GW Skeptics vs Scientific Concensus

[KeithPickering]

Phil’s Dad wrote:
By the way there is nothing “Scientific” about “Consensus”
Scientific Consensus said the world was flat for a very long time.
Scientific Consensus said the Universe went round the Earth
Scientific Consensus said… (add your own)

Scientific consensus is right nearly all the time. Atomic theory of matter? Newton’s first law? The existence of Neptune? Structure of DNA? All part of scientific consensus. We remember the exceptions because they’re rare. It takes a revolution to overthrow scientific consensus.

[Brian H]

Be REALLY cautious about taking anything from RealClimate seriously. It was set up explicitly to give a platform for 2 of the Team to promote the GW theory. The ClimateGate emails lay out their intent and editorial approach — minimize the voices of skeptics, and maximize the opportunity of the Team to belittle and refute them.

The geological average CO2 burden in the atmosphere is over 2,000 ppm (0.2%). It has zero correlation over that time with temperature, except insofar as ocean warming seems to raise CO2 levels after a multi-century delay. We would do well, were it only possible, to push CO2 back to those levels, which are what greenhouse operators find is optimum for maximum plant health and growth; it would be a huge boon for agriculture and food supplies world wide.

P.S. To the author of this thread, edit note. It’s “consensus”, not “concensus”.

[Brian H]

Breakable wrote: While I would not say that science is driven by consensus, I think it is important to have some baseline to begin with, on which you can verify, criticize and improve. If you had for example a 100 equally supported competing theories instead of one widely accepted one it would be much harder to work out the truth, because not one scientist would be able to study them all in his lifetime.
There is a list of all the superseded theories here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories
its interesting to see how they evolved.
Regarding the code or data analysis that is done by GW scientists I would not be surprised to learn that it was sloppy work, because they are not specialists in this area. It would be better if such work was left to the professionals – software engineers and data analysts, but that of course requires a different level of funding. Still sloppy work is better than no work IMHO, because you can criticize, improve and work out the issues.

What level of funding would be better than the billions which have been exclusively directed at pro-GW research? It is almost impossible to get funds for any dissenting or challenging investigations, and you risk getting blackballed or fired (as happened to the editors of Geophysical Review at the instigation of Mann et al.) The reason that there were no professionals involved in the modelling etc. at CRU was that they kept putting in caveats and contrary comments. Some had to take the Team to the very doors of the courthouse to get their names pulled from the list of authors after their contributions were gutted and distorted.

If you have the patience, read through the text portions, at least, of this 100-page dissection of the physics and math of the GW hypothesis: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0707.1161v4 . I’m on my third pass through it, and still learning. I’m even getting as much as I can this time from the math with my long-ago 1st-yr. calculus. Very much worth the effort.
There have been many (desperate) attempts to refute it, but here’s the core: the energy budget of an atmosphere (which encompasses MUCH more than radiative exchanges) is so far beyond the data collection, math, and physics capabilities of current or even conceivable theory and modelling that anyone claiming to be able to project the system’s state for any variables more than a very brief period is lying. That is, it is basic and obvious scientific fact that 4th order equations do not permit such analysis. You’d almost have to have precise data at some designated start point for every cubic foot of the atmosphere and oceans and land surface just to get started. And the computer required to process it wouldn’t be available even after a millennium of progress under Moore’s Law. The non-linear “butterfly effect” with nukes.

The hyper-simplified models used by the Team are nothing more than computer-game simulations (“scenarios”) illustrating the opinions of their composers. Even if one turned out to happen to match actual events for a year or two (none have come close, to date) it would mean nothing about the following month, year or day — much less the next century, as claimed. Worthless.

What can be shown is that the influence of CO2 is mathematically so miniscule and unpredictable that the Greenhouse hypothesis is utter nonsense. Atmospheres just don’t operate like that. BTW, as an example of the ludicrous over-reach of those pushing it, the “horrible example” of Venus as a “runaway” greenhouse is completely bogus. No solar radiation gets anywhere near the surface, and so cannot be “re-radiated” back into the atmosphere, which is the very essence of what is claimed as the mechanism. 😆

[KeithPickering]

This is such utter nonsense. I got as far as the first paragraph in your pdf link before finding the first error, which undermines the authors’ entire thesis: the atmosphere and environment are certainly NOT in equilibrium, nor are they claimed to be. That’s the whole point. That’s why the atmosphere is getting warmer.

In fact, the Earth’s radiation budget is currently out of balance by about 1.5 Watts per square meter. Here’s the science: http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/~tak/wong/f20m.pdf

Sure, the CO2 fraction was 2000 ppm half a billion years ago. But the Sun was a lot cooler then, too. So let’s not use that as a pseudoscientific “proof” that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas. If it’s not, perhaps you can explain why Mercury, which gets three times the solar radiation as Venus, has a cooler surface than Venus. Oh, and by the way, the shortwave (visible) radiation doesn’t have to reach the surface for the greenhouse effect to happen. If it’s absorbed in the atmosphere, that works just as well. The issue is the difference in blackbody temp between the Sun and the planet, which causes the difference in radiated wavelengths. Oh, and by the way II: visible light DOES in fact reach the surface of Venus. If it were not so, the surface would be dark and photography impossible. Soviet Venera probes have photographed the surface many times. The albedo of Venus is about 60%, which means that 40% of the visible light reaching it is absorbed.

Perhaps you can also explain what’s causing the long-term cooling trend in the stratosphere, or the decreasing diurnal temperature range here on Earth. (Hint: if you’re not considering increased greenhouse effect, you’re missing the boat.)

[jamesr]

I second Keith. That thesis is so flawed & quality of argument and writing so poor I’m surprised any institution like Technische Universität Braunschweig would pass it.

I just had a quick skim though, but it seems to be rambling on about whatever came to mind at the time. I love the bit where they try and go through Maxwell’s equations and so talk about magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, but completely fail to make any kind of point. I think they were trying to say something like because fluid equations are non-linear, and so can’t be analytically solved, we can’t hope to find out any useful information from modeling.

I would have expected in all the stuff about radiation to have a graph of the CO2 and water absorption spectra like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png, but no – not even a mention

[Brian H]

jamesr wrote: I second Keith. That thesis is so flawed & quality of argument and writing so poor I’m surprised any institution like Technische Universität Braunschweig would pass it.

I just had a quick skim though, but it seems to be rambling on about whatever came to mind at the time. I love the bit where they try and go through Maxwell’s equations and so talk about magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, but completely fail to make any kind of point. I think they were trying to say something like because fluid equations are non-linear, and so can’t be analytically solved, we can’t hope to find out any useful information from modeling.

I would have expected in all the stuff about radiation to have a graph of the CO2 and water absorption spectra like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png, but no – not even a mention

The writing is by German physicists, who definitely know what they are talking about, notwithstanding your superficial dismissals. The point to be learned is that the physics of real atmospheres and their energy balances do not resemble the “scenario” Tinkertoy models used by the IPCC et al., and hence any conclusions or projections from them are scientifically worthless.

Like it or lump it, the GH theory (it does not actually rise to the level of a proper formal “hypothesis”, which would entail specified “falsification” tests and criteria, which are vigorously avoided by the Team) is completely irrelevant, as are the kind of graphs you reference. They presume a falsehood described in the paper, which is that the radiative exchanges are occurring in one dimension. As soon as dispersal and thermal exchanges are allowed into the equations, the entire thesis falls.

Since you can’t handle the straight physics, here’s a link to my folder with an EPA whistleblower’s more recent write-up, from last June: http://tinyurl.com/BriansFiles . Pages 5-10 are the Executive Summary, if that’s all your attention span will tolerate.

[Phil’s Dad]

KeithPickering wrote: Scientific consensus is right nearly all the time.

In my neighbourhood it is above freezing nearly all the time. Just not this time. :red:

I stand by my initial statement. Consensus is no part of the scientific method.

(Unless you believe truth is a factor of how many people profess to believe it – in which case the Mosaic faiths are more likely true than man made global warming)

[Brian H]

E.g.:

3.3.4 Atmospheric greenhouse effect after Stichel (1995)
Stichel (the former deputy head of the German Physical Society) stated once [134]:

Now it is generally accepted textbook knowledge that the long-wave infrared
radiation, emitted by the warmed up surface of the Earth, is partially absorbed
and re-emitted by CO2 and other trace gases in the atmosphere. This effect leads
to a warming of the lower atmosphere and, for reasons of the total radiation
budget, to a cooling of the stratosphere at the same time.”

Disproof: This would be a Perpetuum Mobile of the Second Kind. A detailed discussion
is given in Section 3.9. Furthermore, there is no total radiation budget, since there are
no individual conservation laws for the different forms of energy participating in the game.
The radiation energies in question are marginal compared to the relevant geophysical and
astrophysical energies. Finally, the radiation depends on the temperature and not vice versa.
_____
In part, this says that any given CO2 molecule may or may not re-radiate energy it has gained from either thermal contact or IR influence. It may just bump a nearby molecule and lose its excess energy to some other gas. If it does re-radiate, it will be in some random direction, possibly back to space, possibly sideways, possibly down. This does not permit any kind of averaging computation.

[Breakable]

Well scepticism is an important part of science, but for it to happen you have to have something to be skeptical about. Be it GW, Evolution or Standard Model. Each of those (and other well accepted) theories have theirs skeptics, controversial evidence and gray areas which are still to be investigated. So here is for you skeptics something to sympathize with 😉
http://i.imgur.com/hAY2R.jpg

Regarding the criticism of GW theory, specifically “EPAGreenhouseGasEmissions.pdf” some of it is probably valid, but that does not mean that GW theory itself is fundamentally flawed, every theory has its criticism. More likely it means that there is more work to be done. Who can actually say that the simplified models cannot predict anything without testing? You can never know what is the programs output without actually running it – this is what I learned from experience – and no theory is better than actual results. And if Copenhagen is of any measure we will see the results in 50-100 years, because the experiment is ON. My own nonscientific opinion is that humans must have an impact on earth if they play such huge part in the system, especially with our outdated technology:
http://www.oklo.org/wp-content/images/p-earth-night.jpg
What the actual impact is – we will see.

There are probably scientists who don’t get funding because of opposition to GW theory, I guess there are some flaws in the Capitalism, this is one of them (in case the concerns are actually valid, and not some angry person rant over getting fired). On the other hand science itself should not be biased for or against a theory, but should instead gather evidence and analyze it impartially.

Open mindedness means willingness to consider new ideas based on evidence. The problem is when evidence is imperfect, and that’s mostly the case. But people usually tend to like the evidence that support their own ideas more, and demand perfect evidence to refute them. Unfortunately this evidence is too hard to produce and in real world we have to work with imperfect one. Motive, alibi, weapon can get someone convicted for life even if all of those can be fabricated. The tricky part is comparing imperfect evidence in an impartial fashion.

[KeithPickering]

The “greenhouse effect doesn’t exist” hypothesis has ALREADY been falsified. The midnight temperature on Venus is warmer than the noontime temperature on Mercury. QED.

A formal refutation can be found here: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0802/0802.4324v1.pdf — but a more readable explanation of G&T’s major gaffe can be found here: http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/farley040110p.html

Meanwhile, there are quite a few pieces of evidence which, if they existsted, would falsify the greenhouse effect. For example, if the stratosphere were cooling, that would falsify the theory. But it is cooling. Or, if the diurnal temperature range were not decreasing, that would falsify it too. But the diurnal temperature range is decreasing.

[Brian H]

Their English is not fluent, but the following pretty much summarizes the MHD issue:

4.2 The conservation laws of magnetohydrodynamics
4.2.1 Overview
The core of a climate model must be a set of equations describing the equations of fluid flow, namely the Navier-Stokes equations [183, 184]. The Navier-Stokes equations are nonlinear partial differential equations, which, in general, are impossible to solve analytically. In very special cases numerical methods lead to useful results, but there is [are] no systematics for the general case. In addition, the Navier-Stokes approach has to be extended to multi-component problems, which does not simplify the analysis.

Climate modelers often do not accept that climate models are too complex and uncertain to provide useful projections of climate change” [186]. Rather, they claim that current models enable [them] to attribute the causes of past climate change and predict the main features of the future climate with a high degree of condence” [186]. Evidently, this claim (not specifying the observables subject to the prediction) contradicts … what is well-known from theoretical meteorology, namely that the [reli]ability of the weather forecast models is (and must be) rather limited (i.e. … a few days) [187].

The non-sol[ubility] of Navier-Stokes-type equations is related (but not restricted) to the chaotic character of turbulence. But this is not the only reason why the climate modeling cannot be built on … solid ground. Equally importantly, … the full set of equations providing a proper model of the atmospheric system (not to say atmospheric-oceanographic system) are not [fully] known (and never will be) …. All models used for “simulation” are (and have to be) oversimplified. However, in general a set of oversimplified nonlinear partial differential equations exhibits … totally different behavior than a more realistic [and] complex system.

Because there exists no strategy for a stepwise refinement within the spirit of the renormalization (semi-)group, one cannot make any useful predictions. The real world is too complex to be represented properly by a feasible system of equations [suitable] for processing [185]. The only safe statement that can be made is that the … weather is probably governed by a generalized Navier-Stokes-type dynamics.

Tinkertoy wind-tunnel airplanes won’t tell you anything useful.

[KeithPickering]

Brian H wrote:
In part, this says that any given CO2 molecule may or may not re-radiate energy it has gained from either thermal contact or IR influence. It may just bump a nearby molecule and lose its excess energy to some other gas. If it does re-radiate, it will be in some random direction, possibly back to space, possibly sideways, possibly down. This does not permit any kind of averaging computation.

Bingo. The more CO2, the more absorption. The more absorption, the more downward re-radiation. The more downward re-radiation, the less gets through to warm the stratosphere. Therefore the stratosphere cools, the surface warms. Exactly what we are seeing.

[Brian H]

KeithPickering wrote:

In part, this says that any given CO2 molecule may or may not re-radiate energy it has gained from either thermal contact or IR influence. It may just bump a nearby molecule and lose its excess energy to some other gas. If it does re-radiate, it will be in some random direction, possibly back to space, possibly sideways, possibly down. This does not permit any kind of averaging computation.

Bingo. The more CO2, the more absorption. The more absorption, the more downward re-radiation. The more downward re-radiation, the less gets through to warm the stratosphere. Therefore the stratosphere cools, the surface warms. Exactly what we are seeing.
False. Only a small fraction of the absorbed radiation ends up going down; there is no conservation of “radiation”, in any case. Only energy, and most of the energy goes into driving atmospheric convection and pressure changes. Since the atmosphere is “open at the top”, there is no on-planet conservation of that energy; excess is simply physically “evaporated”.

Here’s a nice, tight summary of the shell game played by the IPCC analysts:

We have set out and then critically examined a detailed account of the IPCC’s method of evaluating climate sensitivity. We have made explicit the identities, interrelations, and values of the key variables, many of which the IPCC does not explicitly describe or quantify. The IPCC’s method does not provide a secure basis for policy-relevant conclusions. We now summarize some of its defects.

The IPCC’s methodology relies unduly – indeed, almost exclusively – upon numerical analysis, even where the outputs of the models upon which it so heavily relies are manifestly and significantly at variance with theory or observation or both. Modeled projections such as those upon which the IPCC’s entire case rests have long been proven impossible when applied to mathematically-chaotic objects, such as the climate, whose initial state can never be determined to a sufficient precision. For a similar reason, those of the IPCC’s conclusions that are founded on probability distributions in the chaotic climate object are unsafe.

Not one of the key variables necessary to any reliable evaluation of climate sensitivity can be measured empirically. The IPCC’s presentation of its principal conclusions as though they were near-certain is accordingly unjustifiable. We cannot even measure mean global surface temperature anomalies to within a factor of 2; and the IPCC’s reliance upon mean global temperatures, even if they could be correctly evaluated, itself introduces substantial errors in its evaluation of climate sensitivity.

The IPCC overstates the radiative forcing caused by increased CO2 concentration at least threefold because the models upon which it relies have been programmed fundamentally to misunderstand the difference between tropical and extra-tropical climates, and to apply global averages that lead to error.

The IPCC overstates the value of the base climate sensitivity parameter for a similar reason. Indeed, its methodology would in effect repeal the fundamental equation of radiative transfer (Eqn. 18), yielding the impossible result that at every level of the atmosphere ever-smaller forcings would induce ever-greater temperature increases, even in the absence of any temperature feedbacks.

The IPCC overstates temperature feedbacks to such an extent that the sum of the high-end values that it has now, for the first time, quantified would cross the instability threshold in the Bode feedback equation and induce a runaway greenhouse effect that has not occurred even in geological times despite CO2 concentrations almost 20 times today’s, and temperatures up to 7 ºC higher than today’s.

The Bode equation, furthermore, is of questionable utility because it was not designed to model feedbacks in non-linear objects such as the climate. The IPCC’s quantification of temperature feedbacks is, accordingly, inherently unreliable. It may even be that, as Lindzen (2001) and Spencer (2007) have argued, feedbacks are net-negative, though a more cautious assumption has been made in this paper.

It is of no little significance that the IPCC’s value for the coefficient in the CO2 forcing equation depends on only one paper in the literature; that its values for the feedbacks that it believes account for two-thirds of humankind’s effect on global temperatures are likewise taken from only one paper; and that its implicit value of the crucial parameter κ depends upon only two papers, one of which had been written by a lead author of the chapter in question, and neither of which provides any theoretical or empirical justification for a value as high as that which the IPCC adopted.

The IPCC has not drawn on thousands of published, peer-reviewed papers to support its central estimates for the variables from which climate sensitivity is calculated, but on a handful.

On this brief analysis, it seems that no great reliance can be placed upon the IPCC’s central estimates of climate sensitivity, still less on its high-end estimates. The IPCC’s assessments, in their current state, cannot be said to be “policy-relevant”. They provide no justification for taking the very costly and drastic actions advocated in some circles to mitigate “global warming”, which Eqn. (30) suggests will be small (<1 °C at CO2 doubling), harmless, and beneficial.

[jamesr]

Brian H wrote:

In part, this says that any given CO2 molecule may or may not re-radiate energy it has gained from either thermal contact or IR influence. It may just bump a nearby molecule and lose its excess energy to some other gas. If it does re-radiate, it will be in some random direction, possibly back to space, possibly sideways, possibly down. This does not permit any kind of averaging computation.

Bingo. The more CO2, the more absorption. The more absorption, the more downward re-radiation. The more downward re-radiation, the less gets through to warm the stratosphere. Therefore the stratosphere cools, the surface warms. Exactly what we are seeing.
False. Only a small fraction of the absorbed radiation ends up going down; there is no conservation of “radiation”

The fraction of absorbed radiation being re-radiated down would be almost exactly a half, since the CO2 molecule will deexcite in a random direction. The half that is re-radiated upwards still has a chance of being absorbed again higher up. Of course one initially scattered down could also be re-scattered upwards. This kind of linear chance of interaction and being scattered out of a particular direction is the similar to say gamma rays being absorbed/scattered as they pass through sheets of metal. If you double the thickness (equiv to doubling the thinkness of the atmosphere) you half the amount getting through. Similarly if you double the density of atoms/molecules, and so increase the probability of an interaction, you half the amount getting through. The result is an exponential fall off of radiation of those particular energies corresponding to the CO2 absorbtion bands with height, with the constant in the exponent being proportional to the number density of CO2 molecules.

The total effect is small compared to the infuence of water vapour, but CO2’s absorption bands are at different wavelengths – that happen to lie around the black-body emmision from the earth.

How specifically significant the anthropogenic CO2 contribution to greenhouse warming is, I would happily debate on, but the effect itself I think is sound.

[Brian H]

About 3% of incident radiation reaches the surface of Venus, as far as most sources can tell. Significant ground re-radiation in longer wavelengths absorbed by CO2 and then re-re-radiated (?!) thus doesn’t occur, which is the basis of any “greenhouse” effect. I.e., the atmosphere is directly heated by both on-planet sources and solar radiation. There are numerous “anomalies” in the radiation measurements, some even indicating that more heat is being radiated than comes from the sun. Additionally, the night and day sides of Venus are the same temperature, which could not be the case if it was controlled in any way by solar radiation. The high-velocity exclusively upper-level winds drop to almost zero at the surface, and thus cannot be responsible for mixing warmed daytime air with cooled nighttime air down where the great bulk of the atmosphere is. An “Occam’s Razor” hypothesis suggests internal heat sourcing and almost total reflection of solar irradiation before it affects the surface.

In any case, Venus is less and less like the Earth the more it is examined. The clouds are apparently composed of predominantly chlorine based compounds of some sort, for example. It certainly cannot be taken as any kind of “example”, cautionary, horrible, or otherwise.

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