Discussion > That CO2 thing again..
Martin: Of course 2.7°K is easily enough to be significant - in certain contexts. This didn't at first blush seem to be one of them.
My feelings on the
More GHGs reducing OLR is as non-controversial in the field of atmospheric physics as Kepler's law of motion in the field of astronomy.
are more complex. I like a lot about SoD, not least the name. Science of Doom. Always loved that. More such gentle irony from our opponents please. If that's what he is.
I likewise enjoyed how he phrased this. Two fields and an honest, thought-provoking report from each. Not "I and all the sensible people know this and you're idiots." SoD's own (impressive) page on experimental (or observational) confirmations starts with one from Goody which went awry by 10%. Hand yer hats to Herr Kepler at the door please. But that's not quite how I took it. In something as messy as the earth's atmosphere 10% out I think is way good. That's part of why I mentioned Gondwana and geology. Different strokes for different fields of endeavour. Surely.
So the comparison for me wasn't over-egged by SoD, our honest broker. And the field of atmospheric physics? That's harder to evaluate. But, even if SoD's report of their convictions is fair, this doesn't seem to me to be their worst misstep.
Richard Drake
I'm confused about why the background temperature of deep space is getting this attention.
Perhaps I misunderstood the reason for bringing up the temperature of space, 2.7K.
In case I did understand it, here is a simple comparison:
Globally annually averaged solar radiation absorbed by the earth: 240 W/m<sup>2</sup>
Globally annually averaged deep space radiation absorbed by the earth: 0.000003 W/m<sup>2</sup>
Physics is not linear.
Science of Doom
SoD: Yeah, that T<sup>4</sup> favors the big and strong something rotten. (Syntax in sympathy.) The second blush doesn't look any more significant than the first. :)
Richard Drake
I go to France for a week, get sunburn, and come back to find SoD on the thread on BH.
Amazing!
TheBigYinJames
Would anyone know if RKS is also on holiday? SoD's response to his generous
Scienceofdoom is simply a school teacher with an AGW bias and a strong copy and paste habit. I don't think I'd regard him as the guru that some seem to.
on 30th July was this eight days later:
Fascinating. Which school did I teach at? What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information? However, I'm definitely not a guru. You are right about that. I'm a skeptic, therefore, there are no gurus. I try to understand climate science and explain and evaluate it. Opinions are useless.What can be demonstrated from theory and experiment? This is the only thing that matters.
Anyone else think that deserved a candid, even contrite, response?
Richard Drake
I have heard the 'schoolteacher' thing before on other sites, but didn't pay much attention to it - apart from it being irrelevant to the body of work which stands and falls on its own merit.... who says being a schoolteacher is a bad thing anyway? Why does being a schoolteacher (or an Oxford housewife) make someone less or more likely to understand atmospheric physics? Science is egalitarian.
If nobody else has said it, SoD coming here is a very welcome development (I'm a big reader of his and have been referencing his graphs here for yonks) - please don't be put off by some of the colourful inmates.
TheBigYinJames
One hears all kinds of things on the internet but the key question in SoD's response seemed to be:
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
That implied that RKS's "simply a school teacher" was factually wrong. It deserved an answer.
I certainly agree about not being put off by such "colourful" behaviour. The great thing is SoD wasn't put off, from 7th August onwards, to the thread's great benefit.
But the silence in response to an awkward question also I think deserves to be highlighted. Some are more guilty of this than others but it doesn't enhance our joint search for truth.
Richard Drake
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
That implied that RKS's "simply a school teacher" was factually wrong. It deserved an answer.
I certainly agree about not being put off by such "colourful" behaviour. The great thing is SoD wasn't put off, from 7th August onwards, to the thread's great benefit.
But the silence in response to an awkward question also I think deserves to be highlighted. Some are more guilty of this than others but it doesn't enhance our joint search for truth.
Aug 11, 2014 at 1:48 PM Richard Drake
"Dr. Steven Carson has been teaching the Summer II Oceanography course for GEMS since 2008. He received his BA from Brown University and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Geochemistry. After 8 years of college teaching, mostly environmental science at Barnard College, Steve was a researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ for 10 years modeling ocean chemistry. At GFDL, he started doing classroom presentations and teacher workshops and joined the faculty of Princeton University’s QUEST summer professional development program teaching science to teachers. These experiences inspired Steve to become a public school teacher through New Jersey’s alternate route program and he has taught full time at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton since 2002. Steve received the New Jersey Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) in 2013 in recognition of his teaching excellence at the K-12 level."
RKS's Mum
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
That implied that RKS's "simply a school teacher" was factually wrong. It deserved an answer.
I certainly agree about not being put off by such "colourful" behaviour. The great thing is SoD wasn't put off, from 7th August onwards, to the thread's great benefit.
But the silence in response to an awkward question also I think deserves to be highlighted. Some are more guilty of this than others but it doesn't enhance our joint search for truth.
Aug 11, 2014 at 1:48 PM Richard Drake
"Dr. Steven Carson has been teaching the Summer II Oceanography course for GEMS since 2008. He received his BA from Brown University and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Geochemistry. After 8 years of college teaching, mostly environmental science at Barnard College, Steve was a researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ for 10 years modeling ocean chemistry. At GFDL, he started doing classroom presentations and teacher workshops and joined the faculty of Princeton University’s QUEST summer professional development program teaching science to teachers. These experiences inspired Steve to become a public school teacher through New Jersey’s alternate route program and he has taught full time at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton since 2002. Steve received the New Jersey Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) in 2013 in recognition of his teaching excellence at the K-12 level."
RKS's Mum
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
That implied that RKS's "simply a school teacher" was factually wrong. It deserved an answer.
I certainly agree about not being put off by such "colourful" behaviour. The great thing is SoD wasn't put off, from 7th August onwards, to the thread's great benefit.
But the silence in response to an awkward question also I think deserves to be highlighted. Some are more guilty of this than others but it doesn't enhance our joint search for truth.
Aug 11, 2014 at 1:48 PM Richard Drake
"Dr. Steven Carson has been teaching the Summer II Oceanography course for GEMS since 2008. He received his BA from Brown University and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Geochemistry. After 8 years of college teaching, mostly environmental science at Barnard College, Steve was a researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ for 10 years modeling ocean chemistry. At GFDL, he started doing classroom presentations and teacher workshops and joined the faculty of Princeton University’s QUEST summer professional development program teaching science to teachers. These experiences inspired Steve to become a public school teacher through New Jersey’s alternate route program and he has taught full time at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton since 2002. Steve received the New Jersey Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) in 2013 in recognition of his teaching excellence at the K-12 level."
RKS's Mum
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
That implied that RKS's "simply a school teacher" was factually wrong. It deserved an answer.
I certainly agree about not being put off by such "colourful" behaviour. The great thing is SoD wasn't put off, from 7th August onwards, to the thread's great benefit.
But the silence in response to an awkward question also I think deserves to be highlighted. Some are more guilty of this than others but it doesn't enhance our joint search for truth.
Aug 11, 2014 at 1:48 PM Richard Drake
"Dr. Steven Carson has been teaching the Summer II Oceanography course for GEMS since 2008. He received his BA from Brown University and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Geochemistry. After 8 years of college teaching, mostly environmental science at Barnard College, Steve was a researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ for 10 years modeling ocean chemistry. At GFDL, he started doing classroom presentations and teacher workshops and joined the faculty of Princeton University’s QUEST summer professional development program teaching science to teachers. These experiences inspired Steve to become a public school teacher through New Jersey’s alternate route program and he has taught full time at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton since 2002. Steve received the New Jersey Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) in 2013 in recognition of his teaching excellence at the K-12 level."
RKS's Mum
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
That implied that RKS's "simply a school teacher" was factually wrong. It deserved an answer.
I certainly agree about not being put off by such "colourful" behaviour. The great thing is SoD wasn't put off, from 7th August onwards, to the thread's great benefit.
But the silence in response to an awkward question also I think deserves to be highlighted. Some are more guilty of this than others but it doesn't enhance our joint search for truth.
Aug 11, 2014 at 1:48 PM Richard Drake
"Dr. Steven Carson has been teaching the Summer II Oceanography course for GEMS since 2008. He received his BA from Brown University and Ph.D. from Columbia University in Geochemistry. After 8 years of college teaching, mostly environmental science at Barnard College, Steve was a researcher at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Princeton, NJ for 10 years modeling ocean chemistry. At GFDL, he started doing classroom presentations and teacher workshops and joined the faculty of Princeton University’s QUEST summer professional development program teaching science to teachers. These experiences inspired Steve to become a public school teacher through New Jersey’s alternate route program and he has taught full time at John Witherspoon Middle School in Princeton since 2002. Steve received the New Jersey Outstanding Earth Science Teacher (OEST) Award from the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) in 2013 in recognition of his teaching excellence at the K-12 level."
RKS's Mum
I'll be happy to say more after RKS replies to SoD, as common courtesy would seem to demand. That wasn't that. I'd also appreciate it - and I'm sure others would - if the five repetitions, as of 7:47 PM, were reduced to one. Maybe Rhoda or someone else would like to ask Andrew to do that?
Richard Drake
That Dr. Steve Carson is probably a smarter guy than me. But I've never met him.
Generally I don't try to stop all the mistaken identity ideas, they are too funny to be corrected.
According to one blog, Science of Doom is "paleontologist Prof. Richard Ward and astronomer Prof Donald Brownlee". I don't know them either.
Science of Doom
In my opinion, arguing that Science of Doom's written statements about science would be somehow diminished if he turned out to be a 'mere' schoolteacher or any of the alternate identities give above is a reverse Argument From Authority, and is down there with consensus, polls of abstracts, and science is settled as the most egregious examples of non-science.
TheBigYinJames
TBYJ: Cleverly worded. Would you go so far as to say that you disagree with what RKS originally wrote about SoD, now it's clear he was factually in error? (I think of RKS as a he based on this in June but I suppose one can never rule out a Bourbaki with female contributors, including of course the Mum!) If so, do you wish you had challenged him at the time? Would you agree it would improve BH if people had the guts to front up to reasonable questions arising from their own 'colourful' words of accusation and denigration of others, like the one posed by SoD on 7th:
What kind of skeptic are you to report this kind of invented information?
Gosh, I've just gone and asked you three hard questions. Maybe it's catching.
Richard Drake
So evidently SoD is not 'simply a schoolteacher' after all. Mind you, the Dr Steve Carson, whose CV is given by RKS's mum, could hardly be described as *simply* a schoolteacher either, with a track record of research and teaching like that.
I assumed that SoD took RKS up on it, not because being called a schoolteacher is an awful put-down, but simply because what RKS had repeated was some bollocks that he'd come across somewhere, and had repeated without knowing or bothering whether it was correct.
I'm with BYIJ - denigrating someone's arguments about science on the basis of their occupation is hollow rhetoric and is contemptible.
Bear in mind that, at the point when RKS (never known for his tact and diplomacy anyway) described SoD as 'just a schoolteacher', SoD had not entered the discussion. I think he'd just been mentioned by Raff as having a web page with an explanation of the greenhouse effect. An uncomplimentary remark about some blog owner somewhere on the interweb somehow seems different from such a remark directed at someone involved in an ongoing discussion. A bit like saying in a pub that the Prime Minister is a stupid cnut somehow seems less rude than telling the barman he's a stupid cnut.
If RKS is to be taken up for his rudeness, his Aug 1, 2014 at 2:48 PM remark obviously directed at Raff, who had been providing information and asking questions, would be a good starting point.
Martin A
Re my many alternate identities - my comment was a throwaway line when I picked up on all the other comments & questions. When you choose to write stuff about such a controversial subject, you have to take it all on the chin.. I'm much more interested in the subject of atmospheric and ocean physics..
Science of Doom
Martin: I agree with much of what you say and I think the pub analogy is illuminating. What happened here was something like the pub bore saying the prime minister was a cnut, finding David Cameron was standing right behind him, then completely ignoring the good-natured joshing they got from him as he asked them to explain.
It's the silence that's weird in other words. 'Fair cop, guv, you're not a schoolteacher, I should be more careful who I believe' and away we go. But silence no. That speaks to me not just of being rude and undiplomatic but of something else. But, as I said originally, maybe the guy went on holiday. Enough said. It's been fun to have SoD around. I hope we can make it a habit.
Richard Drake
perhaps Drake could explain why an interesting enquiring thread has to be diverted into a discussion of Drake's obsessions with "nym"s? He should do it on another of his vanity threads, however, where he tealls everyone how he is descended from Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur and once met Queen Victoria's nanny, because the discussion between SoD and others is very interesting.
diogenes
Diog, SoD has always used a nym, is highly knowledgeable, lucid and courteous and I, like many, have learned a great deal from him. Where's my problem with 'nymity in all that? My issue has always been with people talking crap. RKS and others need to clean up their act and this is a beautiful example - even Martin A just judged what RKS said about SoD bollocks. But you don't need to take a position on that. If you care about interesting discussion resuming why don't you ask SoD about something he's argued so far on CO2 and OLR - or the illuminating question of why we all, sceptics included, seem convinced that the earth's rotation causes the geostrophic winds - and get us back on track? I've already indicated I'll leave the other subject alone from here.
Richard Drake
I have to agree. Before my trip to France, this was a science thread about IR absorption, optical depth and thermalisation. I see Paul Dennis took up the mantle of discussing bond vibrational energy with Ronaldo, before SoD turned up later in the thread. After that the discussion entropied into the usual 'he said she said' and lost most of its informational content.
Even rhoda seems to have gotten bored with it. Is she any more or less convinced by the GHG as a factor in climate change argument? Has the discussion answered her points, or at least attempted to?
TheBigYinJames
TBYJ: Wouldn't you say it was a science thread until four comments into this page, on Aug 10, 2014 at 10:17 PM, where I agreed with SoD's response to ssat's strange comment of 1:38 PM earlier in the day, which I'd already challenged at 2:20 PM. I was waiting for ssat to respond on that scientific point. Indeed I felt that the response overall to SoD was slow at best, uninformed at worst - such as Rob Burton seeking to correct me and laugh off the situation with the geostrophic winds as a trivial case at 11:41 AM on 10th. Rob also hasn't bothered to respond to SoD's excellent critique of his position - it's now over 48 hours of silence from Rob on that. And I certainly agree with you that it's strange that Rhoda, having begun the thread on 30th, partly seeming to agree with RKS's dissing of SoD the same day (in the very next comment), and being around till 6th August, hasn't seen fit either to notify people of a looming vacation or to comment at all since the guy arrived in person five days ago. The lack of interest in checking whether the hundreds of threads on this subject on BH are even roughly on the right track is the point that struck this reader most. But over 24 hours into waiting for Rob, or ssat, to respond on scientific matters I asked a different kind of question.
That was because there was one other silence that bothered me - that nobody had even mentioned SoD's challenge to RKS on 7th August. I find the lack of interest on BH in a few people's habit of casually defaming anyone they fancy notable, even when the person concerned turns up to challenge it. That remains for me a substantive issue - albeit not as important here as the science on which SoD was also, to my mind, not getting the responses he deserved. In calling the latest discussion 'he said she said' you too seem to be downplaying the defamation aspect, on which for me RKS has been comprehensively discredited. But, no matter, if you're signalling an interest in improving the hundreds of BH threads on the 'fundamentals', with which you rightly say Paul Dennis helped earlier, as did NiV, I'm with you.
Richard Drake
Richard, you are overly obsessed with the "who said what to who". Even SoD himself said he doesn't care. Give it a rest.
TheBigYinJames
RD -
"More GHGs reducing OLR is as non-controversial in the field of atmospheric physics as Kepler's law of motion in the field of astronomy. "
I did not take it up before because they are undoubtedly each non-controversial in own their field so the comparison is not outrageous..
But in terms of the number of significant figures to which they have been quantified by observation, they are not at all the same kind of reptile, so I did have a feeling that the comparison was very slightly over-egged.
2.7° is the sort of temperature difference that does get people interested.