A new open thread for those off-topic discussions.
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This is the thread you can use to post off-topic stuff.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and it looks like Zorita is jockeying for some of the silver: the Future of IPCC apparently is to morph into one of those nice International agencies which pay so well and are headquarted in rather nice cities, staffed by... well, clearly by the likes of…
I know this is utterly off-topic for a bug blog, but Human Tetris is so strangely fascinating that I have to share:
Ok guys, how about you move the off-topic discussion here,. please.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/mcshane-and-wyner-20…
No, Nasif is not a liar. The database he posted here was taken from NOAA databases.
You have more problems on credibility:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/mcshane-and-wyner-20…
Additionally, Nasif was banned on this blog, so he cannot answer your flawed pseudoscientific arguments.
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land _ocean.90S.90N.df _1901-2000mean.dat
The mistake in co2isnotevil's argument about climate sensitivity is explained [here](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/11/cuckoo-science/).
[George writes](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/the_australians_war_on_science_…):
>*Jakerman, This is surface temperature, not atmospheric temperature. As I told you before, you need to pay more attention.*
That is my point. Your plot relying on surface temperature alone misses situation where the surface temperature will be continually influence by the changes in the atmosphere.
Don't forget George climate sensitivity is an equilibrium concept.
And George among many failings you failed to deal with this [glitch](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3-3.html) in your model. How do you propose temperatures where higher in the past when the solar insolation was lower?
George at JoNova:
Typical lying denialist scum.
Let me address George's bubble another way, george writes:
>*The relationship between water vapor and temperature is inconsistent with the requirements for a climate driven by water vapor driven positive feedback.*
His evidence for this is [a curve](http://www.palisad.com/co2/fbe/wc_st.png) of surface temperature vs water cloumn. And claims that:
>*From this picture it's very clear that increasing atmospheric water content has no effect above about 300K.*
However this curve shows that until now temperature is limited to about 300K. It says nothing about the relationship above 300K.
It basically plots the relationship between current and previous temperatures and the water column, it says nothing about the impact of further warming. It provides zero evidence that the curve will not simply be shifted up the tempearature axis with rising temperature.
This also fails to acccount for a rich paleo record which including warmer temperatures and lower solar insolation.
It might have got buried before; Monckton has gone for the Gish Gallop tactic to try to rebut Abraham. He's also demanding Abraham make a large donation to charity as a way of apologising. Talk about chutzpah.
OK. I see an actual science issue here which I will address.
First, while Gavin is correct that the Earth system, including the atmosphere, is not an ideal black body, the Earth's surface is close. Even clouds are relatively close when you model them with the correct emissivity. The way the cloudless atmosphere between the surface and space is best modeled is as a perfect black body surface whose output passes through a multi-stage filter defined by atmospheric absorption. The atmosphere is modeled as several layers, corresponding to successive filter stages, each with it's own absorption characteristics. If you've ever seen the spectrum of Earth's emitted energy, it looks like a BB distribution with spectral holes caused by atmospheric absorption. What I described is the physical process that makes it look like that.
The reason Gavin is confused is because of the error I pointed out in the Schlessinger feedback model. A proper model would have an open loop gain of about 1.3 and the Go function becomes the inverse of Stefan-Boltzmann. What Schlessinger tried to do was roll the non unit gain into the inverse of SB to give the appearance that SB (but not really SB) was responsible for the open loop gain. Of course SB will not work as Go, which is in effect what Gavin is saying. The reason is because what does work is SB scaled by 1.3. He completely misses the boat by failing to acknowledge that SB is almost exact as you get closer to the surface, relative to emitted energy and it's temperature.
He is also correct about equilibrium being a dynamic steady state, rather than a static equilibrium. But he is wrong about the effect this has on small incremental changes superimposed on top of very large seasonal changes in flux. The seasonal flux varies by up to 100's of W/m^2 across the 4 seasons. If this changes by a small percent from year to year, it's noticed almost immediately as a change in the average temperature. There's no reason to believe that an extra few milliwatts of CO2 forcing per year will not be apparent in the steady state response just as quickly.
To quote Gavin,
"Because all of the above tricks work for solar forcings as well as greenhouse gas forcings."
Doesn't this tell you that the forcing power from the Sun and the forcing power from GHG's should be treated the same? It's funny to see him say this, since the rest of his post assumes that CO2 forcing is 4-8 times more powerful than solar forcing.
George
Shorter George:
1+1 is treated by the same mathematical methods as 10+10. Therefore, 1+1 = 10+10.
>*I see an actual science issue here which I will address.*
lol,
Look forward to reading George's publication when he can get passed is google galileo complex and publish his paper.
peer reivew hey George? An insufficient but necessary step. Are you planning on putting these notions together to try and meet this requirement?
Jakerman,
The data is measured and already accounts for all effects, feedback and otherwise, known and unknown. Any influence the atmosphere has on the surface is already in the data.
Gain certainly is an equilibrium concept and varies in a periodic, predictable manner over the year. Climate sensitivity, at least the IPCC definition, is a meaningless metric. To see how silly it is, consider that between perihelion and aphelion, the solar constant varies by about 80 W/m^2, for an average of about 20 W/m^2. According to the IPCC sensitivity definition (and Gavin's assurance that solar power and GHG forcing power are the same), why isn't there a 15C+/-5C swing in the global average temperature?
What we actually see is that the planet is about 3-4C colder at perihelion! The reason is that perihelion happens to coincide with maximum N hemisphere reflectivity due to a rapidly growing seasonal snow pack.
The Earth responds slowly, but not that slow. The slew rate is indicative of how quickly the climate can respond to a change in forcing. For the N hemisphere, the slew rate is about 2C per month. The S hemisphere is a little over 1C per month. The differences are a consequence of topographical variability.
George
Jackerman,
Haven't you figured out by now that your infantile taunts don't bother me. They only make you look foolish. You should remember that everything you say gets burned into cyberspace for all eternity. It was comments like that on other open threads that led me to the conclusion that the S/N was low. Are you trying to prove me right?
George
Jackerman,
Re, your claim of higher temps with lower insolation. Which specific period are you referring to? One of the biggest effects is the asymmetry between hemispheres and the seasonal alignment of perihelion. If perihelion occurred in July or August, rather than January, more N hemisphere ice would be melted and the global average temperature would be warmer. This occurred during the peak of the last interglacial, which is why the peak temperature was about 3C warmer than this one (with far lower CO2 levels). The consensus is that we are approaching the end of the warmest part of the current interglacial.
It's really too bad that CO2 doesn't have the effects you want it to have. Otherwise, we might have a chance at mitigating the next, inevitable ice age.
George
George writes
>*The data is measured and already accounts for all effects, feedback and otherwise, known and unknown. Any influence the atmosphere has on the surface is already in the data.*
No it dosen't its just a snapshot of the relationship during a 25 year period. As I said there is no evidence that the curve will not shift upward with temperature over the long term. It also ignores the delay to equilibrium.
James @ 5. "Monckton has gone for the Gish Gallop tactic to try to rebut Abraham."
It's like fishing for eels.
Jakerman,
George has published (on the web) an analysis of climate sensitivity. All of his data sources are easily found and his calculations easily checked. If you must wait for someone to tell you whether to believe it (Re: Peer Review), then you are admitting you can't follow it and are out of your depth.
You should accept your limitations and refrain from commenting on it, lest you simply look foolish.
George: "Climate sensitivity, at least the IPCC definition, is a meaningless metric."..."most warmists are the ones feeling insecure, especially after they've talked to me for a while. Are you feeling lucky?"
40 points for claiming that when your theory is finally appreciated, present-day science will be seen for the sham it truly is.
George: "It clearly illustrates just how biased and one sided the peer review process is with regard to climate science papers."..."It sounds to me like this debate is degrading into censorship, which certainly can not be tolerated."
40 points for claiming that the "scientific establishment" is engaged in a "conspiracy" to prevent your work from gaining its well-deserved fame, or suchlike.
George: "it's not surprising that the error hasn't been formally discovered yet, although I know for sure that Schlessinger is now aware of it. Oddly enough, he stopped communicating with me once he realized how serious the error was."
20 points for defending yourself by bringing up (real or imagined) ridicule accorded to your past theories.
That's 95 points so far (including the -5 credit). Impressive.
Bob C, thanks for giving an insight into your methods.
I judge from his claims (being based on a snap of 25 years of a relationship) George will not be passing the necessary but in insuffienct step of peer review publication in a credible journal.
BTW BobC can you not see why basing this (George's) claim on this snapshot is nonsense? If not you might consider following your own advice. I'll give you a clue it's a little like the McLean et al debarcle in the way it removes the key factor from the analysis. I think a BobC looked foolish over that one.
Then again teh McLean debarcle got published, which is why that step is insufficient if necessary.
BobC, Did you notice George keeps avoiding addresssing [this contradtion](http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6s6-3-3.html) to his claims of low feedback?
You did notice didn't you?
Pity poor George. Yet another misunderstood soul, bravely battling to overturn the mainstream in a quixotic quest to prove that once in a while, the Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't apply and ignorance can prevail over decades of established science.
As mentioned in #5, Moncktonâs ârebuttalâ of Prof Abraham has to be read to be believed:
As the 30 June has passed I assume no apology or money was forthcoming. You can get to Monckton's 85 page PDF via WUWT.
3 TM,
I wish you'd stop beating about the bush and being so mealy-mouthed. Just come out with it and say what you really think!
C02isnotevil or George,
You have been complaining about people hurling insults at you instead of responding to the points of science you make (as well arguing over who is using the term 'CAGW'). I think you must realise that for years climate change deniers have barstardised discourse both scientific and societal about AGW. For instance you have characters like Monckton, Jo Nova and lesser lights like Cohenite cherrypicking bits of science with the result that people have had to waste lots of time showing these arguments to be wrong only to have such characters ignore the results and move on to a new talking points. People here are just expecting that you are following the same dishonest tactic. As an engineer I would have to sit down with you and go carefully through everything so as to understand it and from that come to a conclusion on what you have been putting forth. But given how much time this will take if at the end I find you have just been like all the other deniers and torturing science then I will only want to give you a sharp slap across the chops for wasting part of the only life I have.
Be honest, can you blame people for disbelieving you when people like Marc Morano receive an award for courage in science after he encourages violence against scientists working on climate science?
And C02isnotevil or George consider these two points: people who accept the science on AGW, from whatever background, don't want it to be true and secondly if you have shown that the science of AGW is wrong then yoiu will receive great, great acclaim, really you will.
George, tell you what, if you have discovered that AGW isn't happening then I will go to Tony Abbott and ask him to autograph a lifesize photo of him in his budgy smugglers and I will carry it up and down Swanson Street in Melbourne kissing it and proclaiming my love for Tony over that of "9 to 9" Julia.
19 LS,
The pernicious, pompous, pontificating, posturing, patronising, preposterous, pretentious, potty peer has really excelled himself this time.
This could be very entertaining.
I see that at [CFACT](http://cfact.eu/2010/06/04/climate-the-extremists-join-the-debate-at-la…) he is once again described as "science advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher". Such irony in a piece accusing Abraham of a
Yup, Monckton is the best propaganda weapon for AGW, long may he continue hurling.
material errors, exaggerations, or downright lies.
Yep.
Just realised that Tim missed an opportunity with this thread. Given that we so often discuss the fantasy world of the science denier and conspiracy theorist, it should have been called ... wait for it ...
Area 51.
24 Phil,
I see you made a comment at [WUWT](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/12/a-detailed-rebuttal-to-abraham-fr…), sadly one of very few sane ones there. That thread once again makes me re-evaluate my opinion of the Wattards. They really are too far gone in their crazy world, beyond help, aren't they?
From another thread at Deltoid (The Muchkin one):
"And not to be outdone, Watts starts making veiled threats against someone [Phil] challenging Munchkin whilst also trotting out another of his pet peeves, anonymous "warmers":
"REPLY:And I find it rich that somebody whoâs at a university but doesnât bring their name to the discussion can criticize a man who has the courage to put his name to his words. Whatâs your title at your university Phil? Careful, or Iâll put you back in the troll box. ;-) -A"
Nice work A....not. And Anthony, why don't anonymous deniers posting from work get threatened or snipped?
I hope that people who have made the effort to expose more of Monckton's lies are also emailing the good Dr. Abraham with the relevant information."
I wake up to a pile of posts and am having a hard time finding any useful comments. As I suspected, the signal to noise ratio here is pretty low.
As for publishing and peer review, I prefer the open format of the Internet, rather than the closed and often anonymous peer review process usually applied to climate papers. As was pointed out in the earlier thread, the peer review process, as it's applied to climate research, is broken beyond repair.
The closest thing to a science comment was jackermans concern about an anomaly 60 million years ago. Around that time is the KT boundary and associated impact and the Deccan traps. The carbon pulse could well be the effects of a global firestorm, including the burning of coal seams. The idea that it's from methane hydrates is at least as speculative, if not more so. If the planet did warm, we would expect CO2 levels to rise, as the evidence is very clear that higher temperatures lead to higher CO2 levels. If this is the best the IPCC can offer to support it's case, how can you be so gullible to accept it?
Speaking of avoiding questions, you still haven't answered mine. Tim made a valiant effort, but alas, it's always a mistake to believe anything Gavin says. Did you follow the argument about Gavin's assertion that SB doesn't apply is wrong? For some reason he's mixing up the behavior at the surface and the behavior at the boundary between the atmosphere and space.
For more on Gavin's inconsistencies, look here,
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposph…
where he claims that a 2% increase in solar forcing is equal to a 2xCO2 increase. 2% of 341.5 W/m^2 is 6.8 W/m^2, which is more than 2X the 3.7 W/m^2 (4X the actual 1.85 W/m^2) pedantically attributed to doubling CO2. Do you see how this contradicts the post Tim referred to where Gavin asserts that GHG forcing and solar forcing obey the same rules? Moreover, 6.8 W/m^2 of incremental solar forcing results in a post feedback surface temperature increase of only 1.4C, which itself is below the lower limit claimed by the IPCC.
Tim, do you have a better argument? Your first attempt was too easy to deconstruct. Let me restate the big question as a sequence of smaller questions which will be easier to answer.
The Earth's SURFACE at 287K emits 385 W/m^2. At 290K, it emits 401 W/m^2. Do you agree that this represents the energy emitted by the SURFACE at the boundary between the SURFACE and the atmosphere, given the prescribed SURFACE temperature?
Do you agree that the increase in SURFACE emitted power is about 16 W/m^2 as the result of a 3C increase in SURFACE temperature?
Do you agree that the solar constant is about 1366 W/m^2 corresponding to an average incident solar forcing power of 1366/4 = 341.5 W/m^2?
Do you agree that the solar energy forcing surface temperature is approximately equal to the incident solar energy times (1-albedo) which is about 239 W/m^2?
Do you agree that doubling CO2 increases atmospheric absorption by about 3.7 W/m^2 and that this results in about 1.9 W/m^2 of incremental surface forcing? If you don't accept this, will you agree that it's 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing? (It really doesn't matter for the purpose of this analysis).
Do you agree that the sensitivity of the Earth's
SURFACE emitted power (temperature) to changes in the solar energy arriving at the surface is about equal to 385/239 = 1.61?
Do you agree that this measured sensitivity includes the consequences of all feedbacks, known and unknown? If not, why haven't feedback effects manifested themselves after billions of years of incident solar energy?
Do you agree that solar forcing power and GHG forcing power must obey the same physics?
Do you agree that 1.61 times 1.95 is 3.1 W/m^2?
Do you agree that 3.1 W/m^2 is less than 16 W/m^2?
Do you agree that an increase in SURFACE emitted power of 3.1 W/m^2 corresponds to a SURFACE temperature increase of only 0.6C and not the 3C +/- 1.5C claimed by the IPCC?
If you still think that the net surface forcing is 3.7 W/m^2, do you agree that 3.7 times 1.61 is equal to about 6 W/m^2 and that this corresponds to a SURFACE temperature increase of only 1.1C and not the 3C +/- 1.5C claimed by the IPCC?
Do you agree that both of these measured sensitivities are less than the lower limit of 1.5C claimed by the IPCC?
George
[co2isnoteveilaloadednymifevertherewasone said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2655…) As was pointed out As I baselessly claimed in the earlier thread, the peer review process, as it's applied to climate research, is broken beyond repair usually weeds out denialist claptrap pronto.
Fixed that for you einstein, no charge.
George,
Roy Spencer would disagree with you:
The bottom line is that my analysis supports a best-estimate 2XCO2 climate sensitivity of 1.7 deg. C, which is little more than half of that obtained by Tung & Camp (3.0 deg. C), and approaches the lower limit of what the IPCC claims is likely (1.5 deg. C)."
Now there Spencer fails to point out that he has calc. the transient climate response, not the equilibrium sensitivity, when one corrects for that, the equivalent equilibrium sensitivity is +2.55 C for doubling CO2. Very close to that reported in the literature.
Now, IF you are right, you will have refuted almost all of the 60+ publications on the matter of climate sensitivity going back to 1896, summarised here (and it is not even a complete list):
http://bartonpaullevenson.com/ClimateSensitivity.html
One can add Chylek (2007; +1.3C to +2.3 C), Tung (2007; +2.3C to 4.1 C), Bender (2010; 1.7 C to 4.1 C), Schwartz (2008; +1.9 C) and Ballantyne (2010).
Spencer has since made another effort to fudge a lower sensitivity using satellite data collected following Pinatubo eruption, but mangled that attempt because he forgot to take into account "the flux of heat from the deep ocean into the mixed layer" (as pointed out by an informed poster there).
As for your outrageous claim that "rather than the closed and often anonymous peer review process usually applied to climate papers. As was pointed out in the earlier thread, the peer review process, as it's applied to climate research, is broken beyond repair."
Aah, so you ARE a conspiracy theorist George. What utter BS. Schwartz, G&T, Lindzen and Spencer etc. publish in those very journals which you dismiss. There is nothing stopping you from publishing except perhaps your paranoia and/or scientific failings.
Mapleleaf,
Yes, the 60+ publications on climate sensitivity have many errors. Most papers published after the mid 80's and virtually all of the climate models, embody Schlessingers flawed feedback model in one way or another. Even Spencer and Lindzen often refer to this model, but that's likely to change.
I don't believe that there's this big, active conspiracy going on. I believe that the appearance of a conspiracy is the result of flawed group think and peer pressure to achieve expected results, rather than even look for results that are contrary to expectations. I have yet to find a warmist who can offer a falsification test for CAGW, while skeptics constantly present such tests, along with results. There's also the funding gap, where funding for projects producing pro CAGW results exceeds funding for skeptical climate science by orders of magnitude. I don't know if you've ever tried to obtain climate science related funding, but unless you toe the party line, such funding is virtually impossible to secure.
Once you realize that many of the 60+ publications about climate sensitivity are mostly wrong, then you will have no choice but to agree that the peer review process that let those publications through, is seriously flawed.
My point is not about climate sensitivity anyway, but about the inconsistencies with how forcing power from GHG absorption is treated, relative to forcing power from the Sun. Again, I will ask you to answer my question. If you are still having problems look at my previous post where I broke it up into many smaller questions which should be easier for you to wrap your head around.
George
George,
"Once you realize that many of the 60+ publications about climate sensitivity are mostly wrong"
Please tell us which of the papers on ECS are correct and why.
When you keep harping on about "Schlessinger's flawed feedback model" I assume that you are referring to this paper (please not the correct spelling)?:
"Schlesinger, M. E., and J. F. B. Mitchell (1987), Climate model simulations of the equilibrium climatic response to increased carbon dioxide, Rev. Geophys., 25(4), 760-798."
As for you other unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about funding...more nonsense. And please, the proper acronym is AGW or ACC, CAGW is used by alarmist denialists.
Not that this is what is going on here, but George, when you submit a paper for review, the reviewer's get to ask the questions, not you :)
C02isnotevil or George
From the intertwining of brow beating and condescending manner you display in post no 28 I'm beginning to suspect I won't be needing to dance down Swanson St anytime soon with a life size picture of Tony Abbot.
George,
Against my better judgement I'm feeding you. I thought you were sincere in your quest, then I perused your web page. It took only a minute to find this:
"The first prediction of AGW to fail, is that a 20% increase in CO2 is expected to cause an increase in the average global temperature of about 0.8°C."
Well, what you say is clearly wrong. Ramanathan and Coakley (1978, for example) demonstrated that doubling (100% increase) in CO2 (without feedbacks) would theoretically increase global mean temperatures by about 1.2 C. So I'm not sure where you get 0.8 C warming for a 20% increase in CO2-- please demonstrate for us how you arrived at that number. I could get it but not using a 20% increase. Anyhow, it is a moot point because CO2 levels have increased by about 15% over the satellite record (387 ppmv in 2009 up from about 337 ppm circa 1979, source NOAA) over the period of the satellite record. So the expected warming (at equilibrium) from the associated radiative forcing from CO2 alone over the satellite record (1979-2009) should be about +0.555 C. (delT ~ 0.75*[5.35*ln(387/337)].
RSS lower trop temps have warmed about +0.463 C since 1979 (trend +0.1543 decade)
GISS temps have warmed by +0.483 C since 1979 (trend +0.161 per decade).
Not bad considering that the negative forcings such as aerosol loading have not been considered, and noise arising from internal climate modes and an oddly quiet sun; not to mention the fact that the projected warming is for equilibrium and it is known that there is a lag because of heat uptake by the oceans.
Anyhow, I am a humble idiot, so I'm sure that I have this all horribly wrong. Please do forgive me for my ignorance.
The noise is getting louder. Please stop denying the physics and answer my question.
Jeremey, you better get your tutu ready.
jackerman, yes this is the paper. You should also look at the Hansen paper in 1984 that Schlesinger's paper is a derivative of. Hansen mixes up gain and feedback, but did get one thing correct, which was quantifying gain and feedback as the dimensionless quantities that they are. Schlesinger introduced the idea to specify gain in units if degrees per W/m^2, which obscured Hansen's original mistake of assuming unit open loop gain.
The error is certainly hidden well. I don't believe that Hansen and Schlesinger conspired to hide the physics. I'm more willing to believe that this is all the result of a stupid math error and/or misunderstanding of basic control theory. The fact that there's no explanation in either paper as to why this assumption was made, or even that it was made, does seem to limit the possibilities for how it happened.
Regarding the feedback model error, do you really believe that the open loop climate gain is only 1? Do you even know what this means? Can you follow the arithmetic to see how the model assumes that the open loop gain is only 1? If you can't follow this simple arithmetic, it will be difficult to explain to you why the open loop gain can't be one. I will repeat it again for you.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/fbe/sh1.png
This is the picture Schlesinger uses to describe his mapping of the climate system onto a feedback network. The output is equal to J times Go. F is defined by stating, without explanation, that f = Go * F. If you solve for F and plug into the equation for delta J (the feedback term), we get delta J = f * J.
The factor f is defined as the fraction of the output fed back to the input (at least per Bode) and in the paper, is just referred to as a number between -1 and 1 quantifying the feedback, where -1 -> 100% negative feedback and +1 -> 100% positive feedback.
If the feedback term, delta J, is equal to J times f, then the open loop gain, that is, the gain block between the summation node and the output where the feedback is tapped off from, is 1. Moreover, the F term has no reason to exist as all if does is undo Go.
Even if you can somehow convince yourself that the open loop gain is only 1, this isn't even the biggest problem. This is that the controlled variable of the model (the surface temperature) is a consequence of a physical feedback system that is fundamentally different from the model attempting to represent it. The real physical system is the feedback system which maintains the Earth's energy balance and is not some hypothetical feedback system controlling the surface temperature.
George
Hmm, Lorius et al. (1990) state that delTe ~0.3*delQ. Above I used 0.75 K/W/m2, but that includes feedbacks. So using Lorius et al's equation for increase in equilibrium temperature from radiative forcing from CO2 alone (i.e, with no feedbacks) one gets an expected delTe of +0.222 C over the satellite record.
Now to be fair, other GHGs have gone up, so delQ should be higher (one should use an equivalent CO2). Anyhow, that estimate provided by Mr. White is still questionable.
Now I really do have to spend some time doing something, something far more important.
The closest thing to a science comment was jackermans
What were you saying about "infantile", troll?
concern about an anomaly 60 million years ago. Around that time is the KT boundary and associated impact and the Deccan traps. The carbon pulse could well be the effects of a global firestorm, including the burning of coal seams.
Uh, no, crackpot, the PaleoceneâEocene boundary is not the same as the K-T boundary. That would be one heck of a firestorm that lasted for 10 million years. Denialist shits like you truck in absurd "could well" fantasies to shore up your ideology when the evidence goes against it. From
and from
and from
I wish you'd stop beating about the bush and being so mealy-mouthed. Just come out with it and say what you really think!
I think George is intellectually dishonest garbage and should personally be held accountable (along with the rest of his ilk) for damages resulting from CC.
Mapleleaf,
For a climate sensitivty of 0.8 and the IPCC claimed relationship that forcing from CO2 levels above 280 ppm is equal to 5.3 ln(C/280), where C is the new concentration. 0.8 * 5.3 * ln(1.2) = 0.77C. OK, I rounded up to 0.8, but the tradition in climate science is to always round numbers up (like 3.6 rounded up to 3.7, etc.).
My point is that no linear trend is evident. The global average temperature has been varying over a 2C range over the same interval, with year to year changes in global average of as much as 0.5C within 1 year. (This is from the ISCCP D2 data available from GISS). A 0.46C trend over the same period is absolutely meaningless and can be wiped out in a single year. In fact, since recent years are showing lower temperatures, and most of your trend plots stop several years ago, I suspect that the current trend is negative during the time we have been collecting satellite data.
The first problem with the Ramanathan and Coakley paper is the assumption that there is only 45% cloud cover while modern measurements put it at about 65%. Furthermore, there is no rational description of cloud related feedback. The model also appears to be more of an open loop model than a closed loop one. This is evident from the observation that it seems to correlate with other models of the day, at least for small temperature perturbations, but for larger perturbations of a couple of degrees C or more, it doesn't match well at all and the presumption was that the other models (GCM's) were better. This just tells me that the predictive capabilities of this model are not particularly good.
George
37 TM,
You realise I was being ironic, of course. ;)
I think someone needs to explain to GeorgeisnotCO2 what the problem is. I really don't think he gets it.
Just for now, as it's getting late, I'll ask George: are you an electronics or control engineer (I haven't followed any of your links yet)?
George opts out of the peer review process, nuff said really but [check's comments](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2655…) address that point succinctly.
George is then forced to resort to conspiracy inference to bail out of relating his poor model to past temperature where solar isolation was lower. A white flag George?
TrueSceptic (apparently not),
My degrees are in physics and EE. I'm an expert in modeling (physical, logical and virtual systems) which frequently contain a variety of control systems (analog, digital and ucode), which tend to be nested many levels deep. I'm also an expert in mapping physical systems into computer models and an expert in mapping computer models into silicon systems.
I understand the problem precisely. Catastrophic warming from anthropogenic causes has been predicted based on the unproven and speculative hypothesis that increasing CO2 levels will push temperatures dramatically higher. As a skeptic of this hypothesis, it's my obligation to present data and physics which contradicts this. As a believer in this hypothesis, it's your duty to prove that this hypothesis is true. Nobody here has come close to achieving that and nobody has even been able to adequately debunk any of my evidence. BTW, ad hominem attacks and arguments from authority do not pass as debunking but only serve to illustrate how weak your case really is.
George
Bollocks. Were that the case, deltaJ would equal JF, not Jf.
You realise I was being ironic, of course. ;)
Yes, duh.
TrueSceptic (apparently not)
Oh the irony.
As a skeptic of this hypothesis, it's my obligation to present data and physics which contradicts this
That's not skepticism, it's apologetics.
>*nobody has even been able to adequately debunk any of my evidence.*
If only to claim such a thing [made it so](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2653…) George.
ad hominem attacks and arguments from authority do not pass as debunking but only serve to illustrate how weak your case really is
That is truly an ad hominem argument: "you called me a name so your claim is wrong!"
George, since you "understand the problem precisely" you surely know what the largest response to warming is? I'd like to hear your view on it. Here's a hint: it's a negative feedback.
Martin,
No. The paper states that f = Go*F, so F = f/Go. The output is Go*J and the output of the F block is f*J since the Go terms cancel.
Another way to see this is to consider the basic gain equation of a feedback loop. This is,
1/go = 1/gc + f
where go is the openloop gain, gc is the closed loop gain and f is the feedback fraction. All of the values are dimensionless ratios.
If the open loop gain is assumed to be 1, then we get,
1 = 1/gc + f
Rearranging, we get,
gc = 1/(1-f)
If you replace f with g and gc with f, you get the equation Hansen presented in his 1984 paper (like I said he mixed up gain and feedback). This error was forward propagated into the Schlesinger model, although oddly enough, Schlesinger noticed the gain and feedback mix up as well.
George
Arthur,
The largest effect from warming depends on the temperature. Warming around 0C is dominated by positive feedback from snow and ice melting. Once the snow and ice is gone, other water related effects start to dominate. The largest being increased evaporation, which increases the latent heat transfered from the surface to the clouds. Most of this latent heat is given up to the clouds, which radiate it to space and back to the surface and contributes to the power driving weather. When the water condenses as rain, the rain is also colder than the surface and further adds to cooling. This is a double impact negative feedback effect and is what's responsible for the saturation of surface temperature, relative to atmospheric water content that I showed in a previous graph.
Why this is confusing to many is due to the inflection point at 0C where the feedback switches over from positive to negative.
George
I don't think anybody properly responded to George's comments in #28 above - several of his numbers are wrong. So I thought I'd point out where all of us presumably disagree with him:
George asked:
"Do you agree that the solar constant is about 1366 W/m^2 corresponding to an average incident solar forcing power of 1366/4 = 341.5 W/m^2?"
George, what do you mean by this term "average incident solar forcing power"? The term "radiative forcing" is defined by the IPCC (TAR and AR4 - see sec 2.2) as
"the change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar
plus longwave; in W mâ2) at the tropopause after allowing for stratospheric temperatures to readjust to radiative equilibrium, but with surface and tropospheric temperatures and state held fixed at the unperturbed values"
So first off, a total (such as that for all incoming solar radiation) is different from a *change*. Second, since a good fraction of incoming solar energy is reflected, a change in incoming solar of, say, 2%, would have a radiative forcing associated with the *net* change, i.e. the reflected (under unchanged troposphere conditions) short-wave radiation must be subtracted before evaluating the forcing. You do get the right number in your next question:
"Do you agree that the solar energy forcing surface temperature is approximately equal to the incident solar energy times (1-albedo) which is about 239 W/m^2?"
but again using a strange term "solar energy forcing surface temperature", and talking about the whole rather than changes, which is what radiative forcing is all about.
So when you earlier criticized Gavin for saying "2% increase in solar forcing is equal to a 2xCO2 increase. 2% of 341.5 W/m^2 is 6.8 W/m^2," you got the numbers wrong - a 2% increase in solar irradiation gives a forcing of 2% of 239 W/m^2, or about 4.8 W/m^2. Also Gavin didn't say the two were "equal", but that's another matter. It does show that you are being quite careless in the accusations you throw around.
When you ask:
"Do you agree that doubling CO2 increases atmospheric absorption by about 3.7 W/m^2 and that this results in about 1.9 W/m^2 of incremental surface forcing? If you don't accept this, will you agree that it's 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing? (It really doesn't matter for the purpose of this analysis)."
you introduce yet another undefined term, "incremental surface forcing" (and mis-identify CO2's radiative forcing as "atmospheric absorption"). What is that supposed to mean? The definition of radiative forcing is clear and specific, as I quoted above. To return to balance from a radiative forcing change of X W/m^2, there must be changes in the surface and the troposphere to result in an outgoing additional X W/m^2 through the tropopause. All radiative forcing changes, whether from a change in incoming solar radiation, GHG changes, aerosols, clouds, etc. have that same forcing-response balance and will in large measure show the same averaged behavior at the surface and throughout the troposphere, although regional and local-in-time detailed responses may differ somewhat.
In particular, when you earlier say:
"Do you agree that the increase in SURFACE emitted power is about 16 W/m^2 as the result of a 3C increase in SURFACE temperature?"
you seem to be neglecting that the back-radiation from the atmosphere to the surface increases almost as much, simultaneously (the lower tropopshere actually warms slightly more than the surface, at least in the tropics). From the standard Kiehl-Trenberth-Fasullo picture there is 396 W/m^2 emitted by Earth's surface, and 333 W/m^2 received in back-radiation. So an increase of 16 W/m^2 in surface radiative flux would be met by a roughly 13 W/m^2 increase in back-radiation. That leaves a net 3 W/m^2 increase - so not quite enough to balance the 3.7 W/m^2 radiative forcing from doubled CO2. But there will also be some increase in convective and latent heat flow - getting all those numbers right of course is why modeling is a little hard.
I find it hard to make any sense of the rest of your questions. You seem to be asserting some sort of bogus linearization of total surface radiative flux to total solar flux absorbed by the planet whether at the surface or not - the real system is far more complex than your caricature.
Has anyone else read the latest Scientific American article by Jeffrey D. Sachs on Millennium Development Goals? It refers to Ban Ki-moon's leadership on malaria control, having urged the UN and member states to coalesce around a specific strategy - .. "The key is free access to long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to reduce malaria transmission coupled with community based drug treatments when episodes of malaria occur. With nearly 200 million bed nets distributed, malaria deaths are plummeting throughout Africa." and "... Special Envoy for Malaria, Ray Chambers, reports that comprehensive bed-net coverage is within reach by the end of 2010, as targeted."
With malaria deaths plummeting, will the myth of excess malaria deaths due to banned DDT plummet in synchrony? I think that's unlikely myself, since it's always been about attacking Environmentalism, not malaria. Truth was an early casualty at the hands of those prosecuting this little war.
George (#49) - water effects are not actually the largest response (though you somehow completely neglected the impact of increasing H2O vapor as a GHG).
You seem to focus on various early papers on the control-theory questions; I haven't looked at them in detail, but the discussion does sound a little confused. But the discussion in the latest IPCC report (section 8.6) is pretty precise, and based on for example the review by Bony et al, Journal of Climate 19:3445 (2006) - in particular Appendix A, "How are Feedbacks defined?". Here input is a radiative forcing at the tropopause (some number of W/m^2) and the response is evaluated similarly as a radiative change at the tropopause. Balance is restored when the total radiative change at the tropopause (forcing + response) is equal to zero.
So the strongest response has to be a negative response that comes close to matching the forcing - then other feedbacks modify that strong response. That first strong response can be identified as the "Planck response", simply assuming a uniform temperature increase through the troposphere. It is that response which stabilizes things, and other feedbacks are generally measured in terms of their relationship to that one. But the Planck response can be considered a very large negative feedback on the forcing in the first place - the one that does most of the work to restore balance.
Calculating the Planck response is not a trivial matter of finding the black-body change in emission by the surface though, because the response has to be calculated *at the tropopause*, where forcings are determined, and where balance must be restored.
George,
Sigh. Your web page is misleading. You state:
"The 25+ years of accumulated satellite data, during which time CO2 levels have increased by more than 20%, is now suitable for testing the AGW hypothesis. The first prediction of AGW to fail, is that a 20% increase in CO2 is expected to cause an increase in the average global temperature of about 0.8°C."
First, according to NOAA, CO2 levels increased just under 15% between 1979 and 2009 (the date on your web page), not more than 20% as you state. The increase in radiative forcing from increasing CO2 by 15% (with feedbacks) is expected to lead to an expected warming of +0.555 C at equilibrium, not +0.8 C as you state.
Second, I demonstrated that the observed warming in the global surface data and RSS lower troposphere data between 1979 and 2009 is consistent with the warming predicted from radiative forcing from higher CO2 concentrations with a feedback of 0.75 K/Wm-2 (even without allowing for lags, quieter sun etc.), and that the observed warming is much more than that expected from the increased radiative forcing of CO2 alone.
Now you seem very willing to deceive, but that is not surprising when you claim on your web-page that:
"In fact, it's so small, that it's certain that the trillions of dollars we are poised to spend on CO2 mitigation will have no effect, other than to drag down the worlds economy and impede the goal of energy independence."
That shows that your motivation for fabricating/fudging low climate sensitivity is not about science, but apparently libertarian ideology.
Goodnight and goodbye.
Arthur,
As far as I'm concerned, a joule is a joule and a watt is a watt and I don't care what you call it. Are you trying to say that the power coming from the Sun isn't forcing the climate? The IPCC definition is specific to GHG forcing and this is part of the problem. Why even make this distinction unless you are trying to avoid comparing solar forcing to GHG absorption related forcing?
While there are differences between the absolute gain and the incremental gain, the differences are quite small. Examine this plot of solar power vs surface power and you should notice that the absolute and incremental gain are close to the same. If the system was linear, they would be exactly the same, but the system is somewhat nonlinear so there are small differences, although these differences get much larger at the high and low end of the temperature scale as the system becomes more and more nonlinear.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/fbe/is.png
This is a plot of the actual system gain characteristics If you click on 'co2isnotevil', the URL I point to shows how the surface power gain relative to post albedo incident power behaves.
I'm glad you noticed that the more appropriate representation of gain, relative to GHG forcing, is emitted surface power divided by the post albedo incident power. I made this slightly ambiguous to see if anyone was paying attention. Notice how 4.3 is still significantly larger than 3.7? But this isn't the main problem anyway. The main problem is that 4.3 watts/m^2 of incremental power arriving at the surface has a net effect on the surface temperature of only about 1.3C (assuming the same 1.6 gain). Even if it was this much, it's not catastrophic and nothing to worry about. It's actually less since doubling CO2 is only 1.85 W/m^2 of equivalent post albedo incident solar power.
Clearly, 4.3 watts/m^2 of solar forcing doesn't result in a 3.4C temperature increase. If it did, the 20 W/m^2 of difference between perihelion and aphelion would cause 16C of variability, which is not evident in any data set.
The effects of back radiation are embodied in the average gain of 1.6. This is why the gain is greater than 1.
I agree that I've had to simplify this somewhat, but how can you complain about this when oversimplifications with far more detrimental effects are all over the place in pro CAGW science.
The Schlesinger feedback model for one.
You also seem to think that I'm trying to model something here. I'm not. All I'm doing is presenting data and a few top level constraints dictated by COE. I have models, but I don't need to use them to recursively justify themselves. I know you're used to this kind of circular justification, but I'm not.
What I've done is apply the kinds of techniques I would use to reverse engineer a black box system. I don't care how it's implemented inside, all I care about is replicating the behavior at the ports (observables). It doesn't matter where the individual feedbacks are coming from, the net result of all the effects can be measured.
George
Arthur,
Water vapor GHG absorption is less important than you think, at least relative to the energy balance. There's little water vapor between cloud tops and space and most of the high water vapor content in the atmosphere is in the space between the surface and clouds. GHG absorption (even CO2) between the surface and clouds has little effect on the energy balance as most of the surface energy is absorbed by clouds anyway (on average > 80%). It's the energy balance that's under control of the physical feedback system, not surface temperatures.
If you look at the water related feedback that's most important around the operating point of the climate (287K), it's evaporation. This brings up another important point that many on your side fail to understand. Feedback, as quantified by the Schlesinger model, is not constant and varies over a relatively wide range.
The biggest effect you are talking about is the strong negative feedback coming from the system controlling the Earth's energy balance. This can not be adequately represented within the framework of the hypothetical system of the Schlesinger feedback model.
The Bony definition if feedback is the usual partial derivative based analysis. It's still based on the usual model, from which the Schlesinger model evolved. It still suffers from the fault where the modeled feedback system has no relation to the actual underlying physical system. Any quantification of feedback or gain which uses units like degrees per W/m^2 most likely has this same error and is most likely faulty.
George
Still no explanation from George as to how his claim of low climate sensitivity can be reconciled with past warming during lower solar insolation such as the PETM.
And still no justifiction for using a 25 year snapshot relationship of water vapor and temperature as a basis for claiming "saturation" feedback as temperatures continue to be forced higher.
Also thanks to Arthur for a good read.
Mapleleaf,
You do realize that the global average temperature changes by as much as 0.5C from year to year? Your 0.43C trend since 1979 can be completely wiped out in just 1 year and in fact already has been mostly, if not entirely, wiped out with the recent cooling trend. The natural p-p variability in the global average temperature is over 2C based on the satellite record which makes your 0.43 trend meaningless relative to natural variability.
And to confirm your worst fears, my politics are certainly more libertarian than socialist, but the bottom line is that no amount of political spin or legislative action can change the physics.
George
Jakerman,
I did a partial explanation post 11 and asked you to be more specific about your claim. Frankly, there's nothing useful you can determine relative to the climate and CO2 based on 60 million year old data and a bunch of assumption, including the assumption that CO2 drives the climate.
George
>*I did a partial explanation post 11*
Which was:
>*One of the biggest effects is the asymmetry between hemispheres and the seasonal alignment of perihelion. If perihelion occurred in July or August, rather than January, more N hemisphere ice would be melted and the global average temperature would be warmer.*
You are not claiming that the saying the seasonal alignment of perihelion caused the PETM warming spike I assume. So what is your explanation for instances where the temperature was warmer duing periods with lower solar insolation?
Or do you not have an explanation that is consistant with low climate sensitivity?
George writes:
>*but the bottom line is that no amount of political spin or legislative action can change the physics.*
But George will give it his best shot regardless.
Hilariously juxtaposed in the same post as George's claim that the warming trend is meaningless.
George,
George says "You do realize that the global average temperature changes by as much as 0.5C from year to year?"
Really? OMG, I had no bloody idea (sarc). Interesting, to avoid inconvenient truths you make a strawman argument about the alleged invalidity of a 3-yr trend (which is actually very robust). And it is not my trend, it is an OLS trend derived from data provided by NASA. And it seems you need to learn a thing or two about calculating trends, statistical significance (and confidence intervals) and internal climate modes et cetera.
You have not conceded that, on your website you exaggerate the increase in CO2 levels between 1979 and 2009, as well as the expected warming.
You also still have not told us which of the 60 plus publications on CS (which I alluded to earlier) are correct and why.
You say "no amount of political spin or legislative action can change the physics"
Well, you are sure doing your damndest to butcher the physics to suite your own ideology.
Now I have to do some more work. Bye.
Arthur,
Thanks for some very interesting and insightful posts....one learns something every day, and today I learnt something new from you :)
Mapleleaf,
Do you realize that multi-year trends and anomaly analysis removes detail from the data which is important to understand. OK, a 3 year .43C trend can be wiped out in less than 3 years. BFD. It doesn't change my point.
The 20 percent came from a 54 ppm rise, relative to the 280 ppm baseline. which I rounded up from 19.3 to 20.0. OK you got me! The equation is not 5.3*ln(Ce/Cs), where Ce and Cs are the start and end concentrations, it's 5.3*ln(Ce/280).
As for which papers are correct and which are not, I can't say as I've not read them all. But I can say with 100% certainty, anything that predicts an effect of more than 1.2C has an error in it and anything over 2C is so wrong it's not even worth my time to look.
George
LOL, there went your credibility.
jackerman,
The precession of perihelion effect can swing the average temperature by many degrees given constant average yearly insolation and I offered it as a possible explanation that's just as viable as any other.
We see a clear example of this today. Perihelion occurs in early January when the solar constant is 80 W/m^2 larger than in early June. The -20 W/m^2 of average, incremental solar forcing should produce a decrease in the global average temperature of about 4C from February to July (the delay is intrinsic to the response of the system). Instead, the global average July temp is 3-4C warmer than February. The 8C offset is a consequence of the asymmetric hemispheric response to the seasonal alignment of perihelion.
If perihelion occurred in early June, instead of early January, we would be at the opposite extent of the seasonal alignment of perihelion. We would expect to see a temperature increase of 4C from January to July due to increased solar power, instead, we would see an increase closer to 12C while the absolute January global average temperature would be about 4C colder than today.
The net is as much as a 3-4C difference in the global average temperature caused by nothing more than the precession of perihelion. This 22Ky signal is highly evident in the ice cores and can become far larger when the Earth's orbit is most the eccentric and virtually disappears when the orbit is most circular.
George
George,
In all your calculations you appear to assume that the effect of a 54 ppm rise over the time frame under consideration would have come to equilibrium.
However I do not see how you include the effect of the thermal mass of the ocean, and the energy distribution (both spatial and temporal) of oceanic currents into your system. Recent papers point out that the ocean is still accumulating heat and will continue to do so until equilibrium is reached, the timeframe for which is very much under debate.
You go to length about feedbacks, but you seem to work under an underlying assumption that the effects of all feedbacks act in a rapid enough time frame to be completely evident within this time frame (be it 20 or 100 years). This is far from proven.
So George let me guess this straight, are you are claiming that warm events such as the PETM are due in your mind to the seasonal alignment of the Perihelion?
Or do have no explanation such periods that is consistant with low climate sensitivity?
George,
Last, absolutely last post. Oh for goodness' sakes, it seems that you do not understand what you wrote on your own web page--now you are taking about your 20% increase referring to increases in CO2 levels above the 280 baseline. Please read the text in quotation marks (cut and pasted from your page) in my post at #53 very slowly and carefully.
On your web page, the parts that I quoted twice now, you are specifically talking about the increase in CO2 over the last 25+years (i.e., the MSU satellite record). That period is 1979-current. The date of your web page is 2009. The increase in CO2 (according to NOAA) between 1979 to 2009 was 50 ppm (337 in 1979 to 387 in 2009). That represents a 14.8% increase in CO2 between 1979 and 2009 (1.1483*337 = 387). Now, 14.8% is not over 20%. Do you now see the problem with what you wrote on your web page now? [By 1979, CO2 levels had increased by about 20% (or about 57 ppm) from their pre-industrial levels, and by 2009 about 38% (or 107 ppm)].
Predicted warming (assuming feedbacks and at equilibrium) by 1979 (from 1750) ~0.73 C
Predicted warming (assuming feedbacks and at equilibrium) by 2009 (from 1750) ~ 1.29 C
Therefore, suggested warming between 1979 and 2009 (from CO2 alone) is about +0.56 C-- that is pretty much what has happened as I showed above. I'm sure that had the long-term trend in global temperatures been steady or down between 1979 and 2009, then you would have been citing that as evidence that CO2 is an insignificant climate driver. So I understand that the observed warming is very inconvenient and that you need to convince yourself that it is meaningless.
And sorry, your answer about the 60 odd papers is not in the least satisfactory; simply dismissing papers which don't fit your idea only goes to highlight your confirmation bias and intolerance of inconvenient scientific findings.
it's certain that the trillions of dollars we are poised to spend on CO2 mitigation will have no effect, other than to drag down the worlds economy
Yet another idelogical crackpot who has no understanding of economics. Spending would drag down the world's economy? WAHAHAHAHA! Where does this idiot think the money spent goes, Mars?
MFS,
The effect of the thermal mass of the ocean is accounted for. We can think of the top level constraint on the system as Pi = Po + dE/dt, where Pi is the instantaneous solar power entering the system, Po is the instantaneous power leaving the planet (including reflection) and E is the energy stored in the Earth's thermal mass.
If more power is arriving than leaving, dE/dt is positive, E increases and temperatures rise. If more power is leaving than arriving, dE/dt is negative, E decreases and temperatures fall.
We can determine Pi and Po quite easily from multiple satellite data sets. dE/dt is then the difference between them. This is also the sensible heat, whose average across a year is close to zero.
We can close the loop by considering that the thermal mass of the planet is primarily water and knowing that it takes 1 cal to raise the temp of 1 cc of water 1C, there are enough measurements and relationships between state variables that we can determine exactly how much water is participating in the thermal mass of the system.
It turns out that it's only a small fraction of the total ocean volume. What this means is that thermal mass buffering the climate is much smaller than many believe. The fact that the average global temp changes by 4C during the year and that most of the thermal mass and surface of the planet is water supports this.
Jackerman,
I didn't say it was the cause, I said it was at least as plausible as any other hypothesis.
Mapleleaf,
Why don't you focus on substance rather than trivia. Read the whole thing.
Good night,
George
George writes:
>*Jackerman,I didn't say it was the cause, I said it was at least as plausible as any other hypothesis.*
What an empty claim. It is completely implausible. Put it this way, how many seasons in a row of Perihelion alignment with NH summer would be required to sustain an event such as the PETM for 100,000 years?
Other than this implausible notion (that you are not even willing to back) you have no explanation such periods that is consistant with low climate sensitivity.
Combine that will no justification for using a 25 years snapshot relationship of temp and water vapour as a feedback "saturation" limit in a dynamic warming world.
Leaves your low sensitivty claims pretty empty.
George writes, "But I can say with 100% certainty"
According to who? You?
Reading this, I could not help but break into fits of laughter. I am glad that science does not advance in this way, based on an individual's gut feelings that have not been scrutinized by his or her peers.
As Chek has said, put up or shut up. Submit your allegedly ground breaking arguments to a rigidly peer-reviewed journal, and then come back here and share the reviews with us. I can say with "99% certainty" that your arguments will be shot down in flames and consigned to the rubbish bin where they belong.
The good news is that, as long as you rely on your web site to promote your (mis)information, then do not expect to make any waves in the scientific community. You will be ignored, with the exception of a few denialists who want to believe your gibberish.
Lastly, your moniker (C02isnotevil) is ridiculous. Any biogeochemical in excess amounts in nature can exhibit deleterious effects on communities and ecosystems. By pumping great qunatities of C02 into the atmsophere, humans are conducting an experiment on systems of immense complexity whose functioning we barely understand but which sustain us in a myriad of ways through supporting services that emerge from them. In previous threads I have already alluded to the ecophysiologiucal effects of excees carbon on plant traits including C:N:P ratios as well as on the allocation of C and N to secondary metabolities and how this might affect consumers up the food chain. Climate change will certainly exacerbate these effects. Given the non-linear relationship between cause and effect over differing scales across the biosphere, there is little doubt that humans have little control over the outcome of the massive experiment now being conducted. No university or research institute would allow such an experiment to be conducted if the potential repercussions were to be laid out beforehand. Therefore I consider those peddling denial to be wholly irresponsible.
[co2isnotevil](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2656…) [sic]:
This paragraph is interesting - where in the IPCC material, or in the other sensitivity references that you disparage, is the claim made that a 4.3 w/m2 increase in solar forcing alone "result[s] in a 3.4C temperature increase"? I say "alone" because it is directly implied by your comment about the perihelion/aphelion difference in irradiance leading to a 16 C temperature difference - in such a case there are few feedings back that could operate within the span of time involved...
I've never encountered this 4.3 w/m2/3.4 C correlation before, so I am very interested to know where from where you source this.
'George' said
>As for publishing and peer review, I prefer the open format of the Internet, rather than the closed and often anonymous peer review process usually applied to climate papers. As was pointed out in the earlier thread, the peer review process, as it's applied to climate research, is broken beyond repair.
The internet is far more anonymous than formal peer review.
You complain about the comments here, which suggests you are not open to an open format.
eg. you have double standards.
You also seem to place yourself in a certain position in relation to others by the language you use. There seems to be a ego issue involved when you address people here and in the way you refer to Gavin Schmidt.
Surely "co2isnotevil" is the same science-illiterate "engineer" who had to have the difference between power and energy explained to him in:
and was banned for sending Tim a threatening email in which he complained about Tim's contributors impugning George's proud ignorance?
There's little water vapor between cloud tops and space and most of the high water vapor content in the atmosphere is in the space between the surface and clouds. GHG absorption (even CO2) between the surface and clouds has little effect on the energy balance as most of the surface energy is absorbed by clouds anyway (on average > 80%).
Great, but what about when it's not cloudy?
Whoops, the above big paragraph is quoting George... but that should be obvious.
I'm always amazed how the skeptic community swing between:
1) The system is to complex and chaotic.
and
2) You can treat water on the planet as a big thermal store which is so simple it can be represented in a simple equation.
I am also mistified by the persistent claims regarding the destruction of the world economy. Maybe there is a weird perception of the term 'investement'? What do the economic alarmists think will happen when you instigate the idea-finding and development of mitigation solutions, the engineering and construction of a renewable energy grid, design and engineering of eletric car solutions, the greening of cities and so on and so forth? That's major capitalism at work! __*People*__ will be doing this.
On the issue of the oceans being a simple heat store:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713101412.htm
Jason W. That's major capitalism at work! People will be doing this.
Exactly. I'm constantly bemused or downright flummoxed that people who are focused on economic issues can't see the investment, innovation and overflowing bags of money involved in major change.
Why aren't they elbowing everyone else out of the way to get first dibs?
>*Why aren't they elbowing everyone else out of the way to get first dibs?*
Because concentration of power means that those protecting self interest have already very concentrated power to block disruptive technology and disruptive innovation.
re 83: this is why capitalism doesn't work. Money is power and power is money and concentration of money concentrates power.
Just look at the Hilton Heiresses. How do they manage to make enough money? They already have it.
Communism doesn't work because the concentration of power is in a few people in government and government corruption happens.
Capitalism doesn't work because concentration of power is in a few rich heads of industry and corporate corruption happens.
Utopia is when people have tried both and realised the problem isn't with people but with power being handed out to others. Concentration of power is the problem, whether government force or capitalist money. The Utopia has no power to consolidate because the people have realised the real problem.
I wonder if George will return again? Any votes on whether he's actually learned anything here?
One thing we've learned - he's habitually careless with his numbers. Where did '4.3' come from? Did he mean my 4.8? I see signs of habitual carelessness in logic as well.
The IPCC definition of radiative forcing (net change in radiative flux at the tropopause with the state of the surface and lower atmosphere unchanged) is a useful simplification that avoids the complexity of convective and latent heat flow, since convective and latent heat flow through the tropopause is essentially zero. It is certainly not, as George claims "trying to avoid comparing solar forcing to GHG absorption related forcing" - those comparisons are in fact easily made with the IPCC definition, and modelers make them all the time, as we've already discussed. Gavin's example of a 2% solar change compared to doubling CO2 actually dates back to one of Hansen's early papers that did the same comparison; Hansen overestimated the forcing for doubling CO2, so the two were a closer match at that time. Yes, a 2% solar increase is about 30% more than doubling CO2; they're not equal and Gavin Schmitt never said they were (he used the term "comparable"). They indeed are close enough to make comparisons of those two canonical changes reasonable.
But George remains confused about this "tropopause" vs "surface" issue, he seems to be saying the 2% increase in solar forcing causes:
"4.3 watts/m^2 of incremental power arriving at the surface"
but in fact that's not the definition, the definition is at the tropopause. If you look at Kiehl-Trenberth-Fasullo, there's a lot of loss of incoming solar energy on the way through the atmosphere, so the quantity of increased *solar* radiation at the surface would be somewhat less. More importantly, as surface and lower atmosphere temperatures increase, there's a big increase in back-radiation to the surface, which George completely neglects. So the effect of an increase in solar input, or the increase in net flux due to GHG's, is greatly enhanced at the surface once things start to warm up.
Which is why George's claim that the "modeled feedback system has no relation to the actual underlying physical system", by which he appears to mean the use of temperature as the key to the degree of an energy flux response, is so specious. It is the increase in surface temperature, and the correlated increase in tropospheric temperatures, that produces the large negative Planck feedback. Those are thermal radiative response components that explicitly are determined by the temperature of the surface and atmosphere. The W/m^2 of the stabilizing Planck response requires a change in temperature. All other feedbacks are then measured relative to that, which is where the natural sensitivity measure of K/(W/m^2) is relevant.
If surface temperature does not increase, the Planck response is not initiated and the net radiative forcing simply cannot be balanced - Earth will continue absorbing energy until its temperature eventually does rise to balance. Temperature increase is key, not some after-thought.
As to the yearly cycle - as with any such periodic forcing you will always see a phase shift in the response due to the time dependence of the response components; the fact that the two are out of phase in this case should indicate there are large response components that take more than 6 months to come into effect, and the actual magnitude of the response is going to be considerably less than a longer-term flux change would impose. Response to the flux change associated with volcanic eruptions like Pinatubo is a better measure, and those largely agree with climate models that produce the standard sensitivity values.
George, have you actually looked at the assessments of our understanding of sensitivity from many different lines of argument? In particular Knutti and Hegerl, Nature Geoscience 1, 735 (2008). For some reason they neglect your and Monckton's surface flux argument. Ever wondered why?
Adrian said...
So this is an open thread, but I still fell I need to apologise for being off topic as this has turned into a George (CO2isnotevil) debunking session.
Anyhoo, I was over at Joe Romm's place earlier and noticed an admirable peculiarity that I thought the AGW-convinced might want to try.
There was a comment, half way down a page of sensible comments, that was made by an obvious troll (or at least someone who couldn't be bothered to check the validity of his own facts). Being number 37 of 59 comments I was looking for the easy and speedy refutation, but there was none.
Step back about 40 years and I remember my dad telling me to ignore the bullies at school as they would eventually get bored and just go away.
Is this a possible tactic to stop the noisier 'deniers'? Allow them to comment freely, but use some self-control and just refuse to engage them. After all, I have little doubt that a large number of them comment and argue the same old bullcrap just for shits and giggles. It is clear even to me (a biologist with a cursory understanding of mathematics) that George is, in fact, a moron with an ego who PRETENDS to believe that real scientists who devote their lives to understanding the climate must have missed some glaringly obvious fundamental that he (an engineer expert in some sort of black box system) is brilliant enough to have discovered (but won't actually publish - ever - because its bollocks). The guy is obviously also very clever with numbers so I find it hard to believe that he really believes the tripe-and-onions he serves. It's just a game - like Dungeons and Dragons (surely????).
Ignore people like this. Stop feeding their ego. Stop responding when it becomes clear who and what they are, and they might just get bored and go away, leaving the science blogosphere, and, ultimately, the MSM and even politicians to get on with the serious task at hand. They can hardly then complain about being 'censored' from 'warmist blogs', and the alternative "nobody seems to care about my rants" sounds so much more pathetic.
Any chance?
Sorry Adrian, it's not the people who write the rubbish we have to worry about.
It's all the readers who don't contribute, for whatever reason. People who *do* know the right stuff have to clear up and sweep away any misconceptions because you never know who might read it and find it superficially attractive. They themselves may lack the training or the knowledge to judge its relevance or accuracy and they rely on the responders to set things straight.
Not that my critique of George's work was not sophisticated (certainly not as sophisticated as that made by Arthur and others), but I would hardly classify George's misrepresentation of the facts on his web page that I highlighted as 'trivia', as he uses the statements as the entry point for his hypothesis. Nor would I dismiss the body of scientific evidence that has been amassed since 1896 on this subject as 'trivial'.
Ironic how someone who accuses the IPCC and scientists of allegedly rounding up numbers (i.e., George) is guilty of not being particularly careful with the numbers. In my experience, doing that tends to piss off reviewers.
Adrian @86,
Good points and I share that sentiment-- damn my conscience for keep getting in the way though! Seriously though, I think one has to choose your battles and weigh the situation (are there possibly lay people who are being misinformed by said poster?). That said, I have yet to encounter a AGW 'skeptic' who has changed their mind, leaning, or opinion about AGW after coming here or RC or any of the other places. Sometimes it seems like they just want to stir and get a reaction or feed their ego. And we all know that trying to reason with or point out errors to a D-K is neigh impossible.
I see that people, so far at least, have ignored the very obvious bait post at #70-- it is clear from the outset that they will not be swayed by no amount of evidence or science.
[MapleLeaf said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2657…) "And we all know that trying to reason with or point out errors to a D-K is neigh impossible".
Well, you know what they say about leading horses to water, ML :)
Poor George,
It looks like George is using the ISCCP's Clear Sky Surface Brightness Temperature (as seen from space) as a substitute for locally measured SATs & SSTs. If so, it's no wonder his calculations are so skewed.
Bad George.
The S/N ratio is certainly getting low. Owing to the volume of comments, I will need to be more selective with replies. If you rant and rave, I will probably not reply.
Benard,
The IPCC goes out of it's way to avoid making comparisons between the response of the climate to solar forcing and the response to GHG forcing. So much so, that they even define forcing in a silly way that precludes it's applicability to solar forcing, as Arthur keeps pointing out. If it was easy to notice the equivalence of solar power entering the surface and GHG forcing power entering the surface, it would undermine their case, so all of the obfuscation seems to have a purpose. I suggest that you deprecate the absolute 'authority' of the IPCC. The IPCC is not a scientific organization, but a political one, so it's extra important to be diligently objective when considering anything they claim about science.
Look at this plot to see what you're missing. The slope of this relationship is the sensitivity of the surface to incremental incident solar power. It's about 1.1 for temperatures between about 273K and 290K. Above 290K it drops to 1, even falling below 1 for a short time. Below 273K, the gain is significantly higher.
Note that the definition of gain I use is a ratio of power to power, which is a dimensionless value and is consistent with the definition of gain used for analyzing feedback systems.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/fbe/is.png
It's important to recognize that the response illustrated by this plot is the post feedback response extracted from measured data. No models are in the way of the analysis and all feedback like mechanisms, positive and negative, known and unknown, are embodied by the measured response. The seasonal response dependencies even includes snow and ice albedo effects. While we aren't entering and leaving ice ages, the hemispheres swing between winter and summer, where the winter snow pack emulates the effects of a glacial ice pack, although it's certainly far less persistent.
4.3 W/m^2 of incremental solar forcing will be amplified by 1.1 to become 4.7 W/m^2 emitted by surface. The average surface temperature is about 287K, corresponding to an emitted surface power of 384.7 W/m^2. If we add 4.7 W/m^2 to this and convert back to temperature, we get, 287.9K, which is a 0.9C rise. Don't be confused by claims that SB doesn't work on the surface. The surface itself is close to an ideal BB. The Earth + atmosphere is not, but it's deviation from ideal is readily quantified.
4.3 W/m^2 becomes about 3 W/m^2 at the surface after the effects of albedo are accounted for. The corresponding surface power gain, relative to incremental incident surface power is 4.7/3, or about 1.6. This is a physical measurement of the climates sensitivity to forcing power of any kind, including solar. The 3.7 W/m^2 from doubling CO2 should result in about 5.9 W/m^2 at the surface, which corresponds to a 1.1C rise in surface temperature. Remember, that this MEASURED sensitivity includes all influences of feedback like effects, relative to a perturbation from the current operating point. Note that the 3.7 is really only 1.85 at the surface, so the actual rise for doubling CO2 is only about 0.6C. This minor effect is far from catastrophic and becomes buried in noise of natural variability.
Even with the bogus factor of 2, it's still too small to be obsessing about.
Mapleleaf,
I'm tiring of the denseness of your rants. Within a sentence or 2 of the one you so strenuously objected to, you would have read,
"Because of the difficulty in detecting trends, few accept this failing test as a counter argument to AGW, and simply claim that the data is inconclusive. It's hard to argue that the absence of a predicted trend in the satellite record is conclusive, but the satellite data reveals a lot more than just temperatures."
And then I discuss the many other ways that the satellite data tells us that CAGW can't happen. It seems that you are among those who reject the first test as counter argument, so what new information are you bringing to the table?
But then again, CAGW supporters do not pay proper attention to conditional qualifications. Words like could, should, might and inconclusive are turned into 'most likely true' when the result of the qualified statement supports your case, and 'most likely false' when it doesn't.
CO2isnotevil or George,
Its not that the signal to noise ratio is getting low, instead you are being pummelled by spread spectrum techniques.
Thanks to adelady and MapleLeaf for their responses.
I do understand the issue and have been drawn in to such arguments before, both in blogs and on Facebook (of all places).
Sadly, over at Joe Romm's place, it only took another 4 comments before someone took the bait and began the intellectual destruction of the aforementioned troll.
I have to say, I am impressed (still) by George's command of mathematics (and even language), but anyone who lamely throws in the intellectual towel by claiming that 'peer review is broken beyond repair' and that he prefers 'the open format of the internet' (in which case I have a cure for cancer I'd like to sell him) is demonstrably no better than Glenn Beck and should be, beyond those declarations, summarily dismissed a tosser, albeit a potentially dangerous tosser. Quite a shame when you consider that all of those talents are undoubtedly going to masturbatory waste.
Just my opinion.
That George has chosen not to respond to my comments (#85) is, I think, rather telling :)
I've just got back from the Guardian "ClimateGate" debate in London and here are some of the notes I made of the event.
On the panel chaired by George Monbiot was Fred Pearce, Prof Trevor Davies (Vice-chancellor at UAE and former Director of CRU), Steven McIntyre, Prof Bob Watson (UK Gov scientific advisor and former IPCC chair) and Doug Keenan.
In the audience were various luminaries: Benny Peiser, Piers Corbyn, Roger Harribin and......Jonathan Leake!!
The format was 5 mins for each panelist, 15 mins of open discussion, then audience questions for 45 mins.
Prof. Davies: Said CRU will be exploring initiatives later in the year to open up public space for engaging in the scientific discussion. Also said that lessons have been learned.
Steve McIntyre: Gave an overview of his main criticisms aired on ClimateAudit in recent weeks - nothing really new. Monbiot tried to challenge him about the Muir Russell finding that any competent individual could reproduce a temperature series from publicly accessible data, which McIntyre deftly sidestepped.
Bob Watson: Thinks reviews had high integrity and gave a robust rebuttal of criticisms. He accused the printed media of being guilty of getting carried away with the "skeptic" allegations" (and made a specific dig at the Guardian), though thought the TV media were much fairer in general. Says we need more balanced reporting and that he estimates that 95% of scientists accept the mainstream consensus on AGW.
Doug Keenan: Says he will not retract fraud allegations made against Phil Jones over Chinese station data. Says bogus fraudulent research is rife throughout science. Seemed to say that because Phil Jones is not as good at statistics as him, AGW is a fraud.
Fred Pearce: Said reviews didn't go far enough and that he is still disturbed by some of the e-mails. The enquiries were not a "whitewash" and this saga is more a tragedy than a conspiracy. He though the 3 CRU inquiries were better conducted than the Penn State Uni one, which he described as "kafkaesque".
Over to the audience....Bob Watson says that CRU had nothing to hide - all data is available if you approach the national weather agencies who own the data. Made a good point about the Saudi Govt hiring "some very good" people to find problems in the last IPCC assessment, so they could have an excuse to drill for more oil. They found nothing.
Keenan said that peer-review is rubbish on the basis that he's submitted a paper 35 times to journals for it to be rejected each time.
McIntyre is asked to explain the source of energy that has warmed the planet since 1980. Deftly sidestepped by claiming he's more interested in ancient proxies and hockysticks and not CRUtem. When pressed further he said he agrees with what Lindzen says.
Monbiot is asked if he thought he was a bit quick and rash to fall for the serious allegations when the "scandal" broke. He replied "The Guardian chose me to chair as I've alienated everyone in the debate". He also admitted his judgments were hasty.
Keenen then claims that none of the evidence for AGW stands up to scrutiny and Piers Corbyn starts heckling.
Piers Corbyn gets the chance to ask a question, but ends up making a speech on how AGW is a fraud and it's really the Sun and the Moon that cause climate to change. They move to a different questioner. Corbyn continues to heckle and interrupt. Monbiot tells Corbin he'll have him ejected if he doesn't shut up.
Jonathan Leake asks McIntyre about the "explosive" allegation that Muir Russel didn't interview Phil Jones. Prof Davies said Muir Russell did meet Phil Jones and the detailed interviews were conducted by the expert members of the inquiry.
Expect an expose in the Times tomorrow about how AGW is a scam because Phil and Muir didn't do a round of golf together.
Monbiot finishes off by saying "An interesting and fiery debate and as usual we've got absolutely nowhere".
All in all, it was a fascinating experience to attend and to see the main players in the flesh. I thought Fred Pearce and Bob Watson came across well. Pearce has gotten a bit of stick over this, but he's certainly in the premier league of science journo's. Doug Keenan is a fascinating character - very sinister looking and would make a great Dr Who baddy. McIntyre was quiet spoken and reserved - didn't really set the ground on fire. There was about 300 in the audience - judging by applause, I'd guess a third were "skeptic" faithful and the rest were normal people and journalists.
96 Steve,
Many thanks. I'll try and find a recording/podcast tomorrow.
Arthur,
I wasn't ignoring you, I didn't have time this morning to get to you. Although if you keep up the ad hominem attacks, I will start ignoring you, not because it bothers me, but because it's indicative of a propensity for irrational logic, in which case my time would be better spent discussing this with others. You should also keep in mind that the whole world isn't in your time zone.
I will start with a little background. Most of the energy stored in the atmosphere is associated with clouds. As I said before, GHG absorption between clouds and the surface matters very little since clouds will be absorbing most of the energy anyway, and on average, the Earth is about 65% covered by clouds. Clouds are the repository for most of the energy transported from the surface by evaporation, the solar energy they don't reflect and are the store of potential energy from water lifted against the force of gravity, as the potential difference across the capacitance formed between the cloud and the surface and as a temperature difference between the top and bottom of the cloud.
The energy stored in the clear sky atmosphere is mostly in the form of the kinetic energy of N2 and O2 molecules, which is negligible, relative to cloud energy and even smaller relative to surface energy. This kinetic energy is transient and has a very short lifetime. This energy is at a point along a path from when a photon was absorbed by a GHG molecule to when the energy is ultimately radiated out into space or received by the surface. The common mistake is considering that this minor effect causes the surface to be forced by the atmosphere, when in fact, the atmosphere is being forced by the surface.
Can you see how the effects of GHG delay the release of surface energy into space and do not trap or otherwise hide it? There's a temporal component too, which is that the energy of the original photon gets spread out over time as it either gets back to the surface and/or is radiated into space. Kind of like spread spectrum in the time domain. Do you know what a SAWDL is?
The relationship between surface temperature and Plank feedback in no way supports the Schlesinger feedback model. The problem has to do with the fact that the controlled variable of the Schlesinger feedback model (surface temperature) is under control of something else, namely, the feedback system controlling the Earth's energy balance, whose complex interdependencies influence the feedback fraction and closed loop gain in ways that are unaccounted for by the model and in fact, not even guaranteed to be consistent with the model, given the assumption of unit open loop gain. The physical feedback system maintaining the Earth's energy balance does influence the surface temperature, but it also influences cloud temperatures, cloud and surface reflectivity, cloud percentage, weather and more, all of which have mutual interdependencies and affect the equivalent open and closed loop gain and feedback terms of the Schlesinger model.
As to why Knutti and Hegerl ignore the physics, it's because if they didn't, they wouldn't get the answer they and their financiers were looking for and their funding would dry up. The first line in the abstract pretty much confirms this. It's not as bad as the first line in many other papers, which generally goes something like, "CO2 is a danger to mankind and our models which assume it to be true predict it to be true".
You need to be less picky about little things you think might be wrong. The bottom line here is that the W/m^2 from radiative forcing are treated at being at least 4 times more effective at heating the surface than W/m^2 arriving from the Sun. If the IPCC metric of radiative forcing is not the same as solar forcing, then it's meaningless and needs to be redefined because it's units can not properly be called degrees K per W/m^2. After all, a degree K is a degree K, a watt is a watt, a meter is a meter and forcing is forcing, independent of it's source.
And yes, a few percent of the incident solar energy is captured by the atmosphere, but accounting for this will not make up for the factor of 4 or more overestimation of the effects forcing power has on surface temperatures.
I know from my own atmospheric simulations (3-d based on HITRAN 2008 absorption spectra) that doubling CO2 from 280ppm to 560ppm increases the amount of power absorbed by GHG molecules by about 3.6 W/m^2 at nominal water vapor concentrations. Whatever you think the IPCC definition is, the 3.7 W/m^2 of radiative forcing associated with doubling CO2 is the same as the incremental power absorbed by the atmosphere. Half of this ends up going into space and half back to the surface (after some delay), so the net forcing acting on the surface is half of the IPCC defined radiative forcing, which actually makes the sensitivity 8 times larger than reality, not 4.
Another concept that needs to be explained is the physical origin of climate system gain. First, the energy entering the surface is decoupled from that leaving the surface, as the incident power heats the surface while it's radiated power cools it. In addition, recirculated power is provided from GHG which reduces the amount of energy that can leave the planet at a given surface temperature, requiring the temperature to rise until the power leaving the planet is equal to the power arriving. The open loop gain can be approximated as 1/(1-t/2), where t is the fraction of surface power absorbed by GHG in the absence of clouds and the 1/2 is the fraction of this which is recirculated to the surface. For an average t of about 55%, the open gain is 1.4. A better estimate of the open loop gain is based on nominal absorption at 0C, which is a little over 1.3. Above 0C, the closed loop gain is about 1.1 and falling indicating net negative feedback, while below 0C the gain is about 1.5 and rising indicating net positive feedback.
Hansen kind of has it right, in that the effects of GHG are more properly considered gain than feedback, except he mixed up the terms in the equations by calling gain feedback and visa versa. Schlesinger came along thought he fixed Hansen's errors, but really just make it worse. Unfortunately, nobody with a strong enough control theory background was around to catch this in peer review (Mike MacCracken and Fred Luther did most of this). The errors provided the answer everyone deperately wanted, and a multi-billion dollar industry was born ...
Speaking of unanswered questions, nobody has answered my initial question yet. What's so special about GHG absorption that a watt of GHG forcing is 4-8 times more effective at heating the surface than a watt of solar forcing?
George
Sorry, a line got deleted and I know you will complain.
If the IPCC metric of radiative forcing is not the same as solar forcing, then it's meaningless and needs to be redefined because it's units can not properly be called degrees K per W/m^2.
should be
If the IPCC metric of radiative forcing is not the same as solar forcing, then it's meaningless and needs to be redefined because it's units can not properly be called W/m^2 and the associated sensitivities can not be in units of degrees K per W/m^2.
George
George: "...and a multi-billion dollar industry was born ..."
Cool, so the Deniers can stop worrying that responding to AGW has a negative economic impact?
I'll look forward to George having his theories validated by the academic world via peer-reviewed publication so the IPCC can update its understanding of climate change. Or perhaps the IPCC can trust George and use him as a "grey reference"?
Meanwhile, Arctic Ice is BACK TO NORMAL AGAIN:
George, I don't know why you obsess over the "Schlesinger feedback model", when the definitions in Bony et al make the mathematics of the energy balance problem perfectly clear and completely independent of any control-theory concepts, whether or not they are relevant - the result is simple mathematics. Let me re-cap the argument just so everybody here can see how simple it is:
(1) Radiative balance R is defined as incoming minus outgoing radiation at the tropopause (since there should be negligible convective or other heat transport effects across the tropopause, radiation balance means full balance). R = 0 in balanced steady state
(2) Radiative forcing Q is change in R due to some system change (solar, GHG, clouds, etc) with surface and lower atmosphere otherwise held constant (no response).
(3) The largest (and quickest) response to radiative imbalance, Q != 0, is the Planck response, associated with a uniform change in surface and troposphere temperatures delta T = delta T_s (surface).
(4) The Planck response (like other responses) isn't entirely linear (Stefan-Boltzmann is T^4!) but linearization isn't far off for small forcings Q, so the resulting value of R can be written as
R = Q + lambda delta T_s
where lambda is the ratio between the change in radiative balance at the tropopause and the surface temperature change.
(5) Balance is then restored when R = 0, i.e.
delta T_s = - Q/ lambda
(note the minus sign). -1/lambda is then a measure of the sensitivity of the climate system to radiative forcings Q.
(6) The largest response term, again, the Planck response, has a negative value of lambda. If lambda were zero or positive, the temperature response would be infinite - so it's a good thing that the Planck response dominates. All analyses find the Planck value to be very close to -3.2 W/m^2/K.
(7) Other feedbacks are represented by their ratio to the Planck feedback g_x = - lambda_x/lambda_P, with sign reversed so that positive g_x means an increase in sensitivity. If the sum of the g_x's ever gets as large as 1, you have overwhelmed the basic Planck response and can get runaway (at least for a time). Very few people believe that's actually possible for our planet right now.
And that's it - forcings and feedbacks, with surface temperature as the central reference term because it characterizes the dominant Planck response so well. If you have some other measure based on energy fluxes that captures the physics, feel free to try introducing it, but the temperature-based analysis makes physical and logical sense in the climate system, which is why it's so widely used.
George, you claim "the IPCC metric of radiative forcing is not the same as solar forcing," but I see no evidence you have shown that this is true. The IPCC metric is consistent across all forcings, and is logically provided by the change in that value Q or R specified above (and Q and R are heat fluxes, so naturally measured in W/m^2). What is your problem with that definition, exactly?
Whatever you have calculated, if you believe "Half of this ends up going into space and half back to the surface (after some delay), so the net forcing acting on the surface is half of the IPCC defined radiative forcing" then you have clearly calculated the wrong thing. The forcing, Q, is precisely defined and measurable from modeling, and it completely accounts for changes in what "ends up going into space" vs what goes "back to the surface".
As to your discussion of gain - you seem to have some misconceptions about radiative transfer. It is not a simple "surface -> atmosphere -> surface/space" two-step process. You might want to read up on it a bit more before pontificating about how it works. In practice, the radiative effects of greenhouse gases act very much like adding resistors to a constant-voltage circuit: current goes down, but the radiative "resistor" is in parallel to some others (convection and latent heat). Thinking of it as a loop is probably not useful.
You ask yet again "What's so special about GHG absorption that a watt of GHG forcing is 4-8 times more effective at heating the surface than a watt of solar forcing" but *nobody* other than you claims such a thing. Radiative forcing is defined at the tropopause, and a watt of GHG forcing there is essentially identical to a watt of solar forcing. As many detailed models and comparisons have shown. I don't believe you have any evidence that shows anything else - you certainly haven't provided it in the discussion here.
George's persistent claims that his mistakes are just "inserted to see if anyone would notice", that his ideas are too magnificent to be subjected to politically biased peer review, that he doesn't need to read the literature because he knows it's wrong, his arbitrary redefinitions of standard terminology, his insistence that the atmosphere will respond instantaneously just like his home stereo system, and his inability to admit even his most obvious mistakes (e.g. the [Satellite data clearly shows warming](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/mean:12/plot/rss/trend/plot/uah/me…) despite George's claim that it doesn't), all add up to one conclusion: the man is a crank. Like the [Reich-Einstein correspondence](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/10/greenspan-einstei…), there is no point in continuing to engage with him until he shows some signs of reason.
Vince,
The multi-billion dollar industry is just the current climate science industry and the massive amounts spent on developing unnecessary technologies like carbon sequestration.
The multi-trillion dollar negative impacts on the western worlds economy are the carbon guilt taxes, reparations and the costs and risks of deploying immature technology. This is the economic consequence that those who can't grasp the science can still understand. There are even some who claim that the economic consequences are so harsh that it's a bad trade off even if CO2 was as dangerous as the IPCC claims. Yes, our energy consumption will plummet owing to the collapse of our industrial base, which will just make oil and manufacturing costs cheaper for China, Russia and perhaps a few others who are sane enough not to succumb to the self imposed destructive consequences of a carbon guilt complex. They won't care about carbon based import duties, we won't have the money to buy their goods anyway. Remember that China can grow more internal demand than would be lost by the collapse of all western democracies and relatively cheap energy (i.e. carbon tax free) is one way to do this.
George
Arthur, another good read.
James a [just and proper summary](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2659…). While you are correct it is entertaining to read George pontificate then run away from issues.
George, it's all well and good having opinions as you do, but where are the facts to support your apparent hypothesis:
CARBON SEQUESTRATION:
- How much is being spent?
- What is the short- & long-term economic benefit?
CARBON "GUILT" [non-factual, emotive language noted] TAXES:
- Clearly a *positive* in the government's coffers
REPARATIONS
- no such thing
COSTS RISKS of DEPLOYING IMMATURE TECHNOLOGY
- details of what technologies you're on about
- details of costs please
- details of risks please
As for the rest....your alarmism in *"...collapse of our industrial base..."* is only matched by the irony in your *"...those who can't grasp the science..."*
Arthur,
I agree that the mathematics of Bode defines feedback. Permit me to summarize for you. This diagram shows how to construct an equivalent feedback model whose input and output are expressed in different units from the standard feedback model whose input and output have the same units.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/fbe/fb.png
The standard feedback network has open loop gain, go and feedback fraction f. The relation between the open loop, closed loop gain and feedback fraction is 1/go = 1/gc + f, where gc is the closed loop gain. I can derive this for you, or you can get it from Bode. For something like an op amp, we can approximate the open loop gain to be infinity and the equation becomes gc = 1/f. A feedback of 25% produces a gain of 4.
The feedback network has power in and power out, such that the gain is a dimensionless fraction. To convert the surface emitted power to temperature we use Stefan-Boltzmann. I will define the surface temperature as being the equivalent temperature of the energy emitted by the surface, close enough to the surface that GHG absorption is negligible. This is the ocean surface temperature for regions of the planet covered by water and a close approximation to measured surface temperatures elsewhere. Energy and power are all that really matters here. Temperature only matters for the the Ki*dT/dt terms (sensible heat), where the Ki's are the products of the effective mass of the thermal storage system times the specific heat per m^2 across regions of the surface.
To convert the model to the Schlesinger form, you need to undo SB in order to have output of the proper units to take a fraction of and add to the input. You should notice that the Schlesinger feedback model is the lower picture with the open loop gain set to 1.
If you believe that the IPCC definition of radiative forcing is the same as solar forcing, at least on a watt per watt basis, then why isn't there a 16C difference in global average temperature between perihelion and aphelion when there's a 20 W/m^2 difference in average incident solar power. If watts are watts, then the 20 watts/m^2 when multiplied by the climates sensitivity to radiative forcing of 0.75 K per W/m^2, 20*.75 = 16, should quantify the effect. This is almost a 6% difference in solar forcing, which according to you would be equivalent to 3 doublings of CO2 concentrations.
George
Sorry Vince, giving the government more money and more control is never a good thing. Carbon reparations have been on the table at every climate conference and while we aren't there yet, there are political forces trying to nudge us in that direction. Carbon guilt is a product of the green movement. Their fallacious message is that if your not for carbon taxes, you are against the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here's a sample of some of the wasted money my government wastes on a flawed hypothesis.
http://www.aaas.org/spp/rd/rdreport2010/ch15.pdf
Funny how that if you guys get your way, in the future, they will probably be spending more replacing the carbon we removed in order to maintain high levels of agricultural productivity.
George
One of Georges traits (among the gish) is to go silent on points that contradict his claims (perhaps he relables them in his mind as trivia or noise), I'll re-highlight [just two](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2656…), that a lowly non-Galileo like me can spot.
Despite invitation Geroges has provided no plausible reconcilation between past warm periods and events (eg PETM) and his claims of water vapour feedback "saturation" at 300K. Such past events occuring during periods of lower solar insolation are inonsistant with vapour feedback saturation at temperatures experienced in the last 25 years.
Combine that will no justification for George's use of a 25 years snapshot relationship of temp and water vapour as a feedback "saturation" limit in a dynamic warming world.
Geroge you show your fundamentalism:
>*Sorry Vince, giving the government more money and more control is never a good thing [...]*
Politics and economics must so simple for you? Do you think they taint your approach to science?
Jackerman,
Politics doesn't belong in this discussion. However, relative to any remedies dictated by the science, economics must be considered and weighed against the certainty in the prevailing interpretation of the science. Any zero tolerance at all costs approach is fundamentally flawed and is destined to fail.
Regarding the PETM, I certainly don't see definitive evidence that CO2 GHG amplification the only, or even most probable explanation for the data. This is data from 10's of millions of years ago with absolute temporal uncertainty of at least 10%. Remember, that this mistake was made with the Vostok ice cores until the temporal relationship was ascertained that shows conclusively that changes in CO2 and CH4 concentrations follow changes in temperature. Newer cores with finer temporal resolution are even more definitive in this regard. This slide set presents multiple ice core data sets, summaries of satellite data sets and more, although I haven't updated it lately.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/slides/siframes.html
George
co2isnoevil @107:
co2isnoevil @111:
Will the real co2isnoevil please stand up!!
George writes:
>*Politics doesn't belong in this discussion*
After also writing:
>*Sorry Vince, giving the government more money and more control is never a good thing*
Did you make that error to test people reading again?
Secondly, George are you now claiming the PETM spike is not real? An error? Have you considered changing your model rather than try and change the PETM and other instance of warmer periods duing lower solar insolation?
By what factor would the PETM and other events of higher temp need to be wrong under you assumptions? A factor of 2, 5?
Gaz,
Exactly. The green movement is a political movement which shouldn't have anything to do with the science, yet it pushes it's otherwise unsupportable zero tolerance agenda in the name of science. Don't get me wrong, I certainly believe that man should be the vanguard of preserving our environment, but we should focus on real pollution not fake politically expedient pollution.
George
Jakerman,
I'm claiming that the data is inconclusive as to whether or not a CO2 spike has anything to do with causing a temperature spike. Correlation does not imply causation. We already know that CO2 and CH4 increase in response to temperature increases, so what's your point? There are so many other things that could have caused a temperature spike and likely many more that we don't even know about.
Anyway, it's getting late here.
George
For a while now I've been pondering the old saw that [when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_instrument).
Tim Curtin demonstrates this law of the instrument in his fixation with regression as a panacæa for matters analytical. George "co2isnotevil" White, a [self-professed expert](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2655…) in "modelling", appears to believe that his electrical engineering experience is completely and wholely applicable to disciplines beyond his own field. Whilst George is obviously orders of magnitude more competent in mathematical procedures than is Curtin, I wasn't quite sure why he was as inclined to the swinging of his Golden Hammer as was ol' Radium Water Tim.
And then [the truth slipped out](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2659…):
So, Georgie-boy is a drinker of radium water as well...
When George can demonstrate that every process in biology can be best modelled by his technicque of reverse-engineering black-boxes - indeed, if he can show that his experience is sufficient to remove all analytical professions, other than his, from the the scientific landscape - then I might be pursuaded that he actually knows what it is that he is doing, and of what it is about which he speaks.
In the mean time I will continue to shave with Ockham's razor, and accept that those actually trained and/or experienced in a particular discipline have the best understanding of how to conduct their industry.
In all seriousness George writes, *The green movement is a political movement which shouldn't have anything to do with the science, yet it pushes it's otherwise unsupportable zero tolerance agenda in the name of science*.
Replace the word 'green' with denialist and 'zero tolerance' with 'corporate' or 'deregulatory' and you more accurately hit the nail on the head. Moreover, the anti-environmental lobby is much better funded than the so-called 'green' movement will ever be.
Conclusion: like most denialists, George is probably a right wing libertarian who supports evisceration of public constraints in the pursuit of private profit.
George writes:
>*I'm claiming that the data is inconclusive as to whether or not a CO2 spike has anything to do with causing a temperature spike.*
Then throws some more distractions such as:
>*Correlation does not imply causation. We already know that CO2 and CH4 increase in response to temperature increases, so what's your point?*
My point (as you have tried to avoid) has been [clearly stated]( http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2659…):
>*Despite invitation Georgeâs has provided no plausible reconciliation between past warm periods and events (eg PETM) and his claims of water vapour feedback "saturation" at 300K. Such past events occurring during periods of lower solar insolation are inconsistent with vapour feedback saturation at temperatures experienced in the last 25 years.*
>*Combine that will no justification for George's use of a 25 years snapshot relationship of temp and water vapour as a feedback "saturation" limit in a dynamic warming world.*
So you can either:
a) throw up more strawmen; or
b) address the serious deficiencies I highlighted in your claim; or
c) you can admit your claim is inconsistent with cited warming events as discussed, and admit that there is no reason why a temperature-vapour relationship in a 25 year snapshot are at equilibrium, will be consistent (or limiting) under changing conditions (particular when one of those changes is to temperature).
41 George,
My guesses were correct. You still don't get it.
You are a classic case of someone who might be expert in one field but then assumes that he's also expert in other fields because they have some tools in common.
Let's assume that you really do have something. What on earth are you doing with it here? You are clearly unable to accept criticism, no matter how expert, so it can't be a learning exercise. No doubt you will proclaim victory over the "warmists" regardless. Then what? Will you attempt the same elsewhere? To what end?
If you want maximum publicity, at least within the deniosphere, you should contact Anthony Watts and see if he will host a guest post by you. I think it's likely that he would do that.
Have you asked John Christy, Richard Lindzen, or Pat Michaels to look at your work? You won't take anything from us, but then we're "warmists". They are sceptics (but isn't it odd that none of them has spotted the great "error" you claim to have?).
But why not get a paper published? I suggest [E&E](http://www.multi-science.co.uk/ee.htm). If you can't get published there you really do need to start asking questions of your own knowledge and abilities.
It's already been pointed out by others, but no one's impressed by someone who claims great scientific expertise yet can't even use the correct values in a simple percentage calculation.
And please do learn what "ad hominem" means, you arrogant ignoramus (no, that's not one either).
George (#106) - I don't find your "summary" of the basic math I presented (#101) to be in any way a clarification, but perhaps to some people it helps. However, it does clarify to me why you seem very confused on this.
What you are doing is forcing the treatment of the surface temperature response in power terms - specifically by interconverting between surface temperature and power using the T^4 Stefan-Boltzmann term. That forces you to treat things in an absolute manner (total incoming power, total radiative emission) that greatly oversimplifies the problem. A better approach would use delta's: what is the effect of a *change* in radiative forcing (at the tropopause) - it should result in a *change* in radiative power (via a change in temperature) at the surface after balance is restored.
The basic Planck response, which seems to be what you mean by the no-feedbacks "open loop" here, results in a surface temperature increase of 1/3.2 K times the radiative forcing in W/m^2. Using the average surface temperature of 288 K, the change in surface power is an amplification of 1.70 - this is the basic "open-loop gain" (i.e. with no feedbacks) in your diagram, as far as I can tell. That is, 4.8 W/m^2 of solar forcing at the tropopause results in an increase of 8.1 W/m^2 of surface thermal radiation, and 3.7 W/m^2 of GHG forcing at the tropopause results in an increase of 6.3 W/m^2 at the surface. As I mentioned before, most of that increase in surface thermal radiation doesn't go very far because it is matched by increases in thermal back-radiation from the lower troposphere; that's why you get an open-loop gain of that size.
Now water-vapor and other feedbacks need to included to get the full response. Climate models and other lines of argument show that they, with some uncertainty, result in double or even slightly more the response. So the final surface power, after feedbacks, is in the area of 3 to 5 times the radiative forcing. Some of the response is slow (ocean inertia in particular) so that full amplification won't be there for short-term variations.
But aside from the time-dependence, that same amplification applies to *all* sources of forcing - solar, GHG, volcanic aerosols, whatever you look at. Climate models show this similarity in response all the time - though the detailed breakdown in space and time for different types of forcings are slightly different.
As to the yearly perihelion-aphelion changes - again this is almost entirely dominated by ocean inertia. 70% of Earth's surface is ocean; the first 100 m or so is reasonably well mixed. To drop by 1 degree over 6 months requires a real heat loss of about 3 x10^8 J/m^2 (from heat capacity of water x 70%) or 20 W/m^2 continuously - so that's the maximum you could possibly get from the change you're talking about - and as I mentioned earlier, the way the inertia works it will inevitably be out of phase with the irradiance changes. The problem with GHG changes is they persist in providing added heat year after year, decade after decade. 6 months is simply insufficient to see most of the response to any such change in forcing.
Arthur.
I have to add my voice to the chorus of others - your patient explanations on this thread are quite simply a pure delight to read.
I am confounded though that it has come to the point where you have to explain to George White the influence of the oceans' thermal inertia on moderating fluctuations that might otherwise arise from the perihelion/aphelion cycle. I had thought to raise ithis myself with the lad when I [asked him to explain his take on solar forcing](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2656…), but on second thought I convinced myself that even he couldn't have missed this elephant.
It seems that I might have been wrong!
Arthur,
You disappoint me with your answer to the perihelion power discrepancy. If the oceans had this much inertia, we wouldn't even see seasonal changes in average temperature which are quite quickly affected as the incident energy changes. I suggest that you take a look at raw ocean satellite temperature data and you will notice that the ocean temperature is varying over far too wide of a range to support your conjecture. The ocean slew rate is about 0.3C per month, while the slew rate over land is closer to 2C per month. I emphasize looking at the raw data, rather than anomaly data, as anomaly data cancels out seasonal variability. I'm quite sure you will be surprised at the rate and magnitude of ocean heating and cooling in response to seasonal changes.
Pay special attention to hemispheric temperature variability. This is not caused by a transfer of energy from one hemisphere to another, but by the Earth's thermal mass heating and cooling. Your analytical error is assuming that the entire ocean comprises the thermal mass of the planet which must be moved before a temperature change is manifested. Show me the evidence to support your assumption. Stating that CO2 forcing requires the ocean to respond slowly doesn't count. Only the water between the surface and top of the thermocline actively participates in the thermal mass of the planet and I can produce evidence to demonstrate this.
One other thing you should notice is that the perihelion effect should increase surface temperatures by about 3-4C, but instead, average global temperatures are 3-4C colder. Your sluggish response argument breaks here and now you need to explain a 20C discrepancy, not a 16C one and you need to explain why surface temperatures are 4C warmer with 6% less incident solar power.
And BTW, power and energy is what matters in the system. Temperature is slaved to this. To the extent that you claim that feedback is dependent on surface temperature, it's similarly dependent on surface emitted power, once temperature is converted to equivalent power.
George
jackerman,
Your entire strawman is based on data that's 10's of millions of years old with so much uncertainty that there's no way to discern which came first. If any delay is long enough to see in the data, then the events are unrelated, as the climate system will respond far to fast to discern cause and effect.
I would rather concentrate on recent data which is far more precise and has far less uncertainty. If your best evidence is an interpretation of ancient data with very high uncertainty, your case is weaker than you think.
I will respond to your next round of issues in a couple of days. I have too much business to attend to at the moment. I'm telling you this so you don't misinterpret my lack of response over the next day or so.
I really believe that these conversations we are having are useful.
George
Good God he is still at it. Maybe we'll have to call this thread the "George Gallop"
George (#122) - you really do seem to move from one argument to another. I will assume that you are conceding points you don't re-address, so thanks for that.
On seasonal temperature variations - regional insolation changes associated with Earth's orientation are far larger than the (somewhat less than) 20 W/m^2 you raised regarding perihelion/aphelion. At 45 degrees latitude, the difference between winter and summer is well over 100 W/m^2, which is quite large enough to account for the large seasonal "ocean slew rate" you refer to. Global averages are a different matter because they do not have this regional seasonal component in total incoming solar energy, and so are naturally more stable (but of course strongly affected by the seasonal element due to land/ocean distribution differences between the hemispheres).
I assumed "100 m" of ocean was well-mixed - this was intended as only a rough estimate to show the magnitude of the heating change needed to make significant temperature changes at the surface. You claim that I was "assuming that the entire ocean comprises the thermal mass of the planet" - but 100 m is far less than the "entire ocean". As you say, "Only the water between the surface and top of the thermocline actively participates in the thermal mass of the planet" - and as the ocean thermocline varies between about 50 and 1000 m, 100 m isn't a bad estimate.
Arthur:
Count me in as another who is most impressed by the clarity and logic of your responses. Thank you for the time taken to respond to George's numerous fallacies.
On the other hand, I fear that the persistent goalpost-shifting of your counterpart ultimately leads to nowhere. There has to be a point where enough is enough, and that this troll's buffet is curtailed.
Well despite all the crud flung by skeptics, they seem to be failing to stop the inevitable. Although where is Australia?:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science+environment-10646282
Arthur,
One more lunch time post and then I'll be unavailable for a while. BTW, your responses are better than those I get from trolls on skeptic sites who are usually bottomed out after 1 or 2 questions and then they run away screaming. I also appreciate that you've mostly moved past name calling, which otherwise only detracts from the discussion.
Yes, I have so many lines of attack against CAGW that when you think you've debunked one I have dozens more arrows in my quiver. You really haven't adequately debunked anything I've said yet, but to keep the discussion from bogging down, I simply move on. What you interpret as a concession is simply an agreement to disagree (at least temporarily).
What I'm trying to do is establish is some common ground, from which we can work. Previously, we established that a 2% solar increase is about the same as doubling CO2 (actually it's about 25%-30% more owing to generous rounding). I think we've also established that the difference in solar energy between perihelion and aphelion is about 5.9%, which is equivalent to more than 3 doublings of CO2.
Since you still can't see the forest through the trees, let me switch gears and approach this from the perspective of the planets energy balance. After all, this is what I claim is controlled by the actual feedback mechanism, which is far more complex than simple Planck related negative feedback.
Consider that from space, the Earth presents warm surface power and cold power. Power emitted from clouds and the surface must be appropriately derated for atmospheric absorption and the net presented to space is the cloud percentage weighted average of surface energy and cloud energy.
25 year average from ISCCP data:
Average surface temp288.5K -> 392.8 W/m^2
Average cloud temp261.9K -> 266.8 W/m^2
Average percentage of cloud coverage -> 66.4%
Absorption calculated from nominal concentrations using HITRAN 2008
spectral line data:
average surface to space absorption-> 56.6% of surface power
2/3 water absorption, 1/3 co2 absorption
about 1% each for CH4, O3 and N2O
average cloud top to space absorption-> 40.4% of cloud power
1/2 water, 1/2 co2
about 1.2% each for CH4, O3 and N2O
To derate surface and cloud power in order to calculate the power leaving the planet, consider that half of all absorbed power is radiated into space and the other half is recirculated back to the surface.
derated surface power 392.8*(1-.566/2) = 281.6 W/m^2 (265.5K equivalent)
derated cloud power 266.8*(1-.404/2) = 212.9 W/m^2 (247.6K equivalent)
Total emitted power as derated surface and cloud power weighted by cloud coverage:
(1-.664)*281.6 + .664*212.9 = 236.0 W/m^2 -> 254.0K (255K expected)
The way that clouds control the energy balance is to select the ratio of hot (surface) and cold (cloud) to achieve the equilibrium output power.
This is only a rough calculation, but is good enough to show how the basic energy balance of the planet is achieved. Moreover, it shows in unambiguous terms that only a net of 28.3% of the surface power is blocked by the atmosphere.
If you think this result is only a coincidence, show why. And yes, this is leading somewhere, but you will need to be patient.
George
George, you clearly have some detailed model of energy flow in the atmosphere with which I am not familiar - presumably it differs significantly from the standard radiative transfer estimates.
In particular I do not know where you get estimates of "56.6%" or "40.4%" for "average surface/cloud top to space absorption". Your assumption that 1/2 of the "absorption" is returned to the surface and 1/2 sent off into space is surely wrong, however, because it treats the atmosphere as a single layer.
Furthermore, your treatment clearly omits any discussion of heat flow via latent heat and convection, which actually convey 60% of the net energy flux upwards from Earth's surface (net radiative flux is only 40%, about 63 W/m^2 on average).
So is your calculation a "coincidence"? I can't say I understand how you got it, but since it leaves out several clearly important factors in the problem, it cannot be right.
George writes:
>*Your entire strawman is based on data that's 10's of millions of years old with so much uncertainty that there's no way to discern which came first.*
Firstly George are you seriously claiming that the inconsistency of your claims with past warming cited is a "strawman"?
That is a remarkable assertion.
Secondly the order of which came first (CO2e or Temp) does not remove the case that your claims of water vapor feedback saturation at current temperatures are inconsistent with the scale of warming in the cited periods.
[BTW you do realize that CO2 can start as a feedback and continue as a forcing?]
FS writes:
>*On the other hand, I fear that the persistent goalpost-shifting of your counterpart ultimately leads to nowhere.*
Except for an interesting education for interested people, like me.
#127 PaulUK: I am ashamed of Australia's performance in this. However, I have to add I did my part and put solar power on the roof this year, so that should help a little bit.
(besides, it looks so cool. I am such a nerd)
>*Yes, I have so many lines of attack against CAGW that when you think you've debunked one I have dozens more arrows in my quiver.*
From the Gish Gallop textbook?
>*You really haven't adequately debunked anything I've said yet, but to keep the discussion from bogging down, I simply move on.
More textbook Gish?
>*What you interpret as a concession is simply an agreement to disagree (at least temporarily).*
I.e. George is never wrong, even when his points are indefensible.
George:
At this point its worth re-noting [James' summary](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2659…):
>*George's persistent claims that his mistakes are just "inserted to see if anyone would notice", that his ideas are too magnificent to be subjected to politically biased peer review, that he doesn't need to read the literature because he knows it's wrong, his arbitrary redefinitions of standard terminology, his insistence that the atmosphere will respond instantaneously just like his home stereo system, and his inability to admit even his most obvious mistakes (e.g. the Satellite data clearly shows warming despite George's claim that it doesn't), all add up to one conclusion: the man is a crank.*
Interesting (for some definition of 'interesting')comment over at TFWT.
In a response to a comment, Watts implies once more that he really is going to finally, sometime (this time for sure) publish a paper analyzing the surface stations - but (as always) with no time frame specified.
---
Eric Gamberg says:
July 15, 2010 at 11:37 am
I think the Surface Stations Website should be updated at least annually. Only a couple of days to go.
REPLY: Big update being planned just prior to the release of our paper. After having NCDC âborrowâ our own work before it was even done, against my objections, Iâm not going to give them anything to build on further until the paper is out. -A
Lee @July 15, 2010 10:28 PM
Doesn't that imply Watts is witholding data? Shirley not. I think he should be made to hand over all data, code etc. so those of us who are "skeptic" sceptics can go through it, purely in the interests of openness and balance of course. I mean, Watts being the champion of open and free debate and all, he'd never refuse several hundred thousand reasonable requests, would he. Otherwise he'd run the risk of having his emails "leaked", and then we'd have SurfaceStationsGate.
> BTW you do realize that CO2 can start as a feedback and continue as a forcing?
A competent electrical engineer should be intimately familiar with the phenomenon that feedbacks can also be forced; it's a fundamental consideration that applies to any circuit with resonant properties (and if this were not true many modern devices would not function correctly).
For those without engineering training, I sometimes offer the following:
A) If I ignite a match (perhaps by striking it), I get heat which contributes to further combustion. (One can analogise the heat to be the feedback triggered by ignition - but don't take analogies too far.)
B) By "skeptic" logic, since feedback that naturally occurs can never be forced...then if I heat a match it can never ever lead to ignition, let alone to still more heat production, right?
[I seem to have no TypeKey login option, so name only today.]
Just part way through my fascinating trip to Alaska at the moment.
I've so far seen numerous pieces of evidence of the infiltration of those evil warmists into every corner of the globe. Indian locals who've lived here for decades are describing first-hand how glaciers are retreating, and how arctic ice is becoming increasingly fragmented affecting polar bear survival rates significantly.
Wow, I can't believe the warmists have managed to deceive even people who know this climate like the back of their hand and actually reside here! Where, oh where are El Gordo and Tim Curtin when you need them so desperately to refute what these people's actual eyes are telling them?
(rolleyes)
In all seriousness, some folk here in former Palin-land seem to be quite open about what is happening, but at pains to be "politically correct" and not mention AGW!
Can we specific an AWatt unit in unison with the [Friedman unit](http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Friedman_Unit)?
AWatt is the period between each claim that the big paper is imminent.
Lee, any suggestion on how long an AWatt is? Close to a Friedman?
"REPLY: Big update being planned just prior to the release of our paper. After having NCDC âborrowâ our own work before it was even done"
I thought science was supposed to be open?
@SteveC
Here's an idea.
> After having [them] âborrowâ our own work before it was even done, against my objections, Iâm not going to give them anything to build on further until the paper is out.
Take that quote from Watts, and shove Jones or Mann or Briffa at the end, then tout it round denialist blogs claiming its a snippet from the "climategate" emails.
See how many people denounce it as protectionist, self-serving and anti-scientific.
Dave H
Great idea!
Arthur, we do appreciate your work.
George provides you with teaching moments - and the rest of us learn a lot.
Thank you.
This is interesting and somewhat unusual (not to say totally bizarre).
Richard North, serial instigator of news stories that get retracted and apologised for, has lodged 2 complaints with the Press Complaints Commission. Firstly, concerning the S Times article apologising for the retracted âamazongateâ non-story (thatâs right, he has complained to the PCC about the PCC). Secondly, concerning Monbiotâs coverage of the retraction in The Guardian.
I donât want to post a link, but you can get to his long and excruciatingly tedious 42 page document of complaint (I have only skimmed it so far) via Delingpoleâs blog at the Telegraph, or by visiting Northâs own eureferendum site (I presume, although I havenât bothered looking myself).
Arthur,
Your implication that I can't be right because my results contradict your beliefs so I must be missing something is silly. You must know that this goes against logic and science.
As for your claim that my 'estimates' of atmospheric absorption are wrong, well if they are, then all of the radiative transfer codes CAGW centric models rely on are also wrong. These values come from 3-d atmospheric simulations with the water content and ozone column coming from gridded satellite data sets with absorption/transmission calculated from HITRAN 2008 absorption spectra. They represent long term (25 year), global averages. You object because you believe that net absorption is higher, and in a way it is, except this extra 'absorption' is all in the region between the surface and cloud tops, which is hidden by the clouds, at least from the perspective of space looking down.
All I'm doing is quantifying the flux emitted by the Earth as the cloud fraction weighted power originating from clouds and the surface, where each is subject to unique atmospheric absorption. Thermally emitted power originates from it's source as a Planck distribution and as it passes through the atmosphere, spectral gaps arise from atmospheric absorption. These gaps widen and deepen as it passes through more and more atmosphere. The absorbed power warms the atmosphere which acts as a gray body, isotropically radiating this power. Ultimately, this means half goes to the surface and half goes into space, adding to the surface and cloud power already passing through the transparent regions in the atmospheres absorption spectrum. I know you don't want to accept this, but the data doesn't lie nor does the physics.
The numbers work out, as shown in the previous post, because this is the way it is.
The effects you claimed were missing are irrelevant to this quantification of power leaving the planet. While they certainly will affect surface and cloud temperatures and even the percentage of cloud coverage, I'm starting from these values, so any effects are already included. Think about it. Weather satellites measure radiance emitted by the planet in several bands from the visible to the long wave IR and this is the physical mechanism describing the origin of the radiance measured by satellite sensors. It's not that complicated.
The next equation you should have less trouble accepting. This is that the power reflected by the planet can be calculated as the cloud weighted percentage of power reflected by the surface and power reflected by the clouds. Let me summarize what we have so far. Prad is the power radiated from the Earth, and Pref is the power reflected by the Earth.
Prad = (1-As/2) * Ps * (1-p) + (1-Ac/2) * Pc * p
Pref = Psun * SR * (1-p) + Psun * CR * p
The variable p is the fraction of cloud coverage. Ps and Pc are the power densities originating from the surface and clouds and As and Ac are the fraction of this emitted power absorbed by the atmosphere and are functions of GHG concentrations. Psun is the power from the Sun, SR and CR are surface and cloud reflectivities. Every variable in both of these equations is measurable and included in the ISCCP gridded satellite data set product. This includes all of the GHG gas concentrations. Notice how above 0C, as p increases, Pref increases (CR > SR for T > OC) and that as p increases, Prad decreases. Below 0C, CR is close to SR and p exerts little influence on Prad. You can see how this interacts in the relationship between temperature and cloud coverage.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/fbe/ca_st.png
The next step is to embody COE into the formulation with the equation,
Psun = Po + Px
where Psun is the power arriving at the planet from the Sun, Po is the sum of Pref and Prad representing all power leaving the planet and Px is the instantaneous difference representing the sensible heat entering when Psun > Po or leaving when Po > Psun the Earth's thermal mass.
Recognizing the sensible heat as the sum of Ki*dT/dt terms, where Ki is the product of the specific heat and the mass of the portion of the planet participating in the Earth's thermal mass, per m^2 and restating.
Psun = Po + K*dT/dt
T is an aggregate function of surface and cloud temperatures used here only to simplify the discussion. The real model is more complex, but this is a reasonably accurate equivalent 'circuit'. You may recognize that Po is a function of T and that Psun is the stimulus. DE's of this form are readily solved in the S domain using Laplace transforms.
Finally, to close the loop, we consider that the relationship between surface and cloud temperatures (loosely represented by T) and associated Planck distributions of emitted power, Ps and Pc is dictated by Stefan-Boltzmann. It's also important to keep in mind that just as we only consider a thin skin of the crust as participating in the Earth's thermal mass, so is the case for the worlds oceans. Quantifying how the oceans integrate with the system will need to be the subject of another post.
This comprises an overview for an analytical quantification of the top level feedback system driving the Earth's energy balance. The Stefan-Boltzmann term provides the 'Planck feedback', but as you can see, the complete system is more complex and embodies cloud feedback via the variable 'p' and internal feedbacks indirectly via their effects on surface and cloud, reflectivity and temperature. The indirectness of effect contributes to why the direct effect of feedback on surface temperature assumed by the Schlesinger feedback model doesn't represent the physical system.
The next plot shows the how the various components change on a month to month basis, based on 25 year averages for the Northern hemisphere. This is the data that leads to the quantification of how the Earth responds to change, known in control theory as the response of the system.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/plots/wbg/nh/flux.png
The yellow line is Psun, the blue line is the post albedo power entering the system (Psun - Pref), the brown line is the Prad
and the red line is Px, the sensible heat. The black line is the albedo, as calculated from reflectivities.
This is all measured data. You can see more plots of measured data starting here,
http://www.palisad.com/co2/plots/wbg/plots.html
George
Not again!
I have lost the capacity to read any more of this.
I may soon lose the will to live.
co2isnotevil:
> As for your claim that my 'estimates' of atmospheric absorption are wrong, well if they are, then all of the radiative transfer codes CAGW centric models rely on are also wrong.
All the climate models in the world rely on your figures? You're seriously claiming that?
Why is it that one feels that the only possible response to George is "and yet, it warms"?
I'll remind George, of one of the flaws in his claims that he is [avoiding](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2661…).
George, fantastic job in spite of all the rude treatment. The behavior of the regulars here should be embarrassing to the others. I have always found it most interesting to hear argument from authority from "experts" since their knowledge should be CLEARLY evident. (and therefore no authority should be necessary)
AmandaS,
And yet it cool as well. So, what's your point? My point is that change is normal and sometime it changes up and sometimes it changes down.
Are really that sure that the only change is up? Every day, someone investigates some data product and finds errors. Did you see this?
http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/did-giss-discover-30-more-land-in-the-…
Satellite data, even the ISCCP data from GISS, indicates lowering temperatures, both in the recent few years and even overall, at least since we've had 24/7, 100% surface coverage from weather satellites, which is nearly 30 years. The only data showing any warming are those surface temperature data sets built from specially selected, sparse samples, and which were adjusted, homogenized, averaged and anomalized. With that much processing, and all the attendant dials, I can turn random noise into whatever trend you want to see. The only thing that impresses me about these hockey stick graphs is the lengths they went through to hide the decline and how they were so arrogant to think that nobody would notice.
George
Just so you warmists better understand your cute code language, when you speak D. K. effect, you do realize it applies to everyone? (and yes, like you, I giggle every time one of you use the reference!)
[Mark D](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2664…).
Arthur Smith's knowledge is clearly evident.
As is your lack of both authority and expertise, highlighted by your inability to follow the points that Arthur makes. You might actually benefit from looking Arthur up: you'll discover that he is in fact a real expert, and not simply your scary-quotation-marks "expert".
Further, this is not a finishing school, so your fragility with respect to the commenting here is misplaced.
Perhaps it is you who should be embarrassed.
George - you should learn more about Galileo. The reference obviously passed you by.
And no, it's not cooling, the temperatures aren't getting lower, all temperature records indicate the globe is warming, nature itself is telling us it's warming and the satellite data is not indicating cooling. The trend is the trend and the cake is a lie.
Unless, of course, I presume you have access to the super-secret satellite data that all the socialist greenie conspirational scientists are hiding from us, because all the publicly available satellite data I can find, very clearly trends upwards.
But stick with those models and that super-secret cooling data you've found if they work for you and make you feel comfortable. The globe will just quietly keep doing its thing and warming away.
Hello Bernard J.
I don't believe I named any particular poster here, but I do believe you can look back and find exactly the kind of post I referred to. Right?
"Fragility" is particularly odd choice of terms BTW....IMHO
>*D. K. effect, you do realize it applies to everyone?*
No it applies to people speaking beyond their area/level of competence.
Amanda,
I know full well of Galileo, the point made wasn't worth my consideration.
Regarding the super secret site, it's not all that secret, you can find it here,
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov
Here is the raw monthly temperature data from the D2 data set.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/temp.gif
which after 5 year averaging becomes this,
http://www.palisad.com/co2/temp_5.gif
Can you see how a data collection error can appear as an anomalous trend? You won't find these pictures on their site, but you can download the data and process it for yourself. There's a 2C shift in Oct 2001, which was caused when NOAA-14 was replaced with NOAA-16. The reason was that the power law of the new receiver had characteristics that the software couldn't handle, or so it was explained to me. I first pointed this out to Rossow over 3 ago. He assures me it will be fixed with new data being delivered in December. Oddly enough, as the biggest error ever in the collection, it has never showed up in the errata, perhaps because of the direction of the error? I will give him credit though, acknowledgment of the error is buried deep in the bowels of the documentation. See if you can find it.
If the data is corrected for the calibration flaw. it looks like this.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/temp_fb.gif
As you can see from the dotted line, which is the average of the set, the temperature appears to be falling. Now, when 5 year averaging is applied, it looks like this.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/temp_5fb.gif
George
Amanda,
I replied to your post, but it's in the moderating queue, probably because it had too many links. Anyway, the secret site is here,
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov
George
Sorry, George, still not getting it. All the surface temperature data on that site shows warming. I shall have to wait for the moderated post to get through so I can see those graphs through your eyes. I am looking forward to the opportunity to see up as down.
Mark D.:
So you deny it's warming. You are in denial of the fact that it's warming.
I think George is apeing Tim Curtin: reams and reams of words, not answering any questions.
It is designed to wear you down with irrelevancies.
As Linus Pauling said: The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas
But the best way (for George and Tim) to have lots of ideas is to have lots of bad ones. Then you don't have to sweat trying to work out if they make sense.
Mark D:
Re: 157 and 163;
Perhaps this will provide some expanded thinking, a study which confirms my observations namely that the DK âeffectâ is not confined to âreasonably competentâ and lower but instead even the competent i.e. EVERYONE.
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/kburson/files/bursonlarrickklayman.pdf
The websites that invoke the Dunning-Kruger effect are almost universally Warmist and simply a propaganda tool.
164 Mark D.
Funny that. Could it be because many denialists are highly delusional and often incompetent at the most basic mathematics and physics?
I direct you to [Jo Nova](http://joannenova.com.au/2010/07/abraham-surrenders-to-monckton-uni-of-…) as a current example.
George: #158: "See if you can find it"
Do you mean this [report from 2007](http://wgdma.giss.nasa.gov/reports/wgdma07.report.html)?
So as of 2007 minutes the only remaining discrepancy with the NOAA-16 data was at the cold end of the measurements, but the warm end measurements are correct? I can't add any of my own judgement as I am not familiar with the data.
Re. 161;
>So you deny it's warming. You are in denial of the fact that it's warming.
No, I am dubious. Also, dubious of the motive of fearmongers. It is really that simple.
Thank you for the effective use of deny and denial too. You must feel good every time you type it.....
"No, I am dubious"
Can we chalk this one down to unintended accuracy?
#167: Ah, would that be the "AGW" fearmongers or the "enforced one-world-government" fearmongers?
Mark D, dare I suggest you might be suffering DK in your interpretation of it.
From [D&K 99](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64.2655&rep=re…):
>*overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.*
The [paper you supplied](http://sitemaker.umich.edu/kburson/files/bursonlarrickklayman.pdf) does not suggest everyone suffers from this dual burden, instead it suggest that in hard tasks, high performers underestimate how well they did.
George, I've been responding to you here thanks to an estimate of you as having some expertise. I see now that your errors are of a much more basic character than I'd been led to believe and I'm not sure it's worth pursuing much further. That said, just a few points on your #146 here:
* I have trouble making any coherent sense of this:
- for instance, spectral gaps mean the atmosphere does *not* act as a "gray body", so why do you even invoke the term? In any case, one reason why half of absorbed power is *not* "ultimately" going to space and half to the surface is because in the regions of peak absorption, the initial absorption is close to the surface (at a relatively high temperature) and power in that spectral region is then emitted and reabsorbed several times up through the atmosphere, at colder and colder temperatures. Also note that what is emitted is determined not by what is radiatively absorbed, but purely by temperature (the Planck distribution) - if there are other sources of energy into a particular atmospheric layer (particularly the latent heat energy that goes into cloud formation) then those will contribute to the energy balance at that layer. So what is radiatively absorbed by a layer is very far from determining what a given layer emits. It is true that any given atmospheric layer must emit thermally in equal amounts up and down - that seems to be your point - but your fundamental error here seems to be taking this single-layer result as applying to the whole atmosphere: it does not.
In fact, from the 2009 Trenberth, Fasullo, Kiehl paper (Figure 1), the net incoming solar power absorbed by the surface is only 161 W/m^2. 78 W/m^2 is absorbed by the atmosphere and never reaches the surface. Nevertheless the surface emits 396 W/m^2 in thermal radiation (40 of which bypasses the atmosphere and goes straight to space), and also loses 97 W/m^2 in convective and latent heat flow.
So total energy flux absorbed by the atmosphere (including clouds) is 78 + 356 + 97 = 531 W/m^2. Rather than half going to space and half going back to the surface, the actual numbers are 333 W/m^2 to the surface, and 199 W/m^2 to space, i.e. about 63% returned to the surface, 37% to space.
You are certainly correct that convection and latent heat flux are not involved in emission of energy to space, but they are deeply involved in energy balance at Earth's surface. As you say, they "affect surface and cloud temperatures [... but ...] I'm starting from these values" - so whatever you are trying to do, it is not a valid method for determining the relationship between surface temperature and other properties.
The rest of your comment appears to describe a somewhat detailed model of Earth's climate - "an analytical quantification of the top level feedback system driving the Earth's energy balance". Otherwise known as a climate model. There are a vast array of climate models out there, from simple zero- or one-dimensional approximations (as yours seems to be) to sophisticated 3-dimensional detailed earth system models - for example the NCAR Community Earth System model - http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/ - which is openly available and well-documented. All of the models out there roughly agree on the basics of the energy balance of this problem. That fact that yours seems to have some different numbers is certainly reason to question it. I'd suggest if you are really serious about presenting this as an alternate model of Earth's climate, you need to figure out what are the essential differences between your model and the others. This blog is surely not the place for that.
George,
The ISPPC Surface Temperature data is not globally averaged surface temperature. It is Clear Sky Surface Brightness Temperature. It is a measure of IR in only the 11µm band for only about 35% of the surface and corrected for optical depth in the visual band. That is, the haze from particulates, aerosols and, in particular, micro water droplets, whose relation to temperature and vapor pressure make this a not very useful measure of secular temperature change. What we can infer from this, however, is that a drop in clear sky surface brightness in this wavelength band might well be an indication of increased water vapor absorption in the troposphere.
What you don't seem to understand about the solar variation due to eccentricity is that the power relation you calculate only holds for one day, Jan. 4. It is much less averaged over the year, and it influenced by diurnal cycle relaxation as well. GHG forcing is, OTOH, 24/7/365.
The graph _is_ on their site. Also.
Re: jakermann @ 170,
Perhaps, but don't mistake my comment as denial of DK. Please allow me to quote a paragraph that I recognize as fair:
> Before anyone takes offense, let me begin with some disclaimers. I'm not saying the Dunning-Kruger effect is limited to one side of the debate. It's a universal human condition not confined to a particular ideology. When I first got into climate science discussions, I made my fair share of over-confident yet naive statements. As my understanding grew, I came to realise the complexities of climate science and how much more I have to learn (as predicted by Dunning and Kruger). I'm also not saying all skeptic arguments are a result of the Dunning-Kruger effect. However, a few examples demonstrate how the Dunning-Kruger effect can lead one astray. John Cook at http://www.skepticalscience.com/The-Dunning-Kruger-effect-and-the-clima…
I think for healthy discussions on all levels we would benefit from upfront admissions of our "personal DK level"
My personal level of DK allows me to recognize exactly what John has stated: "It's a universal human condition not confined to a particular ideology."
Further, I noticed that you have not argued my primary point that invoking DK (as is found on warmist sites) is propaganda.
Expanded thought: Inasmuch as DK is relative to ones expertise and individuals have a broad life spectrum of different skills (and lack thereof), Dare I say that many climate experts could lack the necessary expertise to asses the politics behind AGW?
Mark D. "Dare I say that many climate experts could lack the necessary expertise to assess the politics behind AGW?"
I'm not sure what you're getting at here. There aren't and cannot be any politics 'behind' AGW. There are simply facts, measurements, physics, maths, biology and the rest which lead scientists to scientific conclusions. As citizens who vote and as people who live in the one and only world available, they're as knowledgeable as some and more knowledgeable than many about the political virtues and vices of various groups.
Unfortunately when it comes to the D-K effect, this topic is not amenable to the solutions to other circumstances. I admit I'm not equipped to play in an orchestra, but I can still walk out of a concert hall if I hate the discordant, monotonous music these much more able people are playing.
With AGW, I'm stuck. I'd *very* much prefer that the science was wrong. The only scientific possibility is that the whole thing is overturned - Nobel Prize stuff - as the guys who overturned the general understanding of stomach ulcers did. But they're not much solace. They didn't overturn human biology itself, just a particular issue in one anatomical area.
Short of simultaneous revolutions in physics, biology, oceanography, glaciology and all the other sciences, we have to go with what we've got. A problem.
And the solution can only be achieved through human action. The way humans do that is through joint decisions - politics.
Shorter Mark D.:
1. Climate "experts" are simply people who say stuff, so I'll ignore everything they say!
2. In fact, I also just ignored the fact that climate experts have actually studied the climate in-depth! Therefore, the opinions of experts counts as much as the opinion of some random bloke on the street!
3. Don't you know that the Dunning-Kruger effect applies to climate experts as well?!?!? For example, climate scientists may be seriously wrong about climate science because ... they're not well-versed in politics! Bingo!
4. The Dunning-Kruger effect applies to everyone! Therefore, it doesn't apply to me!
5. Therefore, global warming is a scam.
Luminous,
From wikipedia:
"Brightness temperature is the temperature at which a black body in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings would have to be to duplicate the observed intensity of a grey body object at a frequency ν."
Yes, I understand what is reported in the satellite data. So do you agree that the equivalent Planck distribution of the power corresponding to the clear sky brightness temperature minus whatever is absorbed by the atmosphere and not ultimately re-emitted into space is a close, if not exact, quantification of the power leaving the planet for the portion of the planet not covered by clouds?
Cloud top temperatures are similarly defined as the brightness temperature of cloud tops, which after accounting for atmospheric absorption, accounts for the power emitted from the portion of the planet covered by clouds.
Under what rules of physics would the weighted sum of these 2 quantifiable radiation sources not be equal to the brightness temperature of the planet as a whole (about 255K)?
I will refer you back to post 128, which I suggest you read again.
I urge to to plug in the numbers you think are real and see what the resulting brightness temperature of the Earth would be and then I would like you to explain why it's so much less than 255K.
George
Rixaeton re 166,
This isn't the specific problem, but is related. Between NOAA-14 and NOAA-16, several things changed. The bilinear response issue affected visible channels.
The difference in the power law between the IR channels of NOAA-14 and NOAA-16 is the specific culprit. However, the substantial upwards offset that results, which primarily effects equatorial regions, isn't explicit in the documentation. More can be found here.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/docs/response.html#noa
Pay attention to the response of IR channel 5. It was reported to me by Rossow that there were also changes in the compression used to map the radiance data into only 12 bits of resolution and that this was the harder thing to correct.
Rossow has confirmed to me privately that the problem I've pointed out is real (per temp plots in response to Amanda's post), but that there were no resources to fix it and everyone was working on a new aggregation starting from 10km raw pixels instead of the 30km aggregated pixels currently used. This is supposed to be available later this year.
I'm still confused as to why there weren't enough resources to document this error. Other than this problem, the ISCCP data sets seem to be of relatively high quality and far less significant errors have been announced and corrected in the past.
George
CO2isnotevil or George,
Your statement doesn't make sense....
"everyone was working on a new *aggregation* starting from 10km raw pixels instead of the 30km *aggregated* pixels currently used".
Do you mean each pixel covers an area of 10 km and the 30 km value is currently interpolated from 10 km?
Then (me being back to front) you say earlier, "Pay attention to the response of IR channel 5. It was reported to me by Rossow that there were also changes in the compression used to map the radiance data into only 12 bits of resolution and that this was the harder thing to correct"
Do you mean the algorithm used for compression of sensor data and what is the onboard quantisation levels used for the sensor?
Perhaps it would help if I described how the brightness temperatures reported in the satellite data are determined from measured radiance values.
The satellites have multiple channels in the IR and visible range. In the IR, the range from about 10u to 12.5u is covered by 2 channels with somewhat overlapped response curves. This is the transparent region of the atmosphere from the right of the 9.7u ozone peak to the left of the 15u CO2 peak. The other transparent region, between 8u and 9.5u is not covered, but a band around 3-4u is captured during the night (channel 3B) and another around 1.6u during the day (channel 3A). 3A is used to help discriminate between clouds and snow/ice while channel 3B is used to examine emission near the edge of a water absorption line which helps
assess water vapor absorption. Adding the time multiplexing of the 3A and 3B channels was another change made between NOAA-14 and NOAA-16, as only 5 channels can be downlinked at a time. Channel 3B, which used to be available for day and night passes is now only available for night time passes.
The way brightness temperatures are determined is to calculate the required temperature of a blackbody, which when filtered by atmospheric absorption and fed to simulated IR receivers based on the reported response curves, produces the radiances values measured by the actual sensors across all measured bands. The specific atmospheric model Rossow is using is far more primitive than mine, but gets close enough to the same results that it doesn't really matter.
The ISCCP data set is an aggregation of polar orbiting satellites (NOAA-xx) and all of the geosynchronous weather satellites (GOES-xx, etc). Since the polar orbiters overlap the view of all of the geosynchronous satellites, the data from polar orbiters is used to cross calibrate data from all of the other satellites. Because the absolute calibration of the polar orbiters seems to have changed, everything else moved with it.
George
Jeremey,
The raw data downlinked as 10km pixels. On top of this is an initial aggregation of 3x3 raw pixels. This was done back in the day when storage and bandwidth was more expensive and the raw 10km data couldn't be kept on line. ISCCP data products have been mostly built from these aggregations of 30 km data. This is being converted to construct data products built from raw 10km pixels instead.
Yes, it was my understanding that there was a difference in the compression used on the satellite that his software couldn't handle, although he was vague on the precise nature of the problem. He did promise that it would be fixed in the December release, although it didn't really seem to me like he knew what the specific problem was. My guess is that the multiplexing between channels 3A and 3B is the source of the problem because that was something new as of NOAA-16 and would have required more than a calibration lookup table change to adequately address.
George
Mark D cites John Cook:
>*I'm not saying the Dunning-Kruger effect is limited to one side of the debate.*
That does not include everyone, it excludes those talking to their [area/level of competence](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2664…).
[Importantly, multiple lines of evidence suggest that looking a populations, as competence on climate science increases so to does agreement with the keys assessment of the IPCC.
So if you are arguing against the IPCC's key assessment while being incompetent you are walking straight into DK's dual-burden-impairment.]
Mark D, writes:
>*Further, I noticed that you have not argued my primary point that invoking DK (as is found on warmist sites) is propaganda.*
Your claim is empty propaganda, moreover that was based on your false claim (wrongly claiming DK applies to everyone). That and fundamental error of yours in the point I've addressed how that on two occasions.
Mark D, you like many so called skeptics shoot off a the keyboard while being so ill informed. The science you cite doesn't support your claims. Its ironic for you to taking this DK issue in this poorly informed way.
Arthur,
The Trenberth paper is weak on details about how they actually calculated the absorbed solar energy. Just because their estimate is far higher than any previous doesn't tell me it's more correct, but that it's likely less correct. I know, for example, that the absorbed solar power from MODTRAN simulations is much lower than they claim.
You still haven't answered my question about why the calculation of the equivalent brightness temperature of the Earth works with my values, but not yours. Do you have another way to calculate this, that works, and that uses your numbers? You do know that the 255K temperature of the Earth is an equivalent brightness temperature?
You seem to have a problem acknowledging that SB applies to surface radiation. Just as a non unit emissivity converts a black body into a gray body, so do gaps in the emission spectrum. Yes, it's a deviation from ideal, but is not that complicated and can be easily quantified. The basic T^4 relationship between total emitted power and equivalent brightness temperature is mostly independent of the frequency distribution of that power.
If power is all compressed into a single wavelength, for example, a laser, the effect of that power on say, heating some water, would be the same as an ideal black body heating the water, whose total emitted power was the same as the total power from the laser. The specific heat of water is mostly independent of the frequency distribution of the power heating it.
You also seem too hung up on temperature and are not paying attention to power and energy. I think that this stems from your insistence that temperature matters, while energy doesn't and you're not allowing yourself to equate them with SB. As the temperature of the atmosphere decreases, the spectrum of energy it emits is shifted to the right, however the energy added to a CO2 molecule by a single 15u photon is independent of it's height in the atmosphere, so your concern about the influence of atmospheric temperature gradients seems skewed.
As for any deviation from half up and half down, at one time I believed what you do and that because most absorption happened close to the surface, more would end up back at the surface. When you include all of the measured satellite data and plug it in to my model, I have many more equations than variables. If I let the fraction float, the converged answer is always around 0.5 up and 0.5 down. The same even holds true for clouds.
This brings up one of the issues with the way you and Trenberth frame the problem, which is that you consider clouds as atmosphere. It's far better and far more accurate to consider clouds and clear sky independently. Trenberth's 40 W/m^2 through the transparent region of the atmosphere is really 115 W/m^2 through the clear sky atmosphere, since 65% of the surface is covered by clouds, but even this is only 30% of the emitted surface power. If as you claim, 1/3 does up and 2/3 goes down, then .3 = (1-A/1.5), which implies that A, the total fraction of surface power absorbed by the clear sky atmosphere, is over 100%! Where is all of your extra energy coming from? Don't say the atmosphere, because the calculation already includes this. This is a flux in/flux out calculation. You seem to be creating energy out of thin air in order to justify your assumptions.
Let's plug your numbers into the calculation of Earth's emitted energy. We will assume 100% absorption between the surface and space, where 33% escapes and 71% absorption between clouds and space, where 33% escapes.
Se = 392.8 * (1-1/1.5) = 131
Ce = 266.8 * (1-.71/1.5) = 141
The first think we notice is that the net cloud power is larger than the net surface power. The behavior of clouds, relative to the energy balance would seem to contradict this.
(1-.664) * 131 + .664 * 141 = 138.0 W/m^2 -> 222.0K (255K expected)
The second thing to notice is that the equivalent brightness temperature of the Earth is far too low.
George
George,
Just write a paper and get it published!
I've already told you that E&E is your best bet. WTF do you think you are doing here?
Mark D.:
Yes that makes so much difference. You are in denial of the fact that it's almost certainly warming.
History will not treat people like you kindly.
TrueSkeptic,
I'm so confident in my underlying science that I'm willing to submit it to an audience that I know will go out of it's way to find fault, even where there is none. Hasn't Arthur made a name for himself debunking skeptics? I don't see any climate scientists on the CAGW side who are brave enough to subject their work to this kind of scrutiny on, for example, one of Jo's threads.
So far, he has not been able to answer the question of why GHG forcing is treated so much more powerfully than the same amount of power from the Sun. He has not been able to answer the question about why the measured effect of perihelion is as I predict, and not as the IPCC forcing formula predicts. He has not been able to explain why my easy to grasp formulation for how the 255K of radiation emitted by the Earth manifests itself at the planets boundary works with my more reasonable, and might I say measured and calculated, effects of absorption, but not with the inflated values he hypothesizes. I wouldn't expect him to comment on the GISS data 'mistake?' that has been widely misinterpreted as warming, but I have to thank Amanda for a chance to slip that one in (no she wasn't a plant). Like I said, I have a lot of arrows.
And please, to everyone, I'm not going to participate in any flame wars and would appreciate it if others did the same.
Anybody who thinks they have a better way to quantify how the radiance received by satellite sensors originates from the surface, please say something. You might also pass it along to Rossow, who interprets the raw satellite data as being generated in this manner.
George
George, you're going round in circles. I certainly don't have a problem with surface emissivity being 1, but I have no clue why you're basing surface energy balance on satellite measurements and purely radiative considerations. Your analysis of clear-sky vs cloudy energy fluxes could be interesting - though you really don't seem to have delved sufficiently into radiative transfer theory to correlate what you're talking about with reality. You have a zero-dimensional model that appears to disagree in detail with standard analyses. Kiehl-Trenberth 1997 had almost the same atmospheric absorption fraction as Trenberth-Fasullo-Kiehl 2009, so your claim that their new numbers show a big disagreement with past work is bogus.
In short, you're not making sense in your comments here on this blog. If you have a coherent case, put it together in the standard scientific argument form, a definitive long-form paper with proper citations and cross-checked equations numbers, and at least post that somewhere. Getting it through peer review as TrueSkeptic says would be even better. Failing that, I don't think your pet theory is worth more discussion here, sorry.
George, the denialists regularly ban commentators they don't like. That is why you don't see anyone who knows things about the climate on a denialist site - they get banned.
Oh, please, they submit it to the peer review process.
You ought to try it some time.
If I had delusions of grandeur and believed I was some latter-day Galileo who'd disproven the consensus on an important scientific matter, that's certainly what I'd do.
"One of Jo's threads" sure wouldn't be my first choice of forum in which to stake my claim to scietific immortality.
Arthur.
Take a look at this, over at the ISCCP site.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/newalg.html#rev
This is a block diagram of how the incoming data is processed. It is split between cloudy and clear with different radiative models applied to each. I'm just undoing this to arrive at the equivalent temperature of the radiance at the top of the atmosphere that the satellite sees, that is, the B3 data, but I'm starting from the D2 data. There are a lot of links to papers Rossow wrote about how this works.
My point is that the radiation model you are unfamiliar with is the one used for processing the ISCCP data to determine surface and cloud temperatures from radiance actually captured as it's leaving the planet.
We can talk in depth about theories for where all the watts come from, but that's just a rat hole that we don't need to get in to, yet. Here we have measured radiance data from satellites which account for the net effect of all these various theories, whether they are right or wrong. More than one could even be right if it produces the final measured result. I've proposed a mechanism, which I have validated against the measured data in many ways. Can you come up with a test to invalidate my hypothesis?
If you still believe that it's a coincidence that my numbers worked out, see if you can come up with a better way to quantify the relationship.
The bottom line is that this leads to a far more accurate quantification of how the physical climate system actually operates and how the feedbacks interact, relative to the surface temperature. This relationship is not the over simplified, non interacting, linear effects often assumed, but is of a far richer origin. We can all agree that there is some effect, but the magnitude supported by the IPCC is way out of bounds. The 'what if' calculations I do show that doubling CO2 will have an effect closer to 0.6C than the 3C projected by IPCC heuristics. As far as I'm concerned, anything less than 1.5C would be of no significant consequence. What's your threshold?
George
Adelady @ 174, thank you for your polite post. What I'm getting at is; that DK is tossed about as slander as though only skeptics are afflicted with DK. Clearly this cannot be true.
When you say: âThere aren't and cannot be any politics 'behind' AGW.â I have to say you aren't looking around. Certainly you can make your point about âfactsâ measurements, physics, maths, biology and the rest which lead scientists to scientific conclusions, which in concept I don't disagree with. The reason I jumped into the blog here is exactly those science questions. George is making a different understanding of the science available and a significant number of posters here aren't interested. I think that is a poor reflection on the âscientistsâ here especially those that would âvery much prefer that the science was wrong.â
You also said:
>Short of simultaneous revolutions in physics, biology, oceanography, glaciology and all the other sciences, we have to go with what we've got. A problem.
On this, I don't think I could disagree strongly enough. Only a small miscalculation, misunderstanding in physics or the physical behavior of the atmosphere would be more than enough to minimize or eliminate your problem.
Then there is the last sentence:
>And the solution can only be achieved through human action. The way humans do that is through joint decisions - politics.
There really isn't a solution that I have seen. If I set my skepticism aside and suddenly accept AGW as true (as well as all the dire predictions) then tell me how exactly will you reduce carbon emissions so to solve the âproblemâ?
Frank @ 175, Lets see..... if I address Frank's comments the same way Frank does it:
1.Mis-quote nearly everything.
2.Argue from authority
3.Use zany or non existent logic
4.Take up writing for some comedy show at the local pub (and get fired).
Why thank you Frank.
Jakerman @ 181, your typing quality has become unacceptable.
You have pasted only a portion of what I cited and left out the critical portion I'll re post for you to reread at perhaps a slower pace:
>âIt's a universal human condition...â
So your fellow warmist has It right and you are wrong. Since you seem to want to attack I'll return favor by wondering out loud why you consider yourself such an expert on anything when you can't even understand 5 words: It's a universal human condition.
The rest of your post is devoid of logic since you cannot understand those 5 words.
It's not necessarily warming @184
I hesitate to reply to you because I think you might come unhinged.
I said: >> No, I am dubious.
>Yes that makes so much difference. You are in denial of the fact that it's almost certainly warming.
I suppose I could cite wiki on the difference between the words deny and dubious but I don't think I need to as you apparently have some doubt yourself (note the weasel word ALMOST in your reply)
>History will not treat people like you kindly.
So it is threats is it? Actually I'm not quite sure how history would go about doing this..... But as long as we are considering history, please tell me how many historical predictions of the end of the world have been correct? Oh heck how many predictions of an amount of warming have been correct?
>*âIt's a universal human condition...â*
You've taken that out of context:
>*It's a universal human condition not confined to a particular ideology.*
John's sentence is referring to anyone being able to have an opinion on issue in which they lack competence. I.e. DK doesn't need to apply to one ideology, but not eveyone is suffering DK's [dual burden](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2665…) and certainly not when they speak to their competence level and area. I'm certain John agrees, despite you taking one of his sentence out of context.
You really need to do better than quote mining.
Take a deep breath Mark D, not everyone suffers from the same complaints as you, and certainly not to the [level you do](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2665…).
@194 Quote Mining? I cited the entire paragraph with a link to the entire text. You in turn did the mining. Parse the sentence as you wish. Make false claims if it makes you feel whatever.....
DK is not unique to AGW or science subjects. In fact it could apply to anything a person does. Since there is likely something even you are not an expert in means that you are (according to DK) likely to exhibit DK if performing in that non expert subject. This is the same for each and all of us (If you believe the scientists DK)
Clearly therefore it is a universal human condition and that is how I parse John's sentence.
My breathing is fine thank you.
Quote mining as in extracting [part of the quote](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2666…) and reporting it as mean something that the author is not saying:
*'âIt's a universal human condition...â'*
John is not saying that everyone suffers DK as you so falsely claim.
You carry on with your DK dual burden, as I said it entertaining.
MarkD *The reason I jumped into the blog here is exactly those science questions. George is making a different understanding of the science available and a significant number of posters here aren't interested. I think that is a poor reflection on the âscientistsâ here especially those that would âvery much prefer that the science was wrong.â*
a) I'm sure the scientists here would be as grateful as I'd be if some super clever person miraculously parted the mists of current knowledge and told us not to worry. It's all OK. (Just this once we'd all stay up and watch those boring Nobel presentations.)
b) As for George's contributions, I have to defer to Arthur and others here on the maths and physics. However, I *can* say that as a manager or a teacher reviewing work like this, I would have some very stern words to say. *I told you yesterday and the day before that you have to get this stuff properly put together. It does not matter to anyone that you did all this all by yourself. And I told you that last week and the week before. You are not knitting a rug, you are presenting (a proposal, a book review, a science project) something that must meet the standards set by the rest of the world. Go back. Do it again. Do it properly.*
As for meeting the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions, there are lots of approaches. That belongs on a different thread.
Mark D.:
Amazing. You're the one who is in denial and you call me unhinged. Oh the hypocrisy.
Thank you for showing you're a scientific ignoramus.
Shorter Mark D.:
1. You, Frank, just showed that I'm utterly devoid of logic! Therefore, you are utterly devoid of logic!
2. Everyone suffers from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome! Therefore, I don't suffer from Dunning-Kruger Syndrome!
3. Stop labeling me, you warmist warmista! No, there's no irony here!
4. George has a different view of global warming! George is obviously just as qualified, and just as right as you are, as all you warmists! Therefore, George is 100% right, and you are 100% wrong!
5. Chewbacca! Chewbacca! Chewbacca!
6. Therefore, global warming is a hoax.
Reading the daily post at [Pepys Diary](http://www.pepysdiary.com) today, I noticed an interesting little snippet:
"I at Sir W. Battenâs did hear the particulars of it; and there for joy he did give the company that were there a bottle or two of his own last yearâs wine, growing at Walthamstow, than which the whole company said they never drank better foreign wine in their lives."
In 1667; the depths of the LIA!!! Global cooling is a h*ax!!
"2.Argue from authority"
It's a lot more certain than arguing from ignoramuses.
Tell me, do you ask about your abdominal pain to the Hairdresser?
How about your tax returns? Do you get the postman to do them?
What about when you need legal advice? Ask the dog?
The argument from authority is a fallacy when it's applied falsely. I.e. when people point to Monkcton and say "he's got a Lordship" that is a false appeal to authority. When people point to McIntyre and say "he's got a Science degree, so his claims on AGW are good", that's a false appeal: his Doctorate is not relevant because it's not in the relevant discipline.
Monkton has as much authority as you on climate change, or indeed, ANY numpty off the street. McIntyre has as much authority as any person who has a Maths or economics degree.
Both are inferior to the authority demonstrated by having a Doctorate in a Climate-related science.
This is why people have degrees (maybe you don't have one), to demonstrate competence. But having competence in Basketweaving (BA) does not demonstrate competence in Chemistry (BSc) so when you want a chemist, you don't go trawling the Basketweaving(BA) candidates.
Unless you want your business to fail.
"I don't see any climate scientists on the CAGW side who are brave enough to subject their work to this kind of scrutiny on, for example, one of Jo's threads. "
They already HAVE submitted them to such scrutiny.
Just get the work you wish to scrutinise from the published source and copy it to one of Jo Nova's threads.
co2isnotevil: "I don't see any climate scientists on the CAGW side who are brave enough to subject their work to this kind of scrutiny on, for example, one of Jo's threads."
So that 5 part debate on her blog with Dr Andrew Glikson was a fabrication? JoNova says: "Dr Andrew Glikson and I have been debating the evidence first through Quadrant, and then here. Kudos to him for following this up in a polite, diligent manner."
I drew a diagram summarizing the SwiftHackers' key actions.
http://ijish.livejournal.com/14284.html
Has anyone else seen [this nonsense](http://www.biocab.org/Total_Emisivity_CO2.html)?
It reads like offensive and arrogant drivel (especially the summary), but I have to say I'm out of my depth establishing exactly where they've gone wrong, so it's slow going for me. If anyone better qualified wants to wade through it be my guest :D.
J Bowers,
Glickson didn't participate in the discussion despite the many questions raised. He opted instead for a sermon approach instead of an interactive discussion.
George
Re. co2isnotevil
Did Glikson debate with Jo Codling or not!? Do you always expect every Tom, Dick and Harriet to jump to your stupid and pointless demands one by one when they have already engaged in debate with your indicated representative in CCDUB -- the Cult of Climate Denial and Utter Bullshit?!
Hi Dave H #205.
It looks like the author is trying to calculate the CO2 component of the temprature at a specific location on a single day, calculating based on the CO2 component of the atmospheric pressure? Isn't air pressure the mass of the air column above the point of measurement, but GHGs radiate heat to all directions, so the specific heat component at a specific location would depend on the total emissivity(sic) from horizon to horizon, as well as feedbacks and so on? It seems silly to me, but I don't have the inclination to check much further - breakfast awaits!
Note the paper reference (6) is to a paper that states that CO2 is a cooling gas, which has been rebutted. Story [here](http://wah-realitycheck.blogspot.com/2008/09/khilyuk-and-chilingar.html)
205 Dave H,
Before anyone wastes any time at all examining that "paper", they should read [this at JREF](http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3854567&postcount=779) (Biocab is Nasif Nahle). If they have the time (and incredible patience) they can read the JREF thread starting [here](http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3821197#post3821197).
Someone might know enough to be able to "baffle with science", but if they can't do simple arithmetic or answer very basic questions about their methods you have to disregard them.
Jakerman @196
>Quote mining as in extracting part of the quote and reporting it as mean something that the author is not saying:
>'âIt's a universal human condition...â'
>John is not saying that everyone suffers DK as you so falsely claim.
>You carry on with your DK dual burden, as I said it entertaining.
You still have a typing deficiency to wit: "it entertaining"
I am fully convinced that you were exposed, as a child, to a significant amount of lead paint.
At post 181 it is YOU that quote mined!
I quoted the entire paragraph of John Cook. I gave the reference LINK. You are a fool or acting like one.
Why don't you ask John Cook whether his writing skills are adequate or if he really meant to type something different?
In the meantime I believe chelation therapy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy may be of value to help you.
Wow @ 201:
Yes fate intervenes to prove your case to be my case.
Look at the posts 205, 208, 209. Look at the link in 205. So you have an authority, and yet it isn't "your authority" and I'm sure that you'll slander whatever "authority" this man has.
Now that is the problem with argument with authority. Your lame discussion of hairdressers and basketweaving is entirely lacking and unless you come up with something more substantial I'll conclude you have never given this subject any thought (or I suppose you have difficulty with thought
) at all.
Just who determines the final "authority"?
>*At post 181 it is YOU that quote mined!*
You still don't get it, unlike you I didn't misrepresent what the author was claiming. I pointed out its context, you on the otherhand tried to use one line out of context to claim that John Cook is stating that everyone suffers DK. He is not, as is evident is the full context.
To put it simply not everyone pontificates on issue they in which they are incompetent. And competent scientist speaking in areas of their competence by definition do not fit DK's dual burden.
Let me help you further. How can everyone suffer DK when DK is a comparative concept? To fit the DK matrix you need to be a low performer who cannot see their errors, or high performer who underestimate their skill. Of not, high performers/competence getting things wrong does not fit the DK model, that's just getting things wrong.
Did you bother to read the conclusion of the paper I posted?
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/kburson/files/bursonlarrickklayman.pdf
Here for your ease and comfort:
>It is a well-established and entertaining fact that, on average,
people think they are above average (e.g., Svenson, 1981).
However,
recent research tells a more interesting story about who is
wrong, in which direction, and when. Kruger and Dunning (1999,
2002) suggested that there is a relationship between task performance,
metacognition, and judgmental accuracy. They proposed
that the bulk of miscalibration in judging relative performance
comes from poor performersâ tendency to overestimate their abilities,
which, in turn, is due to their poorer metacognitive skills. In
fact, these researchers have found that poor performers substantially
overestimate their percentile and better performers only
slightly underestimate theirs. Our studies show, however, that poor
performers are more miscalibrated than good performers only on
tasks that feel easy and that the reverse pattern occurs on tasks that
feel difficult.
These results indicate that the answer to the question,
>âWho
makes errors in judging relative performance?â is, more or less,
âEveryone.â
DO YOU GET IT?
If you do not, then perhaps there is more going on here than you are able to perceive?
D-K is fast becoming a captive of particular debates, rather than an excellent piece of work in its own right.
This really raises a further question. Most people are perfectly realistic about the multitude of opportunities surrounding them to make some kind of D-K clanger. Do we think that we can mend our own shoes, compete at the Olympics, join a rock band or a ballet company, write a novel, climb K2, knit a bedspread? No. Some of us have a few wistful or wishful thinking moments about what we might have been able to do. Fortunately, all of us *don't* turn up at auditions and wail tunelessly for horrified judges.
The further question is - What drives some people to certain activities to exhibit their D-K dissonance?
But this is a climate site not a sociology or psychology site, so we'll throw that ball over their fence and let them keep it.
>*Did you bother to read the conclusion of the paper I posted?*
How quickly for forget that I set you straight on your erroneous claims [re that paper](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2665…).
@198:
>Thank you for showing you're a scientific ignoramus.
Well I used your comment and demonstrated by your own words that you were likewise dubious, or I suppose, dishonest. SO ARE YOU A LIAR OR DUBIOUS?
I guess that you are an ignoramus. The difference between you and me is; I don't always open MY mouth and confirm the fact.
Another typo....
>How quickly for forget
The Lead?
>*âWho makes errors in judging relative performance?â is, more or less, âEveryone.â
You are including those competent (in the top quartile) who [underestimate their skill](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.64.2655&rep=re…) on their field of competence. The top half of performers in a field are still pretty close.
It the lower performer who have the dual burden described by DK.
>*Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and makeunfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it.*
If you want to make that claim about climate scientist, you'd need find them spouting off in an area out of their field. But the IPCC is built from may diverse fields.
Adelady, (one of only a few here not exhibiting Pb overdose)
Twice (at least) you have commented about this thread "not being the right thread"
Why not? This is the "open thread" and gawd I'd like to have a thoughtful conversation!
jakerman, you do not understand syntax. You do not have any command of the English language.
Besides that I have not made ANY claim about IPCC!
It is unlikely that I'll respond to you again.
Mark D. writes:
>*Besides that I have not made ANY claim about IPCC!*
But Mark D also writes:
>*when you speak D. K. effect, you do realize it applies to everyone?*
So perhaps Mark D, needs to reconsider who he includes in everyone. As that's the point I've been addressing.
BTW Mark D, I'll note the lack of substantive response to these [a](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2668…) and all but the last point in [b](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2668…) points as what they are.
@221
Is the IPCC human?
And yes what about substantive response to my claim that DK is propaganda?
You aren't very good at this are you?
Lead or Plumbium (in your native toungue)?
>*@221 Is the IPCC human?*
Are the authors of the IPCC human? You know how competent authors are part of "everyone"?
>*what about substantive response to my claim that DK is propaganda?*
An empty claim that I've [set you straight on](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2665…).
You might recall that DK was a paper about individual behaviors. One might imagine that a group of superior thinkers (such as the IPCC) would be able to filter, intercept and correct DK behavior. I don't know this (just my guess)
Show me where DK researched group behavior and groupthink?
>*Show me where DK researched group behavior and groupthink?*
Show me where you considered this important question before claiming:
>*when you speak D. K. effect, you do realize it applies to everyone?*
>*a group of superior thinkers (such as the IPCC) would be able to filter, intercept and correct DK behavior.*
Just like a similar group competent scientists who regularly publish their ideas for peer review by those in their field. Process help build competence. [George?]
Sorry, one question at a time please: Show me where DK researched group behavior and groupthink?
>*Sorry, one question at a time please: Show me where DK researched group behavior and groupthink?*
If that question has not been addressed, then you are on no ground to claim that:
>*when you speak D. K. effect, you do realize it applies to everyone?*
"Everyone" has a nasty effect of including those who follow good scientific practice. Including those who operate with in feedback structures such as the IPPC and other mechanisms.
Particularly when important competence feedback mechanism [operate in science](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2668…).
@TrueSkeptic #209
Hah, brilliant - I remember that legendary thread, and I hadn't put two and two together :D
MarkD
It may be an open thread, just as a pub is open to all comers. But if I'm with a group of people discussing footy or cameras, it's a bit rude to interrupt with my own *much more interesting* views on car prices or organic gardening.
If people want to discuss something different, fine. But it's not up to me to come up with an agenda.
Hi George
Sorry, just discovered your post with links at #158. The moderation means it appears earlier than my second post.
I read your post and links at #158. The point made wasn't worth my consideration.
A
DaveH: "Has anyone else seen this nonsense?"
Yes, he's completely clueless. Notice how he uses several equations, solves them THEN NEVER USES THEM AGAIN.
Also, if you check his peer review process (note: it's his vanity site, so it's YOU submitting to HIM):
"Referees are asked to consider:
1. Does the article exhibit a high degree of novelty?
2. Is the research reported timely?
3. Are the results significant enough to justify accelerated publication?
4. Is the paper likely to be of interest to the journal's readership?
5. Is the paper written in a clear and concise style?"
Note there's nothing there about "correctness".
Also note he doesn't seem to know the difference between emissivity, and emissions.
But the biggest problem is that total emissivity isn't important because most of the earth's radiation is in a narrow IR band, where CO2 is a good absorber.
Another whopping big clanger (that he has in other papers he uses) is that his figures are for "per second".
All in all, it would be better never to link to that vanity site again, DaveH.
May I say right now that you do that a lot. It gets that sort of corruption a high ranking in Google that obscures ACCURATE texts on the Internet, so making finding GOOD sources for normal people almost impossible.
If you're going to do this sort of thing, don't use a link. Use the name of the site and the "paper" you want to have looked at.
So MarkD, you DO use your dog to fill in your tax forms, your hairdresser for your medical needs and your postman for legal advice.
After all, if you had used a doctor, you would be appealing to authority, which you believe makes them automatically wrong.
"and I'm sure that you'll slander whatever "authority" this man has."
What man? If you're talking about the potty peer, then he HAS no authority! He has no power and no perview over people other than himself.
The only place you can see condensed DK is in your posts.
Ah, seems you're talking about Nasif Nahle.
Well, when someone can't calculate ENERGY properly: from one "peer reviewed paper":
qstored= 0.116785528684435 W = 0.028cal
but it's not W, either. It's W/m^2.
Maybe you can see how this is correct, mind.
qstored is supposed to be energy.
Lastly, MarkD, you've managed to shoot yourself in the foot. Nasif is an EXCELLENT example of DK.
What is Nasif's degree in?
Is it Astronophysics? No.
Is it Radiative Physics? No.
Is it Thermodynamics? No.
It's Biology.
So on Biocab he's working outside his area of expertise and as you can see from the post above, he gets it startlingly wrong when he's outside his area of expertise.
Mark D.:
You just don't get it, do you? Nothing is certain in science. If you want certainty try mathematics.
What a hypocrite.
Wow:
>qstored= 0.116785528684435 W = 0.028cal
>but it's not W, either. It's W/m^2.
I may have misunderstood what you're demonstrating, but W/m^2 is an energy flux. To get energy you multiply the power by how long the energy has been accumulating.
1 Watt = 1 Joule/second
1 Joule = 1 Watt x 1 second.
There has been an outbreak of sanity at the Canadian National Post:
[Bad science: Global-warming deniers are a liability to the conservative cause](http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/07/15/bad-science-global-warmi…)
How long will it last?
@WoW #232
Cheers for the response - one thing though:
> It gets that sort of corruption a high ranking in Google that obscures ACCURATE texts on the Internet, so making finding GOOD sources for normal people almost impossible.
Links posted in comments here are tagged as "nofollow" - and every search engine I can think of (google included) excludes them from page ranking or indexing on that basis. If someone wants to correct my understanding, cool, but I'm of the opinion that posting links (even to hellpits like JoNova's place) is "safe" in that regard.
Note that this is one reason the anti-AGW blog campaign is so comparatively effective - endless self-referential blogs echoing the same vapid links in top-level postings. The detailed rebuttals, however, tend to take place in comments and therefore don't get the same exposure through interlinking.
It almost calls for a comment promotion service that elevates "worthwhile" comments, so that they turn up in search engine results more prominently, and their links become followable, thus contributing to contextual search results in eg. Google. Just random musings :)
222 Mark D,
Which language would that be? The Latin for lead is plumbum.
229 Dave H,
Were/are you a JREF member or have you seen links elsewhere? I've mentioned it a few times, and it seems I'm being cited as ["supremely patient"](http://62-89-145-4.pool.free.th.hotchilli.net/twocommunity/default.aspx…) at a few places. ;)
237 Stu,
Note the absurd number of dp he uses for his qstored. Not a good sign.
< pedant>
You can say watt or W (but not Watt) and joule or J (but not Joule).
< /pedant>
"Links posted in comments here are tagged as "nofollow""
Fair enough, but this is not always the case (Over at Skeptical Science the owner has stated he often forgets to do this) and the website has to do so to ensure that nofollow is done.
That this is the case is one reason why such people as Nasif keep plugging their pal researched paper on their vanity site with link after link after link.
Upping their linkcount.
Especially effective if it's many links on an otherwise accurate and well cited site (such as Deltoid) and is, as far as I can tell, the only reason why such people pop over here with "I've done a paper and here it is..." because they invariably fall FLAT with people who know what they're talking about.
But someone who doesn't already know where to look will google.
What happens at the moment if you google for "emissivity of CO2"?
"1 Joule = 1 Watt x 1 second.
Posted by: Stu "
Why 1 second, Stu?
Why not 1 hour?
And when you're using it in an equation
dT=P/MCp
which DOESN'T HAVE a time, then where did the 1 second come from?
Without that, your result is dT/dt. Rate of change of heating.
These aren't the only problems.
244 Wow,
Power is energy (or work) per unit of time (second for SI units)
Therefore, energy (or work) is power *times* time.
W = J/s
J = W.s
The "1 second" is part of the definition. If you make it an hour, you are introducing a factor of 3600.
In dT = P/MCp we are using calculus and this indicates the *instantaneous* rate of change, which is why there is no time unit.
Let's try that again.
W = J/s
J = W.s
"when you speak D. K. effect, you do realize it applies to everyone?"
No it doesn't. There are those who listen to the vast majority of experts in a field, and consider such experts as having knowledge above their own and will therefore defer to them on many if not most such matters, fully accepting their own limitations.
Then there are those who think they know better than the vast majority of experts, and that's what you call being hit on the back of the head with the D-K stick. A bit like insisting on playing in a high stakes poker game but having to ask the rules and refer to a "Top Ten Poker Tips" book almost every time it's your turn while remaining still convinced that your mathematical statistical prowess will guarantee you take the pot home.
245, I know, but when it comes to energy CONTENT, the time taken does matter.
1 watt for 1 second DOES make 1 joule of energy.
But unless you specify WHY 1 second, why not use 1 hour?
Then 1 Watt becomes 3600 Joules.
Or is that not energy content?
Or indeed, since the orignal qstored is about how the sun is heating the earth which has existed for 4.5Billion years, why not that figure?
That's not 181.64 Joules...
"In dT = P/MCp we are using calculus and this indicates the instantaneous rate of change, which is why there is no time unit."
Heh.
So integrate to find T.
I know this is kind of hard to understand but this is because this is how Nasif calculates the heating of the earth by CO2 cannot be the cause of global warming.
The problem here is that you KNOW what that equation is used for.
What you DON'T know is what Nasif uses it for,
PS: there is a time unit if you forget that your power is in watts. As Nasif does.
There's also the problem with your assertion "instantaneous". With respect to what?
Time.
Or, for a geopotential field, with height.
@WoW #243
Depressingly (but predictably) it's this junk screed that is the number one hit.
If you look at the incoming links to that page, there's only a few, but its things like JoNova, ABC, climateaudit, and the predictable self-referential links outward to heartland etc that reinforce this page's dubious "importance" it seems.
You really have to dig into those results to find anything of value. In fact, I had to click "similar" to the first result to find anything useful - even Wikipedia - and I find that pretty offensive.
Activists and "useful idiots" have successfully polluted google to the point where searching for anything on this topic is useless unless you already know the answer...
Really, some sort of coordinated action would be necessary to undo some of this damage, and even then there's a lot of garbage blogs out there promoting this stuff and corrupting the system.
248 Wow,
I don't know how better to explain it than Stu and I have already tried. It's 1 second because that is the SI unit of time, so that is the period used when defining time-dependent units.
1 W *for* 1 hour (*times* 3600) is indeed 3600 J (SI energy units).
Could you point us to where NN mis(uses) these units? I was describing the general case of dy/dx, not what NN is doing, which I haven't looked at.
TrueSceptic, #209> wow, i don't think i've ever seen an adult fail primary-school-level arithmetic so badly. again and again, with a stupid grin at the end, like a puppy sitting next to the brand-new soggy patch on the sofa.
truly humbling.
252 ligne,
And what was also very telling is how the other AGW "sceptics" simply couldn't bring themselves to admit how idiotic he was being.
Wow,
as TrueSceptic has explained, it's not one hour because of how the SI units are defined.
In more general terms:
Power = change in energy per unit time
Which is what you're saying: mutliply the power by how long that rate of energy transfer has happened for, and you get the change in energy. I was just confused by your reference to W/m^2 - why did you mention that?
TrueSceptic, #255: yeah, i did rather like mhaze's "i so do know what it means, i'm just not going to tell you". i hadn't heard that one since primary school either.
TS. This:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/01/svalgaard-6/#comment-145738
may be informative.
And for anyone else, look at comment
http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/01/svalgaard-6/#comment-145715
Could we call this "Leif-the-gate-open"?
"as TrueSceptic has explained, it's not one hour because of how the SI units are defined."
Stu, as I explained, when you don't have a time term, total energy depends on the time you set.
If you have 100W, the total energy is *WHAT*?
Oh, you need the time you're collecting over, don't you.
So why is it 1 second? Why not 1 hour? 2 weeks? 16picoseconds?
"It's 1 second because that is the SI unit of time, so that is the period used when defining time-dependent units."
No, why is TOTAL ENERGY the result of multiplying the power by 1 second?
If you can explain that non-tautologically, then you've explained it better.
E.g. Stu (and your backing him up therefore includes you) would say to
"what is the total energy from my 400MW power station?"
"It's 400 000 000 Joules"?
I do hope not, else Nasif isn't really as far outfield as I thought...
>Stu, as I explained, when you don't have a time term, total energy depends on the time you set.
Yes, I agree with you. I said:
>In more general terms:
>Power = change in energy per unit time
>Which is what you're saying: mutliply the power by how long that rate of energy transfer has happened for, and you get the change in energy.
So we're agreed on everything except I got a bit confused about the way you explained yourself, and your mention of W/m^2 (I still don't know what you meant).
257, 258 Wow,
We are at cross-purposes. Of course *total energy* can only be derived if you define the time period! If your power unit is W and you want the answer in J, then the number of seconds is what you use.
259 Wow,
You are right: it's meaningless. If, however, you ask "what is the total energy produced by my 400MW power station each second", the answer would be 400 MJ.
262 TS, correct.
However,that's not what Nasif is doing.
But Stu would be flummoxed and you would too from his use if your arguments for why Stu is right were anything to go on.
Nasif uses:
P=0.117W/m^2 * 1 s
where 0.117 is what he gets by multiplying the total emissivity of CO2 by the solar constant.
He uses Cp of CO2 and the mass of the amount of CO2 in a cubic meter to then calculate dT:
dT = P/m*Cp
and gets
dT=0.21C
Ergo (in his mind) CO2 can only warm the earth by 0.21C.
Ergo (in his mind) CO2 cannot explain the warming (33C)
Ergo (in his mind) the IPCC and the whole GHG thing is wrong.
And what Stu and you were saying was
"Yes, that's right. dT is the instantaneous change in temperature therefore there's no time associated".
It's in biocab. Annual_Energy_Budget.html
Among his many errors, putting in *one second* in the power calculation to get the energy increase is where he gets it obviously wrong.
But since you and Stu defended the use of 1 second there, I guess you'd agree with at least that part of his paper...
"So we're agreed on everything except I got a bit confused about the way you explained yourself,"
That's OK.
I knew you didn't mean what you said, but were confused.
See post #249.
But imagine how someone who wasn't physics literate listening to Nasif's BS. It fooled you and TS.
And that is how the denialist idiots get away with vanity publishing and more importantly WHY they do it.
G&T's paper was nearly as bug ridden (Monkton's too) and was soundly trounced by EVERY SINGLE PERSON who read it with a skeptical eye and knowledge of even O level physics.
So why did they write the paper? Surely not to get a Comical Ali Award for Services to the Enemy.
Because they will fool people who don't know where the BS lies.
Imagine if all you understood of Nasif's paper was the bits I mentioned.
YOU would have been fooled.
So someone who knows some physics but has many gaps would know no better than you and TS did.
And so it works.
Wow,
You are mistaken in what you think we thought. We were merely answering your question and defining terms. You never told us, despite my asking, just what NN was doing.
Arthur,
I know you're between a rock and a hard place, where you really must agree that the radiative model used to interpret satellite data is valid. But if you do so, I think you're smart enough to see how it will undermine so much of what you believe you know. You made a start by at least considering that it's interesting.
Let me make this easier (or maybe harder) by showing you something else that's not a coincidence.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/eebc/eebc.html
This points to a simple spread sheet calculator that can be used to test the effects of change on the steady state energy balance. It's basically the spreadsheet equivalent of the Trenberth global energy flows diagram and similar pictures, although far more accurate and permits what if analysis.
Not only is the 255K expected output power calculated properly, as I illustrated earlier, the surface and cloud power density flux required to sustain measured cloud and surface temperatures are calculated and matches even better. The results for all three of these calculations is a deviation of only about 1% between the top down and bottom up calculations, which are otherwise completely independent of each other, except that they are derived from different measurements of the same system. It also validates that the radiative transfer model I'm using matches the one used to process the satellite data.
If you're still unconvinced, tell me what you would consider convincing evidence. Don't say get something published, as I was under the impression that you possessed the intellectual capability to follow logical arguments without some peer or paper telling you what's right and what's wrong.
George
Wow,
I should add: please forgive me but I (and Stu too, I think) thought that *you* were genuinely confused about power and energy. That is how your questions read, and you didn't show NN's working (!) until just now. :)
Aye, I figured you were confused.
Like I say, imagine someone who knows a *little* bit of physics and they understand
Power = X Watts * 1 second = X Joules
Then, when presented with this equation:
dT=P/m * Cp
which results in dT being 0.21C, and the maths being absolutely correct (it is, but the physics is broken), wouldn't they be thinking "Well, that's proof. CO2 can only warm the earth 0.21C!".
This is why the denialists WILL write tripe. Some people will swallow it.
"You never told us, despite my asking, just what NN was doing."
And I quote:
"qstored= 0.116785528684435 W = 0.028cal
but it's not W, either. It's W/m^2."
Then I said that he just multiplied by 1 second.
NEITHER of you said "how long was the power supplied for?".
That is why it isn't "one second because that's the SI unit".
Isn't that rather important when you're applying power and reporting energy used? "How long did you have the power on?".
NEITHER of you asked it.
Just went "One second is RIGHT!".
PS this may be a useful link for you (from past interactions you've had on other websites):
(removed by Tim. Not appeared yet. Dunno why.)
Prof. Stephen H. Schneider has passed away.
My condolences go out to his family and friends.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/the-passing-of-a-climate-w…
269 Wow,
Err, no. We all agreed that that first line is nonsense. We didn't see what else NN actually wrote, so we had no idea what you were referring to.
Then, you confused the issue by going on and on and on about watts, joules, and seconds as if *you* didn't understand.
It helps to explicitly quote relevant stuff, so we can tell what is the original and what is your interpretation. We all know that NN is a either desperately incompetent or shamelessly dishonest; it's just a matter of how many errors there are.
270 bluegrue,
Sorry to hear that. Sad news.
George (#266) - I'm feeling no discomfort at all, but I'm not interested in following you around all your little circles any further. Post your full theory/model/whatever it is up online in standard linear narrative fashion, explaining all your terms clearly, citing your sources, preferably explaining where and why you differ from previous zero- or one-dimensional climate models and observational analyses such as Trenberth's, and then point us to it. If you can actually put together something coherent in that fashion I'm sure you would have no difficulty finding a more formal place to publish it too, but let's at least see the whole story up front. This blog is not the place to present your theories - they make no sense to me at this point the way you've presented them.
"Then, you confused the issue by going on and on and on about watts, joules, and seconds as if you didn't understand."
Nope, I was going on about WHY should you use 1 second when given a POWER RATE.
Stu came back with "it's the SI unit!".
Since I know that power sources are not quantised to the SI unit (which would have been a big problem for those not using SI years back...) and I know that Stu didn't, I asked "Why not an hour".
After all, when I'm Cooking Dinner (a frozen meal), the oven is on for an hour.
All I got from you and Stu was "1 second is the SI unit!!!".
Doesn't really say anything about how long the power lasted for.
Even ignoring NN's involvement, you both were getting nowhere. That's YOUR problem, so don't drop it on me as my fault, pal.
Unless you can explain WHY power by default always gets multiplied by 1 to turn it into energy. 'cos I don't see it.
The point being, if I said "I've applied 10W. How much power has been used?" You wouldn't say "10J".
You'd ask "How long did you supply power for?", yes?
I know I would.
If I said "Someone said they applied 10W and the energy was 10Joules! How ridiculous?" would you say "Well, the SI unit for time is second!"?
Maybe you'd say "If he supplied the power for 1 second, then that's right".
But Stu didn't. He just said "It's the SI unit!!".
You agreed with Stu.
Neither tells the astounded questioner above why the energy IS 10J (if it is). So it's not really an answer.
Hang on Wow, I understand the physics just fine. I just lost you in the context. I have an A level qualification in physics and an undergraduate Master's degree in meteorology, in which I learned plenty more about energy and energy transfer.
Forgive me, but I simply did not know what you were talking about because I misunderstood the context. I said as much @ 260, so please stop talking down to me.
274 Wow,
You are *still* doing it! Let's drop this. It's stupid, when we all know that it's Nahle who's the miscreant in all this. We just misunderstood what the other was actually saying.
I know you do, Stu.
But your response was no response, it was just a reply.
Rather Curtian, really.
No, it's fine that you didn't understand. In fact, the way it worked out was a good indication of what someone who knows a little would get flim flammed by such an argument as Nasif's (or G&T, or ...).
To an extent you've partaken of the experience of those people who get fooled into thinking there's proof that AGW is false.
Not in all cases because they like it, but in some cases, all they understood was the bit that I explained that led you to "it's the SI unit".
PS talking down to you? I'm afraid I've been talking down to TS, not you. Stop misappropriating insult, it's a nasty habit.
But really, it's fine that you didn't get it. There was a lot missing. The take-home message:
1) for someone who doesn't know much (or any) physics, all those ridiculous papers published in Climate Realist or E&E et al are as convincing as to their rightness as you found the "he used 1 second" argument.
2) be more careful about your replies. Try to make them answers, not merely responses.
3) I'm not angry you or TS didn't "get it" especially at first. See #2 or why I'm not on your side here and see TS's blamethrower for another reason where I am angry (and your apropriation of insult is another blamethrower technique).
"You are still doing it! Let's drop this. It's stupid"
Interesting way to "drop this". You know, continuing it on and that...
Arthur,
I believe I've uncovered the source of our disconnect. I consider the atmosphere to be about 2/3 clouds and 1/3 clear sky and apply unique rules to each. Clouds vary in emissivity from 1 for the biggest clouds and approach the emissivity of clear sky for thin wispy clouds, which is about 0. The low emissivity of clear sky means that it can't contribute much to the 'back radiation'. The second part of this is that most of the energy stored in the atmosphere is in the clouds not in the clear sky atmosphere. Most of what you consider back radiation actually originates from clouds.
Can you defend the Trenberth paper? I will ask one question, the answer to which will determine whether his idea is close to correct or way off base.
Clouds on average pass 20% of the incident power to the surface and reflect about 32% back into space. This means that 48% of the incident power is absorbed by them. Clouds cover on average about 66% of the planet. The total power absorbed by clouds is about 1366/4 * 0.66 * 0.48 = 108 W/m^2. Why isn't this important source of atmospheric power represented in the Trenberth picture?
You really should play with the spreadsheet linked to here.
http://www.palisad.com/co2/eebc/eebc.html
It includes all of the first order effects, including cloud emissivity, atmospheric absorption of solar energy and more. It defaults to send 50% of GHG power up and 50% down, but this can be trivially set to any ratio. You can also modify any of the absorption values as you see fit. You can even change the equations, but be careful and cross check any changes as it's very easy to inadvertently violate COE, which otherwise is what non zero error is measuring.
George
Stephen Schneider's death is a sad loss for science, for science communication, and for the interests of the planet.
I wonder how long it will be before the Denialati not only crow at Schneider's passing, but step up their misrepresentation of his work?
True Sceptic @ 240
Why thank you, for pointing out my typo. I apologize for any additional confusion it may have caused.
283 Mark D,
No problem. My pleasure. We wouldn't want people to get false information, would we? ;)
282bj
I'm afraid they're already at it. There are a couple of deeply nasty comments on ClimateProgress and a couple of the newspapers articles. I'm yet to make up my mind whether it is more or less offensive when they add in a condolence message to his family.
282, 285,
It so happens that [Watts already had a thread](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/18/quote-of-the-week-stephen-schneid…) on Schneider's recent article in Stanford Magazine. To his credit, Watts closed the comments section when Schneider's death was announced, but just look at the comments already there!
It's an astounding collection of delusional arrogance and, well, insanity, and it starts with El Gordo accusing Schneider of Dunning-Kruger! These cockroaches (!) really are immune to irony, aren't they?
#286: Cockroaches and irony. It might escape notice, but cockroaches are one of the few species to be successful through so many climate changes and mass-extinctions.
I'm just say'n.
#286: I just had a browse through that thread - ugh. How is it that saying hateful things about a person before they are dead is more acceptable than after? From the A. Watts statement, the comments are closed, for now, out of respect for his family. But by keeping the disrespectful comments that are already on that thread just throws the personal attacks into sharper relief.
Umm, TrueSceptic, it was a new low (one of many), when Watts elevated the cockroach comment to _"Comment of the Week"_. Do you really want to follow him into that manure pit?
287 Rixaeton,
I know, but you *do* know why I used that word? ;)
289 bluegrue,
I was using it "ironically".
Are you suggesting we should be nice and polite to people who are anything but? I don't think Watts and his crowd should be allowed to forget this too easily.
#290: Aarrgghh... Irony2 :)
I think I need more sleep. g'night all.
Are we ascribing too much power to climate 'skeptics'? 74% of people believe globe warming, not 50%
(my commentary on an article at SFGate)
http://ijish.livejournal.com/14343.html
293 Frank,
Hard to tell. The ASS hysteria has been increasing since Obama became POTUS and especially since the CRU hack. They still think they can win through propaganda and they have a few friends in the RW media.
TrueSceptic, I didn't recognize it as irony and it looks like I was not the only one. Good to read that it was meant to be ironic.
Anyway, I'm disgusted by the cockroach rhetorics and even more so by Watts's yellow badge abuse. I just hope we can rub it in and show them for the sorry sort of people they are without stooping down to their level. Yes, I'm holding us to higher standards. I'd still find it funny, if WUWT were flooded with commenters named _"cockroach #251"_, _"green cockroach"_, etc. Unfortunately it would never survive the moderation.
George,
>Clouds vary in emissivity from 1 for the biggest clouds and approach the emissivity of clear sky for thin wispy clouds, which is about 0. The low emissivity of clear sky means that it can't contribute much to the 'back radiation'.
[Uh,](http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/17/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation/) [no.](http://scienceofdoom.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/dlr-many-stations-morc…)
"The ASS hysteria has been increasing since Obama became POTUS and especially since the CRU hack."
The basic problem here is the same as the climate scientists and denialists.
(---***NOTE***--- purely for the purposes of this parallel, NOT a comment on which "party" is which "science group" ---***ENDNOTE***---)
Republicans == Denialists
Democrats == IPCC Scientists
The Democrats and the IPCC see themselves as "the good guys". Therefore unless it's something the "good guy" would do, it isn't done.
The Republicans and the denialists see the democrats or IPCC scientists as "the bad guys" and ANYTHING (and I really do mean ANYTHING) that gets the bad guys down and out is commended, even REQUIRED.
The additional problem in the political arena is that the republicans had power and having THEIR nutter in charge was lovely and The Right Thing. Especially when he expanded the idea of The Unitary President (and all that breech of the constitution).
The possibility that they'd lose power was NOT CONSIDERED (after all, God is on THEIR side).
Now they're no longer in charge.
Having THEIR nutter in was fine.
Having someone else's nutter (if you don't believe me, look at Obama giving away concessions BEFORE HE STARTS NEGOTIATING!) in charge is a calamity.
And it scares them shitless.
For denialists, the changeover meant that their Oil Baron President is no longer able to refuse the science. That Black Dude (honestly: the US couldn't even manage a Black president. They had to go 50-50 and even THAT has many people scared of the loss of White Power) may even LISTEN to the scientists!
So again, there's a panic to ensure NOTHING is done until there's a chance to change back to an oil-loving president.
What's really depressing is that the population in general don't WANT republican.
But Obama is so far into the Republican politics he's likely to get thrown out just because he's too right wing for the voters. Repuclicans won't vote for him because he's Democrat, the left won't vote for him because he's rightwing and nobody else is allowed a toe in the door.
To be hones, the US only had one more party than USSR used to have.
Now they have the same number as the USSR had and fewer than Russia has now.
How's THAT for irony?
295 bluegrue,
The thought had crossed my mind, but do we want to risk being "outed" by Watts (not that I'm anybody).
Luminous,
'Uh no' is not an answer. Look here and search for emissivity.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/pub/documents/dn-032.pdf
The only contribution to the clear sky 'back radiation' is the component from GHG's. This is about 1/2 of the total power captured by the GHG's between the surface and space. MODTRAN and other simulations based on HITRAN 2008 line data show the total absorbed by the clear sky is about 56.6% of the power radiated by the surface. Half of this is recirculated to the surface and the clear sky behavior is only applicable for the portion of the surface not covered by clouds, which is about 1/3.
The total 'back radiation' from the clear sky is 1/3 * .566 * 392 which is equal to about 74 W/m^2.
The total from cloudy sky is the radiation coming down from the clouds, whose bottom temperature averages about 275K (324 W/m^2) (minus the GHG captured energy which ends up back in the cloud) plus the GHG recirculation component from surface power. If to a first order, we consider the GHG components to cancel, the contribution to back radiation from clouds is 2/3 * 324 W/m^2, for a total of 290 W/m^2, which is about what Trenberth claims, except that it's mostly from clouds and not a consequence of GHG's except to the extent that clouds contain saturated amounts of water vapor, which is a strong GHG.
Trenberth seems to assume a higher fraction of surface energy is captured by GHG's based on his assumption that only 40 W/m^2 passes through the transparent window in the atmosphere. This is off by a factor of 2, so it could be a failure to split captured power up and down. I've also seen this magnitude of error when the frequency form of Planck radiation is inverted by c to represent the wavelength form. This is incorrect and if you do this, the peak of the surface radiation appears to align with the 15u CO2 line, rather than with the 10u ozone line which is where it aligns based on the wavelength form of Planck radiation.
He also fails to mention that radiation from clouds to space also passes through the transparent window. This is about twice the amount of surface power passing through the window.
George
"Luminous,
'Uh no' is not an answer."
Yes it is. It means "George, you're wrong".
Note that a link was also given proving her case.
Given that you didn't know "no" was an answer to your assertion, it's unlikely you'll understand anything more complicated (So "I" "a" are about the only words I think you will understand)
Gorgeous George: "He also fails to mention that radiation from clouds to space also passes through the transparent window."
No, he does mention that. He gives it 30W. Not very good at this critiquing are you, when you miss stuff like that.
The IPCC report made far fewer errors and people want to throw it all out.
I think it's fabulous that Jo Nova encourages so many proponents of half-baked science to take their half-bakedness out into the world and follow their dream.
It's almost like she's running a shit-splatting machine in the hope that one day....one day....
302 chek,
Jennifer Marohasy used to do the same, and Watts is now doing it too.
Which is why I keep asking George why he's here, not there.
Wow,
You know how silly 30 W/m^2 is for the cloud tops to space, compared to only 40 W/m^2 for surface to space. Did you even see where in the paper figure 1 was mentioned? There was no description of any terms, just a vague reference to this picture which is widely found everywhere and needs it's numbers updated. The implication of the article being vague is that the 30 W/m^2 is atmospheric radiation passing through the transparent window in the atmosphere, whose origin was GHG captured energy. The picture is completely disconnected from the text of the paper, so why even include it? There are so many faults with this diagram, in any of it's forms, I can't believe how you can be so blind to the obvious. You must suffer from the common malady afflicting many warmists, which is a selective blindness to the obvious when it undermines your thesis.
Clouds cover 2/3 of the planet, while the surface is only 1/3. Clouds emit only about 80% less power than the surface and the region between cloud tops and space has almost no water vapor in it which will significantly widen the atmospheric window. Just to be self consistent, the cloud power passing through the transparent portion of the atmosphere must be at least 87 W/m^2. Given that the 40 W/m^2 for the surface is about 2x too small, the 87 W/m^2 is also about 2x too small.
My simulations actually get clouds right. How about the ones you rely on? However, I don't depend on this for my arguments as it's not correct to use the results of a simulator to justify itself. If you've been paying attention, all of my arguments can be derived from basic first principles.
George
George,
"There are none so blind as he who will not see."
My links show __actual measurements__ of DLR that prove your 'first principle' assertions are dead wrong. It's called falsification.
You are not a competent physicist. You are not a physicist at all. Just another mediocre electrical engineer with a Galileo complex. You will not be convinced by any reason or evidence, so fuck off.
So...
Any comment on the people who have left Sb or are on strike?
Where do you stand?
Hello SC
I understand their position, but I personally enjoy Scienceblogs (and particularly Deltoid) too much to stop reading/posting. I'm sure some regular commenters have left/gone on strike as well as some bloggers.
Personally the way I use Sb is usually to peruse Deltoid first, and then follow links in the 'most popular' or 'readers' picks. If I have more time I go to the home page and click whatever takes my fancy - usually physics blogs.
Hence it's fairly convenient for me to have all these blogs in one place. Certainly there are many I wouldn't read if they weren't on Sb.
And so although some bloggers have felt the need to leave, it will almost certainly hurt their traffic from occasional browsers like me. Despite the Pepsi fiasco I don't think Sb has jumped the shark, and anyone leaving may be doing so prematurely.
Friends of Science employs fly-by-night tactics, turns around to accuse climate scientists of fraud
http://ijish.livejournal.com/14716.html
"You know how silly 30 W/m^2 is for the cloud tops to space, compared to only 40 W/m^2 for surface to space"
No, but I DO know how silly it is to say what you just did with no science to back it up.
Go have a look at the IR absorbtion rates to space:
http://www.udel.edu/Geography/DeLiberty/Geog474/geog474_energy_interact…
for example shows that there's not a lot to get out from ground to space directly. And clouds only have that small section to play with.
So I know how silly YOU sound.
Do you?
PS it's EXTREMELY silly when you state categorically that "He also fails to mention that radiation from clouds to space also passes through the transparent window." when very clearly he does.
Going "Well 30W isn't enough" IN NO WAY stops your comment that you made from BEING ABSOLUTELY and CATEGORICALLY WRONG.
Since you've asserted you've looked long and hard at that diagram yet yuo missed that shows you fail at reading comprehension.
How much more have you gotten wrong where it's actually more difficult to understand than the letters 3 and 0 next to each other?
Wow && Luminous,
Neither of you has demonstrated the logic skills or even the arithmetic skills required to defend Trenberth's paper. It would be in your best interest to remain silent as your ill informed pontifications only hurt your case. Since Arthur has gone silent, it's no longer worth my time to comment. At least he tried to defend your position with science.
George
I'll be watching out for any announcements that current climate physics have had to be re-written due to an elementary error, George.
Although, perhaps wrongly, I must confess I'm not expecting to hear so anytime soon.
"Neither of you has demonstrated the logic skills or even the arithmetic skills required to defend Trenberth's paper."
The problem is that we were pointing out YOU have neither the logic nor the skills to read Trenberth's paper, never mind understanding it (correcting it was completely out of the question for you).
"it's no longer worth my time to comment."
It never was. You had nothing to say and took ages saying it.
311 George,
As predicted, you failed to accept any criticism here, no matter how expert.
What do you do now? What is the point? You have 3 options:-
1. Go to a site like Watts or JoNova that will give you a guest post with little criticism.
2. Get a paper published in a journal with negligible review standards, such as E&E.
3. Stay here and further waste everyone's (yes, including yours) time.
Whichever of those options you take, then what? Who will take any notice except the ASS-afflicted?
>*George, As predicted, you failed to accept any criticism here, no matter how expert.*
This is [clearly established](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2661…). George has shown that:
>*George is never wrong, even when his points are indefensible.
George, you never did [get back to me](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2660…) after you were stumped.
climatechange101.ca was created by Friends of Science's Len Maier -- according to an FoS member newsletter.
http://ijish.livejournal.com/15083.html
TS, here's some interesting insight into the approach taken by the scientifically self proclaimed:
http://climateaudit.org/2008/05/01/svalgaard-6/#comment-145715
â49 (Nasif): try a 3rd degree [you already did], then a 4th and a 5th, and 2nd for good measure. The degree you like the most will reveal what you think beforehand the relation should be.â
A priori selection based on "like"??
I see Judy Curry's back making her usual generalised and unidentified allegations over at [Real Climate](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delu…) in the Montford thread.
No real point or evidence, of course. Just that faintly irritating grating sound that signify her 'contributions' these days. Which is probably the main reason the denialists have so readily adopted her as one of their own.
The current US Senate 'Energy' Bill is a dud.
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/22/energy-legislation-i.html
When will Democratic politicians stop chasing after the pipe dream of "bipartisanship" and actually start protecting people who aren't crazy?
317 Wow,
Surely you must know by now of NN's (Biocab's) epic denial of elementary arithmetic? How can any sane person take any notice of someone who doesn't understand positive and negative numbers?
It seems that in the later comments on the "spam St Thomas U, compliments of Discount of Brenchley" thread on WUWT, more and more commenters are fed up with the Lairds antics. There is increasing support for Abraham and the science. Looks like that didn't quite work out as the Laird planned...
Re that WUWT thread, there's furthermore the amusement of seeing completely barking mad comments like this one: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/14/abraham-climbs-down/#comment-4376… Fabulous!
Ts #320 it was more about how the polynomial fit was calculated by trying each order in turn until you get one you "like".
That's *Lars* saying that.
That Nasif goes along with it and doesn't make a peep about why that's the way to fit it shows he's no scientist, but *Lars* is the one giving this advice.
Not no no-name with a vanity site.
[Jason,](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2678…) that's some scary stuff alright.
Even scarier, it's on science bloggo'd'year, for whatever that's worth.
323 Wow,
Yes, I know. I was referring to another of NN's insane episodes, mentioned here a few times by me.
Now now, Brent. Don't get all victimy.
It clearly says on your own special thread, and I quote:
["Comments from Brent and folks arguing with him are cluttering up more useful discussions. All comments by Brent and responses to comments by Brent should go in this thread. I can't move comments in MT, so I'll just delete comments that appear in the wrong thread."](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/05/brent_thread.php#comments)
So if you'd posted there, it would have still been there.
But it was hardly worthwhile anyway was it?
After all your attempts at humour and/or satire do tend to come across as more leaden than a lorry load of plutonium 235.
Nice try Brent. Your thread was created to stop you trolling. Wikipedia defines a "troll" as:
>...someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
This means that when you post things you know are untrue (that we think oceans will swamp mountains and that the planet isn't warming at all, which directly contradicts your opinion on that matter in the past) you are looking for a response and attention because you have nothing worthwhile to add.
This is what trolls do.
Hence, you are a troll and your trolling posts will be deleted, so before you go around crying that your posts are being censored because you dare to be a rebellious dissenter, think of this post.
You could always post in your thread and not have comments deleted, but then how could you cry "censorship"?
Depressing news: I thought that John Christy was a genuine sceptic, i.e., he accepts the basic science but has reservations about climate sensitivity and the impacts of warming. It seems he is about to have a paper published in [E&E](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/24/john-christy-âno-significant-tren…). Really? Why would anyone do that?
> Why would anyone do that?
Maybe he's trying to *lift* the scientific strength of the average E&E paper? ;-)
Good article by Rodney Tiffen over at the SMH:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/you-wouldnt-read-abou…
Anyone listening to Counterpoint at the moment?
Duffy is telling a few porkies about the UEA FoI matter.
Ah, Duffy has John Abbott as his 'expert' - Abbott of the Abbott and Marohasy article recently published...
For those interested in hearing Abbott give his version of the David Holland kerfuffle, the Counterpoint interview is [here](http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2010/2962392.htm).
What is is with electrical engineers, in addition to mining geologists?!
333 Bernard,
I've just listened to that. Abbott sounds so very reasonable yet he repeats the lie about the IPCC FAR showing a global MWP. In fact, there is only a crude schematic (Fig 7.1, P202, IPCC FAR WG1 Full Report). The accompanying text says:-
The graph itself looks hand drawn and shows a MWP centred on about 1200 AD. The temperature scale is not numbered but assuming that the marks represent whole degrees C, the MWP peak was about 0.5 °C warmer than the line representing "conditions near the
beginning of the twentieth century". It is not attributed; perhaps it was copied from Alexandre or Lamb? (BTW Lamb established the UEA CRU.)
There is nothing to suggest that the MWP was global or that the schematic shows anything more than a very rough idea.
The UK Press Complaints Commission has finally published its ruling on the Times 'Amazongate' story:
http://www.pcc.org.uk/case/resolved.html?article=NjUzMA==
I don't hold out much hope for Richard North's complaint to the PCC about the accuracy of the apology the PCC forced The Times to publish! I predict a further humilition for North. The pity is that we will have to wait a few months before the PCC publish their ruling on his complaint.
@ jakerman (#17):
#333 Bernard asks:
Mmm could it have anything to do with the fact that a large majority of them are employed by companies which are producing most of the anthropogenic CO2?
Speaking of those suffering what we might now know as the Google Galileo complex, (and those who would use ideology to denie the results of scientific practice), I recently become aware of a group calling themselves:
>*"The Committee of German Scientists for the Preservation of Pure Scholarship"*
They rejected the theory of relativity becauased of flawed reasoning. Great sounding title though!
Hi Tim,
Re: the wikileaks afghanistan document dump - there seems to be some kind of mysterious force preventing the military from wider reportage on a considerable number of of casualties that turn up in their internal classified reports, and perhaps another related force that magically turns civilians into combatants post mortem? Has anyone hit up IBC for comment on why there might be so many incidents that went unreported by the military and the press and what this might mean for their "methodology"?
Reject intellectual Luddism: Crash this poll:
While we know most journalists just don't get science let alone climate change, I did think the organisers of the awards for excellence in journalism would understand âparadoxâ. Not so it seems with Exxon Mobil's sponsorship of this yearâs Walkely Awards (âPMâ ABC RN).
338 jakerman,
Was this anything to do with the rejection of a lot of 20C physics because it's "Jewish"?
342 TS
Afraid so. They didn't like Einstein and they really went for the "aryan science" notion, explicitly rejecting the idea that science was an international activity. One of them, forget the name fortunately, was Adolf's science adviser.
Terrific people. Vanished into the mists after WW2, praise be.
343 adalady,
Hmmm. I suspect that a few of them ended up in the USA and USSR.
337 Ian Forrester: "Mmm could it have anything to do with the fact that a large majority of them are employed by companies which are producing most of the anthropogenic CO2?"
As a counter example (in a good way) the Geological Society of America says the opposite, and possibly most of its members rely on mining and fossil fuel for their paycheques.
http://climatesight.org/the-credibility-spectrum/#comment-3506
And for the hell of it, because it's such a great post:
http://climatesight.org/the-credibility-spectrum/#comment-2320
I think the electrical engineers illustrate an often talked about divide between applied and research sciences.
>*Was this anything to do with the rejection of a lot of 20C physics because it's "Jewish"?*
You guessed right. And ironically the [NAZI purges](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-03-20/nazi-purge-sent-big-brains-to-…) of academies helped ensure he didn't win the [race to the bomb](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Szilard.html).
>*I suspect that a few of them ended up in the USA and USSR.*
See [Operation Paper Clip](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip).
I can also recommend [this short background](http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/jerome_taylor.htm)on AE's experience.
[Ian Forrester](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2683…).
It certainly seems that there is a correlation between income and ideology amongst some in the mining geology and in the electrical engineering professions.
What really puzzles me, however, is the underlying ætiology of [Judith Curry's self-immolation over at RealClimate](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delu…)...
It's as though her brains have fallen out.
"What really puzzles me, however, is the underlying ætiology of Judith Curry's self-immolation over at RealClimate...
It's as though her brains have fallen out."
Very much the same thing has happened to David Bellamy.
Or Tony Blair (and Mrs T):
They've bought into their own hype.
In the case of the politicians, it was "I've been voted in, therefore I must be doing right" then morphed into "I'm doing right, anyone else must be wrong".
David and Judith have found someone who loves them and gives them the praise they KNOW they deserve and the attention they missed.
That then changed from "They say I'm right, maybe I am" to "I'm right and anyone who disagrees is wrong" with a side helping of "They are MY FRIENDS!!!!" (for a geek example, see Linus Torvalds in the BitKeeper debacle. He was fine with Tridge reverse engineering MS Document formats, but when he messed with his best friends' code management product by reverse engineering the wire protocol, THAT WAS TEH EBILS!!!!!!" Really. LT goes *ballistic*).
All you need is an echo chamber "You're so right!" and if you don't keep a skeptical eye on yourself, you're lost.
It's a common trope in the Fall Of The Bad Guy story. For a reason.
[Judith Curry](http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/07/the-montford-delu…) spruking for M and MM.
Thanks for the link, [jakerman](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2688…). That was the post to which I was trying to link, but somehow I copied a different URL.
Doh!
WTFUWT is having a go at little old us, claiming that the Australian record is distorted [here](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/27/the-australian-temperature-record…). Same old story of "if you remove all the corrections for instrumental error, we're not warming as much".
Just read that Judith Curry exchange. She was seriously pwned. If her comments were any stupider she'd have to fall back on the [Socratic Irony Defence](http://cheezburger.com/Asset/View/?ciid=1809484).
James they are desperate.
From [the BOM](http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/datasets/datasets.shtml):
>*common changes at Australian sites over time include location moves, construction of buildings or growth of vegetation around the observation site and, more recently, the introduction of Automatic Weather Stations*
And introduction of Automatic Weather Stations has a known bias, that [requires correction](http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0477%281991%29072%3C17…).
Deniers complain about bias is a very undirectional way. Imagine if warming bias were ignored and uncorrected?
Wow and others... Here I am for explaining you the basics of physics.
First of all... You say the physics is broken with the next formula:
dT = q/ (m*Cp)
Your argument is showing your lack of knowledge of 101-physics.
The formula is for calculating the change of temperature given a load of thermal energy transferred from a hot thermodynamic system to a cold thermodynamic system.
Second: As always, you try to confuse your readers saying pseudoscience. You say it's wrong to convert W to J/s and then calculate the amount of energy implied in the process. You're WRONG.
Read any book on physics, find the formula and see how you could know the amount of energy implied in J/s.
1 W = 1 J/s...
As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second:
1 W (1 s) = 1 W*s
Now convert 1 W*s to J:
1 W*s = 1 J.
If you don't know the basics, how would you criticize QM?
Wow, Nasif competing with TC on Deltoid. This is going to be huge. I need more popcorn ;-)
Another genius who's "discovered" that the difference between Energy and Power is overrated.
Nasif, what school did you go to? I recommend you sue the crap out of them.
I'm getting the popcorn Lotharsson, [save me a seat](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2669…).
James Haughton | July 28, 2010 11:29 PM
James, I've been reading Dr Curry's public career suicide for days ("credibility seppuku" as dhogaza coined it). She is also getting a similar flailing over at Joe Romm's place in the Hockey stick thread. Steve McI is providing sanctuary for Dr. Curry, which seems to me to do her no favours at all.
I've seen various possible hypotheses raised to explain her behaviour, but I still can't see why someone occupying the professional position she does and who has an extensive track record in earth sciences would act like they have recently, let alone align herself with Montford & McIntyre and the other self-appointed climate science "auditors". Her recommendation that RC (and Joe Romm) screen their posts and comments for scientific integrity would be hilarious if such hypocrisy from someone of her authority weren't so astonishing.
"As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second:"
And therefore accumulates unless you include the negative terms, which you haven't.
I suspect Nasif is feeling a little buttfucked at the moment, so maybe we should give him a little quite time to settle his rectum.
However, that process occurs every second...
356 Nasif,
"As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second:
1 W (1 s) = 1 W*s"
Which "process" is this?
> "credibility seppuku"
Awesome turn of phrase.
> As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second: 1 W (1 s) = 1 W*s
Er, you've never heard of power inputs/outputs that vary on sub-second time scales? Wow! So half the modern electronic devices in the world don't work in your conception of physics. One might even be tempted to say "that does not compute"! Perhaps I could introduce you to the concept of integration over a time variable?
Michael Mann has written an excellent letter to the Star Tribune in response to some half-witted effort by some crooked journalist (h/t Bishop Hill he he):
[Michael E. Mann: In denial of warming, lies were repeated](http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/99588169.html?elr=KArksc8…)
Perhaps this should go in the Judy Curry thread, but Open is probably better.
I'm interested in the comments to Dr. Oppenheimer at [RP Jr's blog](http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/07/michael-oppenheimer-responds…), bearing in mind the furore over the 'flack' Prof. Curry has received. These are edited extracts for flavour (Tom Fuller will be proud I'm sure...):
"Such analyses are no better than astrology"
"A study like this...is delibrately playing the racist card."
"This is nothing more than political lobbying wrapped up in science themed wrapping paper."
"Geez, this is pathetic"
"This story is just the kind of daft alarmism that confuses rather than informs"
"Does this blatantly shoddy work not call into question everything else ever done by this scientist?"
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think the study is that great (not for the same reasons as Pielke & Tol), though to be honest I only skimmed it. But I find it interesting that these comments attacking the author of a published paper (and having the grace to respond in person to Pielke Jr's previous blogpost) exist unheralded when comments attacking A.N.Other blog commenter who happens to be a University professor have garnered widespread opprobrium.
(Crossposted at Ill Considered)
The Muir Russell "Climategate" report web site has a list of all FOI/EIR requests received by CRU since 2005.
@TrueSkeptik...
356 Nasif, "As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second: 1 W (1 s) = 1 W*s"
Which "process" is this?
Don't you know? The process is known as heat transfer.
W is power, equivalent to J/s. W*s is units for ENERGY, equivalent to J or calories.
361
"As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second:"
And therefore accumulates unless you include the negative terms, which you haven't.
Posted by: Wow | July 29, 2010 4:14 AM
Extreme ignorance. Measure the amount of energy emitted or absorbed by any thermodynamic system and each second the lectures will be the same. If it accumulated, as you say, we would have been scorched by the solar radiation long time ago.
And I don't need time for answering your nonsense. It is that I do work for living and do not recive "gifts" from antiscientific-pseudoscientific parties.
323
Ts #320 it was more about how the polynomial fit was calculated by trying each order in turn until you get one you "like".
That's Lars saying that.
That Nasif goes along with it and doesn't make a peep about why that's the way to fit it shows he's no scientist, but Lars is the one giving this advice.
Not no no-name with a vanity site.
Every university in America and Europe know who I am and the respectability of BioCab's website. Your's is an Ad Hominem attack without a bit of truth.
And who you are who hides his name behind a nickname? I show my face and you can find information about me around the world... But... Who you are? You don't know even the algorithms I applied and the authors of those algorithms, who are respectable scientists, well known by their honesty.
Nasif, I have a question about your publication 'Induced Emission and Heat Stored by Air, Water and Dry Clay Soil'.
Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
Only high up in the Martian atmosphere. Collisional energy transfer kills you on earth.
For the edification of any neophytes here, have a look at the request coded "FOI_09-97" in [Frank's link at #367](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2694…).
If any of the same neophytes do not know the back story, feel free to ask - it's an entertaining tale of vexatiousness...
[Nasif Nahle](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2696…):
I beg to differ.
Every scientist I know who has heard of you thinks that you're a disgrace to the profession. And this is not ad hominem; it is simply a reflection of the truth of matters in my sphere of contact.
Of course, you may beg to differ in your own turn. The easy answer then will be to survey "universities in Amercia and Europe", and after asking them if they know who you are, determine if they respect your website.
It will only take one negative response to make your statement a lie, and just a few more to make apparent the fact that you are actually held in disrespect.
Perhaps we could start by making enquiries to the readers of this blog - there are quite a few scientists here from "universities in Amercia and Europe"...
> If it accumulated, as you say, we would have been scorched by the solar radiation long time ago.
Unless there's a feedback involved in the system - e.g. if the accumulation of incoming radiative energy happened to increase the outgoing radiative energy until they reach equilibrium.
Which is kind of a key point the climate scientists are making.
371
Nasif, I have a question about your publication 'Induced Emission and Heat Stored by Air, Water and Dry Clay Soil'.
Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
Posted by: Stu | August 1, 2010 8:11 PM
And I have another basic question to you... Do you think the laws that operate in your lassers operate in the whole universe? Yes or not?
Nasif Nahle:
Every university in America and Europe know who I am and the respectability of BioCab's website. Your's is an Ad Hominem attack without a bit of truth.
I beg to differ.
Every scientist I know who has heard of you thinks that you're a disgrace to the profession. And this is not ad hominem; it is simply a reflection of the truth of matters in my sphere of contact.
Of course, you may beg to differ in your own turn. The easy answer then will be to survey "universities in Amercia and Europe", and after asking them if they know who you are, determine if they respect your website.
It will only take one negative response to make your statement a lie, and just a few more to make apparent the fact that you are actually held in disrespect.
Perhaps we could start by making enquiries to the readers of this blog - there are quite a few scientists here from "universities in Amercia and Europe"...
Posted by: Bernard J. | August 2, 2010 12:31 AM
More Ad Hominem arguments... Show me one single scientist who knows me and says what you are saying. Hah! :) You're a liar, Bernard J.
http://www.biocab.org is a website containing pure and honest science. You can find every information published in that site even in your kindergarten books.
Here a "lie" for Bernard J.:
ECO2 = 1-[(a-1 * 1-PE / a + b â (1 + PE)) * e [-c (Log10 (paL) m / paL) ^2]] * (ECO2)0
What's this formula for and how you apply it?
364
"credibility seppuku"
Awesome turn of phrase.
As I and every physicist on this world know, the process ocurrs each second: 1 W (1 s) = 1 W*s
Er, you've never heard of power inputs/outputs that vary on sub-second time scales? Wow! So half the modern electronic devices in the world don't work in your conception of physics. One might even be tempted to say "that does not compute"! Perhaps I could introduce you to the concept of integration over a time variable?
Posted by: Lotharsson | July 29, 2010 11:17 AM
Yes, I can... Read it clearly from this book:
Serway, R. A. Physics-3rd Revised Edition. 1993. McGraw-Hill/Interamericana Editores, S. A. de C. V. México, D. F.
When the units are W*s, it's energy; if the units are W, it's power. If the units indicates "s" (second), it is second. Point.
Oh sweet jebus...
Watts has another guest post from a certain PhD infamous round these parts. Once again, poor woodfortrees is being tortured to serve his nefarious "W" theory. I can't look away!
âMy guess is this post was not peer reviewed.â says Mike.
That was my guess too. Did anyone foresee what woodfortrees could be made to do with the arm twisted up behind the back?
"Yes, I can... Read it clearly from this book:"
That book doesn't say that you can only multiply by 1s.
In that book you multiply by the number of seconds the power is applied for.
But if you're on that mexican wacky baccy I guess you're gonna see all sorts of things.
"Measure the amount of energy emitted or absorbed by any thermodynamic system and each second the lectures will be the same. "
Wrong.
When the kettle is cold, the 2KW is going into the water and nothing coming out.
When the kettle is hot, 2KW going in, the temperature of the water in the kettle makes it hot to touch and more than zero is coming out.
Each second the net power changes.
Don't you know even the simplest things???
"W is power, equivalent to J/s. W*s is units for ENERGY, equivalent to J or calories.
Posted by: Nasif Nahle"
Snrk.
"Exactly! Φq IS NOT in Joules!!! Φq is in Watts."
"Φq = [e (A) (Ï) (T^4 â Ta^4)] * 1 (ONE) secondâ
THIS is why you are genuinely and generally considered incompetent and a bald-faced liar.
> When the units are W*s, it's energy; if the units are W, it's power. If the units indicates "s" (second), it is second. Point.
Of course, but rather than "Point" you demonstrate a failure to understand the point. That point was subsequently [elaborated upon by Wow](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2697…) [my emphasis]:
> That book doesn't say that you **can only** multiply by 1s.
> In that book you multiply **by the number of seconds the power is applied for**.
Or to generalise (e.g. if the power is not constant over the period of interest) you integrate over time.
Actual point.
>>371 Nasif, I have a question about your publication 'Induced Emission and Heat Stored by Air, Water and Dry Clay Soil'.
>>Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
>>Posted by: Stu | August 1, 2010 8:11 PM
>And I have another basic question to you... Do you think the laws that operate in your lassers operate in the whole universe? Yes or not?
Oh yes, the same laws undoubtledly apply. The same processes don't occur everywhere though. Forgive me if I trust Eli slightly more on this one when he said
>Only high up in the Martian atmosphere. Collisional energy transfer kills you on earth.
After all, Truesceptic has shown me that you have trouble with arithmetic
368 Nasif,
Yes, we all know that a watt is defined as one joule per second, and that (obviously) one joule is one watt for (times) one second.
What is your point?
379 Dave,
Oh dear, and to think we helped him develop this world-changing theory here. Don't some of us deserve a "thanks"?
385 Stu,
I did wonder about bringing that up. I doubt we'll get a better answer than we did over at the JREF forums.
380 adelady,
Actually, yes, many did. In particular, the site's author was reluctant to provide [linear trends](http://www.woodfortrees.org/notes#trends).
I'm all for it though, because we can easily see what anyone has done, and we can look at the raw data too. Much better than getting someone to tell us exactly what they did in a spreadsheet. It's a shame the author still hasn't fixed [this bug](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-n) ([same here](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/nsidc-seaice-s)) though, despite my emailing him about it at least twice. The problem is a very simple one: look at the raw data for 1987.92 and 1988.
Look who that nice young Christopher Monckton is threatening now.
Some here may be interested in this.
Dr. Roy Spencer is obviously half amused and half embarrased by a certain sphere of the denialati claiming that 'back radiation' violates the laws of thermodynamics. Of course, downwelling longwave radiation is an easily measured quantity and we can trace the gas that emmited it based on known emission spectra. But Roy goes one better and demonstrates that it can warm up a cavity he constructed in his back garden. Apart from some unsubstantiated guff about negative feedbacks from CO2, good for him.
Nasif's publication that I was referring to above,
Induced Emission and Heat Stored by Air, Water and Dry Clay Soil, claims that:
>The upwelling photon stream [emitted from the surface] affects the directionality of the radiation emitted by the atmosphere driving it upwards, i.e. towards the upper atmospheric layers and, from there, towards deep space.
To which I respond: Why, then, is average longwave radiation emitted by the surface greater than the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) measured at the top of the atmosphere (TOA)? What happens to it inbetween?
If Nasif were correct, the TOA OLR would be greater than the surface upwelling longwave radiation, because it would not only include the radiation emitted from the surface, but all the induced emission from the atmosphere.
Is Nasif right or wrong? Are his claims at odds with what Roy Spencer has measured?
Our very own Girma has his own post at WUWT, "A primer for disproving IPCCâs theory of man made global warming using observed temperature data".
The denizens of WUWT are thrilled ...
Nice twist. It's "IPCC's theory" now, ey?
392 Dhogaza,
Dave beat you to it at 379. ;)
[Dhogaza said:](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2701…) "The denizens of WUWT are thrilled ..."
I guess that counts as a prime example of Judith Curry's postnormal peer review?
371 Nasif, I have a question about your publication 'Induced Emission and Heat Stored by Air, Water and Dry Clay Soil'.
Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
Posted by: Stu | August 1, 2010 8:11 PM
And I have another basic question to you... Do you think the laws that operate in your lassers operate in the whole universe? Yes or not?
Oh yes, the same laws undoubtledly apply. The same processes don't occur everywhere though. Forgive me if I trust Eli slightly more on this one when he said
Only high up in the Martian atmosphere. Collisional energy transfer kills you on earth.
After all, Truesceptic has shown me that you have trouble with arithmetic
Hahahahahaha! Now the natural processes only occur where you want them to occur. Hahaha! You're showing your plain ignorance on the fundamental laws... Hahaha!
For your knowledge, induced emission occurs everywhere, at every place of the known universe. Perhaps you know a place where photon streams don't exist? Hahaha! That's silly!!!
My arithmetics? Oh! Heh! Could you show me a single "error" in my arithmetics? You're a liar. Point.
Oh yes, the same laws undoubtledly apply. The same processes don't occur everywhere though. Forgive me if I trust Eli slightly more on this one when he said
Only high up in the Martian atmosphere. Collisional energy transfer kills you on earth.
Posted by: Stu | August 2, 2010 7:06 AM
Heh! Tell Albert Einstein to forgive you, because the algorithms on induced negative absorption, which I used on my calculations, were deduced by him and corroborated by every physicist on this planet. I only see you know nothing of physics.
Now you're DENYING the physics of heat transfer. Don't you know that the photons COLLIDE with particles of matter? Waste of time with you because you're a science illiterate.
Does this thread remind anyone else of the Palin interview with turkey slaughtering occurring in the background? NN@397: "Gobble-gobble-gobble...erk!". Slainte
>My arithmetics? Oh! Heh! Could you show me a single "error" in my arithmetics? You're a liar. Point.
I'll start with this, because it's dead easy.
From the JREF, Nasif said:
>Satellite data cooled 0.774 °C from January 2007 to May 2008. Given that the total warming since 1860 is 0.75 °C, we haven't had any global warming anymore.
>I wrote cooled 0.774 °C, that is -0.774 °C, right? Then I wrote, since the total warming from 1860 has been 0.75 °C, that is a positive amount, correct? Now, continue with the lesson:
>-0.774 °C - 0.75 = -1.524 °C... Which is a negative amount, agree? Then, there is not any warming anymore, but a cooling.
So we'll go with your numbers (whether they are exactly accurate is irrelevant).
The warming since 1860 totals 0.75C
There was a cooling of 0.774C from Jan 07 to May 08.
Take the temperature in 1860 as a baseline anomaly of zero. Before the cooling that occurred from Jan 07 to May 08, the anomaly would have been 0.75C. It then cooled down by 0.774C (again, whether these numbers are accurate is irrelevant - we're merely checking Nasif's arithmetic).
This means that we can calculate the May 08 anomaly as follows: the anomaly relative to 1860 was +0.75C (initial anomaly before the cooling we're looking at). Take away the cooling from Jan 07 to May 08, which was 0.774C:
+0.75C - 0774C = -0.024C. Not -1.524C.
At no point is there a cooling of 1.524C, or an anomaly of -1.524C.
Nasif, you used an analogy of going down stairs on the JREF. Well, this is how it works. Each stair represents a 0.001C change in temperature. You start at a stair marked 'zero' in 1860. You climb 750 stairs to a stair marked '0.75' by January 2007. Between then and May 08, you descend 774 stairs (representing the cooling). What does the stair you are standing on now say?
Yep, it says -0.024.
Additionally, rather than just ask me questions, would you be able to actually answer my original polite enquiry?
>Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
By which I mean, can you provide a journal reference that describes this process in the atmosphere? That's all I wanted; having myself completed a meteorology degree from a UK university, I was surprised I had heard nothing about induced emission in the atmosphere in my studies on radiative transfer. Cheers.
[Nasif Nahle](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2707…):
> ...corroborated by every physicist on this planet...
Wow, I didn't realise this was an entry requirement for the Guild Of Physicists! Here I was blithely thinking that at least one or two physicists on the planet managed to get through their entire careers without corroborating whatever that claim was.
Well, you learn something every day!
399
My arithmetics? Oh! Heh! Could you show me a single "error" in my arithmetics? You're a liar. Point.
I'll start with this, because it's dead easy.
From the JREF, Nasif said:
Satellite data cooled 0.774 °C from January 2007 to May 2008. Given that the total warming since 1860 is 0.75 °C, we haven't had any global warming anymore.
I wrote cooled 0.774 °C, that is -0.774 °C, right? Then I wrote, since the total warming from 1860 has been 0.75 °C, that is a positive amount, correct? Now, continue with the lesson:
-0.774 °C - 0.75 = -1.524 °C... Which is a negative amount, agree? Then, there is not any warming anymore, but a cooling.
So we'll go with your numbers (whether they are exactly accurate is irrelevant).
The warming since 1860 totals 0.75C
There was a cooling of 0.774C from Jan 07 to May 08.
Take the temperature in 1860 as a baseline anomaly of zero. Before the cooling that occurred from Jan 07 to May 08, the anomaly would have been 0.75C. It then cooled down by 0.774C (again, whether these numbers are accurate is irrelevant - we're merely checking Nasif's arithmetic).
This means that we can calculate the May 08 anomaly as follows: the anomaly relative to 1860 was +0.75C (initial anomaly before the cooling we're looking at). Take away the cooling from Jan 07 to May 08, which was 0.774C:
+0.75C - 0774C = -0.024C. Not -1.524C.
At no point is there a cooling of 1.524C, or an anomaly of -1.524C.
Nasif, you used an analogy of going down stairs on the JREF. Well, this is how it works. Each stair represents a 0.001C change in temperature. You start at a stair marked 'zero' in 1860. You climb 750 stairs to a stair marked '0.75' by January 2007. Between then and May 08, you descend 774 stairs (representing the cooling). What does the stair you are standing on now say?
Yep, it says -0.024.
Posted by: Stu | August 5, 2010 9:59 PM
Hahaha! You're who is in problems with arithmetic. I'm absolutely correct! Hahaha! In that thread we were talking about magnitudes of change of temperature. If you have T= -1 K and T increases to 1K, how many units T increased? Hahaha! Zero? Hahaha!
[i]400
Additionally, rather than just ask me questions, would you be able to actually answer my original polite enquiry?
Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
By which I mean, can you provide a journal reference that describes this process in the atmosphere? That's all I wanted; having myself completed a meteorology degree from a UK university, I was surprised I had heard nothing about induced emission in the atmosphere in my studies on radiative transfer. Cheers.
Posted by: Stu | August 5, 2010 10:06 PM[/i]
Strictly Scientific Literature:
Modest, Michael F. Radiative Heat Transfer-Second Edition. 2003. Elsevier Science, USA and Academic Press, UK.
Pitts, Donald and Sissom, Leighton. Heat Transfer. 1998. McGraw-Hill.
Griem, H. R. Plasma Spectroscopy. McGraw-Hill. 1964.
Geoffrey V. Bicknell, Ralph S. Sutherland, Wil J. M. van Breugel, Michael A. Dopita, Arjun Dey, George K. Miley. Jet-induced Emission-Line Nebulosity and Star Formation in the High-Redshift Radio Galaxy 4C 41.17. 2000 ApJ 540 678.
Davidson, N. Statistical Mechanics. McGraw-Hill. 1962.
Richard McCray. Possibility of Maser Action in Cosmic Radio Sources. Science 9 December 1966 154: 1320-1323.
Tien, C. L., Lienhard, J. H. Statistical Thermodynamics. Holt Rinehart & Winston. 1971
Cheers,
Nasif Nahle
@Stu or whoever he/she could be:
Here the example of the stairs, going down or going up.
You have a stair with 101 steps. The stair has one step exactly at the middle, which we will call "zero" step. There are 50 steps above the "zero" step, and 50 steps below the "zero" step. The steps above the "zero" step are positive, i.e. +1, +2, +3, etc. While the steps below the "zero" step are negative, i.e. -1, -2, -3, etc. You're standing on the "-50 step". From that starting place, you go up, up, up, step by step, until stopping on the "+50 step". How many steps you did escalate? "Zero"?
>In that thread we were talking about magnitudes of change of temperature. If you have T= -1 K and T increases to 1K, how many units T increased? Hahaha! Zero? Hahaha!
This is where your fundamental misunderstanding lies.
You weren't discussing a change from +0.75 to -0.774; satellite data did not show an anomaly of -0.774C in May 08. Indeed, the most negative anomaly in the monthly UAH is -0.487C, for September 1984. So, you were discussing subtracting 0.744C (the cooling) from 0.75C the overall warming from 1860 to that point).
If you have T=0.75K and it decreases by 0.744K (which is the case exactly as you defined in the quote above, saying "Satellite data cooled 0.774 °C from January 2007 to May 2008. Given that the total warming since 1860 is 0.75 °C..."), this is not the same as decreasing to -0.744K.
That's the distinction. By does not mean to.
>*If you have T= -1 K and T increases to 1K, how many units T increased? Hahaha! Zero? Hahaha!*
Nasif I'm no scientist but even I understant there are no temperatures less than 0K. 0K is absolute zero.
But back to arethmatic, if you are being sensible you will see that a change from -1 unit to +1 unit is a change of two units, but that has not happend. We see a rise in [global 20 year mean](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:240) of approx 0.7K.
You are fooling yourself if you use inappropriate unit-confused arithmatic to argue werre currently at zero or negative net warming.
Fun to watch. Keep it going, as many people are not yet aware of how bad denialist arguments are.
A final example with change of temperature:
In August 1979 the monthly average change of temperature was -0.165 °C. The next month, September 1979, the monthly average change of temperature was +0.017 °C. What the amplitude of the monthly average change of temperature is from August to September 1979? In other words, how much the monthly average change of temperature "changed" from August to September?
From -0.165 °C to 0 °C there are 0.165 units. From 0 °C to 0.017 °C there are 0.017 units: Therefore, the amplitude of change of temperature is 0.165 °C + 0.017 °C = 0.182 °C.
Put the ciphers in a graph and count the gridlines from -0.165 to 0.017.
When dealing with these issues you MUST to understand the concepts, besides of the arithmetic. Take this lesson for your future counterarguments. :)
407
If you have T= -1 K and T increases to 1K, how many units T increased? Hahaha! Zero? Hahaha!
Nasif I'm no scientist but even I understant there are no temperatures less than 0K. 0K is absolute zero.
Check! You're an intelligent person! :)
You are fooling yourself if you use inappropriate unit-confused arithmatic to argue werre currently at zero or negative net warming.
Fun to watch. Keep it going, as many people are not yet aware of how bad denialist arguments are.
Posted by: jakerman
I'm not a dennialist. You're a denialist of science. I don't deny science.
If you have a temperature of -30 °C and it changes instantaneously to 30 °C, how many degrees the temperature increased? Zero? Hahaha! That dennialist of science Jackerman!
By the way, I recommend you to read the didactic article on heat at: http://biocab.org/Heat.html
Have a good night!
Firstly, thanks for the scientific references you provided. I'm not interested in such titles as:
>Griem, H. R. Plasma Spectroscopy. McGraw-Hill. 1964.
>Geoffrey V. Bicknell, Ralph S. Sutherland, Wil J. M. van Breugel, Michael A. Dopita, Arjun Dey, George K. Miley. Jet-induced Emission-Line Nebulosity and Star Formation in the High-Redshift Radio Galaxy 4C 41.17. 2000 ApJ 540 678.
>Richard McCray. Possibility of Maser Action in Cosmic Radio Sources. Science 9 December 1966 154: 1320-1323.
...because I asked about the Earth's atmosphere, not star formation or plasma physics. Regardless, I will see what the others, particularly the first textbook reference, say.
>In August 1979 the monthly average change of temperature was -0.165 °C.
Assuming that in this instance 'change' means anomaly, I am able to follow you.*
>The next month, September 1979, the monthly average change of temperature was +0.017 °C. What the amplitude of the monthly average change of temperature is from August to September 1979? In other words, how much the monthly average change of temperature "changed" from August to September?
>From -0.165 °C to 0 °C there are 0.165 units. From 0 °C to 0.017 °C there are 0.017 units: Therefore, the amplitude of change of temperature is 0.165 °C + 0.017 °C = 0.182 °C.
Of course I agree with the above. And of course, this is totally what happened from Jan 07 to May 08.
Let's look at the actual figures shall we? From UAH satellite data, Jan 07 had an anomaly of +0.513K. May 08 had an anomaly of -0.113K. The temperature therefore dropped 0.626K between those two data points.
If, for the sake of argument, Jan 07 was 0.75K warmer than the temperature in 1860, this means that a warming of 0.75K has been followed by a cooling of 0.626K.
What you essentially did Nasif (but with slightly different figures), was write -0.626K - 0.75K = -1.376K. Clearly this makes no physical sense, as there has not been a cooling of 1.376K in these data.
*If, on the other hand, you have completely misunderstood what the monthly data actually shows, I don't know what to say. You use the phrase "monthly average change of temperature". But the data is the monthly anomaly relative to a baseline, not the change from one month to the next...
>*Check! You're an intelligent person! :)*
I suggest you follow your own advice, I'm not the one confused.
>*If you have a temperature of -30 °C and it changes instantaneously to 30 °C, how many degrees the temperature increased? Zero? Hahaha!*
You are fooling your self with in appropriate analogies to match your confused unit corruption.
0.7K is the rise in 20 year mean over the period of instrumental record. a dalily or yearly anomaly has different units. One is 0.7K rise in 20 year global mean, the other is say a 0.7K drop in 1 month global mean. A 20-year-mean and a 1-month-mean are [different things](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:240/plot/hadcrut3vgl/…).
Your conflation of the two is foolish, only exceeded by the scale of hurbris required to prevent you from seeing your mistake while maintaining your misplaced confidence.
413
Check! You're an intelligent person! :)
I suggest you follow your own advice, I'm not the one confused.
If you have a temperature of -30 °C and it changes instantaneously to 30 °C, how many degrees the temperature increased? Zero? Hahaha!
You are fooling your self with in appropriate analogies to match your confused unit corruption.
0.7K is the rise in 20 year mean over the period of instrumental record. a dalily or yearly anomaly has different units. One is 0.7K rise in 20 year global mean, the other is say a 0.7K drop in 1 month global mean. A 20-year-mean and a 1-month-mean are different things.
Your conflation of the two is foolish, only exceeded by the scale of hurbris required to prevent you from seeing your mistake while maintaining your misplaced confidence.
Posted by: jakerman | August 6, 2010 2:01 AM
Oh! Sorry... I thought you were an intelligent person. I see I was wrong. Again, if you have a temperature of -30 °C and it instantaneously increases BY 60 °C, what the final temperature would be? Let's check your arithmetics:
-30 °C + 60 °C = 30 °C. Ok, 30 °C is the final temperature. Now tell me, how many degrees the temperature changed? "zero"? 30°C? 60 °C?
Wow! Strange Jackerman's arithmetics... heh!
@Jackerman...
Well, not only your arithmetic is "weird", but your science also. You say:
"0.7K is the rise in 20 year mean over the period of instrumental record. a dalily or yearly anomaly has different units. One is 0.7K rise in 20 year global mean, the other is say a 0.7K drop in 1 month global mean. A 20-year-mean and a 1-month-mean are different things."
You're wrong or you have not understood how the change of temperature is calculated.
If the IPCC is calculating the change of temperature through the methodology you're exposing, then I know why it had to invent the climategate.
"0.7K is the rise in 20 year mean over the period of instrumental record. a dalily or yearly anomaly has different units. "
Nope, they're still in kelvin.
What a maroon. But not even an entertaining one.
Why don't you go tell Roy Spencer or RPSr about how their work is wrong and there's no back radiation?
To everyone here,
You should realize that Nasif Nahle runs what I conider to be a comedy web site called the 'Biology Cabinet' which appears to spend most of its time arguing that the current warming isn't happening or is due to the sun. Given that Nasif allegedly claims to be interested in science, it boggles the mind that he has a thread arguing that it has not warmed since 1999. Of course this garbage has been dealt with many times before (bearing in mind the last ten years have been the warmest in recorded history, and 2010 is set to break single year records by a considerable margin). Moreover, elucidating trends in largely deterministic systems requires more than a ten year period, as many have pointed out.
BTW Nasif, how much of your 'science' has been published in journals that appear in the Web of Science? Just wondering.
"Satellite data cooled 0.774 °C from January 2007 to May 2008. Given that the total warming since 1860 is 0.75 °C, we haven't had any global warming anymore."
If the total warming since 1860 is 0.75C, then the warming we've had is 0.75C.
That is what "total warming since 1860" means.
That there has been cooling for some period doesn't change the phrase "total warming since 1860 is 0.75C", since the phrase "since 1860" includes that period.
"Basically, my question is: can you show that induced emission (the process by which lasers operate) occurs in the atmosphere?
Posted by: Stu | August 1, 2010 8:11 PM
And I have another basic question to you... Do you think the laws that operate in your lassers operate in the whole universe?"
Nasif's answer: "No, I can't so here! Chewbacca lives on Endor!"
>>*0.7K is the rise in 20 year mean over the period of instrumental record. a dalily or yearly anomaly has different units.*
>Nope, they're still in kelvin.
Nasif was copying my response without any notation to indicate that.
Nafis would agree with WOW on the surface, but I'm confident on further read WOW will spot Nasif's error.
Nasif is taking one anomaly figure of 0.7K and saying its its equivalent to another of -0.7K. There is nuance in the units that Nasif seem incompetent to comprehend.
One unit is anomaly in one month of a 1 month running mean (change in Kelvin per month, on a 12 month running mean), the other is (change in Kelvin per hisotric record on a 240 month running mean).
A link in [this post](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2707…) shows the diffence between the two things that Nasif is confusing.
>Nasif is taking one anomaly figure of 0.7K and saying its its equivalent to another of -0.7K.
Nasif is guilty of getting stuff wrong for sure, but I don't think this particular charge is on the list. Can you quote what you're referring to pls Jakers?
Nasif writes:
>>*407 If you have T= -1 K and T increases to 1K, how many units T increased? Hahaha! Zero? Hahaha!*
My response:
>>Nasif I'm no scientist but even I understant there are no temperatures less than 0K. 0K is absolute zero.
Nasif:
>*Check! You're an intelligent person! :)*
My response;
>I suggest you follow your own advice, I'm not the one confused.
Then Nasif loses the plot (again):
>*If you have a temperature of -30 °C and it changes instantaneously to 30 °C, how many degrees the temperature increased? Zero? Hahaha!*
Nasif what does minus -30°C or -30°C, have to do with the limit of absolute zero? The point was your ignorance of the concept that was "there are no temperatures less than 0K".
Remember this huberis:
>*407 If you have T= -1 K and T increases to 1K, how many units T increased? Hahaha! Zero? Hahaha!*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_zero
>>Nasif is taking one anomaly figure of 0.7K and saying its its equivalent to another of -0.7K.
>*Nasif is guilty of getting stuff wrong for sure, but I don't think this particular charge is on the list. Can you quote what you're referring to pls Jakers?*
Stu I am refering to this:
>*Satellite data cooled 0.774 °C from January 2007 to May 2008. Given that the total warming since 1860 is 0.75 °C, we haven't had any global warming anymore.*
"One unit is anomaly in one month of a 1 month running mean (change in Kelvin per month, on a 12 month running mean), the other is (change in Kelvin per hisotric record on a 240 month running mean)."
But an anomaly has no time component, except its placement in time.
A *trend* has a time component, like "0.16C/decade". That's a trend.
So the anomalies of a monthly anomaly is in kelvin (or C or F) and a 20-year anomaly is in kelvin (or C or F). It's just that the calcuation of that anomaly is taken in the first case from an average over 1 month, the other over 240 months.
But the anomaly is still in the same units.
Trend? Not so much.
But Nahle doesn't know how to work out a trend either.
"You're wrong or you have not understood how the change of temperature is calculated.
Posted by: Nasif Nahle"
NOBODY knows how YOU have calculated the change of temperature.
You've used Watts in an equation that requires Joules and then (throwing away the difference) called the result the temperature change.
The sort of error I was told how to avoid when I was 14!
'course have a look at his CV and he's gained about 6 degrees according to his tale over 3 years.
It's all fake. He talks like a 13 year old, makes mistakes a 14 year old would know to avoid and nobody's ever seen or heard about him IRL.
He's a kid.
A denialist form of the MMRPG G.I.R.L (Guy In Real Life).
He's a pubescent kid with a website.
>*But the anomaly is still in the same units.*
OK, I should say Nasif's two 0.7K anomalies have same units but mean different things.
If Nasif were correct then graphically [combining these two curves ](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:132/plot/uah/from:200…) (Grim@ style) would be justifiability equivalent.
Yet the 0.7 anomaly based on a multi year mean and based on a 1 month or 18 month mean are not the same thing. The inputs have different time weighting thus different meaning. One is [more susceptible to noise](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah), the [other less so.
On top of this one is measuring the lower troposphere the other the surface temperature. So taking one from the other is wrong on many levels.
BTW, even using Nasif's wrong conflation of anomalies, all the warming would appear [to have returned](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:132).
"OK, I should say Nasif's two 0.7K anomalies have same units but mean different things."
Nasif thinks they are different units.
I wonder if he's going to say "Oh, yeah, I was wrong, they are the same units" too?
After all, only the closed minded nonscientist would refuse to admit error.
Mind you, given he doesn't know when he means Watts and when he means Joules and whether Watts * seconds is joules or not, I don't expect him to admit any mistake whatsoever in any matter at all.
Which, again, is what a pre-teen kid would do.
Oh, boy!
Nasif is repeating exactly the same idiocy here that he displayed at the JREF.
I wonder what he thinks his bank balance is if he starts at zero, pays in $750, and then withdraws $774?
Of course, we'll ignore for now the ludicrous cherry picking he did to get those 2 figures in the first place ...
417 Jeff,
Thanks, but some of us have known about Biocab's site for a while now. It is utterly bizarre, like peering into a parallel universe where true is false, black is white, and especially positive is negative.
425 WOW,
Except that he appears to be [almost 59](http://www.biocab.org/About_Us.html).
"Except that he appears to be almost 59."
Pfft.
Here's a picture of me:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/20/article-1047397-025B9B3B00000…
!
That same vanity site has him earning 6 degrees in 3 years.
Yah.
So why do we believe anything else on there?
TS says:
>Nasif is repeating exactly the same idiocy here that he displayed at the JREF.
>I wonder what he thinks his bank balance is if he starts at zero, pays in $750, and then withdraws $774?
>Of course, we'll ignore for now the ludicrous cherry picking he did to get those 2 figures in the first place ...
Yep TS, the strange thing is he has demonstrated that he actually can do the arithmetic:
>From -0.165 °C to 0 °C there are 0.165 units. From 0 °C to 0.017 °C there are 0.017 units: Therefore, the amplitude of change of temperature is 0.165 °C + 0.017 °C = 0.182 °C.
but Nasif has some kind of mental constipation when it comes to the original example. Perhaps he'll finally get it if I put it in these terms: Initial temperature = T1. Final temperature = T2. Difference between the two = dT. So for the above, T1 = -0.165C, T2 = 0.017C.
dT = T2 - T1
so dT = 0.017C - (-0.165C) = 0.182C. So far so good.
In the original example, Nasif claims that it had warmed 0.75C from 1860. So our starting temperature T1 = 0.75C. He also claimed that it had cooled 0.774C from Jan 07 to May 08 (let's continue to ignore that these figures are incorrect and irrelevant) so dT = -0.774C. The only thing we need to find now is T2.
T2 = T1 + dT
T2 = 0.75C + (-0.774C)
T2 = -0.024C.
NOWHERE in this calculation does the figure -1.524C show up. Nasif, you were doing it wrong. Can you not see that?
In the original he blathered on about ciphers and amplitudes. He never did explain, but somehow he's insisting that the 2 "amplitudes" must both be negative. So, yes, he can do arithmetic, but somehow he can't figure out those damned confusing + and - signs!
For anyone who's got time to kill [this](http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=3821197#post3821197) is where to start reading the Biocab thread. Many tried, but none made any headway with him; it was hard enough to get him to use the same numbers more than once, let alone tell us how they were derived, although the recent "cooling" looks very like a simple (and insane) cherry pick using 2 monthly anomalies, and they weren't even the "best" he could have used.
WUWT has a [guest post](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/why-the-co2-increase-is-man-made-…) by Ferdinand Engelbeen which has some typically insane comments from the inmates.
What is especially funny is that our old mate Dave Andrews has managed to be [even more stupid](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/05/why-the-co2-increase-is-man-made-…) over there than we've seen here.
>Dave Andrews... even more stupid
Awww, that's rather special :)
BTW, if WUWT are going to follow Spencer's lead and have a series of posts debunking the stupidest denialist claims, does that mean there aren't going to be any more posts by Steven Goddard, so as to avoid double standards? I've become rather fond of his frank and unerring stupidity.
Something tells me Roy Spencer is not so-much-liked anymore. First he acknowledges the existence of the greenhouse effect on his blog (as if he never did that before, but anyways), resulting in some pretty insulting comments on WUWT and even his own blog. It seems he now has taken on Miskolczi...and got a Christopher Game telling him he's stupid...
NOWHERE in this calculation does the figure -1.524C show up. Nasif, you were doing it wrong. Can you not see that?
Posted by: Stu | August 6, 2010 10:09 AM
Sorry, Stu, but you continue being in a state of confusion (chaos?). Originally we were talking about amplitude. So answer the question again, but applying correct mathematics.
Question: What's the amplitude of "change of Temperature" from -0.774 °C to 0.75 °C?
It is a so simple question that even a kindergarten would answer it. Hah!
Posted by: TrueSceptic | August 6, 2010 2:47 PM
434
For anyone who's got time to kill this is where to start reading the Biocab thread. Many tried, but none made any headway with him; it was hard enough to get him to use the same numbers more than once, let alone tell us how they were derived, although the recent "cooling" looks very like a simple (and insane) cherry pick using 2 monthly anomalies, and they weren't even the "best" he could have used.
Uuuh! It must be hard to you knowing that real science exists and that it can be easily read from my articles. :)
Posted by: TrueSceptic | August 6, 2010 11:58 AM
433
In the original he blathered on about ciphers and amplitudes. He never did explain, but somehow he's insisting that the 2 "amplitudes" must both be negative. So, yes, he can do arithmetic, but somehow he can't figure out those damned confusing + and - signs!
Another ignorant on how to calculate amplitude of change. Do you want me to explain again the issue with the stair? hahaha!
Posted by: TrueSceptic | August 6, 2010 9:13 AM
428
Oh, boy!
Nasif is repeating exactly the same idiocy here that he displayed at the JREF.
I wonder what he thinks his bank balance is if he starts at zero, pays in $750, and then withdraws $774?
Of course, we'll ignore for now the ludicrous cherry picking he did to get those 2 figures in the first place...
Oh boy!!! TrueSeptic thinks that $$$ are amplitude of change of temperature!!! Wow! Hahaha!
Posted by: TrueSceptic | August 6, 2010 9:25 AM
429
417 Jeff,
Thanks, but some of us have known about Biocab's site for a while now. It is utterly bizarre, like peering into a parallel universe where true is false, black is white, and especially positive is negative.
Sorry, TrueSeptic... Could you show one single scientific error at biocab's website? Or... Are you talking just because you have a... mouth?
Posted by: jakerman | August 6, 2010 7:02 AM
"426
But the anomaly is still in the same units.
OK, I should say Nasif's two 0.7K anomalies have same units but mean different things.
If Nasif were correct then graphically combining these two curves (Grim@ style) would be justifiability equivalent.
Yet the 0.7 anomaly based on a multi year mean and based on a 1 month or 18 month mean are not the same thing. The inputs have different time weighting thus different meaning. One is more susceptible to noise, the [other less so.
On top of this one is measuring the lower troposphere the other the surface temperature. So taking one from the other is wrong on many levels.
BTW, even using Nasif's wrong conflation of anomalies, all the warming would appear to have returned."
Jackerman, Jackerman... Cannot you read who plotted those graphs? Why you omit the source of those graphs? Hahaha!
"Conflation of anomalies"? What's that? Is it something inside your heat or what? Heh!
See the temperature anomalies at: http://biocab.org/Global_Temperature_English.jpg
Cheers :D
437 Marco,
My opinion of Spencer has gone up a huge amount recently. Not many would bother to build an instrumented box to test the theory of downwelling IR in a way that ought to (but still doesn't, sadly) convince the physics deniers, and his patience is impressive.
I wonder where all the real nuts will be in a year or so? JoNova?
By the way... Warming cannot go away because we are living a period of warmhouse, which followed a period of icehouse, which will allow another period of warmhouse, etc. During the Holocene, the amplitude of fluctuations of temperature, or "anomalies" of temperature, has gone up to 6 °C, i.e. from a fluctuation of -3 °C to a higher fluctuation of +3 °C. Heh! :D
444
437 Marco,
My opinion of Spencer has gone up a huge amount recently. Not many would bother to build an instrumented box to test the theory of downwelling IR in a way that ought to (but still doesn't, sadly) convince the physics deniers, and his patience is impressive.
I wonder where all the real nuts will be in a year or so? JoNova?
Posted by: TrueSceptic | August 6, 2010 6:25 PM
I think you are right, TrueSceptic. Spencer's "experiment" has demonstrated that the formation of dew is higher at those places where eddies and currents of air are obstructed by a box wrapped with aluminum foil. We did the same experiment in basic school and obtained the same results; we used thermometers. You can do it also. Put the box wrapped in aluminum foil on the grass and a thermopar inside the box, and just wait, wait, wait, until enough dew is formed on the floor below your box. :)
>*Question: What's the amplitude of "change of Temperature" from -0.774 °C to 0.75 °C?*
Nasif, you continue to fool your self with inappropriate analogies.
To see your error you need to define what you are measuring when you say -0.774°C and 0.75°C.
To do this you need to define your reference baseline for each. [UAH use](http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/) the 79-98 average.
Nasif's errors include moving his baseline. He calculates the 0.75°C anomaly compared to what baseline? Then he calculaes the -0.774°C based on the 0.75°C as a new baseline (in effect calling 0.75 = zero).
Call Nasif math, and its full of hubris and full of errors.
440 Nasif,
Just as I did at the JREF, I want you to explain exactly how you got those figures. When you've done that, I want you to explain how a rise and a fall (warming and cooling) can both be negative.
If you feel that I'm missing the point in that you are using amplitudes, I again ask you to explain how you derived them, and (again) why positive and negative ones both negative.
That should be simple enough, no?
447 jakerman,
To get the full flavour of what Nasif's up to, I think you need to read the JREF thread I linked to earlier, plus his own articles at biocab.
I only hope we at last get told how those figures were derived. We can all generate all sorts of "amplitudes" by data torture, but it helps if we are told *something*, anything really, not just told "Ha! you do not know the ciphers? You do not know how to calculate the amplitudes?"
Letâs take a standard temperature of 290 K. The minimum change is -0.496 K and the maximum is 0.786 K (real magnitudes of ÎT since Dec. 1978 up to date). At minimum change, the standard temperature was 289.504 K, whilst at maximum change the temperature was 290.786 K. Therefore, the amplitude of change of temperature was 290.786 K â 289.504 K = 1.282 K, or if you wish, 289.504 K â (+290.786 K) = -1.282. Oh! But the change of temperature was 0.786 K â (-0.496 K)!!! No matter, children⦠Make the numbers talk: 0.786 K â (-0.496 K) = 1.282 K. However, some people here doesnât understand these basic calculations and thinks that 0.786 K â (-0.496 K) = 0.29 K!!!!! Isnât it funny? Hah!
>*I only hope we at last get told how those figures were derived.*
I'd put that at low probability. Yet we have [enough information](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah) to forensically deduce that his product is crap.
446 Nasif,
You do realise that your comments would be clearer if you used
< blockquote>
< /blockquote>
(without the space after <) when quoting someone?
Nasif, Jakerman says
>To see your error you need to define what you are measuring when you say -0.774°C and 0.75°C.
and TrueSceptic says
>Just as I did at the JREF, I want you to explain exactly how you got those figures.
Because it's clear your confusing temperature anomalies and temperature changes.
Although you yourself defined -0.774C as the change in temperature between Jan 07 and May 08, you are treating it as if it was the anomaly in May 08 - which it isn't.
It's not "torturing" the amplitudes, but simple elemental mathematics
Let's take two arbitrary magnitudes:
ÎT1 = -1 K (please, notice it is change of T, i.e. ÎT1).
ÎT2 = 1 K (please, notice it is change of T, i.e. ÎT1).
Demonstrate your mathematical abilities, TrueSeptic and tell us what your result is from substracting -1 K from 1 K, that is, 1K -(-1 K).
;)
453 Stu,
I'm really not sure. Read the JREF thread, where it's not at all apparent what he thinks these numbers (amplitudes) mean.
Stu says...
"453
Nasif, Jakerman says
To see your error you need to define what you are measuring when you say -0.774°C and 0.75°C.
and TrueSceptic says
Just as I did at the JREF, I want you to explain exactly how you got those figures.
Because it's clear your confusing temperature anomalies and temperature changes.
Although you yourself defined -0.774C as the change in temperature between Jan 07 and May 08, you are treating it as if it was the anomaly in May 08 - which it isn't.
Posted by: Stu | August 6, 2010 7:22 PM"
Well. well, let's take the magnitudes as you say and tell us your results:
0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C)
How much is it? Heh! ;)
454 Nasif,
This is what you've done before.
Again, I ask you to show us your derivation of +0.750 and -0.774. Let's do that first before we go anywhere else at all.
If you can't show us what those numbers represent, how can we know that you are using them correctly?
TrueSceptics says:
455
453 Stu,
I'm really not sure. Read the JREF thread, where it's not at all apparent what he thinks these numbers (amplitudes) mean.
Posted by: TrueSceptic | August 6, 2010 7:25 PM
At that thread, very old by the way, we were talking about the magnitude of the total amplitude of change of temperature, very clear by the way. So, the confusion is only in your minds.
Please, tell us the results of the simple arithmetical problems I proposed in my last two posts. :)
Please, don't say you don't know the answer. I will write them again for you make the calculations:
1K -(-1 K) = ?
0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C) = ?
Your answers, please?
>*Well. well, let's take the magnitudes as you say and tell us your results: 0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C) How much is it? Heh! ;)*
A meaningless calculation unless you define what the numbers [mean](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…).
TrueSceptic says:
"This is what you've done before.
Again, I ask you to show us your derivation of +0.750 and -0.774. Let's do that first before we go anywhere else at all.
If you can't show us what those numbers represent, how can we know that you are using them correctly?"
If you knew a bit of science, you would know what the symbol ÎT is for. Those figures were taken from the UAH database on global fluctuation of tropospheric temperature. So, your results to the problems?
1K -(-1 K) = ?
0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C) = ?
Nasif, to show you are correct all you need to do is show how you derive:
a) 0.75°C, and
b) -0.774°C
Heh! Well, I'll tell you once again:
Those figures were taken from the UAH database on global fluctuation of tropospheric temperature. So, your results to the problems?
Your results, please?
Nasif Nahle:
>Those figures were taken from the UAH database
No they were not. Anyone can verify that you are lying by checking [the data](http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/uah).
Nasif, once again, please show how you derive:
a) 0.75°C, and
b) -0.774°C
Your reluctance to show your derivation is telling.
That delay on answering a very easy problem of mathematics could be due to two causes:
1. Stu, Jackerman and TrueSceptic don't know how to solve the problem, which would demonstrate they know nothing a bit of arithmetics; or...
2. Stu, Jackerman and TrueSceptic don't want to accept that I am right and they are wrong, just because they wish to dennigrate a honest scientist whose only "sin" has been to teach real science.
I'm still waiting for the answer to the problems. I won't admit more evasive answers. :)
In terms of simple numbers, your arithmetic works out. You're still damn sure doing it wrong though, because you're treating an instance of ÎT (-0.774C) as if it were an anomaly.
Not to mention that your figures 0.75C and -0.774C are not supported by the satellite data, as pointed out by Dave.
Nasif the calculation is meaningless unless the figures are understood. Please answer the [simile question](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…).
DaveH has [showed](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…) you are not accurate in your description of the data. Please Nasif, show how you derive:
a) 0.75°C, and
b) -0.774°C
BTW [This comment](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…) is a keeper, demonstrating the cognitive dissonance essential to blind denial.
As I said Nasif, keep it up, many people need to see how bad denialist arguments are.
What is it with these 'honest scientists' like Nahle here and Curtin in the other thread that makes them think applying a liberal layer of BS fools anybody?
Surely an 'honest scientists' would clearly explain rather than obfuscate and rave. On the other hand, the MO fits the denialti like a glove.
Hahaha! You lose, I win. I'm right, you're wrong.
Ad hominem attack, chek? Hahaha! Make the following calculations:
1K -(-1 K) = ?
0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C) = ?
Answers? Answers? No answers? Hahaha!
FFS Nasif
0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C) = 1.524C
There, I answered your question.
I have three follow up ones for you, and I think it may be good for you to answer them with something other than 'I win...Hahaha!', which is extremely uninstructive.
Question 1: Where did you get those two figures, 0.75C and -0.774C?
Question 2: More importantly, what do those numbers represent?
Question 3: How does the number you came up with, 1.524C, relate to the physical realities of the climate system?
Stu questions...
Question 1: Where did you get those two figures, 0.75C and -0.774C?
By those times, those figures referred to Max and Min fluctuations of temperature by HadCRU and NOAA.
Question 2: More importantly, what do those numbers represent?
Fluctuation of temperature, as I have been saying through this thread.
Question 3: How does the number you came up with, 1.524C, relate to the physical realities of the climate system?
I didn't; it was NOAA who did it. In other words, that would have been the total amplitude of the fluctuation of temperature through 14 years. It's the same when one says the fluctuation of temperature has been positive, e.g. 0.11 °C per year (or ~1.1 °C per decade), which was the figure handled by NOAA in those times. By a "thorough" refinement of the calculi, NOAA changed those ciphers to 0.2 °C per decade counting for the last 150 years (which are 160 years up to date and the cipher is now 0.1°C for future changes):
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-spm.pdf
Page 12.
I answer the questions straightly. :D
"Posted by: Stu | August 6, 2010 8:55 PM
471
FFS Nasif
0.75 °C - (-0.774 °C) = 1.524C
There, I answered your question."
Perfect! Therefore, your answer demonstrates that my arithmetic is correct and that who said that I had problems with arithmetic because of my properly correct calculation was lying. ;)
I have answered also your questions. Have you verified the info in the page I provided? :)
> Fluctuation of temperature...
That's not a precise definition.
I suspect what you think they represent is the difference between max recorded and min recorded temperature (*average or anomaly? global or regional? which temperature record?*) over a defined time interval. Note how many descriptive attributes (in the brackets) are missing that must be present for a precise definition.
And:
> ...those figures referred to Max and Min fluctuations of temperature by HadCRU and NOAA...
suggest the possibility that the two different numbers come from two *different* data sets, which means it's not correct to compute their difference.
Oh, and previously you claimed it was UAH data, not "HadCRU and NOAA", so it appears you might even be pulling numbers out of your fundament.
If you want to have any credibility, you need to point to the data source (or pair of sources) and show other people how you derived those two numbers so that they can verify it for themselves.
> ...when one says the fluctuation of temperature has been positive, e.g. 0.11 °C per year (or ~1.1 °C per decade)...
You are still confused. When one says "1.1 degrees per decade", one is talking about a trend (which implies noise is filtered out); when one talks about "fluctuation" one is usually talking about the difference between min and max measured values (which generally still include the noise). They are two very different things.
> ...those ciphers...
I'm not sure what you mean by "cipher" in this context. It's certainly not the regular English usage.
> Therefore, your answer demonstrates that my arithmetic is correct and that who said that I had problems with arithmetic because of my properly correct calculation was lying.
Ah, so the mistake was saying that your arithmetic was incorrect; an accurate statement would be that **it's almost certain that you badly misinterpreted the data or inappropriately mixed data from two different data sets**.
That doesn't reflect any better on you, IMHO.
[TrueSceptic](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…).
Andrews actually goes on to repeat his manglemathics after several people gently point out his nonsense... amazing!
However, to help Andrews feel that he is not alone, Richard S Courtney spends a lot of time there denying the nose in front of his face, ably assisted by one Paul Birch. What is striking is that amongst all of the numpties posting on the thread, there is just about every permutation of scientific/mathematical error and of self-contradiction that is possible to imagine. Well, more than was possible for me to imagine before I started reading - I had to stop before the Stupid infected me too.
Honesty, there is so much Wrong contained within that thread that it has its own gravity. In fact, it's a black hole of Denialism, where real science and mathematics are drawn in and lost forever, and the only thing to escape is a variant of Hawking radiation composed of Denialist pseudoscientific clap-trap.
Perhaps I should formally posit the existence of DPCT-rays? Or if that's too cumbersome an acronym, I could be overweaningly vain and suggest BJ-radiation - I liked the sound of J-radiation, but it was reserved [quite a while ago](http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v19/i4/p418_1)... ;-)
"What is it with these 'honest scientists' like Nahle here"
I think you just killed those two words by using them, even in protective quotes, against Nahle.
He's not a scientist, he's a punk kid.
I mean, he's asking "what's 1 - (-1)" and thinks that someone getting 2 is proving something he said!
Nasif, There's been huge warming over 1.5 degrees.
there was an increase of 0.75C increase since 1890 and there was an increase of -0.774 between Jan 07 and May 08.
Therefore the difference is 0.75 - (-.774) = 1.534
POSITIVE!
Therefore, proof by Nahlism that there has been over 1.5C warming!
>*Where did you get those two figures, 0.75C and -0.774C? By those times, those figures referred to Max and Min fluctuations of temperature by HadCRU and NOAA.*
Firstly this is inconsistant with your previous claim when you said:
>*Those figures were taken from the UAH database on global fluctuation of tropospheric temperature.*
Secondly, I asked how you derive the figures and please show the figures you used.
Can you do that? So far you are failing.
Wow, using Nasif's logic you forgot to add the waring from NOAA so the warming is 1.534-(-1.534) =3.068.
>Perfect! Therefore, your answer demonstrates that my arithmetic is correct and that who said that I had problems with arithmetic because of my properly correct calculation was lying. ;)
Hah! Arithmetic is more than being able to put numbers in and get numbers out. It includes their correct use. Let me put this example to you: a boy has 5 apples and you take away two of his apples. How many apples does he have left?
You're sure it's 3, but he declares
>no, 5 is positive, right, and -2 is negative, so
> 5 - (-2) = 7! I have loads of apples! Hahaha!
Well, technically that calculation is mathematically correct, but it's not right because it makes no sense in this context. The boy has three apples.
You're the boy Nasif. You had a temperature anomaly of 0.75C. You then took 0.774C away from this (more on this number soon). Somehow you wound up doing the wrong calculation, and I reckon it's because you don't know what one or both of those numbers mean.
So, the numbers. Regarding where exactly they came from, I'll let you reply to Jakerman; as you can see from what Jakerman quoted above, you have not told the truth about where the numbers came from on at least one occasion. I think that counts as a fail.
What also counts as a fail, though, is what Lotharsson has noted. Your terminology is confused and non-standard. The monthly values in all datasets are called anomalies, a word I don't think you've used once! If you do consider them anomalies, it should be completely trivial for you to point us to which dataset and which data point to look at. That would be wonderful.
Anyway, you, Nasif, originally defined 0.75C to be the 'total' warming since 1860. That would make +0.75C a temperature anomaly relative to 1860. You then defined -0.774C to be how much the satellite data cooled between Jan 07 and May 08*, which would make -0.774C the difference between two anomalies. I think you forgot what it was and have been treating it as an anomaly itself. Then there would indeed be a 1.524C difference. But it's not, and there isn't.
*You've been very inconsistent on this claim - satellite, UAH specifically, or NOAA or HADcru? A 'cooling' between two datapoints or something else? I will be charitable and not call it lying, maybe you're just forgetful. Have another go.
462 Nasif,
False. The UAH data begins in 1979. It is impossible that you could derive any figures going back to 1860.
Are you really going to repeat every stupid step that you took at the JREF? (Rhetorical) Are you really this stupid or dishonest)?
472 Nasif,
14 years? Which 14 years? Your original claim said 1860 to present (but never defined), then Jan 2007 to May 2008.
475 Bernard,
Strictly speaking it is logically *possible* for Courtney and Birch to be correct, i.e., the atmospheric increase *could* be happening independently of fossil fuel combustion. The problem, of course, is that they then have to describe the path that fossil fuel CO2 takes, explain all the evidence showing that the oceans are a net sink, and explain why the parallel increases in atmospheric CO2 and anthropogenic CO2 are somehow just an amazing coincidence.
"Wow, using Nasif's logic you forgot to add the waring from NOAA so the warming is 1.534-(-1.534) =3.068.
Posted by: jakerman"
And then, because I've said it's warming 1.524C and you've said it's warming 3.068, that means it's warming 5.592C!!!
Isn't Nahlamathics cool! Just take two numbers from somewhere, add them together and proclaim your result!
Wheee!
"Well, technically that calculation is mathematically correct, but it's not right because it makes no sense in this context. The boy has three apples."
Stu, you're not using Nahlamathics.
That is where your calculation is right IF IT GIVES YOU AN ANSWER YOU LIKE! As long as you did the sums correctly you can always demand that anyone who disagrees shows where your maths was wrong. Since the wrongness isn't in the maths but in how it's used, the answer cannot be "proven" to be wrong as long as you remember you're using Nahlamathics: Add or multiply or subtract (or whatever manipulation you like) correctly any two numbers you want. Then proclaim them correct ciphers!
486 Wow,
Just wait for Nasif to tell us that we must be stupid because you can't describe temperature fluctuations using apples, because (441)
Has anyone ever seen this level of obtuseness before? Or is it genius-level obfuscation?
474 Lotharsson,
Knowing if numbers should be positive or negative, and when to add or subtract, are a part of basic arithmetic. Getting the sign wrong is just as wrong as any other mistake.
Short Nasif:
WOW, your [primary school arithmetic](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2710…) seems to be correct, therefor any argument you base on a misuse of said primary school arithmetic must also be correct. Thus WOW you also win, like I win. Heh, heh, haa haa.
Has Nasif run away at last? Has he disappeared down some deniers' internet rabbit hole to proclaim his victory over the AlGore-ists at Deltoid?
489 Adam,
Hard to tell. One of Nasif's little habits is to disappear for long periods, then reappear as if no time has passed. See where he answered a post dated [17 Jul 08](http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3868577&postcount=809) on [12 May 09](http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=4707396&postcount=810).
>*Has Nasif run away at last?*
What has he to gain by returning? He's proved that two unknown numbers can be combined to give another unknown number. If he returns he will just be [asked how](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…) he derived [the numbers](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…), an answer that he is obviously [avoiding](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2710…).
It's not my habits. As I have said before, I have a life and much work to do. What's your questions?
Lotharsson says:
"487
474 Lotharsson,
Knowing if numbers should be positive or negative, and when to add or subtract, are a part of basic arithmetic. Getting the sign wrong is just as wrong as any other mistake."
Are you saying that a negative fluctuation, i.e. below zero is positive and that a positive fluctuation, i.e. above zero is negative? :)
The problem is that basic physics is out of the scope of your brain (knowledge). Let's try again.
The standard temperature of the troposphere is 290 K. In any given month, you obtain a meassure of 289.26 K; therefore, the change of temperature is negative:
289.26 K - 290 K = -0.74 K
In another moment, you use your thermometer and your temperature increased to 290.77 K; consequently, you would have a change of temperature equal to:
290.77 - 290 K = 0.77 K
Well... I hope your nut has catched the problem. After your measurements of temperature, you obtained two extremes, 289.26 K and 290.77 K. Obtain the amplitude of change. Please? Go on... Heh!
Nasif Nahle, provide the source of the figures [as you have been asked](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2709…), or concede what everyone knows -- that you made them up, since the real figures do not support your crackpot claims.
+1
Nasif, provide a reference for your claims. They are obviously not your original measurements.
Nasif, I'm glad you don't realise how foolish you look with your [ardent refusal](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2711…) to show the derivation of your figures.
It is important for people to see the unbounded capacity for denial.
BTW with your claims, keep in mind we have the advantage of knowing that the Earth has [not cooled by 1.5 degrees](http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:132) as you [erroneously claim](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2010/07/open_thread_51.php#comment-2710…). That's why we're all happy to draw you along for as long as you are willing.
Nahle, your 290K calculation bears no relation to your original piece of dimwittery.
Let me remind you what you stupidly claimed:
"Satellite data cooled 0.774 °C from January 2007 to May 2008. Given that the total warming since 1860 is 0.75 °C, we haven't had any global warming anymore"
That could mean one of two things, only one of which is correct, and neither of which are reflected by your nonsense analysis. It doesn't matter how inaccurate your unreferenced figures are, we're just looking at your faulty arithmetic:
Either 1860-2010 has warmed 0.75C, in which case the -0.774C in 2007 means that as at 2006 the warming was 0.75+0.774=+1.524C
Or, 1860-2006 warmed 0.75C, followed by 0.774C cooling, giving us a current warming of 0.75-0.774=-0.024C
Your own calculation was nonsense and entirely devoid of meaning.