DeSmogBlog could’ve flattened The Skeptics Handbook in just one sentence.
All they had to do was point to empirical evidence that more CO2 forces temperatures up. They can’t and everything else is bluster and bluff.
The question of evidence is on the front page; the book is built around it, and billions of dollars hinges upon it, on this topic, “nothing else matters…”. Yet Jeremy Jacquot’s sole attempt at evidence only shows he doesn’t know what evidence is. Even a bright junior high spark could prove him wrong with a 20 year old encyclopedia. Jacquot uses 3000 words to NOT answer that question, he confuses himself, resorts to cut-n-pasting from the site that does his thinking for him, and makes at least 9 errors of logic and reason. Jacquot complains that I’ve rehashed and repeated old arguments, which only makes it all the more embarrassing that he still hasn’t got any good answers.
But the part I like best was the way he jumps through the hoops just as I predicted. The Skeptics Handbook says when you poke a believer they will bark ‘Santer’, ‘Sherwood’, and ‘amplification’ and he does, right on cue. Yap Yap Yap. DeSmogBlog lives up to it’s name and adds de smog to de science of Global Warming. Part I, Part II, Part III.
Vindicated – Thank you.Of course, in the usual style of AGW Alarmists they won’t say anything that clear, explicit or accurate straight up, you have to wade through poor arguments, confusing statements, confounding strawmen, irrelevant points and poor science communication to figure it out. I could stop right now. But for the sake of spreading the word about the marvels of logic and reasoning, l’ll post why nothing Jacquot says, suggests that anything in The Skeptics Handbook is wrong. |
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DeSmog Logic and Reason Scorecard:
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Point 1/ Evidence?
This is it, get ready, the leading line dealing with the paramount point: How do we know CO2 matters?—tell me if you’ve heard this before…—’Venus’.
Watch him set himself up for a ridiculous leap of logic:
“Though [Venus] shares several features in common with our planet, hence its sometimes being called Earth’s “sister planet,” it differs in one crucial aspect: the amount of CO2 in its atmosphere.”
Whoah. Differs in just the one aspect? One? Haul out the old world book encyclopedia and find out that Venus is also 40 million kilometers closer to the sun; it spins backwards; a day lasts longer than a year; it has an atmosphere 90 times denser than earth, and it’s hot enough to melt lead on the surface. All this, AND the clouds are made of sulphuric acid.
It’s one hell of a ‘sister’ with acid rain at 475 degrees. (Don’t park the Ford there, it’ll be gone tomorrow. Part gas. Part liquid.)
Jacquot ‘reasons’ (I’m feeling generous) that because the atmosphere on Venus is almost totally CO2 and the planet is hot, therefore, CO2 made it that way. But correlation is not causation, and sadly for the him this reason disappears faster than the interplanetary Ford. Let’s pick just one difference. With an atmosphere 90 times denser than Earth, Venus is ‘like’ the earth in the same sense that Bruichladdich Whiskey is ‘like’ water. They’re both clear liquids, but one will sterilize your bench top.
If Earth were wearing a three blanket wrap, poor Venus lucked out with a 270 layer equivalent. No wonder it’s hot.
On Earth, to get the same atmospheric pressure as Venus you need to get down about a kilometer below sea-level, and I don’t mean a kilometer down a mine shaft, I mean almost a kilometer below sea-level, or under the weight of 900m of water—go sit in a deep sea trench. If you went down a mine shaft, to get true equivalent ‘air-pressure’ to Venus, you’d need to be about 50 kilometers underground, which is 40 kilometers deeper than anyone has ever dug. There is no place on Earth like Venus.
Thanks to the super thick atmosphere, Venus is bound to be hotter no matter what gas it has up there. Ninety times! If Earth were wearing a three blanket wrap, poor Venus lucked out with a 270 layer equivalent. No wonder it’s hot. If you want to explore some numbers try this.
The next time a warmist yells Venus. Just yell back Mars. Its’ atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide and yet, oops – it’s not 400 degrees, instead, it’s minus 40. The warmists with half a brain might come back at you with the explanation that Mars’s atmosphere is thin, but that’s just fine. That IS the point really isn’t it? Mars is cold because it’s atmosphere is so thin, and for exactly the opposite reason, that’s why Venus is Hot.
Stuck in a pit of poor reason, Jacquot keeps digging:
“In fact, many of its unique characteristics can be attributed to the fact that its atmosphere has such a large mass of CO2—roughly 97 percent of it.”
This is just plain sloppy. Many of it’s attributes? So now Venus has some differences to earth, but instead of crippling his ‘evidence’ they’re somehow due to the CO2? Name one. (And then explain how any of this is connected to The Skeptics Handbook).
What’s really depressing though, is that Jacquot claims he got this from a professor. (Ouch-really? There’s a university that gives out professorships for people who make basic mistakes in reasoning?).
The problem with this kind of assertive ill-mannered non-reasoning is that casual lazy readers soak it up.. . it becomes the daily dog food of those who want their beliefs on Global Warming shored up.
Jeremy acknowledges a few differences in the sibling planets… but he says, “it does demonstrate that there is a link between higher CO2 and higher temperatures”. Yes indeedy. That’s a ‘link’ with analytical power like the link between GDP and Santa. (Look out: nations that Santa visits are wealthier than those he skips over. So, let’s do Christmas twice a year and improve national productivity? Heck-let’s do Christmas every day. You can use this kind of reasoning to justify anything you can think of. Want to connect dairy products to scientific paper production? Look at national rates of Diabetes type II. It does wonders for national peer-reviewed scientific output. Countries without insulin resistance hardly publish anything. I can see the campaign: “Butter for Botswana—improve scientific research.” )
Yes, Jeremy, the link between CO2 and temperature that has analytical power is well known. On Earth, higher temperatures raise CO2.
This is exactly the muddy, poor quality science communication and dismal reasoning that got us into trouble in the first place. Jacquot claims sceptics are ‘muddying the debate’, but he thinks it’s ok to brush dozens of variables under the carpet of one ‘not quite perfect’ argument to demonstrate a specious ‘link’? This is either inept or dishonest, or both.
And this… this was just his first ‘point’.
Point 2/ A strawman about the saturated gas argument
A poor science communicator gives themselves away by vaguely referring to ‘experts’ and linking to the home page of sprawling websites. Clearly if he understood the science himself he would just, well, explain it, eh? But he doesn’t. He waffles and then links to RealClimate.org because he’s ‘sure’ all the answers are in there somewhere. But he’s been tricked by the spin. If Real Climate had empirical evidence it would be all over their site. Instead they just repeat the words ‘overwhelming evidence’, along with put-downs for sceptics, until it becomes a mantra. If he was polite and considerate, he’d sum up the evidence in a line, and link directly to the paper, if there was one. If only someone could find it.
Does anyone understand our climate better after soaking in Jacquot?
My point about log curves is simple and untouchable, so Jacquot complexifies it. He tries to explain something about the greenhouse effect, but acknowledges that it may be difficult to understand him: “If that all sounds a bit confusing, and you’re still not clear”… Then he tries to solve that by cut-n-pasting direct from… surprise…Real Climate.
Real Climate can stretch the discussion out for pages, none of which proves anything other than CO2 absorption IS logarithmic (just as The Skeptics Handbook says). They protest that the atmosphere is NOT saturated (and I didn’t say it was). ‘Almost’ saturated is hard to argue with. But the crux of the matter lies in the ‘almost’. If we double CO2 it’ll warm us slightly, but how much? Will it be piddlingly small or significant enough to be measured? Therein lies the difference between a major catastrophe, and just another day at the office.
Jacquot makes statements like this below, that look good until you… read them.
You’d still get an increase in greenhouse warming even if the atmosphere were saturated, because it’s the absorption in the thin upper atmosphere (which is unsaturated) that counts…
Let’s do the reading and comprehension test. Is the atmosphere saturated or unsaturated?—Look again. It’s both. Since Earth’s atmosphere is bounded by space, our atmosphere can never actually be ‘saturated’—there is always a thin outer layer around the outside. So, using this reasoning, even Venus (at 97% CO2 or 970,000ppm) is not saturated (and can never be). But it’s all irrelevant anyway, because log curves never get to 100%, which is why I didn’t say it WAS saturated.
“(b) It’s not even true that the atmosphere is actually saturated…”
Jeremy bravely attacks that strawman yet again. It’s like beating imaginary ants with a banana. Messy and pointless. Whatever humans have done with greenhouse gases since the steam engine was invented, the temperature rise hasn’t been that hard to live with so far, and since what’s coming will have less and less effect for each extra ppm of CO2 it’s fair to ask, does it matter? Basically we’re arguing here over the long almost-flat-line that stretches out on any log curve. There comes a point when adding more CO2 will warm the planet, but by such a tiny insignificant amount that we can’t detect it. I just can’t get scared about an unmeasurable warming effect when every day the temperature goes up and down 20 degrees.
Yes. The appeal to the Mysterious-Godlike-Model answer: “Trust us—it’s all here in this black box, you don’t need to understand the details, just put your money in the machine and count to three.”
“(c) Water vapor doesn’t overwhelm the effects of CO2 because there’s little water vapor in the high, cold regions from which infrared escapes, and at the low pressures there water vapor absorption is like a leaky sieve, which would let a lot more radiation through were it not for CO2”
This high cold region should be getting warmer then? Too bad there’s no sign that it is.
“(d) These issues were satisfactorily addressed by physicists 50 years ago, and the necessary physics is included in all climate models.”
Yes. ‘Yap’ number one. See the Handbook. Predicted and answered already. (Did you read the Handbook Jeremy, or did you just spot some keywords and google Real Climate so you could repeat their errors?) This is just the appeal to the Mysterious-Godlike-Model answer: “Trust us—it’s all here in this black box, you don’t need to understand the details, just put your money in the machine and count to three.”
Jeremy, DeSmog and co, we don’t believe you, not with the logical errors, the censored science and the ‘complexifing’ explanations that confuse rather than clarify. If you want our money for your cause, you’ll need to do better.
Point 3/ The missing hot-spot
Look at the gems about the missing hot spot. It’s like working with a trained poodle. I mention the missing hot-spot and he replies on cue with the same old arguments, just as I predicted and also covered here and here. Yap 2 and Yap 3.
For a relatively straightforward explanation of why this view is flawed, check out this..[Santer]. [and] (also,… this) [Real Climate]. … it shows that there is “no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one account for: 1) the (currently large uncertainties in observations; 2) the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations.”
In a paragraph that starts with the promise of “a relatively straight forward explanation” of why the missing hot spot is not missing… it finishes with two points that amount to debunking me with 1/ uncertainties, and 2/ more uncertainties. Somehow the discovery that there is 1/ stuff we don’t know, multiplied by 2/ some ‘more stuff we don’t know’ is supposed to make me feel better about trusting climate models?
In the end, these models can only be ‘verified’ if we assume we can’t measure the temperature?
Ferrgooddnesssake. Thermometers are designed to measure the temperature, and somehow we’re supposed to believe that wind-shear measurements are accidentally better at it?
Heigh-ho. That’s convincing… Go Santer Go.
This is like See Spot Run for logic and reason. I get yet another chance to break down an apparently infinite supply of illogical badly written science in the hope that a few extra people might graduate from Basic Rhetoric 101?
And Windshear. Again? Ferrgooddnesssake. Thermometers are designed to measure the temperature, and somehow we’re supposed to believe that wind-shear measurements are accidentally better at it? Rinky Dink. Really?
I guess this isn’t so hard to believe if you’re also someone who thinks that the IPCC—which was designed to find the effects of CO2—might accidentally find the effects of say, the sun? The rest of us prefer science by design rather than random research: where you aim for one outcome but hope to find out something else. It’s even worse when Jacquot tries to explain why we should make this unlikely leap. Quote: the “wind-temperature relation tends to break down near the equator” . Oh. Which is kinda awkward isn’t it, when we are looking for a tropical hot spot eh?
“And, indeed, they [the wind shear measurements] have already helped explain the supposed greenhouse “signature” conundrum”
Righto. Since they’ve helped explain the supposed greenhouse signature, it’s all ok. Did you follow that? So the wind shear idea could be right because it agrees with the models. And the models could be right because they agree with the wind shear data. Hello circular reasoning. All it proves it that he can’t reason. But then we already knew that…
*The Scorecard covers the whole 3 part series, but due to the mass of target material I’ve only discussed the first half of his long 3000 word error prone spot here, so you may not find the exact explanation for each error on the list on this page.
Another major difference between Venus and Earth, Venus has no magnetic field. Being 40 million kilometers closer to the sun, no magnetosphere and the solar wind is just going to blow all but the heaviest molecules in the atmosphere right out into space. In time, it’s likely the whole atmosphere of Venus will be gone, blown away, leaving just a rocky chunk orbiting the sun.
It’s quite doubtful that Venus had much of anything useful left for long in it’s atmosphere, once the planet cooled and it’s magnetic field died off.
People often forget, or try to hide, the significance of Earth’s protective magnetosphere. It prevents the sun from having it’s way ravaging Earth. And as time goes on, we are finding the sun’s magnetosphere has some of the same benefits for life on Earth, partially shielding the Earth from some of the more damaging effects of the cosmos.
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I have read in several places.That the Dense atmosphere of Venus is causing most of that high temperature level.
The compression of gases elevates temperature.
Worth checking it out to see if it is credible.
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There is also another reason for CO2 on Venus not to be a greenhouse gas as it does on Earth : at the temperature of Venus surface (around 460 °C) emission of light does not occur in the infrared spectrum band but in the visible area (light red). And CO2 has no absorption band in that area. Or, said another way, CO2 is transparent to radiation emitted by the Venus surface. So, for sure, CO2 does not play any role in the temperature of Venus…
According to scientists, it is SO2, H2O and sulfuric acid, present in the Venus atmosphere which are playing the role of greenhouse gases.
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LOL,
I finally looked in the link you posted that leads to a blog.There it explains what I have read elswhere.That the dense atmosphere of Venus causes the high heat levels.
http://omniclimate.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/venus-missing-greenhouse-warming/#comments
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Joanne. Great post.
My take is that “The Skeptics Handbook” states its criticisms of AGW in very straightforward, succinct way. This makes it difficult to attack because there is not much soft periphery or underbelly to assail.
But anything that can throw a bit of sand in the gearbox and cause a loud grinding noise will do because noise draws attention, creating a smoke screen that is hard to penetrate. And as everyone knows, where there is smoke, there must be fire!
The climate of Venus is just such a sand tactic.
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thank you for the link to Omniclimate regarding Venus. One important aspect everybody should remember about our “sister planet” is that the relative absence of craters suggests Venus has been _resurfaced_ in full some 500million years ago. Does the current atmosphere have a similar age? Could it be that a major outgassing event occurred at the time? That could explain why there still is an atmosphere, despite the absence of a magnetic field.
And if we really wanted to speculate, we would talk of a planet-melting asteroidal impact (it can explain the whole lot: brand new surface, massive atmosphere, planet rotating backwards and very very slowly, no magnetic field as the “internal dynamo” would have been disrupted with the right angle of impact, etc etc. The asteroid doesn’t have to be too big either…check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zvCUmeoHpw )
For sure, if Earth were to experience humongous volcanism of comparable levels, the surface temperature would go straight up for purely adiabatic reasons.
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“I just can’t get scared about an unmeasurable warming effect when every day the temperature goes up and down 20 degrees.”
this does not make sense. just what do daily temperature fluctuations have to do with anything?
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[…] Good Argument About The Greenhouse Venus Hypothesis 23 03 2009 From JoNova’s “DeSmog accidentally vindicates The Skeptics Handbook“ The next time a warmist yells Venus. Just yell back Mars. Its’ atmosphere is 95% carbon […]
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Desmog Blog is Hoggan PR is Suzuki Foundation is David Suzuki is New Democratic (socialist) Party
http://canadianbluelemons.blogspot.com/search?q=suzuki
Desmog has 6 full time bloggers it seems sponsored by Hoggan PR whose only client of note is David Suzuki’s Non-Profit Charity Foundation which is not permitted by law to do lobbying of government or be a political organization.
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Dear Joanne,
Congratulations and all the best wishes for your effort to translate climate science into understandable English!
I think this effort is quite unique!
One advice so: Sometimes both sides have a point and you should try to see it and encourage both sides for constructive critics.
(I could cite Steve McIntyre for his incredible patience with well-behaved people on his site having a different point of view than him) Having said that I would say you do an excellent job debunking non-constructive critics!
One observation you might consider:
CO2 is of course nowhere near saturation on this planet!
(It’s a trace gas). At the sea surface it is very close to equal pressure according to Henry’s Law.
What is very near saturation is the absorption of infrared due CO2 in the atmospheric window for the atmosphere near the surface and a doubling of CO2 would not change much there.
Well I am no expert, but this is what I think could happen due to the doubling:
If you double the CO2 concentration
– the low atmosphere does not change very much
(and all energy which is absorbed in this air is thermalized – meaning that the outgoing radiation from there is a Maxwellian – the energy absorbed in the small CO2-band is almost completely transferred into neighboring energies)
– at/near the troposphere climate scientists expect a more significant effect as there was not enough CO2 for a complete absorption – and the additional energy absorbed in this part of the atmosphere should warm it (beside the ongoing controversy if that was measured or not – reality might be more complicated than a model)
Now my question is:
What happens if put a heating device in one of the upper blankets in a stack? This blanket is very thin, most radiation passes through it and the heating device is rather weak, the change in temperature up there is about 0.2%
I would guess almost nothing changes at the bottom of the stack and I yet waiting for an explanation in easy words like your statement showing otherwise.
I did not read your book yet, but promise to do so soon!!!
__
All the best regards,
LoN
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Law of Nature wins my award for the post most informative on “global warming,” anywhere, of 24 March.
Perhaps of 2009.
Thank you, LoN.
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[…] and Deltoid tried and failed pathetically to find any faults in the science. See my reply to DeSmog here.) Thanks to the special online supporters who’ve bought me boxes of chocolate and to everyone for […]
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MattB: “just what do daily temperature fluctuations have to do with anything?”
Life on Earth (and especially Humans) has adapted to a very large temperature range (>60 deg C), with large daily and yearly swings. The AGW argument that a small (~2 deg) bias in these ranges will result in mass extinctions needs more than just their declaration. Most species (including people) would only have to move ~200 Kilometers to recover their old climate. Most species (including people) wouldn’t have to move, as very few are living at the extreme edge of their possible range.
BTY, the rate of temperature change (daily and yearly), when compared to the changes in insolation allow one to calculate the Earth’s temperature sensitivity to energy input fairly precisely. (See: http://www.int-res.com/articles/cr/10//c010p069.pdf and http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.0581) There is NO sign (in actual data of world temperatures) of the 2-3X positive feedback required by the AGW hypothesis to even get to the 2-3 deg warming by CO2 forcing.
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When discussion of Venus or Mars comes up, lapse rate is king. The more atmospheric pressure present, the higher the surface temperature.
It is also fun to remind people of Jupiter’s ‘surface’ temperature. Although its top-of-atmosphere blackbody temperature is 160 K, the inner rock core is much hotter due to the immense amount of atmospheric pressure.
http://burro.astr.cwru.edu/stu/advanced/jupiter.html
“Jupiter is a gas giant. This means that it has a huge atmosphere, a liquid mantle, and a liquid / solid core, with no definite boundary between the layers.
The core of Jupiter is probably composed of liquid rock, at a temperature as high as 24,000 K (43,000 °F). The core is small relative to the planet, about 20% of its radius, but it is still fifteen times heavier than the Earth.”
Also, Jupiter’s atmosphere contains
* H2: 89.8±2.0%
* He: 10.2±2.0%
* CH4: 0.3±0.1%
* NH3: 0.026±0.004%
* HD: 0.0028±0.001%
* C2H6: 0.00058±0.00015%
* H2O: 0.0004% (varies with pressure)
Jupiter’s atmosphere is compacting, resulting in higher temperatures than would be expected due solely to thermal equilibrium with TSI.
“Another interesting property of Jupiter is how it generates heat. As seen in the table below, the average temperature of Jupiter is approximately 160 K. However, due to the equation for thermal equilibrium (below), it should only be about 100 K. This extra heat is generated due to gravitational contraction – the planet is slowly shrinking in diameter. This way, by compressing by only a few millimeters every year, it can generate heat by increasing the pressure of its constituent gas.”
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I see DeSmog makes the (very brave considering the latest info from Josh Willis)point that whatever you say, its the fact that the oceans ARE warming up that proves their point.
Oh dear, bless them. Its a bit like shooting fish in a bucket……
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Before I actually studied this whole debate, I defined in my mind what the questions are:
1/ Is global warming happening?
2/ Is it a bad thing?
3/ Are we causing it?
4/ Is there anything we can do about it?
Answers seem to be:
1/ A little bit
2/ Not necessarily – there are benefits as well as potential problems.
3/ Doesn’t seem so – from what I’ve learned CO2 is not a factor, and even if it is, mankind is a very small contributor to CO2.
4/ Because we are a very tiny contributor to CO2, which is a very teeny contributor to GW, then our actions to reduce this will have virtually no effect.
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desmutblog.
John Lefebvre, the top financial benefactor of the DeSmog Blog, is facing substantial prison time after pleading guilty to federal money-laundering charges. The DeSmog Blog is operated by a small group of public relations people who specialize in attempting to discredit respected scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory. Ironically, DeSmog Blog’s favorite tactic is to claim scientists and policy analysts who disagree with alarmist global warming theory are funded by “dirty money.” The revelation of the blog’s major source of funding as a convicted money launderer may undermine DeSmog’s attempts to smear the integrity of respected, law-abiding scientists who disagree with them.
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The Lefebvre story is a few years old now.
The Blog is resident with a PR firm – Hoggan & Associates – who biggest client is David Suzukis Foundation which is fundedwith public donations.
Hoggan himself has campaigned loudly against other PR firms representing the “Realist” side and he also was a drafter of the PR campaign for the Alarmist side. There are links on my blog.
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BobC – lots of numbers – zero relevance to my comment though.
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Matt – your comment is brilliant – although I think equatorial areas tend to not vary as much. A comment I saw on a video against coalplants was also a good one – that we can walk away from rising sea levels – indeed. Tides on coastal areas are sometimes 10 feet and except for witless surfers not many people die (there are exceptions).
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you should tell that to chinese shellfishermen on the UK’s north-west coast… but yes I am occasionally brilliant it is true!
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Lemon: Perhaps you could let us know your criteria for brilliance? MattB said he didn’t understand the relevance of Joanne’s comment about daily temperature swings — I tried to explain it to him, and he didn’t understand that either.
His major contribution so far seems to be the inability to understand other’s statements. Not the usual definition of “brilliance”.
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Every high school chemistry student knows that higher atmospheric pressure=heat. Sheesh. I don’t know why the AGW people still keep trotting out that argument–a 10th grader can see right through it.
Anyway, back to Mars and Venus. There are other differences that obviously de Smog isn’t aware of.
Yet another thing about Venus…it maintains a constant temperature both day and night. This is partly due to the fact that it rotates so slowly (every 243 days) and partly because the atmosphere is so dense that heat cannot escape. (It is NOT due to CO2.) It has neither a carbon cycle to lock carbon into rocks and water, nor does it have living organisms to absorb the excess. Earth has a faster rotation and a magnetic field that allows excess heat to escape into space. We also have oceans, trees, and a biomass.
Venus’s lack of a magnetic field allows solar wind interact directly with its atmosphere. ASPERA on Venus Express found that the solar wind carries off hydrogen, oxygen, and helium ions. It also found that for every oxygen ion lost, it loses two hydrogens: H20. This may be why Venus is so dry…all the water is getting sucked into space in the form of plasma. Also, the solar wind creates a sort of mini magnetic envelope in Venus’s upper atmosphere, which extends to the night side of the planet. The MAG on Venus Express found that the nighttime magnetic field seems likely to promote the acceleration of plasma, resulting in further loss of the atmosphere.
Mars is another story. Its atmosphere can’t be accounted for by the seasonal melting of the southern polar cap, which is carbon dioxide ice. (And yet there are spots where the atmospheric pressure is above the triple point…and there were those photos a couple of weeks ago of Phoenix with what looked like condensed water on it.)Mars, like Venus, has no magnetic field. It also does not have active volcanism as far as we know. Venus does.
Just my two cents. Keep up the good work!
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Mike Freeman wrote: “I see DeSmog makes the (very brave considering the latest info from Josh Willis)point that whatever you say, its the fact that the oceans ARE warming up that proves their point.”
Good one. Global sea surface temperature anomalies have been dropping for 5 years from 0.383C in 2003 to 0.274C in 2008.
Also, here’s a chart from NOAA showing departures from 20th century averages:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/anomalies/index.php#anomalies
Go down to The Annual Global Ocean Temperature Anomalies (degrees C) and scroll through. Ocean temps are dropping and have been since 2003. The PDO also has kicked into cool mode.
I don’t know a lot about SST’s, but I think they’re only indicative of solar radiative energy, yes? Which more or less points at the sun as a driving factor.
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Sorry about confusion the brilliant point that Matt made was that many or most people around the world manage to survive temperatures in a single day thatvary by ten or more degrees. Yet somehow, we are expecting the world to end when it changes a degree or two over a hundred years.
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Lemon,
I see my confusion now — The point you refer to is one I made in response to a question by MattB. Thanks for the compliment, but the point itself is actually Joanne’s — I was just trying (unsuccessfully) to explain it to MattB. That AGWer’s can just ignore facts like this (the huge relative size of normal temperature swings compared to the model-predicted increase) is not brilliant, but they do it anyway.
Next time, I’ll use a phrase like “MattB said:” instead of just prefacing his remark with “MattB:”
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Sorry Bob my bad your comment was brilliant
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Sorry Bob you explained nothing and sprouted a whole heap of 100% certifiable tripe. Sorry mate but that is just how it is:) daily temp ranges = irrelevant to debate sorry.
As for lemon he can’t even follow a topic on a blog coherently – no wonder he struggles with climate science. Should stick to Dockerland. FYI I was clearly aware he was not intending to claim I was brilliant – more denial of the truth!
And Jo could you explain what makes Venus so much hotter than Mercury, even though it is twice as far from the Sun and receives only 25% of solar irradiance?
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Shite Matt – the bad weather so depresses me I was almost comotose and totally stupid last nite from too much drink when I attributed the brilliant comment to you.
But the difference between my stupidity and that of the Climate Screechers is that my condition is temporary and I was fine when I woke up this morning.
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Simple for Mercury… Slow rotation with a long Orbit Which makes Mercury the coldest planet and warmest( with Venus ) and in the solar system.
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I’m so glad that Joanne doesn’t allow ad-hominem smears on her blog!
[ Which ‘ad hom’ would that be? The straight out factual statement quoted here? We are talking about DeSmog, so it’s appropriate. It’s more logical than your statement.— JN]
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To MattB:
We know you are opinionated — now how about demonstrating that you are capable of backing up your opinions with at least the semblance of reasoning.
So far, you are using the “proof by blatant assertion” technique (with some ad hominem thrown in) — a style of “argument” common to those of 12 years mental age, but not up to the level of the other commenters.
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Bob I see you proof by assertion and raise you your proof by writing a lot of things that have nothing to do with the issue.
Lest clarify things… to me it appears you think that the fact I manage to live, as does everyone else on the planet (generally speaking), with night time temperatures being 30 degrees cooler than daytime temperatures, well you think that is somehow relevent to the AGW debate?
You must think that – otherwise why would you have quoted me as such. One could as easily say we have nothing to fear from an ice age as after all it is already a lot cooler at night than it is in the day and we all seem to manage.
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My question about mercury relates to this comment from Jo:
“Haul out the old world book encyclopedia and find out that Venus is also 40 million kilometers closer to the sun; it spins backwards; a day lasts longer than a year; it has an atmosphere 90 times denser than earth, and it’s hot enough to melt lead on the surface. ”
well Mercury is closer to the sun still, spins slowly (from memory).. but the lack of CO2/atmosphere means it is relatively cool…
If it is nothing to do with the greenhouse effect then someone update that darnd wiki page!
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MattB
> the lack of CO2/atmosphere means
CO2, or atmosphere? That is the question. You may want to check out the temperatures on the Moon compared to Earth’s. Or Phobos’s compared to Mars’s.
If you work instead on the adiabatic lapse rates you may notice that they are not too different in the atmospheres of Venus and Earth, suggesting that the surface temperature is mostly a function of the atmospheric mass and can be computed starting from the temperature at the “top of the troposphere” (i.e. at the level where temperature starts “linearly” increasing at progressively lower heights, down to the ground).
In Venus’s atmosphere that level is much, much higher than in Earth’s, because the atmosphere is just so much more massive. Therefore with a similar adiabatic lapse rate but hundreds of kilometers more to go, the surface gets warmer than an oven.
The relative effect of this can be more easily understood considering that the masses and diameters and therefore the strenghts of surface gravity are almost identical between the two planets: you increase the Earth’s atmospheric mass by 90 times, you get ground temperatures similar as on Venus (actually, slightly higher, but let’s forget opacity for the time being). This is simple physics.
The similarity in lapse rates actually suggests that the role of CO2 in warming the atmosphere is not as straightforward as usually described. The overwhelming amount of CO2 resides in the very lowest kilometers of Venus’s atmosphere, yet there is no appreciable effect on the adiabatic rate of increase in temperature. None at all. To the contrary, the difference between wet and dry lapse rates on Earth is easy not only to measure, but even to experience (think of the Foehn winds).
Experts please forgive my simplifications above. And would anybody please send to Venus a robotic surface and atmospheric explorer capable to survive more than an hour? There is only so much we can understand from far and above.
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More info on the financial backer of Desmog Blog. Desmog spends a whole lot of time and money both smearing scientists who disagree with the AGW fraud and defending their backer – John Lefebvre
http://canadianbluelemons.blogspot.com/2009/03/suzuki-propaganda-agency-funded-by.html
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MattB says: “Bob I see you proof by assertion and raise you your proof by writing a lot of things that have nothing to do with the issue.”
Congratulations, you have succeeded in doing just that.
Let me try (one last time) to explain it to you. (Just to be clear, what I’m endeavoring to explain is why the adaptation ranges of organisms and the climatic ranges of ecosystems are important to take into account when deciding what the possible effects are of a temperature bias such as global warming or cooling.)
There are two temperature ranges of interest, for any given organism or ecosystem. To keep it from getting too abstract, let’s consider a specific organism, the coconut palm.
Allowable temperature range for the palm, based on its distribution around the world is 4 deg C mean temperature of the coldest month and 37 deg C mean temperature of the hottest month. (Obviously, palm trees can tolerate temporary temperatures outside these ranges, hence the use of the mean temperature.)
So:
Temperature range #1: 4 – 37 deg C, a range of 33 degrees (Environmental range for coconut palm.)
Now, take a typical place where coconut palms thrive, Hawaii. The temperature range for Hawaii’s climate (mean min to mean max below 5000 feet elevation) is about 22 – 26 deg C, a range of 4 degrees.
So:
Temperature range #2: 22 – 26 deg C, range 4 degrees (Climatic range of Hawaii)
Now, since temperature range #2 (Hawaii’s climatic range) falls well inside temperature range #1 (coconut palm environmental range), it should be obvious that a bias of Hawaii’s climate up or down by 5 (or more) degrees C is not going to have (by itself) a significant effect on the ability of palm trees to live there.
To be able to say whether a change in Hawaii’s mean temperature by 5 degrees is going to stress its palm trees (or drive them extinct) you have to know both temperature ranges 1 and 2. Thus the probable effects of global warming or cooling cannot be determined without this kind of information – that is its relevance.
This conclusion is (or should have been) obvious from Joanne’s initial statement (the one you claimed to not understand).
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you are a hoot BobC! You’ve done it again! zero relevance to the difference between the difference between daytime and night time temps:) Congrats!
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Lemon writes:
Can Joanne list the logical fallacies in this one?
[ Yes. But I don’t jump through hoops for impolite people. I’ll wait until after you apologize for your past inconsiderate requests, repeated flawed arguments, (like the strawman in #63 – Emails with what-his-name; half a fingerprint=a whole one; a giant climate model=tiny modtran calculator; mistaken ‘ad hom’ in the comment above this one; or the demand that I should explain stuff on other people’s sites that I’ve never commented on). You don’t have to grovel, though it would be good. I’d settle for the polite, ‘yes’ ok, you have a point on that one.— JN]
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But Mr. Noble. It’s true!
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MattB (#38), I can see why simple things have to be spelled out for you — not only have you forgotten your original question (#7), but you don’t seem to be able to construct a meaningful sentence. See if you can wrap what you use for a mind around this chain of reasoning:
1) Daily temperature ranges are always less than yearly ranges, for a given location.
2) If global warming bias is insignificantly (unmeasurably, in Joanne’s words) small compared to daily ranges, it is even less to yearly ranges.
3) An unmeasurably small change to the yearly temperature range is likely to have an unmeasurable effect on the ecosystem. (See my post #37 for an elaboration of this point.)
4) We don’t need to worry about insignificantly small effects.
Most folks on this blog could instantly deduce this chain of reasoning from Joanne’s statement (“I just can’t get scared about an unmeasurable warming effect when every day the temperature goes up and down 20 degrees.”)
Now that it’s been spelled out for you again (assuming you’ve been able to read this far), perhaps you could try to construct a specific argument against any of the 4 points above? Or maybe even admit that you finally understand Joanne’s statement?
…Probably not.
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Bob C a warming of 10 degrees would be “insignificant” compared to the difference between annual minima and maxima for a given location – say 47degrees C here in Perth… so would a 10 degrees warming trend across the planet be harmless? I think you are lucky that Jo is not posting much to highlight your logical fallicies:)
You are right though – most folks on this blog would indeed agree with the reasoning! But that is not saying much in favour of most folks on this blog!
p.s. not understanding something and saying something does not make sense are totally different things. I understand all your arguments…. they just don’t make sense.
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Matt, you just changed the scale, in both temperature and space. Bzzt. I call foul 🙂
10 degrees (per century?) warming trend would be quite large — far greater than any changes in the last thousand years, whether you believe in the MWP or not. And much bigger than even the pessimistic models. Joanne referred to “unmeasurable” change — change that’s smaller than the error bars. And, unfortunately, that’s what we’re dealing with. Not because the change is smaller than can be recorded, but the error bars are so huge.
Global trends do not compare directly to local temperature range. Two different animals. Even so, when global temp changes by one degree (still an historically significant shift), how do you think that relates to local minima/maxima? Show some evidence.
To me, the real issue of temperature is this: what do we really know? Seems to me the discovery of 14th century artifacts under glacial melt at Schnidejoch in the alps and medieval treelines much higher/northerly than today indicates the “consensus” about temperature ought to be much more uncertain.
(A global change at that scale typically indicates an ice age 😉 ).
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Mr Pete – get to basics. Do you think that the fact that daytimes are say 20 degrees warmer than nighttimes has any bearing on the AGW concept? If you do, you are a fool:) that is the issue being discussed – you;d have missed that if you read any of BobC’s posts:)
Of course I changed the scale – but I was making a point that the comparison of the difference between night and day temperatures with AGW related warming is simply ABSURD! As even a MASSIVE temperature change due to AGW is considerably lower than the daily range.
Indeed my point is that WOULD mean an ice age… but would still be significantly lower than daily range. If I committed a foul it was to highlight an inconsistency in application of the rules…
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Wow. On behalf of Mr. Pete and Bob an dothers I will type very s l o w l y
All the alarmists have their shorts in a knot because some forecasts suggest that avrage (whatever that is) global temperatures will increase 1 degree – maybe 2 degrees – even a way off the chart 5 degrees.
But almost every place in the world manages to somehow not burn or freeze when in a single day temperatures vary by 2 or even 10 degrees.
And all the people don’t die and species all disappear.
Like sea level increases of say seven inches, or even 2 feet.
We already have sea level increases greater than this – every day – it’s called the tides.
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Sigh. Lemon, you’re getting confused. So is MattB.
Lemon, yes, tides can be bigger than a foot almost anywhere. But: if sea level increases a foot, then the highest high tide will be a foot higher, and the place you stood before without getting wet will now get quite wet :).
MattB, BobC was talking about something quite different from what you are now bringing in. If daily or even annual temp range is smaller than the survivable temp range of a species, then to have that range shift by a small amount by global climate change will not affect the survivable temp. In other words, climate change affects some species in some places, but certainly not all, everywhere. Many plants and animals just don’t notice. It’s a perfectly valid point, and most certainly is related to the high/low temperature ranges, just as BobC described.
I’ll make it simple for you. Let’s look at freeze points of plants, as that’s more familiar to gardeners (and frankly, cold is a bigger problem than warmth in most cases.) Suppose I live where temps range from -10C to +20C. I have plants growing that can survive to -20C. If temps here cool overall by 5C, my plants will still be fine. This is why daily temp range actually does relate to AGW issues.
Here’s another aspect that greatly relates: believe it or not, the climate researchers make a very poor assumption in their most important (tree ring) proxies: they assume that higher temperatures always produce greater growth. Any gardener knows that is not true. Any day, any month, any year that temps exceed the optimal growth temp, growth will be *reduced*. If optimal growth is at +10C, a measure of past growth can’t tell the difference between +5C and +15C (just picking numbers… it depends on the plant of course. I’m hoping you get the idea without me linking to detailed graphs and such.)
So again, measures of day/night temperature, and measures of winter/summer temperature, are very much connected to AGW issues. It’s just not quite as simple as you might like.
I won’t call you, or the modelers, fools for ignoring such simple facts. I just think some of them spend too much time indoors staring at numbers on computer screens, and too little time out in the garden (or the mountains… where I live, I can see the bristlecone pine forests from my window.) The numbers aren’t just numbers. They have a physical meaning.
Real science involves understanding the real-world meaning of the data, not just playing with the data to create interesting graphs.
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No Mr Pete…. What I am “now bringing in” is what the issue was in the 1st place! BobC was INDEED talking about something quite different – that was MY point;) He changed the issue to waffle on about something quite unrelated.
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[deleted: impolite, illogical comment, repeat of #31. ]
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MattB and Chris Noble are not interested debating, so don’t bother with them. I won’t. It’s just a waste of time.
[Go on Paul, MattB is in a different class. The recent comments haven’t bought out the best in anyone, but unlike Chris, Matt is usually polite, asks honest questions, and is self effacing. He’s also about the only one who goes into Lamberts site and stands up for reason and open debate among the bullies there. Gotta give the man points for that. — JN]
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Joanne,
“Beating imaginary ants with a banana.” I about fell out of my chair laughing. You Aussies come up with the funniest sayings. I am now planning on retiring “Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” and using yours instead.
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Why are you arguing that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist AND arguing that CO2’s contribution to the GHE is logarithmic? You own logic is inconsistent.
[Except I don’t argue that the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist… I’m making the point that CO2 on a hot Venus is not evidence that high levels of CO2 cause high temperatures. The high pressures would create the high temperature regardless. That CO2 has a minor heating effect is not in doubt. The only question that matters is whether the heating effect is significant. — JN]
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Looks like Hansen has decided that the models are no good after all quoted from
http://www.examiner.com/x-2534-SF-Wellness-Examiner~y2009m3d29-James-Hansen-sets-the-record-straight-on-the-New-York-Times-article-The-Civil-Heretic
“I looked up Freeman Dyson on Wikipedia, which describes his views on “global warming” as below. If that is an accurate description of what he is saying now, it is actually quite reasonable (I had heard that he is just another contrarian). However, this also indicates that he is under the mistaken impression that concern about global warming is based on climate models, which in reality play little role in our understanding — our understanding is based mainly on how the Earth responded to changes of boundary conditions in the past and on how it is responding to on-going changes”.
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Hansen is very disingenuous there. Models are everything in the concerns for future climate. Otherwise we would just be discussing if the Devonian or the Silurian were more or less warm than today because of CO2, methane or whatever else.
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Maurizio,
You are correct, sir. Even if you throw out the GCMs, the climate sensitivity figure that AGW depends on is also partially driven by yet another computer model. And no, that one has not been Validated or Verified either.
On every front, the AGW argument is weak. I remain unconvinced. I’m not going to vote to roll back the entire industrial revolution based on this kind of flimsy “evidence”.
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That’s ok Paul… because it appears that most people have voted the other way:)
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I have a query regaurding some pages the second of which I link to below which perport to discredit the sceptics handbook.
This is part of a series of articles that argue against the handbook
http://cprs.com.au/debunking-joanne-novas-skeptics-handbook-part-2-yes-global-warming-is-real-and-its-still-happening/
In this second article it is stated as fact that 9 of the warmest years on record were very recent. Is this true and if so is it also true in satalite data set.
Have these temperatures been adjusted by Hansen
What about the warmth in the 1930ies. Were a number of those years warmer than now the recent ones.
It also states that Ocean heat content is increasing – I was under the impression that ocean surface temperatues were decreasing.
Where are the actual measurement to show this is true.
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can;t you follow links? desmog links to all that.
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The “9 of the warmest years” argument is disingenuous too. Year-on-year variability is usually not that great, that is warm and cold years tend to cluster together. Had not “9 of the warmest years” happened recently, we would be talking more seriously about some ongoing episode of global cooling.
BTW…it is a pity, the fact that 99.9999% of scientific papers concentrate on computing linear regressions when global temperature graphs are more easily understood in terms of step functions (that is, relatively long periods of stable temperatures, such as the one we are going through now)
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Maurizio – and if your aunty had balls she’d be your uncle;)
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And Matt A – just to bring you up to speed with the blog’s general focus…. even if those things you question ARE linked to genuine science… they are still not “evidence” that CO2 has a role in any of it.
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Hi MattA, I hope to have time debunking all of desmogs stuff. I’ll show why all of it is as illogical or irrelevant as the first half.
The nine hottest years records are also ‘hot’ due to the urban heat island effect. Surface temps have risen faster than satellite temps since 1979. Satellites haven’t recorded a record hot year since 1998. But surface records keep being broken…. a record number of car-parks near thermometers, a record number of air-conditioners pumping hot air out onto sensors…
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I honestly don’t think UHI’s are that big an issue. you can;t just write off the entire surface temp record like that.
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“entire” is a relative concept. we should be measuring what happens in the whole column of air, for example, not just at an height that is easily reachable by humans. and there is a big whole lot of interpolations going on
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yes Maurizio that would be great… except we have not been for the past 150 years so it would take 30 odd years for that to be very useful.
Also for Matt A… clicking a link, then another one gets to http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ which is a pretty honest explanation of what they do with temps (it also discusses how the UHI issue is dealt with. Yes of course it is Hansen….
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1. 1934
2. 1998
3. 1921
4. 2006
5. 1931
6. 1999
7. 1953
8. 1990
9. 1938
10.1939
http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html
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Wilbert – that data is just for the USA.
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Re; Venus: please correct any True Believers claiming that the carbon dioxide present caused the high surface temperature – this required sulphur dioxide and water vapour (in the past) – most of these are now dissociated in the upper atmosphere.
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In Scotland, it’s whisky, not whiskey, and to “sterilize” anything but your senses with it is sacrilege.
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This comic shows what happen when you believe a theory and defend it despite contradictory facts: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=761
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Sorry for the lateness of my comment.
2 things trouble me.
It takes a long time to increase temperature, it took 100 years to get less than 1 deg C if the available graphs are approx. correct. It took less than 2 years to lose almost the same amount.
Antarctic sea ice increased by ~30% and the depth of accumulation inland is believed to be increasing. The Antarctic is the source of ice ages as I understand, at least a symptom of an onset. (Irreverently, Arctic sea ice appears to be recovering too. Alas.)
If we can lose heat so quickly, I wish for temperatures nearer 20 deg C, put some distance between us and an ice age. Many more bad things happen in cold times than warm.
WRT people living in lowland areas, especially the Bangladeshi already experience flooding and death often. We never cared a toss before as a species. People starve to death by the thousands on a daily basis. We never cared a toss before as a species. And so the story goes. How much to build sea defences for them? How much to feed them? How much spent on fruitless research to prove humans are guilty of the only good thing we do for nature?
Regardless, CO2 increases biomass ~1% every 3 years. The arguments about nitrogen poverty depleting nutritional value appear non sequitur from my reading at CO2science.com . With the population est. to increase by ~50% by 2050, the AGW supporters are murdering the unborn IMO.
With another benefit of additional CO2, less dependence of biomass on water, the already problematic and increasing water shortage is being eased. Just for these reasons my logic says, if we care even a tiny amount about our species we should be churning out CO2 (not pollution) to the limit of our ability, especially if it is true that 98.5% of emissions gets sunk in sinks.
Each ppm CO2 added has less effect than the previous. 1000ppm should have little difference to 600ppm if it is ever proven that negative feedbacks from increased biomass and atm. H2O don’t cancel the tiny warming CO2 is hypothetically capable of.
MattB, what evidence is there other than the opinion held by some climate scientists that additional CO2 might, may, could be a significant driver? The climate is appearing more and more cyclic as time goes by to my eyes and additional CO2’s role is appearing increasingly overblown.
What is the estimated range of CO2’s forcing, of WV forcing, increasing by how much each decade? After 2 0r 3 decades of arm and leg waving. Our arms and legs that it has cost, is costing us.
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How rude of me. In my comment above I omitted to say thanks for the article. Thanks, but only an adequate job IMO.
I think if you had done a standard debunk rather than including ridicule, your moral standpoint would have been higher too.
🙂
BTW, 30% Antarctic ice increase is mentioned in Watts’ blog, “According to the University of Illinois, Antarctic sea ice area is nearly 30% above normal and the anomaly has reached 1,000,000 km2.” http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/04/08/polar-ice-worries-north-and-south/
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cloth – last I heard, Univ of Ill shut down its ice evaluation once it started not to support their philosophy http://canadianbluelemons.blogspot.com/2009/03/when-proof-you-provide-doesnt-prove.html
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Partial pressure of CO2 = 0.3. Partial pressure of earth’s atmosphere = 0.4.
Replace all of Venus’s atmosphere with earth type atmosphere and temperature RISES about 200C…
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It is interesting that no one mentions the heat of solution of sulphur trioxide in water.
Do you think that might account for a bit of heat?
Just a tiny little bit???
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Hi Brian,
seems there was a large increase in volcanic activity in recenct years that lends credence to your words, I’ve seen 20% since 2000 mentioned, that included tectonic activity and of course was a global est. Assumedly that was for known events mostly above water. I wonder what the unmonitored ring of fire and other areas of seafloor activity are contributing?
That said, the last couple of years seem to have quietened down. Due to cooling or a contributor to?
Felix hypes somewhat but his site is worth keeping an eye on. http://iceagenow.com
(More things ‘twixt heaven and earth, Gavin, than modellers dream on.)
Q for Joanne, any prospects of a release of the Skeptics Handbook in the UK or via Amazon?
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Hi Clothcap I was referring to Venus actually
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Hi Brian, being ignorant gives me license to give irrelevant info. I looked around,
“The large backscattering cross section of the particles composing the upper clouds on Venus suggests that a small quantity of high refractive index material is present in the clouds. We propose that this material is elemental sulfur and that sulfur also accounts for the absorption of uv-visible radiation at wavelengths outside of the SO2 absorption bands. A physical-chemical model of the clouds shows that sulfur, with a mass comparable to that of the observed Mode 1 particles, can be produced in oxygen-poor regions of the upper clouds and in rising air columns. Sulfur production from SO2 can be rapid, which explains the observed correlation between SO2 and the uv absorber. The sulfur is properly located to be the uv absorber uv absorber since its calculated concentration rapidly increases with depth in the upper clouds, but it is largely absent in the middle and lower clouds. Sulfur nucleation provides a means of generating the observed bimodal particle size distribution in the upper clouds. Chemical modeling shows that the sulfur vapor is rich in short-chain allotropes such as S3 and S4. These allotropes have absorption bands centered near 4000 and 5300 Å, respectively. We suggest that the sulfur particles on Venus are largely composed of S8, but also contain a few percent of S3 and S4. Such particles could account for the wavelength dependence of the albedo of Venus and for the solar energy deposition profile in the clouds. These allotropes are metastable and relax to S8 over periods of hours to days, providing a simple explanation for the relatively short lifetime of the uv absorber.”
Link
My reading of that says “just a little bit” is likely accurate.
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The clouds themselves are suphuric acid, arent’t they? There are particles within them of elemental sulphur, sure.
But the clouds are continuously formed from the condensation of sulphur trioxide in water, which does, in fact, have a very high heat of solution
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Clearly, the puhLANette Venus has a FEEvurr
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Venus envy! 🙂
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Thanks Jo for a great site and the skeptics booklet. I want to pick on a couple of the themes espoused by DesmogBlog “debunk” which I think have not been covered.
1. the “odius” aim of the booklet to be aimed at the younger audience. – No it’s clearly directed to lay audiences of all ages and backgrounds. There’s nothing wrong with “dumbing down” a complex subject for that purpose. Al Gore is a master, but he unfortunately treated his audience as fools by “dumbing out” the subject matter. Hey, if it gets you a Noble Prize…
2. If one were to able to one provide evidence that CO2 can materially force temperature change through positive feedback mechanisms it still would not explain why Earth has nonetheless never had a runaway greenhouse effect. In other words, there must be a much more important negative forcing effect which keeps things in check, probably related to the same force which triggered past trend changes in Earth’s temperature.
Finally, Desmog says ” there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed tropical temperature trends when one accounts for 1)the (currently) large uncertainties in observations; 2) the statistical uncertainties in estimating trends from observations.” Later he says “…discrepancies are most likely the result of inaccuracies in the observed temperature record rather than the fundamental model errors” Incredible!
What he is confirming is the models have no basis in reality – if the observations don’t fit the problem is the observations since he knows the model must be right. I recall Einstein had similar confidence in his theory of special relativity and general relativity but he offered model predictions which could be tested and subsequently were confirmed over and over again. The GCMs have not been as successful – in fact decidedly significant failures. No it’s time to revisit the models – at the very least they need a total overhaul and their designers a large dose of humility.
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Sorry, for first part of the last para should read…
What he is confirming is the models have no basis in reality – if the observations don’t fit the model then the problem must be the observations since he “knows” the model is right. If one asserts the observational data has great uncertainty then one could offer almost any half reasonable model and/or set of parameters to fit within the range of uncertainty and announce “It fits and therefore it is the truth!”
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What we need is something that convinces people that are allergic to facts and logic. Some type of a liberal kind of argument that appeals to their way of thinking—-a “bleeding heart” kind of approach. In the US the blowup over bonus pay really caused a large reaction. How can we cause the same kind of reaction over the sins of cap and trade?
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What we need to do is stop playing the alarmist games.
We use the same term as them and it gives them credibility.
We must stop using the term “Greenhouse” Since the Earth is not like a greenhouse.
Stop using the word “Carbon” since a gas is not carbon.
we must start using term like the Non scientific community when we talk about the alarmists.. as an Example the American Meteorological Society is quoted often by the alarmists as a reliable scientific organisation and it is so! unfortunately it is the people the alarmists have infiltrated inside the organization who get to speak of behalf of the membership. AMS primary spokesman is Anthony Socci who is neither an elected official of the AMS nor a contributor to climate science. Rather, he is a former staffer for Al Gore when he was vice president. AMS president Tom Karl calls Himself Dr Tom Karl but he is not a DR. Tom Karl is another one of Al Gore nominee. same goes for the NAS NOAA NASA GISS and so on. Only a few members are allowed to speak up and all have to be in favor of the alarmists. Next time we heard about some reports take a look at the name on the reports and you will see the same names over and over again.Desmut use the same tactics.
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To defeat cap and trade in the US, we must convince the masses, including the “non-scientific community” and the liberals and progressives that are allergic to logic and evidence. We must learn to think like they think, so that we can come up with an approach that they can relate to so they can decide for themselves that cap and trade is not a good thing to do. What is this approach? Apparently money out of their pocket-book is not a concern? Or are they just so short-sighted that they won’t really react to money out of their pocket until it really starts to happen? By then trillions of dollars will have already been lost down the rat hole! And it will be difficult to turn off the momentum that has been built up. So what can we do at this point? They even ignore the European attempt which is an absolute fiasco. Their real motive is not so much to control human’s release of CO2, as it is wanting to raise money for the gov and exert control as in socialism. So what we really need to fight is the take-away of our freedoms! We somehow need to show the masses that their freedoms are being taken away by the cap and trade scam. Joannenova are you listening? The Skeptic’s Handbook was excellent and really strikes home if you are talking to logical people. We need another Skeptic’s Handbook that is slanted towards the illogical people and the non-scientific community. Can you help??
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Thanks Ramney and Wilbert, people who don’t understand science or logic still understand what’s fair and what isn’t. We can point out the cheating, the lack of debate, the censorship, the massive funding and money vested in AGW, the name-calling, the intimidation and bullying. You don’t need to have a science degree to understand that a polite scientific question should be met with a polite scientific answer. The nastier and more rabid they get the better it works for us…
Free speech and good manners work for us.
See this post for info about the fiat currency sharks waiting for their cut…http://joannenova.com.au/tag/monetary-history/
I will be posting more soon.
Cheers!
Joanne
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Can you please explain why more atmosphere makes Venus hotter?
After all, Titan has a lot of atmosphere too, however it’s very cold.
Venus is hotter due to being closer to the sun than the earth.
However, it is hotter than astronomers would predict due to distance and that is due to the CO2 in the atmosphere according to most astronomers theories.
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PS: Why do you need to convince the masses that CO2 is *not* causing global warming?
Shouldn’t that be up to scientists to decide?
The masses can often be very wrong on issues.
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Simon, I did explain why Venus is hotter? (Read the blog). The atmosphere is 90 times denser.
Why do you need to believe government committees? As you say, the masses can be wrong.
>Shouldn’t that be up to scientists to decide?
I am a scientist. But so what? It’s up to scientists to explain to all and sundry who have a brain and a tax bill: Why? Where’s the evidence? If those who want our money explain themselves better and provide evidence, I’m switching teams. But so far, the evidence is nothing. The logic fallacious. It’s internally inconsistent; they dodge debates; ‘adjust’ any data that doesn’t fit the theory; fight to keep fraudulent graphs in play; ignore alternative theories, and deny the evidence against them.
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“PS: Why do you need to convince the masses that CO2 is *not* causing global warming?
Shouldn’t that be up to scientists to decide?”
Good point! So this mean from now on you will stop listening to RC & AL GORE and the government appointees from the IPCC?
PS: by Scientists i hope you mean climate scientists and not someone with some honorary degrees.
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Exactly. Al Gore is a spokesperson, much like Joanne Nova. So maybe both should keep quiet and let professional climate scientists nut it out?
To Joanne: Saying that Venus’s atmosphere is 90x denser than the earths does not explain why it is so hot there.
Why does more atmosphere make it hotter?
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” Why does more atmosphere make it hotter?” ……acid?
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Um, no.
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” However, it is hotter than astronomers would predict due to distance and that is due to the CO2 in the atmosphere according to most astronomers theories.”
droplets of sulphuric acid in the atmosphere mix with sulfur dioxide and a constant 100km plus wind and a slow rotation like, a slow cooking rotating oven, would be a better answer if not ? then explain this…
Venus is 96% CO2 and it’s temperature is around 867°F
Carbon Dioxide is 95.3% of the atmosphere of Mars
Average Temperature on Mars is -80°F ( closer to the sun)
Carbon Dioxide is 0.038% of the atmosphere of Earth
Average Temperature on Earth is 57°F
…. maybe time to send them ” astronomers ” back to school or a refund.
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The high winds on Venus help distribute the heat evenly over the planet. The upper winds are much faster than 100km/hr.
The sulphuric acid also cools the planet by forming highly reflective ice particles in the upper atmosphere, reflecting most of the sunlight hitting the planet.
Your temperatures for the planets do not take into account atmospheric density.
Your basic astronomy also fails badly.
Mars is FURTHER from the sun than the earth, or venus for that matter.
Mars also basically has no atmosphere to speak of. Yes, it’s mostly comprised of CO2 but the atmospheric pressure is so low it’s getting damn close to a vacuum.
If mars did not have that thin CO2 atmosphere it would be even colder.
You also did not include Mercury, which is cooler than Venus, why? It has no atmosphere. It receive 75% more sunlight than Venus does.
In any case, I’ve given up arguing with you lot. You fail to understand basic science, you have also already made your minds up and it’s like arguing with creationists.
I leave you with this.
What if you are wrong and CO2 is driving warming? Your names will be at best ridiculed and at worst vilified for hundreds of years for frustrating attempts to act on CO2 emissions.
If you are right, we don’t lose anything by reducing emissions, in fact we gain a cleaner environment due to reduction of coal use and less reliance on fossil fuels sourced from increasingly politically unstable areas of the world.
Personally I hope you’re right, but I remain a skeptic.
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:_) :_) :_)
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“You also did not include Mercury, which is cooler than Venus, why? It has no atmosphere. It receive 75% more sunlight than Venus does.”
mercury is Both..cooler and hotter due to it’s iron atmosphere..any 9 year old knows that!…hum been READING DE SMUT again have you?
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Lol, you’re so funny. I think you are 9. Mercury surface temp is cooler than Venus.
Iron atmosphere… LOL.
“Mercury is too small for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time; however, it does have a “tenuous surface-bounded exosphere”[53] containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium and potassium.”
^ Wikipedia – Mercury.
Considering you can’t even place Mars in the correct position from the sun….
Anyway, as I said, done arguing with idiots.
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“Anyway, as I said, done arguing with idiots.’
geezz I would have never guess the little dog with the tail between the legs exit ..the good old desmut ID kai! kai ! kai ! kai!
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” ^ Wikipedia – Mercury.” ROTFL..of course wm connolly the editor.
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” ^ Wikipedia – Mercury.” ROTFL..of course wm connolly the editor.
wtf? The data’s from NASA….
“geezz I would have never guess the little dog with the tail between the legs exit ..the good old desmut ID kai! kai ! kai ! kai!”
Right…. Just about everything you’ve said has been factually incorrect, like getting the position of Mars wrong ffs… Why bother…
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Average Temperature on Mars is -80°F( not closer to the sun)
Damn!
Mercury is cooler when facing away from the sun and warmer when facing the sun …just like night and day …like black and white…like…day temperature is 400 degree Celsius and in the night it goes down to –170.
“Just about everything you’ve said has been factually incorrect”
like CO2 cause catastrophic warming con job kind of “incorrect”?
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“What if you are wrong and CO2 is (NOT) driving warming? Your names will be at best ridiculed and at worst vilified for hundreds of years for frustrating attempts to act on CO2 emissions.”
“frustrating attempts to act on CO2 emissions.” ???
The frustration comes from trying to explain to the science chalendged that CO2 is not a pollutant and is being vilified as such.
car exhaust
Harmless
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Nitrogen (N2)
Water vapor (H2O)
Pollutants… this is what we must clean up not CO2.
Carbon monoxide (CO)
Hydrocarbons or Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
Nitric oxide (NO)
Nitrogen dioxide (NO2)
Particulate matter (PM-10)
Sulfur dioxide (SO2)
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Have you ever realized that most of your solid surroundings (your chair, your table, most of your body, the plants and the trees in your garden, your dog or your cat, are made of carbon coming from the CO2 of the air ?
And not only a small fraction. No. the majority of it.
After having realized that, will you continue to call CO2 a “pollutant” ?
If you remove it partially from the atmosphere, you’ll simply slow down the life process. If you remove it significantly you’ll stop completely life on the Earth.
Is it what you want ?
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maybe ?
Human beings, as a species, have no more value than slugs.
John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal
The extinction of the human species may not only be inevitable but a good thing….This is not to say that the rise of human civilization is insignificant, but there is no way of showing that it will be much help to the world in the long run. Economist editorial
We advocate biodiversity for biodiversity’s sake. It may take our extinction to set things straight.
David Foreman, Earth First!
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IF it were true then it would also ‘stand to reason’ that a hot spot would form in the upper troposphere. Where is that hot spot Jeremy?
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[…] Jo Nova on Venus […]
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Heh Heh I love it when they use the Venus argument to back AGW nonsense. The greenhouse effect was invented to explain why the probes we sent to Venus, which was predicted to be cold and dry, kept melting before they reached the surface. Science has been ignoring evidence and curve fitting theories to fit the data for the last 100 years. This is why there is so much zombie science kicking about: Accretion Theory; Continental Plate Theory; Cometary Theory; AGW Theory. Every prediction made has falsified these theories yet still they persist…mainly because they have to support so much hubris that scientists have heaped on top of them.
Cheers!
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[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Martin Judd. Martin Judd said: DeSmog accidentally vindicates The Skeptics Handbook http://ow.ly/1zAjn #climategate #climatechange #agw #ipcc #tcot […]
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wow , i can’t wait for this gamewow i can’t wait for this game
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[…] from the name-calling, Desmog are scientifically embarrassing. I debunked their first effort: “Desmog accidentally vindicates the Skeptics Handbook“. I’ve also debunked Deltoid as well, a post so successful it put this blog on the map. Deltoid […]
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@BobC @13
Wow, just wow!
I’ve just now read the PDF you referred to which shows, from real-world measurements and results confirmed by hundreds of scientific papers, that the GCMs overstate the likely warming from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide by orders of magnitude.
In fact, the most likely result of the doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide, given the various cooling effect that enhanced CO2 has on plant-life, both oceanic and land-based, would be the status-quo, i.e. no increase in surface temperatures at all.
Just the bibliography of papers referred to extends for several pages.
His arguments are lucid, backed by real data and confirmed by the close agreement of the results from the many natural experiments that he has conducted.
This paper, more than anything else that I have read, reveals the inadequacy of the GCMs that are the only supposed evidence that confirms the AGW hypothesis.
Paul
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Holey Mackeral Paul! That was over a year and a half ago!
Yeah, real data beats playstation modeling any day. The entire AGW enterprise has gotten so far from science that many papers now claim that model results are empirical data! Susan Soloman recently published a paper concluding that CO2 lifetime in the atmosphere was thousands of years. She came to that conclusion by analyzing many theoretical models. She didn’t bother to consider the 36 actual empirical measurement studies done in the last 50 years, all of which showed lifetimes < 15 years, with a mean of ~7.
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BobC @113
Yes, I noticed how old the thread is, but I’m relatively new to this site, though I have followed the discussion for much longer elsewhere. It’s hard for me to keep up on many fronts so I am commenting here while reading here.
Paul
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Got to love the way that Desmog thinks 16 pages can sum up 1000’s of papers let alone 100’s of expert’s thoughts- that some summary ability.
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