Discussion > Where is Rhoda's Evidence? (plagiarised by Dung)
Er, evidence of what exactly?
Models.
An unvalidated model is no more than an illustration of a hypothesis.
But it's debatable as to whether even a validated model provides *evidence*. But climate models are inherently (due to lack of the data needed) incapable of being validated, so the question does not arise.
Martin A
Martin A
CO2 produced warming of our planet, for or against.
Dung
We now form the laboratory that a higher CO2 concentration delays the escape of heat through the system and so the heat is added to the system.
Therefore there is more heat outside of the lab - in the Earth.
I have no trouble with that extrapolation for a first step.
My scepticism comes in when it comes to how the extra heat acts:
Is it going to raise the temperature? (Apparently not).
Is it going to expand the Oceans? (No more than happens anyway - too small an effect to measure).
Is it going to increase evaporation causing more clouds and thus behaving unpredictably? (Near certainly).
In fact, I have good confidence that more heat is temporarily accumulated in the Earth's system but have no confidence that anyone knows what that extra heat will do.
M Courtney
They never explain how long the heat is delayed for. My conjecture is that it is a very short time indeed and will affect primarily night-time temps and/or the timing of minimum temps. Maybe that coldest minute is five minutes later now. It doesn't accumulate, it's gone by morning.
They never explain how that well-mixed CO2 above "TOA" isn't radiating more heat away and balancing what happens below.
Or maybe it's me. Anyhow Dung, run with it with my blessing.
rhoda
M Courtney
We know nothing from the Laboratory IMHO, what makes you think heat is delayed by CO2? With no clouds IR radiated from the surface travels instantly to TOA, regardless of how many CO2 molecules it engages. CO2 is 0.04% of the molecules in the atmosphere, I suggest that the bulk of them never engage radiation at all. However all of this is hypothesis not fact or measurable observation.
The Japanese sat launched a few years ago showed that CO2 was not well mixed and that the largest amounts were observed above southern hemisphere non industrial areas. In reality we know diddly squat ^.^
Dung
Martin A
CO2 produced warming of our planet, for or against.
Oct 20, 2015 at 12:44 PM | Registered CommenterDung
Sorry to be insistent but evidence of exactly what....?
That increases in CO2 since (1962?) have caused the planet to be warmer than it would have been had CO2 remained constant?
That increases in CO2 since (1962? from now?) will cause the planet to be warmer in the future (ie starting from now) than it would have been had CO2 remained constant?
|What is "warmer"? [For the benefit of awkwards like me who insist that "average temperature" is (a) meaningless (b) can be defined in an infinity of ways, none of which is intrinsically preferable to any of the others.]
Mind you, my own preconception is that however you define it, you won't find any actual evidence - at best some plausibility arguments.
Martin A
I like the hiding in the deep ocean excuse, doubt its right unless the heat got past Argo floats without them noticing, but if its right then when does this increase in heat get to the surface as it defied the law of physics to drop rather than rise in the first place, and as the sea has such a larger mass than the atmosphere how does the small ocean temp increase ever heat the atmosphere enough to make a difference to surface temps. Typical Climate Science, sounds good on first hearing than then has more holes than Swiss cheese.
Breath of Fresh Air
Martin A
I have all the misgivings that you have expressed about 'average global temperature' but I did not make that description up, it came from the warmists so it is their job to define it and come up with evidence that it is meaningful and that it signifies a danger to humans or planet.
It strikes me that we do not make use of that by asking them to justify that description when they use it ^.^
Dung
Firm evidence that the planet is accumulating energy (not necessarily *warming*) would be given by measuring the total incoming energy per unit time and comparing with the measured outgoing energy per unit time.
I remember reading (a statement made not many years ago) (by Hansen?) that satellite measurements were insufficiently accurate for the difference between the measurements to have any meaning. So they have to resort to model results - ie guesses. Presumably that still stands; if the position had changed we'd be hearing about it incessantly.
Of course, even if a difference were found, you'd need additional evidence to show it was the result of CO2.
Martin A
They never explain how long the heat is delayed for. My conjecture is that it is a very short time indeed and will affect primarily night-time temps and/or the timing of minimum temps. Maybe that coldest minute is five minutes later now. It doesn't accumulate, it's gone by morning."
We know a cloudy night traps heat, but the next clear night all that extra energy gets dumped into space. I struggle to see how this 'extra energy' could ever get stored as I can't see anyway for it to get into the oceans. The ocean is the one massive energy store that we have. I can easily see how the sun can heat the ocean.
Rob Burton
I think that this discussion highlights the problems involved in making sense of CAGW claims.
ONE question:
Could atmospheric CO2 levels cause catastrophic warming?
This is the only question we are required to address, all else is froth.
What do both sides of the argument do in trying to answer it? They both jump into theories (existing and new) which could suggest an answer.
The correct response is to start by asking what we already know about atmospheric CO2 levels and temperatures? Why create theories when we already have facts that answer the question?
There are now at least two real world observations that falsify the theory that CO2 controls temperature, one would be enough.
First there are the ice core records that I have been banging on about for ten years or more.
Second there are the geological records from the Devonian Period.
Both of these records show examples of high or rising levels of atmospheric CO2 coupled with low or falling temperatures.
In the ice core records the lags are between 800 years and 2000 years but in the Devonian period there were high temperatures and falling levels of atmospheric CO2 for over 100 million years
CO2 DOES NOT CONTROL TEMPERATURE, PERIOD!
Devonian Period: Dr Moore, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, National Geographic.
Ice core records: Dr Moore, IPPC reports, Real Climate, Al Gore.
Dung
I just look at the posts made by guyys such as Science of Doom and Clive Best and wonder what you are all talking about. They present measurments and you present beliefs nand superstitions.
Try this:
http://scienceofdoom.com/2011/03/07/understanding-atmospheric-radiation-and-the-%E2%80%9Cgreenhouse%E2%80%9D-effect-%E2%80%93-part-eight/
diogenes
oh and the Greenhouse effect on Venus might be due to Sulphur Dioxide rather than proximity to the Sun.
diogenes
I am sceptical. The fact that you and Rhoda do not believen in the Greenhouse effect somehow means that I am pre-disposed to acceot it given the non-scientific way you state it. Science of Doom and Clive Best have derived it from first principles, by different methods.. Be happy in your lack of rigour.Blabbing on about ice cores means fuck all.
diogenes
Diogenes
Sorry that you are not fond of facts and that you prefer theories, there is not much I can say if that is your stance. You believe that drilling through 750,000 years worth of ice and analysing it can tell us nothing, hmmmm.
You think that the Smithsonian Museum is full of superstitions and not Natural History, well that is a new one for me. I am not sure Rhoda ever said that she did not accept the Greenhouse effect she simply asked for evidence and theory is not evidence.
Dung
I don't see us getting anywhere by arguing among ourselves, though what this mini-spat does demonstrate is that the sum of human knowledge on the mechanics of climate and of gases in the atmosphere is still pretty meagre and the subject is far from well understood.
Diogenes
I have been sent to read Science of Doom before and I am still trying to get a handle on where the guy is coming from. He is highly efficient at producing super-complex, lengthy articles that seem to be, to quote Tom Lehrer ,"full of words and music and signifying ..." well, what precisely?
The link you gave above sends me to a series of fairly esoteric diagrams which may mean something to a physics graduate but are totally beyond the understanding of a geriatric layman like me.
And nowhere in that article do I see anything even remotely approaching evidence that increasing CO2 is responsible for increasing the temperature of the atmosphere. Which is what the whole climate change aka global warming aka eco-luddism back to the 17th century scam is all about.
And assuming that the argument put forward by MydogSpartAlec — and others! this is one area where he is not completely out on a limb — that so-called "back radiation" cannot do any useful work is correct then the whole edifice collapses.
And the "greenhouse effect" becomes once again what it always was, a simple "Janet and John" explanation of why the temperature of earth's atmosphere is what it is and we don't all fry during the day and turn into a block of ice at night.
Dung
Don't rely on ice cores. Compression and expansion over the centuries mean that trying to date any individual CO2 bubble is horrendously difficult (or so I'm told).The only thing that appears to be reasonably well understood is that increased temperature leads to subsequent outgassing of the oceans on a scale of ~200-800 years.
In spite of what Al Gore says!
Mike Jackson
Mike
I have read a lot around the problems with 'The Firn', this is the state between snow and ice and it allows bubbles to move through it and therefore make dating the ice more difficult as you say. Until the snow is compressed into ice you do have this movement of bubbles but no paper suggested that this could last more than 100 years and most papers said 50 years or less. It does not change the basic facts at all ^.^
My post did not rely solely on the Ice Cores it also rested on the Devonian Period which is even more solid.
I am not trying to have a spat Mike, I am saying that the science really is settled and that CO2 does not cause warming.
Dung
No argument from me, Dung, but when you get to the point where you have provoked diogenes into a comment like Blabbing on about ice cores means fuck all." I reckon we're into "spat" territory!
Personally I am losing patience with the whole business. If I had £1 for every time I have said that "there is not a shred of empirical evidence that says that climate is behaving in any way abnormally from what it has done in the recent past" (by which I mean the last couple of millennia) I would be a very rich man, even richer if I included "will someone please show me the evidence that says ... etc"
That is the point at which I usually get referred to Science of Doom by those who appear to think the sun shines out of his backside, conveniently forgetting Rutherford's adage that "if you can't explain your physics to a barmaid then it's not very good physics" or Einstein's "if you can't explain it to a six-year-old you don't understand it yourself".
But nobody has ever yet answered my question. All I get is to watch both sides telling me how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and refusing to budge from their entrenched positions (yes, both sides). I am emphatically with rhoda on this. Julie Andrews sums it up well!
Mike Jackson
Yeah. Wot Mike Jackson sez. I agree wiv 'im.
Radical Rodent
RR
Humph ^.^
Mike
I assumed that there would be a different response to "Look I have proof that A is correct" rather than "there is no proof that B is correct". Maybe one day I will get the hang of this hehe.
Dung
The theory is; increasing atmospheric levels of CO2, increases temperatures within the atmosphere of the Earth.
If the temperature of the Earth has not been rising for 18+ years and CO2 levels continue to rise: the theory is invalid, end of story.
NeilC
But, NeilC, think of the jobs that would be lost, the trips that would have to sacrificed, the power, the prestige, all gone!
No, that will never do. There has to be a way.
I know! Altogether now, fingers in you ears ,.... mmmmmmmmm!
Mike Jackson
MJ, I have often wondered exactly how much CO2 is created by the IPCC and all those meeting, and I mean thousands, with tens of thousands of delegates travelling all over the globe 30, 40, or 50 times a year.
I think I should claim for a new extreme super-super computer to calculate and project next years budget.
NeilC
Perhaps I can explain mit this way: denial of the greenhouse effect is equivalent to denying the existence of gravity. What is in question is the effect on the climate of our planet of the GHE given all the unknowns and poorly understood variables. I am surprised that this is so hard to understand. Martin A amongst others has expressed it very cogentaly on numerous occasions. All this stuff about ice cores is just comical.....like a coroner dissecting a corpse and telling us that it was a God in Egypt 20,000 years ago.
diogenes
I would like to continue this idea because Dr Patrick Moore seemed to me to make the case against 'CO2 produced Warming' about as watertight as it could get.
First can we agree on what constitutes Evidence?
My own choices would omit all models, all untested hypotheses and opinions (regardless of who expressed them).
I would include experimental evidence and real world observation.
Can anyone add to these?