(can of worms alert) Globe hasn't warmed in the last 16 years 76

[beej67]

Worth a read. One significance of the article to me is the 'skeptic' isn't a loon, she's the head of the EAS department at Georgia Tech.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...-report-quietly-released--chart-prove-it.html



Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[Brad1979]

My understanding is that the estimate for the "hole" to return to normal levels is even later than the estimate of the rest of the ozone to return, which is what I was referring to above. I got this info from this 2010 report (pdf) "Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion: 2010." It says that the ozone should be back to 1980 levels around the middle of this century and the Antarctic ozone hole should return to pre-1980 values in the late 21st century (p. 6).

 

[zdas04]

How do you have a discussion when one person says

CO2 is a greenhouse gas- yes, that too is a fact

when I absolutely dispute the "science" that claims that there even is a "greenhouse effect", let alone a rational delineation of specific components.

The Greenhouse Effect is a hypotheses "supported" by a computer model designed expressly to show the [cataclysmic] outcome of the hypotheses. I look at the temperature gradient in a physical "greenhouse" and find a maximum temperature near the glass wall, with decreasing temperature a function of distance from the glass. I watched the guy in the balloon on Sunday and the temperatures that were displayed on the screen looked very different from the greenhouse model. All of the elevation vs. temperature measurements that I've ever seen have matched what I saw from the guy in the balloon. None of them look anything like a greenhouse.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[dawei87]

The guy in the balloon was over 120,000 feet high -- well above the tropopause where temperatures stop falling and begin to start rising as you continue to get higher into the atmosphere. That effect is in no way inconsistent with the greenhouse effect.

There is plenty of experimental proof showing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. You can even do it yourself if you get your hands on an infrared camera. The greenhouse effect is not a hypothesis. It is very soundly proven science accepted by everyone, even skeptics and so-called "skeptics".

 

[dawei87]

And I don't see how your observations about a physical glass greenhouse have anything to do with a greenhouse gas...unless you're just confused by the fact that they happen to share a name.

 

[zdas04]

There is plenty of experimental proof showing that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. You can even do it yourself if you get your hands on an infrared camera. The greenhouse effect is not a hypothesis. It is very soundly proven science accepted by everyone, even skeptics and so-called "skeptics".

I don't like labels very much, but if anyone is skeptical it is me. I've looked at many of the "experiments" that claim to "prove" the greenhouse effect and I found them to be cartoons that relied upon a huge amount of acceptance from the observer. This discussion has devolved to a "my imaginary friend can beat up your imaginary friend" pissing contest like religious discussions always do.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[Brad1979]

How can you deny the greenhouse effect? How then do you explain the discrepancy between the actual temperature of the earth and the temperature calculated based on global radiative equilibrium?

 

[moltenmetal]

David: it is a fact that CO2 is a "greenhouse gas", as that term is commonly understood. The IR spectra of CO2 and methane are rather easy to measure- you can't dispute them. And unlike water, these molecules have long half-lives in the atmosphere: their equilibrium concentrations are determined by slow chemical and biological processes, not by fast physical/thermodynamic ones. Once dumped, even if you could stop, they stay there for a long time before these processes knock them back down, even i.e. similar to what happened with CFCs.

Whether or not the amount of CO2 we've added to the atmosphere, or are likely to add, will have a significant and detrimental climactic effect (i.e. above and beyond the natural climate variation that we have no hand in one way or the other), IS definitely an item of dispute. The magnitude of the effect is based on models with so many unknowns that their predictions, one way or the other, are anything BUT conclusive. However, those who actuallly study the subject for a living are in wide agreement that the RISK of harm is significant enough to merit changing the way we consume fossil fuels.

You can dispute the significance of the effect based on your own understanding of the data, but frankly you're not qualified to offer an opinion on the subject, nor am I.

 

[dawei87]

How can you deny the greenhouse effect? How then do you explain the discrepancy between the actual temperature of the earth and the temperature calculated based on global radiative equilibrium?

Not to mention the actual temperature of Venus...

 

[cvg]

The magnitude of the effect is based on models with so many unknowns that their predictions, one way or the other, are anything BUT conclusive. However, those who actuallly study the subject for a living are in wide agreement that the RISK of harm is significant enough to merit changing the way we consume fossil fuels.

therein lies the rub

there is general agreement that the data and the models are crap, but everybody agrees to ignore that and assign it a high risk. Actually, risk is a combination of probability and consequence. I believe everybody is in agreement that the consequences could be very bad. But the probability part is what hangs us up. Without the data and the models, we can have no confidence that risk is low or high.

 

[KENAT]

zdas, did you read the "Global Warming Misinformation" section of the second link you gave in your 19 Oct 12 8:33 post?

Posting guidelines faq731-376

http://eng-tips.com/market.cfm?

(probably not aimed specifically at you)
What is Engineering anyway: faq1088-1484​

 

[zdas04]

KNEAT
Actually I was tired from driving all day and only read down the the start of the nuclear study. I just read it and can't say I agree with much of it.

Moltenmetal,
You can say "the greenhouse effect is a fact" until we all die, and without data that is far less ambiguous than I've seen to date (and I've looked very hard) I won't accept that "fact". I've actually seen a lot of data that supports the hypotheses that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is a lagging indicator (i.e., a consequence of warming, not a cause) and always has been. Taking the tactic from the Intelligent Design guys and saying that the hypothesis that you "believe" is a "fact" over and over does not make it true any more than the data available data makes it true. What we have on this subject is manipulated data, outrageous computer models, a series of unsupported hypotheses, and way too much rhetoric.

As to whether I have a right to an opinion on the climate, it seems to me that every air-breathing organism has that right. Certainly every tax payer that will be raped by Cap & Trade and Carbon Taxes has that right. I have every right to evaluate the data in the public record and form my own opinions on its quality, level of internal consistency, and whether it leads to the conclusions that the authors have drawn from it. In fact, the API paid me a considerable amount of money last year to write a series of papers on an EPA regulation of the upstream Oil & Gas industry that included an attempt by the EPA to slip in limitations on "greenhouse gases" to a VOC regulation. The API thought I was qualified and paid me to do it, that seems to make me a professional. Universally I find that the conclusions of the members of the religion of AGW do not hold water.

It is like I were to look in a mirror and conclude that I am fat. On closer examination I find that I have much more hair in my ears than I did when I was 40 years old. I could then form an hypotheses that increasing hair in your ears makes you fat. I didn't take careful measurements of my ear hair between age 40 and age 59, but I have some photographs that might be helpful. Careful examination of those photographs shows that at 2 or 3 intermediate points in my life I have had more ear hair than the photographs show for younger ages and have gotten progressively heavier in each photograph. Ergo, ear hair causes obesity and eating fats and sweets is not a factor. I think this dataset is complete and comprehensive proof that my hypotheses is a fact.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[beej67]

You're going to lose that one zdas. There is absolutely a greenhouse effect. How much anthropogenic carbon contributes heavily to it is certainly questionable. You should adopt that as a fallback position.

And honestly I'm not convinced warming is bad. The headlong resource bonanza the human race is heading towards is going to come to a head not over energy, but over water resources. Heat charges the hydrologic cycle, which gets water moving, and mankind is going to need more water moving in the next fifty years. Global warming could in fact save us from some pretty bad consequences.

The thing about the modelers and their models is none of those models shows the USA unilaterally adopting carbon cap and trade will fix the problem. But certain financial entities have already invested in the idea, so it's in their best interests to push it.

The other thing that bugs the crap out of me about the disaster models is they presume water vapor will have a snowball heating effect, as more evaporates and traps more heat. They under represent the cooling effect of clouds.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East -

http://www.campbellcivil.com

 

[zdas04]

Saying it don't make it so.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[Brad1979]

David,

If there were no greenhouse effect, the average temp of the earth would be ~0 deg F, not ~59 deg F. It's a simple application of Stefan–Boltzmann's law to show this. The greenhouse effect merely says that the "greenhouse" gases absorb some of the radiation from earth and re-emits it back towards the earth. There's nothing controversial about that and nobody I know of (except you, apparently) denies it.

 

[moltenmetal]

David: you, not I, are the one disputing the consensus of people actually qualified to offer an opinion on the subject that could possible be considered informed, i.e. one that should matter to others. You have the higher burden of proof for your supposition because it runs contrary the prevailing science.

I don't hold my own opinion out to be any more informed than yours is. But since my opinion doesn't differ from the scientific consensus on the subject, it would appear that I'm in pretty good company.

As to what you believe- what do I care? Believe personally whatever you want. Be careful to call it that when telling it to others, though.

A suggestion for participation in further debate on this or any subject: don't deny fact. You can argue about the effect or magnitude of these facts. You can also point it out when you feel that participants are confusing risk with certainty or correlation with causality, but don't deny the underlying facts- doing so, as you have REPEATEDLY done in debate on this topic over years now, shows you to have a point of view which is inflexible to new information, i.e. you are biased. I'd go further and call yours an ideological position, i.e. very much like that of the enviro-religionists that you (and I too) despise for its lack of rigour and scientific basis.

 

[zdas04]

I don't dispute "facts". It is just that they are thin on the ground. I've done enough expert witness stuff that I don't have the reverence for that word that you seem to have. Every "fact" that I've ever thought I knew has been subject to reinterpretation if I stood 3 ft to the left.

As to the "people qualified to have an opinion" with the the data-manipulation and report fraud that is rife on this subject I don't know of a single climate scientist proclaiming the end of the world that I tend to accept at face value.

Brad,
Why in the world would the earth be 0F without the greenhouse effect????????? There is nothing at all physical about 0F, it is a very arbitrary point on temperature continuum that represents about 460R. If you are saying that there would be no temperature it would be a bit colder than 0F. The thermodynamics of gases is something that I do know a bit about and the existence of an atmosphere does not depend on a greenhouse effect. A temperature variation across that atmosphere does not rely on a greenhouse effect. So I'm not sure what you're talking about. The atmosphere "reflecting heat back" is a very simplistic model of an amazingly complex system.


David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

"Belief" is the acceptance of an hypotheses in the absence of data.
"Prejudice" is having an opinion not supported by the preponderance of the data.
"Knowledge" is only found through the accumulation and analysis of data.

 

[Brad1979]

As I said already, it isn't an arbitrary temperature, its a very straightforward application of the Stefan–Boltzmann law. The radiated energy from the sun heats the earth up and the earth in turn radiates energy from it. When you do the calculation, you get the temperature of the earth to be ~255 K (~0 F). The greenhouse effect explains why the actual temp of the earth is ~288 K (~59 F). As I asked above, and you haven't answered yet, if you dispute the claim that there is a greenhouse effect, how do YOU explain the discrepancy? What causes the ~33 K temp increase over the temp that the Stefan-Boltzmann law predicts?

 

[rb1957]

whilst we can be reasonably sure of how much energy the earth is getting from the sun, are we just as certain about the amount of energy being radiated ? maybe we are, and maybe there is a difference between the theory and the real world.

maybe the greenhouse effect is a "fudge factor" to obtain the desired (ie real world) results ??

 

[Brad1979]

Yes, we can be sure of it. Energy in = energy out.

"maybe the greenhouse effect is a "fudge factor" to obtain the desired (ie real world) results ?? "

No it isn't a fudge factor. It's a real effect.

 

[dvd]

Actually, Energy Garbage in = energy garbage out

Energy in + Energy generated - Energy out = Energy stored. There probably is some amount of energy generation and energy storage in this non-steady system that we live within.

Also, assuming that the earth could be modeled and solved with Stefan-Boltzmann the spectral properties of the surface and atmosphere are not absolute, nor is the sun surface temperature, nor is the day sky temperature, nor is the night sky temperature.