Col. Day was never a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
The Swifties criticized John Kerry's Vietnam service, his medals, and the details of his discharge. After Kerry's salute and his "reporting for duty" comment at the convention, another group sprang up around documentary producer Carlton Sherwood whose goal was to make Kerry accountable for the 1971 testimony before Fulbright's committee, testimony in which he talked of war crimes, atrocities, etc. Col. Day was part of the second group and not the Swifites. In fact, he disagreed with the central thrust of the Swifties, that of questioning Kerry's medals.
There was not just a philosophical but a legal difference in the Swifties and in the group which coalesced around Carlton Sherwood. The Swifties were organized as a Section 527 and thus "political," while Sherwood's group was a for-profit S corporation organized in Pennsylvania and, at least in theory, "non-political."
This whole issue becomes more complex when in September of that year the Swifties had lost all momentum and were dead in the water but were sitting on millions of dollars while Sherwood's group had no traction and was broke.
About the time Sinclair announced it was running "Stolen Honor" and the resulting flap and publicity, the Swifties decided they need to regain their momentum. They asked the POWs who had appeared in Sherwood's documentary to join them in taping a series of television ads. The ads had enormous impact, the most powerful of which was one of Col. Day, Medal of Honor around his neck, staring into the camera and asking of John Kerry, "How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?"
Taping the series of ads was the only place where the two groups came together. That does not make Bud Day a Swifty. CNN was wrong.
and
Mr. Swett's message indicates that he believes in something which was not true in 2004 and is not true today - that Col. Bud Day was a member of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. I called Col. Day this morning and he confirmed that he was not a Swifty and further, that he disagreed with their agenda of questioning John Kerry's medals and his Vietnam service.
The Swifties approached Carlton Sherwood, who produced the documentary "Stolen Honor," and asked if they could join up with the POWs who had appeared in the documentary to shoot a series of television ads opposing Kerry's candidacy. Now we come to a point where Mr. Swett is correct, the Swifties and Carlton Sherwood/POWs did join forces to shoot the ads. The Swifty/POW group was about shooting television ads and not about the Swifties' original agenda. Thus, to contend that because Col. Day appeared in the television ads financed by the Swifties, he was a Swift Boat Veteran for Truth is flat wrong. Col. Day was not a Swifty and, as of about noon Monday, he still disagrees with their original goals.
If you want to back up your claims with better evidence than this, you are welcome to do so.
James Haughton asks:
It's been a while since there's been any news/developments on the Iraqi death count measurement situation. Have there been any new publications? Or did everyone get bored?
Not me!
1) See my blog for some updates on the topic. I am still looking for feedback on this post. "Summary: Using the same assumptions for L2 and IFHS (no adjustments for underreporting or for clusters that could not be visited) generates estimates that differ by more than a factor of 8: 601,000 to 72,000." Comments welcome! I also have some other posts up and plan to be adding more, including more transcripts.
2) I have organized a panel at the Joint Statistical Meeting in Denver next month. All Deltoid readers are welcome. I think that the most interesting paper at the panel will be from M. Ali (one of the IFHS authors) on their estimate of non-violent mortality. Les Roberts likes to (falsely) claim that IFHS and L2 are in agreement (more or less) on total mortality, even if the disagree on violent mortality. I suspect that Roberts will not be able to make that claim for much longer.
3) See this post for the most recent relevant publication in the scientific literature that I am aware of.
They (swifties) asked the POWs who had appeared in Sherwood's documentary to join them in taping a series of television ads. The ads had enormous impact, the most powerful of which was one of Col. Day...
Well, Ben, this Col. Day dude has an interesting technique for disavowing the message of groups he disagrees with.
The ad is labeled as being a swifties ad, with their web site blazing proudly on it.
Day dismissed any equivalence. "The Swift Boat 'attacks' were simply revelation of the truth. The similarity does not exist here," he said. "...One was about laying out the truth. This one is about attempting to cast a new shadow on John McCain."
No qualification here. He could've said "my statements in the ad" if he meant he thought that the rest of the swift boat vets attacks were false.
Now, you didn't answer my question. Do you believe that being a fighter jock and POW isn't by itself particularly relevant to the job of President of the United States? Yes or no.
If yes, why? The Hanoi Hilton was stocked with textbooks on economics, diplomacy, management of large staffs, etiquette at state dinners, etc, giving McCain a lot of time to bone up on these basics? Or what?
David Kane:
> I am still looking for feedback on this post. [...]
> I have organized a panel at the Joint Statistical Meeting in Denver next month. All Deltoid readers are welcome.
Ahahahahaha. Once more David Kane hasn't been able to get any brainful comments from Michelle Malkin's side. That's why he keeps coming here to beg for attention.
More from Col. Day, this week:
"What the Swift Boat campaign was about was to lay out John Kerry's record. John Kerry has never produced any evidence to deny that," he said
Yet we're to believe
as of about noon Monday, he still disagrees with their original goals.
Yeah, right.
Now, you didn't answer my question. Do you believe that being a fighter jock and POW isn't by itself particularly relevant to the job of President of the United States?
By themselves, being a fighter jock and POW are somewhat relevant to the job of being President. Serving in the military is relevant if you are going to later take a job as Commander in Chief. But more important than having "simply" been a fighter pilot and POW is a person's performance in those rolls. McCain has certainly established his character as an American with substantial courage and a patriot. Things that Barack Obama, much as he may posses those qualities, has not demonstrated them to the same degree.
That said, McCain's qualifications have more to do with his time as a United States Senator, which is somewhat more significant in most regards than that of his opponent.
Ian Gould,
I agree with BPL, Lance, ChrisC, etc. that climate inactivists are not fascists, unless you use an overly-broad definition of fascism. They don't even fit your own criteria of
> majoritarianism (hostility to ethnic, religious and other minorities)
> the cult of violence;
> Ultranationalism and xenophobia
...at the very least, inactivists have by and large not exhibited these traits outwardly, or even used these as justifications for their anti-AGWism.
I still think the major strain of inactivism as exhibited by the High Respectable Inactionosphere (Monckton, Marohasy, Hissink, etc.) is characterized not by "fascism", but by a sort of watered-down McCarthyism. That is, it's motivated by a fear of Communism, a fear which can be traced back to the time the Soviets started testing nukes.
bi--IJI, (I must have missed the reason you added IJI.)
While I thank you for at least not calling me a fascist or a racist I would point out that many evangelical Christians have woven AGW into their worldview and they probably are more afraid of communism, as a group, than any other demographic in America.
I have heard plenty of AGW proponents offer market based proposals to "solve" the problem. I just don't think it is a problem. While your use of the word "inactivist" is less insulting than the despicable term "denialist" it still misses the point. I am no more an "inactivist" for AGW mitigation than for water fluoridation mitigation.
I see both as non-threats to humanity that require no action, since neither is a "problem".
I have demonstrated with local environmental groups outside our local waste water treatment plant to protest the city of Indianapolis shirking federal water pollution regulations and I am a member of the Hoosier Heartland RC&D Association, a local forest protection organization, so I am hardly an anarchist that is ideologically opposed to sensible environmental restrictions.
If I thought the science supported CO2 mitigation I would be for regulating CO2. I don't think the science does support the idea that we face dire consequences from burning fossil fuels and thus I am opposed to mitigation efforts that cannot be justified for other rational reasons such as cost savings and lessening dependence on foreign supplies of petroleum that help fund repressive regimes and parties hostile to the US and many other countries around the world.
I know that puffing up the case for AGW and looking down your nose at unbelievers is the official reason for the existence of Deltoid, but it really gets tiresome after a while. I enjoy discussing the scientific issues and even the related political issues with people of all points of view but when it descends into name-calling and character assassination you have to wonder, what exactly are the motives of the people involved.
By themselves, being a fighter jock and POW are somewhat relevant to the job of being President. Serving in the military is relevant if you are going to later take a job as Commander in Chief.
What was McCain, again? Colonel? Fighter jock? Teaches him what, exactly, that's relevant to being Commander in Chief? Did he attend the War College? Pass quals for General? Do anything to convince us that his experience is relevant above and beyond the command of what, a squadron? Wing?
I reject the narrow-minded crap that argues that military people make better Presidents.
FDR was arguably the greatest of them all, and certainly fulfilled the role of Commander in Chief as well as any President we've had. Bush - with his military experience - isn't qualified to polish FDR's shoes.
But more important than having "simply" been a fighter pilot and POW is a person's performance in those rolls.
ISTM that McCain starred in some home movies taken by his captors in those days?
McCain has certainly established his character as an American with substantial courage and a patriot.
When did he establish his character as an American? As a member of the Keating Five?
He endured torture, lived through it, and has led a productive and healthy life after the ordeal. Many, many people have lived through similar circumstances. The will to survive is intense. It has nothing to do with one's capacity to do the job McCain is running for.
He has had a long but unspectacular career in the Senate. Obama has had a short but unspectacular career in the Senate. I'll give that to McCain.
I know that puffing up the case for AGW and looking down your nose at unbelievers is the official reason for the existence of Deltoid, but it really gets tiresome after a while.
This coming from our resident liar-in-chief ...
They take all the stuff they receive, pick out the exciting stuff, and pretty much print it as if, changing a few words to make it look more original.
You don't think "The world is going to end and we're all screwed!" is exciting? No, the media reports stuff that their readership agrees with. People buy papers that confirm their worldview, and papers are very well aware of their demographics.
In the early days they did print the "world is going to end" stuff. Then the denialist view got trendy, and they switched over - it always had vastly more traction with both the general population and the politicans who feed off them (and who want to do nothing) than it did with people who actually knew what they were talking about. Now opinion is coming back. It is the populist life-cycle, and bears little relationship to the underlying reality. It's generally harmless because inactivity is the most tangible and successful result of democracy, but it's screwing us now since we needed to have started moving ten years ago. The problem with democracy is people.
What we need is a king, to rule with the Mailed Fist of Reason. The Magpie King has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Ah dhogaza,
Leave it to you to answer a post critical of name-calling with, yes that's right, name-calling.
At least you are consistent.
Many, many people have lived through similar circumstances. The will to survive is intense. It has nothing to do with one's capacity to do the job McCain is running for.
This is where I call bullshit and I claim that you know not of what you are writing. McCain had more than one opportunity to go home early from the prison. He chose to stay because it would be cowardly and un-American for him to leave before the others. Not only did he stay, but this act brought more punishment to him.
I reject the narrow-minded crap that argues that military people make better Presidents.
As do I, but having served in the military, one might have a better understanding of what it is to be a soldier and how the military works. I never did claim that military people make better presidents, and that was not the question that you asked.
Get it together, dude.
Magpie,
Excuse me my liege but catastrophic AGW media pieces far out-number skeptical ones. I think your royal eye glass prescription may need updating.
For more than thirty years since the WSI, individuals and organizations have sought to discredit or at least minimize the painful revelations brought forth at that event. Critics have claimed that participants were frauds; that they were told to not cooperate with later investigators; that their testimonies were inaccurate or just plain fabricated. [29] To date, no records of fraudulent participants or fraudulent testimony have been produced. [30]
Lance,
It's not name-calling if it's true, Mr. Doctoral Candidate.
And such a stupid lie.
Have to admire such foolish consistency, though, my little hobgoblin. (I'm waving a hand back at ya.)
Apropos of nothing in this thread, but for those keeping track, Bob Carter was on NZ public radio this morning. He gave his usual spiel, and was hardly questioned by the interviewer. MP3 is here.
Hey, didn't global warning stop in 1998?
Not according to Micheal Duffy, of the Sydney Morning Herald. It now stopped in 2002! I didn't know that!
I suppose it would be a little too difficult to get people with no knowledge of climatology or statistics to agree on when glabal warming "stopped". Oh well..
Ben, do you believe this?
his testimony before congress (which was apparently full of lies that tarnished the military)
Do you think the military did nothing that could tarnish their reputation in that war? John Kerry's medal citations include comment that he got shrapnel in his arse for blowing up a village rice bin, as per policy. He was wounded in the line of duty, where that line of duty required him to enact a policy of deliberate starvation.
I think his war record pretty much tarnishes the military in and of itself. Anything else is just icing on the cake. But I see you supported the swift boat veterans anyway... you are a real gem, aren't you?
Lance:
> many evangelical Christians have woven AGW into their worldview and they probably are more afraid of communism, as a group, than any other demographic in America.
Well, what I've seen certainly reinforces the notion that climate inactivists are motivated by a fear of Communism. Perhaps that means that evangelical Christians' fear of Communism is of a different nature, or that they don't really fear Communism that much.
(As for a first guess as to what this difference is, I'll put it this way: Evangelicals fear Communism because they're Christians, while the High Respectable Inactionosphere are Christians because they fear Communism.)
> I don't think the science does support the idea that we face dire consequences from burning fossil fuels
What's your conspiracy theory, Lance?
Do you think the military did nothing that could tarnish their reputation in that war?
I'm sure Ben thinks Colin Powell was a hero for his role in trying to cover up My Lai, while Sy Hersh is a traitor for exposing it, and Kerry a traitor for having spoken openly about some of the shit going down in Vietnam.
He undoubtably thinks that Sy Hersh's exposure of Abu Ghraib is was equally traitorous ...
Right on down the line ...
Let me guess: Kilo's talking about these guys.
"New climate alliance"? "Climate revolution"? Bleh. Old is the new old.
Posted by: bi -- IJI | July 7, 2008 9:04 AM
No, I wasn't. I was talking about what my post said I was. That's the funny fucken thing about text. Sometimes it just won't change after you write it.
Bonus points though for replying to my post with a comment that there can somehow be "old news" when it comes to a climate change story here.
Sure, the same prediction from the same climate forum in the 1990s has been covered 4872 times here, but what are you trying to say ?
Kilo:
No, I wasn't. I was talking about what my post said I was.
Wow, so when Kilo sees that there's a lot of noise in the newspapers, instead of seeing who's behind all the noise, he simply reports that There Is A Lot Of Noise And Therefore A Climate Revolt Is A-Brewing.
Here's a simple question for you, Kilo: Was all the noise in the Australian news sources being made by the Carbon "Sense" Coalition? Yes, or no? If you're too lazy to find out the answer and you want to simply regurgitate inactivist news uncritically, you can just say so. We'll understand.
On Stalin's democide, I urge everyone to read Antonov-Ovseyenko's "The Time of Stalin" (1982). Antonov-Ovseyenko had access to the records of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR. He documents deaths and comes up with a figure of 100 million. My own demographic model came up with 80 million; my disagreement with Antonov-Ovseyenko was that he counted "deficit births" and I didn't.
The total was not hundreds of thousands, as Cockburn maintains. It was not millions. It was tens of millions.
Luminous Beauty,
I never said I was a "Doctoral candidate" oh slanderous one. At least try to keep your insults in the realm of inaccurate but not completely false.
dhogaza is at least technically correct when he refers to me as a PhD program "drop out" since I suspended my studies and research to take an engineering job and now just teach part time for the math and physics department here at IUPUI.
I have been quite open about who and what I am. You and many of my detractors on the other hand are anonymous blowhards.
Lance posts:
I don't think the science does support the idea that we face dire consequences from burning fossil fuels
You're wrong, Charlie. Crack a book. You might start with Spencer Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming" (2003).
bi,
I have no conspiracy theory. I just think the people that believe that there is a high probability that a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2 will cause more problems than will the many proposed responses are incorrect.
Geo-engineering, drastic cuts in supply, cap and trade, rationing of energy and the many other draconian remedies proposed by AGW catastrophists are all worse than the demonstrable "problem".
Re: 68
And yet the reasons for that thought are often argued in a manner that is to my eye reminiscent of obfuscation and side-stepping. Interesting not?
Geo-engineering, drastic cuts in supply, cap and trade, rationing of energy and the many other draconian remedies proposed by AGW catastrophists are all worse than the demonstrable "problem".
While I find it interesting that you put problem in quotation marks but not draconian, it's nevertheless a pretty much worthless assertion there Lance.
Unless it's got the Lance Seal of Assertion and then, woah, I'm there.
Lance,
So sad to hear Purdue/Indiana has had to combine their physics and math departments. And they are reduced to hiring idiots with the scientific understanding of a turnip, too.
Things are tough all over.
Still it's difficult for me to understand how one could technically be a doctoral program drop-out without first being a doctoral candidate.
fwiw, Indiana/Purdue @ Indianpolis is a comprehensive university, focussed on teaching and not research. In such places with low numbers of majors and high service course loads math/physics combinations are not uncommon.
The worst I ever hear of is a physics/computer science/audiology combo.
Still it's difficult for me to understand how one could technically be a doctoral program drop-out without first being a doctoral candidate.
Because you have to be in the doctoral program for a while and then pass your qualifying exam and general exam (or some variation depending on the school/department), and then you are granted the standing of "doctoral candidate."
80-100 million for Stalin alone? Highest I've seen yet--previously I'd seen 60 million.
20 million is the standard figure--lowballers tend to put it at 10 million or a bit higher, including the famine deaths.
Here's a website listing ranges of estimated death tolls for all sorts of wars and genocides--
Is a lecturer in math and physics a member of the Math Dept. faculty or the Physics Dept. faculty? Maybe both? Maybe the Engr. Dept. faculty? The Business faculty?
No, he's a member of the non-existent Math and Physics Dept. faculty, obviously.
We all have to have a home. Even if we have to invent one.
luminous beauty wondered:
Still it's difficult for me to understand how one could technically be a doctoral program drop-out without first being a doctoral candidate.
In some places getting "advanced to candidacy" means you've passed a certain level of coursework and exams and only have a dissertation to write. Not all schools or departments follow this practice. I've seen some CV's with "C.Phil" for "candidate for Doctor of Philosophy" though I don't know of anywhere where this is a formalized status and we generally interpret it as "haven't finished this damn f*cking albatross of a dissertation."
In this case, Lance means he attended a graduate program. Only he (and his professors) know how far he got before he left.
Luminous, you don't have to be a member of the faculty in a department in order to lecture there. My former advisor, for example, lectured in the departments of Electrical, Aero, and Mechanical engineering, as well as some in Applied Math. She was only a member of the Aero dept. faculty, and adjunct in EE.
Your point is dumb.
luminous beauty asked:
Is a lecturer in math and physics a member of the Math Dept. faculty or the Physics Dept. faculty?
The straightforward guess is that he's lectured in the math department at one point in time, and in the physics department at another.
At the University of Washington in Seattle, at least, there are official classifications for grad students:
1. Post Masters: finished a masters degree and have continued to work on graduate education (probably with intention to write the qualifying exam and pursue a Ph.D.)
2. Ph.D. Student: a post masters student (some students bypass the Masters degree altogether) or other graduate student who has passed the department Qualifying Examination.
3. Ph.D. Candidate: a Ph.D. Student who has passed the department General Examination.
4. Ph.D. conferred when the Ph.D. candidate has successfully defended his/her dissertation and submitted it to the graduate school.
Donald wrote:
Here's a website listing ranges of estimated death tolls for all sorts of wars and genocides--
I wouldn't use that site as a definitive source. I looked at that a few years ago and he cites some very dubious people.
ben,
Applying for a doctoral program means one is applying to be accepted into the program. One is not technically accepted into the program until one fulfills the qualification requirements.
Technically speaking, of course.
"I wouldn't use that site as a definitive source. I looked at that a few years ago and he cites some very dubious people."
That's part of his methodology--he cites anyone and everyone with an opinion. It's more of a sourcebook on all the estimates anyone has ever made on the death toll for atrocity X than a place you go to find "the truth", which in many or most cases we don't have.
I completed my Bachelors in physics in 2003. I applied to the graduate program and was accepted. You then need to choose a graduate advisor. This depends on your area of specialization and research focus.
You then begin your core classes, choose a research project and then begin preparation for the qualifying examination.
You must complete the qualifying examination within your first year of course work. After taking the qualifying exam you enter into either the masters or doctoral program.
My personal history is none of your business, but after passing the qualifying exam at a level above that required to enter the doctoral program I was forced for financial reasons to withdraw from school.
I was approached by the math department, an entirely separate department by the way, to teach as adjunct faculty since my math background also qualified me for a BS in mathematics and indeed I considered pursuing a graduate degree in math.
I also occasionally teach as adjunct faculty for the physics department.
I plan on resuming my studies and research once my financial situation allows.
IUPUI is not just a teaching institution nor does it have a combined math and physics department. I am in good standing with both departments.
I think that about covers it. I note that other than perhaps Jeff Harvey and our esteemed host Tim I have been more open about who and what I am than just about anyone else here at Deltoid.
No doubt some of you will now abuse that openness.
Donald Johnson wrote:
That's part of his methodology--he cites anyone and everyone with an opinion. It's more of a sourcebook on all the estimates anyone has ever made on the death toll for atrocity X than a place you go to find "the truth", which in many or most cases we don't have.
Perhaps, but 1) that's usually not a particularly wise methodology; and 2) sometimes that's a particularly terrible methodology. Few people are familiar with conflict demography so not everyone can distinguish between good estimates, credulous estimates, and opinions.
Lance:
I have no conspiracy theory. I just think the people that believe that there is a high probability that a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2 will cause more problems than will the many proposed responses are incorrect.
So the entire consensus on AGW formed by climatologists, economists, policy scholars, etc. is completely wrong! Because Lance thinks it is.
I think at this point a conspiracy theory will actually be more credible.
anthony:
While I find it interesting that you put problem in quotation marks but not draconian,
...which smacks of the tactics used by the High Respectable Inactionosphere. Every mitigation measure is played up as being "Draconian", a grave threat to our Way of Life, a sign of incipient Bolshevism, and all that.
The inactionosphere has been singing the same doom-and-gloom tune in response to just about every bit of anti-pollution legislation ever proposed. Maybe they do sincerely fear an onslaught of Soviet imperialism, but it doesn't mean we have to fear along with them.
And to think this whole hoo-ha (probably) started because of nukes... :|
bi,
I put problem in italics for the simple reason that I don't think human emissions of CO2 are a problem on the same level as say third world poverty or water pollution.
Even if temperatures were to increase by 2 degrees Celsius over the next century, and I put little credence in estimates that high, there are likely to be just as many positive outcomes as negative.
Also most of the people that are screaming about global warming are the same people screaming about peak oil, so if they are right one of their "problems" is about to take care of the other.
What sort of CO2 concentration do you think business as usual will generate until scarcity forces reduced emissions? How does that sit with what you would regard as true climate sensitivity?
jodyaberdein,
Those are two different questions entirely.
If the answer to the second is that CO2 climate sensitivity is small then the first is of no real consequence except when considering enhanced plant growth and possibly ocean "acidification".
I have seen various estimates for atmospheric CO2 concentrations for "business as usual" emissions. The fact is that without drastic near term intervention the "business as usual" scenario is probably inevitable and conservative.
The proposed "solutions" won't appreciably slow things down enough to make much difference. I suspect that we are committed to a CO2 level of at least 600 ppm by the end of the century.
I don't loose much sleep over it.
Kids,
Much as I disagree with Lance's standing on Global Warming (it's worng in just about every way), his personal history and the dynamics of his time in grad school are really none of our buisness.
I don't know Lance from a bar of soap. He is a nameless, faceless intertube denizen. His personal life is irrelevant. He doesn't know me from a bar of soap either... and my real life is as irrelevant to him as his is to me.
So can we play the ball and not the man?
ChrisC ,
Your point is well taken but I did once mention my educational status so I introduced it into the conversation.
Of course it was in response to the typical "what are your qualifications to challenge the high and mighty scientists of AGW?"
I should have tossed the question aside as irrelevant, which as you point out it is, but I didn't.
While I understand why some people wish to remain anonymous I appreciate it when someone steps up and says who and what they are. Maybe some of them are full of shit and just like masquerading as someone or something else. But I suppose there is no harm in that until it becomes obvious that they are lying and then their credibility is shot.
I mentioned to Ian Gould that I wish these conversations were face to face so that people would be civil and treat each other with respect. If putting my real name out helps to achieve that goal it was worth the risk.
Although one wonders if the intent of some posters actually is respectful discussion.
At least Jesse Jackson doesn't want to cut your nuts off. Man we're going to get a lot of mileage out of that one. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Lance:
I don't think
I don't think... I don't think... I don't think...
The proposed "solutions" won't appreciably slow things down enough to make much difference.
So it's the usual: it's not a problem, and even if it is a problem, there's nothing we can do about it, and even if there's something we can do about it, the solutions are too "draconian", and besides "I don't think" it's a problem...
And people were saying, what, that AGW is a "religion"? The indications of religious worship in inactivism are plain for all to see.
Now, in all seriousness, I wish that AGW weren't real or serious. Because then I can turn my attention to other stuff, and I need not care whether the US elects a sage or a clown as president, for one thing. But the evidence is showing that AGW is real, and that those who say otherwise have invariably been full of bogus.
Lance just can't "think" the problem away.
And you don't lose much sleep over it because you think it's inevitable, or beacause you think 600ppm will only increase global mean temperature by X?
And you don't lose much sleep over it because you think it's inevitable, or beacause you think 600ppm will only increase global mean temperature by X?
Because:
a. nobody knows what X is.
b. nobody knows how good or bad the result will be. Funny how the "scientists" have plenty to say about how bad it will be, and nothing about how good it will be. There won't be any benefits to increased global temperatures? Isn't there some sort of lynx of which only 50 or so animals still exist and they have a tough time of it due to low temperatures? So we have to decide which one we want, some fancy sort of lynx or the polar bear. Which one?
Also most of the people that are screaming about global warming are the same people screaming about peak oil.
Now that's a disconnect from reality ... whoa.
Hey, folks, have you noticed all the screaming about peak oil here? At RC? Deafened, yet?
Regarding Lance's educational background, when I first noticed him here he was describing himself as a "physicist", therefore highly qualified to teach us unwashed all about why climate science is hooey. When pressed, it became clear that he has reached BS status, but no further (pun intended), which rather weakened his claim to stature.
So we have to decide which one we want, some fancy sort of lynx or the polar bear. Which one?
Yeah, who cares about those darn endangered Bangladeshis. Or those rare species of Inuit living in Kivalina? Those tree-huggers want us to stop waving our big technological phalli, so that the Bangladeshis and the Inuits can survive! Tell you what, the world economy can do without Bangladeshis and Inuits, but it can't do without Angry White Americans!
With H-Bombs everything will be OK! God Bless America!
Perhaps at odds with some of the regulars here, I enjoy reading Lance's posts because I know that I am not going to get the absolutely hysterical, ill-considered, brain-dead blather that the trollish knuckle-draggers can only muster. Lance is generally polite, and restrained, and not what I would consider a troll.
Nevertheless, I disagree with his interpretation of the data. An example:
Even if temperatures were to increase by 2 degrees Celsius over the next century, and I put little credence in estimates that high, there are likely to be just as many positive outcomes as negative.
In ecological terms, an average increase over a period of a decade or two is a disaster for most species. There are generalist species that are adapted to environmental perturbations, including those of temperature, that would do well and give the appearance to an untrained observer that life is burgeoning, but as far as biodiversity and ecosystem functions go... well, they'd both go down the tubes.
The problem with most lay people is that because they can't observe it happening, they think that it doesn't happen, or that it doesn't exist. To illustrate, most people in the area where I live think that our mild winter has been wonderful, but so far we have had only 70% of the chill hours that we had last year, and many stone-fruit and pom-fruit are lining up for crop failure. An yet very few will understand that this is happening until they see the prices at the supermarkets next year. Just a little example, but one that will be felt by the fruitivores of Australia soon enough.
Same with the salmon farms here, which are bordering on massive fish deaths each summer, where a decade ago the loss of the fishery was unthinkable.
Of course, according to Climatepatrol, kent, Louis Hissink, HPJr et al, the planet is cooling, so the extraordinarily mild winters we have experienced in the last few years must be a figment of my state's collective imagination...
Back to the subject though, Lance posts:
Also most of the people that are screaming about global warming are the same people screaming about peak oil, so if they are right one of their "problems" is about to take care of the other.
Um, no Lance, and I'm surprised that someone with your intelligence thinks this. Peak oil will have significant impact on geopolitical and economic stability, but it isn't going to significantly affect the rate of emission of CO2. There are the inconvenient matters of coal, shale-oil and tar-sand that will ensure humanity can continue belching fossil fuel combustion products into the atmosphere at ever-increasing rates for decades to come.
It's rather an ugly combination of effects, if one thinks about it, and I think that if Lance had a bit more exposure to the subtle intricacies of ecosystem function, balance and feedback, even he would readily alter his stance on the various aspects of the AGW issue.
For the trolls here, there is no hope. What God (or the evolution fairy) hasn't put there, we can't improve upon.
In my last post I said:
"an average increase over a period of a decade or two".
What I meant of course, was:
"an average increase of a degree or two, over a period of decades,..."
It's been a long day...
Donald Johnson writes:
80-100 million for Stalin alone? Highest I've seen yet--previously I'd seen 60 million.
20 million is the standard figure--lowballers tend to put it at 10 million or a bit higher, including the famine deaths.
Remember that there was a constant turnover of births and deaths every year. Over 70 years, the number of people dying in the GULAG added way up. (When Stalin died in 1953, 10% of Soviet citizens were in labor camps.) And the purges and the famine of the '30s had a great enough effect that the census showed the population of the USSR had actually fallen. Stalin had the 1937 census takers shot and ordered a new census which came up with more pleasing numbers.
Lance writes:
Even if temperatures were to increase by 2 degrees Celsius over the next century, and I put little credence in estimates that high, there are likely to be just as many positive outcomes as negative.
Everyone who has actually studied the problem seems to disagree with you.
Re 96:
Ben, I'm not sure you quite got the point.
The intention of the question was to find out whether Lance's indifference represented a nihilistic attitude, or a specific opinion relating to likely emissions scenarios and climate sensitivity.
I think we're all reasonably aware what your opinion of the matter might be, but what is really much much more interesting is why Lance holds the opinion he does. Of course the two attitudes are not at all exclusive I would add.
Lance?
BPL wrote:
Stalin had the 1937 census takers shot
"Census taker" is usually understood to refer to the field workers who actually go out and take the census. The 1937 Soviet census was truly an embarrassment from Stalin's perspective but the census takers were not shot. The truth is damning enough: the administrator of the Soviet Census bureau, his chief deputies, and many of the regional managers were imprisoned. A few years ago, when I was doing some research about Soviet demography, I happened to track the spread of the "Stalin shot the census takers" line. It's kind of interesting (though admittedly some people think I have a pretty low boredom threshold).
ben,
Climate sensitivity to temperature is only half the story. It's an estimate of what part of the much more accurately known radiative forcing from the suite of well-mixed anthropogenic greenhouse gases will manifest as average transient surface temperatures. The part of that force that doesn't manifest as average transient surface temperatures will, most likely, manifest as disruption in the mode and frequency of weather and possibly dramatic regional and global climatic shifts.
So pick your poison. Higher temps with catastrophic sea level rise, terminally disruptive ecosystem pressures and somewhat less weather disruption, or lower temperature sensitivity and more extensive and intensive floods, droughts and extreme weather.
Or pick the median and get an unpleasant dose of both.
jodyaberdein,
I have reviewed several different studies regarding CO2 climate sensitivity. They come in three basic flavors.
The first are ones that use the assumption that the recent increases in temperatures are due largely to increases in CO2 and then makes comparisons with past temperatures from proxy studies to determine the CO2 climate sensitivity.
There are multiple problems to this approach. First it assumes that the recent increases in temperatures are largely due to increases in CO2. If this doesn't jump out at you as a systematic bias I'm not sure what would.
Then there is the issue of the accuracy of the proxy studies used for comparison.
The second approach is to use computerized climate simulation models that assign different values to CO2 sensitivity and see how well the model results fit past data and then use that sensitivity to run future scenarios.
Again this approach makes assumptions about what "caused" past warming and cooling and obviously that gives a bias towards a high CO2 sensitivity if you are of the opinion that CO2 is a major climate driver.
The kind of studies that appeal most to me as a physicist (as yes I have not completed my training) are the ones that make no assumptions but attempt to derive the sensitivity based on first principles. There are few that really follow this course because it is so challenging and indeed each of the studies of this type that I have reviewed make approximations and generalizations in an attempt to simplify the process.
Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius, a figure that is in accord with what Richard Lindzen estimates (0.3-0.5C) in his Colloquium Paper Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A > v.94(16); Aug 5, 1997.
The other reason I don't lose sleep over the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity is that short of world wide imposition of the most extreme and expensive mitigation strategies there is little doubt that the use of fossil fuels, and hence CO2 emissions, are going to continue relatively unabated.
Yeah, who cares about those darn endangered Bangladeshis...
Maybe they can go live with Al Gore, he certainly has enough room, and he's fat.
Lance:
> First it assumes that the recent increases in temperatures are largely due to increases in CO2. If this doesn't jump out at you as a systematic bias I'm not sure what would.
Now that makes me wonder how climatologists figured out the warming power of methane, eh does it not?
> Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius
And how would this figure be obtained? Through a scientific procedure based on magic pixie dust?
> short of world wide imposition of the most extreme and expensive mitigation strategies there is little doubt that the use of fossil fuels, and hence CO2 emissions, are going to continue relatively unabated.
You repeatedly chant that mantra. So do you think that (1) it's not a problem, or (2) it's a problem but there's nothing we can do about it anyway? If it's not a problem, then why in the blazes do you worry about how much CO2 is being released?
ben:
> Maybe they can go live with Al Gore, he certainly has enough room, and he's fat.
ben: Those tree-huggers just want to save polar bears.
me: You know, there are species in the world known as "Bangladeshis" and "Inuits". It's not just about polar bears.
ben: Well, for all intents and purposes they're just the same as polar bears.
ben, you're a racist idiot.
Bernard J.,
Thanks for not considering me a "troll". I know that you have a much deeper understanding of the dynamics of ecological systems than I do.
Perhaps you can explain a question that occurs to me when I hear people predict extreme ecological damage from an increased average global temperature of say 2 degrees Celcius.
Since past climates have been much colder and indeed much warmer than today's why wouldn't the various ecological systems adapt to a new equilibrium since they obviously have in the past?
Is it a question of the rate of temperature increase? Is it that disruptions to the biological webs that help to support human life would be disrupted to the point of collapse or at least severe stress?
What is your opinion of the range of temperature that could be tolerated without severe ecological damage and what might that damage be if that range is exceeded?
The iterative backpedalling cometh again...
bi,
If that remark was aimed at me I point out that you waited all of 15 min to declare that I was ignoring your post.
Your post mostly makes insulting remarks with sarcastic inuendo thrown in for effect.
Gleening the vitriol I find these two questions.
(In regard to my opinion that climate sensitivity was under 1 degree Celsius.) And how would this figure be obtained? Through a scientific procedure based on magic pixie dust?
I made reference to Lindzen's paper and that my opinion was based on my review of the literature. I don't think pixie dust was involved to my recollection. I never claimed to have conducted my own scientific peer reviewed study. Perhaps you can post a link to yours?
Then you ask,
So do you think that (1) it's not a problem, or (2) it's a problem but there's nothing we can do about it anyway? If it's not a problem, then why in the blazes do you worry about how much CO2 is being released?
I clearly said that I do not worry about how much CO2 is being released. Also I find it curious that people on the AGW side often criticize skeptics for saying they don't think CO2 is a problem and that even if it was there is nothing much that can be done.
If you told me that the moon was going to explode because of the prayers of Muslims to Allah my response would be that I don't think you are correct and that we couldn't stop Muslims from praying to Allah anyway.
This is a very rational and supportable statement just as saying that CO2 isn't a problem and there is little we can do about it even if it were.
You probably disagree with the statement but that doesn't make it illogical.
me: You know, there are species in the world known as "Bangladeshis" and "Inuits". It's not just about polar bears.
ben: Well, for all intents and purposes they're just the same as polar bears.
ben, you're a racist idiot.
Bangladeshi is a race? Is Mexican a race too? How about American? I'm racially American I suppose.
Now this is walking the walk. When Gore lives like that, I'll think about listening to him. After all, it AGW is "the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced," right?
ben,
Well then just screw Al Gore and think about listening to Ed Begley and Bill Nye.
Bill Nye's smart. He's the Science Guy. (He really is pretty good.)
LB,
Bill Nye, while entertaining, is not a scientist. He has a BS in mechanical engineering.
He looked rather feckless juxtaposed with Richard Lindzen on a recent Larry King Live discussion of climate change.
Maybe you can get "Beakman" and his buddy in the rat suite to go after Lindzen next time.
Lnce says:
"The first are ones that use the assumption that the recent increases in temperatures are due largely to increases in CO2 and then makes comparisons with past temperatures from proxy studies to determine the CO2 climate sensitivity."
Let me figure out how to say this politely... uhhh... bullcrap.
As an example - climate sensitivity determined from relationship of Milankovich forcing and glacial stade transitions, using a realistic value for the amount of solar forcing imposed on the planet due to orbital variation, and then comparing that to the temperature change, to determine climate sensitivity. This approach makes no assumptions about CO2 - and it arrives at a value of about 3C / 2xCO2.
"The second approach is to use computerized climate simulation models that assign different values to CO2 sensitivity and see how well the model results fit past data and then use that sensitivity to run future scenarios.
Again this approach makes assumptions about what "caused" past warming and cooling and obviously that gives a bias towards a high CO2 sensitivity if you are of the opinion that CO2 is a major climate driver."
Again - and I say this with the utmost respect for our learned physicist friend Lance here - bullcrap. The coupled GCM models do NOT HAVE ANY ASSIGNED CO2 SENSITIVITY!! CO2 sensitivity comes OUt of the models. Teh msot convincing hindcast experimetns are the ones where they model wa world without the modern anthropogenic carbon component of the atmosphere, adjust parameters within physically realsitic limits to try to model last-century temperature increases -a cn cant do it. They then add carbon to match the observed emissinos, and find that it is very easy to model the increase, with various settings of parameters within physically realistic limits. This modeling analysis does not assume that CO2 is causing warming - it asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't. The then extend this finding - a finding, not an assumption - and ask what the forcing is for realistic parameter settings and models that hindcast well, and find values that cluster around 3C. And they find that those models perform well when presented with perturbatins that were not used in the 'tuning,' such as major volcanic eruptions. None of this ASSUMES that CO2 is the only dominant forcing - if FINDS that CO2 forcing and a climate sensitivity of about 3C is necessary to accurately model the real world.
"The kind of studies that appeal most to me as a physicist (as yes I have not completed my training) are the ones that make no assumptions but attempt to derive the sensitivity based on first principles. There are few that really follow this course because it is so challenging and indeed each of the studies of this type that I have reviewed make approximations and generalizations in an attempt to simplify the process.
Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius, a figure that is in accord with what Richard Lindzen estimates (0.3-0.5C) in his Colloquium Paper Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A > v.94(16); Aug 5, 1997."
From first principles? Really? Those few papers are stuffed with non-physical assumptions and generalizations and simplifications. Forcing due to CO2 alone, with NO feedbacks, is 1.1C. There is NO empirical evidence that net amplification is negative. If it were, insolation variations due to orbital changes could not have caused the ice ages, just for one line of evidence.
Lance:
> This is a very rational and supportable statement
"Supportable" in the sense that you only try to substantiate the first part (CO2 isn't a problem) and you're only using the just-so second part (even if it is we can/should Do Nothing) as a fig leaf to cover up the lack of facts in the first part. Yeah, "supportable".
ben:
> I'm racially American I suppose.
Racially you're a racist idiot.
You'd better apologize now for suggesting that Bangladeshis and Inuits are just as 'disposable' as polar bears. Otherwise I'll continue to call you a racist idiot, because that's what you are.
Lee:
> This modeling analysis does not assume that CO2 is causing warming - it asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't.
Point.
Racially you're a racist idiot.
You'd better apologize now for suggesting that Bangladeshis and Inuits are just as 'disposable' as polar bears. Otherwise I'll continue to call you a racist idiot, because that's what you are.
Like, who said you could pick up the pen for me? I never once claimed that. I only wrote that they should go live with Al Gore in his enormous houses and that Gore was fat. Does that mean that I hate Bangladeshis? Well, only if I really meant it, I wouldn't want my worst enemy to have to live with Gore.
I never did write that they were disposable. And since when are Bangladeshi or Inuit races? Do I have anything against the Inuit or the Bangladeshi because of whatever race it is to which they belong? Do I hate myself for being a composition of many races? Do I hate my wife because she is part native? Race has nothing to do with anything, unless you are Jesse Jackson and race is how you make your living, that and cutting folk's nuts off.
Now quit with the name-calling, bi. It's beneath you in real life, I hope. But if you insist, you better get with the program and add homophobe, islamaphobe, clownist, nissanophobe, phonophobe, politicist, recovering canuckophobe, merlotophobe, budwiserist, etc... because I must have writting something somewhere denigrating those things.
[modelling] asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't.
Or is it the modelers who make this finding? Does this mean that they are correct, or that there is something that they have overlooked?
Or is it the modelers who make this finding? Does this mean that they are correct, or that there is something that they have overlooked?
So enlighten us. What did they all miss?
Does this mean that they are correct, or that there is something that they have overlooked?
Are you referring to the pixie dust or do you feel - like this fellow - that scientists are a little too un-tanned...?
Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.
Lance in essence is saying "I've reviewed the literature" and believes that LIndzen's estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is the best supported one.
Despite the fact that scientists have tried to find physical evidence to support the "iris effect" upon which Lindzen depends to discount higher values of CO2 forcing. And, despite having tried, having *failed* to find physical evidence for this novel "iris effect". Lindzen's hypothesis has been round-filed, not due to ideology, but due to lack of empirical evidence to back it up.
Lance accuses mainstream climate science of, in effect, making shit up through the mechanism of assuming the conclusion in the absence of empirical evidence. Not only is that bullshit, but his favorite candidate for truth is based on Lindzen ... making shit up ...
And Lance wonders why we laugh at his claims of objectivity and call him a liar.
One thing is nearly certain. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train. This means that we will get to see what will happen and history will prove one side right and the other wrong, for better or worse.
One thing is nearly certain. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train.
...thanks to folks like Lance and Ben who are trying their very best to make it unstoppable. It's almost like Milloy claiming that the USCAP will die by itself even as he actively helps its 'demise' along.
Well, Motl gives the game away by describing himself as a "conservative physicist", he doesn't even pretend that his view of science is object or unbiased.
Lance writes:
Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius, a figure that is in accord with what Richard Lindzen estimates (0.3-0.5C) in his Colloquium Paper Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A > v.94(16); Aug 5, 1997.
That's like concluding cosmological evidence doesn't support the Big Bang based on a paper by Halton Arp. The consensus of the 61 studies I looked up is that the climate sensitivity is between 2 and 4 K:
I made reference to Lindzen's paper and that my opinion was based on my review of the literature.
How could your "review of the literature" miss the overwhelming number of papers which conclude that climate sensitivity is much higher than Lindzen's estimate? I don't think you "review[ed] the literature" at all; I think you copied the citation to one paper off a denialist website and then claimed to have "review[ed] the literature." See above for why I think so.
Ben: One thing is nearly certain. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train. This means that we will get to see what will happen and history will prove one side right and the other wrong, for better or worse.
Honest question: Ask yourself "can I live with myself advocating this position, if I turned out to be wrong?". I'd be very interested in hearing your answer.
ben says:
"Your post mostly makes insulting remarks with sarcastic inuendo[sic] thrown in for effect."
What's good for the gander, eh Goose?
However, making fun of your obtuse mindless blithering to your face is more honest than making witless and dismissive jokes about the suffering of Bangladeshis or Polar Bears. That isn't just sarcastic and insulting. It is sadistic.
Nothing says good government like ignoring a legal, scientific and moral mandate to evaluate a particular public policy. Bush administration to the US Supreme Court, scientific and economic community, foreign nationns and our children and children's children, etc.: Go take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut!
Honest question: Ask yourself "can I live with myself advocating this position, if I turned out to be wrong?". I'd be very interested in hearing your answer.
I don't advocate that position, I simply think it's the truth that much as people will try to limit emissions they will still fail. All I am saying is that I think we'll get to see one way or another. If we did in fact cut emissions significantly enough, whatever that is, then we'd never really know if it was worth the trouble.
ben says:
"Your post mostly makes insulting remarks with sarcastic inuendo[sic] thrown in for effect."
I didn't write that, Lance did. I suppose I may as well have. I've been around long enough to know better though, we do seem to get into games of purple nurples here, and I can dish it as well as take it. Except for the name calling.
Back to the cheerful subject of mass murder and genocide. I've found another fairly interesting website, this time with articles by people who are supposed to be among the leading scholars in their field, or anyway that's my impression. Some of the articles on the USSR are by Nicholas Werth, who was the "Black Book of Communism" writer on that particular area.
However, making fun of your obtuse mindless blithering to your face is more honest than making witless and dismissive jokes about the suffering of Bangladeshis or Polar Bears. That isn't just sarcastic and insulting. It is sadistic.
Uh, I believe Ben was the one that made remarks about Inuits and polar bears.
I'm sure your apology will be issued post haste.
Lee says,
As an example - climate sensitivity determined from relationship of Milankovich forcing and glacial stade transitions, using a realistic value for the amount of solar forcing imposed on the planet due to orbital variation, and then comparing that to the temperature change, to determine climate sensitivity. This approach makes no assumptions about CO2 - and it arrives at a value of about 3C / 2xCO2.
Since "Bullcrap" is your politeness standard. I say Bullcrap back at ya. This technique assumes that first of all their "realistic" value is correct and that CO2 is responsible for anything they didn't guess correctly. That you find this convincing shows your bias.
Your next cow pie arrives hot and steamy with...
The coupled GCM models do NOT HAVE ANY ASSIGNED CO2 SENSITIVITY!! CO2 sensitivity comes OUt of the models.
(You may find that your typing and your logic improve when you calm down.)
The models have parameters adjusted to what the modelers best estimate of forcings might be, and then whatever is left is assigned to CO2 sensitivity. How exactly is this different than what I said? They "back cast" their models and then the ones that fit the best are used to determine CO2 sensitivity. It only takes a rudimentary knowledge of algebra to know that if you squeeze a multi-variate equation hard enough on one end you change a value at the other.
If they have missed their guess on the other forcings and feedbacks, up or down, they will assign the difference to CO2. This is an interesting exercise but cannot be reliably used to determine CO2 climate sensitivity unless you have a high level of certainty about every other possible climate forcing and feedback and highly accurate past temperature data. Needless to say climatology currently possesses neither.
... it asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't.
Saying "we are darn sure we've thought of everything and we can't think of anything else that would cause warming so it must be CO2" is hardly a scientifically compelling argument.
This is the same argument used by Intelligent Design proponents. Just because you can't figure out what causes something doesn't mean that CO2 or divine intervention is the cause.
Forcing due to CO2 alone, with NO feedbacks, is 1.1C. There is NO empirical evidence that net amplification is negative.
Way to pack a whole herds' worth of dung into two sentences. Bold use of the word "is" there cowboy. You of course can back up your 1.1C CO2 climate sensitivity assertion with first principles research and verifiable data I suppose? I await that evidence.
Also, most feedbacks in nature are negative or else "runaway" conditions would be common. As for there being NO evidence for negative feedbacks you are quite mistaken (I know it's surprising since use of capital letters usually assures irrefutability.)
On hot days in the mid-west heat forces the evaporation of moisture which feeds late afternoon thunderstorms that drop the temperature considerably and transfer energy from thermal energy to kinetic energy there by reducing temperature. This is only one of such negative feedbacks of which there are many.
luminous beauty:
> However, making fun of your obtuse mindless blithering to your face is more honest than making witless and dismissive jokes about the suffering of Bangladeshis or Polar Bears. That isn't just sarcastic and insulting. It is sadistic.
If ben were an oil CEO, such jokes may well be good grounds to charge him for high crimes against humanity. Fortunately for him he's not an oil tycoon, ergo it's just hate speech.
dhogaza:
> Well, Motl gives the game away by describing himself as a "conservative physicist", he doesn't even pretend that his view of science is object or unbiased.
Holy batman...
Now we just need to wait for the wave of indignation from the inactionosphere at Motl's hateful remarks advocating eugenics. I mean, Hansen only advocated trying oil CEOs and he's getting such a huge crapstorm already, right?
Um wait. Motl's an inactivist, so he's OK. Besides, The Alarmists Are Just As Bad... The Alarmists Are Just As Bad... The Alarmists Are Just As Bad...
Lance,
So it is nihilism, but also that 600+ppm won't result in an important increase in global mean temperature.
So you would say you are confident of a precise upper bound to climate sensitivity then?
If ben were an oil CEO, such jokes may well be good grounds to charge him for high crimes against humanity. Fortunately for him he's not an oil tycoon, ergo it's just hate speech.
Hate speech? What if I had written such jokes about the Irish? Would that have been hate speech? It might be insensitive, but it certainly isn't hate. Let's have a look at the definition of "hate" shall we:
Hate: to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest: to hate the enemy; to hate bigotry.
I feel no such dislike nor hostility toward any person or group based on their race, skin color, language, hairstyle, country of origin, favorite color or any other such immaterial condition.
If you continue to call me a hater or racist it will be clear whom the hater is, and it ain't me.
If they have missed their guess on the other forcings and feedbacks, up or down, they will assign the difference to CO2.
No, Lance, that is not what they do. And if you believe I'm wrong, go argue with Gavin Schmidt, a leading modeler.
Even if you *were* right, CO2 does exist in the atmosphere, is known to cause warming, and is increasing.
While Lindzen's "iris effect" hypothesis was based on an unknown mechanism, and efforts to measure it have failed to find any such thing.
Yet you believe Lindzen's right even though there's no physical evidence to support his claim.
I suggest you don't follow Lindzen's example in your own research - you'll never earn your PhD if you argue a thesis based on overturning a known physical effect by proposing a hypothesis which for which no empirical evidence exists.
> It might be insensitive, but it certainly isn't hate.
Yeah, a great improvement there! It's not hate! It's just insensitivity! You're just "insensitive" to polar bears, Bangladeshis, and Inuits, because their presence interferes with the ideology and the way of life of Angry White Males such as yourself.
> Let's have a look at the definition of "hate" shall we:
> > Hate: to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest: to hate the enemy; to hate bigotry.
No kidding, ben... you can't even get the part of speech right, and that's not even all.
Then again, you're too idiotic to realize that you're an idiot...
"Then again, you're too idiotic to realize that you're an idiot... "
Kind of ironic to be pointing out someone else's alleged hatred while spewing these kinds of insults.
Bi, what I'm really insensitive to are YOUR feelings on the subject, not the actual plight of the Bangladeshis or the Polar Bears.
And insensitivity to polar bears? That's like one rung above insensitivity to frying pans. Who cares?
Sarah:
> Kind of ironic to be pointing out someone else's alleged hatred while spewing these kinds of insults.
First, it's not "hatred" or "hate" or "hate speech" to point out that someone's logically and factually challenged, especially when the issue under discussion requires precisely logic and facts.
ben's not fit for the job. It's not an "insult". It's a fact, and it's backed up by evidence. That's one thing they won't teach you during your gun training sessions.
ben:
> what I'm really insensitive to are YOUR feelings on the subject, not the actual plight of the Bangladeshis or the Polar Bears.
Now that's an improvement, ben. Just backpedal a bit more and maybe I'll figure that you're not such a bad person after all...
Lance,
"This technique assumes that first of all their "realistic" value is correct and that CO2 is responsible for anything they didn't guess correctly."
Wrong, all the way through. "This technique" doesn't invoke CO2, doesn't care about CO2, doesn't care about feedback mechanisms at all. It derives a forcing from realistic insolation values - calculated based on orbital parameters and the brightness of the sun - and then determines temperature difference. The assumption being made is that the delta-temp is due to delta-forcing from delta-insolation.
"The models have parameters adjusted to what the modelers best estimate of forcings might be, and then whatever is left is assigned to CO2 sensitivity."
Wrong, wrong, very wrong, Lance. Have you even read any of the modeling papers? The models don't have "CO2 sensitivity" per se. They have forcing sensitivity. This can be translated to greenhouse gas sensitivity by calculating forcing due to a given greenhouse gas mixture and concentration - this is done from radiative balance calculations.
-----------------
"Saying "we are darn sure we've thought of everything and we can't think of anything else that would cause warming so it must be CO2" is hardly a scientifically compelling argument.
This is the same argument used by Intelligent Design proponents. Just because you can't figure out what causes something doesn't mean that CO2 or divine intervention is the cause."
Dude, CO2 and its basic radiative physics is not "divine intervention." This is not saying 'we don't know, so god did it.' This is saying, 'we have a very good explanation that matches current physical knowledge and that fits the evidence, that is robust to several independent analytical approaches to arrive at the same answer, and no one can find any other explanation that fits the evidence." Yeah, that's pretty good science.
-----------
"You of course can back up your 1.1C CO2 climate sensitivity assertion with first principles research and verifiable data I suppose?"
This is basic radiative physics - that you don't know this indicts your knowledge base.
---
"Also, most feedbacks in nature are negative or else "runaway" conditions would be common. As for there being NO evidence for negative feedbacks you are quite mistaken (I know it's surprising since use of capital letters usually assures irrefutability.)"
Dude, positive feedback does NOT equal "runaway conditions." Positive feedback with a gain of less than 1 is common, and simply leads to a new higher stable state. Ever hear of an amplifier? You're a physicist?
And you either cant read, or are intentionally altering what I said. "No empirical evidence for net negative feedback" says nothing about whether there are individual negative feedbacks - your response is about thunderstorms as an individual negative feedback is irrelevant. There is a LOT of empirical evidence for net positive feedbacks in the overall climate system - with a gain yielding about 3C/ 2xCO2.
That you keep talking around teh specifics, or misrepresenting them, or completely ignoring them, says a lot, I think.
Bi -- I didn't see anything in my brother's comments that could even be remotely classified as hatred or racist. You may not agree with his position, but that doesn't necessarily constitute "hate." People toss around those labels when they can't otherwise engage an argument, and it's pretty weak stuff.
There is nothing factual about "idiot" in this context -- it's your subjective opinion (to which you are entitled). The fact is that you could advance this discussion without calling Ben an idiot, but you can't resist, because -- face it -- you hate people like us.
Dear Sarah, the concern troll sock-puppet and defender of jackass idiot brothers,
I suspect people like you would love to be hated by people like us.
That might conceivably bring a similcrum of meaning into your sad, sorry, and otherwise empty lives, wouldn't it?
Sorry, but I can't be bothered to hate you.
It's just too sad, really.
Lee,
Most of your nasty post is just reiterating your own assertions and misrepresenting my remarks.
There is one statement in it I will again ask you to back up with facts. In regard to the 1.1 degree Celsius increase in temps for a doubling of CO2 you make the following statement along with your usual insulting aside. "This is basic radiative physics - that you don't know this indicts your knowledge base."
I have read several papers that make attempts to calculate from first principles a straight forward calculation of the increase in temps from a doubling of CO2. All that I know of use "short cuts" since the real deal is hideously complex and indeed may require appeals to numerical methods rather than a straight forward derivation.
Show me where I can find this paper you claim proves a 1.1 C increase for a doubling of CO2.
The calculated forcing for a doubling of CO2 is about 3.7 w/m2. The value is accepted by nearly everyone, even most of the staunchest denialists. Try this link.
A delta forcing of 3.7 m/m2 translates to 1.1C, assuming NO feedbacks, ie, that everything in the system stays the same. This is a simple graybody equilibrium calculation.
Lance, my two latest posts to you here are filled with specific statements. You have not responded on point to any of them, from either post.
and here, Lance, is a listing of radiative transfer codes used to make this kind of calculation:
Luminous, you think Sarah is my sock puppet? Ha ha ha!
ben,
No, I don't think Sarah is a sock-puppet. She just plays one on the internet.
Just like you think your playing some great libertarian skeptic hero on the internet. Only your real role is that of an idiotic jackass.
depp=true
notiz=[Please be polite]
"Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train."
Not any more so than a train of lemmings is unstoppable as it's headed to the cliff on the horizon. because, it's at least arguable by knowledgeable folks that:
"The range of stabilization levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialised in coming decades." -IPCC
or
"Catastrophic climate change is not inevitable. We possess the technologies that could forestall global warming." - Technology Review, July 2006
but the unfortunate combination of doctrinaire climate change denialists and delayers, climate change defeatists, believers in a climate change deus ex machina,
vested interests in the status quo, and political pandering to the lowest common denominator and the largest campaign donation have led us to the precipice. not all that surprising really; our pessimism has been inadequate many times recently, the installation of the Bush administration 8 years ago being a terrific example. "hey, how much harm can he do? We don't want to make a fuss." after all, our species' lack of a decent mechanism of quantifying estimates of imminent risk and assigning appropriate remedial effort is by far the greatest cause of avoidable individual human death, and has been the cause of the downfall of innumerable societies and civilizations; so now that we have achieved a global society with global powers, it's only a matter of time until we drive it into the wall.
Just like you think your playing some great libertarian skeptic hero on the internet.
I do?
Only your real role is that of an idiotic jackass.
And yours is?
Most of your nasty post is just reiterating your own assertions and misrepresenting my remarks.
He's quoted your remarks. If he's misrepresenting them, be specific.
Meanwhile, you've repeatedly demonstrated over the course of months? years? here that, despite being corrected, you *still* don't know how GCMs are built, etc.
Saying "we are darn sure we've thought of everything and we can't think of anything else that would cause warming so it must be CO2" is hardly a scientifically compelling argument.
This is the same argument used by Intelligent Design proponents. Just because you can't figure out what causes something doesn't mean that CO2 or divine intervention is the cause.
This statement can only lead to one of two conclusions, both of which are false:
1. divine intervention has been measured in the laboratory.
2. IR absorption by CO2 has not been measured in the laboratory.
Which false conclusion are you supporting, Lance?
And this is just laughable:
"Also, most feedbacks in nature are negative or else "runaway" conditions would be common. As for there being NO evidence for negative feedbacks you are quite mistaken (I know it's surprising since use of capital letters usually assures irrefutability.)"
Lee's response is correct, of course, and additionally climate science quite authoritatively argues that on earth, even absent negative feedbacks, the kind of "runaway" feedback situation you claim is "common" is actually impossible.
It's your spewing of nonsense about physics that led us to conclude that your claim to be a "physicist" was bogus, and indeed, led to your admission that you've earned a BS but dropped out of your grad program. You're not helping your cause by demonstrating that you are either 1) ignorant 2) dishonest or 3) both.
The models have parameters adjusted to what the modelers best estimate of forcings might be, and then whatever is left is assigned to CO2 sensitivity. How exactly is this different than what I said?
The models do not adjust to anybody's estimate of forcings. Forcings are a result of the model runs, not an input.
Look, this is something you can check for yourself. The code to Hansen et al.'s GISS Model E is available for free on the internet. It doesn't work the way you say it does.
It doesn't work the way you say it does.
Lance has been told this multiple times, yet he continues to make the claim over and over.
So much for his "review of the literature" ... by which presumably he means Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, etc ...
bi -- IJI, you alluded to Motl's hateful remarks advocating eugenics. I thought I had caught him out once on this- out of two times ever visiting his maniacal blog- but perhaps just caught him reciting his opinion. Can you specify where this comes from? Thanks...
Majorajam:
I posted WebCite links way up this thread. Here Motl said
> I am normally against euthanasia but it simply seems to me that there is no other help for the people who are writing most of the [alarming] stuff above. It's literally pandemics. The society should urgently put these people into quarantine, hoping that it is not too late.
Sounds pretty much like eugenics to me. I mean, it is eugenics, literally.
TokyoTom wrote a reply, which Motl later deleted freedom'd. And now there's more...
While I do like LGF, I don't recall much being posted there on AGW. What say you bi, dhogaza, etc, is LGF "racist"? I think not.
(Majorajam: I wrote a reply, but it got stuck in moderation. Anyway I did put up some links to Motl's eugenics comments further up.)
And, yet another climate conspiracy theory, this time from a left-anarchist point of view. Go figure.
LGF "racist"?
Not just racist but full-metal-Nazi
Calling an entire ethnic group "vermin" is a twofer.
So, Cardinal George Pell is still a climate denialist, and is still telling us that we are not breeding fast enough.
There are many things that I could say, but for better or worse it wouldn't be Christian to do so...
BPL,
The models do not adjust to anybody's estimate of forcings. Forcings are a result of the model runs, not an input.
A "forcing" is anything that can be thought of as a being a primary driver such as solar radiation, vegetation, green house gases, stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, tropospheric aerosols, volcanic aerosols etc.
Are you claiming that GCMs do not input values for these quantities but determine them from output? I think you may be confused.
Calling an entire ethnic group "vermin" is a twofer.
You got a link to that? For the record, "Hamas" is not an ethnic group, if that's what you are talking about.
Lee,
Modtran is a computer model not a direct calculation of CO2 climate sensitivity.
It relies on iterative techniques based on assumptions. It is the nature of these assumptions that is the issue. Your appeal is circular, In essence you are saying that your theory is backed up by a model that assumes your theory as one of its presuppositions.
Lance,
Which particular direct calculation leads you to prefer a value of less than 1 degree?
You disagree with Roe and Baker, and presumably have firm evidence for an upper bound? Where do they go wrong?
Roe GH, Baker MB. Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable? Science. 2007 Oct 26;318(5850):629-632.
jody,
The study you cite is a study of other climate sensitivity studies that attempts to limit uncertainties by using statistical techniques on the distribution of the results of these studies.
I shouldn't have to point out that you can't apply statistical techniques to the results of different studies as if they were data points based on systematic measurements and hope to come to a higher level of certainty than is represented by the studies themselves..
Well, I guess you can but the results are meaningless except as a sort of survey of what those particular studies concluded.
Which particular direct calculation leads you to prefer a value of less than 1 degree?
There are various 1-d and 2-d methods that give estimates for a doubling of CO2 of about 1 degree Celsius. I really don't have a problem with guestimates of this magnitude.
The point I was making to Lee is that there is no straight forward 3-d quantum mechanically sound time dependent calculation out there (that I have seen) that can be pointed to. Even the estimates that arrive at around 1.0 C make assumptions that cannot be rigorously verified.
Most attempts I have seen start waiving Navier-Stokes equations, Kirchoff's Law and the virial theorem around while talking about "grey bodies", but when you wade through the mathematical smoke screen you find that they are making plenty of assumptions that are usually only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons.
But in a concession to what's out there let's say I agree with the 1 degree Celsius number. The question then is what "feedbacks" can we expect from this roughly agreed upon 1 degree warming?
To get to more than 1 degrees of positive feedback you have to use some unsupportable assumptions and climate models.
So now you are taking a number that has plenty of fudge room in it already and building a virtual world based on more conjecture. I think that these models are great for playing around with various parameters and trying to come up with better and better models to understand various physical aspects of climate, but they definitely should not be used to make "predictions" and in fact the IPCC is careful to label their output as "projections" for just that reason.
bi -- IJI, good stuff. Motl did more than that when I posted over at his blog, btw. I'm going to have to paraphrase now because he's freedomed my entire existence off that thread, including his indictable responses to my posts, (except in that one reference to me remains on what's left of that hackneyed thread in a response by one of his nutty disciples), but it went something like, 'Science should not get mixed up in politics. The only time it has historically is with the Nazis [a direct reference to, no sh*t, eugenics] and with Stalin [a direct reference to what I can't recall]. Of course the Nazi's application of science to politics was [and this part I'm definitely quoting] "more impressive" than was [whatever the heck Stalin Russia] was doing'. Of course, aside from the so-inane-as-to-be-beyond-caricature nature of his analytical framework, that was something of a stunner.
He went silent when I pointed out that he'd just cast eugenics as 'impressive' and his minions (brownshirts?) defending him by predicting I would run off to Daily Kos and celebrate my pawning of him. I can't remember how the thread evolved from there. He eventually reengaged the discussion but would never address that point even after my prodding. Little wonder it has since been disappeared.
Ah, what wonderful people these denialists routinely turn out to be. Either too trusting, or altogether untrustworthy. Then of course they occasionally turn out to be crazier than a sh*t house mouse.
so we're back to objection 313-a (codifying them for brevity: "the models merely reproduce what results they are designed around" (as distinct from 313-B: "the models can't even reproduce the past/current climate").
OK then: somebody must at some point have demonstrated a model which does NOT include AGW. can i see it please? I've asked nicely several times now. why would you guys be hiding this? it would certainly bolster your argument quite a bit.
OK then: somebody must at some point have demonstrated a model which does NOT include AGW. can i see it please? I've asked nicely several times now. why would you guys be hiding this? it would certainly bolster your argument quite a bit.
No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model. I'm assuming that these models have tunable parameters. How exactly are the parameters tuned? Do they use any sort of nonlinear (I assume the models are nonlinear) parameter estimation or state identification schemes to tune the parameters, or are the parameters simply guessed, fudged, what?
Majorajam:
> He went silent when I pointed out that he'd just cast eugenics as 'impressive' and his minions (brownshirts?) defending him by predicting I would run off to Daily Kos and celebrate my pawning of him. I can't remember how the thread evolved from there. He eventually reengaged the discussion but would never address that point even after my prodding. Little wonder it has since been disappeared.
Holy batman.
ben:
> > OK then: somebody must at some point have demonstrated a model which does NOT include AGW. can i see it please?
> No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model.
Woohoo, unfalsifiability time!
Let's just ignore ben and talk with Lance instead. At least Lance isn't so transparently dumb.
By the way, BPL said:
> The code to Hansen et al.'s GISS Model E is available for free on the internet.
Care to put up the address to the code? I remember seeing it before, but I can't remember where. Also, pointers to detailed usage instructions will be nice, because we'll really be needing those...
> I think that these models are great for playing around with various parameters and trying to come up with better and better models to understand various physical aspects of climate, but they definitely should not be used to make "predictions" and in fact the IPCC is careful to label their output as "projections" for just that reason.
What a load of garbage, Lance. The chief reason they're called "projections" is that they depend of assumptions about future human behaviour (scenarios -- A1, A1FI, etc.), and the chief aim of the IPCC reports is precisely to make recommendations for modifying future human behaviour.
And isn't it wonderful that inactivists also criticize the IPCC projections by saying 'you can't predict human behaviour, therefore GCMs are junk'? The stupid, it burns...
...transparently dumb.
And here I thought I was just a run of the mill idiot. Well bi is a commie stooge. So there.
Watching the prices of fuel and food commodities fly into the stratosphere, I can't help but wonder if it might be possible to invoke the Name of Neil (Craig) and have a bit more of a discussion about the present implications of the Simon/Ehrlich wager.
Is this perverse of me?
To get to more than 1 degrees of positive feedback you have to use some unsupportable assumptions and climate models.
So the agreed minimum sensitivity figure is 1(CO2)+1(positive feedback)=2 degrees. Pretty much what the IPCC says.
Lance writes:
I shouldn't have to point out that you can't apply statistical techniques to the results of different studies as if they were data points based on systematic measurements and hope to come to a higher level of certainty than is represented by the studies themselves..
Yes you can. It's called "meta-analysis," and there's a whole subfield of statistics devoted to it.
No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model. I'm assuming that these models have tunable parameters. How exactly are the parameters tuned? Do they use any sort of nonlinear (I assume the models are nonlinear) parameter estimation or state identification schemes to tune the parameters, or are the parameters simply guessed, fudged, what?
Shorter Ben:
"I don't know how the models work but I know the reason none exist that are able to recreate current warming trends without CO2 forcing is due to the Worldwide Climate Science Conspiracy".
Uh, Ben, not everyone is driven by politics like you. Not everyone would be willing to lie about physics in order to maintain one's political philosophy about how the world should be organized.
It's fun watching Lance dig himself in deeper and deeper ... sounding all sciency-like without actually SAYING anything.
Apparently, along his way to his inevitable Nobel which he'll earn for overturning the false physics which underly the field of circular reasoning known as "climate science", Lance as casually tossed meta-analysis into the waste bin.
"In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. The first meta-analysis was performed by Karl Pearson in 1904, in an attempt to overcome the problem of reduced statistical power in studies with small sample sizes; analyzing the results from a group of studies can allow more accurate data analysis."
Lance, I don't have the home address, web site, or e-mail address of the leadership of the worldwide fraudulent organization operating under the name "statistical research", you'll have to uncover this yourself if you're going to make your skewering of this important branch of the field official ...
Did you say something about earning a BS in physics? Apparently, that's how you earned it ... with plenty of BS.
Since Lance claims to know physics better than those working on the CO2 sensitivity problem ...
Most attempts I have seen start waiving Navier-Stokes equations, Kirchoff's Law and the virial theorem around while talking about "grey bodies", but when you wade through the mathematical smoke screen you find that they are making plenty of assumptions that are usually only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons.
I assume you mean "waving", not "waiving" - "waiving" is something a judge might be able to do to a law, but it seems unlikely that a physicist would do so to a Law ...
So, do us a favor. Drop the "most attempts". Choose one attempt.
List the "plenty of assumptions that are only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons".
And, for each, list why the assumption is wrong.
This is how you disprove ideas in science, not by endless assertions devoid of meaningful content.
Of course, it would be more meaningful if you'd correspond with one of the authors of the work you are going to prove wrong, since this is how you would make a meaningful contribution to the science.
Since you're so brilliant and all that, I assume this is your goal, right?
You'd like to set the science straight, right? You claim to have done the work. Now, show your work.
Uh, Ben, not everyone is driven by politics like you. Not everyone would be willing to lie about physics in order to maintain one's political philosophy about how the world should be organized.
I'm not driven by politics, you got me wrong there. I've never lied about physics. I don't know very much about climate modeling, it is far from my area of expertise, that's why I don't go on and on about it here, as I'd likely be wrong in whatever I wrote. I do know something about modeling in general, and I was asking a simple question about where the model parameters come from and how they are tuned.
And to be fair to Lance, well, let me start from the beginning. It seems that "meta-analysis" is a perfectly fair way to use the results of several scientific studies together. Fine. But what Lance is complaining about, which I think is a fair complaint, is that this is a meta-analysis of a bunch of purely synthetic studies. So you don't necessarily learn a lot about the system being modeled, but mostly just about the models. If all the models are biased in a similar direction, then you get a mean result from you r meta analysis that is also biased, no? That's not very reassuring, least not in my opinion.
dhogaza,
I assume you mean "waving", not "waiving" - "waiving" is something a judge might be able to do to a law, but it seems unlikely that a physicist would do so to a Law ...
Obviously it was a typo, but I think you knew that already and you decided to pick a nit, which is rather surprising given your generous and forgiving nature.
List the "plenty of assumptions that are only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons".
Here is a list of assumptions given in a recent paper on radiative balance calculation, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service
Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40
Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary
atmospheres
Ferenc M. Miskolczi.
Our model assumptions are quite simple and general:
(a) -- The available SW flux is totally absorbed in the system. In the process
of thermalization F0 is instantly converted to isotropic upward and downward
LW radiation. The absorption of the SW photons and emission of the LW
radiation are based on independent microphysical processes.
(b) -- The temperature or source function profile is the result of the
equilibrium between the IR radiation field and all other sinks and sources of
thermal energy, (latent heat transfer, convection, conduction, advection,
turbulent mixing, short wave absorption, etc.). Note, that the K term is not
restricted to strict vertical heat transfer. Due to the permanent motion of the
atmosphere K represents a statistical or climatic average.
(c) -- The atmosphere is in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). In case of
the Earth this is true up to about 60 km altitude.
(d) -- The surface heat capacity is equal to zero, the surface emissivity ï¥ï G is
equal to one, and the surface radiates as a perfect blackbody.
(e) -- The atmospheric IR absorption and emission are due to the molecular
absorption of IR active gases. On the Earth these gases are minor atmospheric
constituents. On the Mars and Venus they are the major components of the
atmosphere.
(f) -- In case of the Earth it is also assumed that the global average thermal
flux from the planetary interior to the surface-atmosphere system is negligible,
P0 ï½ï 0 . The estimated geothermal flux at the surface is less than 0.03 per cent
of F0 (Peixoto and Oort, 1992). However, in our definition P0 is not
4
restricted to the geothermal flux. It may contain the thermal energy released
into the atmosphere by volcanism, tidal friction, or by other natural and nonnatural
sources.
(g) -- The atmosphere is a gravitationally bounded system and constrained by
the virial theorem: the total kinetic energy of the system must be half of the
total gravitational potential energy. The surface air temperature tA is linked
to the total gravitational potential energy through the surface pressure and air
density. The temperature, pressure, and air density obey the gas law,
therefore, in terms of radiative flux 4
SAï½ï³tA represents also the total
gravitational potential energy.
(h) -- In the definition of the greenhouse temperature change keeping tA and
tG different could pose some difficulties. Since the air is in permanent physical
contact with the surface, it is reasonable to assume that, in the average sense,
the surface and close-to-surface air are in thermal equilibrium: tSï½tAï½tG,
where tS is the equilibrium temperature. The corresponding equilibrium
blackbody radiatiation is 4
SUï½ï³tS. For now, in Fig. 1 SG is assumed to be
equal to SU .
I like the intro that says "Our assumptions are quite simple and general."
General yes, simple I dunno?
The point is that I could argue that many of them make simplifications that are based on trying to reduce the complexity when in fact it is a very complex issue and reductions in complexity have serious effects on the validity of the method and its results.
So why do the assumptions mean the estimates are larger than you think and not smaller? It's that upper bound thing again.
So why do the assumptions mean the estimates are larger than you think and not smaller? It's that upper bound thing again.
I wonder the same thing. But among those assumptions, there are assumptions of values for certain model parameters. Where did those come from? Were they "tuned"? If so, was the tuning done to get a favorable (i.e warming) result?
Obviously Lance is an idiot. There, I got on that bandwagon. Nice to be on the fun side for a change.
List the "plenty of assumptions that are only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons".
Lance:
Here is a list of assumptions given in a recent paper on radiative balance calculation,
OK. Now why do they lack empirical support? Anything more than you know very very little about the subject?
BTW is "Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres Ferenc M. Miskolczi in uarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40" the most relevant paper you could come up with?
Lance, are you aware that Miskolczi is on your side? He is making (absurd) assumptions, assumptions which climate scientists have pointed out are wrong, in an attempt to show that total forcing in the atmosphere is constrained to remain in a very narrow range even when various greenhouse gasses may vary in concentration. This implies that glaciatins are impossible, BTW. His invocation of the virial theorem is, well.. unique. And has been shown to be absurd and clearly wrong - if it were true, average wind velocity over the entire atmosphere would have to be at least several hunded kph.
Invoking Miskolczi as an example of what climate scientists do is yet another example where you show that you have utterly no knowledge of the fields you are claiming are completely wrong.
"No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model. "
see, there's the only real example we have seen of creating a model which only reflects back to you what your initial assumptions were. Is this lack of funding and press for AGw opponents restricted entirely to modeling? Because they don't seem to be lacking funding and press in any other aspect of their "research".
I reiterate; if it were possible to produce a model even vaguely resembling the climate without AGW we'd have seen it by now.
Ben said:
And to be fair to Lance, well, let me start from the beginning. It seems that "meta-analysis" is a perfectly fair way to use the results of several scientific studies together. Fine. But what Lance is complaining about, which I
think is a fair complaint, is that this is a meta-analysis of a bunch of purely synthetic studies. So you don't necessarily learn a lot about the system being modeled, but mostly just about the models. If all the models are biased in a similar direction, then you get a mean result from you r meta analysis that is also biased, no? That's not very reassuring, least not in my opinion.
I find myself surprised to say this, but I think that Ben's observation is fair. I think that Lance, rightly or wrongly, does perceive the modelling as being a collection of arbitrarily synthesised results, and although my first reaction on reading Lance's post was 'meta-analysis!', I paused straight after for pretty much the reason Ben described.
Although I disagree with Lance's interpretation of the models, and of empirical data, there is an internal consistency in Lance's stance, and from his point of view a meta-analysis probably would be precluded - although still possible. I would be surprised if Lance was actually going so far as to demonstrate ignorance of meta-analyses: he's not in the league inhabited by HPJr, kent and the rest, and I think that it's important to make this distinction, because the different parties require different modes of engagement.
Of course, having given Ben a thumbs-up, I'll need to balance things...
Ben, I seem to remember you having a lot to say several months back about the power of the US economy, and its social models. I'm curious to know if you still hold the same confidence in the supremacy of the US politico-economic model, especially when it's (figurehead) leader says that it is 'basically sound'.
I can't help but think of the metaphor of the guy who jumps out of the plane without a parachute, for reasons of economy, and at 1000 foot point in his dive says, "see, things have been fine apart from a few clouds..."
> Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Finally, even if [...]
Reality's surpassed satire.
So someone asks Lance for assumptions in a paper, and he quotes -- Miskolczi's crackpot paper about how global warming will be trivial because water vapor has negative feedback. Why am I not surprised.
Lance, are you aware that Miskolczi is on your side?
I'm smiling :)
What's next? Lubos?
I would be surprised if Lance was actually going so far as to demonstrate ignorance of meta-analyses...
Well, I dunno, this seems fairly absolute to me:
I shouldn't have to point out that you can't apply statistical techniques to the results of different studies as if they were data points based on systematic measurements and hope to come to a higher level of certainty than is represented by the studies themselves.
Chris O'Neill,
"BTW is "Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres Ferenc M. Miskolczi in Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40" the most relevant paper you could come up with?"
It was just the most recent one I had reviewed, but most, if not all of these studies, make similar assumptions and take similar short cuts.
To be fair the radiative balance of the earth's climate system is a hideously complex issue and any analysis is bound to make simplifying assumptions, but when those assumptions count in the tens to twenties you have to wonder what you are really analyzing.
...you have to wonder what you are really analyzing.
In the case of the paper you cited, junk science.
Good, Lance, good Lance! Woof woof!
Now, why don't you choose a piece which isn't part of the discredited junk science denialsphere, and this time, do as I asked.
1. List the assumptions
2. List why the assumptions are wrong.
Even if you'd chosen a less unfortunate example, in other words one from climate science rather than the bullshit denialsphere, you only attempt to answer #1 above.
Assumptions are made all the time, and they don't necessarily hurt. Aerodynamic models are full of simplifications, yet airplanes fly.
Lance:
> It was just the most recent one I had reviewed, but most, if not all of these studies, make similar assumptions and take similar short cuts.
Reminds me of the following joke:
> A stage mother cornered the concert violinist in his dressing room and insisted he listen to a tape of her talented son playing the violin. The man agreed to listen, and the woman switched on the tape player.
> What music, the violinist thought, a difficult piece, but played with such genius that it brought tears to his eyes. He listened spellbound to the entire recording.
> "Madam," he whispered, "is that your son?"
> "No," she replied. "That's Jascha Heifetz. But my son sounds just like him."
Is that Hansen? No, that's Miskolczi, but Hansen sounds just like him.
Duh.
Lance:
It was just the most recent one I had reviewed,
Are you capable of responding to more than just the BTW comment? No evidence so far.
To be fair the radiative balance of the earth's climate system is a hideously complex issue...
The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time.
The complexity is in the internal fluid and thermal dynamics of the climate system. How does an increase in energy affect a dynamic system? By lowering its temperature? Sure.
Ben, I seem to remember you having a lot to say several months back about the power of the US economy, and its social models. I'm curious to know if you still hold the same confidence in the supremacy of the US politico-economic model, especially when it's (figurehead) leader says that it is 'basically sound'.
First, thanks for not calling me an idiot. Second, the USA is in a woeful predicament right now, and it's mostly due to idiots in government. Bush is bad on the economy. Obama is worse (although my dislike for him is being tempered by Jesse Jackson's idiotic wrath). The congress is hopelessly inept and corrupt. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are disasters coming to a head. The list goes on. It's a depressing moment to be an American, truth be told.
Assumptions are made all the time, and they don't necessarily hurt. Aerodynamic models are full of simplifications, yet airplanes fly.
Aha! Now something where I do know what I'm talking about. Yes, they do use assumptions and airplanes do fly, but airplanes are still typically subjected to physical experiments, typically in wind tunnels, to make up for deficiencies in the numerical models or to help with verification of the numerical results.
This is true because the numerical results by themselves cannot be trusted. The numerical models typically get the lift right, but the drag is often significantly underestimated. And while the lift calculations might be correct for high speed high lift-to-drag ratio flight, they are less accurate at lower speeds where high lift and high drag are present (i.e. takeoff and landing scenarios). This is true because these situations result in highly turbulent flows which are very difficult to model. The numerical models and the techniques used to solve them are getting better all the time, but they are not perfect, and they only form part of the test regimen for aerodynamic analysis of airplanes.
For example, every single commercial jetliner ever made by Boeing has been tested in our own Guggenheim wind tunnel at the University of Washington (it's an awesome tunnel, btw). They are typically now only tested there for low-speed flight since the tunnel can only achieve around 200 mph speeds, and that's barely enough, even with substantially sized models, to achieve aerodynamic similarity between the model and the actual aircraft being tested.
But there it is. If the models stick to the straight physics, as well as they are known and can be modeled, they underestimate drag. The models can be fudged to get the correct drag numbers, but that's only because we can verify against empirical results from, e.g. wind tunnel tests. For the climate, I dunno.
dhogaza,
I am aware that this paper attempts to show that greenhouse gas forcings are overestimated in other models. You would think that my criticism of a model that is skeptical of the consensus would be seen as evidence of my impartiality.
The fact is that although the author reaches a different conclusion than other 1-d radiative balance modelers he uses many of the same type of assumptions.
No doubt if I now go out and find the assumptions of a "consensus" paper I will be criticized on the basis that I have chosen just one.
Lee,
"The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time."
Not to be nasty about it but this shows how little you understand the problem. Your second statement "Energy in equals energy out over time." is just flat wrong. The energy in is always more than the energy out. The second law of thermodynamics will tell you that, energy is dissipated by physical processes that convert radiative energy into kinetic and potential energy.
The radiative energy in is definitely NOT equal to the radiative energy out over any time period you like.
Kinetic energy is entropic. It converts to thermal energy over time. Potential energy that is sequestered (like fossil carbon) may be considered energy out of the system (though not necessarily forever, obviously).
Conservation rules. I said 'energy'. I didn't specify 'radiative energy' because I meant all forms of energy.
An increased input of radiative energy is going to increase the net energy of all those energetic systems.
Einstein often encouraged his students to make things as simple as possible, but take care not to make things too simple. Lance is inverting this advice by making things more complicated than necessary.
Darn, dhogaza has me wondering now...
Lance, surely you weren't ignoring (or ignorant of) the existence of meta-analysis? Please tell me it aint so!
Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on the paragraph of yours that ben quoted? I ask this without malice - I'm just trying to figure out exactly where you're coming from.
Just been reading the first part of Monckton's latest (see bi-IJI above). Counted about four mistakes in the first paragraph. Hope it gets better....
BPL,
Meta-analysis can be a valuable tool in accessing the results of studies based on empirical measurements. It is useless when applied to studies based on theoretical constructs.
Statistical analysis will not separate good assumptions from bad. Nor will it eliminate systematic errors or correct for biases shared within the population of studies.
Bernard J,
Thanks for the supportive words. I appreciate your reasonable tone and the fact that you give people the benefit of the doubt.
Ultimately this should be a scientific debate and belittling remarks and snide rejoinders do little to promote reasonable discourse. (Although they are fun sometimes, and I indulge from time to time while trying to maintain civility.)
There have been times when I have had to admit that I was wrong or had made inaccurate statements. I welcome those who would correct me when I am wrong because that is how personal understanding of a topic is advanced and indeed the mechanism that drives scientific progress.
That you are open to questioning your assumptions is laudable and tells me that you are probably a very fine scientist.
First law: Energy in = energy out
Second law: You can convert work to heat with unit efficiency, see first law. The other way, no.
Oh yeah, the problem with Miskolczi is his assumptions. GIGO.
"The models can be fudged to get the correct drag numbers, but that's only because we can verify against empirical results from, e.g. wind tunnel tests. For the climate, I dunno."
For the climate, theoretical results are compared to real world observations. Just like in any other research field.
So now you know.
Although empirical data may be included in a model to approximate effects that can't be accurately modeled ab initio, they aren't a posteriori fudged to fit the empirical data, but the discrepancies are noted as a challenge to improve the science.
LB,
Here is what you said "The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time."
Your backpedaling not withstanding, it is clear that you were saying that the "radiative balance" was "simple" because "energy in equals energy out" and thus the balance was a trivial matter.
Putting it gently, this was a highly inaccurate statement. The various energy transfers that occur on many spatial and temporal scales are hardly "simple".
That is why the many techniques used to estimate CO2 climate sensitivity arrive at different values using different assumptions and simplifications.
Note that Lance hasn't budged from his argument from personal authority.
"oh, real papers make the same mistaken assumptions as the garbage paper".
If we take Lance at his word, we might presume that mainstream climate science is also greatly underestimating climate sensitivity to increasing CO2 ...
C'mon, Lance, I gave you two tasks to back up your claim to know more than real live working climate scientists.
I need to add a third, as a result of your own goal resulting from referencing a junk science paper:
#3. Show that the simplifying assumptions cause the calculated climate sensitivity to increasing CO2 to be too high, rather than too low.
Because that's the crux of your claim. That the errors flow in one direction, one favorable to your claim that climate science is a crock.
Lance,
I am not luminous beauty.
And while I cant speak directly for her(?), since I am not her, I have good reason to very strongly suspect that luminous beauty is not me.
Lance,
Do you believe that the Earth's outgoing radiative energy exceeds the energy of incoming radiation over time? Good luck with that theory.
You are right. Temperature sensitivity is roughly inversely proportional to weather sensitivity. Lower surface temperature increases mean more climate disruption.
Lee,
My remarks to LB (luminous beauty) were labeled correctly. I'm not sure what you are referring to.
Also, why do you refer to luminous beauty as being female? I'm not certain of LB's gender but have assumed from previous remarks that LB is male.
LB,
"Do you believe that the Earth's outgoing radiative energy exceeds the energy of incoming radiation over time? Good luck with that theory."
I never said or implied anything of the sort. I said the net radiative transfer was negative. The question is how much of the radiation energy that is absorbed is converted to thermal energy and what role is played by the concentration of atmospheric CO2.
You are trying to put up a smoke screen to cover your "energy in equals energy out" statement. Even if you change your statement to include all forms of energy it is still a dubious statement to say that the calculation of the "radiative balance of the earth" which is dependent on all the possible forms and levels of energy and their transfer rates and times would be "a relatively simple issue" to calculate.
If it is so simple surely you could write it up and be the toast of the climate science community.
Lance,
#202
"Lee,
"The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time.""
--
I don't know re lb - which is why I put the question mark there. Unfortunately, English is a very difficult language in which to be gender-neutral when referring to a specific person.
--
Also, are you disputing that energy in equals energy out over time? Or that energy in is received as radiated energy, or that energy out is emitted as radiated energy?
Lance, you have forgotten the point of this discussion.
I pointed out (and you disputed) that it is generally accepted that the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2, IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY OTHER EFFECTS, is about 1.1C. IOW, if the system remains unchanged, if it keeps working exactly the way it is except that there is twice as much CO2 in the path, the planet will warm 1.1C. You claimed that arriving at this number required complex methods and calculations, and was dependent on multiple simplifying assumptions that are questionable.
The scenario itself is a radical simplifying assumption. But there are only two issues in play. 1. What does the increase in back-scattered radiative energy from the increased CO2 do to the energy retention time in the system and therefore the total energy retained in the system. This is a 'simple' 2D radiative transfer calculation of a new state given a simple addition of a greenhouse gas to the current observed state. 2. How much warming is necessary to come into radiative balance with the increased energy in the atmosphere. This is a 'simple' gray body calculation.
It becomes this (relatively) simple, because the scenario of no feedback or other responses EXCEPT for the direct CO2 change is already a huge simplifying assumption. One does not worry about any other changes in the properties of the atmosphere out side the direct effects of CO2 and heat transfer - those other effects are feedbacks, and we are explicitly excluding all feedbacks from this calculation.
"If it is so simple surely you could write it up and be the toast of the climate science community."
Long since written up. Energy is conserved, as any physicist would know.
Lee,
My apologies to both you and LB, it is difficult to juggle so many conversations at once, especially when many participants are adversarial and insulting in their remarks.
"Also, are you disputing that energy in equals energy out over time? Or that energy in is received as radiated energy, or that energy out is emitted as radiated energy?"
I think I made my point clearly that the radiative energy in is NOT equal to the radiative energy out, which is what was implied by LB's remarks "The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time."
This remark speaks for itself, if LB wants to say he meant "total energy" then the "simple" part of his latter statement is certainly strained and the former reduced to a trivial re-statement of the law of conservation of energy (which of course as anyone that has studied relativity knows, isn't true in the strictest sense anyway).
You go on to say,
"But there are only two issues in play. 1. What does the increase in back-scattered radiative energy from the increased CO2 do to the energy retention time in the system and therefore the total energy retained in the system. This is a 'simple' 2D radiative transfer calculation of a new state given a simple addition of a greenhouse gas to the current observed state. 2. How much warming is necessary to come into radiative balance with the increased energy in the atmosphere. This is a 'simple' gray body calculation."
Well at least you put simple in quotes. There is nothing "simple" about the calculation of the photonic emissions of a complex mixture of gases in three dimensional motion due to convection and various other forces above an entire planet. Especially when given the motions of the earth, the interaction with various parts of the atmosphere and the interactions with the oceans and land surfaces of the earth.
Also the fact that you slip in the words 2-d shows that a very drastic simplification of the problem has occurred with the many attendant consequences of the assumption that the 3-d issues can be essentially ignored.
"2. How much warming is necessary to come into radiative balance with the increased energy in the atmosphere. This is a 'simple' gray body calculation."
Here you make two more sweeping assertions that cannot blithely be assumed to be true.
First, the words "radiative balance" imply some equilibrium condition of the entire earth's atmosphere. Who says there has to be such an equilibrium condition? What part of the earth's atmospheric system does it apply to? All places simultaneously, in both hemispheres and at the poles?
Second, that you can assume that the earth is a "gray body" with constant emissivity over all wavelengths and temperatures. Do I have to list the problems with that assumption?
These "back of the envelope" calculations make such sweeping and unsupportable assumptions and simplifications that they should never be considered accurate methods for calculating the earth's climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 or any other atmospheric constituent.
This is especially true if you are going to use this value as the basis for further calculations and models, that make their own assumptions and simplifications, to determine the further effects of proposed feedbacks.
Speaking of further calculations and models and the assumptions they make hers is a biggie that is cited in many other climate sensitivity studies.
It is from Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity
Geophysical Monograph 29, Maurice Ewing Volume 5
Copyright 1984 by the American Geophysical Union.
CLIMATE SENSITIVITY: ANALYSIS OF FEEDBACK MECHANISMS
J. Hansen, A. Cacis, D. Rind. G. Russell
"We assume that the individual feedback contributions
to the overall climate sensitivity are linear and independent."
This is troubling since the main "feedback" they mention is water vapor. It doesn't take much thought to realize that relative humidity, cloud formation and precipitation (in both solid and liquid form) are interdependent and certainly non-linear. This assumption is clearly wrong and is the largest "positive feedback" relied upon to generate a climate sensitivity of 2.5-5OC for doubled C02 concluded by Hansen et al.
How does your suggested non-linearity and interdependence support an precise upper bound of less than 1 degree?
"the law of conservation of energy (which of course as anyone that has studied relativity knows, isn't true in the strictest sense anyway)"
With the invention of special relativity by Albert Einstein, energy was proposed to be one component of an energy-momentum 4-vector. Each of the four components (one of energy and three of momentum) of this vector is separately conserved in any given inertial reference frame. Also conserved is the vector length (Minkowski norm), which is the rest mass. The relativistic energy of a single massive particle contains a term related to its rest mass in addition to its kinetic energy of motion. In the limit of zero kinetic energy (or equivalently in the rest frame of the massive particle, or the center-of-momentum frame for objects or systems), the total energy of particle or object (including internal kinetic energy in systems) is related to its rest mass via the famous equation E = mc2. Thus, the rule of conservation of energy in special relativity was shown to be a special case of a more general rule, alternatively called the conservation of mass and energy, the conservation of mass-energy, the conservation of energy-momentum, the conservation of invariant mass or now usually just referred to as conservation of energy.
jodyaberdein,
"How does your suggested non-linearity and interdependence support an precise upper bound of less than 1 degree?"
You are nothing if not persistent. My upper bound is based on the fact that most of these "no feedback" calculations are around 1 degree Celsius and that most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative.
Before some wise-ass makes note of my previous dismissal of these no feedback calculations I point out that I acknowledge the fact that CO2 is a "greenhouse" gas and that increases in CO2 concentration will have some effect. I feel that these calculations overestimate the effect but I choose not to quibble over 1 Degree Celsius.
However, I note that I am not the one making the extraordinary claims here; therefore the onus is on the people making the claim that we face "unprecedented" and "dangerous" warming from a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
I'm not the one pleading with the world to change its ways or face allegedly dire consequences based on my predictions. If you tell me that a supernova explosion across the galaxy is responsible for the observed 0.7 degree rise in global surface temperatures over the last century I needn't put forth my own explanation to refute your theory.
LB,
Really, just admit you made a boo boo and move one. My aside was to the fact that the classical view of "energy" as being inviolate in its conservation was incorrect and, as your Wikipedia quote points out, had to be modified to include rest mass as a form of "energy".
Did you think I was referring to some "other" relativity?
The truth is you are more concerned with discrediting me as a person than engaging in a thoughtful discussion.
I'm sure you're familiar with the so called logistic map, Xn+1 = RXn(1-Xn). A 'simple' system with both a negative and a positive feedback terms. Can go to stable state, oscillation or chaotic depending on the starting conditions. Doesn't this make you feel even slightly unsure that your 'upper bound is based on the fact that most of these "no feedback" calculations are around 1 degree Celsius and that most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative'?
I'm not of course implying here that such simple analysis goes any way to support or refute the actual climate models, merely that to me your feedback argument seems hopeful.
Each of the four components (one of energy and three of momentum) of this vector is separately conserved in any given inertial reference frame. Also conserved is the vector length (Minkowski norm), which is the rest mass.
Separately conserved, not contingent on tensor length, i.e. rest mass.
I'm just pointing out how you discredit yourself.
Lance is an idiot (Please someone with more experience in name calling tell me if I'm doing it right). No real offense, Lance, I'm just trying to get some practice, and you've become the punching bag for this thread.
In #206, Lance claimed:
Meta-analysis can be a valuable tool in accessing the results of studies based on empirical measurements. It is useless when applied to studies based on theoretical constructs. [...] Statistical analysis will not separate good assumptions from bad.
Almost all empirical studies are based on theoretical constructs and while there are plenty of reasons why a meta-analysis can be flawed, that isn't especially one of them.
Furthermore, statistical inference is designed to separate good assumptions from bad.
Lance writes, unbelievably:
The energy in is always more than the energy out. The second law of thermodynamics will tell you that, energy is dissipated by physical processes that convert radiative energy into kinetic and potential energy.
The radiative energy in is definitely NOT equal to the radiative energy out over any time period you like.
Lance, you have claimed over and over again to have studied physics! And you argue against the first law of thermodynamics? I can't even begin to list how many ways the above post by you is wrong.
If the energy in was always more than the energy out, the Earth would be steadily heating up over time -- and always would have. There wouldn't have been any ice ages. And Earth would probably be incandescent by now.
With negligible exceptions (meteorite infall, space launches, etc.) Earth receives energy by radiation and loses it by radiation. If you think Earth can receive more energy than it emits, and maintain the same temperature, you are denying the first law of thermodynamics.
The hell with the second law. Energy is conserved. No physicist or physics student on Earth doesn't know that much.
Lance, persisting in his unbelievably ignorant error, posts:
I think I made my point clearly that the radiative energy in is NOT equal to the radiative energy out,
We know what your point was. Your point is wrong, and coming from an alleged student of physics is pig ignorant. The radiative equilibrium temperature of the Earth is calculated by assuming conservation of energy:
(S / 4) (1 - A) = Ï Te4
where the left hand side is energy in and the right-hand side is energy out. S is the Solar constant (the average for the last 50 years has been about 1366 watts per square meter), A is the Earth's bolometric Bond albedo (0.306 according to NASA), Ï is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.6704 x 10-8 W m-2 K-4), and Te is the equilibrium temperature, also called emission temperature or effective temperature. Te comes out at about 254 K for Earth; the difference between that and the Earth's 287 K mean global annual surface temperature is caused by the greenhouse effect.
If there is a noticeable imbalance the Earth system must heat up or cool down continuously. There is no way for it to maintain the same temperature unless energy in equals energy out. Your viewpoint on this issue violates conservation of energy.
Barton, I think it is pretty clear that Lance was writing about the radiative energy, not the total energy.
It seems that Lance thinks that for the Earth, sitting in the midst of a big, big chunk of vaccuum, that total energy in is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy in, and that total energy out is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy out.
"...given the motions of the earth, the interaction with various parts of the atmosphere and the interactions with the oceans and land surfaces of the earth.
Also the fact that you slip in the words 2-d shows that a very drastic simplification of the problem has occurred with the many attendant consequences of the assumption that the 3-d issues can be essentially ignored."
Of course a simplification has occurred. It occurred with the definition of the problem, as I said above. We assume that NOTHING ELSE CHANGES. This means that we can ignore the "3-d issues", because there is NO CHANGE in the "3-d issues" for this calculation.
"the words "radiative balance" imply some equilibrium condition of the entire earth's atmosphere."
No - it implies that total radiative input is equal to total radiative emission at effective top of atmosphere.
"that you can assume that the earth is a "gray body" with constant emissivity over all wavelengths and temperatures."
No, it uses effective emmissivity, as a departure for an ideal gray body - as is done in many, many areas of science and engineering, all the time.
"my previous dismissal of these no feedback calculations I point out that I acknowledge the fact that CO2 is a "greenhouse" gas and that increases in CO2 concentration will have some effect. I feel that these calculations overestimate the effect but I choose not to quibble over 1 Degree Celsius."
Oh, good fricking god, Lance. Most of the previous 40-50 posts are so are a result of your quibbling over that calculation. You have been arguing loudly, stridently, vociferously that the calsulations are flawed, perhaps impossible, subject to assumptions that make them unreliable, worthless - and now you hold this precise calculation up as the central basis for your belief that climate sensitivity is small? Can you possible be for real?
"most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative."
At least this is an improvement over the oft heard idiocy: 'if feedback were positive, then climate would have run away long ago.' But it isnt much of an improvement - it is still devoid of relevant content. It does not matter, it is utterly irrelevant to this question, what "most feed backs" are, Lance. It matters what feed backs are in this specific case. Your dismissal from incredulity isn't convincing.
"Barton, I think it is pretty clear that Lance was writing about the radiative energy, not the total energy. "
leftover energy make big boom. byeye everybody.
The only way in and out is radiation. Lance was talking through his hat
Barton,
Where do you suppose coal came from? How about the energy in all the bio mass on the earth? At any given time do you suppose that the total kinetic energy of every moving particle is conserved? How about the potential energy of every particle on earth? How about the chemical potential of every system and molecule on earth? Where do you think the energy it takes to break mountains into boulders and then boulders into stones and then stones into pebbles and on down to sand comes from?
Where does the energy that drives weather come from? Where do you think the energy that melts all that ice in the Arctic and Antarctic you are so worried about comes from?
Are you getting the idea yet or are you "pig ignorant"?
There is absolutely no reason that the radiative energy received by the earth over any time scale need to be in "balance" with incoming radiant energy at any particular value at any particular moment.
Your point that the earth must be in "radiative balance" to avoid be cooked like a cinder is wrong. The earth will radiate into space whatever energy is left over after the many non-radiative energy processes, both exothermic and endothermic, which occur at varying rates, are accounted for not to mention the heat generated from it's own internal energy processes and then minus whatever energy is stored in various potentials.
Nothing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING says that the outgoing radiant energy at any given moment must be "balanced" with incoming radiant energy and in fact it is not.
Lee,
"It seems that Lance thinks that for the Earth, sitting in the midst of a big, big chunk of vaccuum (sic), that total energy in is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy in..."
Uh, no I never said that but in fact it is true. In addition to incoming radiant energy the earth radiates its own internal energy into space. Did you think that volcanism was caused by incoming radiation?
"...and that total energy out is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy out." Uh, no I didn't say that. I said that the incoming radiant energy need not and in fact is not in "balance" with out going radiant energy at any given time. See above.
You boys seem to have a bad case of "model-itis". You seem to believe that the earth is a uniform, 2-D, gray body disk in thermal equilibrium with a fixed source of broad spectrum electromagnetic radiation.
It isn't.
Eli Rabett,
"The only way in and out is radiation. Lance was talking through his hat."
Did you forget the internal energy of the earth or did it get stuck in your, er, hat when you made this post? Did the internal energy of the earth get there by radiation?
Also the question wasn't from whence the energy came, but whether the outgoing energy need be in "balance" with the outgoing energy at any given time.
Lance, don't you think we all remember what we read earlier today or that we cant read back to remind ourselves, or don't you know yourself what the point is that was being made - the YOU were making - just a short time ago?
And I'm being rude because this is so damn irritating. You respond to an argument, get shot down, and then CHANGE the argument someone else made, claim they said something different from what they actually said, so that your response might have made sense if that were the actual point that was made. You do this a lot.
Lance: "I said that the incoming radiant energy need not and in fact is not in "balance" with out going radiant energy at any given time."
Well, duh!! No one is arguiug this. It was argued that incoming and outgoing radiation must be in balance OVER TIME, and that if it is not, the temperature must change.
Not in balance 'at any given time' as you have just falsely said the point was that was being made.
You said, at 202: "Your second statement "Energy in equals energy out over time." is just flat wrong. The energy in is always more than the energy out."
Lance, you said - "The energy in is always more than the energy out."
No, Lance, it is not.
Even earlier, you said: "The radiative energy in is definitely NOT equal to the radiative energy out over any time period you like." YOU were arguing "over any time period you like." You KNOW what you were arguing, Lance, and it was not 'at any given time' as you now pretend, it was "over any time period you like."
If you cant be honest, at least try not to be this stupid about it.
Our Sweet Lord Monckton is back, this time writing for the American Physical Society!
Topic #1 - no warming since 1998! Hey, you gotta pick those cherries while they're ripe.
The only way in and out is radiation. Lance was talking through his hat
Eli, this is plain old dumb. Sure it's the only practical way in and out (the few meteors 'n stuff don't count for much), but not all that goes in comes back out again. So this is dumb.
Ok now dear readers, recall post number 1.
'Okay, I got one: what drives the idiocy we see in the post below?'
'The thing will always get up, and you're just going to tire yourself out'
I think at least we have demonstrated point number two irrefutably. I am a little saddened that I am now leaning toward bull-headedness for the answer to number one.
It has been an interesting case study has it not?
Copyright 1984
Gee, Lance, do you think there's ANY chance that there's been ANY work done in the field in the intervening 24 years?
First you cite a piece of denialist crap to support your claim that mainstream climate scientists oversimplify when attempting to compute climate sensitivity to CO2 concentrations.
When that's pointed out to you, you cite a 24 year old source. Lance, it's NOT NEWS that early attempts to calculate sensitivity gave a wide range of numbers with wide error bars. The narrowing those error bars and narrowing the range of estimates from various workers in the field is a known attribute of the history of climate science over the last three decades. This hasn't been done by repeating the same calculations done 24 years ago over and over and over again ...
Then you come up with this "most feedbacks in nature and engineering are negative", which, even if true, is irrelevant. The runaway climate on Venus would suggest that one or a small set of positive feedbacks can lead to interesting climate change. Regardless of whether or not such positive feedbacks are a minority in nature. As was mentioned above, we're only interested in the set of feedbacks that apply to climate. The important ones can be iterated.
Oh, and since you are so hung up on empiricism, how about a little empirical evidence that increased water vapor is a negative feedback, eh? This would seem to be a crucial departure from mainstream climate science, so something more substantial than "have you ever, ever really LOOKED at a cloud, man?" would be nice. You'll never undercut the mainstream estimate of sensitivity by 2C without undercutting the claim that increasing water vapor leads to higher temps which makes it a positive feedback.
And if you succeed in that, then you'll be undercutting all those denialist claims that modern warming can't be due to increased CO2 concentrations because water vapor is the main GHG :) Fun stuff!
Those of you proclaiming that Lance is an idiot are wrong, IMO. I think he's just friggin' dishonest. Either he's right about having been accepted into a physics PhD program and therefore should no better than to make many of the simple errors he makes (i.e. dishonest), or he's lying about his academic background (equally dishonest).
pough: Heh, I was talking about Monckton's piece above. :)
Barton, I think it is pretty clear that Lance was writing about the radiative energy, not the total energy.
Ben, for the Earth system, the radiative energy IS the total energy! There are only three possible methods of heat transfer -- conduction, convection, and radiation. The Earth's atmosphere is surrounded by vacuum -- how can it transfer energy to vacuum by conduction or convection? At a distance away from the Earth, radiation is all there is. The radiation in must equal the radiation out.
Lance, digging himself in deeper, writes:
Your point that the earth must be in "radiative balance" to avoid be cooked like a cinder is wrong. The earth will radiate into space whatever energy is left over after the many non-radiative energy processes, both exothermic and endothermic, which occur at varying rates, are accounted for not to mention the heat generated from it's own internal energy processes and then minus whatever energy is stored in various potentials.
What happens to the energy once it's in the Earth system is completely irrelevant. It must eventually be lost as radiation since the Earth is only gaining energy by radiation, to a first approximation.
Let's take a Lance-like model of the process. Earth gets an amount of heat per day Hi as input. It loses Ho as output.
Let's say 80% of Hi goes into generating winds and so on. So Lance concludes that Ho need only equal 0.2 Hi.
But now the non-radiative processes are gaining heat at 0.8 Hi per day. Since the energy is not being lost, energy being conserved, those processes must be increasingly whipped up by the steady input of heat energy. If 0.8 Hi is going to winds, the winds must be getting continuously faster and faster. That air around our heads when we go out every day must be supersonic by now. In fact, it should be a superheated plasma.
You CANNOT continuously pour net energy into a system and have the system not continuously change. If Earth receives Hi every day from solar radiation, and it can only lose energy by radiation, then Hi must equal Ho. Radiative balance is the general condition of all planets. Denying it is denying conservation of energy. Period.
Actually, I think maybe Lance is confused by a point that really is confusing for people who aren't very familiar with feedback processes, including me for a long time. This is that (correct me if I'm wrong) the amount of heat required to heat the Earth (i.e. the atmosphere and part of the oceans and a tiny little bit of the ground) by the few degrees projected for GW, is tiny compared to the amount that goes in and out of the Earth every day.
So a simplistic understanding of the Greenhouse Effect is that CO2 traps heat from the Sun, and that warms the Earth. Although it's true as far as it goes, all that heat of course escapes back to space, but for it to do so as fast as new sunlight is coming in, the Earth has to be a little bit hotter. If we were truly trapping some heat every day (as I think it's easy to imagine from explanations of GW) the Earth would frazzle to plasma in a very short time.
Understanding of this point is also made harder by the fact that there are also some slow processes occurring (I think to do with heating the deep oceans and positive feedbacks at the poles) that lead to statements like "even if we stabilise CO2 levels today, the warming already in the system will cause the temperature to go on rising for some decades to come" giving the impression that the CO2 blanket adds new heat to the Earth daily.
well, we could listen to someone else on this topic:
If we measure the total amount of energy Earth receives from the Sun and then subtract the total amount of energy Earth reflects and emits back to space, we arrive at a number called an energy budget. Over time, Earth's climate system tends toward an energy balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing thermal energy (heat) [see Figure 1]. If more solar energy comes in, then Earth warms and will emit more heat to space to restore the balance.
just because Lance mentioned oil, you might want to take a second look at that photosynthesis number....
Some of you people need a basic course in thermodynamics.
The only way the earth could emit as much energy over time as it takes in (be in balance) is if it were a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings. Do any of you wish to claim that the earth is a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings?
Some of the radiative energy taken in by the earth is converted to work, some to potential energy, some to kinetic energy, and some to increased entropy. Thus (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
Lee,
Lance, you said - "The energy in is always more than the energy out." No, Lance, it is not.
Uh, yes it is. Again unless you can consider the earth a perfect black body radiator in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings the entropy of the earth will increase and energy out will be less than energy in. But this is a distraction form the radiant energy balance which was the main point.
Some of you people need a basic course in thermodynamics.
I'm left in a quandry, here.
Can some of you smart people help me out?
Who should I believe?
1. physics drop-out Lance
2. NASA
Which source is more credible? Can y'all give me some guidance?
Some of you people need a basic course in thermodynamics.
The only way the earth could emit as much energy over time as it takes in (be in balance) is if it were a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings.
So it has to be black. Riiiight. I'm glad Lance has made it blindingly obvious who it is that needs a basic course in thermodynamics.
Lance is describing the heat death of the stupidverse.
Lance, if the Earth receives more energy every day than it loses, where does the energy go?
Where is it going? Is it being stored? Do you have any idea how much energy we're talking about?
If the Earth loses less in radiation than it absorbs in radiation, and radiation is the only way Earth can exchange energy with its surroundings, then the Earth must be storing more and more energy every second.
Where is the energy going, Lance?
It is amusing to watch people mock thermodynamics.
Let me add some quantitative flesh to those qualitative bones.
The Solar constant at Earth's orbit averages about 1,366 watts per square meter. The Earth's volumetric mean radius is 6,371,010 meters. Its cross-sectional area is therefore about 1.275 x 1014 square meters, and about 1.742 x 1017 Joules of sunlight fall on the Earth every second.
Earth's bolometric Bond albedo is about 0.306, so that fraction is reflected away and the climate system absorbs about 1.209 x 1017 watts (Joules per second).
Lance says it emits less than this in terrestrial thermal radiation. How much less? Where does the extra input energy go?
We might estimate the heat capacity of the climate system as that of the atmosphere plus the top 70 meters or so of ocean. The atmosphere masses about 5.136 x 1018 kilograms and a water-covered Earth would mass about 3.57 x 1019 kg. Clearly the heat capacity of the upper ocean is the dominant term and that would run at about 4184 J K-1 kg-1 for fresh water (I know, it's really salt water, but bear with me). The heat capacity comes out as 1.494 x 1023 J K-1
Try some calculations and see what happens!
1. If 90% is lost as radiation and the rest goes into continually heating the climate system, how long until the oceans boil?
2. If 10% is lost as radiation and the rest goes into large-scale kinetic activity of the atmosphere (i.e. wind), how long until the wind speed reaches the speed of sound?
Lance, if the Earth receives more energy every day than it loses, where does the energy go?
Where is it going? Is it being stored? Do you have any idea how much energy we're talking about?
Like, what do you think plants do with all that solar energy they take in day in and day out? They STORE it. All that fossil fuel we use every day is stored solar energy. In fact, with the exception of nuclear, every form of energy we use is essentially solar: hydro (the evaporation/condensation cycle is driven by solar energy), wind (winds are combo of input energy and earth rotational motion, but it the earths rotational energy isn't diminished, so the input energy must come from the sun), Fossil fuels (stored solar energy in plants etc.)
And much of that energy that we extract from the environment is energy we use to make stuff. The work done to produce goods is partially lost as heat back to the environment and partially stored in the chemical bonds etc used to create the items.
That's where the energy is going, Barton.
@bi -- IJI: So you did! I did a quick search for "aps" before I posted, but didn't spot anything.
Our Sweet Lord Monckton - never not funny!
So Barton,
Do you now admit that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) or are you just going to pretend you didn't claim it was so and go on to demonstrating that (radiant energy in) is on the same order of magnitude as (radiant energy out) which I never disputed?
What would you Lord think of such dishonesty? You called me "pig ignorant" for merely stating a thermodynamic fact. Why not step up and admit you were wrong?
ben: "Like, what do you think plants do with all that solar energy they take in day in and day out? They STORE it. "
And then they are eaten or die, and get digested or decomposed, and they release that energy back again. I am sitting here with a core body temp of ~37C, doing my part to radiate some of that energy back into the atmosphere. So are you.
--
The fact the energy travel through our systems, sojourns here for a while, does not change the fact that OVER TIME the system must be in radiative balance - or it will heat up or cool down.
--
But ben does make one point - it becomes irrelevant, though:
"Fossil fuels (stored solar energy in plants etc.)"
There is some small fraction of that energy that gets sequestered as stored-away chemical bonds. And yes, we are re-releasing that when we burn fossil fuels.
The magnitude of heat output from fossil fuel burning, compared to the radiative flux, it is negligible. The magnitude of energy being stored as geologically sequestered chemical bonds per day, compared to the radiative heat flux, is negligible.
Like, what do you think plants do with all that solar energy they take in day in and day out? They STORE it. All that fossil fuel we use every day is stored solar energy.
you will see, that it is a couple of digits from the input. and you will lose another couple of digits, when you talk about fossile fuels.
plants take up energy. we might build a house from them. but OVER TIME, it will end up as heat in the atmosphere again.
i am not suprised, that you kept silent on the numbers part of this debate. why not simply state, about what proportion of energy you think you are talking?
Earlier Lance:
.
You boys seem to have a bad case of "model-itis". You seem to believe that the earth is a uniform, 2-D, gray body disk in thermal equilibrium with a fixed source of broad spectrum electromagnetic radiation.
It isn't.
Present Lance:
you just going to pretend you didn't claim it was so and go on to demonstrating that (radiant energy in) is on the same order of magnitude as (radiant energy out) which I never disputed?
Actually, Lance, you've begun this dick-waving contest by claiming that this (energy in equals energy out) and other simplifications are so far removed from reality as to make attempted calculations of CO2 sensitivity laughably wrong.
So, what *is* the actual imbalance in the radiation budget at any point in time, and exactly HOW MUCH does the simplification that the energy budget is in equilibrium add to the overestimation of CO2 sensitivity by climate scientists?
Please be precise and show your work. You claim it's significant. You prove it.
i am not suprised, that you kept silent on the numbers part of this debate. why not simply state, about what proportion of energy you think you are talking?
I never did think about it. The debate was whether or not in >= out. The amount stored in the long run is probably, as you claim/show, quite small. But not zero. Negligible? I dunno. Maybe without it, the earth would heat up 1 deg C and we'd all die in some horrible catastrophe.
dhogaza,
"Actually, Lance, you've begun this dick-waving contest by claiming that this (energy in equals energy out) and other simplifications are so far removed from reality as to make attempted calculations of CO2 sensitivity laughably wrong."
Firstly I didn't start this food fight. I just presented correct physical statements that certain people tried to disprove by mocking long established tenets of thermodynamics.
While I disagree that I dragged us down this rabbit (or is it Rabett) hole I actually agree with your overall point that we need to get back to what assumptions are unjustified and what are the consequences of these assumptions on the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity.
The orthodoxy of a "radiative balance" is just wrong. Is a model based on considering the earth - sun system as a 2-D, grey body closed system a close approximation of the actual exchange of the energies involved? Well that depends on how you are using it and to what level of precision you are aspiring.
If all you are trying to prove is that the earth's atmosphere won't accelerate to supersonic speeds and eventually become a super-heated plasma I guess it will do.
If you are using it as the basis of iterative models that use it in billions of calculations to derive the state of a chaotic planetary system hundreds of years in the future to the accuracy of a tenth of a degree Celsius I submit that it is deficient.
Lance, stop being so fucking dishonest.
"is a model based on considering the earth - sun system as a 2-D, grey body closed system a close approximation of the actual exchange of the energies involved? ... "If you are using it as the basis of iterative models that use it in billions of calculations to derive the state of a chaotic planetary system hundreds of years in the future to the accuracy of a tenth of a degree Celsius I submit that it is deficient."
gaaack.
Lance, you are again (and I submit, intentionally) confusing the specific case of the artificial, simplified no-feedback case, with the complex case that the cGCM models address. The simplifying assumptions are NOT the same in the two cases, and you cant use the simplifying assumptions that are applied to the "no-feedback" case to critique the complex 3d, whole-planet case the cGCM models address.
Even better, the simplified no-feedback 2d case you dismiss, you have admitted just above is the entire basis of your belief that climate sensitivity is low. This leaves you in the position of saying that the basis of your belief is a calculation that you believe is wrong. Why not just be honest and say "I don't have nay basis for this belief, but I believe they are all wrong." At least that would be honest.
Lance writes:
Do you now admit that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out)
No, why would I admit something that was wrong?
or are you just going to pretend you didn't claim it was so and go on to demonstrating that (radiant energy in) is on the same order of magnitude as (radiant energy out) which I never disputed?
It's not just the same order of magnitude, Lance, it's the same.
What would you Lord think of such dishonesty? You called me "pig ignorant" for merely stating a thermodynamic fact. Why not step up and admit you were wrong?
Because I wasn't wrong, you are -- and your unwillingness to admit it is unattractive at best. This is a matter of basic physics which you do not appear to understand.
Lance writes:
The orthodoxy of a "radiative balance" is just wrong.
No, it isn't. You are just wrong. You are laughably wrong. You are contemptibly wrong, since you cling to your wrongness in the face of demonstration after demonstration that you are wrong.
Is a model based on considering the earth - sun system as a 2-D, grey body closed system a close approximation of the actual exchange of the energies involved?
It's a zero-dimensional model, not a 2-dimensional model. And grayness has nothing to do with it. We're considering the total energy at all wavelengths. The amount coming in to the Earth system from solar radiation -- about 1.2 x 1017 watts -- is the same as the amount going out by terrestrial thermal radiation. If it were substantially different the Earth would rapidly heat up or cool down.
This "orthodoxy" is just the law of conservation of energy. You seem to think the energy being added to the system can just increase indefinitely, which is wrong, wrong, wrong, and ignorant and stupid to boot.
I never did think about it. The debate was whether or not in >= out. The amount stored in the long run is probably, as you claim/show, quite small. But not zero. Negligible? I dunno. Maybe without it, the earth would heat up 1 deg C and we'd all die in some horrible catastrophe.
well, now that we ve established that we are talking about an utterly minor efefct at best, you might do some thinking:
energy gets in. it is changed into fossile fuels. WHAT THEN?
according to lnace, there will be more and more and more oil over time. the energy can never leave earth, as it would contradict his in>out "thesis".
earth would get warmer and warmer, and it would never stop. very special idea.
Calling me "fucking dishonest" only shows your inability to conduct a civil discussion.
"Even better, the simplified no-feedback 2d case you dismiss, you have admitted just above is the entire basis of your belief that climate sensitivity is low."
I never said that the no feedback 2-D sensitivity number was the "entire basis" of my problem with CO2 sensitivity estimates. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.
The discussion has swerved back and forth from CO2 climate sensitivity without feedbacks and with feedbacks.
You asserted that the simplistic calculation of non-feedback CO2 climate sensitivity "is" 1.1 C for a doubling of CO2. When I pointed out that this naked assertion looked a little cold standing there in the light you eventually linked to a page of the IPCC report that admitted that it was a revised figure that replaced the admittedly too high calculated estimate from the SAR, and it had been modified downward by appealing to results from climate models.
So prey tell how is that a "simple calculation" that everyone agrees on?
You seem to think that you can make assertions accompanied by insults and then if I dare to point out the problems with those assertions you need only reiterate them with distortions of my points accompanied by even nastier insults.
BPL and sod,
You guys might want to crack a thermo book or two. Christ even a visit to Wikipedia would probably be beneficial.
Oh, and sod I never mentioned oil. It might be a good idea to actually make sure I said something before mocking it.
Of course getting your facts straight before you mouth off just isn't your style is it?
Oh, and sod I never mentioned oil. It might be a good idea to actually make sure I said something before mocking it.
well, you said this (#202):
The second law of thermodynamics will tell you that, energy is dissipated by physical processes that convert radiative energy into kinetic and potential energy.
ben made fossil fuels out of it. i shortened it to oil, in some part of my reply.
so oil is not a good example, of how "potential energy" gets constantly accumulated on earth, because "energy in>energy out"?
mind to explain some other ways in which "potential energy" increases constantly?
Of course getting your facts straight before you mouth off just isn't your style is it?
i quoted NASA in post #246. i fear, my facts are pretty straight.
sod,
Here is your quote from NASA.
"Over time, Earth's climate system tends toward an energy balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing thermal energy (heat) [see Figure 1]. If more solar energy comes in, then Earth warms and will emit more heat to space to restore the balance."
Did you not notice the words "tends toward" in this little pronouncement? You gents really should just read what I said and then go get a Shaum's outline of Thermodynamics before spouting off.
"Tends toward" translates to > in math and science. Now go back and put that little sign in the statement form NASA and see if it doesn't agree with what I have been saying, not to mention the second law of thermodynamics.
Lance, you are making yourself look really foolish. I happen to know that at least one of the commenters with whom you are arguing is a physics Ph.D. He almost certainly has TAUGHT thermodynamics - I'd guess, on the basis of his present academic position (which happens to be fairly similar to mine) close that he has taught it about 10-12 times in the last 30 years. (I've taught it about 7 or 8 times). You are simply wrong about the radiative balance.
"Tends toward" translates to > in math and science."
Oh, good god....
Lance, at 222, after multiple posts pushing him on this point, and as his ONLY offered rationale for his upper bound on sensitivity:
"You are nothing if not persistent. My upper bound is based on the fact that most of these "no feedback" calculations are around 1 degree Celsius and that most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative. "
Lance, at 266, which he begins by berating me for calling him "fucking dishonest":
"I never said that the no feedback 2-D sensitivity number was the "entire basis" of my problem with CO2 sensitivity estimates. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Lance, the "inability to conduct a civil discussion" comes from your dishonesty about what you and others have said, as illustrated here. Let's not forget your attempt to twist the difference between 'balance over time" and instantaneous balance, which I called you on.
Lance writes:
You guys might want to crack a thermo book or two. Christ even a visit to Wikipedia would probably be beneficial.
I cracked a thermo book or two when I was getting my degree in physics, Lance, and many times afterward.
I want to apologize for the "pig ignorant" comment. It was unnecessary and rude. But the assumption of radiation balance for the temperature of a planet is so fundamental I was astonished to see you challenge it. I really do find it hard to believe that you studied physics.
Over any significant period of time (like a year), the radiation into the Earth system equals the radiation out. If not the Earth would continuously heat up or cool down. You cannot have any significant fraction of Earth's gigantic radiation input steadily accumulating in the Earth system without increasing some state variable, and for heat, that's usually that's going to be temperature. Radiation in cannot consistently be greater than radiation out without heating up the Earth. It won't work.
If you want to challenge that statement, show me an energy budget. Where is the excess energy going? Make a quantitative estimate. (Ben, are you listening? A QUANTITATIVE estimate, one with numbers.) Then I'll show you where you got your assumptions wrong.
Energy budgets are fundamental to analysis of any physical process. A physicist would know that.
Ben, are you listening? A QUANTITATIVE estimate, one with numbers.
Um, like I'm way to lazy for that. How about 4+3 = 7. :)
"Do any of you wish to claim that the earth is a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings?"
hey, count me in. the caveat being that 1) the earth is not an ideal black body and/or 2) the ideal black body which the earth behaves as would not precisely be at the earth's current average temp. but that's tangential to the main point you seemn to be making, which is that **of course the earth is in radiative/thermal/energy equilibrium** after 3 billion goddamn years, don't you think we'd know it if it had been building up energy at even a tiny rate?
internal mechanical processes, flows, etc.? all end up as heat from friction, etc., as they wind down. if they don't wind down from friction, then they'll continue forever with no input of energy and not affect the balance. if they are continually accumulating energy, at some point it's going to blow up or go off the rails or whatever; lest we forget, F=MA. continual input of energy means continual A means ever increasing V, which tends to break things after some point. if not, then you hit relativistic limits, which i doubt are relevant for the earth's internal flows, whatever. if the energy is being lost to friction as it's being replenished, then we're back to heat, which radiates again.
geez, is this what physics students have come to? that being the case,i probably should point out to you that you don't want to do things like mix a 55 gallon drum of epoxy up at once in a vacuum, on the moon's surface or outside the space station or orbit or something, becaue that is not in thermal equilibrium as it reacts and it will friggin blow up; because that's what happens to things which accumulate energy faster than they are losing it. that info may save your life and others, who knows.
Actually, Barton, that isn't quite right:
"Over any significant period of time (like a year), the radiation into the Earth system equals the radiation out. If not the Earth would continuously heat up or cool down."
The planet is heating up, and it is doing so because it is slightly out of radiative balance. It will continue to heat up until the new higher temperature yields a new higher rate of radiative emission that brings it back into radiative balance. You know this, of course, but I want to flesh this out so that it a bit less subject to willful misinterpretation.
I thought 'pig ignorant' WAS polite. Certainly more polite than that kind of recalcitrant arrogant ignorance deserves, IMO.
If you are using it as the basis of iterative models that use it in billions of calculations to derive the state of a chaotic planetary system hundreds of years in the future to the accuracy of a tenth of a degree Celsius I submit that it is deficient.
More dick-waving. Numbers, please. And how does this dick-waving statement support your claim that the simplification leads to UNDERESTIMATING, rather than OVERESTIMATING CO2 sensitivity?
And, as Lee mentions, yes, the earth is slightly out of radiative balance, however you're the one that denies the cause (increased CO2). And, OVER TIME, radiative balance will be re-established once CO2 and other GHGs, feedbacks, etc stabilize, so no, you don't get your ">" sign awarded over the long haul. Just over the period of time in which we continue to spew GHGs into the atmosphere, and some decades hence until the new equilibrium state is reached. With fluctuations due to changes in incoming energy, solar, Milankovic cycles, albedo feedbacks, etc.
Even Venus reached that state, you know? AFAIK, it's no longer warming up, the Big Cooking Era was long ago.
Obviously I have my under- and overestimating backwards up there ...
"Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. " Ha ha ha!!!
"There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts"
Hmmmm methinks his facts... aren't.
Is this part of the Ostrayun's War on Science??
Nathan
From the APS:
We, the editors of P&S, invite reasoned rebuttals from the authors as well as further contributions from the physics community. Please contact me (jjmarque@sbcglobal.net) if you wish to jump into this fray with comments or articles that are scientific in nature. However, we will not publish articles that are political or polemical in nature. Stick to the science! (JJM)
This while explaining that they're kicking off the debate with an article by Monckton. Science all the way down.
I've already e-mailed ...
Lance:
If you are using it as the basis of iterative models that use it in billions of calculations to derive the state of a chaotic planetary system hundreds of years in the future to the accuracy of a tenth of a degree Celsius I submit that it is deficient.
Er, they're not actually. The IPCC estimates sensitivity to an accuracy of 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius for a CO2 doubling (i.e. 3 degrees with a 95% confidence range of 2 degrees to 4.5 degrees).
You must think you're soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo convincing with your strawman arguments. What an idiot.
The APS has caused a disclaimer to appear above Monckton's piece, saying, in essence, that Monckton's full of shit. Also a reiteration of their support for mainstream science on their home page.
My guess is that the editor of this unrefereed, minor online raglet within the APS publishing empire (39 publications, according to the APS), had a very uncomfortable day after the piece appeared. APS was probably flooded with calls from irate members ...
Did Lance turn chickshit on us, or what?
C'mon, Lance, the peanut gallery is missing your schooling two physics profs who have each taught thermo who obviously don't know WTF they're talking about. If you can't prove their knowledge of thermo wrong, how will you convince the rest of the physics community and win that Nobel you so richly deserve?
dhogaza - just to make things absolutely clear, I am not a "physics professor" - I am a chemistry professor in our physical chemistry division. My Ph.D. is in Chemistry (subspecialty Physical Chemistry), I have published in _Physical Review_, and I do teach thermodynamics at the undergraduate level (P. Chem. I.) and at the graduate level (Statistical Mechanics).
And to make things even more clear, chemistry is the root of all evil. At least that was my perspective during my undergrad in engineering-physics.
Oh, Robert, sorry. I'm sure Lance's BS in physics trumps your mere Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, then. Ha! :)
Lance is pulling a typical Lance here ... proclaim superior knowledge while people patiently take him apart, then ... disappear.
He'll be back in another thread repeating the same bullshit, hoping those who know what they're talking about won't be lurking and ready to jump in ...
Well, we can't know why Lance has stopped posting -- he may have been in a car accident, for all we know. Or are you saying he's done this before?
Geez,
I went on vacation and happen to prefer being at the beach with my wife to answering disingenuous personal harangues.
Robert P.
As far as thermodynamics is concerned please tell me how this mysterious "radiative balance" invalidates the second law of thermodynamics, are you claiming that the entropy of the earth is not increasing?
I posted a quote from a link, provided by sod, to NASA that includes the words "tends to" when referring to this "balance" that's because they know it isn't literally a "balance".
Some posters have realized that I am correct and have now shifted to a "well the imbalance is small compared to the over-all energies involved" argument. This is a separate argument however and those making it have yet to concede that I was right to say that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
You however persist in your ignorance while appealing authority.
I posted a quote from a link, provided by sod, to NASA that includes the words "tends to" when referring to this "balance" that's because they know it isn't literally a "balance".
Well, the "over time" is a bit important, too.
Some posters have realized that I am correct and have now shifted to a "well the imbalance is small compared to the over-all energies involved" argument. This is a separate argument however and those making it have yet to concede that I was right to say that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
Lance is forgetting that his argument is that the simplification made that the earth is in radiative balance causes a SIGNIFICANT OVERESTIMATE OF THE CLIMATE SENSITIVITY TO CO2.
Conveniently.
dhogaza,
As usual you misrepresent my argument. The whole brouhaha over this "radiative balance" business came about when I stated the rather bland fact that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) to a chorus of rude insults and fart sounds devoid of even a rudimentary understanding of thermodynamics.
It was never the crux of my argument but only became a side show when others tried to tar me with it.
Lance seems to think that a semi-stable non-equilibrium state has no first law relation to the general case of static equilibrium.
How quaint.
LB,
"#291- Lance seems to think that a semi-stable non-equilibrium state has no first law relation to the general case of static equilibrium."
Just another attempt to change the subject.
Lance: the 2nd law has no bearing on the radiative balance condition, which is a simple statement of the first law, applied to a nonequilibrium steady state. The 2nd is entirely consistent with radiative energy in being greater, less, or equal to radiative energy out.
The fact that at the present moment, radiative energy in is very slightly larger than radiative energy out, has nothing to do with the 2nd law. It is entirely due to the fact that the radiative forcing has increased, and the earth has not yet come into equilibrium with that increase. If the forcing should decrease in the future - then the radiation in will be less than the radiation out.
Is the entropy of the earth increasing? Probably so, since the earth is warming. If that trend reverses, the entropy of the earth will decrease. The second law is consistent with a net increase or a net decrease in the entropy of the earth - all that is required is that the heat flux associated with thermal radiation to space exceed (delta-S)/T (the Clausius inequality.)
Trick question: is the entropy of the sun increasing or decreasing ? (It's not as easy as it might seem.)
The entire concept of "climate sensitivity" rests on radiative balance. Climate sensitivity is the first order response to a change in radiative forcing, just as conductivity is the first order response to a voltage change, and heat capacity is the first order response to a temperature change. In each case, the response coefficient is calculated by treating the underlying system as being in equilibrium (or a nonequilibrium steady state.)
Ben: You are not wrong. We (the chemistry community as a whole) have done a terrible job at teaching engineers the chemistry that is most important for engineering. We're working on it. Recently, at my institution, we have created a separate one-semester Physical Chemistry for Engineers course, so that we can adapt the course to meet the specific needs of non-chemical engineers (the Chem E.'s continue to take the usual 2-semester P. Chem. course.)
Lance posts:
are you claiming that the entropy of the earth is not increasing?
Yes, Lance, we're claiming exactly that. The Earth system gets energy poured into it every second, remember? It's not going to run down because it's not a closed system. If you dispute this, let's see your figure for S. Show your work.
Some posters have realized that I am correct and have now shifted to a "well the imbalance is small compared to the over-all energies involved" argument. This is a separate argument however and those making it have yet to concede that I was right to say that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
Because you're wrong. When the Earth is cooling, radiant energy out is greater than radiant energy in. And when it's in thermal equilibrium, the two are equal.
Lance makes the exact same 2nd law error so often favored by creationists:
"As far as thermodynamics is concerned please tell me how this mysterious "radiative balance" invalidates the second law of thermodynamics, are you claiming that the entropy of the earth is not increasing?"
Barton,
"Because you're wrong. When the Earth is cooling, radiant energy out is greater than radiant energy in. And when it's in thermal equilibrium, the two are equal."
You continue to appeal to this simplistic idea. For one thing the last statement does not take into account the earth's internally produced energy.
The earth also dissipates energy by non-radiative mechanisms such as erosion and conversion by non-reversible chemical processes thus converting some of the incoming radiant energy to the increased entropy of the earth.
Despite your nonsensical statements to the contrary the earth has hardly achieved a permanent minimum entropy state.
The question here is whether the term "radiative balance" is a meaningful and quantifiable description of incoming solar radiation to outgoing radiation as a single valued ratio.
It doesn't take much imagination to envision scenarios where a system can emit less radiant energy than it takes in and not increase in temperature. Also to treat the earth's energy budget as having a single value is overly simplistic to the point of irrelevance.
Robert P.
"... the 2nd law has no bearing on the radiative balance condition, which is a simple statement of the first law, applied to a nonequilibrium steady state. The 2nd is entirely consistent with radiative energy in being greater, less, or equal to radiative energy out."
Yes that is true, but it's not what we were taking about. Notice you used the words "non-equilibrium state". Obviously the earth has undergone times when there were various ratios of radiant energy in to radiant energy out.
The whole point of a "balance" is to imply an equilibrium condition. I am the one arguing against the imposition of an equilibrium condition. My (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) statement obviously doesn't apply to when the earth was a molten mass cooling to form the oceans and land masses or during the formation of the "snow ball" earth, and various other glaciations, when orbital conditions limited the effective incoming solar radiation.
It was used to invalidate the idea that even during relatively short periods of stable earth-sun conditions that there is any such "equilibrium" condition. If the (radiant energy in) were equal to the (radiant energy out) the earth would cool due to the many processes that convert radiant energy to non radiant energy ( the internally generated energy of the earth not withstanding). Of course this dismissal of the earth's internally generated energy just serves to demonstrate the uselessness of the "radiant balance" idea to begin with.
This is all getting very tedious.
Lance finally gets it:
"The question here is whether the term "radiative balance" is a meaningful and quantifiable description of incoming solar radiation to outgoing radiation as a single valued ratio."
That is exactly the question, yes. And the clear answer is, yes. If there is more energy coming into the atmosphere-ocean-land surface system than going out, the system gets warmer.
You keep returning to internal, radioactivity-generated heat. For purposes of radiative balance, that is simply another radiative input into the ocean,surface,atmosphere system, part of the balance - and it is negligibly small, but it is part of the radiative balance.
And then Lance throws it away:
""The earth also dissipates energy by non-radiative mechanisms such as erosion and conversion by non-reversible chemical processes thus converting some of the incoming radiant energy to the increased entropy of the earth.
Despite your nonsensical statements to the contrary the earth has hardly achieved a permanent minimum entropy state."
Lance, no one has stated that the earth has "achieved a permanent minimum entropy state." The entropy of the earth can and does increase or decrease. RobertP just above even outlined for you the conditions under which each can happen. You are making a fool of yourself on this issue.
And then jumps the shark:
"My (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) statement obviously doesn't apply to when the earth was a molten mass cooling to form the oceans and land masses or during the formation of the "snow ball" earth, and various other glaciations, when orbital conditions limited the effective incoming solar radiation."
Lance, you have been arguing that incoming radiation is ALWAYS greater than outgoing, for second law reasons. Do I need to go up and quote you on this? Not that I think it would make a difference - when I've quoted you contradicting yourself, you just ignore it.
Some posters have realized that I am correct and have now shifted to a "well the imbalance is small compared to the over-all energies involved" argument. This is a separate argument however and those making it have yet to concede that I was right to say that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
i had the bad feeling, that you might be talking about me with this. let me assure you, that your impression is utterly false.
i just learned over time, that we need to point out the most obvious errors in denialist posts first. if we don t, we waste lots of energy on stupid claims.
anyone rereading the comments to this topic will realize, that it wasn t clear that you were talking about an insignificant difference, when you brought up this "in>out" thing.
i told you, that i think that any imbalance at best is tiny. that does not contradict that i think your claim is wrong.
I posted a quote from a link, provided by sod, to NASA that includes the words "tends to" when referring to this "balance" that's because they know it isn't literally a "balance".
i am pretty sure that NASA would have told us, if "energy in ALWAYS was bigger than energy out". such a system can NEVER "tend to balance". basic math tells you that!
My (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) statement obviously doesn't apply to when the earth was a molten mass cooling to form the oceans and land masses or during the formation of the "snow ball" earth, and various other glaciations, when orbital conditions limited the effective incoming solar radiation.
you used the term "ALWAYS".
the most obvious counterexample is a massive storm over one of the oceans. the massive cloud formation will reflect sun light and keep warm in.
whether it is on the day or night side of earth will determine that energy in>out or the other way round at that moment.
Lee,
Yes, when I made the blanket statement that (radiant energy in) is always greater than (radiant energy out) I was wrong.
The statement was intended to apply to the alleged "equilibrium state" implied by the words radiative balance. I think I have clarified that point above. I should have made that qualification to my statement.
You keep trying to over-simplify the situation by disregarding energy inputs and outputs and the rates and consequences of the many complex processes involved. At least you are now acknowledging the internally generated energy of the earth itself, but you continue to ignore the many processes that convert radiant energy to other forms of energy.
But back to the central issue, the usefulness of a single valued "radiative balance" figure. Where, when and how is this value to be applied let alone measured?
You are perhaps laboring under the false impression that there is some spherical surface at the top of the earth's atmosphere where energy is exchanged like fluids through a membrane. The term "radiative flux" implies such an arrangement. No such surface exists.
You can of course abstract a sphere of whatever radius, greater than the earth's radius of course, to which this flux can be attributed. But as I have said many times before nothing says there must exist a "balance" at any particular time between incoming and outgoing radiation integrated across the surface of this imaginary sphere.
Will the temperature of the earth's surface, atmosphere and oceans be related in some way to this flux? Yes, but certainly not a simple linear function of it as is implied by your original statement that the effect of CO2 on the earth's climate was a "simple calculation" that "everyone agrees on".
That is the issue that started this whole discussion. A simple linear calculation using a "radiative balance" condition that generates a CO2 climate sensitivity of around one degree Celsius is a gross oversimplification of the actual energy dynamics of the situation.
sod,
Yes, as I have acknowledged to Lee, my blanket statement using the dangerous word "ALWAYS" was ill-advised and did not apply in all cases. I should have limited it to the so called equilibrium conditions upon which our discussion was focused.
Ironically you gents are making the point I was trying demonstrate, namely that no such equilibrium exists.
Having proved that I am indeed fallible (cue dhogaza to amend that to dishonest) let us now return to the issue at hand, whether there exists a significant single valued ratio to describe the energy budget of the earth and its surroundings that can be measured or derived and then used in a simple linear calculation of the sensitivity of the earth's climate system to a doubling of CO2 which was the issue that started all of this in the first place.
Halle-fucking-luyah!!!!!
Lance admits:
"Yes, when I made the blanket statement that (radiant energy in) is always greater than (radiant energy out) I was wrong."
But then you mislead again, Lance:
"But as I have said many times before nothing says there must exist a "balance" at any particular time between incoming and outgoing radiation integrated across the surface of this imaginary sphere."
No one is arguing otherwise, Lance - as has been directly said to you before in this thread. What has been said is that OVER TIME - not at any particular time - incoming and outgoing energy must balance. The radiative balance idea applies OVER TIME. If there is an imbalance, the planet will warm or cool until it gets back into balance, where incoming and outgoing energy are equal.
"You can of course abstract a sphere of whatever radius,"
Yes, you can - of course. So why the f*ck did you include that digression with the absurd statement that "perhaps" I don't realize that the top of the atmosphere isn't a sharply defined surface.
"A simple linear calculation using a "radiative balance" condition that generates a CO2 climate sensitivity of around one degree Celsius is a gross oversimplification of the actual energy dynamics of the situation."
First, it isn't a simple linear calculation - it is an integration across the atmospheric column of radiative transfer, using the known input of the sun, the known temperature and composition of the atmosphere, and the known absorption, emission, and collision properties of those gasses.
And, as has been stated several times before, for this calculation the other energy fluxes can be ignored, not because they aren't important to the earth system, but because in the no-feedback scenario, they ARE ASSUMED NOT TO CHANGE. For this problem, the effects of those processes are subsumed in the state of the atmosphere before the increase of CO2, and because the only thing allowed to change in this scenario is CO2 concentration, they are irrelevant to THIS solution of the conseqeunce of a change in ONLY this parameter.
Your ongoing attempt to convince us that the second law allows violations of the first law notwithstanding.
Lance posts:
You continue to appeal to this simplistic idea. For one thing the last statement does not take into account the earth's internally produced energy.
Lance, that would make the outgoing energy GREATER! It contradicts your idiotic pseudoscience conclusion that radiation in has to be greater than radiation out.
The earth also dissipates energy by non-radiative mechanisms such as erosion and conversion by non-reversible chemical processes thus converting some of the incoming radiant energy to the increased entropy of the earth.
Despite your nonsensical statements to the contrary the earth has hardly achieved a permanent minimum entropy state.
The question here is whether the term "radiative balance" is a meaningful and quantifiable description of incoming solar radiation to outgoing radiation as a single valued ratio.
It doesn't take much imagination to envision scenarios where a system can emit less radiant energy than it takes in and not increase in temperature.
Okay, Lance, what's the magnitude of the imbalance? Please give a quantitative estimate, and then explain why wherever the energy IS going to hasn't gotten completely out of control over the past 4.5 billion years.
Earth CAN ONLY EXCHANGE ENERGY WITH SPACE VIA RADIATION. If radiation in must be greater than radiation out, then either the Earth is steadily increasing in temperature, or some nonthermal process you're imagining is steadily building up more and more and more energy. If it's wind, the winds must be supersonic by now -- hell, they must be at relativistic speeds. If its erosion, it's amazing that any continents protrude above the ocean, even in the face of colliding plates.
Sure it's easy "to envision scenarios where a system can emit less radiant energy than it takes in and not increase in temperature." But not in situations where the imbalance has existed for billions of years. Not unless the magnitude of the imbalance is too small to be measured. And as I said, when the Earth is cooling, radiation out is GREATER than radiation in. Or do you maintain that the Earth has never had ice ages?
Lance, your idea that radiation in must be greater than radiation out is WRONG. It is wrong, stupid pseudoscience. If you don't want to admit you made a mistake, fine, but then at least stop talking about it. You are truly making yourself look like an idiot.
Okay, I got one: what drives the idiocy we see in the post below? Is it primarily ideological bull-headedness ("I don't want to admit I'm wrong, and that the leftist environmentalist panty-waists are right."), or is it primarily mercenary ("I'm being paid to obfuscate this shit."), or primarily both? Also, kudos to Tim for consistently knocking them down, but this seems to me like fighting a punching dummy. The thing will always get up, and you're just going to tire yourself out. How do you win?
You can't win because the truth is against you. There is a reason the realists keep bobbing back up, the data keeps backing them up. Support for the IPCC keeps draining away while support for reality keeps growing.
I meet people from all over the world and so few support the warmist's position.
Will we really get any action from the G8 meeting in Japan? My money is on ..not much.
These leaders probably don't believe in AGW but have to play to their voters misconceptions about CO2.
Kent, you forgot to mention that Al Gore is fat!
post two tells me the answer to post one is that our society has a lot of folks who have poorly controlled cognitive disorders.
for those who think i'm joshing or induging in ad hominem argument, please explain the assertion "These leaders probably don't believe in AGW but have to play to their voters misconceptions about CO2."
then you can explain how that meshes with the assertion that "I meet people from all over the world and so few support the warmist's position"
to expand on the theme, i don't find cognitive diosorders merely in this area, they're all around us. including, of course, some "liberal" memes. but the majority of "liberal" errors i would put under the category of overthinking a problem, which to me is not in the same category as stupidity (underthinking), deliberate or inadvertent, or bizarre logical lacunae (misthinking) such as the idea that the scientific proponentws of the AGW theory are in league with the socialists because the only way they can control people is with the myth of AGW, global cooling for instance being obviously insufficient.
Saurabh, your post at #1 was wickedly enticing and deliciously prescient, and I had money on it with my friend Wyvern that kent would be the one to stick his head in the noose and fulfill your prophecy. And he did it straight up too...
Thank you kent, I knew that I could trust you.
And z's analysis is merciless. All-in-all, I don't think that even Ben Elton could have scripted posts 1-4 better. I almost laughed my arse off.
Thanks guys for the comic relief - and the fiver.
A fiver? Is that all you bet on a dead cert?
Oh ye of little faith.
It was just a token - after all, I couldn't rob a mate, could I?
Verily, saurabh is light-years ahead of all of us in his attainment of Master Goracle-hood. :)
- - -
And since this is an open thread...
Are there any existing programs that can render ASCII printer art? (The files come with (inaccurate) parameter specifications by the way.)
The underlying motivation of the denialists is quite simple.
They are fascists.
Refer to Umberto Eco's fascist checklist (Eco of course had first-hand experience of Fascism growing up in Mussolini-era Italy)
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
"The first feature of Ur-Fascism is the cult of tradition."
...
"2. Traditionalism implies the rejection of modernism.
Both Fascists and Nazis worshipped technology, while traditionalist thinkers usually reject it as a negation of traditional spiritual values. However, even though Nazism was proud of its industrial achievements, its praise of modernism was only the surface of an ideology based upon blood and earth (Blut und Boden). The rejection of the modern world was disguised as a rebuttal of the capitalistic way of life. The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.
3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.
Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values."
"5. Besides, disagreement is a sign of diversity.
Ur-Fascism grows up and seeks consensus by exploiting and exacerbating the natural fear of difference. The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
6. Ur-Fascism derives from individual or social frustration.
That is why one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups. In our time, when the old "proletarians" are becoming petty bourgeois (and the lumpen are largely excluded from the political scene), the fascism of tomorrow will find its audience in this new majority."
...
"8. The followers must feel humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies.
When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak. Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."
You know, like that fat bastard Al Gore
"12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters.
This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons -- doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.
13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view -- one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism, Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. Wherever a politician casts doubt on the legitimacy of a parliament because it no longer represents the Voice of the People, we can smell Ur-Fascism."
The typical "skeptic" who posts here is a middle class or lower middle class white Australian or American who also scapegoats minorities for social problems (read Lance or Ben on how most of America's problems are caased by blacks); idolises the use of force on the individual level (as characterised by, for example, support for a latitudinous reading of the US 2nd Amendment and on an international level as indicated by their support for the Iraq War. They embrace conspiracy theories regarding the IPCC and are genuinely convinced that a few weeks reading the comments on climateaudit qualify them as climate scientists.
I'm sure this post will produce outraged responses along the lines of "I don't support "X" therefore you're wrong about me." Fascism was always a broad Church - Franco's embrace of the Catholic Church contrasts with Nazi Germany's ambivalent attitude towards Christianity; Goering and Speer were appalled by Hitler's antisemitism (albeit primarily for pragmatic rather than moral reasons); Ernst roehm and the other leaders of the SA were liquidated because their anti-capitalist attitudes clashed with Hitler's desire to ally with the German industrialists.
What matters is the general pattern:
Authoritarianism
Anti-intellecualism;
majoritarianism (hostility to ethnic, religious and other minorities)
the cult of violence;
Ultranationalism and xenophobia
Distrust for democracy (usually dressed up these days in libertarian clap-trap about the evils of government)
Belief in conspiracy thoeries; and
A sense of persecution and ill-traeatment (usually these days once again dressed upon as libertarianism and clap-trap about the evils of multiculturalism; railing about anti-Americanism and so on.)
I should also point out that being a Fascists doesn't make you a bad person. One of my closest friund's fathers served in the Wehrmacht. He's a charming crusty old gentleman (in the best sense of the world) who loves his grandchildren; spends lots of time volunteering for various community groups - and still wishes Hitler had won.
Nor are fascists necessarily foolish - historically after all Ezra Pound, Werner Von Braun; Carl Jung and many other highly intelligent people were supporters of fascism.
So when I say that most "skeptics" are in fact fascists I simply offer a diagnosis not a moral condemnation.
Quite a lot of news in the past week about how much carbon trading will hurt the poor. Not sure if any of these hundreds of articles actually worthy of discussion about serious climate change issues include any of the same tired stuff you've covered 500 times already here, but has anyone checked ?
Maybe if someone plots a graph of all the meaningful climate change issues that passed you by and then Andrew Bolt lies about the trend in the graph then we'll see it.
I have an asexual selection theory of troll evolution. As the more rational trolls give up, the terrain will be occupied by the more deluded. There is no end-point: the troll you always have with you. The question for the rest of us is when it stops being worthwhile paying attention to them. I suggest this will be when MSM outlets with a large general readership, like the WSJ, The Australian, and the (London) Telegraph stop giving space to climate delusionists.
Amongst much other tripe, Irekan (well, he is a little confused it seems) said:
Consensus breaking as a metric of scientific greatness? Utter bollocks!
Consensus breaking is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for measuring greatness in scientists.
Are the likes of DH Kenyon and R Milton, the would-be consensus breakers of that father of all consensus breakers, to be considered great scientists?
Becquerel, Boyle, Curie, Dalton, Ohm, Schrodinger, Volta, ... hardly consensus breakers, though still excellent and, some would say (some), great scientists.
And if breaking the consensus is the metric by which scientific greatness and credibility are to be measured, then this must make the likes of Hansen, Wigley and Jones amongst the best scientists who have ever lived, since they were amongst the few who "broke with the consensus" in the 1970s and 1980s. Their siren whispers have reached a consensus crescendo amongst their peers, and it is only their peers that really matter.
Another killfile-room resident looms I think. Bye-bye Areink.
I reckon there are two factors driving climate change denial.
One is obviously the money. A vast amount of the organized denial is known to be funded by lobbyists, from books to "astroturf" campaign groups to junkscience.com.
The second is that I think people have a kind of fascination with conspiracy theories. Every time a major event or issue crops up, conspiracy theories are never far behind - like it's part of the human condition. Why is that? I did a review of a paper on the psychology of conspiracy theorists a while back, and I tend to agree with them that it's a question of preserving your belief system. Once people choose to believe something, they will do anything to avoid confronting any failures in that belief system.
Then of course there's the interplay between the two - lobbyists are able to exploit people's tendency to like conspiracy theories, which may be what we see on websites like The Register.
Oops! Posted to the wrong thread. Reposting ...
Let me guess: Kilo's talking about these guys.
"New climate alliance"? "Climate revolution"? Bleh. Old is the new old.
Oh noes, farm lobbies are abandoning farmers, and the real people looking after the farmers are... a bunch of think-tankers affiliated with Lavoisier Institute conspiracy theorists!
Now I guess they just need someone to pull a Milloy on the farmers and farm lobbies. Hijack Invest in the farms and tell the farmers what they, deep in their heart, ought to want.
Ian, I don't think the deniers are fascists, and I don't think it's productive to call them that. If anything, they are extreme libertarians. The Nazis and the Italian fascists were very anti-business; both wanted large corporations placed under a tight government rein. The deniers are for leaving business alone at any cost.
You seem to think these MSM outlets 'give space' to trolls. In fact, their business model depends entirely on drawing attention to themselves. They have a long history of relying on controversy - that is, anger - to draw to them the attention they desire. These MSM outlets are trolls.
As I said, Barton, Fascism was a broad church.
Franco adopted an impeccably orthodox economic policy based on neo-classical principles. Later regimes which displayed marked similarities to fascism and which did likewise include Pinochet's Chile, Suharto's Indonesia and Lee Kwan Yu's Singapore.
Even Hitler famously referred to capitalism as the application of the Fuhrerprinzip to economics.
#15 - Wow:
Much of this carbon then gets transferred to the bones and flesh of the growing human population
All this time the solution to global warming is staring us in the face - have more babies! We all just need to have children at the rate of a few tons per year and that pesky CO2 problem is solved. Or maybe we should stop seeing obesity as a problem.
People just want to be special. They want to have saved the world. They want to have been part of something awesome - but not the same thing that every man and his dog was part of. They want to have been lonely voices in the wilderness who were RIGHT.
Problem being that almost the only way to be a lonely voice in the wilderness (that is, the only way without being a very hard working genius) is to be WRONG, so they have to pretend to be right to maintain the mood.
...and papers want people to buy them. As long as the general readership wants global warming to go away, papers will pander to that. Notice the slow shift, though. As the readers are coming over to reality, so are the papers. And that pushes more people over, and that feeds back to the papers, and so on. It's slow, and a responsible press would have made this process much faster - but a responsible press would have been run out of business by the far more profitable irreponsible press, and probably was.
@Barton and Ian: I think the problem with the debate you two are starting is that you're lumping all deniers together, when in fact they come from all over the political spectrum. You can't try to define them as aligned to a particular movement or wing of politics unless you're going to define what, exactly, you mean by a denier.
@James and Llewelly:
MSM is just generally lazy. Most of the stuff they print or show comes pre-packaged by lobbyists or PR people as a press-release or a video clip. They take all the stuff they receive, pick out the exciting stuff, and pretty much print it as if, changing a few words to make it look more original. Having said that, in some cases, like the weird stuff going on at The Register, perhaps something more is going on. At any rate, the problem in a lot of areas is not that the media are anti-science, but that the woo-people and campaign groups are much better at getting themselves heard than most scientists and rationalists are.
Ian Gould,
You have sunk to a new low. In your rambling incoherent manifesto stating that AGW skeptics are fascists you include the following.
The typical "skeptic" who posts here is a middle class or lower middle class white Australian or American who also scapegoats minorities for social problems (read Lance or Ben on how most of America's problems are caased(sic) by blacks
If you had been lucid while reading my posts instead of drinking cheap port or snorting crystal meth, or whatever substance has rotted your brain, you would know that I am married to a black woman, an African woman in fact, you ass.
The fact that your incoherent screed is nothing more than the delusional angry rambling of a frustrated Marxist ideologue is actually the best counter to your ludicrous tirade. It is proof positive that you have projected your political beliefs onto the AGW controversy and haven't the slightest interest in the underlying science but only view the discussion as a vehicle to assail those you view as the enemies of the proletariat.
I have no problem with you expressing your predictably Marxist and acerbic opinions but I will not tolerate being called a racist or a fascist.
You recently went nuts when a "skeptic" referred to you and others as "eco-Nazis". I actually defended you and told that person that you did not deserve such treatment. They were subsequently banned.
You should apologize for calling me a fascist and making the idiotic and slanderous claim that I am a racist.
Oh, that these little conversations could be held face to face.
Changing the topic... I once got in trouble here for supporting the swift-boating of Kerry, and apparently rightly so, at least partly. Now Col. Bud Day is being treated very poorly by the media for being a swift-boat vet, when in fact he never was. He never did criticize Kerry's military record, and the comments in this article at CNN seem to indicate that folks don't know this.
In fact, Day publicly stated that Kerry's military record and decorations were not legitimate targets of criticism. What Day was critical of was Kerry's behavior after he left the service, his testimony before congress (which was apparently full of lies that tarnished the military) and his disgraceful throwing of someone else's medals. These are legitimate criticisms, but Day is being attacked as a swift-vet, which he was not.
Is there not some extension of Godwin's law which extends to fascism?
Jody: yes, I think so.
As I see it, all Ian has done is suggest that one syndrome (fascism) looks very like another (denialism). He may be right, but that doesn't really explain anything.
Personally, I think Magpie's on the right track. I'd add that some people, rather than wanting to save the world, want their voice to be perceived to have status, and become shrill when there isn't instant respect.
The typical "skeptic" who posts here is a middle class or lower middle class white Australian or American who also scapegoats minorities for social problems (read Lance or Ben on how most of America's problems are caased(sic) by blacks
Wow, I didn't see that. Pretty lame, Ian. Scapegoats minorities for social problems? Look, all I did way back was recognize that gun violence was rampant among young black men. This is not scapegoating, and neither is it false. I also never claimed that young black men are some sort of root cause of all of America's problems. The young black man in America had his life ruined well in advance, I believe, by feel-good liberal policies that abrogated the need for fathers in inner-city families. Race has nothing too do with anything except superficially. Didn't the liberal messiah, Obama, just call on Black men to be better fathers? Is that racist? He is half white after all. Maybe it's only half-racist.
I remember another poster on this cite who was driven mad by Ian over time. He was eventually banned, but I understood his obvious frustration.
The basic problem with Ian's approach is that the terms he uses cover - by his own admission - such a broad spectrum of humanity that any overlap is meaningless.
Some are racist, some aren't. Some are right wing, some are left wing. Some are fascist, some are liberal. Some are religious, some are atheist. The only thing they all have in common is their denialism.
\begin rant
I think people are reading way to much into the motivations of climate change denialists. Being a rampant lefty myself, I've run into the odd person, completely to the left of the political spectrum, who denies the science of climate change (Alexander Coburn comes to mind).
Denialists come from all sides of the political spectrum. In Australia, they have certainly been dominated by the right, but I think that is more due to the prevailing political orthodoxy. Assigning 1 (or more) motivations to a broad group of people is bound to be fraught with errors.
Now, to make myself a hypocrit, my personal opinion, is that the majority of denialists are motivated by a simple fact. They don't like the implication of AGW... therefore, they deny the scientific basis. This seems to apply regardless of whether you are a Marixist critic or a neo-con.
I supposed this is fair enough. I don't like the implications of AGW either. It is a significant problem for the world, and adds another stumbling block to lifting quality of life for the poorest people in the world, and has as contemplating technologies I believe are environmentally and economically damaging (such as nuclear power...not that I think it's a solution to climate change mind... but it has certainly seen a resurgence in recent years).
That said, working in the atmospheric sciences means I am confronted with the evidence every day, and its evidence I can't deny, regardless of the implications for society. Others, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum, have no such qualms.
My 18,000 rubels
\end rant
"If you had been lucid while reading my posts instead of drinking cheap port or snorting crystal meth, or whatever substance has rotted your brain, you would know that I am married to a black woman, an African woman in fact, you ass."
I'm perfectly aware of that fact - you screamed it repeatedly in your extended anti-Canadian and anti-European rant on Pharyngula - which was mostly about how those countries all thought they were so superior to the US when they had no idea it was to maintain any sort of civilisation in a country plagued by ethnic minorities.
"Oh, that these little conversations could be held face to face."
Ah, yes veiled threats of physical violence - that'll teach me to associate you with anti-intellectualism and the adulation of violence.
I take your implied threats as lightly as I did those of the blessedly-absent Joe Cumbria - who mysteriously lost all enthusiasm for acting on them when I offered him the chance to do so.
Actually, that is one difference between today's fascists and their forebears. The fascists of the 1930's, actually had the physical courage to face their opponents.
A minor correction: Lance's rant was on "Dispatches from the Culture Wars" not Pharyngula.
Other high points included pronouncing Canada inferior to America because it had a smaller military (military power of course being the only indicator of a nation's worth) and gloated over Europe's supposed imminent demise at the hands of the Muslim hordes.
But, obviously, it's grossly unfair to describe you as an adherent of a world view marked by extreme nationalism; militarism and xenophobia.
WRT ChrisC in #28: Alexander Cockburn actually fits very well into one of the major Denialist categories: the Contrarian, the intellectual who delights in setting himself up as an opponent of Conventional Wisdom, not because he has dispassionately examined the evidence behind the CW and found it to be lacking, but merely *because* it is the CW. His AGW denialism is cut from the same cloth as his denial of the Stalinist genocide (published in a series of _Nation_ articles in the early 1990's).
"His AGW denialism is cut from the same cloth as his denial of the Stalinist genocide (published in a series of Nation articles in the early 1990's)."
I think you have Cockburn's personal psychology correct, but I don't think it's quite fair to say he denied Stalin's genocide. There's been a nasty little debate over the scale (not exactly unheard of in the study of atrocities). IIRC, he cited those who went for the lower estimates but even the lower estimates have Stalin responsible for millions of deaths. There's also a quarrel about whether Stalin deliberately starved the Ukrainians or "only" instituted an insane economic policy that caused millions to starve.
As I recall, Cockburn argued for 'hundreds of thousands', as opposed to millions, and suggested that 'tens of thousands' was entirely plausible. For > 1990, that's a David Irving level of denial.
"Hundreds of thousands" --- Depends on what he meant. That was a reasonable estimate for the number of executions (not the total number of excess deaths, which would include starvation deaths) in the 1930's. The number recorded for the Great Terror in 1937-1938 in the Soviet archives is about 700,000, and that was much much larger than before or after, at least during the 30's. Throw in prison deaths and one is in the low millions, however. And then there are the starvation deaths, which are in the millions--I don't think Cockburn denied those. All of this is controversial, of course, with some saying that the archival numbers are too low, and I'm not going to to take a position on it.
It's been a while since there's been any news/developments on the Iraqi death count measurement situation. Have there been any new publications? Or did everyone get bored?
No, he's being treated poorly for having joined the political pressure group, The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, not for being a swift boat vet.
There's a difference, Ben. You didn't need to be "for Truth" in order to join. Nor, as surprising as I imagine this is for you, did you have to actually be a "swift boat vet". Do you really think they were able to raise all that money by restricting membership so severely?
He joined an organization that was created for the purpose of criticizing Kerry's military record, indeed, worse - it was created in order to convince people that his military record was fraudulent.
He's on record, afterwards, stating that all the group did was to "reveal the truth".
Sorry, no free revisionist history ride for this guy.
Now, do you believe that being a fighter jock and POW somehow, alone, qualifies a person to be President? Wouldn't you agree that being President might require some other skills?
Enjoy!
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003237.html
My local paper filed a story in their on-line addition tonight while I was reading the speculation about AGW denialism. I'd been checking to see if there was any information on the kid's condition, as I had news of the incident from his grand uncle who was on the way to be with his sister, the boy's grandmother at the hospital. He had no word on the boy's condition. The Uncle said he understood that the boy had been playing chicken with another boy in traffic, and local TV news seems to have creditably reported this about the same time as the paper filed the story.
This report read: "Traffic has reopened ... following an accident that sent a 12-year-old boy to a hospital with severe head injuries, according to [local] police. Witnesses told police the boy ran out into traffic at about 4:50 p.m., [a] police spokeswoman ... said. A 2003 Mazda sedan struck the boy, she said. The boy, who was not named, was unconscious and had labored breathing when he was taken to a local hospital and listed in critical condition, she said."
In its entirety, the second comment in the response thread attached to the story reads, "the kid is most likely [sic] a liberal... hope he learned a lesson."
While surely there is reasoned questioning and genuine skepticism out there, by far the bulk of denial that I see in responses to climate change reporting in that same paper, falls directly inline with what I've just related.
I'm in quite a "red" state of the US, with many, many around here espousing a highly libertarian credo, and continually hear bits and snatches of the sneeringly delivere "they can't predict the weather, etc., etc." that pervades AM radio. Any thought that tribalism is waning in the west is an illusion. As far as I can judge, it's growing.
Why do I keep doing it?
Curiosity won, and I followed Steve's link, and it all fell to pieces with this Jennifer gem:
For those sufficiently wise to avoid looking, Marohasy chose to plot the data with a vertical axis spanning 0º-30ºC.
She's an embarrasment to science, if she think that playing loose with scaling in this fashion is above-board.
I'm surprised that she didn't choose 0-303K; that way, she could have shown everyone a line that is to all intents and purposes apparently dead flat. I would very interested to have Marohasy come here and explain herself.
Shame, Jennifer, shame.
Ian Gould,
Your posts are so inaccurate and slanderous that you had to correct the first one with the second. I notice you didn't bother to quote any of my comments from my exchanges on Ed Brayton's blog, though no doubt you would have done so out of context. Brayton praised Canada as "...being a lot more enlightened..." than the US. While Canada is a fine place it is hardly "a lot" more enlightened than the US.
I never "screamed" the fact that I am married to a black African woman I merely mentioned it (along with the fact that my mother and half of my relatives are Europeans) when another leftist dimwit accused me of being a xenophobic racist.
I made no physical threat, direct or implied. I would like to meet you face to face to answer your idiotic tripe in real time. Also it is my experience that mouthy little cowards shrivel when they have to make their accusations in person.
I wouldn't cross the street to talk to you but if you want to meet me I teach at Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis. Call the math or physics department and ask to speak to Lance.
Sorry Dhogaza, but I disagree. From the wiki page:
Day appeared in a Swift Boat Veterans for Truth advertisement, saying (referring to John Kerry): "How can you expect our sons and daughters to follow you when you condemned their fathers and grandfathers?"
Sure, he appeared in their Ad, but only to say that Kerry is a damn bastard for his lies at the congressional hearings etc. He was part of a different group that had Zero funding to get their message out, and the media sure as hell wasn't covering the actual truth, so he did what he had to do to remind everyone that Kerry is a sniveling bastard.
Here's what Day's biographer had to say about all this:
and
If you want to back up your claims with better evidence than this, you are welcome to do so.
James Haughton asks:
Not me!
1) See my blog for some updates on the topic. I am still looking for feedback on this post. "Summary: Using the same assumptions for L2 and IFHS (no adjustments for underreporting or for clusters that could not be visited) generates estimates that differ by more than a factor of 8: 601,000 to 72,000." Comments welcome! I also have some other posts up and plan to be adding more, including more transcripts.
2) I have organized a panel at the Joint Statistical Meeting in Denver next month. All Deltoid readers are welcome. I think that the most interesting paper at the panel will be from M. Ali (one of the IFHS authors) on their estimate of non-violent mortality. Les Roberts likes to (falsely) claim that IFHS and L2 are in agreement (more or less) on total mortality, even if the disagree on violent mortality. I suspect that Roberts will not be able to make that claim for much longer.
3) See this post for the most recent relevant publication in the scientific literature that I am aware of.
Well, Ben, this Col. Day dude has an interesting technique for disavowing the message of groups he disagrees with.
The ad is labeled as being a swifties ad, with their web site blazing proudly on it.
No qualification here. He could've said "my statements in the ad" if he meant he thought that the rest of the swift boat vets attacks were false.
Now, you didn't answer my question. Do you believe that being a fighter jock and POW isn't by itself particularly relevant to the job of President of the United States? Yes or no.
If yes, why? The Hanoi Hilton was stocked with textbooks on economics, diplomacy, management of large staffs, etiquette at state dinners, etc, giving McCain a lot of time to bone up on these basics? Or what?
David Kane:
> I am still looking for feedback on this post. [...]
> I have organized a panel at the Joint Statistical Meeting in Denver next month. All Deltoid readers are welcome.
Ahahahahaha. Once more David Kane hasn't been able to get any brainful comments from Michelle Malkin's side. That's why he keeps coming here to beg for attention.
More from Col. Day, this week:
Yet we're to believe
Yeah, right.
Now, you didn't answer my question. Do you believe that being a fighter jock and POW isn't by itself particularly relevant to the job of President of the United States?
By themselves, being a fighter jock and POW are somewhat relevant to the job of being President. Serving in the military is relevant if you are going to later take a job as Commander in Chief. But more important than having "simply" been a fighter pilot and POW is a person's performance in those rolls. McCain has certainly established his character as an American with substantial courage and a patriot. Things that Barack Obama, much as he may posses those qualities, has not demonstrated them to the same degree.
That said, McCain's qualifications have more to do with his time as a United States Senator, which is somewhat more significant in most regards than that of his opponent.
Ian Gould,
I agree with BPL, Lance, ChrisC, etc. that climate inactivists are not fascists, unless you use an overly-broad definition of fascism. They don't even fit your own criteria of
> majoritarianism (hostility to ethnic, religious and other minorities)
> the cult of violence;
> Ultranationalism and xenophobia
...at the very least, inactivists have by and large not exhibited these traits outwardly, or even used these as justifications for their anti-AGWism.
I still think the major strain of inactivism as exhibited by the High Respectable Inactionosphere (Monckton, Marohasy, Hissink, etc.) is characterized not by "fascism", but by a sort of watered-down McCarthyism. That is, it's motivated by a fear of Communism, a fear which can be traced back to the time the Soviets started testing nukes.
bi--IJI, (I must have missed the reason you added IJI.)
While I thank you for at least not calling me a fascist or a racist I would point out that many evangelical Christians have woven AGW into their worldview and they probably are more afraid of communism, as a group, than any other demographic in America.
I have heard plenty of AGW proponents offer market based proposals to "solve" the problem. I just don't think it is a problem. While your use of the word "inactivist" is less insulting than the despicable term "denialist" it still misses the point. I am no more an "inactivist" for AGW mitigation than for water fluoridation mitigation.
I see both as non-threats to humanity that require no action, since neither is a "problem".
I have demonstrated with local environmental groups outside our local waste water treatment plant to protest the city of Indianapolis shirking federal water pollution regulations and I am a member of the Hoosier Heartland RC&D Association, a local forest protection organization, so I am hardly an anarchist that is ideologically opposed to sensible environmental restrictions.
If I thought the science supported CO2 mitigation I would be for regulating CO2. I don't think the science does support the idea that we face dire consequences from burning fossil fuels and thus I am opposed to mitigation efforts that cannot be justified for other rational reasons such as cost savings and lessening dependence on foreign supplies of petroleum that help fund repressive regimes and parties hostile to the US and many other countries around the world.
I know that puffing up the case for AGW and looking down your nose at unbelievers is the official reason for the existence of Deltoid, but it really gets tiresome after a while. I enjoy discussing the scientific issues and even the related political issues with people of all points of view but when it descends into name-calling and character assassination you have to wonder, what exactly are the motives of the people involved.
What was McCain, again? Colonel? Fighter jock? Teaches him what, exactly, that's relevant to being Commander in Chief? Did he attend the War College? Pass quals for General? Do anything to convince us that his experience is relevant above and beyond the command of what, a squadron? Wing?
I reject the narrow-minded crap that argues that military people make better Presidents.
FDR was arguably the greatest of them all, and certainly fulfilled the role of Commander in Chief as well as any President we've had. Bush - with his military experience - isn't qualified to polish FDR's shoes.
ISTM that McCain starred in some home movies taken by his captors in those days?
When did he establish his character as an American? As a member of the Keating Five?
He endured torture, lived through it, and has led a productive and healthy life after the ordeal. Many, many people have lived through similar circumstances. The will to survive is intense. It has nothing to do with one's capacity to do the job McCain is running for.
He has had a long but unspectacular career in the Senate. Obama has had a short but unspectacular career in the Senate. I'll give that to McCain.
This coming from our resident liar-in-chief ...
They take all the stuff they receive, pick out the exciting stuff, and pretty much print it as if, changing a few words to make it look more original.
You don't think "The world is going to end and we're all screwed!" is exciting? No, the media reports stuff that their readership agrees with. People buy papers that confirm their worldview, and papers are very well aware of their demographics.
In the early days they did print the "world is going to end" stuff. Then the denialist view got trendy, and they switched over - it always had vastly more traction with both the general population and the politicans who feed off them (and who want to do nothing) than it did with people who actually knew what they were talking about. Now opinion is coming back. It is the populist life-cycle, and bears little relationship to the underlying reality. It's generally harmless because inactivity is the most tangible and successful result of democracy, but it's screwing us now since we needed to have started moving ten years ago. The problem with democracy is people.
What we need is a king, to rule with the Mailed Fist of Reason. The Magpie King has a nice ring to it, don't you think?
Ah dhogaza,
Leave it to you to answer a post critical of name-calling with, yes that's right, name-calling.
At least you are consistent.
Many, many people have lived through similar circumstances. The will to survive is intense. It has nothing to do with one's capacity to do the job McCain is running for.
This is where I call bullshit and I claim that you know not of what you are writing. McCain had more than one opportunity to go home early from the prison. He chose to stay because it would be cowardly and un-American for him to leave before the others. Not only did he stay, but this act brought more punishment to him.
I reject the narrow-minded crap that argues that military people make better Presidents.
As do I, but having served in the military, one might have a better understanding of what it is to be a soldier and how the military works. I never did claim that military people make better presidents, and that was not the question that you asked.
Get it together, dude.
Magpie,
Excuse me my liege but catastrophic AGW media pieces far out-number skeptical ones. I think your royal eye glass prescription may need updating.
Lance,
It's not name-calling if it's true, Mr. Doctoral Candidate.
And such a stupid lie.
Have to admire such foolish consistency, though, my little hobgoblin. (I'm waving a hand back at ya.)
Apropos of nothing in this thread, but for those keeping track, Bob Carter was on NZ public radio this morning. He gave his usual spiel, and was hardly questioned by the interviewer. MP3 is here.
Hey, didn't global warning stop in 1998?
Not according to Micheal Duffy, of the Sydney Morning Herald. It now stopped in 2002! I didn't know that!
http://blogs.smh.com.au/urbanjungle/2008/07/actually_global.html
I suppose it would be a little too difficult to get people with no knowledge of climatology or statistics to agree on when glabal warming "stopped". Oh well..
Ben, do you believe this?
Do you think the military did nothing that could tarnish their reputation in that war? John Kerry's medal citations include comment that he got shrapnel in his arse for blowing up a village rice bin, as per policy. He was wounded in the line of duty, where that line of duty required him to enact a policy of deliberate starvation.
I think his war record pretty much tarnishes the military in and of itself. Anything else is just icing on the cake. But I see you supported the swift boat veterans anyway... you are a real gem, aren't you?
Lance:
> many evangelical Christians have woven AGW into their worldview and they probably are more afraid of communism, as a group, than any other demographic in America.
Well, what I've seen certainly reinforces the notion that climate inactivists are motivated by a fear of Communism. Perhaps that means that evangelical Christians' fear of Communism is of a different nature, or that they don't really fear Communism that much.
(As for a first guess as to what this difference is, I'll put it this way: Evangelicals fear Communism because they're Christians, while the High Respectable Inactionosphere are Christians because they fear Communism.)
> I don't think the science does support the idea that we face dire consequences from burning fossil fuels
What's your conspiracy theory, Lance?
I'm sure Ben thinks Colin Powell was a hero for his role in trying to cover up My Lai, while Sy Hersh is a traitor for exposing it, and Kerry a traitor for having spoken openly about some of the shit going down in Vietnam.
He undoubtably thinks that Sy Hersh's exposure of Abu Ghraib is was equally traitorous ...
Right on down the line ...
No, I wasn't. I was talking about what my post said I was. That's the funny fucken thing about text. Sometimes it just won't change after you write it.
Bonus points though for replying to my post with a comment that there can somehow be "old news" when it comes to a climate change story here.
Sure, the same prediction from the same climate forum in the 1990s has been covered 4872 times here, but what are you trying to say ?
Kilo:
Wow, so when Kilo sees that there's a lot of noise in the newspapers, instead of seeing who's behind all the noise, he simply reports that There Is A Lot Of Noise And Therefore A Climate Revolt Is A-Brewing.
Here's a simple question for you, Kilo: Was all the noise in the Australian news sources being made by the Carbon "Sense" Coalition? Yes, or no? If you're too lazy to find out the answer and you want to simply regurgitate inactivist news uncritically, you can just say so. We'll understand.
On Stalin's democide, I urge everyone to read Antonov-Ovseyenko's "The Time of Stalin" (1982). Antonov-Ovseyenko had access to the records of the Central Statistical Administration of the USSR. He documents deaths and comes up with a figure of 100 million. My own demographic model came up with 80 million; my disagreement with Antonov-Ovseyenko was that he counted "deficit births" and I didn't.
The total was not hundreds of thousands, as Cockburn maintains. It was not millions. It was tens of millions.
Luminous Beauty,
I never said I was a "Doctoral candidate" oh slanderous one. At least try to keep your insults in the realm of inaccurate but not completely false.
dhogaza is at least technically correct when he refers to me as a PhD program "drop out" since I suspended my studies and research to take an engineering job and now just teach part time for the math and physics department here at IUPUI.
I have been quite open about who and what I am. You and many of my detractors on the other hand are anonymous blowhards.
Lance posts:
You're wrong, Charlie. Crack a book. You might start with Spencer Weart's "The Discovery of Global Warming" (2003).
bi,
I have no conspiracy theory. I just think the people that believe that there is a high probability that a doubling of the concentration of atmospheric CO2 will cause more problems than will the many proposed responses are incorrect.
Geo-engineering, drastic cuts in supply, cap and trade, rationing of energy and the many other draconian remedies proposed by AGW catastrophists are all worse than the demonstrable "problem".
Re: 68
And yet the reasons for that thought are often argued in a manner that is to my eye reminiscent of obfuscation and side-stepping. Interesting not?
While I find it interesting that you put problem in quotation marks but not draconian, it's nevertheless a pretty much worthless assertion there Lance.
Unless it's got the Lance Seal of Assertion and then, woah, I'm there.
Lance,
So sad to hear Purdue/Indiana has had to combine their physics and math departments. And they are reduced to hiring idiots with the scientific understanding of a turnip, too.
Things are tough all over.
Still it's difficult for me to understand how one could technically be a doctoral program drop-out without first being a doctoral candidate.
fwiw, Indiana/Purdue @ Indianpolis is a comprehensive university, focussed on teaching and not research. In such places with low numbers of majors and high service course loads math/physics combinations are not uncommon.
The worst I ever hear of is a physics/computer science/audiology combo.
Still it's difficult for me to understand how one could technically be a doctoral program drop-out without first being a doctoral candidate.
Because you have to be in the doctoral program for a while and then pass your qualifying exam and general exam (or some variation depending on the school/department), and then you are granted the standing of "doctoral candidate."
80-100 million for Stalin alone? Highest I've seen yet--previously I'd seen 60 million.
20 million is the standard figure--lowballers tend to put it at 10 million or a bit higher, including the famine deaths.
Here's a website listing ranges of estimated death tolls for all sorts of wars and genocides--
Link
Is a lecturer in math and physics a member of the Math Dept. faculty or the Physics Dept. faculty? Maybe both? Maybe the Engr. Dept. faculty? The Business faculty?
No, he's a member of the non-existent Math and Physics Dept. faculty, obviously.
We all have to have a home. Even if we have to invent one.
luminous beauty wondered:
In some places getting "advanced to candidacy" means you've passed a certain level of coursework and exams and only have a dissertation to write. Not all schools or departments follow this practice. I've seen some CV's with "C.Phil" for "candidate for Doctor of Philosophy" though I don't know of anywhere where this is a formalized status and we generally interpret it as "haven't finished this damn f*cking albatross of a dissertation."
In this case, Lance means he attended a graduate program. Only he (and his professors) know how far he got before he left.
Luminous, you don't have to be a member of the faculty in a department in order to lecture there. My former advisor, for example, lectured in the departments of Electrical, Aero, and Mechanical engineering, as well as some in Applied Math. She was only a member of the Aero dept. faculty, and adjunct in EE.
Your point is dumb.
luminous beauty asked:
The straightforward guess is that he's lectured in the math department at one point in time, and in the physics department at another.
At the University of Washington in Seattle, at least, there are official classifications for grad students:
1. Post Masters: finished a masters degree and have continued to work on graduate education (probably with intention to write the qualifying exam and pursue a Ph.D.)
2. Ph.D. Student: a post masters student (some students bypass the Masters degree altogether) or other graduate student who has passed the department Qualifying Examination.
3. Ph.D. Candidate: a Ph.D. Student who has passed the department General Examination.
4. Ph.D. conferred when the Ph.D. candidate has successfully defended his/her dissertation and submitted it to the graduate school.
Donald wrote:
I wouldn't use that site as a definitive source. I looked at that a few years ago and he cites some very dubious people.
ben,
Applying for a doctoral program means one is applying to be accepted into the program. One is not technically accepted into the program until one fulfills the qualification requirements.
Technically speaking, of course.
"I wouldn't use that site as a definitive source. I looked at that a few years ago and he cites some very dubious people."
That's part of his methodology--he cites anyone and everyone with an opinion. It's more of a sourcebook on all the estimates anyone has ever made on the death toll for atrocity X than a place you go to find "the truth", which in many or most cases we don't have.
I completed my Bachelors in physics in 2003. I applied to the graduate program and was accepted. You then need to choose a graduate advisor. This depends on your area of specialization and research focus.
You then begin your core classes, choose a research project and then begin preparation for the qualifying examination.
You must complete the qualifying examination within your first year of course work. After taking the qualifying exam you enter into either the masters or doctoral program.
My personal history is none of your business, but after passing the qualifying exam at a level above that required to enter the doctoral program I was forced for financial reasons to withdraw from school.
I was approached by the math department, an entirely separate department by the way, to teach as adjunct faculty since my math background also qualified me for a BS in mathematics and indeed I considered pursuing a graduate degree in math.
I also occasionally teach as adjunct faculty for the physics department.
I plan on resuming my studies and research once my financial situation allows.
IUPUI is not just a teaching institution nor does it have a combined math and physics department. I am in good standing with both departments.
I think that about covers it. I note that other than perhaps Jeff Harvey and our esteemed host Tim I have been more open about who and what I am than just about anyone else here at Deltoid.
No doubt some of you will now abuse that openness.
Donald Johnson wrote:
Perhaps, but 1) that's usually not a particularly wise methodology; and 2) sometimes that's a particularly terrible methodology. Few people are familiar with conflict demography so not everyone can distinguish between good estimates, credulous estimates, and opinions.
Lance:
So the entire consensus on AGW formed by climatologists, economists, policy scholars, etc. is completely wrong! Because Lance thinks it is.
I think at this point a conspiracy theory will actually be more credible.
anthony:
...which smacks of the tactics used by the High Respectable Inactionosphere. Every mitigation measure is played up as being "Draconian", a grave threat to our Way of Life, a sign of incipient Bolshevism, and all that.
The inactionosphere has been singing the same doom-and-gloom tune in response to just about every bit of anti-pollution legislation ever proposed. Maybe they do sincerely fear an onslaught of Soviet imperialism, but it doesn't mean we have to fear along with them.
And to think this whole hoo-ha (probably) started because of nukes... :|
bi,
I put problem in italics for the simple reason that I don't think human emissions of CO2 are a problem on the same level as say third world poverty or water pollution.
Even if temperatures were to increase by 2 degrees Celsius over the next century, and I put little credence in estimates that high, there are likely to be just as many positive outcomes as negative.
Also most of the people that are screaming about global warming are the same people screaming about peak oil, so if they are right one of their "problems" is about to take care of the other.
What sort of CO2 concentration do you think business as usual will generate until scarcity forces reduced emissions? How does that sit with what you would regard as true climate sensitivity?
jodyaberdein,
Those are two different questions entirely.
If the answer to the second is that CO2 climate sensitivity is small then the first is of no real consequence except when considering enhanced plant growth and possibly ocean "acidification".
I have seen various estimates for atmospheric CO2 concentrations for "business as usual" emissions. The fact is that without drastic near term intervention the "business as usual" scenario is probably inevitable and conservative.
The proposed "solutions" won't appreciably slow things down enough to make much difference. I suspect that we are committed to a CO2 level of at least 600 ppm by the end of the century.
I don't loose much sleep over it.
Kids,
Much as I disagree with Lance's standing on Global Warming (it's worng in just about every way), his personal history and the dynamics of his time in grad school are really none of our buisness.
I don't know Lance from a bar of soap. He is a nameless, faceless intertube denizen. His personal life is irrelevant. He doesn't know me from a bar of soap either... and my real life is as irrelevant to him as his is to me.
So can we play the ball and not the man?
ChrisC ,
Your point is well taken but I did once mention my educational status so I introduced it into the conversation.
Of course it was in response to the typical "what are your qualifications to challenge the high and mighty scientists of AGW?"
I should have tossed the question aside as irrelevant, which as you point out it is, but I didn't.
While I understand why some people wish to remain anonymous I appreciate it when someone steps up and says who and what they are. Maybe some of them are full of shit and just like masquerading as someone or something else. But I suppose there is no harm in that until it becomes obvious that they are lying and then their credibility is shot.
I mentioned to Ian Gould that I wish these conversations were face to face so that people would be civil and treat each other with respect. If putting my real name out helps to achieve that goal it was worth the risk.
Although one wonders if the intent of some posters actually is respectful discussion.
At least Jesse Jackson doesn't want to cut your nuts off. Man we're going to get a lot of mileage out of that one. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Lance:
I don't think... I don't think... I don't think...
So it's the usual: it's not a problem, and even if it is a problem, there's nothing we can do about it, and even if there's something we can do about it, the solutions are too "draconian", and besides "I don't think" it's a problem...
And people were saying, what, that AGW is a "religion"? The indications of religious worship in inactivism are plain for all to see.
Now, in all seriousness, I wish that AGW weren't real or serious. Because then I can turn my attention to other stuff, and I need not care whether the US elects a sage or a clown as president, for one thing. But the evidence is showing that AGW is real, and that those who say otherwise have invariably been full of bogus.
Lance just can't "think" the problem away.
And you don't lose much sleep over it because you think it's inevitable, or beacause you think 600ppm will only increase global mean temperature by X?
And you don't lose much sleep over it because you think it's inevitable, or beacause you think 600ppm will only increase global mean temperature by X?
Because:
a. nobody knows what X is.
b. nobody knows how good or bad the result will be. Funny how the "scientists" have plenty to say about how bad it will be, and nothing about how good it will be. There won't be any benefits to increased global temperatures? Isn't there some sort of lynx of which only 50 or so animals still exist and they have a tough time of it due to low temperatures? So we have to decide which one we want, some fancy sort of lynx or the polar bear. Which one?
Now that's a disconnect from reality ... whoa.
Hey, folks, have you noticed all the screaming about peak oil here? At RC? Deafened, yet?
Regarding Lance's educational background, when I first noticed him here he was describing himself as a "physicist", therefore highly qualified to teach us unwashed all about why climate science is hooey. When pressed, it became clear that he has reached BS status, but no further (pun intended), which rather weakened his claim to stature.
Yeah, who cares about those darn endangered Bangladeshis. Or those rare species of Inuit living in Kivalina? Those tree-huggers want us to stop waving our big technological phalli, so that the Bangladeshis and the Inuits can survive! Tell you what, the world economy can do without Bangladeshis and Inuits, but it can't do without Angry White Americans!
With H-Bombs everything will be OK! God Bless America!
Perhaps at odds with some of the regulars here, I enjoy reading Lance's posts because I know that I am not going to get the absolutely hysterical, ill-considered, brain-dead blather that the trollish knuckle-draggers can only muster. Lance is generally polite, and restrained, and not what I would consider a troll.
Nevertheless, I disagree with his interpretation of the data. An example:
In ecological terms, an average increase over a period of a decade or two is a disaster for most species. There are generalist species that are adapted to environmental perturbations, including those of temperature, that would do well and give the appearance to an untrained observer that life is burgeoning, but as far as biodiversity and ecosystem functions go... well, they'd both go down the tubes.
The problem with most lay people is that because they can't observe it happening, they think that it doesn't happen, or that it doesn't exist. To illustrate, most people in the area where I live think that our mild winter has been wonderful, but so far we have had only 70% of the chill hours that we had last year, and many stone-fruit and pom-fruit are lining up for crop failure. An yet very few will understand that this is happening until they see the prices at the supermarkets next year. Just a little example, but one that will be felt by the fruitivores of Australia soon enough.
Same with the salmon farms here, which are bordering on massive fish deaths each summer, where a decade ago the loss of the fishery was unthinkable.
Of course, according to Climatepatrol, kent, Louis Hissink, HPJr et al, the planet is cooling, so the extraordinarily mild winters we have experienced in the last few years must be a figment of my state's collective imagination...
Back to the subject though, Lance posts:
Um, no Lance, and I'm surprised that someone with your intelligence thinks this. Peak oil will have significant impact on geopolitical and economic stability, but it isn't going to significantly affect the rate of emission of CO2. There are the inconvenient matters of coal, shale-oil and tar-sand that will ensure humanity can continue belching fossil fuel combustion products into the atmosphere at ever-increasing rates for decades to come.
It's rather an ugly combination of effects, if one thinks about it, and I think that if Lance had a bit more exposure to the subtle intricacies of ecosystem function, balance and feedback, even he would readily alter his stance on the various aspects of the AGW issue.
For the trolls here, there is no hope. What God (or the evolution fairy) hasn't put there, we can't improve upon.
In my last post I said:
"an average increase over a period of a decade or two".
What I meant of course, was:
"an average increase of a degree or two, over a period of decades,..."
It's been a long day...
Donald Johnson writes:
Remember that there was a constant turnover of births and deaths every year. Over 70 years, the number of people dying in the GULAG added way up. (When Stalin died in 1953, 10% of Soviet citizens were in labor camps.) And the purges and the famine of the '30s had a great enough effect that the census showed the population of the USSR had actually fallen. Stalin had the 1937 census takers shot and ordered a new census which came up with more pleasing numbers.
Lance writes:
Everyone who has actually studied the problem seems to disagree with you.
Re 96:
Ben, I'm not sure you quite got the point.
The intention of the question was to find out whether Lance's indifference represented a nihilistic attitude, or a specific opinion relating to likely emissions scenarios and climate sensitivity.
I think we're all reasonably aware what your opinion of the matter might be, but what is really much much more interesting is why Lance holds the opinion he does. Of course the two attitudes are not at all exclusive I would add.
Lance?
BPL wrote:
"Census taker" is usually understood to refer to the field workers who actually go out and take the census. The 1937 Soviet census was truly an embarrassment from Stalin's perspective but the census takers were not shot. The truth is damning enough: the administrator of the Soviet Census bureau, his chief deputies, and many of the regional managers were imprisoned. A few years ago, when I was doing some research about Soviet demography, I happened to track the spread of the "Stalin shot the census takers" line. It's kind of interesting (though admittedly some people think I have a pretty low boredom threshold).
ben,
Climate sensitivity to temperature is only half the story. It's an estimate of what part of the much more accurately known radiative forcing from the suite of well-mixed anthropogenic greenhouse gases will manifest as average transient surface temperatures. The part of that force that doesn't manifest as average transient surface temperatures will, most likely, manifest as disruption in the mode and frequency of weather and possibly dramatic regional and global climatic shifts.
So pick your poison. Higher temps with catastrophic sea level rise, terminally disruptive ecosystem pressures and somewhat less weather disruption, or lower temperature sensitivity and more extensive and intensive floods, droughts and extreme weather.
Or pick the median and get an unpleasant dose of both.
jodyaberdein,
I have reviewed several different studies regarding CO2 climate sensitivity. They come in three basic flavors.
The first are ones that use the assumption that the recent increases in temperatures are due largely to increases in CO2 and then makes comparisons with past temperatures from proxy studies to determine the CO2 climate sensitivity.
There are multiple problems to this approach. First it assumes that the recent increases in temperatures are largely due to increases in CO2. If this doesn't jump out at you as a systematic bias I'm not sure what would.
Then there is the issue of the accuracy of the proxy studies used for comparison.
The second approach is to use computerized climate simulation models that assign different values to CO2 sensitivity and see how well the model results fit past data and then use that sensitivity to run future scenarios.
Again this approach makes assumptions about what "caused" past warming and cooling and obviously that gives a bias towards a high CO2 sensitivity if you are of the opinion that CO2 is a major climate driver.
The kind of studies that appeal most to me as a physicist (as yes I have not completed my training) are the ones that make no assumptions but attempt to derive the sensitivity based on first principles. There are few that really follow this course because it is so challenging and indeed each of the studies of this type that I have reviewed make approximations and generalizations in an attempt to simplify the process.
Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius, a figure that is in accord with what Richard Lindzen estimates (0.3-0.5C) in his Colloquium Paper Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A > v.94(16); Aug 5, 1997.
The other reason I don't lose sleep over the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity is that short of world wide imposition of the most extreme and expensive mitigation strategies there is little doubt that the use of fossil fuels, and hence CO2 emissions, are going to continue relatively unabated.
Yeah, who cares about those darn endangered Bangladeshis...
Maybe they can go live with Al Gore, he certainly has enough room, and he's fat.
Lance:
> First it assumes that the recent increases in temperatures are largely due to increases in CO2. If this doesn't jump out at you as a systematic bias I'm not sure what would.
Now that makes me wonder how climatologists figured out the warming power of methane, eh does it not?
> Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius
And how would this figure be obtained? Through a scientific procedure based on magic pixie dust?
> short of world wide imposition of the most extreme and expensive mitigation strategies there is little doubt that the use of fossil fuels, and hence CO2 emissions, are going to continue relatively unabated.
You repeatedly chant that mantra. So do you think that (1) it's not a problem, or (2) it's a problem but there's nothing we can do about it anyway? If it's not a problem, then why in the blazes do you worry about how much CO2 is being released?
ben:
> Maybe they can go live with Al Gore, he certainly has enough room, and he's fat.
ben: Those tree-huggers just want to save polar bears.
me: You know, there are species in the world known as "Bangladeshis" and "Inuits". It's not just about polar bears.
ben: Well, for all intents and purposes they're just the same as polar bears.
ben, you're a racist idiot.
Bernard J.,
Thanks for not considering me a "troll". I know that you have a much deeper understanding of the dynamics of ecological systems than I do.
Perhaps you can explain a question that occurs to me when I hear people predict extreme ecological damage from an increased average global temperature of say 2 degrees Celcius.
Since past climates have been much colder and indeed much warmer than today's why wouldn't the various ecological systems adapt to a new equilibrium since they obviously have in the past?
Is it a question of the rate of temperature increase? Is it that disruptions to the biological webs that help to support human life would be disrupted to the point of collapse or at least severe stress?
What is your opinion of the range of temperature that could be tolerated without severe ecological damage and what might that damage be if that range is exceeded?
The iterative backpedalling cometh again...
bi,
If that remark was aimed at me I point out that you waited all of 15 min to declare that I was ignoring your post.
Your post mostly makes insulting remarks with sarcastic inuendo thrown in for effect.
Gleening the vitriol I find these two questions.
(In regard to my opinion that climate sensitivity was under 1 degree Celsius.) And how would this figure be obtained? Through a scientific procedure based on magic pixie dust?
I made reference to Lindzen's paper and that my opinion was based on my review of the literature. I don't think pixie dust was involved to my recollection. I never claimed to have conducted my own scientific peer reviewed study. Perhaps you can post a link to yours?
Then you ask,
So do you think that (1) it's not a problem, or (2) it's a problem but there's nothing we can do about it anyway? If it's not a problem, then why in the blazes do you worry about how much CO2 is being released?
I clearly said that I do not worry about how much CO2 is being released. Also I find it curious that people on the AGW side often criticize skeptics for saying they don't think CO2 is a problem and that even if it was there is nothing much that can be done.
If you told me that the moon was going to explode because of the prayers of Muslims to Allah my response would be that I don't think you are correct and that we couldn't stop Muslims from praying to Allah anyway.
This is a very rational and supportable statement just as saying that CO2 isn't a problem and there is little we can do about it even if it were.
You probably disagree with the statement but that doesn't make it illogical.
Bangladeshi is a race? Is Mexican a race too? How about American? I'm racially American I suppose.
Now this is walking the walk. When Gore lives like that, I'll think about listening to him. After all, it AGW is "the most important moral, ethical, spiritual and political issue humankind has ever faced," right?
ben,
Well then just screw Al Gore and think about listening to Ed Begley and Bill Nye.
Bill Nye's smart. He's the Science Guy. (He really is pretty good.)
LB,
Bill Nye, while entertaining, is not a scientist. He has a BS in mechanical engineering.
He looked rather feckless juxtaposed with Richard Lindzen on a recent Larry King Live discussion of climate change.
Maybe you can get "Beakman" and his buddy in the rat suite to go after Lindzen next time.
Lnce says:
"The first are ones that use the assumption that the recent increases in temperatures are due largely to increases in CO2 and then makes comparisons with past temperatures from proxy studies to determine the CO2 climate sensitivity."
Let me figure out how to say this politely... uhhh... bullcrap.
As an example - climate sensitivity determined from relationship of Milankovich forcing and glacial stade transitions, using a realistic value for the amount of solar forcing imposed on the planet due to orbital variation, and then comparing that to the temperature change, to determine climate sensitivity. This approach makes no assumptions about CO2 - and it arrives at a value of about 3C / 2xCO2.
"The second approach is to use computerized climate simulation models that assign different values to CO2 sensitivity and see how well the model results fit past data and then use that sensitivity to run future scenarios.
Again this approach makes assumptions about what "caused" past warming and cooling and obviously that gives a bias towards a high CO2 sensitivity if you are of the opinion that CO2 is a major climate driver."
Again - and I say this with the utmost respect for our learned physicist friend Lance here - bullcrap. The coupled GCM models do NOT HAVE ANY ASSIGNED CO2 SENSITIVITY!! CO2 sensitivity comes OUt of the models. Teh msot convincing hindcast experimetns are the ones where they model wa world without the modern anthropogenic carbon component of the atmosphere, adjust parameters within physically realsitic limits to try to model last-century temperature increases -a cn cant do it. They then add carbon to match the observed emissinos, and find that it is very easy to model the increase, with various settings of parameters within physically realistic limits. This modeling analysis does not assume that CO2 is causing warming - it asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't. The then extend this finding - a finding, not an assumption - and ask what the forcing is for realistic parameter settings and models that hindcast well, and find values that cluster around 3C. And they find that those models perform well when presented with perturbatins that were not used in the 'tuning,' such as major volcanic eruptions. None of this ASSUMES that CO2 is the only dominant forcing - if FINDS that CO2 forcing and a climate sensitivity of about 3C is necessary to accurately model the real world.
"The kind of studies that appeal most to me as a physicist (as yes I have not completed my training) are the ones that make no assumptions but attempt to derive the sensitivity based on first principles. There are few that really follow this course because it is so challenging and indeed each of the studies of this type that I have reviewed make approximations and generalizations in an attempt to simplify the process.
Based on my, admittedly non-exhaustive, review of the literature I would estimate the actual climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 at less than 1 degree Celsius, a figure that is in accord with what Richard Lindzen estimates (0.3-0.5C) in his Colloquium Paper Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A > v.94(16); Aug 5, 1997."
From first principles? Really? Those few papers are stuffed with non-physical assumptions and generalizations and simplifications. Forcing due to CO2 alone, with NO feedbacks, is 1.1C. There is NO empirical evidence that net amplification is negative. If it were, insolation variations due to orbital changes could not have caused the ice ages, just for one line of evidence.
Lance:
> This is a very rational and supportable statement
"Supportable" in the sense that you only try to substantiate the first part (CO2 isn't a problem) and you're only using the just-so second part (even if it is we can/should Do Nothing) as a fig leaf to cover up the lack of facts in the first part. Yeah, "supportable".
ben:
> I'm racially American I suppose.
Racially you're a racist idiot.
You'd better apologize now for suggesting that Bangladeshis and Inuits are just as 'disposable' as polar bears. Otherwise I'll continue to call you a racist idiot, because that's what you are.
Lee:
> This modeling analysis does not assume that CO2 is causing warming - it asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't.
Point.
Racially you're a racist idiot.
You'd better apologize now for suggesting that Bangladeshis and Inuits are just as 'disposable' as polar bears. Otherwise I'll continue to call you a racist idiot, because that's what you are.
Like, who said you could pick up the pen for me? I never once claimed that. I only wrote that they should go live with Al Gore in his enormous houses and that Gore was fat. Does that mean that I hate Bangladeshis? Well, only if I really meant it, I wouldn't want my worst enemy to have to live with Gore.
I never did write that they were disposable. And since when are Bangladeshi or Inuit races? Do I have anything against the Inuit or the Bangladeshi because of whatever race it is to which they belong? Do I hate myself for being a composition of many races? Do I hate my wife because she is part native? Race has nothing to do with anything, unless you are Jesse Jackson and race is how you make your living, that and cutting folk's nuts off.
Now quit with the name-calling, bi. It's beneath you in real life, I hope. But if you insist, you better get with the program and add homophobe, islamaphobe, clownist, nissanophobe, phonophobe, politicist, recovering canuckophobe, merlotophobe, budwiserist, etc... because I must have writting something somewhere denigrating those things.
[modelling] asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't.
Or is it the modelers who make this finding? Does this mean that they are correct, or that there is something that they have overlooked?
Or is it the modelers who make this finding? Does this mean that they are correct, or that there is something that they have overlooked?
So enlighten us. What did they all miss?
Are you referring to the pixie dust or do you feel - like this fellow - that scientists are a little too un-tanned...?
Lance in essence is saying "I've reviewed the literature" and believes that LIndzen's estimate of climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing is the best supported one.
Despite the fact that scientists have tried to find physical evidence to support the "iris effect" upon which Lindzen depends to discount higher values of CO2 forcing. And, despite having tried, having *failed* to find physical evidence for this novel "iris effect". Lindzen's hypothesis has been round-filed, not due to ideology, but due to lack of empirical evidence to back it up.
Lance accuses mainstream climate science of, in effect, making shit up through the mechanism of assuming the conclusion in the absence of empirical evidence. Not only is that bullshit, but his favorite candidate for truth is based on Lindzen ... making shit up ...
And Lance wonders why we laugh at his claims of objectivity and call him a liar.
One thing is nearly certain. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train. This means that we will get to see what will happen and history will prove one side right and the other wrong, for better or worse.
...thanks to folks like Lance and Ben who are trying their very best to make it unstoppable. It's almost like Milloy claiming that the USCAP will die by itself even as he actively helps its 'demise' along.
In other news, Luboš Motl is officially unhinged.
Well, Motl gives the game away by describing himself as a "conservative physicist", he doesn't even pretend that his view of science is object or unbiased.
Lance writes:
That's like concluding cosmological evidence doesn't support the Big Bang based on a paper by Halton Arp. The consensus of the 61 studies I looked up is that the climate sensitivity is between 2 and 4 K:
http://members.aol.com/bpl1960/ClimateSensitivity.html
Lance writes:
How could your "review of the literature" miss the overwhelming number of papers which conclude that climate sensitivity is much higher than Lindzen's estimate? I don't think you "review[ed] the literature" at all; I think you copied the citation to one paper off a denialist website and then claimed to have "review[ed] the literature." See above for why I think so.
Ben: One thing is nearly certain. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train. This means that we will get to see what will happen and history will prove one side right and the other wrong, for better or worse.
Gee, that sounds familiar.
Honest question: Ask yourself "can I live with myself advocating this position, if I turned out to be wrong?". I'd be very interested in hearing your answer.
ben says:
"Your post mostly makes insulting remarks with sarcastic inuendo[sic] thrown in for effect."
What's good for the gander, eh Goose?
However, making fun of your obtuse mindless blithering to your face is more honest than making witless and dismissive jokes about the suffering of Bangladeshis or Polar Bears. That isn't just sarcastic and insulting. It is sadistic.
Love that joker!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/10/AR20080…
Nothing says good government like ignoring a legal, scientific and moral mandate to evaluate a particular public policy. Bush administration to the US Supreme Court, scientific and economic community, foreign nationns and our children and children's children, etc.: Go take a flying leap at a rolling doughnut!
Honest question: Ask yourself "can I live with myself advocating this position, if I turned out to be wrong?". I'd be very interested in hearing your answer.
I don't advocate that position, I simply think it's the truth that much as people will try to limit emissions they will still fail. All I am saying is that I think we'll get to see one way or another. If we did in fact cut emissions significantly enough, whatever that is, then we'd never really know if it was worth the trouble.
I didn't write that, Lance did. I suppose I may as well have. I've been around long enough to know better though, we do seem to get into games of purple nurples here, and I can dish it as well as take it. Except for the name calling.
Back to the cheerful subject of mass murder and genocide. I've found another fairly interesting website, this time with articles by people who are supposed to be among the leading scholars in their field, or anyway that's my impression. Some of the articles on the USSR are by Nicholas Werth, who was the "Black Book of Communism" writer on that particular area.
Link
LB,
However, making fun of your obtuse mindless blithering to your face is more honest than making witless and dismissive jokes about the suffering of Bangladeshis or Polar Bears. That isn't just sarcastic and insulting. It is sadistic.
Uh, I believe Ben was the one that made remarks about Inuits and polar bears.
I'm sure your apology will be issued post haste.
Lee says,
As an example - climate sensitivity determined from relationship of Milankovich forcing and glacial stade transitions, using a realistic value for the amount of solar forcing imposed on the planet due to orbital variation, and then comparing that to the temperature change, to determine climate sensitivity. This approach makes no assumptions about CO2 - and it arrives at a value of about 3C / 2xCO2.
Since "Bullcrap" is your politeness standard. I say Bullcrap back at ya. This technique assumes that first of all their "realistic" value is correct and that CO2 is responsible for anything they didn't guess correctly. That you find this convincing shows your bias.
Your next cow pie arrives hot and steamy with...
The coupled GCM models do NOT HAVE ANY ASSIGNED CO2 SENSITIVITY!! CO2 sensitivity comes OUt of the models.
(You may find that your typing and your logic improve when you calm down.)
The models have parameters adjusted to what the modelers best estimate of forcings might be, and then whatever is left is assigned to CO2 sensitivity. How exactly is this different than what I said? They "back cast" their models and then the ones that fit the best are used to determine CO2 sensitivity. It only takes a rudimentary knowledge of algebra to know that if you squeeze a multi-variate equation hard enough on one end you change a value at the other.
If they have missed their guess on the other forcings and feedbacks, up or down, they will assign the difference to CO2. This is an interesting exercise but cannot be reliably used to determine CO2 climate sensitivity unless you have a high level of certainty about every other possible climate forcing and feedback and highly accurate past temperature data. Needless to say climatology currently possesses neither.
... it asks if there is any way to explain the warming without modern CO2, and finds that there isn't.
Saying "we are darn sure we've thought of everything and we can't think of anything else that would cause warming so it must be CO2" is hardly a scientifically compelling argument.
This is the same argument used by Intelligent Design proponents. Just because you can't figure out what causes something doesn't mean that CO2 or divine intervention is the cause.
Forcing due to CO2 alone, with NO feedbacks, is 1.1C. There is NO empirical evidence that net amplification is negative.
Way to pack a whole herds' worth of dung into two sentences. Bold use of the word "is" there cowboy. You of course can back up your 1.1C CO2 climate sensitivity assertion with first principles research and verifiable data I suppose? I await that evidence.
Also, most feedbacks in nature are negative or else "runaway" conditions would be common. As for there being NO evidence for negative feedbacks you are quite mistaken (I know it's surprising since use of capital letters usually assures irrefutability.)
On hot days in the mid-west heat forces the evaporation of moisture which feeds late afternoon thunderstorms that drop the temperature considerably and transfer energy from thermal energy to kinetic energy there by reducing temperature. This is only one of such negative feedbacks of which there are many.
luminous beauty:
> However, making fun of your obtuse mindless blithering to your face is more honest than making witless and dismissive jokes about the suffering of Bangladeshis or Polar Bears. That isn't just sarcastic and insulting. It is sadistic.
If ben were an oil CEO, such jokes may well be good grounds to charge him for high crimes against humanity. Fortunately for him he's not an oil tycoon, ergo it's just hate speech.
dhogaza:
> Well, Motl gives the game away by describing himself as a "conservative physicist", he doesn't even pretend that his view of science is object or unbiased.
Holy batman...
Now we just need to wait for the wave of indignation from the inactionosphere at Motl's hateful remarks advocating eugenics. I mean, Hansen only advocated trying oil CEOs and he's getting such a huge crapstorm already, right?
Um wait. Motl's an inactivist, so he's OK. Besides, The Alarmists Are Just As Bad... The Alarmists Are Just As Bad... The Alarmists Are Just As Bad...
Lance,
So it is nihilism, but also that 600+ppm won't result in an important increase in global mean temperature.
So you would say you are confident of a precise upper bound to climate sensitivity then?
Hate speech? What if I had written such jokes about the Irish? Would that have been hate speech? It might be insensitive, but it certainly isn't hate. Let's have a look at the definition of "hate" shall we:
I feel no such dislike nor hostility toward any person or group based on their race, skin color, language, hairstyle, country of origin, favorite color or any other such immaterial condition.
If you continue to call me a hater or racist it will be clear whom the hater is, and it ain't me.
No, Lance, that is not what they do. And if you believe I'm wrong, go argue with Gavin Schmidt, a leading modeler.
Even if you *were* right, CO2 does exist in the atmosphere, is known to cause warming, and is increasing.
While Lindzen's "iris effect" hypothesis was based on an unknown mechanism, and efforts to measure it have failed to find any such thing.
Yet you believe Lindzen's right even though there's no physical evidence to support his claim.
I suggest you don't follow Lindzen's example in your own research - you'll never earn your PhD if you argue a thesis based on overturning a known physical effect by proposing a hypothesis which for which no empirical evidence exists.
> It might be insensitive, but it certainly isn't hate.
Yeah, a great improvement there! It's not hate! It's just insensitivity! You're just "insensitive" to polar bears, Bangladeshis, and Inuits, because their presence interferes with the ideology and the way of life of Angry White Males such as yourself.
> Let's have a look at the definition of "hate" shall we:
> > Hate: to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest: to hate the enemy; to hate bigotry.
No kidding, ben... you can't even get the part of speech right, and that's not even all.
Then again, you're too idiotic to realize that you're an idiot...
"Then again, you're too idiotic to realize that you're an idiot... "
Kind of ironic to be pointing out someone else's alleged hatred while spewing these kinds of insults.
Bi, what I'm really insensitive to are YOUR feelings on the subject, not the actual plight of the Bangladeshis or the Polar Bears.
And insensitivity to polar bears? That's like one rung above insensitivity to frying pans. Who cares?
Sarah:
> Kind of ironic to be pointing out someone else's alleged hatred while spewing these kinds of insults.
First, it's not "hatred" or "hate" or "hate speech" to point out that someone's logically and factually challenged, especially when the issue under discussion requires precisely logic and facts.
ben's not fit for the job. It's not an "insult". It's a fact, and it's backed up by evidence. That's one thing they won't teach you during your gun training sessions.
ben:
> what I'm really insensitive to are YOUR feelings on the subject, not the actual plight of the Bangladeshis or the Polar Bears.
Now that's an improvement, ben. Just backpedal a bit more and maybe I'll figure that you're not such a bad person after all...
Lance,
"This technique assumes that first of all their "realistic" value is correct and that CO2 is responsible for anything they didn't guess correctly."
Wrong, all the way through. "This technique" doesn't invoke CO2, doesn't care about CO2, doesn't care about feedback mechanisms at all. It derives a forcing from realistic insolation values - calculated based on orbital parameters and the brightness of the sun - and then determines temperature difference. The assumption being made is that the delta-temp is due to delta-forcing from delta-insolation.
"The models have parameters adjusted to what the modelers best estimate of forcings might be, and then whatever is left is assigned to CO2 sensitivity."
Wrong, wrong, very wrong, Lance. Have you even read any of the modeling papers? The models don't have "CO2 sensitivity" per se. They have forcing sensitivity. This can be translated to greenhouse gas sensitivity by calculating forcing due to a given greenhouse gas mixture and concentration - this is done from radiative balance calculations.
-----------------
"Saying "we are darn sure we've thought of everything and we can't think of anything else that would cause warming so it must be CO2" is hardly a scientifically compelling argument.
This is the same argument used by Intelligent Design proponents. Just because you can't figure out what causes something doesn't mean that CO2 or divine intervention is the cause."
Dude, CO2 and its basic radiative physics is not "divine intervention." This is not saying 'we don't know, so god did it.' This is saying, 'we have a very good explanation that matches current physical knowledge and that fits the evidence, that is robust to several independent analytical approaches to arrive at the same answer, and no one can find any other explanation that fits the evidence." Yeah, that's pretty good science.
-----------
"You of course can back up your 1.1C CO2 climate sensitivity assertion with first principles research and verifiable data I suppose?"
This is basic radiative physics - that you don't know this indicts your knowledge base.
---
"Also, most feedbacks in nature are negative or else "runaway" conditions would be common. As for there being NO evidence for negative feedbacks you are quite mistaken (I know it's surprising since use of capital letters usually assures irrefutability.)"
Dude, positive feedback does NOT equal "runaway conditions." Positive feedback with a gain of less than 1 is common, and simply leads to a new higher stable state. Ever hear of an amplifier? You're a physicist?
And you either cant read, or are intentionally altering what I said. "No empirical evidence for net negative feedback" says nothing about whether there are individual negative feedbacks - your response is about thunderstorms as an individual negative feedback is irrelevant. There is a LOT of empirical evidence for net positive feedbacks in the overall climate system - with a gain yielding about 3C/ 2xCO2.
That you keep talking around teh specifics, or misrepresenting them, or completely ignoring them, says a lot, I think.
Bi -- I didn't see anything in my brother's comments that could even be remotely classified as hatred or racist. You may not agree with his position, but that doesn't necessarily constitute "hate." People toss around those labels when they can't otherwise engage an argument, and it's pretty weak stuff.
There is nothing factual about "idiot" in this context -- it's your subjective opinion (to which you are entitled). The fact is that you could advance this discussion without calling Ben an idiot, but you can't resist, because -- face it -- you hate people like us.
Dear Sarah, the concern troll sock-puppet and defender of jackass idiot brothers,
I suspect people like you would love to be hated by people like us.
That might conceivably bring a similcrum of meaning into your sad, sorry, and otherwise empty lives, wouldn't it?
Sorry, but I can't be bothered to hate you.
It's just too sad, really.
Lee,
Most of your nasty post is just reiterating your own assertions and misrepresenting my remarks.
There is one statement in it I will again ask you to back up with facts. In regard to the 1.1 degree Celsius increase in temps for a doubling of CO2 you make the following statement along with your usual insulting aside. "This is basic radiative physics - that you don't know this indicts your knowledge base."
I have read several papers that make attempts to calculate from first principles a straight forward calculation of the increase in temps from a doubling of CO2. All that I know of use "short cuts" since the real deal is hideously complex and indeed may require appeals to numerical methods rather than a straight forward derivation.
Show me where I can find this paper you claim proves a 1.1 C increase for a doubling of CO2.
The calculated forcing for a doubling of CO2 is about 3.7 w/m2. The value is accepted by nearly everyone, even most of the staunchest denialists. Try this link.
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg1/219.htm
A delta forcing of 3.7 m/m2 translates to 1.1C, assuming NO feedbacks, ie, that everything in the system stays the same. This is a simple graybody equilibrium calculation.
Lance, my two latest posts to you here are filled with specific statements. You have not responded on point to any of them, from either post.
and here, Lance, is a listing of radiative transfer codes used to make this kind of calculation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atmospheric_radiative_transfer_cod…
And here is Modtran - have fun:
http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~archer/cgimodels/radiation.html
Luminous, you think Sarah is my sock puppet? Ha ha ha!
ben,
No, I don't think Sarah is a sock-puppet. She just plays one on the internet.
Just like you think your playing some great libertarian skeptic hero on the internet. Only your real role is that of an idiotic jackass.
depp=true
notiz=[Please be polite]
"Anthropogenic CO2 emissions are probably an unstoppable freight train."
Not any more so than a train of lemmings is unstoppable as it's headed to the cliff on the horizon. because, it's at least arguable by knowledgeable folks that:
"The range of stabilization levels assessed can be achieved by deployment of a portfolio of technologies that are currently available and those that are expected to be commercialised in coming decades." -IPCC
or
"Catastrophic climate change is not inevitable. We possess the technologies that could forestall global warming." - Technology Review, July 2006
or
"450 ppm or lower is certainly achievable from an economic and
technological perspective." - Joseph Romm
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/31/181924/330
but the unfortunate combination of doctrinaire climate change denialists and delayers, climate change defeatists, believers in a climate change deus ex machina,
vested interests in the status quo, and political pandering to the lowest common denominator and the largest campaign donation have led us to the precipice. not all that surprising really; our pessimism has been inadequate many times recently, the installation of the Bush administration 8 years ago being a terrific example. "hey, how much harm can he do? We don't want to make a fuss." after all, our species' lack of a decent mechanism of quantifying estimates of imminent risk and assigning appropriate remedial effort is by far the greatest cause of avoidable individual human death, and has been the cause of the downfall of innumerable societies and civilizations; so now that we have achieved a global society with global powers, it's only a matter of time until we drive it into the wall.
I do?
And yours is?
He's quoted your remarks. If he's misrepresenting them, be specific.
Meanwhile, you've repeatedly demonstrated over the course of months? years? here that, despite being corrected, you *still* don't know how GCMs are built, etc.
This is the same argument used by Intelligent Design proponents. Just because you can't figure out what causes something doesn't mean that CO2 or divine intervention is the cause.
This statement can only lead to one of two conclusions, both of which are false:
1. divine intervention has been measured in the laboratory.
2. IR absorption by CO2 has not been measured in the laboratory.
Which false conclusion are you supporting, Lance?
And this is just laughable:
Lee's response is correct, of course, and additionally climate science quite authoritatively argues that on earth, even absent negative feedbacks, the kind of "runaway" feedback situation you claim is "common" is actually impossible.
It's your spewing of nonsense about physics that led us to conclude that your claim to be a "physicist" was bogus, and indeed, led to your admission that you've earned a BS but dropped out of your grad program. You're not helping your cause by demonstrating that you are either 1) ignorant 2) dishonest or 3) both.
Confidence regarding the upper bound Lance?
The Global Warming Debate Flowchart, courtesy of yours truly. :-B
Lance writes:
The models do not adjust to anybody's estimate of forcings. Forcings are a result of the model runs, not an input.
Look, this is something you can check for yourself. The code to Hansen et al.'s GISS Model E is available for free on the internet. It doesn't work the way you say it does.
Lance has been told this multiple times, yet he continues to make the claim over and over.
So much for his "review of the literature" ... by which presumably he means Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, etc ...
bi -- IJI, you alluded to Motl's hateful remarks advocating eugenics. I thought I had caught him out once on this- out of two times ever visiting his maniacal blog- but perhaps just caught him reciting his opinion. Can you specify where this comes from? Thanks...
Majorajam:
I posted WebCite links way up this thread. Here Motl said
> I am normally against euthanasia but it simply seems to me that there is no other help for the people who are writing most of the [alarming] stuff above. It's literally pandemics. The society should urgently put these people into quarantine, hoping that it is not too late.
Sounds pretty much like eugenics to me. I mean, it is eugenics, literally.
TokyoTom wrote a reply, which Motl later deleted freedom'd. And now there's more...
(Response from the inactivists: the usual.)
Little Green Footballs...
While I do like LGF, I don't recall much being posted there on AGW. What say you bi, dhogaza, etc, is LGF "racist"? I think not.
(Majorajam: I wrote a reply, but it got stuck in moderation. Anyway I did put up some links to Motl's eugenics comments further up.)
And, yet another climate conspiracy theory, this time from a left-anarchist point of view. Go figure.
LGF "racist"?
Not just racist but full-metal-Nazi
Calling an entire ethnic group "vermin" is a twofer.
So, Cardinal George Pell is still a climate denialist, and is still telling us that we are not breeding fast enough.
There are many things that I could say, but for better or worse it wouldn't be Christian to do so...
BPL,
The models do not adjust to anybody's estimate of forcings. Forcings are a result of the model runs, not an input.
A "forcing" is anything that can be thought of as a being a primary driver such as solar radiation, vegetation, green house gases, stratospheric and tropospheric ozone, tropospheric aerosols, volcanic aerosols etc.
Are you claiming that GCMs do not input values for these quantities but determine them from output? I think you may be confused.
Calling an entire ethnic group "vermin" is a twofer.
You got a link to that? For the record, "Hamas" is not an ethnic group, if that's what you are talking about.
Lee,
Modtran is a computer model not a direct calculation of CO2 climate sensitivity.
It relies on iterative techniques based on assumptions. It is the nature of these assumptions that is the issue. Your appeal is circular, In essence you are saying that your theory is backed up by a model that assumes your theory as one of its presuppositions.
Lance,
Which particular direct calculation leads you to prefer a value of less than 1 degree?
You disagree with Roe and Baker, and presumably have firm evidence for an upper bound? Where do they go wrong?
Roe GH, Baker MB. Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable? Science. 2007 Oct 26;318(5850):629-632.
jody,
The study you cite is a study of other climate sensitivity studies that attempts to limit uncertainties by using statistical techniques on the distribution of the results of these studies.
I shouldn't have to point out that you can't apply statistical techniques to the results of different studies as if they were data points based on systematic measurements and hope to come to a higher level of certainty than is represented by the studies themselves..
Well, I guess you can but the results are meaningless except as a sort of survey of what those particular studies concluded.
Which particular direct calculation leads you to prefer a value of less than 1 degree?
There are various 1-d and 2-d methods that give estimates for a doubling of CO2 of about 1 degree Celsius. I really don't have a problem with guestimates of this magnitude.
The point I was making to Lee is that there is no straight forward 3-d quantum mechanically sound time dependent calculation out there (that I have seen) that can be pointed to. Even the estimates that arrive at around 1.0 C make assumptions that cannot be rigorously verified.
Most attempts I have seen start waiving Navier-Stokes equations, Kirchoff's Law and the virial theorem around while talking about "grey bodies", but when you wade through the mathematical smoke screen you find that they are making plenty of assumptions that are usually only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons.
But in a concession to what's out there let's say I agree with the 1 degree Celsius number. The question then is what "feedbacks" can we expect from this roughly agreed upon 1 degree warming?
To get to more than 1 degrees of positive feedback you have to use some unsupportable assumptions and climate models.
So now you are taking a number that has plenty of fudge room in it already and building a virtual world based on more conjecture. I think that these models are great for playing around with various parameters and trying to come up with better and better models to understand various physical aspects of climate, but they definitely should not be used to make "predictions" and in fact the IPCC is careful to label their output as "projections" for just that reason.
bi -- IJI, good stuff. Motl did more than that when I posted over at his blog, btw. I'm going to have to paraphrase now because he's freedomed my entire existence off that thread, including his indictable responses to my posts, (except in that one reference to me remains on what's left of that hackneyed thread in a response by one of his nutty disciples), but it went something like, 'Science should not get mixed up in politics. The only time it has historically is with the Nazis [a direct reference to, no sh*t, eugenics] and with Stalin [a direct reference to what I can't recall]. Of course the Nazi's application of science to politics was [and this part I'm definitely quoting] "more impressive" than was [whatever the heck Stalin Russia] was doing'. Of course, aside from the so-inane-as-to-be-beyond-caricature nature of his analytical framework, that was something of a stunner.
He went silent when I pointed out that he'd just cast eugenics as 'impressive' and his minions (brownshirts?) defending him by predicting I would run off to Daily Kos and celebrate my pawning of him. I can't remember how the thread evolved from there. He eventually reengaged the discussion but would never address that point even after my prodding. Little wonder it has since been disappeared.
Ah, what wonderful people these denialists routinely turn out to be. Either too trusting, or altogether untrustworthy. Then of course they occasionally turn out to be crazier than a sh*t house mouse.
so we're back to objection 313-a (codifying them for brevity: "the models merely reproduce what results they are designed around" (as distinct from 313-B: "the models can't even reproduce the past/current climate").
OK then: somebody must at some point have demonstrated a model which does NOT include AGW. can i see it please? I've asked nicely several times now. why would you guys be hiding this? it would certainly bolster your argument quite a bit.
OK then: somebody must at some point have demonstrated a model which does NOT include AGW. can i see it please? I've asked nicely several times now. why would you guys be hiding this? it would certainly bolster your argument quite a bit.
No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model. I'm assuming that these models have tunable parameters. How exactly are the parameters tuned? Do they use any sort of nonlinear (I assume the models are nonlinear) parameter estimation or state identification schemes to tune the parameters, or are the parameters simply guessed, fudged, what?
Majorajam:
> He went silent when I pointed out that he'd just cast eugenics as 'impressive' and his minions (brownshirts?) defending him by predicting I would run off to Daily Kos and celebrate my pawning of him. I can't remember how the thread evolved from there. He eventually reengaged the discussion but would never address that point even after my prodding. Little wonder it has since been disappeared.
Holy batman.
ben:
> > OK then: somebody must at some point have demonstrated a model which does NOT include AGW. can i see it please?
> No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model.
Woohoo, unfalsifiability time!
Let's just ignore ben and talk with Lance instead. At least Lance isn't so transparently dumb.
By the way, BPL said:
> The code to Hansen et al.'s GISS Model E is available for free on the internet.
Care to put up the address to the code? I remember seeing it before, but I can't remember where. Also, pointers to detailed usage instructions will be nice, because we'll really be needing those...
> I think that these models are great for playing around with various parameters and trying to come up with better and better models to understand various physical aspects of climate, but they definitely should not be used to make "predictions" and in fact the IPCC is careful to label their output as "projections" for just that reason.
What a load of garbage, Lance. The chief reason they're called "projections" is that they depend of assumptions about future human behaviour (scenarios -- A1, A1FI, etc.), and the chief aim of the IPCC reports is precisely to make recommendations for modifying future human behaviour.
And isn't it wonderful that inactivists also criticize the IPCC projections by saying 'you can't predict human behaviour, therefore GCMs are junk'? The stupid, it burns...
...transparently dumb.
And here I thought I was just a run of the mill idiot. Well bi is a commie stooge. So there.
Watching the prices of fuel and food commodities fly into the stratosphere, I can't help but wonder if it might be possible to invoke the Name of Neil (Craig) and have a bit more of a discussion about the present implications of the Simon/Ehrlich wager.
Is this perverse of me?
So the agreed minimum sensitivity figure is 1(CO2)+1(positive feedback)=2 degrees. Pretty much what the IPCC says.
Lance writes:
Yes you can. It's called "meta-analysis," and there's a whole subfield of statistics devoted to it.
Shorter Ben:
"I don't know how the models work but I know the reason none exist that are able to recreate current warming trends without CO2 forcing is due to the Worldwide Climate Science Conspiracy".
Uh, Ben, not everyone is driven by politics like you. Not everyone would be willing to lie about physics in order to maintain one's political philosophy about how the world should be organized.
It's fun watching Lance dig himself in deeper and deeper ... sounding all sciency-like without actually SAYING anything.
Apparently, along his way to his inevitable Nobel which he'll earn for overturning the false physics which underly the field of circular reasoning known as "climate science", Lance as casually tossed meta-analysis into the waste bin.
"In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. The first meta-analysis was performed by Karl Pearson in 1904, in an attempt to overcome the problem of reduced statistical power in studies with small sample sizes; analyzing the results from a group of studies can allow more accurate data analysis."
Lance, I don't have the home address, web site, or e-mail address of the leadership of the worldwide fraudulent organization operating under the name "statistical research", you'll have to uncover this yourself if you're going to make your skewering of this important branch of the field official ...
Did you say something about earning a BS in physics? Apparently, that's how you earned it ... with plenty of BS.
Since Lance claims to know physics better than those working on the CO2 sensitivity problem ...
I assume you mean "waving", not "waiving" - "waiving" is something a judge might be able to do to a law, but it seems unlikely that a physicist would do so to a Law ...
So, do us a favor. Drop the "most attempts". Choose one attempt.
List the "plenty of assumptions that are only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons".
And, for each, list why the assumption is wrong.
This is how you disprove ideas in science, not by endless assertions devoid of meaningful content.
Of course, it would be more meaningful if you'd correspond with one of the authors of the work you are going to prove wrong, since this is how you would make a meaningful contribution to the science.
Since you're so brilliant and all that, I assume this is your goal, right?
You'd like to set the science straight, right? You claim to have done the work. Now, show your work.
Uh, Ben, not everyone is driven by politics like you. Not everyone would be willing to lie about physics in order to maintain one's political philosophy about how the world should be organized.
I'm not driven by politics, you got me wrong there. I've never lied about physics. I don't know very much about climate modeling, it is far from my area of expertise, that's why I don't go on and on about it here, as I'd likely be wrong in whatever I wrote. I do know something about modeling in general, and I was asking a simple question about where the model parameters come from and how they are tuned.
And to be fair to Lance, well, let me start from the beginning. It seems that "meta-analysis" is a perfectly fair way to use the results of several scientific studies together. Fine. But what Lance is complaining about, which I think is a fair complaint, is that this is a meta-analysis of a bunch of purely synthetic studies. So you don't necessarily learn a lot about the system being modeled, but mostly just about the models. If all the models are biased in a similar direction, then you get a mean result from you r meta analysis that is also biased, no? That's not very reassuring, least not in my opinion.
dhogaza,
I assume you mean "waving", not "waiving" - "waiving" is something a judge might be able to do to a law, but it seems unlikely that a physicist would do so to a Law ...
Obviously it was a typo, but I think you knew that already and you decided to pick a nit, which is rather surprising given your generous and forgiving nature.
List the "plenty of assumptions that are only justified by the need to take a short cut somewhere and not for empirically supported reasons".
Here is a list of assumptions given in a recent paper on radiative balance calculation, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service
Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40
Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary
atmospheres
Ferenc M. Miskolczi.
Our model assumptions are quite simple and general:
(a) -- The available SW flux is totally absorbed in the system. In the process
of thermalization F0 is instantly converted to isotropic upward and downward
LW radiation. The absorption of the SW photons and emission of the LW
radiation are based on independent microphysical processes.
(b) -- The temperature or source function profile is the result of the
equilibrium between the IR radiation field and all other sinks and sources of
thermal energy, (latent heat transfer, convection, conduction, advection,
turbulent mixing, short wave absorption, etc.). Note, that the K term is not
restricted to strict vertical heat transfer. Due to the permanent motion of the
atmosphere K represents a statistical or climatic average.
(c) -- The atmosphere is in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE). In case of
the Earth this is true up to about 60 km altitude.
(d) -- The surface heat capacity is equal to zero, the surface emissivity ï¥ï G is
equal to one, and the surface radiates as a perfect blackbody.
(e) -- The atmospheric IR absorption and emission are due to the molecular
absorption of IR active gases. On the Earth these gases are minor atmospheric
constituents. On the Mars and Venus they are the major components of the
atmosphere.
(f) -- In case of the Earth it is also assumed that the global average thermal
flux from the planetary interior to the surface-atmosphere system is negligible,
P0 ï½ï 0 . The estimated geothermal flux at the surface is less than 0.03 per cent
of F0 (Peixoto and Oort, 1992). However, in our definition P0 is not
4
restricted to the geothermal flux. It may contain the thermal energy released
into the atmosphere by volcanism, tidal friction, or by other natural and nonnatural
sources.
(g) -- The atmosphere is a gravitationally bounded system and constrained by
the virial theorem: the total kinetic energy of the system must be half of the
total gravitational potential energy. The surface air temperature tA is linked
to the total gravitational potential energy through the surface pressure and air
density. The temperature, pressure, and air density obey the gas law,
therefore, in terms of radiative flux 4
SAï½ï³tA represents also the total
gravitational potential energy.
(h) -- In the definition of the greenhouse temperature change keeping tA and
tG different could pose some difficulties. Since the air is in permanent physical
contact with the surface, it is reasonable to assume that, in the average sense,
the surface and close-to-surface air are in thermal equilibrium: tSï½tAï½tG,
where tS is the equilibrium temperature. The corresponding equilibrium
blackbody radiatiation is 4
SUï½ï³tS. For now, in Fig. 1 SG is assumed to be
equal to SU .
I like the intro that says "Our assumptions are quite simple and general."
General yes, simple I dunno?
The point is that I could argue that many of them make simplifications that are based on trying to reduce the complexity when in fact it is a very complex issue and reductions in complexity have serious effects on the validity of the method and its results.
So why do the assumptions mean the estimates are larger than you think and not smaller? It's that upper bound thing again.
So why do the assumptions mean the estimates are larger than you think and not smaller? It's that upper bound thing again.
I wonder the same thing. But among those assumptions, there are assumptions of values for certain model parameters. Where did those come from? Were they "tuned"? If so, was the tuning done to get a favorable (i.e warming) result?
Obviously Lance is an idiot. There, I got on that bandwagon. Nice to be on the fun side for a change.
Lance:
OK. Now why do they lack empirical support? Anything more than you know very very little about the subject?
BTW is "Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres Ferenc M. Miskolczi in uarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40" the most relevant paper you could come up with?
Lance, are you aware that Miskolczi is on your side? He is making (absurd) assumptions, assumptions which climate scientists have pointed out are wrong, in an attempt to show that total forcing in the atmosphere is constrained to remain in a very narrow range even when various greenhouse gasses may vary in concentration. This implies that glaciatins are impossible, BTW. His invocation of the virial theorem is, well.. unique. And has been shown to be absurd and clearly wrong - if it were true, average wind velocity over the entire atmosphere would have to be at least several hunded kph.
Invoking Miskolczi as an example of what climate scientists do is yet another example where you show that you have utterly no knowledge of the fields you are claiming are completely wrong.
"No grant money nor media coverage (except Drudge) in putting out such a model. "
see, there's the only real example we have seen of creating a model which only reflects back to you what your initial assumptions were. Is this lack of funding and press for AGw opponents restricted entirely to modeling? Because they don't seem to be lacking funding and press in any other aspect of their "research".
I reiterate; if it were possible to produce a model even vaguely resembling the climate without AGW we'd have seen it by now.
Ben said:
I find myself surprised to say this, but I think that Ben's observation is fair. I think that Lance, rightly or wrongly, does perceive the modelling as being a collection of arbitrarily synthesised results, and although my first reaction on reading Lance's post was 'meta-analysis!', I paused straight after for pretty much the reason Ben described.
Although I disagree with Lance's interpretation of the models, and of empirical data, there is an internal consistency in Lance's stance, and from his point of view a meta-analysis probably would be precluded - although still possible. I would be surprised if Lance was actually going so far as to demonstrate ignorance of meta-analyses: he's not in the league inhabited by HPJr, kent and the rest, and I think that it's important to make this distinction, because the different parties require different modes of engagement.
Of course, having given Ben a thumbs-up, I'll need to balance things...
Ben, I seem to remember you having a lot to say several months back about the power of the US economy, and its social models. I'm curious to know if you still hold the same confidence in the supremacy of the US politico-economic model, especially when it's (figurehead) leader says that it is 'basically sound'.
I can't help but think of the metaphor of the guy who jumps out of the plane without a parachute, for reasons of economy, and at 1000 foot point in his dive says, "see, things have been fine apart from a few clouds..."
Monckton writes something amazing again. In the "Conclusion" section:
> Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Even if [...] Finally, even if [...]
Reality's surpassed satire.
So someone asks Lance for assumptions in a paper, and he quotes -- Miskolczi's crackpot paper about how global warming will be trivial because water vapor has negative feedback. Why am I not surprised.
I'm smiling :)
What's next? Lubos?
Well, I dunno, this seems fairly absolute to me:
Chris O'Neill,
"BTW is "Greenhouse effect in semi-transparent planetary atmospheres Ferenc M. Miskolczi in Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service Vol. 111, No. 1, January-March 2007, pp. 1-40" the most relevant paper you could come up with?"
It was just the most recent one I had reviewed, but most, if not all of these studies, make similar assumptions and take similar short cuts.
To be fair the radiative balance of the earth's climate system is a hideously complex issue and any analysis is bound to make simplifying assumptions, but when those assumptions count in the tens to twenties you have to wonder what you are really analyzing.
In the case of the paper you cited, junk science.
Good, Lance, good Lance! Woof woof!
Now, why don't you choose a piece which isn't part of the discredited junk science denialsphere, and this time, do as I asked.
1. List the assumptions
2. List why the assumptions are wrong.
Even if you'd chosen a less unfortunate example, in other words one from climate science rather than the bullshit denialsphere, you only attempt to answer #1 above.
Assumptions are made all the time, and they don't necessarily hurt. Aerodynamic models are full of simplifications, yet airplanes fly.
Lance:
> It was just the most recent one I had reviewed, but most, if not all of these studies, make similar assumptions and take similar short cuts.
Reminds me of the following joke:
> A stage mother cornered the concert violinist in his dressing room and insisted he listen to a tape of her talented son playing the violin. The man agreed to listen, and the woman switched on the tape player.
> What music, the violinist thought, a difficult piece, but played with such genius that it brought tears to his eyes. He listened spellbound to the entire recording.
> "Madam," he whispered, "is that your son?"
> "No," she replied. "That's Jascha Heifetz. But my son sounds just like him."
Is that Hansen? No, that's Miskolczi, but Hansen sounds just like him.
Duh.
Lance:
Are you capable of responding to more than just the BTW comment? No evidence so far.
To be fair the radiative balance of the earth's climate system is a hideously complex issue...
The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time.
The complexity is in the internal fluid and thermal dynamics of the climate system. How does an increase in energy affect a dynamic system? By lowering its temperature? Sure.
Ben, I seem to remember you having a lot to say several months back about the power of the US economy, and its social models. I'm curious to know if you still hold the same confidence in the supremacy of the US politico-economic model, especially when it's (figurehead) leader says that it is 'basically sound'.
First, thanks for not calling me an idiot. Second, the USA is in a woeful predicament right now, and it's mostly due to idiots in government. Bush is bad on the economy. Obama is worse (although my dislike for him is being tempered by Jesse Jackson's idiotic wrath). The congress is hopelessly inept and corrupt. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are disasters coming to a head. The list goes on. It's a depressing moment to be an American, truth be told.
Assumptions are made all the time, and they don't necessarily hurt. Aerodynamic models are full of simplifications, yet airplanes fly.
Aha! Now something where I do know what I'm talking about. Yes, they do use assumptions and airplanes do fly, but airplanes are still typically subjected to physical experiments, typically in wind tunnels, to make up for deficiencies in the numerical models or to help with verification of the numerical results.
This is true because the numerical results by themselves cannot be trusted. The numerical models typically get the lift right, but the drag is often significantly underestimated. And while the lift calculations might be correct for high speed high lift-to-drag ratio flight, they are less accurate at lower speeds where high lift and high drag are present (i.e. takeoff and landing scenarios). This is true because these situations result in highly turbulent flows which are very difficult to model. The numerical models and the techniques used to solve them are getting better all the time, but they are not perfect, and they only form part of the test regimen for aerodynamic analysis of airplanes.
For example, every single commercial jetliner ever made by Boeing has been tested in our own Guggenheim wind tunnel at the University of Washington (it's an awesome tunnel, btw). They are typically now only tested there for low-speed flight since the tunnel can only achieve around 200 mph speeds, and that's barely enough, even with substantially sized models, to achieve aerodynamic similarity between the model and the actual aircraft being tested.
But there it is. If the models stick to the straight physics, as well as they are known and can be modeled, they underestimate drag. The models can be fudged to get the correct drag numbers, but that's only because we can verify against empirical results from, e.g. wind tunnel tests. For the climate, I dunno.
dhogaza,
I am aware that this paper attempts to show that greenhouse gas forcings are overestimated in other models. You would think that my criticism of a model that is skeptical of the consensus would be seen as evidence of my impartiality.
The fact is that although the author reaches a different conclusion than other 1-d radiative balance modelers he uses many of the same type of assumptions.
No doubt if I now go out and find the assumptions of a "consensus" paper I will be criticized on the basis that I have chosen just one.
Lee,
"The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time."
Not to be nasty about it but this shows how little you understand the problem. Your second statement "Energy in equals energy out over time." is just flat wrong. The energy in is always more than the energy out. The second law of thermodynamics will tell you that, energy is dissipated by physical processes that convert radiative energy into kinetic and potential energy.
The radiative energy in is definitely NOT equal to the radiative energy out over any time period you like.
Kinetic energy is entropic. It converts to thermal energy over time. Potential energy that is sequestered (like fossil carbon) may be considered energy out of the system (though not necessarily forever, obviously).
Conservation rules. I said 'energy'. I didn't specify 'radiative energy' because I meant all forms of energy.
An increased input of radiative energy is going to increase the net energy of all those energetic systems.
Einstein often encouraged his students to make things as simple as possible, but take care not to make things too simple. Lance is inverting this advice by making things more complicated than necessary.
Darn, dhogaza has me wondering now...
Lance, surely you weren't ignoring (or ignorant of) the existence of meta-analysis? Please tell me it aint so!
Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on the paragraph of yours that ben quoted? I ask this without malice - I'm just trying to figure out exactly where you're coming from.
Just been reading the first part of Monckton's latest (see bi-IJI above). Counted about four mistakes in the first paragraph. Hope it gets better....
BPL,
Meta-analysis can be a valuable tool in accessing the results of studies based on empirical measurements. It is useless when applied to studies based on theoretical constructs.
Statistical analysis will not separate good assumptions from bad. Nor will it eliminate systematic errors or correct for biases shared within the population of studies.
Bernard J,
Thanks for the supportive words. I appreciate your reasonable tone and the fact that you give people the benefit of the doubt.
Ultimately this should be a scientific debate and belittling remarks and snide rejoinders do little to promote reasonable discourse. (Although they are fun sometimes, and I indulge from time to time while trying to maintain civility.)
There have been times when I have had to admit that I was wrong or had made inaccurate statements. I welcome those who would correct me when I am wrong because that is how personal understanding of a topic is advanced and indeed the mechanism that drives scientific progress.
That you are open to questioning your assumptions is laudable and tells me that you are probably a very fine scientist.
First law: Energy in = energy out
Second law: You can convert work to heat with unit efficiency, see first law. The other way, no.
Oh yeah, the problem with Miskolczi is his assumptions. GIGO.
"The models can be fudged to get the correct drag numbers, but that's only because we can verify against empirical results from, e.g. wind tunnel tests. For the climate, I dunno."
For the climate, theoretical results are compared to real world observations. Just like in any other research field.
So now you know.
Although empirical data may be included in a model to approximate effects that can't be accurately modeled ab initio, they aren't a posteriori fudged to fit the empirical data, but the discrepancies are noted as a challenge to improve the science.
LB,
Here is what you said "The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time."
Your backpedaling not withstanding, it is clear that you were saying that the "radiative balance" was "simple" because "energy in equals energy out" and thus the balance was a trivial matter.
Putting it gently, this was a highly inaccurate statement. The various energy transfers that occur on many spatial and temporal scales are hardly "simple".
That is why the many techniques used to estimate CO2 climate sensitivity arrive at different values using different assumptions and simplifications.
Note that Lance hasn't budged from his argument from personal authority.
"oh, real papers make the same mistaken assumptions as the garbage paper".
If we take Lance at his word, we might presume that mainstream climate science is also greatly underestimating climate sensitivity to increasing CO2 ...
C'mon, Lance, I gave you two tasks to back up your claim to know more than real live working climate scientists.
I need to add a third, as a result of your own goal resulting from referencing a junk science paper:
#3. Show that the simplifying assumptions cause the calculated climate sensitivity to increasing CO2 to be too high, rather than too low.
Because that's the crux of your claim. That the errors flow in one direction, one favorable to your claim that climate science is a crock.
Lance,
I am not luminous beauty.
And while I cant speak directly for her(?), since I am not her, I have good reason to very strongly suspect that luminous beauty is not me.
Lance,
Do you believe that the Earth's outgoing radiative energy exceeds the energy of incoming radiation over time? Good luck with that theory.
You are right. Temperature sensitivity is roughly inversely proportional to weather sensitivity. Lower surface temperature increases mean more climate disruption.
Lee,
My remarks to LB (luminous beauty) were labeled correctly. I'm not sure what you are referring to.
Also, why do you refer to luminous beauty as being female? I'm not certain of LB's gender but have assumed from previous remarks that LB is male.
LB,
"Do you believe that the Earth's outgoing radiative energy exceeds the energy of incoming radiation over time? Good luck with that theory."
I never said or implied anything of the sort. I said the net radiative transfer was negative. The question is how much of the radiation energy that is absorbed is converted to thermal energy and what role is played by the concentration of atmospheric CO2.
You are trying to put up a smoke screen to cover your "energy in equals energy out" statement. Even if you change your statement to include all forms of energy it is still a dubious statement to say that the calculation of the "radiative balance of the earth" which is dependent on all the possible forms and levels of energy and their transfer rates and times would be "a relatively simple issue" to calculate.
If it is so simple surely you could write it up and be the toast of the climate science community.
Lance,
#202
"Lee,
"The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time.""
--
I don't know re lb - which is why I put the question mark there. Unfortunately, English is a very difficult language in which to be gender-neutral when referring to a specific person.
--
Also, are you disputing that energy in equals energy out over time? Or that energy in is received as radiated energy, or that energy out is emitted as radiated energy?
Lance, you have forgotten the point of this discussion.
I pointed out (and you disputed) that it is generally accepted that the sensitivity to a doubling of CO2, IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY OTHER EFFECTS, is about 1.1C. IOW, if the system remains unchanged, if it keeps working exactly the way it is except that there is twice as much CO2 in the path, the planet will warm 1.1C. You claimed that arriving at this number required complex methods and calculations, and was dependent on multiple simplifying assumptions that are questionable.
The scenario itself is a radical simplifying assumption. But there are only two issues in play. 1. What does the increase in back-scattered radiative energy from the increased CO2 do to the energy retention time in the system and therefore the total energy retained in the system. This is a 'simple' 2D radiative transfer calculation of a new state given a simple addition of a greenhouse gas to the current observed state. 2. How much warming is necessary to come into radiative balance with the increased energy in the atmosphere. This is a 'simple' gray body calculation.
It becomes this (relatively) simple, because the scenario of no feedback or other responses EXCEPT for the direct CO2 change is already a huge simplifying assumption. One does not worry about any other changes in the properties of the atmosphere out side the direct effects of CO2 and heat transfer - those other effects are feedbacks, and we are explicitly excluding all feedbacks from this calculation.
"If it is so simple surely you could write it up and be the toast of the climate science community."
Long since written up. Energy is conserved, as any physicist would know.
Lee,
My apologies to both you and LB, it is difficult to juggle so many conversations at once, especially when many participants are adversarial and insulting in their remarks.
"Also, are you disputing that energy in equals energy out over time? Or that energy in is received as radiated energy, or that energy out is emitted as radiated energy?"
I think I made my point clearly that the radiative energy in is NOT equal to the radiative energy out, which is what was implied by LB's remarks "The radiative balance of the Earth is a relatively simple issue. Energy in equals energy out over time."
This remark speaks for itself, if LB wants to say he meant "total energy" then the "simple" part of his latter statement is certainly strained and the former reduced to a trivial re-statement of the law of conservation of energy (which of course as anyone that has studied relativity knows, isn't true in the strictest sense anyway).
You go on to say,
"But there are only two issues in play. 1. What does the increase in back-scattered radiative energy from the increased CO2 do to the energy retention time in the system and therefore the total energy retained in the system. This is a 'simple' 2D radiative transfer calculation of a new state given a simple addition of a greenhouse gas to the current observed state. 2. How much warming is necessary to come into radiative balance with the increased energy in the atmosphere. This is a 'simple' gray body calculation."
Well at least you put simple in quotes. There is nothing "simple" about the calculation of the photonic emissions of a complex mixture of gases in three dimensional motion due to convection and various other forces above an entire planet. Especially when given the motions of the earth, the interaction with various parts of the atmosphere and the interactions with the oceans and land surfaces of the earth.
Also the fact that you slip in the words 2-d shows that a very drastic simplification of the problem has occurred with the many attendant consequences of the assumption that the 3-d issues can be essentially ignored.
"2. How much warming is necessary to come into radiative balance with the increased energy in the atmosphere. This is a 'simple' gray body calculation."
Here you make two more sweeping assertions that cannot blithely be assumed to be true.
First, the words "radiative balance" imply some equilibrium condition of the entire earth's atmosphere. Who says there has to be such an equilibrium condition? What part of the earth's atmospheric system does it apply to? All places simultaneously, in both hemispheres and at the poles?
Second, that you can assume that the earth is a "gray body" with constant emissivity over all wavelengths and temperatures. Do I have to list the problems with that assumption?
These "back of the envelope" calculations make such sweeping and unsupportable assumptions and simplifications that they should never be considered accurate methods for calculating the earth's climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2 or any other atmospheric constituent.
This is especially true if you are going to use this value as the basis for further calculations and models, that make their own assumptions and simplifications, to determine the further effects of proposed feedbacks.
Speaking of further calculations and models and the assumptions they make hers is a biggie that is cited in many other climate sensitivity studies.
It is from Climate Processes and Climate Sensitivity
Geophysical Monograph 29, Maurice Ewing Volume 5
Copyright 1984 by the American Geophysical Union.
CLIMATE SENSITIVITY: ANALYSIS OF FEEDBACK MECHANISMS
J. Hansen, A. Cacis, D. Rind. G. Russell
"We assume that the individual feedback contributions
to the overall climate sensitivity are linear and independent."
This is troubling since the main "feedback" they mention is water vapor. It doesn't take much thought to realize that relative humidity, cloud formation and precipitation (in both solid and liquid form) are interdependent and certainly non-linear. This assumption is clearly wrong and is the largest "positive feedback" relied upon to generate a climate sensitivity of 2.5-5OC for doubled C02 concluded by Hansen et al.
How does your suggested non-linearity and interdependence support an precise upper bound of less than 1 degree?
"the law of conservation of energy (which of course as anyone that has studied relativity knows, isn't true in the strictest sense anyway)"
Once again Lance proves that he hasn't a clue:
jodyaberdein,
"How does your suggested non-linearity and interdependence support an precise upper bound of less than 1 degree?"
You are nothing if not persistent. My upper bound is based on the fact that most of these "no feedback" calculations are around 1 degree Celsius and that most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative.
Before some wise-ass makes note of my previous dismissal of these no feedback calculations I point out that I acknowledge the fact that CO2 is a "greenhouse" gas and that increases in CO2 concentration will have some effect. I feel that these calculations overestimate the effect but I choose not to quibble over 1 Degree Celsius.
However, I note that I am not the one making the extraordinary claims here; therefore the onus is on the people making the claim that we face "unprecedented" and "dangerous" warming from a doubling of atmospheric CO2.
I'm not the one pleading with the world to change its ways or face allegedly dire consequences based on my predictions. If you tell me that a supernova explosion across the galaxy is responsible for the observed 0.7 degree rise in global surface temperatures over the last century I needn't put forth my own explanation to refute your theory.
LB,
Really, just admit you made a boo boo and move one. My aside was to the fact that the classical view of "energy" as being inviolate in its conservation was incorrect and, as your Wikipedia quote points out, had to be modified to include rest mass as a form of "energy".
Did you think I was referring to some "other" relativity?
The truth is you are more concerned with discrediting me as a person than engaging in a thoughtful discussion.
I'm sure you're familiar with the so called logistic map, Xn+1 = RXn(1-Xn). A 'simple' system with both a negative and a positive feedback terms. Can go to stable state, oscillation or chaotic depending on the starting conditions. Doesn't this make you feel even slightly unsure that your 'upper bound is based on the fact that most of these "no feedback" calculations are around 1 degree Celsius and that most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative'?
I'm not of course implying here that such simple analysis goes any way to support or refute the actual climate models, merely that to me your feedback argument seems hopeful.
Each of the four components (one of energy and three of momentum) of this vector is separately conserved in any given inertial reference frame. Also conserved is the vector length (Minkowski norm), which is the rest mass.
Separately conserved, not contingent on tensor length, i.e. rest mass.
I'm just pointing out how you discredit yourself.
Lance is an idiot (Please someone with more experience in name calling tell me if I'm doing it right). No real offense, Lance, I'm just trying to get some practice, and you've become the punching bag for this thread.
In #206, Lance claimed:
Almost all empirical studies are based on theoretical constructs and while there are plenty of reasons why a meta-analysis can be flawed, that isn't especially one of them.
Furthermore, statistical inference is designed to separate good assumptions from bad.
Lance writes, unbelievably:
Lance, you have claimed over and over again to have studied physics! And you argue against the first law of thermodynamics? I can't even begin to list how many ways the above post by you is wrong.
If the energy in was always more than the energy out, the Earth would be steadily heating up over time -- and always would have. There wouldn't have been any ice ages. And Earth would probably be incandescent by now.
With negligible exceptions (meteorite infall, space launches, etc.) Earth receives energy by radiation and loses it by radiation. If you think Earth can receive more energy than it emits, and maintain the same temperature, you are denying the first law of thermodynamics.
The hell with the second law. Energy is conserved. No physicist or physics student on Earth doesn't know that much.
Lance, persisting in his unbelievably ignorant error, posts:
We know what your point was. Your point is wrong, and coming from an alleged student of physics is pig ignorant. The radiative equilibrium temperature of the Earth is calculated by assuming conservation of energy:
(S / 4) (1 - A) = Ï Te4
where the left hand side is energy in and the right-hand side is energy out. S is the Solar constant (the average for the last 50 years has been about 1366 watts per square meter), A is the Earth's bolometric Bond albedo (0.306 according to NASA), Ï is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant (5.6704 x 10-8 W m-2 K-4), and Te is the equilibrium temperature, also called emission temperature or effective temperature. Te comes out at about 254 K for Earth; the difference between that and the Earth's 287 K mean global annual surface temperature is caused by the greenhouse effect.
If there is a noticeable imbalance the Earth system must heat up or cool down continuously. There is no way for it to maintain the same temperature unless energy in equals energy out. Your viewpoint on this issue violates conservation of energy.
Barton, I think it is pretty clear that Lance was writing about the radiative energy, not the total energy.
It seems that Lance thinks that for the Earth, sitting in the midst of a big, big chunk of vaccuum, that total energy in is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy in, and that total energy out is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy out.
"...given the motions of the earth, the interaction with various parts of the atmosphere and the interactions with the oceans and land surfaces of the earth.
Also the fact that you slip in the words 2-d shows that a very drastic simplification of the problem has occurred with the many attendant consequences of the assumption that the 3-d issues can be essentially ignored."
Of course a simplification has occurred. It occurred with the definition of the problem, as I said above. We assume that NOTHING ELSE CHANGES. This means that we can ignore the "3-d issues", because there is NO CHANGE in the "3-d issues" for this calculation.
"the words "radiative balance" imply some equilibrium condition of the entire earth's atmosphere."
No - it implies that total radiative input is equal to total radiative emission at effective top of atmosphere.
"that you can assume that the earth is a "gray body" with constant emissivity over all wavelengths and temperatures."
No, it uses effective emmissivity, as a departure for an ideal gray body - as is done in many, many areas of science and engineering, all the time.
"my previous dismissal of these no feedback calculations I point out that I acknowledge the fact that CO2 is a "greenhouse" gas and that increases in CO2 concentration will have some effect. I feel that these calculations overestimate the effect but I choose not to quibble over 1 Degree Celsius."
Oh, good fricking god, Lance. Most of the previous 40-50 posts are so are a result of your quibbling over that calculation. You have been arguing loudly, stridently, vociferously that the calsulations are flawed, perhaps impossible, subject to assumptions that make them unreliable, worthless - and now you hold this precise calculation up as the central basis for your belief that climate sensitivity is small? Can you possible be for real?
"most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative."
At least this is an improvement over the oft heard idiocy: 'if feedback were positive, then climate would have run away long ago.' But it isnt much of an improvement - it is still devoid of relevant content. It does not matter, it is utterly irrelevant to this question, what "most feed backs" are, Lance. It matters what feed backs are in this specific case. Your dismissal from incredulity isn't convincing.
"Barton, I think it is pretty clear that Lance was writing about the radiative energy, not the total energy. "
leftover energy make big boom. byeye everybody.
The only way in and out is radiation. Lance was talking through his hat
Barton,
Where do you suppose coal came from? How about the energy in all the bio mass on the earth? At any given time do you suppose that the total kinetic energy of every moving particle is conserved? How about the potential energy of every particle on earth? How about the chemical potential of every system and molecule on earth? Where do you think the energy it takes to break mountains into boulders and then boulders into stones and then stones into pebbles and on down to sand comes from?
Where does the energy that drives weather come from? Where do you think the energy that melts all that ice in the Arctic and Antarctic you are so worried about comes from?
Are you getting the idea yet or are you "pig ignorant"?
There is absolutely no reason that the radiative energy received by the earth over any time scale need to be in "balance" with incoming radiant energy at any particular value at any particular moment.
Your point that the earth must be in "radiative balance" to avoid be cooked like a cinder is wrong. The earth will radiate into space whatever energy is left over after the many non-radiative energy processes, both exothermic and endothermic, which occur at varying rates, are accounted for not to mention the heat generated from it's own internal energy processes and then minus whatever energy is stored in various potentials.
Nothing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING says that the outgoing radiant energy at any given moment must be "balanced" with incoming radiant energy and in fact it is not.
Lee,
"It seems that Lance thinks that for the Earth, sitting in the midst of a big, big chunk of vaccuum (sic), that total energy in is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy in..."
Uh, no I never said that but in fact it is true. In addition to incoming radiant energy the earth radiates its own internal energy into space. Did you think that volcanism was caused by incoming radiation?
"...and that total energy out is somehow effectively different in quantity from radiative energy out." Uh, no I didn't say that. I said that the incoming radiant energy need not and in fact is not in "balance" with out going radiant energy at any given time. See above.
You boys seem to have a bad case of "model-itis". You seem to believe that the earth is a uniform, 2-D, gray body disk in thermal equilibrium with a fixed source of broad spectrum electromagnetic radiation.
It isn't.
Eli Rabett,
"The only way in and out is radiation. Lance was talking through his hat."
Did you forget the internal energy of the earth or did it get stuck in your, er, hat when you made this post? Did the internal energy of the earth get there by radiation?
Also the question wasn't from whence the energy came, but whether the outgoing energy need be in "balance" with the outgoing energy at any given time.
Lance, don't you think we all remember what we read earlier today or that we cant read back to remind ourselves, or don't you know yourself what the point is that was being made - the YOU were making - just a short time ago?
And I'm being rude because this is so damn irritating. You respond to an argument, get shot down, and then CHANGE the argument someone else made, claim they said something different from what they actually said, so that your response might have made sense if that were the actual point that was made. You do this a lot.
Lance: "I said that the incoming radiant energy need not and in fact is not in "balance" with out going radiant energy at any given time."
Well, duh!! No one is arguiug this. It was argued that incoming and outgoing radiation must be in balance OVER TIME, and that if it is not, the temperature must change.
Not in balance 'at any given time' as you have just falsely said the point was that was being made.
You said, at 202: "Your second statement "Energy in equals energy out over time." is just flat wrong. The energy in is always more than the energy out."
Lance, you said - "The energy in is always more than the energy out."
No, Lance, it is not.
Even earlier, you said: "The radiative energy in is definitely NOT equal to the radiative energy out over any time period you like." YOU were arguing "over any time period you like." You KNOW what you were arguing, Lance, and it was not 'at any given time' as you now pretend, it was "over any time period you like."
If you cant be honest, at least try not to be this stupid about it.
Our Sweet Lord Monckton is back, this time writing for the American Physical Society!
http://www.aps.org/units/fps/newsletters/200807/
Topic #1 - no warming since 1998! Hey, you gotta pick those cherries while they're ripe.
The only way in and out is radiation. Lance was talking through his hat
Eli, this is plain old dumb. Sure it's the only practical way in and out (the few meteors 'n stuff don't count for much), but not all that goes in comes back out again. So this is dumb.
Ok now dear readers, recall post number 1.
'Okay, I got one: what drives the idiocy we see in the post below?'
'The thing will always get up, and you're just going to tire yourself out'
I think at least we have demonstrated point number two irrefutably. I am a little saddened that I am now leaning toward bull-headedness for the answer to number one.
It has been an interesting case study has it not?
Gee, Lance, do you think there's ANY chance that there's been ANY work done in the field in the intervening 24 years?
First you cite a piece of denialist crap to support your claim that mainstream climate scientists oversimplify when attempting to compute climate sensitivity to CO2 concentrations.
When that's pointed out to you, you cite a 24 year old source. Lance, it's NOT NEWS that early attempts to calculate sensitivity gave a wide range of numbers with wide error bars. The narrowing those error bars and narrowing the range of estimates from various workers in the field is a known attribute of the history of climate science over the last three decades. This hasn't been done by repeating the same calculations done 24 years ago over and over and over again ...
Then you come up with this "most feedbacks in nature and engineering are negative", which, even if true, is irrelevant. The runaway climate on Venus would suggest that one or a small set of positive feedbacks can lead to interesting climate change. Regardless of whether or not such positive feedbacks are a minority in nature. As was mentioned above, we're only interested in the set of feedbacks that apply to climate. The important ones can be iterated.
Oh, and since you are so hung up on empiricism, how about a little empirical evidence that increased water vapor is a negative feedback, eh? This would seem to be a crucial departure from mainstream climate science, so something more substantial than "have you ever, ever really LOOKED at a cloud, man?" would be nice. You'll never undercut the mainstream estimate of sensitivity by 2C without undercutting the claim that increasing water vapor leads to higher temps which makes it a positive feedback.
And if you succeed in that, then you'll be undercutting all those denialist claims that modern warming can't be due to increased CO2 concentrations because water vapor is the main GHG :) Fun stuff!
Those of you proclaiming that Lance is an idiot are wrong, IMO. I think he's just friggin' dishonest. Either he's right about having been accepted into a physics PhD program and therefore should no better than to make many of the simple errors he makes (i.e. dishonest), or he's lying about his academic background (equally dishonest).
pough: Heh, I was talking about Monckton's piece above. :)
In vastly unrelated news: some retrocomputing archaeology -- the one true binary of the Apple I Basic interpreter.
(Via BoingBoing.)
ben writes:
Ben, for the Earth system, the radiative energy IS the total energy! There are only three possible methods of heat transfer -- conduction, convection, and radiation. The Earth's atmosphere is surrounded by vacuum -- how can it transfer energy to vacuum by conduction or convection? At a distance away from the Earth, radiation is all there is. The radiation in must equal the radiation out.
Lance, digging himself in deeper, writes:
What happens to the energy once it's in the Earth system is completely irrelevant. It must eventually be lost as radiation since the Earth is only gaining energy by radiation, to a first approximation.
Let's take a Lance-like model of the process. Earth gets an amount of heat per day Hi as input. It loses Ho as output.
Let's say 80% of Hi goes into generating winds and so on. So Lance concludes that Ho need only equal 0.2 Hi.
But now the non-radiative processes are gaining heat at 0.8 Hi per day. Since the energy is not being lost, energy being conserved, those processes must be increasingly whipped up by the steady input of heat energy. If 0.8 Hi is going to winds, the winds must be getting continuously faster and faster. That air around our heads when we go out every day must be supersonic by now. In fact, it should be a superheated plasma.
You CANNOT continuously pour net energy into a system and have the system not continuously change. If Earth receives Hi every day from solar radiation, and it can only lose energy by radiation, then Hi must equal Ho. Radiative balance is the general condition of all planets. Denying it is denying conservation of energy. Period.
Actually, I think maybe Lance is confused by a point that really is confusing for people who aren't very familiar with feedback processes, including me for a long time. This is that (correct me if I'm wrong) the amount of heat required to heat the Earth (i.e. the atmosphere and part of the oceans and a tiny little bit of the ground) by the few degrees projected for GW, is tiny compared to the amount that goes in and out of the Earth every day.
So a simplistic understanding of the Greenhouse Effect is that CO2 traps heat from the Sun, and that warms the Earth. Although it's true as far as it goes, all that heat of course escapes back to space, but for it to do so as fast as new sunlight is coming in, the Earth has to be a little bit hotter. If we were truly trapping some heat every day (as I think it's easy to imagine from explanations of GW) the Earth would frazzle to plasma in a very short time.
Understanding of this point is also made harder by the fact that there are also some slow processes occurring (I think to do with heating the deep oceans and positive feedbacks at the poles) that lead to statements like "even if we stabilise CO2 levels today, the warming already in the system will cause the temperature to go on rising for some decades to come" giving the impression that the CO2 blanket adds new heat to the Earth daily.
well, we could listen to someone else on this topic:
If we measure the total amount of energy Earth receives from the Sun and then subtract the total amount of energy Earth reflects and emits back to space, we arrive at a number called an energy budget. Over time, Earth's climate system tends toward an energy balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing thermal energy (heat) [see Figure 1]. If more solar energy comes in, then Earth warms and will emit more heat to space to restore the balance.
http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/Radiation_Explanation.html
(check the fact sheet...)
but hey, what does NASA know, when we got an expert like Lance among us..
we might look at the numbers involved as well:
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105/images/gaia_chapter_4/energybudget.jpg
just because Lance mentioned oil, you might want to take a second look at that photosynthesis number....
Some of you people need a basic course in thermodynamics.
The only way the earth could emit as much energy over time as it takes in (be in balance) is if it were a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings. Do any of you wish to claim that the earth is a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings?
Some of the radiative energy taken in by the earth is converted to work, some to potential energy, some to kinetic energy, and some to increased entropy. Thus (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
Lee,
Lance, you said - "The energy in is always more than the energy out." No, Lance, it is not.
Uh, yes it is. Again unless you can consider the earth a perfect black body radiator in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings the entropy of the earth will increase and energy out will be less than energy in. But this is a distraction form the radiant energy balance which was the main point.
I'm left in a quandry, here.
Can some of you smart people help me out?
Who should I believe?
1. physics drop-out Lance
2. NASA
Which source is more credible? Can y'all give me some guidance?
So it has to be black. Riiiight. I'm glad Lance has made it blindingly obvious who it is that needs a basic course in thermodynamics.
Lance is describing the heat death of the stupidverse.
Lance, if the Earth receives more energy every day than it loses, where does the energy go?
Where is it going? Is it being stored? Do you have any idea how much energy we're talking about?
If the Earth loses less in radiation than it absorbs in radiation, and radiation is the only way Earth can exchange energy with its surroundings, then the Earth must be storing more and more energy every second.
Where is the energy going, Lance?
It is amusing to watch people mock thermodynamics.
Let me add some quantitative flesh to those qualitative bones.
The Solar constant at Earth's orbit averages about 1,366 watts per square meter. The Earth's volumetric mean radius is 6,371,010 meters. Its cross-sectional area is therefore about 1.275 x 1014 square meters, and about 1.742 x 1017 Joules of sunlight fall on the Earth every second.
Earth's bolometric Bond albedo is about 0.306, so that fraction is reflected away and the climate system absorbs about 1.209 x 1017 watts (Joules per second).
Lance says it emits less than this in terrestrial thermal radiation. How much less? Where does the extra input energy go?
We might estimate the heat capacity of the climate system as that of the atmosphere plus the top 70 meters or so of ocean. The atmosphere masses about 5.136 x 1018 kilograms and a water-covered Earth would mass about 3.57 x 1019 kg. Clearly the heat capacity of the upper ocean is the dominant term and that would run at about 4184 J K-1 kg-1 for fresh water (I know, it's really salt water, but bear with me). The heat capacity comes out as 1.494 x 1023 J K-1
Try some calculations and see what happens!
1. If 90% is lost as radiation and the rest goes into continually heating the climate system, how long until the oceans boil?
2. If 10% is lost as radiation and the rest goes into large-scale kinetic activity of the atmosphere (i.e. wind), how long until the wind speed reaches the speed of sound?
Lance, if the Earth receives more energy every day than it loses, where does the energy go?
Where is it going? Is it being stored? Do you have any idea how much energy we're talking about?
Like, what do you think plants do with all that solar energy they take in day in and day out? They STORE it. All that fossil fuel we use every day is stored solar energy. In fact, with the exception of nuclear, every form of energy we use is essentially solar: hydro (the evaporation/condensation cycle is driven by solar energy), wind (winds are combo of input energy and earth rotational motion, but it the earths rotational energy isn't diminished, so the input energy must come from the sun), Fossil fuels (stored solar energy in plants etc.)
And much of that energy that we extract from the environment is energy we use to make stuff. The work done to produce goods is partially lost as heat back to the environment and partially stored in the chemical bonds etc used to create the items.
That's where the energy is going, Barton.
@bi -- IJI: So you did! I did a quick search for "aps" before I posted, but didn't spot anything.
Our Sweet Lord Monckton - never not funny!
So Barton,
Do you now admit that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) or are you just going to pretend you didn't claim it was so and go on to demonstrating that (radiant energy in) is on the same order of magnitude as (radiant energy out) which I never disputed?
What would you Lord think of such dishonesty? You called me "pig ignorant" for merely stating a thermodynamic fact. Why not step up and admit you were wrong?
ben: "Like, what do you think plants do with all that solar energy they take in day in and day out? They STORE it. "
And then they are eaten or die, and get digested or decomposed, and they release that energy back again. I am sitting here with a core body temp of ~37C, doing my part to radiate some of that energy back into the atmosphere. So are you.
--
The fact the energy travel through our systems, sojourns here for a while, does not change the fact that OVER TIME the system must be in radiative balance - or it will heat up or cool down.
--
But ben does make one point - it becomes irrelevant, though:
"Fossil fuels (stored solar energy in plants etc.)"
There is some small fraction of that energy that gets sequestered as stored-away chemical bonds. And yes, we are re-releasing that when we burn fossil fuels.
The magnitude of heat output from fossil fuel burning, compared to the radiative flux, it is negligible. The magnitude of energy being stored as geologically sequestered chemical bonds per day, compared to the radiative heat flux, is negligible.
Like, what do you think plants do with all that solar energy they take in day in and day out? They STORE it. All that fossil fuel we use every day is stored solar energy.
yes, plants store energy. check out some numbers:
http://tinyurl.com/567ykb
you will see, that it is a couple of digits from the input. and you will lose another couple of digits, when you talk about fossile fuels.
plants take up energy. we might build a house from them. but OVER TIME, it will end up as heat in the atmosphere again.
i am not suprised, that you kept silent on the numbers part of this debate. why not simply state, about what proportion of energy you think you are talking?
Earlier Lance:
Present Lance:
Actually, Lance, you've begun this dick-waving contest by claiming that this (energy in equals energy out) and other simplifications are so far removed from reality as to make attempted calculations of CO2 sensitivity laughably wrong.
So, what *is* the actual imbalance in the radiation budget at any point in time, and exactly HOW MUCH does the simplification that the energy budget is in equilibrium add to the overestimation of CO2 sensitivity by climate scientists?
Please be precise and show your work. You claim it's significant. You prove it.
i am not suprised, that you kept silent on the numbers part of this debate. why not simply state, about what proportion of energy you think you are talking?
I never did think about it. The debate was whether or not in >= out. The amount stored in the long run is probably, as you claim/show, quite small. But not zero. Negligible? I dunno. Maybe without it, the earth would heat up 1 deg C and we'd all die in some horrible catastrophe.
dhogaza,
"Actually, Lance, you've begun this dick-waving contest by claiming that this (energy in equals energy out) and other simplifications are so far removed from reality as to make attempted calculations of CO2 sensitivity laughably wrong."
Firstly I didn't start this food fight. I just presented correct physical statements that certain people tried to disprove by mocking long established tenets of thermodynamics.
While I disagree that I dragged us down this rabbit (or is it Rabett) hole I actually agree with your overall point that we need to get back to what assumptions are unjustified and what are the consequences of these assumptions on the issue of CO2 climate sensitivity.
The orthodoxy of a "radiative balance" is just wrong. Is a model based on considering the earth - sun system as a 2-D, grey body closed system a close approximation of the actual exchange of the energies involved? Well that depends on how you are using it and to what level of precision you are aspiring.
If all you are trying to prove is that the earth's atmosphere won't accelerate to supersonic speeds and eventually become a super-heated plasma I guess it will do.
If you are using it as the basis of iterative models that use it in billions of calculations to derive the state of a chaotic planetary system hundreds of years in the future to the accuracy of a tenth of a degree Celsius I submit that it is deficient.
Lance, stop being so fucking dishonest.
"is a model based on considering the earth - sun system as a 2-D, grey body closed system a close approximation of the actual exchange of the energies involved? ... "If you are using it as the basis of iterative models that use it in billions of calculations to derive the state of a chaotic planetary system hundreds of years in the future to the accuracy of a tenth of a degree Celsius I submit that it is deficient."
gaaack.
Lance, you are again (and I submit, intentionally) confusing the specific case of the artificial, simplified no-feedback case, with the complex case that the cGCM models address. The simplifying assumptions are NOT the same in the two cases, and you cant use the simplifying assumptions that are applied to the "no-feedback" case to critique the complex 3d, whole-planet case the cGCM models address.
Even better, the simplified no-feedback 2d case you dismiss, you have admitted just above is the entire basis of your belief that climate sensitivity is low. This leaves you in the position of saying that the basis of your belief is a calculation that you believe is wrong. Why not just be honest and say "I don't have nay basis for this belief, but I believe they are all wrong." At least that would be honest.
Lance writes:
No, why would I admit something that was wrong?
It's not just the same order of magnitude, Lance, it's the same.
Because I wasn't wrong, you are -- and your unwillingness to admit it is unattractive at best. This is a matter of basic physics which you do not appear to understand.
Lance writes:
No, it isn't. You are just wrong. You are laughably wrong. You are contemptibly wrong, since you cling to your wrongness in the face of demonstration after demonstration that you are wrong.
It's a zero-dimensional model, not a 2-dimensional model. And grayness has nothing to do with it. We're considering the total energy at all wavelengths. The amount coming in to the Earth system from solar radiation -- about 1.2 x 1017 watts -- is the same as the amount going out by terrestrial thermal radiation. If it were substantially different the Earth would rapidly heat up or cool down.
This "orthodoxy" is just the law of conservation of energy. You seem to think the energy being added to the system can just increase indefinitely, which is wrong, wrong, wrong, and ignorant and stupid to boot.
I never did think about it. The debate was whether or not in >= out. The amount stored in the long run is probably, as you claim/show, quite small. But not zero. Negligible? I dunno. Maybe without it, the earth would heat up 1 deg C and we'd all die in some horrible catastrophe.
well, now that we ve established that we are talking about an utterly minor efefct at best, you might do some thinking:
energy gets in. it is changed into fossile fuels. WHAT THEN?
according to lnace, there will be more and more and more oil over time. the energy can never leave earth, as it would contradict his in>out "thesis".
earth would get warmer and warmer, and it would never stop. very special idea.
Calling me "fucking dishonest" only shows your inability to conduct a civil discussion.
"Even better, the simplified no-feedback 2d case you dismiss, you have admitted just above is the entire basis of your belief that climate sensitivity is low."
I never said that the no feedback 2-D sensitivity number was the "entire basis" of my problem with CO2 sensitivity estimates. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.
The discussion has swerved back and forth from CO2 climate sensitivity without feedbacks and with feedbacks.
You asserted that the simplistic calculation of non-feedback CO2 climate sensitivity "is" 1.1 C for a doubling of CO2. When I pointed out that this naked assertion looked a little cold standing there in the light you eventually linked to a page of the IPCC report that admitted that it was a revised figure that replaced the admittedly too high calculated estimate from the SAR, and it had been modified downward by appealing to results from climate models.
So prey tell how is that a "simple calculation" that everyone agrees on?
You seem to think that you can make assertions accompanied by insults and then if I dare to point out the problems with those assertions you need only reiterate them with distortions of my points accompanied by even nastier insults.
BPL and sod,
You guys might want to crack a thermo book or two. Christ even a visit to Wikipedia would probably be beneficial.
Oh, and sod I never mentioned oil. It might be a good idea to actually make sure I said something before mocking it.
Of course getting your facts straight before you mouth off just isn't your style is it?
Oh, and sod I never mentioned oil. It might be a good idea to actually make sure I said something before mocking it.
well, you said this (#202):
The second law of thermodynamics will tell you that, energy is dissipated by physical processes that convert radiative energy into kinetic and potential energy.
ben made fossil fuels out of it. i shortened it to oil, in some part of my reply.
so oil is not a good example, of how "potential energy" gets constantly accumulated on earth, because "energy in>energy out"?
mind to explain some other ways in which "potential energy" increases constantly?
Of course getting your facts straight before you mouth off just isn't your style is it?
i quoted NASA in post #246. i fear, my facts are pretty straight.
sod,
Here is your quote from NASA.
"Over time, Earth's climate system tends toward an energy balance between incoming solar energy and outgoing thermal energy (heat) [see Figure 1]. If more solar energy comes in, then Earth warms and will emit more heat to space to restore the balance."
Did you not notice the words "tends toward" in this little pronouncement? You gents really should just read what I said and then go get a Shaum's outline of Thermodynamics before spouting off.
"Tends toward" translates to > in math and science. Now go back and put that little sign in the statement form NASA and see if it doesn't agree with what I have been saying, not to mention the second law of thermodynamics.
Lance, you are making yourself look really foolish. I happen to know that at least one of the commenters with whom you are arguing is a physics Ph.D. He almost certainly has TAUGHT thermodynamics - I'd guess, on the basis of his present academic position (which happens to be fairly similar to mine) close that he has taught it about 10-12 times in the last 30 years. (I've taught it about 7 or 8 times). You are simply wrong about the radiative balance.
"Tends toward" translates to > in math and science."
Oh, good god....
Lance, at 222, after multiple posts pushing him on this point, and as his ONLY offered rationale for his upper bound on sensitivity:
"You are nothing if not persistent. My upper bound is based on the fact that most of these "no feedback" calculations are around 1 degree Celsius and that most feed backs in nature, and engineering for that matter, are negative. "
Lance, at 266, which he begins by berating me for calling him "fucking dishonest":
"I never said that the no feedback 2-D sensitivity number was the "entire basis" of my problem with CO2 sensitivity estimates. Stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Lance, the "inability to conduct a civil discussion" comes from your dishonesty about what you and others have said, as illustrated here. Let's not forget your attempt to twist the difference between 'balance over time" and instantaneous balance, which I called you on.
Lance writes:
I cracked a thermo book or two when I was getting my degree in physics, Lance, and many times afterward.
I want to apologize for the "pig ignorant" comment. It was unnecessary and rude. But the assumption of radiation balance for the temperature of a planet is so fundamental I was astonished to see you challenge it. I really do find it hard to believe that you studied physics.
Over any significant period of time (like a year), the radiation into the Earth system equals the radiation out. If not the Earth would continuously heat up or cool down. You cannot have any significant fraction of Earth's gigantic radiation input steadily accumulating in the Earth system without increasing some state variable, and for heat, that's usually that's going to be temperature. Radiation in cannot consistently be greater than radiation out without heating up the Earth. It won't work.
If you want to challenge that statement, show me an energy budget. Where is the excess energy going? Make a quantitative estimate. (Ben, are you listening? A QUANTITATIVE estimate, one with numbers.) Then I'll show you where you got your assumptions wrong.
Energy budgets are fundamental to analysis of any physical process. A physicist would know that.
Ben, are you listening? A QUANTITATIVE estimate, one with numbers.
Um, like I'm way to lazy for that. How about 4+3 = 7. :)
"Do any of you wish to claim that the earth is a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings?"
hey, count me in. the caveat being that 1) the earth is not an ideal black body and/or 2) the ideal black body which the earth behaves as would not precisely be at the earth's current average temp. but that's tangential to the main point you seemn to be making, which is that **of course the earth is in radiative/thermal/energy equilibrium** after 3 billion goddamn years, don't you think we'd know it if it had been building up energy at even a tiny rate?
internal mechanical processes, flows, etc.? all end up as heat from friction, etc., as they wind down. if they don't wind down from friction, then they'll continue forever with no input of energy and not affect the balance. if they are continually accumulating energy, at some point it's going to blow up or go off the rails or whatever; lest we forget, F=MA. continual input of energy means continual A means ever increasing V, which tends to break things after some point. if not, then you hit relativistic limits, which i doubt are relevant for the earth's internal flows, whatever. if the energy is being lost to friction as it's being replenished, then we're back to heat, which radiates again.
geez, is this what physics students have come to? that being the case,i probably should point out to you that you don't want to do things like mix a 55 gallon drum of epoxy up at once in a vacuum, on the moon's surface or outside the space station or orbit or something, becaue that is not in thermal equilibrium as it reacts and it will friggin blow up; because that's what happens to things which accumulate energy faster than they are losing it. that info may save your life and others, who knows.
Actually, Barton, that isn't quite right:
"Over any significant period of time (like a year), the radiation into the Earth system equals the radiation out. If not the Earth would continuously heat up or cool down."
The planet is heating up, and it is doing so because it is slightly out of radiative balance. It will continue to heat up until the new higher temperature yields a new higher rate of radiative emission that brings it back into radiative balance. You know this, of course, but I want to flesh this out so that it a bit less subject to willful misinterpretation.
I thought 'pig ignorant' WAS polite. Certainly more polite than that kind of recalcitrant arrogant ignorance deserves, IMO.
More dick-waving. Numbers, please. And how does this dick-waving statement support your claim that the simplification leads to UNDERESTIMATING, rather than OVERESTIMATING CO2 sensitivity?
And, as Lee mentions, yes, the earth is slightly out of radiative balance, however you're the one that denies the cause (increased CO2). And, OVER TIME, radiative balance will be re-established once CO2 and other GHGs, feedbacks, etc stabilize, so no, you don't get your ">" sign awarded over the long haul. Just over the period of time in which we continue to spew GHGs into the atmosphere, and some decades hence until the new equilibrium state is reached. With fluctuations due to changes in incoming energy, solar, Milankovic cycles, albedo feedbacks, etc.
Even Venus reached that state, you know? AFAIK, it's no longer warming up, the Big Cooking Era was long ago.
Obviously I have my under- and overestimating backwards up there ...
For a laugh read this: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24036736-7583,00.html
"Soon government and the scientific community were working together and lots of science research jobs were created. " Ha ha ha!!!
"There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts"
Hmmmm methinks his facts... aren't.
Is this part of the Ostrayun's War on Science??
Nathan
From the APS:
This while explaining that they're kicking off the debate with an article by Monckton. Science all the way down.
I've already e-mailed ...
Lance:
Er, they're not actually. The IPCC estimates sensitivity to an accuracy of 1 to 1.5 degrees Celsius for a CO2 doubling (i.e. 3 degrees with a 95% confidence range of 2 degrees to 4.5 degrees).
You must think you're soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo convincing with your strawman arguments. What an idiot.
The APS has caused a disclaimer to appear above Monckton's piece, saying, in essence, that Monckton's full of shit. Also a reiteration of their support for mainstream science on their home page.
My guess is that the editor of this unrefereed, minor online raglet within the APS publishing empire (39 publications, according to the APS), had a very uncomfortable day after the piece appeared. APS was probably flooded with calls from irate members ...
Did Lance turn chickshit on us, or what?
C'mon, Lance, the peanut gallery is missing your schooling two physics profs who have each taught thermo who obviously don't know WTF they're talking about. If you can't prove their knowledge of thermo wrong, how will you convince the rest of the physics community and win that Nobel you so richly deserve?
dhogaza - just to make things absolutely clear, I am not a "physics professor" - I am a chemistry professor in our physical chemistry division. My Ph.D. is in Chemistry (subspecialty Physical Chemistry), I have published in _Physical Review_, and I do teach thermodynamics at the undergraduate level (P. Chem. I.) and at the graduate level (Statistical Mechanics).
And to make things even more clear, chemistry is the root of all evil. At least that was my perspective during my undergrad in engineering-physics.
Oh, Robert, sorry. I'm sure Lance's BS in physics trumps your mere Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry, then. Ha! :)
Lance is pulling a typical Lance here ... proclaim superior knowledge while people patiently take him apart, then ... disappear.
He'll be back in another thread repeating the same bullshit, hoping those who know what they're talking about won't be lurking and ready to jump in ...
Well, we can't know why Lance has stopped posting -- he may have been in a car accident, for all we know. Or are you saying he's done this before?
Geez,
I went on vacation and happen to prefer being at the beach with my wife to answering disingenuous personal harangues.
Robert P.
As far as thermodynamics is concerned please tell me how this mysterious "radiative balance" invalidates the second law of thermodynamics, are you claiming that the entropy of the earth is not increasing?
I posted a quote from a link, provided by sod, to NASA that includes the words "tends to" when referring to this "balance" that's because they know it isn't literally a "balance".
Some posters have realized that I am correct and have now shifted to a "well the imbalance is small compared to the over-all energies involved" argument. This is a separate argument however and those making it have yet to concede that I was right to say that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
You however persist in your ignorance while appealing authority.
Well, the "over time" is a bit important, too.
Lance is forgetting that his argument is that the simplification made that the earth is in radiative balance causes a SIGNIFICANT OVERESTIMATE OF THE CLIMATE SENSITIVITY TO CO2.
Conveniently.
dhogaza,
As usual you misrepresent my argument. The whole brouhaha over this "radiative balance" business came about when I stated the rather bland fact that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) to a chorus of rude insults and fart sounds devoid of even a rudimentary understanding of thermodynamics.
It was never the crux of my argument but only became a side show when others tried to tar me with it.
Lance seems to think that a semi-stable non-equilibrium state has no first law relation to the general case of static equilibrium.
How quaint.
LB,
"#291- Lance seems to think that a semi-stable non-equilibrium state has no first law relation to the general case of static equilibrium."
Just another attempt to change the subject.
Lance: the 2nd law has no bearing on the radiative balance condition, which is a simple statement of the first law, applied to a nonequilibrium steady state. The 2nd is entirely consistent with radiative energy in being greater, less, or equal to radiative energy out.
The fact that at the present moment, radiative energy in is very slightly larger than radiative energy out, has nothing to do with the 2nd law. It is entirely due to the fact that the radiative forcing has increased, and the earth has not yet come into equilibrium with that increase. If the forcing should decrease in the future - then the radiation in will be less than the radiation out.
Is the entropy of the earth increasing? Probably so, since the earth is warming. If that trend reverses, the entropy of the earth will decrease. The second law is consistent with a net increase or a net decrease in the entropy of the earth - all that is required is that the heat flux associated with thermal radiation to space exceed (delta-S)/T (the Clausius inequality.)
Trick question: is the entropy of the sun increasing or decreasing ? (It's not as easy as it might seem.)
The entire concept of "climate sensitivity" rests on radiative balance. Climate sensitivity is the first order response to a change in radiative forcing, just as conductivity is the first order response to a voltage change, and heat capacity is the first order response to a temperature change. In each case, the response coefficient is calculated by treating the underlying system as being in equilibrium (or a nonequilibrium steady state.)
Ben: You are not wrong. We (the chemistry community as a whole) have done a terrible job at teaching engineers the chemistry that is most important for engineering. We're working on it. Recently, at my institution, we have created a separate one-semester Physical Chemistry for Engineers course, so that we can adapt the course to meet the specific needs of non-chemical engineers (the Chem E.'s continue to take the usual 2-semester P. Chem. course.)
Lance posts:
Yes, Lance, we're claiming exactly that. The Earth system gets energy poured into it every second, remember? It's not going to run down because it's not a closed system. If you dispute this, let's see your figure for S. Show your work.
Because you're wrong. When the Earth is cooling, radiant energy out is greater than radiant energy in. And when it's in thermal equilibrium, the two are equal.
Lance makes the exact same 2nd law error so often favored by creationists:
"As far as thermodynamics is concerned please tell me how this mysterious "radiative balance" invalidates the second law of thermodynamics, are you claiming that the entropy of the earth is not increasing?"
Barton,
"Because you're wrong. When the Earth is cooling, radiant energy out is greater than radiant energy in. And when it's in thermal equilibrium, the two are equal."
You continue to appeal to this simplistic idea. For one thing the last statement does not take into account the earth's internally produced energy.
The earth also dissipates energy by non-radiative mechanisms such as erosion and conversion by non-reversible chemical processes thus converting some of the incoming radiant energy to the increased entropy of the earth.
Despite your nonsensical statements to the contrary the earth has hardly achieved a permanent minimum entropy state.
The question here is whether the term "radiative balance" is a meaningful and quantifiable description of incoming solar radiation to outgoing radiation as a single valued ratio.
It doesn't take much imagination to envision scenarios where a system can emit less radiant energy than it takes in and not increase in temperature. Also to treat the earth's energy budget as having a single value is overly simplistic to the point of irrelevance.
Robert P.
"... the 2nd law has no bearing on the radiative balance condition, which is a simple statement of the first law, applied to a nonequilibrium steady state. The 2nd is entirely consistent with radiative energy in being greater, less, or equal to radiative energy out."
Yes that is true, but it's not what we were taking about. Notice you used the words "non-equilibrium state". Obviously the earth has undergone times when there were various ratios of radiant energy in to radiant energy out.
The whole point of a "balance" is to imply an equilibrium condition. I am the one arguing against the imposition of an equilibrium condition. My (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) statement obviously doesn't apply to when the earth was a molten mass cooling to form the oceans and land masses or during the formation of the "snow ball" earth, and various other glaciations, when orbital conditions limited the effective incoming solar radiation.
It was used to invalidate the idea that even during relatively short periods of stable earth-sun conditions that there is any such "equilibrium" condition. If the (radiant energy in) were equal to the (radiant energy out) the earth would cool due to the many processes that convert radiant energy to non radiant energy ( the internally generated energy of the earth not withstanding). Of course this dismissal of the earth's internally generated energy just serves to demonstrate the uselessness of the "radiant balance" idea to begin with.
This is all getting very tedious.
Lance finally gets it:
"The question here is whether the term "radiative balance" is a meaningful and quantifiable description of incoming solar radiation to outgoing radiation as a single valued ratio."
That is exactly the question, yes. And the clear answer is, yes. If there is more energy coming into the atmosphere-ocean-land surface system than going out, the system gets warmer.
You keep returning to internal, radioactivity-generated heat. For purposes of radiative balance, that is simply another radiative input into the ocean,surface,atmosphere system, part of the balance - and it is negligibly small, but it is part of the radiative balance.
And then Lance throws it away:
""The earth also dissipates energy by non-radiative mechanisms such as erosion and conversion by non-reversible chemical processes thus converting some of the incoming radiant energy to the increased entropy of the earth.
Despite your nonsensical statements to the contrary the earth has hardly achieved a permanent minimum entropy state."
Lance, no one has stated that the earth has "achieved a permanent minimum entropy state." The entropy of the earth can and does increase or decrease. RobertP just above even outlined for you the conditions under which each can happen. You are making a fool of yourself on this issue.
And then jumps the shark:
"My (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) statement obviously doesn't apply to when the earth was a molten mass cooling to form the oceans and land masses or during the formation of the "snow ball" earth, and various other glaciations, when orbital conditions limited the effective incoming solar radiation."
Lance, you have been arguing that incoming radiation is ALWAYS greater than outgoing, for second law reasons. Do I need to go up and quote you on this? Not that I think it would make a difference - when I've quoted you contradicting yourself, you just ignore it.
Some posters have realized that I am correct and have now shifted to a "well the imbalance is small compared to the over-all energies involved" argument. This is a separate argument however and those making it have yet to concede that I was right to say that (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out).
i had the bad feeling, that you might be talking about me with this. let me assure you, that your impression is utterly false.
i just learned over time, that we need to point out the most obvious errors in denialist posts first. if we don t, we waste lots of energy on stupid claims.
anyone rereading the comments to this topic will realize, that it wasn t clear that you were talking about an insignificant difference, when you brought up this "in>out" thing.
i told you, that i think that any imbalance at best is tiny. that does not contradict that i think your claim is wrong.
I posted a quote from a link, provided by sod, to NASA that includes the words "tends to" when referring to this "balance" that's because they know it isn't literally a "balance".
i am pretty sure that NASA would have told us, if "energy in ALWAYS was bigger than energy out". such a system can NEVER "tend to balance". basic math tells you that!
My (radiant energy in) > (radiant energy out) statement obviously doesn't apply to when the earth was a molten mass cooling to form the oceans and land masses or during the formation of the "snow ball" earth, and various other glaciations, when orbital conditions limited the effective incoming solar radiation.
you used the term "ALWAYS".
the most obvious counterexample is a massive storm over one of the oceans. the massive cloud formation will reflect sun light and keep warm in.
whether it is on the day or night side of earth will determine that energy in>out or the other way round at that moment.
Lee,
Yes, when I made the blanket statement that (radiant energy in) is always greater than (radiant energy out) I was wrong.
The statement was intended to apply to the alleged "equilibrium state" implied by the words radiative balance. I think I have clarified that point above. I should have made that qualification to my statement.
You keep trying to over-simplify the situation by disregarding energy inputs and outputs and the rates and consequences of the many complex processes involved. At least you are now acknowledging the internally generated energy of the earth itself, but you continue to ignore the many processes that convert radiant energy to other forms of energy.
But back to the central issue, the usefulness of a single valued "radiative balance" figure. Where, when and how is this value to be applied let alone measured?
You are perhaps laboring under the false impression that there is some spherical surface at the top of the earth's atmosphere where energy is exchanged like fluids through a membrane. The term "radiative flux" implies such an arrangement. No such surface exists.
You can of course abstract a sphere of whatever radius, greater than the earth's radius of course, to which this flux can be attributed. But as I have said many times before nothing says there must exist a "balance" at any particular time between incoming and outgoing radiation integrated across the surface of this imaginary sphere.
Will the temperature of the earth's surface, atmosphere and oceans be related in some way to this flux? Yes, but certainly not a simple linear function of it as is implied by your original statement that the effect of CO2 on the earth's climate was a "simple calculation" that "everyone agrees on".
That is the issue that started this whole discussion. A simple linear calculation using a "radiative balance" condition that generates a CO2 climate sensitivity of around one degree Celsius is a gross oversimplification of the actual energy dynamics of the situation.
sod,
Yes, as I have acknowledged to Lee, my blanket statement using the dangerous word "ALWAYS" was ill-advised and did not apply in all cases. I should have limited it to the so called equilibrium conditions upon which our discussion was focused.
Ironically you gents are making the point I was trying demonstrate, namely that no such equilibrium exists.
Having proved that I am indeed fallible (cue dhogaza to amend that to dishonest) let us now return to the issue at hand, whether there exists a significant single valued ratio to describe the energy budget of the earth and its surroundings that can be measured or derived and then used in a simple linear calculation of the sensitivity of the earth's climate system to a doubling of CO2 which was the issue that started all of this in the first place.
Halle-fucking-luyah!!!!!
Lance admits:
"Yes, when I made the blanket statement that (radiant energy in) is always greater than (radiant energy out) I was wrong."
But then you mislead again, Lance:
"But as I have said many times before nothing says there must exist a "balance" at any particular time between incoming and outgoing radiation integrated across the surface of this imaginary sphere."
No one is arguing otherwise, Lance - as has been directly said to you before in this thread. What has been said is that OVER TIME - not at any particular time - incoming and outgoing energy must balance. The radiative balance idea applies OVER TIME. If there is an imbalance, the planet will warm or cool until it gets back into balance, where incoming and outgoing energy are equal.
"You can of course abstract a sphere of whatever radius,"
Yes, you can - of course. So why the f*ck did you include that digression with the absurd statement that "perhaps" I don't realize that the top of the atmosphere isn't a sharply defined surface.
"A simple linear calculation using a "radiative balance" condition that generates a CO2 climate sensitivity of around one degree Celsius is a gross oversimplification of the actual energy dynamics of the situation."
First, it isn't a simple linear calculation - it is an integration across the atmospheric column of radiative transfer, using the known input of the sun, the known temperature and composition of the atmosphere, and the known absorption, emission, and collision properties of those gasses.
And, as has been stated several times before, for this calculation the other energy fluxes can be ignored, not because they aren't important to the earth system, but because in the no-feedback scenario, they ARE ASSUMED NOT TO CHANGE. For this problem, the effects of those processes are subsumed in the state of the atmosphere before the increase of CO2, and because the only thing allowed to change in this scenario is CO2 concentration, they are irrelevant to THIS solution of the conseqeunce of a change in ONLY this parameter.
Your ongoing attempt to convince us that the second law allows violations of the first law notwithstanding.
Lance posts:
Lance, that would make the outgoing energy GREATER! It contradicts your idiotic pseudoscience conclusion that radiation in has to be greater than radiation out.
Okay, Lance, what's the magnitude of the imbalance? Please give a quantitative estimate, and then explain why wherever the energy IS going to hasn't gotten completely out of control over the past 4.5 billion years.
Earth CAN ONLY EXCHANGE ENERGY WITH SPACE VIA RADIATION. If radiation in must be greater than radiation out, then either the Earth is steadily increasing in temperature, or some nonthermal process you're imagining is steadily building up more and more and more energy. If it's wind, the winds must be supersonic by now -- hell, they must be at relativistic speeds. If its erosion, it's amazing that any continents protrude above the ocean, even in the face of colliding plates.
Sure it's easy "to envision scenarios where a system can emit less radiant energy than it takes in and not increase in temperature." But not in situations where the imbalance has existed for billions of years. Not unless the magnitude of the imbalance is too small to be measured. And as I said, when the Earth is cooling, radiation out is GREATER than radiation in. Or do you maintain that the Earth has never had ice ages?
Lance, your idea that radiation in must be greater than radiation out is WRONG. It is wrong, stupid pseudoscience. If you don't want to admit you made a mistake, fine, but then at least stop talking about it. You are truly making yourself look like an idiot.