The team uses a number of Old Jedi mind tricks to beat skeptics into submission
The data needs to be infilled due to changing station composition
That is exactly what you don’t want to do if the cooler rural stations are disappearing systematically
Essential adjustments cool the past
The exact opposite is true. UHI is the dominant driver of warming, and adjustments should cool the present.
A hotter climate has more energy and thus produces more extreme weather
Extreme weather is driven by differences in energy, and are normally associated with polar air. Superstorm Sandy became so large, because it collided with very cold polar air which produced record snow in West Virginia. A warming Arctic would produce less extreme weather, and make the climate more like Hawaii.
More CO2 means more trapped heat
Almost all of the radiation in CO2’s spectra is already being absorbed by H2O and existing CO2. Adding more CO2 does little because there is little energy left that it can absorb.
These people just make up crap and pass it off as “basic physics.”
*waves two fingers*
These aren’t the urban stations you’re looking for.
These people just make up crap and pass it off as “basic physics.”
This may be the most true statement I have read on the net this year. +1
Ok Steve, you waved my physics red flag on this. Yes it was known 100 years ago that CO2 is essentially saturated with respect to IR frequencies emitted from the earth. However, with extra CO2 the spectra are slightly widened. This has to do with quantum mechanics and the fact that billions of bits of energy are absorbed and emitted in a microsecond in a very small space.
The bottom line, is that so named green house gases will tend to warm the lower atmosphere and cool the upper atmosphere. This temperature gradient is what causes air to move and thus we have weather. (thankfully)
The hypothesis is that extra water vapor will be formed. causing an increase in the greenhouse effect, a larger temperature gradient and more extreme weather. All records show nothing exceptional has happend.
The only question is, How Much? How much warming will there be from the additional CO2 and GCM’s (climate models) have completely overshot the mark. It simply hasn’t warmed for 17 years. The inner climate circle and quite honestly all of us do not really understand much of it.
This is only a comment as to the last statement above, no red flags as to the rest of it.
This has to do with quantum mechanics and the fact that billions of bits of energy are absorbed and emitted in a microsecond in a very small space.
Energy is not necessarily heat and will not cause an increase in temperature. Even if you claim translational energy transfer I bet it is a50\50 split for increase velosity to decrease velosity for no overall atmospheric temperature increase.
mkelly- you are sort of verifying my argument. Energy is not necessarily heat- true-that is, the energy may not be in the form of heat. Remember (any readers) that the heat of a sample of molecules is a measure of its average speed (kinetic energy)
Remember, also, that quantum gains are internal, (photons) and kinetic is generally to some movement of the whole molecule. The internal gains are to some higher electron energy level and can be absorbed only when there is sympathy to a natural internal vibration.
It is well known and can be verified by a simple hand held device that the absorbed energy is emitted radially – some of it back down to earth and the hypothesis is it should cause a feedback of additional water vapor at a lower level thus there will be more downward radiation to the earth to which the earth will simply emit more IR.
That is why it was predicted that there would be a warm spot in the tropics at an altitude (I believe) of about 300 to 500 mb (more water vapor because of more ocean) and a cool spot above that. However, it did not happen. and there is and should be a lot of uncertainty as to why. Judith Curry likes to call it the uncertainty monster.
The basic thing to remember is that InfraRed radiation is not heat it is merely a particular band of frequencies of electro-magnetic radiation within the electro-magnetic spectrum, and like all frequencies in the electro-magnetic spectrum they have very defined laws and properties. (Back-radiation not being one of them.) Photon energy is carried by these electro-magnetic radiations.
Heat is the product of the IR radiation’s interaction with some matter. That is to say, certain molecules can absorb defined frequencies (specific photon energy levels) and become excited (on the atomic scale the particles of matter vibrate.)
The only question is – how long is this sort of BS going to be repeated?
I will state here and elsewhere that you and Watts have done a lot of (different) leg work and I am quite sure he is coming around to agreeing with you on this matter.
If it was possible, I would like to see you team up, because he has done a lot of individual on the ground station analysis and you Steve, have pointed out the fact that for whatever reason, the final temps, based on real raw data are bogus. For this you should be given credit.
The team uses a number of Old Jedi mind tricks to beat skeptics into submission
The data needs to be infilled due to changing station composition
– – – – – – –
CLEARLY something else needs to be done.
I think this ‘technique’ was a half-measure from bygone days when data handling was (and could not easily be) moved around (think punched-card days or tape datasets).
NOW would be the time to update (or change or do away with) these archaic procedures.
.
There is some truth to that. I downloaded GISSTEMP source code with the intention of porting it. Yuck, what a mess. It is written as a series of compile source, run the executable, process a bit of data, write the results out as if it were a tape drive/card deck, then repeat. I tried to run it on a virtualized Linux installation. I could not get it to work and quit in disgust. It looks like the student code I wrote/ported in the 70s. We all know how great student generated prototype code is :). One really has to wonder about how robust that code is to OS/compiler/compiler option changes over the years, even if the underlying algorithms were correct and properly written in Fortran (something I doubt).