Some people claim that I mislead people. But it seems they are the misled — not by me, but by their own heroes.
In the Skeptics Handbook I wrote:
“The greenhouse signature is missing
If Greenhouse gases are warming the earth we are supposed to see the first signs of it in the patch of air 10 kilometers above the tropics. But this “hot spot” just isn’t there.Weather balloons have scanned the global atmosphere but could find no sign of the predicted “hot-spot” warming pattern that greenhouse gases would leave.”
Sources: Sources: (A) Predicted changes 1958-1999. Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP, Chapter 1, p 25, based on Santer et al. 2000; (B) Same document, recorded change/decade, Hadley Centre weather balloons 1979-1999, p. 116 , fig. 5.7E, from Thorne et al., 2005
With all the benefits of hindsight, it stood up extremely well. (Damn, but I did do a good job đ )
There are claims I should not call it a “signature”, but here’s how it is: The top alarmist researchers called it a fingerprint or a signature, the graph explicitly states that the hot spot is the pattern caused by “well mixed greenhouse gases”, and basically, if you think it’s misleading to talk about fingerprints of greenhouse gases in climate models, then you’ll have to take that up with people like Ben Santer, not me.
1. The top science reports call it a fingerprint or signature
Go to the sources I quote in the Skeptics Handbook (see here). The CCSP Chapter 5, mentions “fingerprint” or variant of that, not just once, but 74 times. If you think that’s being deceptive, then email the authors (that would be Santer, Thorne, Hansen, Wigley et al…see below). The IPCC also mentions “signature” in the text leading up to the hot spot page, Assessment Report 4.
Let’s quote the IPCC (Chapter Nine, page 674) right in front of a version of the predicted hot spot graph (see below).
These figures indicate that the modeled vertical and zonal average signature of the temperature response should depend on the forcings. The major features shown in Figure 9.1 are robust to using different climate models.
The IPCC certainly wants you to know the signature is “distinct”:
The simulated responses to natural forcing are distinct from
those due to the anthropogenic forcings described above.
2. Look at the original graph.
Compare the pictures, read the caption. The experts tell us that the models predict different causes will give different patterns. The hot spot graph is listed as “simulations of the vertical profile change due to” … wait for it… “Well mixed Greenhouse gases“. The other likely causes are predicted to make different patterns.
3. Watch the “greenhouse” pea
“Greenhouse Gases” may imply carbon dioxide, but in this graph it refers mostly to water vapor. This gives them wiggle room to confound people, they called it vaguely “greenhouses gases” when they wanted people to know about it and be afraid, but when they want the issue to disappear they say “it’s not due to CO2”. True, but slimey.
4. Watch that other pea
Note how Graph (f) — “All Forcings” virtually equals Graph (c) — “Greenhouse gases”? Because CO2 induced warming is so dominant in the models (but not in reality) there is more wiggle room to confound the crowd. Theoretically, under extreme circumstances, all forms of warming could cause a hot spot because all forms of warming heat the oceans and make water evaporate, but the models universally (robustly) agree that right now, if that pattern occurred on this planet, it would be due to “greenhouse gases”, not to solar-magnetic or volcanic or ozone… So when activist-scientists want to pretend they could predict the climate, they argue they can tell apart the causes by looking for these patterns. When they want their critics to go away, they argue the opposite. (It’s handy having a lap-dog media on your side, reliably not investigating your contradictory claims, eh?)
28 million radiosondes show there is no hot spot.
SOURCE: Hadley Radiosonde record: Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP,, Chapter 5, p116, recorded change/decade, Hadley Centre weather balloons 1979-1999, p. 116 , fig. 5.7E, from Thorne et al., 2005.
Memo to believers of global catastrophe: Here’s a strategic tip — run, flee, hide, and avoid the Hot Spot argument at all costs. (You can’t win). Either the hot spot is missing because the models exaggerate wildly, or the hot spot is there but we can’t see it because the world hasn’t warmed as much as those thermometers-near-carparks are claiming it has.
This is a lose-lose scenario for alarmists. The more they talk about it, the worse it gets.
If you are concerned about misinformation, these are the people to write too:
CCSP Chapter Five Convening Lead Author: Benjamin D. Santer, DOE LLNL
Lead Authors: J.E. Penner, Univ. of MI; P.W. Thorne, U.K. Met. Office
Contributing Authors: W. Collins, NSF NCAR; K. Dixon, NOAA;
T.L. Delworth, NOAA; C. Doutriaux, DOE LLNL; C.K. Folland,
U.K. Met. Office; C.E. Forest, MIT; J.E. Hansen, NASA; J.R. Lanzante,
NOAA; G.A. Meehl, NSF NCAR; V. Ramaswamy, NOAA; D.J. Seidel,
NOAA; M.F. Wehner, DOE LBNL; T.M.L. Wigley, NSF NCAR
——————————————–
Wherefore art thou honesty?
The theory of man-made catastrophe is only supported by model predictions, not by observations, and here you have the leading science report of the day in 2005, telling us that we would find a fingerprint of this disaster in the weatherballoon records. They discussed “fingerprints”, they labelled the hot spot graph “Greenhouse gases” and they certainly wanted the public to know that when that hot spot turned up, it would be proof that they were right.
So with all the honesty we’ve come to expect from science-activists pushing a policy, after the fact, when the results not only didn’t go the right way, but the people realized it and started to ask difficult questions about it, only then did the team that’s supposed to serve the public start changing their tune and disagreeing with what they had put into print in 2005.
Then fatuous acolytes of the mistaken “experts” accuse me of “misrepresenting” them, without realizing they are the unwitting patsy followers of people who were never trying to be honest in the first place.
Would they say that if they found the hot spot?
If the weather balloons had produced a hot spot would they be saying “yes we found it, but it’s not unique”? As if. Not only would it have been trumpeted across the media, it would have been replicated in glossy brochures, video guides, documentaries, government web sites, IPCC reports, adverts on television, and there would have been coloring in competitions of “hot-spot” graphs at school. And indeed, if they had really found the hot spot, arguably, that would have been reasonable.
Instead, when the results disagreed, the “science-activists” did what they always do — they buried the topic as fast as they could, they went out of their way to find any ghost of the hot spot, looking in wind shear patterns, increasing error bars, seeking out past warm biases, and present cool biases, even distorting the colors of scales on graphs. And all the while they did that, they seeded the idea that (post hoc) it was never a “signature” or “fingerprint”. Instead they try to confuse the public by belatedly explaining the details they didn’t mention before: that it’s not due to CO2, and it’s not unique.
Any form of warming would case the hot-spot. But here’s the kicker. The models said the only significant cause of enough warming to cause the hot spot would be man-made CO2-induced warming. But 28 million radiosondes confirm that it isn’t there. Not even slightly. Yellow Is Not Red. The hot spot is missing, and that means the models are devastatingly wrong. There goes all the raging fears of warming over 1.2C eh?
Here’s the bottom line:Â “Yes” other forms of warming (under extreme circumstances) could cause the hot-spot according to the models. But it isn’t there, the models are still wrong. Just compare the models with reality.
BACKGROUND
The hot-spot is critical. The models predicted it, but 28 million weather balloons can’t find it. The theory of man-made global catastrophe depends on the hot spot occurring. The models assume water vapor amplifies the minor warming caused by increasing CO2, it’s the main feedback. CO2 directly only causes 1.2C of warming. (Hansen 1984)
 Hat tip: Thanks to Mattb in comments for suggesting I ought to repeat that graph with the results of the radiosondes.
The post that contains this graph is linked at the bottom of every page The missing hot spot.
See all the posts that relate to the Missing Hot Spot:
- This is 90% certainty? Really? (Yet another paper shows the hot-spot is missing.)
- Thorne 2010: A very incomplete history of the missing hot spot
- Dessler 2010: How to call vast amounts of data âspuriousâ
- The models are wrong (but only by 400%)
- The Unskeptical Guide to the Skeptics Handbook
- Sherwood 2008: Where you can find a hot spot at zero degrees
- How John Cook unskeptically believes in a hotspot (that thermometers canât find)
- The one flaw that wipes out the crisis
- Even gurus of warming admit the hot spot went missing
- Reply to Deltoid
- Found: the hot spot? Not
Hot Spot Graph Sources:
(A) Predicted changes 1958-1999. Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP, Chapter 1, p 25, based on Santer et al. 2000;
(B) Hadley Radiosonde record: Synthesis and Assessment Report 1.1, 2006, CCSP,, Chapter 5, p116, recorded change/decade, Hadley Centre weather balloons 1979-1999, p. 116 , fig. 5.7E, from Thorne et al., 2005.
UPDATE: The former links are broken (why do government departments do that?) All original CCSP Chapters are stored at the Wayback Machine. See Wayback Machine copies of (Chapter 1)  Specifically download the PDF. and Wayback Machine Copies of (Chapter 5) Specifically download the PDF. If they disappear there is a back up copies here of Chapter 1 SAP and Chapter 5 SAP 1.
Computers, the software rather, are wonderful, rubbish in – rubbish out.
Despite all the money spent on these expensive toys those who do the forecasting can’t get it any better then their colleagues did on the back of a paper napkin in the 60’s and 70’s warning us of the coming of the next ice age.
So let’s save all that money on the prediction software and second guessing nature, hopefully we can use the hardware for other purposes, go back to napkin forecasting and let the sun do the rest. That government money can then be used to do something really useful like closing budget gaps ( thereby making life easier for our children) and the predictions made won’t be any less accurate. See, even “deniers” think about the future and that of our children and grandchildren who stand to inherit our generation’s financial mistakes.
But at least, while it lasts, it is providing employment, I sometimes wonder what these warming prediction people would be able to do in real life.
Suggestions anyone?
01
Well said, Jake.
On your employment ‘search’ – I’m very tempted on them digging holes and filling them back in (more productive than they now are). Maybe on same line – we fit them with “boots made for walking”, give them a shovel [doubt if they would recognise that implement otherwise] and truck load of baby trees and drop them off along the Darling. Picking them back up when they have planted all the trees.
Feels like they would do something real for our environment, at last.
Regards, Jim Stewart.
01
Well said, Jake.
On your employment ‘Search’ – I am tempted by digging holes and filling them back in, probably more productive than what they do now. How about – fitting them in “boots made for walking”, giving them a shovel [probably would not recognise that implement otherwise], a truck load of baby trees and dropping them off along the Darling. Picking them back up when the truck load is planted (they will need close supervision I will predict.
Regards, Jim Stewart.
01
They more than likely need shackles, a large hammer, some good sized rocks and a guard to whip them when they slacken off !!!
01
JoNova is right again!
Climate e-mails and documents are but the tip of a cancerous growth that developed on government science because world leaders reacted in fear to the “nuclear fire” that consumed Hiroshima on 6 Aug 1945 because scientists had learned how to release the energy (E) stored as mass (m) in the cores of a.) Heavy atoms like Uranium; b.) Planets like Jupiter; c.) Ordinary, Sun-like stars; and d.) Galaxies like ours.
Instead of figuring out how to use E = mc^2 for the benefit of mankind, world leaders were driven by the instinct of survival to rule, rather than to serve, mankind by
1. Uniting Nations, and
2. Hiding information on E = mc^2
The Timeline:
1945: Hiroshima vanishes because E = mc^2: 6 Aug 1945
1945: United Nations Charter is ratified: October 24, 1945
__Immediate U-turn: Changes interior of Sun from Fe to H
__See: “Home Is Where the Wind Blows” (1994) p 153-154
1946: Solar interior changes*: Iron (Fe) into Hydrogen (H)
1956: Publication blocked of Earthâs natural ânuclear firesâ
1965: P.D. Jose, “Solar motion: Sunspots,” Astron J 70, 193-200
__Homogeneous Sun in hydrostatic equilibrium
__Solar Physics 3, 5-25 (1968)
__http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1968SoPh….3….5G
1967: The Bilderberg model, Solar Physics 3, 5-25 (1968)
1975: Evidence of local element synthesis in Sun is hidden
1977: The scientist that reported the pulsar Sun vanished
1983: S.W. evidence of iron(Fe)-rich solar interior ignored
1986: Challenger disaster** delays confirmation in Jupiter
1989: Government tries to discredit cold fusion discovery
1993: Possibility of nuclear reactor reported in Earth core
1995: NASA hides Jupiter data confirming Iron (Fe) Sun
1998: CSPAN*** captures NASAâs release of Jupiter data
2001: Neutron repulsion solves the Solar Neutrino Puzzle
2001: 178 SNO scientists report solar neutrino oscillation
2001: Twin Towers disaster reunites nations common goal
2008: Nature assigns credit for natural reactors to others
2009: Climategate emails and documents show deception
2012: Dr. Peter Gleickâs actions reveal AGU/NAS at work
Footnotes:
* Read opinions of Sir Fred Hoyle and Sir Arthur Eddington before 6 Aug 1946 [Fred Hoyle, “Home Is Where the Wind Blows,” University Science Books, 1994, p 153-154].
**See CNN video of 1986 Challenger disaster:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4JOjcDFtBE
***CSPAN video; NASA releases Jupiter data to confirm pre-1946 Iron (Fe) Sun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3VIFmZpFco
– Oliver – http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/
00
Leaders of the scientific community have been cooperating with leaders of nations and corporations to gain more support for research (that yields the results they want) for decades:
That is why they ignored:
a.) Deception in Climagtegate emails and documents
b.) Disequilibrium in the operation of the Sun, and
c.) Neutron repulsion the central cores of i.) Heavy atoms (like Uranium), ii.) Planets (like Jupiter), iii.) Ordinary stars (like the Sun), iv.) Galaxies (like the Milky Way), and v.) Confirmed in nuclear rest mass data of every atom except H-1, H-2 and He-3.
Every passing days brings new questions about the possible involvement of this unholy alliance of world leaders and leaders of the scientific community in other incredible events that occurred after Hiroshima was consumed by “nuclear fire” on 6 Aug 1945.
Read the opinions of Sir Fred Hoyle and Sir Arthur Eddington before “nuclear fire” consumed Hiroshima [Fred Hoyle, “Home Is Where the Wind Blows,” University Science Books, 1994, page 153].
âWe both believed that the sun was made mostly of iron, . . .”
“The high-iron solution continued to reign supreme in the interim (at any rate, in the astronomical circles to which I was privy) until after the Second World War, . . .” [Fred Hoyle, “Home Is Where the Wind Blows,” University Science Books, 1994, page 153].
During the space age, the iron-rich Sun was reaffirmed by analysis of
a.) Meteorites in 1975
b.) Apollo lunar samples in 1983
c.) Galileo probe of Jupiter in 1995
The results were hidden, ignored or manipulated because world leaders did not want the public to know that our lives, Earth’s climate, and our fate are controlled by “nuclear fire” in the neutron-rich core of the Sun.
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Former NASA Principal
Investigator for Apollo
http://omanuel.wordpress.com/about/
00
It’s the missing heat that’s killing their argument.
“The satellite data is a really inconvenient truth for them but of late theyâve come up with an explanation for the missing heat and itâs a corker; the heat is actually skulking at the bottom of the worldâs oceans, safely out of sight of those pesky satellites and well beyond the reach of any mere skeptic like myself.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/global-warming-and-pathological-science/
Pointman
00
The least we could do is to help them look for it.
I have some chain, and an old car axle, all we would need is a few shackles …
00
Someone on the Bishop Hill blog raised this issue yesterday because Richard Lindzen’s response to his critics included a statement to the effect that the hot spot wasn’t there and perhaps the ground temperatures might be wrong. I pointed out that this didn’t negate your argument that the hot spot was missing, it is, and that means it’s not warming regardless of where the warming is coming from.
00
Just a comment on story structure – wouldn’t it be useful to include the figure that shows the lack of hotspot from the data – rather than just saying the hotspot isn’t there?
00
0
nil hotspots
nada
niks
niente
nothing
ingenting
nichts
00
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/10/this-is-90-certainty-really-yet-another-paper-shows-the-hot-spot-is-missing/
00
Cohers I know it is elsewhere – I just thought get it all in one place. The hotspot angle is a good one, the figures are nice, and the rebuttals are quite complex (although you can guess where my conclusions lie).
00
‘lie’ being the modus operandi of the people you listen to…
00
I gave you a thumbs up Matt for trying to be constructive. Perhaps others doubt your intention, but I prefer to think better of you on this occasion.
00
Complex sentence. Craptical Science is probably where your lying lies.
00
Matt, WE know where your conclusions lie. Fair enough.
The problem is that the people who voted you into office don’t!
Because you refuse to share with them your strong Green evangelicalism. Instead, you told voters at the last election you’re an “independent” and you hide your online political activism behind a false identity so that your comments and positions can’t be scrutinised during the next election.
Why do you think it’s fair to your constituency as a shire councillor not to inform them of your true political identity?
00
Wes – Breathe deeply, and let it go. I am 100% independent. Also my election material last election made at least 2 or 3 references to tackling climate change, and photos where I clearly look like a grteeny/hippy.
00
You gotta be kidding!
Let me get this straight….
Instead of rationally and explicitly explaining to your electorate that you support 100% Gillard’s Carbon Tax, Swan’s Mining Tax, Gillard’s Ten’s of billions of dollars wasted on harebrained Green Scams, that you support ending coal mining, higher power prices, Zero-growth economics, media censorship, greater government regulatory intrusion into our private lives, including greater green-initiatives and higher rates at the local level…instead of being fair dinkum straight-talking honest, you style your appearance after a adolescent fad from the 1960’s???? All the while claiming that you’re an Independent???
May I suggest the Emo/Goth style is more appropriate for nonverbally and pre-rationally signalling your true political colouring –which is closer to Yellow than Green–to your fellow tribespersons…
Maybe instead of an election in the oppressive style of the British Invaders, your shire should get together by the light of a full moon around a drum circle and vote via spirit fingers?
Oh, and you should be sporting some tats. Like maybe a big “L” on your forehead. đ
00
support 100% Gillardâs Carbon Tax, – nope but I can live with it.
Swanâs Mining Tax – the old one was better as per Henry review, but I can live with it.
Gillardâs Tenâs of billions of dollars wasted on harebrained Green Scams – I’m not aware of any.
that you support ending coal mining – not really, although I’d rather we were on nuclear.
higher power prices – I support market based power prices
Zero-growth economics – not really
media censorship – not at all
greater government regulatory intrusion into our private lives – when appropriate
including greater green-initiatives and higher rates at the local level – not higher rates.
00
Good point, the two graphs side by side always makes a good show.
Regarding the redness of yellow, I draw readers’ attention to my previous comment on that point where I basically show that the colour mismatch is not relevant, it’s more important as to whether there was ever any quantitative definition of “the hotspot”. In particular, the warming happened (0.2°C/decade) stronger than the PCM model predicted (0.15°C/decade)… just not in the tropics where they said it would, which is still a major model failure.
Trying to compare a whole century change with a 20-year change seems a bit shaky since the 20-year rate is probably going to be faster than the model just due to shorter window, but warmists can’t have it both ways. Either the data disproves the reliability of models upon which legislation has been based, or else not enough time has elapsed to validate the models.
10
Mattb – spot on, an excellent point, and I’ve (belatedly) added that pic in. I thought everyone might be bored of seeing it, and it is linked at the bottom of every single post, but you are right, anyone new coming to this won’t know where to look. Thank you. Fixed.
Jo
PS: But no, I can’t guess where your conclusions lie. How do you conclude that the hot spot is there? If you just rely on authority-figures to make conclusions for you, you aren’t really concluding anything yourself?
PPS: (But yes, Matt was right, I should have put the graph in).
10
31 thumb downers may want to consider that opinion eh;)
rely on authority figures – look for waht my meagre brain can muster I am not unconvinced by the explanation on, for example, skeptical science and real climate. I do think they have some awkward moments where they try to exaggerate a tad but I can’t out of hand dismiss the Santer et al and other explanations. So I’m not relying on authority figures, but I am siding with those scientists opinion at this time. I could be wrong of course, but I think that it is entirely plausible to hold an incorrect position based upon independent thought rather than fawning to authority. To me I see uncertainy, not falsification, here.
00
For any gas to be called a greenhouse gas it would have to be a blanket anti-convection insulator near ground level.
For the gases to be “well mixed” indicates that there is a convective process in operation. The atmospheres convection process is easily observed. Glider pilots are well versed in the subject.
Greenhouses are designed to prevent convection. There are no greenhouse formations to prevent convection so therefore there are no such thing as greenhouse gases in my opinion.
00
“For any gas to be called a greenhouse gas it would have to be a blanket anti-convection insulator near ground level”
Thank you !!
The only way you can change the rate of convection is by altering the specific heat of a bundle of air. H2O does this because it undergoes phase changes. (But the same amount of energy is still transferred). (Lapse rate = acceleration due to gravity / specific heat)
The transfer of energy in the atmosphere is governed by the Gas Laws, Specific heat, and gravity.
Hot air becomes less dense and therefore must rise. Only a physical barrier can stop this.
400ppm of CO2 is NOT a physical barrier !!!!
CO2 actually lowers the specific heat, (by a tiny amount) thus increasing convection.(by a tiny amount)
00
Kevin,
There are so many things unhelpful with your assertion on so many levels.
1. âThe Greenhouse Effectâ is a METAPHOR for a complicated set of phenomena described by the physics and chemistry of how our atmosphere functions to keep the planetâs surface from being a frozen snowball in space while serving the universal master of thermodynamic law to transport heat from the bottom to the top of the atmosphere⊠As such âThe Greenhouse Effectâ gives a simple term for us to use in every day discussions.
All metaphors have limitations. If you carry a metaphor too far it breaks down. Obviously, the greenhouse metaphor for climate has limitations. Duh.
2. Your argument based on convection is confused. Just like INSIDE a greenhouse, the air in the atmosphere moves around driven by thermodynamic processes, convecting heat away from the ground and to the top part of the Greenhouse. Just like in a Greenhouse, the Earth’s atmosphere is prevented from mixing with outer space. Greenhouses do not prevent convention from occurring inside them. In fact, a big commercial greenhouse, by heating the air inside, actually creates its own state of convection which is separate from what might be occurring outside the greenhouse.
3. Beside, the whole argument is irrelevant because the so-called greenhouse effect is NOT supporting evidence for catastrophic global warming forecasts. Just by being interested in challenging the basis of the Greenhouse effect assigns undue significance to it. Warmists love that.
4. It’s also unnecessarily provocative and divisive to claim “Greenhouse gases do not exist” within our own community. It alienates newcomers as well, who might be migrating away from the alarmist paradigm to a more rational position on climate science and policy.
I have my own theories on why a certain personality type will always command the most extreme manifestation of a position in any debate with socio-political implications, but we’ll save that for later. Of course, the skeptical movement — as an ascendent political consensus against the Carbon Tax and Green evangelism masquerading as science — is a big tent, everyone is welcome… but the fringe will not be allowed to define the whole. Although I’m sure the ABC will attempt to use the most far-out claims by our most exotic fellow travellers to label us all. I can hear LateLine now: “…Many climate skeptics deny the very existence of greenhouse gases…blah, blah, blah….
In conclusion, to engage in futile spleen venting about whether Greenhouse Gases exist or not is to play into the warmists’ game by creating a distraction away from the real topics of relevance, such the implications of the lack of a “Hotspot Fingerprint” (another useful metaphor with it’s own set of limitations.)
00
i fear you are right. It is terrible how sceptics are dragged down by other sceptics.
00
I’d give you two thumbs up if I could Wes.
00
That’s a lie….
00
and anatomically challenging
00
why is it anatomically challenging to put two thumbs up? Or does it depend on where you are putting them up?
00
that is one interpretation of my mysterious comment but also, the tiny graphic only depicts one hand (right or left?).
00
My interpretation of Gee’s mysterious koan is that it’s like the sound of one thumb thumbing.
Or….
If a tree falls in the forest can anyone hear it over the roar of the chainsaws?
These are things to ponder, young grasshoppers!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCyJRXvPNRo
00
are grasshoppers handed? Most arthropods that have been studied are handed although with so many legs it is more complicated than left v right.
Which makes me think – and moving away from arthropods with have clearly defined left and right sides… how would our political system be described if we were advanced like an cephalopod which, although bilaterally symmetrical, don’t have cleat right and left handedness?
00
Wes,
Too young to get the point I guess!
Tony.
00
This might interest you, here’s some legal testimony from a Canadian paleoclimatologist. The “hotspot” comes up at the 13 min mark.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDKSkBrI-TM&feature=related
00
Excellent link, Cole. Must bookmark…
I especially enjoyed the comments by Professor Ian Clark from the Climategate emails where the Team was is sheer panic about the lack of the hotspot signature:
Obviously, the climate alarmists are now fully aware that their science is moribund. They probably wish someone would put them out of their misery.
***
Of note to Kevin Moore and others who feels GHGs are somehow a necessary component of CAGW and therefore must be censured….See 11:10 minutes of the video where Prof Clark heartily endorses the idea that Greenhouse Gases do indeed exist and without them, (primarily water vapour) the Earth would be 32c cooler than it–a frozen snowball in space.
***
OT, but also interesting… Prof Clark presents “robust” evidence (start at 14:40) that solar activity shows a far better correlation with the Earth’s temperature levels than CO2 levels.
Ominously, Prof Clark points out that since ~1980’s the sun activity is at “unprecedented” highs not seen since about 11,000 years ago (Solanki, 2004), although he attaches no significance to this other than a far more useful explanation for the observed behaviour of climate than “carbon pollution.” But there is a possible obscured worry here. One that we’ve lost all sight of in the morass of arguing about how many carbon devils can dance on the head of a pin.
Perhaps the potential global catastrophe we should be tossing a few billion bucks at is a back-up system for our primary infrastructure against the possibility of a coronal mass ejection the size of the Carrington Event in 1856. Some estimates are that CMEs on that scale happen about once every 500 years. We’re approaching a solar cycle maximum in the next few years so the odds are at a 21-year cyclical high just now…. Wired has put the odds of a catastrophic solar megastorm at 1 in 8 by 2020.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/massive-solar-flare/#more-98297
Imagine what life in Sydney would be like with no electrics, no water or food supply, no transport for a year. Surely, a Greens Utopian paradise.
00
Here’s a snapshot of the misanthropic prejudice embedded in the Australian education system in today’s “Education Age” supplement.
The last paragraph: “The report concludes that multiple lines of evidence show that global warming continues and that human activities are mainly responsible,” Dr Torok says.
00
All perfectly true, as long as “evidence” is defined as: “Computer models designed to give us the answer we want (but which have no demonstratable predictive skill)”.
I don’t suppose that definition is part of the educational material?
00
“But at least, while it lasts, it is providing employment, I sometimes wonder what these warming prediction people would be able to do in real life.
Suggestions anyone?”
” … truck load of baby trees and drop them off …”
As long as they are able to meet the standard set by Green Corps, eg 200 trees per person per day, none of this 6 trees plus photo-opportunity stuff.
I prefer going out picking up rubbish, car bodies, tyres etc. On CleanUpAustraliaDay they can have the day off. (That’s the only day me and the dog refrain from picking up rubbish on the beach.)
Problem is, these people will simply try to make a move on someone else’s turf. Recent comments by Matthew England illustrate this – going on about resilience in infrastructure, planning, as if it’s a new idea, and there is no one out there who’s been doing it for decades.
00
OK Jo, I understand where you’re coming from and the misrepresentation is upsetting, but, there are good theoretical reasons for accepting that there should be a hot spot where the models have suggested. If it’s not there, and there has been atmospheric warming, then the lack of it’s existence would suggest that there is something fundamentally wrong with our understanding of atmospheric physics. (This is always possible but not likely.)
Do you accept the planet has warmed and GHG’s have contributed or not? Even if only by a slight amount?
Richard Lindzen is a well respected sceptical climatologist and he also accepts that the hot spot should be there. His explanation for our inability to find it, and he views this as the most plausible explanation, is that the land surface record has been so exaggerated by “data adjustments” that it may have ‘hidden’ the hot spot. If correct, this strikes one as a little ironic don’t you think?
Many papers have been published on UHI and peculiar “data adjustments” so this is not necessarily implausible. If actual warming is closer to 0.3C-0.4C and not 0.7C-0.8C as stated, trends in the troposphere may look quite different. Hasn’t this topic always been about questioning exaggerations? The hotspot should be there, although when found, it’s most likely to be rather small.
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The world is warmer than it was at the last little ice age, so is the warming period from the ice age due to greenhouse gases and hidden hotspots?
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Well said Will. There are good reasons to think it will be difficult to measure and be small. Finding it will be a “so what?” moment that will advance us no where.
There is a broad range of hot spot morphologies (for want of a better expression) predicted by the models even before you add in the local weather dynamics at the time of measurement. In other words if it is observed, it will be almost impossible to say that the “morphology” fits the expectation of different models (e.g a model of GHG derived warming of some magnitude).
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This is the point; if a theory, such as AGW, has no consequences, or, for any reason such as deceit in another part of the theory such as Willis notes may be the case in respect of land temperatures, has no measureable effects then it is not a theory but a belief. The absence of the THS, as predicted by AGW, shows that AGW is a belief not a theory.
Alternatively, it is a disproved theory. In either case it is a scam.
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Very true, Cohenite.
Let me restate that in form that might help any visiting academics here to grasp the somewhat less than subtle subtext of our climate justice discourse.
If the AGW hypothesis offers no consequences its advocates will stand by, then it can’t be disproved.
A “hypothesis” that offers no consequence that can be falsified automatically forfeits its tenure as a scientific hypothesis, devolving to a less exalted form of “knowledge” uncertified by testing against empirical observations. AGW is a now a climatological socio-economic narrative whose authenticity exists independent of oppression by the privileged paradigm, which unfortunately in this case just happens to be empirical reality. As such, AGW’s future usefulness as a neo-Marxist/eco-wowser critique of modern global capitalism is limited to drum-circle inspirationals held by the light of the full moon.
Jo’s point is that the logical situation here is a Lose/Lose for the Warmists. Checkmate! Thanks for Playing. Please Deposit New Hypothesis if you wish to continue.
For if AGW is a scientific hypothesis – which implies there must be tropospheric hotspot signature – then it has been falsified by the evidence. Game over.
But if the Warmists try to claim that AGW’s implications for a THS don’t matter, saying in essence, the AGW hypothesis makes no testable implications upon which it will live or die by, then it’s still Game Over because by dodging scientific falsification the Warmists admit AGW narrative isn’t base upon the exercise of scientific methodology, it simply no longer meets the scientific definition of hypothesis or theory.
The debate is over. The time to act is now.
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The hand-wavers are out in force.
As you correctly point-out Jo, the ‘hotspot’ was a robust prediction of all of the general circulation models (GCMs). The high preisthood of CAGW have used those words: “robust prediction” of all the models. And it should have been observed if the GCM predictions of CAGW were even close to being accurate.
That it has not been observed ought to lead a rational, logical and honest thinker to the conclusion that the GCM predictions have been widly exaggerated. And all lines of evidence (satellite temps, ocean temps, outsoing raditation, even the corrupted land surface temp records) point to thisi as being the case.
But the apologists and hand-wavers, in their desperation to save “the cause”, want to now argue that it was not important to their silly theory of CAGW. And they are prepared to employ the usual weasel tactics (in keeping with the form of this cult) to claim that even the skeptic Lindzen believes it should be there – so there!
But they are, of course, being disingenuous and misrepresenting him. The implication of what he said was that if the land surface temperature record is to be believed, the hotspot should be there because it is a physical feature of a rapidly warming world. That is has not been found should therefore lead us to accept the implication that the recent land surface temperature record is itself exaggerated.
This is no surprise. Everyone knows the land surface temperature record is a work of fiction. And the missing fingerprint of the rapid warming predicted by the GCMs – the “hotspot” – is strong evidence that the theory of CAGW is hopelessly flawed. The models are miserable failures and should not be relied on for any purpose other than to illustrate the misdeeds of some climate scientists and their parasitical funders in government.
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No hotspot means three things. What’s more likely?
1. 28 million simple instruments (weather balloons) are wrong
2. The climate models don’t understand the climate
3. The weather balloons and the models are right, but world hasn’t been warming enough to form a hot spot and 89% of the temperature sensors are parked over concrete, near airports and adjusted up the kazoo.
There is plenty of evidence for either 2 or 3. Go on …
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Jo,
We could add a few more points to your list…
4. (As Will & Andrew sagely point out) The missing tropospheric hotspot could mean that our entire global temperature reconstruction is hopelessly biased by maybe up to 0.5c! That’s a remarkable insight, although not unique, Watts, McIntyre, Warwick Hughes and many others have uncovered direct evidence for this…Still it’s always thrilling when a hypothesis reaps confirming evidence from totally a unexpected source.
5. The disingenuous attempts to fudge data, use unusual colour schemes in their graphics to deceive the public (and perhaps themselves) and the substitution of ridiculously inaccurate measurements (wind shear studies) in a futile attempt to find the missing hotspot are evidence of two things:
a) A historically extreme case of confirmation bias…. And then later when the evidence hit them like a brick wall, but they still refused to accept the results…
b) Wilful intellectual fraud or barring that… denial.
I use the word denial in the proper psychological sense of a person who is consciously unable to emotionally process cognitive evidence that has been clearly brought to his attention by his senses.*
6. (As Cohenite notes) The climate science community collective shrug-off of the falsification of the AGW hypothesis is proof positive that we are no longer dealing with a scientific proposition, but a socio-political one that has a life of its own beyond the realm of empirical scientific method.
The corollary is that CAGW ideology , since it is impervious to scientific refutation, can not be ultimately defeated by science alone, but must be decisively defeated politically and culturally.
In practice this means when the Coalition wins by a landslide it won’t be enough to simple lift the Carbon Tax. We need a cultural revolution.
The new government must use its mandate momentum to radically restructure many of our most cherished institution which have become hives of ideological corruption and deceit…The BOM, the CSIRO, the ABC, our university system, our ministries for the environment and climate must be subjected to swift reorganisation. Heads must roll first. Then we can settle down and begin the long process of multiple inquiries into corruption, waste and fraud at the manifold level of our nation’s bureaucracies. (Perhaps broadcast live pre-empting the ABC’s schedule?) The goal shouldn’t distracted by identifying individual scapegoats – such as Flannery – but to make dramatic institutional changes towards greater freedom of expression and institutional transparency and accountability to ensure the current culture of corruption is purged and can not re-establish itself. For some institutions, such as the ABC, this might be impossible, if so its charter should be revoked and the ABC privatised where it can pursue its sly entre nous agenda without taxpayer support.
—
*(Note… the use of the term denial to describe well-informed proponents of the AGW hypothesis has truly come of age. There is simply no other explanation, other than wilful fraud. We shouldn’t let our sour experience with the ad hominem version of the term dissuade us from using it properly to describe a well-documented psychological condition. Denial in this sense is not related to de-humanising usage of “Climate Denier”, which was designed to label skeptics as subhuman neo-Nazi “others” whom it is OK to hate and slander. Understanding the psychological condition of Denial that many otherwise intelligent people in positions of authority suffer should allow us to feel compassion for them as fellow human beings with an untreated medical condition that is hopefully covered by their private health insurance.)
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Wow wes, I didn’t realise they had free wifi in Norwegian courtrooms.
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Now that’s funny, Councillor Matt. Good on ya! đ
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Very good wes.
Insightful and very well put.
I particularly liked the last part of your final sentence. Compassion yes, but let’s hope the treatment is fully costed… otherwise the poor old taxpayer is stumping-up twice: first fraud, second for pills + psychiatry.
Have to draw the line somewhere – let’s insist on full-comprehensive health cover for the AGW/ CAGW cultists.
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Jo, The vague “greenhouse gas” label you mention in section 3 puts me in mind of the the “carbon emissions” epithet and photoshopped black “smoke” pothering from cooling towers. All ingredients of the same brainwashing technique. That’s why at every level we have to analyse and expose their strategies and terminology in detail. The only “forcings” I can see are not climate ones but those exerted on people’s minds, constantly bending them in one direction.
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Evidence for 3? Evidence the models are right? well that’s a first!
I personally don’t think there is any reason that 1 could not be perfectly plausible.
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Jo,
Should that read “or” as in “3. The weather balloons and the models are right, but world hasnât been warming enough to form a hot spot
andOR 89% of the temperature sensors are parked over concrete, near airports and adjusted up the kazoo.00
if the world hadn’t been warming enough to produce a hotspot then the temperature record IS incorrect as it says it has warmed enough (which is why the models show a hotspot in reponse to that temp increase), thus the temp data is either incorrect due to placement or adjusted inapropriately. Thus the “and” is appropriate.
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MattB,
The hot spot is described as an area that warms at 3 times the rate of the surface, therefore if the surface warms at 0.1C/decade then the HS must warm at 0.3C/decade.
If the surface warming has been fudged do to siting among other reasons and the HS warming ( sat/balloon data) has not then it would give the appearance that the HS does not exist do to the fact that it as not warmed at thrice the rate.
Therefore 3. The weather balloons and the models are right, world hasnât been warming enough to form a hot spot OR 89% of the temperature sensors are parked over concrete, near airports and adjusted up the kazoo which means the surface temp is falsely raised giving the impression that the HS does not exist.
The only way the HS can now exist is if the surface warming is reduced, but then that would destroy the facade talk about painting yourself into a corner.
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It would be more than ironic — it would be impossible, as the hot spot exists in the troposphere and can’t be detected by measurements of ground temperatures. Can you find a reference where Lindzen says this?
Perhaps what Lindzen means is that the ground surface records are distorted, and that no actual warming has recently occured so there is no hot spot because of no recent warming.
And this is relevant how? Do you accept that current GCMs predict a THS for a warming planet, and that thousands of direct measurements have shown that there is no THS? Can you follow the logic that this means that either the GCMs are not accurate models of climate, or the planet isn’t warming?
Can you make the connection that this means that the warnings of Anthropogenically-caused Global Warming are not supported by evidence?
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You failed to understand that the measurement is about differences in warming trends. Not relative warmth.
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My point was that the tropospheric hot spot can’t be detected by ground temperature measurements alone. This is independent of whether you are measuring a temperature difference or a temperature trend difference. Either way you are comparing data from the ground to data from high in the atmosphere. Kind of hard to do if all you have is the ground data.
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nope adjusted land temps wont hide hot spots. hot spots is patches of air that is hotter than the surrounding air. You dont need to look at land temps to spot them?
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Great post Jo & colleagues
So grateful to you for your efforts. Please keep it up â we canât let these anti-humanist liars and frauds escape the searchlight. Something important has changed hasnât it? Nothing will be the same again. The scales are dropping from our eyes because of the wonderful invention we call the ‘internet’ – because the would-be tyrants and their parasitical helpers now no longer control the only means of mass communication. The lies and the frauds, the propaganda and anti-humanist ideology is now being exposed for what it is.
And so the age-old fight between liberty and tyranny continues. The would-be tyrants and their parasitical helpers know that if they are to put the genie back in the bottle – they must control the internet: Generalissimus Finkelstein; the would-be tyrants must soon make a fateful decision…
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As I see it , this supposed hot spot is made up of greenhouse gases that have all, er, congregated together.
As all these GHG’s are heavier than air, say, maybe they fell into the Ocean.
Am I allowed to say ‘Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
Tony.
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But why would the hot-spot be away up in the air? You’re looking in the wrong place . . .
Carbon Dioxide is heavier than air, so it sinks to low levels. Hence its usefulness as plant food. If the Carbon Dioxide went up to create a hot-spot, all the plants would wither and die. đ
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And if it didn’t mix well we’d all be dead. (unless you’re able to fly).
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Mark D,
The question of whether CO2 is well mixed or not is rather a moot point when it comes to the hot spot fallacy however i assume by your comment you are inferring that if co2 was not well mixed then we would all die of oxygen starvation due to the high concentrations of co2 at ground level?
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I’d like to state it as law. it is a self evident. If co2 were not mixing (ie the heavier than air trumps) we’d be dead. Actually the fishes would be dead first. After fishes, those of us that fall down drunk would also die. Any low spot in terrain would be a “killing field”. Mines and caves likewise.
I make no claim that the concept of mixing (actually it’s not “mixing”) gasses prove or dis-prove the “hot spot” hypothesis.
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This argument keeps coming up, so it should be instructive to estimate the rate at which CO2 should separate from O2 and N2 under the influence of gravity.
The relative rates of separation and mixing are what is important: For example, we know that water is heaver than oil, so a mixture of the two will separate — but if I put them in a blender and turn it on, they will never separate as long as they are being mixed by the blender, as the mixing process is so much faster than the separation process.
At sea level and room temperature, air molecules are moving at about 500 meters/second (CO2 slightly slower, as the velocity is inversely proportional to the square root of the mass, and CO2 is slightly heavier.) The mean free path (distance between collisions) is about 65 nm (65×10^-9 m). These values are not just calculated from theory, but have been measured in diverse ways. From these values we can estimate that each molecule is undergoing about 7.7×10^9 collisions per second, or a collision every 1.3×10^-10 seconds.
The distance a body falls (from rest) in ‘T’ seconds is about 5T^2 meters. If we interrupt the fall every T seconds (like balls falling through a peg board, say) then the average (interrupted) falling speed will be 5T^2 meters per T seconds, or 5T^2/T = 5T meters/second.
Plugging the atmosheric “fall” time of a molecule of 1.3×10^-10 seconds into the previous formula, we get a falling velocity (due to gravity) of about 6×10^-10 meters per second, or about 6 Angstroms per second. This is about 5-6 times the diameter of an atom every second, and a rate that would achieve 1 meter of fall in about 1,000 years.
(Of course, we really should use the difference between the rates of fall of CO2, N2 and O2 but overestimating by just using the average rate of fall as indicative of the separation rate won’t make a significant difference.)
At the same time, the molecules are diffusing in a random walk fashion due to their velocity and collisions. The distance a molecule will go (on average) this way is approximately the distance it goes between collisions (65nm) times the square root of the number of collisions per second(7.7×10^9). So the diffusion velocity is about 65×10^-9 x sqrt(7.7×10^9) = 5.7 mm/second.
The mixing process is about 18 billion (10^9) times faster (at sea level) than the separation process — hence no detectable separation will occur under sea level conditions.
When the mean free path gets much much longer (and the temperature colder) — like conditions at the top of the atmosphere, say — then gravitational separation would start to be more important because the time between collisions would be much longer. However, up through the Troposphere, mixing is going to be enormously more effective than gravitational separation.
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Bob its easier to just say the hot spot is created by WV not CO2.
Cheers
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BobC,
Thank you, oh thank you.
If this explanation did one thing (for me) it showed me that there is more to the capacity of the brain than we actually give it credit for.
I left High School at the end of Grade 10 to join the RAAF in 1967, so that was the extent of the Science I learned, other than Science associated with my Electrical Trade, and the (quite basic) Science I have ‘picked up’ over the years.
Your explanation here would typically seem to be so far over my head (from the average person’s ‘lay’ perspective) that my perception would have been that I could not understand it, if you can see that point.
However, as I was reading it, (very slowly, and very carefully) one part of my brain was sending a message to my conscious brain that “hey, I can actually understand this”. Again, this opens me up for the expected comment that “see, I told you he was an idiot.” But hey, I don’t care at all, because this actually is something I really wanted to know.
I know it’s trite, but I’ve used the ‘Charlie Brown and the clouds’ analogy a couple of times here already, but in reality, that too provides some perspicacity into thinking on just such subjects as this.
This was my ‘light bulb’ moment, and in fact has now given me some understanding as to so many questions I have, that now I can understand so much better.
It also provides an answer for my Comment 18 below, so again, Bob, thank you.
This is one comment that I can cut and paste into my word processor so I never lose it.
THIS is why blogs like Joanne’s here are so important, because explanations that average people can understand are in a place where ‘real’ people can have access to them.
Tony.
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It’s a well-kept secret in science that, actually, all scientific ideas are simple, once you understand them. Science, unfortunately, is driven by status, and scientists can’t advance their status by espousing simple ideas. Most scientific writing, therefore, is dedicated in significant part to making sure you don’t realize that the underlying idea is simple.
Teaching, which I much prefer, is the exact opposite — right down to low status.
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Yep, I mentioned diffusivity on a post somewhere…
This is what I meant.
thanks for doing the leg work.. đ
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OK, so further to this, and also in reference to this alleged ‘hot spot’, if the gases that make up the Atmosphere (Nitrogen 76.55% Oxygen 20.54%, Argon 0.91%, and the GHGs, Water Vapor 1.95%, CO2 0.04%, and Trace Gases 0.01%) are so well mixed, how can they tell us that CO2 (and by extrapolation those minor trace gases that are also termed as dangerous GHG’s) in particular can separate enough to collect in this area termed ‘the hot spot’?
Would they (CO2 and GHG’s) not just stay mixed, (to a major degree) and not separate at all, and if (let’s pretend for a minute that they can separate on a faster scale) they are doing this to gather at this hot spot, then would it not also stand to reason that all of those gases in the Atmosphere would also separate into their levels as well, over time.
And if CO2 especially is supposedly gathering at this hot spot, and it is already at such tiny concentrations would it then stand to reason that this alleged dangerous Greenhouse Effect (supposedly exacerbated by increasing CO2 amounts) would just be adding an almost insignificant part (and here, please excuse the simplification) to that ‘warming blanket’ keeping us from becoming the proverbial snowball that earth would be without that ‘warming blanket’, considering that water vapour is 50 times greater than the CO2 part of that overall ‘warming blanket’.
Tony.
POST SCRIPT: I can see here that I have used the words ‘alleged’ and ‘supposedly’ a little more often than I should, but there is no other way to express it.
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Tony,
The only thing in the hot spot is WV, it should warm at 3 times the rate of the surface ergo if the surface warms at 0.1C/decade then this area of the atmosphere (tropopause) should warm at 0.3C/decade. After 30 odd years of looking the rate of warming is no different than the surface therefore the hot spot does not exist.
Remember we are talking about heat generated via the hydrologic cycle we are not talking about an addition of Infra red energy “being trapped” or such nonsense.
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Tony,
The greenhouse hypothesis doesn’t depend on the GH gasses collecting in any one place. The Hot Spot is still all gases well-mixed, but hotter than they would be if the GH gases in it weren’t absorbing InfraRed radiation. It is predicted by the dynamics of radiation heat transport.
As I understand it, what is supposed to happen is that the GH gasses (CO2, H20, methane, and a few others) absorb IR radiation in a few narrow bands (both incoming, from the Sun, and outgoing from the Earth). This heats them up and they re-radiate — some goes back to the Earth, some to space, and some is absorbed by other GH gas molecules (and then re-re-radiated, etc).
There is a “mean free path” between absorptions for photons in these absorption bands, which gets progressively longer higher in the atmosphere where the air is less dense — eventually, the outward radiation escapes to space and its energy is removed from the planet. The net effect of slowing down the escape of heat this way is that the atmosphere above the Earth is warmer for higher up than it would be if the IR just passed through it to space.
People try to model this process numerically on computers using information about the mean free path vs. height (vs wavelength of the photon), absorption “cross-section” of various molecular species (how likely they are to absorb radiation), etc. The results of these models are that:
1) the Earth is warmer than it would be if this fraction of the outgoing energy weren’t slowed down by the absorption and re-radiation process, and
2) there is a section of the atmosphere above the tropics which is hotter than it would be if this heat wasn’t diffusing upward through it (the “Hot Spot”).
Of course, there’s a lot of other stuff going on also, such as; vertical convection currents carrying hot air upwards where it can radiate to space (tropical thunderstorms are especially efficient at this); heat absorbed by water vapor condensing into clouds; clouds reflecting sunlight back to space during the day (and IR back to earth at night); winds redistributing heat between the equator and poles, and etc. Many of these things are not well measured, can’t be accurately predicted or modeled, and probably depend on factors we are unaware of.
So, the (predicted) presence of the Hot Spot is very much tied to the hypothesis that greenhouse gases are an important factor in a warming Earth. The absence of a Hot Spot clearly indicates that the current climate models are giving too much importance to greenhouse warming — hence they are not modeling the climate correctly.
And of course, the obvious conclusion is: If we can’t model the climate correctly, why should we upend civilization based on the predictions of these falsified models?
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I’m with Tony, BobC is a treasure.
But, Tony don’t underestimate what you know! I’ve learned a lot from your comments too, especially about our national energy infrastructure.
Thank goodness we’re now past CO2 gravity puddling speculations, hopefully forever more. And now we understand the hotspot is, uh, just “normal air” to use the technical jargon.
It’d be nice if the Greenhouse-Effect-does-not-exist fallacy would also go extinct. Although that might take a major asteroid impact, which would have some sorry side effects.
I feel like this was a very progressive thread.
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So on BobC’s post:
“but hotter than they would be if the GH gases in it werenât absorbing InfraRed radiation.”
Is not really true, it is hotter not because the GHGs (either CO2 or Water Vapour) are there, but because of the latent heat of phase change of water vapour to water as it cools. so the rising air just doesn’t cool as quickly as it does away from the tropics where there is less water vapour in the air.
For all you would disagree with skeptical science’s explanations about the hot spot actually being there if we manipulate the data (unreasonably in I assume your minds) that site does have a great explanation of the basic reason for a hotspot to exist.
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Even if it doesn’t!
Tony.
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Absolutely! If it genuinely doesn’t then either:
1) we need to find out what is happening as our understanding is wrong (not necessarily meaning that AGW is crap, maybe just our understanding of convection over the tropics)
2) not as much water vapour is in the air – which could have implications for AGW warming feedbacks of water vapour I’ll give you that.
3) the earth simply isn’t warming (but that means that the temperature records = all of them like satellites not just stations next to exhausts = are wrong).
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Mu understanding is that the “hotspot” is simply a result of increased water vapour in the air above the tropics which then releases latent heat of phase change as the hot air rises. There is more water in the air over the tropics thus this warming is more pronounced over the tropics. This is why Lindzen doesn’t question that a hotspot should exist… it is simply a result of pretty basic principles. The hotspot is not so pronounced for other warming forcings hence a “fingerprint” so to speak.
So to me at best a genuine lack of hotspot simply means we don’t have a clear a picture as we would like of the atmospheric processes, it says nothing about the basic properties of CO2.
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hmm my reply to tony really precedes my reply to BobC sorry if it reads a tad strange here.
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Thanks Jo for another great post.
This is why they can’t find the hot spot:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
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The German journalists David Harnasch and Michael Mierschs managed to publish an article in the magazine “Focus” in which they confirmed what most of us already knew or at least suspected, that there is a strong relation between the national socialists (the Nazis) and the environmental groups. They focussed on Germany of course but the relation is the same internationally. The social-Darwinistic ideas of the green organizationsmatch those of the Nazi’s “Lebensraum” ideas. The implementation of their philosophy is attempted using the same combination of lies, distortion of facts and scare mongering. Greenhouse gasses have become the environmental version of the Jews. We have to stay vigilant against these forces but normal reasoning will simply not help. Their 10 / 10 videos were a glimpse of their true self. Creating a complete false trail of “science” is actually quite benign compared to what the fascist’s really would like to do to us all.
Please keep this work up, Jo. Just make sure you stay safe in the mean time.
http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.php/dadgd/print/0025881
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I love restraint and understatement. Well done.
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Now all that remains is to print nano “CO2” stamps on individual CO2 molecules before we sequester them for good.
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Carbon Capture and Storage?
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Captured yes, but they didn’t store them, they mostly burned them.
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How’s that for restraint and understatement?
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The freaky fringe are represented today by……JK!!
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Yep, If persecution of an entire race of people was made possible only 50 years ago via the same kind of scientific propoganda, what is so outlandish about comparing the persecution of the jews, gypsies, blacks, homosexuals, etc, with the far more PC greenhouse gases eg CO2?
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OK, Sonny and JK as a double act? Thrill to the power of morons squared! Come on down!
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If people can be persecuted and falsely accused on mass based on political ideology and supported by colluding scientists, isn’t it also possible to persecute chemicals based on ideology?
It’s easier:
CO2 cannot defend itself against these accusations.
No laws of human morality extend to unjust treatment of a gas.
Catamon, this idea is completely logical. Prove that it isn’t.
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As I expected. No comeback.
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I should bother??
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No, continue your persecution of CO2.
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No, we wouldn’t want you to strain yourself. Better you stick to stupid drive-by one-liners.
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The new leader of the greens has a painting in her collection from a green artist. It is the most Nazi looking art I have seen since the 40 ties. Skulls and blood the only thing missing is the is the anti jewish symbol.
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JK
The Reichstag Fire of February 1933 would have been a much, much better anaology to use. The Reichstag fire was staged event (a flase flag operation) by Hitler and his cronies to cement his power as a dictatorship. The ‘Reichstag Fire Decree’ was invoked the day following the fire to remove most of the civil liberties of Germans in one fell swoop. Including publication of material and views opposing the Nazi Party and their policies.
Let history be a lesson!
But otherwise, I agree with your points. The national socialists of Germany (indeed the socialists of the USSR) share many traits with the anti-humanist socailism of the environmental movement. You only have to look at and listen to the barely-concealed disgust of voters and democracy expressed in teh words of our very own ‘Rosa Klebb’ – now the leader of the Greens…
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Every thread needs an irrelevant reference to Nazi’s
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Gee wiz Gee Aye
I would have thought its relevance in this thread was blindly obvious – with or without Rosa Klebb at the helm – as JK above points-out.
And others have made similar observations of the environmental movement elsewhere.
I was merely sharpening the particular comparison use dby JK by pointing to an event (interestingly enough involving a staged catastrophic temperature increase) which, in 1933, was exploited by the National SOCIALIST Party (the NAZIs) to remove the civil liberties of Germans quite literally overnighg, including, their freedom to publish opinions and views critical of the ruling National SOCIALIST Party (the NAZIs) or their policies.
I would have thought the relevance to the present sitation in Australia was fairly clear…?
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Andrew, somewhat OT I know…
Much as I would like to agree with you point about the Reichstag fire being a staged Nazi event I think the jury is still out on who really was to blame. I know it is just the sort of dirty tactic one would expect from Hitler and his henchmen but on blalance I believe the evidence is stronger that the fire was indeed started by the young and somwhat disturbed Dutch Communist sympathiser, van der Lubbe, acting entirely alone. That this action was immedialtely seized upon by Hitler to destroy the Communist party and consolidate his hold on power is one of the tragic ironies of history.
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JK said:
Lest we forget:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfnddMpzPsM&feature=player_embedded
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May I suggest the following titles for in-depth scholarly examinations of the relationship between Nazis and Greens:
The Green and the Brown: A History of Conservation in Nazi Germany (Studies in Environment and History) by Frank Uekoetter
How Green Were the Nazis?: Nature, Environment, and Nation in the Third Reich (Ecology & History) ed. by Franz-Josef Bruggemeier, Mark Cioc, Thomas Zeller
Both books are rather expensive, especially the former. But PDF versions are available via the Net for those so disposed…
As noted both works are by respected scholars whose sympathies lie with the green/conservation movement but nevertheless deal honestly with the connections between Nazism and the Green movement. Quite eye-opening, one could even say mind-blowing: How green were the nazis indeed?
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Completely O/T, but for shits and giggles:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/spaniards-livid-over-king-juan-carloss-elephant-hunt-20120417-1x49w.html
Yes, King Jaun Carlos of Spain, who happens to be the honorary president of the Spanish branch of the Worldwide Fund for Nature, went off on an elephant safari.
Dontchya hate when that happens?
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Does this happen often?
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It is very obvious that all green stuff is do as you are told, not as I do.
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Before we begin debating whether it is a signiture or a fingerprint can we first agree on whether it was a prediction or a projection.
Thanks
Crakar
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Nice to have to point it out to the warmista that the ‘signature’ or ‘fingerprint’ is all of their own making.
Warmista are like the ‘fukahwee’ bird and they’ve breached the final trajectory … it’s dark up here!
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Now, bear with me, because, unlike some of my Comments, this one actually is related to the topic. I also hope you bear with me, all of you, while I detail exactly why I am a real ignoramus on this subject, because, for the life of me, there’s a couple of things I just cannot quite figure out here. Others probably wouldn’t mention it for fear of exposing themselves as idiots, but I really do want to know, so I don’t care if I look like a fool, as long as someone can effectively explain it to me.
Kevin at Comment 4 mentions it, and then AndyG55 at 4.1 expanded on it when they say:
I look up and I see clouds, suspended water vapor, H2O, the main GHG, 50 times greater a GHG than CO2 is, that CO2 around three times heavier than for H2O, (clouds). Now, I know that different types of clouds appear at different altitudes, so obviously something heavier than air (that suspended H2O in those clouds) will float in the air at different levels of the Atmosphere.
However, with CO2 three times heavier than those clouds, why has it reached the stage where vast concentrations of GHGs are (allegedly) floating, as Joanne mentions in the main body of the Post, some 10KM high in the Atmosphere.
OK now, and here’s the part I don’t quite see.
There is a temperature drop of around 6.5C for every 1000 Metres, and if the average temperature at the Equator is, say, 35C, then at 10K the temperature is Minus 30C. I understand that the old standard applies, that being that hot air rises, but surely, as it rises, it must cool. If that massive (alleged) hot spot is supposedly at that level, why has it stopped there. If it is still hot air and still rising, then should it not just keep rising, or having cooled, and in such a huge concentration, and being made up of so many gases, some up to 20 times (or more even) heavier than air, and see the UNFCCC, UNIPCC (and now enshrined in the Australian legislation) chart of 23 GHG’s for this, then having cooled, why do they not just settle downwards back towards the surface?
Now, again bear with me on my usual hobby horse, coal fired power plants. The coal, crushed to a consistency of talc powder is forced into the furnace. Air is forced into the critical furnace to sustain the ‘fire’. This immense heat (etc etc etc), and the CO2 is the resultant emission from that critical furnace, and from a typical large scale Plant is emitted at the rate of one ton every 1.7 Seconds, or under constant operation, around 50,000 tons of emitted CO2 a day.
Having just been emitted from the furnace, it is, understandably, extremely hot, and also concentrated, and here I mean, at, and around the site of the Plant. That superheated CO2 rises into the air, and as it does it cools very very rapidly. In such huge amounts, and now cooled as it rises through the Atmosphere, why does it not fall immediately back to the surface, or at least a large proportion of it anyway. (If I could inject a humourous aside into this, does it then go looking for its mates at that so called hot spot)
Now I can see that, as I mentioned, clouds (… suspended water vapor … H2O … 50 times greater than CO2 …) appear at all levels of the Atmosphere. Why are there not similar concentrations of CO2. Why does it supposedly gather together in some alleged hot spot, especially as those clouds do not seem to all gather together in a similar humungous concentration?
I can see those usual people who come here pointing at this Comment (now forever in hard copy) and saying, “see, we told you he was an idiot.”
But, if no one can effectively explain this to my satisfaction, (especially considering that temperature fall with altitude aspect) then I will never accept that CO2 causes this so called CAGW.
I know I ramble on at length, but simple one liners cannot ask the CORRECT questions I want to address.
Tony.
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Tony,
I know exactly how you feel however i may be able to help you out a little, firstly the hot spot is not made up of CO2 but an increase in water vapour, why is it at approx 8KM up well that is the boundary between the stratosphere and the troposphere (i think it is called the tropopause) the increase in water vapour pushes the boundary of the toposphere up into the troposphere or something………….It should/was supposed to appear in the tropics FIRST as this is where most of the wv is also it is not exactly a hot spot. The busted computer models claimed that this area would warm at thrice the rate as the surface all caused by CO2 of course.
In regard to CO2 being a well mixed GHG and anti covection blankets etc be careful because Wes is ready to pounce. I previously stated once that (as you clearly point out) CO2 is heavier than air and i postulated that a large proportion of the CO2 spewed out by man was absorbed very quickly by the surrounding environment and it is possible that the increase in CO2 is more directly related to the MWP (800 odd year lag). I also pointed out that GHG’s DO NOT TRAP HEAT blanket or no blanket as nothing in the known universe can trap heat if it could we would use it as insulation in our homes and would only need to use our heaters once at the start of winter and never again until summer but these comments created a scathing response.
So whilst i applaud your post i also warn you to be careful with what you say.
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Thanks crakar24, and in a way, I’m actually looking for ‘scathing responses’.
Things like that force you to learn stuff.
Tony.
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That increasing water vapour at altitude tends to get a tad cold and oft times finds itself as icicles. these tend to be heavier than air, even heavier than CO2. Thus they precipitate out of the air, usually at the tops of those nasty thunderstorms that are a regular feature of the tropic zones.
This is part of the regular cycle of negative feed back in the tropics that regulates the heat input into the tropical oceans. I in a past life time was in the pointy end of airliners and those tropical storms were two our three times as high as we could fly. We went around them where possible. Oft they are so close together that a safe path is impossible, this is not a fun time at the pointy end.
I tell you this to give you a small insight into the amount of heat being dumped by negative feed back.
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Craker… he didn’t say anything wrong whereas you did.
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Care to expand a bit on the detail GA or this just the usual “shits and giggles” crap we have grown accustomed to from the likes of you?
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He is asking for an explanation and doing this by putting forward how he sees things. You made definitive statements that you claimed to be true. To disassemble your post is rather difficult but it needs disassembling before one can critique it. Let me give you an example.
“Nothing in the known universe can trap heat”. Where does one begin here? Who claims that trapping of heat is 100%? Why do you even imply that it is.
Turn on your oven for an hour then turn it off. Come back in 15 minutes. Is it still warm. If yes you are feeling “trapped” heat. This is “heat” that is still “trapped” in the oven but is being slowly released. What is your understanding of “trapped heat”?
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In otherwords GA you read my comment and did not like what you read but did not have the ability to debate me in any logical way so you simply did what all warbots do in this situation and responde dwith bull shit.
When pressed you come back with more shit and targetted the only issue where you think you have some hope of saving face, so ok lets play your stupid warmbot game.
I said:
“I also pointed out that GHGâs DO NOT TRAP HEAT blanket or no blanket as nothing in the known universe can trap heat if it could we would use it as insulation in our homes and would only need to use our heaters once at the start of winter and never again until summer but these comments created a scathing response.”
You said:
âNothing in the known universe can trap heatâ. Where does one begin here? Who claims that trapping of heat is 100%? Why do you even imply that it is.
Turn on your oven for an hour then turn it off. Come back in 15 minutes. Is it still warm. If yes you are feeling âtrappedâ heat. This is âheatâ that is still âtrappedâ in the oven but is being slowly released. What is your understanding of âtrapped heatâ?
So let me get this straight if i turn on my oven until it reaches temp X and then turn it off and then measure the temp in 15 minutes i will find i have lost heat…………..but in your world this is a great example of trapped heat. What level of idiocy is this?
As i said to Tony all you get is a scathing response……..not a logical response not even a sensible response but simply a scathing stupid response. Now go away idiot.
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Compared to the ambient temperature of the kitchen?
I don’t always agree with Gee but this is a no brainer.
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thanks for your reply. What I can see is a rewriting of what is written a couple of posts up with the addition of 4 paragraphs of abuse. I’ll come back later and see if you have rejoined the debate.
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Mark.. I think the word “trapped” needs replacing because it commonly means “can’t get out”. “Trapped heat” is really jargon (quite sloppy jargon as it contains ambiguities) for not letting all the heat escape right away (ie total reflection).
In other words the heat is stuck. Of course in the example that Craker gives above with his insulator that “traps” 100% of heat is difficult to understand with this definition. If it traps 100% it does not let it go and so the heat would warm nothing. It is trapped and can’t warm! Craker implies that it is magically producing enough warmth to last the whole winter.
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To Mark D,
Sigh…………….do you agree with the following general statement made by most warbots?
“CO2 traps heat which then leads to an increase in water vapour which will lead to a temperature rise of X degrees” (As an aside this is the same wv that will gather in the hot spot)
If you do agree with this statement then i suggest you get a bottle of co2 actually get a lot of them and fill your attic with the stuff so when you turn on your heater and warm your house all the heat will be “trapped” in your house forever. Oh and you ahve just discovered a replacement for the thermos flask.
To GA,
You are an idiot and as such will be treated with contempt until such time you decide to respond with something more substantial than “I reject your reality and replace it with my own”.
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To GA in 17.1.2.1.5,
Please enlighten us on your explanation of the AGW theory which begins with the suns rays striking the Earth and ends with the accumulation of water vapour in the upper atmosphere leading to global warming using whatever “jargon” you wish to use.
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Funny, I thought we were talking about ovens….
Explain why the whole kitchen doesn’t get as hot as the oven.
Gee says:
I agree. Like beer, heat is only rented.
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Beer is rented by my god it contains CO2! The only time I get to drink green beer is March 17.
Craker… I’ve seen you dance in this circle before and I’m sure you’ll do so again, hopefully with a different partner.
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Whilst i wait for GA to produce a jargon free explanation i will respond to Mark, but first Mark be careful to not let your despising of me cloud your judgment on this topic.
Explain to me why the heat from the sun does not accumulate on say a concrete slab day after day after day? Let me answer it for you because the concrete slab cannot accumulate heat, it cannot trap the heat, it may absorb the heat but it is then released. There are many examples of this i could have used but lets cut to the chase. The statement i gave in a previous comment is false simply because nothing can trap heat therefore if CO2 cannot trap heat (jargon or not) then where does the heat go?
It goes up and up and up and is released to space, there is no heat building up in the atmosphere because nothing can trap it so dont be fooled by the likes of GA regardless of how much you would love them to be right.
So just for the record nothing can trap heat not even a GHG the heat that is absorbed is released all of it, not some, not a little but all of it, each and every bit of it is released. It is not trapped where it can accumulate day after day after day to cause global warming.
Does this make sense to you Mark or do i need to take it down another level?
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HA HA HA GA you are a funny one, this is just another cut and run. You come in here, gob like an idiot and then run for cover.
Ed was right you lot are pathetic.
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OK… how long do I have to stay here until I am not cutting and running? An hour? Two? Yet another instance of you making statements that can only be answered after some tortured questioning.
I still don’t know what your “trapped” means. Or even what you think a GHG is or isn’t. You are complaining about trapped being 100% but who claims that trapped means 100% of heat is not transmitted? Or is it 100% reflected back.? Or is it 100% absorbed? What is it??!!
Are you, like me, hoping to be the last one on this sub thread so that your post is immediately above Sonny’s? you?
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I don’t despise you, I do despise some of the things you say.
Gee is right, “trap” is not a useful word here.
Now Crakar, do you deny that refrigerators are colder on the inside even though the compressor only runs intermittantly?
There are millions of examples in the practical world where heat (or cold)is “retained” by the application of insulating materials. It doesn’t mean that by admitting this you have to agree that co2 can raise the global surface temperatures.
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Crackar – think of it as trap and release, rather than a trap and imprison and throw away the key. Your slab example is a good one as indeed a concrete slab will absorb heat during the day and release it at night, compared to other surfaces that have no such heat capacity. This is a basic principle of solar passive house design for example.
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Are taking medication GA? Seriously are you?
Lets recap, Tony in post 17 raised a few questions in an attempt to clarify in his own mind the interactions between clouds/heat etc and what this means re the hot spot.
I responded to Tony (17.1) in an effort to help him clarify a few points however i did warn him that by doing so he may recieve a few scathng responses.
Tony thanked me for my response (17.1.1)
17.1.2 you chime in with the claim that everything Tony said is correct (which i agree with) but i did not.
17.1.2.1 i ask you to clarify
17.1.2.1.1 At this point you responded with the trapped heat argument, Mark D sensing a chance at a cheap shot joins the fray and it all goes down hill from there.
17.1.2.1.7 I ask you to explain how the AGW theory works because i wanted you to explain how it works if it does not “trap any heat” you skilfully avoided having to do this by then stating in post 17.1.2.1.9
Notice how you have now avoided any scrutiny over explaining how CO2
trapsdoes not trap heatthis is nothing more than a cut and run.
But yet in 17.1.2.1.12 you claim you are here to stay but you still have not explained to me how CO2 can cause AGW and yet at the same time not trap heat, how does CO2 enable heat to accumulate in the atmosphere, warming the oceans, melting the ice and cause a pooling of WV in the atmosphere if it does not trap heat?
And then to top it all off you make some vague association with sonny’s post that makes no sense at all.
So again GA are you on medication?
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OK… I’m going to close off my part in this. Cutting and running or whatever other thing you called it and are about to call it. I don’t think that a series of posts saying “… but you didn’t answer my question” is great reading for anyone.
Are you asking about medication because you want some?
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No GA i just cannot follow your train of thought, you are either a scatterbrain and therefore are unable to debate in an effective manner ie need medication or this is a tactic you employ to avoid answering difficut questions.
In hindsight i think it is the latter as you have still not bothered to justify your position, by this i mean you claim my trapped heat theory to be flawed but as yet have failed to give an alternative simply talking about an oven is not good enough.
Bye bye GA as i agree watching someone avoid the obvious is frustrating.
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MattB,
Yes Matt i am thinking of it as trap and release but then it is not trapped is it? more like absorb and emit.
Look at it this way the energy from the sun strikes the earth, leaves the earth and goes back out to space in between all this heat/energy exchange the surface/atmosphere has a mean temperature.
If we were to believe the IPCC then we would have to accept that GHG’s do indeed trap heat and not let it go, i say this because they claim that an increase in CO2 will cause a small temp rise and we have all heard the term “trap more heat” a million times, but not only that the IPCC then go on to claim that this small increase in temp will cause a large amount of WV to be produced and this WV will trap even more heat to the point where the planets temp could increase by up to 8 degrees, this of course is ludicrous.
Why is this ludicrous? Well because nothing can actually trap and retain the heat………..think about it for a moment. Lets say the GHG’s absorb energy from the sun and trap it/keep it then they absorb/trap more energy and more energy and more energy see where i am going with this?
GHG’s absorb and emit all that energy and that energy finds its way out of the system which is why most reputable scientists say the there is no +ve feed back to increasing a GHG (CO2) or if there is it is very very small.
Look around you MattB and try to find a place on this planet where there is evidence of an accumulation of heat, it does not exist.
The GHE may exist in one form or another giving us a base temp if you like but it does not do this by “trapping heat” we have all the evidence we need to prove this concept in correct.
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Crakar,
If the Earth’s Atmosphere had no water vapour in it – water vapour being a powerful so-called “greenhouse gas” – then the Earth would be about 24c colder than today and frozen solid.
Please explain to us in simple terms why this phenomena occurs?
Then explain to us why “The Greenhouse Effect” is such a poor handle for this phenomena.
Thanx in advance.
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Wes,
Does my comment above clear things up? To put it more simply i am not disputing the GHE i am simply questioning the way the warmbots have abused it.
By the way i have a question, when we talk about the GHE are limited in our thinking purely in reference to IR energy or do we include the hydrologic cycle as well?
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Not an answer, Crakar.
You sound like Gillard on the 7:30 Report avoiding the question….
Please explain how the so-called Greenhouse gases keep the Earth from being a frozen snowball in space. Or maybe they don’t? You tell us…
Thanx in advance.
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Wes,
In my defence there is no question to avoid unlike Dullard.
Just to wrap this up you stated “If the Earthâs Atmosphere had no water vapour in it â water vapour being a powerful so-called âgreenhouse gasâ â then the Earth would be about 24c colder than today and frozen solid.”
You then ask me to tell you why this is not so without even knowing if i agree or disagree with you, this seems a rather strange way of debating Wes.
To enable me a better understanding of the question you posed i asked this “By the way i have a question, when we talk about the GHE are limited in our thinking purely in reference to IR energy or do we include the hydrologic cycle as well?”
In other words do you include the hydrologic cycle as a contributer to the 24C or have only calculated the IR absoption effect?
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My apologies, Crakar. I should have let it go at that. We have no argument here.
I wanted to see if you can actually explain the greenhouse effect in your own words. It seems to me that if you want to expose how the Warmists abuse the Greenhouse Effect, first you should establish what you think the authentic definition of the Greenhouse Effect is. Whatever…
If you want to talk about the various uses and abuses of Greenhouse Effect meme, acknowledging that it’s a useful metaphor for a complex set of physical phenomena observed in nature, I’m cool with that. Enjoy.
I’m satisfied you don’t wish to step forward to defend Kevin Moore’s daft claims here and here, that the Greenhouse Effect is nonsense, that Greenhouse Gases don’t exist.
My worry is that someone new to the debate might get the daft impression it’s necessary to discredit the Greenhouse Effect in order to show AGW isn’t a useful description of modern climate, when nothing could be further from the truth.
*
PS, There’s an error in my post you quoted…. It seems the Earth would be more like 32c cooler than today without the Greenhouse Effect, not 24c.
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No need to apologise Wes.
My original point to GA was that nothing can trap heat………….lets suppose it could the Earth would have boiled dry millions of years ago, energy in equals energy out which is why Trenberth invoked the pipeline theory, once he realised there was no pipeline he then invoked the Marianas Trench theory.
Yes Wes without GHG’s it would be a lot colder than it is but GHG’s do not trap heat nothing can, imagine having a thermos, filling it with boiling water and put it in the cupboard. Come back in ten years and teh water is still boiling now thats trapped heat.
The warbots abuse the science every chance they get and this is just another example of it.
Cheers
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Not to be argumentative, Crakar, but you really need to show that there are well-informed Warmists out there who believe that. Otherwise, you’re just misrepresenting the Warmist argument to set up a strawman to knock down.
It’s the same logical fallacy as the old Warmist chestnut, “Skeptics deny climate change…blah, blah, blah…” Well, sorry, no skeptics deny that the climate changes. That’s a mischaracterisation of what the debate is about. It’s just propaganda. It doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and is useless in a rational debate.
Likewise, the Warmist argument isn’t that the fundamental laws of thermodynamics must be violated to support the AGW hypothesis. That’s a strawman argument that only appeals to an intensely partisan choir on our side of the aisle. It’s useless as a rhetorical device to win debates, influence enemies or make friends, because Warmists will simply point out that they’re staunch believers in the accepted laws of physics and their position doesn’t require thermodynamic principles to be violated in any way that we can quantify today. And they’d be right.
The modern climate debate lies with the behaviour of very complex meta-systems. Questions such as whether water vapour feedback is positive or negative are based more upon system analysis because our science isn’t advanced enough to model up from the first principles of physics into complete weather systems then on to global climate spanning centuries.
Instead of drawing false distinctions between the Warmist and Skeptical position, it would be better to isolate what both side roughly agree upon and then proceed to debate the real points of contention.
This would have two positive effects. First, it allows both sides to acknowledge that we hold some basic concepts in common. Both sides understand the physics of the Greenhouse Effect and accept it. Both sides understand the logarithmic effect of CO2 and accept it. Both sides agree that the planet has warmed since the LIA…. Both side agree on the fundamental laws of thermodynamics…. We can put these topics aside then turn to our true differences.
Secondly, by taking strawmen arguments off the table we deny the Warmists the opportunity to claim that they’ve been misrepresented and then attempt to distract the topic of the debate from their real weaknesses — such as where is the bloody tropospheric hotspot — to useless digressions into basic thermodynamic theory, which in fact is not in dispute.
Those who are losing a debate have the most to gain by obfuscating their true weaknesses. We shouldn’t supply them with the ammunition to do so.
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Wes,
This is from your post 20.3
âGreenhouse gases are primarily water vapour, carbon dioxide and ozone. Greenhouse gases are mostly transparent to incoming solar radiation, but absorb outgoing long wavelength radiation. The absorbed energy is then transferred to cooler molecules or radiated at longer wavelengths than the energy previously absorbed. This process makes the Earth warmer than it otherwise would be without the greenhouse gases (but with the atmosphere and clouds) by about 33 degrees Celsius.
Water vapour and clouds together account for over 70% of the total current greenhouse effect. However, in terms of changes to the greenhouse effect due to human activities, water vapour is generally considered a feedback and not a forcing agent. Computer simulations show the a uniform 2.8% change in water vapour has the same effect as a 100% change in CO2 concentration. (See the water vapour feedback section for further information.)
Optical depth is a measure how transparent the atmosphere is to longwave radiation. More greenhouse gases reduce the transparency of the atmosphere to longwave radiation from the surface.
I dont see anything wrong with this so i suggest we are in agreement with each other, a couple of key points to note. Firstly 70% of the GHE is in fact produced by the hydrologic cycle and not through far infra red absroption, am i reading this right?
Secondly you will note that at no time did the author suggest heat is trapped which is the point i was trying to get across to GA and Mark D. The energy or heat if you like is absorbed and then re emitted, nothing is stored, nothing is trapped, this energy is eventually released to space.
If the sun turned off tomorrow we would freeze to death very very quickly, there is no stored or trapped heat to keep us warm so in the end it does not matter how much CO2 there is heat cannot accumulate somewhere.
Cheers
crakar24
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Strawman argument!!!!!
Mark D and Gee would strongly reject your characterisation of their position.
It’s all matter of semantics.
A clever bloke like you surely took a few courses in physics and chemistry while at university, so you know that the so-called Greenhouse Effect can only be described precisely in conjunction with the language of mathematics.
So when someone describes water vapour’s ability to “trap” heat in the atmosphere, true, that’s misleading if you take the language literally. But the language of thermodynamics is not English or Arabic.
Your argument seems daftly literal to me. And totally misses the point.
Describe the greenhouse effect in 25 words in a comment. Now describe it in 250 words on a blog. Now describe it in 2500 word essay for the general public. Describe it in 4,000 words accompanied by the mathematics for science-degree undergraduates. Now describe it in a scientific monograph.
If I text-message my partner… “Hon, trapped at office by meetings.” Would my partner protest, “…but that is impossible. You can’t stay at the office forever. No one can actually be TRAPPED at the office, the doors are open. Call security if you’re TRAPPED… WTF are you talking about?” Obviously, the fact that I’m trapped at the office bouncing between meetings doesn’t mean I’ll never leave the building.
What you are arguing about is essentially semantic style as an attempt to define tribal differences. And Us versus Them thing. The “other” are the idiots who literally believe molecules trap and store heat for ages. Right? We’re superior because we know that’s not true. Never mind that so do “they”, let’s pretend that their stupid. That’s the game your playing.
When you say your style is more accurate than someone who used the word trapped. I hear you say “fashionable,” because both styles are utterly inept compared to the mathematical description of what is going on.
The same with your objection to the word “store.” Surely, if solar energy is being absorbed as it tries to escape to space and remitted back towards the surface this could be characterised as a kind of short-term “storage?”
Our verbiage is a most imprecise way to describe what can only be done fully with equations and gets more imprecise as the number of words we use shrink to accommodate to whatever medium format we are expressing ourselves in.
*
Twitter me your definition of the Greenhouse effect…
Now I take that definition and use it to show you clearly don’t grasp the physics involved because you used short-hand metaphors like trapped and stored to describe a complex phenomena. Is that fair dinkum?
I have no doubt that we could improve our style of talking about the Greenhouse Effect (itself an utterly imprecise metaphor), but do you, Crakar24, really have the background in physics as well as in English to be an arbiter of what amounts to the fine art of illustrating natural phenomena for lay public consumption?
Me thinks not.
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I think we have said enough now Wes, lets agree to agree and leave it at that
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Crackar24, you and I may have differences in the geopolitical realm but I am not a “warmbot”. Wes is counseling you (us)on not giving the AGW opponent something to use against yourself (ourselves):
Wise words.
As for my “official” stance on climate I think you’ll find we may agree:
I think I have a pretty solid practical understanding of thermodynamics and the principles of how insulators work to resist or impede heat movement. Arguing about
“trapped”stored heat when there are ample examples of“trapping heat”storing heat by the use of insulation materials in everyday life, simply gives our opposition something to use against us. I’ll offer, though, that the resulting exchange between Wes and you has created some great reference material (thank you both).Gee Aye, is IMHO the resident warmist “most likely to be converted”. Besides that I mostly like his/her sense of humor.
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Mark D,
I am well aware of your position in regards to this debate so rest assured i do not consider you a warmbot or any variant of.
Not sure about Wes, he debates you when you dont agree and when you do he makes assumptions that you dont, to be honest i dont read his comments very carefully anymore especially the ones directed towards me. I find it easier to politely ignore rather than engage.
True there are some good examples of insulators, BobC has recently mentioned a good one i could mention a few about electrical insulators but unfortunetly sometimes analogies dont make good examples and i believe this is a good case to show this.
If we have 1 watt of energy strike the earth and we have 1 watt leave the earth (space) then we have no trapped/stored energy agreed? Now this process would take less than a pico second with no atmosphere i would assume and i would also assume it would be very cold.
If we have an atmosphere it is possible that our 1 watt of energy strikes the earth and then leaves again but not before it bounces around for a while (we are still talking about < 1 second in duration i believe) but this slight delay gives us a temperature (This is Wes's GHE i do believe or am i mistaken) but in the end our one watt leaves earth to space.
So this is the way it has been for many years according to *the* warmbots but then man started pumping out CO2 and this changed everything. Suddenly this extra CO2 has caused an accumulation of heat, the planet is warming but how?
We all agree that CO2 does not have the ability to trap/store/capture/whatever heat so what is the physical process that has changed where we are suddenly trapping/accumulating heat in our atmosphere, why has this never happened before?
Imagine ten thousand years ago, we had GHG's that absorb IR and then emit why did these gases not steadily accumulate heat to the point when the oceans where suspended above our heads? Once again what is the physical process that has changed in recent times that will cause the planet to warm by at least 4/5 degrees in 100 years.
What is so special about todays CO2? I put it to you that there is nothing special about it the physical processes have not changed the planet cannot suddenly accumulate additional heat.
Yes some may say the delay in the one watt leaving the planet is longer therefore the temp will rise, but surely the increase in delay is miniscule, in fact so small that no temp increase could ever be detected.
So i ask for the last time what is teh physical process that goes on that enables the additional CO2 to accumulate more heat?
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Thanks Wes, you took the time to pretty much say what I would have liked to have written if I could write that well. I don’t want to be your grasshopper though.
Craker. I never doubted that you have an understanding of how GHGs act, but I still am yet to see evidence that anyone has ever claimed that “trapping”, under your definition, is in any way connected with climate/physics/anything. No one says this or thinks this and it is not a part of any model or theory. This is the straw man you don’t need.
Mark D. take a step back there boy. Firstly I am not a warmist to begin with and never even went through a phase of being one. Any evidence to suggest I am?
I am feeling a bit vulnerable as it is now autumn; I hope that none of you are frugivores.
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GA i did not include links for fear of being modded.
From the Union of concerned scientists
There are many heat-trapping gases (from methane to water vapor), but CO2 puts us at the greatest risk of irreversible changes if it continues to accumulate unabated in the atmosphere.
Forbes.com
However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by …
Wiki answers
Q, Does carbon dioxide trap heat?
A, Yes but so does everything else. Water Vapor (H2O) traps heat the most because there is so much more of it than CO2.
I wanted to include the web address for this one from http://www.epa.gov/methane/ they state
Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas that remains in the atmosphere for approximately 9-15 years. Methane is over 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) over a 100-year period and is emitted from a variety of natural and human-influenced sources.
http://science.nasa.gov/missions/oco/
Scientific studies indicate that CO2 is one of several gases that trap heat near the surface of the Earth. Gases such as CO2 that trap heat in the atmosphere are known as greenhouse gases….
Do i need to go on?
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oh here is another from http://globalwarming.house.gov/issues/globalwarming?id=0002
The science of global warming is not new. In 1859, British scientist John Tyndall discovered that carbon dioxide (CO2) can trap heat
Global warming refers to the global temperature rise and subsequent impacts from the increase of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from human activities, primarily the combustion of fossil fuels
It gets better
Just like the glass of a greenhouse traps warm air inside, certain gases in the atmosphere trap heat that would otherwise escape into space. The effect is not limited to Earth. Much of what we know about the greenhouse effect comes from observation of our planetary neighbors, Venus and Mars. The atmosphere of Mars has such a low concentration of heat-trapping gases that it is in a perpetual deep freeze, while Venus has so much, its surface temperatures is hot enough to melt lead! As we rapidly enhance the greenhouse effect on Earth by adding heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, we are turning up Earthâs thermostat to dangerous levels.
This site is riddled with *heat trapping* statements
Want anymore GA?
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You will like this site GA, we have the usual bullshit about heat trapping gases but have a look at this statement
Like all religious leaders they can perform miracles but they cannot handle money.
http://enviroglimpses.org/id11.html
“Does carbon dioxide trap heat from the sun, creating the greenhouse effect, as it is called? (For those unfamiliar with the concept, it is the same thing that happens to the inside of your car in summer when you leave the windows rolled up. The heat waves pass through the glass, but the heat cannot get out of the car. As a result, the interior of the car is unbearably hot.) In other words, CO2 acts as a blanket, covering the earth, and trapping an ever increasing amount of heat waves coming to earth from the sun.
If carbon dioxide (CO2) does in fact trap heat arriving to the earth from the sun, then the more CO2 there is the more heat will be trapped. That being the case, it should be relatively easy to estimate how many vehicles there are in the world, how much CO2 they produce, and to factor in the emissions from businesses/factories, and power stations, most of which burn fossil fuels to produce electricity.”
What the cult leader fails to explain is why the heat trapping gases before the IR had stopped trapping heat and had in fact peaked in their heat trapping abilities and could not trap anymore so the temp stayed as flat as a pancake for many years until we added fresh new heat trapping gases.
Does anyone seriously believe this shit apart from GA?
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A heading from http://www.skepticalscience.com/empirical-evidence-for-global-warming.htm reads CO2 traps heat
the next heading reads
The planet is accumulating heat
I think by now this statement by you GA
is crap.
Gullible fools like yourself wonder into these sites and read this shit so a lot of warmbots actually believe Carbon
dioxideis this invisiblemoleculeatompollution that actually traps heat.00
Craker… that is a long list of occurrences of the word trapped but there is no evidence in any of them that suggests that the authors defined trapped as you have characterised them to define it.
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Last comment to highlight your sillyness GA, here is a link to a story from Germany
http://notrickszone.com/2012/04/17/max-planck-institute-director-admits-physical-causes-unclear-models-inconsistent-with-observations/
Original in German for those inclined
http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/wissenschafts-dossiers/tid-25498/neuer-bericht-sorgt-fuer-kontroverse-erderwaermung-eine-frage-der-ansicht-modellsimulationen-decken-sich-nicht-mit-der-realitaet_aid_737042.html
Bottom line is the planet is not warming….Gee i wonder why?
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Crakar,
Well displayed info here – thought it may be of interest to you.
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
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This is the sort of abuse of the Greenhouse Effect concept that so annoys and confuses Crakar:
Sadly, Karl Braganza is Manager of Climate Monitoring at the Bureau of Meteorology so he’s knows that he’s manipulating the concept of the Greenhouse Effect deceitfully as political weapon. Nothing Bragnanza said above is wrong accept that he’s dishonestly posing the Greenhouse Effect as evidence for CAGW.
Of course, the Greenhouse Effect is real. Duh. Braganza rhetoric is a malicious trap.
For if the Greenhouse Effect is evidence for Climate Change then it follows the Skeptics Deny not only Climate Change but the Greenhouse Effect! It’s a classic propaganda technique based on combining Ignoratio Elenchi with the Strawman Fallacy. It’s like saying the concept of Weather is evidence for CAGW, so anyone who doesn’t believe in CAGW denies weather exists!
The fact that when anyone here comments that the “Greenhouse Effect is BS” they get multiple thumbs-up indicates that too many of Jo’s audience have fallen for Braganza Trap and believe the Greenhouse Effect must be discredited to show that the AGW hypothesis is not an accurate description of modern climate.
This is exactly the state of mass confusion that radical evangelicals like Karl Bragnanza intend to sow. The warmists want us to be so confused about what the debate is really about we wander off into the wilderness babbling “The Greenhouse Effect is bullshit!” Then start arguing about semantics. Trapped versus Stored, blah, blah… The joke is on us. The debate gets derailed. And the warmists get off scott free on because we’re not cornering them on REAL topics of interest.
Epic fail.
* * *
The truth is that the Greenhouse Effect is part of the basic science foundation upon which both the Warmist and Skeptical arguments are built upon. It is not contested science.
Here’s a quick overview of the Greenhouse Effect written by Ken Gregory, a regular commenter around here:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Greenhouse
Here’s Wiki…
Here’s Jo Nova’s brief on the problem in her Skeptic’s Handbook. (A must download if you haven’t already)
Here’s Jo Nova again. I would suggest Crackar go to this link now and read the full article.
Don’t let the Warmists steal basic thermodynamic concepts like the Greenhouse Effect from our tool kit.
Don’t let them fool you into thinking the Greenhouse Effect is evidence for CAGW. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. The Greenhouse Effect of CO2, which is totally accepted by both sides of the debate proves that CO2 has very little warming effect left.
We could double the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to 700ppm and the warming caused would be too little to notice in the normal noise of annual weather patterns.
It’s called the logarithmic effect of CO2 and it’s one of the more relevant parts of the Greenhouse Effect to the debate.
The IPPC accepts this as fact! So now the debate is all about whether a “tipping point” has been past and whether water vapour feedback is positive, since it’s the only greenhouse gas that slows the release of solar heating from our atmosphere enough to cause any dramatic further warming.
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GA……………i was about to call you a fool but that would imply you have no knowledge i think you are simply a form of troll.
I have lost count of the amount of people that honestly believe there is carbon floating around up there trapping heat “just like in a greenhouse” now we both know this is rubbish but when NASA or the EPA say CO2 traps heat then can we really blame them for believing such folly?
Co2 reacts with IR at specific wavelengths, this causes the molecule to begin to vibrate and then one of two things happen
1, It can re emit the IR in all directions for no thermal effects or
2, Can collide with things like O2 and N2 which will cause these molecules to warm (translational KE)
You will see GA that at no time does CO2 trap heat, if we increase CO2 we would expect to see an additional amount of IR small as it would be interact with CO2 and in theory this would translate to a greater warming of the O2 and N2 molecules. However it must be remembered that we began with 0.0275% of CO2 in the atmosphere and we have now only increased that to 0.039% so any additional warming will be very very small.
Everything i have mentioned above is pretty much accepted in the scientific community, where the IPCC have gone “out on a limb” is with their ideas about +ve feedbacks from water vapor. They believe this very small warming (as described above) will lead to an increase in water vapor causing what is known as the hot spot.
The hot spot does not exist but once again the people that i know that believe in fairy tales like blankets and trapping heat dont know anything about the hot spot. You see how thse people have been decieved GA. Thats the only reason why this scam has survived for so long is because of deception a deception that you plqay an active role and i am sure your are “prouder ‘n’ shit” about that.
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Wes, great analysis topped off by including the name “Braganza” Yes I am a shallow person who laughs at names.
Craker- I think fool is right. It took me ages to find 18.1.3.1 for this comment to appear here.
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Examples of distinctions between the Warmist and Skeptical positions –
“A Complete List of Things Caused by Global Warming”
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
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Greenhouse gases generated by human activity trap the Suns energy, says Hansen.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/201201306
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Despite the usage of advanced mathematics modelling is still only guesswork.
“Earths Global Energy Budget”
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/TFK_bams09.pdf
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http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/High_School_Science/Energy_in_the_Atmosphere
In the Figure shown in Wiki, 235 W/m squared of solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth of which 40 is directly radiated from Earths surface and 195 is thermal radiation into space. So according to Wiki, energy is not trapped – that it is the structure of the atmosphere that maintains and self regulates temperature while ever the Sun shines.
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This response is anything but scathing, but I think you are using the word ‘trap’ differently than many of the rest of us. I hypothesize that by ‘trap’ you mean ‘contain completely’, while I (and MarkD and wes) mean ‘store temporarily’.
There are many examples of things in the known universe (and even in my house) that can store heat temporarily. For instance, I have these gel packs called “hot and cold compresses” which I use on my ankle (the one without cartilage) when it swells up. I can put them in the microwave to heat them up, and they will stay fairly hot for 20 or 30 minutes. I can also freeze them and they will likewise stay cold for a while. They store heat temporarily by means of a phase change material.
The students at Colorado State University built a test solar-heated house back in the 1970s. It utilized a water tank in the basement that could hold about 15,000 gallons of water heated by solar panels on the roof. A week of sunshine stored enough heat in the tank to keep the house warm for over a month of sunless days in the winter. The tank was very highly insulated, so to extract heat from it you had to pump water out into a heat exchanger. Most people would characterize the tank as “trapping heat”. Obviously, with a larger tank they could have just run the panels in the summer and used the stored heat to warm the house the entire winter.
If you want to use a different definition, fine — but let’s not argue about it as if we were actually talking about different things instead of just different descriptions of the same thing.
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Brilliant!
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I have no ability to answer your question – everything I know about this is an abstraction and I cannot gel the abstraction with what my eyes see. Also I’m not going to say anything negative here. I even like your paragraphing!
I am posting to just add a complication. Your comment that CO2 is heavier than H2O (which is lighter than air) is missing the fact that the water molecules are actually loosely connected to other water moleculaes or are crystals of many – ie multiple water molecules actually makes them heavier than CO2
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Hi Tony, I shall break with my usual tradition and greatly restrain myself to give just a short three-sentence response.
Answer One: The hotspot graphs are time derivatives of temperature and represent a warming rate of a degree over a decade, so it is not suggesting an absolutely hot parcel of air is staying put at 10km.
Answer, The Second: You can’t understand the mechanism these models are predicting because the models are bogus, and you can’t see it because what they predicted didn’t happen in the politically expedient place.
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Andrew, thanks for that. I sort of expected something like that, especially your second response.
Also, what I said might give the impression that I am really looking for a reason to believe that CAGW is true, which is not the case.
What confounds me absolutely is that these people are just so damned confident that they are right. I know they are supporting each other, and have to stay on meme, but it seems (that in the recent couple of years anyway) that they are only looking for things that confirm their own beliefs, and actively attempting to ‘kill off’ anything that goes against those beliefs, sort of building an argument to fit what they believe.
I know (well, with some degree of certainty anyway) my own (perceived) field of expertise, but even now, I’m still learning new things, and on a couple off occasions, I even get things wrong in the explanation, and as you may expect, they get pounced upon, so that’s why I always try to be so careful in explaining my own area of knowledge. I even get flamed for the way I do explain things, but hey, I can live with that.
It seems to me that with respect to this hot spot thing, the intent is to distract people by having the perceived opposition (us skeptical people) arguing about something that is peripheral, and if they spend time arguing about that, then the warmists can concentrate on their main game, doing everything they can to keep hold of the money they are making from all this, and to ensure even more of it.
That’s not to say the debate here is not the right thing to do, because as is plainly obvious, we ALL learn something to add to our own knowledge base.
Tony.
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My restraint was not meant to imply any sort of response to your attitude but rather had everything to do with my frequent habit of waffling in minute detail on things which could be said briefly. I was trying to turn over a new leaf.
Yeah, we’re pretty much all amateurs here. The definition of amateur is someone who does work without being paid to do it and carries no connotation of poor quality. Well, I’m still waiting for my cheque from Big Oil, heheh.
I should hit up Big Coal and Big Forestry for a fee while I’m about it. đ
I too have much to learn, and there’s plenty I have to accept on faith because I’ll never understand some the diagnostic techniques being used. If I can learn enough to know the difference between plausible and impossible, that’s good enough for me. Let the lab coats sort out the rest.
The amount of debate that happens here is quite frankly too much for me to follow. It’s a good thing.
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Andrew,
Speak for yourself, mate…. I’m no amateur, but a well-compensated shill for the SFTC.
That’d be the Single Flush Toilet Cartel for all you amateur anti-Greens out there.
Our motto is “Yellow flush Once. Brown flush Twice!”
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Wes,
nice analogy.
Didn’t that happen just last Friday?
Tony.
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Tony, thunderstorms rise much higher than 10KM and swamp any pretense at a hot spot by dumping heat to space and dumping cold water on the planet. This is the normal tropic thermostat. This 10KM hot spot had a snowballs chance in hell of ever happening.
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Wayne,
A friend spent some years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) here in Boulder modeling thunderstorms. (The goal was to understand their internal dynamics, not prediction — this used to be the goal of climate models also, in the distant past.) He once told me that if thunderstorm activity increased by 3%, that would negate all the warming the IPCC attributes to a doubling of CO2.
Thunderstorm activity is not modeled from first principles in GCMs, but is just entered as a parameter — they guess how it will change with changing climate. Don’t make any bets on their being right.
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Also, Andrew, thanks for pointing out another thing I have learned from this.
Hot Spot.
Note how I was suckered into believing that this might have meant a parcel of hot (whatever) when in actuality it was an (alleged) area not being hot wrt temperature, but a localised area where these GHGs were gathering together over time. (eg hot spot, like a new hot spot (popular) disco as opposed to a hot (temperature) disco)
Note also how this perception of hot (temp) is accentuated with the overlaying of temperature images to give the impression of hot, as in temperature.
It seems I fell right in, but can you see now how the average person has, in a way, been manipulated to believe what they want you to believe.
See how you learn stuff when you ask what are perceived as stupid questions.
Tony.
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Tony,
I couldn’t figure that out either. Scientists can be like lawyers it seems in their deceptive useage of words.
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Tony,
You need to look up “diffusion” and “diffusivity” ie, the tendancy of like gases to attempt to maintain equal concentrations of the separate gases throughout a gas (think of cordial in water, coffee in wate, etc). There needs to be a signifcant difference in molecular weights to overcome this diffusivity. In a turbulent atmosphere, its is most likely that the concentration of like gases is fairly similar thoughout the globe. This DOES NOT mean they will be exactly the same, there should normally be a higher concentration around sources, but the diffusivity of CO2 in air is very high, so the concentration tend to level out pretty quickly as you get away from the source. The convection and turbulance in the atmosphere and the diffusivity of CO2 in said atmosphere, means that it can generally be termed “well mixed”, so long as you don’t make the wrong assumption that this means the concentration of CO2 is the same everywhere, it probably varies by +/- 50 or so ppm on the large scale from data I have seen. (much more at a local scale)
Interestingly, a recent study, (can’t remember where from) showed that CO2 levels are NOT highest in developed countries. (I can’t remember the details at all, sorry)
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What people who believe in the greenhouse effect are in effect saying is.. since CO2 makes up a tiny trace part of the atmosphere, but this is enough to trap heat..
… in effect, the air traps itself… sorry, but that is BS !!!
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Tony,
Without buying into Gee Aye’s crap posts, and admittedly some others, the air exiting a power station’s stack is not “superheated”, but rather at between 42 and 45 degrees C.
The escaping gases from the boiler pass through a rotary air heater where the heat is used to heat the incoming air to the furnace, cooling the escaping gases in the process.
And yes, under certain circumstances (eg cool areas) the CO2 in the surrounding areas is measured as a precaution, because it DOES (under certain circumstances) tend to accumulate near ground level regardless of what the modellers claim.
Hope that helps.
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Hey memoryvault.
I sent a message-hope it got through.
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Hi Tony,
You are right that a big mass of CO2 can fall towards the ground. You can demonstrate this by dropping dry ice into a bucket of water on a table — the cold CO2 (visible due to the condensation of water vapor it triggers in the surrounding air) flows out of the bucket and falls off of the table. (To be exact, the CO2 falls both because it has a higher molecular weight than the rest of the gases in air, and because it is cold, so is more dense because of that as well.)
While this is happening, however, the CO2 is spreading out due to molecular diffusion. It is only a matter of time before the diffusion wins and the CO2 is distributed throughout the atmosphere. The larger the volumn of CO2, the longer it takes diffusion to spread it out, so the longer it will act like a larger body.
This is not unlike observing that, if I have a blender half full of oil and I drop some water into it, the water sinks to the bottom. When I turn the blender on, at first the water is still concentrated in the bottom, but soon gets mixed into the oil throughout the volume. Once mixed, it won’t separate back out until the blender is turned off.
There are places in the Great Rift Valley in NE Africa where CO2 vents fill up depressions at night when the air is still. It can be fatal for animals (or people) to walk into these invisible pools. (It doesn’t sound like a good place to camp, either.) Diffusion alone isn’t sufficient to disperse them, since they are being continually fed by the vents (kind of like the bucket). They won’t dissipate usually until the wind comes up.
It is possible that local conditions could create something like this near a power plant, which is why (as MV notes) measurements are taken. I have also heard of fatal accidents with large accidental CO2 releases in oil fields, where it is used to stimulate older wells.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/21/newsid_3380000/3380803.stm
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Completely O/T
But what the hell is going on with the Dellingpole meeting tonight in Perth.?
Is it booked out.?
Has it been canceled.?
Do we not want anyone to go.?
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The weather balloons measure the temperature and humidity. The climate models assume relative humidity (RH) stays about constant with warming, implying increasing specific humidity(SH), creating the enhanced warming of the hot spot. If you want to know how SH (gram water vapour per kg moist air) changes at the hot spot with increasing CO2, see this graph:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/SH400TropicsVsCO2.jpg
The graph shows the annual SH in the tropics from 30 degrees North to 30 degrees South latitude at the 400 mbar pressure level (about 8 km) versus CO2 concentration from 1960 to 2011. This is in the predicted but missing tropical hot spot. The blue line shows that as CO2 increases, water vapour decreases, which is opposite to climate model predictions. The brown line shows what the SH would have been at the actual measured temperature assuming the RH was held constant at the 1960 value.
The SH best fit line has declined by 13% from 1960 to 2011. The coefficient of determination R2 is a remarkable high 0.71.
The following graph shows the annual SH in the tropics at the 400 mbar pressure level versus temperature from 1960 to 2011.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/SH400TropicsVsTemp.jpg
The climate models assume that water vapour changes only in response to a temperature change. If this were true, this graph should show a very strong correlation of increasing humidity with temperature. The graph is a phase space plot of the data points connected in time sequence. Over short time periods, especially over a season, an increase in temperature causes an increase in specific humidity. The annual data shows linear striations increasing from bottom left to top right, confirming that higher temperatures relate to higher specific humidity over short time intervals. But the overall trend is down, proving that specific humidity is responding to factors other than temperature. Water vapour SH declines with temperature at a R2 correlation of only 0.014.
We believe that the long-term specific humidity in the upper atmosphere is determined by the maximum entropy principle, not temperature. The atmosphere is able to maximize the loss of heat to space subject to the constraint of the saturation limit in the lower atmosphere by decreasing the water vapour content in the upper atmosphere in response to increasing CO2 concentrations.
The decline of tropical water vapour is consistent with the lack of warming in the upper atmosphere.
A hot spot would also cause an increase in hurricane strength, as this depends on the difference between the sea-surface and cloud-top temperatures. But the accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) is at a 30 year low, further confirming radiosonde temperature and humidity data.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/global_running_ace.jpg
See for further discussion, and Excel data file at:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Water_vapour
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Absolutely crucial point and the erroneous assumptions made by the AGW crew have turned back on them and bitten them hard. RH is not constant and I always thought this assumption that RH would stay constant as temperatures rose contradicted the clausius clapeyron principle but it doesn’t because the air has not been warming and in any event clausius clapeyron is a measure of the potential vapor pressure at a specific temperature not a measure of what SH will be present at a specific temperature. In the world of AGW these 2 different things have been conflated.
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One way that heat is tranfered –
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/98jan/climate.htm
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Hi Ken,
What an excellent compilation of the relevant facts. Great work!
A must read and bookmark for everyone wishing to learn more about the climate debate.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Water_vapour
It seems the declining RH especially at the top of the troposphere is the negative water vapour signature that one would expect from a complex system putting the brakes on warming as the system rebounds from the Little Ice Age and perhaps as a response to anthropogenic warming which might be due to other factors not related to CO2 increase, such as land use changes.
Game Over.
I would also encourage Crakar and Kevin Moore to peruse the section on the Greenhouse Effect before commenting further that it does not exist:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/Climate_Change_Science.html#Greenhouse
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careful with your comments. Kevin is pretty sharp with the old copy and paste. the lack of context makes him hard to counter.
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If so, then it may seem to some down the track that the carbon tax has been vindicated.
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The latest numbers I have seen indicate that the Pacific is cooling at the moment, has done for a few years now, but that the Atlantic is not yet. This imbalance is one of the main reasons of the early tornadoes in the alley. Not unheard of, happened all before and will all happen again.
If it was indeed melting ice then they should both be cooling unless of course cold melt water would only flow into the Pacific.
If warming was significant as claimed by the enthusiasts and still going on it does not make sense that the Pacific is cooling.
Everything points to the end of the 30 year warming cycle and we are already for a few years in the next cooling cycle, it will take a couple more years to get properly going, but it will.
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Don’t expect to get a refund from a fortune teller. EVen if their predictions were convincing.
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O/T,
Lee Rhiannon of the greens says that US troops in darwin is provoking china:
“China sees this as being about them”
Well, Ms Rhiannon, formerly of the Moscow aligned Australian Communist party, would know this, of course.
Why do the media continue to act as an arm of the green party?
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Comrade Lee…
says lots of things…
but, does anyone really listen?
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I’m sure beijing does
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Great post, and extremely relevant topic!
The reason that some “scientist” could claim that the hotspot was indeed there over the tropics was that these temperature trends where strongly changed in datasets “Raobcore” 1,3 1,4 and “Rich” versions and then the ERA-40 data was also “homogenized” to show warm spot over the tropics.
In all cases these hotspot-friendly new version all comes from university of Vienna University/Leopold Haimberger. And then later Allen and Sherwood invented a wind method allegedly pulling out hot spot data from original data not willing to show this.
Pielke/Christy and more sadly for the hotspot then showed that Allan and Sherwoods method gave wrong results.
So if you go out in “alarmist” blogs and claim that there is no hotspot you will meet the Haimberger/Allen Sherwood crap data as defense.
But these data are perhaps the most adjusted data in the whole climate debate.
As McIntyre says on these particular adjustments:
“The whole argument lies in the adjustments”…
K.R. Frank
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Sorry , off topic but this article by Christopher Booker is well worth reading
( a nice summary of how “they” play the game)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/9204223/In-the-eyes-of-Nature-warming-cant-be-natural.html
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Thanks for the link Ross. I always enjoy reading what Christopher Booker has to say.
I had to chuckle at one of the “related articles”: “Wisden tackles the game’s darker aspects.”
This article contained words such as “chaotic”, “warmer”, “global”, “gravy train”, “smoking gun”, “X-ray” and plenty of references to the “ICC”.
Mighty clever, those computers. Pity they don’t possess a real brain. Then they could throw back all the climate modelling output as garbage themselves!
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I’ve got to add that the arguments at Skeptical Science are pretty convincing. http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm
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Wow, Matt…
Is that what you call an example of 100% independent political analysis?
LOL.
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matty, do you ever think about what you read? The SC piece equates the CO2 forcing to create a THS with a 2% increase in solar forcing. This idea comes from Real Climate.
The RC equivalence between a THS from 2XCO2 and a 2% increase in TSI which is discussed here is quite simply impossible:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropical-troposphere-trends/
In turn the RC comment is based on the Hansen 1984 paper:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi?id=ha07600n
To say a THS would occur equally in signature from 2XCO2 and a 2% increase in solar forcing is astounding since increases in CO2 have any forcing effect constrained by Beers Law which produces the logarithmic decline so that there are diminishing returns in respect of extra heating for all additional CO2; how can solar forcing be so prescribed?
Well, obviously it canât and there immediately is a difference in the linearity, or lack thereof, between the 2 major forcing agents recognised by the IPCC.
The jest becomes richer when we look at solar main sequence increases in output; the sun over history increases its average energy output 4% every BILLION years; so what RC is suggesting is that 2XCO2 is equal to 500 million years of solar main sequence evolution!
Look at it this way; 341.5 W/m^2 of incident power from the Sun heats the surface to 287K (384.7 W/m^2 of radiated power) for a net gain of 384.7/341.5 = 1.1, while the IPCC, and by proxy you, claim that 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing from 2XCO2 absorption causes a 3C rise in the surface temperature. If you add 3C to 287 and convert to power, the Earthâs surface emits 401.1 W/m^2, which is an increase of 16.4 W/m^2. This means that the IPCC claim of gain, relative to power from 2XCO2 forcing, is 16.4/3.7 = 4.43, which is about 4x higher than solar forcing.
By this reckoning 2XCO2 = an 8% increase in solar energy. Sorry, that is impossible
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cohenite
Then you appear not to have read the RC article. They looked at model results showing about the same amount of tropospheric warming, and compared the differences in the stratospheric temperatures. Solar increases showed stratospheric increases in temperature, CO2 doubling showed stratospheric cooling (which is what is observed, oddly enough).
Perhaps that’s why 2X CO2 is mentioned? An exponential increase in CO2 concentration will (within the ranges we can expect to see in our atmosphere) produce a linear change in forcing, much as a linear increase in solar output would.
You’re arm-waving again – everyone is quite aware of the differences in forcings and scalings for insolation versus CO2, and you are making a lot of noise over nothing.
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KR, at last we agree! I am making “a lot of noise over nothing”, which is to say AGW!
Unfortunately, again, however, you do verbal me when you say:
2XCO2 is a total not a rate; the rate of CO2 increase is not exponential as a look at CO2 Mauna Loa data shows; the rate may have decreased slightly since a peak in 1998 but is basically linear.
Since CO2 increase is not exponential there CANNOT be any forcing from the CO2 increases; Beenstock and Reingewertz established this in their paper on cointegration; cointegration between 2 variables depends on the level of differences between the variables being similar; that is, the residuals of a linear combination of the 2 variables is stationary. That is impossible with CO2, which has to be differenced twice to become stationary, and temperature which only has to be differenced once to become stationary; this means CO2 has to increase more than at a linear increase to affect temperature.
Of course solar can affect temperature with just a linear increase because it, like temperature, only has to be differenced once. You have misunderstood the ‘difference’ between the forcing capacity of CO2 and solar; you must work for the IPCC!
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Actually, cohenite, CO2 has increased faster than exponential. And hence the CO2 forcing is greater than linear in increase.
Wrong, and quite wrong. Not to mention that any increase in GHG’s will result in a forcing, just as changes in insolation or aerosols will. Any forcing change will have an effect, large or small depending on it’s magnitude. It’s the total change in forcing that changes the stable climate average temperature, not the first or second derivative (that just affects how hard the biosphere is hit by those changes). That paper is nonsense, and you are promoting it.
None of what you have stated makes sense. Why are you pushing it?
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Beenstock is not nonsense; they said for CO2 to have a forcing affect it must increase at an exponential rate; how is that nonsense?
As for tamino the increase is increasing at a linear rate; that’s what Monckton said and tamino proved!
But assume that he is right and the rate of increasing increase is > exponential and Beenstock’s point comes into play; where is the temperature effect since about 1995 when the quadratic accelerates?
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cohenite – Took some time to look at Beenstock in more depth, and it’s even worse than I thought on first glance.
Let’s see – confusing irradiance with forcing (forgetting to scale by spherical Earth geometry, by Earth albedo, and, you know, nights), claiming that forcings are changing as a 2nd order polynomial while temperatures are changing linearly (given the noise in the record, temperature trend reversals in the 1940’s and 1970’s, not a good claim), and basically claiming that statistics trump physics (physics – wherein, contrary to B&R, given a long term change in forcings, we can expect a long term change in temperatures) – it’s quite a mess.
And, I’ll note, it doesn’t seem to have actually been published. I can only find a single citation (including one from Stockwell on vixra), and no record of it appearing anywhere. The link you provided shows “Preprint”.
Bad statistics, ignorance of physics, and an unpublished blog paper – that’s not something to take seriously.
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Ah yes: Tamino is always the one to go to when you want the data spun a particular way — not the one if you want an honest analysis. In the referenced link Tamino:
1) Shows that the rate of increase of CO2 (at Mauna Loa) does not support a linear fit. The really interesting aspect of this graph however, is not that it doesn’t fit a straight line — it is that it shows a significant reduction in rate of CO2 increase coincident with the booming 1990’s. Pointing this out doesn’t advance Tamino’s talking points, however, so he ignores it.
2) When he finally quits fooling around with linear fits and actually does a log plot (the real test of an exponential growth curve), he gets the unremarkable result that, indeed, the growth of atmospheric CO2 is exponential (~ 0.45%/year — a value that will result in a doubling in about 160 years, another result he doesn’t mention).
3) He attempts to use the log plot to argue that the increase is greater than exponential, because it doesn’t exactly fit a straight line. He neglects to mention, however, that that result is inevitable, due to the aforementioned (but not by Tamino) decrease in rate in the 1990s. He also “forgets” to place the error bars on the graph (which he did on the linear ones) as that would have made it clear that his conclusion wasn’t justified by the data.
Really KR, Tamino is a propagandist — his ‘work’ is not a suitable reference for anyone who really wants to analyze the data.
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Oh, and I forgot to note that, in his final graph, Tamino claims falsely that, because a quatratic fits the residuals from a linear fit, this proves that the increase is “faster than exponential”. Given Tamino’s knowledge of statistics, he is simply lying here — at most it shows that the increase is exponential. Then, he again claims “statistical significance” for this conclusion without exhibiting any error bars.
Typical Tamino propaganda hack job.
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BobC – Even without the mid-1990’s economic slowdowns, the log-growth CO2 slopes in the 1960-1980 period are lower than that given by the 1980-2010 endpoints. That’s a higher than exponential growth, basic math.
I would suggest, if you object to the analysis, that you ask Tamino what the error bars are, and about his significance testing. He’s certainly provided those for any number of analyses before – your “hack job” claims are simply arguments by assertion and ad hominems.
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My comment was simply an observation about THIS particular argument by Tamino. I’ve read too much of Tamino to simply assume that he left the significance tests out inadvertently — it is much more likely he left them out because they didn’t advance the point he was trying to make, which is his usual M.O.
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It could also be the detection of an incomplete cycle — a possibility you will never hear from Tamino. The climate community hasn’t had much success (scientifically that is — it is an essential tool for the alarmism) by simply projecting growth rates into the future indefinitely.
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BobC
We are talking about greater than exponential growth in atmospheric CO2 concentration, aren’t we? Not temperature? I’ve never heard the claim of an “incomplete CO2 cycle” before, and considering the 800,000 years of data, isotopic attribution, and basic economic accounting of our emissions, I would be quite surprised to hear it now.
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Well, here is a plot of some cycles of atmospheric CO2 concentration for your perusal (since you have never heard of any before).
Note that all of the cycles shown (due to the coarse resolution) would have to be deemed “incomplete” if you only had 60 years of data.
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BobC: tish boom!
KR, you are always good fun. B&R indeed has not been published and does take statistical approach to the data; to criticise them for that while similtaneously quoting effusively from tamino who does the very same thing is a tad ironic, eh?
In any event you are wrong in claiming B&R confused solar forcing with irradiance because of their failure to geometrically scale; they use the same solar data which Lean and Rind [of NASA GISS] used in 2008 and Hansen before that. So, if B&R have made this mistake then it is the same mistake NASA GISS has made!
You say B&R are:
That is NOT what they are saying; rather than me restate what B&R are doing again I’ll quote David Stockwell’s interpretation of B&R:
And this is helpful:
This comes from a post at Bart Verheggen’s blog. In fact the whole thread at Bart’s about B&R is worth reading and is here:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/
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Sorry, that link to Bart’s is here:
http://ourchangingclimate.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/global-average-temperature-increase-giss-hadcru-and-ncdc-compared/
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Once you said…
the arguments at Skeptical Science are pretty convincing.
… I hit the floor laughing and hit the reply button…
Bwaahhaahhahahhahahaha…
the arguments of Mann and Hansen are pretty convincing if you adjust the data….
the arguments of Flannery are pretty convincing if you ignore the soaking we`ve had…
the arguments of MattyB are pretty convincing if you ignore reality!!!
…having now picked myself up of the floor (dusting off elbows).
I `ll drink to that!! đ
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sorry couldn’t help myself. Even I don’t think skeptical science is very convincing on this one – the concepts are not (no matter how you spin it) something that can be tackled in the time it takes to participate in a blog discussion. My fave bit is where they say that even if there is no hot spot then we should be even more cautious as clearly we know even less about the climate than we thought.
As a science minded man I tend to think that the hotspot issue is simply an interesting science debate and there is very little to justify the JoNova site or skeptical science site POV.
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Are you on drugs matty?
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No. I can;t tell if you think I am … did I make sense or am I talking more crap than usual?
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You are apparently good at making crap sound like sense… oh, wait.
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Well, you don’t usually contradict yourself in consecutive posts:
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Not a contradiction Bob… I was being “funny”… The first was what you’df expect me to say delivered deadpan, but I couldn’t keep the smirk off my face and had to ‘fess up.
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The general principle of a joke, Matt, is that it should be surprising in some way. Failing that, you need to flag it with an emoticon.
Of course, if it is a private joke …
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post modern humour to go with my post modern science BobC.
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The hot spot has now become a sore point !
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I don’t think she let him do that…
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.
The BIG Spend begins!
Release of CEFC Expert Review Joint media release with
The Hon Greg Combet AM MP
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency
Minister for Industry and Innovation
Senator the Hon Penny Wong
Minister for Finance and Deregulation
The Hon Martin Ferguson MP
Minister for Resources and Energy
and all compliments of Wayne Swan – the sponsor of this The BIG Spend!
And the Review panel of Australia got The Big Spend! is the following:
The Big Spend Review Panel
Ms Jillian Broadbent AO
Jillian is a Member of the Board of the Reserve Bank of Australia and a Non-Executive Director of ASX Limited and Woolworths Limited. Previously, she has been on the Boards of Woodside Petroleum Ltd, Westfield Management Limited, Qantas Limited, Coca-Cola Amatil Limited, Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) and the Export Finance Insurance Corporation.
Jillian is the Chancellor of the University of Wollongong. Jillian has extensive executive experience in domestic and international banking, financial markets and risk management, principally with Bankers Trust Australia. Jillian’s 30 year banking career has given her experience in all forms of financing across the risk spectrum, from equity through to secured debt and the appropriate pricing differentials involved.
Through her public sector work, she has gained a sound understanding of the responsibility for, and the application of, public funds.
Mr David Paradice
David is the founding principal of Paradice Investment Management which has 6.5billion under management with offices in Australia and USA. He has 30 years experience in small company investing across both listed and unlisted investments. David established Paradice Investment Management in 2000 initially specialising in smaller company investing and now covers Australian large and mid-sized companies as well as Global small and mid-sized companies. From May 1994 to December 1999 David was the smaller companies fund manager at Mercantile Mutual specialising in small company research and funds management. Prior to joining Mercantile Mutual, he held the position of Small Listed and Unlisted Portfolio Manager with the NSW State Superannuation Investment and Management Corporation. Prior to this he worked as a research analyst in stock broking and before that with KPMG where he became qualified as a charted accountant.
Mr Ian Moore
In his career Ian has worked as an actuary in general insurance and superannuation with Legal and General (5 years) and in the finance industry in the government bond, derivatives, securitisation, project finance and corporate finance businesses with Bankers Trust (17 years). He was head of Bankers Trustâs corporate finance business and a member of the bankâs Credit Committee. This has given Ian a full understanding of the risk and return profiles of all the different tiers of debt and equity financing for projects and corporations.
Since the sale of Bankers Trust to Macquarie Bank Ian has had the following non-executive director roles
âąOn the Board and Audit Committee of the responsible entity of four listed companies Challenger Infrastructure Fund, Challenger Diversified Property Fund, Challenger Kenedix Japanese Property Fund the Challenger Wine Trust
âąOn the Board and Chairman of the Risk Committee of hedge fund, Artesian Capital Management. The Risk Committee was responsible for monitoring risk in both Client Portfolios and the Operating Risk in the Fund manger itself.
In addition, Ian and his wife have planted and managed a 17,000 tree cabinet timber (rainforest tree species) plantation in northern NSW. The plantation has Right to Harvest status granted by the NSW Government under the Plantations and Reafforestation Act 1999. The property is not on the electricity grid as it uses a 45 solar panel (10.575kw system), a battery bank and a back-up generator for its electricity needs.
WOW – These 3 are in charge of The BIG SPEND – probably the biggest in Australias history – more than $3 Billion each – plus wages, commissions and expenses?
The BIG Spend coming to you from your pocket!
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I have often wondered whether the illuminaries of our time….
…namely MattyB, Catamon, John Brookes and even GA.
Have they confused the G Spot with the hot spot?
Personally I believe they are one and the same!
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I had this ex girlfriend and I’m sure she didn’t have one. My mate said he found it every time. THere’s science for ya… we can’t both be right!
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Your mate found your ex girls everytime? There’s your problem, your mate was cutting your grass.
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when can we call them to question?
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When the science is finally settled but its unlikely to be settled in our generation. Hopefully, healthy minds will prevail and halt the rush to judgement in favor of insight.
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@Cohenite
âLook at it this way; 341.5 W/m^2 of incident power from the Sun heats the surface to 287Kâ.
Not so sure about this. A âradiative forcingâ (RF) of 384.7W/sq.m corresponds to a temperature increase of 287K at the Earthâs surface by my very quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, not 341.5W/sq.m. You say: âThe IPCC [] claim that 3.7 W/m^2 of incremental forcing from 2xCO2 absorption causes a 3C rise in the surface temperatureâ. Keep in mind thatâs just the forcing from CO2, not the feedbacks. Sceptics often get caught out by this. The IPCC have two equations for calculating CO2âs temperature increase at the Earthâs surface. Their first equation (the logarithmic equation produced by the HITRAN and MODTRAN computer-model codes) produces 3.7W/sq.m and the feedback-equation (assumed through flawed and meaningless paleo-climate reconstructions) amplifies that up to 16.5W/sq.m, thereby producing the 3C temperature increase at the surface.
I was reading a paper by John Cook (of Skeptical Science) a while ago and as a counterargument to the missing tropospheric hotspot John Cook states: âSo the hotspot is a result of any surface warming and is not unique to the greenhouse effectâ. Itâs true, but itâs meaningless. The IPCC have told us unequivocally that the warming over the last 50 years is anthropogenic so others causes are irrelevant. If you intend on arguing that the hotspot is due to other causes of warming and not from anthropogenic greenhouse gases then you have to disavow your belief in the CAGW-theory. I mean, seriously. Warmists canât argue that the warming we are experiencing is due to humans while at the same time telling us that the hotspot may be a result of âanyâ type of surface warming. Whatever causes the hotspot though, the problem is, there is no hotspot, which means that the models have overestimated positive feedback from water vapour and CO2. The graph in CCSP 2006 report shows that the tropopsheric hotspot does not exist and the IPCCâs models are incorrect. As Joanne Nova has pointed out ad nauseam, the graph is the result of millions of raidosonde measurements dating back to 1979. Why is the hotspot important and why do Skeptics harp on about it? Because itâs responsible for significantly amplifying CO2âs minor warming effect. The IPCC present the following (albeit probably scientifically incorrect) equation to calculate the resultant RF from CO2 increments: ÎRF = Ln(C1/C0)X5.35. Where ÎRF is the increment in radiative forcing, Ln is the natural logarithm, C1 is the final CO2 concentration, and C0 is the reference CO2 concentration. For a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 280ppmv (the assumed pre-industrial baseline) to 560ppmv we get: Ln(560/280)X5.35 = 3.7W/sq.m. By the Stefan-Boltzmann law that corresponds to a temperature increase at the surface of: (288^4 + 3.7/ 0.000000056704)^0.25 – 288 = 0.68C. But the IPCC say that a doubling of atmospheric CO2 will yield 3C of warming. Therefore the feedbacks amplify CO2âs minor warming effect by 4.5. Just thought Iâd clear that up.
On the same page John Cook also states: âHumans emit over 30 billion tons of carbon […] each yearâ. My, my, doesnât that sound a lot? However, if we take Henryâs law into account as John Cook and the IPCC never do, this figure comes down to about 0.6 gigatonnes/year. Henryâs law is a well-established physical law of chemistry and governs the solubility of gases in liquid. At a temperature if 288K (the Earthâs average surface temperature) Henryâs law sets a fixed partitioning ratio of 1:50 between atmospheric CO2 and oceanic DIC respectively (Segalstad 1998, Skirrow 1975, Revelle and Suess 1957). This partitioning ratio implies that for every tonne of CO2 that gets released into the atmosphere by humans only about 1/50th (or 2%) will remain in the atmosphere as a permanent addition and the rest (98%) will be absorbed by the oceans as so to maintain equilibrium in the partitioning ratio. The equilibration between atmospheric CO2 and oceanic DIC is about Ÿâs of a year (Jaworowski, Segalstad & Hisdal, V. 1992). Also, if for argumentâs sake, we accept the IPCCâs (AR4 2007) figures we are compelled to come to the following conclusion: 1) Total annual anthropogenic CO2 emissions = 29 gigatonnes. 2) Total annual natural CO2 emissions = 771 gigatonnes. Therefore total annual anthropogenic contribution to the atmospheric CO2-greenhouse = 3.8% (i.e. 29/771).
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Oh sorry, Cohenite. In my overzealousness I missed the following section in your post:
â(384.7 W/m^2 of radiated power)â.
You are quite correct, of course. Thatâll teach me for trying to be a smart-ass.
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Actually I believe you let them off too easy. My understanding is that while the team at RC were trying to bury the subject, there was also the paper by Santer et al 2010 (published after the Handbook?), rebutted by McKitrick, MacIntyre, and Herman 2011. The Santer et al paper moved the goal posts by claiming a score if the tropospheric increase was statistically indistinguishable from the surface trend, whereas the models say it should be larger, yes? MMH accepted the moved goalposts and showed that the argument still fails. In other words, the models predict the tropospheric trends should be larger, but in fact the data say the trends are significantly smaller by a factor of 2 to 4.
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I have a hotspot in my oven….. Perhaps that’s where the missing heat went?…;-)
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Hopefully it is only there when you have it switched on
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IF catastrophic warming is Global (meaning everywhere) then why do we have to go searching for the temperature increase?
IF catastrophic warming is Global I would expect it to show up on the unadjusted long term temperature records.
Colder in some places, warmer in others. Sounds like the planets weather to me.
And then we still have the problem of proving an association with CO2 (as distinct from correlating).
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It”s time skeptics stop towing the warmist line on CO2, that all reasonable skeptics believe it has a positive greenhouse effect. Please, there’s no empirical evidence for this. Here’s a replay of my comment here from Feb 25th:
Lindzen, aside from saying AGW is âscience in the service of politics,â and that âwarming would reduce rather than increase tropical storms,â says: âClaims⊠that manâs activity have contributed to warming are trivially true but essentially meaningless.â
Piers Corbyn, in a comment, takes it further: âObservational evidence gives the possibility that the net effect of CO2 increases on World temperatures may not be âonly trivialâ but in fact miniscule, zero, or even negative due to errors in some of the science some claim or â I would suggest â hitherto not understood feed-back and competing processesâŠâ
I say that whatever the effect of CO2, it doesnât amount to a hill of beans. Or, to put it another way, I have two main points: 1. there is nothing wrong with the climate (no h stick), and 2. CO2 has nothing, or effectively nothing, to do with it (~3 minute video busts Al Gore making the key ipcc deception about CO2): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK_WyvfcJyg
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Despite the Productivity Commission warning the government against additional subsidies and grants in the “clean energy” market, the Government is doing the exact opposite and trying to Abbott-proof the Green slush fund from future governments:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/australian-economy-leads-the-world-20120418-1x6ac.html
This is right in line with Dellingpole’s thesis that the left seeks to manipulate the legal and political systems to enshrine their philsophy.
Pretty ballsy of the PM to be visiting WA at the same time she is telling the CGC to screw us on the GST distribution mechanism.
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The same issue covered in The Oz:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/green-loans-to-flow-before-next-federal-poll/story-e6frg6xf-1226330844353
It is almost amusing to see the intellectual pygmies of the Fed Government try to justify their “clean energy market” distorting slush fund to their detractors.
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This is actually quite serious, the fact that the current Government is trying to set in stone that level of loan funding, $10 Billion over five years, or $2 Billion a year, and then direct that to loans for renewable power plant implementation.
Can you not see that some operators will jump at this.
Similar is happening all across the Globe where this ‘lure of the carrot’ funding has been put in place. Some Companies have taken the funding produced nothing collapsed into the ether, and that money is lost, just written off. Other plants have in fact come into being, but it has now become patently obvious that they cannot do what people were told that they WOULD do, and now, they too, are falling into difficulty.
It’s the same as Funding for Climate Change. You find what is politically acceptable and the Government ensures more funding, so results are designed not to arrive at the truth, but only to insure against the original funding and ensure that there will be more.
The same with renewable power plants, and here’s two scenarios to back that up.
FIRST SCENARIO:
Pretend that an existing power plant operator has a 35 year old large scale coal fired power plant. That plant is now old technology, subject to more and longer maintenance down time, and is closer to its 50 year life expectancy, and let’s face, everybody hates them, the plant, the operators, everything about it. What they really want to do is to upgrade the plant. Newer technology, better, and smaller generators providing considerably more power. Newer technology turbines to drive the generators. Newer technology boilers to make more, and higher pressure, steam, hence smaller driving turbines. Newer critical furnaces that burn at higher temperatures more efficiently, burn the coal more completely and emit less CO2 and produce less by products from the burning, better coal crushers to pulverise the coal to finer consistencies than talc powder, better air injectors, better coal loaders. To achieve all this, they are hamstrung at every step of the way, and anyway, no one likes them. If, after a number of years they get approval, and if they do, it’s only because they have political friends (sarc off) THEY HAVE TO SPEND ALL THEIR OWN MONEY, with no assistance from anywhere, and even after all of this, everybody still hates them.
SECOND SCENARIO:
Same large scale coal fired power plant operator. Just keep that old plant struggling along going backwards, because after all, everyone hates them. They make a decision to build a renewable power plant to, er, augment their current operations. This plant will deliver tiny, boutique amounts of power, and the vast bulk of their power will still be delivered by the aging existing plant.
However, for this new renewable plant, everything will be facilitated at post haste speed, with no impediments whatsoever placed in their way. They will get a Mates rates cheap loan from the Government in (along with recent trends) as much as half the total cost of the plant, at the construction level. Then, on top of that, because the power this boutique plant provides is so expensive, the Government again (no questions asked) chucks in up to half that cost of the power in a direct subsidy back to the operator. No one cares that this renewable plant delivers very little power, on a limited basis, and will NEVER replace their aging existing large scale coal fired power plant.
CONCLUSION:
Now, you tell me which direction anybody will proceed if they want to get into the power production business, and this current Government is now seeking to enshrine this funding into ‘carved in stone’ unable to be stopped actuality.
That’s why this is so serious.
Tony.
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Tony that 10 billion is gone, let it go mate let it go.
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FYI on this issue, Santer 2008:
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An addendum, Santer 2010 House testimony, note 47, with various references included:
(internal references removed, emphasis added)
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Stratospheric cooling is the great lie of AGW; what am I saying, the whole thing is a lie.
Dr Wienstein [ex of NASA] notes this about stratospheric cooling:
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cohenite – From the data you linked:
(emphasis added)
It appears the people supplying the data (and who, presumably, have some idea how to interpret it) hold a very different opinion than your Dr. Wienstein.
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Look at the graph KR; from 1995 does it look as though there has been stratospheric cooling?
Anyone; I’m out right now and can’t do a graph of the TLS data from 1995, can someone else have a shot at it; just for KR?
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Never mind, found one:
http://processtrends.com/images/RClimate_eye_ball_vs_regression.png
That doesn’t look like cooling to me.
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Not sure where to post tips – but here is an article you may find interesting…
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/04/nasa_rocked_by_global_warming_rebellion.html#ixzz1rtr6vvUi
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http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Arctic sea ice still going strong but dont you just love the spin?
Arctic sea ice reached its annual maximum extent on March 18, after reaching an initial peak early in the month and declining briefly. Ice extent for the month as a whole was higher than in recent years, but still below average. (but still within the margin for error)
As the melt season begins, researchers look at a variety of factors that may contribute to summer ice melt. While the maximum extent occurred slightly later than average, the new ice growth is very thin and likely to melt quickly. Ice age data indicate that despite the higher extent compared to recent years, the winter sea ice continues to be dominated by younger and thinner sea ice.
Spin baby spin
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Just as a matter of interest why don’t we seem see the same level of interest in the Antarctic ice sheet.Could it be because it does not fit the global warming theme.
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rukidding,
four years or so ago now, I found a wonderful website:
Antarctic Connection – Antarctic Weather
It’s huge, but so much of it is really interesting stuff.
Right at the Home Page they have this block of text:
That very first point there, eg that unlike the Arctic, the ice here is not subject to the warming from the influence of the water that the Arctic ice is floating on.
So, as the Antarctic ice has no warming from below, and the mean temperature never approaches the zero degrees C when it may begin to melt, even in the Summer, then the ice just stays as ice.
What might melt, in Summer, a cyclical melt, is at the edges, and is already in the water.
Because the Arctic Ice DOES melt, it is more open to emotive use than the Antarctic, and when you have some areas of Continental Ice (just the ice itself) at nearly 5 Kilometres thick, then nothing will melt that.
Great site.
Tony.
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Tony,
This may be of interest to you – it’s from a warmanista stance but still interesting.
http://www.theatlantic.com/post/docs/issues/98jan/climate.htm
Keeping Europe Warm
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Thanks for that Kevin.
Somewhat related, and I know it’s fiction, but it did start me to thinking.
In my reading expansion phase in the mid 90’s, I wanted to get out of the habit of reading the same style of (fiction) novels I found I was becoming used to. Some were good, some were not. (well, in fact, most of them were)
However, (among that long list of novels) I ended up getting Clan Of The Cave Bear by Jean M Auel, and consequently, the next four novels in that series. It was set at the ending of the Ice Age, when Northern Polar Ice spread was as far South as The Mediterranean Sea, covering all of Europe. She did an enormous amount of research, so conditions in Europe were explained in almost intricate detail.
That was where I really became aware of all that melting ice which raised sea levels by huge amounts, something confirmed again in Edward Rutherfurd’s Sarum and London. I became acutely aware of (humungous) sea level rises, and from that, I was always sceptical of these current CAGW predictions of huge sea level rises.
Tony.
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“but still below average. (but still within the margin for error)”
I think you are misreading the NSIDC graphs which show it within 2 standard deviations of the mean, rather than within a margin of error.
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so to expand on that thought… it appears that this year is the 1st year in quite a few where ice extent is within 2 standard deviations of the mean ice extent, which would be very unusual if there was not a warming trend.
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Correct again, therefore logic dictates that the warming trend has stopped would you agree?
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AGW aside – no I would not agree – logic would dictate that a warming trend has stopped when the trend is no longer warming not based upon an individual year. In a warming or cooling planet there is nothing to suggest that there will not still be individual years that are a bit warmer or a bit cooler than the current “average”.
Analogy time… every year my golf game gets worse as I get older, and my handicap increases. On the rare occasion I have a good score it does not mean my general golf has improved, especially if that “good” game was still not even as good as my average games in my 20s.
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Excellent analogy Matt, thumbs up for you.
But let me pose this for you. If you were being coached by a golf professional who claimed to have a proven (settled) system, [proven since Arhennius was coached don’t you know] and that for every month of coaching you attended your score should improve by (X) strokes, with the inevitable ups and downs, but your scores didn’t improve for the last 15 years of coaching, would you question the (proven) system or would you continue to fork-out the inordinate coaching fees?
Would you continue to pay those fees if a whole bunch of people kept telling you, kept demonstrating to you that the system was a scam designed to extracate the very fees you keep forking-out?
Would you continue to pay those fees if communications from the head office of the coaching company showed that the coaches themselves were unsure about the system and that they had actively suppressed other coaching systems?
Would you continue to pay those fees if it was plain and obvious to all and sundry that the main coaches involved in the system were making a loot and basking in new found fame and fortune that coaches of other sports couldn’t have dreamt of?
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Baa interesting golf question. If over the 15 years my golf stayed the same but my playing partners all got worse (the natural process of ageing) then I may well only be staying at the same level due to the coaching. Also if the coaches were all hot young blondes…
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here is a better analogy, as co2 rises so will the temp and the arctic ice extent will decline just like Al Gore said it would.
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Correct Matt i was wrong when i said “margin of error”, this is from the same website
standard deviation
Statistical measurement of the variation in a distribution: In science, standard deviation serves as measure of the spread of the data, or how likely a data point will fall close to the mean.
Can you tell me the difference between “standard deviation” and “margin of error”?
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A margin of error describes how accurate a measurement is. standard deviation is a description of how a variable deviates around a mean. So if I had 100 men I could say that the average height was 180cm tall with a standard deviation of 10cm would mean that I think it is 66% of the men are between 170cm and 190cm (1 standard deviation), and 95% of men are between 160cm and 200cm (2 standard deviations) (I’ve not got those % spot on by the way but they are always the same – a standard deviation is exactly that – standard – hmm maybe that is only for normal distributions but will do for now).
So when you have many years of data that are more than 2 standard deviations from the long term mean you know there is something going on.
Heres a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_deviation
(I don;t think that wikipedia’s standard deviation page has been corrupted by climate scientists btw).
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OT,
http://www.wnd.com/2010/05/147617/
Global Warming not good for your health –
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Is that a cold spot I see, in the radiosonde results graph, at betw. 2 – 8 km above the Equator ?
Does that indicate the ‘warming’ , is actually having a cooling effect ?
Would that be a negative feedback then , from the equatorial clouds at least ?
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Jo,
Richard Lindzen’s recent presentation at the Houses of Parliament in London mentioned the hotspot and said that something had to be wrong with either the relevant terrestrial or satellite data, as I recall. Is this a usable excuse by the AGW alarmists that your blog post above didn’t cover?
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Anton, I guess I need to explain it better, because I did mention it in the post (and in a comment too). I should have mentioned Lindzen I guess. Yes we have emailed him.
The hot spot is about trends – the upper trop is supposed to be warming faster than the surface. But the results of 28,000,000 million weather balloons tell us that the upper trop is not warming, thus the obvious next weak point is the surface data. But it’s no fun for alarmists. Perhaps the hot spot is supposed to occur and EGad the worlds surface is just not warming as much as those thermometers near car parks are telling us. In other words, we haven’t had the right conditions to create a hot spot. The surfaec warming is exaggerated.
The only “point scoring” alarmists get from this is where people like poor Anna Rose tries to make out I am confused because Lindzen says something different to what I do. But either version is awful for alarmists. Either the models are wrong, or the world hasn’t warmed. Take your pick.
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Many thanks Jo. It’s good to see that carbon is turning into an election decider, both in Britain (where I live) and Australia (where I lived happily for 2 years in the 1980s). Democracy is ill but is not dead yet.
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Joanne, you make the same point Lindzen makes when you originally wrote:
“Either the hot spot is missing because the models exaggerate wildly, or the hot spot is there but we canât see it because the world hasnât warmed as much as those thermometers-near-carparks are claiming it has.”
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I just thought this may get missed by many readers…
Above where I suggested a pic be inserted to the article I got 31 thumbs down (not that it bother me).
Lo and behold Jo Nova replies…
“Mattb â spot on, an excellent point, and Iâve (belatedly) added that pic in.”
đ
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i dont give many thumbs up matt but you just got a couple
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Once upon a time in a galaxy far far away, a little blue planet, a watery world with a benign sun, a companion moon and other fellow planets in orbit was much discussed by the supposed elite. The inhabitants they opined were destroying a pristine habitat that could never be made again, the burning of the forests for farm land and the newly mined coal for heating and cooking would pollute the skies the oceans and cause catastrophic climate change.
Thus a plot was hatched to ban coal and the use of forests for anything other than looking at. It became illegal to use farm land for farming and the use of water from rivers and lakes prohibited. The departments of climate change and sustainability with their thousands of brown shirt inspectors ensured compliance. This step toward population control did not go unnoticed.
A more sagacious group looked at the science, they concluded that climate was entirely due to outside influences and perturbations such as volcanoes and wayward intruders colliding with the planet are eventually over ridden by the basic climate. They also decided that what these wayward scientists were studying was weather. The weather is the planets response to try and reach equilibrium, continually chasing its tail to cater for outside influences and internal perturbations. The little blue watery world is an unplumbed heat pump,the sun is the input and the water is the refrigerant. Chaos prevails and thus we have weather, celestial mechanics give us sinusoidal waves of different frequencies of long and short duration that are evident in the records, thus they concluded that this evil plot must come to an end as all can be explained using real science. Coming to a theatre near you soon, 2013 I believe.
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Just a footnote to the above… there was reference to Lindzen’s presentation to the House of Commons re: data manipulation.
It does not appear that those posting are up to date with Lindzen’s apology for using the wrong data by mistake. Good that he apologised at least.
“Please accept my sincere apologies for misrepresenting NASA-GISS data…. I am making every effort to correct my error.”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/03/misrepresentation-from-lindzen/comment-page-7/#comment-230500
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Rather than filter what Lindzen allegedly did or said through the rose coloured glasses of RC why don’t we read what the man actually says himself about his ‘mistake’:
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linky thing?
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Cohers it was a direct quote from http://repealtheact.org.uk/blog/apology-from-prof-lindzen-for-howard-haydens-nasa-giss-data-interpretation-error
The “error” was used to make it seem as though the datasets were being manipulated. This is the important bit.
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Or at least the erroroneous slide has been interpreted as “the data is manipulated”
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I note he said what you quote in April, wheras the apology was in March, as was the RC article. So it is incorrect to suggest as you do that RC has somehow filtered this with rose coloured glasses.
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I like it when you talk to yourself matty.
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For sure it could help make me look a bit more sane if you’d kindly post a response to each of those:)
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Wes for the last time we are in agreement regarding the GHE, if you honestly believe we are not then i am sorry suggest you find some else to argue with.
I do not follow your logic about we all should shut up about the GHE as to not would “give them the edge” so to speak. Wes if i wish to debate/discus the GHE here i will do so for as long as Jo lets me. Do you honestly think you know all there is to know about the GHE? Seriously was? Your hubris is astounding.
By the way please refrain from offering suggestions to me in future
.
As i have no intention taking you up on it Wez.
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Crakar: Wes wants people to shut up about claiming the greenhouse effect doesn’t exist. If you agree with him then why would you want to go on about it. He doensn’t want people to not debate aspects of the greenhouse effect, he’d simply rathery they didn’t loudy proclaim it does not exist.
So just as an example – you have a post above to Mark D where you ask:
“do you agree with the following general statement made by most warbots?: âCO2 traps heat which then leads to an increase in water vapour which will lead to a temperature rise of X degreesâ (As an aside this is the same wv that will gather in the hot spot)
If you do agree with this statement then i suggest you get a bottle of co2 actually get a lot of them and fill your attic with the stuff so when you turn on your heater and warm your house all the heat will be âtrappedâ in your house forever. Oh and you ahve just discovered a replacement for the thermos flask.”
See to me that sure sounds like you don’t think that the greenhouse effect exists. The question is the X.
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MattB,
Anyone who thinks the GHE works by trapping heat just like the one in your back yard has no idea what they are talking about and is all the more reason why we should talk about it. I agree with Wes to the point that a GHE is in fact real therefore there is no reason for him to continue to question my faith in it.
As i have said before most people believe carbon acts like a blanket trapping heat so why not talk about it in the hope that some can be educated/converted from your side to mine.
Wes can want people to shut up about the GHE all he likes but i dont listen him i do what i want or at least what Jo tells me here.
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look that’s fine Crakar… if you want to set up a strawman that the AGW concept is based upon a greenhouse like what is in the backyard and then hope to win people to your side by arguing against that, well that is your right. But that’s not what I quoted, which is a comment from you that doesn;t even mention greenhouse, but is based on your nitpicky use of the word trapped.
Note earlier we discussed trap and release… the trap part is still trap…
Anyway – I don’t really want you to be successful so am quite happy if folks like you are arguing nice and loud. Can you mention at the same time your theory that a trend stops whenever a single data point is found that goes against the trend?
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No worries Matt i can do that for you but in return i would like you to explain to me how the GH worked prior to when AGW became a green fashion accessory and how it works now.
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The problem with you Matt (and many like you) is that you run around saying “co2 traps heat so we must stop using power and pay a tax, booga, booga, booga” but when you are called on it you say “oh dont be so picky when i say traps heat i dont really mean it traps heat just like when i say carbon pollution i really mean carbon dioxide vital to life on this planet”.
The reason why you would prefer to say nothing on this apart from claiming i am simply building a strawman so i can knock it down at a later date is because this is a can of worms you dont want to open.
You claim that you agree with me that GHG’s do not trap heat even though NASA and the EPA use that exact language so there is no need to discuss but when i push the point you call a pervers anti strawman defence and teh reason is because if as you state GHG’s do not trap heat then how can it accumulate in teh atmosphere? What is the physical process that does trap the heat?
These are the questions you dont want asked, these are the questions you cannot answer because your theory cannot explain it. 15 years of no warming dispite everything being in your favour and you still cling to the religious scrolls which state “if co2 goes up so must the temp”.
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http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/air-properties-d_156.html
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Look Crackar that’s all fine… whatever. But lets be clear on one thing.
When you say “Wes for the last time we are in agreement regarding the GHE”, I’m pretty sure you are wrong.
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Well of course i am wrong Matt and you of course are right, interestingly i have given you my quick and dirty explanation of the GHE but alas you have not. As always Matt your words are nothing but hollow claims and absurd statements.
Please Matt if i am wrong show me why i am wrong or stfu for forever more.
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I didn’t say you were wrong about GHGs… I said you were wrong when you think you agree with Wes. I agree with Wes on the basic science of the greenhouse effect.
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Crakar demurs…,
For the record here’s part of the reading suggestion I made to Crakar:
Here’s the link, enjoy:
http://joannenova.com.au/2011/05/why-greenhouse-gas-warming-doesnt-break-the-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
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I have never seen a greenhouse that was made out of blankets, so I will have to disagree with that analogy.
A greenhouse works by trapping air at ground level.
Its function is similar to that of animal fur in that it traps air close to the source of heat. The air gets warmed by the reflected heat from the ground, but instead of rising into the atmosphere under the influence of convection, it is trapped by the glass [or transparent plastic sheet].
To lower the temperature in a greenhouse, roof vents are opened allowing the warm air to rise naturally. Whereas animal fur regulates temperature in both directions, a greenhouse simply increases temperature.The function then of a greenhouse is to prevent convection in order to increase temperature. In an open, free flowing atmosphere there is nothing to prevent convection which means therefore that there is no greenhouse effect.
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Wes,
This is the reason why i dont bother listening to anything you rant about, here i am talking about the interactions between infra red energy and the molecular structure of a combination of atoms and how that structure resonates and all you can come up with is “if you are cold grab a blanket to trap some heat”.
Now go away Wes and leave me alone.
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Tropospheric temperature trends: history of an ongoing controversy (Thorne et al 2010)
The above studies the four decades of controversy regarding the instrumental capability and its evolution in finding the hot spot phenomena in the tropic regions.
The following considers that changes in atmospheric temperature have a particular importance in climate research because climate models consistently predict a distinctive vertical profile of trends. With increasing greenhouse gas concentrations, the surface and troposphere are consistently projected to warm, with an enhancement of that warming in the tropical upper troposphere. Hence, attempts to detect this distinct âfingerprintâ have been a focus for observational studies. The topic acquired heightened importance following the 1990 publication of an analysis of satellite data which challenged the reality of the projected tropospheric warming.
This review documents the evolution over the last four decades of understanding of tropospheric temperature trends and their likely causes. Particular focus is given to the difficulty of producing homogenized datasets, with which to derive trends, from both radiosonde and satellite observing systems, because of the many systematic changes over time. The value of multiple independent analyses is demonstrated.
Paralleling developments in observational datasets, increased computer power and improved understanding of climate forcing mechanisms have led to refined estimates of temperature trends from a wide range of climate models and a better understanding of internal variability. It is concluded that there is no reasonable evidence of a fundamental disagreement between tropospheric temperature trends from models and observations when uncertainties in both are treated comprehensively.
My conclusion is thus. Anti-CAGW proponents are on shaky ground with this single eyed focus on the hot spot. This is one of many predicted phenomenon in a global warming world. The fail begins when this elusive warming effect begins to be proven to exist. It is well known that some models exaggerate this warming effect in the very early stages of global temperature rises. Never the less evidence is mounting in favour of AGW proponents that this hot spot does indeed exist as better data acquisition confirms the various model outcomes.
Unfortunately this science paper is behind a pay wall. It does bury many false assertion made by Jo Nova and Bob Carter’s rather silly statements recently touted in the Murdoch controlled press – The Australian. Well stated else where it is simply an unbalanced mindless war on climate science.
Ross J.
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You sad sad man, where have you been these last couple of years.
JO HUNG AND QUARTERED THAT DECEPTIVE THORNE ET AL 2010 PAPER WAY BACK IN NOVEMBER 2010.
Spend a little time reading and learning before spouting mindless jibberish you silly old coot.
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that is not a nice way to address someone. Easily done when your name is Baa Humbug and his name is… his actual name. Bad form,.
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Nice is my middle name…Baa Nice Humbug…see?
I’m tired of playing nice and polite. These freaks are interfering with my life in the name of an ideology.
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download the paper from
This page
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/usdeptcommercepub/319/
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1318&context=usdeptcommercepub
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Poor Ross,
Reading Warmist propaganda is a lot like reading the Pravada in Soviet-era Moscow. You have to read between the lines.
Here’s what Ross just said translated into honest speak…
I love skepticalscience’s take on the missing hot spot. Just like Ross they all but admit it’s not there and the Warmists are stuffed, but empirical evidence just bounces off their invisible super-hero force field of dunce particles which protects their feeble paradigm in an evidence-free bubble of ignorance.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/tropospheric-hot-spot-advanced.htm
Even the faithful commenters at skeptical science can see The End is Nigh. Only it’s not the ending they thought it would be…
OUCH, that’s gotta hurt…lack of tropo hotspoto as evidence for negative water vapour feedback too????
Where’s Christ on a Tortilla when you need him most?
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What!!!!!!!!!!
You make no sense i am too busy surfing the net trying to find a design so i can build a gabled roof pergola, unless you can help me out then its good bye for now MattyB.
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Here we go Crakar,
http://www.affordablepergolas.com.au/pergola-construction-diy-videos/
Ross J
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Thanks Ross i will look at the link
Cheers
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you just looking at a basic corner post design with maybe wood slat flooring?
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Nope,
Looking at a hip joint at one end and a gable at the other, it nees to be a gable at one end because of my shed is at a higher level. With the gable end, one side can be longer (higher off the ground than the other) so i can drive my car through the carport under the gable and into my shed without hitting the roof of my car on the pergola.
That probably sounds confusing i know, Stratco have good designs but they are basic and do not supply the engineering for any changes which makes it difficult for council etc.
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pfft who tells the council?
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Google earth
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I built a shed without council approval (before I was on council). Quite innocently but they were on to it before it was 50% complete. The “retrospective” fees are pretty harsh.
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Councillor Matt,
It must have been those low-earth orbit Zionist-built satellites that dobbed you in. They’re cheap as chips nowadays, every shire’s got timeshare on one, I hear…
Crakar, be sure to insulate your minarets with tinfoil or the x-ray vision cams can see everything.
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Ah we are now witnessing the mental melt down of Wes, his usual jibber jabber rubbish has not worked so now he has to resort to slandering the jews what a wanker he is.
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Crakar,
Ge’ orge by definition is Hebrew and Greek.
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Crakar,
Ge’orge: ge’=proud, orge=wrath
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Matt Craker… regarding your problems with authority… another reason to move to Canberra. Who wants tp worry about pergolas when there are marathons to run.
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Joe Bastardi has a very good article at Real Science.
“Joe Bastardi, On Why The Last 15 Years Are Important”
http://www.real-science.com/joe-bastardi-on-why-the-last-15-years-are-important#more-60099
[ … ]So lets be clear
No trapping hot spot
Global temps leveled off and now starting down, in line with simple principles that argue for them
Global sea ice ABOVE normal, Southern hemisphere above normal. And after all the hand ringing, the arctic ice only slightly below 30 year means ( normally normal isnât any big deal, unless one remembers that forecasts are out there saying there would be none)
This all after starting to measure these objectively, at the end of the last cold cycle of the PDO.
The value of the last 15 years, and the more recent 3 is that it tests which one is right. [ … ]
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http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/climate2.htm
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The *only* measurements that exist that have found the hotspot, to my knowledge, are only windshear measurements (ignoring Sherwoodâs graph where he ingeniously colour-coded 0C as red giving the false impression of heat). Whenever I get into discussions with Warmists about the tropical tropopsheric hotspot they always bring up windshear measurements. But, as I understand, the windshear measurements are only short-term (and short-term variability is nearly always greater in magnitude than the long-term trend) and windshear is function of both lateral and horizontal pressure gradients (i.e. Coriolis Effect). How do you discern which signal is which? The only evidence of a tropical tropopsheric hotspot is derived purely from computerized models that have not been verified, replicated or in any way proven in the public domain. They are completely unexplained and unaccounted for and they have no status in real science whatsoever. They are simply artefacts of the computer-modellerâs fantasy. They are claims that have never been substantiated. As I see it, you can either believe the models or the millions of radiosondes. Interestingly, in the IPCCâs AR4-2007 report they confirm (apparently without acknowledging its significance) that satellite-measurements are not showing that the tropopshere is warming twice as fast as the surface as the models predict either. Quote from the 2007 IPCC report: âThe range (due to different data sets) of the global mean tropospheric temperature trend since 1979 is 0.12°C to 0.19°C per decade based on satellite-based estimates (Chapter 3) compared to a range of 0.16°C to 0.18°C per decade for the global surface warmingâ. Interesting, no?
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You speak as if the hotspot is our only counterargument. The counter-evidence against CAGW is abundant. From the ice-core data showing a 800-year time-lag between temperature-changes and corresponding CO2-changes, from Beckâs paper based on 90,000 historical chemical measurements showing atmospheric CO2 levels peaking at 440ppmv supported by Stomata-measurements, to Henryâs law which precludes human-CO2 from significantly accumulating in the atmosphere, to the fact there has been no statistically significant warming since 1997 according to the IPCCâs HADCRUT3 data thereby demonstrating a divergence between atmospheric CO2 and temperature. There is so much evidence against CAGW Iâm amazed that anyone can still speak up for it without dying of embarrassment.
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Chip,
There is evidence emerging from our deep past that shows in some instances that the LAG of CO2 did not exist in some Northern Hemisphere palaeoclimatology studies of warming epochs!
HADCRUT3 is now superseded as it does not take into account much of polar regional warming. It is now superseded by HADCRUT4 as being far more accurate.
Other claims of Stomata accurately measuring CO2 is fraught with error. The argument of fast carbon cycles are completely refuted by studies as recent as 2012.
We need to keep up with the best studies on climate change.
Ross J.
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That maybe so. I donât know. But the overwhelming evidence from paleoclimatology suggests that CO2 lags temperature thereby undermining the idea that it is a primary driver of global temperature. Do you think itâs fair to use a few sparse instances (which could be anomalies?) of CO2 preceding temperature and say that it is evidence of CO2 driving temperature when the preponderance of evidence clearly suggests otherwise?
Apparently the HADCRUT4 data also shows no âstatistically-significant warmingâ for 15 years. See here.
All paleoclimatological data has âerrorsâ and uncertainty. I think that’s unavoidable. But the ice-core data that the IPCC use have so many problems with them I think it would be unwise to use them as valid estimates of paleo-atmopsheric CO2 levels especially when Stomata data and direct chemical measurements both show more variability. Iâve touched upon some of the problems with the ice-core on my blog here if youâre interested in taking a peek.
Thatâs strange, because the IPCCâs own figures lead us unequivocally to the conclusion that anthropogenic CO2 can only accumulate in the atmosphere for a very short time. According to IPCC AR4 2007 natural CO2-emissons are 771 gigatonnes/year and human CO2-emissons are 29 gigatonnes/year. Therefore human-CO2 can only accumulate in the atmosphere for 3.8 years (i.e. 29/771) before being replaced by natural CO2. That seems pretty fast to me, does it not?
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That should read ‘vertical’ not lateral’.
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You would think after some of the attacks I would be running and hiding.
I further detail the Tropical Troposphere Hotspot which proponents of non-CAGW wish with a sprinkle of faith to its continued non-existence.
Let me enlighten perhaps some to the seeming lack of knowledge that the September 21, 2010: McIntyre & McKitrick (2009) didnât pass peer review but another REVISED paper by him (McKitrick et al. (2010)) did.
Panel and multivariate methods for tests of trend equivalence in climate data series â McKitrick et al. (2010) âWe explain panel and multivariate regressions for comparing trends in climate data sets. They impose minimal restrictions on the covariance matrix and can embed multiple linear comparisons, which is a convenience in applied work. We present applications comparing post-1979 modeled and observed temperature trends in the tropical lower- and mid-troposphere. Results are sensitive to the sample length. In data spanning 1979â1999, observed trends are not significantly different from zero or from model projections. In data spanning 1979â2009, the observed trends are significant in some cases but tend to differ significantly from modeled trends.â Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre, Chad Herman, Atmospheric Science Letters, Article first published online: 17 SEP 2010, DOI: 10.1002/asl.290.
I take great pains to point out that peer reviewed papers are still being released proving the hot spot indeed does exist. When noise is removed. The evidence is still pointing to limited climate modelling being correct in the context of a warming globe.
On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models versus observations â Fu et al. (2011) âIPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) AR4 (Fourth Assessment Report) GCMs (General Circulation Models) predict a tropical tropospheric warming that increases with height, reaches its maximum at ~200 hPa, and decreases to zero near the tropical tropopause. This study examines the GCM-predicted maximum warming in the tropical upper troposphere using satellite MSU (microwave sounding unit)-derived deep-layer temperatures in the tropical upper- and lower-middle troposphere for 1979â2010. While satellite MSU/AMSU observations generally support GCM results with tropical deep-layer tropospheric warming faster than surface, it is evident that the AR4 GCMs exaggerate the increase in static stability between tropical middle and upper troposphere during the last three decades.â Fu, Q., S. Manabe, and C. M. Johanson (2011), On the warming in the tropical upper troposphere: Models versus observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L15704, doi:10.1029/2011GL048101.
And in case some have not read the following:
Atmospheric temperature change detection with GPS radio occultation 1995 to 2008 â Steiner (2009)
Existing upper air records of radiosonde and operational satellite data recently showed a reconciliation of temperature trends but structural uncertainties remain. GPS radio occultation (RO) provides a new high-quality record, profiling the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere with stability and homogeneity. Here we show that climate trends are since recently detected by RO data, consistent with earliest detection times estimated by simulations. Based on a temperature change detection study using the RO record within 1995â2008 we found a significant cooling trend in the tropical lower stratosphere in February while in the upper troposphere an emerging warming trend is obscured by El Niño variability. The observed trends and warming/cooling contrast across the tropopause agree well with radiosonde data and basically with climate model simulations, the latter tentatively showing less contrast. The performance of the short RO record to date underpins its capability to become a climate benchmark record in the future.
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Aside from the different scales on the graphs, did you really just compare a graph showing values in degrees C per century to one showing degrees C per decade, and conclude that because the second one has lower numbers, the first one is all alarmist and wrong?
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“Wherefore art thou honesty?”
That means “Why are you honesty”. Doesn’t make sense.
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