Discussion > Greenhouse Effect
Martin A
I didn't pick up your link to here until late so haven't had much time to react. Thanks for the brief lesson.
I've had a quick look at the last page of this discussion and find my view that a lot of this debate is indeed about semantics confirmed!
As a wordsmith rather than a physicist I am instinctively wary of phrases like "warmer than it would otherwise be" because the next stage is indeed to claim that cooler things can warm warmer things. In the depths of theoretical physics this may be technically so but when I can use an open fridge to warm my hands at or light a fire to cool me down on a warm summer evening I might start to believe it.
I am one of those who believes that "to warm" means "to make hotter" which also means "to make less cold" (see what I mean about semantics) and I also believe that that is the meaning "understood" by plants, animals, and even the climate itself.
What matters is the end result otherwise you are debating how many angels ...
EM
We've had this debate before but I still haven't had a decent answer from you:
You need to provide an alternative which explains reality better than the existing theory.Agreed. The existing theory is that climatic variations are predominantly natural with some minimal input from land use changes, UHI, and other anthropogenic activity. When are climatologists going to provide an alternative which explains reality better than the existing theory?
Mike Jackson
@ The Big Yin James Jan 8, 2014 at 12:22 PM
"3. The atmosphere, being mostly O2 and N2, cannot absorb (much of) this high energy radiation, so it mostly gets to the ground unhindered. A notable exception is when it hits a cloud, which is white, thus has a high albedo it gets reflected back out into space. About 30% of the sun's energy bounces straight back out into space unhindered from snow, clouds, desert and other high albedo surfaces. This energy takes no part in warming the earth."
If that is the case for clouds, why not for the oceans? My experience with sailing at sea tells me that a lot of sunlight reflects on the sea surface.
Albert Stienstra
If that is the case for clouds, why not for the oceans? My experience with sailing at sea tells me that a lot of sunlight reflects on the sea surface.
Mar 4, 2014 at 2:59 PM | Registered CommenterAlbert Stienstra
If you look down from a plane, clouds are bright white (ie reflecting most of the sunlight that reaches them).
The sea, (from memory) looks deep blue/green ie absorbing most light except for a bit at the upper end of the spectrum.
It's true that glancing light will be reflected from waves now and then but I think it is the light that arrives from overhead (or whichever direction the sun is) that has to be considered.
Also... my recollection of underwater swimming is that there is plenty of light for any depths I got to. That indicates that most of the light managed to make it though the sea's surface; if most had been reflected, it would be pretty dark as soon as you got below the surface.
Martin A
EM
I don't know how you taught science. And apparently in my part of the country.
The default stance in science is "we don't know" - to graduate an idea to a theory then to some sort of scientific reality the first thing you do is test the principal mechanism - and test it exhaustively. You don't take circumstantial correlations as evidence. You test the actual mechanism.
AGW has not even got that far because the greenhouse effect of CO2 (that it acts in the atmosphere like a blackbody for one) has not been shown by experiment. Nor has the idea that CO2 can somehow absorb heat then re-radiate that heat but still stay warmer?
Which also means that an alternative explanation like it's nature, or something else is equally valid. Valid because it cannot be eliminated.
That's just how it works. Otherwise to quote Feynman, "you are fooling yourself"
Micky H Corbett
Stewgreen
A validated theory is a hypothesis that has passed every test so far. It does not mean that it is correct. There is always the possibility that the next experiment will show that your theory is too simple, needs work or is just plain wrong.
At that point you modify it or discard it.
Until then, you use the best theories available as your working world view for how reality works.
From a sceptic viewpoint this creates a problem. If you just want to cast doubt in a political argument you can say anything daft that you like, aimed at the layman who knows no better. I read a lot of this bullshit on the sceptic propaganda sites. That sceptics believe it says a lot about the credulity of the sceptics and very little about the writers.
If you want to change the world view of the scientists, you need to do more than point out loose ends. All that does is highlight areas where the theory can be improved, which they probably know already.
You need to provide an alternative which explains reality better than the existing theory.
It must explain why the observed changes in my list are taking place, to greater accuracy. It should suggest new experiments to test itself.
Scientists are themselves sceptical. Nothing gives status like showing their rival is wrong. That does not mean commenting on a blog. It means a paper with proper evidence and statistics.
I have said repeatedly that you collectively lack such rigour. You make political arguments but are not able to do better than the existing cAGW paradigm.