Global Warming - Doomsday Called Off

[dash_two]

As Richard Lindzen points out in the link provided above, "air currents [convection] bodily carry heat to regions of diminished infrared capacity where the heat is radiated to space—balancing absorbed sunlight."

So convection facilitates heat loss by radiation. Now we're starting to talk sense. Of significance, though, why certain regions of the atmosphere might have diminished infrared capacity.

Re. the overall effect of convection on the Earth's temperature, you write:

A cooling effect, obviously.

Indeed so. However, in one of your earlier posts, you claimed a warming effect for convection:

claimed heat due to atmosphere, from earth's surface --- 33°C

95% due to conduction and convection --- 31.35°C

How do you reconcile the above statement with Lindzen's account of the effects of convection? They cannot both be correct.

 

[spiralx]

I hate to break it to you, but even Einstien gave up on the Ether, space is empty, it can't have a temperature.

As you said, this is basic physics, why are you making such a hash of it?

As much as bigfish is very, very wrong, this is also wrong. Space is empty only in a relative sense, there is some very, very small amount of matter (but not nearly enough for convection or conduction to matter) and radiation - both cosmic rays from various sources and the cosmic microwave background radiation left over from the Big Bang, which means that the temperature of empty space is about 3K.

Even if space were truly empty the Uncertainty Principle would stop it from being absolute zero

 

[Bob_the_lost]

I salute your nitpicking

 

[spiralx]

Why thank you

 

[Maggot]

People like bigfish remind me of those who used to insist the earth was flat, when all the evidence pointed to it being spherical.

 

[Xanadu]

For the benefit of bigfish:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_conduction
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convection
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation

 

[bigfish]

Explaining the Fraud

How could all those climate scientists be producing fraud? The short answer is that motives twist at every concept, and there are many concepts to be twisted. When added up, the amount of discrepancy is huge.

I refer to the discrepancy as fraud rather than error because of the standards. At the communication level, fraud is presented in a totally different way than truth. Truth is promoted by explaining evidence. Fraud is promoted through subjectivity including personal attack and avoiding objective evidence.

Conduction and Convection

At the starting point of the science of global warming is conduction and convection. This concept exposes the whole subject as fraud at the starting point. So how do they get by with this fraud? A lot of spitting and chewing is needed to explain fraud, but here's an attempt:

Here's what the issue is: Solar radiation passes through the atmosphere as visible light, and it is absorbed by the surface of the earth, where it is converted into heat. The heat is then transferred from the surface of the earth to the atmosphere. About 95-97% of the heat goes into the atmosphere through conduction and convection, while only 3-5% of the heat gets into the atmosphere through radiation from the surface of the earth.

These facts should end the whole argument about global warming, because only the radiation is relevant to the argument, and it is only 3-5% of the heat. The fact that the arguments go on demonstrates that the promoters of the hype are not admitting that 95-97% of the heat is transferred to the atmosphere through conduction and convection.

More: http://nov55.com/fra.html

 

[TAE]

Here is an appropriate analogy: imagine two greenhouses in a field. If Greenhouse 1 is covered with clear plastic sheeting 1 mm thick and greenhouse 2 is covered with clear plastic sheeting 2 mm thick, would greenhouse 2 become warmer inside than greenhouse 1 ?

So you don't believe that double glazing keeps your house warmer?

Besides, real greenhouses work by trapping the air inside it, preventing heat exchange via air being transported away. The thickness of the glass is almost irrelevant.

 

[bigfish]

So you don't believe that double glazing keeps your house warmer?

Sure. But in this case both of the greenhouses are single glazed - One with plastic 1mm thick, the other with plastic 2mm thick.

Besides, real greenhouses work by trapping the air inside it, preventing heat exchange via air being transported away. The thickness of the glass is almost irrelevant.

Well thank you for reiterating the point. As you say, the thickness of the glass/plastic is almost irrelevant. The same applies for atmospheric CO2 density. CO2 absorbs radiation to extinction in 10 meters, adding more gas only shortens that distance, it does not mean more heat.

 

[Knotted]

These facts should end the whole argument about global warming, because only the radiation is relevant to the argument, and it is only 3-5% of the heat. The fact that the arguments go on demonstrates that the promoters of the hype are not admitting that 95-97% of the heat is transferred to the atmosphere through conduction and convection.[/I]

If that were the case then the Earth would retain 95-97% of all energy from the sun. The temperature would increase indefinately.

The point that you're missing is, of course, that the atmosphere also radiates heat.

 

[Knotted]

Well thank you for reiterating the point. As you say, the thickness of the glass/plastic is almost irrelevant. The same applies for atmospheric CO2 density. CO2 absorbs radiation to extinction in 10 meters, adding more gas only shortens that distance, it does not mean more heat.

Is that at ground level or in the troposphere?

 

[dash_two]

Bigfish, you need to make up your mind who is correct here.

Either it's Lindzen, who says convection has a cooling effect.

Or Novak, who says it has a warming effect.

How is it that you are able to endorse simultaneously two contradictory positions? Orwell coined the term 'doublethink' for this kind of ideologically-driven mental somersault.

 

[Knotted]

Bigfish, you need to make up your mind who is correct here.

Either it's Lindzen, who says convection has a cooling effect.

Or Novak, who says it has a warming effect.

How is it that you are able to endorse simultaneously two contradictory positions? Orwell coined the term 'doublethink' for this kind of ideologically-driven mental somersault.

Actually, it should do both. It shifts the heat around so it should have no overall effect although it will have a cooling effect at ground level and a warming effect in the upper-atmosphere. This does, however, facillitate an overall cooling.

The main false assumption bigfish is implicitly making is that the atmosphere is the same all the way up. If the atmosphere at ground level is opaque to infra-red over a certain distance, then increases in CO2 will make no difference. However this is not what the greenhouse effect is based on. It is based on the absorbtion of radiation in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, where the air is thinner and infra red radiation can get through to a degree. I well believe that convection is the main method for transfering heat into the upper reaches of the atmosphere, but this does not mean that convection is a global cooling effect. [That's all as I understand it, of course]

 

[bigfish]

Bigfish, you need to make up your mind who is correct here.

Either it's Lindzen, who says convection has a cooling effect.

Or Novak, who says it has a warming effect.

How is it that you are able to endorse simultaneously two contradictory positions? Orwell coined the term 'doublethink' for this kind of ideologically-driven mental somersault.

Tell you what, dash, why don't you try to explain the heat transfer mechanisms as you understand them to the forum. That way, we will be able to see if what you say is capable of withstanding theoretical scrutiny.

So, over to you.

 

[dash_two]

Actually, it should do both. It shifts the heat around so it should have no overall effect although it will have a cooling effect at ground level and a warming effect in the upper-atmosphere. This does, however, facillitate an overall cooling.

My assumption is that both Lindzen and Novak (and bigfish) are talking about surface temperatures. What Lindzen is saying and what Novak is saying contradict each other.

Lindzen says that having the atmosphere makes the Earth around 33 degrees warmer with the effects of convection and conduction already taken into account. If there was still an atmosphere, but those effects were somehow suppressed, then the Earth would be a lot warmer than it is now. The 33 degrees of extra warmth we do have, Lindzen is happy to attribute to the Greenhouse Effect. He believes that clouds and water vapour are the main players here, and that CO2 plays a very minor role indeed. Nowhere does he claim that convection and conduction contribute anything to that 33 degrees.

Novak in contrast takes the 33 degree figure and then reapplies the effects of convection and conduction a second time round, saying they contribute the lion's share of that. Two errors for the price of one, as Novak claims in effect that what Lindzen and every other climate scientist calls the Greenhouse Effect, would be better termed the Convection and Conduction Effect, with even clouds and water vapour relegated to a miniscule corner.

bigfish has evidently not seen these glaring, fundamental contradictions, despite every effort, through lengthy quotes and impressive diagrams, to present himself as something of an expert on the subject. That is why I say he is practicing doublethink, the Orwellian ability to believe two contradictory positions at the same time.

 

[dash_two]

Tell you what, dash, why don't you try to explain the heat transfer mechanisms as you understand them to the forum. That way, we will be able to see if what you say is capable of withstanding theoretical scrutiny.

So, over to you.

I think Lindzen's more or less right, Novak's wrong, and you're too confused in your thinking to see there's a difference.

 

[bigfish]

From Papal Indulgences to Carbon Credits Is Global Warming a Sin?

by Alexander Cockburn
May 02, 2007
Counter Punch

In a couple of hundred years, historians will be comparing the frenzies over our supposed human contribution to global warming to the tumults at the latter end of the tenth century as the Christian millennium approached. Then, as now, the doomsters identified human sinfulness as the propulsive factor in the planet's rapid downward slide.

Then as now, a buoyant market throve on fear. The Roman Catholic Church was a bank whose capital was secured by the infinite mercy of Christ, Mary and the Saints, and so the Pope could sell indulgences, like checks. The sinners established a line of credit against bad behavior and could go on sinning. Today a world market in "carbon credits" is in formation. Those whose "carbon footprint" is small can sell their surplus carbon credits to others, less virtuous than themselves.

The modern trade is as fantastical as the medieval one. There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend. The greenhouse fearmongers rely entirely on unverified, crudely oversimplified computer models to finger mankind's sinful contribution. Devoid of any sustaining scientific basis, carbon trafficking is powered by guilt, credulity, cynicism and greed, just like the old indulgences, though at least the latter produced beautiful monuments. By the sixteenth century, long after the world had sailed safely through the end of the first millennium, Pope Leo X financed the reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica by offering a "plenary" indulgence, guaranteed to release a soul from purgatory.

More: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=57&ItemID=12728

 

[dash_two]

Instead of hiding behind quotes from other people, evidence of some analytical - indeed, sceptical - thinking on your own part would be much more welcome.

 

[bigfish]

Instead of hiding behind quotes from other people, evidence of some analytical - indeed, sceptical - thinking on your own part would be much more welcome.

dash: it would seem that you are a true believer in the manmade global warming myth, so I suspect that all the evidence in the world still wouldn't be enough for you.

By the way, did you actually read Cockburn's article?

 

[dash_two]

I'm very open to sound reasoning and evidence, bigfish. It just has to be internally consistent.

So, who do you think is right on the issue of the 33 degree Greenhouse Effect? Is it Lindzen, who says its mostly down to water vapour and clouds? Or is it Novak, who says its mostly down to convection and conduction?

 

[Fruitloop]

The carbon credits explanation of the global warming 'hoax' makes no sense. Who benefits? Not the people in the geopolitical driving seat, as far as I can see.

 

[dash_two]

By the way, did you actually read Cockburn's article?

I'll start reading all your links properly when you do.

 

[Fruitloop]

Meawhile, the ice-caps are vanishing.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21657939-5012769,00.html

 

[Knotted]

Novak in contrast takes the 33 degree figure and then reapplies the effects of convection and conduction a second time round, saying they contribute the lion's share of that. Two errors for the price of one, as Novak claims in effect that what Lindzen and every other climate scientist calls the Greenhouse Effect, would be better termed the Convection and Conduction Effect, with even clouds and water vapour relegated to a miniscule corner.

OK, well spotted. Reading this article again, Novak doesn't even apply his convection and conduction theory. He clearly admits that the upper atmosphere does not absorb IR radiation as absolutely as the atmosphere at ground level, thereby admitting that the greenhouse effect is relative to the quantities of greenhouse gasses in the upper atmosphere. He starts talking about something else completely at this point - basically that climate scientists are exagerating - but he would not need to do this if he really believed his own claims. Poor bigfish actually does believe his claims.

As a point of interest what would it mean to say that the greenhouse effect is absolute as Novak tilts towards? The atmosphere would basically be a liquid which would be fairly uniform all the way down and there would be a surface on the edge of space. The radiation would only escape at or near the surface (10 metres or so) and any heat would have to be transported up to the surface by convection currents. These are the 'facts' that apparently 'should end the whole argument about global warming'. However I do quite like the thought experiment, its a pretty good illustration of why the greenhouse effect works the way it does.

 

[dash_two]

Think I've had enough of Novak tbh, life is too short. I don't doubt the worth of his 30-year research into mushrooms though. The magic variety have probably helped shape his outlook.

 

[kyser_soze]

Meawhile, the ice-caps are vanishing.

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,21657939-5012769,00.html

Yeah, but it doesn't matter, cos sea levels won't rise. One of the op-ed writers in the Mail on Sunday prooved it wasn't happening with a G&T glass. They put G&T in up to the brim, then carefully dropped ice in it and no water spilled over the side. Therefore additional water in the sea won't lead to it rising.

Oh yes.

 

[Fruitloop]

How nuts. Did they wait for the ice to melt, or would that have spoiled the demonstration?

 

[WouldBe]

Yeah, but it doesn't matter, cos sea levels won't rise. One of the op-ed writers in the Mail on Sunday prooved it wasn't happening with a G&T glass. They put G&T in up to the brim, then carefully dropped ice in it and no water spilled over the side. Therefore additional water in the sea won't lead to it rising.

Oh yes.

If the glass was full to the brim before the ice was put in some had to spill over the side.

While this maybe OK for floating sea ice at the North pole, all the ice at the South pole is on land so the sea level would have to rise if that melts.

 

[kyser_soze]

Well according to them EVEN WHEN THE ICE MELTED it didn't spill over.

 

[WouldBe]

How nuts. Did they wait for the ice to melt, or would that have spoiled the demonstration?

Maybe the mail on Sundays ice hovers rather than floats.