Dr. Bill Gray is one of my heroes. He is a top hurricane forecaster, and one of the few people who actually understands the climate. He has been self-funded since 1993, when Al Gore cut off his long time NOAA funding because of his refusal to capitulate to the global warming orthodoxy. And most importantly because his late wife Nancy was the key player behind the excellent set of bike trails in Fort Collins, as mayor during the 1980’s.
———————————————————————————————————-
William M. Gray
Professor Emeritus
Department of Atmospheric Science
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
If you were to ask ten people on the street if mankind’s activities are causing global warming, at least seven or eight out of ten would likely say yes. This is due to nearly 25 years of gross exaggeration of the human-induced global warming threat by scientists, environmentalists, politicians, and the media who wish to profit from the public’s lack of knowledge on this topic. Many have been lead to believe that Al Gore’s movie and book, An Inconvenient Truth, provides incontrovertible evidence that human-induced global warming is a real threat. Yet, contrary to what is heard from warming advocates, there is considerable evidence that the global warming we have experienced over the last 30 years and over the last 100 years is largely natural. It is impossible to objectively determine the very small amount of human-induced warming in comparison to the large natural changes which are occurring.
Many thousands of scientists from the US and around the globe do not accept the human-induced global warming hypothesis as it has been presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports over the last 15 years. The media has, in general, uncritically accepted the results of the IPCC and over-hyped the human aspects of the warming threat. This makes for better press than saying that the climate changes we have experienced are mostly natural. The contrary views of the many warming skeptics have been largely ignored and their motives denigrated. The alleged ‘scientific consensus’ on this topic is bogus. As more research on the human impact on global temperature change comes forth, more flaws are being found in the hypothesis.
It must be pointed out that most climate research is supported by the federal government. All federally sponsored researchers need positive peer-reviews on their published papers and grant proposals. This can be difficult for many of the ‘closet’ warming skeptics who receive federal grant support. Many are reluctant to give full expression of their views due to worries over continuing grant support. It is difficult to receive federal grant support if one’s views differ from the majority of their peers who receive support to find evidence of the warming threat. The normal scientific process of objectively studying both sides of a question has not yet occurred. Such open dialogue has been discouraged by warming advocates.
Implementation of the proposed international treaties restricting future greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 20 to 80 percent of current emissions would lead to a large slowdown in the world’s economic development and, at the same time, have no significant impact on the globe’s future temperature.
Many of the Global Climate Model (GCMs) simulations by large US and foreign government laboratories and universities on which so much of the warming science scenarios are based have basic flaws. These global models are not able to correctly model the globe’s small-scale precipitation processes. They have incorrectly parameterized the rain processes in their models to give an unrealistically enhanced warming influence to CO2. This is the so called positive water-vapor feedback. The observations I have been analyzing for many years show that the globe’s net upper-level water vapor does not increase but slightly decreases with warming. These GCMs also do not yet accurately model the globe’s deep ocean circulation which appears to be the primary driving mechanism for most of the global temperature increases that has occurred over the last 30 and last 100 years.
GCMs should not be relied upon to give global temperature information 50 to 100 years into the future. GCM modelers do not dare make public short-period global temperature forecasts for next season, next year, or a few years hence. This is because they know they do not have shorter range climate forecast skill. They would lose credibility if they issued shorter-range yearly forecasts that could be verified. Climate modelers live mostly in a ‘virtual world’ of their own making. This virtual world is isolated from the real world of weather and climate. Few of the GCM modelers have any substantial weather or short- range climate forecasting experience.
It is impossible to make skillful initial value numerical predictions beyond a few weeks. Although numerical weather prediction has shown steady and impressive improvements since its inception in 1955, these forecast improvements have been primarily made through advancements in the measurement (i.e. satellite) of the wind and pressure fields and the advection/extrapolation of these fields forward in time 10-15 days. For skillful numerical prediction beyond a few weeks, it is necessary to forecast changes in the globe’s complicated energy and moisture fields. This entails forecasting processes such as amounts of cloudiness, condensation heating, evaporation cooling, cloud-cloud-free radiation, air-sea moisture-temperature flux, etc. It is impossible to accurately code all these complicated energy-moisture processes, and integrate these processes forward for hundreds of thousands of time steps and expect to obtain anything close to meaningful results. Realistic climate forecasting by numerical processes is not possible now and, due to the complex nature of the earth’s climate system, may never be possible.
Global temperatures have always fluctuated and will continue to do so regardless of how much anthropogenic greenhouse gases are put into the atmosphere.
The globe has many serious environmental problems. Most of these problems are regional or local in nature, not global. Forced global reductions in human-produced greenhouse gases will not offer much benefit for the globe’s serious regional and local environmental problems. We should, of course, make all reasonable reductions in greenhouse gases to the extent that we do not pay too high an economic price. We need a prosperous economy to have sufficient resources to further adapt and expand energy production.
Even if CO2 is causing very small global temperature increases there is hardly anything we can do about it. China, India and third world countries will not limit their growing greenhouse gas emissions. Many experts believe that there may be net positive benefits to humankind through a small amount of global warming. It is known that vegetation and crops tend to benefit from higher amounts of atmospheric CO2, particularly vegetation which is under temperature or moisture stress.
I believe that in the next few years the globe is going to continue its modest cooling period of the last decade similar to what was experienced in the 30 years between the mid-1940s and the mid-1970s. This will be primarily a result of changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation. I am convinced that in 15-20 years we will look back on this period of global warming hysteria as we now look back on other popular and trendy scientific ideas that have not stood the test of time.
______________________________________________________________________
The author is a Professor Emeritus of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University where he has worked since 1961. He holds a Ph.D. degree from the University of Chicago in Geophysical Science. He has issued Atlantic basin seasonal hurricane forecasts since 1984.
Reblogged this on JunkScience.com.
What’s great about this is his ability to clearly attack the “Bad Science” in a way even non-scientists will be able to understand.
Some favorites:
“GCMs should not be relied upon to give global temperature information 50 to 100 years into the future.”
BAM!
“GCM modelers do not dare make public short-period global temperature forecasts for next season, next year, or a few years hence. This is because they know they do not have shorter range climate forecast skill. They would lose credibility if they issued shorter-range yearly forecasts that could be verified.”
POW!
Climate modelers live mostly in a ‘virtual world’ of their own making. This virtual world is isolated from the real world of weather and climate. Few of the GCM modelers have any substantial weather or short- range climate forecasting experience.
KABOOM!
I totally agree….
Eh, he’s a lukewarmer … still believe humans have an effect through the magic of CO2 … pfffft….
Obviously humans have some effect on the climate due to CO2.
Again I disagree.
Of course we have some impact on climate… so do termites, plankton, trees, grasses etc. We cannot be part of a system without having some influence on that same system. What is in doubt is the amount of that impact and whether or not it is even perceptible. As Dr. Gray pointed out we may never be able to understand the overall climatic system of this planet and without that understanding we can’t know our (most likely) miniscule influences on it.
Very tiny and approaching zero.
More important in the long term is the earth is and has been in CO2 starvation mode and humans are releasing much needed naturally sequestered CO2. I would like to see about 1500 ppm. Most of the human food crops are CO2 sensitive C3 with the big exception of corn. C4 plants include the most troublesome weeds.
Carbon starvation in glacial trees recovered from the La Brea tar pits, southern California (This is at sea level so no partial pressure confounding.)
Royal Society Publishing: Carbon dioxide starvation, the development of C4 ecosystems, and mammalian evolution
Here is one of the problems for herbivores going from C3 to C4 even in those species that managed to adapt.
Per some of the studies cataloged at Co2science.org, corn does respond positively to increased CO2. Albeit not as dramatically as some C3 crops.
Hell_Is_Like_Newark says: ….Per some of the studies cataloged at Co2science.org, corn does respond positively to increased CO2. ….
Agreed, however C3 plants will croak at higher levels of CO2 compared with C4 plants.
If I understand (and remember) what I have read correctly, the C3 pathway is actually the less energy consuming pathway and therefore with abundant CO2 and decent amounts of water, C3 plants out compete C4 plants… you know C4 WEEDS. So more CO2 could not only cause C3 crops to grow better it could make them more competitive than the less desirable C4 plants.
Another feather in the cap of CO2. {:>D
Most plants respond well to CO2 levels up to somewhere between 1000 to 2000 ppm (above 2000 ppm they tend to flatten out the response), even C4 plants. It’s just that C3 plants have a much more dramatic response.
Umm, no, that is not obvious at all … quite to the contrary … you cannot point to any effect what-so-ever. Show me. And to the contrary, physics and physical laws that are demonstrably observed and measured completely contradict your assertion that CO2 has any effect upon global temperature and thermodynamics other than to assist in a cooling mechanism. Your quote is incorrect.
Squid, the increase in CO2 cause a teeny tiny little increase in forcing as you can see here:
http://www.hyzercreek.com/Infrared%20Sky%20001.jpg
Now, show us how CO2 has a cooling effect.
Morgan, tell me what temperature do you see at 14.5u ? … And then explain to me how that will “increase” thermal energy.
Hint: An cooler object cannot heat a warmer one.
What have posted shows nothing about CO2 heating anything, nor does it demonstrate any such so-called “greenhouse effect”.
Try again…
If you don’t understand the chart, which has a legend explaining everything on it, then there is nothing I can do to help you. Get a beer, enjoy life, and stop talking about science.
You are incredibly stupid. Quit posting graphs that you can’t read. Quit posting shit you have absolutely no understanding of. If you can’t tell me what temperature 14.5u – 15u is, then just go away and quit posting you stupid twit. You’re making John Kerry look smarter all the time.
The temperatures are written right on the graph, you drooling imbecile.
I agree – At a minimum we have UHI. But I think there is more than that, Just not a lot.
Take your pick –
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=CO2+cools+the+upper+atmosphere&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5
It’s all models so all subject to change.
Without the so called greenhouse effect, we would not even have weather or life on earth as we know it.
It causes a temperature gradient from warm at the surface to cool at higher altitudes.
This gradient then causes high and low pressure areas which causes the movement of air. The hypothesis is the larger gradient will cause more air movement and thus more extreme weather, but that simply has not happened.
However, it was known 100 years ago that CO2 was saturated with respect to the frequencies of IR radiation it could absorb. That was before we understood quantum mechanics and all that it involves.– too much to explain here.
Dr. Gray was very specific when he writes that the hypothesis projects that there will be more evaporation causing more moisture in the lower atmosphere– the so called water vapor feedback.
However, the upper atmosphere has by contrast has held less water therefore allowing more heat to escaped into space which counter acts against the more held by water vapor in lower atmosphere, the largest green house gas.
As Dr. Gray writes, we do not know all the processes in condensation, evaporation, movement of air etc.in particular when vapor condenses to ice which because of lower temps at high altitudes is about 50% of precipitation.
None of that is really accounted for in the models.
This is a really short version of what is happening, but I have to say that Dr. Gray’s statements completely match that which I have understood to be happening.
Incidentally, there is high speculation that we might be entering another ice age due to solar changes — and that is not recent news.,
ROFLMAO … you haven’t a clue as to what sort of effect you are even trying to describe, “greenhouse” or otherwise. … hahaha … comical
Squid, I beg you to stop. You do this every time and you are always wrong and cannot learn. This is what, the 4th time you have asserted some fanciful “CO2 has a cooling effect” mechanism that you can’t explain? Please stop.
Morgan Wright says:
You are the one who is wrong. Of course CO2 has a cooling affect, but it is in the Thermosphere, would you believe NASA instead of squid?
Watch the VIdeo in this WUWT post about the 2013 AGU meeting, look from about 13.5 minutes in to the video.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/13/leif-svalgaard-at-agu-on-the-current-solar-cycle-none-of-us-alive-have-ever-seen-such-a-weak-cycle/
This offsets the slightly lower so called atmospheric cooling window of CO2, whereas the lower regions of the atmosphere the CO2 windows are swamped by Water vapour and droplets.
The thermosphere, where the ozone is? The ozone absorbs and radiates at 9.6 microns which is a part of the spectrum where CO2 does nothing, and neither does H2O.
I submit, that all IR absorbed by upper level ozone is radiated by the ozone. Nothing else absorbs or radiates at 9.6 mikes because that is smack in the middle of the N-band where the atmosphere is 98% transparent
cooling effect
http://youtu.be/bJ55koi7vaA
OK I watched the video. Interesting, it’s about solar cycles. It says increased CO2 increases cooling of incoming solar radiation in the thermosphere to space. I thought you were talking about earth’s emitted IR energy. I still don’t know what squid was talking about.
I refered to A. C. Osborne’s video
Morgan Wright says: @ September 16, 2014 at 5:50 pm
The thermosphere, where the ozone is?…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
No the Thermosphere where NOx is.
Ozone is heating in the Stratosphere
High energy solar radiation splits O2 into two atoms. these atoms glom on to an O2 molecule forming ozone.
I watched AC Osborne’s video all the way through, and starting around 31:15 the panelist says that what happens in the thermosphere is measures in milliwatts/m2 compared to hundreds of W/m2 at the surface so what happens in the thermosphere has no bearing on earth’s surface temps.
And there I was thinking the lapse rate was due to pressure, volume, temperature changes as you increase in altitude as has been taught in science since almost forever – long before the greenhouse effect was ever taught.
And there I was thinking that these relationships are capable of being applied in the manufacture of things like refrigerators, air conditioners and heat pumps.
Silly me. It must all be greenhouse effect technology.
Has anyone actually seen the absorption spectra for CO2 ? The theory predicts at least one wavelength of strong absorption which doesn’t exist in reality.
It is approximately 99% transparent to infra-red from ~ 5 to ~14 microns – that covers the peak infra-red emission of every ambient temperature found on Earth and absorbs none of it.
CO2 does not absorb radiation in the wavelengths corresponding to the temperature of the vast majority of ambient temperatures found on Earth. Only Ozone seems to overlap the mostly transparent atmospheric window which allows significant transmission of IR.
As Ozone is principally found some 20 – 30 kilometres above the Earth surface I think this hardly matters at all and human influence is claimed to decrease Ozone.
Thank you Rosco for pointing this out! … at least someone on this planet seems to get it. Sheeesh….
+1
Dr Happer seems to have.
David Burton put up on his website an audio and Dr Happer’s slides:
http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/
See slides 16, 19, 24, 25, 44
Also slides 12, 33, 34
Sides: http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/UNC-9-8-2014.pptx
22, 42, 43 and 44 are the critical slides.
To answer to your question, CO2 absorbs heavily between 14 and 18 microns which is still within the fat part of the radiation curve for earth’s surface temperatures. Here is the chart again, that squid could not understand before. See the huge absorption band for CO2 around 15 mikes, not far from the peak?
http://www.hyzercreek.com/Infrared%20Sky%20001.jpg
First of all, you are wrong. CO2 only has the capability of absorbing around 14.5u to 15u.
Secondly, I understand the graph perfectly and have studied such graphs for several years. And I also understand that the temperature at 14.5u to 15u is only found on this planet at the most extreme locations of Antarctica at the height of winter there. No other place on this planet can you find such temperature.
Now, again, you stupid twit. Quit posting shit that you have no clue about and pretending that it supports your stupid pet theories.
The temperature is a plank’s curve for blackbody radiation, it’s not a single point. And the curve is right on the graph. Several curves for several temperatures, actually. But you can’t see the curves for some reason.
Actually Squid, he says… “Even if CO2 is causing very small global temperature increases there is hardly anything we can do about it.”
Sounds to me as if the good Dr is not convinced that CO2 causes warming. Nice to know that the three of us agree. 😉
Hey Gator, yeah, you may be correct in that assumption, however, after I read his paper he sounded more and more like a lukewarmer to me. I find it very difficult to take anyone serious that will contend that CO2 can cause our planet to warm. There is just no credibility in that theory what-so-ever and I have lost all patience for those (like Morgan) who continue to utter that sort of stupid tripe as if it were so. I have no tolerance for it anymore.
If the “good Dr.” is not convinced that CO2 causes warming, he should come right out and say it. The quote you highlight also has the flaw “..hardly anything we can do about it” … there is nothing we can do about it.
I find it amazing that it takes such incredible effort, energy and cost to simply heat ourselves during the winter, with the vast majority of our populations living without heat (or energy). And yet, somehow, we are able to heat the entire globe? Including, don’t forget, the 72% that is covered by water, and, the 4kM average depth of our oceans (remember, the missing heat hiding in the deep oceans). And all, from a little bit of CO2 … you just can’t even make up stupid like that. It is utterly astonishing and I am no longer amused by it.
Hope you are doing well Gator!!
Nobody should be fooled by the conciliatory signals and the calm tone of Dr. Gray’s letter. This is a powerful indictment of the corruption of large parts of the climate science establishment.
ON that Colorado, I have to agree-completely
Excellent article by Dr. Gray. The only statement I take issue with is the following:
We should, of course, make all reasonable reductions in greenhouse gases to the extent that we do not pay too high an economic price.
There are valid reasons to believe that higher levels of the plant nutrient CO2 would be boon to agricultural production and crop yields, helping to feed the masses. In comparison to the geological past, the planet is currently CO2 starved. During the Ordovician period, when CO2 levels were at least times current levels, much of the planet was frozen in an ice age. There’s no evidence in Vostok or Greenland ice core data indicating that rising CO2 causes runaway warming. In fact, it is warmer temperatures that trigger increases in CO2.
This is a nicely written article that should help put an end to AGW. [except the Alarmists]
I am sending this to Canada’s Environment Minister; the Energy Minister; The Science Minister; the Health Minister; The Finance Minister; and the Prime Minister.
kirkmyers said at 2:48 pm
Excellent article by Dr. Gray. The only statement I take issue with is the following:
We should, of course, make all reasonable reductions in greenhouse gases to the extent that we do not pay too high an economic price.
I agree.
CO2 is NOT a problem.
CO2 IS a PROBLEM, there is not enough of it.
The earth is at dangerously low levels especially if/when the earth heads into another glacial phase and the oceans again start absorbing CO2 instead of releasing CO2.
Don’t worry Gail. I think we have already produced enough CO2 to greatly decrease future ice ages. Take a really good look at this:
http://www.hyzercreek.com/IceAge65.jpg
…and realize, we have raised CO2 levels to what they were during the Pliocene, (“Pli” on the chart), when ice ages were milder than now, and if we continue to make more CO2, which we will, we can bring them to Miocene levels when ice ages were tolerable.
Drive your SUV, and drive it far.
Sorry, you are wrong again, plants like at least 1000ppm, so for the Earth to REALLY thrive that would be a good value.
You said “I think we have already produced enough CO2 to greatly decrease future ice ages.” but CO2 has no affect on Ice Ages what so ever. An Ice Ageoccured when CO2 was at 4000ppm during the Paleozoic period.
I thought it was established that CO2 follows temperature, not the other way around.
ERRRRrrrrr….
I think you missed my point Morgan.
The Loutre and Berger’s 2003 astronomical model suggesting the Holocene would be a double precession like MIS 11 was soundly trounced by the Lisiecki and Raymo’s 2005 rebuttal. The rebuttal is based on an exhaustive analysis of 57 globally distributed deep ocean cores reaching back about 5 million years. Real data trounces models once again.
Aside from the Ruddiman Hypothesis it looks like we are headed for glaciation as soon as everything in our chaotic climate system lines up right to kick the earth into a new climate regime. That could be any time now since we are about 200 years overdue. (The precession cycle = 23,000 years. the Holocene, based on the end of the Younger Dryas = 11,715 years)
The Ruddiman Hypothesis depends on the Climastrologists over estimated effects of CO2. I really really do not think the few tenths of a degree from CO2 is going to mean diddly especially since the Climastrologists have been lying about the actual amount of CO2 in pre-industrial times.
If you go with the Ruddiman Hypothesis we need to keep on being CO2 and Methane polluting humans if we want to stay out of the next glaciation.
…………
It is not in this particular link but Jaworowski found that whether the whole sample was crushed and analyzed for CO2 or only the ‘Air Bubble’ was analyzed lead to greatly different results with the air bubble results being much lower.
@Morgan Wright
“I think we have already produced enough CO2 to greatly decrease future ice ages. ”
Your assumption is that through some mechanism the overall effect of CO2 is that it can heat the planet. Where is your science? The overall effect of CO2 IMO is neutral to cooling. Remember Professor Wood invalidated the so called ‘greenhouse effect’ decades ago. Water is our global climate thermostat.
As shown here at ground level CO2 does nothing, in the upper atmosphere CO2 cools by IR radiation off to space.
https://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/image-848.jpg?w=550&h=430
@tom0mason
B I N G O !
Thanks for that!
Look at the chart AC Osborne. The CO2 was around 800 ppm 50 million years ago, 280 ppm preindustrial, and 220 ppm during the last ice age. Eyeball the chart and see where 400 ppm would be, roughly. It’s where the ice ages switch from 100,000 years to 41,000 years and get milder. If we get up to 500 ppm they almost stop.
To answer your question, all scientists agree that there is a thing called climate sensitivity, which is how much warmer the earth will get with each doubling of CO2. If you deny that there is any increase at all, you are beyond help and should have a pitcher of beer with squid and rosco, and call yourselves the climate boys. Get as drunk as you want, because it won’t make your climate discussion any more incoherent.
Morgan Wright says:
Don’t worry Gail. I think we have already produced enough CO2 to greatly decrease future ice ages….
>>>>>>>>>>>>
OH, and I should have added I want 1500 ppm CO2 for the sake of the C3 PLANTS as we head into cooling/glaciation and not because I thought CO2 would do any real warming.
It would be nice if we could grow more/faster and it would be nice if the C3 plants did not have to open their stomata as much to get CO2 and could therefore conserve water.
SEE: Three types of photosynthesis and their relevance for desert adaptation
The problems of cooling are well known:
Bravo, Dr. Gray! As an operational meteorologist, I wholeheartedly agree with your assessment. I only wish politics could be left out of the scientific agenda.
You cannot heat water by convection through its surface. You can heat water by radiation, the sun does that every day and if you put a metal floating device on water it will heat by conduction but if you direct warm gas at the surface the heat will be blocked by surface tension. For this reason there is no such thing as AGW.
Good grief. Water is transparent to visible light, but IR only penetrates a few microns. You think air can’t heat water by conduction? Without a metal floating devise? Surface tension? What?
Do me a favor. Go have a beer with Squid.
What, wrong again!
I suggest you have a look at the Emperical real world Experiments carried ot by a poster called Konrad.
The next thing you will be saying is that you can heat up objects at night using Down welling IR, when anyone who has looked at the subject knows it actually cools below ambient and makes a great night time fridge.
I think that is Strike 3 and out.
A minor league batter can’t be the umpire of a big leaguer, especially when he has no arms, no bat, and is blindfolded.
But the atmosphere is ~1000 times less dense than water.
The specific heat of water is ~4 times that of air.
Combined this must mean that any conductive effect of heat from the atmosphere to the oceans is insignificant !
Then why do raindrops warm as they fall through warmer air layers and hit the ground much warmer than they were in the clouds?
Morgan Wright asks –
“Then why do raindrops warm as they fall through warmer air layers and hit the ground much warmer than they were in the clouds?”
That is because unlike the oceans which are large aggregated mass of water with only a relatively small top surface area; the rain droplets are disaggregated individual drops of small mass and large overall surface area. Added together this large surface area ensures rapid droplet warming.
Overall shape and size of the water bodies matter.
Ever try to heat a pot of water by blowing a hair dryer on the surface?
Good luck with that… 🙂
Friction
I never heated a pot of water with a blow drier, but I heated the water in your wife’s hair with it, and it all got hot and evaporated. That was not IR, it was not a floaty metal thingy, it was heat being conducted from air to water. Maybe the reason you can’t heat a pot of water with a blow drier is because evaporation cools it, and proof would be that you can EVAPORATE a pot of water with a blow drier a lot faster than without one, and a lot faster than just the wind itself. This proves that heat conducts from air to water….which I probably knew when I was 3 years old and you cannot understand, being as dumb as a very large box full of really dumb rocks.
Morgan Wright says: Water is transparent to visible light….
I was trying to correct that incorrect statement. The ocean absorbs visible light and it is dark beyond about 30 to 100 ft depending on the wavelength. Therefore it is not ‘transparent’ to visible light as far as the physics is concerned.
The atmosphere on the other hand IS ‘transparent’ to certain wavelengths — the ‘Atmospheric window’ that allows IR to escape directly to space.
Incorrect statement? If light penetrates 30 to 100 feet through something then it’s transparent. Good grief. It actually penetrates over 1000 feet. Is that transparent? Of course it’s all eventually absorbed but everybody knew that in the 3rd grade. I was correcting the idiot who said water can’t be heated by conduction because of surface tension unless you had a metal floaty device thingy on it, so it can only be heated by IR and IR at I assume he’s talking about ambient room temperature, IR doesn’t penetrate water at those waqvelengths. So obviously, water can be heated by conduction by warm air, and I can’t believe I’m even discussing this. Next I’ll be telling squid for the 10000th time why cold objects can slow the cooling of warm objects. Oh please not again.
Morgan
I live with a physicist. He slaps my hand for statements like that. Worse he is a technical writer…
Gail, I would suggest you give up on Morgan, you can’t fix stupid like that…
As spoken by squid “you can’t heat a warm object with a cold object, therefore all cold objects are absolute zero and don’t emit any IR at all” 2112.
When you “quote” someone you are supposed to write EXACTLY what is said. What you just did was not taking a quote out of context, it was not paraphrasing. it is an outright lie.
You sir are a liar.
Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (Colorado University) graph:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/files/2011/09/thumb_fig01.jpg
Solar Energy penetration in water by Wavelength:
http://www.klimaatfraude.info/images/sverdrup.gif
That’s right. IR does not penetrate more than a few microns into water. This chart shows IR as long as 2.5 microns which is extremely short wave IR not relevant to this discussion, and even then, 0.01 m is 10 mm. But at longer wavelengths, which are relevant to this discussion, penetration into water drops to microns.
Absorption Coefficient (and penetration depth) vs Wavelength
http://klimaatfraude.info/images/MODIS_and_AIRS_SST_comp_fig1.gif
Thanks. Nice graph.
Thank-you Gail, I’ve been trying to refind this particular graphic.
Given water covers 70% of the planet those are very powerful graphs, especially when you add the amount of energy in the higher wavelengths.
+10!
[thumbs UP]
The Climategate mystery that surfaced five years (2014 – 2009 = 5 yr) ago, actually began sixty-four years (2009 – 1945 = 64 yr) earlier.
Information in the autobiographies of two great scientists – Fred Hoyle (British astronomer, astrophysicist and cosmologist) and Paul Kazuo Kuroda (Japanese/American nuclear geochemist) – revealed a united worldwide effort to forbid public knowledge of the source of energy that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the UN was formed at the end of the Second World War.
The evidence is summarized here: “Solar energy,” Advances in Astronomy(submitted 1 Sept 2014)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/10640850/Solar_Energy.pdf
Thank you, Doctor Gray, for throwing your hat in the ring. I think many of us had an idea that your views were along these lines, but actually putting it all down in a guest post is very helpful.
As someone who followed your work on and off starting in the 1980s, I am heartened to see this post appear on the Real Science blog.
Richard
The media needs hysteria and crisis to get eyeballs on pages and screens. That is how they sell their real product, advertising. Understanding journalism (1min mark)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x1z8IK-L0U
Governments need a crisis to justify their role in life beyond managing sewers, garbage and snow removal
Scientists need money, money comes from Big Government, so symbiotically scientists create the hysteria governments need and media screams.
Really quite a lovely relationship. They win, everyone else loses.
Thanks, Fred, this is great:
Climate science adopted the technique as an alternative to the scientific method.
Don’t forget the Bankers who loan the funny money to the government and own the MSM.
They have a very large stake in Gore Bull Warbling.
This is an ‘Industry’ based on stealing wealth from every person on earth and transferring it to the financial traders in return for the financial traders will destroy our economies – Sucha Deal!
Any time you hear about some new “Greatest Idea” that is being pushed (whether it is carbon tax, nationalized healthcare, or whatever) you really only need to look for one thing. Is it something that ordinary peaceful people can be persuaded to do, or is it something that ordinary, peaceful people must be forced (with a nightstick or a gun) to do? You can bet that if peaceful people need to be forced to do it, it is probably not really such a great idea.
We won’t be hearing from Zeke or Mosh me thinks LOL
And we got to pound home the point about the Antarctic, about the fear mongers trying to use record ice as proof of record heat. Or cold as proof of heat. Insane. Next thing you know they will claim that the drop in extreme weather proves that the weather is more extreme. Yeah, insane.
An excerpt from a comment at this article:
There is no global warming outside of normal natural variation – period.
There is NO anthroprogenic fingerprint for warming – as there is no unnatural warming.
We must stop villifying CO2 it is NOT causing any substantial warming, does not endanger anything, and humans do not control it, or its level in the atmosphere.
100% agreement.
(Those pesky photons never lie.)
I like the way that photon’s wave.
em, em, em!
🙂
HAHAHA … ROFLMAO!!!
Awesome!
That’s why they are “pesky”!
(Insufferable little things….)
🙂
😆 😆
WHAT WARMING?
Take a good look at Morgan Wright post at September 16, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Do you see any warming? I don’t see any warming. All I see is the the Pleistocene Ice Age.
Right on the money.
Apart from the opening statement of “Don’t worry Gail. I think we have already produced enough CO2 to greatly decrease future ice ages.” that you correctly pointed out is in error, there is no warming shown.
Good God. The Pleistocene ice ages were caused by a lack of CO2 compared to the Pliocene, which had milder ice ages, and the Pliocene had less CO2 than the Miocene, which had almost no ice ages at all. Therefore you have WARMING if you go back in time, cooling from lack of CO2 is known as warming from increased CO2. And hush up tomomason, you can go drinking with the other 3 but you don’t need to drink because you were born intoxicated.
Morgan Wright says: ….
Good God. The Pleistocene ice ages were caused by a lack of CO2 compared to the Pliocene….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Good grief, haven’t you had any training in geology???
Is everything you know just Warmist clap trap?
Go look up the Isthmus of Panama and Drake Passage.
Morgan Wright says –
“Good God. The Pleistocene ice ages were caused by a lack of CO2 compared to the Pliocene, which had milder ice ages, and the Pliocene had less CO2 than the Miocene, which had almost no ice ages at all. Therefore you have WARMING if you go back in time, cooling from lack of CO2 is known as warming from increased CO2. And hush up tomomason, you can go drinking with the other 3 but you don’t need to drink because you were born intoxicated.
Just 2 things
1. You understand nothing about ice ages – period.
You’re only hypothesizing about mere correlations that are not proof of anything.
2. I stopped drinking decades ago.
So overall that’s a Morgan Wright dual fail.
Keep drinking the KoolAid Morgan.
This changes Everything. Not Bill Gray, but Naomi Klein. The book is strangely popular.
http://www.amazon.com/This-Changes-Everything-Capitalism-Climate/dp/1451697384/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1410902671&sr=1-1
Oh, for cry out loud. This ‘review’ takes the cake.
I bet I could easily sell this dude my BRAND NEW Super duper GREEN PERPETUAL MOTION MACHINE! Guaranteed to reduce your carbon foot print to ZERO! image (for use on him not us)
And I could sell the CO2 IR back-radiating oven.
Harnessing the all powerful CO2 molecule for you culinary needs…
🙂
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g43/DerekJohn_photos/stuff/6a00d834519c3c69e200e553d605cf8834-.jpg
You are nicer than I am Tom.
Tom, there is actually a somewhat uncommon optical device; the integrating sphere. An integrating sphere (hollow sphere with one or more light sources inside) does exactly what the “free energy oven” does. Well, except for the part about making things warmer with no power required.
An optical integrating sphere exhibits what a climate “scientist” (wink, wink) would call “nearly 100 percent radiative forcing”. Nearly every photon that departs the light source will “back radiate” from the interior of the sphere back towards the light source (some, about 1-5% exits from a hole (port) in the sphere). But this does not make the light source “brighter”. I fact we routinely use multiple light bulbs (powered in different combinations) to make a variable broadband light source (simulating the Sun). The radiation from each bulb adds linearly (empirical experimental evidence) out to the third or forth digit across the whole spectrum. No “net energy gains” present.
There is a tertiary effect known as “self absorption” whereby the light bulb (light source) does in fact absorb some of the reflected light and become warmer. This is observable out in the forth or fifth digit of precision. However, this warming simply changes the efficiency (light output per unit of electrical input) of the light bulb. And then the POWER SUPPLY (constant current) provides the energy for slightly more optical radiation to be emitted.
Interesting thing about an integrating sphere, if you input a “square wave” (instantly ON then instantly OFF) pulse of light you get out a “stretched” pulse of light out. The “instant ON” shape of the light pulse input becomes a “ramp” of light out. This is because some of the photons make many bounces inside the sphere while others make a “quick getaway”. This is the “temporal response” of an integrating sphere, since most integrating sphere are used in a “steady state” mode (constant, or very slowly changing light input) this effect is rarely observed and of little consequence for most applications.
The big difference between a light bulb and the surface of the Earth is that there is a steady stream of electrons (from the power supply) ready to be converted to photons in a light bulb. However, once a photon is emitted by the surface of the Earth the surface cools and that unit of energy is “gone”. From an energy budget perspective (considering that the Sun is the only source of energy) the surface of the Earth is merely an absorber/re-emitter of optical energy (with a wavelength shift; visible to IR), NOT A LIGHT SOURCE.
The “greenhouse effect” is an optical mirage, at best it changes the response time of the gases in the atmosphere (all the gases) and increasing “GHGs” in the atmosphere will cause the gases to warm up more quickly after sunrise. This effect is so miniscule we probably cannot afford to measure it. Ironically the climate “scientists” have been looking at the wrong time scale for decades now. The effect they base their predictions on is over in a few milliseconds, what a tree ring did hundreds of years ago provides no useful information.
Cheers, Kevin.
That is one of the new memes I have been seeing going around. That Oil companies are “soooo profitable”. When I pointed out to one of them that Climate change gets $350b per year for producing NOTHING, they deny the numbers.
” in a way even non-scientists will be able to understand.”
if that were true there’d be a tarring and feathering of Mann, et al by now
They do not want to understand. They want a life that is nasty brutal and short for their children and they and their children are perfectly OK with it. I kid you not. I had that discussion with a college prof really into the green who is a friend.
The thing that most of the academics who support all this enviro-BS don’t realize is that they are NOT automatically part of the small fraction of humanity that does not need to be removed to save the planet. In fact, they’d be some of the first to go…
The uneducated, poverty stricken masses in Third World countries will have a much longer time should the ultimate goals of the ‘movement’ be realized. The reduced population of a few hundred million (max) will be made up mostly of those uneducated masses enslaved to a few hundred ‘elites’ with another few hundred thousand being semi-educated ‘skilled workers’ and soldiers to keep those elites in comfort and serfs suppressed.
And all those highly educated morons, that think they are ‘worthy’ will be compost…
That is exactly how I see it.
Puts a whole new spin on all that third world immigration into first world countries doesn’t it?
Morgan Wright says:
“Look at the chart AC Osborne. The CO2 was around 800 ppm 50 million years ago, 280 ppm preindustrial, and 220 ppm during the last ice age…..”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are making two very bad ASSumptions.
#1. Co2 is a well mixed gas in the atmosphere. It is not. As usual I could write a short book but instead I will point you to a Rocket Scientist. Dr. Jeff Glassman.
http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2007/06/on_why_co2_is_known_not_to_hav.html#more
# 2. That Climastrologists are not LYING about the actual CO2 measurements. I already addressed that but here is a simpler version:
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-ice-HS.htm
http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Scientific/CO2-flux.htm
I’m in the middle of researching information for a book I’m writing and that research is pointing to the fact that CO2 levels can’t be what the generally accepted past levels (since at least the end of the last glaciation) were (220-250 ppm). At those levels there is very little build up of organic matter in the soil…so little, it takes hundreds to thousands of years to build an inch of topsoil. Basically, my research is pointing to the fact that the known historic depths of the topsoil in many areas of the Northern Hemisphere could not have been achieved in the time period since the retreat of the ice sheets.
I’m not going to get into all the details, it would make a book length post, but I’ve basically found that the ice core CO2 record is about as reliable an indicator of actual events as Mann’s tree-rings.
NICE!
Another piece of evidence the Climastrolgists are lying through their collective teeth!
(Stomata data already said they were as well as Dr. Jaworowski.)
As a chemist I worked with batches of chemicals. You would not believe what a headache it is to get a bunch of different molecules to mix. Add in polar molecules and it really gets nasty. This was a big clue that the CO2 is a well mixed gas is a complete myth.
The web page airsDOTjpl.nasa.gov/data/about_airs_co2_data (now missing in action) said the nadir resolution was 90km X 90km and even with that large a sample size the map shows CO2 is not uniform.
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3685/8787526939_6e6dc050b8_c.jpg
I would expect to see a strong seasonal variation and differing mixing at different altitudes. Hence some explaination of the North/South pattern shown.
Larger atmospheric weather patterns probably have a substantial influence in absolute mixing at any particular location, with rain washing some CO2 from the atmosphere.
Ah, the answer my friend is blow’n’ in the wind, the answer is blow’n’ in the wind…
That chart shows it’s really well mixed. Much more than I thought. 396 as minimum and 404 as a maximum? That only varies by 2% across the whole world.
I never noticed that with my CO2 meter. I get anything from 325 ppm on a sunny day in the woods in the summer when plants are inhaling, to 1000 ppm indoors when the windows are closed and people were breathing all night, to 5000 ppm in a bagel shop/bakery when the dough is rising and there were 100 customers breathing. I have yet to measure it in a place that people were complaining of the air being stuffy. I think it has to be 10,000 ppm before that happens. Maybe in a crowded nightclub when everybody is dancing. My CO2 meter maxes out at 10,000 ppm and I can easily max it out with one breath because human exhale is 40,000 ppm. so one long exhale on the thing makes it beep. I would have thought the CO2 around the world would vary way more than 2%
By the way, who cares if the CO2 is well mixed?
Morgan Wright says:
“That chart shows it’s really well mixed. Much more than I thought. 396 as minimum and 404 as a maximum? That only varies by 2% across the whole world.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here is a better illustration from AIRS:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003500/a003562/carbonDioxideSequence2002_2008_at15fps.mp4
It does not show it is well mixed. Remember the number is the AVERAGE for 90km X 90km of air or 56 MILES by 56 MILES and with a sample size that large they STILL see variation. They talk of middle troposphere for their results. Not column averaged as the Japanese data I linked to. Balloon sampling of smaller samples shows much more variation but I do not have time to dig out the data.
Note the very high values in the arctic.
The Russian researchers assume with confidence that ice formation and growth in winter may be the reason for increase in the CO2 seasonal fluctuations in high latitudes, and the Arctic may basin be the source of carbon dioxide on average during a year. The more ice freezes on in winter, the higher the CO2.concentration will be.
Genryh Alekseyev, Doctor of Science (Geography), Head of the department of the ocean and atmosphere interaction , St. Petersburg , Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences
http://www.informnauka.ru/eng/2008/2008-03-21-8-012_e.htm
Here is what AIRS itself said:
Of course since the annual flow of carbon into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is less than 0.02% of the carbon flowing around the carbon cycle, mankind’s ‘Carbon Footprint’ is way too small to measure anyway. — According to NASA estimates, the carbon in the air is less than 2% of the carbon flowing between parts of the carbon cycle.
Good luck with publishing the book.
+1
Let us know when it is published BTW.
The Japanese Satellite shows the same non-uniform mixing:
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2009/10/img/20091030_ibuki_2_e.jpg
PhD U of Chicago 1964 is an impressive achievement in its own right.
All I have to say is that Bill Gray is certainly one of my heroes as well. It was my great pleasure to have lunch with him recently, always something to learn when I’m around him.
w.
Also, Dr. Gray’s comments are “spot on”. In particular; we (nobody, deniers, believers, etc.) can currently “model” the climate. And it is very likely that nobody will ever be able to. And it is not a limitation of computing power, the problem is too multidimensional and non-linear with too many interactions to account for completely. Virtually every physical characteristic of real materials (density, thermal capacity, thermal conductance, thermal diffusivity, latent heat, etc. etc. etc.) is dependent on temperature. If you attempt to include all these dependencies you quickly come up with a problem with infinite “degrees of freedom”. Only if you can characterize all of these “degrees of freedom” out to ten digits or so could you even begin to build a model that MIGHT be good to 5 digits of accuracy. Talk of hundredths of degrees accuracy from a climate model are along the lines of “Whatever they are smoking; I surely want some”.
Many of these variations are only empirically modeled to a few digits of accuracy (at best). For example, the thermal conductivity (with respect to temperature) of most materials is non-linear and empirical models can “guess” at the conductivity at any given temperature by interpolating between the conductivity measured at a few sparse temperature points.
The problem is vast, really really vast, and only folks that have never had to reconcile model “projections” with actual observations would believe that they; “have a handle on it”.
At this point in time the climate modellers don’t even know “The unknown unknowns” yet, once they tackle that insurmountable (probably, IMHO) obstacle they might be ready to “burn down” the gaps in their knowledge. But so far they can’t even get over their own hubris to accept the “We just don’t know” part of any problem solving exercise.
Thanks Again Dr. Gray for your very wise comments, Cheers, Kevin.
Thanks, Bill, for the post, and thanks, Steve, for posting it.
Morgan Wright says:
“By the way, who cares if the CO2 is well mixed?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
First
If the CO2 is not well mixed than there is no such thing as a
“background level.”
If the “ background level” is mythical that has practical importance.
The sequestration rates of CO2 are dependent on partial pressure. High local atmospheric concentrations induce high local sequestration. And consideration of seasonal variations in atmospheric CO2 at a variety of locations indicates that most locally released CO2 (from any source, natural or anthropogenic) is sequestered locally
(ref. Rorsch A, Courtney RS & Thoenes D, ‘The Interaction of Climate Change and the Carbon Dioxide Cycle’ E&E v16no2 (2005) ).
So, the mythical “background” concentration of atmospheric CO2 concentration has no relevance to flows of CO2 in and out of the atmosphere at any location.
Then, the radiative greenhouse effect of CO2 has a logarithmic relation to atmospheric CO2 concentration. And this is true at every location.
So, using the mythical “background” concentration of atmospheric CO2 concentration provides incorrect estimation of global radiative forcing from atmospheric CO2.
……
Second
If the CO2 is not well mixed then there is absolutely no excuse for tossing out the historical measurements made by Nobel Prize winning scientists.
For example – 266 samples from 1883 had an average of 335 ppm.
What is really really interesting is the Barrow reading for the 1947-1948 data average 420 ppm! (average of 330 samples) link
You see more than 80 ppm variation in Harvard forest. From 320 ppm to around 420 ppm with a set of outliers to 500 ppm.
There is also no excuse for tossing out the high levels (up to 7,400 ppm) from the Ice Cores pre-1985.
There is no excuse for Manua Loa Obs for tossing out a lot of data.
The annual mean CO2 level as reported from Mauna Loa
CO2 is released by the Mauna Loa and the adjacent Kilauea volcanoes. This volcanic CO2 is
(a) driven aloft by the sea breeze by day, and
(b) driven back down by the land breeze at night.
Hence, it is a gross and improbable assumption that these volcanic emissions do not significantly affect the measurement results
Is this the description of true, unbiased research?
The assumption is made that there is NO VARIABLITY and the data is adjusted to reflect that!
As Dr. J. A. Glassman so aptly put it in one of his replies,
In a Nutshell if the ‘Well Mixed’ ASSumption is false, as AIRS said it was, then the Barrow readings for the 1947-1948 data averaging 420 ppm are valid. This means the current readings of ~400 ppm are lower than historic measurement and there is no increase in CO2 from Mankind. This means we can pack the liars and scoundrels and thieves off to the nearest jail and all go home. The crisis has been called off.
That’s not going to happen. The air on Mauna Loa is sampled 5 miles upwind from the nearest vent, and the wind is Hawaii is NE wind 99% of the time. The bit about:
(a) driven aloft by the sea breeze by day, and
(b) driven back down by the land breeze at night.
applies to people on the beach or lower elevations, and doesn’t apply at all to the summit of a 13,000 foot volcano, or the 9000 foot elevation sampling site. On the rare occasion when volcanic gas gets to the sampling site, they just toss out the sample and go take one at Mauna Kea where there are no vents within 40 miles