What’s the blog about?
Climate science.
Who’s it for?
People interested in the science behind the climate stories we read about every day. People who want to learn. People who want to contribute to other people learning about climate science.
What does the author think about Science?
Science is not a religion.
It’s good to ask questions.
Being skeptical is a positive thing.
When people of an alternative viewpoint use catchy but insulting labels for you, keep asking questions and thinking for yourself. Science isn’t settled by being able to come up with the best insults, although it can be a lot of fun – even for grown ups.
What does the author think about Climate Science?
It’s a fascinating subject and something really worth trying to understand.
A little more specific?
Some aspects of current “Climate Science” have become more like a faith. The science has been pressed into a political agenda and consequently the spirit of free inquiry has been squashed.
Opinions
Opinions are often interesting and sometimes entertaining. But what do we learn from opinions? It’s more useful to understand the science behind the subject. What is this particular theory built on? How long has theory been “established”? What lines of evidence support this theory? What evidence would falsify this theory? What do opposing theories say?
Anything else?
This blog will try and stay away from guessing motives and insulting people because of how they vote or their religious beliefs. However, this doesn’t mean we won’t use satire now and again as it can make the day more interesting.
Comments and Questions
These are encouraged. But check out the etiquette. Otherwise the spam filter may eat your comments for breakfast. If not, the moderator will lunch on them.
A Calmer World
It’s easy to trade blows on blogs. It’s harder to understand a new point of view. Or to consider that a different point of view might be right. And yet, more constructive for everyone if we take a moment, a day even, and try and really understand that other point of view. Even if it’s still wrong, we are better off for making the effort.
And sometimes others put forward points of view or “facts” that are obviously wrong and easily refuted. Pretend for a moment that they aren’t part of an evil empire of disinformation and think how best to explain the error in an inoffensive way.
Will bookmark you, Steve, after reading your comment in WUWT.
Go well with this; and if you want to do me a real favour make the text a little blacker? Makes it far easier to flip through quickly; which is important.
(Location: Melbourne, Australia)
Hi Roger, thanks for the suggestion – will try and do that, still working out how to make the style changes in wordpress..
I am looking for a site that will deal with specific topics in an accepting and open manner. I have been trying to get some comments from some other blogs on an article written by Skeptical Science about sea level rise. Would you care to comment? http://www.skepticalscience.com/Predicting-future-sea-level-rise.html
Hi Alf,
I might do a post on the subject in the near future. A quick comment – and I’ve seen read the post from the link you mentioned -as far as I can tell the predictions of sea level rise are reasonable if, and only if, the predictions of temperature rise are correct.
It is generally believed that the peak sea level in the last interglacial (the Eemian) was a fair bit higher than today. Which all goes to show that the climate is amazingly complicated – what caused temperatures to rise 10′C or so, and then descend back into the last ice age – then start rising 18,000 years ago?
Sea level has risen 120m since the max ice extent 18,000 years ago. If all the ice in the world melted sea level would rise another 75m. And most of the recent (150 years) sea level rise is believed to be “thermosteric”, which is the thermal expansion of water due to the increased heating. Reading Trenberth’s paper, which is very accessible to a non-specialist, gives some good insights into what is happening currently, link on the “Is climate more than weather? Is weather just noise?” recent post.
Most of the uncertainty in future sea level rise, even if we knew the future temperature exactly, comes from lack of knowledge about the melting of glaciers. In the recent (2007) IPCC report you can see very large uncertainties in Antarctica ice melt.
I am looking forward to further discussions; at the present time all I can say is that I am CONFUSED. Thanks for the info. I will be back.
Alf, what is your main confusion, perhaps I might use that as a starting point?
Nice, thoughtful and intelligent. Please keep it up
Thanks for a great contribution to the debate. It is really wonderful to see some real scientific objectivity.
The replies to comments are also a pleasure to read. I commend your work.
When speaking to people on this subject I get the sense for a “laymen’s” belief that were we to control anthropogenic CO2 emissions we will as a result eliminate climate/weather variability. The risk involved with this “belief” is we do attend to issues relating to the “robustness” of our infrastructure to handle variability -ex drought, flooding, hurricane etc.
This belief seems to be encouraged by some – perhaps as any infrastructure hardening may decrease the public’s perception of crisis. Context also seems to be a victim of the battle for public perception -as an example- California seems to be more concerned with sea level which is moving at a slower rate than a large section of its landmass is moving towards Alaska. The undifferentiated slip being some ten feet since San Francisco’s great quake some hundred years ago.
Meant to say we do NOT attend to infrastructure
Just followed your link from your comment over at RC.
I like what I’ve read so far (skimmed at the moment), and I have you bookmarked now. I appreciate the explanatory nature of your posts when it comes to the science too. Once people have some understanding of that, they’ll be more able to recognize the facts from the falsehoods.
Please stop putting quotation marks around the term skeptic.
Scientific skepticism is at the heart of the scientific method. It is not something unusual, or something you need to call special attention to.
Every honest scientist is a skeptic, first and foremost. That fact is often lost in the catastrophic AGW debate, where skeptics are expected by those presuming to understand everything about the climate to simply accept the results of their GCMs, and to accept their peer reviewed papers – many of which are incredibly sloppy – in the climate “sciences” [see what quotation marks do?].
—- moderator deleted “motives” —-
Skeptics demand solid, empirical, testable and falsifiable evidence, showing that CO2 is a dangerous threat to the planet. Anything less would be irresponsible when trillions of dollars are being demanded, based on belief more than non-existent empirical evidence, to protect us from a minor trace gas that has been shown throughout geological history to be both harmless and beneficial.
But there is no such evidence showing that CO2 is dangerous, none at all. None. The real world evidence shows conclusively [unless you believe that there is "heat in the pipeline" lurking somewhere where it can't seem to be found] that any warming caused by CO2 is so insignificant that it can be disregarded.
Many other factors easily overwhelm any small effect from CO2. Otherwise, as CO2 rises rapidly, the planet would be warming significantly. It is not. The planet is warming at about the same rate that it has since the LIA, despite a large increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. To people without an agenda, that would make the putative effect of CO2 appear highly skeptical.
The truly dangerous situation comes from the presumption that carbon dioxide is the driving force that will lead to runaway global warming. But evidence shows that CO2 has been many times higher than it is today, for more than a hundred million years at a time, without triggering runaway global warming. Rather, during those times of thousands of ppmv of CO2, the planet has regularly descended into Ice Ages.
Your explanations are reasonable, but the planet’s response to CO2 shows that any effects of this minor trace gas are overwhelmed by other factors. Therefore, CO2 can not be having a significant effect.
Much is missing from our understanding of the climate. But not much is missing from our understanding of human nature.
— moderator deletion of the section on human nature – in breach of the etiquette policy ———
Smokey – and for other new visitors
We have an etiquette for commenting on the blog which includes critically looking at science and excludes writing about the politics and motivations of others.
I’m about to add to the etiquette policy that long discourses that aren’t related to the main post will be snipped, disemboweled or completely removed.
Because yours is not actually a comment on a specific post and prior to my update of the policy, I only remove the section about motives and people.
All the stuff you have explained is non-controversial, but
I haven’t found your take on the value of climate sensitivity.
IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4): likely to be in the range 2 to 4.5°C
Lindzen constrained to about 0.5°C
After all, this value is what everybody is arguing about, whether they know it or not.
If Lindzen is right, there is no problem
Cheers
Hal
Hal:
The subject of CO2 so far explained is “uncontroversial”? To many, including myself, this is true. To many it is controversial. In any case quantifying the first-order values of radiative forcing, “saturation” or not, water vapor relative impact – these are all important for the foundations.
You are right, climate sensitivity is really the big topic. We’ll amble slowly in that direction.
Let me add my kudos for a well organized and quite informative site. Just came came across your work a couple weeks ago. The work you’ve done on explaining the science is great. Checking in a couple days ago via my I-touch and finding your site already formatted for a mobile device was even a bigger boon. Thanks for your efforts and best wishes in all your endeavors.
Very happy to find your site. Your postings are relevant and challenging, quite worthwhile.
Genuine skeptics must challenge themselves constantly in order to build better internal correspondences to outer realities.
True believers, on the other hand, must constantly be on guard against errant thoughts or ideas. Perhaps that is why Climateaudit.org contains links to Realclimate.org and other Pachauri-approved websites and posts all comments as long as on topic and not obscene, while Realclimate.org works diligently to exclude non-sanctioned viewpoints from both links and comments.
Found your blog via WUWT, and so far I find it excellent. You must have gone to the Richard Feynman School of Scientific Objectivity and Clarity in Communication. Keep up the good work.
Thanks very much Dana, and sorry that the spam filter ate your comment earlier.
It’s a bit out of control. I have no idea why.
Lovely site. I’ve seen your comments at WUWT and elsewhere but have only just come over to visit. Keep up the excellent and informative posts.
vjones:
Thanks for the kind words.
Love your color 3d graphs at your site! Perhaps we can do a link to each other’s site. Digging in the Clay has been added to the homepage list.
Great – Thanks! We’ve linked to you too now.
Al fin,
I have read much at realclimate.org and have found all sorts of comments that are “non sanctioned”. my main complaint is that there are so many “non sanctioned” comments that they are not all responded to by the authors.
As with this blog and skepticalscience they do delete off topic and gratuitous posts.
I have found realaudit to be extremely selective in how they present information, without giving full expression of the responses from those they disagree with.
for instance the idea of “hiding the decline” being a premeditated attempt to distort the science, found the explanation in realclimate to be more than reasonable given the purpose of the graph. Mann was not sweeping something under the rug, he was just ignoring irrelevant data. Data that he and the other interested climate scientists see as an anomaly in proxy data that needs to be explained, and explained rigorously, and has been the subject of much discussion.
Unfortunately, the complexity of the science in these blogs is daunting for someone like me, who is familiar with physics, but has neither the time nor attention to understand every step.
I do have a very strong backgorund in studying bias and defensiveness and how humans rationalize and filter information to fit their ideological wolrdview.
i see aspects of this operating on all sides as this question has become totally politicized.
however I find almost no analysis or criticism of ANY skeptical arguments on sites such as climateaudit or climate-skeptic when many of the arguments are mutually exclusive. My htinking on this is that supporters of AGW have a fairly consistent theory, with wirnkles and disputes, , whereas climate skeptics have a huge range of views. As long as the view undermines the accepted consistant theory it will not be analyzed, even if it is inconsistant with all the other views. As long as the goliath of AGW is knocked off, there is no great ego loss in having the worng particular hypothesis. Whereas for supporters of AGW, there is a huge loss of ego. Therefore supporters of AGW have to fend off every criticism forever, and skeptics can hop around until they find one that sticks no matter how long it takes. This will continue for the next generation, unless there is some stark concrete evidence that totally discredits the major premise of one side or the other.
If CO2 is forcing climate change on the upper levels of the IPCC report than skeptics will just fade away and climate scisntists will feel relieved, and probably bitter. however if there is a major cooling even with increased CO2 over the next 20 years, then a revolution will have been imposed on science unlike anything since relativity and quantum mechanics, but with a much much bigger social payoff to the revolutionaries. As long as ones income is not based on climate science then there really is no down side from a purely opportunist point of view to be a skeptic, as there is a huge political movement supporting the skeptic argument that has need to have heros.
On the other side, since even if it is fundamentally correct climate scientists will be continually attacked and have their work distorted because of the complex and immense nature of the science involved. and if the more extreme predictions become reality, they will likely be villified for allowing skeptics to have postponed efforts to mediate the effect of AGW.
Of course this is the opposite conclusion that I read on most skeptic websites, who contend that climate scientists are driven by ego and money to produce the results that the political supporters of AGW want them to come to.
But it seems clear to me that if there has been a conspiracy to manipulate data to foster a false impression of CO2 forcing AGW, then within a couple of years the scientific facade will crumble completely and the largest conspiracy in scientific history will have been exposed.
Radiative Forcing and the calculation of temperature changes.
I am one of those tiresome people who don’t understand scientific concepts till I have worked out the maths. Usually I get it all wrong, but then I worry about it until I understand why. I am now suffering from such an event – can you help?
Start off with “CO2 … Part 1… The Maths”
I follow all the Stefan-Boltzmann calculations, no problem.
Without the “Greenhouse” gases, we would have average temperatures of -19oC:
Re-arranging the equations a bit, I work it out
T4 = ((341.5 * 0.7) / 5.67) * 10^8 = (239 / 5.67) * 10^8 …………(1)
i.e. (mean solar irradiation * albedo / Boltzmann’s Constant)
Which gives T = 254.82K or -18.33oC – never mind the decimals.
So, the “greenhouse gases” heat the earth’s surface up by to, say, 16oC. or 289K.
Turn to “CO2… Part 7…Benefit of using Radiative forcing…”
(And this may be where confusion sets in)
The standard definition of Radiative forcing (RF) you quote in “CO2… Part 7” is not much help at first sight.
The change in net (down minus up) irradiance (solar plus long wave; in W/m2) 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.#
I was a bit puzzled by the reference to the tropopause, but I take it that this refers to the net solar radiation, a little of which at least is absorbed by greenhouse gases on its way down, and so arrives at the surface in a modified form. The greenhouse gases are mostly to be found underneath the tropopause, and indeed most abundantly (like the rest of the atmosphere!) closer to the surface. RF is therefore calculated in terms of this net solar radiation at the tropopause.
If I understand it correctly, what we mean by RF in plainer language is:
“The amount of heat in W/m2 which is equivalent to the downward radiation of greenhouse gases, and which for purposes of calculation may be added to net solar radiation (i.e. what is not reflected away) to estimate total effective radiation at the surface, all averaged over time, latitude and all wavelengths”
This is essentially an aid to 1-dimensional approximations, which can then be made using the Stepan-Boltzmann equation.
Please correct me if I have got this wrong!
In the same posting, you calculate the ratio of Tnew to Told using 239 W/m2 as the incoming solar energy but as we see from equation (1), this would presumably give the radiative forcing if the surface temperature were -19C !
Tnew^4/Told^4 = (239 + 3.7)/239
where Tnew = the temperature we want to determine, Told = 15°C or 288K
We get Tnew = 289.1K or a 1.1°C increase.
In “Part 5” , referring to “Kiehl and Trenberth 1997” you refer in passing to 125 W/m2 “clear sky greenhouse effect”
which must be the total RF under normal conditions. K & T produced the figures of 265 (clear sky) and 235 (cloudy) W/m2 net solar irradiance – which is necessarily equal to the net terrestrial radiation at TOA. – which agrees well enough with our 239 to illustrate the following contention.
We can calculate the total RF due to greenhouse gases required to bring the temperature up to 16oC by adding it into equation (1) as “F” , where T = 289K
289^4 = ((239 + F)/5.67) * 10^8
which gives F = 156.5 W/m2 for the total greenhouse effect, aka Radiative forcing, and the total radiation at the surface – incoming and outgoing – as 239 + 156.5 = 395.5. This agrees well enough with K & T’s calculation.
But if we are talking about a change in temperature caused by a change in RF, this total existing greenhouse effect seems to me to be the amount of radiation from which we ought to start. So let’s redo your calculation above with 395.5 in place of 239 ( eliminating Boltzmann’s constant as before ):
Tnew^4/Told^4 = (395.5 + 3.7)/395.5
where Tnew = the temperature we want to determine, Told = 16oC or 289K
We get Tnew = 289.67K or a 0.67°C increase for doubling existing carbon dioxide.
Likewise, calculate the change in temperature due to carbon dioxide from 1750 to 2005:
RF = 5.3(ln380 – ln280) = 1.62 W/m2
Tthen^4/Tnow^4 = (395.5 – 1.62)/395.5
We get Tthen = 289.79K, so we had a 0.3°C increase since 1750.
I seem to at odds with the experts here. Please explain.
Re the above, my subscripts and superscripts did not come across right. So for 108, read 10 to the power 8, please!!
James McC:
I’m the same. It keeps nagging at me. I “accept” it, but then have to go back to it, and finally 3 months later I figure it out. Or if I don’t I’m never really sure I understood it right..
On the IPCC definition:
It’s just that a standard definition is needed for comparisons. There were lots of different calculations done over a couple of decades, all arriving at slightly different values, but all using different definitions (and also using different CO2 concentrations and ignoring some less important bands like CO2 absorbing solar radiation in the 4um band).
It could be defined at the top of the stratosphere if everyone did the same thing.
But basically the main effective radiative emissions from the surface out to space take place from within the troposphere. So when we think about balancing incoming radiation with outgoing radiation adding “forcing” above the troposphere is fine.
And so..
Your plainer language is correct. And it’s really about being able to use it for 0-dimensional models. (1-d being when each layer up through the atmosphere is separately considered).
And now onto your calculations. Thanks for pointing out my sloppy work. (And check I inserted “^” in the right places in your post)
I was pleasantly surprised when my (incorrect) back of envelope calculation came out so close to the properly calculated number so threw it in.
Your analysis seems spot on. I said in part seven “It’s a rough and ready approach. It’s not quite right, but let’s see what it churns out.” So you’re not really at odds with the experts as their number comes out of a big computer using all the formulae.
Note that your calculation for current conditions won’t be quite right because CO2 is 1.7W/m^2 but total GHG effect is 2.4W.m^2. And you can’t throw the 2.4W/m^2 into the ready reckoner of 5.35ln(C/Co) because it’s only valid for CO2 (it might happen to be correct but I wouldn’t assume so).
Therefore current temps calculated from CO2 increase alone – using the Stefan Boltzmann ready reckoner – are too low by some amount.
But future temps calculated in the same way from CO2 alone – as you have done – show 0.7′C compared with 1.2′C as calculated.
There is enough of a difference to wonder why. More digging is required.
Thanks for prompt reply!
Yes, I concentrated on CO2 to keep things simple, and because it’s what everybody shouts about, and also because the Total net anthropogenic warming – after taking out cooling effects – as reported in IPCC 2007 tech. summary, (Fig TS5a page 32) is around the same value as CO2 on its own – so should at least have some value in comparing the historic calculation.
I’m glad you reckon I have grasped the thing properly, within the back-of-envelope zero-dimensional accuracy of this approach.
The problem then is to reconcile a 0.3C calculated rise in historic temperature with an observed 0.8C rise (ibid, fig TS6, page 37)
Thanks for all your digging, which has clarified much of the whole question for me.
James McC:
I don’t know for sure yet.. but I expect that the Stefan-Boltzmann “zero-dimensional model” doesn’t solve the problem of temperature rise from added radiative forcing.
With no atmosphere absorbing longwave radiation the energy balance model works fine. With an atmosphere absorbing and re-emitting all the way from the troposphere to the surface in both directions, it would be a bit hopeful to think it would give the right answer. I have probably misled people because I haven’t actually seen it used to calculate the surface temp rise. Just that when I used it incorrectly it was almost right.
Anyway, time to dig a little deeper and think some more about it.
[...] About this Blog [...]
I have a story that’s not about weather but is something I worry about that is manifesting itself on a lot of climate blogs (not this one).
There’s a long preamble and if this whole thing is too far off topic, feel free to delete.
At the start of iraqwar there was virtually no serious information available about what was going on.
There were thousands of spouses and relatives who were desperate to know any details.
At that period of internet, there had been a recent immigration of ‘the older set’ who were not on the net for anything to do with files, html, coding, networking – they came purely to klatch. I don’t know if the word ‘pundit’ had been coined but the word ‘blog’ had arrived.
There was one site in particular where people were devoted with some intensity. Some had experience in the military so, for example, when Fisk held up a piece of a missile with a serial number on it he found in a marketplace, it wasn’t 20 minutes before we knew it was a HARM, what type of rack it was made to mount on and what aircraft that rack was for. So we didn’t wonder about the things the uninformed wondered about. We wondered if there had been a portable SAM or possibly, as one Serb told us he used to do to NATO, somebody put a microwave oven with the door propped open to simulate antiaircraft radar and draw fire.
While Steve Forbes babbled mindlessly, we were reading the daily diplomatic reports from the KGB – until Forbes finally found out that the CIA and every real reporter was also because they were real.
Forbes somehow swallowed his other foot when he babbled that Salaam Pax was a fake. He was an architect in the middle of Baghdad who posted a diary filled with details of real life for real people – Yyou Wwere Tthere. The BBC hired him later.
The agonist became the go.to site for information in the classic way we love to celebrate- ad hoc assembly and full participation in a common goal by sincerely interested.
It was ranked over Drudge for a period.
Now it’s about a liberal texan and his cat. How and why?
Wow… I dunno if I should apologize and give up, but I’ve only got a very small way through this. Should I not- guidance, please?
Well, since it can all be scrubbed away with a click, no harm done and I’ll continue just because it’s on my mind.
Agonist.org, whatever it wasn’t prior to iraqwar, became the center for fresh information – always days or weeks ahead of any news and often info that never appeared in msm.
Everybody was impressed with what they had wrought.
Having become known as a hub, everyone flocked there and the effect was amplified.
All the same self-congratulatory observations about the power of unchained information, distributed effort and the triumph of the internet were heard then as now we hear about climategate.
Along with people solely devoted to digging up information on the topic of iraqwar as it progressed, came people who are paid to write on the topic. Vanities tumesced when msm references to Agonist occasionally appeared.
Also, came those who like to think of themselves as well informed. Most of those gain some social status by being an authority, be it among a small group or large constituency. It was t-shirt selling time.
Seasons change and so do interests. Iraqwar settled into a routine very fast. The intensity of interest had to fade.
The rate of input waned. The conversational value of the information declined. Traffic plummeted.
Suddenly there was a vacuum of meaninfulness to just being part of the membership. The glory days were seen to be fading. Vanity addicts thrust about desperately for new franchises – meaninful topics to belabor in the hopes of restoring past glory before the last coals flickered out. Personalities became the main topic as infighting over control of direction and marketing of memes grew to be the overarching strategy to retain traffic for the newly acquired ad sponsors – which became the gold standard.
Where once, content was aggregated by and for the interested, now eyeballs were to be aggregated for the management for the sponsors.
Sponsors were not responsible for the decay which ensued. The topic had a natural ‘lifespan’ with respect to popular interest. So it was to be expected that it should run its course and return to a lower level than its peak.
What got it to the peak was fresh, objective content and analysis. When that ran out, then controversy was unanimously- by unspoken consensus, not explcit agreement- settled on as replacement.
However, by this time most everybody had acquired quite a lot of vocabulary and ideas about propaganda, logical fallacies, even how to deal with trolls. They were also experiencing crisis fatigue so the conventional wisdom for manipulating sheep was applied to people who could see through it.
But there had been real value – very impressive results were achieved. The site owner had his 15 minutes of fame. Unfortunately the principle that was responsible for the brilliance was not properly abstracted and identified. The greatness was not dependent on iraqwar (and certainly not the site owner). What was awesome and wonderful and good about it was the process of dissection and analysis – the intelligence. Demagogues are seriously not interested in that market.
This phenomenon shares a common basis with the eventual return to despotism following a renaissance.
Anyway, when this process begins it is marked, as mentioned, by a change from the nominal topic to statements-about-the-topic. Another symptom is the rules of behaviour become more numerous and detailed. These are signs that a a belief system is being codified into catechism. When you see the rule that specifically prohibits the typing of a particular string of characters, that is often the first righteously justified tool for removing opposition in any forum pogrom.
Even though there may be a site owner, very soon ‘experts’ begin to take up residence. You can usually spot them as section mods with 300 million power stars and 30 thousand more posts than anybody else. They don’t get a penny from the sponsors. They have completely non- pecuniary interests. You can find PhDs having insanely vicious daily battles for hearts and minds even on pet forums. What are the values they seek? Power. Vain lust for power, no matter how petty.
It feels like I’m writing a message in a bottle for a future beachcomber… Scienceofdoom, I hope you don’t mind. Just erase it if you want. Otherwised I may continue.
Ok, I deleted a whole thesis and cut to the chase. What my model of reality predicts to happen and for which I see empirical evidence of confirmation is this:
Climategate has had its play. No trophies were taken so there is no momentum and there is no more surfing on that wave.
For some really smart people, graceful retirements are not the order of the day. It’s gonna get really depressing. Everybody can’t be Susan Boyle…
Even very intelligent persons are susceptible to vanity.
In the course of human interaction, one spends more time with those who share beliefs than with those who have contrary ones when given the choice. It naturally happens that one becomes surrounded with like minded individuals.
This can, however, form an insulating layer that nothing new may enter. Deprived of daily reality checks that we all should naturally seek, fantastic notions can be arranged in amazing symmetries. A person can go mad.
A living person whom I admired very much for incredible intelligence succumbed to this. It’s a tragedy, to me, that even a hero may last but 15 minutes, no matter how great.
The achievement remains, however, and the effort that produced it exists and the admiration for that was earned.
If everyone around you seems to agree with you no matter what you say- suspect a trap. I wish I could get that message to a particular person who might possibly read this.
Dave McK:
I have absolutely no idea what you are trying to convey (no don’t explain), but as it seems mostly harmless it can stay.
It was a cassandra moment. It probably gets to wear the label vain. It would probably be a further kindness to vanish it. Heroes have to rescue themselves.
I didn’t want to name the actual site and persons.
You were attempting to discuss something quite reasonably with one of them at the time, while that very smart person was using words like a dog uses urine to mark territory. It was really disappointing because – well, just because of my mistaken expectations that smarts must be due to the virtue of the possessor and be more than superficial. It’s an error I keep repeating. Eventually wisdom will emerge.
I’m very curious why you don’t identify who you are or what your credentials are anywhere on this blog. It undermines your credibility when you are a random anonymous blogger. Look at most the other reliable blogs out there. Every one of them identifies who the main author is, lists their accomplishments and gives the reader a reason to put a level of trust behind what is being written.
You might consider updating your “about this blog” section to do that.
I noticed some of the same errors that “McK”
pointed out. I think that there are others which
lie in the unnecessary assumptions you seem to have
made with respect to interpreting the historical
records of CO2 and of temp. Instead of trying to
sort all of that out, I prefer to go with a calculation
which seems to me to be quite adequate and which
derives from a complete theory as to how CO2
affects climate:
http://vipclubmn.org/Documents/GlobalWarmingArticle.pdf
The author, Petschauer, directly calculates the change in the CO2 absorption band, due to CO2 concentration increases, using published data from a variety of trusted sources such as ERBE. On the other hand, If I correctly understand your blogs, instead of calculating the effect of CO2 increases on absorption, you assume various relationships such as logarithmic and square root.
Likewise, I think that Miskolczi with his theory of
climatic homeostasis has a really solid case that
CO2 has far, far less effect on temp. than the
IPCC speaks for. Miskolczi offers considerable
data to support his theory that the climate
maintains the atmospheric optical depth at
1.868 more or less regardless of what level
CO2 is at.
Slightly simplified, Miskolczi’s theory asserts that
the climate is ruled by the elegant and simple
equation
2 = tau + ( exp (-tau) )
where “tau” is the optical depth of the atmosphere.
(Note that the above equation, being a simplified
form of Miskolczi’s, does not give 1.867 but the close
value of about about 1.85. Getting to within 1% with
a simpler and more intuitive equation seems
acceptable to me.)
james kennedy
Not sure what you are talking about. Which assumptions?
Did you read Part One through to Part Seven?
I spent some time explaining the methodology for calculating the effect of CO2, water vapor and all other trace gases on the radiative forcing at the top of atmosphere.
The people who have done the heavy lifting in this field use the radiative transfer equations to calculate the solution. Perhaps the “square root” relationship you mention is one of the band models which reduces the computational burden. But many calculations have also been done using line by line values. These are the complete spectral absorption lines for CO2 and all other gases.
The logarithmic relationship you mention from Part Seven is not “assumed”, instead it is an empirical relationship. I said:
Well, these are the values which are prior to any feedbacks. They can be tested – and have been tested – by measuring the downward longwave radiation at the surface in each band. You can see this in Part Six – Visualization
Onto the paper you mention
From what I can see of this paper, the author doesn’t actually solve the RTE. Take a look at the Ramanathan and Coakley paper which explains how this is done. You can see it explained in Part Five
The author doesn’t comment on this method, doesn’t really explain whether or not he is considering the radiated emission from each level in the atmosphere. Perhaps he doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
If someone has a new conclusion from solving the radiative transfer equations they should explain where all the people who solved them previously went wrong.
Or if he has a new approach which doesn’t require the radiative transfer equations he should explain the new method in some detail.
As it is, I expect he is yet another person who hasn’t really understood what any of the professionals in the field have done since the 1960′s onward.
Thanks for getting back to me.
I will need to further educate myself regarding
RTE’s, and re read your earlier blogs, before I can respond regarding Petschauer’s
calculation of the sensitivity of temperature to CO2.
With regard to Miskolczi’s paper I have to say that
I found it hard going and I am not sure that all
parts of his derivation of
2 = tau + ( EXP ( – tau ))
are rigorous.
I see Miskolczi, however, as someone who works
more from data to theory than from theory to data.
If you look at his data as in
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/The_Saturated_Greenhouse_Effect.htm
showing tau over a considerable period of time,
I think you will see strong evidence of a homeostatic
climate centered on the calculated tau = 1.867
{Note again please, that I give a simplified
version of Miskolczi’s equation for tau. It is
good to within 1% and it is much easier to
relate to the result of Ramanathan that
g = 1/3
}
james kennedy
One day I will get around to working through Miskolczi’s paper. I expect it will take some time.
It seems more likely that there are mistakes buried away in the paper than the conclusion that a feedback mechanism creates exactly the right amount of water vapor in the atmosphere to compensate for changes in CO2. It’s not like they have any “direct communication” and both have lots of non-linearities (in the case of water vapor non-linear relationship in its generation as well as its effect). How could it happen?
That doesn’t mean it’s wrong – it’s possible – it just makes it harder to move the paper up the priorities.
Thanks for getting back.
It seems to me that the discussions and the
debates about CO2AGW are unnecessarily
intricate and abstract. For example there are
almost limitless opportunities to argue for
or against the details of Milkolczi’s Theory.
We can, however, take an alternative course.
We can, so to speak, cut the Gordian Knot by
asking a key question.
Here, IMHO, is the question most pivotal to the
current confusions about the roles of CO2:
“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?
If “yes”, then sensitivity of temperature to
a doubling of CO2 is much, much lower than
the IPCC estimates, say around .4 deg. K.
“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?
If “no”, then sensitivity is considerably more,
say 1.5 to 4 deg. K.
If “yes”, then the climate is homeostatic.
If “no”, then the climate is not.
“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?
If “yes”, then miskolczi could well be right.
If “no”, then Miskolczi is probably wrong.
“Yes, or “No”,
does the climate give long term negative feedback
to changes in CO2 forcing functions?
If “yes”, then the GCMs used by the IPCC
are totally wrong and irrelevant because they
assume “no” is the answer.
If “no”, then some of the GCM s could
give worthwhile predictions.
Etc, etc, etc.
Is there negative feedback?
That is the pivotal question.
“It’s not like they have any “direct communication” and both have lots of non-linearities (in the case of water vapor non-linear relationship in its generation as well as its effect). How could it happen?”
It happens because it is statistically required.
Purely and simply, like any other complex system,
statistics rules the climate.
Yes indeed. How could it happen.? IMHO, it happens
the same way that g ends up being exactly 1/3,
as Ramanathan so elegantlly proves. Not nearly,
not roughly, 1/3, but, exactly 1/3. Which is to say,
overarching the details of band structures, convection,
radiation, etc. is the grand science of thermodynamics.
The wv doesn’t “know” about the CO2. It doesn’t have
to. The thermodynamic balance of energies requires
that tau = 1.867. The thermodynamic requirement is
that the climate assume the most likely state.
Tau = 1.867 is the one value of optical depth which assures
that the total atmospheric energies will be in that
one distinct balance which is absolutely the most
likely. In other words Tau = 1.867 is the unique
value which gives us best satisfaction of the 2nd Law.
Moskolczi’s theory is about thermodynamics.
Moskolczi’s argument that leads to Tau = 1.867
is much akin to Ramanathans argument that
gives us g = 1/3.
Statistics, or, if you prefer, thermodynamics
absolutely require that tau = 1.867.
Tau = 1.867 labels the state of maximum entropy.
It is a “saddlepunkt” in phase space. Miskolczi’s
paper is about thermodynamics. He doesn’t need
to know the details of band structure for it to be
true. His arguments as to climate details need not
be correct for it to be true. It is true at a deeper level, the level where the energies are in the balance that is statistically most likely.
Sure, Miskolczi could be wrong. As of now, all the
data seems to say that he is right. As of now,
he shows an overview which makes way more sense
than anything else currently available.
The climate is a large, highly complex system.
Such systems are homeostatic.
Such systems are not built of positive feedbacks.
Such systems obey Le Chatelier’s Law.
All of the above aside, I return to the assertion that
Miskolczi works from data to theory. Judge his theory
by the data.
It is hard to discuss global warming without
getting long winded. Let me try to be more concise
regarding Miskolczi’s assertion that the climate
is homeostatic with optical depth = 1.867 serving
as the set point.
I see Miskolczi’s paper as an extension of
Ramanathan’s paper wherein it is proven that
g = 1/3. Which is to say, thermodyanmic
considerations of energy balances dominate
the climate.
Miskolczi’s paper seems to have some errors
and some mistakes as he goes from interior
conclusion to interior conclusion. For example,
his use of the “Virial Theorem” seems odd, or
maybe flat wrong, but, his interior conclusion
with regard to the partitions of energy could
well still be the correct one. Data seems to
support that.
Sure, Miskolczi’s theory is far from perfect and
complete, but, IMHO, it does leas us asking
some very relevant questions
………………does he come out being right?
……………..sticking with just the thermodynamics,
is there a proof that tau = 1.867 which is as solid as
Ramanathan’s proof that g = 1/3?
………is the climate ruled by a balance of energy
flows requiring that the optical depth = 1.867?
………….Is CO2 concentration nearly irrelevant
to global temperature because of negative
feedbacks?
………is tau = 1.867 to the climate what
temp = 98.6 is to human metabolism?
Here are some rebuttals of Miskolzi’s science. I don’t understand the physics, even though I majored in astrophysics in college.
At the risk of oversimplifying, it seems that his premise is that the earths climate is controlled by pretty rigid homeostatic parameters. I am all for homeostasis regarding complex systems, but evveryone knows that the earths temp and climate have changed drastically. And I don;t see that his model explains this at all.
but here is one of the links I found that contends his premises undermine his results
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2008/06/gigo-eli-has-learned-over-years-that.html
Thanks for getting back. As it turns out, I
was already familiar with most of what
rabett. blog…… has to offer. Some of it seems
valid some not. I will give some serious
consideration to the points raised therein.
Likewise, I will continue with a skeptical study
of Miskolczi’s math.
I have a lot of trouble with how Miskolczi
derives his 2 = tau + ( exp ( -tau ) ) result.
That his derivation may be flawed, however, does not require that his results be wrong. One must remember
that his result seems to have sprung much more
from his data than from his theory. Miskolczi’s
data says
1. g = 1/3
2. tau = 1.867
Both of which results argue strongly for homeostasis.
Regardless of how good his theoretical work is,
if his data shows that
1. g = 1/3
2. Tau = 1.867
then we must seriously consider that the climate
is homeostatic and that CO2 concentration has
far less effect than the IPCC asserts.
I do not attach great importance to the possibility
that Miskolczi has either the Virial
Theorem or Kirchov’s Law wrong.
Miskolczi dose not have to be absolutely correct
in each of his steps to be correct overall. That is
to say, for example, he could have the Virial
Theorem wrong and still use the correct
partition of energies in his derivations; the minimum
entropy principle could give us the same result
that Miskolczi gets by using the Virial Theorem.
Regardless of the details of his derivation,
regardless of how he puts his theory together,
his two principal claims deserve to be evaluated.
These claims are
1. The climate energy balances
are such that g =1/3.
2. The atmospheric optical path = 1.867.
Speaking for myself, I say that the earth’s climate
is first and foremost run according to the basic
laws of thermodynamics. That there be a particular
partition of energies completely dominates all
other aspect of climate theory.
The data shows that g =1/3. It seems
very doubtful that that is coincidence.
Speaking for myself, I say that one must fully
understand Ramanathan’s derivation of
g = 1/3, before one can judge Miskolczi’s
work. I see Miskolczi’s theory to be an
attempt to apply Ramanathan’s g = 1/3
result.
We are not here really talking about Miskolczi; we are talking about Ramanathan.
We are not here really talking about tau = 1.867; we are
talking about g = 1/3.
Finally, for the climate to presently be in homeostais,
in no way precludes it from having been in
a different homeostasis, as long as that different
homeostasis follows the laws of thermodynamics.
It is common for complex systems to migrate
from one homeostasis to another.
[...] statement of objectives very much represents my view of the world – despite the efforts of opponents to paint me [...]
You have been commenting on our paper “Falsification Of The Atmospheric CO2 Greenhouse Effects Within The Frame Of Physics”. Please contact me under your real name via e-Mail.
I tried to use the email address you provided but I get the message – Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
———————
Technical details of permanent failure:
DNS Error: Domain name not found
And I checked the email address against your paper, which is the same, and resent but still the same error.
Hi Ralph, nice to talk to someone with the courage not ot hide behend a false name. Were you aware that Sylas (see his/her comment of May 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm and mine of earlier today) has also tried to refute your paper (see
http://climatephysicsforums.com/topic/3292392/1/).
If you’re interested you can get back to me via my blog at http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I am the admin at Climate Physics Forums, a new bulletin board for discussion of climate science. I am also a co-author of the formal rebuttal recently published in IJMP(B), and I started the thread Pete links above.
I have already emailed Dr Tscheuscher and Dr Gerlich back on May 9th, at the time I started that discussion, as a professional courtesy. I used my real name, and also advised them of the pen-name that I use consistently on the internet. I let them know of the thread you mention.
Dr Tscheuschner indicated to me at the time that he preferred to keep his focus on peer reviewed literature, and this is a perfectly legitimate choice.
I do not actually expect this notion that the atmospheric greenhouse effect has been falsified to attract any attention in the peer reviewed literature, and I expect it will continue to be described in basic texts of atmospheric physics as it has been now for decades, using well established and completely uncontroversial thermodynamics and radiation physics.
Pete, I have also replied to your post at that bulletin board in the form of a PM. Thanks for the note!
You (or anyone) is welcome to come and engage there, or not. The board does not make any presumptions or requirements for the views of members. Board policy takes no position on the substance of science that will be discussed. It is primarily intended for interested amateurs to discuss and learn about the work in climate science that is being published by working publishing scientists; but it is not suitable for working scientists to be publishing new work. We do have some climate scientists interested, and likely to engage subject to time constraints, but this would be for explaining the work at a level for lay readers, not for publishing new results.
Dear The Scicence of Doom,
What is your emial address?
Great website!
Kind Regards,
Girma
you can reach me at scienceofdoom you know what goes here gmail.com
where you know what goes here is @
Dear Scienceofdoom
I have emailed you an article for consideration for posting.
Kind Regards
Girma
I suppose then if the site becomes successful the presumably we are entitled to say “we’re all dooomed”
Good luck with the project I linked to you from CA.
Dear Scienceofdoom
I am looking forward reading to what appears to be a reasoned, calm and thought provoking blog.
I would encourage you to be rigorous in maintaining the same level of decorum here as if people were conversing face to face. I say ‘face to face’ as it is quite easy to remain respectful of an opposing opinion or statement of fact yet disagree or counter strongly. When this is achieved I feel that conversations are lengthened and as a result more information is shared which can only be a good thing.
Best wishes.
Michael
Dear science of doom,
You say a lot of really excellent things here about how to discuss science and think about it. Kudos.
Could you please email me, if you would be willing to make contact that way? You can reach me by emailing “admin at climatephysicsforums”. This is the email for a new climate bulletin board I am setting up, and there are strong parallels between what we are trying to do. So I would like to discuss more with you about it, if you are willing.
Cheers — sylas, the admin at Climate Physics Forums
In your about page you posed the question:
“What evidence would falsify this theory?”
I would like to know the answer to that question. Commenters are welcome to pitch in.
Thanks
Sylas, are you the same who tried to refute Roger Taguchi’s paper ” ” in http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=154378&page=2 ? I have a response from Roger to your points and an updated paper. Let me know if you are interested
Also, are you Greg Bernhardt? I am interested in any exchanges between yourself and Tscheuschner if you take up his invitation.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
I am that same sylas, and I am not Greg Bernhardt. The other matters are answered in a PM to the same message at climate physics forums.
Thanks — sylas
Just putting my head over the parapet to say ‘hello’ as I have been directed here from Skeptical Science.
Looking forward to reading some of your archived materials even though I am a Landscape Ecologist and Ecosystems Researcher in my spare time. Have many contacts who will probably all want to look in and read the latest view points.
Just wanted to say I really like and appreciate your fundamental approach on explaining the basics of climate science. Keep up the good work! I hope you will be able to keep a level perspective in this interesting science field where everybody seems to have become an “expert” and has extremely strong opinions about.
Best wishes,
AJ
Arjan:
Thanks for your kind comments. I hope I will be able to keep a level perspective as well.
[...] About this Blog [...]
This is my first time using this site. Please bear with me if I do something wrong.
As a generalist, I’m writing a book speculating on the possible long term political, economic, military, and social impacts of sea level rise by 2100 — and considerably beyond.
As far as I know, not much, if anything, has been written on these subjects so far. If you know of anything I should read, please contact me directly at huntjanin@aol.com.
Best,
Hunt Janin
Vignoble
47270 St. Urcisse
France
Hunt, may I make a suggestion, that you first satisfy yourself that there really will be some significant sea level rise by 2100. The measurements that have been attempted are, like global temperature and CO2 measurements are highly suspect, as are the statistical manipulations used as the basis for the conclusions drawn to support the UN’s propaganda about our use of fossil fuels is driving us towards catastrophic global climate change.
The projections for 2100 are derived from computerized climate models that are based upon contentious scientific principles, have never been subjected to independent, professional Verification, Validation and Test (VV&T) procedures. The UK Met. Office’s computer model is the same one as is used for weather forecasting and they have given up providing medium-term forecasts for only months ahead yet they pretend that it is easier to project 90 years ahead.
There is no good reason to believe that sea levels will be significantly different in 2100 that they are today. They could be the same, higher or lower, we just do not know, so all that we can do is take REASONABLE precautions to cover any eventuality.
If you come across anything that shows convincingly that what I say is incorrect then please let me know, but I haven’t found any yet.
Best regards, Pete Ridley
PS: readers may be interested in reading D. Jeffrey Glassman’s paper “THE CAUSE OF EARTH’S CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE SUN” at http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2010/03/sgw.html
“scienceofdoom”,
In the polluted climate of political opinion, distracted side-topics, political motivation and exaggeration, your website has been like a breath of fresh air.
Your approach is excellent and pleasantly sparks the same simple curiousity about how things work that drove me to persue a career in science (engineering) over 20 years ago.
Thank you for your clarity, honesty, and for the hard work you put into your website. I sincerely appreciate what you do.
Scott Basinger
Thanks. Much appreciated.
I have to take issue with James Kennedy’s view that “it doesn’t matter if parts of Miskolczi’s work is wrong, if parts of it are right.”
Miskolczi presented a thesis that criticizes fairly basic results of climate science. In order for such a critique to be valid, it has to be coherent, to hang together.
It doesn’t. A year or so ago, there was a small online discussion group contending over the validity of Miskolczi’s paper. Many conceptual errors and inconsistencies were identified. I personally drafted a letter describing the problems I encountered within the first 10 pages (I did not see much reason to go on, until these basic points could be clarified), and sent this to Miskolczi. He acknowledged the letter but never really addressed the issues.
Anyone interested can find it here: http://landshape.org/stats/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/m_questions-4.pdf
In the end, the anti-Miskolczi folks got bored and left; and the pro-Miskolczi geared up to create a clearer presentation of the paper. After several months, they gave up when they realized that they themselves did not understand what he was doing well enough to explain and promote it.
You might want to add this site to an appropriate spot on your sidebar:
http://climateaudit101.wikispot.org/Glossary_of_Acronyms
Disclosure: I help maintain it. And new contributions are always welcome!
Nice blog.
Cheers — Pete Tillman
You might want to add this site to an appropriate spot on your sidebar:
http://climateaudit101.wikispot.org/Glossary_of_Acronyms
Disclosure: I help maintain it — since it’s very frustrating to read climate blogs and not know that (forex) TTLS = Truncated Total Least Squares. And new contributions are always welcome!
Nice blog. Keep up the good work!
Cheers — Pete Tillman
Dear List Members,
I have a contract to write, for McFarland & Co., an American publisher, an introductory survey on sea level rise due to global warming.
Because I’m a generalist not a scientist, I want to as certain as possible that what I write is accurate. Towards this end, I’m looking for readers who will — free of charge –read my chapters very critically as I crank them out and will give me their candid opinions.
At present, the draft Preface (which discusses, inter alia, the IPCC); the draft Introduction (a beginner’s guide to global warming); and Chapter l (on why we should care about sea level rise) are available.
If you might be interested in reading any or all of these, or if you have any colleages who are, please contact me directly — off-list– at huntjanin@aol.com
Best,
Hunt Janin
Nice blog. I’ll be back often.
dT
Hunt, I’ve nearly completed an article “Death by Drowning – The Next Phase of Indoctrination? Part 2″ for my Global Political Shenanigans” blog (http://globalpoliticalshenanigans.blogspot.com/). I talk about your proposed book “Rising Sea Levels”, the degree (lack?) of expertise in the subject that you and Ursula Carlson have and the motivation of publishers McFarland & Co. Would you and Ursula like to see the draft before I post it?
You may also like to take a look at “Death by Drowning – The Next Phase of Indoctrination? Part 1” which covers the climate change scare stories published by the UK’s Bloomsbury plc.
Best regards, Pete Ridley.
There is no good reason to believe that sea levels will be significantly different in 2100 that they are today. They could be the same, higher or lower 70-443, we just do not know, so all that we can do is take REASONABLE precautions to cover any eventuality.
Please accept my apologies for having stumbled carelessly into your quite interesting blog yesterday and immediately violated the etiquette rules, for which sin my comment was evidently–and quite properly–canned.
My best wishes for success in your stated goals. I shall be stopping by often.
Hi,
I hope I’m going about this correctly but I’d like you to consider posting my blog on your site.
I’ve searched the Internet for an explanation how greenhouse gases cause the stratosphere to cool and found them lacking. To be honest, I was not able to understand any of them and once I realized what was happening, I decided to write my own blog.
It has been published at the Skeptical Science Website. Here is the link:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Stratospheric-Cooling-and-Tropospheric-Warming.html
I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
Thank you,
Bob
I’m sorry but I forgot to mention that I emailed Real Climate received a comment from Gavin Schmidt. Predicated upon his response and additional research, I wrote my blog. I’ve included this email below.
Regards,
Bob
mostly right. You miss two key facts. First, all GHGs emit as well as
absorb, and whether you will get warming or cooling in a region depends on
the ratio of the change in absorption and the change in emittence.
Second, the troposphere has many IR absorbers, the stratosphere only two
(CO2 and O3 – everything else is minor). So the impact of CO2 above the
tropopause is amplified.
Otherwise you are spot on!
Gavin
> Hi,
>
> I’ve searched for an explanation of the reason that the Stratosphere cools
> due to Global Warming and have not found a satisfactory answer. There
> does seem to be quite a bit of hand waving though.
>
> I think that I now understand it but would like the confirmation of a
> professional. If my understanding is correct, I would like to write a
> blog on this most misunderstood subject.
>
> Please confirm if this is correct.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Robert Guercio
>
> The earth radiates Infrared Radiation in accordance with Black Body
> theory. Most of the IR energy absorbed by CO2 has wave numbers of
> approximately 650 and 1050. There is CO2 in both the troposphere and the
> stratosphere so frequencies associated with these wave numbers emanating
> from the heated earth heat up both the troposphere and the stratosphere.
> Frequencies of all other wave numbers simply sail on through without
> effecting either layer.
>
> If there is more CO2 in the troposphere, more of a chunk of the spectrum
> is going to be taken out around these two wave numbers in heating up the
> troposphere. Therefore, there is less energy in these two IR bands to heat
> up the CO2 in the stratosphere and thus the stratosphere cools.
>
http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/04/18/stratospheric-cooling/
This is SoD’s thread on it. Ive already explained my take on it at SKS. Im joe
Hopefully the science of doom can sort it for yah though.
Joe,
At Skeptical Science I presume you responded to my blog on Stratospheric cooling.
I’d like to reread your response. What name did you use?
Bob
[...] this point of view, SoD‘s work should be more than highly [...]
Dear Science of Doom,
I am amazed that you have been able to keep extremely high standards and a balanced view over more than a year now. I’m trying to promote your website where ever I can.
I really enjoy reading your articles!
Keep up the good work!
Arjan
Thanks Arjan.
Let me add my voice to Arjan’s and say that I am deeply impressed by the high quality (and quantity!) of your work. Your explanations are clear, accurate, and reasonably concise. But please don’t apologize for the mathematics!
Peter, thanks for your kind comments.
I am very impressed with the open professionalism you and this website have shown. Something that the AGW treehuggers do not abide by. Science is NOT decided upon a vote or by an “expert”. It is through zealous testing and continual skeptisim. There is no good or evil in science.
However, I would ask you this question:
On a glance it would seem that radiative forcing downwards (back to the Earth) goes against the first and second laws of thermodynamics.
Please explain.
Allan Hopper:
There is a list of articles for both of these laws in Confusion over the Basics – Science Roads Less Traveled
The First Law – take a look at Do Trenberth and Kiehl understand the First Law of Thermodynamics?
The Second Law – take a look at The Three Body Problem and Amazing Things we Find in Textbooks – The Real Second Law of Thermodynamics.
Plus the choice of many other articles in the summary mentioned above.
Hi SoD,
I’m just having a bit of fun with R and thought I would share my results. Maybe someone might find this interesting.
The following link shows a couple of graphs plotting the seasonal amplitude in Potential Temperature for Argo and GFDL at different depths. The samples were taken at 45 degrees north and south. The associated R code is also listed.
http://sites.google.com/site/climateadj/gdfl-vs-argo-amplitude
Hi ScienceofDoom. I was recently shown the following paper
http://www.biocab.org/Mean_Free_Path.pdf
And answered the individual presenting it with this…..
“Quick reading of that paper provided and my comments are: It assumes a static single layer atmosphere. Takes a single measurement then extrapolates the measurement into an unwarrented position.
It does not take into account that any atmosphere with warming ground below it will produce convection, air undergoing convection will cool adiabaticly with expansion as it rises. This the process that causes the lapse rate in the troposphere.
They seem to be measuring downwelling long wave radiation much of which will be coming from the mid troposphere and seeing it is cooler than the surface (as it should be) then assuming the CO2 is causing this cooling.
That is just a quick summary and they do a very poor job of explaining what assumptions they have made.”
While not exepecting you do ‘do my homework for me’ type thing can I just ask which silly mistakes I have made in this response? Atmospheric physics is not my subject.
dorlomin:
One of our regular commenters, DeWitt Payne, has tried in vain to explain to the writer of that paper how he has made his flaws. I’m not sure whether it was the exact same paper, but definitely the content and methods are similar.
The discussion was picked up in Lunar Madness and Physics Basics.
I explained to one commenter how to easily tell that the writer had come to totally the wrong conclusion via actual measurements of atmospheric radiation – here.
Then DeWitt Payne explained some basics here.
In essence, Nahle doesn’t seem to understand that path length is important. He keeps claiming he does.
He calculates that atmospheric CO2 will create almost no radiation, and is unable to explain why the big bump in the downward atmospheric radiation around 15um. In fact, he didn’t appear to understand the point at all – as you can see by following the comments.
Feel free to come back with more questions if that discussion doesn’t help.
I looked at that exchange.
My evaluation: What an effing waste of electrons.
Despite putting a textbook on radiative transfer theory on his list of references, Nahle seems to be completely unfamiliar with the relevant concepts.
I would not waste my time.
Well,
This is certainly a unique approach to the topic. I have always had a skeptical view with regards to the politics of this issue and every time I have tried to simply discuss the theories, science and conclusions, people get mired in the resulting politics of the data.
This has been one of the most effective sites in allowing me to digest the distinctions of the complicated information in a coherent sense. For example, intuitively I believed that there was a difference between “greenhouse gas theory” and “AGW”, but never had the information distilled in a way that my mind could make the distinction.
Just a quick question, what exactly is the blog site owners background. It is obvious he has a significant background in science and math, but I cant seem to find any information with regards to his actual credentials. Did I miss something?
Darren,
Thanks for your kind comments.
No you didn’t miss my credentials.
In the evaluation of scientific ideas what use are resumes? Has someone demonstrated a case or not?
If someone is a professor of physics and believes something about climate science does that make it true?
If 49 professors in physics believe A is true and 1 professor of physics believes A is not true, does that prove A is true? Is it 98% likely that A is true?
I’m an AGW agnostic, leaning strongly toward it. More than anything, I’m always looking to find another thoughtful forum, dealing civilly and predominantly with just the science, but with a high degree of credibility and competence. Yours is a HUGE and welcome addition, possibly the best. Thanks!
I use about a dozen pro-AGW, pro_IPCC sites that I’ve found worthwhile, re: competence, credibility, thoughtfulness, honesty and civility. (My experience seems to be the opposite of Allan Hopper above.)
Out of frustration, it’s been a while since I’ve even looked for a truly worthwhile skeptical/—-ist [moderator's note - please note the Etiquette] site. I’ve noted your “Climate Websites” list. WUWT I usually hit only as a link from somebody rebutting them. I occasionally try them out, but usually end up underwhelmed (esp. after reviewing other site’s analysis of their science), and then wondering if they’re as good as it gets? Similar for Climate Audit (which also seems to me to nibble around the edges).
Regardless of your own position, which of the skeptical/—-ist sites do you consider to good, better, best or worthwhile? (I’m not yet know how to classify Pielke, Sr., but personally find him worthwhile.)
I accept what appears to be a high level of competence and credibility, yet I’m also naturally curious as to your own credentials. But I accept your answer to Darren.
Shelama:
Thankyou for your kind words.
I find useful material in many blogs from “both sides” of the climate debate. The problem is that there aren’t two sides. There is a spectrum of opinion. Take, for example, Roger Pielke Sr’s site, I have learnt quite a bit from the papers he has linked from there, and from the articles that he has written. He has a wealth of knowledge and understanding of boundary layer meteorology. But his viewpoint can’t really be described as an “anti-AGW” perspective. I would love to know as much about boundary layer meteorology as Roger Pielke Sr. An impossible goal.
I like Lucia’s blog a lot (the Blackboard) because she posts interesting articles about statistics and explains difficult subjects well. I have read her blog less lately, not sure whether that is because of lack of postings, subjects I am not so interested in, or because I have been more wrapped up in atmospheric physics textbooks and papers about water vapor feedback. Lucia describes herself as a “lukewarmer”.
There are plenty of blogs that post regularly from what I can only describes as “anti-physics” viewpoints. Sadly, they don’t realize it so I won’t name them. Many articles, each with contradictory viewpoints, and all cheered by the same audience. If the conclusion is a good one..
Many other blogs post observations or opinions and less on the fundamental science. Opinions are 10 a penny, although sometimes interesting.
These days I read less blogs and more textbooks and lots of papers.
Not much point commenting on my own credentials because they are so much less than the people that I learn from. The point is that I can easily say – “Look here are 10 professors of physics who state this” – and the response will be “They are climate scientists! Can’t trust them. They don’t understand anything!”
In any case the point is:
- What can be proven?
- What can be demonstrated?
- What can at least be seen as a plausible hypothesis that deserves more consideration?
And not:
- “What is the title of the person making the claim?”
I am as happy to evaluate the claims of a Dr. Miskolczi, or a William Gilbert as I am a Prof. Richard Lindzen or a Prof. V. Ramanathan.
Many people want to understand climate science and the evidence that supports certain claims of the climate science community. In many blogs they are treated with disdain, and bad motives are ascribed to them because they ask questions.
That is why I started this blog. If it has helped a little in that goal then it has been worth the effort. I am not trying to convince the “convinced”.
I also have questions. Finding answers, presenting them and having them questioned by a “skeptical” audience is definitely a worthwhile pursuit in itself.
I just found this site and it is a breath of fresh air. I, too, am in search of scientific answers that are not premised upon or inter-laced with “wishful thinking.” “Just the facts, ma’am.” And I believe that ideas and opinions could and should be stated respectfully, without all of the hysterics.
My education is in Geology (and German) in the 70s. I remember back then that Continental Drift was just being accepted by the scientific community. If you look in pre-70s literature, Alfred Wegner (one of the fore-most proponents of continental drift) was ALWAYS spoken of as a great GEOGRAPHER (which he absolutely was) with crazy ideas about continental drift – from the 70s on – he is mentioned as a forward-thinking GEOLOGIST (a promotion, you see, because “everyone knows” that geograghy in not a “real,” “hard,” science like geology is…). My, how opinions change.
Interestingly, I came to this site investigating the 2 diagrams of the Global Energy Budget – the NASA one without Back Radiation and the 1997 Kiehl and Trenberth version that includes it – in response to a user’s question about the difference.
Here at NASA (yep, that’s right), both diagrams have been attributed to Kiehl and Trenberth, but that is by word-of-mouth. I don’t see it written anywhere here. Don’t suppose you’d know?
Back to this site, great job!
MJ,
Thanks for your kind comments.
Do you have a reference or URL for this “NASA version”. I will take a look.
And for reference there are a few articles about downward longwave radiation (DLR) aka “back radiation” – including the flux and spectral measurements – starting at The Amazing Case of “Back Radiation” -Part One.
Hi Science of Doom,
I would like to echo the appreciative comments by Shelama above: your blog has become the place to find careful, critical appraisals of the science of climate change. The beauty of the physics is – to me – the reason to study The Science of Doom. A well written, interesting read!
As mentioned before on Bart’s blog, please take care in the amazingly vitriolic debate about climate change. I know how grating it can be, after a while.
On that note – I’m really worried about the ‘Recent Comments’ pane added at the top of the navigation bar. It focuses way too much attention on the ‘true or false’ bipartisan arguing and bickering, which can be so boring and which does not promote insight into the science at all. There is an endless multitude of places on the Internet where people can argue – there is only ONE blog I know where the physics is explored in such a carefully argued way: TSOD!
Since it is *your* blog, of course it is up to you how to direct it and whom you wish to aim for. I would respectfully suggest either demoting the ‘Recent Comments’ pane below ‘Pages’, ‘Recent Posts’ or ‘Categories’, or maybe simply deleting it.
This might refocus the attention on THE SCIENCE, on your excellent articles and especially on the interlinked series accessible through ‘Pages’.
Of course, some of your commenters like DeWitt Payne and Neal J. King are a true asset. They add perspective, give great suggestions and correct mistakes!
Best Regards,
Bob Brand – The Netherlands
Bob Brand,
Thanks for your comments and support.
I agree about the “Recent Comments” section and have moved it below “Recent Posts”.