JoNova
A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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Statistics
Well, I think I’ve had just about as much as I can take with The Australian Senate.
Let’s look at two cases, both featuring good old Clive Palmer and his bid to try and gain control of the Senate.
The first is in Queensland. Clive needed a high profile candidate, and he got one, and with the endless supply of Clive’s advertising dollars flooding the TV airwaves here in Queensland with his ads, he garnered enough of the vote to have his top of ticket candidate elected.
The second is in Tasmania, where Jacqui Lambie, well, where do you start. She volunteered for ALP Senator Nick Sherry, before joining the Liberal Party, only to leave saying that they were just a ‘boys club’, and that she was only there to learn about what it takes to get elected. She sold her home to help fund her run as an Independent for The Senate. Realising that she didn’t have the money like the big players did for advertising, she pestered, and pestered, and pestered big Clive to take her as his candidate. Now with the endless supply of Clive’s advertising dollars flooding the TV airwaves, she got elected ….. not as Jaqui Lambie, but as a PUP Senator.
Having now been elected, she didn’t take up her seat in The Senate until July of 2014. In November, having only lasted four Months and just a couple of sittings, she quits the PUP, and umm, decides to stay on as an Independent.
Who do you blame here? She was obviously gaming Clive just for advertising dollars to raise her profile, and Clive must share some of the blame, because surely he knew she was a loose cannon.
So, now she’s there for another five years and four Months.
The same goes for Glenn Lazarus. Another five years and four Months.
So, why have I had enough?
The base pay for an Australian Senator is $195,000. They get free travel to Canberra to and from their Home State. They get accommodation allowance while in Canberra for Senate sittings. They get other perks as well.
We’re probably paying these two people around half a million dollars a year all up for the both of them, probably more in fact, so, probably more than $3 Million all up for their six years in The Senate.
They have both said that they can no longer work with Clive. I couldn’t care less about that. Had they any principles whatsoever, then, saying that, they should just get out completely. They were elected, not as individuals, but as PUP Senators, and they should be replaced with PUP candidates from that State they have come from. Having resigned ‘on principle’, then, if they really do want to be Senators, let them run next time as Independents, and then see just how difficult it would be to get elected, having to front up their own advertising dollars.
They probably each get around a quarter of a million dollars per year all up. You tell me what they were always going to do.
I’m no supporter of the PUP, far from it, but this makes my blood boil.
I couldn’t stand Paul Keating, but hey, he never said a phrase truer than when he referred to The Senate as unrepresentative swill. It seems that some of them really are just that.
Still, I suppose we should be thankful. They get nowhere near what Leigh Sales gets for being the host of 7.30 for half an hour on four nights a week. Hang on! We’re paying her too.
Tony.
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Tony: it looks like PUP has a dog of a manager (sorry!).
He’s lost Lamb brain (probably for reasons as stated), the Brick with eyes, and don’t forget the Motorist Enthusiast, who appears to be the best of the lot. Clive is left with the PUP Senator from WA, so he’d better be nice to him or Clive will be a dog with no tail to wag.
About those expenses; did you forget about the staff they’re entitled to?.
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Tony,
If the Prime Minister had any tactical sense he’d string everything out for another two years and instead of an election call for a double dissolution. The whole colony of rats need cleaning out – both houses.
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Yes the PM would be risking a fatal MSM personal ambush if he called a DD, a cleaning out is sorely needed as the voting public only get some ineffective dysfunctional minority government with the current state of all party’s, well 2 really.
A big swing to the right is needed to offer a genuine alternative to the center-left offerings that continue to erode pride and patriotism each election, as Tony says above we’re sick and tired of paying for professionals but getting rank amateurs.
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Ms Lambie calls it a double disillusion.Wonderful!
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A double disillusion (sic)is what we need.
I am also fed up with the senate. Sometime we may reform the whole system. The founding fathers did not envision what would happen with their plan. The senators do not look after their states interests (which is their job) and they get far too long in their jobs.
A double dissolution would elect a whole new senate and flush out a lot of mess.
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Does she really or are you just referring to her already losing faith with two parties ?
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Party system stinks for the Senate.
Senators should be elected to represent their State, not their party.
I’ve had a few thoughts on that even prior to the previous feral election including a process by which one can “fix” the party bias in the sitting Senate.
A better result may be achieved for the States if just the Senators of each State met in a closed session (aka in camera) and discussed the legislation in front of them before coming to a unified conclusion; akin to a jury. Legislation only to be passed by a majority of States; not Senators.
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Better check your legal insurance
Trust me
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Here you go Tony. Your mate Clive and the DLP to the rescue. 🙂
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/the-pulse-live/politics-live-march-16-2015-20150316-1lzwcp.html
Will be interesting how the High Court rules since the Constitution doesn’t speak to this particular matter.
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Cat,
For once you posted something interesting.
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I wouldnt like to see anyone get too worked up about it though. 🙂
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/palmer-united-party-considers-legal-action-against-glenn-lazarus-20150316-1m0ah5.html
The section of the Constitution that refers to political parties in this context is pretty specific. Its arguable that if Lambie, Lazaurus or any Senator that had resigned from a party did actually vacate their seat then the party they were associated at the time of their election could appoint a replacement.
And if someone is nominated by a party and leaves that party BEFORE they take the seat then the party gets to replace them.
But the current Senators were ALL properly elected at law, and took their seats BEFORE they have split with their parties so there’s very little chance this is anything other than hot air and hyperventilation.
What i reckon will be interesting is come the next election if Big Clive loses Fairfax in the HoR. I reckon his tame Senator Wang will then resign and Clive will appoint himself to the Senate for the remainder of Wangs 6 year term. Helps Clive avoid relevance deprivation syndrome.
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Catamon
Agree with all
But “if Big Clive loses Fairfax in the HoR”
Trust me, he won’t even stand again in Fairfax to lose it
He’ll probably contest in Gold Coast if at all.
His name is MUD on the Sunshine Coast, with the sackings at the Coolum Resort, his once every two month visit for a day to his office here and his HoR attendance rate.
He represents himself, has ignored FAIRFAX totally
And with resigning from a party, it’s still the member that won the seat, not the party. IE with the senate, sometimes a 3rd place on ALP or LNP ticket will beat the Number 2. It’s a vote for the person
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Yup, thats really how the constitution was set up. Political parties are just “clubs”.
The ONLY thing that makes it even a little arguable is that section 15 recognises political parties in that it allows for them to nominate a replacement for a casual vacancy. DLP and Palmer are reading too much into that, although it will be interesting to see IF the High Court comes back with a unanimous or split verdict. If its split it will only encourage them. 🙁
Who’d a thunk it?? 🙂 Clive hasn’t really been the most effective member in the HoR has he.
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This is the second in a series of comments I plan to post on Unthreaded Weekend threads of Joanne’s blog. In my first post [thread http://joannenova.com.au/2015/03/weekend-unthreaded-69/#comments%5D, I focused on the definitions and connotations of words and phrases. I sought reader feedback regarding those definitions/connotations, and many readers responded. I thank everyone who provided feedback.
In this post I comment on an internet argument (www.rsc.org/images/CA1_tcm18-137980.doc), which I believe is representative of many AGW global warming arguments appearing on the internet. For convenience, I reprint below a portion of that argument.
“The greenhouse effect and global warming
The sun produces radiation mainly in the ultraviolet (UV), visible (vis) and infrared (IR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. When these reach the Earth, part is reflected back into space and part of it is absorbed by the Earth’s surface. The part which is absorbed heats up the Earth which in turn then radiates some of its energy out into space. The frequency at which any object emits radiation depends on its temperature. The Earth, being that much cooler than the Sun, emits energy at a lower frequency and therefore longer wavelength – in the IR region.”
[Figure 1 and Figure 2 deleted—see cited reference]
“A steady state is reached where the Earth is absorbing and radiating energy at the same rate, resulting in a fairly constant average temperature. If there were no greenhouse effect at all then the surface temperature would be about 256K or -17˚C (about the temperature of a domestic freezer) and life as we know it could not exist because water, the [sic] which is fundamental to life, would be a solid. However, the IR radiation emitted by the Earth can be absorbed by gases in the troposphere and become trapped. The radiation is then re-emitted in all directions; some back towards the Earth, which is known as the ‘greenhouse effect’. This leads to an increase in temperature and global warming, making the average surface temperature of the Earth about 286K or 13˚C. It is an essential part of keeping our planet hospitable and helps to sustain life. The gases which absorb and then re-emit IR are known as ‘greenhouse gases.’” [bold emphasis mine]
Although I might quibble with some of the wording of the first paragraph, I have no fundamental problems with that paragraph. However, I have two fundamental issues with statements appearing in the second paragraph. In this post, I’ll describe those issues.
Issue 1. In the second paragraph, the claim is made that in the absence of a “greenhouse effect,” the Earth’s surface temperature would be about 256K. Later in the paragraph, (a) the greenhouse effect is defined to be radiation emitted from troposphere greenhouse gases in the direction of the Earth, and (b) greenhouse gases are defined to be gases which absorb and re-emit IR electromagnetic energy. Using these definitions for greenhouse gases and the greenhouse effect, I believe the claim: “in the absence of a greenhouse effect, the Earth’s surface temperature would be about 256K” is equivalent to the claim: “in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases, the Earth’s surface temperature would be about 256K.”
I (and others) believe the methodology used to compute a 256K Earth surface temperature in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases is flawed. Although the cited reference does not explicitly give the methodology it uses to arrive at the 256K temperature, I believe their methodology goes something like the following. [Note: If I’m wrong and the methodology used to compute the 256K temperature is nothing like the following, I’ll be happy to admit I’m in error. Not only that, I’ll learn something in the process.]
(1) Solar energy from the sun is treated as radiation arriving from a blackbody spherical radiator having (a) the Sun’s approximate radius of 695,842,000 meters and (b) the Sun’s approximate surface temperature of 5,778K [http://www.bing.com/search?q=surface%20temperature%20of%20the%20sun&PQ=surface%20temperature%20of%20&SP=5&QS=AS&SK=AS4&sc=8-30&form=DLCBSS&pc=MDDC].
(2) Using the values from (1), the radiated solar power density at a distance of 92,975,700 miles from the Sun (the approximate distance from the Sun to the Earth) is approximately 1,366.8 watts per square meter.
(3) Treating the Earth as a sphere having a radius of 3,959 miles, the effective solar-energy-absorbing area of the Earth is approximately 1.275×10^(14) square meters.
(4) From (2) and (3) above, the radiated solar power intercepted by an Earth-like sphere at an Earth-like distance from the Sun is approximately 1.743×10^(17) watts.
(5) The Earth’s average albedo {i.e., the power ratio of (a) the electromagnetic radiation reflected by the Earth …to… (b) the electromagnetic radiation incident on the Earth is approximately 0.3 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo]}. The albedo of 0.3 is in large part due to atmospheric clouds [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo#Terrestrial_albedo].
(6) From (4) and (5) the rate the Earth absorbs solar energy is approximately 1.220×10^(14) watts.
(7) A spherical blackbody of radius 3,959 miles and temperature 253.5K will radiate energy at a rate of 1.220×10^(14) watts. Thus, if the Earth radiates like a blackbody, the Earth surface temperature at which the rate the Earth absorbs solar energy will equal the rate the Earth radiates energy is 253.5K. Conclusion, 253.5K is the temperature of the Earth in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases. [Note: The cited article says the Earth surface temperature in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases is about 256K. The difference between 256K and 253.5K likely comes from using slightly different values for the various parameters: Sun radius, Sun surface temperature, distance from Earth-to-Sun, and Earth radius.] Using a temperature of 253.5K instead of 256K increases the difference between the Earth’s measured temperature and the Earth’s temperature in the absence of greenhouse gases from 30K to 32.5K, which I believe is a closer to the more commonly stated temperature difference of 33K. However, I don’t take serious issue with the difference between 256K and 253.5K. What I do take serious issue with is the claim that the Earth’s surface temperature in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases is near 255K.
Specifically, Step (6) of the above methodology uses a value of 1.220×10^(14) watts for the rate the Earth absorbs solar energy. This rate is the product of (a) the rate (1.743×10^(17) watts) solar energy is incident at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, and (b) 0.7 (i.e., 1 minus the Earth’s average albedo of 0.3). In Step (7), the temperature of the Earth in the absence of greenhouse gases is computed by finding the blackbody Earth surface temperature that equalizes the Earth’s input/output energy rates at 1.220×10^(14) watts. The problem with this approach is that in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases, the Earth absorbs solar radiation at a rate nearer 1.743×10^(17) watts than 1.220×10^(17) watts. The Earth surface temperature that balances an input/output energy rate of 1.743×10^(17) watts is approximately 277.2K, not 256K.
The reason that in the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases the Earth absorbs solar energy at a rate of 1.743×10^(17) watts is related to the Earth’s albedo. The measured albedo of 0.3 is in large part due to atmospheric clouds. Without clouds, the albedo would be closer to 0. Clouds are only present because water vapor exists in the atmosphere. Without water vapor, there would be no clouds. But water vapor is the principal greenhouse gas. Thus, in an atmosphere devoid of all greenhouse gases, there will be no atmospheric water vapor. In an atmosphere devoid of water vapor, there will be no atmospheric clouds. In an atmosphere devoid of clouds, the Earth’s average albedo will be approximately 0. For an albedo of 0, the “energy-rate-in equals energy-rate-out” surface temperature of the Earth is 277.2K, not 253.5K or 256K.
Bottom line, to compute the value of the Earth’s surface temperature for an atmosphere devoid of greenhouse gases, I believe the commonly used methodology employs a critical parameter value (albedo of 0.3) that is appropriate for of an atmosphere containing significant amounts of water vapor (a greenhouse gas), but is inappropriate for an atmosphere devoid of greenhouse gases. If true, this is a fatal logic error. Thus, the claim that in the absence of greenhouse gases the Earth’s surface temperature would be 30K or so below the average measured temperature is at best misleading and at worst utter nonsense.
Issue 2. After arguing (incorrectly in my opinion) that atmospheric greenhouse gases produce an approximate 30K increase in the Earth surface temperature, the cited article describes the physical mechanism by which the Earth surface temperature is increased. Specifically, because greenhouse gases absorb IR radiation, some of the IR radiation from the Earth’s surface will be trapped by atmospheric greenhouse gases. The absorbed/trapped radiation will then be re-emitted by greenhouse gases in all directions including back towards the Earth. The phenomenon of re-radiating energy back to the Earth is called backradiation and leads to an increase in the rate the Earth absorbs energy, which in turn leads to an Earth surface temperature increase. In its entirety, the article calls this process the ‘greenhouse effect’.
I believe that in the minds of people who present an argument similar to the cited argument, the introduction of the concept of ‘backradiation’ is important if not critical. They want to convince people that greenhouse gases will increase the Earth surface temperature. One argument that might convince people is to show that the presence of greenhouse gases will increase the rate at which the Earth absorbs energy. If such an increase can be established, in their minds it’s a short step to argue that the increased input energy rate will produce an increased surface temperature. Using identical logic, however, it can be argued that everything else being equal if you surround an active object (i.e., an object with an internal source of thermal energy) with a greenhouse gas and leave the active object’s rate of internal energy unchanged, the active object will radiate energy some of which will be absorbed by the surrounding greenhouse gas and a portion of the absorbed energy will be ‘backradiated’ to the active object, resulting in (a) an increase to the rate thermal energy enters the active object and (b) an increase in the temperature of the active object.
In my opinion, people using the backradiation argument to establish Earth surface warming are wrong on two points. First, although increasing the rate an object absorbs energy may increase its temperature, it’s not the only way to increase the temperature. Other processes will achieve the same end. For example, simply painting the surface of a black body possessing a constant rate internal thermal energy source with a highly reflective paint will increase the surface temperature of the object.
Second, and far more important, increasing via backradiation the rate an active object absorbs thermal energy does not guarantee an increase in the active object’s temperature (more about this later).
Thus, for the purpose of establishing the plausibility of greenhouse gas induced Earth surface warming, the cited argument has some merit. After all, it’s plausible that if you introduce into the Earth’s atmosphere matter that (a) has no effect on the rate the Earth absorbs solar energy, (b) gets its energy from absorbing Earth surface radiation, and (c) radiates a portion of that absorbed energy back towards the Earth, then the rate the Earth ‘absorbs’ energy will be increased with a resulting increase in Earth’s surface temperature.
As a proof that greenhouse gas backradiation must induce Earth surface warming, the above argument is woefully adequate. It must be inadequate as a proof because as mentioned previously it’s not true. In the remainder of this post, I will describe a scenario where surrounding an active object with a greenhouse will likely result in a lower active object temperature. In my third Unthreaded Weekend post, I’ll describe some admittedly simple experiments run by Peter C, a common commenter on this blog. Those experiments support the case that greenhouse gases surrounding an active object won’t always increase the active object’s temperature.
Finally, in my fourth and last post in this series, I will present a theoretical treatment that shows that everything else being equal, backradiation to an active object where none existed before can exist simultaneously with lower, not higher, active object temperatures. Taken together, I believe these posts pretty much nullify the claim that atmospheric greenhouse gases must result in an increased Earth surface temperature. As I said in my first post, these posts don’t prove that atmospheric greenhouse gases won’t increase the Earth surface temperature; but in my opinion my posts pretty much prove that atmospheric greenhouse gases don’t have to increase Earth surface temperature.
I now analyze a specific situation involving an active object surrounded by a greenhouse gas (i.e., a heat-trapping) gas. People will say that the situation I describe below differs from the Earth/Earth-atmosphere and therefore has little or no relevance to the Earth/Earth-atmosphere. I agree that the situations are different. I disagree that the situation described below is irrelevant to the Earth/Earth-Atmosphere system. If the two situations were the same, I’d be arguing that atmospheric CO2 reduces, not increases, the Earth’s surface temperature. Since the situations are different, I don’t make the “surface cooling” argument to the Earth. However, the similarities between the Sun/Earth/Earth-Atmosphere and the situation described below are such that to me at least they raise issues that must be addressed before one can conclude that atmospheric greenhouse gases must increase Earth surface temperature.
[Note: The following discussion contains statements that probably need not be included because they are in some sense “obvious”. I include those statements to (a) make the discussion as complete as possible, and (b) avoid potential misunderstandings regarding the meanings of terms. I hope that by so doing I do not insult the reader.]
I start with definitions, a stipulation, and a hypothesis that I believe has relevance to Earth surface warming via atmospheric greenhouse gases.
Definition: A “heat-trapping gas” is any matter in gaseous form that absorbs and emits electromagnetic radiation in sub-bands of the infrared (IR) band.
Definition: Material is in “energy-rate-equilibrium” (ERE) if the rate thermal energy (heat) enters the material (and all portions thereof) is equal to the rate heat leaves the material (and all portions thereof). Since for material in ERE the rate heat enters the material equals the rate heat leaves the material, the temperature of material in ERE does not change with time.
Definition: A “heat sink” is an environment capable of absorbing heat from an object with which it is in thermal contact without a phase change or an appreciable change in temperature.
Stipulation: Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas in the temperature range from 0C to 100C is a heat-trapping gas.
Hypothesis: Everything else being equal, for material in the temperature range from 0C to 100C, if (a) a heat source injects heat into the material at a constant rate, and (b) the material is in ERE, then the temperature of the material when surrounded by a heat-trapping gas will be higher than the temperature of the material in the absence of the surrounding heat-trapping gas.
Discussion:
(1) Construct two identical vacuum thermos bottles. In its simplest form, a thermos bottle consists of (a) a chamber (i.e., an enclosed region) into which material above or below the ambient background temperature is placed with the goal of keeping the temperature of the material from reaching the ambient background temperature for as long a time interval as possible, (b) an outside wall that surrounds the chamber, and (c) a space between the chamber wall and the outside wall. In a vacuum thermos bottle, the space between the chamber wall and the outside wall is a vacuum.
(2) Into the vacuum space of one of the thermos bottles inject an amount, MCO2, of CO2 such that over the temperature range 20C to 50C the injected CO2 exists in gaseous form. Refer to the thermos bottle without the CO2 as the “vacuum thermos” and the thermos bottle with the CO2 as the “CO2 thermos.”
(3) Fill the chamber of each thermos with identical amounts of coffee.
(4) Place identical battery/resistor (V/R) circuits within the coffee of each thermos such that the battery voltage, V, is fixed but the resistor resistance, R, can be changed at will. [Note: In a V/R circuit the rate thermal energy is generated is V^2/R. Thus, for a fixed V, the rate heat is generated by a V/R circuit is inversely proportional to R.]
(5) Place both thermos bottles in a large room (heat sink) whose temperature is held constant at 20C.
(6) In the vacuum thermos, adjust the resistance of the V/R circuit until the coffee reaches an ERE temperature of 50C. Label this resistance, RVT,ERE50.
(7) Set the resistance of the V/R circuit in the CO2 thermos equal to RVT,ERE50.
(8) Wait until the coffee in the CO2 thermos reaches ERE.
(9) With the exceptions of (i) the mouth of the thermos bottle (which in theory can be made arbitrarily small) and (ii) any thermally resistant “spacers” that keep the chamber wall from making contact with the outer wall, CO2 gas completely surrounds the coffee. Thus if the hypothesis is true, the temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos will be greater than 50C—the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos.
(10) If the resistance of the CO2 thermos V/R circuit is infinite, (a) no heat will enter the coffee in the CO2 thermos, and (b) the ERE temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos will be 20C —the temperature of the room. Therefore if the hypothesis is true, for a resistance value somewhere between RVT,ERE50 and infinity the ERE temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos will be 50C. Let RCO2,ERE50 be the resistance of the CO2 thermos V/R circuit that produces in the CO2 thermos an ERE coffee temperature of 50C.
(11) Since RVT,ERE50 is less than RCO2,ERE50 is less than infinity, the rate heat enters the coffee in the CO2 thermos will be less than the rate heat enters the coffee in the vacuum thermos.
(12) Since the coffee in each thermos is in ERE, if the hypothesis is true the rate heat leaves coffee at 50C in the CO2 thermos will be less than the rate heat leaves coffee at 50C in the vacuum thermos.
(13) Repeat steps 3 through 12 for all coffee temperatures between 20C and 50C. If the hypothesis is true, the conclusion will be that for coffee at any temperature between 20C and 50C, the rate heat leaves the coffee in the CO2 thermos will be less than the rate heat leaves the coffee in the vacuum thermos.
(14) (a) Set the resistance of the V/R circuit in the vacuum thermos to RVT,ERE50 and set the resistance of the V/R circuit in the CO2 thermos to RCO2,ERE50, (b) place the thermos bottles in the heat sink at 20C, (c) wait for ERE to be established in both thermos bottles (at which time the coffee temperature in both thermos bottles will be 50C), and (d) after ERE is established in both bottles, simultaneously disconnect the battery from the resistor in both bottles.
(15) As a function of time after disconnection, monitor the temperature of the coffee in each thermos. If the hypothesis is true, because at all coffee temperatures between 20C and 50C the rate heat leaves the coffee in the CO2 thermos is less than the rate heat leaves the coffee in the vacuum thermos (see step 13), as a function of time after breaking the V/R circuits the temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos will be greater than the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos—at least until the coffee temperature in both thermos bottles stabilizes at 20C.
(16) Step 15 implies that for the above range of coffee temperatures (which corresponds to real-world coffee temperatures), the CO2 thermos outperforms the vacuum thermos—i.e., the CO2 thermos keeps the coffee hotter for a longer time interval than does the vacuum thermos.
If for some amount MCO2 of carbon dioxide it turns out that the opposite is true (i.e., the time it takes the coffee to cool in the vacuum thermos is longer than the time it takes the coffee to cool in the CO2 thermos), then either (a) the definitions are not physically possible and/or are internally inconsistent, (b) the stipulation is invalid, (c) the hypothesis is false, (d) the argument contains one or more flaws, or (e) some combination of (a), (b), (c) and (d).
Which, if any, of the immediately above a, b, c, d, or e applies?
It is my opinion that CO2 thermos bottles do not outperform vacuum thermos bottles—i.e., I believe a vacuum thermos will keep coffee hot for a longer period of time than a CO2 thermos. I say this, in part, because (a) formulating heat transfer conclusions considering only radiation while ignoring conduction/convection is fraught with peril, and (b) if CO2 thermos bottles outperformed vacuum thermos bottles for the storage of hot liquids, thermos bottle companies would manufacture CO2 thermos bottles. After all, wouldn’t the cost of filling the vacuum region of thermos bottles with CO2 gas be insignificant compared to the cost of establishing and maintaining a vacuum? If my opinion is correct, then the conclusion of step 16 is invalid; and I believe the error that leads to the invalid conclusion is a flawed hypothesis.
That is, I believe the hypothesis: “Everything else being equal, for material in the temperature range from 0C to 100C, if (a) a heat source injects heat into the material at a constant rate, and (b) the material is in ERE, then the temperature of the material when surrounded by a heat-trapping gas will be higher than the temperature of the material in the absence of the surrounding heat-trapping gas” is false. Surrounding material with a heat-trapping gas may produce increased temperatures for some scenarios, but not for all scenarios. Bottom line, if surrounding the chamber of a thermos bottle with a greenhouse gas decreases the temperature of the contents of the chamber, then isn’t it possible that surrounding the Earth with a greenhouse gas decreases the temperature of the Earth?
In my third Unthreaded Weekend post, I’ll describe an experiment run by Peter C. that supports the position that at least for one thermos bottle, filling the vacuum space with CO2 increases the cooling rate and by inference implies introducing CO2 gas into the vacuum region decreases the temperature of coffee being heated by a constant rate energy source.
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Ugh. The mixture of units makes your argument ugly. The sun and earth diameters are readily available in MSI units (metres) and orbital averages. Starting and staying with MSI means your readers do not have to check your conversions and, perhaps more to the point, there are no losses and inaccuracies created by approximate conversions.
Sun diam = 1,391,684,000 m
Earth diam = 12,742,000 m
Average diameter of Earth orbit: 149,597,870,000 m
Eccentricity of orbit: aphelion 152,100,000,000 m
perihelion: 147,100,000,000 m
Like the rest of it, though.
Thought: how about introducing a thermos using a different gas in the bottle from CO2 as a control? Say nitrogen, or methane 🙂
Compare rates of heat loss.
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You have to understand that Reed is American, hence all sorts of problems with units.
Good idea. I have thought about it bit too busy at present.
Also a bit disappointed by the response to our first paper, which does not have an internet home at present.
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Apologies:- I was a victim of a bit of digital parallax on the Thumbs there. They are so unforgiving.
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Peter,
I’m 70 years old, so not only do I have problems with units, I have problems with digits. 🙂
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Reed,
I are 76 years since others claim I was born! I do not know, I was not there!
I have problems with any expression of “IS” by others! That is now always Hummn, or I need a nap! 🙂
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Sophocles, 6:42 pm, 15 March
You’re right, a consistent set of units would have made my post less ugly–not pretty, but less ugly. Thanks for putting all distances in a common set of units.
A control experiment using a non-greenhouse gas is a good idea. Two comments. First, the hypothesis is that everything else being equal, surrounding an active object with a heat-trapping gas can result in a lower active object temperature. If true, the claim that surrounding the Earth with heat-trapping gases must result in an increased Earth surface temperature is suspect. Surrounding the Earth with heat-trapping gases may very well increase the Earth surface temperature, but if so additional arguments are required.
Second, if the hypothesis is true for the thermos bottle experiment, it can be established independent of the behavior of a non-heat-trapping gas in a similar situation. For example, suppose you performed experiments using a non-heat-trapping gas and a heat-trapping gas and observe that in both cases the temperature of the active object decreases, but the temperature of the active object decreases by a larger amount for the non-heat-trapping gas. The results prove the hypothesis. The fact that the non-heat-trapping gas produces a larger drop in active object temperature only establishes that the total rate of heat transfer is larger for the non-heat-trapping gas than the heat-trapping gas, which might be because the non-heat-trapping gas has a higher thermal conductivity.
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We Americans just never managed to switch to the same units everyone else in the world uses, it seems. There are widgets that do conversion. I try to put both units in but I don’t always remember.
10
Reed,
I agree with the comments of sophocles above!
Could you please explain to us what it is that you are trying to accomplish? If it is some scientific evidence against the validity of Climate Clown claims, we are all willing to help!
I do not wish to detract from your effort, those claims however, have nothing to do with science, and even acknowledging that the made up words have some meaning, is giving up before starting. You are dealing with a well funded organisation of the highest paid scammers on this Earth! Please admit at least that you know you are up against professionals that will not even be aware of your effort.
Your Thermos experiment is not at all like this atmosphere. Here all gas is contained by gravity, none is in a vacuum.
The Thermos surfaces are highly reflective and reduce EMR flux loss to 0.004 of what non aluminized glass would have.
Any matter within that vacuum must have both conductive and convective thermal heat transfer between the glass bottles. Any CO2 must have higher heat losses.
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Will,
Don’t give up on Reed yet. It takes quite a bit of effort to read and understand his views, but they are logical.
I agree. I have considered alternative experiments.
However Reed was concerned to demonstrate that CO2 does not “trap” heat. Compared to a vacuum it most certainly does not. It went a bit further. I will discuss when Reed gets to part 3.
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In my view nothing in climate science should be accepted ,from logical argument. Only experimental evidence will do.
It may seem self evident that a greenhouse gas in the thermos chamber will perform less well than a vaccuum. Well now it has been proved! A small but useful contribution to the debate.
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Peter,
I am not giving up on Reed. He is capable of the mathematics involved. He can certainly think! His “ERE” is fine. In 1962 that was still called “thermodynamic equilibrium”. A spontaneous stable state where all temperatures and flux are constant and return to with minor perturbations. This is the state of all parts of the atmosphere, so no heat trapping is possible.
Reed responded that his message was aimed at the common man. How naive! The 9% with experience in how to think, need no message, about CAGW!
There are still 91% brainwashed of science for the last 60 years that only wish to be entertained. These are the victims of intentional child abuse by academics! They are devoid of thinking! Example! For a constant velocity bicycle, they cannot name the part of the tire that has zero velocity with respect to the surface, but will insist that there is no such thing. For “these” correct science will have no effect.
Anything effective must clearly convince “those” that they have been deliberately defrauded by others for self political and financial gain. Such action may well be construed by government as “incitement to riot”!!! 🙂
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Will, 9:36 pm, 15 March 2015,
You asked: “Could you please explain to us what it is that you are trying to accomplish?”
I believe that many of the arguments put forth by AGW proponents, and especially their arguments aimed at convincing the common man that immediate corrective action is required, are at best weak and at worst wrong. I am trying to give the common man things to think about that might shake his/her faith in the AGW position.
I disagree that “…even acknowledging that the made up words have some meaning, is giving up before starting.”
I realize that I am up against a formidable opponent who in all likelihood will never know I exist. As noted above, my arguments are not aimed at the “professionals” of the AGW movement; they are aimed at the common man. My approach may not convince anyone, but (a) I felt I had to try, and (b) experience has taught me that repeatedly shouting “nonsense” isn’t likely to convince anyone.
As to my thermos bottle experiment being “…not at all like this atmosphere.” I mentioned that the two weren’t the same. The point I am trying to make is the claim (or at least implied claim) that because greenhouse gases surround the Earth, the Earth’s surface temperature must increase is questionable. Atmospheric greenhouse gases may in fact increase the Earth surface temperature, but the greenhouse gas argument by itself is insufficient justification.
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Well speaking as somebody who sits firmly on the median of that metric, I need to be able to visualise how things work. If you can find a way of explaining how the atmosphere works, that is as simple as describing how the cylinder and piston in a single cylinder 4-stroke engine works, then you will take the common man along with you. Talking of absorption rates, and adiabatics, and other words that, “the common man” just doesn’t understand, just ain’t gonna work.
I am happy to be a litmus test, but you gotta aim at dumb, if you want to get your ideas across to people like me.
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Rereke Whakaaro March 16, 2015 at 7:07 am
(they are aimed at the common man)
“Well speaking as somebody who sits firmly on the median of that metric, I need to be able to visualize how things work.”
Please include “kitten playing” within your knowledge. Kittens do not BS, Earthlings do BS!
“If you can find a way of explaining how the atmosphere works, that is as simple as describing how the cylinder and piston in a single cylinder 4-stroke engine works, then you will take the common man along with you.”.
Few of us serfs can understand how such an engine can ever work! Most us serfs still go to the State Fair, and again buy another set of knives that never get dull!
That gullible is the complex conjugate of earthling BS.. One cannot exist without the other.
“Talking of absorption rates, and adiabatics, and other words that, “the common man” just doesn’t understand, just ain’t gonna work.”
Very true. What may become is only, many more common man BS detectors, or massive torch and pitchfork riots!
I much prefer equipping earthlings with the same BS detector that most all critters have.
Only earthlings proudly display stupidity!
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Same as to Peter, but without the last cautionary statement trapped by JoAnne.
I am not giving up on Reed. He is capable of the mathematics involved. He can certainly think! His “ERE” is fine. In 1962 that was still called “thermodynamic equilibrium”. A spontaneous stable state where all temperatures and flux are constant and return to, upon minor perturbations. This is the state of all parts of the atmosphere, so no heat trapping is possible.
You responded that your message was aimed at the common man. How naive! The 9% with experience in how to think, need no message, about CAGW!
There are still 91% brainwashed of science for the last 60 years that only wish to be entertained. These are the victims of intentional child abuse by academics! They are devoid of thinking, only reciting from books! Example! For a constant velocity bicycle, they cannot name the part of the tire that has zero velocity with respect to the surface, but will insist that there is no such thing. For “these” correct science will have no effect.
Anything effective must clearly convince “those” that they have been deliberately defrauded by others for self political and financial gain. 🙂
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Reed 3:00pm: “It is my opinion…That is, I believe…”
This of course by inspection fails the Dr. Feynman scientific method. Reed has properly made a guess, step 1. Reed has not properly actually done step 2: computed its consequences and not at all properly done all important step 3: compare the computation to nature.
Reed – If you are interested, I (or we) can work thru some simple Feynman scientific method starting with your step(s) 1. I have a 16oz thermos (the original and in my opinion best), a 250ml lab glass hot water container (commonly known as a flask), digital & IR thermometers (your V/R circuit) and willing to spend some sporadic time this open unleaded week getting data for step 3 using material from a common hot water tap & a kitchen drawer.
You game?
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LtCusper, 12:48 am, 16 March 2015.
You’re correct when you say I haven’t properly done step (2)–compute expected numerical results. You’re also correct that “I” haven’t done step (3) compared the computational results with nature. Logically, if I haven’t computed expected results, I can’t compare them with nature. However, as I mentioned in my post, (a) I collaborated with Peter C who has performed some experiments and generated numerical results, and (b) I will describe those experiments and report those results in my next (third) post. I won’t be able to compare his experimental results with computed results, because the latter don’t exist. However, the experimental results do show that the rate of heat loss for the CO2 thermos is greater than the rate of heat loss for a vacuum thermos. As such, even if I lack computed results that can be compared against nature, haven’t I established the fact that surrounding an active object with CO2 (a heat-trapping gas) does not always result in an increased active object temperature?
There were two reasons why I haven’t computed theoretical temperature values for the thermos bottle. First, depending on the shape/construction of the thermos bottle, such computations are not simple. Second, I lack the experimental set up (a) necessary to perform such an experiment and (b) for which theoretical values can easily be computed.
In my fourth post, I will discuss a situation akin to Willis Eschenbach’s steel greenhouse [http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/17/the-steel-greenhouse/]. For that case, I do compute theoretical results. More accurately, because the theoretical treatment is again complex, I compute theoretical bounds of object temperatures. But as with the thermos bottle experiment, I lack the equipment necessary to conduct a steel greenhouse experiment that matches my theoretical treatment. Maybe you have such equipment and are willing to perform the experiment.
Yes, I am interested in experiments. I take you up on your offer to perform those experiments. I don’t know how much “help” I’ll be, but I’m willing to try. If Peter C wants to participate, I’d like to include him in the loop. In my opinion we need a better means of communication than Joanne’s Unthreaded Weekends. I suggest we use emails. To that end, I grant Joanne permission to give you my email address. In case Joanne does not read this comment, I’ll send Joanne an email requesting she forward my email address to you. I await your first email.
Finally, I have given considerable thought to the totality of your comments to my first post. I’d like to discuss those thoughts with you. Because figures and charts are involved and I don’t know how to include them in comments on Joanne’s blog, email with attached Microsoft files is a better way to go.
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Reed 4:05am: I am adverse to using e-mail, see my last couple sentences way below. Consult a good text book instead, one that uses Dr. Feynman’s scientific method & refers back to the original historical tests.
“…haven’t I established the fact that surrounding an active object (i.e., an object with an internal source of thermal energy) with CO2 (a heat-trapping gas) does not always result in an increased active object temperature?”
You have not Reed. Your specifications are unspecific, incomplete. Who knows what PeterC actually did. Your thermos has no source of internal energy; its internal energy + PE commonly known as enthalpy was fixed at the start and declined during the test period (ask Peter C.) by exchanging conserved energy with surroundings & increasing universe entropy.
Here are the tests & data I ran in the meantime. I measured the 250ml tap water in my thermos and the 250ml lab glass container with two digital thermometers starting same at 120F and my IR thermometer 122F (the field of view is a little hard to control) all to calibrate, rounded to nearest F. I left the thermos open at the top so as to place the digital thermometer and get an IR reading in still air at room temp. 70F.
One half hour later I read 110F in the thermos (IR & digital rounded the same) and 93F in the lab glass container. Full one hour later I had 108F and 83F water, again both digital and IR rounded the same. After 90 minutes, 104F (103 on IR) and 75F (73 on IR)
Thermos F… Lab glass F
120……………..120 start
110………………93 after 30 min.s
108………………83 after 60 min.s
104………………75 after 90 min.s
That was fairly easy step 3. I was practicing, not making careful notes, these are rough cut not honed. Need a step 2 reasoning. Obviously to me, the thermos industry is not pulling our legs. I know what happens but why? Astute readers will note this is a test of Newton’s law of cooling* = step 2 so you now can analytically compute the consequences & have a complete scientific method.
Get enough reasonably honed accurate data like this, plot log temperature difference on ordinate and time (in min.s) on abscissa. You will find straight line monotonic decrease according to Newton with experimental error (CI). The thermos T curve (a line) will be above the lab glass container at each time step. Now you can predict what will happen in between times if needed.
Can we say the thermos heated the water? Did the thermos exhibit heat-trapping to an informed, critical audience? No way, but hey the thermos water IS warmer than the lab glass container water at each time step.
To do this more accurately and plot simply in Excel see here:
http://educate.spsu.edu/kdavis0/Plotting_lab_data_in_a_semilog_graph_with_Excel_rev1.pdf
Do you get this Feynman scientific method procedure Reed? If so, now we can have some fun. What about testing the effect of thermos silver coating making thermos shiny inside? How? I propose grabbing some aluminum foil out of the kitchen drawer and wrapping the lab glass. Here I will stop. See if Reed and/or PeterC can pick up the scent of the scientific method in action.
Next tests, wrap a kitchen towel then wool blanket around the lab glass container with & without foil. Hmmmm….
*According to Newton’s law of cooling, the difference between the temperature of a cooling body and that of its surroundings decreases exponentially with time. As an historical aside, Newton didn’t really annunciate this as countless text books attribute. There is an interesting history of error propagation story therein. Predating but just like chain e-mail & blogs. And of course some newspapers esp. with a political bent.
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LtCusper, 9:18 am, 16 March 2015.
I watched a video [http://www.geek.com/news/richard-feynman-explains-the-scientific-method-in-1964-lecture-1488517/] of a 1964 Dr. Feynman lecture at Cornell. The video starts with Dr. Feynman asking/answering the question “How would we look for a new law?” He said the process includes three steps. First, we guess the new law. Second, we compute the consequences of the guess. Third, we compare the computational results with experiment. I believe this is the process you refer to in your comments. Not that my agreement is important; but if I were proposing a new law, I agree with everything Dr. Feynman (and you) said. However, I present a hypothesis, not a physical law. True, the hypothesis is a statement about nature, but it comes nowhere near approaching a physical law.
Dr. Feynman went on to point out that a physical law can never be proven to be correct; it can only be proven to be wrong. The same applies to hypotheses. In this case, however, proving the hypothesis to be wrong is my goal. The hypothesis is:
Everything else being equal, for material in the temperature range from 0C to 100C, if (a) a heat source injects heat into the material at a constant rate, and (b) the material is in ERE, then the temperature of the material when surrounded by a heat-trapping gas will be higher than the temperature of the material in the absence of the surrounding heat-trapping gas.
Note: Everything else being equal, a single experimental result where the ERE temperature of an active object surrounded by a heat-trapping gas is lower than the ERE temperature of the active object when not surrounded by a heat-trapping gas is, in my opinion, sufficient to prove the hypothesis false.
A legitimate question someone might ask is: How is this hypothesis relevant to the AGW discussion? The answer is: AGW proponents try to convince people that because CO2 is a heat-trapping gas and atmospheric CO2 in some sense “surrounds” the Earth’s surface, the Earth surface temperature in the presence of atmospheric CO2 gas will be higher than the Earth surface temperature in the absence of atmospheric CO2 gas. I admit that the Earth isn’t an active object (at least not to any appreciable degree), but instead gets most of its energy by absorbing radiation from the sun. In this sense, the hypothesis doesn’t directly apply to the Earth/Earth-Atmosphere system. However, AGW proponents also claim that atmospheric greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, which includes CO2, have negligible effect on the rate the Earth’s surface absorbs solar energy. If true, then as far as the hypothesis goes, I see no meaningful difference between replacing the constant rate of solar energy absorption with a constant rate internal source of energy. Obviously there are differences, e.g., the absorption of solar energy as a function of time is location dependent, whereas an internal energy source may or may not be time and location dependent. But if I can show via experiment that CO2 gas (a heat-trapping gas) surrounding an active object can lead to lower active object temperatures, which I believe proves the hypothesis is false, I may not have driven a knife into the heart of the AGW heat-trapping/temperature-increasing argument, but I’ve pierced the skin and drawn blood. In any event, I’ve given people something to think about.
As to the experiment I proposed. A little background is in order. To prove the hypothesis is false, I could, and probably should, have stopped after Step 9 of my proposed thermos bottle experiment. Because the voltage and the resistance of the V/R circuit are the same in both thermos bottles, the rates of internal energy are equal. If for any amount of CO2 gas the ERE temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos is less than the ERE temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos, for at least one case I have experimentally shown that surrounding an active object with a heat-trapping gas results in a lower active object temperature. Subject to repeatability of results and a check that the experimental apparatus functioned properly, I would have proven the hypothesis to be false.
I continued beyond Step 9 because (a) I didn’t have the means to perform the experiment, and (b) I concluded that since the average person has little if any experience with active thermos bottles, he/she would be reluctant to believe the temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos bottle would be lower than the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos bottle. In fact, based on his/her familiarity with the AGW argument, he/she might even believe the temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos bottle must be higher than the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos bottle. Given that I didn’t have the equipment to perform an experiment that ended at Step 9, I tried to think of a way to persuade, not convince, the average person that the temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos bottle would lower, not higher, than the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos bottle. The solution I came up with was to modify the experiment to have a result the average person might be more familiar with. Specifically I thought most people would agree that if CO2 thermos bottles outperformed vacuum thermos bottles, then CO2 thermos bottles would dominate the market relative to vacuum thermos bottles. Since vacuum thermos bottles are much more common that CO2 thermos bottles, I thought that if I could argue that the hypothesis implies CO2 thermos bottles outperform vacuum thermos bottles, then people would agree the hypothesis is false, or at least question the validity of the hypothesis. To that end, I extended the experiment so that what was measured was not the relative temperatures of the coffees in energy-rate-equilibrium with equal internal energy source rates, but rather the time it takes equal temperature hot coffee to cool,. It was only after putting the proposed experiment to paper that Peter C and I started communicating and collaborated on an experiment.
Bottom line, in spite of your statement to the contrary, I still believe that everything else being equal, if it can experimentally be shown that starting with equal temperatures, the temperature of hot coffee in a vacuum thermos bottle takes a longer time to reach room temperature than the temperature of hot coffee in an otherwise identical CO2 thermos bottle, then the hypothesis is proven false.
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Reed 1:08pm: “..but I’ve pierced the skin and drawn blood…I would have proven the hypothesis to be false.”
Not when you fully employ scientific method. My basic reason is the thermos CO2 filled and the lab glass container both exhibit CO2&air conduction, convection and radiation while the atmosphere at top can only radiate to deep space. The thermos experiment easily demonstrates a lot of misconceptions IMO.
“…he/she would be reluctant to believe the temperature of the coffee in the CO2 thermos bottle would be lower than the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos bottle…”
Here you have significant conduction working also. The result is not necess. intuitive, have to run the tests. In the wool blanket example, you have conduction increased but convection reduced. Need to test to see what results. This is what makes vacuum thermos better than CO2 filled, conduction spoils the effect, vacuum is better – only radiation crosses the gap. My thermos after 7 hours has still not reached ambient, it is still some 15F warmer. The conduction in the gap cooled the lab glass container to ambient after 2.5 hours.
Now experiment with aluminum foil on the lab glass container. My going in guess is the foil will be so thin and its thermal conductivity so large that it will provide little insulation in the sense usually meant – suppression of energy transfer by conduction. However, the key will be aluminum foil does provide insulation of a different sort – radiative insulation, which will bring in a discussion of emissivity in step 2. Try the step 3 foil experiment first, I just hinted step 1 guess.
“…the temperature of hot coffee in a vacuum thermos bottle takes a longer time to reach room temperature than the temperature of hot coffee in an otherwise identical CO2 thermos bottle, then the hypothesis is proven false.”
My data should confirm this result, so run the experiment on your own. However, the aluminum foil test I predict will show the hypothesis is NOT proven false. And I’ll be able to explain why in step 2 and show my statement is supported by that foil test.
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LtCusper, 2:50 pm, 16 March 2015
I gave some thought as to how my “hypothesis/proposed experiment” pertains to Dr. Feynman’s three-step scientific process. Here are those thoughts. Dr. Feynman’s first step was “Guess at a law.” My hypothesis isn’t at the level of a “law,” but it does involve describing how the world works and it can be tested. So, I believe that in the sense of Dr. Feynman’s scientific process, my hypothesis meets the conditions of Dr. Feynman’s Step 1.
Dr. Feynman’s second step was “compute the consequences of the law,” which in my case becomes compute the consequences of the hypothesis. Well, there are potentially an infinite number of consequences that can be deduced from the hypothesis, but one consequence is that for two active thermos bottle that are identical in every way except one thermos bottle possesses a vacuum space between the inner chamber and the outer wall and for the other thermos bottle this space is filled with CO2 gas, then in ERE the temperature of the material in the chamber of the CO2 thermos bottle should be higher than the temperature of the material in the vacuum thermos bottle. This consequence follows from the hypothesis because (a) CO2 gas surrounds the material in the thermos bottle chamber, and (b) the presence of the surrounding CO2 gas is the only difference between the two thermos bottles—i.e., everything else is equal. Now you might argue that because the structure(s) that keep the chamber from making contact with the outer wall must exist, CO2 gas doesn’t completely surround the material in the chamber of the CO2 thermos bottle. In principle, that argument is correct. However, if the structure that keeps the outside wall from making contact with the chamber is allowed to be curved, then I believe it is possible to design a curved connector such that the straight line from any point within the chamber to any point outside the outer wall must pass through CO2 gas. If so, then all that’s left to discuss is “what is meant by the word surround.”
As mentioned in a previous comment, I could have stopped (and probably should have stopped) with the above “consequence.” However, I elected to continue to argue that a second consequence of the hypothesis was that everything else being equal, for equal amounts of equally hot coffee placed in the chambers, the coffee in the CO2 thermos bottle would cool at a slower rate than the coffee in the vacuum thermos bottle. Maybe my development of this consequence is in error. If you see an error in that development, please let me know.
[As an aside, I see one potential error. Specifically, my analysis compared coffee temperatures at ERE conditions. Obviously, thermos bottles whose contents exhibit a decreasing temperature with time are not in ERE. If this is a fatal error to my thinking, then I have made a fatal error. I just feel that as the temperature drops, the difference between ideal ERE conditions and actual conditions won’t make a big difference to the conclusion. If you feel otherwise, please explain why.]
If there are no fatal errors in deriving the second “consequence—specificallly, that the temperature of the material in the CO2 thermos bottle will take longer to reach ambient temperature than the temperature of the material in the vacuum thermos bottle—then that consequence meets the conditions of the second step of Dr.Feynman’s three step process.
This leaves only the third step—compare the consequence with experiment. According to Dr. Feynman, if experimental results don’t agree with all valid consequences, then the “law” is wrong. OK, if the experimental results (in this case the observed time it takes for the coffee to cool in each thermos) don’t agree with the predicted consequence (the CO2 thermos bottle will cool faster than the vacuum thermos bottle), then the hypothesis is wrong. What happens in other situations can never make the hypothesis “right.” A single experimental disagreement between a single valid predicted consequence and an experimental measurement is sufficient to prove the hypothesis is false.
Bottom line, it appears to me that what I described is consistent with Dr. Feynman’s scientific process.
Next, you disagree with my statement: “…I would have proven the hypothesis to be false.”, you wrote that your basic reason for disagreeing with me “…is the thermos CO2 filled and the lab glass container both exhibit CO2&air conduction, convection and radiation while the atmosphere at top can only radiate to deep space.” Two points. First, you introduced the lab glass container. It didn’t appear in my argument. Thus, it is up to you to show its relevance to my hypothesis/predicted-consequence/comparison-with-experiment discussion. Second, I agree that conduction, radiation, and possibly convection (although convection should be minimal because the CO2 gas resides in an enclosed space) are present. My response is: “So what?” If the hypothesis is false, some physical process has to make it false. What causes the falsity of the hypothesis is irrelevant to the truth/falsity of the hypothesis. What causes the falsity of the hypothesis may and probably is relevant to the question: “Why is your hypothesis relevant to the discussion of AGW?” But if the hypothesis can via experiment be shown to be false, what physical process causes the hypothesis to be false is irrelevant to the truth or falsity hypothesis itself.
As for your statement that the atmosphere at the top can only radiate to deep space, I agree. Again, so what? The phenomenon being discussed is the Earth surface temperatures, not the temperature at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere. I have to believe you will agree that energy can be removed from the Earth’s surface via conduction and convection. Not only that, massive amounts of energy leave the Earth’s surface via evaporation of sea water. If CO2 gas is the only gas inserted in the vacuum space of a thermos bottle, there won’t be any heat transfer away from the inner chamber via evaporation. So yes, the thermos bottle example differs significantly from the Earth/Earth atmosphere. I repeat a statement I made previously: if the two situations weren’t different, based on the results of the experiment Peter C ran I would be more amenable to the hypothesis that everything else being equal, surrounding the Earth with a greenhouse gas will lower the Earth surface temperature, than to the hypothesis that everything else being equal, surrounding the Earth with a greenhouse gas will increase the Earth surface temperature. But please note: I make neither claim. I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other to the question: Will the Earth’s surface temperature increase, decrease, or stay the same in the presence versus the absence of atmospheric greenhouse gases?
What I do have a strong opinion about is the statement: “that because atmospheric CO2 has a negligible impact to the rate the Earth’s surface absorbs solar energy (a statement whose validity I question) and because atmospheric CO2 backradiates energy to the Earth’s surface, the Earth’s surface temperature must increase.
[Note: The answer to the question: “Why is my hypothesis relevant to the discussion of AGW?” is that I believe AGW is being sold to the public in part using the argument that surrounding the Earth with CO2 must, via backradiation, result in an increased Earth surface temperature. As an argument to justify the plausibility of an increased Earth surface, I have no problem. But I believe the argument is used more often as proof than as “plausibility”. }]
The Earth’s surface temperature very well be increased by the presence of atmospheric CO2 gas, but such a condition cannot be argued solely on the existence of backradiation. Not only do I believe the experiment run by Peter C (to be reported in my next post) proves that backradiation as a stand-alone argument is insufficient to make the case, in my fourth and last post in this series, I perform a theoretical derivation that argues everything else being equal (including the rate energy is generated internally within an active object), backradiation to the active object where none existed before can exist simultaneously with lower active object temperatures. If my theoretical treatment is correct (and you’ll have a chance to examine it), then anyone who claims backradiation to an active object with no change to the active object’s internal energy rate must increase the active object’s temperature is wrong.
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Wow!
Please consider that any opposing flux at any frequency is an attempt at contradiction of all of Maxwell’s equations. Such does not measurably happen in this physical.
Fantasy must be real as it is possible, as is any concept.
Carefully separating the measurable from the conceptual, used to be called SCIENCE.
Not any longer. SCIENCE is now only fantasy!
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Reed 9:22am “If you see an error in that development, please let me know.”
Your error is ignoring conduction when the thermos vacuum is filled with CO2. My thermos after even like 30 hours was still a few degrees above ambient with the vacuum while if it had been filled with CO2 my experimental results show it would have reached ambient in 2.5 hours or so.
“..that consequence meets the conditions of the second step of Dr.Feynman’s three step process.”
No. You have failed step 2 as it requires a computation. An example of this would be showing Newton’s of law cooling worked out with some at least rough cut numbers to compare to the test.
“Thus, it is up to you to show (lab glass) relevance…”
Rather than drill a hole in my nice thermos to replace the lab glass with air, I used the lab glass same as the thermos would have with water directly conducting & radiating to air.
“Again, so what?”
Replace earth TOA space vacuum with air, conduction takes over so your thermos filled with CO2 conduction would be a proper analog test.
“The Earth’s surface temperature very well be increased by the presence of atmospheric CO2 gas, but such a condition cannot be argued solely on the existence of backradiation.”
Agree, in addition this is properly argued by the study of atmosphere optical depth.
“backradiation to the active object”
Be careful where you place the furnace. The earth is not an active object as you have defined an active object.
I would suggest before 3 & 4 edition, a proper existing literature search for comparable work.
——
I completed the test with the lab glass container wrapped with common kitchen Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil. Shiny side out. Starting temperature 170F. This time I measured the time to cool to 1/2 of the difference with ambient. I don’t have time to show step 2. I will later. Possibly you can do so. Hint: Emissivity of lab glass ~0.95, emissivity of shiny aluminum foil ~0.1. My step 1 guess was proven at least credible by experiment. When I add step 2, I’ll have performed the full scientific method.
No wrap = 23.5 minutes
Wrapped = 43 minutes
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LtCusper, 1:54 pm, 17 March 2015,
Some of our discussion reminds me of the movie Cool Hand Luke. Specifically, describing his interaction with Luke, the warden tells the convicts: “What we have here is failure to communicate.” I can’t decide which one of us is the warden and which one is Luke.
For the atmosphere, I’m NOT trying to predict the direction of the change, much less the magnitude of the change, of Earth surface temperature that atmospheric greenhouse gases induce. For the thermos bottle, I’m NOT trying to predict the temperature of the contents of the thermos bottle chamber as a function of time (more about that later). My goal was and is to show that if what the AGW proponents commonly argue is meant to prove, not provide plausibility, but prove that atmospheric greenhouse gases “will” increase the Earth surface temperature, then their arguments when applied to vacuum and CO2 thermos bottles imply that CO2 thermos bottles will outperform vacuum thermos bottles—at least with respect to keeping the thermos bottle’s contents hot. I reasoned that most people would be reluctant to believe that CO2 thermos bottles outperform vacuum thermos bottles; and as such might induce them to think and possibly question the AGW position. It was never my intent to argue that the thermos bottle scenario was representative of the Earth/Earth-Atmosphere system. Only to show that when applied to thermos bottles, the pervasive AGW argument “proving” that atmospheric greenhouse gases “must” increase Earth surface temperature leads to a conclusion that defies common sense.
Your comment: ” Be careful where you place the furnace. The earth is not an active object as you have defined an active object.” is valid. However, I mentioned this difference (see the fifth paragraph of post 2.3.1.1.1, 1:08 pm, 16 March 2015 comment above). In that paragraph I wrote: ” …as far as the hypothesis goes, I see no meaningful difference between replacing the constant rate of solar energy absorption with a constant rate internal source of energy. Obviously there are differences, e.g., the absorption of solar energy as a function of time is location dependent, whereas an internal energy source may or may not be time and location dependent.” If you believe there is a “meaningful” difference, please describe.
Now a word or two about predicting as a function of time the temperature of the contents of the various thermos bottles. In previous comments, you mentioned Newton’s Law of Cooling. According to [http://www.ugrad.math.ubc.ca/coursedoc/math100/notes/diffeqs/cool.html], “Newton’s Law of Cooling states that the rate of change of the temperature of an object is proportional to the difference between its own temperature and the ambient temperature (i.e. the temperature of its surroundings).” Mathematically,
dT/dt = -k*(T-Ta) (1)
where “k” is the constant (positive) of proportionality, “T” is the object temperature, and “Ta” is the ambient temperature. [The minus sign is included so that Equation (1) corresponds to the “cooling rate”, not the “heating rate.”] I believe Newton’s law of cooling applies to “conductive cooling,” may apply to “convective cooling,” but does not apply to radiative cooling. According to the Third Edition Part 1, University Physics, F.W. Sears and M.W. Zemansky, page397, ”…the net rate of loss or gain of energy by radiation (or the heat transferred by radiation) is”
H = A*sigma*e*[T^4 – (Ta)^4] (2)
Where “H” is the net rate of heat loss/gain, “A” is the area of the object, “sigma” is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, and “e” is the emissivity of the object’s surface. Using the standard heat capacity equation, for a change in temperature “delta_T” the change “delta_Q” in the internal energy content of an object of mass “m” and specific heat capacity “C” (change in internal energy per unit mass per change in temperature in Kelvin) is
delta_Q = C*m*delta_T (3)
For radiative cooling/heating, in a time interval “delta_t” the amount of internal energy, delta_Q, lost/gained is
delta_Q = H*delta_t (4)
Substituting Equations (2) and (3) into Equation (4) gives
C*m*delta_T = A*sigma*e*[T^4 – (Ta)^4] *delta_t (5)
Solving Equation (4) for delta_T/delta_t gives
delta_T /delta_t= [A*sigma*e/(C*m)]*[T^4 – (Ta)^4] (6)
delta_T /delta_t= [A*sigma*e/(C*m)]*[T – (Ta)]*[T^3+Ta*T^2+T*(Ta^2)+(Ta)^3] (7)
Thus, in the limit as delta_t goes to zero, for radiative cooling/heating the time-rate-of-change of object temperature is NOT proportional to T – (Ta), the difference between the object temperature and the ambient temperature, but rather is proportional to, T^4 – (Ta)^4, the difference betweem the fourth powers of the temperatures.
Bottom line, if one tries to fit the rate of change of the temperature of the coffee in the vacuum thermos bottle to Newton’s law of cooling, I foresee problems.
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Reed 5:07am – I won’t have much “hobby” time for a few days to respond in depth. In passing a couple points, you quote a link “according to”. Here is what Newton actually wrote in 1701: “if equal times of cooling be taken, the degrees of heat will be in geometrical proportion, and therefore easily found by the tables of logarithms.” By “degrees of heat” Newton meant what we now call temperature.
Again, you write you “believe”, not using the science method: “I believe Newton’s law of cooling applies to “conductive cooling..” – that would be Fourier conduction which doesn’t rise to the level of a “law” because it is generally not valid within a fluid.
So far all of my cooling test data has fallen on a straight line semi-log within reasonable experimental error. It does so in my test of changing the emissivity of the surface (alum. foil) and changing the conduction (thermos vacuum vs. no vacuum). I have data for spray painting the foil white and black and wrapping with wool. All cooling test data falls on a straight line so what Newton actually wrote (step 1 and 2) is confirmed by nature in step 3.
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Reed,
Very nice! I especially liked your distinction between a law and a hypotheses! Physical Laws are long term observations, such that “if your observation is the opposite, you are very drunk!”
“The hypothesis is:
Everything else being equal, for material in the temperature range from 0C to 100C, if (a) a heat source injects heat into the material at a constant rate, and (b) the material is in ERE, then the temperature of the material when surrounded by a heat-trapping gas will be higher than the temperature of the material in the absence of the surrounding heat-trapping gas.”
That is what is claimed, but that depends on the specific distinction between verbs will and may! alter:
Everything else being equal, for material in the temperature range from 0C to 100C, if (a) a heat source injects heat into the material at a constant rate, and (b) the material is in ERE, then the temperature of the material when surrounded by a heat-trapping gas may be higher than the temperature of the material in the absence of the surrounding heat-trapping gas. All depends on the ratio of EMR flux to conductive/convective flux with that gas!
If EMR through that gas is the only exit flux, that may becomes must! If convective and latent heat conversion dominate exit flux, that may becomes not!
It will be interesting how you handle the Willis SGH, in a vacuum. That the sphere increases its own temperature is true! That that increase is due to back radiation can be falsified via projective geometry and valid mathematics! Consider, with a shell radiating to no opposing radiance the sphere temperature increase must be ((Ashell/Asphere)+1)^(1/4). At both limits no change! All the best 🙂 -will-
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Sorry folk,
In words rather than symbols, Shell same area as sphere, with vacuum between, Tsphere increases by 2^(1/4). Shell goes to the original Tsphere to radiate the same flux. Shell at infinity can have only zero opposing radiance! The rethermalization of the shell at any distance provides that difference as per the correct S-B equation, with opposing radiance.
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Will, 7:41 am, 17 March 2015.
I agree the difference between “will” and “may” makes all the difference. I infer from the cited article that via backradiation atmospheric CO2 gas “will” increase the Earth surface temperature. But I want to be fair. Other people may not take that inference. It is not unreasonable to infer that the cited reference implies “may” not “will.” I arrived at my inference not so much from a single article, but rather from the large number of articles I’ve come across that use the argument without a single one of them explicitly declaring they are giving plausibility not proof to the AGW position.
You’ll just have to wait to see how I treat the steel greenhouse. I’m getting tired, and that topic is a whole discussion in itself.
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“You’ll just have to wait to see how I treat the steel greenhouse. I’m getting tired, and that topic is a whole discussion in itself.”
Indeed go play with baby’s Momma, so you can later discuss, with your wit and understanding! 🙂
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This is the guy that insists that if everything had emissivity and all the other properties of a black body this everything would have the radiance of a black body. Gee wizz! It them must radiate flux like a black body to space even though such is not in the environment of space. He has no evidence.
LtCusper,
For a constant velocity bicycle, please correctly name the part of the tire that has zero velocity with respect to the surface?
Please show your measurement of “universe entropy” so we can measure how much it always increases?
“my IR thermometer 122F (the field of view is a little hard to control)”
Do you have any idea of what this instrument was measuring? Did you even read the book?
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Will 10:20am: More humor, less science. No idea what you mean in the 1st 3 sentences. My IR thermometer evidence reads out the temperature of the water just like the digital thermometers. Want me to insert a mercury based device – is that the limit of your understanding?
My bicycle tire at the contact patch is not sliding w.r.t. the surface. Under certain conditions this may fail to be true. My thermos water increased entropy in the time period of your choice, please calculate it if you can, universe entropy went up. After about 4 hours the thermos is still some 23 degreesF above ambient (24F by IR), the lab glass container hit ambient after 2.5 hours. Some heat must have been really trapped in that old thermos, huh?
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The name of the of the part of tire is what? [Snip – Argue the point, but keep it polite, please] Fly
Please show your measurement of “universe entropy” so we can measure how much it always increases?
“my IR thermometer 122F (the field of view is a little hard to control)”
Do you have any idea of what this instrument was measuring? Did you even read the book?
You spout of what your cheap instrument was indicating, rather than having any understanding of anything measured to derive that [Snip] fake indication! 🙂
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Sorry, Kitten again dived on the keyboard. How many toesies does a kitten have
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Will 12:58pm: The IR thermometer was measuring the temperature of the water as proven by its readout closely agreeing with the digital thermometer inserted in the same water. Not fake, the IR thermometer could not have any idea what it should read beforehand & it displayed T correctly, rounded to nearest degree F. I don’t need to measure universe entropy, just show it increased. Did you finish your calculation of the entropy increase in my thermos water? There is enough data for you. You know dS = delta Q/T.
Thanks mod.s, appreciated.
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Sir Cusper,
I asked not about what your instrument was indicating, only what your instrument was measuring before conversion to some illusory indicated temperature
“You know dS = delta Q/T”. HUh, Q decreased, Your claimed T is unknown but dS has decreased.
Entropy in this universe is conserved (never changes), not energy or momentum which go up and down continually. Entropy is defined as the specific heat of the lowest temperature mass times that mass, A constant!!!
Entropy can only appear to increase as the temperature or mass (as a product) of that lowest temperature mass. Is entropy temperature, or correctly thermal energy that can do no work?
You claim that the temperature of this universe is increasing. Please show your measurements.
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OK Fly,
We have here a folk that cannot distinguish between the measuring of something and the popular interpretation of the value of such measurement, all the while having no comprehension of that illusion of that something!
Thanks for your notification of junk in the Name thing. Is it permissible to also blame that on Kitten?
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keeping with the political theme, tho Super is a big issue of mine re CAGW as well.
there was total MSM outrage & personal attacks on Hockey &, by association, Abbott – including (as expected) from Malcolm Turnbull – over the following, yet i thought this Dixon piece in Fairfax made some great points.
i would go further than Dixon, because i know some real horror stories concerning Super & the impossibility, for example –
to make a withdrawal to purchase a car, new or used, to allow the person to carry on working in trades where a car is an absolute necessity.
a couple who can’t qualify for a bank loan to upgrade downstairs to take care of ailing parents who would otherwise need nursing home care at considerable cost to taxpayers, and so on.
12 March: SMH: Daryl Dixon: Self serving super industry not helping first home buyers
Superannuation industry warnings of the adverse impact of allowing members to access their super to help achieve home ownership show how little the industry cares about their members.
For them, the priority is to control other people’s money and future while maximising the funds under management and maintaining their comfortable situation.
Such self-serving lobbying is demonstrated most clearly by their proposals to increase the compulsory super preservation age from 60 to much older ages. There are even suggestions that members should be required to take their benefit as an income stream on retirement, further enhancing
the industry’s control of people’s money…
The gross discrimination against non-homeowners in the social security system is mirrored in the superannuation and tax system.
Fundamental change is long overdue. Why, for instance, should super be tied up untouchable until 60 or 65 as recently suggested by the industry
when a person is unemployed or undertaking retraining?
The inevitable consequence in many such situations is the forced sale of the family home…
The federal government has an easy option to deal with this, namely to allow the superannuation balance to be deposited in a mortgage offset accountto reduce the servicing cost of the mortgage.
***This would still leave the money in super and help the member much more than current hardship rules which allow only $10,000 to be withdrawn
from the fund…
Similarly, there are compelling reasons to allow all superannuation fund members to invest a limited amount, for example $200,000 (single) and
$300,000 (combined) in a mortgage offset account to assist them to achieve home ownership.
Compared with focusing on first home buyers as the property industry does, this option would alleviate the problems that our tax and compulsory super arrangements create for home buyers in today’s expensive market.
Unlike the US system which grants a tax deduction for interest on home owner debt up to $1 million and provides no assistance to investors, our tax
system provides no assistance to owner occupiers and provide unlimited tax deductions to investors.
These rules place our home buyers in a losing position and force many young people to rent and acquire heavily geared property. For these and other people struggling to achieve home ownership , compulsory super adds to their problem by diverting 9.5 per cent of their gross income untouchable into super until at least age 60.
Compulsory super thus reduces their after-tax income by more than 5 per cent of their gross income.
Merely by allowing homeowners to instruct their super fund to invest a part of their super up to a specified cap in a mortgage offset account would make compulsory and voluntary super contributions much more attractive than they are now.
(Daryl Dixon is the executive chairman of Dixon Advisory)
http://www.smh.com.au/money/super-and-funds/self-serving-super-industry-not-helping-first-home-buyers-20150312-141xze.html
don’t know how the following compares with what’s happening here, but this created a stir online this week:
12 March: Newsmax Finance: Billionaires Decry Blatant Wall Street Theft of Retirement Assets
In a shocking interview with PBS, billionaire mutual fund icon Jack Bogle, revealed that Wall Street is unapologetically stealing from millions of
hard-working Americans. Bogle showed how “70% of your market returns” go straight to the pockets of Wall Street, and only 30% actually goes to you, the investor.
And Bogle should know.
Bogle, who founded the Vanguard Group in 1974, has had a decades-long insider’s view of the entirely corrupt fee structure on Wall Street.
So he knows how American retirees are being fleeced by hidden fees that most investors never see.
And at a recent private event, Steve Forbes echoed this same shocking claim.
Forbes pointed out that these fees are compounding, and over time are devastating to retirement nest eggs…READ ON
http://www.moneynews.com/MKTNews/Bogle-Forbes-Buffett-Shubert/2015/02/23/id/626341/?dkt_nbr=bm14bmyh&utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral
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Pat, I agree but also…
Allow related party investment assets to be sold to the super fund, providing the sale price is less than a registered valuers estimate (providing the super fund gets the best end of the deal).this will release trillions in super investment funds to get spent in the real economy.
Access to a disability pensiom (income stream ) from the fund in the event of disability or serious disease preventing work, rather than a fixed amount.
Allow a sub-fund within the super fund to pay medical costs (self managed health fund within super) and allow the super fund to take out health insurance on behalf of the member where the deduction is sufficient to cover medical insurance.
Enhanced transition to retirement provisions allowing the drawing of an income stream in situations where the person becomes unemployed near but below the TTR age, say within 5 years of TTR elligibility. For example it’s nearly impossible for someone over 50 to find employment not from lack of trying but because employers won’t hire them.
The ability to draw an income stream rather than a fixed sum in hardship, especially where it can be shown that the income stream is leass than the investment returns of the fund (say up to 6% of the fund value per annum).
You are WRONG on negative gearing, Keating tried to drop negative gearing and created a housing crisis as the rental stock fell through the floor! Without negative gearing rents would rise 50 to 100% since tenants would have to pay the entire mortgage, costs and a profit for the landlord. Rental properties are BUSINESSES, and like it or not, in Australia, income tax is paid on PROFIT the costs of earning your income are elligible as deductions, including depreciation. Negative gearing is NOT some special gimmick for property, it’s just the application of reasonable deductions for the costs of running a property rental business – nothing more. If your business makes a loss, then those deductions quite rightly can be used to offset other income, that is deductions are agnostic to the source of income, all the income is added up, and the deductions taken from the gross total property income being nothing special. Removing negative gearing requires legislation to make property income different from other income, it doesn’t remove some suposed lurk, it would be a deliberate extra impost over and above that paid by any other taxpayer.
Having said that though, providing a tax offset for owner occupiers would be a much better way to ownership than first home owners grant because the tax offset wouldn’t drive up prices like the FHOG does.
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One wonders when the crap will end: http://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/climate-change-to-make-steak-and-chicken-taste-worse-ruining-barbecues-for-future-aussies/story-fnjwvztl-1227263320156.
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I can just see the researchers at a local, eating a counter meal and just wetting themselves as one goes “how about …..”
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“may…..may…..could…” Why is this even reported? It is interestin that nobody ever reports “may not…..may not…..could not…”
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I lost count of the number of ‘coulds’ in this piece. It sounded like the effort from Louise Gray a few years ago….global warming could wipe out growing roses and so on in England! I longed to get her by the stuff of the neck and show her our roses and deciduous trees still growing after the heat and fires of 2009.
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Scruff ! 🙂
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Googling “Scruff” gives only references only to many gay guys! Is that what you meant?
I remember long ago the phrase “scruff of the neck”, always meant please do not! I think that referred to chickens! Just what part of the neck is the “scruff”?
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When will the generally intelligent people who make up the sceptical side of the virtually non-existent debate about CAGW stop giving fuel to the alarmists’ nonsense by continuing to talk about carbon dioxide having any role to play in such warming as there may have been over the last few centuries.
The “back radiation” concept of cold bodies warming up hotter ones and leading to a “radiative greenhouse effect” is utter nonsense. It should be placed where it belongs, which is in the repository of failed scientific ideas such as a belief in the Philosopher’s Stone, or the idea that a perpetual motion machine is possible. Hot and cold bodies may well exchange energy but they don’t exchange heat which travels in one direction only and that is the direction that common-sense, experience and
all empirical scientific data tell us i.e. from hot to cold, NEVER from cold to hot.
The model on which the hypothesis (it doesn’t warrant the use of the term theory) of the so-called
GHE is built has more holes in it than a block of Swiss cheese. For example;
It is a static, while the real world is in a state of dynamic equilibrium
It assumes that the earth is surrounded by a weak sun emitting energy at ¼ of its direct value
It ignores night and day as well as seasonal variations
It assumes the earth acts as a black body, which it clearly isn’t
It takes no account of evaporation, convection or the conduction of heat from the heated surfaces of the world to subsurface levels during the hotter parts of the day and the subsequent conduction back to the surface during the night
The best mathematical models used in science generally mimic the real world quite accurately. The GHE model definitely does not.
Yes carbon dioxide does absorb energy in a very limited band, so much for the ‘settled’ science and yes it radiates that energy in all directions, however from its normally lower energy levels it does not send heat back to the surface making that surface hotter than it already is.
If we are ever going to be successful in opposing all the vested interests behind the CAGW scam we will probably need to use ridicule as one of the primary weapons. It is well nigh impossible to counter ridicule even if facts support ones argument.
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I am in complete agreement and this is how I see it –
Here on this strange blue/green planet about 150 million km from its nearest star. That star, our sun, is our main source of energy and it controls all major aspects of the planet’s biosphere through its action on the planet’s chaotic climate system. Currently all major lifeforms are dependent on this star and the energy it puts out.
This world’s strange climate is, in the main, governed by the kinetic movement of, and energy transfers between the two main fluids on (and near) the planet’s surface — the gaseous atmosphere and the liquid water of oceans. Our comparatively overlarge moon helps stir things up, adding yet more confounding factors to the fluids’ movements.
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From this standpoint, it is obvious that our climate is not governed by either one of these fluids in isolation but mostly by the interactions between them. The transfer of mass (mainly water vapor and liquid/solid precipitation between the atmosphere, land, and oceans) and energy (thermal and kinetic within each fluid, and the exchanges between them) are the major players in how our climate changes; while the sun powers it all. These interactions between thermally active fluids are chaotic by their nature (Brownian motion etc.).
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Given the movements of these fluids are over the irregular surface topographies of land and seas, on this spinning, roughly spherical, planet where half the planet’s surface is bathed in warming sunlight, the other half in cooling dark shadow, complicates matters a lot. Not just a complication that is easily resolvable through computational modeling, but also a complication that adds more sets of variables to the chaotic nature of the climate system. This renders accurate climate modeling, to this level, very complex but it should be resolvable over time.
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On top of this system is LIFE. As all this physical movement and energy transfers happens, organic life dynamically extracts, stores, or releases all the chemicals and energy it requires to flourish. From minute to minute, to decades and centuries, life continuously adapts, and attempts to change the climate system to best ensure survival. In this action both plant life and microbes appear to be major players. Nature, through its remarkable trial and error system mixed with the ‘survival of the fittest’ regime, ensures that complex life is another confounding contributor to our chaotic climate system.
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The chaotic nature of our climate system is extremely difficult to accurately predict future trends. Individual parts of our climate system are understandable. Indeed many large parts of the system are well understood, some interactions are said to be well modeled with computer simulations, however the totality of our climate system and its characteristics are not easily understood, and IMO are not easily modeled well on any computer system — there are just so many dependent and interdependent variables all nested within myriads of complex feedback mechanisms.
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So what have we got?
A very complex climate system that given the current mathematical/computational systems capabilities are just about irresolvable to simulate or model, and would appear to stay that way for a long time yet.
What can we do?
Given the basic power supply of our system is the energy from our sun, I would think that it is obvious to investigate, as thoroughly as possible, the vagaries and variances of our star. A fundamental understanding of the sun and how it works is IMO a primary task. The sun defines the direction that our climate heads both on the decadal and long term (century) scale.
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Unfortunately the UN through UN-IPCC and Western government leaders can’t see such things. Their ‘science’ is settled.
They propagandize never ending catastrophe based on CO2 and ‘greenhouse gases’ as the main climate control. This is utter nonsense and IMO, is why modern climate science is in such a mess.
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” Hot and cold bodies may well exchange energy but they don’t exchange heat”
Entirely nonsensical distinction.
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I wondered about that too although I found the rest of the comment interesting.
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yes it is a complete denial of the inter convertibility of energy from one form to another. The slayer’s slip is showing.
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Gee Aye,
Well if it’s the inter convertability of energy from one form to the other wouldn’t a more appropriate observation be:
The slayer’s ship is slowing?
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Word Heat comes with noun forms with one, of two preceding adjectives, sensible and latent, and with suffix to the verb form heating, to heat. Each easily identifiable and understandable. Electrical, chemical, mechanical, or nuclear, energy is never allowed. Your post normal internal BS or only verb form is not acceptable. Science must conform to language in order to have any viability. 🙂
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David while what you say is true, it is not fair to say that a surface cannot be hotter than it would otherwise be. If you prevent cooling by insulation, then the insulated object becomes warmer to the point at where the energy into the system = the energy out of the system. For example if you put tinfoil around a light bulb to reduce it’s loss and you put 100 W into that lamp, the lamp will get as hot as it needs to in order that the loss from the tinfoil covered lamp becomes 100W. Energy in must equal energy out.
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Energy in = Energy out that is the claim. Climate ‘science’ claims that the Earth is in radiative equilibrium but is warming because of rising CO2.
So where does that extra heat come from to warm the Earth. Talk of insulation is waffle. And since at least 2000 there has been little warming because “the missing heat” is “warming the ocean deeps”. Why wasn’t it doing so before 2000? Ah, I see, it is a Y2K problem.
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But lifeforms extract some energy from the ‘system’ and lock it away.
E.g. in any one year algal blooms can cover up to 60% of the Pacific ocean. These microbes flourish on the nutrients in the water the CO2 and nitrogen in the air and sunlight. see http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/A-Bi/Algal-Blooms-in-the-Ocean.html
When these microbes die many of them settle on the bottom of the oceans, falling through the murky depths like underwater snow, building up on the ocean floor, and forming slimy avalanches as they slowly tumble to the very lowest ocean depths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_snow
This organic detritus is no longer amenable for recycling in biological processes to any great extent. Their chemicals and solar energy has been sequestered away to the ocean depth.
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My question is where in the much quoted energy balance are such things accounted for?
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You confuse energy and power, it does matter how long the energy remains. The number of total joules into a system must equal the joules out plus the joules within the system. If you constrict the rate of flow of joules out (the power out) then the joules retained must rise and the system inside gets hotter. The system doesn’t reset every quantum, the energy persists through time, this seconds energy gets added to last seconds energy.
The atmosphere of course is not wrapped in tinfoil, and it is not a simple or closed system at all like the light bulb in insulation, it is a massive, open, chaotic aystem about as unlike to the light bulb as you can get. As Thomo points out there are energy leaks into and out of the system that are just unaccounted, some of them are huge, like wind and water pressure, friction and impacts against the earth which don’t leave as radiative energy at all but rather as kinetic energy. The climate scientists make the assumption that the earth must be in radiative equilibrium and the much vaunted ECS number is about the climate change necessary to reach radiative equilibrium (like the light bulb). It’s all a lie, the earth just needs to be in energy equilibrium, if even a modest amount of solar energy disapears out chemical, electrical , SW or sub IR em, physical entropy or kinetic holes then the earth doesn’t have to be in radiative equilibrium at all. Most systems have such energy transformation losses and inevitably that means their emission by the dominant output energy flow is less than the received energy, which is exactly what we see with the earth.
I suspect the assumption that the earth needs to be in radiative equilibrium is wrong
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Your examples are of course correct, insulation does indeed slow the rate at which a body loses heat, however it does not heat the body up.
And certainly energy in must equal energy out in a closed system. Your example of the light bulb reminds me of the other example often quoted in these discussions, the steel greenhouse. Neither example works in a vacuum where convection isn’t applicable. A real greenhouse, like a blanket works by stopping convection. something which the so=called radiative greenhouse can’t do.
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No, nor have I said it will, absent any energy input the globe will be at zero Kelvin and the insulation does nothing, but put any energy into it and the globe will reach a temperature, not governed by the energy in, but governed by the energy lost, and that is determined by the insulation. The insulation is not the source of the temperature, but it does govern it. Temperature is NOT energy! In that sense it CAN make a hot object hotter.
If you like you can see this as containing the energy there is to a smaller space, though that is not the physical basis for the temperature increase, but it is a useful abstraction. How effective would your oven be if the insulated container around the heating element was removed?
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Who says the atmosphere is some sort of insulator? No EMR flux from the surface is needed, as this Earth’s atmosphere with WV is a much more efficient dissipater of unwanted heat energy than the surface can possibly be.
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David, I suspect the answer to your question:
lies in this insight:
CAGW is a more ridiculous idea than AGW, and stands even less chance of ever being supported by facts. This is probably why many of us prefer the former to the latter as a locus of battle.
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Yes Mr. Keyes otherwise known as FBD. 🙂 When will you get started again? If we only had your cleverness at your best, and the clarity of Pointman for punctuation. Twixt the eyes, every time. This applies to both sides and the lukes of this silliness. 😮
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Hi Will,
your writing is a bit too allusive and erudite for my pay grade, but I’ll gamble on my hunch that you were being laudatory (and not the opposite), in which case: thank you for your encouraging words!
However, what does FBD mean?
—Brad
PS if I completely misread you, could you do me a solid and repeat whatever indictment you were making of me, but more prosaically this time?
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Dear Fire Breathing Dragon,
Only praise! I look forward to all that you rite, wright, write, something!
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H/t to Reed Corey!!
The concept of CAGW is equivalent to asking the question:
Because your mother is a sewing machine and your father is a five dollar bill, how many flapjacks does it take to cover the roof of a doghouse? And Answering: Fourteen, because footballs don’t have fenders.
Come on Brad Keyes, only you (Fire Breathing Dragon), can rephrase this to something truly spectacular!!
11
There is a constant temperature when the energy going out equals the energy coming in (everything else remaining the same). The GHE is simply that if the colder upper atmosphere has to emit some of the wavelengths of LWIR radiation, then both the surface and upper atmosphere warm to emit the same amount as the warm surface with out an atmosphere. The temperature gradient is not due to the back radiation so its not needed to explain that both the surface and upper atmosphere warm so that energy out equals energy in, not just the non-existent hotspot.
The analogy with a coat is poor but using it, if a body warms the air around it and the air is free to convect away, then the body cools until the rate of heat loss equals the heat generated by the body. If there is a layer of fabric a few mm above the skin, then the warmed air stops and has to warm the fabric. The fabric then loses heat when the air above it convects away.
For the loss to equal the heat generated by the body, the fabric needs to warm up to create a large temperature difference with the outside air. If its warm, then the air between needs to be warmer to keep up the rate of heat transfer to the fabric, and the skin warms up to keep up the heat transfer to the air in the gap. This is because the rate of heat transfer depends on the difference in temperature of both objects even if heat flow is always from hot to cold (you can’t observe a to-and-fro of heat being conducted while you can with absorbed/emitted LWIR).*
The more complex description of Earth’s surface and atmosphere that is needed to quantify what difference GHG make has the holes in it. One is that back radiation is needed or the atmosphere would be isothermal rather than having a lapse rate. You have mentioned some of the other things but they aren’t reasons why there can’t be a (small) GHE.
*heat transfer between gasses and solids is slow otherwise, a coat wouldn’t work.
20
Say, how about a total Solar eclipse in Germany then. Imagine what that does to their reliance on Solar power to make up their total mix of power.
The bottom falls out of power generation right when it’s at its peak, in the middle of the day. Right back to zero.
All that power has to now be made up from somewhere else, and not just for the middle of the solar outage, but for hours as solar power drops off, and then slowly comes back. The overall cost will be enormous.
Incidentally, everywhere you see proposals for new Solar PV power plants, and that’s power generated by the panels themselves, they all use the theoretical Capacity Factor (CF) of 28%.
NEVER believe that, and I cannot stress that word never enough.
Germany which has the largest ‘fleet’ of Solar PV plants on Earth has an average CF for all their Solar PV plants of 11%.
Note also that every LCOE chart you ever see also uses this theoretical CF of 28%, and some even use a lifespan of 30 years, and some I have seen even quote 40 years, all at that same CF of 28%. Solar PV begins to lose that overall CF after five to ten years, and if by an absolute fluke the plant is still in operation at the 25 year mark, then its CF will be so low as to be almost negligible.
What this effectively does is to ramp up total power generation by anything up to three and four times and more for what will actually be generated, and what that does is to spread their total costs across the total power generated, and its lifetime, which considerably lowers the unit cost for the cost of power. Dollars per MWH.
All based on a lie.
Tony.
121
We should see this Friday then, March 20th., when a solar eclipse is expected to reduce sunlight over Germany by up to 85% if it’s a sunny morning.
The biggest problem is expected to be from the sudden loss of capacity, that may have to be balanced from other sources, then followed by the surge in output when the sun comes back on.
If it is cloudy it shouldn’t be such a problem.
” They found that the strain on the grid would be greatest on a sunny day — such as March 20, 2014 — when the drop and subsequent rebound would be strongest. Grid operators have likened the effect to 12 large power plants being switched off and 19 being switched on in a short space of time. ”
http://www.cbc.ca/m/news/technology/solar-eclipse-will-test-germany-s-green-power-grid-1.2994468
What’ll make it doubly difficult to predict though is the human bahaviour, around such spectacles.
The BBC reported a 30 GIgaWatt surge in demand on the UK’s Grid following the eclipse in 1999.
” Demand for electricity plummeted between 11am and 11.30am as the country downed tools to watch the sky show.
But as hoardes returned to work, logging back on to computers or factory machines, the combined effect was the UK’s biggest increase in demand.
A National Grid spokeswoman said: “This was the largest increase in demand we have experienced on our system, and it occurred in a matter of minutes.
“At 10.30am, as interest in the eclipse picked up, demand was 35,500 megawatts.
“By 11am this had dropped by 500 megawatts and at 11.15am demand was at its lowest point at 33,150 megawatts.
“As the sun reappeared and people returned to their homes, offices and factories, electricity demand swiftly increased and within minutes reached 36,150 megawatts – a rise of 3,000 megawatts.
“About 1,000 megawatts of the increase was in relation to television pick-up – the audience switching on kettles for a cup of tea as life returned to normal.”
The eclipse now tops the all-time list of power surges on the UK’s network.”
Perhaps the Continental countries will cope better, as they don’t have a nation of tea drinkers to cater to, demanding 5 million cups of tea to afterwards.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/specials/total_eclipse/417650.stm
10
Correction:- That’s a 3 GW surge in demand experienced across Britain, the last time and a 30 GW temporary drop in solar output across Europe expected this time .
10
My contribution to Grid balancing then.
All you Brits don’t forget to put your kettles on as the Eclipse is ending. Dont wait until after it’s finished because we need you to mop up all of that extra solar as it’s coming back online.
Between about 10 & 10:30 UK time.
And in the rest of Europe, I urge to go out and Buy a Kettle so that you too can help balance your national solar power surges on Friday morning.
Buy the most powerful model you can (at least 2.5 KW).
In fact buy two, because by the time the next solar eclipse comes round, in 2026, your Government will have banned the sale such powerful appliances.
Plan your viewing here:-
http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2015-march-20
But remember , Never, Ever, Ever, look at the Sun directly. Not even for an instant. Watch it , if you must, on TV or on a backward facing Smart phone over your shoulder, with your back to the Sun.
30
Yes! I suppose they could just stop work until the sun comes back.
Now here is a question I have wanted to ask: When a coal fired power station is operating as the only power source, how do they adjust or balance the load? The coal fired steam turbine presumably cannot adjust quickly but the electrical load must vary quite a lot as appliances are switched on and off!
20
Here you need to understand how power is generated and how it is consumed, and how the grid operates.
The grid MUST always have more power available at the grid than what is actually being consumed, well, naturally really.
They have a general handle on the times when power is known to increase, in the early AM when people get up and start their day, and power consumption increases. So, before that time, then all the smaller short run time plants come on line to supply their power to the grid so they are ready for that increase.
Then, at around 9AM, it eases off a little and some of those plants can shut down.
Then the afternoon peak arrives around 4PM until 6PM, when school comes out, and people come home from work, and the evening residential peak builds up. Again, those smaller peak power plants come on line to cover that peak which can run for up to five or six hours.
They have a pretty good handle on it with respect to time, and they know how much will be needed to always have a percentage extra than what is always needed.
It’s a delicate balancing act and that’s why variable wind is not much use because they never know when it will drop off. Same with Solar power.
That extra amount of power always has to be there at the grid, and perish the grid operator who relies on plants which will drop out a moment’s notice without any warning.
A major large scale coal fired plant just hums along at the same rate all the time, delivering massive amounts of power to the grid all the time. The ‘littlies’ come and go as required, mainly gas fired plants which can run up fast and deliver their power quickly, exactly as they are designed to do.
Tony.
60
Steam turbines are regulated by governors to maintain a constant rotation speed as the load varies by varying the flow of steam. These work automatically and are relied on for short term fluctuations while more capacity is being brought on or off line.
If you have nothing but coal available then you have to produce enough steam to cope with expected demand,possibly wasting much of it when demand dips.
40
Thanks Tony and Joe,
Both are answers to my question.
Does the grid include items like capacitors or electrical shunts to deal with small and very transient variations?
10
Yes, it does.
Also just to clarify a bit, when you have an electrical generator with a load, the power needed to turn it depends on the load, if you use a hand cranked generator then it’s easy to turn it at no load but very hard at full load. The load (dificulty of turning the generator) depends on us, the consumers and what we are doing, it varies from second to second. The speed regulator on the machine generating the energy handles the change of energy into the system, yes, in the case of coal by varying steam pressure, but in other system like gas or diesel, by varying fuel intake.
Some fuels (like solar panels) can potentiate electrons directly, if this power is not not used, then the electrons give up the photo induced electrical potential into the semiconductor and disipated it as heat right there.
20
There’s been a really interesting exercise for me to see in all this kerfuffle about coal fired power, and that has been in the U.S.A. The exercise has been a long term thing, because in the short term, even over one year and even over two years, you really don’t see much in the way of a trend.
Having now been doing this for seven years, the trend has become (almost patently) obvious.
The whole intent of everything I have done was to focus on ways of complying with the UNFCCC call to lower CO2 emissions to a point 5% lower than what they were in 1990.
To that end, then there needed to be a way to replace (at the very least) 40% of ALL coal fired power plants in the U.S. and I started out with that premise, to see if there was in fact any way to replace them.
Right at the start, the first thing I learned was that the existing coal fired plants in the U.S. were old, and in fact close to ancient.
A typical coal fired power plant has a life span of 50 years.
The average age of EVERY coal fired plant in the U.S. was just a couple of months short of 50 years.
The AVERAGE age of EVERY plant.
Now here you need to have some sort of idea on the end use for coal fired power.
Those Monsters (2000MW and Plus) are used to run at their maximum all the time, besides maintenance down time.
All those tiny plants (in the main all less than 100MW) are those old technology units from a bygone era at the introduction of coal fired power, and in the main all of them are old, 40 years plus with some of them actually up beyond 70 years and a few of them almost 90 years old.
Now while those Monsters just run all the time, those old plants were used as running reserve.(rolling reserve, spinning reserve, or load following are other terms for the same thing) In other words, they just hum along until the grid controller tasks them to deliver. Because of the nature of coal fired power, they cannot run up from cold and stopped in a short time. So, as rolling reserve, they burned and turned but did not deliver until called upon.
To the average punter who believed in CAGW hand on heart, then a coal fired power plant was just a coal fired power plant. It delivered power and because of that, then anything which delivered power was just that, power delivery. So there was this belief that they could just be replaced by another power delivery method, eg wind and solar, people with zero understanding of power generation, power delivery, power consumption, and grid control.
So now, here we are, looking at that data in the long term, seven years after starting all this for me.
Coal fired power plants are closing all across the U.S. all of them old to ancient, all of them tiny, and nearly all of them used as spinning reserve, as they get older and older and no longer suitable for continuous operation.
Now, what they are being replaced by is not wind, is not solar. They are being replaced in greater power generation total than what has closed by Natural Gas (NG) Fired plants, because gas has now become so prevalent in the U.S.
These new NG plants perform exactly the same task as those older coal fired plants, spinning reserve, burning and turning but not delivering power until needed. Plants used to fill the Peaking Power task. Now we have NG plants, power generation specifically designed to run up from cold to deliver power at short notice, in other words the same task as those replaced old coal fired units, only now, instead of burning and turning, they sit there cold until called upon to deliver.
The advantage here is that all those old coal fired units now act as brown field sites, and they are just replacing the old coal fired units with new NG units and new generators, considerably cheaper at these brown field sites than for new green field sites.
What has happened here is borne out totally by the data at the EIA. (at this link)
In fact, now we have considerably less coal fired power in Nameplate, and yet actual power generation has not dropped by the same percentage, so those existing Monsters are now delivering more power than they used to, as there is a greater requirement for Base Load needs, because that is something Wind and solar cannot do.
NG and not wind has replaced coal fired power.
And the average age of ALL coal fired power in the U.S. well that has dropped. It’s now hovering around 47 years, still frighteningly high, and still something that wind and solar can only dream about.
When you need short run time plants which actually can deliver their dedicated maximum at dedicated times, then now you have NG plants, all of them replacing spinning reserve and load followers.
All of this is something that those renewable urgers have zero comprehension of. To them, electrical power is just electrical power. It all comes out of the ‘hole in the wall’ to them so it’s all the same.
Oh dear!
Tony.
20
The grid has transformers with inductance to handle lightning strikes and capacitors to limit out of phase current losses.
10
What ever happened to ‘Education’. Here is Play School at Curtin.
70
Errr… what!
Educational in a new way that I was previously unaware of…
50
Australia’s finest minds …
10
Spring has sprung! I know because the new Formula 1 season begins in Melbourne, Australia today. Lewis Hamilton’s in pole position, and I’ll be glued to the television here in the UK today to enjoy the race.
I daresay there’ll be plenty of CO2 as well……cue the moaning minnies!
There’s nothing like the visceral howl of a racing car when you’re at the trackside – the television can’t convey it.
I’ve just been reading about a 1950s sports racing car, the Ferrari 500TRC. Four cylinders, 2 litres, 180bhp, and it looks stunning. The ‘look’ of a classic sports racing car was defined in the 1950s, and these machines are still beautiful today – as reflected in their prices at auction!
To me, the Bugatti Veyron and the other ‘super duper’ cars of today are boring, and virtually useless on public roads. 200mph+ top speed – so what? Still, you pays your money and takes your choice I suppose. Give me one of the ‘oldies’ any day. Adequate power, simple construction compared to today’s computerised machinery, and character in spades.
Of course, the CO2 nonsense continues to infect our politicians. Old or ‘classic’ cars are lovingly restored by enthusiasts, and rarely seen on the road. Yet the great and the good want to ban them from from the centres of European cities, for example London. Just another bit of CO2 craziness – not surprising.
There are 3,000,000,000,000 tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere, or if you prefer about 0.04% of the atmosphere.
So what difference will a few old cars make?
Enjoy today’s race you Aussies!
70
It’s not for the CO2 but for build of noxious pollutants in high concentrations that they want to limit emissions in crowded cities, because the EU tells them they have to or be fined.
20
Joe V. – I take your point, but CO2 certainly is a huge consideration in the banning of cars from certain areas of cities.
For example:
http://www.c40.org/case_studies/londons-congestion-charge-cuts-co2-emissions-by-16
20
Most journalists will play & politicians will dance to the CO2 tune, but it is a Congestion charge and being extended for harmful pollutants , because the EC has declared London non-compliant.
The CO2 savings are incidental, will be spun for all faux importance that can be squeezed out of them, but are pointless.
The perceived CO2 problem is not one of local concentrations.
20
Having watched the first F1 race of the year, I noted that the commentator remarked that the track temperature at one point was 37 Celsius, while the air temperature above it was 18 degrees.
I can’t resist posting the idea that CO2 isn’t quite the ‘greenhouse gas’ we’re led to believe, and I await the flak from the warming brigade.
20
CO2 from race car exhausts is a super green house gas, capable of raising the track temperature by 19C!
20
They skid those tyres a lot!! All energy from COAL!
10
Q. Does Carbon(sic) Capture & Storage stop Extreme Global Warming?
ABC: “The Callide Oxyfuel Project is one of just a few low-emission coal projects in the world, and demonstrates how carbon capture technology can be retrofitted to existing power stations.
For the past two years, the 30-megawatt plant has generated enough power for around 30,000 homes while most of its carbon emissions have been captured.”
~ ~ ~
ABC: Cyclone Marcia: Independent investigation into Callide Dam flooding called
ABC: Tropical Cyclone Marcia: Biloela and Jambin residents consider legal action over Callide Dam flooding
. . .
A. No.
And neither will solar panels or windmills.
50
Bobl –
i am neither in favour nor against negative gearing.
was interested in your suggestions. what drove me crazy was debate was simply shut down, with the MSM’s help, & the personal attacks.
as u say, there are people – many, many people – in their 50s, who will never find another job & i cannot understand why some of them lose their homes, or are driving unsafe cars, etc., because of these rules that suit the FINANCIAL SECTION ONLY.
there needs to be more flexibility in the system.
bemused –
i posted Peter Hannam’s SMH version of our veggies will have to move story on jo’s previous Sci-Am thread.
your AAP version includes the usual rude attack on the Govt, with the Qld farmer saying “Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, our idiotic politicians are hooked on coal and gas, which is the cause of the problem”. i’d like the farmers, especially this particular farmer, to try surviving without fossil fuels!
Hannam’s verions includes: “The Appetite for Change report’s release marks the launch of Earth Hour, in which millions of people in 160 nations are expected to switch off their lights for 60 minutes. This year’s event kicks off at 8.30 pm, AEDT, of Sunday, March 28.”
i posted a LinkedIn on the author, Richard Eckard, with Hannam’s link, which states Eckard “sits on science advisory panels for the Australian, New Zealand and UK governments on climate change research in agriculture.”
u can see why Australia cannot take an openly independent path on CAGW. it’s pathetic.
30
Ive just posted on the SMH article. Thanks Pat.
20
David Evans appears to have some insipid temperature input data (usually referred to as GIGO) for his fanciful solar theory.
Data as published by sciencespeak.com and here.
The reality of Christiansen Ljungqvist: The extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere temperature 2012: refer fig 8
May be we can get Monckton of Brenchley to cast a critical eye across both representations and let us know if they are “strikingly similar”.
May the Force X be with you!
212
Don’t hold back when you learn to write a coherent argument.
152
Sorry, which of the referred graphs wrongly depicts the data? (been reading too much at WUWT).
13
SF: You are incoherent (whose graphs? What’s WUWT got to do with anything). Read my post again. Then find me the global proxy that goes right up to modern times. We real scientists like to compare temperatures that are measured the same way.
80
So what’s with the variation in temperature, as I will ask yet again. Obviously a curious and mysterious adjustment to the reconstructions and modern record from real scientists like Christiansen and Ljungqvist, on whose two studies you so readily rely, but appear to distort statistically on comparison to the modern instrumental record. Real scientists would answer the question, perhaps?
24
What question? You haven’t presented a cogent query. Just as with your last attempt to construct sentences, what variation in which temperature? I’ll go back a few to try to understand what you mean. The solar notch theory has got nothing to do with this post. David Evans doesn’t publish proxy reconstructions. Were you so consumed with trying to launch petty ad homs, that if you had a point, you lost it?
You are possibly talking about the MWP (who can tell?) but your only reference was to Fig 8 earlier of Christiansen and Ljundqvist — which goes back to 1500AD. Not so useful.
Go have a look at your own link at Fig 7 and Fig 5. They support the point I made in the post, that the hockey stick as presented above was created by the UHI-adjusted-instrumental record, not by a proxy.
51
So there we have it, Jo has no idea of what data she references, even that which has been manipulated for graphic display. Nice attempt at blaming UHI but we know it’s impact is insignificant. You said the MVP was warmer than current, C&L said much different. Don’t blame me for findings flaws in your data, you put them there! Pity you won’t explain them.
[I am getting bored with this. You are ceasing to make any sense, at all. I am going to hold this in moderation. Jo can release it if she wishes to continue with the conversation, such as it is] Fly
Yawn. What data am I referencing for what claim? I did not say “the MWP was warmer”. What flaw in what claim did you find? Please Quote. What won’t I explain? Please use whole words, readable grammar, accurate quotes, and complete sentences. One day when you grow up / learn English / lay off the red, you might write a sentence other people can understand. – Jo
10
Bit embarrassing, eh!
34
It’s OK sillyfilly. Don’t feel too bad. We don’t expect you to make sense anyhow.
71
It would spoil the fun if sillyfilly suddenly started making sense.
50
Can you trust a greenie?
Green pressure groups such as the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF)and The Wilderness Society (WS), along with a couple of no count singers accompanied by a feral chorus, ran a campaign last year opposing Woodside Petroleum’s James’ Price Point gas hub project, just north of Broome in Western Australia. They shipped in the usual ferals who camped around the site, befouling the place, destroying the environment and making life impossible for the locals, for the workers and for the Aboriginal community.
The James Price Point gas hub was destined to deliver a massive fillip to the local Aboriginal community in the form of jobs, health and education opportunities for generations to come. The Aboriginal community strongly supported the Woodside project through its Kimberley Land Council, headed by Wayne Bergmann. Previously, green groups had signed an agreement saying they would “support indigenous decision-making and self-determination in return for a single hub” – as opposed to multiple hubs, which had been the fear.
The green comrades subsequently reneged on that agreement; sabotaged the project and eventually destroyed all those opportunities for the local Aboriginal community.
The process of sabotage included calling local Aboriginal people “toxic coconuts” and “brown on the outside and full of the milk of white man’s money” on the inside, for not supporting the green’s position on the gas hub. Of course, this is not new. It is what we expect from the greens and their warmist comrades.
Is it any surprise that Woodside pulled the plug and decided to build a floating LNG platform, instead of a land based one?
As a result, $1.5 billion of benefit to the Kimberley Aboriginal community has been lost. Jobs for their future and their children’s future have gone up in smoke because of the ignorant ideology and racist stupidity of the green nutters. The educational opportunities and access to a better, healthier life, that Woodside’s gas hub promised, have been thrown overboard by the actions of the ACF, the WS and their green saboteur comrades.
Do they care? Make up your own mind:
The shameful response of the President of the ACF, Geoff Cousins, to the Aboriginal leader Wayne Bergmann’s recent criticism of the green sabotage was to cynically blame him (Bergmann) and the Aboriginal’s Kimberley Land Council for failing to incorporate a “break-clause” in the agreement Bergman had negotiated with Woodside. Incredible, but true.
So, it seems, in Cousins’ view, it is the Kimberley Land Council’s fault – or Bergmann’s. How perverse? How self-serving and cynical? Blame the victim. That’s the green way. The way of the slime ball.
As Bergmann says: “Geoffrey Cousins is still living in his house in Sydney – he hasn’t left anything back here in our region”.
Will it make any difference? Think about it:
• The LNG will still be produced from the Browse basin;
• The international economies that buy the LNG will continue
to industrialise and lift their standards of living;
• The emissions from the LNG will still enter the atmosphere
(not that they will do any harm there, in any case);
• Woodside will still make a very good profit from pumping the
gas in the Browse basin – probably an even bigger profit
because of its more efficient floating LNG technology
alternative; and,
• Governments will still get their taxes and royalties.
However, the green saboteurs have ensured that the Kimberley Aboriginal community misses out. The members of the Broome Aboriginal community are the greens’ victims – each and every one of them.
The Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness Society should never be forgiven for their duplicitous and racist sabotage. The Kimberley Aboriginal community and its supporters should never forget what these ignorant paternalistic and racist greens did to them.
They should write it large in their lore, for all time: “never trust a greenie”.
Those who support “Closing the Gap” in Aboriginal disadvantage in Australia should do whatever they can to destroy the greens, undermine their lobby groups (such as the ACF and WS) and boycott their financial supporters.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/kimberley-gas-plant-protesters-left-nothing-for-people/story-fn9hm1pm-1227260500521
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/greens-woodside-gas-deal-betrayal-slammed/story-e6frf7jo-1226144994972
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/coconut-slur-the-last-straw-for-mp/story-fn9hm1pm-1226148561767
151
Was it beneficial to Woodside to have the floating platform?
30
Yep. Greenies can’t swim without floaties.
71
Showing the true nature of greenies
20
Here’s a thought, more related to the Oreskes thread than anything.
Why doesn’t anyone, such as the CIA, apply Palantir to the climate science industry?
It might work something like the human tissue trading scam they uncovered a few years back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLyWXGaaMYA
Interesting stuff, and with the total surveillance we now know is happening, you can be quite sure the NSA already has the relevant data on archive.
Is there a well oiled “climate denial machine” or is there a “climate tax scam” or is there perhaps a bit of both operating at different scales? There’s just no telling what the result might be.
40
Sceptical Sam –
woke up this morning to this lengthy program on RN.
Auntie gives it 3 airings.
ABC RN Profile: David Pocock, former Wallabies skipper and captain of the Brumbies
Sunday 8 March 2015 12:30PM
Repeated: Monday 1:30am and Sunday 5:00am
Presented by Richard Aedy
David Pocock is a force on the rugby field.
He’s an open-side flanker, which means it’s his job to get the ball from the opposition.
To do this you need speed, power, technique, smarts and aggression. David Pocock has the lot and before his two knee reconstructions, he was right up there with the best in the world – one of very few players the All Blacks feared…
***But there is much more to David Pocock than rugby. He wants to see action on climate change and he’s a big supporter of sustainable agriculture. Hence his involvement and arrest last November in a protest against the controversial Maules Creek (coal) mine in north-western New South Wales…
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/sundayprofile/david-pocock2c-former-wallabies-skipper-and-captain-of-the-bru/6286914
during a lengthy power cut last week, i switched the radio to ABC Brisbane in case they had any info on what was causing it, to no avail.
instead, a giggling young female presenter was on air with an ABC guy & he announced something to do with the ODI Cricket World Cup. giggler complains how it’s been going on & on forever, when is it going to end? giggle giggle. male presenter laughs. giggler then says it’s like the football world cup (she seemingly meant the Asian Cup), adding how it went on and on & so on & so forth. funny both these tournaments are incredibly multicultural, & should be among ABC presenters’ favourite sports, especially compared to Union.
i regularly hear ABC presenters disparage & mock sport & sports people but, if there’s a CAGW angle – better still, with an anti-coal twist – the ABC puts out the welcome mat, and airs it 3 times.
60
Hi Pat,
I can’t bring myself to criticise Pocock too much. After all he did play for the Western Force at one stage.
However, he could do himself a favour and get himself a tertiary education. He might then learn to think for himself and question the clap-trap he’s being fed. He spends a bit of time at university but they are not teaching him to think:
http://www.smh.com.au/rugby-union/union-news/david-pocock-and-injured-brumbies-pushed-to-their-limits-as-altitude-room-test-dummies-20150301-13qoj5.html
He’s being used. Used by the greenies. Used by the ABC. Used by the socialist saboteurs who wouldn’t give him the time of day if he didn’t have a rugby profile.
In fact I suspect the greenies are laughing at him behind his back most of the time.
He will eventually wake up. Just don’t hold your breath.
20
We have not had good measurements of ocean heat in the southern ocean so they used satellite sea level measurements to determine that it had heated up a lot more then we had thought http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n11/full/nclimate2389.html). Then we find that the abyss ocean which is below 2000m was most likely cooling (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n11/full/nclimate2387.html), of cause if the abyss is cooling then its only logical to think the heat has nowhere to go but up, since its already at the bottom of the ocean. With all the heat found in the southern ocean most of the heat has been accounted for but the question is, how much heat from the abyss is making its way up to the upper ocean? A recent paper (http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00550.1?af=R ) states “The global integral of vertical heat flux shows an upward heat transport in the deep ocean, suggesting a cooling trend in the deep ocean. These results support an inference that the near-surface thermal properties of the ocean are a consequence, at least in part, of internal redistributions of heat, some of which must reflect water that has undergone long trajectories since last exposure to the atmosphere. The small residual heat exchange with the atmosphere today is unlikely to represent the interaction with an ocean that was in thermal equilibrium at the start of global warming. An analogy is drawn with carbon-14 “reservoir ages” which range over hundreds to a thousand years.”
It should be expected that the same processes that pushed heat from the atmosphere into the abyss over a thousand years ago would also be taking anthropogenic warming down there to, but you have to wonder how much of the warming we are seeing now is from the medieval warm period..
32
This is complete nonsense, where does this idiotic idea come from?
The sun, ocean, atmospheric coupling is: Sun >> ocean >> atmosphere. The cooler atmosphere cannot warm a warmer ocean. This is impossible.
20
I learnt all about thermodynamics, by listening to Flanders and Swann.
30
Wonderful…wasn’t it?!
20
A profound experience.
10
Thomas, If you have a warmer atmosphere then the ocean surface has to be in equilibrium. The medieval warm period (MWP) was hotter in the North Atlantic than it is today. A lot of ocean heat is lost to the atmosphere in the North Atlantic, but this warming would have caused the ocean to release less heat, allowing it to fall down to the Abyss through the thermohaline circulation. This warm current takes 1000 years to traverse The Global Conveyor Belt and the MWP started in 950AD..
12
When I was at school, we were told that the amount of energy absorbed by an object was proportional to its density. Water, being denser than Air, will therefore absorb more radiant heat energy from the sun than will the air. Mind you, that was a long time ago, and the system may have been improved, with the adoption of the SI units of measurement (except in the USA, and some parts of Papua New Guinea).
30
Yes Rereke your point about water being more dense than air is right and is why you hear the phrase over 90% of anthropogenic warming goes into the ocean. The atmosphere only holds about 2% percent of total global warming. In relation to my point I am only explaining the warmer the atmosphere is the less amount of heat will be released from the ocean. Ocean-Atmosphere equilibrium will be reached quicker if the atmosphere is warmer, ergo less heat is released from the ocean, leaving more to be taken down with the thermohaline circulation.
11
So Thomas is right, when he says, “The cooler atmosphere cannot warm a warmer ocean.”
You say, “The atmosphere only holds about 2% percent of total global warming”, which seems eminently reasonable. But for clarification, how much is 2%, expressed in terms of energy?
10
No he is wrong. If the surface of the ocean is in equilibrium with the atmosphere at a given point but moves into a region where the atmosphere is much warmer then you will get heat going from the atmosphere into the surface of the ocean. The point I was making is about the ocean warming at depth in the tropics and making its way into the North Atlantic to release heat into the colder high latitudes but being unable to release as much due to the medieval warm period.
10
I fail to understand how this state of equilibrium, upon which you rely, for your argument, could ever occur, in any way other than theoretically.
For one thing, both mediums are in constant physical motion, due to the actions of wind, gravity, magnetism, solar activity, and movements in the earth’s crust. I know of no force in nature that would keep the surface of the ocean in a state of equilibrium with the atmosphere, other than pure chance. In the absence of any controlling force, entropy reigns.
And although radiative energy provides a consistent source of heat to both, convection and conduction would work against establishing a state of equilibrium, since both mediums will be in motion, and working asynchronously.
Any equality in temperature between the ocean and the atmosphere will therefore be fleeting and probably coincidental.
You shouldn’t believe everything you read in the models.
10
“I fail to understand how this state of equilibrium [could] ever occur”
This is the point, it is never in equilibrium but as can be expected the higher the latitude the cooler the atmosphere should be. This is why the oceans are warming now, CO2 is increasing the temperature of the atmosphere which in turn heats the ocean and restricts the amount of heat that can be released from the ocean. As you explained water is denser than air so 90% of the warming is in the ocean, its the oceans that are controlling the temperature of the atmosphere http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=66
10
“This is the point, it is never in equilibrium”
Yes indeed, it is never in equilibrium!
What you miss is that every molecule is spontaneously pedaling as fast as it can toward equilibrium no mater which way that may lead. Statically the RMS may be high, but the mean remains zero with respect to equilibrium. Is this not sufficient to accept equilibrium as a significant part of this what is? Equilibrium must be deterministic, not chaotic, not random. 🙂
10
How does what you keep saying change my point?
10
“Thomas, If you have a warmer atmosphere then the ocean surface has to be in equilibrium.”
This is true! however you have the wrong equilibrium. The WV to water ratio at the “surface” must be the max WV at that interface temperature. Sometimes called saturated WV.
As the air temperature increases a wee bit partial pressure increases and more WV is created. Each gram of water evaporated carries 2300 Joules of latent energy to be radiated to space before such can ever return to the surface as rain. All sensible heat by comparison is negligible. Surface lateral wind strictly controls the amount of evaporation and thus latent hear to be dispatched to space from the atmosphere via EMR.
Please describe that which controls the wind at each time and place of the surface and you will describe the only significant control on temperature. 🙂
10
Can you provide a link regarding wind having a control on ocean evaporation? Temperature should be the main driver of water evaporation, if the wind is hot/cold should depend on the amount of evaporation. This is why anthropogenic warming is such a concern, with increased ocean temperatures there is more water vapor to increase temperatures.
10
All studies show that lateral airflow controls the surface removal of saturated WV. Saturation is 0.4 mm thick it cannot spontaneously rise as the next higher 0.4 mm has lower density. Wind powers the mass flow in the absence of buoyancy!
“with increased ocean temperatures there is more water vapor to increase temperatures.”
Humm, The latent heat powers the exitance at the higher colder atmosphere. This is where heat energy is spontaneously radiated to space. This process results in a necessary lower surface temperature.
10
If all studies show it then I am sure you can link one? Because I fail to see your point, if the atmosphere is warmer then the ocean surface has to be in equilibrium with it and vise versa. This is why the oceans are warming from anthropogenic CO2.
10
I do not wish to do your work! Show any evidence of your claims!
10
Michael
20
Michael,
OK, so lets get serious. Please provide me with some basic information about what you claim. Here are my current questions, I may have more:
1. What is the amount of additional oceanic heat energy, over the past ten years, calculated in Joules. To what depth from the surface, does the warming subtend?
2. What proportion of the warming, in joules, from your answer to question 1, can be definitively demonstrated to have originated from anthropogenic causes?
3. How, when, and where were the baseline measurements of current, and reference temperatures obtained.
20
“You might become impatient, in which case you could always get into the bath, with the hair dryer just to see what happens.”
Shame, shame, you advocate destroying idiots rather than politicians! Idiots can still push the wheelbarrow!
11
Will, I call nonsense on your claim “Please describe that which controls the wind at each time and place of the surface and you will describe the only significant control on temperature.”
Rod, Arctic http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png and Antarctic http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Antarctica_Ice_Mass.gif Ice volume loss
This will explain the cold on the east coast of US http://mashable.com/2015/03/16/second-warmest-february-nasa/
Rereke, Ill give you a more detailed response.
10
Why do tolls cling to these week old threads like flies on a cow turd?
Your links are a bit dated; six years to be exact. If you want to pick cherries you need a ladder.
Ah, yes, of course. Even the Easter Bunny would believe that nonsense about gerbil worming making it cold.
It’s time for your bath.
10
Rereke,
6.75×10’22 Joules is about how much the ocean has warmed from 2004-2014 http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content700m2000myr.png.
Trade winds push the warm surface water into a pacific corner which looks like this http://www.scilogs.de/wblogs/gallery/16/thermocline.png this causes a cooling in the atmosphere as cold deep ocean water is brought to the surface and lots of heat is pushed into the deep ocean. When the trade winds switch direction, the warm ocean water is spread out and heats the atmosphere.
ARGO shows this here http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/OHC_ENSO_Roemmich_Gilson_2011.gif with (b) showing surface temperature in black, ocean temperature at 160m as blue and ELSO (trade winds) in red.
This paper https://thingsbreak.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/anthropogenic-and-natural-warming-inferred-from-changes-in-earths-energy-balance.pdf determined how much global warming is anthropogenic. As you can see from this graph, most CO2 warming happens after 1970 http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/KnuttiAttributionGraph.png.
These findings are based on accounted natural forcing shown here http://www.changecollege.org.uk/img/Huber_and_Knutti_2011.jpg CO2 is the only way to explain the warming we are seeing.
Another way to look at anthropogenic atmosphere warming is to minus out all the natural forcing and see what is left http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics.php?g=52
Ocean warming is simply based on the fact CO2 is warming the atmosphere so less heat is being released from the ocean.
Rod,
I provided the Arctic sea ice volume data as far as it goes which is late 2014 and as everyone can see what you said is wrong http://psc.apl.uw.edu/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/schweiger/ice_volume/BPIOMASIceVolumeAnomalyCurrentV2.1.png .
This is the most recent paper I could find on Antarctic Ice Volume which also shows you are wrong. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183/F5.large.jpg (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6111/1183)
10
Antarctic Sea Ice Area (SIA)
The Antarctic sea ice continued to melt through February as sea ice area decreased towards its usual its summer minimum. The Antarctic sea ice anomaly remained positive all month (more sea ice than “normal” for every day in February. The Antarctic sea ice anomaly itself decreased during the month, even though the percent of excess sea ice increased. At 0.618 Mkm^2 on 22 Feb, this “excess” sea ice is now represents a reflecting surface about half the size of Hudson’s Bay, at a latitude slightly further north than Hudson’s Bay.
The Antarctic sea ice has been more than 2 standard deviations above normal for almost every day of the past 2-1/2 years now, and February 2015 only continues that trend towards more sea ice.
SIA 1979-2008, DOY 53, = 1.874 Mkm^2, Average area this date
SIA 2015, DOY 53, = 2.492 Mkm^2, Actual area this date
SIA Anomaly, 2015, DOY 53 = 0.618 Mkm^2, Anomaly this date
Percent increase of Antarctic SIA = 33.0% more Antarctic sea ice than normal for this date
Today’s total Antarctic Ice = 14.0 + 1.5 + 2.492 = 18.0 Mkm^2.
The edge of the Antarctic sea ice is at latitude -68.3 south, slightly closer to the South Pole than the Antarctic Circle at -66.5 south latitude.
(Antarctica’s ice now covers a total area of 18.0 Mkm^2 = 14.0 mkm^2 of continental land ice + 1.5 Mkm^2 of permanent shelf ice plus 2.5 Mkm^2 of total sea ice.) Today’s Antarctic sea ice area represents Antarctica’s annual minimum area.
Arctic Sea Ice Area (SIA)
22 February 2015, Day-of-Year (DOY) = 53
The Arctic sea ice continues to slowly expand towards its spring maximum in late March. As expected, even as every individual day grows longer after the winter solstice on Dec 22, the Arctic continues to lose heat into space. This heat loss is seen as an increase every day in the Arctic sea ice area.
The sun rises earlier each morning, the sun sets a little later each afternoon +> Again, both as must happen as we approach the spring equinox March 22 when both north and south poles get an equal 12 hours of sunlight, and 12 hours of darkness.
Today’s Arctic sea ice anomaly remains negative at -0.979 Mkm^2. This continues its decade long negative value, and this value continues the steady negative sea ice anomaly started in early 2013 and continued through all of 2014. However, today’s anomaly is significantly smaller than both 2007 and 2012’s record low sea ice anomaly, and it represents an increase in Arctic sea ice area since 2005. Today’s Arctic sea ice anomaly remains within 2 standard deviations of the 1979-2008 mean, and that continues a trend begun in 2013 and continued through most the days since.
Today’s Arctic sea ice anomaly is obviously negative, and represents an area of “lost sea ice” roughly 81% the size of Hudson’s Bay’s 1.2 Mkm^2.
From Cryosphere (the Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois) for Feb 22, 2015:
SIA 1979-2008 Average, = 14.005 Mkm^2, (Average area this date)
SIA 2015, DOY 53 Actual Area = 13.027 Mkm^2, (Actual area this date)
SIA Anomaly, 2015, DOY 53 = -0.979 Mkm^2, (Anomaly this date)
Percent of Arctic SIA = only 7.0 % less Arctic sea ice than normal for this date
Total Arctic Sea Ice Area = 13.027 Mkm^2
The edge of the Arctic sea ice lies approximately at latitude 71.6 north, well north of the Arctic Circle at latitude 66.5. (This assumes a circular Arctic sea ice cap, centered at the north pole. The actual Arctic sea ice is only roughly circular, and its geometric center lies closer to the Canadian coast than to the Russian coast.)
10
re Richard Eckard’s Appetite for Change report claiming CAGW will force the migration of our veggies:
The Onion is not on the list.
this is my excuse to bring up the MSM’s lowest of many low point this week – a story that should have appeared only at The Onion website; & a story which proves, once again, that the CAGW crowd, so desperate to install TurnBULL as PM to save the planet from CAGW, are totally out of touch with nature:
Tony Abbott shocks as he eats a raw onion whole
Sydney Morning Herald
Tony Abbott eats raw onion: Twitter memes created
http://www.news.com.au/…raw-onion…/story-fnjwnhzf-1227262266175
Dear world, video of Abbott eating a raw onion may seem trivial…look on it as a warning in the event a halfwit runs for PM in your country.
The Guardian – Tony Abbott eats a raw onion
Victorian Labor MP Tim Watts said: ‘You’ve got to admit, eating an onion is a pretty good metaphor for the Abbott government overall.’
SMH: The rise and rise of Tony Abbott as an international laughing stock
In a flurry of patronising punishing jabs from his onion-breathed mouth
New Statesman UK: Australia’s PM bit into an onion in the manner of an apple, skin and all, as if it’s a normal thing
Weird bloke, this bloke, isn’t he.
International laughing stock Tony Abbott, prime minister of Australia, has never been one to shy away from controversy. He named himself minister for women …
But yesterday he went to an onion farm in Tasmania and took a whole bite out of an onion and looked really pleased with himself…
lowest of all, the once-respected Washington Post:
WaPo: Adam Taylor: An Onion headline: Australian leader eats raw onion whole
(Adam Taylor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. Originally from London, he studied at the University of Manchester and Columbia University.)
Chomping into a raw onion as if it were an apple is an unusual thing to do…
Just before his onion-eating moment, he had been criticized for a “patronizing” video released for St. Patrick’s Day.
On Twitter, many observers tried to find the political meaning in the onion…
TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET TWEET
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/03/13/an-onion-headline-australian-leader-eats-raw-onion-whole/
didn’t find an ABC onion outrage headline, tho no doubt it made an appearance in the Tassie visit stories, but ABC made sure it got around:
ABC News – “Mmmmmmmm” Prime Minister Tony Abbott …
https://www.facebook.com/abcnews.au/posts/10153815719014988
“Mmmmmmmm” Prime Minister Tony Abbott eats an onion, skin and all, while touring an onion farm in Tasmania.
ABC News’s post on Vine
https://vine.co/v/O9deFBO6HZW
1 day ago – Watch ABC News’s Vine “Prime Minister Tony Abbott eats an onion, skin and all, while touring an onion farm in Tasmania
ABC News Tasmania on Twitter: “Tony Abbott proved how …
https://twitter.com/abcnewsTas/status/576272360573022208
… much he liked Tasmanian produce when picked up a raw onion and ate it, skin and all.
MichaelSmithNews: It takes an onion to shock Fairfax and The Left
SMH: Ten times politicians ate something weirder than Tony Abbott’s raw onion
Australians ***collectively*** shuddered as footage emerged of Prime Minister Tony Abbott casually munching on a raw onion – skin and all – as if it were an apple
Guardian: Dean Burnett: Onions CAN taste like apples: the Tony Abbot effect
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot recently caused much confusion by publicly eating a raw onion in the manner people would usually eat apples, with no complaint or objection. Whilst baffling to many, this may be one instance where science supports Tony Abbot’s actions.
—–
Raw Onion answers at various Answer.com, other pages online over the past decade: who eats them, where do people eat them:
A. Best Answer: my bro can eat a whole onion like an apple…
A. I love eating raw onions!! I have loved them since I was a kid!! I can eat the whole onion raw like an apple, even red onions, which are the strongest! Although, my personal favorite are the Maui Onions!!! YUM YUM!!
A. Well, good for you. Onions are a really healthy food and even protect against certain diseases. You should get a hold of some Vidalia onions. From Vidalia, GA. They have a kind of sweet flavor. Those folks from Vidalia even eat them whole, like an apple. I’ve seen it on TV
A. I live in Texas and had never seen this before. I watched a guy take a HUGE onion out of the bag and stand there eating it. I’d never seen anybody do this before.
He ate the whole thing.
A. Washington State is famous for “Walla-walla sweets”…those onions are as good as any apple, I’ve eaten them raw like that myself before…
A. Everywhere and anywhere.
A. all over the world…
A. here also in korea like that
A. in iran… we love to eat raw onions!!! 🙂 go on ahead… TRY IT!
A. i am sure other countries do it as well…
A. Catherine Helm It’s really not that odd. One of my brothers used to LOVE eating onions like that when he was little. Would eat it like an apple.
A. We used to eat onions straight out of the garden. So yummy! Peas, carrots, and radishes too. That was one of the best things to get to do with grandpa!
—-
for the CAGW-doom-loving, vegetable-loathing MSM:
Live Science: Onions: Health Benefits, Health Risks & Nutrition Facts
Turns out that onions are nothing to cry over — these flavorful bulbs are packed with nutrients…
Onions are healthy whether they’re raw or cooked, though raw onions have higher levels of organic sulfur compounds that provide many benefits, according to the BBC…
Onions also grew in Chinese gardens as early as 5,000 years ago, and they are referred to in the oldest Vedic writings from India. As early as the sixth century B.C., a medical treatise, the Charaka Sanhita, celebrates the onion as medicine, a diuretic, good for digestion, the heart, the eyes and the joints…
In Egypt, onions were planted as far back as 3500 B.C. They were considered to be objects of worship, and symbolized eternity because of the circle-within-a-circle structure. Paintings of onions appear on the inner walls of pyramids and other tombs…
The Greeks used onions to fortify athletes for the Olympic Games. Before competition, athletes would consume pounds of onions, drink onion juice, and rub onions on their bodies…
http://www.livescience.com/45293-onion-nutrition.html
your days are numbered, MSM.
40
That actually demonstrates good survival skills. Onion juice acts as a disinfectant, and you can rub a slice of onion onto a cut, or a graze, to stop it getting infected (it hurts like anything, but it works). You can also chew a raw onion to treat a sore throat, with the added advantage that other people are unlikely to come close enough for you to pass the infection on.
Jus’ sayin’…
10
“No, no.”, said I to myself. “Wait until the Weekend Unthreaded” to bring up a new subject”.
Now I can’t find the note about the subject on which I was intending to post. There are just so very, very many stupid things published in the media. Diminishingly few journalists or editors bother to act as a “firewall” between the delusional world of the activists and the real world inhabited by the rational and sane.
70
Can anyone tell if there are any benefits to a carbon tax and why so many people support it and why it is so hard to explain to people why we do/don’t need one.
30
As the 1960’s song went:
“Don’t it make you feel good?”.
30
To answer your questions”
1. Benefit: The government gets to grab more money.
2: Support: People are basically stupid and will do what they are told.
3. Hard to explain: Even the people who made up the scam don’t really understand why or how it works, which is why they will die in a ditch before they try to fiddle with it. Your average punter has no show of understanding anything about it, except that it is costing them real money.
10
My main question is why can’t it be explained to people the need to have or not have a carbon trading system. So many people I speak to say we need a carbon trading system. I try to talk about it and just get told it has to happen. Why?
40
Peter,
People will generally believe what they are told.
The whole of government is against us. Also the main scientific institutions and the main stream media. My recently acquired car has a government mandated sticker assuring me it puts out large amounts of carbon pollution.
The sceptical voice is still small but growing. The truth cannot be suppressed forever. Logical arguments should be understood, but they are not, at least initially.
30
Well done peter C. I wish I had one of those stickers.
However, my 18.5 litres/100km Landcruiser doesn’t have a such a sticker because it’s a bit too old for that level of government red/green tape. It just belches to its heart’s content. I can virtually see the trees grow in direct proportion to the rate of fall of the fuel gauge. The leaves smile at me as I go past.
When I’m driving I always like to come across one of those little French rubber-band powered cars(*) that the greenies like, that have a “Ban CO2” sticker (or some other moronic environmental motto) attached to their rear wind-screen or bumper-bar. When I do, I always make sure I pull in front of them and give them as much exhaust as I can.
(*) I have never quite understood why the greenies drive French cars – what with “Rainbow Warrior” and all – but they do. But there you are; it’s another indicator of their stupidity.
60
If only the French made Landcruisers. 🙂
40
I won’t mention the Renault 18 I used to own when I was with the Greens…
100
Oh, that was you was it Jo.
Sorry.
70
It could have been. I was a “friend of the rainbow warrior” and WWF. I had a sticker…
The Renault broke down a fair bit. I may have been dumb with the stickers, but I did change the rocker cover gasket myself, and fixed the electric windows motor. At least it worked again, and for years after.
70
You’re lucky that it was only the rocker cover gasket that the French car blew after you became a friend of the Rainbow Warrior.
40
Jo,
Not a fan of the Rainbow Warrior, but with you on the WWF who could forget the bout between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant.
20
It sounds as though you “wore a sticker” for punishment.
10
Changing is easy. Did you actually have a replacement rocker cover gasket? 🙂
Most folk get a teenager to do that!
10
We had a faded red Renault 12 estate car (station wagon to Aussies!) in Cyprus years ago…a very good little car. We sold it back to the same garage for the same price! It was faded as it had been sitting in the sun for ages because of the coup in 1974.
20
I have an uncle , a lifelong quarry mechanic who appreciated real engineering from the likes of Caterpillar, but nevertheless chose one of these rubber band driven, a Dyane 6, for himself because there was so little that could go wrong with them and if it did they were so easy to fix. His quarry mates would rip the pi$$ out of him but he didn’t give a stuff about appearances.
Urban Greens are more likely to want to be seen driving a Pius.
60
🙂
30
I’m not sure carbon taxes or ETSen are particularly popular in say Australia or Switzerland! Anyway, the attractiveness is because you don’t actually have to DO anything to save the planet except pay the required penance to the government of the day. Those that are rich can avoid the penance payment and in fact make a profit by pretending to grow trees in africa, or installing a useless solar panel or windmill or two so that the penance money paid out by the poor is mopped up, turned into concentrated cash, and handed out to those rich people the government fancies at that moment. It’s popular because it’s a way to tackle CO2 that doesn’t require you to actually tackle CO2. The fact that it’s so monumentally inefficient that every tonne of reduction cost over 3000 in the OZ scheme. Meantime the increased productivity of nature to 400 PPM is absorbing our entire national emission for zilch, nada, nothing, and by planting food trees one could absorb CO2 and actually make a profit while doing it.
It’s popular because it’s a great way to mop up money from the useful idiots while still feigning concern for them, the hordes of “useful idiots” can assuage their consciences like tossing into the plate at church, but to “make it fair” the useful idiots get to force the penance onto the non believers as well. What “useful idiot” wouldn’t want a carbon dioxide tax to assuage their conscience using other peoples money.
Greenpiss et al love it because the government slips them a few mil from the revenue, in the way of grants and “projects” or “advice” and so on.
In short a carbon tax or ETS suits just about every one except the mugs on the street that have to pay for it all. That’s why governments keep trying to levy one, and why joe public keeps throwing them out of office when they do.
20
Tanya Plibersek says something stupid…
=> http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/foreign-affairs/bali-nine-pair-hard-line-boats-policy-hurt-bali-pair-labor/story-fn59nm2j-1227263290290
…And she is Shorten’s deputy.
31
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” –
These folks prove Einstein was right…
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/235717-climate-debate-turns-nasty
20
“Weekend Unleaded”.
I prefer Super.
50
I was wondering when someone would notice.
40
We all noticed, but it would be rude of us to point out that the hostess has her skirt on, back to front.
40
You sly devil. I didn’t notice. It looks like my reading comprehension has “personal bias.”
10
And there was me still thinking it was just toorightmate playing with words (as one does) but really it was Jo playing the games and caught by toorightmate.
People do tend to see and hear what they’re expecting. No doubt worsened by multitasking over too many devices, scanning and not really reading.
When unleaded though, who knows what we may get up to (as in unleashed).
10
Unleaded petrol!
I was thinking heavy metal.
Actually there is some weighty stuff to read here.
20
It rhymes with unthreaded dontcha see? 😉
20
What is the sensitivity for each 1% of the most prolific “greenhouse gas” (namely water vapor) in Earth’s atmosphere?
To help any of you answer the question, here are some facts:
Fact 1: Water vapor absorbs a significant amount of incident solar radiation as shown here. The atmosphere absorbs about 20% of incident solar radiation and that absorbing is not by nitrogen, oxygen or argon. (Carbon dioxide also absorbs incident photons in the 2.1 micron range which each have about 5 times the energy of 10 micron photons coming up from the surface. On Venus over 97% of the energy from incident solar radiation is retained in carbon dioxide molecules.)
Fact 2: The concentration of water vapor varies between about 1% and 4%. (The concentration of carbon dioxide above Mauna Loa is 0.04% and, as this graph shows, temperatures there have not increased since 1959.)
Fact 3: The IPCC claims that water vapor does nearly all of “33 degrees of warming” of Earth’s surface. It must do most of it because it dominates CO2 in concentration and also in the number of frequency bands in which it absorbs and radiates, and water vapor lowers the “lapse rate” so that the temperature profile rotates downwards at the surface end, making the surface cooler. (In fact, as per my paper, there is no 33 degrees of warming being done by any back radiation because it is gravity which props up the surface end of the temperature profile.)
When you have answered the question, work out how much hotter the IPCC conjecture implies a region with 4% water vapor would be than a similar region with 1% water vapor at a similar altitude and latitude. Then look up the study in the Appendix of my paper and see what real world data tells us about how water vapor cools rather than warms. And if you don’t believe my study, then spend half a day doing your own.
Finally, note that it is quite clear in the energy diagram here and the text I wrote beneath it that they have certainly added 324W/m^2 of back radiation to 168W/m^2 of solar radiation in order to use this in Stefan Boltzmann calculations to determine the temperature of the surface. Obviously they worked out by difference what the back radiation figure had to be and made it 66% greater than the 195W/m^2 of upward radiation from the atmosphere to space. They need not have bothered, because their whole paradigm is wrong, because they ignored the fact that the Second Law of Thermodynamics tells us that gravity forms the temperature and density gradients – which represent the state of thermodynamic equilibrium.
22
Bravo.
I especially like
I have always been a stickler for measurement accuracy.
All this chatter about temperature anomalies of one hundredth of a degree in the entire atmosphere is worse than silly.
By the same token, hardly anyone ever questions the figures quoted for CO2.
It is precisely as you say. What do we know for certain? That the concentration of CO2 on a knoll above an active volcano is 0.04%.
That is all we know. WE do NOT know that the concentration is homogeneous.
Besides, I thought that the initial data from OCO2 indicated some damned specific spots where is is higher.
On top of that, I recall seeing from research from a real agricultural scientist back in the thirties illustrating a concentration of CO2 at 0.04% before dawn in an Iowa corn field.
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Indeed, Orbiting Carbon Observatory appears to show that CO2 is NOT homogeneous. (BBC, WUWT) It looks like the Amazonian jungles are belching CO2 at a rate greater than any industrialised regions of the world.
The model assumptions are mostly “bogus” when used in models that need to be accurate to the parts per billion so that GCM iterations don’t diverge.
They assumptions are the sort of simplifying assumptions provided to first year undergraduate physics students to make problems solvable. In a simple hand calculation, it doesn’t matter that the numbers are quite inexact. The calculations illustrate the student’s understanding of the physics.
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On a cheerful note: we had a Harvest Festival cum Mothering Sunday service yesterday. It was good to remember to be thankful for all that we have been blessed with here in Australia. The children, and possibly some of the adults, learned that CO2 is an essential element in the growth of plants and therefore for our very existence.
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El Nino rudely awakened by Pam, apparently.
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/cyclone-pam-lifts-chance-of-el-nino-this-year-in-australia-forecasters-says-20150317-1m1913.html
2015 is looming as the hottest year since the beginning of time.
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Climate Change no longer rates in the US.
https://twitter.com/JunkScience/status/575997203619119104/photo/1
10
A scientific paradigm shift is just around the corner.
‘The traction attained by the CO2 paradigm is helped by the reality that panic over CO2 serves the interests of governments, which use it to gain power over industrial economies, of rich and powerful ideological and green-energy forces, and of many scientists, who have built careers on CO2. The combination of forces ensures that work treating CO2 dominance as a given is easily funded, and work questioning it is not.’
J V DeLong / Forbes
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‘Climate change is back on the political agenda in Victoria, with the Andrews Government considering going it alone with a state-based greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.
‘In a symbolic but significant gesture, Environment Minister Lisa Neville has ordered bureaucrats in her department to “call it what it is – climate change”, banning the phrase “climate variability” preferred by the former Napthine government.’
Josh Gordon / The Age
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Its a question of unmitigated bias, Aunty has no shame and Turnbull should be ashamed.
http://abcnewswatch.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/a-bucket-on-media-watch.html
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But it’s PLANT FOOD!!!
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2015/03/19/4200204.htm
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