Personal Incredulity re science (split from Few Questions)

[guidoLamoto]

Several points: far and away the most important GHGs are h2o & o3-- and even they have mixed effects. While they both can delay the exit of IR wavelengths radiated as energy absorbed by the planet's surface is sent back off towards space, they both also intercept and reflect a great deal of incoming short wav radiation from the sun-- Everybody knows cloudy days are cooler than sunny days, but cloudy nights are warmer than cloudless nights...Notice that deserts (low atm [h2o]) get hot in the day and cold at night, while rain forests (hi atm [h2o]) are hot during the day and stay hot all night, but both have the same [co2].  ???? A reasonable person would deduce that co2 isn't all that important in weather /climate considerations compared to h2o.

One should also be able to deduce from personal experience that the energy budget cartoon posted above is wrong: it claims only 7% of the energy absorbed by the surface is lost via direct conduction to the air. We've all experienced a foot scalded by the hot sand on the beach (conduction), and lifting that burned foot only a few inches relieves the heat-- but while lifted it's still getting hit with the IR (radiation)... 99% of the atm is n2 & o2-- but they don't get  warmed by IR, only by visible light or by direct conduction from the surface.

The OP's original question about the geologic temp record-- determined by oxygen isotopes or by fossil plankton records, but either way, the error bars are huge-- so big that conclusions should not be trusted. The workers in the field claim there is little diffusion of gases thru the layer of ice, but give me a break-- no diffusion over a hundred thousand yrs? I didn't just fall of the turnip truck..What's their "gold standard to make that claim?.... But if they don't make the claim, then no more research funds.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, guidoLamoto said:

Several points: far and away the most important GHGs are h2o & o3-- and even they have mixed effects. While they both can delay the exit of IR wavelengths radiated as energy absorbed by the planet's surface is sent back off towards space, they both also intercept and reflect a great deal of incoming short wav radiation from the sun-- Everybody knows cloudy days are cooler than sunny days, but cloudy nights are warmer than cloudless nights...Notice that deserts (low atm [h2o]) get hot in the day and cold at night, while rain forests (hi atm [h2o]) are hot during the day and stay hot all night, but both have the same [co2].  ???? A reasonable person would deduce that co2 isn't all that important in weather /climate considerations compared to h2o.

A reasonable person would understand that H2O can’t vary all that much, which is why its impact is not as important, and also that the impact of CO2 has been studied, so one can refer to science rather than hand-waving.

1 hour ago, guidoLamoto said:

One should also be able to deduce from personal experience that the energy budget cartoon posted above is wrong: it claims only 7% of the energy absorbed by the surface is lost via direct conduction to the air. We've all experienced a foot scalded by the hot sand on the beach (conduction), and lifting that burned foot only a few inches relieves the heat-- but while lifted it's still getting hit with the IR (radiation)... 99% of the atm is n2 & o2-- but they don't get  warmed by IR, only by visible light or by direct conduction from the surface.

Science, please, not awkward anecdotes that don’t actually demonstrate what you claim.

1 hour ago, guidoLamoto said:

The OP's original question about the geologic temp record-- determined by oxygen isotopes or by fossil plankton records, but either way, the error bars are huge-- so big that conclusions should not be trusted. The workers in the field claim there is little diffusion of gases thru the layer of ice, but give me a break-- no diffusion over a hundred thousand yrs? I didn't just fall of the turnip truck..What's their "gold standard to make that claim?.... But if they don't make the claim, then no more research funds.

Error bars tell you exactly how much to trust the results. And again: science, please.

[guidoLamoto]

10 hours ago, swansont said:

A reasonable person would understand that H2O can’t vary all that much, which is why its impact is not as important, and also that the impact of CO2 has been studied, so one can refer to science rather than hand-waving.

Science, please, not awkward anecdotes that don’t actually demonstrate what you claim.

Error bars tell you exactly how much to trust the results. And again: science, please.

Science? co2 has not been "studied well." Computer models are art, not science. There is absolutely no theoretical way to estimate the contribution of co2 to the GHE, and all "science" today is based on correlations. Check the correlation of [co2] vs temps for the period 1950 -1980 : negative, ie increased co2 must lead to cooling, if you're willing to equate correlation with cause & effect....The GHG Effect is theoretical with zero experimental evidence to  support (or reject) it.

[h2o] differences small? Compare deserts to rain forest please. Compare cloudy days & nites to cloudless. Of course there ae huge differences and huge effects......My point about anecdotes is that young people are no longer educated in school, but indoctrinated. They fail to question the teachings of the masters even when those run contrary to their own experiences. That's called belief on faith alone-- the very definition of religion and antithetical to science.

 

.Again, check that energy budget graph posted above and find the absorption spectra of the various atm gases: ….O2 & n2 are 99% of the atm and its ave. temp is `288degK. They can only be warmed from 0 deg to 288  by absorption of visible light or by conduction from the heat of the surface, and there isn't that much energy subtracted by the O & N from the sunlight. Most of their temp is gained by conduction-- a fact miscalculated by the Kiehl & Trenberth study because it wouldn't fit the narrative to say otherwise.

 

Error bars. Find an honest site that shows the historical temp records with error bars. You can draw a straight horizontal line and remain within the error bars throughout its course, ie-- statistically no differences in  temps "measured" by proxy, at least after the great warming that occurred 12-15000 y/a or for the geologic record going back to the Cambrian... ..Check the temp record for the last 2000 yrs: a total range of only 1 degC. Using the often stated approximation of 1 SD is about 1/4th of the range of measurements, then no temps fall outside +/- 2 SD of the average, ie-- ~ 67% chance that all temp changes for the period are due merely to random variation about the mean. 

Before we let dictatorial govt regulations force us to return to an 1880s lifestyle with an inability to feed 7.5B people at a cost estimated to be $4 QUADrillion (that's 50x the  Gross WORLD Product), we probably ought to make sure we have the science right....and we're not even close to that.

[swansont]

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

Science? co2 has not been "studied well." Computer models are art, not science.
 

This level of ignorance suggests that you aren’t to be taken seriously, and just have an agenda.

 

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

There is absolutely no theoretical way to estimate the contribution of co2 to the GHE, and all "science" today is based on correlations.

Argument from personal incredulity is a logical fallacy 

 

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

Check the correlation of [co2] vs temps for the period 1950 -1980 : negative, ie increased co2 must lead to cooling, if you're willing to equate correlation with cause & effect....

This belies your assertion that it’s just correlation. That may be what you are doing, but not science.

 

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

The GHG Effect is theoretical with zero experimental evidence to  support (or reject) it.

Assertion. No supporting evidence. 

 

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

[h2o] differences small? Compare deserts to rain forest please. Compare cloudy days & nites to cloudless. Of course there ae huge differences and huge effects......My point about anecdotes is that young people are no longer educated in school, but indoctrinated. They fail to question the teachings of the masters even when those run contrary to their own experiences. That's called belief on faith alone-- the very definition of religion and antithetical to science.

We’re talking about a global effect; desert vs rainforest is local. 

What is the average humidity in the world? How much can it grow, using factors of 2 as a measure? Compare to CO2.

Bonus question: Why are factors of 2 the appropriate measure (as opposed to simple concentration values) when discussing warming?

 

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

.Again, check that energy budget graph posted above and find the absorption spectra of the various atm gases: ….O2 & n2 are 99% of the atm and its ave. temp is `288degK. They can only be warmed from 0 deg to 288  by absorption of visible light or by conduction from the heat of the surface, and there isn't that much energy subtracted by the O & N from the sunlight. Most of their temp is gained by conduction-- a fact miscalculated by the Kiehl & Trenberth study because it wouldn't fit the narrative to say otherwise.

There is visible light.

How much energy does this represent? A calculation. Some scientific analysis, rather than hand-waving.

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

Error bars. Find an honest site that shows the historical temp records with error bars.
 

You brought up error bars as a suggestion that a graph not be trusted, so you must gave seen them.

Don’t move the goalposts.

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

You can draw a straight horizontal line and remain within the error bars throughout its course, ie-- statistically no differences in  temps "measured" by proxy, at least after the great warming that occurred 12-15000 y/a or for the geologic record going back to the Cambrian... ..Check the temp record for the last 2000 yrs: a total range of only 1 degC. Using the often stated approximation of 1 SD is about 1/4th of the range of measurements, then no temps fall outside +/- 2 SD of the average, ie-- ~ 67% chance that all temp changes for the period are due merely to random variation about the mean. 

You haven’t linked to this graph, and I’m not going to just take your word for it. And no, a standard deviation is not 1/4

 

45 minutes ago, guidoLamoto said:

Before we let dictatorial govt regulations force us to return to an 1880s lifestyle with an inability to feed 7.5B people at a cost estimated to be $4 QUADrillion (that's 50x the  Gross WORLD Product), we probably ought to make sure we have the science right....and we're not even close to that.

Politics, not science, and until you substantiate this I will assume you just made this up.

[Strange]

1 hour ago, guidoLamoto said:

Science? co2 has not been "studied well."

The effects of CO2 on infra-red absorption have been intensively studied (theoretically, experimentally, and quantitatively) for well over 100 years.

 

[Phi for All]

!

Moderator Note

I've split this discussion off on its own, since it's not based in mainstream science. When we take the time to discuss a topic here, we want the methodologies and information used to be trustworthy. We need the science, not hand-waiving, not incredulity. Please take the time to cite relevant studies to support your claims and assertions, and always try to provide evidence.

I put this in Speculations to give you a chance to support your arguments. We normally Trash posts with such a low science to rant ratio, but now you have a shot at backing yourself up. The thread will stay open as long as you're trying to follow the rules.

 

[MigL]

Wiki actually has some very interesting reading regarding the "hockey stick' graph...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy#Controversy_over_Bradley_and_Jones_1993

[John Cuthber]

4 hours ago, guidoLamoto said:

The GHG Effect is theoretical with zero experimental evidence to  support (or reject) it.

It's not hard to find an experiment

 

[MigL]

Don't the Alka Seltzer tablets generate pressure in the test bottle ( as opposed to the reference bottle ), John ?
Certainly not enough to account for the temp difference; but it seems pretty sloppy.

[John Cuthber]

15 minutes ago, MigL said:

Don't the Alka Seltzer tablets generate pressure in the test bottle ( as opposed to the reference bottle ), John ?
Certainly not enough to account for the temp difference; but it seems pretty sloppy.

Quite possibly, though I don't know how well sealed they are.
If it did, what difference would it make?

[Strange]

4 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

It's not hard to find an experiment

It's hard not to find experiments.

5 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Quite possibly, though I don't know how well sealed they are.
If it did, what difference would it make?

Good point. Even if some experiments are potentially flawed (and obviously not all are; but the whole point of the scientific method is to eliminate those that are) the existence of even one experiment falsifies the hypothesis that there is no science involved.

[MigL]

The temperature probes are in the gas phase, not the liquid.
And increased pressure will increase the temperature of the gas.

Edit: cross posted with Strange.
         Sloppy experiments give people 'excuses' to deny validity.

Edited February 8, 2020 by MigL

[John Cuthber]

I'd be a bit more concerned about the fact that the chemical reaction is actually endothermic.

There are, of course, much better experiments.
However any experiment is enough to show that this claim is simply false.

9 hours ago, guidoLamoto said:

The GHG Effect is theoretical with zero experimental evidence to  support (or reject) it.

 

[Ken Fabian]

19 hours ago, guidoLamoto said:

because it wouldn't fit the narrative to say otherwise

 

On 2/8/2020 at 10:04 AM, guidoLamoto said:

But if they don't make the claim, then no more research funds

 

Bluntly, I think these are the conclusions you start with and the facile sciency sounding but substanceless arguments are chosen to fit the narrative. You need to try them on an audience that has poor comprehension of climate science and are more inclined to take those arguments as true without checking.

 

19 hours ago, guidoLamoto said:

Before we let dictatorial govt regulations force us to return to an 1880s lifestyle with an inability to feed 7.5B people at a cost estimated to be $4 QUADrillion (that's 50x the  Gross WORLD Product), we probably ought to make sure we have the science right

Alarmist economic fear of the costs of acting appropriately in response to decades of consistent top level science advice has been one the most potent Doubt, Deny, Delay arguments of all. Which works best if doubt is thrown on that science based advice - allowing the economic costs of not acting appropriately to be left out entirely.

[guidoLamoto]

21 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

It's not hard to find an experiment

 

Very impressive experiment-- the problem is, it demonstrates the concept of heat capacity (specific heat) and not the GH Effect.

Heat capacity of pure co2 is about 85% that of ambient air (look it up yourself) so a given amount of energy will cause about a 15% higher temp rise in a volume of co2 than an equal volume of air. Now in the demonstration above, we don't know the actual [co2] in the exp bottle, but it's  less than 100% and more than that in ambient air Let's say it's 1/3rd -- so we should expect a rise in temps around 5% more in the exp vs control--That's just what we see 306 degK vs 317deg K....306/317 = 95.6%. ….

….We won't get into  details about most of the energy transferred from the light source is in the visible range (our hands are sensitive to IR and I doubt you'd feel much heat coming off the bulb at the distance of the bottles)  and that co2's GH Effect is mediated thru IR. ..Actually, virtually all the heating done on the bottles' contents is via conduction, not radiation-- the bottle is heated by the lite and then conducts it by direct contact to the internal gas.

 

The GHG Theory is predicated on the concept that monoatomic molecules can absorb energy only by conduction and that increases their translational (kinetic) energy. They move faster. Diatomic molecules can capture energy to cause them to increase translational &/or rotational energy, and tri (or more) atomic molecules can also vibrate and absorb a photon at  its resonant frequency....Keep in mind that temperature is a measure of the average KINETIC energy of the gas-- PV = nRT --> T = V x P/nR. That means only  increased translational energy produces rising temps....

…. This implies that the additional energy absorbed by GHGs (for co2 that's IR only at ~ 5u) does not actually make the air temp rise. What it does do is re-direct the IR that's on its way from the surface off into space, delaying its exit to space. Once absorbed by the gas, it is immediately re- radiated at the incident wavelength, but at random angles-- just as likely to be sent off towards space as it is to be sent back down towards its sourse (This brings up an objection on the quantum mech level-- we have a deterministic mechanical model acting on a QM system. But I digress...) ...GHG Theory calls for no significant warming during the day, but slower cooling at nite.

A better experiment would be to take the exp hi co2 bottle and heat it to the same temp as the control bottle, then see which one cools off faster. I would point out that, with IR travelling at the speed of light and an apparatus only a few cm big, we wouldn't be able to measure the difference. That doesn't deny the theory, it just doesn't offer the proof we need. This is why I stated previously that there is not good exp evidence to support GHG Theory, only correlations & computer art work.

Now you can check the UAH or Roy Spencer's (director if the UAH satellite program) blog to find that over the 40 yrs of the satellite record, the average planet temp has risen ~0.6deg (0.13 deg C /decade)...The tropics have warmed only minimally (a few 1/100ths of a deg), while the temperate zones have warmed only at nite (0.5deg), but the polar regions have warmed 4+degC. Regardless of the source of warming, we'd expect this-- energy flows from hi to low...So what is the significance to the biosphere? Nothing. ..Down here where most of us Earthlings ( I'm including  all life forms) live, no species or biome can sense a difference between today's average temp of X deg vs next decade's temp of x + 0.13 deg with almost all of the excess in the polar regions.

In an earlier post I compared rain forests vs deserts/ co2 vs h2o and was criticized that that represented local conditions, not "average." Reminds me of the story about the two statisticians who went deer hunting. After hrs of waiting patiently in their cold, damp blind, a big buck finally presented itself. The first guy took a shot but missed four ft to the right. The second guy took a shot but missed four ft to the left. Jubilantly they jumped up, high-fived each other and triumphantly shouted "We got him!"...What exactly does "average world temp mean?

Someone also objected earlier to my method of estimating SD. It's a well accepted method, based on the definition & geometry of the normal distribution: https://www.thoughtco.com/range-rule-for-standard-deviation-3126231  SD ~ range/ 4

edited to add: I didn't bring up the matter of statistical analysis in order to deny that's there's warming, but to point out the difficulties in proving it's not just random variations..... If it were random, then we should see random alternations of hotter and colder yrs, but we don't . We do see what appears to be (pseudo) cyclic variations over time. We would expect this because climate is certainly related to many cyclic phenomena that are quite obvious: rotation of planet about its axis, orbit of planet about the sun, precession of planetary axis and precession of elliptical orbit, orbit of solar system about galaxy, solar cycles, various oceanic cycles etc Fourier Analysis could come up with a formula that could accurately reproduce a graph mimicking the historical temp record.-- even "explaining" the apparent step function jumps we see so prominently and can't explain deterministically. ...and then there's the non-cyclic factors that have major influences-- randomness of volcanic eruptions and  other influences of plate tectonics....It's a system governed by mathematical chaos and complexity. No single factor, like [co2] can explain it simplistically. In fact, it looks like [co2], while technically applicable to the problem, is insignificantly influential (at current and predicted future levels) and can be ignored in our calculations, just like we can safely ignore air resistance and relativistic factors in predicting the trajectory of a bowling ball dropped from the Leaning Tower. 

 

The 100+ computer models predicting dire consequences of rising co2 have all selected co2 sensitivity factors of 4-6 deg C/ co2 doubling. That would appear to be much too high. Note the poor predictive values of their models over the last 10-20 yrs. Several physisists have calculated the value to be 1.6 -7 deg C based on energy budget considerations-- IF all the warming seen is due to co2. For instance-- many others if you care to search it. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/13/climate-sensitivity-in-light-of-the-latest-energy-imbalance-evidence/

It's ironic that The True Believers always accuse the skeptics of ignoring the science. Almost all of the retorts to my posts have been of the form "Oh, Yea?" I don't like talking anybody out of their religion. It serves a useful purpose for them, I guess. I won't post any more on this topic.

Edited February 9, 2020 by guidoLamoto