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
It’s been 2°C and rain/hailstones here for the past 3 hours, the BOM observations page has us at 6-7°C with 0mm rainfall over the same period, the airport is NOT that far away!
100
It has been absolutely freezing our way the entire weekend, but it’ll probably be declared the hottest winter weekend in living memory.
But on another note: http://scitechdaily.com/scientists-discover-a-new-source-of-greenhouse-gases/.
91
So if 78% of earths atmosphere is N (Nitrogen) what is the danger of N2O being 320ppb?
I noticed the tests were conducted in actual greenhouse conditions, haven’t we been down this road before?, any feedback from someone with atmospheric N2O effects other than CAGW sponsored sources will be appreciated.
40
bemused,
There will always be an enemy under every rock. I’m surprised it’s nitrogen but they need something to cry wolf about. So why not N2O?
Oxides of nitrogen are already a problem, being one of the principle components of the smog that still sometimes plagues the Los Angeles basin. My furnace has special wire mesh inserts in front of each burner for the express purpose of cooling the flame enough to reduce the NOx coming out the stack on my roof. They get red hot and I’m surprised they’ve held together as long as they have. They must be made of pretty tough stuff to withstand all the hours already logged by the furnace and still be like new.
30
Have you seen any brass monkeys, looking for somebody who does welding?
80
Rereke,
as umm, Seniors, we all remember that old saying.
However, once having heard it, and not all that keen on using it in polite company, I heard a play on those words which I have used ever since.
Everybody knows the old saying, so when this one gets heard in its place, it always raises a smile.
Tony.
50
I stand (well sit, actually) corrected Tony, and I fully apologise for any offensive mental imagery I might have created.
I am surprised though, because I would have thought that you would be familiar with the term, in the way that it was used by most Commonwealth Air Forces in Asia, to describe the night-time practice of removing toads from the aircraft hard-standings.
It is amazing what a judicious squirt of liquid oxygen will do.
40
OR:
Freeze the balls off a billiard table.
OR:
As cold as a mother-in-law’s kiss.
20
Nah! The brass monkey has just gone down to the corner garage to get a small welding job done.
Thats about the level of global warming around western Vic at the moment with the corner garages flat out on those brass monkey welding jobs
20
Colder than a twitch’s wit.
Or a little more presentable in it’s right form…
Colder than a well digger’s foot.
20
I’ll have a go but it won’t be cheap, after all if you pay peanuts you get……
40
@ Yonniestone
Your offer to weld the balls back on is appreciated, but I’ll look for someone cheaper.
Our Tasmanian politicians used the phrase “If you pay peanuts you get monkeys” to justify giving themselves a 40% pay rise. It turns out that if you pay a fortune you just end up with greedy monkeys.
70
Yonni,
We had our peanut farmer. He didn’t work out. So no thanks, you can keep the peanuts and I’ll pay minimum wage.
20
Wow RW- you most be seriously old! These days no-one refers to “bronze welding” anymore. It’s been called “brazing” as long as I’ve been alive (and all those foolish young people who think I’m extremely old have never heard of either).
And when us old-timers all finally drop off the twig those brass monkeys are doomed!
50
I am not really old. I have just aged a bit, from all the experience I have had.
50
I have heard that a brass monkey is a type of cannon, hence the (cannon) balls.
40
Who knew? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_monkey_(colloquialism)
Summary: expression that evolved to the testicular sense from other body parts dropping for novelty brass monkeys
31
Odd that you should reply here Gee Aye.
But what do you mean? Are you talking about brass cannons?
30
Cannons is discredited
22
That being true then these cannon would have interesting projectiles,
– Duster cannon.
– Grasshopper cannon.
– Flaming Onion cannon.
– Flemish cannon.
The last one could be replicated with 100 Liz Smylie’s reciting “She sells sea shells..”
30
Yonniestone. You’re forgetting the BOM’s motto for reporting temperature: “Measure high today, adjust down tomorrow.”
30
Help.
My attention was caught by a post by Yippiy about CO2 not being a gas at low Antarctic temperatures.
Robber pointed out that the lowest recorded temperatures were minus 92 to 93℃, whereas the sublimation/freezing point is minus 78.5 ℃ at 1 atmosphere pressure.
He linked
https://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/co2_phase_diagram.gif?w=640
and suggested a figure of 4 ppm for the concentration of CO2 at that figure (-92 ℃).
My question is about the 170-180 ppm level of CO2 in the Vostok ice cores.
The records show 170 ppm as a minimum
We are told that the Antarctic atmosphere is somewhat isolated from the rest of the Earth
It is likely that the Antarctic is colder during an Ice Age than now
So the likelihood of CO2 of freezing must be greater
So what is the actual level of CO2 in the Antarctic in an ice age winter?
Is it 170 ppm?
or 4 ppm
or an average of 4 in winter and 340 in summer (to give 170) ?
or an average of 60 in winter and 280 in summer (to give 170) ?
I note that the temperature at the end of the interglacial plunges about 1900 years before the CO2 level drops, so any leakage of air into the south polar region would tend to raise the average in the early stages.
70
Very interesting point Graeme No.3 !
The Ice Core evidence has been quoted often, both in favour and against ACGW. But this seems to be new!
How come no one has considered that before!
Or have they!
Jo has written some posts before about the Ice Core Evidence!
Ant responses.
30
CO2 freezing out at the very low Antarctic winter temperatures has been chewed over at least since the early 2000’s when I began to take an interest in this global warming catastrophe thing that was about to occur.
I’m still waiting for it by the way and considering this year’s winter, about circa mid 1950’s temperatures, I think I might have to wait another few dozen decades to see it .
By then it might be visible to me through then Pearly Gates and I might get a glimpse of it through them providing I get in through those gates which will likely only be if St Peter is asleep when I try to sneak in.
Anyway the whole CO2 sublimating out as a snow or an ice form in the winter Antarctic temperatures was discussed at length on the Weatherzone Climate forum, now closed, I suspect at the behest of Fairfax which now owns Weatherzone as there were too many skeptics on that forum for any alarmist outfit to stomach.
The science involved was pulled apart on WUWT in June 2009 and gives the reasons why we won’t see such examples of CO2 condensing out of the atmosphere at atmospheric pressures in the below 90’C’s.
WUWT; Results: Lab experiment regarding CO2 “snow” in Antarctica at -113°F (-80.5°C) – not possible
40
Wow! Someone did some real science! We need more of that.
20
rom:
Thank you for the link. For once the science is settled?
10
Thanks ROM,
A good read. Theory and practical experiment both gave the same result.
00
Hudson Bay ice lingers throughout summer.
http://www.natice.noaa.gov/pub/ims/ims_gif/DATA/cursnow_usa.gif
40
Hmm… could be a dodgy forecast. See
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.13.html
Looks like there is still time for last ice to melt before September 15.
10
The Search for Dark Matter
http://mag.alumni.unimelb.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/WEB2015_3010_COMPLETE_72dpi.pdf
Physicists from the University of Melbourne are using part of an active Gold Mine at Stawell in western Victoria to look for dark matter, a mysterious substance that is supposed to hold the Universe together
“If we nail it, its a Nobel Prize winning experiment” says ..Dr Elisabetta Barberio.
Dark Matter..is invisible..and will penetrate almost anything, including the Earth itself. (but)..dark matter is responsible for 85% of the gravity that holds the Universe together so it must have mass.
Despite its total lack of observable interaction with matter or energy, dark matter is supposed produce light scintillations in a crystal of sodium Iodide (NaI), just like xrays, gamma rays and cosmic rays. Indeed the rock itself is a source of gamma rays from natural radioactivity.
(Melbourne University physicists) can compete on the international level ,so the Italians and Americans are willing to work with us while we learn about new techniques, says Dr Barberio.
Since the Sun (and its planets) is moving through space, scientists expect to see an increased number of interactions with the NaI crystal when the Earth is on the forward part of its orbit, compared with the other side.
Indeed scientists in the Northern hemisphere think that they have already detected the signal of dark matter, but because some skeptics say it might be a seasonal thing (eg warmer weather in the deep mine), the experiment is being repeated in the Southern Hemisphere.
Could it be that the scientists are looking for something that is not there! Is it the special quality of credulity that makes the physicists of Melbourne University so appealing to the Italians and the Americans?
If dark matter is not there then the whole Big Bang Theory starts to look very shaky, and that would never do.
51
dark matter lives!!!!!!!
21
Of course it does. Have you looked behind your fridge recently?
40
all matter lives
00
Glenn999.
now that is clever.
Tony.
00
Oh how embarrassing.
Your joke went right over my head.
I was about to downvote it as sheer nonsense until TonyfromOz (no relation) commended it. He’s right, that is funny.
I doubt anyone else in this sharp bunch will be as clueless as me, but if so, try re-arranging the word order.
20
I guess I should have said,
dark lives matter
20
Thank-you Peter C,
I have read such things before and concluded that theoretical physics has a long way to go to prove their wilder fantasies.
If it ain’t dark matter and dark energy it must be ‘strange’ particles, or …
“The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of infinite or finite possible universes (including the Universe we consistently experience) that together comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, and energy as well as the physical laws…”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse)
Humm, when they can link time, gravity, and space into a cohesive and reasonable way, thus explain why the universe expands as time only moves forward then they may be worth a listen.
Until then it all looks and sounds like quasi-religious, or pseudo-religious clap-trap.
60
thanks tomomason
10
Yes, absolutely.
My pet explanation is that the speed of light was different in the distant past. That would happen if the permittivity of free space were not a constant, permittivity is what makes light go slower in water. If the universe is expanding, then at the beginning it would theoretically be more compressed, to me that suggests the possibility that the permittivity of space would be greater, and the speed of light slower. The wavelength of light would then be stretched as time progresses causing a red shift.
A corollary of that is if you could locally evacuate space (suppress the zero point field) then you could lower permittivity and speed up light – might happen near a black hole. This opens an interesting possibility for faster than light travel.
Of course, not being an astrophysicist this idea is probably insanely wrong but it’s my ponderance at this ponit.
00
Peter C,
Do they need independent comments to make up a quota for the experiment – it’s just that I know of this guy who can organise things like that…
20
JC!
10
Enjoyed Terry McCrann’s take on CC in the Weekend Australian’s businessreview section p35. Here are some extracts from a much longer article:
“There’s no cure for this climate change madness
……Climate Change Derangement Syndrome – Have we ever seen anything with remotely like this syndrome’s power to turn the minds of men – and also women, but interestingly, it’s been mostly men, from Al Gore to Tim Flannery, Kevin “greatest moral challenge” Rudd and now Bill Shorten, and dozens, hundreds of dozens, of others around the world – to mush?
Once CC-mushed, the brain becomes utterly impervious to the most basic fact, far less something more challenging like cognitive reality. We see a silent version in what are nominally adults of the child sticking his fingers in his ears, closing his eyes and chanting nah-nah-nah to drown out any attempt at communication and indeed contamination by fact…….
And so to the current Leader of the Opposition and the man who could be prime minister in barely a year. For someone to actually propose force-feeding a shift to generating 50 per cent of our electricity from renewables in just 15 years is so far removed from reality as to defy any serious discussion……
For the dirty little secret which nah-nah-nah denying Climate Change true believers refuse to face is that all renewable capacity has to be backed by continuing power stations which actually work: carbon-based coal or gas, or nuclear. Because when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine, the power don’t flow….Indeed, even in Denmark, the same is true. Then, to keep the lights – and, ahem, heaters- on, Denmark imports either hydro power or nuclear or even coal power from its neighbours. Perhaps Bill is planning a long, long extension cord to New Zealand.”
170
Could this be the reason for Electricity Bill’s 50% renewables??
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/25/us-billionaire-tom-steyer-to-candidates-back-50-renewables-by-2030-if-you-want-my-financial-support/
30
He’d better be a TRILLIONAIRE.
Take e.g. Germany which (IIRC) had a total of 13% of its electrical power produced by wind+solar last year. At random, not infrequently inconvenient times. The bills for that will keep rolling in until 2025; adding up to approximately 2 trillion Euros. By which the current “generating” capacity will have had to have been replaced at additional cost because none of it performs or lasts as advertised.
Electricity Bill will likewise be costing Australians something like $3,000,000,000,000; and like Germany, not a single coal-fired power station will be shut down because it still has to step in to fill the supply gaps left by the intermittency of wind+solar. Nearly as much coal will be burnt but less electrical power generated by the burning of coal.
Compare that to a more sane option of changing the coal-fired generating fleet over to nuclear power (as coal plant is retired at end of technical life) at $3bn/GWe, replacing the 63GWe present capacity will cost 6% of the renewables and leave far more land for nature and natural landscapes; averting the industrialisation of rural landscapes in which city dwellers often seek refuge and respite when they can get a break.
Per capita; it’s of the order of $150,000 for Electricity Bill vs $9500 for all nukes.
Bear in mind that the renewables, besides consuming vastly more natural resources, will also have to be renewed 3 to 5 times as often as the nuclear option. So per capita, per year it’s $10,000 vs $190.
Now Bill Shorten would probably spend $190 on a meat pie (lest we forget) and $10,000 just takes up space in his sock drawer; but for ordinary Australians, they cannot afford to pay that much extra every year for a reliable supply of electrical power.
50
Funny you should mention that. We are just running the figures for the fourth time. We are trying to get them to come in somewhere below Australia’s current GDP, but it is really hard.
Oh yes, and we will need forward cover …
40
Tony and Frankly Sceptical
More n the same area
“Black also asks the question: “Can the UK run on 100% renewables with no baseload power. Maybe it could…” “
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/7/26/what-am-i-bid.html#comments
And truth in this comment
“
“Can the UK run on 100% renewables with no baseload power. Maybe it could…”
Of course it can. It used to for many millennia.
Would I want to live in a 100% renewable UK? Sure not.
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:35 AM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol “
10
In 1961 when I left school, farming in Australia was a fantastic place for a young bloke to be, in a land of boundless opportunity. So farming I went, expecting that I would be able to pursue other interests on the side. For a decade it was fun, but ever since I have been falling short on objectives. So I never got back to studying things that I would have liked to.
But while still at school I formed the opinion that there must be an as yet unmentioned medium in what we call space. It seems the science now also believes that. I don’t recall that in 1960 there was any knowledge of missing mass, that may have come later.
To discover it, the first questions I would ask are, how many speeds does light have? And what are the range limits of those speeds?
50
The speed of light is assumed to be a constant within any homogenous medium it travals through. As far as we can tell this is true.
Given that, then who can say, or even measure the passage of time to say that it is always a constant? Does the passage of time vary?
It is an assumption that time progresses at a constant rate but we are without tools to know if past hours elapsed at the same rate as today’s, or even if tomorrow’s hours will be of the same obsolute length. The difficulty is because we are stuck in this time, we can only observe through this ‘time medium’ from our current reference point and no other.
As one of the worlds greatest science thinkers said
… Douglas Adams
🙂 TM
40
Good question Ted.
I also picked my profession, hoping that I would have some time to explore other interests.
Do you not have time, while sitting in the tractor cabin, harvesting, to consider the your environment ,nature, the sky, the contradictions of the world etc.!
30
Pierre Gosselin reports on the lucrative but even more shady business aspects of solar parks in Germany, quietly being harvested by crime gangs for their solar modules. (His provider is borken today so you can only read the articles on the home page).
In terms of actual damage, if “just a few” PV panels are stolen, then they cannot as a rule, simply be replaced with new, off the shelf ones because what was taken was “aged” and a new panels will have different electrical characteristics to the panels in the rest of the inverter’s “string”. So either whole strings have to be replaced or stings reconstituted from elsewhere at the site using panels from other affected strings. Not a cheap exercise; time consuming. Way longer than the 4 minutes that it takes for an expert to steal the first panel.
Owners are reticent to insure or to make insurance claims because the insurance companies may insist on additional security measures for the unwatched sites. Those things are like 200 Euro notes left out in the field, held down by a rock; except that the panels are far larger.
90
Time for a demarcation dispute! Dr Lew reckons that skeptics are the conspiracy nutters.
This Cambridge Prof. suggests that his colleagues, working on the melting of polar ice, are being assassinated by Big Oil and their agents.
Has “Big Oil” been greasing up staircases in preparation for New Years’ parties; secretly training dogs to insist on a walk in a thunderstorm (or indeed; deploying contrails to make unexpected thunderstorms); and selectively turning in the side mirrors of heavy vehicles so that they drivers cannot see cyclists carelessly rolling into their blind spot?
Can the good Professor see what coroners cannot from the evidence available to them?
Calling Doctor Lew … Calling Doctor Lew.
140
I don’t think that Hercule Poirot on acid could conjurer up a plausible scenario for this one, but watching that goofy Belgian trying to catch art deco ducks flying around the room would be worth the effort.
60
Surely this is worth some discussion on Q&A tomorrow night.
30
Bernd:
The obvious answer is that Big Oil, tired of pumping money into AGW organisations with no results, are employing a crack team of highly trained killer dogs.
Prof. Laxon was tripped by dog at the top of the stairs.
The dog pack over powered Dr. Boyd, strapped a van der Graff generator to his back, then drove it up hill in the thunderstorm,.
Dr. Files on bicycle skidded under the truck wheels when it hit a puddle of frozen dog pee.
But the dog pack’s greatest achievement has been “haunting” Prof. Wadhams so he’s seeing things that aren’t there. It makes normal people conclude that Wadhams is off his head, a conclusion reinforced when they read previous statements of his.
00
“We’ve seen money come flooding in all week for July being the wettest on record as punters have obviously been keeping a close eye on weather forecasts which all suggest we are set for more rain at the back end of the month,” said Coral’s John Hill.
“At the start of this summer, we saw a lot of money for this year being the hottest since history books began. However, all the bets coming in now are for 2015 being the wettest on record.”
UK Tele
60
And there is this:
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/netherlands-worst-july-storm-in-100-years/
40
They wouldn’t like to look back any further, eh?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floods_in_the_Netherlands
1703 was a hum-dinger! But these were also serious —
* 1836: Two hurricane-driven floods by the Haarlemmermeer lake: One in November reached the gates of Amsterdam. One on Christmas Day flooded Leyden. As a result, in May 1840 men started to drain and reclaim the Haarlemmermeer.
* 1916 January 13 and 14: Flood disaster around the Zuiderzee. At dozens of places the dikes broke. Afterwards work started on the Zuiderzeewerken and the establishment of the storm flood service.
* 1953 January 31/February 1 night: The 1953 North Sea flood was a major flood caused by a heavy storm that occurred on the night of Saturday, 31 January 1953 and morning of Sunday, 1 February 1953. The floods struck the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.
Also see and wonder is the current difficulty as bad as 1953?
30
It is astounding that every loss for Climate Change Warming is turned around.
The failure of C14 to dip below the ancient levels, despite 33% of the CO2 supposedly old is turned into a fear that Carbon dating in the future will be a problem. The failure of the world to actually heat is turned around into a new idea that the naughty oceans are stealing the predicted heat. The record size of Antarctic sea ice is actually explained by Global Warming. No one even mentions the Polar bears or caribou, because they are fine. The acidification of the worlds oceans is a plain lie as they are all alkali and always will be. Solar is not within 1000x enough to power the planet and wind is so much wind, an ancient failed technology. The fact that the world is not warming, that the temperatures are not changing at all is turned into a discussion of which actual recent year was the warmest, because they are so close to precisely the same temperature!
In Australia, the stopping of the mass drownings by people smugglers, now more than 1200, many hundreds, jumbo loads of families is turned around to a lack of compassion by a Liberal government? When did unreason become the norm?
The problem with a forum like this is that everyone is using logic, facts, truth. They are not weapons against unreason and Green propaganda, but at least the absolute failure of the planet to warm is starting to wear down extremists who have to admit they do not have an argument.
In fact, the phrase ‘The Science’ has recently vanished, if only because it is self evidently wrong. Warmists are even trying to become the sceptics, when they are the deniers. Unfortunately the communist controlled Green movement will keep going as long as well meaning people keep donating billions to people who do not actually care about anyone but themselves. Big Wind and Big Solar and Big Carbon will also keep funding the scam, because it is now part of the world economy at a Billion dollars a day. Conspiracy? No, just opportunity and no morals. Money was never about morals.
130
Cripes! What’s happening?
I’ve just watched the ABC’s “The Moral Compass”.
I gave religion up decades ago. So how did I get to be watching the ABC instead of a replay of the Wallabies v The Pumas?
You be the judge:
http://iview.abc.net.au/programs/compass/RN1411H020S00#playing
Amazingly good discussion. 10/10.
20
Three full days of “Insiders” is now over (ALP Conference).
More stuff to fill the forward estimates than you can poke a stick at.
40
I’ve alerted NOAA of the need (you may sensibly call it an ethical imperative) to retract ERSSTv4:
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/noaa-tries-to-make-global-warming-slowdown-vanish/comment-page-1/#comment-104332
50
But it would be rude to turn up with no present, so they have to bring something to the Paris party later in the year…
10
Some of you probably saw this press release earlier in the week.
They discovered how phytoplankton (during life and after death) emit aerosols which promote cloud formation over the southern ocean. One would presume that with warming you would get more phytoplankton and more of their predators, which would emit more aerosols. So here is a negative feedback on global warming being published in The Conversation (of all places):
https://theconversation.com/how-plankton-help-control-clouds-over-the-worlds-most-remote-oceans-44855
In other news, dogs and cats have been seen living together in harmony.
40
This was mentioned (IIRC) by Lovelock in his orginal book on the Gaia hypothesis. I’ll check it one day after the silverfish have finished with my copy of it.
20
As I’m told by so many CAGW advocates that global warming/climate change is not about politics so what is this?
Preparing for a warmer world: Towards a global governance system to protect climate refugees
10
Kate over at Small Dead Animals Blog has an interesting petition to one of our,Canadian, most useless bureaucracies.
Sorry I am unable to post link, but the intro is way too funny.
And feel free to sign the petition, on which some of the comments are priceless.
SDA July 24th Alberta Human Rights Commission.
20
According to two different measures of planetary habitability, the Earth was more habitable 150M years ago when CO2 was at 2500ppm.
http://phl.upr.edu/library/notes/habitabilityofthepaleo-earthasamodelforearth-likeexoplanets
But take no notice, it’s just a model after all.
20
Andrew McRae,
Going back to a recent reply by you in response to a comment of mine in a thread that has now been closed to commenting, here now is my reaction as per the open nature of topics on ‘Weekend Unthreaded’.
My initial reaction was in the form of a question; ‘Why would he send me to a web-site that’s known to promote AGW ™?’ I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt and went ahead and read that page. (Maybe this page is scientifically accurate and I might learn something.)
The very first image on that page confirmed my suspicions. It gives radiative energy at TOA of 265 Wm^2. It also gives radiative energy at the earth’s surface of 390 Wm^2. And then the article states:
Good question right?
Wrong!
On a near-spherical earth, all square meters are not equal. The question is based on the false assumption that 1m^2 at the earth’s surface can be compared to 1m^2 at TOA. This assumption is incorrect based on the inverse square law.
Interestingly enough, later on, the SoD article used the inverse square law to show how the energy from the sun is diluted per unit measure as it propagates toward the earth.
A quick calculation of the surface area of a sphere at TOA as defined by the altitude of the satellites measuring this radiation, shows that the energy leaving the surface of the earth from within 1m^2 spreads out to 1.237^2 by the time it reaches the TOA. (approx. 700Km up, which is the altitude at which the satellites orbit the earth.)
While this increased surface area of about %23 does not account for all of the difference in the the two measurements, TOA and the earth’s surface, just the fact that this is not accounted for in the SoD explanation shows a lack of accuracy on their part.
Of course if we lived on a flat earth, and the sun was a flat sun, parallel to the earth, the comparison would be valid.
So, the reader might now say, well OK, they left that out. But that error doesn’t account for all of the difference between the two measurements. There’s still a difference, so where does that go?
Good question right?
Wrong!
Before I can explain why it’s not a good question, we have to first look at how they describe ‘The Greenhouse Effect’ on SoD.
I’ll do that in a follow-up post. One step at a time.
For right now, all that’s important is this:
A %23 difference may not be enough to account for all of the difference between the two measurements, but it is a major flaw in logic. You said that my conclusions were ‘mostly fallacies’ and yet before we even get to the end of the first part of a five part article, there’s already a fallacy in their conclusions.
Why would you send me, and the many other readers of this blog, to a web-site that uses flat-earth physics to describe our near-spherical earth?
Abe
21
Just-A-Guy says:
The altitude for calculation is not the altitude of the satellite because satellite data products are already normalised for height of acquisition. The aeronautical definition of space is also 100km, not 700km. That definition is also used for TOA radiation budgets because at 100km altitude the air is thin enough that no convection occurs, so a purely radiative calculation would be sufficient. That’s also why the gold standard in RTMs, MODTRAN, only models atmospheric properties up to 100km altitude. And note that MODTRAN is a 3D calculation which treats the earth as a sphere.
To simply take the inverse square law and adjust for a single altitude as you have just done is nowhere near an adequate approximation for TOA outgoing radiation. As over most of the earth the lower atmosphere absorbs a significant fraction of outgoing surface radiation and transports it upwards via convection, this radiation is re-emitted diffusely from a volume of space between 4km and 20km altitude with an “average” emission height which depends on humidity. You are just digging yourself into a hole so it perhaps best if you stopped digging.
After claiming the SoD “web-site uses flat-earth physics to describe our near-spherical earth” you then contradict yourself by pointing out “the SoD article used the inverse square law”. As long as you are contradicting yourself I don’t need to supply any counterargument.
But I will anyway, it’s all part of your free education.
You have ignored the fact that the way flux calculations are really done is more complicated than the simple conceptual overview presented on that page. The SoD page on the radiative transfer calculations includes the “diffusivity approximation” which extends the simple 1-dimensional formula to the total radiation over a hemisphere. This establishes that SoD is not “a web-site that uses flat-earth physics”.
You’re also ignoring the fact that many of the concerns you raised about the GHE are answered by the SoD page I linked, such as your disbelief that such a small number of CO2 molecules could affect a large amount of water vapour. Your tactic of objecting to the accuracy of the first diagram on the page is obviously a way of contriving an excuse to remain ignorant and preserve your false belief system. It is the flimsiest of excuses given the purpose of the page and the diagram.
And you can’t establish your own innocence by proving the guilt of others – that’s yet another fallacy you’ve used. You have yet to provide any measurements and logic that show “there is no scientifically verified influence on the atmosphere from man-made co2”, which was a very bold statement to make and one which was easily disproven.
You’ve also made the claim:
You don’t even understand the meaning of the words you are using. A feedback which adds to the original input is a positive feedback even when it is small in comparison to the input. So if I put in 500W/m^2 of shortwave and I get an extra 30W/m^2 of downwelling infrared on top of that, then that is a positive feedback. Measurements of DWIR increasing during daytime [SURFRAD, Desert Rock, 2 Feb 2015] are an example of the positive greenhouse feedback on a primary solar forcing, and during the night time you can see the greenhouse effect steadily providing radiation from the sky – even in winter when humidity is low. That’s the greenhouse effect in real world measurements (no SoD blog required).
You are fighting the measurements. If your purpose was to understand how the climate works then you would not be fighting the measurements.
I can see what this is really about. You just don’t seem to want to admit that I was using the dictionary definition of “ad hominem” which literally means any statement directed at a person instead of their argument, which is therefore a broad term that includes both insults and fallacies of argument. If you could just admit that you misinterpreted my words due to English being your second language then you wouldn’t feel the need to go around harassing me on this forum about completely unrelated matters.
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Andrew McRae,
StrawMan. It makes no difference whether the TOA is 700km or 100km or even 1km. My point is that no matter how high up you go, the inverse square law applies. Therefore 1m^2 at the surface cannot be directly compared to 1m^2 at any distance from the surface without taking into account the inverse square law. The only way to compare the two would be if the 1m^2 at TOA was longer on each side then meter the 1m^2 on the surface. Is that what you’re claiming?
Red Herring. I never said it was. And, you’re trying to put words into my mouth.
It doesn’t matter if you take into account the absorbtivity of the atmosphere to outgoing radiation, humidity, or even the price of tea in China. The point is that 1m^2 on the surface is not the same as 1m^2 above the surface. It’s that point and that point only that I mentioned in my comment.
IOW. Before I even consider looking into any other factors, first I want to know on what grounds SoD publishes a picture that clearly compares 1m^2 at TOA to 1m^2 on the surface. That’s it.
Cherry picking. What you’ve done is take half of my sentence in an attempt to make it look as if SoD used the inverse square law for the comparison between 1m^2 at TOA and 1m^2 at the earth’s surface.
IOW. I’m pointing out an inconsistenccy in SoD’s application of the inverse square law. They use it in the calculation of the energy reaching the earth from the sun but they don’t use it in the comparison between the energy that leaves the surface of the earth and the energy that radiates outward from the TOA.
IOW. The amount of energy radiating from the TOA is given in m^2, and it’s compared to m^2 on the surface of the planet, implying that we live on a flat earth.
Incorrect. I’m not ignoring anything. I only addressed one one point in my reply and added:
In other words. The comment you’re responding to was only meant to address the first of many flaws. One topic only.
I will address the rest of your comment soon enough.
Abe
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Just-A-Guy,
It’s a simple article. It’s aim is to have the person reading who has no idea about the difference between the surface radiation and the TOA radiation ask a question. The big “flaw” in explaining a complex problem in simple terms is people look at the simple terms and say “aha, you have over-simplified”.
Anyway, I’ve published much more comprehensive articles which derive the equations of radiative transfer and solve them. You have to solve the RTE numerically because there is no analytical solution.
The calculated result shows a difference between the surface radiation and the top of atmosphere radiation, just like the measurements. It’s not controversial in atmospheric physics. Nobel-prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekha published his book “Radiative Transfer” in 1950 which has the same equations. Can you find a physics textbook which disputes the equations of radiative transfer?
You should ask the question you are asking. Asking questions is good. Satellites publish measurements referenced to the surface. The sum of OLR (outgoing longwave radiation) measured by satellites globally, annually averaged is 240 W/m2, which matches the solar radiation absorbed (within the margin of error, which is a few W/m2).
And you should also ask why it is that the surface emitted radiation is around 390 W/m2, while the TOA measured radiation is 240 W/m2. Before even asking about corrections by the satellite, the height of the satellite, even if it changed the measurement, can’t explain this because the difference is so large. Usually at this point, many people, with no prior opinion on surface emissivity, start claiming “I bet the emissivity of the earth is 0.7”.. hopefully this is not you.
Well, if you want to learn, asking questions is a good thing.
But if you assume that the discipline of atmospheric physics has been wrong about absolute basics for 60 years then please put forward some basic physics which explains the OLR spectrum and the DLR spectrum.
I give some examples in Atmospheric Radiation and the “Greenhouse” Effect – Part Ten and Theory and Experiment – Atmospheric Radiation and many other places on my blog.
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I can’t imagine where that might go wrong.
00
Science of Doom,
Your hypothesis, therefore, is that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause an increase in radiative energy to hit the surface thereby heating up that surface.
The proof you present is a large difference in the amount of radiative energy leaving the surface of the earth as compared to the amount of radiative energy leaving the TOA.
The presentation leads the unsuspecting reader (i.e. ‘the person reading who has no idea about the difference. . .’, your words) to ask the question, ‘Where did it go?’.
Partly because of the misleading diagram and partly because of your focusing only on radiative energy, the conclusion of the reader is that the missing energy must be radiating back to the surface and so, heating it up.
If you examine the actual numbers, radiative energy from the atmosphere cannot heat the surface to a temperature that is higher than what the original energy from the sun would have heated it up to. This is because it is that same energy that heated up the surface that radiates away into the atmosphere and is then only partially re-radiated back to the surface.
Please take heed and think it through: The energy leaving the surface must cause a drop in temperature at the surface. And . . . because the energy radiating back to the surface can only be less than half of what radiated away, the net result is cooling at the surface.
Therefore, if you focus only on radiative energy, there can only be net cooling. At most, what you could say is that an increase in co2 will cause a reduction in cooling by re-radiating back more energy than having less co2 in the atmosphere. Less cooling is not heating.
More importantly, even less cooling would be an inaccurate description of what happens in the atmosphere because radiative energy, and the equations that calculate it, is not the only thing going on. There are other, more powerful, effects going on in the atmosphere, as I mentioned below.
In Conclusion
You characterize my criticism as ‘over-simplification’. This is wrong, and clearly misleading. I never claimed you over simplified. My claim, as shown here and below, is that your article mis-represents the facts. Over-simplification is not the same as mis-representation. You can over simplify by leaving things out and still be correct in what you leave in. But if what you leave in is wrong, then we’re not talking about over-simplification.
I would add, based on the facts, that “It’s also simply wrong”.
Abe
PS: As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in this thread, there are other mis-representations and omissions in that article. I only addressed one of them so far. Hopefully I can present the rest of them soon.
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It should have had a link in it and should read:
There are other, more powerful, effects going on in the atmosphere, as I mentioned below, in the part where it says, The Earth’s Climate System.
Abe
00
Andrew McRae,
I’m doing my best to remain civil and calm, but . . .
ROTFLMAO is the only way to express my reaction to this statement.
If there is a downwelling of 40W/m^2 radiating back to the surface it must have originated from the surface. This means that there must have been more than twice that much radiating away from the surface. Which means that you must subtract that amount from the original incoming solar radiation to determine the current energy content of the planet’s surface.
That energy (more than 80W/m^2) has left the building. It no longer counts as part of the energy content of the planet. Yes, there are 500W/m^2 coming in, on average, at any given moment. But, at the same time, at any given moment, there are also more than 80W/m^2 leaving.
So, to summarize:
500W/m^2 coming in from the sun.
More than 80W/m^2 leaving the surface.
40W/m^2 radiating back from the atmosphere.
500 minus more than 80 plus 40 equals net cooling.
Abe
11
Andrew McRae,
BS. I did admit hot knowing that particular usage and even thanked you for it.
Either:
1. You read the entire comment and ignored what I said.
or
2. You didn’t read the entire comment, in which case you had no justification replying.
Other than that one instance where I commented on your use of the phrase ‘ad-hominem statement’, there has been no other interaction between us. My original comment here, on this thread, is in response to your sending me to SoD to “learn” about GHE. If two exchanges translates into ‘go around harrassing me on this forum’, you must be suffering from paranoid delusions.
Abe
01
Just-A-Guy,
Also you ask of Andrew McRae: “Why would he send me to a web-site that’s known to promote AGW“.
If you dispute a science argument because you don’t disagree with the conclusion then.. that’s not a scientific argument. It is the “I don’t like the conclusion so I have no my hands over my ears/eyes” argument.
What exactly do I propose that is “known to promote AGW”? And what does this have to do with the “greenhouse” effect? Do you know they are two different things? If you don’t, have a look at New Theory Proves AGW Wrong! – a guide to the steady stream of new “disproofs” of the “greenhouse” effect or of AGW. And why you can usually only be a fan of – at most – one of these theories.
00
Science of Doom,
Straw man. You’ve presented my initial reaction to Andrew’s comment as if that was my argument disputing your presentation of the GHE. That wasn’t my argument.
Clearly this is not a rebutal to your article, nor is it an argument against the contents of that article. The argument/rebuttal begins here:
The entirety of my comment was focused on this one point. Yes, there are other things in your article that I take issue with but they were not addressed in this comment.
HUH!?
AGW ™ = Anthropogenic Global Warming. i.e. The world is getting warmer due to the intervention of human beings via their activities, the primary of which is the production of co2.
The “greenhouse” effect = An imagined, completely fabricated concept that does not describe the dynamics of the climate system within the earth’s atmosphere. Furthermore, the so-called “greenhouse” effect is not the same thing as AGW ™, and I never claimed that they were. So your innuendo here is just another attempt at a straw-man misrepresentation of my position.
The Earth’s Climate System
1. The atmosphere is not a solid dome that traps water molecules (among other gases) that have been heated up by the sun’s radiated energy.
2. The atmosphere has a cooling effect during daylight hours. The cooling takes place by:
a. reflecting some of the sun’s radiated energy back out into space.
b. absorbing some of the sun’s radiated energy before it reaches the surface of the earth and then re-radiating the majority of that absorbed energy back into space.
c. releasing some of the sun’s radiated energy that does reach the surface of the earth by convection (primarily over land masses) and evaporation (primarily over water masses).
3. The atmosphere reduces the amount of heat loss during the non-daylight hours. The reduction in heat loss takes place by:
a. The creation of a temperature gradient under a clear sky.
b. The absorption of radiated energy by water vapor under a cloudy sky.
None of the variables under numbers 2. and 3. occur in a greenhouse as primary causes for increased heat content. The primary cause of increased heat content in a greenhouse is trapped water vapor(along with other gases) that was heated up by the sun’s radiated energy reaching the surface of the earth.
All of the variables under numbers 2. and 3., when taken together, are sufficient to describe the atmosphere’s contribution to the climate system.
In addition to the atmosphere’s contribution to the climate system there are also secondary contributors:
1. Tidal effects from the sun, moon, and the other planets, both on the oceans and the air masses.
2. The effect of the rotation of the earth both on the oceans and the air masses.
3. The effects of cosmic rays, i.e. ionization, in conjunction with the earth’s magnetic field.
Please take heed and listen carefully: Once you take into account all of the primary and secondary variables that contribute to the climate system, co2 and the so called, misnamed, inaccurately described “greenhouse” effect have such a minor role to play that we might as well just ignore them. Period.
So we finally get down to the nitty gritty. You’re interested in getting some page-views on your site. Why not just describe that difference right here? How long could it take? I mean, really. You wrote an ~300 word comment above this one, full of misrepresentations, red-herrings, and of course, plenty of links to your site.*
Man up, dude. The entirety of my comment was based on one concept and one concept only. To wit:
How do you justify comparing W/m^2 at TOA to W/m^2 at the surface of the planet in light of the inverse square law? Simple question.**
Abe
*I’ll get to that comment soon enough! 😉
**As I mentioned before, I will discuss the other inaccuracies in your article in a later post(s).
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I love this!
This animation shows how our view of Pluto has changed from its discovery by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930 through the 1990s and the latest images from Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 (scroll down)
Via dailymail.uk
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The Gleissberg Minimum is still a few years away, but the cool wet summers in the UK should be sounding alarm bells.
A negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) in summer will create those conditions and going back to the Gleissberg Minimum of 1889-1902 we can get a feel of what is happening.
London weather October 10, 1888
‘…they never expected that for the two months of June and July the rainfall would be a record, we believe, unprecedented. In that period, we have had in London only 11 days without rain, rain having fallen on 46 days….
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On the other side of the world the Minimum saw monsoon failure.
‘The early part of this year saw one of the most complete monsoon failures in the north of Australia, especially in normally wet Cape York Peninsula where the year proved the driest on record at many stations. In February, a major heatwave and dust-storms hit southeastern Australia.’
wiki
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There was monsoon failure in Australia’s north in 1900, while in India the monsoon failure meant famine
‘In the Central Provinces and Berar, an area that had suffered extreme distress during the famine of 1896–1897, the year 1898 had been favourable agriculturally, as was the first half of 1899; however, after the failure of the summer monsoon of 1899, a second catastrophe began soon afterwards.’
wiki
What caused monsoon failures?
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Looks like a return to the fantastic weather of 1997/9, with reports of a ‘Godzilla’ El Nino. Bring it on, stuff the cold we are having now!
10
The ALP is going to fight the next election on climate change, are we ready to take them on?
10
Al Gore is here in Australia, right now, meeting with politicians and drumming up support for destructive CO2 abatement policies at the Paris talks in December. The way that The Age reports it would seem that State Governments at least are willing to fall in behind him.
10
Baird is right behind the scheme.
00
To be fair, Mike Baird is a big fan of the RET while at the same time he supports big coal.
“So-called plans to phase out mining in NSW have no place in this parliament,” Baird announced, “and I’ll be very clear on this, no place”.
‘In fact, Baird said, he would halve the time it takes to get big mines approved.
‘He also promised to “crack down” on people engaging in civil disobedience protest against mines. “If you chose to break the law when you protest, we will throw the book at you,” he said.’
New Matilda
10
[Mike Baird, as reported]
Well, no he won’t: Fairfax, ABC and Sky headlines – Environmental Campaigner Goaled for Trying to Save Our Planet
New Age Law
00
‘In the years since Lucy was lifted from her 3.2-million-year-old grave, anthropologists have gone on to find older and even more complete fossil remains of early human ancestors. In 2000, scientists in Ethiopia unearthed the remains of a 3.3 million year old Australopithecus afarensis baby dubbed “Selam.”
‘The child was 100,000 years Lucy’s senior, but it’s now often known as “Lucy’s Baby.” Perhaps even more spectacular was “Ardi,” a 4.4 million year old Ardipithecus ramidus that displaced Lucy as the earliest known skeleton of a human ancestor.
‘News of “Ardi” first came to light in 1994, but since then, scientists have found evidence of even older hominids dating back as far as 7 million years ago.’
History in the Headlines
—–
Lucy lived in the trees and on the ground, as did her ancestors, it was a very slow evolutionary process.
Adam and Eve have not yet shown up.
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‘Two core studies taken from the Greenland ice sheet revealed an anomalous platinum layer, a marker for the YDB. A study of tree rings in Germany also showed evidence of the YDB, as did freshwater and marine varves, the annual laminations that occur in bodies of water. Even stalagmites in China displayed signs of abrupt climate change around the time of the Younger Dryas cooling event.
“The important takeaway is that these proxy records suggest a causal connection between the YDB cosmic impact event and the Younger Dryas cooling event,” Kennett said. “In other words, the impact event triggered this abrupt cooling.’
WUWT
00
Ice cores from the Freemont Glacier in Wyoming show it went from Little Ice Age cold to Modern Warming warm in the ten years between 1845 and 1855. Naturally. Amazing how we never see stuff like this reported in the MSM.
With luck it will not chill down as fast.
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