Climate modeling and decision milestones

[mistermack]

11 hours ago, exchemist said:

should not be presented by NASA as settled science.

It is settled, because anybody who questions that fact will never find work again in the climate field.  

In the real world, science is never settled. It's long-standing, or the latest position, but climate science, the least proved, is the only one that's "settled".

[Doogles31731]

Oops! Thanks, SwansonT, for pointing out the error of my ways.

I bow my head in shame. My figure of 25-fold in the range of climate sensitivity was wrong and I freely admit to error. In a brain lapse, I interpreted the lowest ranges to be 0.15 instead of 1.5. This of course means that the range of figures for climate sensitivity is approximately 4-fold.

Now it is still too big a range in my opinion and indicates that the basic science is still not good enough after 160 years of studies and after “19 million results from a Google Scholar search”. if people are happy with that, so be it. I personally don’t believe it is good enough.

I appreciate those responses from Studiot and again from exchemist who once again took time and effort in attempts to clarify matters for me.

I guess it comes down to personal opinions in the end. Obviously, most people seem to be happy with the current state of science performed on the atmosphere as a whole. My opinion is that there are far too many variables in the dynamics of that atmosphere to understand the basics.

My preference would still be to use a decent sized glass or perspex tube in a laboratory as I described in an earlier post, do repetitive measures of each gas until basic consistency can be obtained with  a single gas, and then repeat such tests with as many computations and combinations of atmospheric variables as one can imagine.

I have a copy of Tyndall’s work exchemist, and I would like to cite a part of his observations on the effect of mixtures of gases -- “ ... Thus we see that hydrogen and nitrogen, which, when mixed together, produce a small effect, when chemically united to form ammonia, produce an enormous effect. Thus oxygen and hydrogen, which, when mixed in their electrolytic proportions, show a scarcely sensible action, when chemically combined to form aqueous vapour, exert a powerful action. So also with oxygen and nitrogen, which, when mixed, as in our atmosphere, both absorb and radiate feebly, when united to form oscillating systems, as in nitrous oxide, have their powers vastly augmented. ... “

So, for example, an oxygen and nitrogen mixture had a ‘feeble effect’. Together, they constitute 99% of the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide accounts for approximately 400 parts per million volume dry air. Is it possible that the huge difference in concentration (2400 x volume) could make this a more significant effect? I'm quite curious about that.

As an academic question, Is it possible to quantitatively check this ‘feeble’ response to heat by oxygen and nitrogen from IR studies on the atmosphere? Maybe I should ask if you know of any studies on this ‘feeble’ response by a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. I’m talking about studies that are based on experimentation and not hypotheses or assumptions. Once again, I’m curious as to whether it can be done.

But I would still like to have seen more basic experimental laboratory studies where ALL of the variables could be controlled, and I believe it’s the only way they can be controlled. Other forum members are obviously happy with the inconsistent results being obtained with the current status quo and don't see it the same way I do.

We may just all have to agree to disagree .

[exchemist]

2 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Oops! Thanks, SwansonT, for pointing out the error of my ways.

I bow my head in shame. My figure of 25-fold in the range of climate sensitivity was wrong and I freely admit to error. In a brain lapse, I interpreted the lowest ranges to be 0.15 instead of 1.5. This of course means that the range of figures for climate sensitivity is approximately 4-fold.

Now it is still too big a range in my opinion and indicates that the basic science is still not good enough after 160 years of studies and after “19 million results from a Google Scholar search”. if people are happy with that, so be it. I personally don’t believe it is good enough.

I appreciate those responses from Studiot and again from exchemist who once again took time and effort in attempts to clarify matters for me.

I guess it comes down to personal opinions in the end. Obviously, most people seem to be happy with the current state of science performed on the atmosphere as a whole. My opinion is that there are far too many variables in the dynamics of that atmosphere to understand the basics.

My preference would still be to use a decent sized glass or perspex tube in a laboratory as I described in an earlier post, do repetitive measures of each gas until basic consistency can be obtained with  a single gas, and then repeat such tests with as many computations and combinations of atmospheric variables as one can imagine.

I have a copy of Tyndall’s work exchemist, and I would like to cite a part of his observations on the effect of mixtures of gases -- “ ... Thus we see that hydrogen and nitrogen, which, when mixed together, produce a small effect, when chemically united to form ammonia, produce an enormous effect. Thus oxygen and hydrogen, which, when mixed in their electrolytic proportions, show a scarcely sensible action, when chemically combined to form aqueous vapour, exert a powerful action. So also with oxygen and nitrogen, which, when mixed, as in our atmosphere, both absorb and radiate feebly, when united to form oscillating systems, as in nitrous oxide, have their powers vastly augmented. ... “

So, for example, an oxygen and nitrogen mixture had a ‘feeble effect’. Together, they constitute 99% of the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide accounts for approximately 400 parts per million volume dry air. Is it possible that the huge difference in concentration (2400 x volume) could make this a more significant effect? I'm quite curious about that.

As an academic question, Is it possible to quantitatively check this ‘feeble’ response to heat by oxygen and nitrogen from IR studies on the atmosphere? Maybe I should ask if you know of any studies on this ‘feeble’ response by a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen. I’m talking about studies that are based on experimentation and not hypotheses or assumptions. Once again, I’m curious as to whether it can be done.

But I would still like to have seen more basic experimental laboratory studies where ALL of the variables could be controlled, and I believe it’s the only way they can be controlled. Other forum members are obviously happy with the inconsistent results being obtained with the current status quo and don't see it the same way I do.

We may just all have to agree to disagree .

I posted Tyndall's paper out of interest, for any other readers of this thread. I thought it was a nice paper and a very impressive piece of work for a man of his time.

I'm afraid you are now revealing just how much you do not know of fairly simple science. It's a pity you were not more upfront about that at the beginning. It could have saved a lot of time.

I repeat, yet again, that the experiment you propose is a total waste of time, as we already know the results it would give, from widely available data on the IR absorption spectra of the various gases involved.  

What Tyndall says about a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen absorbing feebly, whereas chemically combined hydrogen and oxygen (water vapour) absorbs strongly, is bloody obvious. They are different molecules!!!  Ditto ammonia versus a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen, or nitrous oxide versus a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen. So of course they will give different results! 

But in fact there is an interesting point here, in that those gases whose molecules are just pairs of identical atoms do not absorb in the infra red, whereas those which are composed of different atoms will absorb. A hydrogen molecule is H-H, nitrogen is N-N, oxygen is O-O. Whereas water is H-O-H, nitrous oxide is N-N-O and carbon dioxide is O-C-O.  The reason for the different behaviour, in very simplified terms, is that the radiation needs a dipole (a degree of separation of electric charge) to interact with, in order make the bonds in the molecule stretch and vibrate. You get this with, say, water because O attracts electrons more strongly than H. So a water molecule has a partial +ve chargeon the hydrogen atoms and a partial -ve charge on the oxygen atom. This allows the oscillating electric field of the radiation to make the O-H bond vibrate. The same goes for the O-C bond in CO2, for the N-O bond in N2O and for the N-H bond in NH3 (ammonia).

This is why both both water vapour and CO2 absorb IR radiation in the atmosphere, whereas oxygen and nitrogen are transparent to it (which means they do not absorb it). The greenhouse effect is all about the consequences of that. 

So you see, there is a whole lot of science here, not known in Tyndall's day, back in 1859. As I told you before, IR spectrometry was developed in the 1940 and 50s and, by the 1960s, when people like Manabe were working, the IR absorption characteristics of these gases were well documented. There are issues in applying these to the Earth's atmosphere, due to things like scattering and pressure broadening of spectral bands, and these have been studied in their own right. There are whole books on that alone: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/pressure-broadening-of-spectral-lines/atmospheric-spectra/F050FF1BA775D29DA09CE7C34D682750

So I'm afraid it is not a matter of two different, equally valid, perspectives and  "agreeing to disagree". Your perspective, it is now clear, is a result of ignorance of  fundamental science combined with a wish to justify a predetermined view by whatever means you can. You are seizing at random on things you don't understand but which you hope will undermine the validity of climate science. That is not a defensible attitude. There are many arguments to be had over the various climate models, but not at the level you are attempting to have them. 

 

 

 

[swansont]

5 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

This of course means that the range of figures for climate sensitivity is approximately 4-fold.

Now it is still too big a range in my opinion and indicates that the basic science is still not good enough after 160 years of studies

How do you feel about the speed of light? It was once thought to be infinite, so it underwent a more dramatic improvement in precision, albeit over a longer time range.

https://interestingengineering.com/a-brief-history-of-the-speed-of-light

5 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

and after “19 million results from a Google Scholar search”. if people are happy with that, so be it. I personally don’t believe it is good enough.

That was for the CO2 absorption spectrum, not climate sensitivity 

[studiot]

5 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Oops! Thanks, SwansonT, for pointing out the error of my ways.

I bow my head in shame. My figure of 25-fold in the range of climate sensitivity was wrong and I freely admit to error. In a brain lapse, I interpreted the lowest ranges to be 0.15 instead of 1.5. This of course means that the range of figures for climate sensitivity is approximately 4-fold.

I am assuming your apology is more sincere than the recent one from our Prime Minister, so it is accepted.
 

I would, like you, thank swansont for his observation.
I must confess to not noticing it, probably like several other viewers.
So the important thing is to learn and move on.

 

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

I repeat, yet again, that the experiment you propose is a total waste of time, as we already know the results it would give, from widely available data on the IR absorption spectra of the various gases involved.  

 

Whilst this is true in one sense, it does not bring out an important issue appreciated in Tyndall's time and one of the reasons Piazzi-Smyth was sent to establish an observatory on Alta Vista.
That is the effect of the curvature of the Earth's atmousphere on perceived sunlight spectra.
 

[exchemist]

32 minutes ago, studiot said:

 

Whilst this is true in one sense, it does not bring out an important issue appreciated in Tyndall's time and one of the reasons Piazzi-Smyth was sent to establish an observatory on Alta Vista.
That is the effect of the curvature of the Earth's atmousphere on perceived sunlight spectra.
 

Nobody, least of all me, is dismissing the importance of measurements of the earth, the radiation it receives and its atmosphere (and, crucially too, its oceans). It is @Doogles31731's idea of more  Tyndall-style experiments in tubes with mixtures of gases that I am saying is redundant.   

Edited February 2, 2022 by exchemist

[studiot]

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Nobody, least of all me, is dismissing the importance of measurements of the earth, the radiation it receives and its atmosphere (and, crucially too, its oceans). It is @Doogles31731's idea of more  Tyndall-style experiments in tubes with mixtures of gases that I am saying is redundant.   

You miss my point.

I agree that further laboratory experiments are unneccessary.
Spectrophotmetric experiments at varying concentrations are commonplace in Pharmacy and presumably Chemistry courses these days.

But the point I was making is that because the Sun's rays are parallel and the Earth is curved, the distance travelled by a ray of light through the atmousphere varies with time of day and location.
This has implications for the application of say Beer's Law to models.
Also there are other particles in the air, particularly at lower levels, which also have an effect on the absorbtion and re-radiation process.

[exchemist]

8 minutes ago, studiot said:

You miss my point.

I agree that further laboratory experiments are unneccessary.
Spectrophotmetric experiments at varying concentrations are commonplace in Pharmacy and presumably Chemistry courses these days.

But the point I was making is that because the Sun's rays are parallel and the Earth is curved, the distance travelled by a ray of light through the atmousphere varies with time of day and location.
This has implications for the application of say Beer's Law to models.
Also there are other particles in the air, particularly at lower levels, which also have an effect on the absorbtion and re-radiation process.

I'd have thought the dependence of path length on angle of incidence of radiation would be fairly elementary to the modelling. And I did mention scattering. More interesting, in my estimation, is the effect of pressure (collision) broadening on the shape of the absorption bands. That won't be trivial, seeing that it is a function of altitude. And then there is all the atmospheric photochemistry going on in the stratosphere/tropopause as well (for example ozone, having a dipole, absorbs in the IR). And then there are the oceans.....

I've never delved into what goes into these models but they must be monsters. 

[TheVat]

This, on radiative forcing of CO2, and the use of simulations, may be helpful.  

 

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmosphericwarming/radiativeforcing.html#:~:text=Thus CO2 concentration is,3.53 W·m–2.

 

 The computations to determine the radiative forcing for a greenhouse gas require a detailed knowledge of its IR absorption and emission properties. These are available from the HITRAN database. “HITRAN is an acronym for high-resolution transmission molecular absorption database. HITRAN is a compilation of spectroscopic parameters that a variety of computer codes use to predict and simulate the transmission and emission of light in the atmosphere. The database is a long-running project started by the Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories (AFCRL) in the late 1960's in response to the need for detailed knowledge of the infrared properties of the atmosphere,”

[Doogles31731]

exchemist, you certainly seem to be happy that the science is settled on climate change and I can live with that. That’s your belief. But I’m not happy with the inconsistencies that still remain in climate science and believe that some of the basics still need re-working. And I’d still like to see a re-working of Tyndall’s experiments (plus much more) with modern equipment and knowledge. You seem to be having trouble allowing me to retain that belief.

Judging from the support you have from other members, I think I can safely say that that will never happen. So you can rest easy.

I didn’t get an answer from any members about why Tyndall got small (or feeble) deflections of his galvanometer needle with mixtures of hydrogen and nitrogen, and then of oxygen and nitrogen in his apparatus. I’m curious by nature. Maybe the metal in the “tube” acted as a catalyst and converted some of the gases to NH3 or N2O. Maybe there was some contamination with H2O in spite of his attempts to dehydrate his gases?

Once again SwansonT, I thank you. I found that reference to the research on the speed of light quite interesting. It was new to me. Certainly the time factor was longer than the 160 years so far on Climate Change since Tyndall.

Don’t take this the wrong way because I will be accused of tunnel vision and of seeing only what I want to see to suit my own ideas. But I did notice that men with inquiring minds were getting nowhere whilst trying to determine the speed of light from studies of the solar system, and only achieved some plausible results when they got down to nuts and bolts science at ground level. I suppose the question I ask myself is whether Einstein used any of the data obtained from Fizeau and Foucault, or Michelson to make his calculations.

TheVat, I looked through the link you sent on Radiative Forcing. If the radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 went up to 3.5 Wm-2 or so from 1.7 or so, would it be possible to work out a Climate Sensitivity figure. These crude maths may be totally invalid, and I’ll probably be labelled as ‘ignorant’ again. But my understanding is that our temperature readings are taken from Stevenson Screens about 4 feet from the surface of our planet. It is also my understanding that our global surface temperatures would be -18 degrees C without an atmosphere, and that the atmosphere enables us to have a global mean average temperature of 15 degrees C. So that the atmosphere allows us to stay 33 degrees warmer. As far as I can ascertain, the average daily solar energy that reaches the surface is 156 Wm-2. Does this mean that 1 degree C in the shade equates to 4.7 Wm-2 of solar energy at the surface of our planet?

Nah! It can’t be right because that would mean that the 3.5 Wm-2 radiative forcing would account for less than 1 degree C of our temperature.

 

[swansont]

2 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

exchemist, you certainly seem to be happy that the science is settled on climate change and I can live with that. That’s your belief. But I’m not happy with the inconsistencies that still remain in climate science and believe that some of the basics still need re-working. And I’d still like to see a re-working of Tyndall’s experiments (plus much more) with modern equipment and knowledge. You seem to be having trouble allowing me to retain that belief.

The information about absorption in gases is quite extensive, certainly the basics are covered. Not finding the data means you haven't looked in the right place. NIST, for example, has an extensive database about atomic and molecular absorption.

What "basics" need re-working? 

 

2 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Judging from the support you have from other members, I think I can safely say that that will never happen. So you can rest easy.

I didn’t get an answer from any members about why Tyndall got small (or feeble) deflections of his galvanometer needle with mixtures of hydrogen and nitrogen, and then of oxygen and nitrogen in his apparatus. I’m curious by nature. Maybe the metal in the “tube” acted as a catalyst and converted some of the gases to NH3 or N2O. Maybe there was some contamination with H2O in spite of his attempts to dehydrate his gases?

Did you ever consider the state of experimental science 160 years ago? Or theoretical, for that matter? Tyndal's work preceded Mendeleev's introduction of the periodic table!

 

2 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Once again SwansonT, I thank you. I found that reference to the research on the speed of light quite interesting. It was new to me. Certainly the time factor was longer than the 160 years so far on Climate Change since Tyndall.

Which doesn't matter a whole lot, since the state physics going backward in time, before Tyndall doesn't incorporate a whole lot. 

 

2 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Don’t take this the wrong way because I will be accused of tunnel vision and of seeing only what I want to see to suit my own ideas. But I did notice that men with inquiring minds were getting nowhere whilst trying to determine the speed of light from studies of the solar system, and only achieved some plausible results when they got down to nuts and bolts science at ground level. I suppose the question I ask myself is whether Einstein used any of the data obtained from Fizeau and Foucault, or Michelson to make his calculations.

The point was to show that better measurements being made over time is a standard part of science, and your dissatisfaction over a convergence of a factor of 2 or 3 is really just indicative of an ignorance of how experimental science progresses. And arguments from a position of ignorance don't carry much weight with most people.

2 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

TheVat, I looked through the link you sent on Radiative Forcing. If the radiative forcing from a doubling of CO2 went up to 3.5 Wm-2 or so from 1.7 or so, would it be possible to work out a Climate Sensitivity figure. These crude maths may be totally invalid, and I’ll probably be labelled as ‘ignorant’ again. But my understanding is that our temperature readings are taken from Stevenson Screens about 4 feet from the surface of our planet. It is also my understanding that our global surface temperatures would be -18 degrees C without an atmosphere, and that the atmosphere enables us to have a global mean average temperature of 15 degrees C. So that the atmosphere allows us to stay 33 degrees warmer. As far as I can ascertain, the average daily solar energy that reaches the surface is 156 Wm-2. Does this mean that 1 degree C in the shade equates to 4.7 Wm-2 of solar energy at the surface of our planet?

Nah! It can’t be right because that would mean that the 3.5 Wm-2 radiative forcing would account for less than 1 degree C of our temperature.

 

How are you arriving at your numbers?

[exchemist]

4 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

exchemist, you certainly seem to be happy that the science is settled on climate change and I can live with that. That’s your belief. But I’m not happy with the inconsistencies that still remain in climate science and believe that some of the basics still need re-working. And I’d still like to see a re-working of Tyndall’s experiments (plus much more) with modern equipment and knowledge. You seem to be having trouble allowing me to retain that belief.

Judging from the support you have from other members, I think I can safely say that that will never happen. So you can rest easy.

I didn’t get an answer from any members about why Tyndall got small (or feeble) deflections of his galvanometer needle with mixtures of hydrogen and nitrogen, and then of oxygen and nitrogen in his apparatus. I’m curious by nature. Maybe the metal in the “tube” acted as a catalyst and converted some of the gases to NH3 or N2O. Maybe there was some contamination with H2O in spite of his attempts to dehydrate his gases?

 

 

I have not spent any time on this thread talking about my supposed "beliefs", as they are not the subject of the thread.  I have spent my time trying to understand what was bothering you and trying to fill in what you thought was missing, by explaining the relevant science.  (Though I notice that you, by contrast, have started talking about "belief systems", and introducing extraneous issues like 10 year old letters from retired NASA engineers that shed no light on the issue under discussion. Why is that?)  

Where you are right, though, is that yes, I do have trouble allowing you to retain a "belief system" that relies on ignorance of science. This is a science forum. The people here are here to learn, and spread, knowledge of science. That's what I'm interested in. So in your case, the important thing for me, once I had smoked out where the gaps in your knowledge are, has been to teach you a bit about infra red spectra of gases.  

To your question, if Tyndall got feeble (but non-zero) deflections with these gases, he may well have had some contamination. Perhaps that the gases were not entirely dry or something. Or maybe it was an artifact of the experimental setup. That happens a lot.  But we can't ask him so we will never know. He did very well for a man of his time with the equipment he had.

Do not imagine that you can use Tyndall's reports of feeble deflections to cast doubt on what we know, today, about the infra-red spectra of these gases.  That would be about as idiotic as if someone were to insist, today, on dropping balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa* to reconfirm the acceleration due to gravity. 

 

*I know Galileo did not actually do that: he used an inclined plane.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by exchemist

[studiot]

@Doogles31731 You have not replied to the information (graphs) I gave you in my last comment or the comment itself about measurements on the atmousphere being better than laboraory measurements.

You should look up 'extinction coefficients' and its relationship to 'absobance'.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/extinction-coefficient

 

One further comment.

If we look at the graphs I posted what stands out is the large effect from a very small concentrations (in the range 300 - 360 parts per million) of carbon dioxide gas.
This is the important lesson to be taken away, not the absolute values.
 

 

 

[exchemist]

I'm wondering what on earth more any of us can do more to convince @Doogles31731 that there is not, as he imagines, some crucial gap in the basic data in science, just because nobody has revisited Tyndall's 1859 experiment. I suppose one thing is to provide a picture of an IR gas cell, to show him that in fact what a modern IR spectrometer does is exactly what Tyndall did, with the crucial addition of a means of analysing the absorption as a function of wavelength. So below is a picture of a gas cell. It is in effect Tyndall's tube, with windows at the ends transparent to IR. (To this day, many of these windows are made of rock salt, NaCl, though other minerals can also be used.:

 

Another thing we could do is show how mixtures of gases are routinely analysed by IR, every day. Here is a link to a manufacturer of IR gas mixture analysers:

https://www.servomex.com/gas-analyzers/technologies/infrared/

 

Apart from that, I confess I am rather stumped. 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by exchemist

[studiot]

41 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Another thing we could do is show how mixtures of gases are routinely analysed by IR, every day. Here is a link to a manufacturer of IR gas mixture analysers:

https://www.servomex.com/gas-analyzers/technologies/infrared/

Yes I was considering something like that.

Recently someone posted a question about a homemade spectrophotmeter, can't remember the thread now.

But looking at Ebay I found a complete monochromator from one for a couple of quid by typing in spectrophotometer.

 

Anyway doogles' beef appears to be that he can't find any reference to people today measuring the absorbance of carbon dioxide relative to concentration.

Od course all the constants for that is well documented today and he is asking the question backwards.

Many institutes have been measuring concentration from absorbance for decades, for example this New Zealand agency.

https://niwa.co.nz/atmosphere/facilities/baring-head/greenhouse-gas-analyses

 

Perhaps we should be explaining that we know the relationship and are using it to measure the concentration, not the other way round,  these days.

Note there are also establishments using other methods such as mass spectrometry.

All that is needed is to type into Google "analysis of atmospheric gas" to find lots of pages of folks doing this.

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by studiot

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

Yes I was considering something like that.

Recently someone posted a question about a homemade spectrophotmeter, can't remember the thread now.

But looking at Ebay I found a complete monochromator from one for a couple of quid by typing in spectrophotometer.

 

Anyway doogles' beef appears to be that he can't find any reference to people today measuring the absorbance of carbon dioxide relative to concentration.

Od course all the constants for that is well documented today and he is asking the question backwards.

Many institutes have been measuring concentration from absorbance for decades, for example this New Zealand agency.

https://niwa.co.nz/atmosphere/facilities/baring-head/greenhouse-gas-analyses

 

Perhaps we should be explaining that we know the relationship and are using it to measure the concentration, not the other way round,  these days.

Note there are also establishments using other methods such as mass spectrometry.

All that is needed is to type into Google "analysis of atmospheric gas" to find lots of pages of folks doing this.

 

Yes indeed, but our friend won't have done these searches, as he wants to be able to claim there are basic gaps in the science. I get the feeling he may have built a whole house of cards on this notion, which could be why he is reluctant to let it go. But no doubt we will find out.   

Edited February 3, 2022 by exchemist

[Ken Fabian]

On 2/2/2022 at 1:54 PM, mistermack said:

It is settled, because anybody who questions that fact will never find work again in the climate field.  

In the real world, science is never settled. It's long-standing, or the latest position, but climate science, the least proved, is the only one that's "settled".

Pedantry I think. They won't find work in the climate field because of incompetence, not because they question; they need to show where and how current understandings and conclusions are wrong and they can't. They need to show their "superior" understanding is correct and they can't.

[Doogles31731]

Studiot, I did observe your graphs, but I thought they offered nothing new from the dozens of such reports I’ve seen over the last 20 years.

.........................................................

You can all stop jumping up and down in indignation, because a couple of posts ago, exchemist furnished a photograph of an infrared analyser. It was  new to me. I was quite ignorant of its existence. So you’ve established my ignorance with that post and you can all be proud of yourselves for your acumen.     

It was the type of thing I have been looking for in the literature -- the IR emitter, the tube with glass at each end at least and a spectrometer. As you know, I kept going back in the literature looking for such a basic research tool. None of the papers published before 1960 mentioned basic data acquired from such equipment.

The existence of that piece of equipment has satisfied my curiosity to a large extent. But just looking at the photograph, I think that the tube of the one I had in mind would have been more elaborate. It would have contained a number of ports for the insertion and removal of gases, mixtures at various combinations of gases and measuring instruments.

I thank you for that, exchemist. I have given you another thumbs-up for it. 

I’d like to read more about the exact nature of the research studies performed with that IR Analyser. Would I be pushing my luck to ask if you know of a good starting reference? How’s your sense of humour holding up?

............................................................

SwansonT asked the question of where I obtained the figures for my crude maths. It was a comment generated by the paper on radiative forcing that TheVat provided. 

Virtually all of the energy we receive on our planet is generated by the sun ultimately and I think it is now general knowledge  that the Solar Constant at the edge of the stratosphere is in  the order of 1360 Wm-2. The edge of the stratosphere covers a far greater area than the area of the Earth itself, and it is now generally accepted that about a quarter of this targets the Earth -- 340 + Wm-2. But this is only in the daytime, so that the average amount reaching the Earth during daylight hours  is theoretically in the order of 170+ Wm-2. But because of the atmosphere and aerosols causing reflection and albedo, the amount actually reaching our surface (where we measure our temperatures in Stevenson Screens) is of the order of 156 Wm-2.

Now it is already generally accepted that our overall average temperature without an atmosphere would be -18 degrees C, but that due to the atmosphere, we have an overall annual average of 15 degrees C. This means that the atmosphere, acting as a whole unit,  accounts for a reduction of 33 degrees C in our average overall temperatures as a whole.

If 156 Wm-2 is reaching the surface and near-surface temps are measured 4 feet of the ground, then each 1 degree C in the shade equates to 156/33 Wm-2, which equates to 4.7 Wm-2 per 1 degree C at the surface.

I know that 55 Wm-2 is reflected from our surface as long wave IR and that part of this is reflected back in turn as radiative forcing. The figure given for the CO2 share is 1.7 odd Wm-2 and the paper cited by TheVat for double the CO2 states that it would rise to something like 3.5 Wm-2. The increase would actually be in  the order of 1.7 Wm-2. So 1.7/4.7  (0.34) would equate to the temperature increase due to an increased radiative forcing from doubling the CO2. And that would be so only if the effect was linear.

As I said, it can’t be right. I have to be overlooking something. I’m always learning, so I would appreciate if anyone can see what must be a glaring fault.

I must be different from most people, because when I discover something new, I always realize how little I really know. And I don't mind being corrected. 

...............................................................

My beef is with  the acceptance of even a 3-fold variation in climate sensitivity figures (3-fold is SwansonT's figure). All of you seem to be satisfied with that degree of inconsistency. Of course, the effects of doubling the CO2 to 600 ppm on the temperature-measuring devices in the Stevenson screens would be an increase due to the  increased peripheral surface level activity of the GHGs. This seems to be the area of contention because we don’t yet have any real time correlations available for 600 ppm CO2 and temperature. I used the real life figures from Mauna Loa for correlations between CO2 up to 400 ppm and temperatures, to subjectively extrapolate a figure of just under 2 degrees C increase in temperature for increases of CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm. And that seems to be where the available figures are clustering in the graph I uploaded some posts back.

How do some researchers come up with figures of 6 degrees C or more if the basic science is flawless?

................................................................

 

[studiot]

3 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Studiot, I did observe your graphs, but I thought they offered nothing new from the dozens of such reports I’ve seen over the last 20 years.

 

I am clearly wasting my time in this thread.

[swansont]

3 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

 

SwansonT asked the question of where I obtained the figures for my crude maths. It was a comment generated by the paper on radiative forcing that TheVat provided. 

Virtually all of the energy we receive on our planet is generated by the sun ultimately and I think it is now general knowledge  that the Solar Constant at the edge of the stratosphere is in  the order of 1360 Wm-2. The edge of the stratosphere covers a far greater area than the area of the Earth itself, and it is now generally accepted that about a quarter of this targets the Earth -- 340 + Wm-2. But this is only in the daytime, so that the average amount reaching the Earth during daylight hours  is theoretically in the order of 170+ Wm-2. But because of the atmosphere and aerosols causing reflection and albedo, the amount actually reaching our surface (where we measure our temperatures in Stevenson Screens) is of the order of 156 Wm-2.

Now it is already generally accepted that our overall average temperature without an atmosphere would be -18 degrees C, but that due to the atmosphere, we have an overall annual average of 15 degrees C. This means that the atmosphere, acting as a whole unit,  accounts for a reduction of 33 degrees C in our average overall temperatures as a whole.

If 156 Wm-2 is reaching the surface and near-surface temps are measured 4 feet of the ground, then each 1 degree C in the shade equates to 156/33 Wm-2, which equates to 4.7 Wm-2 per 1 degree C at the surface.

I know that 55 Wm-2 is reflected from our surface as long wave IR and that part of this is reflected back in turn as radiative forcing. The figure given for the CO2 share is 1.7 odd Wm-2 and the paper cited by TheVat for double the CO2 states that it would rise to something like 3.5 Wm-2. The increase would actually be in  the order of 1.7 Wm-2. So 1.7/4.7  (0.34) would equate to the temperature increase due to an increased radiative forcing from doubling the CO2. And that would be so only if the effect was linear.

As I said, it can’t be right. I have to be overlooking something. I’m always learning, so I would appreciate if anyone can see what must be a glaring fault.

You’r overlooking the physics involved. Specifically, the Stefan-Boltzmann Law

 

3 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

 

...............................................................

My beef is with  the acceptance of even a 3-fold variation in climate sensitivity figures (3-fold is SwansonT's figure). All of you seem to be satisfied with that degree of inconsistency. Of course, the effects of doubling the CO2 to 600 ppm on the temperature-measuring devices in the Stevenson screens would be an increase due to the  increased peripheral surface level activity of the GHGs. This seems to be the area of contention because we don’t yet have any real time correlations available for 600 ppm CO2 and temperature. I used the real life figures from Mauna Loa for correlations between CO2 up to 400 ppm and temperatures, to subjectively extrapolate a figure of just under 2 degrees C increase in temperature for increases of CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm. And that seems to be where the available figures are clustering in the graph I uploaded some posts back.

How do some researchers come up with figures of 6 degrees C or more if the basic science is flawless?

................................................................

 

Nobody claimed the science is flawless.

One of the flaws of the graph you provided is that does not include the error bars on the results.

If you want to know how they came up with that result you need to read their paper, not some shoddy critique, and also not focus on one individual result. It’s cherry-picking.

[swansont]

The value of 6 used in the graph? 

It comes from this paper

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/15/22/1520-0442_2002_015_3117_aobeot_2.0.co_2.xml

“From the probability distribution of ΔT2× we obtain a 90% confidence interval, whose lower bound (the 5th percentile) is 1.6 K. The median is 6.1 K, above the canonical range of 1.5–4.5 K; the mode is 2.1 K.”

See fig. 2. It’s not a normal distribution (closer to a Poisson), so the median is skewed high. Quite high.

It makes more sense to use the mode, i.e. the most likely value, of 2.1K. As the graph shows, it’s much more likely the value is around 2 than around 6.

Kinda changes the whole argument, but I suspect that was the point.

 

[exchemist]

16 hours ago, Ken Fabian said:

Pedantry I think. They won't find work in the climate field because of incompetence, not because they question; they need to show where and how current understandings and conclusions are wrong and they can't. They need to show their "superior" understanding is correct and they can't.

Yes I think that is increasingly the case. 10 years ago, maybe, you could just about have some people with more or less rationally held minority opinions on this (e.g. there is or was that Dane, I forget his name), but today it's almost like Cold Fusion. The killer, I think, is that we are starting to see a number of the predictions coming to pass, at least directionally.  

[TheVat]

Just a thank you to @exchemist for posting the information on the IR gas cell.  Many contrarian views on GW take their momentum on forums from posters growing weary and not digging for citations.

Edited February 4, 2022 by TheVat
Tagged name

[exchemist]

6 hours ago, TheVat said:

Just a thank you to @exchemist for posting the information on the IR gas cell.  Many contrarian views on GW take their momentum on forums from posters growing weary and not digging for citations.

Thanks, I was tiring a bit, to be honest. But as so often, I find these discussions with eccentric people can lead to rewarding spin-offs. I was unaware of Tyndall's work in the c.19th until now, nor did I know when it was that IR spectroscopy was first developed, nor that it was our old chemical kinetics friend Arrhenius who first suggested atmospheric CO2 could have a profound effect on the climate.  So I've come out of all this ahead, which makes the digging worthwhile. 

(It also reminds me of my time as a trainee patent agent, searching for prior art in the Patent Office Library to knock out a rival patent application. We had to do it by hand with indexes and paper documents in those days. And you never quite knew until the end what piece of information would be decisive.)

Above all, I'm delighted that @Doogles31731 is now satisfied that science has indeed replicated Tyndall's work, by way of the design and use of the modern IR spectrometer, fitted with a gas cell.

 

16 hours ago, Doogles31731 said:

Studiot, I did observe your graphs, but I thought they offered nothing new from the dozens of such reports I’ve seen over the last 20 years.

.........................................................

You can all stop jumping up and down in indignation, because a couple of posts ago, exchemist furnished a photograph of an infrared analyser. It was  new to me. I was quite ignorant of its existence. So you’ve established my ignorance with that post and you can all be proud of yourselves for your acumen.     

It was the type of thing I have been looking for in the literature -- the IR emitter, the tube with glass at each end at least and a spectrometer. As you know, I kept going back in the literature looking for such a basic research tool. None of the papers published before 1960 mentioned basic data acquired from such equipment.

The existence of that piece of equipment has satisfied my curiosity to a large extent. But just looking at the photograph, I think that the tube of the one I had in mind would have been more elaborate. It would have contained a number of ports for the insertion and removal of gases, mixtures at various combinations of gases and measuring instruments.

I thank you for that, exchemist. I have given you another thumbs-up for it. 

I’d like to read more about the exact nature of the research studies performed with that IR Analyser. Would I be pushing my luck to ask if you know of a good starting reference? How’s your sense of humour holding up?

............................................................

SwansonT asked the question of where I obtained the figures for my crude maths. It was a comment generated by the paper on radiative forcing that TheVat provided. 

Virtually all of the energy we receive on our planet is generated by the sun ultimately and I think it is now general knowledge  that the Solar Constant at the edge of the stratosphere is in  the order of 1360 Wm-2. The edge of the stratosphere covers a far greater area than the area of the Earth itself, and it is now generally accepted that about a quarter of this targets the Earth -- 340 + Wm-2. But this is only in the daytime, so that the average amount reaching the Earth during daylight hours  is theoretically in the order of 170+ Wm-2. But because of the atmosphere and aerosols causing reflection and albedo, the amount actually reaching our surface (where we measure our temperatures in Stevenson Screens) is of the order of 156 Wm-2.

Now it is already generally accepted that our overall average temperature without an atmosphere would be -18 degrees C, but that due to the atmosphere, we have an overall annual average of 15 degrees C. This means that the atmosphere, acting as a whole unit,  accounts for a reduction of 33 degrees C in our average overall temperatures as a whole.

If 156 Wm-2 is reaching the surface and near-surface temps are measured 4 feet of the ground, then each 1 degree C in the shade equates to 156/33 Wm-2, which equates to 4.7 Wm-2 per 1 degree C at the surface.

I know that 55 Wm-2 is reflected from our surface as long wave IR and that part of this is reflected back in turn as radiative forcing. The figure given for the CO2 share is 1.7 odd Wm-2 and the paper cited by TheVat for double the CO2 states that it would rise to something like 3.5 Wm-2. The increase would actually be in  the order of 1.7 Wm-2. So 1.7/4.7  (0.34) would equate to the temperature increase due to an increased radiative forcing from doubling the CO2. And that would be so only if the effect was linear.

As I said, it can’t be right. I have to be overlooking something. I’m always learning, so I would appreciate if anyone can see what must be a glaring fault.

I must be different from most people, because when I discover something new, I always realize how little I really know. And I don't mind being corrected. 

...............................................................

My beef is with  the acceptance of even a 3-fold variation in climate sensitivity figures (3-fold is SwansonT's figure). All of you seem to be satisfied with that degree of inconsistency. Of course, the effects of doubling the CO2 to 600 ppm on the temperature-measuring devices in the Stevenson screens would be an increase due to the  increased peripheral surface level activity of the GHGs. This seems to be the area of contention because we don’t yet have any real time correlations available for 600 ppm CO2 and temperature. I used the real life figures from Mauna Loa for correlations between CO2 up to 400 ppm and temperatures, to subjectively extrapolate a figure of just under 2 degrees C increase in temperature for increases of CO2 from 300 to 600 ppm. And that seems to be where the available figures are clustering in the graph I uploaded some posts back.

How do some researchers come up with figures of 6 degrees C or more if the basic science is flawless?

................................................................

 

If you search the web for "IR analysis of gas mixtures", you will find a raft of references, many to commercial analysis applications, others to research papers, patent applications etc. I'm not going to dig through all these for you. Suffice it to say that this has been a standard analytical technique for gases for half a century.

So it's time for you to move on to your next objection to the science of climate change, I guess. I've no doubt that, guided by "Watts Up With That* " and other disinformation sites, you can keep this game going almost indefinitely. Maybe I'll play, maybe I won't. It's now the weekend, after all. 

 

* Here's a link to a bias check on that site by the way: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/watts-up-with-that/

 

 

[mistermack]

8 hours ago, exchemist said:

10 years ago, maybe, you could just about have some people with more or less rationally held minority opinions on this (e.g. there is or was that Dane, I forget his name), but today it's almost like Cold Fusion.

That's because they've been driven out, not because there is any more certainty. Not just people being driven out, but new skeptics being deterred from entering the field. All of the people joining the climate industry now are already convinced activists. What would be your choices, if you were skeptical, and thinking of a career? No skeptic in their right mind would go into climate science. 

To interpret the consensus of opinion in climate science as some sort of validation is just stupid. The consensus is self perpetuating. It's nothing to do with evidence.

It's a bit like the consensus for the existence of god among Catholic priests. Not exactly suprising.