Real Climate Science

Why is it hot on Venus?

Hansen started out his career with a dumb idea about Venus. His doctoral dissertation blamed the high temperatures on aerosols, which is pretty funny because now he blames low temperatures on aerosols. (Science was never his strong point.)

Later he admitted he was wrong, and instead latched on to Marijuana chain smoker Carl Sagan’s theory – the heat was caused by 95% CO2. Wrong again.

Venus is hot because it has a very thick troposphere. Atmospheric pressure on Venus is almost 100X higher than Earth. It is hot on Venus for the same reason it is hot in Death Valley and cold on Mount Everest.

If you traveled to Venus and descended into the atmosphere to an altitude of 50km, the atmospheric pressure and the temperature would be similar to that on Earth. This is in spite of the fact that the greenhouse effect at 1 bar on Earth is much stronger – because we have water vapor.

Compare the LW absorption of Earth’s atmosphere (Total Absorption and Scattering) to Venus atmosphere (Carbon Dioxide) at 1 bar, in the chart below. As you can see, the greenhouse effect on Earth is much stronger.

If you descended down to the surface, temperatures would rise about 8C per km – similar to Earth. The lapse rate is fixed, regardless of pressure broadening towards the surface, or whatever other dumb arguments people will bring up here.

Venus Atmosphere Temperature and Pressure Profiles

Venus is hot because it has a thick convective atmosphere. Falling air heats, and rising air cools. If the atmosphere on Earth were as thick as Venus, temperatures would be very hot here too.

Hansen and Bill Nye are down there intellectually polluting the atmosphere

 A wildfire that began in Boulder County yesterday brought a local flare to James Hansen’s lecture on “The Venus Syndrome,” as he touched on how temperature anomalies are causing wildfires to be more frequent, more destructive, and to burn hotter. “The smoke in the room just adds another dimension,” Nye said, referring to the campfire smell that permeated the building from the recently ignited Flagstaff fire.

Hansen has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. Temperatures in Boulder have declined four degrees over the past sixty years.

U.S. Historical Climatology Network

He  is still promoting his Venus hoax. The lapse rate on Venus is nearly identical to Earth and is nearly identical to the adiabatic lapse rate. The temperature on both planets is determined by atmospheric pressure, not the composition of the atmosphere.

It is a real shame having the clueless driving science.

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The humidity is way up and storms are forming over much of Colorado today. This should greatly assist the firefighters.

We haven’t had any smoke in Fort Collins since the rain on Sunday. Monsoon season has arrived a week or two early.

Nexrad Mixed Composite Radar Map | Weather Underground

Lower Manhattan is about twice the area that it used to be, because fill dirt was brought in. This increased the weight of the island. They also added several feet of concrete and a jungle of tall, heavy buildings. All of these things cause the land to sink – a lot. Three feet of concrete would make the land sink two feet.

Then, to add insult to injury they put the tide gauge on the fill dirt, which tends to compact on it’s own.

Lower Manhattan tide gauge.

After making the land sink, the final stage of the process is to blame the relative rise in sea level on CO2, even though it has been happening at a steady rate for more than 150 years.

According to his (Romney’s) website, one of his policy goals now is to amend the Clean Air Act, the critical law under which the EPA is now acting, “to exclude carbon dioxide from its purview.”

EPA findings, global-warming rules pass court test | Nation & World | The Seattle Times

Meanwhile, the morons on the Federal Appeals Court have determined that there never used to be extreme weather prior to the invention of the SUV, and that warm weather is bad for humans.

“Relying again upon substantial scientific evidence, EPA determined that anthropogenically induced climate change threatens both public health and public welfare,” the judges wrote in Tuesday’s unsigned opinion. “It found that extreme weather events, changes in air quality, increases in food- and waterborne pathogens, and increases in temperatures are likely to have adverse health effects. The record also supports EPA’s conclusion that climate change endangers human welfare by creating risk to food production and agriculture, forestry, energy, infrastructure, ecosystems, and wildlife.”

Congrats to Jim and Mike! Your persistence with the big lie has been effective. You have made America stupid.  Goebbels would be proud.

I am going to use some Rahmstorf/USGS logic to prove that Sarah Palin will soon be able to ride her snowmobile to Russia.

Sea level at Churchill has dropped by more than half  a metre!

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/447.php

Sea level at Yakutat has dropped by almost a full metre!

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/445.php

Sea level at Seldovia has dropped almost a metre

http://www.psmsl.org/data/obtaining/stations/1070.php

If we ignore isostasy and tectonics (like USGS and Rahmstorf did) it is easy to prove that sea level is plummeting. Similarly, University of Texas geniuses declared that East Antarctica was losing ice – by ignoring the fact that the ground underneath the ice was falling.

Most of the apparent sea level rise seen along the Atlantic Coast of the US is due to post-glacial rebound. The area around Lake Superior is rising as the coastline falls.

Rahmstorf and the USGS have been trying to blame global warming, but as usual have no idea what they are talking about. One might expect that the USGS would understand the fundamentals of geology, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

The geological evidence for postglacial rebound is mainly based on tilted or uplifted shoreline features. Shorelines of ice-marginal lakes or seas are assumed to have formed horizontally. Where such features are now tilted, this reveals crustal warping associated with rebound–see Fig. 9-7. Uplifted marine deposits are particularly important for establishing the amount of postglacial rebound of coastal sites since deglaciation–see Figs. 9-8 and 9-9. In like manner, the glacial forebulge subsides when the ice mass is reduced or removed. For example, the Atlantic Ocean is encroaching on the Chesapeake Bay region at a rate of about 30 cm per century (Colin 1996). Similar subsidence is taking place in southern portions of the Baltic and North Seas in Europe.

ES 331/767 Lecture 9

h/t to Ben

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) seized on the portion of the decision that upheld EPA’s “endangerment finding” that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health and welfare.

Waxman, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, called the decision a “resounding victory for science.” The court found that EPA “relied on a substantial record of empirical data and scientific evidence.”

“Today’s ruling is a message to Congress that it’s time to stop denying science. Extreme events like the wildfires in Colorado and the floods in Florida are going to get worse unless the Republican-controlled Congress changes course soon,” Waxman said in a statement.

EPA, Dems cheer climate ruling – The Hill’s E2-Wire

Waxman is a typical global warming idiot. Colorado just went through a decade of unusually low fire activity, and had record snow in the mountains at this time last year. Florida is currently experiencing the longest period on record without a hurricane landfall.

US CO2 emissions are on the decline, while Chinese emissions are increasing. Even if you believe the climate models, there is no indication that there is anything the US could do to have a significant impact on climate, much less directly impact Colorado fires or Florida floods.

According to the University of Colorado, sea level along the North Carolina coast is rising at  a rate of 1.4 mm/year. This is less than one half of their measured global rate of 3.1 mm/year.

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/

The graph below plots the grid cells at (32.5, 281.5) (33.5,282.5) (34.5,283.5) (34.5,284.5) and (35.5,285.5)

Over the next 88 years, sea level would be expected to rise five inches in North Carolina.

The NC Coastal Resources Commission created a reporting saying that North Carolina will have one metre of sea level rise during the rest of the century – which would require an acceleration of 800% over current rates. In response, the North Carolina Senate passed a bill requiring that only historical data be used – and proposed a rise of 8 inches.

This has caused a huge backlash from people with a vested interest in spreading climate misinformation. The one metre number is ridiculous, unsupportable and has no evidence to back it up.

Balotelli will score the winning goal, to defeat Spain in the final 3-2.