rhoda

I am saying show me GHE in the lab. You won't.

No, what I said was that you cannot build a working demo of the troposphere on the lab bench. Let's not overdo the self-serving misrepresentations.

I am saying show me it in the wild, you won't. Is that an impossible standard?

Sigh. It's a difficult phenomenon to isolate and measure. We've been through this before. But the physics is unfalsified which leaves you with a now painfully over-played *rhetorical device* facing a wide-ranging scientific consensus. I There is a risk of appearing stubborn to the point of foolishness. The correct term for unreasoning wholesale rejection of unwelcome evidence is denial, not 'science', as you seem to imagine.

And I'm still waiting for you to explain whether your determined but groundless rejection of the scientific consensus is emotionally or politically motivated. Or perhaps both. It cannot be attributed to lack of evidence unless you believe that an Oxfordshire housewife is smarter than, well, everybody else in the world, really. You don't think that do you? So how is it that this multi-disciplinary scientific consensus has emerged? Are *all these scientists* not as clever as you? The only alternative is that you are proposing a conspiracy theory. Are you a conspiracy theorist?

What interests me here isn't your misconceptions and knowledge gaps, it's *why* you feel as you do.

Dung

I seriously think your treatment of Rhoda is insulting and a disgrace. You have attacked her on a purely personal level in the nastiest of ways and if it were my blog I would ban you.

Either contribute or not, but please do not troll like this.

rhoda

Can you not see that demonstrating the second step of GHE in the lab does not require a duplication of the troposphere? The proposed mylar bags with differing CO2 concentrations would show it, would they not?

If you are actually suggesting that there is no absorbtion and re-radiation of IR by CO2 then we are much further adrift than I had realised. If you accept that there is absorption and re-radiation of IR by CO2 (and other GHGs), then the physics is essentially settled: radiative equilibrium is reached at TOA, not the surface.

I thought you had grasped that it's not discrete back radiation from CO2 causing surface warming (see Aug 20, 2012 at 7:50 PM). This is disappointing, to say the least. But then you skip over *everything I say* without blinking, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by yet more convenient lacunae.

Telling you that a working mock-up of the atmosphere in on the lab bench is an impossibility is not 'perpetuating a scientific nonsense'. It is a statement of fact. Once again, please try and cut down on the self-serving misrepresentations.

Once again, since you seem to have missed it:

I'm still waiting for you to explain whether your determined but groundless rejection of the scientific consensus is emotionally or politically motivated. Or perhaps both. It cannot be attributed to lack of evidence unless you believe that an Oxfordshire housewife is smarter than, well, everybody else in the world, really. You don't think that do you? So how is it that this multi-disciplinary scientific consensus has emerged? Are *all these scientists* not as clever as you? The only alternative is that you are proposing a conspiracy theory. Are you a conspiracy theorist?

What interests me here isn't your misconceptions and knowledge gaps, it's *why* you feel as you do.

"The proposed mylar bags with differing CO2 concentrations would show it, would they not? Different, measurable 'back radiation', I mean"

I would just like to see that an increase in CO2 slows cooling first, then you could worry about the mechanism. If there's no appreciable difference then.......?

rhoda

Onlookers may observe that BBD along with complete failure to address the point of this thread has used ad hominem, false dichotomy, question-begging, argument from authority, argument from consensus, non sequitur and just plain insult. It's like a beginner's handbook on logical fallacies. And we are no further along on a lab test or a measurement.

Ad hominem? I didn't think I had but it's possible. Shall we throw stones in, ahem, greenhouses? :-)

You need to demonstrate logical fallacies rather than assert them, but I'm happy to play.

And you never answer any of my questions or admit that you are wrong. I'm tempted to recap and list, but you know, so there's no point.

The reason why you are no further along with your requests is that they are for various reasons impractical. It's vexing, I know, but that's how things are.

Mike Jackson

I'm sure you used to tell me that it was CO2 that created the positive feedback that heated the surface by absorbing outgoing radiation and re-radiating part of downwards. I remember you called it back radiation.
Are you now telling us that this is not the case?

Not at all. Just that it is a very (over) simplified explanation of a complex phenomenon. There's always all those links I gave you to various bits of SoD. That was the detailed part but perhaps you didn't follow it up.

" Just that it is a very (over) simplified explanation of a complex phenomenon. "

But not so complex that it can be simulated in a computer program on a world wide scale?

Nial

Yup, carry on ignoring everything I do say and making up things that I did not say. For example, that anyone here is a 'thicko'.

Nial

See Aug 18, 2012 at 11:03 PM ;-)

BBD
You are either confused or confusing.
I'm sure you used to tell me that it was CO2 that created the positive feedback that heated the surface by absorbing outgoing radiation and re-radiating part of downwards. I remember you called it back radiation.
Are you now telling us that this is not the case?

Aug 21, 2012 at 8:59 PM | Mike Jackson>>>>>>

You should know his form by now.

He makes it up as he goes along in a desperate attempt not to lose face.

A bit like an adolescent arguing for the sake of it because they simply cannot own up to their elders and betters.

And why on earth do we still bother to discuss the second hand copied and pasted chaff he churns out unceasingly? - Watts et al have shown that 50% of US stations are reporting temperature anomalies by up to 300%, and they are the backbone of 'global' data sets, so why should we trust ANY sets of temperature data.

Over on 'unthreaded, Richard Betts has admitted temperatures have flatlined when it was stated that there has been no statistical warming for the past 15 years. He tries to wriggle a bit but I think we can now say that's what the Met Office chief scientist admits. His words from 'unthreaded' below:-

RKS: no, the last 15 years cannot be ignored. To date, this flatlining is still (just about) within the range of natural variability simulated by the models, so on the face of it, it doesn't disprove the models. However, it is part of our research programme to understand the reasons for this - is it just internal variability, or negative external forcing (sun, aerosols, etc) - or indeed is it the case that the positive forcing has been overestimated? There are genuine scientific questions here, which should not be dismissed.

Aug 21, 2012 at 12:27 PM | Richard Betts

And yet they still tell the media that UK temperatures COULD increase by 7 deg C by 2080 [From 15 years of flatlining?] without the caveat that this would be almost certainly unlikely. Of course the BBC 'sex up' this info by telling the viewers temperatures would rise by 6 deg C by 2060.

Of course, that's not politically motivated alarmist propaganda to keep the funds coming in is it?

"Watts et al have shown that 50% of US stations are reporting temperature anomalies by up to 300%, and they are the backbone of 'global' data sets, so why should we trust ANY sets of temperature data.

Aug 22, 2012 at 3:26 AM | RKS">>>>

Excuse my typo - that should read that 50% of US temperature anomalies are being OVER reported by up to 300%.

or indeed is it the case that the positive forcing has been overestimated? There are genuine scientific questions here, which should not be dismissed.

Aug 21, 2012 at 12:27 PM | Richard Betts>>>>

[perhaps we should have this admission engraved in stone - or spread widely on the blogosphere]

"overestimated?"

There you have it Rhoda.

After all this time the good and the great of the climate science world have no empirical proof of GHE - it's all down to "estimating" the effect, and now the climate isn't playing ball it's wreaking havoc with their models - they are trying to understand it but really don't know.

But let's wreck our economy and plunge millions into energy povery anyway - just in case!

rhoda, well done! You've run rings round BBD yet again. I've checked over at SkS and there is no article on lab based experimentation foe the GHE, so the fall back position is bluster, obfuscation, derision and personal abuse.

You have remained calm and to the point, which should be a signal to anyone without their head up their backside that you know what you're doing and where you're going. It's like watching a great matador nimbly stepping aside from an angry bull. Beautiful!

I particularly liked his asking if you had an emotional problem accepting a scientific consensus, when accepting a consensus is itself an emotional response. Moreover, your question was can we do an experiment to prove the GHE, which couldn't be further away from being emotional.

BBD give up you're not in rhoda's league and you're making an ass of yourself. Again.