The Trouble with AGW


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I am primarily concerned with AGW as an essential part of the green religion being used as a Marxist-fascist power grab over the world's economies.

The AGW flap is an evangelical gig for atheist environmental extremists.

Don't get me wrong. I like my planet. I live here and I want to work to keep i livable far into the future. it is the House I live in.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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Believe me, nobody will ever get me to endorse an environmental test funded by big oil without a BIG HONKING DISCLAIMER.

And if I see gross manipulation by people I used to believe were factual, I will say so. LOUDLY.

But I never see this attitude toward the dishonest and sleazy pro-AGW folks by pro-AGW supporters.

Michael

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Believe me, nobody will ever get me to endorse an environmental test funded by big oil without a BIG HONKING DISCLAIMER.

And if I see gross manipulation by people I used to believe were factual, I will say so. LOUDLY.

But I never see this attitude toward the dishonest and sleazy pro-AGW folks by pro-AGW supporters.

Michael

Here is the dawg I have in this hunt and the horse I have in this race: I detest it when people who pretend to do science distort or mislead concerning the laws of thermodynamics. Thermodynamics is the closest thing I have to a religion. It is a science that is so well supported by evidence that denial of its basic laws are totally unreasonable. Energy is conserved and entropy in a closed system never decreases. Heat energy always, without exception moves from the body of higher temperature to the body of lower temperature.

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Here is a video of Mark Steyn speaking about climate change and the hockey stick. In the last 1.5 minutes Steyn says his legal case versus Michael Mann is a big one regarding free speech.

Mann should be expelled from science. That Hockey Stick bullshit was a scandal and a disgrace to science.

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Right at the beginning? (0:07) Was that Sargent Preston of the Mounties???

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Merlin,

I watched the video. I never paid much attention to Mark Steyn before, but I like him. He makes sense and seems to have an in-depth legal understanding of the ramifications of his lawsuits.

He's very funny, too.

:)

I suspect Mann will end up regretting his attempt to bully people who disagree with him by using the courts. I predict he is going to be bit by the dog he unleashed on his critics and then will complain about the unfairness of it all.

Michael

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Is this law suit in Canadian or United States court?

I am not sure what law firm he is using, however, I am confident that they are using all forms of discovery to impeach this individuals credibility.

A...

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I don't think Mark Steyn sounds confident at all. He's whistling in the dark...

I like him a lot.

Mike,

It's odd how different the perception of people can get at times.

In my view, I think Steyn skated deftly between what he could not say without hurting his legal considerations and between what he wanted to say in order to trash Mann, the hockey stick and so on.

Notice he did not make one opinion (I can think of) on the legalities of the case itself. But he bashed the slowness of the courts, etc. His comments about Mann were equally parsed. He would mention something that was a public widely known fact and keep his opinions and factual statements confined to that. As to the case's outcome, he was very careful to say, "If I win," or "If he wins." I believe he was following his attorney's advice to do that.

Any time he mentioned something closely related to the case itself, he framed it in non-case related humor--like complaining that someone could have tasered Mann's lawyer as he was being escorted out, lampooning the puffery of Mann claiming to be a Nobel Prize recipient when the prize was bestowed on an organization, and things like that.

Michael

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Bob is convinced by two blog articles and one journal article that purport to falsify the 'greenhouse effect' of CO2 in the atmosphere. That's done and that is finished. He has shown no interest in or at best ignorance of any subsequent critical published responses to Gehrlich and partner.

My interest in this thread was to discover what might change Bob's mind into considering Gehrlich's purported falsification to be specious. Bob has shown that nothing will change his mind -- he is not going to make any mental effort to see beyond Gehrlich.

As I suggested earlier, if Gehrlich and colleague are correct, the entire superstructure of atmospheric physics is wrong. Since the Gehrlich paper was published in 2009 (along with a rebuttal that Bob has no interest in assessing) the superstructure seems to be holding just fine. The overwhelming majority of skeptical scientists accept the Greenhouse Effect as real; I have named some of them them earlier. The list comprises everyone from Christopher Monckton to Judith Curry, from Fred Singer to Richard Lindzen, from John Christy to Matt Ridley.

I think I have been fair in asking Bob to consider opposing arguments, arguments from scientists who are clearly skeptical of IPCC policy prescriptions, skeptical of any great danger to humanity, skeptical of Big Government and Big Science, skeptical of alarmism, skeptical of prominent individual, national and international 'authorities' on ramifications of the GHE.

Here is what Bob says when I asked him what value he places in the Skydragon Slayers (the coterie of GHE-deniers) ... he says he checked Gehrlich's math himself and that is "as good a review as any paper can get."

You heard that right; those who offered rebuttals to Gehrlich are wrong and Bob doesn't even have to glance at them to know.

I would more profitably spend time teaching my cat to drive stick-shift than to discuss with Bob right here right now. He is the ultimate authority and nothing can change his mind on the topic of the GHE.

I will leave the discussion right there, to ripen without my artificial attempts to squeeze more sense out of it.

Edited by william.scherk
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I accept that the GHE is real. I don't know if we are talking about the same thing, however, for I don't accept there is any significant, if any at all, AGW. I also accept climate change--who doesn't? I do not accept CC as a euphemism for AGW; that's speaking in straw man code. Frankly, there is no such thing as a CC "denier"--"denier" being more crappy verbal assault for the sake of the political agenda of doing something right now before it's too late to save us from rising sea levels and all the other catastrophes too come that are somehow ascribable to this horrid man-made, man caused Climate Change! And "settled science" is just a cowardly argument from nebulous authority. For me the "settled science"--so far so good but this may change--is that CO2 is a beneficent addition to the atmosphere that follows, not precedes global warming, going on now since the end of the Little Ice Age.

As for Bob, he doesn't do well in these discussions nor is it typical for him to even try that hard to. Not his arena. If you want to talk about some law of thermodynamics and the math involved in some study which he says is the correct math, go ahead. Lots of ruck with that. He's also saying there's nothing to talk about that contradicts that base for the contradiction must first be dealt with or shown it's a false base. Ultimately all science is reduced to numbers respecting any conclusions beyond "we don't have the numbers yet" or the nature of science as in its methodologies--the philosophy of science.

--Brant

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Brant, I am glad we agree on some bases, with general outlines of the Greenhouse Effect. Let's see if I have properly understood further agreement and disagreement.

-- the Greehouse Effect. while physically real, is a part of the complex interaction of an atmosphere.

-- there are variables that have nothing to do with the GHE that also have impacted climate in the distant past and in the recent past. and in the present. Cloud cover, albedo, H20, ocean processes, solar intensity and total irradiance, land-changes, on and on.

So far, so good?

You write that you don't know "if we are talking about the same thing" in GHE since you "don't accept there is any significant, if any at all" anthropogenic global warming.

That's fair enough. That is a difference. I think that we have witnessed a significant increase of global mean temperatures in the twentieth century, and I also think these increases -- along with second-order effects -- are due in part to a human-derived 'extra' oomph of Greenhouse Gases emitted into the atmosphere. I also believe that some future warming is 'in the pipe.'

We two had an earlier exchange about seeming differences: I explained that 'climate change' subsumes global warming. One is a component of the larger concept. So when you are unsure about what climate change means to me, it is the suite of first and second-order effects of the GHE of increased emissions.

There is also a kind of climate change (or climate stability) that is not related to humans at the present time -- once we 'remove the signal' of CO2 increases in the atmosphere. The cycles of ice-ages, though on ten thousand year and greater timescales are an example. Conditions change. The changes have causes. Here we could go into some great detail on every aspect, from solar flares/sunspots to cosmic ray effects on cloud formation, to the great ocean conveyor belts and the tick-tock in human timescales of ocean oscillations like La Nina and El Nino. And more. And then some.

So, we each accept that the climate of earth can change, does change, will change -- on short and medium and long human-relatable timescales. Neither of us accepts 'Climate Change' as meaning 'Global Warming attributed to human emissions' but as a larger set of assumptions and mechanisms of the earth-atmosphere-solar system, some of which may be mistaken. We each reach for specifics rather than a general anodyne phrase ...

About the only places where we may further disagree on objective measures is where we find (and 'how could we trust') differing answers to questions like:

-- over what timescales should we assess 'global warming'?

-- what would be robust findings of global warming look like?

-- has there been a 'significant' amount of earthly temperature rise?

-- what is a 'significant' rise in temperatures?

-- what might be a 'dangerous' rise in temperatures over a defined term?

In the rest of your comment, I need a bit more precision to make sure I am not mistaken as to what you think or know or believe:

You don't like the term 'denier' used in conjunction with the phrase 'climate change denier.' Fair enough. It doesn't really say much, does it? If for example you were described as a Climate Change Denier, well, what aspects of which climate over what time and what particular change is being denied? Good questions. We can call Gehrlich, Siddons, and Casey 'Greenhouse Effect Deniers,' but a better fit for you is Greenhouse Effect .... what? Proponent? Believer? Accepter? Words ....

I might agree that some word labels are a kind of crappy verbal assault, shorthand words and phrases that denigrate without fixing the dispute's margins and meanings. I much prefer something like 'proponent' of this or that theory, and 'skeptic' of this or that theory.

No matter our tastes or afflictions, however, the churn of news/commentary/reaction includes the dread word 'denier.' We could each observe a 'no crappy verbal assault shorthands' on these grounds. I hope we each keep crappy verbal assault shorthand to a minimum, and respect the sensibilities of the other.

On to the rest of what was a lengthy sentence with multiple dependent clauses.

You don't like the word denier tossed around against folks who simply are skeptical of this or that claim or uncertainty-bound in the larger debates. You don't like Curry being called a denier and you don't like calling me a denier. I understand and applaud.

You don't like the (shorthand) 'political agenda' of immediate action (in mitigation or reduction of CO2 emissions, I guess). You don't like the 'before it is too late' alarms given by ... well, I don't know.

I do get the impression you believe that nothing under the rubric of climate change caused by human GHG emissions is actually real -- even while you accept a GHE -- and so no warnings or alarms need be taken seriously by any rational human being.

You doubt, then, such fact-ish notions that sea levels are rising at a rate that might impact humans and their cities and ports. You doubt heightened arctic warming and concomitant knock-on effects of sea-ice decline, melting of permafrost, contaminating ground water ... and so on.

You do not believe that there is a 'settled science' except perhaps the GHE -- you find 'settled science' an argument from authority of the illicit kind. To point to this or that aspect of generally-considered-correct consensus is a coward's gambit in argument.

You believe that CO2 is only beneficial to humankind as we stand today in 2015 looking ahead a century. Any rise in CO2 is not going to make any difference in terms of temperatures and knock-on effects. There is nothing to worry about except Big Government forcing policies on a public that just doesn't understand the real reality that you espie.

Finally, you believe that CO2 increases today (as in the Keeling curve) always and only follow every period of global temperature rise. You believe that increased CO2 is an effect of warming, not in any way a cause. You believe that a real and proper temperature record of the earth (derived from proxies in much of the record) would show a warming first, and the uptick of CO2 second.

If I have sketched out what you think and believe fairly accurately, let us say I understand your position.

Do you understand mine? I won't ask you to do any homework or write out what you think I think. I just wanted to settle where I think we agree. Whether or not that leads to any useful further discussion is up to each our druthers. My druthers are to have sustained discussion on disputes in the science claims made under the rubric of Climate Change. I would like to keep outrageous policy discussions separate.

As for Bob, well, he is not interested in anything I have to sell ... I really had a hard time grokking your last paragraph. Was it advice for me or advice for Bob or advice to self?

Other than that, I don't see you interested in a continuing discussion with me on the issues I raise, since you seem to have ended with a 'nobody knows nothing' statement. If I lived in that kind of mental Know-Nothing universe I would seek emigration.

If I have mistaken or misattributed your thinking, let me know. Without verbal assault, please.

Edited by william.scherk
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Brant, I am glad we agree on some bases, with general outlines of the Greenhouse Effect. Let's see if I have properly understood further agreement and disagreement.

-- the Greehouse Effect. while physically real, is a part of the complex interaction of an atmosphere.

-- there are variables that have nothing to do with the GHE that also have impacted climate in the distant past and in the recent past. and in the present. Cloud cover, albedo, H20, ocean processes, solar intensity and total irradiance, land-changes, on and on.

So far, so good?

You write that you don't know "if we are talking about the same thing" in GHE since you "don't accept there is any significant, if any at all" anthropogenic global warming.

That's fair enough. That is a difference. I think that we have witnessed a significant increase of global mean temperatures in the twentieth century, and I also think these increases -- along with second-order effects -- are due in part to a human-derived 'extra' oomph of Greenhouse Gases emitted into the atmosphere. I also believe that some future warming is 'in the pipe.'

We two had an earlier exchange about seeming differences: I explained that 'climate change' subsumes global warming. One is a component of the larger concept. So when you are unsure about what climate change means to me, it is the suite of first and second-order effects of the GHE of increased emissions.

There is also a kind of climate change (or climate stability) that is not related to humans at the present time -- once we 'remove the signal' of CO2 increases in the atmosphere. The cycles of ice-ages, though on at ten thousand year and greater timescale are an example. Conditions change. The changes have causes. Here we could go into some great detail on every aspect, from solar flares/sunspots to cosmic ray effects on cloud formation, to the great ocean conveyor belts and the tick-tock in human timescales of ocean oscillations like La Nina and El Nino. And more.

So, we each accept that the climate of earth can change, does change, will change. Neither of us accepts 'Climate Change' as meaning 'Global Warming attributed to human emissions' but as a larger set of assumptions and mechanisms of the earth-atmosphere-solar system, some of which may be mistaken. We each reach for specifics rather than a general anodyne phrase ...

About the only places where we may disagree on objective measures is where we find (and 'how could we trust') differing answers to questions like:

-- over what timescales should we assess 'global warming'?

-- what would be robust findings of global warming look like?

-- has there been a 'significant' amount of earthly temperature rise?

-- what is a 'significant' rise in temperatures?

-- what might be a 'dangerous' rise in temperatures over a defined term?

In the rest of your comment, I need a bit more precision to make sure I am not mistaken as to what you think or know or believe:

You don't like the term 'denier' used in conjunction with the phrase 'climate change denier.' Fair enough. It doesn't really say much, does it? If for example you were described as a Climate Change Denier, well, what aspects of which climate over what time and what particular change is being denied? Good questions. We can call Gehrlich, Siddons, and Casey 'Greenhouse Effect Deniers,' but a better fit for you is Greenhouse Effect .... what?

I might agree that some word labels are a kind of crappy verbal assault, shorthand words and phrases that denigrate without fixing the dispute's margins and meanings. I much prefer something like 'proponent' of this or that theory, and 'skeptic' of this or that theory.

No matter our tastes or afflictions, however, the churn of news/commentary/reaction includes the dread word 'denier.' We could each observe a 'no crappy verbal assault shorthands' on these grounds. I hope we each keep crappy verbal assault shorthand to a minimum, and respect the sensibilities of the other.

On to the rest of what was a run-on sentence.

You don't like the word denier tossed around against folks who simply are skeptical of this or that claim or uncertainty-bound in the larger debates. You don't like Curry being called a denier and you don't like calling me a denier. I understand and applaud.

You don't like the (shorthand) 'political agenda of immediate action (in mitigation or reduction of CO2 emissions, I guess). You don't like the 'before it is too late' alarms given by ... well, I don't know.

I do get the impression you believe that nothing under the rubric of climate change caused by human GHG emissions is actually real -- even while you accept a GHE -- and so no warnings or alarms need be taken seriously by any rational human being.

You doubt, then, such fact-ish notions that sea levels are rising at a rate that might impact humans and their cities and ports. You doubt heightened arctic warming and concomitant knock-on effects of sea-ice decline, melting of permafrost, contaminating ground water ... and so on.

You do not believe that there is a 'settled science' except perhaps the GHE -- you find 'settled science' an argument from authority of the illicit kind. To point to this or that aspect of generally-considered-correct consensus is a coward's gambit in argument.

You believe that CO2 is only beneficial to humankind as we stand today in 2015. Any rise in CO2 is not going to make any difference in terms of temperatures and knock-on effects. There is nothing to worry about except Big Government forcing policies on a public that just doesn't understand the real reality that you espie.

Finally, you believe that CO2 increases today (as in the Keeling curve) always and only follow every period of global temperature rise. You believe that increased CO2 is an effect of warming, not in any way a cause. You believe that a real and proper temperature record of the earth (derived from proxies in much of the record) would show a warming first, and the uptick of CO2 second.

If I have sketched out what you think and believe fairly accurately, let us say I understand your position.

Do you understand mine? I won't ask you to do any homework or write out what you think I think. I just wanted to settle where I think we agree. Whether or not that leads to any useful further discussion is up to each our druthers. My druthers are to have sustained discussion on disputes in the science claims made under the rubric of Climate Change. I would like to keep outrageous policy discussions separate.

As for Bob, well, he is not interested in anything I have to sell ... I really had a hard time grokking your last paragraph. Was it advice for me or advice for Bob or advice to self?

Other than that, I don't see you interested in a discussion with me on the issues I raise, since you seem to have ended with a 'nobody knows nothing' statement. If I lived in that kind of mental Know-Nothing universe I would seek emigration.

If I have mistaken or misattributed your thinking, let me know. Without verbal assault, please.

The Green House Effect is a misnomer based on a flawed analogy. The CO2 in the atmosphere does inhibit the radiation of infrared wavelength in the sense that it slow down the rate at which such energy is radiated back into space.

A -real- green house works because the glass covering prevents convection of the outside air which would cool off the somewhat heated green house. So the heat stays in. CO2 does NOT behave like a glass window. The atmosphere undergoes convection and eventually the heat is radiated back into space. That is what the atmosphere has heated up by 0.75 degrees celsius in the past century instead of the predicted 4.0 - 6.0 degrees celsius predicted by the IPCC "consensus". The IPCC models have always run hotter than the actual temperature increase.

Temperature increases have occurred periodically over the last several millions of years. We are currently in an interglacial warm period that started about 1800 c.e. the end of the cooling snap known as the Little Ice Age. That cooling period ran for over 400 years. It was preceded by the midieval warm period in which temperatures ran higher than they do now. And this was before the industrial revolution. There is a lot more going on here than warming due to CO2, Methane and Water Vapor.

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William, there is no justification for destroying economies and people's lives because of AGW off models that don't seem to be working. In any case, no one's going to get the Chinese and Indians on board with this except the Chinese might cheer the rest of the world on to do what they, the Chinese, won't.

I've come to the conclusion you Canadians might be more laid back seeming more "rational" therefore than us crazy Americans who are more binary.

--Brant

but I do have a generous lack of data, so your discussion is with Bob who is in effect saying the GHE is being used mostly as a metaphor and is literally bogus by the model projected causative factor of at least 5 or 6

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I think there is a fundamental flaw in attempting to measure global warming with air temperatures - which is why I posted the link a while back. We should be much more concerned with water temperatures of the oceans. The fact that air temperatures have not risen like the model predicted does not mean the planet's total heat storage is not growing.

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I think there is a fundamental flaw in attempting to measure global warming with air temperatures - which is why I posted the link a while back. We should be much more concerned with water temperatures of the oceans. The fact that air temperatures have not risen like the model predicted does not mean the planet's total heat storage is not growing.

Fair statement.

However, it does not mean it is, as you are aware.

There also seems to be a natural "planetary" thermostat that operates at various subterranean levels that maintain the parameters of viable warming and cooling in order to be in planetary balance.

We do not understand the vast global "ecosphere" that we are within.

I find it pushing the limits of credulity to listen to "scientists" that claim this perfect model/understanding of that which we are part of and within.

A...

by the way great to have you back and posting, I miss your inputs...

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I think there is a fundamental flaw in attempting to measure global warming with air temperatures - which is why I posted the link a while back. We should be much more concerned with water temperatures of the oceans. The fact that air temperatures have not risen like the model predicted does not mean the planet's total heat storage is not growing.

Sea temperatures are up also. The main source of heat for earth is the Sun. Right now the magma is pretty much under ground and very little of the temperature rise is do to volcanic activity.

Some millions of years ago the Siberian Traps erupted, and spewed magma for a million years. That heated up the planet some. There has not been anything like that since the Siberian Traps and the Devonian eruptions. So right know the Earth is being heated by the Sun. The Earth radiates most of its heat back into space, like any respectable black body.

Ba'al Chatzaf

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The Siberian Traps are fascinating in that they only happened 250,000,000 years ago and the planet is 4 1/2 billion years old. Something similar could happen again. 90% species extinction. 105 degrees F ocean temperatures at the equator. Wowsa!

--Brant

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Interesting point raised by our Lazarus ...

I think there is a fundamental flaw in attempting to measure global warming with air temperatures

This raises another question for me. When I want to know the weather here or there (let's say Oxnard California or Osoyoos in British Columbia) I want to know a few things: is it raining, is it foggy, is there smoke or particulates in the air, is it humid, is it windy, is there a high-pressure or low-pressure system in place? I also, of course, want to know how cool or hot it is. How cool will it get tonight and how hot in the daytime tomorrow.

I would say then that the 'air temperature' is of human significance. When we speak of 'weather' we really do want to know the observed air temperature.

Some of the items in a description of weather become a bit attenuated when I ask a different question. I ask myself, what is the climate in Oxnard and in Osoyoos, two settlements distant by 2000 kilometres and fifteen degrees of latitude?

Then a single day's humidity, wind, particulates, high pressure system and temperatures are submerged and averaged. From the average I get a month-length or year-length set of figures or graphs. We are all familiar with those. They average many data points to give us a broader vantage point on the year-round 'climate' procession of the particular areas.

Oxnard (key: the average fraction of time spent in various temperature bands: frigid (below -9°C), freezing (-9°C to 0°C), cold (0°C to 10°C), cool (10°C to 18°C), comfortable (18°C to 24°C), warm (24°Cto 29°C), hot (29°C to 38°C) and sweltering (above 38°C).):

fraction_of_time_spent_in_various_temper

Osoyoos:

fraction_of_time_spent_in_various_temper

Both figures from Weather Spark -- search your own community to see computed averages of air-temperature, dew-point, humidity, snow, etc. I choose the two settlements to highlight the differences. One place far to the south has an appreciably 'cooler' climate than the northern place.

When looking at the world entire, I think that near-surface air temperature is one average that makes sense in terms of global warming -- we live near the surface. And I include here the air temperatures garnered from near the ocean surface.

So, I don't see a flaw in computed global average temperatures that result in a number and error bands. In averaging such a thing, local differences are smoothed out. The Osoyoos temperatures are smoothed and pegged into the vast board of other temperatures. We get a simplified metric.

This metric is not particularly useful in computing forecasts for a particular region. There we must examine historical (as long as possible) and proxy temperature data and establish a mean baseline from which to measure 'anomalies' -- deviations from a particular historic statistical average.

All this said, I agree with the pith of Laz's comment. It would be a flaw in general circulation models if they did not account for the ocean processes and characteristic patterns and historical anomalies. Yes, looking only at temperatures averaged does not tell you anything about extremely complex variables in currents, heat-uptake, evaporation, seasonal flows and on and on.

I think the 'global average' temperature for a given year then, doesn't really tell us much about climate processes and variables. It just gives us a read-out on a significant-for-humans metric.

When the regional (latitude) read-outs are produced, of course, the differing impacts of a global average shift in temperatures becomes locally important. This is why Canada pays attention to global warming: our part of the globe is heating faster on average than the global average. The knock-on effects are thus greater than would be inferred from any global mean ...

(Osoyoos is an anomaly in Canada -- it is a semi-arid place, with its own climate classification: "Osoyoos Arid Biotic Zone." Oxnard is just another California coastal shithole)

We should be much more concerned with water temperatures of the oceans. The fact that air temperatures have not risen like the model predicted does not mean the planet's total heat storage is not growing.

"The Model" can mean many things. There is no single 'model' instantiated in say 1955 or 1988. If you mean the models of the latest IPCC, then we can look it up in that report and see if it does or does not incorporate data from the oceans ... and whether or not it gives you information about 'total heat storage' processes and forecasts.**

I have found a useful mental heuristic to help me make sense of these varied metrics. In the simplest form of the heuristic, I substitute in 'energy' for 'heat' and temperature and light radiation. I think of an energy budget. According to the 2nd Law of thermodynamics, energy can neither be magically produced nor magically annihilated. Energy systems run to an end-point of equilibrium, constrained by physical law,

If one -- unlike Bob -- understands and accepts the Greenhouse Effect, it seems a relative easy mental task to assume for argument sake that the end-state of equilibrium of 'incoming' and 'outgoing' energy is where the earth's climate system is going. We haven't reached that equilibrium. We haven't yet 'shed' to space the extra atmospheric energy (heat) on shorter timescale averages.

GS's main point -- "We must also look to the oceans oh rational people of Objectivist Living" -- I agree.

Here are a couple of images and a video that highlight attention to the 'heating of the oceans' ... the video is from NASA, and the other two are from similar bodies of 'official' science.

Ocean_Heat_Content_%282012%29.png

201501.gif

________________________________

** See Chapter 30 of AR4, especially pages 1557-1558. See also Chapter 6, Ocean Systems.

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While Bob is correct--there is literally no GHE increasing planetary temps--that doesn't mean an effect of atmospheric gases isn't moving temperatures around. That could mean hotter air below, cooler air above. So, we sweat more in Death Valley and freeze more on top of Mt. Everest? Solar output is variable, of course. Thus, if true, the GHE has been used as a metaphor as a base for argument and Bob literalized it in a way to destroy the metaphor, but that leaves AGW or CC intact.

--Brant

in over my head, glug, glug, glug!

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I have had a reply from Mr Casey, the writer of the article cited by Bob in the opening topic of this thread. I have asked Mr Casey if I may quote from his answer, and will wait for that response before describing/reproducing his answers.

This was the text of my note to him last week:

Dear Mr Casey,

I belong to an internet forum called Objectivist Living, where a recent post approvingly highlighted your article "The Shattered Greenhouse."

I had a couple of questions I hope you might answer if you have the time and inclination.

First, did you submit the article to any journals before publishing on your website?

Secondly, what was the pith of any editorial response(s), and did the response(s) discourage you from re-submitting the article to other journals?

I note that the Gehrlich paper(s) you cite have been subject to contentious reaction, some seemingly competent, some merely re-iterating the reigning 'consensus' opinion. I do wonder if any of the contentious reactions to Gehrlich were effective or timely. or of they contributed meaningfully to the larger debate about the disputed 'effect,' but that is a matter for another time.

Hope this note finds you happy and productive.



u18l1e3.gif

Edited by william.scherk
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A compendium of doubt. Why we should be skeptical of the IPCC "consensus" on AGW.

Please see: http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2014/07/updated-list-of-29-excuses-for-18-year.html

In the context of "normal" science, when the predictions are as wrong as the IPCC models predict the usual procedure is to examine the underlying theory or hypothesis carefully.

But whoever said what the IPCC does is "normal" science?

Ba'al Chatzaf

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While Bob is correct--there is literally no GHE increasing planetary temps--that doesn't mean an effect of atmospheric gases isn't moving temperatures around. That could mean hotter air below, cooler air above. So, we sweat more in Death Valley and freeze more on top of Mt. Everest? Solar output is variable, of course. Thus, if true, the GHE has been used as a metaphor as a base for argument and Bob literalized it in a way to destroy the metaphor, but that leaves AGW or CC intact.

--Brant

in over my head, glug, glug, glug!

The Climate has been changing since day uno. If there is GW it is unfortunate that the IPCC has failed to uncover its causes. It is possible that humans have been changing the climate (to some extent) but the incompetence of the IPCC has made the important issue unintelligible. If human activity is making life dangerous, then we should know the causes so we can execute remedies. If other factors are at work we should know what they are so we can take rational steps to protect ourselves.

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