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Comment on Week in review by Peter Davies

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Your “proposal” illustrates IMO everything that is wrong with climate science but also with human beings in general these days. The GFC is still contaminating the way we all perceive our economic future and the implications for future world prosperity is quite disturbing!


Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by fizzymagic

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Mike Flynn,

I am perfectly aware of the speed of light. I asked a simple question: how long does it take energy from fusion in the center of the Sun to reach the Earth? I know the answer. I am also aware of the experimental evidence supporting that answer. Do you know the answer?

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Mike Flynn

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Steven Mosher,

Re models.

If you base them on impossible physics, it is unlikely you will get useful answers.

If the physics on which the toy models are based is incorrect, then your other points are a complete waste of time.

Neither you, nor anybody else, has ever caused something heated externally to increase its temperature by surrounding it with CO2. Ever.

No uncertainty at all. The effect doesn’t exist, any more than any number of other things accepted as fact by the finest minds of their time. This even includes work for which Nobel Prizes were awarded.

But no matter. As dearly as you wish the world to warm under the influence of CO2 gas, I fear you will be sadly disappointed. If you want to warm up, stand in the Sun, or build a fire. The fire will generate some CO2 that you will no doubt worship as the source of the heat! (Only joking!)

Live well and prosper,

Mike Flynn.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Mike Flynn

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fizzymagic,

You wrote –

‘I asked a simple question: how long does it take energy from fusion in the center of the Sun to reach the Earth? I know the answer.”

If you know the answer, why are you wasting my time? Your question is about as silly as asking me how long is a piece of string, and then telling me you know the answer because you have it in your hand!

Now do you mean the exact centre of the Sun, where at most, by definition only one photon, can exist – being the centre and all – or do you mean the Warmist more or less estimated modelled wherever I want it to be centre?

Having established that fact, given that a photon has no rest mass, but may possess momentum, what, if any, momentum has been imparted to the photon in question, and what vectors best describe the effect of the momentum so imparted?

Get back to me. I need a lot more information, but because I think you really haven’t a clue, and are just trolling, I’ll let you look foolish without any further assistance from me.

You’re doing a pretty fair job so far, but I’m sure you can do better if you try really, really, hard!

Live well and prosper,

Mike Flynn.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by samD

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SkepticalScience dug up old papers from the 1960s (http://skepticalscience.com/LBJ-climate-1965.html). What was really surprising is that despite m(b)illions spent on climate change research estimates of climate sensitivity remain remarkably broad despite 50 years of study.

Eg: Manabe & Wetherald 1967 http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0469%281967%29024%3C0241%3ATEOTAW%3E2.0.CO%3B2: “Doubling the existing C02 content of the atmosphere has the effect of increasing the surface temperature by about 2.3C for the atmosphere with the realistic distribution of relative humidity and by about 1.3C for that with the realistic distribution of absolute humidity. The present model does not have the extreme sensitivity of atmospheric temperature to the CO2 content which Moeller (1963) encountered…”

With recent results though, what it looks like is that estimates of high climate sensitivity should now be treated as outliers requiring stringent observation-based justification and shouldn’t be used as policy tools until those justifications are fully met.

Comment on Conflicts of interest in climate science by Bella

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Same as government scientists, they have overriding ideological interests in promoting climate alarmism. And again as with government, science and objectivity hardly get a look in.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Kasuha

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I won’t comment on the thermal inertia assertion but I think there is some misunderstanding regarding feedbacks.
First I’ll start with broader definition of feedbacks and forcings than what’s usually taken into account. Let’s start with phase space of the climate – simply speaking, all possible values of temperature, humidity, albedo, and other factors. Each point in this space corresponds to one certain state of the climate. When climate is put into certain state, it follows certain trajectory in the phase space, with its state changing according to laws of physics. Let’s call the act of following this trajectory a “feedback”. Of course this feedback is sum of all factors that affect state of climate and are considered separate feedbacks when analysing things in detail. Ultimately, if nothing changes, the climate will end up following a “closed” path within certain limited region of the phase space.
Now we can define positive and negative feedback: positive feedback is any trajectory leading outside from given part of phase space. Negative feedback is any trajectory leading from outside in.
Note that “positive” and “negative” do not mean “towards higher/lower temperatures” in this context.
For completeness we can define forcing as any influence that is independent on the climate state and affects the state differently than feedbacks. Earth rotation and orbit, TOA insolation, cosmic rays and human CO2 emissions are such forcings. Forcings perturb the state and put it on a different feedback trajectory. That’s where “positive” and “negative” feedbacks play role because after a perturbation, positive feedbacks move the system out of the stable region, while negative feedbacks are sending it back.
When looked at from this point of view it is becoming obvious that any stable state of the climate is necessarily governed by negative feedbacks. If there were any substantial positive feedbacks, random perturbations would easily set it on positive feedback trajectory to the next attractor.
It is also obvious that feedbacks are entirely state-dependent. Each trajectory starts as a positive feedback in some state and ends as negative feedback in a different state.
When applying that to glacial cycles, there are two distincs states of the climate – glacial periods with low temperatures, high albedo and low humidity, and interglacial periods with high temperatures, low albedo and high humidity. The switch between them is caused by perturbations that set the system on positive feedback trajectory, and then the system following that trajectory. However as long as we’re currently in the interglacial phase, the positive feedbacks we have out of the current stable state are towards glaciation. And by increasing CO2 in the atmosphere and increasing our temperature, we are closing doors for them.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Mayor of Venus

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Where does a spectroscopist such as myself begin to clarify what you just wrote? To begin, water vapor and carbon dioxide, as tri-atomic molecules, have strong asbosption bands in the near and middle infrared. The di-atomic molecules nitrogen and oxygen, do not. Oxygen does have the “A”, “B” and gamma bands in the very near infrared and visible red spectrum. We measured the intensities and pressure broadening coefficients of these features in the NASA – Ames spectroscopy lab in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. The primary isotope of carbon dioxide is carbon 12 (6 protons and 6 neutrons) and 2 oxygen 16 (8 protons and 8 neutrons). About 1% has a carbon 13 ( 6 protons and 7 neutrons), and a smaller percentage a heavy oxygen 17 or 18). The absorption bands of the heavier isotopes are displaced to slightly longer wavelengths than the similar bands of the main isotope.


Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by fizzymagic

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If you know the answer, why are you wasting my time? Your question is about as silly as asking me how long is a piece of string, and then telling me you know the answer because you have it in your hand!

I was asking because the comments about radiative processes in the Earth’s atmosphere indicated a lack of understanding of radiative diffusion.

The answer, in case you want to know, is (roughly) 200,000 years. Or so. That’s because the mean free path of the photons is very, very short, so the energy transfer is dominated by radiative diffusion.

Neutrinos, on the other hand, leave the core more or less immediately, and take roughly 8 minutes to reach the Earth.

None of the math involved is particularly difficult, and all of the processes have been experimentally verified. Indeed, they are crucial to nuclear weapons design.

My point is this: if you want to make the claim that CO2 does not act as a greenhouse gas, you should have some very basic understanding of the physics and the experimental evidence when making your argument. Otherwise people will treat you (correctly) as a crank.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Bob Tisdale

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Thanks to Rud for the post, to Christopher for the reply and to Judith for posting both.

Cheers.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Greg

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the butterfly effect does not mean the whole systems will go unstable, it means you can have emergent phenomena triggered by small random fluctuations.

This amplification is caused by local +ve feedbacks, like those found in the building of tropical storms.

These will still be bound by the overpowering negative f/b that ensure overall system stability.

From Monkton’s reply:

We have some reason to suspect that the shrieking fury to which my co-author Willie Soon was subjected once the usual suspects found they could not fault the paper scientifically stems chiefly from our revelation that the Bode equation cannot be applied to the climate without heavy modification. Those behind the climate scare know this quite well. Now others know it too.

No, I think what has really frightened them is that is shows that using the Bode approach to represent their simplistic notion of climate as CO2+noise, it does not give the answer they thought it did.

Rather than rejoicing that the world is safe from imminent catastrophe, they see that this as an existential threat to their gravy train. That explains the vitriolic attacks.

That they wish to cut off the funding of those who disagree reveals where they feel they are threatened by all this.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Greg

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Precisely, the system is always bounded by -ve feedbacks and the effect of TS is regionally a -/ve f/b. The internal mechanics of individual storms are +f/b , which makes the regional effect a stronger, non-linear -ve f/b.

As well as increasing convective f/b ( which should lead to the hot-spot ) this also leads to a f/b directly controlling incoming solar ( cloud cover ). If they expect a hotspot and don’t find one they have the guestimated parameters wrong.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Greg

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“If you want to diagnose what is wrong with ‘models’ it’s more sensible to examine them individually.”

Yes and no. They have such large internal variability that is is not linked to real internal variability chronologically, that some averaging is needed to see what the underlying behaviour is.

Averaging by group can be useful. Here high and low TCS models:

We see that the recent divergence is linked to model TCS. We also see bigger problems elsewhere common to both groups. That is useful diagnostic information.

We can then compare high TCS models to , say, SSN and see that their divergences are similar to inverted SSN. This suggests under-estimation of solar effects on climate and a likely over sensitivity to volcanic forcing.

That is at least a start. I don’t think that would be as clear without some averaging to remove the random variability.

Comment on Week in review by harrywr2

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“Why the power grid of the future is in California and New York?”

Both grids rely on resources they don’t have control over for ultimate load balancing and will almost certainly be oversubscribed by the mid-2020’s.

In the case of New York…Quebec Hydro…in the case of California…Bonneville Power Administration.

More specifically…when Mr Steyer manages to bribe enough politicans to shut down all the coal plants in Montana the Pacific Northwest will no longer have enough excess power left over to ‘bail out’ California’s grid constructed of ‘wishful thinking’ and plenty of northwest power to bail California out in a ‘pinch’.

In the North eastern US…the impact of closing Vermont Yankee will stress the excess resources of hydro Quebec.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Bevan Dockery

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Gymnosperm, the linear regression analysis shows that there is no significant correlation between changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and changes in satellite lower tropospheric temperature so CO2 changes clearly do not cause temperature changes. They are independent variables.

However the significant correlation between temperature and rate of change of CO2 concentration indicates that there could be a dependent relationship by some as yet unknown physical cause. Note that the correlation coefficients are least in the Arctic – Alert station, and in the Antarctic – South Pole station, which fits with temperature driving the rate of change of CO2.


Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Mike Flynn

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fizzymagic,

I see you are of the Warmist persuasion. You demand that I provide experimental evidence that the GHE does not exist. I suppose I could, but like the GHE, you wouldn’t be able to see the non existent evidence proving the non existent effect. It’s in the box with the non existent evidence of the non existence of phlogiston, caloric, and Unobtanium.

I guess that the fact that the Earth isn’t warming is your proof that the GHE exists. Good luck with that. When you manage to get some warming going – and I’m sure you can if you try really, really, hard – let me know. I’ll be sure to panic.

Until then, I’ll regard the GHE as non existent – which of course it is!

Oh, by the way, the following is a quote from NASA, although as a Warmist you will need to correct their misunderstandings.

“The interior of the sun is a seathing plasma with a central density of over 100 grams/cc. The atoms, mostly hydrogen, are fully stripped of electrons so that the particle density is 10^26 protons per cubic centimeter. That means that the typical distance between protons or electrons is about (10^26)^1/3 = 2 x 10^-9 centimeters.

The actual ‘mean free path’ for radiation is closer to 1 centimeter after electromagnetic effects are included. Light travels this distance in about 3 x 10^-11 seconds. Very approximately, this means that to travel the radius of the Sun, a photon will have to take (696,000 kilometers/1 centimeter)^2 = 5 x 10^21 steps. This will take, 5×10^21 x 3 x10^-11 = 1.5 x 10^11 seconds or since there are 3.1 x 10^7 seconds in a year, you get about 4,000 years.

Some textbooks refer to ‘hundreds of thousands of years’ or even ‘several million years’ depending on what is assumed for the mean free path. Also, the interior of the sun is not at constant density so that the steps taken in the outer half of the sun are much larger than in the deep interior where the densities are highest. Note that if you estimate a value for the mean free path that is a factor of three smaller than 1 centimeter, the time increases a factor of 10!”

I’m sure that your precise figure of roughly 200 000 years is far more accurate than their estimate, and they are no doubt awaiting your superior mathematical treatment with bated breath. Maybe you could offer your immense intellect to NASA, to correct their silly statements.

Live well and prosper,

Mike Flynn.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by nottawa rafter

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samD

Let’s hope the next 50 years produces more definitive results and a greater understanding of our climate. But that would be hoping for politics to exit the scientific debate.

Fat chance.

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by DEEBEE

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Dr. C, that seems a bit odd to formulate a criticism of this paper. GCMS model let’s have spent millions, if not billions, to create a dog’s breakfast. And now the touchstone of significance is the undefers ding of this mess!?

Comment on Week in review by Peter Lang

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+1

HarryWR2, Why don’t you write a post cor CE?

Comment on Lessons from the ‘Irreducibly Simple’ kerfuffle by Quondam

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Regretfully, I must share the local consensus opinion that MSLB offers no new physical insights into climate modeling and resembles more a game of musical chairs using IPCC numbers in simple models already described in AGW literature. As of this writing, a search of this thread shows only two contributions in which the words perturbation a/o convection are significant and I feel free to add comments thereon.

The factor (1-g) appearing in many papers and textbooks is no more than the first two terms in a perturbation expression for expansion of a function of temperature (linearity). As such, it is necessary that g be a fraction of unity else nonlinear, higher order terms come into play. It is well-known that linearity is enhanced in electrical circuits by negative feedback and, somehow, this has been conflated as justification for truncation to linear terms. But there is no evidence for a power-consuming, op-amp mechanism of high open-circuit gain in the atmosphere. MSLB adopt a Planck model as a perturbation basis and all deviations are described by feedbacks. It would surely have been preferable to choose the current atmosphere as a basis, with CO2 doubling then becoming a 1% perturbation. To be sure, there is a tipping point in a homogeneous atmosphere at which structures extremely efficient at transporting energy from surface to tropopause spontaneously form, but strong evidence exists that we passed that point some time ago.

Scan MSLB for the word ‘convect’. Nada. If one accepts MODTRAN results, net radiative flux is 102 W/m2 at the surface and 247 W/m2 at 15km (US Std. Atm.) The 145 W/m2 difference is generally attributed due to convection, i.e. convection is the dominant energy transport mechanism in the lower troposphere where GHG gases concentrate. Should we increase the surface temperature 1K, how much would the 247 value increase? Most would guess ca. 3W/m2 due to increased radiative flux. And how much would the convective contribution be? The naive might assume about the same given their existing ratio, doubling the increase to 6W/m2. Climate Science Consensus says zero. What now happens if, hypothetically, feedback mechanisms reduce the radiative contribution to 0.3W/m2. To achieve a 3W/m2 increase, CSC says a 10K increase is necessary. The naive assert 2K suffices.

Models run hot because they ignore convective compensation for GHG-reduced radiation. Should you seek a simple, steady-state model circumventing these issues which runs on the back of an envelope, try the Carnot Equation (turbulence and a variational minimum included at no extra charge.)

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